Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Medicine and Mysteries. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Medicine and Mysteries. Sort by date Show all posts

11 September 2022

Medicine and Mysteries: Justice Served


Medicine and mystery novels have much in common and this pandemic has highlighted one commonality in a very tragic way.

Many doctors I know are mystery readers. Many mystery writers the world knows are doctors, from Arthur Conan Doyle to Josephine Bell, Daniel Kalla and Tess Gerritsen.

Readers of mysteries are often greeted with a person facing a serious situation, or a tragedy, often from the first page or shortly thereafter. The rest of the book is all about unraveling the complexities of this story – the pain, the fears and, often with many clues – finally finding out whodunnit.

In medicine a person comes carrying a serious story and through listening to the story, unraveling the complexities of their story, their pains, their fears, we often add some tests and hopefully lift the burden of their story with a treatment once we’ve identified the disease or - in mystery terms - whodunnit.

The focus on the story, the complexities of people and the determination to find whodunnit: this is what mystery readers (and writers) and doctors share.

There’s something else they have in common: a sense of moral beliefs and justice being satisfied – as much as they can be – is part of this commonality.

Physicians go into medicine to help people – to deliver just and fair care to patients. Oddly, one can look on medicine as a means (within limits of science) to rectify the wrongs of disease. It is an attempt to give back the patient the best life they can have for as long as they can have it.

Readers approach mystery novels with a sense of righting wrongs and a sense of of justice delivered.

Imagine a mystery book where everyone throws up their hands and claims that they will never find a murderer because they don’t care or can’t be bothered. Where not even a smidgen of justice is served and the smirking murderer goes free. Now, of  course this may make an interesting plot but, let’s face it, it’s not the normal fare served by a mystery novel. In fact, I would argue, that seeing evil get their comeuppance is part of the satisfaction of reading a good mystery. Yes, we must often tolerate suffering of the innocent but suffering of the many innocents while detectives shrug their shoulders is certainly not the norm and would leave readers disappointed.

Now, imagine being a doctor during the pandemic. At first, physicians were swamped with patents they could not help because COVID-19 was a new disease. Not only did we lack vaccines and treatments, but we were woefully short of the knowledge and supplies to use masks. Then, vaccines came in, and when one waned, we had more vaccines and the promise (now fulfilled) of better vaccines. We had good quality research to show that masks work to prevent infection and even ample supplies of good masks, not just to protect healthcare workers but also the public. We now have rapid antigen tests - although they aren’t perfect, they give an indication of who is infected, allowing them to isolate and prevent further infections.

All of this good stuff should make being a doctor better than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. So, why are many doctors burning out, quitting their jobs or suffering from various mental health problems, including depression?

Part of it stems from the behaviour of the public. Many are eschewing updating their vaccines – or refusing vaccines altogether – and refusing to wear masks. If they get infected and hospitalized – there are some treatments. However, putting a COVID19 patient in a hospital bed may mean that a cancer patient doesn’t get their surgery or a patent in pain doesn’t get a hip replacement. The doctors caring for cancer patients who can’t get a hospital bed, can’t offer them optimal treatment and watch the unnecessary deterioration of their patients. As we add more patients with COVID19 and LongCovid, and lose doctors, physicians at times cannot get their patients access to the help they need for specialist care. Some physicians have been subjected to abuse – verbal and physical – from increasingly frustrated patients. 

The Canadian Medical Association has identified moral injury as a serious and growing problem during the pandemic:

“In the context of health care, when physicians are unable to uphold the oath they took to deliver the best care and put the needs of their patients first, they can experience moral injury. Moral injury is not considered a mental illness; however, those who experience moral injuries often develop negative thoughts about themselves and others, and these symptoms can lead to the development of mental health conditions.”

Moral injury is not a new problem for physicians, but it has increased during this pandemic. A pre-pandemic paper described the dilemma accurately:

“Moral injury describes the challenge of simultaneously knowing what care patients need but being unable to provide it due to constraints that are beyond our control.”

To not be able to properly care for patients is like a lousy ending to a mystery novel – except it’s worse. Much worse. These are real people. With lives, loves and people who love them. To not be able to help a patient because medical science is not up to the task is always sad. However, to not be able to access the care we have and allowing patients to suffer is immoral and unjust.

29 June 2015

Dear Dad


Dear Dad,

As you may know, last time I wrote about how Mom reads my books now. It only seems fair to talk to you this week, even though we haven’t spoken since 2008. So, how’s it going?

I’ve been concentrating on mysteries lately. I find them satisfying because you can describe the ugliness in the world and bring a bad guy to justice. Since I work in an emergency room, I see a lot of illness, and not a lot of justice. Nice people get cancer. Sometimes nice people die. Meanwhile, a patient punched one of our nurses in the face and another patient attacked a different nurse with a high-heeled shoe. I’m having trouble finding the links, though, because there was an even more dramatic story about a patient hit a third nurse with a metal bar while uttering death threats.
Don’t worry, though. I feel pretty safe. We do have security guards, and I see at least one concrete change: we now have posters on the wall saying that we have a zero tolerance attitude toward violence. I hope the criminals can read.
It’s funny. I know you and mom always approved of me going into medicine because it’s considered a safe career. Much safer than writing, which is considered pretty much equivalent to committing hara-kiri. But now that I think about it, medicine is far more dangerous. You spend years abusing your brain and body, inhaling as much information and working as many hours as possible, exposing yourself to flesh-eating disease and felons, whereas a writer…sits in a room and makes stuff up.
True, writers earn less money on average, and poor people tend to get sick. This article even mentions that almost half of poor children have witnessed a killing.
Still, I remember reading articles saying that most doctors discouraged their children from becoming physicians. The articles slid right off of me as a medical student. I was young. I was excited. I was going to be a doctor!
But now, when my four-year-old daughter says, “I want to be a doctor,” I’m thinking of the deregulated medical school tuition and fees alone that cost up to $24,000 per year. I’m thinking of how much she loves babies (already, she walked around Sears, choosing which carriage and crib her baby should have), and how hard it is to balance children and medicine. And I understand why this survey showed that nine out of ten physicians discourage anyone from entering medicine.
I guess that’s why my other moniker is The Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World.
Anyway, I’m not sure what you think of my writing. The most reaction I got out of you was when I brought you and mom to the joint book launch for Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic and Open Space: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction, and you were astonished by the free food and drinks. “Who’s paying for this?” you asked afterward.
I wasn’t sure myself. That’s a mystery, too.
But not as much of a mystery as what you’re up to now, after fighting a high-grade glioma for 18 months before succumbing in May 2008. I’m agnostic, but part of me wants to believe that somehow, you know you now have four adorable grandchildren and that I still love you.

Love,
Mel

13 June 2021

Dr. Josh Trebach and his Tox Murder Mysteries


I usually interview people and write articles, but not today.

First, let me introduce you to Dr. Josh Trebach, an emergency physician and toxicology fellow at NYC. You can follow him @jtrebach on twitter and following him is a treat for anyone interested in the lovely combination of medicine and mystery.

