How Can a Martian Wax Venusian?

by Dixon Hill

Hi . . . my name is Dixon . . . and I'm a martian.

The litany above may be familiar (if slightly changed) to some of you, if you've attended certain meetings.

I've never actually been to one of those meetings, though I have a relative who's been attending at least once a week for years -- as well as an ex-girlfriend who attended meetings; she and I were very close for a long time.

In the words of Monty Python, however: "And now . . . for something completely different ..."




My name is Dixon ... and I'm a Martian -- because I'm a man.

Men and women are different. I'm not saying one gender is "better" than the other; I'm just saying the two genders are different.

The book Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus points up some of these differences quite well. My wife and I read it together, out loud, years ago, and the information contained helped to greatly strengthen our marriage.

But, I'm not here to write about marriage. I'm here to write about writing -- writing so that readers will understand and appreciate what they've read.

And, here too, men and women -- it seems to me -- are quite different.

Now I know that in his book, John Gray is talking about the planets Mars and Venus, but I thought the artwork I found did a little more to accentuate the differences than pictures of planets would. So what you're looking at are the Venus De Milo (left) currently held in the Louvre, and Mars (right) probably made in the 1st Century, and found at the Forum of Nerva, now held by Capitoline Museums, Rome. The god of war. And the goddess of love.

I also know it's dangerous to speak (or write) in generalities when discussing the idea of cross-gender writing, so let me explain up-front that I know different categories of comprehension cross gender lines. For example: while it's often said that men are more easily visually stimulated than women, I'm perfectly willing to agree that many women are just as stimulated by what they see as any man might be--and vice-versa.

It's also often said that women are more focused on "sharing" information than men are. But, I'm sure there are men out there who also enjoy sharing. I myself have learned, over many years of marriage, not to run for the nearest bunker when my wife starts sharing all over the place.

Instead, I now stand my ground and maybe even share a little back -- assuming I can do so without trying to "fix" anything. (As in my wife's complaint: "I'm just sharing why I'm so frustrated at work! I'm not trying to get you to fix anything, you idiot!")

As you may have surmised, I have a weakness: an inability to fully communicate with women.

I didn't even realize I had this problem until I'd been out of the army for about a year, and volunteered to run the annual PTA carnival at my son's school. My son (our oldest--he's 22 now) was in 3rd Grade at the time.

In the army, I had orchestrated large groups of men to accomplish tactical missions or construction projects. And, I usually had to communicate with those men in a language other than English. Sometimes it was Spanish, a couple times it was Arabic. Once, I used a little Twri (a West African Tribal language -- I don't speak much of it), and occasionally in French. So, maybe you can see why I figured I could easily orchestrate the members of my local PTA to run a slam-bang carnival.

I drew up a carnival plan, based on an Army Operations Order -- the planning format I'm most comfortable with. A few months before the carnival, I held a briefing for the PTA -- complete with handouts and slide show -- so people could decide where they might most advantageously "plug into" the operation.

I was actually speaking to a group of about 98% moms, of course, since this was a PTA meeting. Most of them had never set foot on a military installation, so there were a few shocked looks when I initiated my brief with (what I considered to be) the standard admonition: "As this is a complicated operation, the plan will be presented in stages. Please note any operational concerns, which may arise in your mind, on the notepad provided, and hold all questions until the end. I will entertain a question and answer period after the briefing is complete."

To their credit, following my introduction, they took a presentation that started with "Situation" then continued through "Mission" and ventured through such topics as "Actions on the Objective" -- heavily peppered with time-frame notes couched in military terms such as "D minus 5" (Day of the carnival, minus 5; or in other words: "5 days before we would hold the carnival...") -- Well, they took it all with barely a raised eyebrow.

And, after I had answered each of the first three questions by putting up the slide which immediately followed, the PTA moms seemed to realize they might as well hold their questions until the end of my briefing.

I thought this was because they finally understood what was going on. And, my belief was bolstered by a general agreement afterward, that they had no questions because I seemed to have thought of everything. (Their words; not mine.)

I was slightly concerned, because I'd never presented a briefing in which no one had any questions, before. But, subsequent discussion clearly indicated these women had paid close attention and understood the plan very well. In no time at all, in fact, everyone was organized, and preparations begun.

I didn't realize my glaring error, until the day of the carnival. That's when I noticed two PTA moms hanging streamers, balloons and other decorations. I slapped the side of my head and exclaimed, "Oh, man! I left decorations totally out of the plan! Why didn't you guys say something?" They told me that they thought I'd been too busy arranging for the fire trucks, bouncy house, monkey bridge, etc. to take care of it; so they decided to just do it on their own.

I realized then that I had not only left out an important part of the plan, I had also presented myself in a way that made it impossible for these women to find a way to communicate with me. Somehow, the techniques I'd always relied on to ensure good communications, had opened a chasm between us that these good women couldn't find a way to cross. So, they hadn't tried; they'd just fixed the problem themselves

I was grateful that they covered my oversight, but completely dumb-founded by the communications barrier I'd discovered within myself. And, though I've learned a lot since then, I know I've still got a long way to go. This is why I was so bowled over when I read Deborah's article about her friend, Travis Erwin, a man who writes women's fiction.

I really respect a guy who can do that. I have a hard time writing any stuff that appeals to women. Yet, I know women make up the lion's share of readers, and so struggle mightily to overcome this obstacle in my way.

This is why I change my story if my wife says something like, "You don't describe the women in this very well. I know how big their breasts are, what their hair and eye color are, and how long their legs are -- but you don't really tell me what they look like. From your description, all I can see is a pair of legs with a set of eyeballs on top, and a hunk of hair tossed over it. Plus maybe a breast or two, but I'm not sure where they're attached. I mean, are the breasts mounted on top of the legs, and the eyeballs stuck on the ends of the breasts like some sort of gross nipples?"

And, this is also why I've occasionally tried to write romance -- because I'm bad at it, and want to get better. And, it seems to me, to be a type of fiction primarily geared toward women readers, an audience I'd really like to learn to write for.

Finding a way to move this women-centric concept into an action-adventure story, however (as many mysteries I write seem to be) often proves daunting. Largely because I'm not a woman, and have a hard time writing things from a female perspective. (Heck! As you can see from what my wife says, I seem to have a hard time even from a man's perspective ... at least from a woman's point of view. But, that's a POV that's pretty important to me.) So, I keep plugging away, trying to find new and different ways to do it.

I found an interesting idea, the other day, called The Final Girl theory. This theory seems to be based on slasher movies, such as Friday the Thirteenth, or Halloween, and is the brainchild of Carol Clover, who wrote about it in her book: Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

I've ordered the book through interlibrary loan, but not yet read it. However, I have done a little research on the theory. The idea here, seems to be that the modern slasher movie starts out from the killer's POV, but later switches to that of the female who will eventually be the sole survivor. Thus, in Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis is "The Final Girl." And, as such, she's supposed to be (a) virginal, or at least virtuous, (b) smart, (c) curious, (d) vigilant and (e) possibly is related to the killer. [b,c & d are supposed to help her be the "investigating consciousness" of the film. Finally: at the end, she takes up a weapon -- thereby, theoretically "masculinizing" herself through the weapon's phallic symbology.

I've been looking at this idea, and thinking that it might provide a doorway, of sorts, that I might use to access an ability to write a woman into a believable character. The only problem is: I don't find it terribly believable.

