Do you like to read, but you're leery of buying bad books? I can help.

Q. What the heck is a StoryBundle?

A. Jason Chen, founder:
I started StoryBundle because back in 2012, video game bundles and app bundles were extremely popular, and no one had yet applied the same idea to ebooks. When I looked around (because I’m a reader myself) to try and find a way to discover lots of new-to-me authors in genres I already like, it was pretty difficult without spending hours reading reviews and trudging through sales lists. Plus, since these are authors I haven’t tried before, I may be left with hit-or-miss quality. Having curated bundles where quality is guaranteed AND readers can set the price solves both these issues.

Q. Okay. Why should I buy this StoryBundle?

A. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, editor:
The Dark Justice bundle comes as close to crime fiction perfection as possible.
It boasts one Grand Master, several award-winners, bestsellers who've hit lists like the New York Times and USA Today with multiple books, household names, and writers who've just entered the mystery field—sometimes with a bang.

We also have a lot of diversity here. Our investigators include an African American detective, a Canadian doctor of Asian extraction, a disabled stockbroker and a group of retired cold case detectives. Throw in a few amateur detectives, a disgraced ex-cop, a female bounty hunter, and the famous Matthew Scudder, who has appeared in film (most recently A Walk Among The Tombstones), and you'll encounter the full range of characters the mystery genre has to offer.

I've read and loved the work of each and every one of these writers. Some of them I've read since I started reading mystery and some I've read since before they ever had a book published. In one of my other incarnations, I'm an award-winning editor, so believe me when I tell you that if there were some kind of Kristine Kathryn Rusch Gold Seal of Approval, the books in this bundle would receive it.

Q. Hmm. Well, I'm cheap. I don't know if I should buy it.

A. Kris: For those of you who have never purchased a bundle from StoryBundle before, welcome! StoryBundle makes ordering and downloading these books spectacularly easy.

The initial titles in the Dark Justice Bundle (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

• Cold Call by Dean Wesley Smith
• And Then She Was Gone by J. Daniel Sawyer
• An Eye For Murder by Libby Fischer Hellmann
• Code Blues by Melissa Yi
• A Fatal Twist of Lemon by Patrice Greenwood

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus these outstanding books:

• Fatal Destiny by David DeLee
• Playing With Matches by Julie Hyzy
• A Dangerous Road by Kris Nelscott
• The Night and the Music by Lawrence Block
• The World Beneath by Rebecca Cantrell

Q. I'm REALLY cheap. What if I don't want to spend $5?

A. Win the Dark Justice StoryBundle just by commenting on this blog. One winner will be selected tomorrow. To multiply your chances, subscribe to Melissa Yi's newsletter and comment on her related blog and Facebook post. Quadruple your chances by doing all four!

Q. I want to hear from the authors themselves. Why do you write mysteries?

Julie Hyzy: I know this isn’t an original answer, but I have to credit Nancy Drew. She was my gateway to mystery reading and also – in many respects – to writing. My first novel (at about age 10) was The Case of the Whispering Hills. I illustrated the book myself, too (natch).

Melissa Yi: As an emergency doctor, I occasionally confront evil. Mystery allows me to fictionalize it and deliver some form of justice in the end.

Patrice Greenwood: I like reading them, so I thought I'd give writing them a try. Turns out that's fun, so I've kept at it.

David DeLee: First of all, mysteries are what I grew up on. From the Hardy Boys to Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer to today’s masters like Michael Connelly and Robert Crais. It’s a genre I’ve always adored. The other reason is that mysteries try to make sense of what in real life is often senseless. Violence. Murder. Serial killers. Mysteries are about a larger than life character who will risk it all to seek answer, to explain the unexplainable, to get justice for these horrible acts. What’s not to love?

Kris Nelscott: I love mysteries. I think they're my favorite genre. I put mystery—crime, really—in almost every genre I write.

Rebecca Cantrell: Because I am fascinated by worlds where characters wrestle with the question of what’s right and what’s wrong. My characters like to see justice done, but justice is never as simple and straightforward as I would like, so my books spend a lot of time looking at shades of gray.
As a kid my family referred to this as my “overblown sense of justice” and “belief that, all evidence to the contrary, the world should be fair.” Guilty.

Q. Hmm. Well, what's so great about your bundle book?

Rebecca Cantrell: The World Beneath introduces Joe Tesla. He’s a complicated guy—a brilliant software engineer who started a multimillion dollar company but is struck by agoraphobia on the day he’s supposed to ring the bell on Wall Street to take his company public. The agoraphobia is so extreme that he can’t go outside at all, and he spends the series trying to determine what caused it while exploring the tunnels under New York City. Since he can’t go outside, he makes the inside bigger. Since he can’t find justice for himself, he starts to search for justice for others. The book also won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Ebook Original. Oh, and he has a service dog named Edison who steals every scene he’s in (note: the dog does not die in the books).

Julie Hyzy: My bundle book, Playing With Matches, is very special to me because it’s not the least bit cozy. For the past seven years or so, I’ve had some success [Editor: NYT-bestselling success] writing cozy mysteries. I love them, I truly do, but I started out with edgier themes, and Playing With Matches brings me back to my writing roots. Riley Drake (my protagonist) is a female PI in Chicago. She swears, she drinks, and she beats up a troublemaker by page 2.

Melissa Yi: CODE BLUES introduces the world to Dr. Hope Sze, my alter ego who discovers murderers within the decaying medical system of Montreal, Canada. When I was a resident doctor, I barely had time to tie my shoes, let alone solve crimes and romance two different guys, but that’s the beauty of fiction.

Patrice Greenwood: It's set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of my favorite places in the world. The main character is just opening a tearoom in a Victorian house there, so there's lots of history, tea and its rituals, and of course a dash of murder.

David DeLee: FATAL DESTINY features a strong half-Latina, half-Irish female bounty hunter who takes on the world in her own way, and with a pretty cynical attitude toward people and the criminal justice system—with good reason. In FATAL DESTINY Grace faces a defining question: Are people, including herself, defined by their past or can they escape who they were and what they’ve done and become something better?

Kris Nelscott: The book I've contributed to the bundle is the very first Smokey Dalton novel. Honestly, I wrote the novel as a classic mystery—a rich blond walks into a detective's office with a strange problem that needs investigating. The detective, Smokey Dalton, is an African American who grew up with Martin Luther King. I thought the setting was the unusual bit—Memphis in 1968, just before King's assassination. Imagine my surprise when everyone decided the entire story was unusual. I bow to readers. Apparently I hit something with this series, which explores American history from a perspective not seen often enough in fiction—that of the African American community. The series has hit bestseller lists, won awards, hit recommended lists from libraries all over the country (including the New York Public Library) and has a rabid following.