Second, let me explain why I didn’t interview Dr. Trebach. He writes murder mystery threads. They are so perfectly written, that I asked him for permission to put them, largely unedited, in an article.

So, here’s how he introduces his mysteries: Buckle up - it’s tox murder mystery thread.

Without further ado, here are two of his mysteries. 

Tox murder mystery #1.

A 45 year old man is found dead in the orthopedic room of an emergency department. He has no signs of trauma and no past medical history.

What do you think happened?

Clues

  1. The man was hired by the hospital to clean drain pipes blocked by plaster washed down the sink by silly residents. (Stop washing your plaster down the sink! I see you!! STOP DOING IT! It's nasty and gross)
  2. The material used to make the splints was Plaster of Paris. This product is still used today.
  3. The man was using sulfuric acid to clean the drain and dissolve the clogged up Plaster of Paris. I'm a toxicology fellow, not a drain declogging expert, what do you want from me? I don't know why they used that.
  4. What happens to Plaster of Paris when its gunked up in the pipes?  It gets chewed up by bacteria. Under anaerobic conditions, the bacteria can make a nasty, thick (thicc?) calcium sulfide sludge.
  5. Sulfuric acid + Calcium Sulfide = ??? UGHHHHH chemistry.

Yet, the answer is in here. These two combine in the following chemical reaction, giving us our answer.

  CaS + H2SO4 → CaSO4 + H2S  

The culprit: Hydrogen Sulfide gas was formed by the chemical reaction above and it caused the man to die pretty quickly. Perhaps the only thing abnormal on the patient's skin exam was his silver wedding ring that had tarnished after reacting with the gas.

Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless gas that classically smells like rotten eggs . It gets inhaled into the body and interferes with oxidative phosphorylation and causes cellular hypoxia. What does this translate into? Rapid unconsciousness and cardiopulmonary arrest.

Hydrogen sulfide is scary. People will die in groups because whenever someone (not wearing PPE) goes to rescue the victim, they become exposed to the gas and then pass out/die… and the cycle continues.In fact, at ~1000ppm, breathing will STOP after just 1-2 breaths.

Treatment: Moving the victim to fresh air and giving oxygen, in addition to good supportive care and respiratory/ventilatory support, is key. Antidotes such as sodium nitrite work by inducing methemoglobinemia which scavenges the hydrogen sulfide.

Tox murder mystery #2.

A 33 year old woman is found dead in a bank vault. She has no signs of trauma and no past medical history.

What do you think happened?

Clues

  1. The woman was a bank employee doing normal bank employee things. Unfortunately, when she went into the bank vault, it locked behind her. Whoopsies.
  2. She waved at the camera. She banged on the doors. She pulled the fire alarm (but nothing happened?). She tried her phone but had no service and couldn't even tweet. Imagine the horror.
  3. She figured she would wait an hour or so until someone else opened the vault… yet, over the course of 30 minutes, the woman slowly dropped to the ground and suffocated to death. What happened? Why did she die so quickly? Let’s learn about asphyxiants!
  4. Asphyxiants cause harm by suffocation. There are two categories of asphyxiants– chemical and simple. Chemical asphyxiants (like hydrogen sulfide) interrupt the body's ability to deliver or utilize oxygen.
  5. Simple asphyxiants displace the oxygen in the air, making it so there's less oxygen around for you and your body. Thus, when you take a deep breath, you get a mouthful of NOT OXYGEN. Your body/mitochondria are like "ew seriously?"… and then you suffocate.
  6. But what does any of this have to do with our case? Well, ask yourself--why is there a fire alarm in a bank vault? Most times when you pull a fire alarm, you trigger a water sprinkler system...but then that would cause the money to get nasty and wet. Gross.
  7. So the fire alarm doesn't trigger the release of water. But how else can you put out a fire? By using a CARBON DIOXIDE-BASED FIRE EXTINGUISHER SYSTEM! By releasing carbon dioxide and displacing the oxygen, the combustion reaction cannot occur and fire is put out!

Unfortunately, this woman sealed her fate the moment the fire alarm was pulled. Carbon dioxide filled the bank vault and she suffocated from this simple asphyxiant. Education about the risks with these extinguishers is key– these are preventable deaths.

Simple asphyxiants are everywhere. Virtually every gas (except oxygen) can act as a simple asphyxiant– the dose makes the poison. There are even cases of people dying after being in a room with a bunch of dry ice (sublimation reaction leads to lots of carbon dioxide).

Treatment: Get away from the simple asphyxiant. Get to oxygen. This seems remarkably simple, but unfortunately, can be very challenging in some situations (like when you are trapped in a bank vault).

20 July 2019

A Saturday Post About The Saturday Evening Post


A few years ago I discovered a new market for my stories--or, more accurately, I was told about it. It wasn't a mystery market (those are the ones I usually look for), but one that is occasionally receptive to mysteries as well. It was a magazine whose name I recognized, but I had never considered submitting a story there.

When I think of The Saturday Evening Post, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Norman Rockwell's covers. But they do publish one short story in every bi-monthly print edition, and the one in the current issue is mine. (I would prefer they make things easier by just using one of my stories in every issue, but they might not agree with that idea.)

A little Post history

Like me, the SEP has been around awhile. It began in the 1820s, and I'm told it did pretty well until the 1890s, and then sank to a circulation of around two thousand. Then--under new leadership--it rose to around 250,000 in 1900 and a million in 1908. Apparently it continued to flourish until the 1960s, reaching a circulation of around seven million. In the late sixties, though, the Post had another downturn, and by 1982 it had become, according to its website, a non-profit entity focusing on health, medicine, volunteerism, etc. In 2013 it underwent a do-over, returning to its original policy of celebrating the storytelling, art, and history of America. I am now a subscriber and I truly enjoy the magazine.

One thing of interest to folks like me is that the Post--as I said earlier--features one piece of fiction in every print edition, and then makes those stories available online about two weeks after their appearance in print. My story in their current (July/Aug 2019) issue became available online this past week. I understand the SEP is also a market for strictly online stories, where a new story is featured every week. I have not investigated or sent anything to that venue, but I know several fellow SleuthSayers who have submitted and have been published there, and I would welcome their comments and information on that piece of the market.

What does all this have to do with mystery writing? Not much. Only three of the eight stories I've had published by the SEP are mysteries--or at least mysteries in the sense that a crime is central to their plots. (That remains the criteria by which Otto Penzler selects the content for his annual Best American Mystery Stories anthologies.) That of course means that more than half of my SEP stories are not mysteries. But most writers like to dabble now and then in other genres anyway.

My Post history

Looking back at the past several years, here are the short stories I've been fortunate enough to sell to the SEP, along with a mini-synopsis of each:


1. "The Outside World" -- 2600 words -- March/April 2013 issue. A mysterious old woman helps a
young man who's been blinded in an accident regain his hope for the future. I remember that I wrote this non-mystery story really fast, after the idea first entered my head.