To begin with, I can't remember the last time I wrote anything in which I thought: "Now this female character -- she's a virgin." And, as for be masculinized by taking up a weapon ...

Well, that makes me think of a certain woman I studied Arabic with in the army. She'd been a cop in San Francisco before enlisting, and was tough as nails. In fact, I'd trust her cover my flank in a fire-fight or beer-hall brawl any day of the week. But, when we went out on the town, she'd show up in clothes that displayed a figure that would've made many a man whistle, if -- to paraphrase the great Groucho -- it wasn't so hard to whistle with your tongue hanging out. My friend was NOT masculine. But she was tough with her fists -- and good with a weapon.

No. I don't equate women with whimpieness. But, I'm still left working my way slowly toward my goal of writing in a way that truly does appeal to women readers. So, when the book gets here, I'll read it. Maybe it will make more sense to me, or help me in some other way.

Meanwhile, I'll try (again) to attend the local meeting of the Sisters in Crime. They've told me before that they'd welcome me. They put out anthologies I'd love to get a crack at. And, I'm sure I'd learn a lot from having some of them look over my stuff.

But, as a man I feel like an interloper. I mean, this is an organization created to help women writers get published. And, I'm a man. Further: After consideration, I finally decided against visiting Frederick's of Hollywood for one of those inflatable bras Fran writes about in her books; my beard pretty much ruins that brilliant disguise idea.

So ... I'll try it in my own clothes; no disguise.

Maybe this time, I'll actually make it from my car to the meeting. Last time I sat in the parking lot for thirty minutes, then just drove home. I worry about being a bull in a china shop and creating PTA Moms Redux.

Wish me luck!
--Dix

'tis the Season

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

'tis the season of stress. The news is filled with greedy shoppers elbowing their way to do hand-to-hand combat for the toy everyone wants this year. Prepared to get the best deal means being armed with pepper spray and perhaps trampling a grandpa in your way. Students are in a frenzy trying to finish up reports and finals before being released for the holidays. Moms are preparing for a return of the kids being home 24/7 with nothing to do but finds new ways to irritate their siblings. Writers are pretty much the same all year with the stress of finding a new twist on crimes as old as mankind.

As I sit safely in my home with little of my own shopping done and a manuscript half-formed in my mind, my thoughts wander to ruthless criminals preparing for their busiest season, too. Unlocked doors have a bounty of gifts under a tree just for the taking. Each burglar's booty will be a surprise present for someone. Identity theft is on the rise and cyberspace is the New Frontier. Every vehicle on the road is ripe for a carjacking experience to spice up the Family Newsletter this year.

Crime is never out of season and mystery writers seem to know that as much as a voracious readership. Mysteries hold a perpetual spot on my personal Want List. Fortunately, I'm not alone.

How many mystery books will be sold this season? With the popularity of e-readers, probably more novels will be downloaded than ever.

A few years ago, I was involved in an anthology of holiday crime stories to benefit Toys for Tots. THE GIFT OF MURDER was the brainchild of Tony Burton of Wolfmont Press. Edited by John M. Floyd, the anthology was a collection of stories by authors you just might recognize: J. F. Benedetto, Stefanie Lazar, Stephen D. Rogers, Anita Page, Randy Rawls, Earl Skaggs, Peg Herring, Bill Crider, Carolyn J. Rose, Elizabeth Zelvin, Barb Goffman, Austin S. Camacho, Sandra Seamans, Steve Shrott, Gail Farrelly, Hershel Cozine, Kris neri, Marian Allen and me. Though we shared the same theme of holiday crimes, the stories -- like the authors -- are vastly different.

My contribution was deemed "disturbing" by one reviewer which made me smile. My intention was to pen a more naughty than nice story this time around.

As for now, I am content to concoct a murder or two, an arson case and maybe a posioning. It really releives my stress.

Digging Up Old Crimes

by Robert Lopresti

We just got back from San Francisco, which felt like deja vu all over again, since we were there last fall for Bouchercon.   Even stayed at the same hotel.  But this time we were attending a very different conference: the fourteenth annual Biblical Archaeology Fest.

I discussed this event the last time my wife and I attended it.  I won't repeat myself except to explain that this is not a religious event, but a chance for archaeology buffs and wannabees to learn from the experts (who are actually meeting together across town).

And I heard a lot of wonderful lectures on subjects ranging from the horned altar of Gath to misconceptions about second Temple-era Judaism, but I will stick to two lectures that I can reasonably tie to crime.

Dr. Robert R. Cargill's talk was titled "No, No, You Didn't Find That."  He is an archaeologist and since he is willing to face cameras and was for several years working in Los Angeles, he became a go-to person when someone made an outrageous claim about archaeology.  This happens with depressing regularity.  (Does anyone keep track of how many times Noah's Ark has been discovered in the last century?  Or the Ark of the Covenant?)

A pseudoarchaeological claim is generally made by an amateur (who will often argue that the elitists - e.g. those with training - are conspiring against him).  There are a lot of possible motives: money, fame, religious or other ideology.  Cargill offered his "magic formula" for success in pseudoarchaeology:  start with a media blitz (as opposed to attempting publication in a scholarly journal or conference), misinformation dump (forcing critics to go through piles of irrelevant stuff, disproving it all), and attacking the critics.

One fun example: Glenn Beck claiming that the Dead Sea Scrolls were texts being hidden from Emperor Constantine.  What's a difference of three centuries between friends?

Law and Order: Ancient Canaan
Rami Arav has had an interesting career.  With his fresh doctorate in hand he moved back to Israel and began searching for a place to excavate in his native Galigee.  Aware that no on e had determined the site of  Bethsaida (the third most mentioned place in the Gospels).he set out to find it, and in ten days he did.

He duly reported this at a conference in front of an audience of about ten people (the air conditioning had broken down).  One of them happened to be a reporter who wrote that the site of  the miracle of loaves and fishes had been discovered.  Two days later everyone in the world wanted to interview Rami Arav.  The result is 25 years later he is still digging at Bethesda - or more accurately at Geshur, the huge ancient city whose ruins Bethesda was built on.  Arav estmates he has dug up about 4% of the site's 25 acres.

Amazing story, but what does this have to do with crime?  Well, Arav explains that archaeologicists "are like C.S.I.  First we take thousands of pictures.  Then we bring in experts.  Geologists, biologists,  chemists, computer experts, paleozoologists," and so on. (Quotation is approximate.)   He says archaeologists only deal with mute witnesses (texts get passed on to other scholars, but ruins can nonetheless provide remarkable evidence.

For example, one issue about the Geshur era (say, 3.000 years ago) is the question of law and order: was there a reliable system of justice, or something more like anarchy?  Is there anyway to find out without written texts?

Well, one of the things Arav's workers found was a four-meter wide paved road outside the city.  Nobody builds a paved road that wide for pedestrians or people on horseback.  That road was for wheeled wagons.  Now, think about that.  The merchant wouldn't bring a wagon pulled by animals to the city if he wasn't fairly comfortable that it would be there the next time he looked for it, and that someone would take an interest if it disappeared.  So there was law and order in Geshur.  Cool, huh?

I have 19 pages of notes from the conference, but I'll be merciful.  Meanwhile, keep digging.

