The Last Camel Collapsed at Noon

Several years ago I was invited to give a lecture at a Rice University summer workshop for writers. I was given the assignment of discussing hooks or opening lines – which led to one of the more enjoyable research studies I've ever done. My research consisted almost primarily of pulling out every mystery on my bookshelves (and believe me there were a lot then and even more now) and reading the opening line or paragraph. Then trying to figure out why it worked. If it did. Sometimes it didn't. Hook me, that is. And that was the entire reason for my lecture. How do you hook a reader, how do you keep them reading your book beyond that first line, paragraph, page or chapter? There's got to be a hook.

I entitled this essay “The Last Camel Collapsed at Noon” because, to me at least, Ken Follett's opening line in THE KEY TO REBECCA is one of the greatest. Why? Because you learn so much from those six simple words: You get a vague place – not a lot of camels on the streets of Manhattan – one is to assume this is a desert area, and one can also only assume that these people are in very deep doo-doo. 

 

But I found so many more wonderful opening lines, and all of them so different that it led me to do my own classification of openers: Slap in the Face, Character, Travel Log, and Puzzler, among others. Here's the short list, honed down from a much, much larger one, that fits perfectly in these categories.

Slap in the Face: PRIMARY JUSTICE, William Bernardt – “'Once again,' the man said, pulling the little girl along by the leash tied to his wrist and hers. 'Tell me your name.'” DEAD BOLT, Jay Brandon – “His child was on the ledge.” And one of my all time favorites, SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT, Bill Crider – “Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew it was going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey brought in the arm and laid it on the desk.” In all three of these examples, I dare the reader not to read on! These opening lines grab your attention and keep you riveted.

For a really good example of a character opening I go way back to one of my favorite writers, Raymond Chandler, who wrote these opening lines for TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS: “Anna Halsey was about two hundred and forty pounds of middle-aged putty faced woman in a black tailor-made suit. Her eyes were shiny black shoe buttons, her cheeks were as soft as suet and about the same color. She was sitting behind a black glass desk that looked like Napoleon's tomb and was smoking a cigarette in a black holder that was not quite as long as a rolled umbrella. She said, 'I need a man.'”

Sharyn McCrumb once honored me by using my book, CHASING AWAY THE DEVIL, in a class she was teaching as an example of how to hook the reader. When she told me that, I had to go back to the book and read that opening paragraph to figure out why. I knew I didn't kill anybody in that first paragraph, knew there wasn't any great action. So why did she single out this opening?

“The third week in November is Pioneer Week in my home, Prophesy County, Oklahoma. There's nothing in this goddam world I hate more than Pioneer Week. They make us deputies dress up for it. In chaps. And cowboy hats. And boots. And spurs. And real-live six-guns on our hips. It's goddam ridiculous.” I had to read this a couple of times before I realized that this, like Chandler's opening paragraph above (although unfortunately not nearly as classic) is a character opening. Milt Kovak's personality is smeared all over those few sentences. The reader knows, right off the bat, what kind of person he/she's going to be sharing the next several hundred pages with.

Travel Log: THE JUDAS GOAT, Robert B. Parker – “Hugh Dixon's home sat on a hill in Weston and looked out over the low Massachusetts hills as if asphalt had not been invented yet.” Marcia Muller often opens her books with vivid descriptions of northern California. But her opening lines for PENNIES ON A DEAD WOMAN'S EYES – “At first they were going to kill me. Then they changed their minds and only took away thirty-six years of my life” – is a good example of the Puzzler category. Others are Joseph Wambaugh's opening line in the THE ONION FIELD, “The gardener was a thief,” Barbara Michaels' opener for THE DARK ON THE OTHER SIDE, “The house talked,” and Jonathan Kellerman's first line of OVER THE EDGE, “It was my first middle-of-the-night crisis call in three years.”

A book does not necessarily start at the beginning of the story. A writer can always go back and pick up the chronological beginning of the story – a beginning that may not be overly dramatic. Of course the beginning of the story needs to be there – but not necessarily on page one. Page one should be reserved for the hook.

While writing FAT TUESDAY, Earl Emerson wrote these words on page 127, chapter eight: “I was trapped in a house with a lawyer, a bare-breasted woman, and a dead man. The rattlesnake in the paper sack only complicated matters.” He said it took him weeks to junk the book, re-plot the story,and regain the momentum of the narrative, but he was able to move those lines to page one, chapter one. Now that's a hook.

In journalism they teach that the lead (or hook) must grab a reader by the lapels, must punch him in the nose to make him read the story. Seize his attention and don't let go. The hook in a good mystery should punch the reader in the nose while at the same time seducing him. The hook shouldn't answer any questions, but ask them. A good mystery opener should seduce the reader into believing that the answers to those questions are worth the wait.

Copyright? Elementary, My Dear Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story in 1887 and his last in 1927. There were 56 stories in all, plus 4 novels. The final stories were published between 1923 and 1927. As a result of statutory extensions of copyright protection culminating in the 1988 Copyright Term Extension Act, the American copyrights on those final stories . . . will not expire until 95 years after the date of original publication -- between 2018 and 2022 . . . . The copyright on the 46 stories and the 4 novels, all being works published before 1923, [has] expired.

                                                 Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd.
                                                 755 F. 3d 496, 497 (7th Cir. 2014)
                                                 per Judge Richard Posner

Is there anything left to say about Sherlock Holmes? The fame of Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic detective has now stretched across three centuries, with no expiration date in sight. . . . Recent books and graphic novels find the detective trading bon mots with Henry James, escaping the island of Doctor Moreau and squaring off against a zombie horde. One can also pick up Sherlock-themed tarot decks, rubber duckies, crew socks and — for undercover work — a “sexy detective” outfit featuring a deerstalker and pipe. And, needless to say, the digital landscape is ablaze with blogs, fanfic, Twitter feeds, podcasts and innumerable tributes to the cheekbones of Benedict Cumberbatch. What’s left? As Professor Moriarty once remarked, “All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.” 

