Location, Location, Location

I was at a house-warming party a few days ago when I was confronted by someone who had read my book, "The Thirteenth Child".  He had had a few drinks and wanted to correct me on a bit of geography in a particular scene.  "You can't walk from the railroad tracks to the bay," he assured me.  "No street runs from the tracks all the way to the bay."
First of all, let me go on the record as being both surprised and pleased that this fellow had read my book.  "So this is the guy..." I thought.  I had been hoping to meet him and shake his hand.  But, he wasn't in the mood for handshaking, he wanted an explanation.  How could I be so stupid?

"Well," says I, "it's not this town, it's 'Wessex Township'--I made it up."

Now he gives me a look from under his eyebrows--oh yeah?  "Then how come the main street is called Mechanic Street just like here?"

I took another sip of my drink.  I was kind of enjoying this.  "It isn't," I corrected the Guy Who Had Read My Book, "It's Mercantile."  Hah! 

He kind of deflated a little at that.  "Oh...I guess I read that wrong."  He avoided me the rest of the evening. 

That'll teach him to read my book. 

But it didn't escape me that a fellow citizen had recognized what he thought was home in my book's setting.  In all fairness, the location of the book was very closely modeled on the town I (and he) live in.  In fact, I had a lot of fun recreating my little bit of heaven into a setting for dark and horrible things.  And it saddened me when my editor demanded I thin out the dense forest of words describing it.  Even so, my former fan had seen exactly what I wanted; after all, if he hadn't, I would have failed an important litmus test in creating the location.  The only reason I didn't make it my own town (as I explained to the disappointed man) was that I would have then been tied too tightly to the actual geography, and I didn't want that kind of restriction.  Though I was drawing heavily from reality, I was at the same time creating someplace completely unique.

Location certainly plays a huge role in literature.  Sometimes it's almost another character: a supporting actor without dialogue.  Read Janice Law's "Fires Of London" if you want an example.  Brilliantly done descriptions of London during the Blitz; never labored or lengthy (But this is only one example of brilliance in Janice's novel--there are many, many others.  If you haven't read it, you owe it to yourself to do so.).  Novel-length fiction allows writers a large canvas on which to paint their scenes and settings; short fiction generally requires a few deft strokes to evoke atmosphere and location.  Both disciplines are demanding.

I've always enjoyed certain authors for their ability to evoke time and place, Graham Greene being one of my favorites.  He traveled the world in his lifetime and spent a great deal of time in foreign lands; seldom as a tourist.  His novels certainly reflect this.  Had anyone written a major work on Haiti prior to "The Comedians"?  Who knew of Viet Nam before the "The Quiet American"?  I could go on, but you get the point.

Location is sometimes a destination, sometimes home.  Every character has to either live somewhere, or be someplace else.  Where he or she is located is often a key part of the plot.  Even the journey to arrive at someplace must become a setting in a story.

Even as I write this, a comment by Eve Fisher on a post by R.T. Lawton (also excellent at foreign and exotic locales) mentions Cecelia Holland, reminding me of another author gifted at creating a sense of place.  In her case, however, the places are seldom, if ever, within her lifetime, and therefore experience.  She is one of the best of those writers who pen the bewilderingly labeled "Historical Fictions".  Her novels have recreated settings in medieval Mongolia (thus providing the connection to R.T.'s blog about the Mongolian New Year observance), England on the fateful eve of the Battle of Hastings, and the Iceland of two feuding brothers at the close of the Viking era.  No easy feat these things.  Not only must she convince us of the verisimilitude of the land she has invited us into, but she must also convincingly portray a time, and a people, that she could only know through research.  When I think of the Man Who Read My Book's objection over the placement of a single street in a fictional town, I quail at the prospect of attempting what Cecelia Holland and Janice Law have both accomplished in their various works.  Even Graham Greene always wrote in contemporary terms.

Have any of you reading this ever placed a story in a locale that you have never visited or lived in?  Though I have been fortunate in my life to have traveled a great deal, I will admit to having practiced this in a story or two.  But, I won't say which ones.  So far, I've never been caught at it.  In my defense, I did do a heck of a lot of research prior to attempting them.  But in the overwhelming number of cases, my stories don't stray far from the towns, states, and countries of which I have, at least some, personal knowledge.

Robert Ghirardi, another favorite writer of mine adept at evocative description, said in an interview (and I'm taking the liberty to paraphrase here as I can't locate the article) that modern authors are too bound by what they have personally experienced.  He was referring to the strictures placed upon the imagination in this age of near-instant knowledge through the internet and its children.  Any deviation from what is generally known can be instantly fact-checked, making fiction writers cautious to stray too much from what they either personally know or can confirm.  The only safe way to do that is delve into the realm of fantasy, which it seems, more and more authors are doing.  It is also one of the fastest-growing genres in terms of readership, which might be a result of the dearth of truly "exotic" locales in our steadily shrinking world.

Be that as it may, location, exotic or prosaic, provides the canvas upon which we paint our stories, and our success at doing so is as important to our characters as it is to our readers.  Would we accept Hamlet as a gloomy Jamaican?  Wouldn't Sherlock Holmes have been a very different person as a product of 1880's Mexico?

Finally on the subject of location, I have an upcoming story in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine called, "Murder Town," that is set in the Yucatan.  I'm not going to tell you whether I've been there, or based the setting solely on research--I'll leave that up to you to decide.  Either way, I hope I got it right.       







 



 



   

Return of the Epics

by Janice Law

The human brain seems to be hard wired not only to enjoy, but to crave, stories, and the only differences between one era and another seem to be attributable to fashion. Within living memory, short story writers were lavishly compensated in the big slicks and a bit later, mystery writers, in particular, could make money selling short stories to anthologies like Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

How times have changed. The short story as a profitable item is on its last legs, with the genre as a whole eroded by short shorts and flash fiction, and paying outlets undercut by free content on the web. In contrast, some mystery novels are physically bigger than ever - Elizabeth George's latest clocks in at 608 pages - amazing, considering that the readership skews older and older.

But if demography is not on the side of the novel, mega or otherwise, another even older genre is alive and well. I refer to what the lit crowd would call 'the romantic epic,' namely a concoction of adventure, suspense, mystery, amorous interludes, and sometimes supernatural elements. The romantic epic is big and open ended, and now that television has spared us from actually reading such a thing, its latest incarnations are making big money for networks and cable franchises.

From the mystery writer's point of view, these are interesting because they incorporate so many elements of mystery and suspense. Some like the recent and much admired Homeland start with a clear, dominant plot line. Others like the cult fave Fringe started out as a collection of weird events and have gradually developed into a classic quest narrative with mystery elements.

Both Homeland and Fringe are marked by fine production values and excellent acting. Claire Danes just got a Golden Globe for her work, and surely both Damian Lewis and Mandy Patinkin should have been considered, as well. And Alfred Hitchcock never had such a budget. But the cleverly constructed episodes of Homeland would have done the master proud, even though this is not a who done it, but a will he do it, that is, will Sergeant Brodie, war hero P.O.W. turn out to be a violent Al-Qaeda operative?

The answer to this is kept in suspense and many of the episodes are constructed as investigations, as Carrie Mathison attempts to prove her suspicion that Brodie has been 'turned' during captivity. Even when it is clear that Brodie is not what he seems, his complex character and his mix of restraint and violence prevent any easy answers.