Q. I might take a look. How do I get it?
A. https://storybundle.com/crime until November 19th.
Plus, one lucky winner will be chosen from each of the following lists on Wednesday, Nov. 4th:
1. One Sleuthsayer. Comment now, on this post, to win.
2. One subscriber to Melissa Yi's newsletter. Just sign up on her website landing page--link at the top & form at the bottom.
3. One commenter on Melissa Yi's Dark Justice blog post.
4. One participant on Melissa Yi's Dark Justice Facebook post.
5. Audience member at Vanier College. Claimed!

Happy reading!

Good Books, Better Friends

Last weekend was my 50^th high school reunion. No need to do the math – I was only eight when I graduated. Child prodigy, you know. I went to R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton, Texas. Back in those days, Carrollton was a small town and we could catch a Greyhound Bus for a Saturday outing to Big D. Now it's one of Dallas's biggest bedroom communities – and for some reason seems a lot closer. And having been gone from there since 1971, I no longer knew my way around. I stayed with a friend I've had since the eight grade, Elaine Rigs, now Edgington. Elaine was recently released from a long stint in physical rehab and is temporarily assigned to a wheelchair. And as she had to give me directions where ever we went, we delighted in telling people that I was pushing her around and she was telling me where to go. I hope some of them got it. Our hysterical laughter may have given them a clue.

It was great seeing people I hadn't seen in so many years. Like Eddie Russell (alphabetically behind me in line for graduation) who thought I was moving too slowly so picked me up by the elbows and carried me through the ceremony. Or Duffy Oyster who copied every word I wrote in Mr. Hebert's World History class. I was always surpirsed Duffy managed to pass the class. Or Bertha Moses (now Bert), voted most intellegent of our graduating class, who's now a professional poker player. But it was my friend Elaine who was my main event. We may only talk on the phone once or twice a year, but we can always start the conversation where we'd left off the call before.

What really took my breath away last weekend, though, was when Elaine handed me a book. It was an old copy of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Betty Smith, and inside, on the flyleaf page was written: “Susan Rogers, Room 203, Binnion Hall, East Texas State University.” Elaine had borrowed that book our freshman year in college and decided to give it back fifty years later. I will cherish that book for another fifty years, if I'm able. Or maybe just twenty.

The 5¢ Misunderstanding

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Bridge of Spies with friends Sharon and Steve. Using desaturated color and retro photography, the film offered a 1950s-60s Len Deighton / John le Carré glance backwards at the Cold War. A sprinkling of fiction and shortcuts found their way into the movie, but over all, it followed the history reasonably well.

Except, one key episode was compressed, condensed, conflated… the part about the hollow nickel. The truth is far more fascinating– and funny– than the script let on.

Abel (from Soviet 5к stamp)

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel (aka Willie Fisher) never saw the hollow nickel. Instead, it was handled… or rather mishandled… by the clumsy Russian spy who turned Able in.

His name was Reino Häyhänen, a Finnish Soviet Lieutenant Colonel. Recruited by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, he served in Finland before he was called to Moscow for training and reassignment to the United States where he assumed an American identity of Eugene Mäki.

In Manhattan, his first handler turned out to be Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin who served as the first secretary to the Soviet United Nations Delegation in New York City. Upon Mikhail’s departure, Häyhänen was turned over to Able/Fisher, code name ‘Mark’.

If you believe the James Bond stories, spies are obsessed with babes and booze, and Lt. Col. partook more than his share. ‘Mark’ complained bitterly about Häyhänen’s lackadaisical attitude, poor work ethic, consumption of alcohol, consorting with prostitutes, and refusal to take spying seriously.

During this period, the Soviets utilized a number of clever spy toys that Q might have envied. One such gadget was a 2-inch screw that itself could be unscrewed, revealing a hollow core in which messages might be passed. These secret containers were left in ‘dead drops’, places unlikely to be thought of as spy caches.

In 1955, the bumbling Häyhänen established a cache in Prospect Park, Brooklyn in a crack in steps of a tenement. Häyhänen dropped in a hollow screw with a coded message awaiting pick-up. However, the landlord proved more fastidious than Häyhänen imagined and filled in the crack with cement. There the message remained encased in concrete until the FBI recovered it two years later.

Hollow Screw

But this was hardly Häyhänen’s worst flub in what became known as the Hollow Nickel Affair. Häyhänen’s first assignment in the USA instructed him to pick up a hollowed-out coin, open it, and decode the message. Häyhänen managed the first part– he obtained the nickel– but then he promptly spent it before realizing his mistake.

For eight months, the 5¢ piece floated around New York, used for purchases and tips numerous times until an observant newspaper boy received the coin in change on 22 June 1953. That day, fourteen-year-old Jimmy Bozart, a delivery boy for the Brooklyn Eagle, collected subscription fees from ladies at 3403 Foster Avenue, Brooklyn.

As Jimmy jostled the coins, one seemed slightly lighter than the others. He flipped the nickel on the sidewalk where it split in two. Thomas Jefferson departed Monticello once and for all.

Häyhänen’s coin

Jimmy told a friend, the daughter of a NYC police officer. The story worked its way up the chain of command until it reached a detective who told FBI Special Agent Louis Hahn, who confiscated the coin.

The device turned out to be made of two coins, the front half a 1948 nickel and the back half from a late WW-II issue. A tiny hole had been drilled in the R of TRUST to facilitate separating the halves. Inside, they found a square of microfiche with a numeric message.

207
14546 36056 64211 08919 18710 71187 71215 02906 66036 10922
11375 61238 65634 39175 37378 31013 22596 19291 17463 23551
88527 10130 01767 12366 16669 97846 76559 50062 91171 72332
19262 69849 90251 11576 46121 24666 05902 19229 56150 23521
51911 78912 32939 31966 12096 12060 89748 25362 43167 99841
76271 31154 26838 77221 58343 61164 14349 01241 26269 71578
31734 27562 51236 12982 18059 66218 22577 09454 81216 71953
26986 89779 54197 11990 23881 48884 22165 62998 36449 41742
30267 77614 31565 30902 85812 16112 93312 71220 60369 12872
12458 19081 97117 70107 06391 71114 19459 59586 80317 07522
76509 11111 36990 32666 04411 51532 91184 23162 82011 19185
56110 28876 76718 03563 28222 31674 39023 07623 93513 97175
29816 95761 69483 32951 97696 34992 61109 95090 24092 71008
90061 14790 15154 14655 29011 57206 77195 01256 69250 62901
39179 71229 23299 84164 45900 42227 65853 17591 60182 06315
65812 01378 14566 87719 92507 79517 99651 82155 58118 67197
30015 70687 36201 56531 56721 26306 57135 91796 51341 07796
76655 62716 33583 21932 16224 87721 89619 23191 20665 45140
66098 60959 71521 02334 21212 51110 85227 98768 11125 05321
53152 14191 12166 12715 03116 43041 74822 72759 29130 21947
15764 96851 20618 22370 11391 83520 62297                 .
––––––––––––––
Ж 12740/622

Häyhänen’s code

For four years, the FBI could make nothing of the code until Häyhänen defected and deciphered the message originally meant for him.

