What Would You Do?

By Fran Rizer

Yes, I had the flu shot.  No, it didn't keep me from having the flu.  What it did was put me to bed too ill to read, so I turned on the television.

One of the programs that rolled across my screen was What Would You Do? This show is an American news magazine and hidden camera series that has been hosted by news correspondent John Quinones since 2008.  The idea is that actors perform scenes of conflict or illegal activity in public settings.  Hidden cameras videotape the scenes and focus on whether or not bystanders will intervene. At the end, Quinones appears and interviews the bystanders about why they did or did not step in.

John Quinones

Some of the scenarios have been:

A mother and her children are unable to afford their dream
Christmas tree, leaving the children visibly upset.  Many of the customers step in to comfort them or buy the tree for them.

While having dinner in a restaurant, a boy scout reveals to two other scouts that he is gay.  Diners step in to offer advice when the two other scouts threaten to tell their scout master.

A man accidentally drops an expensive bottle of wine in the ABC store and denies it, even pointing blame at other customers.

A young pregnant woman offers to sell her baby to people who pass by on the street.

Usually, at least one or two witnesses will step in and attempt to
mediate the situations.


I doubt seriously that I'll watch the show much now that I am feeling better, but it intrigued me because when my sons were younger, they were forever cautioning me, "Mom, someone will get mad at you for telling their children to behave."

Yes, I confess.  As a teacher, I had a tendency to suggest ideas for occupying children who were misbehaving in public.  Actually, I've had parents thank me when I offered paper and colored pencils with a suggestion that the child might like to draw while waiting for dinner to be served in a restaurant instead of crawling around on the floor beneath my own table. My own children were afraid I would offend someone, but most people smiled and thanked me.

A child's temper tantrum can spoil dinner at a restaurant.

Back to the topic.  The Sunday before Christmas, my family attended a live theater production of Dickens's A Christmas Carol as adapted by my friend James H. Kirk.  Sitting beside me were a Callie fan and her daughter who is in middle school.

The daughter told me that she's writing a book and asked, "How many pages should I make it?"

My response was, "Don't decide a number of pages.  Make the book as long as it takes to tell your story."

The next question came from the mother:  "What is the most important advice you can give to a beginning writer?"

That's a hard one, and my answer depends upon the age and writing experience of the person asking the question.  Most of the time, I answer that question with, "Learn all the rules so you'll know what you're doing when you break them."

My title today is What Would You Do? but what I want to know is What would you say?

My question for each of you:  What is the most important advice you can give to a beginning writer?



Until we meet again, please take care of . . . you.

“Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone”

Today our friend and colleague, Louis Willis, announces his retirement.

I first came across Louis in his own blog, where he critiqued black mystery authors and novels featuring black protagonists. He contributed articles to Criminal Brief and, as SleuthSayers was being formed, we invited him to become a permanent member. I often thought of Louis as ‘our academic’, because he studied literature more than most of us.

After his discharge from the Navy in 1958, Louis never lost his joy of learning and pursued higher education at Illinois Institute of Technology. Halfway through a degree in engineering, his love of literature induced him to change majors to English lit.

There he encountered… or more correctly didn’t encounter studies of black authors such as he’d appreciated in high school. When made aware of this shortcoming in their curriculum, IIT invited him to lecture about black authors in American lit.

Louis was familiar with Richard Wright and had begun reading James Baldwin. As he immersed myself in the research, he discovered Zora Neale Hurston (whose Florida home is minutes from mine), Ralph Ellison and many more.

Following formal retirement from the government decades later, he returned home to Knoxville from Richmond, California with his youngest daughter and her son to care for his mother who died a year later in 1997. With time on his hands, he returned to his love of learning and enrolled in a graduate degree program at the University of Tennessee and graduated in 2004 with a Masters in English.

Louis also has a son who attended Lemoyne Owen College in Memphas and had three sons himself, the youngest born a year ago on 31 December, nearly a New Year’s baby.

Louis’ favorite authors are Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Hemingway, Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Anton Chekhov, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jorge Luis Borges. Recently, he's studying Eudora Welty. In crime fiction, his favorites are Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, Richard S. Prather, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dame Agatha Christie, and of course all SleuthSayers authors.

— Leigh Lundin

The Long Goodbye that Isn't
“Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone”

by Louis Willis

I usually limit myself in writing an article to no less than 300 and no more than 700 words. Because goodbyes should be short, this post is under 300 words.

