Don't Bury that Lede

James Lincoln Warren

featuring guest star James Lincoln Warren

Today’s article takes an international bent, one at which the British might cock an eyebrow, South Africans pretend not to look superior, Australians mutter, “WTF?” and Canadians cringe. “Oh, not another American diatribe to confuse the issue.” Yes, I’m talking about spelling, but words of particular interest to writers.

I’ve lived and worked in the UK so I’m a bit schizophrenic about the topic. On good days I might give myself an A- but other days barely a B. When it comes to those plural-singular collective noun & verb combinations, I want to shoot myself, e.g, “Manchester are a great team.” Manchester what? Even Liverpool and Leeds disagree… for different reasons, but do they say Manchester suck or sucks? No… yes… maybe… I’m off on an unwinnable rant.

We can blame the devil in Noah Webster for part of our dilemma, but no one ever credited natural language with logic. It’s up to us poor writers to struggle against the darkness. And the not so poor– Stephen King reportedly insists upon certain ‘international’ spellings. Double points to him because he provides a web page so readers can report typos and other errors.

Story v Storey

Our steadfast friend, James Lincoln Warren, has previously suggested we should use ‘storey’ to refer to a floor within a building and ’story’ for literary uses. JLW writes:

“	The reason I prefer “storey” to “story” when describing a level of a building above the ground floor is because it is more specific. “Story” can mean several things, but “storey” means only one thing. For whatever it’s worth, etymologically, both words derive from the same origin, Latin historia. In medieval “Anglo-Latin”, historia was used in both senses as with “story”, i.e., “narrative” and “floor”. The Oxford English Dictionary therefore considers “storey” a variant spelling of “story”, and doesn’t show an example of the spelling with the “e” until Dickens, which suggests to me that the inclusion of the “e” in the architectural spelling is quite recent.	”

Brilliant and simple, right? So if we use story and storey, why not further distinguish other words the same way?

Cosy v Cozy

We North Americans recognize (or recognise– more on that later) two great British inventions, the cosy and the, er, cosy. One popularly keeps tea warm and the other warms readers of golden age mysteries.

Some American authors happily use this spelling, but exceptions abound including our own Fran Rizer, and why not? She writes Southern cozies with a ‘z’, thank you very much.

I like cosy as a noun, but when it comes to verbs and adjectives, my senseless sensibilities kick in. “She cosied up to him,” seems wrong, like she quoted Agatha Christie while serving him a pot of tea.

But if we expand our North American use of cosy with an ’s’, I suggest we negotiate ‘-ize’ endings. The poor zee (or zed) sees so little use, why not allow it to participate in ‘authorize’ and ‘pressurize’ and ‘legitimize’?

Celebrate, crossword puzzlers, celebrate!

Lede v Lead

The first time I came across ‘lede’, I had to look it up to make certain I wasn’t misreading it. The use of ‘lede’ as a variant of ‘lead’ is even newer than storey, dating back to the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Lede has been used to mean a headline, but more precisely refers to the opening paragraph of an article or story that summarizes (not summarises) the content following. Waffling Wikipedia suggests lede/lead combines the headline and first paragraph, but the ever precise Grammarist narrows its definition:

“	Strictly speaking, the lede is the first sentence or short portion of an article that gives the gist of the story and contains the most important points readers need to know… allowing readers who are not interested in the details to feel sufficiently informed.	”

In more dramatic forms, the lede can compare with a hook, but perhaps less obviously in, say, legal and technical writing. Professional journalism practices say a lede must provide the main points of a story, interest the reader in the story, and accomplish those goals as briefly as possible.

Newspapers used to be set in hot and cold lead (molten metal, Pb), so the lede of a hot lead could be cast in cold lead. As an interesting footnote, the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language comments upon lede:

“	Obsolete spelling of lead, revived in modern journalism to distinguish the word from its homograph lead, strip of metal separating lines of type.	”

“Bury the lede” uses only the lede spelling. It’s sometimes misunderstood as burying a lead article within a newspaper, but it more narrowly means to begin an article with unessentials and postpone revealing salient points or facts until deeper in the body. For example, an editor might bury the lede for popular or political reasons.

Kerb – Curb, Tyre – Tire

If we succeed in making the spelling choices in the English language smaller while making the meanings more exact, why stop with these words? Why not use certain British nouns in exchange for North American verbs? “I tired of the tyre against the kerb, which curbed my enthusiasm.” Yeah, that works.

The words clew/clue seem to have sorted themselves out, although an author like  James Lincoln Warren might employ ‘clew’ in nautical and historical writings.

Back to crime writing, what the hell do we do about ‘gaol’, an unholy Norman abomination that dismays even the Welsh? We turn to James once more:

“	Interestingly, in Samuel Johnson’s definition of GAOL in his dictionary, he writes, “It is always pronounced and too often written jail, and sometimes goal.” He does, however, also list JAIL under the letter “I”. (There is no "J" section).	”

Publishing News

Congratulations to James for two stories soon to appear in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazines. Tip your boater to him at the New Orleans Bouchercon.

A Question of Empathy: The Social Scientists, The Poet, and the Mystery Reader

Two scholars at the New School for Social Research published an article about literature and empathy last month, full of bad news for mystery readers. If you belong to Sisters in Crime and saw the most recent SinC Links, you may have noticed the references to "Different Stories: How Levels of Familiarity with Literary and Genre Fiction Relate to Mentalizing." The authors, David Kidd and Emanuelle Castano, say people who read novels by authors such as Alice Walker and Vladimir Nabakov excel on a test of "theory of mind," indicating they have superior abilities "to infer and understand others' thoughts and feelings." Such readers are likely to be characterized by "empathy, pro-social behavior, and coordination in groups." Readers of mysteries and other genre fiction don't do as well on the test. So apparently we're an obtuse, hardhearted, selfish bunch, and we don't play well with others.