1. We congratulate you on a safe arrival. We confirm the receipt of your letter to the address `V repeat V’ and the reading of letter number 1.
2. For organization of cover, we gave instructions to transmit to you three thousand in local (currency). Consult with us prior to investing it in any kind of business, advising the character of this business.
3. According to your request, we will transmit the formula for the preparation of soft film and news separately, together with (your) mother’s letter.
4. It is too early to send you the gammas. Encipher short letters, but the longer ones make with insertions. All the data about yourself, place of work, address, etc., must not be transmitted in one cipher message. Transmit insertions separately.
5. The package was delivered to your wife personally. Everything is all right with the family. We wish you success. Greetings from the comrades.
   Number 1, 3rd December.

Häyhänen’s message

The US knew nothing about this until the USSR recalled Häyhänen to Moscow for good… or bad. Fisher/Abel (aka Mark) had complained of Häyhänen’s incompetence, and at best, Häyhänen would not be allowed to return to the US, which he’d grown fond of. At worst, Häyhänen might have ended up on the wrong side of a KGB interrogation, and he was also fond of his own skin.

As Häyhänen reached Paris on his journey, he resolved not to return to Moscow. Instead, he defected to the Americans who returned him to the US, where Häyhänen proved more helpful than he had with the Soviets. He was able to identify his handlers, dead drops, and the technology the Russians were using. It brought about the exposure and capture of Colonel Rudolf Abel, who was eventually exchanged for Colonel Gary Powers of U-2 notoriety.

And it all began with a nickel that proved a lot less– and a lot more– than 5¢.

A Monster Mash

by John M. Floyd

Just as I was about to sit down and type my column for this week, which would've dealt with a totally different subject (something dutiful, involving writing and mystery fiction), it occurred to me that the piece was scheduled to run on October 31. I slapped my forehead, ditched my notes, and changed course. No one can resist writing about scary things on Halloween.

And some of the scariest things I've seen in my life--my life has, I confess, been pretty uneventful in the excitement department--have happened in movies.

A quick note, here, about genre categories. Despite what we're told on imdb.com and Netflix, I'm not at all sure that films like Misery, Cujo, Duel, Jaws, Hannibal, etc., are horror movies. They might be frightening (Annie Wilkes and her sledgehammer gave me the hibbiejibbies for weeks afterward), but it might be more accurate to label those examples as suspense, or adventure. Horror films, to me, should have otherworldly elements, like Night of the Living Dead, The Birds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Frankenstein, The Dead Zone, Paranormal Activity, The Thing, Nosferatu, The Mist, Trollhunter, The Shining, Dracula, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and so on and so on. And let's face it, some of the most terrifying stories are those about insane people, because they could actually happen: The Silence of the Lambs, The Night of the Hunter, Magic, American Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. Humans are sometimes the best (worst?) monsters.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are my top ten scary (not necessarily horror) movies, rated according to how high I jumped out of my recliner or my theater seat when I first saw them.


1. Psycho -- I believe the most frightening moment in movie history occurred when Norman Bates's mother swung around in that chair in the root cellar, 55 years ago. Bernard Herrmann's music helped.

2. The Exorcist -- The scariest scene in this one, for me, was when Father Merrin appeared at Regan's home in Georgetown, introduced himself to her mother and Father Karras, and then climbed the staircase to confront the devil. The whole time this was happening, if I remember correctly, we could hear the demon upstairs, roaring and lowing and calling the priest's name. Whoa, Nellie.

3. Halloween -- This movie probably isn't on anybody's "best" list, but it was seriously creepy, in part because of John Carpenter's outstanding soundtrack. It still gives me goosebumps when I hear it.

4. Alien -- I saw this in an Atlanta mall, on an IBM trip, and the guy who was with me almost passed out when Alien Junior popped out of John Hurt's tummy. The sequel, Aliens, was a better movie, but what made Alien so terrifying was the steady buildup of tension and dread, and the fact that the audience never even saw the creature until near the end of the story.

5. Wait Until Dark -- I saw W.U.D. in college, and I remember the entire theater screaming at one point, when Alan Arkin leaped out of the shadows to attack a blind Audrey Hepburn. In my writing courses I often refer to this movie as an example of the use of foreshadowing and suspense.

6. The Others -- Not many folks seem to know about The Others (not to be confused with The Other). I watched it via Netflix, with one of our sons, and it scared the hell out of both of us. It contains one particularly bloodchilling scene.

7. Poltergeist -- Another film that I saw on a work trip, this one to Dallas. This is Spielberg at his best, and it's hard to get better than that.

8. The Howling -- Unlike Poltergeist, this was not a great movie (few werewolf movies are), but it was truly scary. I was dumb enough to watch it at home alone on TV at about two a.m. on a summer night, which meant the back windows onto our patio were open and I could hear the night sounds outside. I didn't do that again.

9. Cat People -- The 1982 version of Cat People is a guilty pleasure, and I love it. If the opening credits don't give you the willies, you're braver than I am. Wonderful soundtrack, and the city of New Orleans (which can be spooky anyhow) has never been spookier.

10. The Omen -- I've never been fond of kids-in-peril stories, but here the kid's the villain. Sort of. The most disturbing scene in this film involves an actress named Holly Palance (Jack's daughter, if you're a movie buff).


That's the top of my creepy/crawly list. Any agreements? Disagreements? And more importantly, do you have any recommendations? I included only those movies I myself have seen; several that I've not yet watched but are on my soon-to-be-viewed list are The Babadook, The Cabin in the Woods, and 28 Days Later. Give me more.

I'll close with a goofy poem I wrote twenty years ago--it was published in a 1995 issue of Mystery Time magazine, and is titled "Stress Management":



I have a long history of reading a mystery
Each night before going to bed;
They're scary and tense, but I have enough sense
Not to let such things mess up my head.

At least I thought so, till one night a psycho
Leaped into my room, eyes ablaze;
It was just my dog Lad. but by then I had had
An accident in my PJ's.

Now should that deter a booklover? No sir!
I still read a lot, if the tone
Is funny and light, if it's not late at night,
And if I'm not home all alone.



The same holds true for movies.

Have a great Halloween.

Old School, New Readers

By Art Taylor

A few years back, one of the professors in the English Department at George Mason University (where I myself teach) told me that she never put her own favorite books on the syllabi for any of her classes; seeing what the students said about them was too heart-breaking for her.

I'm currently teaching a class called "Five Killer Crime Novels"—a gen ed survey of some of milestone books in the genre, or at least books that serve to represent/illustrate some of the trends and range and depth of mystery and suspense fiction. So far, we've read Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles, Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, along with a sprinkling of short stories; still ahead are Ed McBain's Sadie When She Died and Megan Abbott's Bury Me Deep. (And yes, I know there are tons and tons of others that could've/should've made the list!)

