06 January 2019

Chasing Pennies


bank vault
I've written about exploits in banking and brokerage fraud with further articles to follow. Bad banking practices don’t feature well in my write-ups. Institutions change only when they’re forced to.

Recently my fraud expertise touched upon the personal. A good friend fell victim to gaping holes in one of New York’s largest financial institutions, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Lily is smart, pretty, and unattached. Two out of three is pretty good, but she means to win the trifecta. She doesn’t advertise, but merely hopes to attract the right kind of guy. She appears on social media: Facebook, Pinterist, and a singles’ site that’s been around some thirteen years, MeetMe.com, where she met an interesting fellow.

Telling the good from the bad isn’t always easy. By the time our malefactor (male factor or dirtbag are also suitable) stepped into the light, he already knew critical pieces of information about Lily: her real name (thanks to odious Facebook requirements), where she’s lived, family relationships, and importantly– her birthday.

MeetMe.com
For a few weeks, ‘Antonio Sanchez’ from ‘New Jersey’ wooed our lass on MeetMe. He didn’t do anything crass like ask her bank account number or credit card information; thanks to Chase’s security ‘features’, he didn’t need to.

As Thanksgiving approached, Lily traveled across the country, stopping to visit relatives in Greenfield, Indiana, home of another Lilly, the famed pharmaceuticals company. Our heroine happened to check her bank account and found it unexpectedly fourteen hundred fifty dollars richer.

Lily, not only smart but honest, sought clarification at the Greenfield branch of Chase. Greenfield couldn’t fathom the problem.

bogus check 1 (808869)
check 1 of 6 #808869
“You put money into your account in the early hours of the morning. Looks like you needed it. What’s the problem?”

“I didn’t deposit anything.”

“But you did.” Greenfield regarded her suspiciously. “You’re saying you didn’t?”

“Exactly. I didn’t do any such thing.”

“Well, lucky you. Someone likes you well enough to put coins in your account.”

*click* Instantly Lily knew who’d made the deposit.

A couple of hours later, the situation reached me. By then, other deposits had appeared. Curiously, monies were rapidly shifting among Lily’s three accounts. My fraud alert alarms clanged.

“If you make a withdrawal,” I advised, “calculate only what you own to the penny and not a cent more.”

“What’s the problem?” friends asked. “A handsome guy sending Lily money? Does he have any brothers?”

I spoke adamantly. “There is no money, no boyfriend in New Jersey, no gold at the end of the rainbow.” When I explained the con, Lily agreed to join me for a visit to the Indiana State Police.

Indiana State Police
The man manning the reception desk told us all detectives were out of the office and wouldn’t return until the next day. Lily asked if she could file a report.

The grizzled trooper brought forms out to us in the lobby. He stood by as Lily tried to explain the situation.

He interrupted her. “A guy giving you money is no crime. No crime, you can’t file a report.”

I said, “There is no money. It’s a con…”

The trooper threw up his palm in a ‘Talk to the hand’ gesture. Cops are trained to seize and maintain control, even when counterproductive. He went on to lecture Lily, not so much accusing her of wasting police time, but of being silly.

“May I explain?” I said as levelly as I could. “There is no money, only fake deposits. He will use that false balance to pay himself.”

The cop paused, considering. “Wouldn’t work,” he said. “If I deposit a check, I have to wait a few days to withdraw funds.”

“That’s why he’s moving money around her accounts. Some banks, perhaps including Chase, lose track of new deposits as they’re moved around. The technique is called seasoning, losing the new deposit tag and making the money look like it’s aged on account.”

“I’m a road warrior,” said the trooper. “I’m not up on these things. Yeah, I’ll have a detective phone you.”

Virtually next door to State Police Headquarters, we’d noticed a Chase branch. Lily made the wisest decision of the day, visiting the bank for an update.

The young woman listened attentively. She quickly grasped the situation. “Oh my God,” she said. “I received a notice exactly like yours of a deposit early in the morning. I need to check my own account before I go home today.”

Together, the three of us discovered additional deposits and further shifting around of money. By then, funds had been used to buy the first Western Union money order made out to an unknown and very foreign name.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The money’s sent to Nigeria?”

“If Lily didn’t give this jerk her personal information,” the young lady said, “how did he get into her account?”

I explained one hypothesis. I’m a vocal critic of the so-called security questions routinely forced upon on-line customers. “What city were you born in?” “What was the name of your first pet?” “What’s your favorite team?” “What’s your favorite color?”

With the slightest information, bad guys find it ludicrously easy to guess the answers. The favorite color question often includes a helpful drop-down menu of eight colors. No one chooses black or white, so a malefactor can guess the answer in six tries or less.

The young branch manager rang the fraud department. She posed the same question to them, who replied “There are so many ways to breach an account…”

bogus check 2 (808870)
check 2 of 6 #808870
The bank gave us copies of the checks. One peculiarity came to light. Chase said it appeared the Nigerian repeatedly deposited the same two checks over and over, fooling Chase and highlighting another flaw in their security, a defective filter for detecting duplicate deposits.

Chase froze Lily’s accounts, leaving her stranded without travel money in the midst of a cross-country trip. But wait, we’re not done.

Lily awoke the next morning, finding her accounts unlocked and a half dozen or so deposits burgeoning her balances.

Lily phoned Chase to let them know further monkey business was afoot in her reactivated accounts. They quickly closed the window and her accounts, again cutting off her funds.