This is grim stuff. And maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. I made myself read the whole study--and let me tell you, the experience didn't do wonders for my levels of empathy. Kidd and Castano don't actually say genre readers suffer from all those problems. In fact, they speculate that reading any kind of fiction may do some good. But they definitely think reading literary fiction does more good than reading genre fiction does. Literary fiction, they say, has complex, round characters, and that "prompts readers to make, adjust, and consider multiple interpretations of characters' mental states." Genre fiction relies on flat, stock characters and therefore doesn't encourage readers to develop comparable levels of mental agility and emotional insight. The authors discuss other differences, too--for example, they say literary fiction features "multiple plot lines" and challenges "routine or rigid ways of thinking," while genre fiction is characterized by "formulaic plots" and encourages "conventional thinking." I won't try to summarize all their arguments. It would take too long, and it would get too depressing.

I will say a little--only a little--about their research methods. To distinguish between literary readers and genre readers, Kidd and Castano put together a long list of names--some literary authors, some genre authors, some non-authors--and asked participants to check off the names with which they were familiar. People who checked off more names of literary authors were classified as readers of literary fiction, and--well, you get the idea. To determine levels of empathy and other good things, Kidd and Castano had participants take the "reading the mind in the eyes" test: Participants looked at pictures that showed only people's eyes, looked at four adjectives (for example, "scared," "anxious," "encouraging," and "skeptical"), and chose the adjective that best described the expression in the pictured eyes. Participants identified as readers of literary fiction did a better job of matching eyes with adjectives. Therefore, they're more empathetic and perceptive than readers of genre fiction.

It's not hard to spot problems with these research methods. Scottish crime writer Val McDermid does a shrewd, funny job of that in a piece also mentioned in SinC Links. (Among other things, Val says she took the "reading the eyes in the mind" test and got thirty-three out of thirty-six right, beating the average score of twenty-four. Just for fun, I took the test, too, and scored thirty-four. That may prove I'm one point more empathetic than Val. Or it may prove the test is silly.) And of course decisions about which authors are "literary" and which are "genre" can be subjective. Kidd and Castano talk about how they wavered about the right category for Herman Wouk. The Caine Mutiny won a Pulitzer Prize, so maybe Wouk's a literary author. On the other hand, some critics accuse Mutiny of "upholding conventional ideas and values," so maybe he's merely genre. (Kidd and Castano never consider the question of whether a knee-jerk rejection of all ideas and values currently judged "conventional" might sometimes reflect a lack of insight and empathy. Is sympathy for people who devote their lives to military service automatically shallow and nasty? Is portraying an intellectual as a fraud never justified?)

As for their method of classifying participants as either "literary readers" or "genre readers," I recognized the names of almost all the authors on both lists. I've heard of James Patterson--most people have--but I've never read a book of his; I don't think I've sampled a single page. With many other authors (both "literary" and "genre"), I've read a few pages, a few chapters, or a single story, and then I've put the book  aside and never picked it up again. Recognizing an author's name isn't evidence of a preference for a certain kind of fiction. For heaven's sake, how many people make it through middle school without reading To Kill a Mockingbird? So how does checking off Harper Lee's name on a list indicate a preference for literary fiction? (For that matter, some might argue To Kill a Mockingbird is crime fiction, and Lee therefore belongs on the genre list. It could be that Kidd and Castano consider crime fiction that's well written literary. If so, that's sort of stacking the deck against genre--if a work of genre fiction is really good, it no longer counts as genre.)

It may be--and I'm certainly not the first person to suggest this--that social science's methods aren't ideally suited to analyzing literature, or to determining its effects on our minds and souls. Social science, by its nature, seeks to quantify things in exact terms. Maybe literature and its effects can't be quantified. Maybe attempts to measure some things exactly are more likely to lead us astray than to enlighten us. As Aristotle says in Book I of the Ethics, "it is the mark of an educated [person] to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."

If social scientists can't help us understand the connection between literature and empathy, who can? Perhaps a poet. In 1821, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "A Defense of Poetry" in response to a friend's largely playful charge that poetry is useless and fails to promote morality. I think we can apply what Shelley says about poetry to fiction, including genre fiction. After all, Shelley declares that "the distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error," and he considers Plato, Francis Bacon, and "all the authors of revolutions in opinion" poets. So why not Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammet?

I'm going to quote several sentences from "A Defense of Poetry," and I'm not going to make Shelley's choice of nouns and pronouns politically correct. I tinkered with Aristotle's words a bit--it's a translation, so tinkering felt more permissible. But I'll give you Shelley's words (and his punctuation) without amendment:

The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce the moral improvement of man. . . . The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. . . . Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb.

As far as I know, Shelley compiled no lists, administered no tests, and analyzed no statistics. Even so, there may be more wisdom in these few sentences than in any number of studies churned out by the New School for Social Research, at least when it comes to wisdom about literature.

For Shelley, literature's crucial moral task is to take us out of ourselves. Most of us spend much of our time focusing on our own problems and feelings. When we read, we get caught up in a character's problems and feelings for a while, seeing things through that character's eyes and sharing his or her emotions. This vicarious experience is temporary, but Shelley says it does us lasting good. I like his comparison of reading and physical exercise. Working out at a gym makes our muscles stronger, and that means we're better able to handle any physical tasks and challenges we may encounter. Reading gives our imaginations a workout and makes them stronger. If we feel the humanity in the characters we read about, we're more likely to recognize the humanity in the people we meet. Will we therefore be kinder to them and try harder to make sure they're treated justly? Shelley thinks so.

But won't literary fiction, with all its round, complex characters, give our imaginations a more vigorous workout than genre fiction will? To agree to that, we'd have to agree to Kidd and Castano's generalizations about literary and genre fiction, and I think many of us would hesitate to do so. Yes, the characters in many mysteries are pretty flat, but couldn't the same be said of the characters in many works of literary fiction? Val McDermid challenges some of Kidd and Castano's central assumptions about literary and genre fiction, and I think she makes some persuasive arguments. I won't repeat those here, or get into the question of to what extent current distinctions between "literary" and "genre" have lasting validity, and to what extent they reflect merely contemporary and perhaps somewhat elitist preferences. (Would Fielding, Austen, the Brontes, Dickens, and other still-admired authors be considered "literary" if they hadn't been lucky enough to die before the current classifications slammed into place? Would they be consigned to the junk heap of genre if they were writing today? But I said I wouldn't get into that. I'll stop.)