                                                Daniel Stashower
                                                The Washington Post, July 12, 2015
                                                Reviewing The Amazing Rise and Immortal Lives of Sherlock Holmes                                                  by Zach Dundas

Sir Ian McKellen in Mr. Holmes

       This week’s summer movie roll-outs included Mr. Holmes, which features Sir Ian McKellen’s highly anticipated take on Sherlock Holmes at 93 —  battling age and dementia as he tries to unravel one last case. The movie, based on the 2005 Holmes pastiche A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, actually offers the viewer two takes on Holmes, since the cinema version of the story features a “movie within a movie” in which Nicholas Rowe, who earlier portrayed the detective in Young Sherlock Holmes, once again assumes the role in Watson’s version of the mystery that confounds the elderly Holmes.  (Holmes views the movie version, based on Watson's account, in an attempt to jump start his failing memories of the case.)  The fact that the movie offers a new take on Holmes —  indeed, two new takes, and that the same week yet another Holmes retrospective hit the bookstores —   Zach Dumas' The Amazing Rise and Immortal Lives of Sherlock Holmes — is hardly surprising. For 130 years Sherlock Holmes has been, well, ubiquitous.

       Ellery Queen had this to say in his (err, “their”) introduction to The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes:   "more has been written about Sherlock Holmes than about any other character in fiction. It is further true that more has been written about Holmes by others than by Doyle himself."  We will return to that Ellery Queen anthology, but for now the important point is that no other detective  —  not Miss Marple, nor Hercule Poirot, nor Ellery himself  —  has so tempted other authors to lift their pens in imitation and tribute.  And all of this begs a legal question:  How, pray tell, have these new takes on Sherlock Holmes been reconciled with the copyright protection originally secured for the character by Arthur Conan Doyle?

     A Proviso before going forward here: While I am a lawyer, I am NOT a copyright and intellectual properties lawyer. So, a caveat — when I discuss copyright rules it may be a little like asking your family doctor to perform brain surgery.  But with that in mind, the simple rule is that in the United States under the terms of the 1998 Copyright Terms Extension Act the author has copyright protection for 95 years following the publication of the author’s work. So if you are inclined to dabble in pastiches (and I plead guilty on that one), well, you need to do this only with the permission of the original author (or their estate) if the character you are using was created less than 95 years ago.

       How easy is it to run afoul of copyright rules? Well, as promised above, lets return again to our old friend Ellery Queen for the answer to that question. In 1944 Queen published an anthology collecting most of the Holmes pastiches and parodies then in existence, The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. Of all Ellery Queen volumes this one is likely the rarest. If you want to secure a copy on Amazon it will probably set you back around $150.00.  Why? Well, the anthology, it turns out, was published without first securing a license from the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle. As a result, it was quickly pulled from publication when the estate threatened to sue, and only a limited number of volumes ever reached book stores.   (As an aside, notwithstanding all of the above, a rough version of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes is, as of this writing, rather mysteriously available for downloading on the internet!  Just click here.)

       But, in any event, Ellery's stumble over the copyright rules was way back in 1944, right? Back then the first Sherlock Holmes stories were not even 60 years old. What about today? In 2015 almost 130 years separates us from the first Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet. So Sherlock should have squared his tweed-draped shoulders and marched into the public domain almost 35 years ago, right?  Well, not so fast. The Doyle estate has historically taken a different (and predictable) approach when it comes to counting those intervening years.

       As the quote at the top of the article points out, the “last bows” of the Sherlock Holmes stories were the ten final mysteries written by Arthur Conan Doyle between 1923 and 1927.  And, counting it up, the 95 year copyright on those stories has yet to expire — and won’t begin to for another three years. The Doyle estate has argued that a “fully rounded” (their words) Holmes and Watson arose only upon completion of the entire Doyle canon.   Thus, the estate argues, copyright protection continues until 2022, i.e., 95 years after the last story was published in 1927.  Pause and think about this:  The Copyright laws speak of a protection period running for 95 years from the first appearance of a character, but the Doyle estate argues that this in fact means 95 years from the last appearance of the character.  The argument sounds more like George Orwell than it does Sherlock Holmes!

       The Doyle estate implemented their concededly expansive view of copyright protection in a rather clever manner. The estate decided to charge $5,000 in licensing fees for every use of Holmes and Watson, reasoning that the amount, while substantial, was far less than the cost of subjecting the “fully rounded” theory to a test in litigation. So their assumption was that those wishing to write about Homes and Watson might grumble, but they would pay.  All went well with this approach until Leslie Klinger came along.

       Klinger co-edited an anthology of Sherlock Holmes pastiches and parodies in 2011 titled A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon. Klinger dutifully paid the $5,000 demanded by the Doyle estate before publishing that collection. But when he and his co-editors decided to proceed with a sequel, In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, they also decided that enough was enough and refused to pay for a license. The Doyle estate escalated the dispute, threatening to sue if publication occurred without a license. Klinger responded by suing the estate, claiming that Holmes and Watson were in the public domain and had been since 1982, that is, 95 years after A Study in Scarlet was published. As a result, Klinger argued, no license was required.

       A federal district court, and ultimately the Seventh Circuit United States Court of Appeals, eventually settled the matter. In May of 2014 the Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court’s decision and held that the Doyle estate’s argument was wrong. The court instead agreed, as Klinger had argued, that Sherlock Holmes entered the public domain, and became “fair game” for other writers, 95 years following the publication of the first Holmes story.

       But how does one handle the refinements to Holmes and Watson that occurred in those later stories, that is, the “rounding” of the characters on which the estate had relied? Well, the court answered that question by concluding that only Holmes and Watson as portrayed in the original series of stories by Doyle are currently in the public domain; that is, the characters as portrayed prior to 1923. And any subsequent nuances to the character — those “well rounded” attributes on which the estate’s arguments were based — remain protected by the copyright laws.

       How does this work in practice? Well, as Barack Obama, among others, has observed “a good compromise leaves everyone unhappy.” The estate doesn't get its $5,000, but the author of a pastiche nonetheless writes at his or her peril since the use of attributes only arising in the last 10 Holmes mysteries infringes the continuing copyright on those stories.

       The Seventh Circuit’s opinion only identifies a scant few areas in which Doyle’s characters became "more rounded” in the later Holmes stories that are still copyright protected: First, Holmes (apparently) likes dogs; Second, Watson was married twice. (On that latter point, I think W.S. Baring-Gould set the number of marriages at three, but I won’t argue the point — particularly without a license!)  So the “rounding” of Sherlock Holmes and Watson may be limited, but what does this rule mean for other characters who appeared in a series of works over the years?  Let us take, for example, my old friend Ellery Queen.