Big banks and little people, comes now the pathetic part. Instead of expressing gratitude for Lily’s quick action of notifying them of fraud, Chase blames Lily for the leaking of money from the bank. Their stance is that Lily either worked with the malfeasant Nigerian to defraud Chase, or at the very least handed over her account information to the bad guy. As you now know, that doesn’t have to happen. All it takes is sloppy banking.

Besides seizing Lily’s bank balance, Chase now demands another $600 in compensation for their losses. Good move, Chase: encourage honest citizens to rush in to report fraud made possible by your own shortcomings.

It’s a great day for banking. Have you had similar experiences?

05 January 2019

Short Memories: 2018 in Review


by John M. Floyd


Happy New Year! I realize I'm a little late, and that the new year's almost a week old now--but since it's my duty here at the SleuthSayers office to post a column every first, third, and fifth Saturday, and since December had five Saturdays, well, here I am again, and I'm finding that I'm not yet in a 2019 frame of mind.

Looking back, 2018 had its ups and downs, but on the literary front things held pretty steady. Readingwise, I consumed several good novels: Past Tense, Lee Child; The Reckoning, John Grisham; Bluff, Michael Kardos; The Outsider, Stephen King; Gravesend, William Boyle; Escape to the Biltmore, Patricia Gaddis; Blind Spot, Reed Farrell Coleman; Give-A-Damn Jones, Bill Pronzini; Elevation, Stephen King; and eleven books in the Hap & Leonard series by Joe R. Lansdale (I really like Joe Lansdale). Writingwise, I produced no novels of my own, just more short stories--and, as I did at the beginning of last year, I've put together some statistics on those.


The 2018 story board

According to my hi-tech method of recordkeeping (a three-ring binder I rescued from the office trashcan when I retired from IBM years ago), I had 32 stories published in magazines and anthologies this past year and 30 more appeared in a collection from my publisher Joe Lee, of Dogwood Press, in October. And if you're interested in short-story markets--especially mystery markets--I've also noted the publications that these stories appeared in. Here's my list:


"Scavenger Hunt"--Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Jan/Feb 2018 issue
"Lights Out"--Flash Bang Mysteries, Jan 2018
"Molly's Plan" (translation)--Inostrannaya Literatura, Jan 2018
"Two in the Bush"--Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Issue #2. 2018
"While You Were Out"--Flash Bang Mysteries, Spring 2018
"True Colors"--Kings River Life, April 14, 2018
"Mockingbird Thief"--Woman's World, April 18, 2018
"Cornbread Cookoff"--Woman's World, May 21, 2018
"Fun and Games"--Woman's World, June 11, 2018
"Runaway Bouquet"--Woman's World, June 25, 2018
"A Musical Clue"--Flash Bang Mysteries, Summer 2018
"Too Good to Be True"--Woman's World, July 16. 2018
"Diversions"--Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Issue #3, 2018
"The Blue Delta"--Sanctuary anthology, Darkhouse Books, July 2018
"Foreverglow"--The Strand Magazine, June-Oct 2018
"Easy as Pie"--Woman's World, August 8, 2018
"Lucy's Gold"--Saddlebag Dispatches, Spring/Summer 2018
"The Winslow Tunnel"--Bewildering Stories (serialized, Issues 767-768), 2018
"According to Luke"--Children of the Sky anthology, Aug 2018
"Home Delivery"--Woman's World, Aug 20, 2018
"The Music of Angels"--The Saturday Evening Post, Sep/Oct 2018
"Lightning"--Mystery Weekly, Sep 2018
"Frontier Justice"--Florida Happens (Bouchercon anthology), Sep 2018
"Half-Baked Plan"--Woman's World, Oct 1, 2018
"Gun Work"--The Best American Mystery Stories 2018, Oct 2, 2018
"Ye Olde Crime Scene"--Flash Bang Mysteries, Fall 2018
"Lucifer"--Under the Full Moon's Light anthology, Owl Hollow Press, Oct 2018
"Lucian's Cadillac"--The Strand Magazine, Oct 2018-Jan 2019
"Getting Out Alive"--Landfall anthology, Level Best Books, Nov 2018
"Cracking the Code"--Woman's World, Nov 19, 2018
"Annabelle"--Deep South Magazine, Nov 2018
"Disorganized Crime"--Woman's World, Nov 26, 2018

And . . .

The Barrens--a hardcover collection released Oct 30, 2018, by Dogwood Press. It includes two of my original stories ("Dawson's Curse" and "The Barrens") and 28 of my previously published stories.


NOTE: I also had two stories published in December--"On the Road With Mary Jo" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and "Poetic Justice" in Woman's World--but I didn't count them here because the issue dates are Jan/Feb 2019 (EQMM) and January 7, 2019 (WW).


Behind-the-scenes numbers

Of my 62 stories that were published in 2018, 19 appeared in print magazines, 6 in print anthologies, 7 in online publications, and 30 in the collection mentioned above. Of the 32 stories published outside the collection, 28 went to paying markets, 24 to repeat markets, and 8 to new markets. One was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories and all the rest were unsolicited submissions. Genrewise, one story was a western, one was science fiction, one was fantasy, one was a romance, and 28 were mysteries (although some were cross-genre--mystery/western, mystery/fantasy, mystery/romance, etc.). Of those 32, 25 were original stories and 7 were reprints. As for settings, 17 took place in my home state of Mississippi and 15 were set elsewhere, and 16 were installments in a series (five different series, actually) and 16 were standalone stories. POVwise, 29 were third-person and 3 were first-person. Finally, 14 of the stories were less than 1000 words, 9 were between 1000 and 4000, and 9 were more than 4000.