I'll raise just one question. Shelley says that to be "greatly good," we must imagine not only "intensely" but also "comprehensively," identifying with "many others." If he's right, fiction that introduces us to a wide variety of characters and encourages us to identify with them may exercise our imaginations more effectively than fiction that limits its sympathies to a narrower range of characters.

Generalizations are dangerous, and I'm neither bold enough nor well read enough to propose even tentative generalizations about literary and genre fiction. (And when I say "genre," I really mean "mystery," because I know almost nothing about other types of fiction currently classified as "genre"--though I've read and admired some impressive urban fantasy lately.) All I'll say is that I'm not sure all contemporary literary fiction encourages readers to empathize with many different sorts of characters. Most of the recent literary fiction I've read seems to limit sympathy to intellectual characters with the right tastes and the right opinions. Even if the central character is a concierge from a lower-class background (probably, many of you will recognize the novel I'm talking about), she has to be an autodidact who's managed to develop tastes for classical music, Russian literature, and Eastern art, who turns her television on only to trick her bourgeois employers into thinking she fits their stereotypes. Two other characters who are portrayed in a positive way, a troubled adolescent girl and a wealthy Japanese gentleman, are in many respects variations on the concierge, with similar tastes and opinions; most of the other characters in the novel invite our disdain rather than our sympathy. How often does contemporary literary fiction encourage us to empathize with characters such as a concierge who actually enjoys television, reads romances, and adores Garth Brooks and Thomas Kinkade? George Eliot could have portrayed that sort of character in a genuinely empathetic way. I don't know if many authors of recent literary fiction would have much interest in doingso.

I think some--not all, certainly, but some--genre fiction encourages us to extend our sympathies further. I think many mysteries, for example, introduce us to a variety of characters, including characters who aren't necessarily intellectuals, flawed characters we might be tempted to shun in our day-to-day lives. Mysteries can help us identify with people who have made bad choices and taken wrong turns, with victims, with people caught in the middle, with people determined to set things right, with people who feel overwhelmed by circumstances. I can't cite any studies to support my suggestions, but I think the best mysteries, by portraying a wide range of characters and nudging us to participate in their lives, might give our imaginations a robust workout and help us become more empathetic.

Mysteries can even help us empathize with criminals. That's ironic, in a way, because some social science studies argue criminals are marked by an inability to empathize. Then again, other social science studies challenge those studies, and still other studies--but maybe we shouldn't get into all that. Maybe we should just pick up a favorite mystery and start reading. I bet it'll do us good.

Next week at this time, many of us will be at Bouchercon. Just briefly, I'll mention some SleuthSayers nominated for Anthony awards. Art Taylor's On the Road with Del and Louise, a remarkable example of a mystery that encourages us to empathize with a wide variety of characters, is a finalist for Best First Novel. Art also edited Murder under the Oaks, a finalist for Best Anthology or Collection; both Rob Lopresti and I are lucky enough to have stories in that one. And my Fighting Chance is a finalist for Best Young Adult Novel. If you're so inclined, you can read the first chapter here. Hope to see you in New Orleans!

So Long ... at least for now

No, I'm not frowning; the sun is just bright.

By Dixon Hill

As many of you know, we've got a new house that has a relatively empty backyard.  We've got a pool back there, and a concrete slab that was probably poured so some past owner could park an RV on it, but other than that all we've got  is gravel.  Well, gravel ... and three large pallets with plastic wrapped boxes and goods that I need to put in my office.

Problem is, I don't have an office yet.  We need to put one in -- right atop that RV slab back there. The plan is to place a hot tub beside it covered by a loggia.  We've got the loggia, but not the hot tub.

Nor do we have the office, though I've lined-up a nice structure that will be delivered for a good price.  I'll need to do interior and finishing work, though, before I can write in there.

My wife, with her degree in interior design, has some projects she wants me to construct within the house as well.  And, since she handles our home interior, I get the fun of landscaping the backyard once my office is up and running.  (I've revived the grass in our front yard, only needing to add some trees, bushes, and vines that will shade the mostly windowless east and west ends of our ranch house.)

Meanwhile, I also have several writing projects that need my attention.

The result is that I haven't had enough time to take care of home matters, my writing, and my blogging, while still holding down my day job.  One of the things that I've let slip is making comments on my own posts.  I managed to squeeze in time to write my posts, but I haven't often been able to respond to readers' comments.

And that bothers me.  I think, if I'm going to write a blog, that means also taking part in reader discussion of my posts.

I've written for SleuthSayers since its inception, and was wildly excited to be invited to partake of this blog.  At times, I think I've done my best, but lately my best just hasn't been good enough to warrant my continued participation.

I don't look forward to leaving SleuthSayers, but I need to take some extended time off in order to (literally) get my house in order (as well as the grounds), and to concentrate on writing projects I've let slip lately.  SleuthSayers isn't the only activity I've engaged in, that I'm pulling out of at the moment, but it is the only one it makes sense to write about here.  Once I believe I've gotten my writing house back in order, and that it makes sense for me to return to this forum as one of the posters (if that's even the right word?) I'll let you know.

The Great News!

You'll be very happy to learn that my slot will be filled by award winning mystery writer O'Neil de Noux.

He has written 18 novels and published over 300 short stories, including science-fiction adventure stories, character-driven mysteries, historical fiction and even a smattering of very well executed erotica.

He served as the 2012-2013 Vice President of the Private Eye Writers of America -- and rightly so.  His work has won multiple awards for both long and short fiction, among these a Shamus in 2007 (Best Short Story) and a Derringer in 2009 (Best Novelette), while his The Long Cold is in the running for Best Paperback Original Private Eye Novel this year.  (I've got my fingers crossed for ya', buddy!  Though it's not like you need the luck, because you write great stuff!)

In short, I'm flattered even to be REPLACED by this guy.  And, he's clearly a great fit for this blog site comprising so many other highly successful writers.