2. "The First of October" -- 1600 words -- Nov/Dec 2013. Fate brings two college sweethearts back together after many years of hardship and separation. This was sort of a romance story with a twist, and one that I was surprised (but happy) that the Post accepted.

3. "Margaret's Hero" -- 5300 words -- May/June 2014. A white child, her beloved horse, and an African American foreman create an unlikely and strong alliance. This was fun to write because it was done in a familiar southern setting and about the kind of folks I grew up around.

4. "Saving Grace" -- 4500 words -- July/Aug 2015. A grown son estranged from his mother returns to his hometown to find that an unfortunate (and illegal) incident in his past has miraculously affected later events. The plot for this story, which includes some fantasy elements, came to mind after one of my many viewings of It's a Wonderful Life.

5. "Business Class" -- 1500 words -- Nov/Dec 2015. A confrontation between an executive and an employee shows a planeful of office workers what's really important in life. No crime in this story, just issues of professionalism and power and corporate ethics. A few memories of my IBM career in this one.

6. "The Music of Angels" -- 2000 words -- Sep/Oct 2018. A home-healthcare nurse visiting an elderly patient in a rural area makes a discovery that will change the lives of two people. A lot of this story was based on real events, both at the college I attended and in my hometown. Also, not that it matters, I gave the three main characters the first names of our oldest son's three children.

7. "Calculus 1" -- 4000 words -- March/April 2019. A wealthy engineering student convinces his cash-poor roommate to help him cheat on a college exam. Again, no crimes committed here, just dishonesty and deception.

8. "The A Team" -- 2300 words -- July/Aug 2019. A drugstore employee and her five-year-old daughter find themselves in the middle of an armed-robbery attempt. This is one of those "framed" narratives, where everything starts in the present, goes into the past to tell the story, and ends in the present again.


If anyone's interested in this kind of thing, six of those stories were written in third-person, two in first-person, all of them feature very few named characters, and all were written in past tense.

Editorial stuff

One odd thing that I've noticed about these stories: the SEP editors like to use numbers instead of spelling them out. My policy's always been to spell out numbers from, say, one to ten--"I'll pay you five dollars at two o'clock"--but when I do that, they always change it to "I'll pay you 5 dollars at 2 o'clock." From an editing standpoint, I think that's the only thing I've differed with them about. (They won.)

Contentwise, I usually try to send stories to the SEP that are family-friendly. Most of those I've seen in the magazine seem to be geared to a wide audience and have sort of a down-home, "all-American" flavor. If I do a crime-related story and it's at all gritty or controversial, I usually target one of the mystery magazines with it instead.

The SEP also tends to publish accepted stories almost immediately, unlike many other markets.

Questions

How many of you have read the Post lately? Have you ever submitted a short story there? A nonfiction piece? How often do you venture away from mysteries and into the other genres? Where do you usually choose to send those other-genre stories? Do you occasionally try the literary journals? Have you had success there? How often are your stories influenced by novels or movies or other shorts you've read?

Whatever the case, keep up the good work! I'll be back in two weeks.

25 February 2021

The Greatest Historical Mystery of all Time


A while back I read, among other things, a review of Roberto Calasso's La Folie Baudelaire(1)

"Calasso's book can be seen as a series of spirited improvisations on the theme expressed in Walter Benjamin's essays on Baudelaire: that the poet, though he remained resolutely in the Romantic tradition, was the first to express the dark new reality of what Benjamin called 'the permanent catastrophe of life after the Industrial Revolution.'"

To which my response was: "Maybe, but Genesis is the first work to express the dark new reality of 'permanent catastrophe' of life after the Agricultural Revolution."  

I've suspected for a long time that most of the very ancient myths, including Genesis 2-3 and Gilgamesh, are all really about the the Agricultural Revolution. It actually is one of the great historical mysteries, if not the greatest:  how humanity went from wandering the earth to settling down, from hunter-gatherer to farmer. Because there was nothing inevitable - or even logical - about it. Humans were hunter-gatherers for 90% of human history. Agriculture is only a blip of time, and the urbanized world we live in - with only 1.3% of the US population actually working in agriculture, and only 26.7% world-wide - is barely 100 years old.  

So how did it happen?

MY NOTE:  That's what myths are for, to explain mysteries that no one can explain.  How we got here.  Why we're doing the things we're doing here and now - because we have no idea what the hell happened.  Especially when you realize that you're stuck.  You can't go back.  

So, here's the thing:  Paleolithic and Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies were complex, advanced societies.  They had fire, dogs, tools, woven containers, clothing, religion, art, music, dance, and stories.  They invented rafts, nets, and skis (the oldest skis still in existence date back to 6,000 BC from Russia).  They buried their dead. They had some concept of religious ritual.  They built sanctuaries and raised monoliths, megaliths, astronomical calendars, and passage tombs in abundance.  Look up Gobekli Tepe, Warren Field, Newgrange, etc.  

They had phenomenal memories.  (As I always told my students, oral cultures aren't and weren't stupid.)  Whole genealogies, records of journeys, oral maps, oral encyclopedias of where the plants and animals were, what herbs you used for medicine, what parts of trees and animals were best for what function and endless  - they had it all in their heads, and passed it all down, generation to generation, to [almost] the present day.  

They lived well.  They ate just as many plants as animals, and in some cases and definitely in some seasons, more more.  They returned again and again to sites where specific plants (roots, tubers, nuts, berries, and even grains) grew.  And they often either made sure to leave a certain number of those plants intact (roots in the ground, seeds above ground) and even replanted some things. (Ginseng hunters in China were known to do the same thing.)

It was a fairly egalitarian society: there was a leader, and/or a master of the hunt, but when the hunting and gathering was done, all the food was shared out equally among the tribe. Enlightened self-interest was and is the norm for pre-industrial societies. Radical hospitality was and is mandatory - if a stranger shows up, take him in, feed him, treat him well, because some day it will be your turn.  

It was also a fairly non-materialistic society, in terms of stockpiling stuff.  It had to be, because you can't carry a lot of stuff with you as a hunter-gatherer. 

It was also a surprisingly leisured society.  Hunter/gatherers only spent about 4-6 hours a day hunting for food, and the rest of their time cooking, eating, making tools, decorating themselves, sleeping, talking, etc.(2)   

The main drawbacks were high infant mortality, as well as the occasional death from accident, injury, and murder (yes, people killed each other then as now - see my 2015 blog post, Death Comes at the Beginning).  And, of course, they were extremely vulnerable to natural disasters.  All that kept the population very low. At one point there might have been only 125,000 humans on the planet.  

And then came agriculture and animal husbandry, and everything changed.


By the time of this ancient Egyptian painting, world population is estimated to have increased to 5-10 million people.  The Neolithic Revolution fed a lot more people than hunter-gathering, increasing the population in ways hunter-gathering couldn't.  But it had its downsides as well: 

Disease: hunter-gatherers had much lower disease rates (lice, worms) vs. farmers (measles is rinderpest in cattle; TB and smallpox come from cattle; an excellent source of tetanus is horse manure; rabies, obviously; flu from birds or pigs).  There's also overcrowding; a hunter-gatherer tribe was close, but there weren't 300-3,000 of them packed into stacked dwellings in a small walled town.  