As of this moment, 15 other stories have been accepted and will be published shortly and 36 more have been submitted and are sitting in various to-be-read queues and slush piles, awaiting a decision.

In the "alas and alack" department, I also received 28 rejections last year, from 17 different markets. Sad but true.


Questions

To any writer friends who might still be reading this post, how was 2018 for you? Did you sell a novel or a collection or a short story, or have one (or more) published? What great stories/novels did you read? Do you write an ongoing series, in either novels or stories? Do you have specific writing projects in progress, or upcoming in 2019? If you're a short-story writer, did you try to target only markets that pay professional rates?

Also, and selfishly: Do any of you know about mystery markets that I'm overlooking? As always, I try to check Sandra Seamans's wonderful blog My Little Corner regularly to find targets for my submissions. If you don't use that resource, you should!


That's it for this column, and for my literary memories of 2018. Best of luck to all of you, and may this new year be your best ever!

04 January 2019

Stop Meddling in My Genre - Part 1


by Lawrence Maddox


Dean Martin, actor, singer,
Post Modernist?
From the 1950s through the 70s, Variety shows were TV's shining jewels. Seen as quaint, corny, and conspicuously dopey by today's standards, elaborately produced offerings like The Ed Sullivan ShowPerry Como's Kraft Music Hall, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour were hugely popular. The majority of Americans would tune in to see not just cultural shifts, like the Beatles' American debut or Nat King Cole breaking racial barriers, but also to catch the icons of the day step out of the roles they were associated with.  You could watch Orson Welles and Jimmy Stewart sing "Personality" with Dean Martin; marvel at the ultimate cross generational Christmas mash-up of Bing Crosby and David Bowie dueting on "The Little Drummer Boy"; gasp at eternally square Richard Nixon trying his hand at comedy on the televised height of Hippy-dom, Laugh-In.

Though now viewed as old-fashioned, by allowing the famous to escape their prescribed boxes and take part in the equivalent of modern-day mash-ups, these shows could also be seen as doing something new and inventive, all in the name of fun.  In Smoke and Mirrors, John Leonard wrote that "We've a more pretentious word today for such radical juxtapositions of the silly and sublime, random conjectures of blank incredulity and dreadful apprehension (nostalgia laced with contempt) an absurd snippet (Rise Stevens singing "Cement Mixer, Putty Putty"). Instead of novelty, we have post-modernism."

When the same approach is taken with literary genres like crime fiction, feathers can get ruffled. As John Leonard implies, mixing genres can be seen as a post-modernistic reshuffling of the deck.   I'd like to make the case that crossing genres was right there at the beginning, when 20th century American crime fiction was taking shape in the widely read and cheaply made pages of pulp magazines. After cajoling you with my cross-genre calculations, we'll talk with genre bending daredevil Earl Javorsky, author of the multi-faceted and endlessly riveting PI Charlie Miner series.

Fans of Quentin Tarantino's game-changing crime drama Pulp Fiction might be mislead into thinking that pulp fiction itself is synonymous with crime fiction.  Pulp magazines, and the novels they spawned,  weren't actually genre specific at all.  Pulp magazines were named for wood pulp, the inexpensive main component of their pages, and they were cheaper to buy than their highbrowed antecedents, the pricier "slicks." Popular from roughly 1900 until TV began rotting America's mind in earnest in the early '50s, the pulps dabbled in fantasy, sci-fi, horror, westerns, crime, and adventure. Populism ran rampant in the pulps, and literary merit took a backseat to entertainment, no matter how tawdry or fantastic. Want tales of a flying ace that fights zombies? Here's G-8 and His Battle Aces. How about a Los Angeles socialite who wears a backless dress and a domino mask to rob from criminals a la Robin Hood? Look no farther than Saucy Romantic Adventures for tales of the Domino Lady. There were few sacred cows, and popular elements would be plucked from different genres and scattered about, all in the name of commerce.

Using cheaper paper wasn't the only way pulps kept the cost down; they also paid writers less than what other markets offered. This allowed the pulps to catch some luminaries-to-be at the start of their literary trajectories.  Perhaps the first pulp superstar was Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose "Tarzan of the Apes," published in All Story in 1912, was a national phenomenon. It not only helped kick off Burroughs' influential career but was a fillip to all the pulps in general.  Many other notable fantasy authors took the pulp plunge, including Conan creator Robert E. Howard, and the brilliant sci-fi subversive Philip K. Dick.

Pulp also provided the means for many burgeoning crime authors to gate crash the zeitgeist. Though Dashiell Hammett first published in the much tonier Smart Set magazine, his Continental Op tales became an early staple of the uber pulp Black Mask starting in 1923.  The Continental Op was a detective for a Pinkerton-esque agency (Hammett himself had been a Pinkerton) , and he was the proverbial joker in the deck.   The Op was a master manipulator who cast a cold, calculating eye on his fellow man. The Big Sleep author Raymond Chandler, one of many hard-boiled authors who followed Hammett into the pulps, famously said that Hammett "wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before." David Goodis, whose Shoot the Piano Player became a New Wave masterpiece under Truffaut, prolifically contributed Western stories to the pulps as well as crime stories.

The pulps were like a cheap hotel, and with that many different genres checking in, there were bound to be some illicit hook-ups. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the so-called pulp adventure stories, and there were none more popular or cross-pollinated than The Shadow.  The Shadow character began life in 1930 as the eerie omnipotent narrator for the radio show Detective Story Hour,  which in turn was a product of Detective Story Magazine. Like Tarzan eighteen years earlier, The Shadow character grabbed America by the imagination and wouldn't let go. The Shadow Magazine began less than a year later. Popular novels, a radio show, and movies followed. Orson Welles, thirty years prior to joining Dean Martin's wobbly orbit, voiced an early version of The Shadow on the radio.