I hope you'll join me in welcoming O'Neil de Noux to SleuthSayers, and I strongly encourage you to be sure to catch his inaugural blog in two weeks!

Meanwhile, this time I ... won't ... see you in two weeks!  In the immortal words of Red Green, however, "Keep your stick on the ice; we're all in this together!"

--Dixon

So Long ... at least for now

No, I'm not frowning; the sun is just bright.

By Dixon Hill

As many of you know, we've got a new house that has a relatively empty backyard.  We've got a pool back there, and a concrete slab that was probably poured so some past owner could park an RV on it, but other than that all we've got  is gravel.  Well, gravel ... and three large pallets with plastic wrapped boxes and goods that I need to put in my office.

Problem is, I don't have an office yet.  We need to put one in -- right atop that RV slab back there. The plan is to place a hot tub beside it covered by a loggia.  We've got the loggia, but not the hot tub.

Nor do we have the office, though I've lined-up a nice structure that will be delivered for a good price.  I'll need to do interior and finishing work, though, before I can write in there.

My wife, with her degree in interior design, has some projects she wants me to construct within the house as well.  And, since she handles our home interior, I get the fun of landscaping the backyard once my office is up and running.  (I've revived the grass in our front yard, only needing to add some trees, bushes, and vines that will shade the mostly windowless east and west ends of our ranch house.)

Meanwhile, I also have several writing projects that need my attention.

The result is that I haven't had enough time to take care of home matters, my writing, and my blogging, while still holding down my day job.  One of the things that I've let slip is making comments on my own posts.  I managed to squeeze in time to write my posts, but I haven't often been able to respond to readers' comments.

And that bothers me.  I think, if I'm going to write a blog, that means also taking part in reader discussion of my posts.

I've written for SleuthSayers since its inception, and was wildly excited to be invited to partake of this blog.  At times, I think I've done my best, but lately my best just hasn't been good enough to warrant my continued participation.

I don't look forward to leaving SleuthSayers, but I need to take some extended time off in order to (literally) get my house in order (as well as the grounds), and to concentrate on writing projects I've let slip lately.  SleuthSayers isn't the only activity I've engaged in, that I'm pulling out of at the moment, but it is the only one it makes sense to write about here.  Once I believe I've gotten my writing house back in order, and that it makes sense for me to return to this forum as one of the posters (if that's even the right word?) I'll let you know.

The Great News!

You'll be very happy to learn that my slot will be filled by award winning mystery writer O'Neil de Noux.

He has written 18 novels and published over 300 short stories, including science-fiction adventure stories, character-driven mysteries, historical fiction and even a smattering of very well executed erotica.

He served as the 2012-2013 Vice President of the Private Eye Writers of America -- and rightly so.  His work has won multiple awards for both long and short fiction, among these a Shamus in 2007 (Best Short Story) and a Derringer in 2009 (Best Novelette), while his The Long Cold is in the running for Best Paperback Original Private Eye Novel this year.  (I've got my fingers crossed for ya', buddy!  Though it's not like you need the luck, because you write great stuff!)

In short, I'm flattered even to be REPLACED by this guy.  And, he's clearly a great fit for this blog site comprising so many other highly successful writers.

I hope you'll join me in welcoming O'Neil de Noux to SleuthSayers, and I strongly encourage you to be sure to catch his inaugural blog in two weeks!

Meanwhile, this time I ... won't ... see you in two weeks!  In the immortal words of Red Green, however, "Keep your stick on the ice; we're all in this together!"
--Dixon

Don't We All Deserve a Surrogate?

by Brian Thornton

I've come to the conclusion that what this world really needs most right now is more talking heads. Nope, not talking about a potential reunion of David Byrne and his erstwhile bandmates, or more cable news TV hosts (got plenty).

You've got nothing to prove. Stay broken up, guys.

Uh-uh.

Let me clarify: I'm talking about more surrogates.

For those of you wondering what connection a woman willing to carry someone else's baby to term (or a sex worker) has to do with the notion of "talking heads," I'm not talking about that kind of surrogate. (Or THAT one, either.)

Not THIS type of surrogate.

Okay, let me clarify further: I'm talking about more media surrogates.

You might not be familiar with the term, but you know what I'm talking about: people hand-picked, most often by two types of public figures: by politicians running for office (Hillary, Trump) or for other occupants of the public eye running for cover (Roger Ailes, Anthony Weiner), to step in and either take part of their public beating for them, or try to make sense of some of the stupid and often inexplicable things they say or do.

It's a pretty thankless job. And yet there always seems to be a line out the door of people ready and willing to step in and do it. So why not put 'em all to work for regular folks like you and me.

Surrogates are basically tools. These people are media surrogates. So they're media tools. Or. if you prefer, just tools...

Think about it: instead of seeing these jokers with their eyes popped wide and a vein visibly throbbing their forehead, getting into it with an on-air host on CNNMSNBCFIXEDNEWS we could have surrogate interactions that really matter! You know, the important (and not so important) moments in everyone's life where they just wish someone else would step up and deal with their day-to-day ration of B.S.

Some examples spring to mind:

"I think what Brian REALLY intended when he showed that other driver the middle finger of his left hand after the guy clearly cut him off in traffic, was to make the clear statement that 'You're number ONE with me!"

Or:

"Brian did NOT misspeak! He never misspeaks! He always intends to say exactly what comes out of his mouth. Just because you and the rest of the Lamestream Media can't wrap your head around the notion of 'Gribblesnagreckleshaft' doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that it's not a powerful force for change in a post-Obama world..."

Or even:

"This audit is just the latest attempt on the part of Brian's enemies in the executive branch to target him and discredit him as a fully enfranchised citizen, and of course, he's going to release his tax returns just as soon as this audit is wrapped up, because, let's face it, by that time Brian'll be retired or dead, and no one's gonna care one way or the other...."

Tool.

And we're not just talking about curation of the surrogee's (see what I did there?) media presence, here. Think about it. The waiter at your favorite restaurant gets your order wrong? No problem. Your surrogate steps in and emphatically explains that you clearly ordered the fish! Problem solved!