Fringe has had a more complex evolution. It started out as a child of The X Files, with a similar mix of horror, pseudo-science, and, given the progress in special effects, truly bizarre maladies and deaths. Even Sherlock Holmes would shake his head at some of the disasters that face Fringe Division.

Over the years, however, the plotting has taken on an almost archetypal dimension with guilt and salvation and heroes on strange quests, thanks to the connections between our universe and the alternate universe next door. Junk science for sure, but the acting from John Noble, Anna Torv, and Joshua Jackson is fine, and the characters, particularly the partly mad scientist Walter Bishop– think of a cross between Vincent Price and King Lear with a good sense of humor– are distinguished.

The show is strongest when it concentrates on the relationships among the characters, between Walter and Peter, the boy he rescued from the 'other side' who took the place of his own dead son. Between Walter and Olivia, the little girl he experimented on with a super drug, and between Peter and Olivia. It is weakest when it relies on acres of painted rubber and plastic and fake bodily fluids, but in both types of story, the armature of the whole is clearly on a mystery template.

This pattern of overarching plot line and mysteries solvable within the hour shows up in other popular long running shows as well, particularly the NCIS franchises. In both the D.C. and L.A. versions, a consistent cast with overall story lines anchors the weekly or in some cases bi-weekly mysteries.

Alas for the actual writers of short mystery fiction, however; the return of the long-running epic has not provided the same opportunities as the old Alfred Hitchcock hours. These are specialized corporate epics with the overall narratives controlled by their producers. Freelance work is not going to be possible here.

Still, the public appetite for long form fiction is reassuring, particularly when such fiction has so many mystery elements. Who knows when fashion may again smile on the mystery wordsmith?

Charged as an Adult

by Leigh Lundin

I write today's column as a matter of conscience. Friends who like labels find me hard to politically peg, but most issues boil down to common sense– What's right and what's wrong. A wrong that horrifies me is the practice of criminally charging children as adults.

Common wisdom says America's too soft on criminals. Common wisdom is wrong– the yoke of our punitive Puritans weighs heavily upon us. Although you may have read the US imprisons more of its population than the vast majority of nations, in the same category as Iran and North Korea, that's old news. The Guardian reports the US is now N° 1 when it comes to jailing its citizens. In more detail, according to The Economist, the USA has 5% of the world's population but incarcerates one fourth of all prisoners on the planet.

Contributing to this is a phenomenon called 'over-sentencing', like a three-strikes life term for stealing a bicycle. Parole boards, fearful of being dubbed weak or soft on crime, are loath to release offenders. Likewise Congress enacts ever harsher, more punitive legislation, capped with laws making it difficult to prove post-conviction actual innocence. And prisons are profitable– not for taxpayers, but for the newly emerging prison corporations.

Eating Their Young

© Reuters; 20Minutes.fr

America is nearly unique charging children as adults. Until the Supreme Court finally ruled against capital punishment of children, states used to execute kids, both boys and girls.

Prosecutors offer rationalizations: "[She] deserves to be tried as an adult for making an adult decision." "The more adult the crime, the more deserving the killer is of adult justice." Certainly heinous acts arouse the fury of the public, especially killing of another child. It's not easy to like or feel sympathy for a creature that kills a parent or the very young, merging into a society that's willing to discard what it considers mistakes… even when the mistakes are our own fault.

The problem is that youngsters are not adults. Children are not even close to mature given the arbitrary age of majority of 18, 21, or– as insurance companies insist 25. If anything, child criminals may be less mature than others their age, but that doesn't stop persecutors from trying children as adults, often opting for life without parole.

Treating Their Young

The recent case of Jordyn Howe has turned a tragedy into a triple heartbreak. The 15-year-old Florida boy showed off one of his family's .40 calibre automatics on his school bus. The weapon discharged, killing 13-year-old Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus. Weeks later, her distraught father Armando committed suicide.

Miami-Dade Detective Roy Rutland concluded the shooting was an accident. Those who know the slender, clean-cut youth contend he is a decent boy. but that isn't stopping prosecutors from charging the child as an adult, despite early assurances that wouldn't happen.

Can prosecutors ever justify trying children as adults? If so, for what offenses, what circumstances? Can 'bad seed' be saved or is society right to throw away the key with the child? What do you think?

A Heavy Dose of Light Verse

As is often the case, I recently found myself inspired by one of my SleuthSayers colleagues.  This time it was Rob Lopresti and his "Hello, My Lovely" poem a few days ago.  I loved it!  While neither of us is well known for poetry, both Rob and I enjoy wordplay in thirty-one different flavors, and sometimes that's all that's required to turn out an occasional piece of light verse.  I have probably turned out more than I should have over my relatively short writing "career," but I truly like the sound and rhythm--and humor--of certain kinds of poetry.  And I often prefer poems that "tell a story."

Even though I confess my lack of serious poetic knowledge or talent, I would like to present a few of my mystery poems from the past several years.  I call them that because (1) they involve a crime, (2) they were published in mystery magazines, and (3) it's a mystery that they got published at all.  For the record, these first appeared in places like Mystery Time, Murderous Intent, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, and Futures Mysterious Mystery Magazine.

NOTE: I'm recycling even further, here, because several of these ditties were featured in one of my Criminal Brief columns more than four years ago--but I'm hoping that those of you who might've read them there have fully recovered by now from any mental anguish or acid reflux they might have caused.

Here goes:


A WIFE IN THE COUNTRY


Turk McGee sipped his tea and contentedly sighed
As he lounged on the porch and observed his young bride;
She was working the fields, as she'd done every day
Since her father arranged for her marriage last May,
But what Dad hadn't known (and McGee hadn't said)
Was that Turk thought all girls became slaves when they wed.
Just today, for example, she'd plowed until three,
Stopping only two times to pour Turk some iced tea;
But at last she was done, and looked quite peaceful now
As she unhitched the mule and put up the old plow.
When she walked to the porch, McGee'd finished his glass
And was watching the mule as it rolled in the grass;
"I been wonderin'," he said, "how a woman abides
A dumb beast that's so mean and so lazy, besides."
"I been wonderin' that too," she remarked to old Turk,
And then sat down to wait for the poison to work.


IMMORTALITY

Philip Marlowe was a P.I.,
Kay Scarpetta an M.E.,
Ms. Warshawski was a V.I.,
Mr. Watson an M.D.

Clarice Starling was a pro,
Bernie Rhodenbarr a con,
Ranger Pigeon was an Anna,
Vito Corleone a Don.

Inspector Pitt was smart and cagey,
Spenser brash and bold,
Dave Robicheaux sleuthed in the heat,
Kate Shugak in the cold.

Some say these folks weren't real--they lived
In books and books alone;
I say they'll be alive long after
You and I are gone.


PURPA TRAITOR

When Purpa's flights were smuggling grapes
Its king escaped in vain;
The Purpals found His Majesty
Aboard a fruited plane.