Author Walter B. Gibson was tasked with turning the sinister Shadow into a fleshed out character who could lead his own adventures. Since Gibson was writing for a detective pulp, The Shadow was placed in the world of crime, gangs, and murder. The Shadow operated like a detective, but also a vigilante. Many of his characteristics, like taking justice into his own hands and manipulating others like pawns, came directly from pulp characters like Hammett's Continental Op. Yet The Shadow was also a figure of horror who had the supernatural ability to cloud men's minds, though actual invisibility happened  only on the radio show.  Gibson said Bram Stoker's Dracula was an influence.  Sci-fi elements were also included when The Shadow would occasionally battle mad scientists and their inventions.  The influence of The Shadow can't be overstatedThe Shadow may also be unfortunately responsible for what I'll call "The Scooby-Doo Effect"; stories where the bad guys dress up as something spooky in order to scare away intruders, and would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids. The Shadow was a smorgasbord of genre elements, and so were the "hero pulps," such as Doc Savage, that it paved the way for.

Really, so much of what entertains us today began with pulp.  Bill Finger, who along with Bob Kane developed Batman, said "my first Batman story was a take-off of a Shadow story." Superman was inspired by Doc Savage. Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (aka Blade Runner) is sci-fi at its finest, but it's also a hard-boiled detective novel. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, the basest of Private Dicks. He's got a gun, a list, and police bureaucracy up the wazoo.  It's as if the other Burroughs (Beatnik William) used  his cutup technique, clipping at one story from Analog and another from Black Mask and pasting together this dystopic hybrid

Charlie Huston carries on the fine tradition of genre mixing in his thrilling Joe Pitt series. Starting with Already Dead in 2005, Huston's Pitt is a private detective working the mean streets of New York. Pitt is also a vampire who must negotiate his way among cops and dangerous vampire clans while solving cases. Huston has said he prefers to be called a pulp writer.

I'm fortunate to have author Earl Javorsky's take on mixing genres, among other topics, in my next installment.  His Charlie Miner books, Down Solo (2014) and Down to No Good (2017), are my latest hobby. Miner is an insurance fraud investigator who keeps getting killed, but that doesn't stop him from playing detective in his own deaths, or from helping Homicide Detective Dave Putnam with his cases.  Join Earl Javorsky and myself outside the box for part two.

Note: A technical issue isn't letting me respond to comments to my blog. This is a real bummer. Please continue to comment. I'll be reading what you have to say and yelling my appreciative responses at my computer screen until this glitch is resolved. Thank you and Happy New Year!

03 January 2019

The Spy Who Loved Me


Dusty Johnson's July 15, 2015 tweet praising Maria Butina.
https://kelo.com/news/articles/2018/jul/18/
congressional-candidate-dusty-johnson-
praised-maria-butina-in-2015/
Some of you might remember - not that long ago! - when I did a couple of blog posts  (Mata Hari in South Dakota) about Russian spy Maria Butina and her paramour, South Dakota's own GOP operative, Paul Erickson.  They lived here in Sioux Falls and Ms. Butina did the South Dakota speaking tour, representing her own [Russian] Right to Bear Arms organization.  The tour - all about God, Guns and Let's Be Friends With Russia! - included SDSU, USD, and the Teenage Republicans Camp in the Black Hills.  The last was an interesting example of how you should be careful who you bring in as a guest speaker, considering the number of past and current South Dakota legislators (including recently elected US Representative Dusty Johnson!) were counselors, attendees, or just there for the party.  Bet Dusty's banging his head every day over this little tweet:

Well, now Maria's pled guilty to conspiring to be a foreign agent in the U.S., and is cooperating with authorities.

Her partner, in more ways than one, was Paul Erickson - whose resume includes:
  • National political director / campaign manager for the 1992 Pat Buchanan presidential campaign, 
  • Advisor to both of Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns. 
  • Former board member of the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).[5] 
  • South Dakota Trump campaign, claimed he was on the Trump presidential transition team. and during the 2016 NRA convention sent an e-mail to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump (via Trump's campaign advisor Rick Dearborn and then-Senator Jeff Sessions) with the subtle subject line: "Kremlin Connection."  
Mr. Erickson has been hiding in Virginia, and has recently "lawyered up", which is the best idea he's had in years. For one thing, he's "Person 1" who, according to the Statement of Offence, "agreed and conspired, with a Russian government official [that’s Alexander Torshin, Russian billionaire and close personal friend of Vladimir Putin] and at least one other person [ooo! a new mystery player!] for Butina to act in the United States under the direction of [Torshin] without prior notification to the Attorney General.” The purpose of this conspiracy was for Butina to “establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. policies… for the benefit of the Russian Federation.” Butina acknowledges that she used the National Rifle Association to forward the Russian Plan, because she believed the NRA "had influence over" the Republican Party.  (Thanks, Cory Heidelberger, for the summation)

NOTE:  The NRA is STILL staying silent as a tomb about Ms. Butina, despite the fact that there are pictures out the wazoo of her at various NRA functions (see below),
even though both Ms. Butina and the missing Mr. Torshin were made lifetime members of the NRA.
AND former NRA president David Keene visited Moscow at Mr. Torshin's behest.
AND the NRA spent a lot of money on Donald Trump's campaign.  $30 million, to be specific.  All of this is currently being investigated.  