Or better yet: you ordered chicken, but changed your mind and want the fish, but don't want to admit you've changed your mind? 

No worries! Your surrogate will insist that your position on dinner has not changed one iota, not backing down and admitting any change of either mind or attitude on your part on the question of chicken or fish: your choice now is the same as it's always been, and an examination of the record will clearly reflect that, and if the waiter continues to protest that your surrogate is not lying in support of your lie (lying by proxy?), then your surrogate just threatens to stiff the poor sap on the tip.

Tool.

Your neighbor kid left their bike in the middle of the street. blocking your driveway again? No problem! Your surrogate will gleefully pick a fight with the snot-nosed punk's ex-Army ranger father, and no matter how much of a beating he takes or how bad he looks for picking on the family of a veteran, will never back down!

And the whole time *you* remain clearly (and safely!) "above the fray."

Lastly, your surrogate can help you with those ticklish professional situations and handling potentially ugly confrontations for you:

"WWE's in town tonight, and Brian rightly considers pro wrestling America's sport. He's got ringside seats and realistically this is likely his best chance to realize his life-long dream of breaking a folding chair over Randy Orton's head, so there's just NO WAY he can work late for you tonight, Jim..."

And of course there's always the potential for an exchange along these lines....

PUBLISHER'S REP: "Well, clearly Brian's sales numbers on that last book don't qualify him for royalties–"

Tool.

SURROGATE: "Says who?"

PUBLISHER'S REP: "–so we'll just–ummm excuse me?"

SURROGATE: "Says who?"

PUBLISHER's REP: "Ummm the sales data?"

SURROGATE: "Which sales data?"

PUBLISHER'S REP: "All of it?"

Could be just the beginning of a new era, folks....

Enter the Villain

by Robert Lopresti

I'm not going to tell you the author or title of the book I am discussing today, but I will say that it was not written by any past or present SleuthSayer.

The book is a first novel, much anticipated, and written in a particular style.  It is a style I like and I was much looking forward to it.  And everything was going well for the first third of the book.  Then a new character walked in wearing a black top hat covered with neon letters spelling out I'M THE KILLER.

Okay, I am exaggerating.  No hat.  No neon letters.  But as soon as this guy walked in I said: that's the killer.

I am not a reader who feels a need to guess the murderer or feels disappointed if it's too easy or it's too hard.  Most crime novels I read are not even whodunits. But this rankled.

It got worse.  A hundred pages later the heroes received the benefit of what I call an unearned clue.  They visited a place for reasons unconnected to crime, and chatted with a stranger.  When the stranger found out they were cops it was "Oh, by the way..." and out came a big hint that pointed straight to top-hat-man.  They didn't recognize it.

By J.J. at the English language Wikipedia

At this point I kept reading for only one reason: Either this is the best red herring in the history of crime fiction or it is a disaster.


Well, it was a disaster.

The editor - a well-known one in the mystery field - should be embaressed. He or she (I'm not telling) should have spotted the first-time author's mistakes and  insisted that they be fixed, which would not have been that hard.  Instead we have what looks like contempt for the reader, which is never good for future sales.

I checked the blurbs on the cover of the paperback edition.  Only one was from a review.  The rest, and they were plentiful, were from well-known mystery writers.  Perhaps they liked the book, but I suspect they liked the author more.

Enough whining.  Perhaps I can provide a useful writing tip.  Why did I suspect the killer was the killer as soon as he walked in?

Because he had no other plot-related reason for being there at all.  He strolled into his boss' office while the cops were interviewing him, got a detailed description from the author, and was introduced.  No immediate explanation for why he belonged in the story.  And so, my alarm went off.

My penance for that author?  Read five Agatha Christie's.  She had her limits, but nobody could hide a killer or a clue in plain sight with her skill.

So what disappoints you in a mystery?

The Atlanta Child Murders and My First Mystery

I've been reading mystery fiction since I was a kid. I remember reading Nancy Drew at night with a flashlight the summer I was ten years old.  I started writing mystery fiction in 2001, first with a novel I didn't finish, then with a novel I did finish, and then with short stories, where I've had a nice amount of success.
But my first foray into the mystery writing world came long before that. When I was a kid, my mom and I always watched Good Morning America during breakfast. And in 1980 and 1981, we saw a lot of reports on the Atlanta Child Murders.

If you don't remember or know about this tragic story, here's the nutshell: Between 1979 and 1981, more than two dozen black children and teens, as well as six adults, were found slain in Atlanta. The killer was eventually caught, tried, and convicted, but before that, Good Morning America was all over that story. Each time another child was found dead, it surprised me, because with each death came more media coverage. Surely, I thought, the kids down there know to be on alert. They wouldn't go off with a stranger, especially now, given that a murderer was on the loose.

With hindsight, I realize that not everyone--particularly kids--watched the news as I did. But back then, as an eleven or twelve year old, I didn't realize that kids in the danger zone might be ignorant of that danger. So I tried to figure out how the victims could know of the danger and still end up in the clutches of the murderer. And I came up with a solution.

I blamed it on the mayoral candidates.

Around that same time, Atlanta was in the middle of a mayoral election campaign. This news was also reported on Good Morning America. And I thought, the murdered kids would know not to go off with a stranger, so the person abducting and killing them must be someone known to them, someone trustworthy. But who could be known to all of them? Being a kid who watched a lot of news, I figured it must be one of the candidates running for mayor. (Yes, I know, those poor children in Atlanta were probably not following the local mayoral race as avidly as I was--if at all--but back then, that idea hadn't occurred to me.)

Atlanta

I wrote an essay laying out my theory, and I showed it to my sister (who was then in college). She thought my idea was ridiculous. And in retrospect, it certainly had flaws. Indeed the man ultimately caught and convicted of killing two of the adults (and to whom many of the other murders were attributed) was not one of the mayoral candidates. But as a kid, I really thought I had something there.

If I were an adult when this was going on, I might have turned my idea into a novel. Doesn't the idea simply scream Thriller? (Indeed, several books and movies resulted from the Atlanta Child Murders.) But back then, I just had my essay. And I'm still proud of it. It was an interesting take on a horrific situation, as well as a hint of my future career writing about murder and mysteries.