TINSELTOWN

The new bartender was a guy
Dressed in a well-cut suit and tie.
Sue blinked. "Hey, aren't you Peter Gunn?"
"I used to be, in '61."
"What happened, there? I liked that show."
"The guy who played me had to go."
"So you're Craig Stevens?" she replied.
"No, I'm the character. Craig died."
"The character? For real?" asked Sue.
Gunn shrugged. "Don't I look real to you?"
"But you were once a superstar!"
"A fallen star, now tending bar."
"So all this time, you've been right here?"
"Long story. Want another beer?"
When refilled, Sue inquired again:
"So what all have you done since then?"
"Well, two producers died one night--"
"I heard. They both got poisoned, right?"
"--I was accused; I left L.A.,
And caught a boat and sailed away."
She sipped her brew and asked: "With who?"
"With Gilligan. The Skipper too."
"You hid out on another show?"
"I lived there forty years or so."
"You stayed on, after they were done?"
"An island beach, a naked Gunn."
"So now you're back. Still wanted, right?"
"And undetected, till tonight."
Sue said, with a malicious grin:
"Aren't you afraid I'll turn you in?"
Then, gagging, she fell to the floor.
Gunn smiled and said: "Not anymore."


CAN YOU SPELL "ESCAPE"?
(Come on, you knew I had to include a limerick . . .)

On the eve of Boone's hanging, Ann Price
Hid a nail-file in his bowl of rice.
No great genius, Boone
Hanged the next day at noon,
But his fingernails looked rather nice.


NEVER TOO LATE

"You're Al Capone?"
He said: "That's right."
"You're dead, I thought."
He said: "Not quite."
"Then you must be--"
"I'm 103."
"So you're retired?"
"That's not for me."
"But how do you--"
"Get by?" he said.
He pulled a gun.
"Hands on your head."


Enough silliness.  I will now close with a more serious poem, about the commonly held belief that we as fiction writers are sometimes a little weird.  I hope this will help dispel those rumors:


GHOSTWRITERS

They say creative people tend
To lose their marbles now and then.
Musicans? Artists? That may be--
But novelists? I disagree.
My fellow authors, young and old,
Are all quite sane; this I was told
By Faulkner, Poe, and Hemingway--
I spoke with them just yesterday.

TRADECRAFT: Surveillance 102

It's been about a month and a half since my first installment on surveillance. By now, you've had several chances to try your skill at one-person foot surveillance and if so, then probably seen some of the problems first hand which result from conducting this type of activity all by yourself. To counteract these problem situations, someone way down the line in history took on a few associates to help out and maybe make these operations more successful. In recent times, this group activity became known as the ABC Method of Team Foot Surveillance.

In team foot surveillance, each member of the team acquires a letter of the alphabet, but only for the purpose of explaining his position. Each member then operates accordingly. Sounds simple so far, right? Don't worry, it becomes more complicated later.

The lead person, the one with The Eyeball, is always designated as "A." The person designated as "B" is across the street and almost parallel to but just a little behind the Subject. B keeps the Subject in view while trying not to be obvious about it. "C" is on the same side of the street as the Subject and is several paces behind A. It is not necessary that C be able to see the Subject, but C will always have A in view and will take his cues on where to go next based on A's actions and movement.

If you are lucky enough to have more members on the team, then "D" will follow several paces behind B, taking his cues from B and also A if he can see that team member. "E," if you have one, follows C and so on. Let's setup a crude diagram as a visual aid to better place this in your mind.

___E_______________C_________________A_________________Subject______________

____________________________________________________________________________
                                                              D                                          B

Got it? Good. Now pay attention because this can quickly become a fluid situation. If for some reason, A has been following the Subject for a long time, or feels that he has been burned by the Subject, then A will have C move up to become the new A and take The Eyeball. E then moves up to become the new C, while the old A drops back to the rear, becomes the new E and changes outer garments and appearance in order to cut down on recognition later by the Subject.

Okay, you've got a mental picture from the above diagram and you're starting to understand the fluid part. So now you know that if the Subject crosses to the opposite side of the street and continues in the same direction as before, then the old B becomes the new A and also acquires The Eyeball, while the old A becomes the new B and moves forward on his side of the street. All other letters follow suit. It now looks like this:

___________________________D____________________________B_________________

___________________________________________________________________________
      E                          C                                 A                                            Subject

E, if you have one, is the only team member to cross the street, but he is well out of sight of the Subject.

So what do you do if the Subject (S) goes around a corner? Glad you asked. A stops just short of the corner, while B looks to determine whether the Subject continues on up the street, or if the Subject stopped and is waiting to see if anyone follows him around that same corner. B signals whether or not it is safe for A to go around the corner.
                                                                                                      ]                [
___________________________________________________]                [______________
                                                          D                                                          B

                                                                                                                   
_____E________________C________________________A___                _______________
                                                                                                       ]               [
                                                                                                       ] S            [

Next situation: what does the team do if the Subject suddenly reverses course and starts back the way he came? Easy, everybody freezes in place until the Subject continues far enough for the team to figure out his new direction. If the Subject continues past E, then E becomes the new A and acquires The Eyeball. All other letter designations adjust themselves accordingly to fit the new pattern. Like I said, it's fluid, you gotta go with the flow.

As you can well see by now, some type of communication is necessary for team members to understand what's happening with the Subject and where each team member should go next. If you are a spy organization or high level law enforcement or expensive PI outfit, you probably have concealed radios with hidden microphones so you can talk into your collar or your sleeve. Otherwise, you get by with agency hand-held radios, or even walkie-talkies assuming you are an amateur group. It also helps to have silent hand signals similar to those used by the military or SWAT teams. For my surveillance workshops at writers conferences, I had the civilian teams use hand signals plus their cell phones to maintain contact with each other.

SIDE NOTE: Things go wrong. At the first workshop, one team member followed her "rabbit" down an alley, while the rest of the team hurried around both sides of the block to pick up their rabbit again after he emerged from the other side. However, upon reaching the far end of the alley, the rabbit suddenly reversed course to head back the way he came. The all alone team member panicked, ducked into a doorway and punched a quick number into her cell phone. "He doubled back and is coming straight at me," she said into the phone. "Alert the others and get here as soon as you can." There was a long pause on the other end of the call before a deep masculine voice replied. "Lady, I don't know who you are or what you're doing, but it sure sounds exciting." That wrong number made somebody's day. I recommend setting up Speed Dial to other team members, or setup an ongoing conference call.

One last item on team surveillance. If you are doing this for real, it helps to have one of the team members following way behind in a multiple person van or large SUV. This way, if the Subject suddenly gets into a taxi, private car, hops a bus or other public transportation, your total team won't be left standing at the curb. The van will pick up as many team members as possible without losing sight of the Subject, thus the foot surveillance starts up again at whatever point the Subject returns to walking. Any team members who were left behind have to make their own way to the new site. Once again, communication is imperative to get your team moving together and back on task.

So, you paranoid yet? You should be. Those subjects who are experts in this type of tradecraft may have their own teams out as counter-surveillance in order to follow you home or back to your office. They will want to know who is following them and why. That's right, keep looking over your shoulder, always check your back trail. Did you see that same person before? Could be coincidence. And then again.....

Have a nice day.

The Last Five Minutes

One of the great new trends (imho) in movies these days is indie movies that take semi sci-fi/fantasy concepts and run with them, using minimal (if any) special effects and lots of really good writing.  I include in this category the haunting "Another Earth", and the two comedies "Safety Not Guaranteed", and "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World".   (I recommend all of these, even though I thought Keira Knightly's narcolepsy in the last was a bit much.)

The latest one I watched was "Ruby Sparks," about a young, genius writer with severe writer's block, who manages to write his dream girl into life.  And it's great, really great, taking the whole concept and going balls to the wall with it - until the last five minutes.  At which point, a happy ending was tacked on, a happy ending of such unbelievable proportions (to me) that I was screaming at the TV set. (NOTE:  I do this a lot; my husband has learned to live with it.  In this case, he agreed with me.  And I will not give any more away except to say that any good working psychiatrist would not be using phrases like "beautiful" and praising the hero for his behavior, but would be recommending something intense, like in-patient treatment...  I also think that the estate of David Foster Wallace could sue the writers, but that's another rant.)  Anyway, I still recommend the movie, but only for the first hour and 40 minutes. 