Ms. Butina in 2014 with James W. Porter II, then president of the N.R.A.; Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president; and Rick Santorum, the former senator.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/us/politics/maria-butina-nra-russia-influence.html
NOTE: Russian President Vladimir Putin - who was eager for her release while she was first arrested - currently says he never heard of her.  Considering that Alexander Torshin has gone missing and is rumored murdered, Ms. Butina may want to try to stay in the US after trial, rather than be deported back home.

Image result for paul erickson south dakota
Meanwhile, though, a lot of people have asked me the simple question:  why South Dakota?  Why did she come here, other than for Paul Erickson's rugged good looks?  

Well, South Dakota is a large rural state with a very small population (under 900,000).  Our politicians are extremely, notoriously frugal - i.e., cheap.  Our current assets are $3.13 trillion (yes, you read that right) in commercial and savings bank assets.  We have the weakest reporting regulations you can imagine.  The FBI recently busted a major New York auto theft ring using South Dakota because, "South Dakota, a state that lets people register out-of-state vehicles by mail and wasn’t thoroughly checking to see if they were stolen, the FBI said." (Citation)  We also have (among?) the most pro-business laws regarding credit cards, payday loans, and setting up LLCs and their like in the country.  In my last blog I mentioned that Butina and Erickson formed a couple of LLCs here in Sioux Falls - which, it turns out, may have been laundering money from Torshin and from an as-yet unidentified Russian oligarch (perhaps the anonymous person cited above?) who has a net worth Forbes estimates to be about $1.2 billion.  (This Vox article is still pretty darned good on the ins and outs of the whole thing.)

Anybody can form a shell corporation in South Dakota for $50 per year, without requiring a physical presence and a minimum of personal information.  We have had at least two major scandals - EB-5 and Gear Up! - in which suicide (?) and/or murder-suicide and/or plain old murder followed on millions of federal dollars going missing (and still unfound).  (For that matter, we haven't yet found the Westerhuis safe.)  We are ranked 3rd in the country for corruption, because of single-party government, lack of transparency, backdoor decisions, and we got an "F" in executive and legislative accountability, as well as next to last in lobbying disclosure.  

In other words, you can could get away with a lot in South Dakota, and nobody would notice.  It was the perfect place for a red-haired, gun-toting, freedom-loving, handy Russian to be.

Which leads me to the second obvious question:  why did everyone fall so hard for, and buy so completely into, Maria Butina, and her story about her pro-gun rights Russian organization, Right To Bear Arms?  In Vladimir Putin's Russia?  HAH!  But buy it they did.

The quick answer:  look at the photos:

Maria Butina, Washington Post




  Image result for maria butina instagram  Image result for Maria Butina sexy photo with gun

I wrote back in April of 2015 that "As societies show greater respect for "the interests and values of women" things get better, more peaceful, more prosperous, as a whole.  Ironically, we're currently trying to masculinize women both in business and entertainment, where the ideal woman is now presented as a slim, beautiful, brilliant, athletic ninja warrior."  (The Better Angels...)  Meet Maria Butina.  Or at least her photographs.

"Maria Butina was the ultimate NRA Cool Girl" says a Washington Post article, and goes on to add, "But is there a surfeit of highly intelligent, hot, bilingual Eastern European graduate students who love Jesus, cooking, guns, big-game hunting, bourbon, lipstick, cowboys and tenderly repairing the hearts of damaged men?"

Maybe.  At least, that appears to have been the general conservative male hope.  And, according to Gillian Flynn in Gone Girl, THE male hope.  Read all about the Cool Girl HERE.

Back to WaPo:  "The fact that Butina became so popular in conservative circles so quickly seems to point in the other direction: There aren’t a lot of (real) women like her. “She was like a novelty,” a former Michigan GOP chair told The Washington Post last week. “Friendly, curious and flirtatious,” described another anonymous source, who met her through the Conservative Political Action Conference.  The men who championed her were so pleased to meet a woman who fit an ideal mold, they never stopped to think that maybe she was an ideal mole."  Washington Post

Red Sparrow came to South Dakota, [Grateful] Deadheaded the NRA, was invited to and attended the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, CPAC, and everything else she could find.  Even John Bolton made a video for her in 2103. (YouTube.)   Hell, she even interviewed Candidate Trump, who was happy to take her question and answer freely (and exceptionally eloquently):  You Tube Video.

Everyone loved her.  No one could get enough of her.  But they're being awfully quiet about it now.




"What is the right to life, ingrained in our constitution, if you don̢۪t have the right to bear arms?" says group founder Maria Butina.
Maria in Moscow,
2012
PS:  A lot of Russians also bought Maria's story and her organization.  The Right to Bear Arms united almost all the gun rights' organizations in Russia, largely thanks to her personality. Butina was the "battery that ignited everyone" and "things started to decline" after she left, said the improbably named co-founder Muslim Sheikhov.

But Vladimir Milov, a veteran Russian opposition politician, said he noticed at the time how "well technically equipped" Butina's group appeared to be and the quality of the merchandise at their rallies. "There was a clear idea from the beginning that somebody is behind them." But, at the time, "Butina's associates... believed that Right To Bear Arms was being funded mainly thanks largely to member fees and the sale of several furniture stores she owned in her Siberian hometown of Barnaul." Radio Free Europe

Instead, it was Russian billionaires Alexander Torshin and Konstantin Nikolayev, both friends of Putin.  And with that knowledge comes the fear that the charismatic Butina had "founded" an organization whose chief purpose was to infiltrate Russian opposition groups and, later, the NRA.  And which succeeded in doing both.