So, writers, what was the first thing that prompted you to start thinking about mysteries and murders--solving them or writing about them? And did you write the first story that came to you?

Lies, Lies, Lies

     Did I write about this last year or year before last? Actually, I think I wrote about Telling Lies For Fun and Profit. It's just that telling lies constantly from news media and from politicians is driving me nuts. I know I don't honestly want to write about political stuff but, I'm going to try to just write about lying.

     When we write our stories, we are writing fiction. Stuff we make up in our heads. Yes, it's lying in a sense. However, we're lying to entertain ourselves and our readers or fans. Story tellers have been around for centuries. Anyone who could tell a good story was invited by kings and rulers to attend court and tell a good story. Those who did tell a good story were rewarded and those whose stories fell flat sometimes were imprisoned or even lost their head.

     Thank goodness things aren't quite that bad for we lying fiction writers. If people don't care for our lies, I mean our stories, people won't buy our books and next thing you know publishers won't publish our books. We are predisposed to tell intriguing, believable lies. Stories that entertain. Stories that have characters that our readers can like and root for or maybe even root for a character to be caught and punished.

     What's with all the lies we hear on the news every hour of every day? Television has reached a point where the news anchors repeat lies or they interview people from campaigns or people in Congress who just out and out lie. Supposedly it's to keep higher ratings for the TV network and their advertisers. And I suppose for the newspaper's advertisers. The huge companies can't have a two-cent drop in revenue because their competition might make three cents more.

     A few years ago, we had a political candidate who was a member of the Mormon church. I have nothing against that religion.  I have nothing against any religion or the lack there of. Whatever a person believes is certainly between them and their supreme being. In doing a little research on the Mormon church, I discovered that their attitude was if you were lying for the Lord, it was okay to do so. If we have any Mormon readers and this isn't true, please let me know. What constitutes a lie for the Lord, I wonder?

     I was just taught that lying was about the worst thing you could do. If I had committed some infraction of our house rules, I would get in worst trouble if I lied about it. I might get punished for breaking a house rule but then if I lied about what I had done I was in deep trouble. I tried to bring my own children up with the same lesson.

   You could rightly guess that I really hate liars. I'm not talking little white lies that we have to tell or at least think we have to tell.  Like when a wife ask her hubby if these slacks make her butt look too big. Not when we know we'll hurt some one's feelings way more than necessary if we told the truth.  Not we crazy folks who tell lies for fun and profit. But plain old everyday liars. We've all known people who are pathological liars. They tell lies when telling the truth doesn't matter at all.

     I'm talking about the big whoppers the new media allow politicians to tell on air and the TV talking head doesn't call them out on it. Or the news media that keeps a reporter and allows that person to stay on the air when that person not just lies, but make up facts.

     I think it's setting a horrible example for our children. You listen to television and you hear the lie and you say out loud. "That's a lie. I know because I fact-checked it." Your child hears this and that little brain absorbs that fact. The children don't need the hate and bullying being screamed at them daily from their televisions either. Again, the children thinks it's okay to act that way. It's already showing up in schools all over the country and it's going to only get worse.

     Lies, lies, lies where does it lead us? Into a bad situation, is my sad guess. Can we stop it? Does anyone want to stop it?

     Thanks all, for letting me get this out. It's been bothering me. Let's all get back to telling lies for fun and profit.

Dystopia Revisited

by Leigh Lundin

By definition, prisons stay out of view of the public eye, and, as Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo taught us, citizens are all too happy to ignore the abuses carried on behind locked bars. Fast forward a century or so where sci-fi acts as a literary bellwether: The golden age of science fiction introduced the concept of corporations taking over a number of government functions often beginning with prison systems. Back then, company prisons were considered too fantastical to appear outside dark imaginations.

Until commercialized incarceration arrived with a vengeance.

Corporation Glossary
BOP • Federal Bureau of Prisons CCA • Corrections Corporation of America GEO • formerly Wackenhut formerly G4S MTC • Management and Training Corp CCS • Correct Care Solutions (medical)

Bad Tidings

As both Eve and I have written, corporations have found numerous ways to profit from prisoners and take every opportunity to capitalize upon the misery of others. Practices include charging extravagant court and jailhouse fees, usurious interest rates, and for food and ‘accommodations’ in state and federal prisons. These fees make it impossible for many prisoners to ever get out of debt. Although the US has banned debtors’ prisons, courts in the pockets of prison corporations continue to incarcerate those who cannot pay. Indeed, it’s possible for a poor person to be adjudged not guilty and still end up imprisoned for failure to pay jail costs and legal fees. Lobbyists see to it that more and more citizens receive ever longer sentences. It’s good for business and best of all, nobody cares.

It’s come to light that corporate prisons have been ignoring constitutional rights. True, county jails and state prisons have abused prisoners and even served rotting food, but corporations made the assumption they’re not responsible for upholding Amendments to the Constitution. Companies have been caught recording attorney-client sessions… then sharing them. Prison apologists say private enterprise shouldn’t be forced to obey BoP rules because it reduces profits.

But there’s worse. Corporations have implemented a form of slavery right here in the US. If a man or boy refuses to work, he can be punished severely, tasered, thrown in solitary confinement, and even killed. In recent years, Florida’s corporate prisons have become so unsafe, that an inmate per day dies, often murdered by guards or other prisoners. In case you question the term ‘murder’, read the reports. Guards even steamed one prisoner alive, reportedly leaving pieces of his body in the shower.

Within the special federal immigrant contract prisons, the numbers are also appalling regarding so-called ‘medical care’, occasionally provided by CCS. In cases where records were available, medical and mortality reviews determined the quality of medical service was inadequate and in more than a third of cases, directly contributed to prisoners’ deaths. Private companies understaff with LPNs/LVNs, which require no more than a year of study beyond a GED, and permit them to diagnose and prescribe. Rather than sending out lab work, evidence suggest LPNs tended to ‘eyeball’ samples and and simply (and wrongly) guess.