But don't you hate when that happens?  When someone takes a great idea, and does it so well that you are absolutely hanging on, breathless, can't wait to see what happens next...  and then the balloon just doesn't even pop, it deflates and you're sitting there wondering what the hell happened.  I felt that way about Woody Allen's "Love and Death" and "Sleeper", both of which I still think are genius - until the whole plot line of "let's kill the leader" takes over.  (These days, I just fast forward to the little gems at the end.)

Great endings don't have to be happy; they don't have to be tragic; they don't have to be funny (although what would "Some Like It Hot" be without Joe E. Brown's magic line?).  But they do have to fit what's happened before.  They have to match the characters.  My husband and I watched "The Third Man" again the other night, and the ending, with that last long shot, always deeply satisfies me, because there's no way after all that has gone before that Anna Schmidt would ever go for Holly Martin. 


I think this beats the heck out of "Great Expectations", where Dickens made the mistake of listening to Bulwer-Lytton - the original author of "it was a dark and stormy night" - and rewrote his ending to put Pip and Estella together.  But to be fair, Hollywood pairs people up come hell or high water all the time.  What was House doing with a girlfriend?  Why do the modern turns on Sherlock Holmes feel the need to make Irene Adler a romantic interest?  (And, now that Watson's female in "Elementary", how long until she and Sherlock hook up?)  Why did the Geraldine McEwan version of Miss Marple have to give her a heartbreaking romance?

But back to endings.  A lot of endings are, as we all know, entirely different from the book.  James Thurbur once wrote that if Hollywood were to do "Antony and Cleopatra", they'd have Antony saying, "I am mending, Egypt, mending." But to be fair, in the 18th and early 19th century, most Shakespeare tragedies were given happy endings.  Romeo and Juliet live; Ophelia is saved from drowning; Cordelia wakes up; etc.  Dickens skewered this in "Nicholas Nickleby."   And sometimes the changes work, as in "The Big Sleep."  In the novel, Marlowe falls for Mona Mars - "silver-wig" - and ends up with nobody.  In the Bogie/Bacall movie, he falls for Vivian Sternwood and goes off with her.  I think both work, for different reasons, and that's fine with me. On the other hand, I hate the movie "The Natural," because of course when you have Robert Redford playing the hero, he has to save the day, even though that ruins the whole spirit of the piece.  I prefer the novel, where Hobbs is indeed Everyman, a sinner, a failure - a human being, not a hero... 

But now, of course, I'm faced with ending this blog entry.  All I can say is that if I really like a book or a movie, I invest in the characters, in the story, in the concept.  And I want all of those, whenever possible, to stay true to their promise. I know.  It's hard to pull off.  Sometimes it will break your heart.  But if it's right, you have a classic.  Here's perhaps the ultimate example:  would we remember "Casablanca" if Ilsa had stayed with Rick? 

Nothing but the Best

It is that time of the year again.  For the fourth time I am listing the best short mystery stories of the year as determined by a distinguished panel consisting of me.  In fact, I would like to take a moment to thank me for all my hard work.

Sixteen stories made the cut; one more than last year.  None were from websites, but that is probably because I looked at fewer of those in 2012, having plenty of paper stuff to occupy my mind.

The big winner was Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, with seven hits. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine had four.  No other market had more than one.

For the first time ever one author has two best stories in the same year.  They had oddly similar plots, showing that a talented chef can make two very different dishes with the same ingredients.  Five stories are by friends of mine from the SleuthSayers/Criminal Brief mafia.  You can read that as blatant favoratism or an indication of the talent of that stable.

One honoree is a first story.  One is by a German (last year it was two, oddly enough).  Two have supernatural elements.  Five are funny.

And by main character we have:
criminal 5
cop 4
victim's relative 3
amateur detective 2
victim 1
witness 1
spy 1

Yes, that adds up to 17.  One character is multitasking.  And now, let us present the winners... 

Allyn, Doug.  "Wood-Smoke Boys,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2012.  

When I was ten years old, my favorite uncle murdered my favorite aunt.

Thus begins a wonderfully-written story of country folk versus city folk in the north woods of Michigan.  Dylan LaCrosse is the narrator and his back woods family suffers some terrible times, but they don't suffer quietly, which leads to the local warning: "Never cross a LaCrosse."

Now Dylan is a cop and state police are coming in to investigate the murder of a state legislator who caused tragedy to the LaCrosse family.  Can Dylan stay alive and solve the puzzle?  And whose side is he on?

 Anthony, Ted.  "A User's Guide to Keeping Your Kills Fresh,"  in Staten Island Noir, edited by Patricia Smith, Akashic Press, 2012.


Manny Antonio is a hit man, but he isn't very good at it.  This is the story of his last contract, told by someone who knew him well, and didn't like him very much, nor respect his mental agility. 
If complete clarity were an all-you-can-eat buffet of Chinese food, Manny would ask for the menu and order the chicken and broccoli.

And so we see what should have been an easy assignment turn into a disastrous trek around the metropolitan area with a trunkful of forensic evidence that grows smellier by the hour.  When we are told that shooting a rent-a-cop between the eyes was "the last rational thing he will do on the final night of his life," you know Manny is not having a good week.

Beck, Zoe.  Out There,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 2012.

Among the other changes that e-mail has wrought in the world is an improvement in epistolary fiction.  It is possible to exchange letters a lot faster than when DIego de San Pedro wrote the first epistolary novel in the fifteenth century.

And that's what German author Zoe Beck presents with, a story written entirely in e-mails.  Most of them are written by Gil Peters, who is a successful author despite having agoraphobia so fierce that she hasn't left her apartment in eight years.  But that's okay, she has adjusted to it, and with her computer and her shrink on tap she is do fine.

Then her doctor goes on vacation just when an unacceptable change happens to her home.  Things start to go rapidly out of hand...The only thing I love better than a twist ending is multiple twists, and Beck provides them.

Clerici, Louisa.  "The Rose Collection,"  in Dead Calm: Best New England Crime Stories 2012, edited by Mark Ammons, Katherine Fast, Barbara Ross, Leslie Wheeler, published by Level Best Books, 2012. 

Obsession is either comic or tragic, depending on how close you are standing to the fallout.  The narrator is Laura, a woman who lives a pleasant if slightly stir-crazy life in rural Indiana.  Her life is changed when an elderly neighbor leaves her a piece of costume jewelry: a brooch that was "all sparkly with a pale gold intricate rose."  Get used to detailed description, because Laura provides them for whatever she thinks is interesting, while glossing over things she considers less important.  And that, you might say, provides the key to her character.

Laura starts studying about jewelry at the library and discovers that the best chance to get more is a big flea market in Cumberland, Indiana. Problem is her husband doesn't want her to go.  That doesn't turn out to be a problem for long, because he dies.  In fact, it is best not to get between Laura and her jewelry plans.

"Halley's Comet," by Reed Farrel Coleman, in Crime Square, edited by Robert J. Randisi, Vantage Point, 2012.