       Ellery’s earliest appearance was in The Roman Hat Mystery, which was published in 1929. Thus, all of the Queen canon is still copyright protected. But what happens in 2024, when the first appearance of Ellery reaches its 95th birthday and the canon begins its seriatim march into the public domain? Arguably under the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning Ellery can be used freely by other authors as of that date.  But beware:  Ellery better be wearing pince-nez glasses, and he might be advised to only employ a Duesenberg for transportation.  He should also have retired, with a wife and son, to Italy. All of those early aspects of Ellery disappeared by the middle of the Queen canon as Ellery Queen and the Inspector were "rounded" by Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee.  In fact the first evidence of the Ellery of the latter half of the canon did not appear until about 1936, with the publication of Halfway House. So unlike Sherlock, there are unmistakable differences between early and late Ellery!

       And if all of this were not confusing enough, let’s throw into our copyright primer the fact that parodies of copyrighted materials, unlike pastiches, fall completely outside of the protection of copyright without worrying at all about the passage of time.  This exception to copyright protection is established and was famously re-invigorated in 2001 when the Eleventh Circuit held that The Wind Done Gone, a re-telling of Gone With the Wind from the perspective of the enslaved residents of Tara, did not infringe Margaret Mitchell’s copyright of the original story.

       So let us return again to Queen and see how that rule would work.  Well, apparently the great Jon L. Breen could have freely published his humorous short story mystery “The Lithuanian Eraser Mystery,” (EQMM March, 1969), in which “E. Larry Cune” solves a New York City theatre murder.  That story is a parody, no question.  Tongue is firmly planted in cheek.   But, by contrast, Breen needed a license in order to publish “The Gilbert and Sullivan Clue,” (EQMM Sept. 1999) since Ellery himself solves that theatrical-based mystery. And what about Francis Nevins famous pastiche “Open Letter to Survivors” (EQMM May, 1972), a story that, while clearly featuring Ellery, never in fact names him as the young detective? I asked Mike Nevins, a copyright professor himself, whether he secured a license for that story and his reply was that Frederic Dannay, then the editor-in-chief of EQMM, never brought up the matter one way or the other when the story was accepted by EQMM for publication.

       But back to Sherlock — when you see that new movie, Mr. Holmes, you might reflect on all of this, and what it can take to breathe new life into another author's character.   And think about the "rounding" of Holmes that had nothing to do with Arthur Conan Doyle — particularly Sherlock Holmes as portrayed in the movie and in Mitch Cullin's original pastiche.  As Holmes explains in each, part of his task in telling this story on his own, without Watson as narrator, is setting the record straight, removing the "excesses" of the Watson versions of his stories.  As an example, you will note that Sir Ian McKellen’s Holmes prefers cigars to a pipe. That “rounding” of the famous detective’s character has absolutely no precedent in the Arthur Conan Doyle canon, either before or after 1923. So at least when Sherlock enjoys his cigar we needn't go back to the Holmes canon looking for references that might prove significant for those pesky copyright laws.

       Come to think of it, a similar observation might be made concerning the title of this article.  Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes never once used the phrase "elementary my dear Watson!"

No Sex Please – We’re Crime Writers!

I write short.  This stems from my comedy writing roots, where each word must be carefully chosen for impact.  So my publishers don’t delete a lot of scenes from my books.  In fact, they usually tell me where to add more words.
With one exception.

There seems to be a convention that crime books shouldn’t contain sex.  Oh, they can refer to sex. Sex can be a powerful motivator for all those violent scenes we are allowed to describe in painstaking detail. (Irony alert here.)

So you can refer to sex. But Lord help you if you – ahem – ‘Show-not-Tell.’

Okay, so I show a bit.  But just a little bit.  I don’t write X-rated, honest.  In fact, I write with the sort of silliness that might be associated with old Benny Hill skits.  So we’re not talking Fifty Shades of Naughty here. (otherwise known as Fifty Shades of Boredom.  But I digress…)

Still, my naughty bits get censored. No sex please, we’re crime writers!

It’s a crime <sic>.  Heck, it’s enough to make a poor gal swap genres. Have you read any steamy romance books lately?  Those novels can be practically pornographic.

When did romance books become more adult than crime books?

I explained to one of my publishers why a certain sexy blackmail scene was essential to the story. It provided motivation that was completely necessary.  So here was their admittedly canny solution:
Leave the dialogue in, but take out the other senses – the sounds, the visuals, the - let’s leave it there.

Yes, it still works.  You get what’s going on by what is being said.

Does it lose impact?  Well, yes.  I work hard to include all the senses in my writing.

But does it work for the plot?  Yes, it does.  It might even be funnier without the senses.

You be the judge.

From THE GODDAUGHTER’S REVENGE, winner of the 2014 Derringer and Arthur Ellis awards:

“Now Carmine, move up front here and pay close attention to this video,” I said. “You might know the people.”

Everyone came closer. You could almost hear each individual breath. Except then I turned up the volume and you could only hear the heavy breathing and moans coming from the laptop.

“Oh Carmy! Do it – do it – ahhhhh”

“I’m doin’ it, babe – I’m doin’ it –“

“Faster, Carmy! Faster – don’t stop”

All eyes were glued to the screen.

“Oh, gross,” said Lou.

“Holy shit!” yelled Carmine. “How did you get that?”

“Carm, that ain’t your wife. Tracy’s not a blond.” Bertoni was confused.

“How the heck is she doing that?” Pete stared at the video with far too much interest.

Has your publisher ever dialed back a particularly sexy scene? Give us the dirt <sic> in the comments below.

THE GODDAUGHTER'S REVENGE (from Orca Books)
at Amazon
at Chapters

Hunting Tips from the Mafia....with running commentary

Yeah folks, I know this is still summer time with 3 or 4 months left before regular hunting season, but if you're like the old Kansas City mafia then you know it's best to put some future planning into your hunting endeavors in order to see what the problems are so you can scheme towards a successful conclusion. Let's take a look at an old FBI Title III transcript to see how mob minds work.
Here's the scenario. An agent has surreptitiously planted a listening device in a north Kansas City building used by the local mafia hierarchy. Tape recorders are running. The time is late 1978, about six months after three mobsters (allegedly Nick Civella's henchmen) burst into the Virginian Tavern and shot the three surviving Spero brothers: Mike, Joe and Carl. Mike promptly expired, Joe got wounded and Carl, who fled through a side door when the shooting began, took a shotgun blast to the back and ultimately ended up in a wheelchair. The fourth brother, Nick Spero, had previously been found after taking up temporary residence in the trunk of his Cadillac convertible.