Sad Tidings

I very much believe in free enterprise, an almost magical engine that works automatically… under the right circumstances. When it comes to economics, I’m also a pragmatician if not a pragmatist. If an industry isn’t regulated, i.e, policed, it will devolve into exploitation and even criminality. We’ve learned time and again that industries cannot police themselves.

By definition, free enterprise also implies that a percentage of people will be unemployed at any given time. If you want 100% employment, turn to socialism, but don’t expect dynamics or efficiency in managed production and consumption. An economy sails best that steers itself.

But economics can resemble religion: capitalists versus communists, free trade versus tariffs. Religionists are convinced they’re right and everyone else is wrong. Both extremes don’t take into account human factors and that’s what prisons are about… assuming you’re among the percentage who still believe the incarcerated are human too. Esquire Magazine used the term ‘faceless bureaucratic indifference to human suffering’ in a different context, but it definitely applies here.

Then we learned the much touted cost-savings to taxpayers turned out moot.

Glad Tidings

As safety, rehabilitation programs, food quality and medical care plummeted, mayhem, injuries and deaths shot up. Protests and property damage increased as well. Our own Eve Fisher touched on mental health and prison terror here and here and here and here.

Mother Jones journalist Shane Bauer went undercover as a prison guard and is being sued by CCA for his trouble. CCA would very much like their policy to remain “What happens here, stays here.” You know, where the bodies are buried.

But the news is promising. Despite furious lobbying and campaign donations, the Justice Department has ordered private contracts with prison corporations not be renewed, concluding corporate administration is less effective and safe. This decision does not apply to the appalling immigration prisons mentioned above nor to the far larger population in state prisons.

Our beloved Florida governor has been the states’ own best lobbyist for corporate prisons with disastrous results. It remains to be seen whether situations will change at the state level. But at least we can give thanks that for federal relief and corporate karma.

A Literary Lawn Party

Two weeks ago today, while my friend Elizabeth Zelvin was entertaining our loyal SleuthSayers readers far better in this timeslot than I could've, I was in the middle of another kind of literary endeavor. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on August 20, at the height of our summertime heat and humidity, I participated in what was billed as the state's biggest lawn party: the second annual Mississippi Book Festival, held on and around the grounds of the State Capitol Building in downtown Jackson. Also known as the state's Largest Gathering of Sweaty Writers and Readers.

A quick word of background. As some of you might know, Mississippi has more published writers per capita than any other state. In other words, you can't open your car door around here without bumping into another writer. (A lesser-known fact is that the Delta town of Greenville, Mississippi, has more published writers per capita than any other city in the nation--past and present examples include Walker Percy, Shelby Foote, Ellen Douglas, Hodding Carter, Beverly Lowry, William Alexander Percy, Jim Henson, and so on.) We might spit tobacco juice and talk like Forrest Gump and dodge alligators when we mow the back yard, but the ghosts of Faulkner and Welty will forever live in our libraries and bookstores.

My point is, there are a lot of writers here, and I think most of them--at least most of those who are alive and still pushing keys or pencils--came to the recent Book Fest. In fact we had plenty of authors from elsewhere as well. The number of attendees expected last year, at the first annual festival, was 1,000; more than 3,000 showed up, including John Grisham. This year, according to the official figures, some 6,200 people attended the many panels throughout the day, and several hundred more were outside and around the grounds. And, like last year, several attendees DFOed (in medical terms, they succumbed to the heat; in Southern terms, they "done fell out").

This time, more than 120 authors served on 30 different panels held in and around the Capitol Building (I was on the panel for the recently-released Mississippi Noir), and about 70 more were featured in an "Authors' Alley" venue, an area where self-published writers could display and sell their wares. Also on the grounds were tents for different publishers and bookstores here in the state--I was part of Dogwood Press's tent, along with our head honcho Joe Lee and fellow authors Randy Pierce and Valerie Winn. There were also additional activities for panelists, including a cocktail party at the Old Capitol Museum the night before, an authors' breakfast the morning of the festival, and an after-event celebration at a nearby restaurant/bar.

It was a long day, and as hot as Satan's pitchfork, but that surprised no one--this was, after all, mid-August in the Deep South. And I think everybody had a good time. I met a great many interesting people, renewed old friendships, sold and signed some books, guzzled a dozen bottles of water, and gave and received a lot of damp hugs. At the signing tent after my panel, I was fortunate enough to sit beside one of my longtime heroes, John Hart, who's written some of my favorite mystery/crime novels.

Now for my question. I've heard that a number of states have annual literary festivals like this--last year at Bouchercon I visited with a lady who was in the process of organizing a debut bookfest for Virginia. Have any of you gone to and/or participated in one of these, or something similar? Was it state-sponsored? Was it well attended? Did you find it worthwhile?

With this year's Bouchercon drawing ever nearer, our event the other day reminded me how much I enjoy this kind of gathering--being in the company of fellow writers and readers, and spending hours on end talking about nothing but stories and books and writing and the magic of fiction. And the great thing about B'con is that the focus is on mystery writing. What could be more fun than that?

I hope you'll be in New Orleans, I hope we'll be hurricane-free, and I hope it'll be drier and cooler than usual. And if it's not, I hope you won't DFO on Canal Street.

Either way, I'll see you there.

Teaching Moments

Two weeks ago, the date my last column appeared here, our four-year-old son Dash was on break from pre-school, and he and I took the afternoon train into DC to meet my wife for the National Gallery of Art's Jazz in the Garden series. (We gave Dash other options—a minor-league baseball game or seeing dinosaurs at the Smithsonian—but he loves music and being outdoors, and the choice was his.)

In addition to the train into the city, we traveled one Metro stop, and then had about a 15-minute walk to the Sculpture Garden. The Metro nearest the concert was Judiciary Square, and as we came up the escalator, I saw that we were at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and that we could walk through the space en route to the concert. As with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, this one features the names of men and women killed in the line of duty—more than 20,000 officers, in fact, with more names added each year. As we turned along one of the paths through the memorial, Dash spotted a man kneeling by the wall, paper and pencil in hand, and asked what he was doing. I explained that he was making a rubbing of one of the names, which prompted Dash to ask why. Since we were by then close enough that I thought the man may have heard him, I told Dash that we could ask him —encouraging Dash's curiosity, thinking of this as a teaching moment.