The setting is the 1970s, the time of Serpico and the Knapp Commission, when the NYPD was full of dirty cops and the dirty cops were full of fear of the Knapp Commission.  In this story two police detectives are being pushed into a n action that will move them  from being bent to being totally rotten.  And just as the point of no return approaches, well, police work intervenes.  A wild and twisty climax ensues.


Dean, David.  "Jenny's Ghost,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, June 2012.  

Picture the setting: you are in an airport, stuck in that endless half-life between flights and suddenly you spot something that can't possibly be there: a woman who died a decade before.  Hell of a set-up, isn't it?

David noted that this is a story about consequences.  Not surprisingly it is also about guilt, and the chance of redemption.  These are subjects for fiction I am very much drawn to.



DuBois, Brendan. "The Final Ballot,"  in Mystery Writers of America presents Vengeance, edited by Lee Child, Mulholland Books, 2012.

Beth's daughter was brutally attacked by a son of the senator/candidate.  The man-of-the-world described above is the problem solver.  "In other words, I'm the senator's bitch."  He offers her two choices which he insists on calling "avenues."  She can pursue prosecution of the senator's son, guaranteeing herself years of being stripped naked by the press, attacked by his supporters, dragged out as a symbol by his enemies... or she can agree to let the culprit get psychological treatment and accept financial aid from the senator to cover her daughter's long-term medical needs.She makes her deal but things go wrong and...

Two old sayings apply:  Never fight with someone who has nothing to lose.  And: the most dangerous place in the world is between a mother and her children.

DuBois, Brendan.  "His Daughter's Island," in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2012.


Zach Ford is a mild-mannered accountant in a small town in Maine.  His beloved daughter goes off to a party at the home of a millionaire and dies.  The millionaire's son is whisked out of the country, far from the possibility of justice.

In some stories the next step would be a whole lot of guns and blood, but Mr. Ford has a different idea.  He studies up on the millionaire, and then he studies the state and local ordinances.  And starts plotting a completely legal vengeance.


Gates, David Edgerley.  "Burning Daylight,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2012.

Hector is a deputy in Montana, near a national forest.  When two kids report seeing a double-wide trailer explode he knows it was a meth lab.  Since the drug-maker went up with his product Hector could have let it go at that but he is a good cop and wants to know what happened: specifically, how did a Gulf War vet wind up making drugs out in the wilderness?  And which comes first, supply or demand?  The trail becomes darker and grimmer.

"With all due respect, don't preach the law to me."

"The law's all we've got between us and the stone age."

"Frank, for Christ's sake, this IS the stone age."


Goree, Raymond.  "A Change of Heart," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2012.

Goree's first story is a wonderful debut.  The narrator is a Las Vegas cop who, at around age 40, suffers a heart attack.  Turns out his ticker is in horrible shape.  ("Like trying to sew Jell-o together," says the surgeon.)  After some more horrible luck ("Jokes on you, says God.") he gets a heart transplant.  By coincidence he had met  the donor, a cancer patient named Sammy, in the hospital.

But after the operatioon our hero gets visited by Sammy the donor.  Creepy, huh?  And Sammy wants him to prevent his daughter from getting involved in a crime.  "I can't get through to her," Sammy  complains.  "It's like I'm not even there."

Wonderfully written, one-of-a-kind plot.  


Hockensmith, Steve, "Frank," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2012.

Frank is a retired police detective, living in an assisted living complex.  Frank's memory is, at best, shaky.  He can't always remember what day it is, or the names of his neighbors (although in the case of at least one neighbor's name, Hockensmith notes drolly, "forgetting it had been a choice.")

But now a series of crimes are happening in the complex -- maybe.  Unless someone is imagining it in senile dimensia.  Can Frank pull himself together long enough to catch the culprit?  And what if he is the culprit?

Witty, touching, and a  twist at the end.  What more do you want?

Howe, Melodie Johnson, "Losing It,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, August 2012.

My friend Melodie has built a story is so twisty it makes a corkscrew look like a knitting needle.

Callie Taylor is a mousy manicurist.  Mike is the boyfriend, supposedly working on a screenplay, but apparently only working on the groceries Callie brings home on her paycheck.

One night Callie rebels against her life by spending a thousand dollars she can't afford on a shawl.  Mike hates it because it keeps her from looking "normal," the ordinary person he wants her to be.

And then, late one night in a bar, she loses the shawl.  And worse, one of her wealthy customers shows up wearing the shawl.  How can Callie get it back without losing her job?

Where ever you think this story is going you're wrong.

Law, Janice, "The Double"  in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Issue 7

My friend Janice has created a little gem here, I think.

Malik has the fortune, good or bad, of resembling the General, his country's beloved dictator.  Naturally he is assigned the job of impersonating the General, saving him from boring meetings and assassingation attempts.

But the General is a far-thinker and he sends Malik, with proper supervision, to set up a new life for himself in Miami, just in case at some time in the future the General turns out not to be so beloved.  And that works fine until the inevitable happens.

Because only one person can live that new life, right?

Modrack, Barbara Arno, "Acting On A Tip,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2012.

 This is the only story on the list that didn't make the best-of-the-year cut when I first read it.  But going through my weekly bests at Little Big Crimes in preparation for this review I went oh yeah, THAT one.

Marty had been a reporter for the Detroit Free Press for decades when the buyouts started.  One day his editor urged him to take the proffered buyout, and the reason clearly had less to do with his age than with the booze Marty was drinking for breakfast.  Marty's wife made him the following offer:

They would sell the house and move Up North to the family cottage she had just inherited.  Ryan, their youngest, would complete his senior year in high school there.  Jenny would refresh her nursing license and become the breadwinner.  And if they did all that and Marty quit drinking, they could do it together and Jenny would not leave him.

A few months later Marty is clinging to sobriety by his fingernails when he wakes to a radio report of three murders in the little town where they are living.  Maybe the Free Press would like a reporter on the scene?  Maybe he can drag a scrap of self-worth out of the ruins?

Warren, James Lincoln.  "Shikari,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 2012.

This novelette is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche I have read since Nicholas Meyer turned the field on its ear with The Seven Percent Solution.

James explains in an introductory note that the idea came when he read that during the nineteenth century the British intelligence service used doctors as spies in Asia.  Of course, Dr. Watson was an army doctor in Afghanistan.  And who was the head of British intelligence?  Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft.  If Watson was one of Mycroft's spies, than surely it was no coincidence that he wound up in a position to keep an eye on his boss's eccentric brother...


A treat from beginning to end, with shrewd explanation's of some of the canon's puzzling elements, and some genuine shocks along the way.

Warthman, Dan.  "Pansy Place," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January-February 2012.

Jones is fitting into retirement. Bought his condo in Elmwood Village, voted a couple yers ago one of the country's ten best neighborhoods. Second story, corner unit, overlooking Bidwell Parkway...

At first we don't learn much about Jones, just about the young cleaning woman he hires and makes friends with. Then we are introduced to her boyfriend.

Trouble erupts in the life of the young couple and Jones shows his true colors. We meet a few new characters, finely drawn bad guys who cherish the use of the right word and the right action even while they are doing objectively wrong things.It can be good to have a tough guy on your side, even he is allegedly retired.

Numbers

    If all goes according to schedule, the day before this piece posts we will have flown back to Washington, D.C. from the Caribbean, where we will have spent two days in St. Maarten and then one week aboard Sagitta, a tall ship run by some long time friends of ours at Island Windjammers.  So, while I am not one to plan far ahead with my SleuthSayers articles foresight is nevertheless called for here.