When We Were Very Young

A number of postings on SleuthSayers have concerned the act and nature of creative writing and brought up a lot of interesting issues: outline or free-form, cozy vs. hard boiled, first person narrative or third; just to name a few; recently, Dixon Hill did one on endings which I enjoyed very much.  So I thought I'd throw something else into the pot--Why do we write?  And beyond that, why do we write what we do?  Things that we never considered when we were very young.

I'd like to think that I can write anything that I want (at least fiction), but when I seriously consider it; I'm not so sure.  For instance, could I really pull off a romance story of the ripped bodice variety?  My inclination is not only to say no, but hell no!  Why not, you may ask; you being the consummate professional you are?  Well, I would answer, "Cause it just doesn't interest me, and I seriously doubt I could stay focused long enough to pull it off."  Besides, I'm not very clear on what a bodice is exactly and am too shy to march into the nearest Victoria's Secret and demand a viewing.  But if I did muster the required nerve necessary in the pursuit of that ringing authenticity for which I am known; I would have to request the modeling of a torn one, and I'm thinking my Robin (not Christopher) wouldn't like that.  But a Western, maybe so…I think I could do that.  War story...ditto.  Horror...oh, yeah.  Literature...sure, I've got a thesaurus.  So, in other words, I've got limitations.  I'm not saying that I couldn't write the romance novel if there was a gun to my head, but I would have to be certain it was loaded.

I suspect there's a few of you who would agree that we don't just write what we know, but write what we must, to a large degree.  I still believe in free will mind you, but I also believe we work out of all the experiences and influences that make us who we are and inform our choices on the subject matter, genres, style, endings (happy, grim, or positive), etc., of what we write.  Even the fact that we write at all is a choice.  I mentioned in my first posting that I began to write as a requirement of a college course I was taking; but I didn't have to continue; that I chose.  It was what I wanted to do from that moment onward.  The sum total of my experiences, as Elizabeth Zelvin touched on a few weeks ago, had given me something to say.  Not that I grasped that at the time.  Self-awareness came later, and with it exile from the Hundred Acre Wood.

Once published (just once, mind ye) we become professionals; thrown in amongst the great of the land; the frailties and excesses of our youth no longer tolerable; all excuses to be checked at the door.  So we concentrate on style and craftsmanship and write and write...but what, exactly?  Well, in a sense, we write about ourselves.  The particular genre(s) that we work in probably say something about us right from the start.  In my case, it's laughingly obvious--a cop writing cop stories in the beginning, and later on, crime fiction of various bents and persuasions, but almost always crime stories.  Even when I wrote a family saga and a horror novel (both languishing in a desk drawer) they involved a crime or crimes.  It's what I know...but it's more than that; it's also who I am, and I don't mean just a retired policeman.  After all, you write crime stories as well as me, and not all here are ex-law enforcement. 

My best guess is that there are as many motives for writing crime fiction as there are people writing it.  I know that a love of order has a lot to with it in my case; and a desire for justice as opposed to the rather dry, unsatisfactory rendering of the law that the courts dispense.  Writing allows that.  Can you think of a single profession where the practitioner exercises more control over his creation than that of an author?  Almost everyone else has to work in a collaborative fashion.  That is only true of us when our work reaches the hands of a willing editor.  We may be called upon to make changes and alterations, but the content; the soul of the work, remains largely untouched.  After all, it's being published because of what the editor found there, not for what they wished they'd found.

When we were very young, it was easy and comforting to believe that we could accomplish anything that we put our hands to, but with the painful self-awareness of experience and, dare I say it, the onset of wisdom, are we not better off; better writers for it?  A greater understanding of who I am and what motivates me is not actually restricting at all, but ultimately liberating: the small world that I inhabit becomes just large enough to encompass the universe.

So what say you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury?  Could you just chuck crime fiction today and begin a new career in Science Fiction tomorrow?  How about plumbing or lion-taming? Any takers?  Well, let me know your thoughts.  In the meantime, I'm reconsidering that romantic novel career...the more I've thought about the research required the more intrigued I've become, and besides, a challenge keeps you young. 

A Sad Farewell

Way back when I did my undergraduate work at the University of South Carolina, I double-majored in English Literature and Journalism. The only grade less than an A I ever made was the exam on writing obituaries. There was an exact format that had to be followed. Unfortunately, I'd partied too hearty the night before the class and slept in. Not only did I not know how to write an obituary, I didn't even know we had a test the following class. I received an F and a lecture on missing the prof's lecture.

Times have changed and our State Newspaper now will print ANYTHING the family gives the mortuary. Of course, now the family has to pay by the word for the printed obituary. I've written quite a few, but I'd still rather write anything than an obit. Today's topic is a death, but I'm not going to write it as such.

This morning, I received an e-mail from Darlene Poier, editor and publisher of Canadian magazine, Pages of Stories. Subject line reads, "Goodbye from Pages of Stories." Problems forced the Poiers to take a brief hiatus to reorganize. Research in how to promote the magazine convinced them that they could not continue. Therefore, Pages of Stories ends.

I learned of Pages of Stories through Criminal Brief and won a subscription through a contest. That led to my submitting a story, which led to my story appearing in the same Summer, 2011 issue as stories by John Floyd and Leigh Lundin. I was honored to be in such fine company.

Darlene started the magazine intending to publish the best stories available, and she states, "I believe that this magazine did accomplish the goal of having the highest quality stories available, making for an enjoyable read for everyone." She wrote that subscriptions never rose to the level necessary to establish a foundation sufficient for production and promotion.

Last Friday, comments on John's blog led to a discussion of how few fiction magazines are left and how hard it is to obtain them. Perhaps we need to reconsider subscriptions. John, what I do to avoid the crowding situation is donate to nursing homes and senior citizens groups. But then, I have to subscribe because not a single bookstore of newsstand in Columbia, SC, stocks AHMM or EQMM.

The web site for Pages of Stories is still up but will soon come down. The war story project Lest We Forget is available in both hard and soft copy. Communicate with Darlene through the website or at www.pagesofstories.com.

I promised I wouldn't write this as an obituary, and I'm not. Instead, it is an eulogy and a question about our legacy and the inheritance we leave. Certainly the market is depressed, but what do we leave those who come after?

I'm going to miss Darlene and Pages of Stories.

Metaphor Hunting

by Louis A. Willis


Attempting to combine the subject of this column with a Thanksgiving theme, I tried to find a metaphorical image of a turkey’s thoughts about Thanksgiving but I couldn’t find exactly what I had in mind. The image I had in mind shows a large tom turkey in the foreground holding a rifle across his chest. In the background are several turkeys gobbling in an angry mood. The caption reads: “No More Turkey Funerals.” 

(Image courtesy of  Steve Voght )

Like the symbol hunter, I’ve been hunting metaphors. The idea of writing about metaphors has been circulating in my mind since I read Dixon’s column on props. Metaphors are props that ignite the senses which, combined with the imagination, enables the reader to experience viscerally the sensation the writer is trying to convey.

Although we often apply the term metaphor to all figures of speech, the figure writers use most often is In fact that workhorse of the figures of speech, the simile. For my own clarification of the difference between metaphor and simile I consulted a source I have been reluctant to use: the WIKIPEDIA FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA (why my reluctance to use it might be subject of another column). 

From the Wikipedia: “A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., ‘Her eyes were glistening jewels.’ Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. In this broader sense, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile would all be considered types of metaphor.” 