Insecurity:  If your crops fail - well, folks are going to starve to death.  There are too many people to go back to hunting and gathering.  (Especially today.  I hear people say, well, I'm going to go off the grid, up in the wilderness - to which my response is, what wilderness?  Also, just because you've watched Alaska The Last Frontier doesn't mean you know how to survive.)  

Possession / Greed / hoarding.  I grew this, so it's mine:  this is my land, my house, my crops, my animals, my family, etc.  Lock the door, bar the windows.  Apparently, the first use of writing was to record my land, my house, my crops, my animals.  Count 'em up and keep track of what's whose.

Kings, priests, armies, bureaucracy, and war all come with agriculture. Which leads back to the great puzzle of how they learned how to do all of this.  

And we have no records.  All the written records we have come after kings, priests, scribes, armies, bureaucracy, and agriculture are already in place - and practically irreversible.  

So, what happened?

Well, to figure that out, you have to take old myths seriously, but not necessarily how time has made people take them seriously.  Most myths have been transformed over time into what we call fairy-tales, folk-tales, religious texts, or epics.  This makes analyzing them hard.  Some people will even call it blasphemous, if you're analyzing their religious text. But there are certain universals.  There's a blind king in almost every ancient culture, from Oedipus to the Mahabharata.  There's a Cinderella story in Europe, the Middle East, and China.  And battling brothers is the basis of so many epics, so many founding fathers, so many wars - of course, that could simply be human nature.  And the Flood shows up everywhere.  So.  I firmly believe that there was, somewhere, some time, way back in time, a blind king, a Cinderella, and a terrifying flood, all so memorable that each story got carried from place to place and passed on down the ages.  

Which brings me back to Genesis 2-3.  A garden, in which every tree and plant is provided that's good for food.  And a great river flowing through it, with every beast and bird living on its banks.  And human(s) naming those beasts and birds.  There's a sense of infinite nostalgia, for a time when humans were one with their environment, where humans walked on the earth, knowing every tree, bush, plant, and flower, every animal, fish, and bird, and what each and every one of them was for. 

And then comes the serpent, “more subtil than any beast of the field” – and starts talking to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Now there's been a lot of water under that bridge, as to what kind of fruit, and what the real sin was - most theologians agree that it was a combination of pride and greed, basically disobedience to God. The Epic of Gilgamesh calls it a betrayal of nature (3).  And I agree. Because what really happened during the Neolithic Revolution was a turning away from a life that was based entirely on the existing seasons and habits of nature. Trusting, every morning, that nature would indeed provide food. All humans had to do was go and look for it. 

But discontent came, and the hissing voice - whether of a serpent or in someone's own head (4) - saying, "Aren't you tired of wandering all over the place and never knowing what you'll find? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to eat berries whenever you want, to store up enough food so that you don't have to be out in bad weather?  When winter comes, you'll be sitting tight in a nice warm place with all the food and more that you need? You can provide for yourselves. You can control nature, instead of it controlling you. You will be safe."

And they fell for it. Ever since, it's been a lot of hard work and (until very modern times) extremely little leisure.

NOTE:  There's a hint that God didn't appreciate it:  Genesis also has Cain and Abel, offering their produce to God - Cain gave vegetables, Abel gave a lamb, and God preferred the meat.  So Cain got jealous and killed Abel.

Another reason why I think this interpretation of Genesis might be the right one is that it came from one of the oldest known civilizations on the planet: Sumer. Remember, Abraham was Sumerian, he came from Ur, and he brought his folk-lore with him. And many of the stories in early Genesis are also from Sumer (the Flood, for one thing). Sumer, "the cradle of civilization" "the fertile crescent", one of the places where agriculture began the earliest, so that by the time of Abraham, there would have already been a couple of thousand years of farming.  That makes Sumer a very logical place for farmers to remember, longingly, of a time without kings, bureaucrats, armies, or war. A time when food was everywhere for the taking, and all humans had to do was wander through the earth like a giant garden. And wonder what had happened, why they had been cursed: and what a specific curse! 

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

The life of a pre-industrial farmer, and that's a curse, not a blessing.

(1) Primarily because he's the author of The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, and Ka, two very interesting works on mythology, among other things.

(2) See Jared Diamond's The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race.  BTW, I love central air/heating, antibiotics, anesthetics, gas stoves and screened windows. But I can wax nostalgic like anyone else...

(3) One last note:  The Sumerian epic Gilgamesh is even more obvious about one of the last meetings between the settler and the wanderer.  King Gilgamesh befriends the wild man Enkidu - "Abundantly hairy and primitive, he lives roaming with the herds and grazing and drinking from rivers with the beasts. One day a hunter watches Enkidu destroying the traps he has prepared for the animals. The hunter informs his father, who sends him to Uruk to ask Gilgamesh for help. The king sends Shamhat, a prostitute, who seduces Enkidu. After two weeks with her, he becomes human, intelligent and understanding words, however the beasts flee when they see him."  (Wikipedia)  Later, Enkidu helps Gilgamesh kill the giant Humbaba, guardian of the Cedar Forest, where the gods lived (and where they plan to cut the trees down). But before that happens, Humbaba accuses Enkidu of betraying the beasts of the wild and, by implication, all of nature by becoming "civilized".

(4)This is why one should always beware of listening too loudly to the voices in one's own head.

15 September 2014

A Cinderella Sleuth Story with a $5000 Prize


Melissa Yuan-Innes
Hope Sze’s tale

Once upon a time, in the 21st century, a poor student lived in Montreal’s mouse-infested apartments, tending to the sick at all hours of the day or night, while more senior physicians mocked her and tore her dreams to cinders. Until one day, our Cinderella doc discovered a body outside an operating theatre. (Code Blues)

The other practitioners fled in fear, and ordered her to leave the case to the constabulary, but Cinderdoc set upon her own quest to discover the killer. And verily, she did, and it was good.

© savemiette
Two Princes stepped forward to claim her, eyes glassy with admiration, but first a grieving mother (Notorious D.O.C.) and then an illusionist (Terminally Ill) pressed their cases upon Cinderdoc, beseeching her for help. And so Cinderdoc became CinderSleuth, incessantly healing the ill and investigating the lawless.

Melissa Yi’s tale

Once upon a time, a starry-eyed girl longed to become a writer, but her parents and the rest of society urged her toward the far-safer path of medical school. While dissecting cadavers, Melissa’s subconscious brain rebelled and she began spinning an award-winning tale about corpses and music.

During residency, she continued weaving fantastic fables about vampirish school girls, wizards, and psychic children. After graduation, between shifts in emergency medicine, she renamed her alter ego Melissa Yi and created Dr. Hope Sze, the resident doctor who could fight crime as well as disease.

Occasionally, Melissa’s stories appeared in periodicals and anthologies distributed across the Commonwealth. But still, Melissa toiled in the trenches, longing for a fairy godeditor to touch her with a magic wand.