In other words, Putin managed to find a way to kill two birds - in two countries - with one stone.  

02 January 2019

Spy TV


I recently had an experience that carried me off on a cheerful wave of nostalgia.  Our current TV package provides access to an obscure channel called TubiTV.  And on it I was able to make my reacquaintance with The Sandbaggers, a spy series from Britain's ITV.  I had watched it on PBS back around 1980 when it premiered.  I was surprised at how much I remembered and how well it held up.  (It also seems to be available on Youtube.)

The series revolves around the Secret Intelligence Service (never called MI6 in the show), and it's Director of Operations, Neil Burnside (played by Roy Marsden, before he became better known as Adam Dalgleish).  Burnside is in charge of all the British agents in foreign countries around the world, but his first love is the Special Operations Section, known as the Sandbaggers.  These are the smash-and-grab boys, the ones who get sent to perform an extraction or an assassination (or prevent one). Please don't compare them to James Bond or Burnside will slit your throat.  He hates Ian Fleming's famous creation.

And as for slitting your throat, he is himself a former Sandbagger, and as ruthless as they come.  And yes, this crowd is pretty ruthless.  In the 20 episodes you will see virtually all the characters lying to each other, and often doublecrossing their superiors and allies.  Burnside would defend himself by saying he is true to the service and to his ultimate goal: destroying the KGB.  And he is willing to destroy his own career to do it.

An example of Burnside's charming personality.  In one episode he is in a restaurant and someone informs him: "I just saw your ex-wife out on the street."

"Best place for her."  Like I said, charming.

One thing I love about the show is the title.  I like to imagine it made John Le Carre, the master of fictional spy jargon, terribly jealous.  His name for the same type of group was the Scalphunters, but Sandbaggers is so much better.  "To sandbag" means "to launch a sneak attack" but it also means "to build emergency defenses."  Clever, eh?

The show had its flaws, of course.  The SIS is seen to be strangled with personnel shortages but it felt like that had more to do with TV budgets than anything else.  The inside sets look like a high school drama club production.  So many of the international crises take place in Malta that one can only assume ITV had a deal with the local tourist board.  And the last episode of the show only makes sense if you forgot everything that happened four episodes earlier.

None the less, it has been called one of the best spy shows of all time, and I'm not arguing.

The show was created, and most episodes were written, by Ian MacKintosh, a former naval officer.  Because of the series' sense of realism there was speculation that he had been involved in the spy world, but he played coy about it.  The series ends with a (hell of a) cliffhanger, because MacKintosh died unexpectedly and the network decided no one else could do it justice.

But I oversimplified when I said MacKintosh died.  In reality he and his girlfriend disappeared in a small airplane over the Pacific Ocean after radioing for help. The plane disappeared in a small area where neither U.S. nor Soviet radar reached.

I wonder what Burnside would make of that.

Oh, the show also has a great musical theme (just about the only music ever used in the program). Listen all the way to the last note.



But wait, there's more!  In the midst of my Sandbaggery I discovered a very different spy show which is, curiously, both older and newer than The Sandbaggers.  Available on Netflix A Very Secret Service (Au Service de la France) was created in 2015, but is set in 1960. And now let's give Grandpa a moment to marvel here over the fact that The Sandbaggers is set closer in time to 1960 than to 2015.

The series (in French, with subtitles) tells the story of Andre Merlaux, a naive young man who is forcibly recruited into the French Secret Service, which promptly makes it clear that they don't much want him.   It is a rather peculiar agency where doing your job is much less important than turning in proper receipts and wearing suits from the correct tailors.

On his first day on the job Merlaux gets in trouble for committing the incredible faux pas - I know you will be stunned by this blunder -- of answering the ringing phone on his desk. Quel imbécile!

This show is wildly and wickedly funny.  In one episode Merlaux assumes that a suspect cannot be a terrorist because she is a woman  His tutor firmly instructs him: "In cases of terrorism women must be considered humans!"

In another episode the French capture a German on his way from Argentina and suspect he is a Nazi. Fortunately they have a scientific survey which allows them to detect such barbarians.  (Sample question: "Adolf Hitler: pleasant or unpleasant?")

The best spy in the bunch is Clayborn, who will never get promoted because she is a woman.  All her operations are described as "courtesy missions," which means they involve getting naked with someone, but don't think that means they don't also involve theft, blackmail, and murder.

At one point Merlaux pours out all his troubles to Clayborn. She is, of course, sympathetic: "You feel out of place.  I understand.  This is the women's bathroom."

Neil Burnside would not be amused, but I was.


01 January 2019

The Power of Tenacity


I planned to title this column the Power of Persistence and to write about writing goals. It seemed perfect for January 1st, when so many people make resolutions for the new year. And I do love alliteration. But then I thought, maybe "tenacity" would be a better word than "persistence." The Power of Tenacity might not have the same cadence as the Power of Persuasion, but is it more on point? I had always treated the words as synonyms, but maybe they aren't, I began to think. Maybe I should check. So I did, and it turns out there's an important difference between the two words.
Persistence means trying repeatedly to reach a goal through the same method, figuring eventually you'll succeed. Tenacity means trying to reach a goal through varying methods, learning from each failure and trying different approaches. For anyone with goals for 2019, tenacity seems the better approach.