“A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words ‘like’, ‘as’. Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas metaphors compare two things directly.“

A good simile forces me to suspend my right brain and allow my left brain to take over (I think I got correct which side of the brain controls imagination and which rationality).

Erick G. Benson in his novel Framed Justice describes how rapidly Monday morning greets his detective Tiger Price“: …as swiftly as a bullet exiting the barrel of a rifle.” I imagine Tiger waking suddenly with the morning sun in his eyes, expecting to have a productive day, which he does.

Austin S. Camacho uses a sun smilie in his debut novel Collateral Damage to describe the look the private detective sees on his girlfriend’s face: “When she opened the door he saw the expectant look lift from her face like a mist when the sun hits the land.” The disappearing mist reveals the smiling face of happiness.

Leigh in his short story “Untenable” in Pages of Stories suggests that the Nina character may be a dangerous person when he describes her look “as cold, dark, and tart as the witches brew” and continues the simile with “Her glare turned icier.”

In his short story “Detour” (EQMM July 2011), Neil Schofield made me think of why I hated the 30 plus pigeons that at one time occupied the roof of my house. Questioning by the police makes his unnamed protagonist feel “like being pecked to death by a thousand pigeons.

In David Dean’s short story “Tap-Tap” (EQMM  March/April 2011), the protagonist, sitting at his computer staring out the office window into the street through the cold, steady rain, sees “cars planing past like water-skiers”, and I see my car fishtailing into a ditch on black ice.

The narrator in the early Edward D. Hoch horrifying story “What’s It All About?” (EQMM December 2011) describes Friday night in a Florida city as “alive, with blood of the city throbbing in its veins…” . The description reminded me of Friday nights in downtown Las Vegas when I lived there in the late 1960s.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving

Stranded

by John M. Floyd

A few months ago I got a phone call from Strand Magazine editor Andrew Gulli. That, of course, usually means good news, and it was: he said they had accepted a story I'd submitted to them. He wasn't sure when it would come out, so I've been watching their web site, and last week I noticed that my story was listed as one of those in the newly-released Holiday 2011 issue.

Having completed my investigation, I decided to drive over to the nearest bookstore and buy a copy of the magazine. But there was one more thing to do. Our nearest bookstore, now that Borders has put all four feet in the air, is now almost twenty miles away. No great distance, but since this was late afternoon, and since Jackson's rush-hour traffic reminds me of the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, I didn't want to make a special trip all the way over there until I was certain they had the current issue on their shelves; sometimes they've been known to run a little behind. Besides, I'd been there only a few days earlier, to buy the latest Stephen King novel, and the only Strand they'd had in stock on that visit was the previous (June - September) issue. Cautious soul that I am, I called the bookstore and asked the lady who answered the phone if they'd received the Holiday issue. She said she'd check.

When she came back on the line she told me yes, they had the latest issue in stock, but it didn't say anything on the cover about being a "holiday" issue. She was holding it her hand, she said, and down in the bottom corner of the front cover were the words "October through January." That sounded to me as if that adequately covered the holidays, but I wanted to be sure. For all I knew, they might've put out an extra issue this year. I thought for a moment, and after a rare brainflash I asked her if she saw any authors' names on the cover.

"Yes," she said. "Five or six."

"Would you read them out to me?"

"Read them out?"

"I want to make sure this is the issue I'm looking for."

"Okay." After a pause she said, "Alexander McCall Smith . . . Cornell Woolrich . . . Laura Lippman . . ."

I tried to remember if those names had been listed on the web site for the new issue. I thought Laura's had been, but I wasn't positive. "Keep going," I said.

She hesitated. "Woolrich sounds familiar."

"He wrote 'Rear Window,'" I said.

"Rear what?"

"Keep going."

"Three more names," she said. "Harlan Coben?"

"Keep going."

"M. L. Malcolm?"

I could tell she was beginning to lose patience with this. "Keep going."

"John Floyd?"

"Okay," I said, relieved. "That's who I was looking for. Thanks--I'll be over in about an hour to buy one."

"You're going to come over here and buy the magazine just because this guy Floyd's one of the writers?"

"Yeah," I said. "He's really good."

If this were a perfect world, she would have then put down the phone, hurried over to the fiction section, and bought one of my books. After all, employees get a discount. But somehow I doubt that happened.

The truth of the matter is, I can't figure out how I deserve being included in the company of those other folks whose names she read to me. As a friend of mine once said when he first heard he'd received a prestigious award, "They must've made a mistake." But if they did, I'm glad they did. Anyhow, I hotfooted it over to the store and bought the magazine, and in the process I got a lot more than just a contributor's copy. The October - January issue (a.k.a. the Holiday issue, apparently) has some interesting stories and interviews. Here's a quick summary, in order of appearance:

• "Chameleon in Berlin," by M. L. Malcolm, is an enjoyable tale about spies and passwords and stealth in the cold-war era. It reminded me a little of George Smiley's adventures.

• Cornell Woolrich's "Never Kick a Dick" brings back a long-lost story that mixes New York gangsters and Miami vice. And this one has an especially effective surprise near the end.

• "The Adventure of the Vintner's Codex" is a New Year's Eve mystery featuring Holmes and Watson, by Dust and Shadow author Lyndsay Faye.

• My story, "Turnabout," is--in the introductory words of the editor--"a desert-highway caper full of his [my] trademark twists and turns."

• The interviews with Laura Lippman and Harlan Coben are--what can I say?--as informative and entertaining as you would expect them to be, from those two authors. LL and HC are among the best crime writers around, and it was fun to get a look inside their heads.

• "A Very Personal Gift" by Alexander McCall Smith is a tale of love and suspense set in western Australia. This one is probably my favorite story in the group.

Also featured are more than a dozen book reviews and detailed coverage of the annual Strand Critics Awards ceremony, which was held this summer in New York City.

If you've not picked up this latest issue, I hope you will--I think you'll enjoy it. The Strand, like AHMM, EQMM, Woman's World, and a few others, has always been a great mystery market for both readers and writers.

There aren't many of them left.

Flying Without a Parachute

There was a time early in my career when we wanted to get into a house, but had no probable cause for a legal entry. Without probable cause, any evidence found inside the residence becomes fruit of the poisonous tree. In short, this means any items found inside get thrown out as inadmissible evidence in court.
So here's how it all went down.

The Setup
A street informant called the office.
"Hey, you guys got a warrant for Bopper, don'tcha?"
"Yes, why?"
"Well at ten o'clock this morning, Bopper's gonna be at James Lewis' house to make a score."
CLICK.
The phone got hurriedly hung up, the troops got hatted up and we all headed out to James Lewis' place where his apartment consisted of the entire third floor. We set up surveillance and waited. Time passed. A blue Cadillac pulled up out front, two men got out and went into the house. Ten o'clock went by. One of the two men, a tall thin guy, came out of the house and returned to the Cadillac, sitting on the passenger side. More time passed. Then it started.
"Bopper's walking down the street," came the radio call.
"Wait," replied the case agent.
"He's headed for the house," said the radio voice.
"Wait," said the case agent.
"He's going up on the front porch."

"Not yet," ordered the case agent.

"He has his hand on the doorknob."
"Hit it now," barked the case agent.
Four government vehicles immediately came alive, screeching up to the front of the house and bouncing over the curb. Car doors opened and agents with drawn guns came screaming out, making as much noise as possible.
"Police!"
"Federal Agents!"