Whether I'd count these books as all-time favorites or not (Red Harvest certainly is), each of these are books I love, one way or another. And indeed it is a little heart-breaking to have students talk (spoiler alerts!) about how disappointed they are by various aspects of the three we've read so far. "We finally see the hound and then in the next paragraph they just shoot him and that's it?" And: "She could've cut about 50 pages toward the end of Roger Ackroyd. It was so slow and so boring." And then: "I'm sorry, Professor Taylor, but Red Harvest just sucks."

I'll admit it; my internal response to that last one was along the lines of "You think your comment shows your superiority, but really it just reveals your ignorance." But I would never say that publicly, of course.

(Oh, wait.... Whoops.)

Actually, I try not to take offense to these kinds of comments and criticisms, but instead try to transform them into productive aspects of class discussion. The complaint about Hound of the Baskervilles, for example—that quick movement from the hound's appearance in one paragraph to his demise in the next—leads to a closer look at serialization and how the publication schedule built suspense. The eighth installment of the story in The Strand ends strategically at the break between those two paragraphs, with these words: "Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog."

AND STAY TUNED FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

A different effect, right?

Other reactions call for deeper discussion: Why are certain scenes included? What is the potential purpose of such-and-such artistic decisions? What are the potential effects on the reader? Why structure and pace a scene this way? or a chapter? or a succession of chapters? Or more to the point: Can you articulate why you think this book "sucks"? The key isn't the judgement itself—pro or con—but backing up judgements with evidence and authority.

"Red Harvest was just a bloodbath. I couldn't both to get connected to the characters, because after a while, I knew they were just going to die. And nobody seemed to care, not even the detective—and we're not connected to him either. We don't even get his name!"

OK, let's dig deeper into all that, I'll say—and then we do.

My point here isn't to criticize my students or to celebrate my own tactics in the classroom. My students are—fortunately!—a bright and active bunch, and our discussions are often sharp and insightful. But I do wonder sometimes about the reasons behind some of those gut responses of boredom, dismissal, dislike.

Is it that students have been so conditioned by today's various media—the pacing of a CSI episode, for example, or the short bursts of information that constitute news, or the structures and expectations of Facebook status updates, tweets, and IM exchanges—that older works become dated in more fundamental ways than just their vocabulary or dress or gender attitudes? Maybe today's modes of communication and storytelling are so different that the average student can't relate.

Is the issue about the age or era of a book at all, or is it something about the genre itself (crime fiction) or the form (a novel) that is the impediment? Sisters in Crime has done studies about the demographics of mystery readers (an aging one, as it turns out), and many students in my gen ed classes these days don't count themselves as readers at all—not in a conventional sense, even as their days often consist of more reading in other ways than most "grown-ups" do.

Is it that many of my students in this class—a gen ed class, drawing mostly on majors outside the humanities—simply aren't interested in literature at all, so the process itself might be with some level of disinterest or even hostility?

I don't know the answer to these questions. Likely some deeper study would be required, and maybe I haven't even asked the right questions or framed any of this properly in the first place. Either way, I'd love to hear what others think.

In the meantime, however, an anecdote to end this on a more positive note—a story I've told before:

A few years ago, we'd come to the end of the semester for a class that examined hard-boiled detective fiction as social documentary (maybe my favorite class of all the lit courses I've taught). It was final exam day, and students were turning in their exams as they completed them, mumbling quick good-byes, and heading out of the classroom, done for the semester.

One student turned in her exam and then walked around the desk to where I was sitting, gave me a big smile, and held out her arms wide.

I have to admit, I find myself disinclined to hug students—for a variety of reasons, as you might imagine—so I didn't stand but just sat there, gave her a "what's this? look or gesture of some kind, I can't really remember.

But I do remember what she said: "Professor Taylor, before this semester, I'd never read an entire novel, and now I've read six of them."

I stood.

I hugged.

We're Facebook friends now, and she has a daughter of her own these days, and my hope isn't simply that she's continuing to read herself but that she's reading to that daughter too.

Being a Veteran

By Brian Thornton

(My next turn in the rotation comes on the day after Veterans' Day, so I hope you'll indulge me posting this a few days early. The thoughts expressed below are adapted from a speech I will be delivering at one of my local high schools, at their Veterans' Day assembly. - Brian)

My name is Brian Thornton, and I am a veteran.

Before I published my first book, before I began my career as a teacher, before my time in college training to be a teacher, before I moved to the Seattle area, before I got married and started a family, I lived a very different life, in very different locales, doing a very different job.

But more on that in a moment.

Now, I’m an historian, so I’d like to start off with a few words about the date on which we celebrate Veterans’ Day. It was only after my time in the military that I understood the significance of November 11th as the date we choose to honor our veterans. Far from being some random date on the calendar, November 11th was chosen for a very specific reason. Originally called “Armistice Day,” it marks the anniversary of the signing of the cease-fire agreement that effectively ended the First World War. Dubbed by turns “The Great War,” and “The War to End All Wars,”- this conflict resulted in the deaths of over 16 million people- only 9 million of them combatants- during its four years (1914-1918).

The First World War redrew national boundaries, toppled empires, wrecked a continent, and wiped an entire generation from the earth as surely as the swipe of an eraser removes ink from a whiteboard. By 1918 society had been so thoroughly rocked by the havoc this conflict wrought, that many people began to believe that they were witnessing the death throes of society itself- that civilization would literally cease to exist.

So the men who negotiated and signed this armistice (and they were all men. Human beings had yet to awaken to the importance of having the wisdom and experience of women at the table during negotiations like these), believed that with their actions, they were literally saving human civilization from eventual collapse and humanity itself from likely extinction.

And so they arranged for the cease-fire to go into effect on a symbolic date: literally at 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year- hence the phrase “at the 11th hour”- a phrase that we use to this very day, in describing disaster being averted at the “last minute.”
I cannot help but find it fitting that we choose such a date to pause and take note of the contributions made to this country by our veterans. After all, it is the most American of traditions to take a painful memory and to substitute a hopeful one for it.

And to speak of the contributions, the sacrifices, of our veterans, is to speak of hope. Hope is an aspirational emotion, born of a desire for something greater, something better. People motivated by hope can achieve incredible things. America itself was founded on hope. Countless millions have flocked to this country from every corner of the planet, motivated by hope- hope for something bigger, greater, deeper. And they hope to find what they’re seeking in America, a place that the great poet Bruce Springsteen has dubbed “The Land of Hope and Dreams.”

And over the past two-plus centuries our citizen soldiers have answered their country’s call time and again out of a sense of dedication to that country, and to that hope. Such loyalty, such patriotism makes of mere countries the greatest of nations.

And as the service of veterans has helped to transform America, so, too has it had a transformational effect on those who served.
   