As Melissa crouched over her laptop in despair, two new fairy godparents appeared. The first was nearly invisible, but spoke with a seductive voice and carried a fortune in her hands. She said, “Come with me, child. You no longer need a magic wand to transmit your stories around the globe. With the tap of your keyboard, you can release Hope to the world through the miracle of independent publishing.”

The second godparent read the Hope stories and nodded his head in approval. “Melissa, my name is Kobo. I would like to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We are hosting a ball to celebrate Princess Gillian Flynn. Would you like to write three psychological thriller tales in honour of her ascendant Gone Girl? Everyone who attends the ball and solves the riddles based on your stories may be awarded five thousand dollars.”

Melissa flew to the ball faster than a pumpkin coach could carry her, already formulating the stories in her mind.

Your tale

Once upon a time, which is now: A sharp-eyed, sharp-witted reader could win a Kobo Aura H2O and five thousand dollars. The best part of any fairy tale is the happily ever after, and in this case, it could be yours!

Kobo is sponsoring the Going Going Gone contest, which features three Hope Sze Gone Fishing mystery short stories. Hope escaped the hospital to take her dad fishing on the Madawaska River for his birthday, only to discover that her own family might represent the most dangerous wildlife of all.

Download the stories for free (“Cain and Abel,” “Trouble and Strife,” and “Butcher’s Hook”), solve one riddle per story, and you could win five thousand dollars.

Readers are rarely rewarded and fêted in our society, let alone fiercely intelligent readers who can solve ten puzzles before breakfast. When Steve Steinbock introduced me to SleuthSayers, I told Kobo, “These are exactly the people we need to talk to.” Gigantic thanks to Velma and Leigh for fitting me in on a tight deadline.

Please feel free to share the link, to brainstorm solutions together, and of course to admire Kobo’s beautiful platform and their newest e-reader, the Aura H2O, which can be read underwater! What would you do with five thousand dollars?

P.S. I was going to title this blog Cinderella with Guns, for no good reason except I liked the idea of a Cinderella detective, armed and dangerous. Someone beat me to it!


More Information


‘Going, Going, Gone’
Kobo Contest Challenges Mystery Lovers
Gather Clues For a Chance To Win
a Kobo Aura H2O and $5,000

by René d’Entremont

Toronto, September 5, 2014 – When not one but two bestselling thrillers are turned into highly anticipated, soon-to-be-released films, it is an opportunity too good to miss.

In anticipation of the release of film adaptations of Gillian Flynn’s hit suspense novels Gone Girl and Dark Places, Kobo, a global leader in eReading, today launched ‘Going, Going, Gone’ – a thrilling new contest that will put readers’ sleuthing skills to the test. The six-week contest closes on October 10, one week after the release of Gone Girl on October 3.

Read the eBooks. Solve the riddles. Enter for a chance to win $5,000 CAD and a Kobo Aura H2O.

Kicking off today, readers have the opportunity to channel their inner sleuth to solve puzzles by gathering clues found in three original short stories authored by acclaimed mystery writer Melissa Yi, available free of charge at the Kobo bookstore.

In the first story Cain and Abel, released today, readers are invited to go along for the ride when a camping weekend leads to much more drama – and distress – than desired.

Every two weeks, a new story will be released containing clues readers will use to figure out that story’s entry code. Three correct entry codes will enter readers into a contest for a chance to win a Kobo Aura H2O and $5,000 CAD.

“Blockbuster thrillers, such as Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places and Gone Girl, have always transported readers to new worlds. We’ve partnered on this exciting project with hot up-and-coming mystery writer Melissa Yi to take that idea to a whole new level,” said Robyn Baldwin, Marketing Manager, Kobo. “Booklovers will delve deeper than ever before into the kind of chilling mysteries that make the works of Gillian Flynn so incredibly popular—getting the chance to play detective in a fresh and exciting way.”

"It was wonderful to work with Kobo on such an imaginative contest," said Melissa Yi, Author. "I'm a huge fan of Gillian Flynn's work, so it's an honour to be able to connect with her books in such an innovative way. In the theatre, they talk about the fourth wall between the actors and the audience. As a writer, I feel like this contest breaks down the fourth wall between writers and the readers, so that the audience can dive into the stories — exploring and experiencing the mysteries for themselves."

Yi is a Southern Ontario-based thriller author and physician who channels her experiences as a medical doctor to write about everything from articles for the Medical Post to medical mysteries, suspense and romance novels. Her latest Hope Sze medical mystery, Terminally Ill, hit the Kobo Top 50 eBook List after Publishers Weekly hailed it as “entertaining and insightful.”

How to Play
  • Download the free Kobo reading app – available for the most popular smartphones and tablets – to read the short stories containing important clues needed to solve the riddles and identify the entry codes.
  • Download the stories. There are three short stories in all, and three codes needed to enter the contest.
  • Readers must enter all three entry codes correctly for a chance to win. Sharing this contest with friends and followers via Facebook, Twitter and email will earn additional entries.
  • The contest is open to legal residents of US, UK and Canada (excluding Québec). No purchase necessary. See full terms and conditions. (PDF)

The first short story, Cain and Abel, is now available and can be read with a Kobo eReader or any of the company’s apps.

The series includes:
  • September 05 – Cain and Abel
  • September 16 – Trouble and Strife
  • September 29 – Butcher’s Hook
For more information about author Melissa Yi, please visit her web site.

About Rakuten Kobo Inc.

Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the world’s fastest-growing eReading services offering more than 4-million eBooks and magazines to millions of customers in 190 countries. Believing that consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device, Kobo provides consumers with a choice when reading. Kobo offers an eReader for everyone with a wide variety of E Ink eReaders and Google-Certified Android tablets to suit any Reader’s style including the award-winning Kobo Touch™, Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Arc, Kobo Arc 7, Kobo Arc 7HD, Kobo Arc 10HD – and the newly launched Kobo Aura H2O. Along with the company’s free top-ranking eReading apps for Apple®, BlackBerry®, Android®, and Windows®, Kobo ensures the next great read is just a page-turn away. Headquartered in Toronto and owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten, Kobo eReaders can be found in major retail chains around the world. For more information, visit Kobo.com

18 January 2020

Writing for Fun


As mentioned in two of my earlier posts at this blog, I'm not one to stray far from my comfort zone in my writing, and I also don't care much for New Year's resolutions, but--at the urging of my publisher, Joe Lee--I'm going to try at least one new thing in 2020.

A quick background note: In the spring of 2006, it was Joe's idea (he owns and operates Dogwood Press here in Mississippi) to put thirty of my previously published short mysteries together in a hardcover collection called Rainbow's End and Other Stories. Thankfully, that book sold well enough for a second printing, and since then Joe's small, traditional press has published six more books of my stories--as well as the work of eight other writers. Another idea Joe had, back in 2015, was to veer away from my usual story-collections and produce a softcover book of fifty of my lighthearted tales with the mysteries in the front of the book and the solutions in the back. That project, called Fifty Mysteries (let's hear it for appropriate titles), was great fun to put together, and has sold well also. I think its success was due to (1) its "puzzle" format, (2) its humor, and (3) the fact that all of its stories feature two familiar characters from my longest-running series--all of which were reasons I thought it might not work. The point is, when Joe has a brainstorm, I listen.