    I’m also not usually inclined to “re-gift” past columns, but I am going to make an exception there, also.

    Today, January 15, is the day after my younger brother Graham’s 60th birthday.  Attaining that age can be a rather shocking experience (although we should continue to remind ourselves that these “big” years are dictated only by the number of fingers we have on two hands.)  In wishing Graham a happy 60th I thought I would resurrect an article I did for Criminal Briefs celebrating, among other things, the birthday of Manfred B. Lee, one half of the team that gave us Ellery Queen.  As my friend Mike Nevins (who’s new retrospective on Lee and Dannay, Ellery Queen:  The Art of Detection, will be the subject of a column here in a couple weeks) has often observed, Lee can easily become the forgotten member of the Ellery Queen team because he had the unfortunate luck to die early.

   So, for Lee, for his birthday, for birthdays in general, for the somber air that often accompanies birthdays that are divisible by ten, and for my brother Graham, I resurrect the following article, which posted on Criminal Briefs just over four years ago, under the title:

January 11, 2009 – A Birthday Essay

    This year [i.e., 2009 when the article was written], as in many previous years, over the holiday season I re-read Ellery Queen’s The Finishing Stroke. As those of you who have read the novel already know, while The Finishing Stroke was written in 1957, the narrative is presented in three books and spans three different periods. The story principally takes place in “Book Two,” over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday in 1929, but it begins with “Book One,” set in 1905, and ends with “Book Three,” set in 1957. The three books comprising the story therefore span much of the lives of Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay, who created Ellery Queen.

    Like many Queen novels, The Finishing Stroke is best read on many levels. There are clues that have to do with the mystery at hand, but there are also clues that have to do with other things altogether. Expanding on this premise, it is a good rule of thumb in a Queen novel for the reader never to let a referenced date slide by without pausing to ponder whether the date has a hidden significance. A good example of this appears in the early pages of Book One of The Finishing Stroke, where we learn that the father of a central character died 104 years ago on this very date – January 11, 1905.

Doing the Numbers

    While an idle reader might brush past this, there is a significance to the date – on January 11, 1905, Manfred B. Lee, one half of the Ellery Queen writing team, was born. The other half of the Queen partnership, Frederic Dannay, was also born in 1905, but in the month of October. While Dannay remains, perhaps, the better known of the pair, it is Lee, the writer half of the collaboration, who I celebrate today, on what would have been his 104th birthday.

    Although Queen returned with a final series of books in the 1960s, it is common knowledge that The Finishing Stroke, the thirtieth Queen tome, originally was intended by Lee and Dannay to be the final Ellery Queen mystery. As such, it is a particularly interesting work, which can be read as a culmination of the series, at least as of 1957. The book spans the life of Ellery as well as his creators, and is, in many respects, a retrospective of Ellery Queen both as detective and as writer.

    As noted, The Finishing Stroke opens in 1905, the year that Lee and Dannay were born, but its narrative focuses on the year in which the first Queen novel, The Roman Hat Mystery was published. However this writing is hardly early Queen. Rather, The Finishing Stroke evidences a tight approach honed over many years, and in fact pokes fun at the early somewhat foppish Ellery and at the early more pompous Queen narrative style. This evidences a good deal of self awareness and self-deprecation on the part of both Lee and Dannay. While The Roman Hat Mystery may have opened the series with a flourish by winning a prize, it is the earliest of the Queen novels, and as such it simply can’t hold a candle to The Finishing Stroke and other late Queen works. It has been said that an author must either move forward or backward – staying the course is not an option. Ellery Queen’s novels got better and better as the series progressed.

Prior Significance

    In order to understand and appreciate the evolution of Ellery Queen’s writing, a little bit of detective work is required of us. We know the basics of how the Queen collaboration worked and evolved. We know, for example, that Dannay, in many respects, was the more public face of the Ellery Queen partnership. He performed the editorial tasks at Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and, we are told, more readily assumed the role of public persona. But while Dannay crafted the intricate outlines for the Ellery Queen novels and stories, we also know that it was Manfred B. Lee who in fact provided the written words, who crafted the Queen novels and stories, and whose writing skills continued to evolve over the decades.

    Mike Nevins observed at the Ellery Queen Centenary hosted by EQMM in 2005 that Dannay’s more outgoing nature – together with the unfortunate fact that Lee died early, in 1971, while Dannay lived on until 1982 – may have lessened the world’s perception of Lee’s importance to the partnership. But the simple fact remains that when Lee, who began his life on this date in 1905, died of a heart attack on the dressing room floor of his Roxbury, Connecticut home on April 3, 1971, Queen also died. After Lee’s death, there would be no more words.

Writing

    What do we know of Manfred Lee’s approach to wordsmithing? Rand Lee, in his essay “The Temple of his Words: Growing up with Ellery Queen,” which comprises one chapter of the Queen centenary volume The Tragedy of Errors, offers an invaluable insight into his father’s approach. Rand lists Lee’s “rules for budding authors” as follows:

1.    Read everything you can lay your hands on.
2.    Write what you know.
3.    Edit ruthlessly.
4.    Don’t bother with writing courses. You learn to write by writing.

Rand also expands on rule (3). “The editing advice Dad gave me was explicit, and I still try to follow it, however imperfectly: When you finish your first draft of a story, go back and cross out every adjective and adverb. Then put in only those adjectives and adverbs you feel you really need.”

    Lee’s writing, by his own admission, continued to evolve and mature. Rand writes that in his father’s view, the Queen novel Halfway House “marked the transition from his and [Dannay’s] youthful excesses to their first hint of writing maturity.” Rand also notes that his father, with some embarrassment, tried to dissuade his then-young son from reading the early Queen works, remarking that they were not all that good. This, again, is reflective of the fact that Ellery Queen’s writing never stood still – it always evolved. As a Queen fan, it is for me the second half of the Queen library – the books following the aptly-named Halfway House – that are the gems of the series. The writing is spare, the plotting is ingenious, and the cluing is scrupulously fair.

Collaboration

    Collaboration is always a difficult task, and by all accounts the Ellery Queen partnership was a contentious one. Had the partnership been a marriage, it would have been a rocky, yet enduring marriage. Lee was said to have resented the fact that his role, as the writer in the partnership, was to breathe life into the more convoluted Queen plots concocted by Dannay. The bickering between the two cousins became famous. Rand recalls in his essay that the two “had fallen into the routine of working long-distance between Connecticut and Larchmont, New York. And frequently I would pick up the extension phone to hear them arguing with one another.”

   At the Queen Centenary Symposium, Mike Nevins regaled the audience by reading the angry letters sent back and forth between the two cousins as they battled their way through drafts of various Queen novels. Jon L. Breen, in his essay “Ellery Queen,” also comprising a chapter of The Tragedy of Errors, similarly observes that a “casual reader of their correspondence would marvel that they managed to work as a team for over forty years, and might even conclude the two cousins hated each other.”

    Despite this, what is obvious to the fans of the series is that the cousins needed each other, and that but for the collaboration, however contentious, there could have been no Ellery Queen. Tellingly, when Frederic Dannay’s papers were exhibited at Columbia University’s Butler Library in 2005 to mark the Queen centenary, they contained a legal agreement, signed by Dannay and Lee, committing each of the cousins, on threat of damages, never to leave the partnership.