I served as a quartermaster in the United States Navy from 1985 to 1989. A quartermaster’s job is to serve as principal navigator onboard ship, and as an expert cartographer (a “map maker”) on land.
   
During my time in the navy I visited every continent on the planet, with the exception of Antarctica. I lived and worked with thousands of different people, from a wide variety of ethnic, economic, and geographic backgrounds. I experienced places and cultures and sights and smells and tastes that I never knew existed. It was a far cry from my childhood growing up in Eastern Washington.
   
I cannot overstate the effect that serving my country during those four years had on me. My worldview was radically changed as a result of that experience, and while it was not an easy journey, I cannot stress enough how important my military service has been to me in the years since my discharge in 1989.
   
The military taught me so much. Patience, mostly. And more patience. And then….still more. Those of you with a veteran in your family, ask them about the phrase “Hurry up, and wait.” See what reaction you get.
   
In the navy I learned to get along with people with whom I had nothing in common, other than the shared experience of serving our country. The navy brought me into close contact with people I might never otherwise have gotten to know. One of the life skills I value most is the ability to work well with people you may not like very much. Another is the ability to get past initial differences and find things to admire in others, things you might not have noticed on first acquaintance. The navy taught me how to do both of these things.
   
None of this should have come as much of a surprise to me. You see, when it came to the military, I had a reservoir of previously acquired knowledge to rely upon at home while I was growing up. My father flew Huey gunships in Vietnam. Two uncles served in the navy. One retired from the Coast Guard. My grandfather was a tail-gunner in both B-17s and B-29s, flying bombing sorties over both Germany and Japan during World War II. Much of my childhood was spent listening to stories, not only of battle, but of boredom, “unintelligent” leadership, pranks played, and fast friendships formed.
   
Once I had served my own hitch, I had my own stories to tell. Tales of bad food, long work days, freezing cold watches stood on piers in faraway places with hard-to-pronounce names. And the exploits of “my buddies,” guys I served with. Guys I’ll never forget, like them, love them, or hate them. My younger brother did his own hitch in the army, serving as crew chief onboard Chinook helicopters. And he in turn brought home his own stories.

I have a lot of veterans in my family, including ones like my cousin, Ronald Quigley, who never lived to tell their stories. You see, my cousin Ronnie died while serving as an artilleryman in Vietnam. You can find his name inscribed with those of the other honored dead from that war on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I was three years old when Ronnie died. All I have left of him are some jumbled memories from his going-away party when he left for Vietnam.

And yet, my cousin, and those others whose lights were snuffed out too early, who never lived to tell their stories, the ones who, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, gave “the last, full measure of devotion” to this country, they deserve to be remembered.

To be celebrated.

To be honored.

And we, as a nation, have an obligation to keep their memory alive, to keep them from becoming just another name on just another war memorial. To help the citizens of this great nation remember the terrible cost incurred every time young people answer their country’s call to arms. To serve with honor, and to be transformed utterly by the experience.
   
And that leads me to the crux of this speech. Because, once you’ve lived it, once you’ve taken the oath, once you’ve stood the watches, and fought to stay awake, and been afraid, and laughed, and argued, and sweated, and ached, and bled, and loved and cried, all in the service of your country, like it or not, you’ve become a part of something larger than yourself.

A fraternity.

A family.

A group of women and men who have sworn to protect this nation. Who have made its continued existence their personal responsibility.

And it doesn’t change much once your hitch is up. Once you’ve done your bit, you’re a member for life. And for ever afterward.

That’s what being a veteran is.

The Windsor Folly

David Windsor came to the throne as Edward VIII, king of

England, in January of 1936. He gave it up in December of

the same year, to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. It was the celebrity scandal of the decade, what with the king throwing duty over the side, Mrs. Simpson under the misapprehension she could become queen, the ruling Tory party mutinous and ready to resign from government, the Archbishop of Canterbury discouraging any Anglican clergy from performing the wedding, the Royal Family caught up in both a domestic soap opera and a political crisis that threatened the monarchy - and just when you thought it was all a tempest in a teapot, it could well have affected the outcome of the Second World War.

You have to cast your mind back to the climate of the late 1930's, the consuming fear of Bolshevism and the rise of Fascist reactionary politics in Europe – the Arrow Cross in Hungary, the Iron Guard in Romania – but more particularly the Fascist states, Spain, Italy, and Nazi Germany. You also have to remember the strong isolationist and antiwar sentiment in the U.S. and Great Britain, and even overt sympathy for Nazism. (Sir Oswald Mosley married his second wife Diana Mitford in Berlin, at Goebbels' house. Hitler was there.) The most charitable thing you can say about the Duke of Windsor is that he was hopelessly naive.

Invited to Germany in 1937, after the abdication, the Windsors toured the Krupp weapons works, were Hitler's guests at Obersalzberg and Goering's at Karinhall, and gave energetic Nazi salutes. It was a general embarrassment to the British government and personally to David's brother Bertie, who'd succeeded him as GeorgeVI. Windsor, who was himself extremely sensitive to slights, apparently had no shame, or was simply insulated from questioning his own conduct. He led an unexamined life, immune to consequences and tone-deaf to anybody's grievances but his own.

The plot, however, thickens. Once the war began, the Windsors retreated first to the south of France, then to Barcelona, and then in July of 1940 to Lisbon. Spain and Portugal were neutrals, but Franco's regime was in bed with the Nazis. Windsor had made some extremely ill-judged and gratuitous remarks, proposing a negotiated peace, which came close to sedition, and the Germans pricked up their ears.

David also insisted to his brother the king that Wallis be treated as a member of the Royal Family. It was this last bone of contention that suggested itself to the German foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, as leverage. What if, he reasoned, the Duke of Windsor were to return to England, and be crowned king again? Would it take England out of the war? In hindsight, it's hard to believe this ever got legs, but in the event, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Walter Schellenberg, deputy chief of Reich state security, flew to Madrid. The operation was code-named Willi.

None of this took place in a vacuum, British intelligence not being utterly comatose, and Windsor known to them. He was never celebrated for discretion. It had been hastily arranged for him to become governor of the Bahamas, safely out of circulation. He was supposed to sail from Lisbon on August 1^st, but mulish as usual, he was dragging his feet - his suspicions fed by German agents, who planted the idea that MI6 was plotting to assassinate him once aboard ship - and Schellenberg, now based in Lisbon, was wondering if simplest is best: why don't they just throw a blanket over the guy and smuggle him out of town? This admirably direct strategy was vetoed by Wilhelmstrasse, the Windsors set sail for the Bahamas, and the plan (such as it was) evaporated.