Nick Civella is the Kansas City godfather at the time of this event and his brother Corky is the family's underboss. These two and Tuffy DeLuca, one of the alleged gunmen at the Virginian Tavern shooting, are in the bugged building having a discussion as to what to do about Carl Spero, since he survived the shooting. Hey, planning is everything, unless of course the resulting actions leave some loose ends. In this case, Joe and Carl Spero are leftover loose ends which now require another round of planning.

In the following transcript, The Civellas are focusing their attention on Carl, whose residence is on a remote lot in Clay County, Missouri, where the brush and trees have been cleared away from the house for some distance.

Nick Civella: "Them guys (referring to some of his henchmen) been out to the house. That house is exposed for a mile. You get a car out there on the road. You start, do you say crawl and walk. The guys ain't in that kind of shape." Sounds like too much pasta and cannoli with not enough gym time. C'mon Nick, you're the boss, shape these guys up.

Corky Civella: "Willie's telling me (an apparent reference to a future KC godfather named Willie 'The Rat' Cammisano) he would go out there and sit and crawl and hit him from a f+++++g mile away. I don't see no sense in why the guy can't even try." Just in case kids are reading this post, I cleaned up some of Corky's language from the original transcript.

Nick: "He'd be moving. He's a moving target." Moving? C'mon Nick, the guy's in a wheelchair. How fast can he be moving?

Cork: "What's the difference, f+++++g deer's moving." Deer? Human? All the same to Cork, he figures you just stalk and shoot them.

Nick: "Oh, no, no, Cork. Deers are standing when they get hit." Huh!

The conversation then closes with the following words.

Nick: "Let me tell you something. We've got the best f+++++g bloodhounds in the United States and always did have." I had no idea the mafia used bloodhounds. But, having already equated human targets to deer, Nick has evidently taken the step of anthropomorphizing the abilities of bloodhounds onto his hitmen.

In the end, having concerns about the physical capabilities of their hitmen, plus their accuracy with a firearm over long distances, the Civellas opt to go with a wider range program where the concept of "close" still counts to get the job done. As mentioned in a previous blog, Joe gets blown away with a booby-trap in his storage shed, while Carl and his speedy wheelchair are subsequently ventilated with a nail-bomb shortly upon arriving at his cousin's car lot. Loose ends are now taken care of.

The hunt's over, the game has been bagged and tagged. And, that's hunting mafia style.

Ripped From Today's Headlines!

by Brian Thornton

As many of you know, I write crime fiction. In my case it's mostly historical in nature. And every once in a while, I have a reader pop up and tell me how they don't buy this or that situation in one of my stories. I've heard it over and over again.

"That would never happen," they say. "Who is that stupid?"

Now, we're not talking, "Slasher-flick–heroine–opening–the-front–door–after–finding–several–of–her–friends–run–through–a–vegamatic" stupid. After all, as far as I'm concerned, as a writer, I have an obligation to entertain my readers. And they have a right to trust that I won't stiff them once they've bought something I've written.

That's a funny word, "trust."

Webster's defines "trust" as: "belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc."

And how does the old saying go? "It's getting so you can't trust anyone, these days." You've heard it, I'm sure.

It's never been more true than today. Especially when it comes to the Internet.

Everyone knows the stories, or maybe even someone who has been taken in by some or other internet scam– you know, Nigerian doctors, Ukranian brides, twists on the phone scams that ran before it, and three card monty con games that were around before phone lines.

It all really boils down to this:

Tell us all about that bank crash, Grandma!

People who have given you no earthly reason to trust them, ask for your trust.

When you see it phrased that way, why on earth would anyone oblige them?

And yet it happens day after day after day.

E-commerce is built around a more honest permutation of this very principle. After all, money is a fluid commodity. And we as a society are well past the "I–don't–trust–banks–so–I–bury–my–savings–a–coffee–can" stage of a developing economy.

Besides, sometimes you forget where you buried the can (And then you never know what you might dig up!).

Yep, that's a Ferrari, alright. (File this one under #Firstworldproblems)

Who among us hasn't received a call (or several) from the fraud detection division of our bank, asking us about suspicious purchases made with our bank cards? It's just a reality of the age in which we live. Most people, if they don't consciously consider this notion, accept it when faced with incontrovertible evidence of it.

Case in point: several years ago (nevermind how many, although it was well over a decade ago), a friend of mine became romantically involved with a political operative who worked on several high profile political campaigns. Once they got serious, the campaign for which my friend's new boyfriend worked sent over some "security people" to speak with my friend about some of her private proclivities.

Boy, was she red-faced.

Nothing more came of it, they just wanted her to be aware of how open her online actions were to being monitored. Talking to me about it afterward, red-faced as she was, she said "They did me a favor. I had no idea."

(There's a happy ending. My friend eventually married the guy. They're still together.)

In the years since then, we've had the Anthony Weiners and the Chris Lees of the world (See what I did there? One Democrat, one Republican, both hubristic boobs who ought to have known better.) showing us hubris over and over again, via the magic of Twitter and Craigslist, respectively.

Trust me when I say NO ONE wants to see this....

...or THIS!

This kind of crap goes on because guys like Weiner and Lee believe they won't get caught.

I mean, hey, the two maroons cited above were public figures. Weiner especially was pretty high profile. He made the rounds of all of the Sunday talk shows, and was seen as a rising star in the House Democratic leadership at the time of his spectacular fall.

That these two were "indiscreet" would be to be to understatement.

When this sort of hubris is wedded to the "sucker" impulse listed at the beginning of this posting, that is where a certain manner of idiocy is brought drooling and dragging its knuckles into this 21st century world.

And that is when you get the Ashley Madison hacking scandal of the last couple of weeks.

If you're not up to date on what "Ashley Madison" is and why this is potentially such a big (and hilarious) deal, to read a quick overview of what's been going on, click here.

Demonstrating the type of willful, arrogant stupidity usually reserved for characters in a crime fiction novel (The works of Elmore Leonard, Donald E. Westlake–especially the "Dortmunder" novels– and Carl Hiassen all come to mind), a whole slew of people looking to cheat on their spouses signed up to cruise other people in the market for an extramarital affair, and in order to access the "special features" available only to paying member/customers, pony up their hard-earned ducats.