    Amazingly, through all their bickering, the Ellery Queen collaboration not only hit its stride early, it also continued to produce and improve for over forty years. Doubtless this success was anchored on the fact that each cousin found in the other that which he himself lacked. Rand writes that “by his own admission”, Lee “could not plot to save his life.” But, as a master of the written word, he excelled. And as already noted, when Lee was gone, so, too, was Queen: without him the writing stopped.

    This is not to say the process of writing was easy for Lee. We are told that he brooded over the fact that he wrote only mysteries, and (again, according to Rand) hoped that he could “elevate the mystery genre to the ranks of serious literature.” By all reports he battled recurring and, at times prolonged, bouts of writer’s block. But even when some later Queen novels were completed with the help of ghost writers, Lee’s hand is still apparent and integral to the crafting and editing process, and before his untimely death he returned as the writer of the final Queen volumes.

    It was perhaps because of all of this that The Finishing Stroke was to have been the final Ellery Queen mystery. Rand and others have written of how Lee wished that he could achieve success on his own and in a different genre. While this never happened, the evolution of Lee’s writing throughout the Queen series, including the volumes that eventually followed The Finishing Stroke, instead raised the mystery writing bar within the genre. Rand reminisces that “[i]n Kabbalah, God creates with Word. Words were worlds to my father.” The worlds he created he left to us in the Queen novels.

    But as I noted at the outset of this piece, Ellery Queen novels are often also about numbers. Numbers, and dates, are used cleverly to set up surprise endings, or to hint at an unsuspecting order that may lie just below the surface of perception. The significance of numbers and dates often extends beyond the plots of the books themselves. In keeping with this, it is interesting to note that from the beginning of The Finishing Stroke until its conclusion 52 years elapse, and from that date in 1957 until today, yet another 52 years have gone by.

Dates and Plums

Graham and me at the Bomba Shack beach bar in Tortola

    For my own reasons (which will yet become painfully apparent), over the last few months I watched the days march down toward this particular January 11. Now that the eleventh day of the first month of 2009 has arrived, let us celebrate Manfred B. Lee who was born 104 years ago today and who wrote the Queen novels from Frederic Dannay’s plot outlines. I offer this celebration to Lee, to his writing, and to Ellery Queen on a day that, like the reference to January 11, 1905 in The Finishing Stroke, has, at least for me, a secondary significance that has little to do with the main theme of this essay but much to do with a secondary theme and with the underlying order of things. There are only a finite number of days in the year, and birthdays therefore are often shared events. Today, for example, is my 60th.

    At the beginning of Book Three of The Finishing Stroke, Ellery tells us “with some alarm he realized that he was getting old.”

                                              *          *          *          *         *         *          *

     By way of postscript, and as a testament, once again, to the cyclical nature of time, and to the order in the universe that often defies inclusion within the definition of "random," today, January 15, 2013, it turns out, has become the birthday of our newest niece -- Taytum Grace Connor, born at 8:03 this morning.  Welcome!  Notwithstanding the foregoing, this is YOUR day!

Doubt

When I was reading a review of a new biography of Thornton Wilder, I came across the information that he had collaborated with Mrs. Hitchcock, among others, on the screenplay for the great Shadow of a Doubt. Any who do not know this classic psychological suspense movie from 1943 are in for a treat. It’s Hitchcock at his bland, safe, suburban best (but don’t you relax for a minute) and Joseph Cotton is perfect as the visiting relative who may, or may not, be a lady-killing serial  murderer.

Thoughts of Shadow of a Doubt led me to think about the importance of doubt in mysteries in general. Sure, we tend to think of mysteries as the genre of certainty. Detectives spend their time trying to establish the perpetrator to prosecutors’ satisfaction, and much of the pleasure of the genre rests in a tidy wind up with a ‘sure thing’ result.

But on the way to certainty, doubt can be a very useful device and one that produces a maximum amount of painful reflection and anxiety in the characters it afflicts. Young Charlie in Shadow loves her uncle, enjoys his company, and appreciates the whiff of big city sophistication he brings to sleepy Santa Rosa. The arrival of a detective with suspicions arouses first, her indignation, then her suspicion, and finally a realization that all is not right with her beloved uncle.

I’ve used a similar progression twice in novels. In Night Bus, the heroine must decide if she is paranoid or if her husband and sister-in-law are really plotting against her. This is an admittedly venerable story line but a useful variant of the much-favored ‘woman in jeopardy’. In Voices, the shoe is on the other foot. A family must decide if the earnest and vulnerable young woman who comes to call really is their long lost child or a deluded (or larcenous) intruder.

Doubt in short stories presents a greater challenge than in novels because everything must unfold quickly, preferably, as close as possible to the climax of the action. Nonetheless, I’ve tried stories with a high doubt quotient several times. In The Armies of the Night, a return to her old home forces the narrator to confront fearful, but hitherto suppressed, suspicions. In The Helpful Stranger, a woman is caught between her natural courtesy and a fear that the helpful stranger with his offer of a ride has another, more sinister, agenda.

I found these fun to do, especially The Helpful Stranger where I was able to combine rising doubt with a reversal of the two character’s roles. But in every case, doubt adds another layer to suspense. Someone pursued about an old dark house by a bad guy lives in straight-forward terror. But someone who is uncertain whether to be wary of a companion is in a different, more complex place, where fear of bodily harm is enhanced by fear of making a crucial social gaffe. The latter is often a feature of older UK mysteries, Eric Ambler making good use of it in Journey into Fear for one.

Film buffs and mystery fanatics will undoubtedly have a long list of stories with ambiguous characters and doubtful situations – Gaslight and Notorious come instantly to mind. But one of the great masters of doubt is neither a mystery writer nor a filmmaker. Nathaniel Hawthorne summed up the psychology of doubt as well as anyone: “Blessed are all simple emotions,” he wrote in Rappaccini’s Daughter, “be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the internal regions."

This is literally so in perhaps his greatest story, Young Goodman Brown. Young Brown ventures out to the night woods (bad idea) to attend a witches’ Sabbath (worse idea) for just this once (one of the few things my students understood immediately about this tale). He meets a stranger who strongly resembles his father, but neither Goodman Brown nor the reader has any doubt that this is the Prince of Darkness or, as the old Calvinists termed him, the Old Deceiver.

Rather, Brown’s doubt turns out to be of a fundamental and existential nature. Should he believe the fantastic events in the forest, the evidence of his senses? Should he conclude that his neighbors are all bound to the devil and only he has escaped damnation? Or is the deception the other way around, and is he the one, who, succumbing to momentary temptation, has had his life, his faith, and his happiness destroyed by the devil?

Now that is doubt with a capital D.

Professional Tips – John Lutz

At Bouchercon in Baltimore, several of us from Criminal Brief were going out to dinner. Along for the ride was a couple I didn't know, so I introduced myself.

John Lutz

If I could have picked any one person to meet, it would have been John Lutz, and here I was with my hand in a frozen clasp and my jaw unflatteringly prolapsing.

Gushing– I detest gushing. I hope I didn't gush. Gushing would have been the ultimate uncool. But I may have prattled on a bit about Nudger, maybe Frank Quinn or the Night series. Maybe a little. Or a lot.

Carving a Place for Himself

John Lutz rose to the top of my favorite American mystery authors long before I began writing and long before I realized how much he was honored by his colleagues. This man manages not only to be a prolific writer– both short stories and novels– but he avoids the death trap of an occasional contractual dud.