The issue isn't that Windsor was a vain and deeply unserious person, but that the Nazis, delusional as they were, had reason to think he might actually go along. David was a featherbrain,who probably deserved no better than the equally fatuous and self-absorbed Wallis. On the other hand, von Ribbentrop was generally regarded as a meathead by his own colleagues and in foreign chanceries - his one success the non-aggression pact with Stalin - and he lacked the imagination. Schellenberg, though, was nobody's fool, and wouldn't have chosen a fool's errand in Lisbon. So how did they persuade themselves? My guess is that it was wishful thinking. Hitler's main strategic objective was the defeat of Russia. He thought England would come to the bargaining table once Luftwaffe bombers began crossing the Channel, and it suited him to believe Windsor was more sympathetic to German aggrandizement than George VI. But as petty or foolish as David Windsor was, he must have realized he couldn't be a Nazi collaborator, a puppet king. It would have been beneath contempt.

We're left with speculation. Jack Higgins wrote a corker of a thriller about it. Schellenberg, in his memoirs, characterizes the whole episode as farce. Deborah Cadbury's recent book, PRINCES AT WAR, shows Windsor in an unflattering light, if she stops short of calling him a Quisling. In his memoirs, Windsor says he believed Germany was a military counterweight to the Soviet menace, but he never supported the Nazis. Which is it? There's no way of knowing. The man was shallow, written in water, and unexceptional. Only the circumstance of his birth gives him any historical weight, and simple accident put him in the crosshairs. Windsor had but one decent virtue. He was a stranger to himself, too oblivious to know better.

DavidEdgerleyGates.com

Kids and Crime

by Barb Goffman

When I was in sixth grade, word spread through my elementary school that some fifth graders were going to put Spanish fly in their teacher's coffee. I didn't know what Spanish fly was, but it sounded bad. Dangerous. I waited to see what would happen and ... nothing happened. Did the students chicken out? Did someone threaten to rat them out so they called off the plan? Did someone actually rat them out but this information was kept quiet? Did they call off the plan themselves because they realized it was a bad idea? Or had it been a big rumor with no truth to it at all? I don't know. But it's certainly true that kids who may not have the capacity to fully understand the consequences of their actions can enjoy playing pranks, and they can get angry and want revenge. Teachers often are a prime target.

A review of news reports on Google bears this out. A small sample:

• A thirteen-year-old student was charged with allegedly sneaking a sleeping pill into his teacher's coffee after she chastised him for disrupting class.
• A middle-school student was accused of putting several of his asthma pills into his teacher's coffee.
• An eighth-grade teacher was sickened after two students slipped a prescription sedative into her lemonade, police said.
  

The articles go on, including ones involving elementary school students even younger than the kids involved with the Spanish fly rumor from my elementary school. It was these types of stories that prompted my newest short story, "The Wrong Girl," about a group of elementary school girls who seek revenge on a mean teacher. Addressing this topic was cathartic for me because what happened to the girl in the story happened to me, except I never tried to get revenge.

What causes some kids to try to hurt others? Do they not truly understand the consequences of their actions? Or do they understand but lack sufficient empathy? I don't know, but it's a topic I like to explore in my fiction. I've had several short stories published involving children and teenagers. You can find a few of them in my collection, Don't Get Mad, Get Even (Wildside Press, 2013). My newest story, "The Wrong Girl," is my first attempt at flash fiction. It's in a new anthology called Flash and Bang, which was published on October 8th by Untreed Reads Publishing.

This new anthology is the first one featuring members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Every story involves a flash or a bang. The publisher chose nineteen stories, including one from fellow SleuthSayer John Floyd called "Rosie's Choice."

I hope you'll check the book out and let me know what you think of my take on kids and crime. (The anthology is available as a trade paperback and as an e-book, so with a couple of clicks, you could read it right away.) In the meanwhile, as we head toward Halloween this weekend, when children are encouraged to beg for candy or else they'll supposedly play a trick on you, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on children and crime. At what age do children come to truly understand the consequences of their actions? And at what age should they be held accountable?

Not a Cop

I'm not a cop but I write about one named Zoe Barrow who works with the Austin Police Department. Zoe first appeared in my mind while I was out at the Austin Police Academy while playing a cop. Let me explain. 

The Citizen Police Academy was established in January 1978 and over two thousand citizens have graduated in 85 classes. I was in the class in 1991. At that time it was a 12 week program held out at the Police Academy Training facility. It now is a 14 week program and is held at Austin Police Headquarters. The CPA's slogan is "Understanding Through Education." The goal is to provide enough information to the public to dispel misconceptions and to increase rapport between citizens and police officers.

The instruction is comprehensive and each week separate areas of the department is covered. Communication, patrol, canine, fraud, firearms, bomb squad, etc each gives a small view of what is taught and how that department works. It originally, for Austin, was to help people who were interested in becoming neighborhood watch captains in their neighborhoods. Since I was interested in writing mystery and at that time specifically private eye stories. My book characters also dealt with a police officer and I felt this would be very helpful to me. I applied for the program and was thrilled to be accepted.

One of the fun things I was able to be involved with was the CPA Alumni Association. I'm not involved with them anymore and don't even know if they still exists. But one thing we did as alumni was to go out to the academy when invited by the police academy and pretend to be bad guys during the cadets training program. There were specific scenarios set up and the cadets had to react to the situation.

For instance, several of us we asked to play a group of people in a nightclub situation. We weren't really drinking, we were sitting around talking with music playing on a radio. There was to be a gun on the table we sat around, it was a fake gun. Supposedly a call had been made to the police department stating there was a disturbance going on in the club.  The cadets were to come inside the club two at a time,  assess the situation and hope that one of them saw the gun and calls out "GUN" to the other. And one of them would take possession of the gun. All the cadets come into the situation and respond and then afterwards a training officer critiques them.

Another situation is a theft argument. One person says they have been robbed and another person says they didn't do it. The cadet is supposed to search the thief and discover the "jewels." Sometimes a thief has a weapon and it's up to the cadet to discover the weapon. But sometimes the weapon is missed. The training officer can really jump on a cadet if they miss the weapon. One time I had a derringer in my bra and it was missed more than once.

One was a driving scene where the driver is driving erratically, the cadet is to stop the vehicle (in reality we were stopped to keep thing moving along faster) and when the driver gives the officer a driver's license and calls it in, the dispatcher says there is a warrant out for that person. The cadet is to get the driver out of the car and handcuff her/him and put her/him in the squad car. The passenger is just to stay in the car and is okay.

The training officer asked me to really jump on one of the cadets as he wanted to see how she would react. So when she handcuffs me I begin cussing her out. And I complain loudly that the cuffs are too tight. So she loosens them one notch. She didn't react to my calling her names and cursing at her but when she put me in the squad car I was able to slip the cuffs off. After the training officer critiques and tells her to get me out of the squad car, I hand her the cuffs. The training officer jumped all over her. The cadets are not supposed to talk to each other and help each other but of course they do it anyway. All day the other drivers had no idea why their hand cuffs were put on so tight. When I do talks about writing to groups I usually tell this story and tell them that this is only time I was ever able to cuss out a cop and get away with it. It always gets a laugh.