So, what was this latest idea? To publish a book of my poetry.

A what?!

You heard right. Over the past 25 years I've sold poems to more than 100 different markets, including Writer's Digest, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Farm & Ranch Living, Mystery Time, Wordplay, Futures, Satire, Grit, The Lyric, Writers' Journal, Mobius, Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, Capper's, The Mystery Review, and so on. But be aware . . . this is not the deep, profound, life-changing poetry you might find in prestigious literary journals. I'm not a contemporary poet and I noet. This is easygoing, humorous, Ogden Nash-style verse whose sole purpose is to put a smile on your face, and maybe even make you Laugh Out Loud and slap ya mama. The kind of thing that a lot of readers--and editors too, thank God--seem to like. (If you're at all interested, here's a SleuthSayers column I did about Nash and light verse, several years ago,)

The title of this unusual (ad)venture is called Lighten Up a Little, which is also the title of one of the included poems and might, I think, be good advice for all of us. The book will contain 300 lighthearted poems I've published in the aforementioned markets. Some are long (up to four pages) and many are short (as few as four lines), and all are an exercise in rhythm and rhyme and wordplay, because I love that sort of thing. As for subject matter, some of the poems are crime-based, but others cover everything from kids to sports to medicine to politics to movies to animals to technology to writing. The book is scheduled for April 2020.

Note: When the decision to publish was made and Joe and his wizards had started working on the layout, I sat down and drew a little cartoon I thought might work for the cover. I then scanned it and emailed it to my friend Chuck Galey, who's a professional illustrator, and asked him if he knew of any online coloring programs I might use to insert color into my dull-looking black-and-white drawing. Chuck responded by coloring it himself and sending it back to me. Boy, does it help to know the right people . . .


Here's an excerpt from my introduction:

"The following poems, grouped in a dozen categories of 25 each--and most of which are capsule-sized--may be ingested separately or in gulps of several at a time. They were designed to provide temporary relief from everyday stress and fatigue, but seem to also be effective in treating insomnia.

"To those who seek enlightenment, inspiration, and/or insights into the Meaning of Life . . . well, you might want to look elsewhere."

Which is true. No psychology or angst or navel-gazing here. Since I like movie comparisons, this is more of a Blazing Saddles than a 2001. And in case you're wondering what in the world I'm even talking about, here are a few really short examples of the contents:



A WILD ALLI-GATION

The wife of Mean Willie LaBrock
Disappeared off the end of their dock;
Willie claimed that a gator
Just swam up and ate her
But that sounds to me like a croc.


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."


LOVE IS BLURRY

Thought not legally blind, Nate was badly crosseyed
When he married Big Lucy, a mail-order bride;
"Get some glasses," friends urged, but he figured, well, hell,
It might not be too smart to see Lucy too well.


PURPA TRAITOR

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


SOUTH OF SAUDI

If the country of Yemen
Were governed by Britain,
Their gas would be petrol,
Their dresses tight-fittin'.
And sports fans could watch,
For the price of a ticket,
Arabian knights
Playing Yemeni cricket.


A BOLD ASSUMPTION

"Since I'm quite debonair, I don't travel by air,"
Leonard bragged, from the helm of his yacht;
A storm came the next day and blew Leonard away--
I don't know if they've found him or not.


THE BOOK DOCTOR

When they're edited, writers have said
Semicolons are something they dread;
What if someone had stolen
One half of your colon
And plugged in a comma instead?



So there's a preview. If you're tired already, be forewarned: there are 293 more of these in the book. Some are silly, some are (I hope) witty, and some are just observations about people and places and situations in our workaday world. I doubt Maya Angelou or Robert Frost would've felt threatened by this masterpiece--but I can also tell you I had a great time writing it.

I'm hoping those who read it (release date April 23!), will feel the same.

01 August 2014

What I'm Working on Now


by Steven Steinbock

After a very long absence from the Blogosphere, it's good to be back among friends especially on a Friday, my original day on Criminal Brief.

There's been a game of tag circulating among author blogs. Variously titled: “What I'm Working On” or “My Writing Process,” a blogger answers four questions about current projects and writing process, and then “tags” another author to answer the same questions.

I recently was tagged by Melissa Yuan-Innes, an Ontario-based ER physician with a growing list of novels, short stories, and essay collections. (Her stuff ranges from science fiction and paranormal to romance to crime and medicine).

If that isn't enough, she teaches Yoga and has two small kids. Her latest novel is Terminally Ill, and she's finishing up The Goa Yoga School Murders. Her story 'Om' is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. You can read her blog here.

Melissa was tagged by Rob Brunet (pictured with me at left), whose first novel Stinking Rich is being published in September by Down & Out Books. Rob is  being touted as Canada’s answer to Carl Hiassen. I befriended Rob two years ago at Bloody Words and talked him into coming to Bouchercon 2013 in Albany. Rob’s story, “The Hunt,” will be appearing soon in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. You can read his blog here.

When Melissa tagged me, I thought, “How fun!” Then I thought, “But I don't have a blog! And I don't write fiction. My old blog, The Vorpal Blade, began collecting cobwebs in 2007 when we launched Criminal Brief. In 2011, I began my regular column in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Then a few months later Criminal Brief disbanded and I saw it as a chance to take a break from blogtivity.

I'm grateful to my old blog-mates Leigh, John, Rob, and Janice (and Velma, of course) for allowing me to guest-post on SleuthSayers. I hope to be back here again soon.

And speaking of Sleuthsayers, I hereby tag my friend and the newest member of the Sleuthsayers team, Melodie Campbell, to pick up with her own answers.

On to the questions…

What Am I Working On?

Like I said a few paragraphs up, I'm not a fiction writer. My last published fiction was a story in EQMM about five years ago. But right now I have a lot of different irons in the fire. My column in EQMM has me reviewing around ten books a month. I teach Jewish studies courses, and I'm a contributing editor at AudioFile Magazine, for which I also write reviews, interviews, and occasional feature stories.

Earlier this month McFarland Books published a volume of essays about detective fiction in honor of Douglas Greene's 70th birthday, for which I wrote the foreword and one of the chapters. (For those who don't know him, Doug is a retired English history professor, the owner/creator of Crippen and Landru Publishers, and an authority on John Dickson Carr, locked-room mysteries, and everything else in classical detective fiction). I've also put together a collection of Edward D. Hoch's non-mystery short stories (mostly horror, science fiction, and alternative history) which will be published by Wildside Press.

Two years ago, I finished a novel featuring a young New England rabbi and his bad-ass outlaw side-kick/guardian. I plan to do some more editing on it, as well as playing around with follow-up story lines for a sequel. I also have some ideas floating around for a series of short stories featuring a First Century BCE Pharisaic sleuth.

How Does My Work Differ From Others In The Same Genre?