The title of this post is in quotation marks because I took it from a forgotten novel, a poem, or a line in a blues song. It expresses how I feel in having to say goodbye to all my SleuthSayers friends. I won’t be posting any more articles but I won’t be gone either, for I shall continue to read and occasionally comment on your posts. I’ll also continue writing critical reviews of African American crime fiction novels on my blog, which you can access here.

During the past three years, I’ve learned how writers think in constructing their stories. As I read your post, I experienced the sweet misery you go through while constructing your stories. Your posts also confirmed something I’ve always thought: writers write because they cannot not write.

As I write this post, I’m glad you can’t see me because I’m getting all choked up. Saying goodbye to good friends is not easy.

Thank you Leigh for giving me the opportunity to write for an appreciative audience.

Thank all of you for being an appreciative and encouraging audience.

Don't Say You Weren't Warned

by John M. Floyd

                                

Mystery author Lawrence Block once told a joke about the use of foreshadowing. I'm paraphrasing, but here it is:

Officer: Okay, soldier. Suppose an enemy sub surfaced and ran aground on that beach over there, and suppose it offloaded fifty enemy troops. What would you do?

Soldier: Sir, I'd blow 'em off the sand with concentrated mortar fire.

Officer: What? Where would you get the mortars?

Soldier: Same place you got the submarine.

Foreshadowing, according to Block, is the technique of making both the submarine and the mortars acceptable to the reader.

Definitions vary. Merriam-Webster says foreshadowing is "a suggestion of something that has not yet happened." In the literary world, it's a little more complicated. Among other things, it means the early inclusion of information that makes later action believable. Because of this, and because our fictional plots must always be (or at least appear to be) logical, this writing technique is one of the most useful items in our toolkit.

It's a mystery to me

Mystery stories probably lend themselves to foreshadowing more than any other genre, because the clues in the narrative usually lead to the solution of the case--and if the reader pays attention, he is ideally given enough facts to come up with the answer himself. This is true of most crime/suspense stories, not just whodunits; the foreshadowing in thrillers and other non-traditional mysteries is sometimes used to telegraph to the reader the means by which the protagonist will get out of whatever fix the writer puts him in. Maybe there's a hidden gun in the kitchen cabinet, or the killer's henchman is really an undercover cop, or the radio button on the dashboard is the trigger for the ejection seat.

And foreshadowing isn't always used just to "explain" later events. It can also be a way to generate suspense and anticipation. If you read a story or novel or see a movie that mentions, during its first half, a particularly scary place, or an especially fearsome enemy, then you as the reader/viewer will dread any situation that might put our hero in that dangerous location, or put him in contact with that terrible person or entity you've been told about. Consider this: A group of hikers sees a razor-wire fence, or maybe a skull-and-crossbones sign, on a ridge as they pass through the valley below, and one of them asks their guide what it is. The guide looks up and frowns and says, "Oh, that? That's the border of the Forbidden Zone. We won't be going there." That of course is foreshadowing, and the Forbidden Zone is of course exactly where the poor hikers will wind up, before the story's done.

What does foreshadowing really look like, in some of the movies and novels and stories that we've seen or read?  (NOTE: The following examples contain spoilers . . .)

Hiding in plain sight

The Usual Suspects -- As Verbal is questioned by the police, he sees a number of newspaper clippings posted on their bulletin board. Those "clues" later add up to a great surprise ending.

Psycho -- Norman Bates tells his motel guest, early on, that his mother is "as harmless as one of those stuffed birds." Which turns out to be true, since she's as dead as they are. It's her son who isn't harmless.

Wait Until Dark -- The blind lady remarks to a visitor in her apartment that her old refrigerator growls when its door is open because it needs to be defrosted. Later, after the lady has escaped from a killer in her apartment and has frantically knocked out all the lights in every room so he'll be in the dark as well, he quietly opens her fridge's door so the light will come on and he can see. She, of course, doesn't know he's done this--but then the refrigerator growls. She now knows the door's open, and knows that he can see her but she can't see him. One of the best movies scenes I've ever watched.

The Empire Strikes Back -- "Much anger in him," Yoda says to Obi-wan, "like his father." He's talking about Luke Skywalker, who turns out to be the son of Darth Vader.

Jaws -- Hooper warns Chief Brody about the potentially explosive nature of the scuba tanks, and Brody says something like "What good is all this expensive equipment? Maybe the shark will eat it." Later the shark winds up with one of the tanks in his mouth (jaws?) and Brody shoots the tank, thus blowing Great Whitey to bits.