It was during these civilians being bad guys that my character, Zoe Barrow began talking in my mind and became the main character in two novels. In DARK BLUE DEATH, the opening chapter is set at the police academy with Zoe being a training officer and that scene is almost word for word what happened the day I played that scene recorded there.

If you ever have a chance to attend a Citizen's Police Academy training program, I hope you will do so.

The Legends of October

If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose on me. 

A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite "lovers' lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple became frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw — a hook on the door handle! I don't think I will ever park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids.

                                                            Letter to Dear Abby
                                                            November 8, 1960 

                                                            Quoted in Urban Legends

        There is something about October. It’s in the wind; it’s in the rustling dead leaves; it’s in the flames of the backyard fire.  Shorter days. Longer nights. The growing compulsion to retreat to the indoors, away from the lengthening shadows. It’s a time when the outside world -- our warm summer friend just scant weeks back -- turns a mercurial cold shoulder and casts a narrowed and appraising eye our way, a warning dare of things to come.  Is it any wonder that October is the time of Halloween? 

       And, once we are safely hunkered down inside, October is also a time to spit into the wind, to tempt fate.  We are safe -- so let’s spin some tales about those who are not. It’s a time to tell stories aimed at only one thing -- raising the hackles on the listeners’ necks.  Proving that, despite all of that civilization and infrastructure, despite the safety of our living rooms, we can still be reduced in a few hundred words to primordial horripilating fear. 

       “Ghost stories” are often set in the distant past.  They therefore are safely embedded in another time.  In this way, when we tell them, we insulate ourselves a little from the fear. This was frightening, this was horrible, but this did not happen here.  It didn’t happen now.  It is perhaps as a reponse to this historical distancing that a new genre of modern day horror stories evolved in the 1950s and 1960s. Popularly, these tales are often referred to as “urban legends,” a phrase that, according to The Oxford Dictionary, was coined in or around 1968.  In a sense the term is a misnomer, since many of these frightening, and often cautionary, tales do not share an “urban” setting.  For that reason sociologists and social historians prefer the term “contemporary legend.” 

     These legends, urban or contemporary, typically follow similar, and fairly constrained, narrative approaches.

       First, they are short. They can be told easily at a sitting. They are, in other words, “campfire length.”

       Second, invariably the stories are told as something that happened to someone two times removed from the narrator -- typically to “a friend of a friend,” popularly abbreviated FOAF. This narrative device provides just enough proximity to make the story seem “real” while also providing just enough distance to ensure that the narrator need not (and cannot) personally vouch for the truthfulness of the tale.  We are told to accept the truth of the legend as an article of faith.

      And third, in each legend all of this contributes to a frightening theme:  These are “common-man” stories.  The terror that is their backbone could have happened to anyone.  As we listen we shudder in fear because we know what this means:  this could have happened to us. 

Professor Jan Brunvand

       The term “urban legend” was likely coined by Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English (now emeritus) at the University of Utah.  Certainly Professor Brunvand is the master historian of the genre.  He spent much of his professional life researching and then cataloging urban myths, collected in a series of fascinating works, including The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and their Meanings, The Choking Doberman and other “New Urban Legends, The Big Book of Urban Legends, The Mexican Pet: More "New" Urban Legends, Curses! Broiled Again!, The Baby Train and other Lusty Urban Legends, Too Good to be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends, and (finally!) The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story. 

       While urban legends evolve by word of mouth (and now via the internet), and change through the re-telling, it is often possible to trace particular legends back to their origins.  As an example, according to Professor Brunvand the many variants of “The Hook” -- that story that found its way into that 1960 Dear Abby letter quoted above --  likely derived from a series of lovers’ lane murders that were committed around Lake Texarkana in 1946.   There is no evidence that those murders had anything to do with a hook.  That came later.  Beginning with a foundation in reality the stories grow, they gain embellishment, much as prose changes when whispered ear to ear in that birthday party game we all played as children.  Part of that growth was the addition of the hook.

       Often the common denominator of a particular urban legend, as Professor Brunvand teaches us, is a locale, invariably one that is frightening by its very nature, or that is linked historically to a crime, to a disaster, or to reported supernatural occurrences.  Such spots are by their nature fertile fields for the cultivation of urban myths.  And, since they can also be visited, they have spawned their own participatory variant on the urban legend -- urban tripping.  Why sit and listen when we can go there -- when we can go there at night? 

The Pope Lick Trestle

       Urban tripping therefore involves a pilgrimage, usually undertaken at night, often in October, to a site that has a notorious and frightening, often supernatural, past.  You won't need to look too far to find one convenient to you.  There are urban tripping sites all over the country. 

     In Louisville, Kentucky you may want to visit the Pope Lick Trestle, the reputed home to the Pope Lick Monster, described as a human-goat hybrid.  The monster (as the legend goes) escaped from a carnival where it (of course) had been cruelly mistreated. It now seeks revenge, and its vengeance is focused on any unsuspecting person who wanders (at night, of course) too near.

The Swift Mansion

       In Cleveland, Ohio why not visit the site of the Swift Mansion? According to locals the mansion was once the Gore Orphanage, where (again, as the legend goes) numerous children were killed by the staff, either murdered or allowed to die of malnutrition and neglect.  Historians dispute whether the mansion ever, in fact, was an orphanage.  But don't let that dissuade you -- it hasn't stopped the stories about those children. And they, too, are out for revenge. 

     

A depiction of the Jersey Devil

       In New Jersey the curious are drawn to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, home of the fabled Jersey Devil. The Devil is described as a flying biped with hooves that emits a blood curdling scream. And, again, this happens at night.  Often in October.

The Bunny Man Bridge

       In Clifton, Virginia, the Bunny Man Bridge (which is actually a tunnel) beckons. The bridge is where you need to be to see the Bunny Man himself (or itself?) -- a man (I kid you not) in a bunny costume who reputedly attacks (with an axe) any who stray too close. 

The Devil's Tramping Ground

     In a Bennett, North Carolina campground thrill seekers are drawn to a barren circle, known as The Devil's Tramping Ground. No trouble finding the circle -- it’s the only place in the forest where no plants ever grow. It is said that objects left in the circle overnight disappear by morning.  Dogs and other animals reportedly refuse to enter the circle at all.  

Old Alton Bridge

       In Denton, Texas, the place to be in the dark hours of October is the Old Alton Bridge, which takes its name from the abandoned Texas village of Alton.  Locally the bridge is known as "Goatman's Bridge," a name inspired by a legendary satyr-like demon that is said to inhabit the forest surrounding the area.
  

      And what trip to Vincennes, Indiana (my wife’s hometown) would be complete without a visit to the legendary Old Purple Head Bridge spanning the Wabash River? The bridge, believe it or not, is still open to vehicular traffic, a fact I know all too well, as previously recounted.  (A longer piece on Old Purple Head, and the legends it has spawned, was the subject of a Halloween piece several years back.) 