The Judaic content. In the 1960s Harry Kemelman wrote a popular series featuring a rural New England rabbi as his sleuth. They''re good books, but few people read them today. I think it's in part because the hero, Rabbi Small, isn't all that endearing to modern sensibilities. With my hero, “Rabbi Jake Lurie,” I've tried to create a fully three-dimensional character. He's self-conscious and idealistic. He wrestles with religion, morality, and politics. He falls in love every time he turns around. His best friend and self-appointed guardian is a gruff, bad-ass outlaw. Lou Santelli is to Jake what Hawk is to Spenser, what Pike is to Elvis Cole, and what Falstaff is to Prince Hal. He's bawdy, vengeful, and dangerous. And he's taken the young rabbi under his wings.

Why Do I Write What I Do?

It comes down to those two tired adages: write what you know, and write what you like to read. I used to be a Jewish educator. No matter how hard I've tried to leave it for a life a crime, I still am. I know the ins and outs, the good, the bad, and the ugly of synagogue life. I enjoy good plots and interesting, believable and complex characters. That's why I write what I do.

How Does My Writing Process Work?

I have a process? I'm not self-disciplined and I have a non-linear brain. In order for me to get anything done, I have to have a loose plot and a deadline.

I use a ton of note cards, whether I'm planning a story, a non-fiction article, or even a classroom lesson. I put a stack of blank cards in front of me and I write down ideas, one per card. These can include characters, themes and motifs, scenes or images, problems the characters may face, locations, whatever. Once there are a couple dozen of these cards, I can toss them in the air and see where they land. I can pick two at random and come up with a scene that combines them. I can spread them out like Tarot cards.

The more I look at them and play around with them, the story takes hold and details start taking shape. In the end, I end up with something like directions and landmarks on a road trip. I don't have to follow the directions, but whenever I'm writing and am stuck with what to do next, looking at this map helps.

Not long ago I had a group of characters and a setting, but no story. I enlisted my characters for help. I began writing a scene in which my two main characters were sitting in a café having a conversation about me and the story I was trying to write. These two guys who I thought I'd invented are tossing around story ideas, debating the merits of each. They came up with things I wouldn't have thought of. Did it help my story? No. Not directly. But it got me writing and kept my characters alive.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

23 April 2020

Modern Little Plague on the Prairie



by Eve Fisher

NOTE:  Due to complete discombobulation last week, I posted this a week early.  But, here it is again, newly updated and with a new section - at the end, don't cheat - on possibilities for crime in a time of pandemic.  Enjoy!

As some of you may have heard on the national news, Sioux Falls, SD, currently hosts one of the top hotspots for COVID-19 in America, thanks to Smithfield Foods.  With 941 cases just from Smithfield, we were #1 until we got beat by two correctional facilities in Iowa, and they can have the honor.

Smithfield (which bought Morrell's, and then in turn was bought by a Chinese company back in 2013), was operating like any other meat packing plant, with super-crowded conditions for animals, carcasses, and people, all at super-high speeds, thanks to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who pretty much deregulated the industry in September, 2019. (See story HERE)  And, lest you think Smithfield was an outlier, meat packing plants are popping up all over the country, full of COVID-19, thanks to a tendency to cram workers cheek by jowl for their shifts.  See "Poor Conditions at Meatpacking Plants" HERE.




Anyway, Smithfield wasn't transparent - there's a shock - and covered it up from March 25-April 6, when they had 80 cases and couldn't hide it anymore.  So they promised to close the facility for 3 days for deep cleaning. The next day there were 160 cases, and the day after that 234, and it turned out Smithfield hadn't closed for cleaning but was still processing.  So our Mayor and Governor asked for 14 days quarantine and cleaning, and the CEO closed the plant "indefinitely" and put out a snippy letter saying they'd only kept it open so long to "protect the food security of the nation." Yeah, right.

But I don't want to go into our sorry tale of woe. Instead, I want to post some observations for future mystery writers and historians. Because you know, sooner or later, people are going to start writing about this, and they need to get it right.

In Sioux Falls, 90% or more of the people grocery shopping - and the clerks - are wearing masks and gloves. The aisles in grocery stores are all one way, and they have 6-foot markers on the floors. But most people are not wearing masks / gloves outside for walks or exercise (including myself) because your glasses fog up and God knows we have plenty of fresh air because here the wind never stops.

Norwegian Stoicism - In other parts of South Dakota, however, most people are NOT wearing masks or gloves anywhere. And it's business as usual regarding the number of people in the store, etc. And in many areas, someone wearing a mask and gloves is considered pretty much a wuss. They receive rolled eyes or a little sad chuckle: the Norwegian Lutheran version of the Southern "Bless your heart" - which is not a blessing. Of course, the average Norwegian / German / etc. Lutherans are by and large a stoic lot and expect everyone else to be the same. Another reason for no masks / gloves: these are the same people who'll be out in sub-zero weather without hat or gloves, because they can take it. 

Libertarians - From the get-go of COVID-19 in our state (currently 1,858 cases, 1,659 in Sioux Falls) our Governor, Kristi Noem, has only given directives, and will not put in place official shut-down orders of any kind for any location. "We're not New York", which is pretty much the mantra of many rural areas. Apparently this gives some kind of immunity except in Sioux Falls, which is an urban area, so what do you expect?  
BTW - one surprising thing is that many people aren't thinking about what happens if Sioux Falls does go all New York City, overwhelmed by cases and deaths. The truth is, if that happens, the whole state of South Dakota is screwed, medically, because guess who's the health care center of the state?  Avera McKennan and Sanford hospitals and all their clinics are here. Where all patients with serious health issues are brought. When Allan had his heart attack in 2010, they airlifted him from Madison, SD to Sioux Falls for (successful) surgery. What happens if there are no beds because COVID-19? 
Mayor TenHaken tried to get a stay-at-home order for Sioux Falls, but he couldn't get the Sioux Falls city councillors (made up mostly of business owners) to back him, nor some residents, who were "concerned that it violates constitutional rights, is difficult to enforce and will bankrupt business barely holding on as it is. And one pastor called it "a massive government overreach." (Argus Leader) (On the other hand, the front-line workers want it, and want it NOW.)

Last night, the city council agreed to a "no lingering" ordinance and expanding and enforcing the rule of 10 or less for gatherings.  But the same people showed up to protest:
Some said they were concerned about what the measures had done to the economy. Some said they didn't believe the virus was really a threat at all, citing stories they'd seen online. Former political candidate Lora Hubbel questioned the credentials of Public Health Director Jill Franken and asked why the public was listening to doctors "who are not elected officials." - (Argus Leader)
Economics!

“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world." - Calvin Coolidge, Jan. 27, 1925.

Oh, Cal, you don't know the half of it.

Park Jefferson Speedway in North Sioux City plans a racing event with up to 700 spectators Saturday night.