Reservoir Dogs -- An orange balloon is seen floating along in the street behind a car. As the story progresses, Mr. Orange turns out to be the impostor who's infiltrated the gang.

The James Bond novels and films -- Before most of 007's missions, the armorer demonstrates the newest lethal gadgets developed by Q Branch. Later Bond uses them to save his skin (and the world).

Fatal Attraction -- When Dan Gallagher says he has to go walk his dog, the lady to whom he is fatally attracted replies, "Just bring the dog over--I'm great with animals and I love to cook." She later cooks Gallagher's daughter's pet bunny.

Once Upon a Time in the West -- Several brief flashbacks show a mysterious blurred figure approaching the protagonist, in the desert. At the end, that image clears to reveal the villain--and the reason the protagonist has been searching for him for all these years.

The Edge -- An Alaskan guide explains to a group of tourists what a bear pit is, and points one out, saying, "Be careful--don't fall in." Afterward, when the two main characters are alone in the wilderness, and one is about to shoot the other, the gunman falls into a bear pit. The viewer accepts this turn of events only because of that earlier explanation.

The Shawshank Redemption -- During the search of an inmate's cell, the prison's warden picks up a Bible and says, "Salvation lies within." It's later revealed that the rock hammer used for the breakout is concealed inside the hollowed-out pages of that Bible.

Goodfellas -- "Tommy's not a bad kid," Paulie Cicero admits. "What am I supposed to do, shoot him?" Which is exactly what happens.

Citizen Kane -- The word "rosebud" is spoken at the first, and its meaning is revealed at the end.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- At one point, the wealthy collector notes that they're only one step away from locating the Holy Grail. Indy replies, "That's usually where the ground falls out from underneath your feet." When at the end of the story they find the Grail, a huge earthquake swallows some of the party.

Aliens -- Lt. Ellen Ripley, who during training has demonstrated her proficiency with a powerloader, later uses a powerloader to battle and defeat the alien queen.

"The Lottery" -- The pile of stones at the very beginning of this short story later takes on a whole new meaning.

Cool Hand Luke, Ghost, Love Story, Casablanca -- Bits of early dialogue are later repeated at or near the end, for closure: "What we got here is a failure to communicate," "Ditto," "Love means never having to say you're sorry," "Here's looking at you, kid."

L.A. Confidential -- Captain Smith asks Ed Exley whether he would be willing to plant evidence, beat a confession out of a suspect, or shoot a criminal in the back. Exley says no. By the end of the movie, he has done all three.

These are probably not the best examples, but they're some that came quickly to mind. Can you think of other cases where foreshadowing is effectively used? As a writer, do you find yourself using it in your own fiction?

Signs of things to come

I recently re-watched a film called Signs, made in 2002 and featuring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. That movie successfully uses more instances of foreshadowing than any other I've seen--so many that I plan to cover it in a separate column. Probably in two weeks.

How's that for foreshadowing?

27.3%

by R.T. Lawton

     Okay, so I fudged a bit on the math by rounding up for the title, but it's close enough for government work. Anyway, my point is that three of the eleven stories published in the January/February 2015 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine were written by members of the SleuthSayers blog. That's a nice percentage, and one of these days, the way we're all going, it may get even higher.

 Eve Fisher leads off this winter double issue with her story, "The Headless Horseman." How would you like to live in a small town where you were known by your nickname of The Headless Horseman, or even Headless for short? Clarence, a young man who lives two blocks away from the young female protagonist, is stuck with that nickname because of an earlier incident with the  protagonist. In time, the young girl believes Headless is involved in some not-so-nice activities, so she shadows him around town and starts collecting information about anything he does. Headless soon notices that he's being followed and tries to discourage her. This all comes to a head when the girl walks in on Headless standing beside the freshly dead body of a woman he worked with at a local restaurant. Headless must now decide what to do about the girl. It's another excellent story set in small town South Dakota.

     For "The Irish Boy," Janice Law continues the adventures of Nip Tompkins, the orphan boy who works for Madame Selina, one of the city's most famous mediums. Madame allegedly has the services of Aurelius, an old Roman emperor, to assist her in answering people's questions or in finding people or lost objects. In this episode, the brother of one of Nip's female friends has gone missing. Madame locates the missing brother in another town where he has joined a rough crew of Irishmen who are about to cross the river on a dangerous and violent mission into Canada. The problem soon becomes how to convince both the girl's brother and the Irish crew he has become a part of that he shouldn't cross the river on this mission. Are Madame and Aurelius up to the situation and if so, how can they do it? Read the story and find the outcome. As for me, I can scarce wait for the next episode of Madame Selina and Nip.