Usually by using a personal credit card.

Anyone else get the irony?

These people (and there are apparently thousands of them), looking to do something that most of society considers a fundamental betrayal of their wedding vows, looked around and saw a website hosted by a company that said: "Trust us" while demonstrating no quantifiable reason to do so.

And yet they did, in droves.

Apparently part of the sales job on the part of the folks at Ashley Madison was a guarantee that anytime a member wanted to quit and erase their cybertracks, such service would be cheerfully provided by the friendly folks expediting their screwing around on their spouse, and all for the low, low price of $19.00!

Uh–HUH....And let me know when *Elvis* gets here...

In an age where the names and social security numbers of hundreds of thousands of government employees can be hacked from such federal agencies as the Office of Personnel Management, where Target loses tens of thousands of the credit card numbers of customers, and where your bank calls you several times a year to ask whether you just bought a Happy Meal at a McDonalds' in Florida, nevermind that you're talking to them from your house phone at home in Minnesota, several thousand people believed the assurances of this company.

Turns out the folks at Ashley Madison (*gasp*) lied!

The $1.7 million the company made last year from offering this service alone is (along with the opportunity to unmask and publicly shame cheating spouses) a major reason why the shadowy group claiming responsibility for this hack decided to target Ashley Madison.

This is fact, not fiction.

And in the weeks and months to come, I am certain we will continue to hear about some of the fallout associated with the unmasking of these would-be philanderers. (Let me say up front that while I have little sympathy for those caught out by this hack, I have boundless sympathy for their spouses). I have no doubt that many of my colleagues in the crime writing community are already beginning to flesh out story ideas born from their research into this event.

So the next time you're reading a novel and you come to a point you find implausible, think twice before you dismiss it with a statement like, "That would never happen."

Because it can.

And it has.

Trust me.

The Case Against Charles Dickens

I won the prize of a proof copy of the novel, Death and Mr Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis, based on my comment on his April 12 post. I promised Leigh that I would write a review of the novel for SleuthSayers. By the time you read this review, the novel will have been published in the UK and the US. I didn’t read the reviews of the novel in the June 2015 issue of The Atlantic or the July 19 issue of the NY Times Book Review for fear they would influence my opinion.

Death and Mr Pickwick is based on the life of the 19th century caricaturist Robert Seymour. Mr Jarvis’s purpose is to correct the accepted version of who created Mr Pickwick and the pickwickian characters, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) or Robert Seymour (1798-1836). He argues that the accepted version is wrong. For him, "Seymour is THE key person in Dickens’s career; and in my forthcoming novel, Death and Mr Pickwick, which tells the story of the creation and subsequent history of The Pickwick Papers, Seymour is the main character."

I don’t challenge Mr. Jarvis’s argument. I leave that up to the Dickensian scholars. My concern is how the novel reads as fiction based on the lives of real people.

The novel is a biography of Seymour and a history of The Pickwick Papers using fictional techniques. In the framed narrative an old man who calls himself Mr Inbelicate is the inside narrator. He hires a young man, whom he nicknames Inscriptino, to write a book based on the documents, pictures, and drawings in Mr Inbelicate’s possession to correct the accepted version of who created Mr Pickwick and the pickwickian characters. Scripty, as Mr Inbelicate calls him, is the outside narrator. He tells the story of how the old man would explain the history behind each document and each picture. After Mr Inbelicate dies, Scripty reads his narrative of the history of The Pickwick Papers and the amazing effect the novel had on readers (Inbelicate is a compositor’s error of indelicate and Inscriptino of inscription).

In the accepted version, Robert Seymour might have played a minor part, but Dickens created Mr Pickwick. Mr Inbelicate claims Dickens, while not saying so outright, with help of his friend John Forster, used evasive techniques in prefaces to the various editions of the novel to deny Robert Seymour’s contribution in creating Mr Pickwick. The publishers Edward Chapman and William Hall also denied Seymour’s contribution and refused to pay his widow and two children what they were due based on the success of The Pickwick Papers. Since Seymour burned all his papers, including the contract he had with them, the widow could not prove her husband created Mr Pickwick. Dickens’s conscience bothered him when he learned the widow and children were living in poverty. Forster persuaded him not to help the family. However, Dickens did give the widow five pounds.

According to Mr Inbelicate, Seymour suggested such to Chapman and Hall and they accepted the idea of the gullible man who would wander through England with friends. They would form the Pickwick club and report on their exploits. Chapman, Hall, and Seymour searched for a writer to provide the words that would accompany the pictures. After reading Sketches by Boz, Seymour agreed to accept Dickens, who was familiar with Seymour’s work. In their first meeting, things got a little tense when Dickens commented on and altered one of Seymour’s drawings. Seymour didn’t mind the criticism but was not happy with Dickens’s altering the drawing.

In their second meeting, Dickens insisted Seymour draw pictures to his specifications. He also suggested Seymour redraw a clown that Seymour had previously drawn to be included in an episode. Seymour refused. He returned home, burned all his papers, and committed suicide. Before Seymour’s confrontation with Dickens, Chapman and Hall decided Dickens’s writings rather that Seymour’s drawings would sell the magazine. Thus, Dickens took ownership of the Pickwick project before the first installment was published.

The Pickwick Papers was first serialized. The magazine sold more copies after Dickens added the bootblack Sam Weller, Mr Pickwick’s Sancho Panza. After the final installment, the issues were collected into the novel that brought Dickens fame. If it weren’t for Dickens, Mr Pickwick would have died with Seymour. The case against Dickens is not that he stole the idea but that he refused to acknowledge Seymour’s part in creating Mr Pickwick. Dickens clearly played a major role breathing life into Mr Pickwick.

I enjoyed the novel not for its plausible argument that Robert Seymour created Mr Pickwick but for its depiction of Dickensian-like characters, real and invented, and the nineteenth century milieu. The characters and humorous situations in which they find themselves are a joy to read. The novel does the one thing fiction must do. It entertains, something it probably would not do if it were a scholarly treatise. Reading the 800 pages was well worth my time and effort.

Three Mistakes I Made as an Indie Writer

by Melissa Yi

Mistake #1. Long gap between releases

As an independently published writer, I can publish my short stories traditionally or independently. I like money, so I submit my stories to pro magazines first and then indie publish them when the rights revert back to me, generally a year later. There aren’t too many pro-paying mystery markets, and I’m not as assiduous as I should be at submitting them, which means the worst of all worlds: not submitted to markets and not indie published, just “rotting on my hard drive,” as another writer put it.