How does this apply to writing? First, let's talk about getting writing done. Everyone has their own method. Some people write every morning before daybreak. Others write at night. Some people say they will write for a set number of hours each day. Others say they'll write as long as it takes to meet a daily quota. Some people plot out what they're going to write. Others write by the seat of their pants. It doesn't matter what your approach is, as long as it works for you. So with the new year here, perhaps this is a good time to take stock of your approach. Is your approach working for you? Are you getting enough writing done? Enough revision done? Are you making the best use of your time?

I have a friend (and editing client) who used to be a pantser. But she found that after finishing every draft, she had so many loose ends to address and problems to fix, it took her much longer to revise than she'd like. So she started forcing herself to plot before she began writing each book. Not detailed outlines, but she figures out who kills whom, how, and why, what her subplot will be (again, just the basics), and what her theme is. These changes in her approach have enabled her to be so much more productive. She writes faster now, and she needs less time for revision. That's tenacity in action.

Moving on to a finished product, how do you react to rejection? If you have a rejected short story, for instance, after you finish cursing the universe, do you find another venue and send that story out immediately? Or do you re-read it and look for ways to improve it? And if a story has been rejected several times (there's no shame here; we've all been there), do you keep sending it out anyway or put it in a drawer to let it cool off for a few months or years until perhaps the market has changed or your skills have improved?

If sending a story out a few times without revising after each rejection usually results in a sale for you, great. Then your persistence works, and it means you have more time for other projects. But if it doesn't, if you find yourself sending a story out a dozen times without success, then perhaps you should consider a new approach. After a story is rejected, say, three times, maybe you should give it a hard look and see how it can be changed. Maybe you should let it sit in a drawer for a while first, so when you review it, you'll have a fresh take.

And if you're getting a lot of rejections, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate your markets or what you write. I know some writers who started their careers writing science fiction, but it turned out that they were much better suited to writing mysteries. Once they let their true selves out on the page, they started making sales. I know a writer who's been working on a novel for years, but she can't seem to finish it. Yet she's had a lot of success with short stories. If she were to decide to only write short stories and let the novel lie fallow, that wouldn't be a failure; it would be tenacity in action: finding what works for her.

I was about to write that the one thing you shouldn't do is give up, but there might be value in letting go. If your goal is to write a novel or short story, but you never seem to finish your project, and the mere thought of working on it feels like drudgery instead of joy, then maybe being a professional writer isn't for you. There's no shame in that. Not every person is suited to every task. When I was a kid I loved swimming, but I was never going to make a swim team. I wasn't fast enough. Maybe with a lot of practice and other changes I could have gotten there, but I didn't want to take those steps. And that's okay. I enjoyed swimming for the fun of it, and that was enough for me. Maybe writing for yourself, without the pressure of getting to write "The End," is what gives you joy. If so, more power to you. And maybe it turns out you don't want to finish that book or story you started writing. That's okay too, even if you did tell everyone that you were writing it. You're allowed to try things and stop if it turns out they aren't the right fit for you.

But if you believe writing is the right fit, yet your writing isn't as productive as you want it to be, or your sales aren't as good as you want them to be, then be tenacious. Evaluate your approaches to getting writing done, to editing your work, to seeking publication. Maybe you need to revise how you're doing things. Are you writing in the morning but are more alert in the evening? Change when you write. Is your work typically ready to be sent out into the world as soon as you finish? If you get a lot of rejections, maybe it's not. Maybe you need to force yourself to let your work sit for a while after you finish, so you can review it again with fresh eyes before you start submitting. Do you have a contract, but your books aren't selling as well as you'd like? Perhaps you should find someone you trust who can try to help you improve. No matter how successful you are, there's always something new to learn. The key is to figure out what works for you and keep doing it, and also figure out what isn't working for you and change it.

That, my fellow writers, is my advice for 2019. Be tenacious. Evaluate what you want, and evaluate your methods for getting there. If your methods aren't working, change them. And if in six months your new methods aren't working, change them again. Work hard. Work smart. And be sure to enjoy yourself along the way, because if you're not enjoying writing, why bother doing it?

***

And now for a little BSP: I usually have one or two of my short stories up on my website so folks can get a feel for my fiction writing style. I just changed those stories. Now you can read "Bug Appétit" (which was published in the November/December 2018 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine) and "The Case of the Missing Pot Roast" (from the 2018 Bouchercon Anthology, Florida Happens). For "Bug Appétit"click here, and for "The Case of the Missing Pot Roast" click here. Happy reading. And I hope you have a wonderful new year.

31 December 2018

The World Revolved and We Resolved


Happy New Year!  To celebrate the occasion some of the regular mob here decided to offer a resolution for you to ponder.  Feel free to contribute your own in the comments.

It has been an interesting year  at SleuthSayers and we hope it has been one for you as well.  We wish you a prosperous and criminous 2019.

Steve Hockensmith. My new year's resolution is to write the kind of book that I would really enjoy reading but which will also have a decent chance of finding an enthusiastic publisher...which might be the equivalent of resolving to lose 30 pounds by only eating your favorite pizza.

Eve Fisher. Mine is to break my addiction to distracting myself on the internet.  


John M. Floyd.  
1. Read more new authors.
2. Write more in different genres.  
3. Let my manuscripts “cool off” longer before sending them in. 
4. Read more classics.
5. Search out some new markets. 
6. Cut back on semicolons.
7. Go to more conferences.
8. Go to more writers’ meetings.  
9. Get a Twitter account.
10. Try submitting to a contest now and then.  This one’s low on my list—I avoid contests like I avoid blue cheese—but I probably should give it a try. (Contests, not blue cheese.)   

Paul D. Marks. I resolve to watch fewer murder shows on Discovery ID and murder more people on paper.