Old Purple Head

       Anyone looking to experience a more packaged urban legend this time of year need look no further than the nearest corn maze or haunted forest. There is a profit to be made almost everywhere, and that includes the provision of that October "chill fix" so many of us seem to crave.  But for the connoisseur, those looking for a more elegant blood chilling experience, there are some select urban tripping experiences -- spooky locales, just there for the asking.

       For a price, of course.

       For those on the west coast perhaps nothing can beat the Winchester Mystery House. This 116 room mansion, which has been termed the creepiest house in Silicone Valley, was built by Sarah Winchester, the slightly deranged widow and heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. Reportedly, there was never an overall design for the Winchester Mystery House, or even an architect. The mansion, instead, is a bizarre and immense congeries of rooms built to the whims of Sarah herself.  Rooms were added daily or weekly, inspired by Sarah's own nightmares and warnings from her medium concerning how to best construct the house so as to allude supernatural spirits from following Sarah as she moved from room to room.

        The resulting mansion was continuously under construction for over thirty years, right up to the day of Sarah's death.  It has been described as “a 6-acre labyrinth of false doors and stairs that lead absolutely nowhere – ad-hoc additions reportedly made by Winchester to confuse the evil spirits of people shot and killed by the firearms of her dead husband's namesake.” Tours are available daily, but special flashlight tours -- so-called “Fright Nights” -- are conducted at night every Friday the 13th and regularly throughout the month of (you guessed it) October. 

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

      Closer to the other side of the continent is the infamous Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, which sprawls across the landscape of Weston, West Virginia. This massive, now-abandoned, 150 year old hospital is a monument to the horrors to which its inmates were subjected.  It has been the site of scores of reported paranormal encounters over the years and is now a very popular tourist attraction.

      The hospital has a daily schedule of tours, but what you will want (I know you) is the overnight tour. Here is the description offered on the asylum’s website: 

Ever thought about spending the night in a haunted Lunatic Asylum? Our Ghost Hunts last from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. . . . . After everyone is registered and divided into groups, guides will assist you in your exploration of this massive Gothic asylum.  After a brief paranormal tour you may either hunt alone or with our experienced ghost hunting guides. Our guides are here to ensure that you have a positive and safe evening. Make sure to bring your camera, digital recorder, EMF meter . . . . 

I have not taken this tour, but I certainly understand why payment is required in advance.  The most popular time to experience the asylum?  October, of course.  October at night. 

       The legends and sites discussed above -- only a few of those that are out there -- share a thread common to most "ghostly" encounters:  Actual evidence of supernatural happenings is available only in wisps and shreds.  And the psychic experiences associated with each are all potentially explainable – over active imaginations, stimulation brought on by atmospherics, coincidences that align just so. All of this is expected, after all, when we choose to view the surroundings through the shadows of midnight.  Particularly midnights in October.  But, in any event, solid evidence of an actual haunting is generally pretty hard to come by. 

       But not always. 

       There is a stretch of road in Southern England that for centuries has been the site of reported supernatural occurrences. Horseback riders and carriages traveling through the countryside over two hundred years ago avoided this stretch of road not just because of some inexplicale sightings, but also because horses simply refused to travel the road.  They would grow increasingly agitated and then bolt if spurred to continue.  Travelers who did brave the road at night sometimes failed to reach their destination and, indeed, sometimes were never heard from again.

       More recently some drivers have reported that as they steer around a particular “s” turn in what now is a paved road, a flickering figure can, at times, be discerned hovering in front of their car. Eventually, in an attempt to prove that something might, after all, be out there, a team of investigative reporters from the BBC set up a camera on a hillside overlooking the turn. The camera automatically recorded many cars rounding the curve over a stretch of weeks.  Not surprisingly, for days the camera recorded nothing out of the ordinary.

       Nothing that is until the clip below was filmed.

       Even then the investigators were not certain that anything ghostly had been captured on their film.  They began to change their opinion when they were able to carefully view what they had filmed back in the BBC studios.  This is the clip that convinced them that something really might be there. Watch very carefully, or you may miss it.  Pay particular attention to the area right in front of that car as it rounds that final turn. 

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        . . . four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.  Okay.  Deep breath. 

       Some of you will recognize that clip from an article I posted this same October week several years back. Sorry about that!  I couldn't resist trotting it out for one more spin.  It’s always fun to offer up one's own re-telling of an urban legend long about this time of year.  And, as the clip shows, you never know when you might trip on one right there on your own laptop!

       

Murder is More Fun with an Accomplice (The Case for Co-writing)

By Melodie Campbell

To the elderly man in the khaki sweater who lifted his reading glasses to stare open-mouthed…

To the unknown person who gasped and knocked over a chair behind me…

To the woman with the stroller who stared with horror, and then wheeled her toddler frantically away toward the exit…

False Alarm Alert: The two middle-aged women whispering about murder in the Orangeville library were not fiendishly plotting how to do away with a tedious husband.

They were writing a murder mystery!

I’m perhaps best known for writing the mob comedy caper series, The Goddaughter.  But I also write classic whodunits with my close friend Cynthia St-Pierre.  Our first book, A Purse to Die For, was great fun to write.  And happily, it was a Top 100 Mystery on Amazon.com.  Our second, A Killer Necklace, is just out.

Thing is, I live in Oakville and Cindy lives two hours away in Newmarket.

Much of what we do is by email and Skype.  But every few months we like to get together to hash out plot problems in person.  This means meeting somewhere in between, like Orangeville.  And where better, than at the place we feel most comfortable, that hallowed home for books, a library?

But my apologies to the patrons we may have alarmed.  I can imagine the dinner conversation at several houses in Orangeville that night.

Which brings me to the question asked here:  Why write with a partner?

Simply put, it’s FUN!  There is someone sharing your lonely writing job every step of the way.  Cheering when you surprise her with a twist in a new chapter…moaning, when you both start the heavy work of editing.

Writing a novel is a lonely pursuit.  You spend months by yourself before anyone sees the work you have been slaving over.  Having a co-writer takes the loneliness out of being a writer. 

Yes, you give up a little autonomy over your plot and characters.  But you also share the delight of incorporating new ideas and plot twists that you would never have come up with on your own.

Take it from me: planning murder with a partner is much more fun than doing it yourself.  Even our (very much still alive) husbands agree.

Have you ever tried to work with a co-author?  I'll write more about how we actually go about it, in a future post.

Who is the dead woman at the bottom of the stairs? 

 A killer is determined to keep her identity secret, even if it means killing again...

"If Christie wore Armani and Louboutins..." (review of A Purse to Die For)


A KILLER NECKLACE (Imajin Books) is sold in all the usual places.
on Amazon
on Kobo