The argument for indie publishing is that you need to get your stories out there. Unless you’re, say, Catherine Coulter (#1 NYT bestseller) or Jenny Milchman (critically acclaimed and widely beloved), people can’t find you in the great online sea of stories if you don’t have enough product.

Accidentally photo-bombing Jenny Milchman & Catherine Coulter
at the Mysterious Bookshop (trying to keep my kids quiet).
Photo by Alison McMahan.

One of my writer friends “plays whack-a-mole,” alternating between submitting his stories and indie publishing them.

Either way, I had to do something.

I hadn’t released anything under the Melissa Yi name since I was a finalist for the Derringer Award in March. Stockholm Syndrome is currently making its rounds through traditional publishing while I pen the fifth book. My Ellery Queen story, “Om,” was just published in January and I’m waiting for the rights to revert. What’s a girl to do?

Mistake #2. Not putting my work on all platforms

If indies do Kindle Unlimited (KU), it means publishing only on Amazon. So there’s a lot of arguing about that (“I make more money on Amazon” vs. “long term, it makes more sense to distribute widely around the world”).

Some months, I made more money on Kobo than I did on Amazon, thanks to their Going Going Gone international promotion last year, where they commissioned me to write three short stories, so I haven’t really touched KU.

But wait. Those very same Gone Fishing short stories that Kobo commissioned last year…

The original deal was that Kobo had exclusive rights to the stories for six months, but after that, it’s non-exclusive rights.

 I’d always meant to publish them on all platforms, just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Oops. 

Mistake #3. Not promoting my work

You don’t have to advertise your work all the time. Kris Rusch thinks the best ads are short stories, for example, because then editors pay you and readers who enjoy your genre will find you. But if you never talk about your work, they won’t always find readers.

To tell you the truth, I was absolutely burned out on promotion in 2014. I like meeting readers. I just don’t want to feel like I’m constantly shouting, “Look at me! Buy my books! Wait, did you hear about my book? Why are you running away from me?”

So I’m just going low-key with this one. I bundled the stories together with some ‘behind the scenes’ stories and called it Family Medicine, which is available only on KU for the next 90 days, and only free for the next 48 hours.

Plus I’m making all the individual stories available for free on every other platform.

See what I did there? I’m doing KU but still doing Kobo, Apple, Nook, Oyster, Scribd, Tolino etc., with slightly different content. And I’m making it free so that people can download it and see if they like Hope Sze. Ideally, they’ll read her other books, too.

In the future, I may charge for Cain and Abel, Trouble and Strife, and Butcher’s Hook. And after 48 hours, the price goes back up to $2.99 on Family Medicine.

But in the meantime, I’ve corrected a few of my indie mistakes. And you can support me in my journey on Patreon.

How ’bout you? Are you traditional, indie, or hybrid? And do you care to share some of your lessons?

A Bunch of Grapes

Okay, so there's no mystery here unless you are mildly curious about a bunch of grapes. It's also not about wine making or the wrath of the grapes or even the hilarious Lucy episode of stomping grapes.

This is about the every three years gathering of folks who were born and named Grape or married to or adopted by someone named Grape. And there is really no writing classroom work this week either.

The Grapes

In 1975, my late husband, Elmer Grape, attended the funeral of his mother Leah Gertrude Love Grape, out in CA. All of his brothers and sisters attended except for his sister Ina who was in the hospital. With the siblings all together it was decided that it seemed like a dumb idea on only get together for funerals. Each sibling lived on the East coast or the West coast except for Elmer and I. We at that time, lived in Memphis, TN. Elmer, who never had trouble making serious decisions said, "let's have a family reunion, next year, at my house in Memphis." This was without any consultation with me, but he knew I would have no objections. So our first reunion was planned, for the first two weeks in August, 1976. That time frame was chosen because one brother worked where the company closed down and everyone employed there had to take their vacation the first two weeks of August, no exceptions.

The Grapes of our side originated in Sweden although the first Grape in Sweden was Arendt Reinhold Grape who came from northern Germany where the name in German means "Iron Pot." He had an iron ore smeltering business and settled in northern Sweden, moving to Stockholm later and becoming a Burghermeister (Mayor) of that city. We have met several of our cousins when visiting Sweden and some have attended the reunions. But that first year in 1976 in Memphis, John Stebbins  from CA attended. Uncle John was 94 and he was related to the mother of  the family Leah Love Grape. We were excited to have him attend and he had a wonderful time.

We didn't have a large house, 11,500 sq feet but we had a huge back yard. And we also had a school bus which Elmer had converted onto a camping RV. And we had some nice next-door neighbor who were going to be moving and their house would be vacant. They offered two bathrooms and empty floor space. We rented some army cots and made arrangements to have some type of sleeping space for everyone who would come. Some folks from PA and VA came in their own camping trailers. One brother, the oldest sibling, Harry flew in from Seattle WA bringing his sleeping bag, and he slept on the floor in the den. We had wall to wall cots in the living room after moving all the furniture against the wall.

Without getting too sugary about it, this was the first time some family members had been together in years and really talked to each other and many fences were mended. Four girls and three boys who grew up during the depression, sometimes having little or nothing to eat but defying all odds had survived and had good jobs and families. Two sisters lived in CA, one in VA one sister in NJ. There were nieces and nephews from NY, MD, PA, VA, and NJ. Elmer built a picnic table for the back yard and put it up against the kitchen window so food and drink could be passed through easily.

Sisters took turns cooking evening meals and one nephew cooked an Italian specialty one night. One sister was an expert at packing a fridge and we took turns cleaning up dishes. We all went down to the Mississippi River and took a trip on the Memphis Queen paddle boat and the Captain announced there were 52 members of the Grape Family on board. The cousins all had a night out going to a club and dancing the night away. Some of the family could only stay a week but the best thing of all was that there were no arguments or disagreements.