It was only immediately after I said this that I recognized we might be intruding, and in fact, when Dash asked the man what he was doing, there was a brief hesitation, and I was afraid I'd made a unfortunate mistake. But then the man showed the pieces of paper, several of them, where he'd rubbed a single name, and explained that name belonged to a friend of his, his partner in fact, and that he'd died. He took out his phone and pulled up photos of his friend, sharing them with Dash, pointing to other officers and their spouses and children. He explained that the rubbings were a way of remembering his partner, and he was planned to take the extra papers back to other people who'd known and loved him.

Dash was mostly attentive to the story, asked about people in the pictures. In what seemed to be a single motion, the man we were speaking with—I don't remember his name—pulled something from his pocket to give to Dash and asked me if we'd traveled here for a special visit to the memorial. I felt a moment of embarrassment then, since we were, as I said, simply passing through, all of this a chance encounter. Meanwhile, Dash—unembarrassed—eagerly started talking about the train ride and the jazz concert and Mama meeting us for a picnic and.... A teaching moment lost, clearly, that's what I thought, with my own self-consciousness further compounded by the item the man was handing to Dash: a challenge coin from the Las Vegas Police Department, the one pictured here in Dash's hand.

Dash was, as you might imagine, eager to have this coin—even as I was protesting that the gift wasn't necessary. But the man insisted, explaining how a challenge coin worked, how it was proof that you were a member of an organization, all of it a point of pride in so many ways. Dash, for his part, was proud too, proud to have the coin even if he clearly didn't entirely understand it.

I mentioned before that I don't remember the name of the man who spoke with us, but I do remember the name on the wall and on the rubbings: Alyn Beck. I looked him up later, looking for his story, thinking briefly that I might try to resurrect that teaching moment and tell Dash more about him, and was surprised—and saddened—to find that there's actually a Wikipedia article that discusses his death. On June 8, 2014, Beck and another officer, Igor Soldo, were having lunch at a CiCi's Pizza in Las Vegas when they were ambushed and killed by a married couple espousing anti-government views; after shooting the officers, the couple covered Beck's body in a "Don't Tread on Me" flag and a swastika and pinned a note to Soldo's body saying, "This is the beginning of the revolution." The shooting spree continued to Wal-Mart, where a third man was murdered before the couple themselves were killed—the man by police, the woman by her own hand. The links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article provide further and more extensive information about the killings, the couple, and their history of anti-government views and actions; for the story of the officers' murders in particular, here's this article from the Las Vegas Sun the day after the shooting. The officers are picture below in photos I borrowed from CNN. (Needless to say, I have not shared the rest of this story with Dash.)

Alyn Beck, left, and Igor Soldo

As we left the memorial, Dash thanked the man for the coin and then insisted on holding it for the rest of our walk, despite my asking several times to carry it for him so he wouldn't drop it. Truth be told, he did drop it once as we were halfway across Pennsylvania Avenue, and he threw off my hand to duck back and grab it from the street, which prompted another teachable moment: Don't let go of Daddy's hand when you're crossing a busy street! (Exclamation mark then as well as now.)

Dash still didn't pay much attention to holding my hand, but he did hold onto the coin tighter after that—a new toy he didn't want to let go of, a prize of some kind that he was excited to show to Mama. I was already prepping to tell Tara the story here, what I knew of it then, and how the man's sharing his own story at the memorial had been cut short by Dash's enthusiasm about the train and the jazz concert and the picnic. But at the Sculpture Garden, Dash beat me to it—showing her the coin while I'd stepped away briefly to the concession stand.

"It was supposed to be a teaching moment," I started to explain when I got back, "but I think it all got lost."

"No it didn't," Tara said. "Dash told me all about it. The coin is from a man whose friend died and he misses him a lot and the coin is a way to remember him and to tell other people about him."

Some lesson learned for each of us, and now passed along.

Bouchercon Bound

In other news, we're now less than two weeks from Bouchercon—the biggest mystery event of the year and, as Judy Bobalik said, kind of a family reunion for us mystery readers and writers.

I'm looking forward to seeing so many people there and to seeing again and in other cases meeting for the first time some of my fellow SleuthSayers here.

My own schedule formally includes the following events—and between times hope to see others in all those in-between spaces: bars, and hallways, and breakfast lines and....

• Opening Ceremonies, with Macavity Awards Presentation • Thursday, September 15, 6:30 p.m. [Note: My book On the Road with Del & Louise is a finalist for the Macavity for Best First Novel, and Sleuthsayers Barb Goffman and B.K. Stevens are also up for Macavity Awards in the short story category.]
• “Me and My Friends,” panel on writing groups, with Donna Andrews, Ellen Crosby, John Gilstrap, and Alan Orloff, moderated by Eleanor Cawood Jones • Friday, September 16, 9:30 a.m.
• Anthony Awards Presentation • Friday, September 16, 8 p.m. [Note: On the Road with Del & Louise is also a finalist for the Anthony for Best First Novel; the anthology I edited, Murder Under the Oaks, is a finalist for Best Anthology or Collection; and B.K. Stevens is up for the Anthony for Best YA Novel for her book Fighting Chance.]
• Sisters in Crime Breakfast • Saturday, September 17, 7:30 a.m.
• “Step in Time,” panel on pacing (as moderator), with Sara Blaedel, Suzanne Chazin, Elizabeth Heiter, Reece Hirsch, and Cate Holahan • Saturday, September 17, 4:30 p.m.

Author Newsletter & Giveaway

Before Bouchercon, however, another quick deadline. I'm debuting an author newsletter over the next week or so, and I'm hosting a giveaway of three volumes of Chesapeake Crime anthologies: This Job Is Murder, Homicidal Holidays, and Storm Warning, each featuring one of my stories. Subscribe to the newsletter before end of day on Sunday, Sept. 4, and you'll be entered for the book bundle—and for other giveaways ahead as well! You can subscribe here.