Survival Instincts: Fight or Flight
Bopper morphed into Panic Mode. Bless his heart, he ran into the house we wanted to enter, but hadn't previously been able to acquire probable cause for a legal entry. However, there are exigent circumstances known as Hot Pursuit for situations like these. When law enforcement is in immediate pursuit of a fleeing felon, a search warrant is not needed in order for officers of the law to enter the same building which the pursued felon has just entered during the chase.
Having now found himself inside James Lewis' house, and seeing no good exit, Bopper chose to ascend the stairs to the second floor. The Thundering Herd close behind him, still hollering "Police" and "Federal Agents," shifted into Hot Pursuit Mode.
Having now arrived at the second floor landing and still not finding a good way out, Bopper continued his desperate journey upward toward James Lewis' apartment on the third floor. In full hue and cry, the mob followed at his heels.

Breathe

Now, we take a short intermission to catch our breath and explain that in those days only seasoned agents had the privilige of entering the house. Snot-nose green agents, such as myself fresh out of the academy, were regularly assigned to the perimeter where nothing of consequence ever happened. Special Agent Pat got assigned to the back of the house and I got assigned to the front. We two newbies were designated to miss all the fun.
Bored, I decided to do something. Since the tall, thin Cadillac passenger had previously been inside the house, I thought maybe he'd be holding, so I knocked on the passenger window and flashed him my tin. In no time, I had him out of the car, hands on the roof, legs spread into the proper position and was patting him down. Just as I found contraband in his hip pocket, I heard a great noise behind me.
CRASH.
I glanced back at the house.

The Not (W)Right Brothers
Two bodies came flying out the front third-story windows and landed on top of the front porch roof. They stood up with guns in their hands. Neat.

A Sharp Drop in Business
Unknown to us, James Lewis already had company in attendance trying to conduct a little business. His company's nerves began to unravel as they noticed the Thundering Herd was ascending the stairs and coming their way. By the time Bopper burst into the room, their taut nerves snapped and they departed via the front windows.
At least now I had something to do.
Wheeling the tall, thin Cadillac passenger around in front of me, where I could keep an eye on him, I placed my gun hand on his right shoulder and pointed it at the two miscreants on the porch roof, ordering them to drop their weapons.
They looked at me, looked at their buddy the gun rest, looked at the distance to the ground and then decided, yeh, they'd drop their guns. Good thing. If there'd been a shooting match, I'm fairly certain my gun rest would have ended up hard of hearing in his right ear. Took another half hour before I had enough help to get them two off the porch roof.

One Landing for Every Launch
Back to inside the house. When Bopper made his Mad Hatter entrance into James Lewis' apartment, he was still looking for a rabbit hole. However, since all the front exits, also known as the third-story front windows, were occupied at the time, he opted for the side window. Bad choice as Bopper soon realized.
Left behind, James Lewis sat flabbergasted through it all. He'd never seen a show like this before and therefore sat quietly, readily giving up his two handguns, plus all his contraband to approaching members of the Thundering Herd.
Bopper, outside the house and now in mid-air, suddenly saw that what he had failed to consider during his hasty departure was that there was nothing to deaccelerate his downward flight, except a concrete driveway.
Turns out in all the confusion, none of us saw his exit.
At a descent rate of 32 feet per second per second, his right leg failed to stand up to the pressure of cement bringing an end to his ill advised experiment of flying without a parachute. He then crawled through a bordering hedge and "ran" away from us. Our Probable Cause had literally flown out the window. Took us an hour to catch up with him.

After that, I graduated to the level of door crasher.

So now you have the background. If you want to compare the above telling with the fictionalized published version, you'll have to acquire the Who Died in Here? anthology. All short story submissions to it required a crime in a bathroom. Author compensation was a sum of money, plus an air freshener. I still have the air freshener.

Metamorphosis

I've been watching the first episodes of Case Histories on Masterpiece Mysteries. I should say that Kate Atkinson is one of my favorite writers, and that I approached the BBC production with mingled hope and trepidation. Would Atkinson turn out to be one of the lucky writers whose work thrives on tape or celluloid or would the gods of mystery turn against both her and Jackson Brodie?

No sure thing either way. Some writers and some detectives have famously been improved by the tube. John Mortimer is a good writer, but I suspect that I am not the only reader to find the Rumpole stories a tad on the thin side without Leo McKern's rotund person and orotund phrasing, not to mention the wonderful supporting case embodying Gutherie Featherstone, Claude Erskine-Brown, The Portia of Our Chambers and, of course, She Who Must Be Obeyed.

More recently I felt that Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen was more effective digitally than on the page. Rufus Sewell's stubbornness, his watchful passivity and sudden violence made sense of a character who is too often opaque in print. The screen plays of Vendetta, Cabal and Ratking streamlined Dibdin's meandering plots and produced good drama.

Of course, some popular writers have been, like good horses, virtually bomb-proof. Every decade brings another series of Miss Marples from across the water, and I imagine that there is a queue of actresses of a certain age waiting to play the elderly sleuth of St. Mary Mead. But only one to my mind has suggested a really exceptional intellect. Joan Hickson, who was genuinely old when she essayed the part, played Miss Marple in 12 eisodes and got an OBE and plaudits from the Queen for her efforts.

Christie's Hercule Poirot has been lucky, too. He's had some heavy weight interpreters, including Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm and Albert Finney, but it is safe to say that David Suchet has made the part his own with the long running series on Masterpiece.

Other writers have had mixed fortunes. Tony Hillerman was most unlucky with the 2004 series, starring Adam Beach as Jim Chee and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn. I don't remember them being particularly poor, but the bleached out colors and dusty landscape on the tube captured none of the splendor of Navaho territory in the novels. Background counts, especially in Hillerman's work, where the harsh but beautiful landscape grounds so many of his detective's attitudes and beliefs.

Even successful series with admirable production and good scripts depend heavily on the charisma of the leading characters. P.D. James' Inspector Dalgliesh novels have been beloved both on the page and on Masterpiece, but there is no doubt that it was Roy Marsden who made the ideal inspector. Sensitive but chilly, gangly, bright-eyed and reflective, Marsden really was believable as both poet and detective. A subsequent performance by Martin Shaw in the role showed the difference.

Sometimes a performer simply seems miscast. Elizabeth George, like P.D. James, has been popular across platforms, but the transition to the small screen has produced a shift in the balance between her two detectives.On screen Sharon Small makes Sergeant Barbara Havers much more appealing and attractive than she is in print, attractive enough so that Lynley seems a bit of a dolt not to notice. Nathaniel Parker, who has been funny and effective in other roles, is either miscast or seriously misdirected as the stiff and rather stodgy inspector.

So where does my favorite Kate Atkinson fall on the metamorphosis scale? Somewhere in the middle, I'm afraid. Edinburgh and its environs are beautiful, as might be expected, and Jason Isaacs certainly looks the part, although he has a Brando-ish tendency to mumble that we could do without.

The minor parts are lively and some of the dialogue has the real northern humor, but I am not sure that Atkinson's work is destined to be transferred smoothly to visuals. The strength of her novels lie in her eccentric and unexpected characters and in a plotting talent to rival Christie's. She also has a lightness of touch that is hard to mesh with the realism demanded by TV.