     The third contributor is...well...me, with "Elder Brother," the second story in my Shan Army series set in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia. [NOTE: The editor of AHMM has already purchased the third story, "On the Edge," so this is officially a series, plus Rob Lopresti recently critiqued the fourth story, "Merit Making," which is now on it's way to the e-submission slush pile.
     In this series, two half-brothers constantly jockey to be first in line to inherit the title of opium warlord upon the demise of their mutual Chinese father. The elder brother, Kang, is the offspring of a hill woman of the Shan tribe. Kang has grown up in the savage jungles of East Burma, while the younger brother is full-blood Chinese educated in the private British schools of civilized Hong Kong. At this point, a White Nationalist soldier under the command of our protagonist (the younger brother) has been kidnapped by some of Elder Brother's men from the Shan Army. This kidnapped soldier knows secrets that younger brother would prefer to be kept quiet. A squad of picked men is quickly formed to go on a rescue mission. But, in the deadly wilderness of the Golden Triangle, anything can happen.

Have some Happy Holidays, enjoy your reading and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Merry Christmas, a Brief "Best of" List and a Happy New Year!

by Brian Thornton

Greetings

First things first:

Season's Greetings! Joyeux Noël! Feliz Navidad! Frohe Weihnachten!

Memories

Merry Christmas from the wilds of Central Washington (my folks' house- thanks for the bandwidth, Mom and Dad!).

This is the time of year that lends itself to memories. Good, bad, funny, poignant. Everyone has memories of the holiday season.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of mine:

My Uncle Bob, terminally ill with cancer, and about as politically conservative as they come, getting a "Vote Obama" sweatshirt as a white elephant gift and playing it up for laughs. I have the pictures of him wearing it.

A good memory of a man I miss terribly.

My son is 2 1/2 this December, and is in the "Train Love" stage of toddler development (Thank you, Thomas the Train Engine!). All afternoon I've been watching him play with a wood block train my brother got him this year. He's a little iffy on the whole "Santa" thing, but he loves the lights and he likes the tree, and has yet to turn down any chocolate or cookies that have come his way.

Atta Boy!

Christmas 1986, spent with a wonderful Australian family in Perth who called up "Dial-a-Sailor" and opened their home to four of us from my ship (I was in the Navy). Wonderful people, wonderful meal, wonderful day.

And Now For a Brief (and completely RANDOM) "Best of" List

(Hey, everyone ELSE is doing it!)

2014 was a terrific year for mysteries! Here are a few that I consider the "Best of 2014":

Best Police Procedural: The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

This is the best thing Connelly has done since The Lincoln Lawyer and the best Bosch book since The Closers. THIS BOOK IS NOT TO BE MISSED!

Best "Caper" Novel: Duke City Split by Max Austin

"Max Austin" is a pseudonym of the (usually) hilarious Steve Brewer. If you're not familiar with his work, Duke City Split is a wonderful intro to his considerable canon. But fair warning, this new series bears a closer resemblance to the best work of Don Winslow and Bob Crais than to the comedic stuff for which Steve/Max is usually known.

ALSO NOT TO BE MISSED!

Best Historical Mystery: Tabula Rasa by Ruth Downie

I yield to no one in my admiration for Ruth Downie, whose Roman Britain-set novels feature a medicus (army doctor) named Gaius Petreius Ruso and his Briton wife Tilla. In this, the sixth in this fine series, Ruso and Tilla are stationed with one of the legions tasked with building Hadrian's Wall. A clerk goes missing, the natives (whose lands are being bisected) are restless, and then a body is found hidden in the wall....

And then things really get interesting!

Downie knows how to keep a series fresh and her characters continue to be wonderfully engaging. DEFINITELY NOT TO BE MISSED!

And that's it for my brief and decidedly eclectic list of best mysteries of 2014.

And in the spirit of the season, I'm going to keep this post brief.

After all, those memories ain't gonna make themselves.