This family reunion is still going on, we meet every three years, meeting over the fourth of July for several years now and different family members host the event. Elmer and I hosted three more times: In 1979-Fairfax, Virginia, 1982-Corry, Pa, 1985-Houston TX, our house again and this time we had a wedding. Adopted sister Jeannie planned it all from CA and it was beautiful. In 1988-Austin, TX we hosted again and niece Dona who lived in the house behind me helped. We had a Swedish cousin come from Sweden, Reinhold Grape that year. 1991-Hyde Park, NY, 1994-Council Bluffs, IA, 1997-Bergen, NY, 2000-Nashville, TN, hosted by my daughter Karla, 2003-Inks Lake, TX niece Dona hosted. 2006-near Disney World, FL, is the only year I didn't go. 2009-Sacramento, CA, 2012-Little Falls, NJ

This year once again in TN just outside of Memphis, hosted by nephew David and his wife, Karen O. Grape. Each year there are sightseeing jaunts, going especially to parts of the USA where we've never been before and fun things for young and old. One sister, Esther, who is the only surviving sister at age 92, used to make t-shirts for everyone. She's in CA and didn't get to attend this year but we're a bit high tech and skyped with her. Esther drew a bunch of grapes and put the current year on one grape each time. We finally got smart, began having the shirts made letting each host design their own. The one surviving brother is Roger, age 85 and still lives in Corry, PA and he attended this year. David is his son. Upcoming in 2018 we will once again be in Austin with my son Roger and his husband hosting.

We have lost family but we also have gained through marriage and children born and it's exciting and gratifying to meet and talk to everyone. There is lots of great food and drinks both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and cakes and pies and cookies. We only stay a week now and most stay in nearby hotels because the host family can generally reserve a block of rooms at a reasonable price. We only had thirty-two attending as the California branches didn't make it. Sometimes there are new jobs or immediate family crises or even weddings that crop up and mess up reunion plans.

The major thing for me is we can all be together for a week without a disagreement although some conversations can get a bit heated. We somehow manage to have a week feeling love and a connection that we'd never have otherwise. A week with a bunch of Grapes just works for me.

Next Time: writing, mystery, intrigue, I promise.

The Spy Who Bagged Me

by Leigh Lundin

Zoya Voskresenskaya

Anna Chapman

Anyone who’s watched a James Bond or a tacky Derek Flint film knows the Russians have licentious taste in spies… well, perhaps not Rosa Klebb, more like famed Zoya Voskresenskaya (Zoya Rybkina, Зоя Рыбкина, née Воскресенская). Deported Anna Chapman wasn’t a very good spy, but her incompetence and stunning looks inspired the New York Post to ask “But can we keep her?”

Such a wistful propensity may have prompted other New York-based spies to opt for Hooters as a clandestine meeting spot. Hooters?

Code name Green Kryptonite

Meet Naveed Jamali. His parents owned a specialty store, Books & Research, in Dobbs Ferry, Westchester, New York. In the latter 1980s, a known Russian agent strolled into the bookshop and asked for arcane but legally obtainable reports available from a proprietary government database run by the Defense Technical Information Center. The FBI asked the family to fulfill those requests and notify the FBI as to Russian interests.

This continued for twenty years until young Naveed took over the store. Motivated by a desire to join Naval Intelligence, he leveraged his relationship with the FBI into becoming an amateur– but authentic– spy, complete with an audio recording watch Q himself might have designed.

Double-O-Nought

The FBI targeted the latest of a series of Russian agents, a trade mission attaché and seasoned operative, Oleg Kulikov. Diplomatic immunity meant the FBI couldn’t arrest Kulikov, but they could bring his career to a close. Considering occasional spy swaps, it was a smart move by the Feds.

The plan called for Jamali’s arrest at Pizzeria Uno in the presence of Kulikov, but at the last moment, the Russian opted to return to Hooters, putting the operation at risk. Nonetheless, federal agents swooped in and handcuffed Jamali in a fake apprehension, thus ending Kulikov’s espionage and usefulness as a clandestine operative.

Look for Naveed Jamali's book about his experience, How to Catch a Russian Spy. Fox Entertainment has negotiated film rights for the story.

Spies Through the Pages

Last year saw the release of a wonderful film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game. For another great read and a chance to meet Turing’s competition in wartime British Intelligence, read Leo Marks’ autobiographical Between Silk and Cyanide.

The Park Is Open

As you probably know, this is a mystery blog. I know that too--after all, I work here. But today I'd like to veer off the mystery/crime/suspense path and down into the cross-genre weeds, and focus on suspense fiction only. (One out of three ain't bad, right?) I promise I'll get back on track next time.

Return with me to '93

A few weeks ago one of our sons and I went to see Jurassic World. Not on the day of its release; this was a week or so after its debut. I'm timing-challenged, but I do know better than to go see any movie rated less than R on its opening day. I like kids, but I also like to be able to hear the movie.

This film reminded me of my recent SleuthSayers column on movie taglines. The tagline for Jurassic World, according to its trailer on YouTube, is The park is open. I like that. It brought back, as it should have, memories of the excellent film Spielberg directed in 1993, the one that was "65 million years in the making." And although the word "sequel" is used a little loosely these days, this was most definitely a followup to the first movie. It pretty much ignores the second and third installments, but the original theme park is mentioned throughout this film, and is even seen via Jurassic Park logos on T-shirts and Jeep doors, and long-ago characters like founder John Hammond are mentioned as well. The old visitor's center, now abandoned and crumbling, even makes an appearance. As expected, the new tourist trap--an unfortunately accurate term, considering what happens--is bigger and better, as are the dinosaurs inside its walls. But they are just as deadly and unpredictable as before.

All creatures Crichton small

I truly enjoyed this movie. It had its faults, that's for sure, but it also had everything it takes to capture and hold my interest: a good premise, engaging characters, a lot of action, (fairly) sharp dialogue, humor even in tense situations (there are many of those), and a satisfying ending.

Other things to like:

- A score by Lost composer Michael Giacchino, and the occasional use of John Williams's original music. Some might say this is too much of a reminder, but in this case it works, since almost everyone has either seen Jurassic Park or has heard that theme, or both. It's comfortably familiar.

- Two new dinosaurs (the super-intelligent, super-evil Indominus Rex--one reviewer labeled it a Holyshitasaurus--and a shark-gobbling leviathan called a Mosasaurus) that make the T-Rex look like a teddy bear.

- A bad-boy, rough-around-the-edges raptorwhisperer hero who is shown to be both brave and compassionate, in an early scene where he rescues a colleague.

- A villain who sincerely thinks he's in the right even if he's not--they're always the best kind--and who gets what's coming to him, even if it is a predictable end. There's also an unpleasant-at-first character who later turns from the dark side and is not only won over by the hero, she becomes the heroine--how's that for a character arc?