The script, alas, has only one of these virtues. The production seems to fear that we will forget Jackson's lamentable childhood and the traumas which have made him obsessive about protecting the vulnerable. Clips of his discovery of his dead sister appear with almost tedious regularity and serve not to deepen his character but to give a too easy explanation for his sometimes irrational reactions.

So Case Histories is entertaining and handsome but not to be compared to the novels. Read them first and then enjoy the more modestly successful efforts of Jason Isaacs and the rest of the cast.

Growing Pains

by Robert Lopresti
 

David’s column two weeks ago got me thinking about my summers on the shore as a kid; in particular how a buddy and I used to don raincoats on foggy days and stroll down the beach roads, imagining ourselves to be private eyes in London, San Francisco, or some other suitably mysterious place. Good times.  But it occurred to me that our stories never developed very far, and I seem to see a pattern there.

Back home in Plainfield my friends and I used to play The Man From Uncle, and the plots never stretched out very far (in fact, the most imaginative conflict consisted of quarrels over which of us got to be Napoleon Solo.  Chris was always  Ilya Kuryakin, because he was the only blond in the bunch.)

People always talk about children having wonderful imaginations, and I agree, but it strikes me that they aren't very good plotters.

Ever read Beverly Cleary?  She's a children's writer from Portland, Oregon, where she is thoroughly beloved.  (The children's room at the main library is named for her, and there is a statue of her character Ramona, in the park in Ramona's own neighborhood.  But Cleary also wrote a terrific little book called Dear Mr Henshaw, in which a kid tries to deal with problems in his family by keeping a journal.  At one point a children's book author visits the boy's class and reads some examples of their creative writing.  Most of the kids made up stories but our hero wrote about a true experience.  The author gives him first place and explains that children his age don't have enough history to make stuff up yet; better to stick to real events.

All of which had me pondering when I did become old enough to come up with a complete (though God knows, not publishable) story.  I think it was sixth grade.   Mrs. Sonin, our English teacher, would let you stay after school and read your stories out loud to her while she graded papers.  Very tolerant was she, I suppose.  Amazing she didn't laugh out loud at our efforts, and not at the funny parts.

I was in grad school before I finally tried to get a story published , and I was twenty-five before I finally saw my name in print.

I read recently that someone said you had to write for 10,000 hours before you could be good at it.  It scares me to think about when/if I have reached that point.

So, a question for the scribblers out there:  When did you become a writer?

November Twenty Second

    Sometimes I have to think long and hard to come up with a theme for Tuesdays.  Not so today.  Today is November 22nd.  That alone should be enough, but this year Stephen King has weighed in to make the task even easier.

    I would hazard a guess that anyone much over 50 – and some quite a bit younger – brood their way through this day each year.   We remember where we were when we heard.  We ruminate over “what if” scenarios.  Today is a day haunted by the memories of grainy black and white photos, horrors on the front pages of newspapers.  It’s a day to puzzle over how things could have gone that terribly wrong.

     Certainly, if you are of an age, it’s a day when you remember where you were back in 1963, what you were doing when Walter Cronkite, in shirt sleeves, announced to a stunned nation what had happened in Dallas.  There are other days like this – 9/11 is one – when a watershed was crossed, when the world tilted a little on its axis and then never again spun quite the same.  Those days, thankfully, are few.  But that is one of the reasons that we brood each year when they roll around.

     On the rock of our obsession with this date Stephen King has built his new novel, 11/22/63.  A very different writer, Laura Ingalls Wilder, once wrote that there is never a great loss without a little gain, and that is true here.  Out of this day, which shall always be dark, we have gained a fine novel from Stephen King, a novel that explores the “what ifs” that have haunted us for the past 48 years.

    Let’s take a deep breath and, at least for a while, step back from today’s date and focus for a while more generally on the amazing Mr. King.  By my count, since breaking into the publishing world in 1974 with Carrie, Stephen King has published 61 books – mostly novels, but also short story collections and nonfiction volumes. 

     The first Stephen King book for me was The Shining.  I bought it back in 1978 after hearing the paperback edition advertised on the radio.  I read about 100 pages the first night, and then found myself completely unable to concentrate at  work the next day because all I could think about was the story.  That night I stayed up until the small hours of the morning and finished the book.  I had to do this in order to get my life back – that is how intense the story was for me. 

    Since that day in 1978 I have read everything that Stephen King has written.  Yep, every one of those 61 books.  But while I am a stalwart Stephen King fan I am also an inveterate critic.  Like many readers, and probably like most teachers, I tend to grade books as I read them.  To my mind King has offered up some solid “A’s”, including The Shining, The Stand (particularly the longer uncut version published in 1990), It and the Gunslinger series.  My entirely subjective grading system also awards some “A-‘s,” including, among others, Firestarter, Pet Sematary, Carrie, and Salem’s Lot.  But recent works by King, aside from the later Gunslinger volumes, I generally relegate to no better than the “B” range, and there are some that for me fall below that line.  Tommyknockers, gets a C-, as does Insomnia and Cell. 

The Colorado Kid (sorry about that, Stephen) is lucky to get a D.   I mean, really – a “fair play” mystery plot where the crime is never solved?  In an afterword to The Colorado Kid, King wrote that people will either love the ending or hate it. "I think for many people, there'll be no middle ground on this one . . . .”  Well, that’s right – there wasn’t one for me!

    Others may compile the grade list differently, but from my perspective (since, after all, it is my list) one of the obvious conclusions is that, with the exception of the later Gunslinger volumes, King’s best books, at least my personal favorites, are generally found among his earlier works.  I am not the only one who has speculated that in recent years King may have been just a bit burned out. Ttake a look, for example, at the parody of King that was on Family Guy a few years back.   Perhaps this is because King used his best ideas, the ones that really grabbed him, early on, and then just ran out of really great ones.  When this happens to many of us who are, or who aspire to be, writers we experience writers’ block.  We produce nothing.  Not so, with King, however.  By all observation the man is the energizer bunny of authors.  He keeps going, and going, and going.  When his publisher ordered him to slow down, telling him that he could not continue to write at the pace of more than one book per year, King famously invented Richard Bachman and used that alter ego to drop another seven books into the book stores.  But while the work ethic is admirable, the process has, as discussed above, produced some lesser gems.

    The purpose of the foregoing digression?  Well, I guess it's two-fold.  First, not every Stephen King book is great.  And second, I hand out "A's" pretty sparingly.  12/22/63, however, gets a solid "A."

     So now lets return to today, November 22, and to King’s latest novel.  I have not finished 11/22/63 as of this writing.  This is because I am savoring it, parceling it out in measured doses, like Christmas candies.  All criticism is subjective, but to my mind 11/22/63 is the kind of King novel that we have not seen in years.  There is nothing "phoned in" here, nor is the story a forced effort by King to write "a Stephen King book."   In fact, there is very little that is supernatural about this story.  11/22/63 reads almost like it wrote itself, its premise is a stampede, and King, like the rest of us, is bouncing along trying to do whatever he can to control those horses.   Such mad rides are the best rides.

    And why is this?  Why does this book work so well?  I suspect that it is because once King came up with the premise of 11/22/63 it was a story that he had to tell.  What a difference it makes when the force driving the narrative is one that has completely grabbed the author's imagination.  When that happens writing will not be forced, it will flow on its own.  King's premise of a protagonist presented with an opportunity to go back in time, to live from 1958 through 1963 and to then attempt to right the horrific wrong of November 22 obviously resonated for the author in a way that other story ideas just did not.  King works hard in  his novels to make the characters live and breathe, but the result can  sometimes come  across as a bit forced.  Not so with those who populate 11/22/63.  They invariably ring true, and I suspect that this is so simply because, the story itself must have become so  real to King as he wrote it that character development flowed naturally.  I suspect Stephen King was as carried away writing this book as his readers will be reading it. 