Daddy's Little Memory Maker

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Brian

Away in a Manger

I stopped being particularly religious about the age of fifteen, but Christmas still casts a spell. There's something about the narrative. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." (St. Luke) The rhythms of the King James have enormous grace. They may not reflect the Aramaic, or its later translation into Greek, which is what those English guys in the early 1600's were working from, but I don't think it matters. The same is true of the Anglican version of the Book of Common Prayer, also revised under the same roof, by James I. Whether or not you follow the doctrine is beside the point. What counts is the cadence of the language, its discipline and ambition.
Years ago, I'd go with my mom to the Christmas service of lessons and carols at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. it was a somewhat severe venue, low-end Episcopalian, with the names of Harvard men who'd died in the world wars engraved in panels on the walls, a chill presence, bearing witness to their sacrifice, but at Christmastime the church was decorated with a lot of warmth, holly boughs and aromatic pine swags and poinsettias, all brightened with candlelight. It was comforting. And the familiarity, too. O, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Good King Wenceslas looked out (I always finished the verse mentally with on his feets uneven, a nod to Walt Kelly). The effect on me wasn't ceremonial, but a conjured myth of childhood, surrendering to innocence. I've got no argument with sentimentality. Sentimentality's okay by me.

Suppose, on the other hand, that we cast a colder eye on the narrative, and give it a more sinister spin. David Morrell, in THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS, does a little back-to-front, where the guy retells the Nativity as an espionage story. This works pretty well, if you think about it. The circumstances of a clouded birth, then the Flight into Egypt, to escape Herod's assassins, the boy later apprenticed to his carpenter father, God's witness protection program. (What did Joseph imagine in all this, anyway? He didn't knock the girl up.) The kid's head gets turned - John the Baptist an active recruiter for some as yet unnamed spook outfit, so to speak - and the Nazarene starts to preach sedition. Jesus, in effect, mounts a false-flag operation, and draws Rome's attention away from Barabbas, who by all accounts is politically more dangerous and puts his money where his mouth is. In this reading, Jesus of Nazareth is the Lee Harvey Oswald, a patsy, or a stalking horse, and not the hero at all. I know this is irreligious, of course, but why spoil a good story for lack of the facts?

Well, enough of that nonsense. Taken at face value, unto us a child is born - no room at the inn, the shepherds tending their flocks by night, the journey of the Magi - it still works its magic. You don't have to believe it's the hand of God, necessarily. Probably doesn't do any harm, either. The hopes and fears of all the years. We bring a lot of baggage to any story. Maybe we bring more to this one than most. It's an investment. We all believe in a child's native innocence. The loss is our grief. If, for sake or argument, we don't know the story's end, but only how it begins, then the birth of Christ is the stirring of hope. We embrace the myth because it's our own, each of us born, each of us begun. Destiny waits to be chosen.


http://www.davidedgerleygates.com/

A Very Tom Waits Christmas

by Jim Winter

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh
Christmas Eve was dark, and the snow fell like cocaine off some politician’s coffee table
Rudolph looked to the sky. He had a shiny nose, but it was from too much vodka
He said, “Boys, it’s gonna be a rough one this year.”

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh
The elves scrambled to pack up the last of the lumps of coal for deserving suburban brats
And a bottle of Jamie for some forgotten soul whose wife just left him
Santa’s like that. He’s been there.
Oh, he still loves Mrs. Claus, a spent piece of used sleigh trash who
Makes good vodka martnis, knows when to keep her mouth shut
But it’s the lonlieness, the lonliness only Santa knows

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh
And the workshop reeks of too much peppermint
The candy canes all have the names of prostitutes
And Santa stands there, breathing in the lonliness
The lonliness that creeps out of the main house
And out through the stables
Sometimes it follows the big guy down the chimneys
Wraps itself around your tannenbaum and sleeps in your hat

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh
We all line up for the annual ride
I’m behind Vixen, who’s showin’ her age these days
She has a certain tiredness that comes with being the only girl on the team
Ah, there’s nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars wouldn’t fix
She’s got a tear drop tattooed under her eye now, one for every year Dancer’s away

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh and
I asked myself, “That elf. What’s he building in there?”
He has no elf friends, no elf children
What’s he building in there?
He doesn’t make toys like the other elves
I heard he used to work for Halliburton,
And he’s got an ex-wife in someplace called Santa Claus, Pennsylvania
But what’s he building in there?
We got a right to know.

I pulled on Santa’s sleigh
And we’re off Off into the night
Watching the world burn below
All chimney red and Halloween orange

I’ve seen it all
I’ve seen it all
Every Christmas Eve, I’ve seen it all
There’s nothing sadder than landing on a roof in a town with no cheer.