Usually writers excel at either characterization or plot. John Lutz handles both with ease. His protagonists are real, they're accessible, they're ordinary people with extraordinary barriers to overcome. Jack Reacher they are not but neither are they Tom Cruise.

Nudge, Nudger

My favorite is Nudger, a gentle PI with a carnivorous ex-wife, crushing debts, an unreliable car and a very reliable girlfriend. Indeed, he has a few very good friends even when, like Danny the doughnut man, they can be too much. Nudger doesn't bounce out of his rut, but he manages to climb up a centimeter at a time. That's good enough for most people.

My favorite novel plot comes from the Fred Carver series. Carver has a bad leg and bad enemies… one of them a corrupt police lieutenant. Carver finds an ingenious way to keep the lieutenant in line.

And premise? Imagine a cameraman taking time lapse photos of an office building and realizes one person doesn't move… all day long. Dum, de-dum, dum.

John Lutz's Top Ten Tips

While I was in South Africa, I received an eMail mentioning John Lutz'stop ten tips for writers. I haven't provided famous author tips in quite some time, so I was pleased to see this. Recently published by The Strand Magazine, I paraphrase here for the purposes of discussion.

What can we learn from John Lutz? Let's recap and study his recommendations.

1. Appeal to a broad range of readers.

   This should be obvious, but clearly many would-be authors miss the point. We've all known writers like that. When others question who their intended market is, they become defensive and talk about artistic merit and avoiding the crush of the mainstream– no problem there.

2. Write characters your readers will enjoy, likable and interesting. Bear in mind the importance of chemistry between characters.

   You'll remember an outstanding plot for a long time, but if you keep coming back to a book, a series, or an author, chances are it's for the characters.

3. Know the ending before beginning. John calls this a 'magnetic north' that keeps the writer from meandering.

   I'm relieved John makes this point. So many of the start-writing-and-see-where-your-story-takes-you school eschew having a fixed plot that I started wondering if I was the odd duck out. I may sketch a scene and then dream up the circumstances surrounding it, but I like to have a goal when I start writing. That doesn't mean an initial target can't be revised, but I have to know the ending first.

4. Build your characters as if you were to act them on stage. In other words, what is the motivation of each? Corollary: How can you make them distinctive?

   John asks what drives a character: respect, love, wealth, power, forgiveness, revenge? Figure that out and turn to method acting. Then give your players distinctive characteristics in looks, speech, and catch phrases.

5. Practise your craft in the same place and time each day. John says this makes it easier to lose yourself in your writing so readers might lose themselves in your work.

   This is where I fall short. I like to work at night because it's quiet where I can think and paint pictures on the dark screen of my mind. Unfortunately crazy people (merchants, schools, government offices) think I should remain available during the day. Ah, the privations and tribulations of an artist!

6. Read chapter endings and beginnings. End each chapter with a question, actual or implied.

   I believe John is suggesting making chapters sort of cliffhangers. In chapter 33, the good guy breaks away from the bad guys who were chasing him and turns onto the mountain road just as the brakes fail… turn the page to chapter 34.

7. Concentrate on the particular. Make the smallest details singular and real.

   This is somewhat related to (4) above. Romance writers recommend employing all five senses when describing, but good genre writers of any stripe should follow suit. Consider an amazing paragraph from Sue Grafton:
   

   As a child, I was raised with the same kind of white bread, which had the following amazing properties: If you mashed it, it instantly reverted to its unbaked state. A loaf of this bread, inadvertently squished at the bottom of a grocery bag, was permanently injured and made very strange-shaped sandwiches. On the plus side, you could roll it into little pellets and flick them across the table at your aunt when she wasn't looking. If one of these bread boogers landed in her hair, she would slap it, irritated, thinking it was a fly. I can still remember the first time I ate a piece of the neighbor's home-made white bread, which seemed as coarse and dry as a cellulose sponge. It smelled like empty beer bottles, and if you gripped it, you couldn't even see the dents your fingers made in the crust.

8. Read dialogue aloud.

   I am a believer in reading not just dialogue, but everything aloud. There's something about the exercise that catches errors and rotten writing like no other tool. And to vary the equation, I sometimes instruct my computer to read to me.

9. Let your writing 'cool off' before re-reading and revising.

   Again, I 'm a believer. Days, weeks, even months later, the brain sees a story in a new light. My reaction is often disgust. Only when I reach a point where I no longer detest what I've written do I begin to think it might be ready for someone else.

10. Double check you're satisfied with the four elements: character, situation, setting, and theme.

    If you're not fully comfortable with your writing, others won't be comfortable either. It all has to fit and work together. Don't 'make do', find a way to make it all work.

11. Pat yourself on the back.

Now you know why John Lutz is a favorite of mine.

New Year's Resolutions: Why I Don't Make Them

by Elizabeth Zelvin

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. No matter how many times I say it, a lot of people still don’t believe it. I keep saying it, thinking that this time they’ll get it. And they keep asking: “Really! You really don’t make New Year’s resolutions? How can you not make New Year’s resolutions? But you must make New Year’s resolutions!” They think that if they ask again, maybe this time my answer will change. And that’s the resolution process in a nutshell.

It’s not as if the millions of people who faithfully list the elements of the fresh start they’re going to make come January 1 are actually going to keep these resolutions. Year after year’s experience belies their ability to maintain the changes they’ve resolved to make. Do you consider it odd and irrelevant that I'm still talking about New Year's resolutions on January 12? I rest my case.

Take dieting. Americans value being thin more than any other physical characteristic. As a nation, we enjoy greater abundance than anywhere else on earth. Our holidays, our advertising, even our blogs extol the joys of good food. Our health professionals tell us that life-threatening obesity is endemic among us. They also advise physical fitness as a way to ensure good health and promote long life, and a billion-dollar industry has grown up to sell us products and services to enhance our fitness. (Remember when walking and running and climbing stairs used to be free?)

To resolve these chronic contradictions, people diet. On New Year’s Day, they declare, “This year, I’m going to stay away from junk food. I’m going to eat fewer desserts and more vegetables.” The erosion may set in as early as the neighbors’ New Year’s brunch, at which the pastries look sooo delicious…. If not, a bare six weeks or so away is Valentine’s Day, which can’t be celebrated without chocolate…. If we really expected to make permanent changes in our eating habits, why would we launch them as part of a ritual that we celebrate every single year?

But the fact that resolutions tend not to work in any lasting way is not the only reason I avoid them. As a shrink and as a person old enough to have amassed some life experience, I’ve come to believe that planning for a year is neither an effective nor an emotionally healthy way to live my life. You know the common expression about seeing no light at the end of the tunnel?

Mental health professionals call it projection. We give ourselves a lot of agita anticipating scary things that never happen. A popular acronym for fear is “future events already ruined.” How can we avoid the stress, anxiety, and dread that can feel overwhelming at times? By not looking down the tunnel. Some folks may dismiss “one day at a time” as psychobabble, but it actually makes life a lot more manageable. So on January 1, I looked around me and said, “What a beautiful day—I wonder what I’ll do with it?” And then I’ll do my best to fill my waking hours with as much pleasure, productivity, and love as I can manage. On January 2, I did the same thing.

And this morning, I did it again.

Note: I posted just about all of the above last New Year’s, but SleuthSayers was just getting started then, and I’m counting on most of this year’s readers not to have seen it before—and the rest to be old enough that they’ve forgotten it in the interim. My opinion about resolutions has not changed at all in the past year.