The back cover of 11/22/63

    In his column last Friday my colleague Dixon Hill wrote an incisive and poignant article on happy endings.  And as Dixon concluded, happy endings generally are not Stephen King’s forte.  I have already noted that I have yet to finish  11/22/63, so I do not know how happy or unhappy the ending ultimately will prove to be.  And, of course, even if I did know the nature of that ending I would not share it here – no spoilers from me!

     But it is not a spoiler to reproduce the back cover of the novel.  And from that back cover one must conclude that, at least as to November 22, 1963, Stephen King, like the rest of us, has spent a good deal of time thinking about the possibility of a happier ending.

     The possibility of putting a better end to November 22,  a day that left us all older though not necessarily wiser, was in any event the apparent spark that inspired a great read from Mr. King. Hearkening back to Laura Ingalls Wilder's advice, we might as well be thankful for that small gain, even though it has sprung from our greater loss.

Criminals and Protesters

What's all the big deal about the Occupy Wall Street protesters? What do they want? Do they expect the rich to give them part of their money? Take from the rich and give to the poor, really? Most of us are happy when someone makes a mint. We don't want their money. Especially the money they earned by working for it. Are they asking for a hand-out? After hearing some congressmen and other people who say they are in the 1% tell the protesters on national television to "get a job." I realize they have no clue. They have erroneously decided most of these protesters are homeless/hippie/college-age or teens who just want to protest.

Maybe so, and since I'm not out in the midst of these folks, I can't say for sure. I've read and heard that stealing food, leaving horrible unsanitary areas and sexual assaults have taken place in the tent cities, and that's just all wrong. But seeing the 84 year old woman who got pepper-sprayed in the face and the marine who got the skull fracture and the peaceful sitting protesters out in CA getting pepper sprayed in the face, by police who've been ordered to disband these peaceful demonstrations. I have a feeling there are a lot of people who feel that something is terribly wrong on Wall Street and in congress. I understand cities already in debt racking up even more debt to try and keep things peaceful. The police are given orders even though they don't always agree. Yet some policemen get totally out of hand. I saw and even personally know some college students who've been protesting, I have read about teachers, police officer, military personnel, people out of work for months, union workers, and even plain ordinary folks joining the protest. Tonight many artists and musicians are joining in with the LA protesters after the AMA awards.

Most of the protesters out there are trying to make Wall Street fund managers and politicians wake up and do what needs to be done to fix some grievous wrongs. However, I don't hold out much hope they will.

The fact that banking and financial institutions were bailed-out with taxpayer money, then the boards of those institutions gave themselves and most of their top management people huge bonuses. When called upon to explain, these corporate Greedy-Gus CEOs never explained. Not one of them has ever been sent to jail for malfeasance or mismanagement of funds or even called on the carpet. Not one of them ever paid back any bail-out monies that I know about or have heard.

Seems as if I recall a huge outcry when the bail-outs were given to the large auto companies but I've heard more than one of these companies has paid money back to the US Government. The banking and brokerage institutions who haven't paid any money back are criminals. To me that's the same as defaulting on a loan. These are same characters got our economy into this mess in the first place.

Okay, having said that, let me digress to why I write crime fiction. Throughout many years of living, I've seen, read and heard of many, many miscarriages of justice. In fact, a recent case happened here in Austin just last month. A man convicted of killing his wife twenty-five years ago was found to be totally innocent. He spent twenty-five years in prison knowing a killer was out there someplace, having gotten away with murder. The man was recently released but his life has been destroyed and his daughter's life destroyed because the man was falsely convicted of killing her mother. Imagine the sorrow his own mother and father went through. The only good part of the story is that last week they finally arrested the person who DNA shows is alledged to be the real killer. It's believed that he killed another woman two years after the first initial murder in the same manner.

In my stories and books the criminal is somehow caught and punished. He or she is put in jail or is killed The criminal get his "just desserts." Harsh justice? I think not. In real life there seldom is satisfaction when a crime is committed. Sometimes the criminal is caught and put on trial, but gets off by a technical error. or an inept prosecutor and inept jury. There is no justice. No satisfaction. Sometimes in one of my stories, I write the criminal gets a psychological punishment...having to live the rest of their life thinking of what they have done.

Real life is full of these huge miscarriages of justice. This echoes back to Dixon's blog the other day. Happy endings. People who read crime fiction want the bad guys/gals caught and punished. They want a criminal to suffer for their crimes. Writers of crime fiction usually write a happy ending. Maybe not every time but enough times to keep readers coming back. This is why I think crime fiction is so popular. If you keep track of the best sellers, the list generally has many books of mystery or crime fiction.

The Occupy Wall-Street protesters just want the criminals punished and these huge companies to STOP giving away money that was not really theirs to begin with, it came from the people. Why weren't those bonuses used to create news jobs? Why not restore a little faith in our society? Why allow criminals to get away with their crimes?

We writers of crime fiction must continue seeking truth and justice and let the bad guys be punished. If all else fails we may have to join the protesters.

Wellerness

“	A world renounced romantic comedy author, Susan Elizabeth Phillips runs the game in the romance genre. Phillips is one of the biggest women’s fiction stars soaring onto the New York Times bestseller list with Dream a Little Dream. She’s the only four-time recipient of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Favorite Book of the Year Award.	”

Pickwick and Weller

My editor, writer, friend Sharon has a quick eye for writing goofs and spotted the above from BookPerk.com. Pity the world renounced one of her favorite writers, who's actually a five-time recipient of RWA’s Favorite Book of the Year Award.

I've been receiving silliness and word play in my eMail, which I'll share with readers. Along with many writers, I enjoy word play, a devil's playground for an idle mind.

Wellerisms

Once earlier, I discussed spoonerisms, but today I'll mention wellerisms, derived from Charles Dickens's first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837). Samuel Pickwick's man's man Weller was sort of a cockney Sancho Panza to his employer's Don Quixote. Sam Weller and his father Tony became known for pithy remarks and proverbs. By 1839, the popular valet had become a sensation resulting in Weller merchandise, puzzles, joke books, and even bootleg copies of his stories.

Wellerisms center around a quotation, a cliché, or sometimes a proverb, misapplied with humorous effect. Examples of wellerisms include:

• "It comes back to me now," said the prisoner, spitting into the wind.
• "Remarkable," said the teacher, trying out her new dry-erase board.
• "We'll have to rehearse that," said the undertaker as the body tumbled from the coffin.
• "So I see," said the blind carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.
• "Is this a hearing?" asked the deaf juror judgmentally.

Tom Swift, Jr.

The once popular adverbial Tom Swifties are a variant of wellerisms. For example:

• "Let's dig up that body," said Tom gravely.
• "I bet you have no diamonds, clubs, or spades," said Tom heartlessly.
• "This tastes bad, Herb," said Tom sagely.