Fun fact:  The Park Jefferson International Speedway (above) in Jefferson, Union County, South Dakota, is going to host a dirt track racing event with up to 900 spectators this Saturday.  Our Governor, bless her heart, will not lift a finger to stop it, but did "strongly recommend" that no one go.  And Union County officials, including the Sheriff, say they can't do a thing to stop it from happening.  (Argus Leader)

Further fun fact:  The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is coming up in August.  This hosts about 500,000 bikers annually, and they spend a lot of money on concerts, concessionaires, etc.  How many people believe that our Governor will stop it?  Or the city councilors of Sturgis, SD?  Pray for us.  But also for yourselves, because most of those 500,000 are from out of state, and they do go home eventually.

Religious - As someone told me, "Why is everyone so afraid? If you're a true Christian, you shouldn't be afraid of anything, because everything is in God's hands." To which I replied, "Gethesemane." (see Matthew 26:39) Which was a polite way of avoiding screaming, "WE ALL GET AFRAID SOMETIMES.  EVEN JESUS."
I detest people who try to be holier than Jesus, I really do. Life is hard enough as it is.
Reminder:  "Courage is fear that has said its prayers."   

Media driven - There is a distinct difference between the Fox News / Sean Hannity / Rush Limbaugh / OANN / QAnon crowd and the rest of us. Those 6 weeks of presidential golfing and rallies - with the full on support, encouragement, denial, and general "it's nothing!" of Fox News, etc. - pretty much poisoned the well. Today, most of those media consumers still don't believe that COVID-19 is anything more than just another flu, and everyone should just go ahead and get exposed to it.  In the immortal words of Bill O'Reilly, “Many people who are dying, both here and around the world, were on their last legs anyway." (Hill)  So let's let everyone get it, get herd immunity, and whoever dies, dies. 
NOTE: What's interesting to me is that most of the people who are in denial are the same people who are hoarding. "Well, I thought I might as well pick up that extra bale of toilet paper..."  
And as for the young people - well, when you're a teenager you think you're bulletproof and invulnerable. I remember it well.  God bless you, and there's a reason I'm staying on the other side of the street.  

Good Stuff:  On the other hand, people are volunteering, in various ways. They're sewing masks, running errands for the elderly, sending cards, making posters, and helping at food banks. They are Zooming and GoToMeetings and calling like crazy.  (BTW:  FUND THE USPS!)  There's a lot of good going on. A lot of helping. A lot of prayer. And a wonderful team of doctors (including a godson), nurses (including a goddaughter), grocery clerks, USPS workers, police (BTW, here in Sioux Falls, the Chief of Police, a police captain, two lieutenants, a sergeant, an officer and three civilian employees all have the virus), and other front-line workers.  Please pray for them all. 

But now let's talk about possible future mysteries, thrillers, sci-fi, etc.  

  • Robberies - well, when almost everyone's staying home, how well does B&E work?  However, I'd like to point out that cars must be feeling fairly abandoned.  (You would be amazed at the number of guns that are stolen out of unlocked cars every month up here...  it got to the point that one of the City Councilors even proposed penalizing gun owners who didn't lock their guns in their vehicles.)
  • Kidnapping - Besides the obvious who's going to know who's gone if no one's going out, here's a little scenario.  If plasma treatment is the only thing that works for a while (or longer), what if a group of billionaires - like the ones at Saint-Tropez - with their own medical facilities at their own compound hire / co-opt / acquire recovered COVID-19 patients for future treatment?  (WaPo)  (Might be time to re-watch Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive"...)
  • Scams - going full throttle.  Invent your own, every one else does!
  • Murder - Well, there's lots of opportunities, as always.  Even more, what with the effects of COVID-19 on a body, and the lack of time for autopsies in a pandemic.  And I think it was Brendan DuBois who pointed out on Facebook that giving unregulated medicine to an irritating spouse might be one way of getting away with getting rid of them...  
  • And how does the prevalence, indeed in some places, requirement of masks add to these scenarios and more?  

Strange times.



Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

25 January 2021

Late Style



Art historians and critics are fond of talking about 'late style'. By this they don't mean the usual age- related deterioration where the painter's or sculptor's hand loses its cunning, the eyes begin to lose their focus, and, too often, the mind, ditto. No, late style is the rare and happy alternative outcome, when despite, or sometimes because of, the frailties of age, the artist experiences a burst of innovation and creativity: Rembrandt's magnificent late portraits, Titian's dark and eloquent religious works, and nearer to our own time, Monet's billboard-sized water lily paintings and Degas' radiant pastels.

Ian Rankin's newest novel, A Song for the Dark Times, has gotten me thinking about late style in detectives and detection, as we have now had three popular sleuths closing in on old age. The late Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander struggled through his last case while in the early stages of dementia. The redoubtable Vera Stanhope has had a serious heart scare. Her unenthusiastic attempts at fitness do not bode well for her future health, and I suspect only her popularity on the small screen will keep Anne Cleeves' inspector going. 

As for John Rebus, Rankin's long-time protagonist, that old copper is now retired. When A Song for the Dark Times opens, he is in the process of giving up his second floor apartment (3rd floor in US terminology) for a smaller ground floor flat. The stairs have become too much for a man suffering from


COPD, a debilitating lung disease. That and the state of his ancient Saab should ensure that he stays home with Brillo, his dog, and a stack of unsolved case files.

But literary detectives are not quite like the rest of us, a mystery is meat and drink to them, and opposition and complications are as good as advanced medicine. When his difficult daughter's partner disappears, Rebus heads for the far north of Scotland to a tiny town adjacent to what was once a WW2 holding camp for enemy aliens and later for POWs. Mystery soon turns into murder, and John Rebus is right at home.

And yet, the key difficulty remains. The old officer is not up for any great exertion, although he carries his inhaler and watches his whiskey consumption. Rankin devises an elegant solution: two parallel investigations. One involves Rebus's attempts to assist the police in the Highlands, who are polite but firm: civilian assistance is not required. 

Rebus soon finds that he is no longer a top cop with privileged access and the ability to give orders. In response, he tackles some of the less obvious lines of inquiry, interviewing the local historical group involved with the camp site and researching the magnate who owns huge tracts of land in the area.

To fill out the mystery and to give his elderly detective a breather, Rankin shifts every few chapters back to Edinburgh where Siobhan Clarke, Rebus's friend, colleague and protege, has a case involving the stabbing of a rich Saudi student. Wealth, political considerations, the presence of Inspector Malcolm Fox, her long time rival, and even an appearance by Big Ger Cafferty, long the Moriarty to Rebus's Sherlock, ensures that Siobhan has her plate full.


Both mysteries unfold with Rankin's usual dexterity, DI Siobhan Clarke shows she learned from a master, and there's a fair bit of cynical cleverness all round. What is different are the adjustments Rebus must make. He has to be patient with his distraught and frankly rather unpleasant daughter, remembering always that he was never the world's greatest dad.

He has to get used to being the recipient of orders – mostly to clear out and let the professionals work – and he has to call on assistance from Siobhan to access the information he wants. He's back to amateur status, no matter how experienced and perceptive he is, and it is interesting to watch him adjust his game plan to his reduced powers, both physical and professional, and, in so doing, acquire a fine late style.