- Nonstop action. This is one of those films where wetting your pants almost seems a better choice than taking a restroom break and missing something.

- Two lead characters (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) who are among the most appealing actors in Hollywood right now. It's been rumored that Pratt will play Indiana Jones in the next installment of that series, and Howard is Opie's daughter, so how could she not be likable?

- [Possible spoiler:] An ending in which the real villain (the genetically-designed behemoth that goes on a rampage) is finally dispatched by a combination of (1) a clever last-minute brainstorm and (2) the only thing on the island more fearsome than it is. You'll see what I mean.

The only downsides were maybe too many subplots, some cartoonish characters, and a silly scene where the hero takes a motorcycle ride alongside the normally deadly velociraptors . . . but I can live with that.

NOTE 1: As in the first movie, two of the visitors to the park are kids who are related to the Big Boss (Richard Attenborough in the original, Bryce Howard in this one, both of whom for some reason dress only in white). Here, in a great example of showing-vs.-telling, viewers find out how much danger the kids are really in when their assigned "guardian-for-the-day" gets eaten in spectacular fashion: she is snatched off the ground by flying pterodactyls, gets passed from one to another in mid-air, then is dropped into a water tank and devoured by a creature as big as a passenger train. Who would've thought babysitters deserve hazardous duty pay?

NOTE 2: The lady who plays Bryce Dallas Howard's sister, Judy Greer, also played her sister in the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village. Too much information, right? Sorry--I can't help myself.

It's a monster mash

So that's my report. In my opinion, Jurassic World was not as good as Jurassic Park but it was better than Jurassic Park III, and it was about equal to Jurassic Park II (The Lost World). Have any of you seen the new one? Did anybody like it as much as I did? If you're looking for a summer blockbuster that's great fun, gets the juices flowing, and doesn't overburden your brain cells, I think you might. Apparently a lot of paying customers have, so far.

Dino DNA Q&A: Can a successful movie return in the form of a successful sequel, 22 years later?

You bet jurassican.

The Warped Relativity of Reading and Writing

By Dixon Hill

I'm always amazed by how long it takes me to write something, even if I know where it's going.
Something that only takes thirty minutes to read might take me a day or more to write.  And, that's just the first draft; I'm not including all the revisions here.

I don't know how many writers our there have this same problem.  Maybe most of you do.  On the other hand, some of you, reading this, might be asking, "What's this idiot talking about?  It only takes twenty minutes to write thirty minutes worth of material!"

As for myself, I can't help recalling something said by an English teacher during my Freshman year in high school.  We were reading Romeo and Juliet -- which I recall primarily because the entire Freshman class got to walk over to a nearby theater and watch a film version that we excitedly learned contained "a brief nude scene."  (This actually meant the film contained a split-second glimpse of "Romeo's" rear end, which greatly disappointed teen-aged me, as I had been salivating for a good long look at Juliet.)

What my teacher said, as she handed out the books, was: "Read this tonight, and we'll begin discussing it tomorrow.  Most productions of this play last less than two hours, and that's with an intermission added in.  So, you should be able to read this in two hours with no problem."

Right.  An English class of thirty run-of-the-mill chowderheaded teens.  And we're supposed to read Shakespeare's version of English, written in Iambic Pentameter no less -- and understand it! -- all within two hours.  Not like I had to worry about Algebra or Biology homework that night, either, eh?

Still . . . what she said, got under my skin.

I wasn't able to read the entire play that night.  I don't know how long it took me, but it took me more than just one night.  And that bothered me.  A LOT!  Because, I also knew she was right: most versions of the play probably didn't run even two hours.  So, why did it take me so long to read it? I'm no Einstein, but could a teen-aged Einstein have read it inside of two hours?  I began to wonder.

And, speaking of Einstein: That brings up another problem with time, the one we call "relativity," in which we start speaking of time relative to other things, such as space, location, velocity -- or in this case: writing vs. reading.

According to the theory of relativity, I don't believe we're able to move faster than the speed of light. This concept always rankles me, as I keep asking, "Really?  Like there's some cosmic speed limit out there imposed by physics?  What happens if we speed, do we get locked into another dimension?"


This provides great fodder for Science Fiction, of course, in which super-light travel is possible in another dimension, or can be equated by folding or (as they say in Star Trek) "warping" space-time" so that a ship can penetrate one layer of the fold and emerge on the other side without traveling over the entire length of the fold.

The pic on the left was created by Brandon Keys and posted on the IndegoSociety.org forum.  I thought that it, along with the pic below (from Wikipedia) showing a "worm-hole," did a good job of illustrating the concept.

While we're on the subject of warping space-time, let's also look at what happens when a reader gets immersed in a fascinating book, only to discover that the ten minutes s/he thought s/he'd been reading, has telescoped into several hours.  How did that happen?  Did the book warp space/time? Or, did the reading take "relatively" longer outside the world of the book, than it seemed to take while the reader was immersed within the book's world?

I have no idea.  Did Einstein know?  Does Stephen Hawking know now?

I've never met either one of them, and thus have no idea.

Nor do I know why it takes me so long to write something it takes so little time to read.  It doesn't usually FEEL like it's taking so long to write such a passage.  In that essence, perhaps writing -- like reading -- can warp space/time, or cause some sort of "relativity occurrence" to take place.  Maybe, for instance, time in the world I visit while writing passes differently than time in "normal space."

The only thing I can figure is that it might have something to do with the speed my fingers move over the keyboard, relative to the speed at which the computer can print on the screen.  I have noticed, in the past, that my fingers can sometimes strike the keys -- when I'm "in the groove" and my writing is coming hot and heavy -- faster than my computer seems to be able to print.  Occasionally I even have to stop and let the computer catch up to me.

The speed at which things take place inside a computer -- an electronic item -- surely must be close to the speed of light, since that's the speed at which electrons are supposed to move.  Thus, if my fingers are moving faster than my computer can work, my
fleshy digits must be moving at super-light speed.

NO WONDER what I write seems to take less time to read than to create!

The solution -- obviously! -- is that people (or at least their fingertips) can move faster than the speed of light, but the punishment is not imprisonment in another dimension.  It's the hell of working for two days, then learning it takes only thirty minutes to read what it took all that time to write!

Theory of Relativity Solved!

See you in two weeks.
--Dixon