More Play and Burning Questions

• What disease did cured ham actually have?
• Why do actors appear in a movie but on TV?
• Why is 'bra' singular and 'panties' plural?
• How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
• Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
• Do the alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
• Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
• Why do you have to 'put your two cents in', but it's only a 'penny for your thoughts'? Where's that extra penny going?
• Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
• How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
• Why is it that people say they 'slept like a baby' when babies wake up like every two hours?
• Did they cry, spit, and scream?
• Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
• Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.
• Why do toasters have a setting that burns toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
• If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?

  

  Sam Weller

• If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
• Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs.
• If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme junk, why didn't he just buy dinner?
• Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
• If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
• If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
• Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your bottom?
• Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are going dead?
• Why do banks charge a fee for insufficient funds when they know you don't have enough money?
• Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
• Why do they use sterilized needles for execution by lethal injection?
• Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?
• Why did Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
• Whose idea was it to put 'S's in the word 'lisps'?
• Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
• Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
• Why can't men open plastic bags in the vegetable section of grocery stores?
• How do those dead bugs get into enclosed light fixtures?
• Why is it whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table, you manage to knock something else over?
• In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
• How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

Ingrid Bergman said, "A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop speech when words become superfluous." Before y'all tell me to kiss off, I'll stop speaking.

Executive Protection

Elizabeth Zelvin

At a recent dinner meeting of the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America, the speakers were the founders of an outfit called Management Resources Ltd of New York. A temp agency? Nope. Human resources consultants? Nope again. Robert H. Rahn, a retired NYPD lieutenant and homicide detective, and Kim Anklin, also a retired cop with a background in crime and intelligence analysis, gave their private investigation firm a bland name because their corporate clients didn’t want the information that they’d hired PIs to spread all over the company. They’re not completely undercover, though: their website is http://www.nysleuth.com/.

While Management Resources is a full-service investigations firm, they came to MWA to talk about one of their specialties, executive protection. That’s motorcades and bodyguards and everything the Secret Service does for the President and A-list visiting heads of state. Lesser lights—such as the numerous members of the Saudi royal family—as well as celebrity actors and athletes—make do with private firms like this one. The amount of protection that they get (from a single bodyguard to an eight-person team or from a single car to a mini-motorcade of four) depends on both the level of threat and the client’s budget.

When a client hires them for protection during, say, a three-day visit to New York, the firm starts by getting a detailed schedule and sending out an advance team of two or three operatives to analyze, measure, map, and if possible photograph the details of every venue the client expects to visit, especially the approaches: the principal, as the subject is called, is most vulnerable when entering and leaving the venue. The team that protects the principal during the visit is thoroughly briefed beforehand. Unscheduled stops are strongly discouraged, though if the principal insists, the team adapts. As someone pointed out during the Q&A, the kitchen where Bobby Kennedy was shot was an unscheduled stop.

According to Rahn, the way protection teams work changed significantly as a result of the shooting of President Reagan. When it happened, only one bodyguard got the President into a car and away from the scene, while all the others converged on the shooter. Nowadays, it’s the opposite. In Reagan’s case, the bullet seemed to have breezed under his armpit, leaving no apparent wound. The car was headed back to the hotel when a bloody froth at the mouth, which the protector luckily recognized as indicating a collapsed lung, sent them to the hospital instead.

 After explaining how it works, Rahn called on eight volunteers, including me, to perform a demonstration. I had the right front position in the formation, which made me the person who would tackle the attacker, if trouble came from the right. All the rest would converge on the principal, whose safety is the team’s priority. (Principals who want them to walk the dog and pick up their laundry—actors are the worst offenders--get nipped in the bud.) Rahn admitted that he and his staff, all retired law enforcement, have had to unlearn their instinct to go after the guy with the gun. What impressed me as a participant was how broad the range I had to keep my eye on was, even though I had to cover only one quadrant of the space around the principal.

The National Arts Club, an immense old mansion on Gramercy Park with multiple approaches to every room and plenty of shadows and hiding places, made a great demonstration venue. Waiters and bartenders came and went. (On a job, they would have been investigated in advance.) At one point during the role play, a door on the left opened unexpectedly, and a brand new staff person appeared—fortunately not packing a gun.

Everybody agreed that the audience had more questions for the speakers than at any other talk in recent memory. I’m always interested in whether novels, movies, and TV get it right. I was interested to learn that there’s no personal contact whatever with the principal, except to direct him (“Come this way, sir.”) or respond to requests (“He’s a friend, let him through.”). In other words, Kevin Costner definitely should not have slept with Whitney Houston.

Do people change?

There are two kinds of people: those who believe that people never really change and those who believe they do. Fiction writers may fall into either category, and their fiction reflects their take on this crucial aspect of human nature.

Mystery and crime fiction has some beloved characters whose attraction is partly in their eternal sameness. Sherlock Holmes will always baffle Watson, smoke his pipe, and play his violin. Miss Marple will always knit and find an analogy to crime in village life. Stephanie Plum will always manage to blow up a car and never decide between her two boyfriends. Jack Reacher will always leave town once the crisis is past and never wash his underwear.

I’ve been rereading Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver books, written between the 1930s and the 1950s. I have forty-two of them (not all Miss Silvers, but in the same universe), and they’ve been high on my list of comfort reads for many years. Miss Silver never changes. She dresses like an Edwardian or even Victorian governess, projects a powerful sense of security and understanding, and sees through people “as if the human race were glass-fronted.” In every book, she’s described in unvarying terms. It’s soothing, although no modern series author would dare do the same. Miss Silver’s world is unchanging too. Even after the War, girls are good or bad, sensible or silly. Upper class characters may be autocratic, villainous, or filled with integrity, but no housemaid ever turns out to be intelligent.

Novels allow plenty of room for the growth of their characters. In fact, whole bodies of literature—the quest novel, the coming of age novel—focus on the protagonist’s personal growth. The mystery series expands the potential for growth far beyond the range of a single novel. Most of my perennial favorites are about characters who change. Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey evolves from a silly ass about town not very different from Bertie Wooster, except for his nose for crime, to a complex individual with remarkable intelligence, integrity, and sensitivity. In fact, I believe Sayers invented the three-dimensional, feeling mystery character—the very kind of character Lord Peter encourages Harriet Vane to write in Gaudy Night. It could be argued that the depth of Sayers’s writing, rather than Lord Peter himself, is what changed. But Harriet herself changes over the course of the series from a brittle, fearful woman who distrusts herself and men to a self-confident woman with no doubts about her abilities of mind or heart.

As a therapist as well as a writer, I’ve bet my career—both of them—on the belief that people can and do change. My series protagonist, recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler, begins to change—fundamentally, radically, and none too willingly—from the moment he gets sober. My deepest motive for writing Death Will Get You Sober was to translate the powerful, transformative process of recovery from real life, where I’d seen it many times, to fiction. At that level, I continued Bruce’s story as a series because for recovering alcoholics, not drinking is just the beginning.

So what about short stories? Are they spacious enough to show the process of change? I’ve written four short stories about Bruce, and I’d say that each of them catches him at a particular moment in his evolution. In “Death Will Clean Your Closet,” he’s doing housework for the first time in years when he finds a body. Later, he goes to sleep on a park bench, commenting that it’s the first time he’s done that sober, and wakes up with the solution to the murder. In “Death Will Tie Your Kangaroo Down,” he has to talk a houseguest out of leaving beer in his refrigerator, “where it looked dangerously at home.” In the later stories, he’s simply sober, using his clear head and his knowledge of recovery to figure out whodunit.