Barb Goffman.  My new year's resolution is to finish all my projects early. Anyone who knows me is likely rolling with laughter now because finishing on time is usually a push for me. Heck I'm often writing my SleuthSayers column right before the deadline, and I'm probably sending in this resolution later than desired too. But at least I'm consistent!

Janice Law. I resolve to start reading a lot of books- and only finish the good ones.

Stephen Ross.  My New Year resolution is to FINALLY finish a science fiction short story I started two years ago, but have yet to think of a decent ending!

Steve Liskow.  I love short stories but find them very difficult to write. I've resolved that I will write and submit four new short stories in 2019.  My other resolution is to lose 15 pounds. That will be tricky since I don't know an English bookie...

Art Taylor. My resolutions are pretty regular—by which I mean not just ordinary but recurrent; for example, I’m redoubling my resolution to write first and to finish projects—keeping on track with some stories and a novel currently in the works. I fell short on my big reading resolution of 2018 (reading aloud the complete Continental Op stories—still working on it!) but I did keep up with reading a list of novels, stories, and essays set in boarding schools (related to my novel-in-progress) and that’s a resolution that’s continuing into 2019 as well, with several books recently added to the list, including The Night of the Twelfth by Michael Gilbert and A Question of Proof by Nicholas Blake. I know these might seem more like “things to do” than “resolutions” but that’s how I plan, I guess! For a real resolution, how about this one? Be nicer to our cats. (They’re demanding.) 

Robert Lopresti.  Back in 2012 I won the Black Orchid Novella Award for a story about a beat poet named Delgardo, set in October 1958.  I am currently editing his next adventure, which takes place in November 1958.  In 2019 I want to write "Christmas Dinner," which will be set in... oh, you guessed.

Melodie Campbell. This fall, we found out my husband has widespread cancer.  He isn't yet retirement age, so this has been a shocking plot twist.  In the book of our lives together, we have entered a new chapter.

That metaphor has become my new resolution, in that it is a new way of looking at life in all its beauty and sorrow.  I am a writer.  I have come to view my life as a book.  There are many chapters...growing up, meeting one's mate, raising children, seeing them fly the nest.  Even the different careers I've tried have become chapters in this continuing book.  Some chapters are wonderful, like the last five years of my life.  We don't want them to end.  Others are more difficult, but even those will lead to new chapters, hopefully brighter ones. 
May your book be filled with many chapters, and the comforting knowledge that many more are to come.

Leigh Lundin.  Each year my resolution is to make no resolutions.  A logical fallacy probably is involved.

R.T. Lawton.  I tend not to make New Year’s resolutions anymore. Why? So as to not disappoint myself. At my age, there are fewer things I feel driven to change, and for those circumstances I do feel driven about, I make that decision and attempt regardless of the time of year.

For instance, there is the ongoing weight concern, but I hate dieting or restricting myself from temptation. Other than working out, my idea of a dieting program these days is not using Coke in my evening cocktails. Instead, I’ll merely sip the Jack Daniels or Vanilla Crown Royal straight or on the rocks. Not many calories in ice. On the days I gain a pound (weigh-ins every morning), I can usually guess why. On the days I lose weight, I have no idea why. My best weight loss (usually five pounds at a crack), mostly comes from some health problem I did not anticipate and which involved minimal eating for a few days. Naturally, I’m eating well these days, so we’re back to the temptation thing.

As for any writing and getting published resolutions, that’s a constantly renewable action, however, I can only control the writing and submitting part. The getting published part is up to other people and beyond my control, except for e-publishing.

For those of you making New Year’s resolutions, I wish you much success and hope you meet your goal. And, to spur you on with your commitment, let me know in June how well you did.

Have a great New Year!

30 December 2018

Stealing Christmas?


     T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the casa,
     not a creature is stirring, Caramba, que pasa?
     The stockings are hanging, con mucho cuidado,
     in hopes that St. Nick will feel obligado.
                   *          *          *
     But Santa esta at the corner saloon,
     muy borrachito since mid-afternoon.
     ............

Whoops wrong version. I use to hear the above poem on the radio at Christmas time when I was a kid in New Mexico. Guess it was so different that parts of it stuck with me. Allegedly, that version of the poem was written by Robie, Anita and Juan LNU (Last Name Unknown) in 1930 for a Spanish class at Indiana University. I rediscovered it recently through the power of the internet and found that several versions of it have been recorded by various Latin musicians.

Of course, you probably know the English version rather than the Spanglish one. And this brings us to the original Christmas Eve poem. "Twas the Night before Christnas," originally known as "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas," first published in 1823 in a New York newspaper. At the time, the author for the English version was that infamous guy known as Anonymous. Seems that in those days, "great gentlemen" considered it beneath themselves to publish in newspapers, so they used the byline of Anonymous.

Within two decades after first publication, the English version had been reprinted several times and received great popularity with the American public. At this point in its rising popularity, two different camps stepped forward to claim authorship. There are facts to to support both claimants, so you can take your pick.

If you find yourself as more of a traditional person and being resistant to change, then you will probably go with the original claimant, Clement Clarke Moore, a bible professor of German extraction. If you are a fan of technological advances, then you will probably go with Major Henry Livingston Jr., a gentleman poet of Dutch extraction. Both were New Yorkers and Livingston was distantly related to Moore's wife.

No original document of the poem has surfaced, and Moore later explained that he was too embarrassed at the time to acknowledge what he considered to be a trifle. Supposedly, a friend of his was the one who submitted the poem to the newspaper. In 1844, at the request of his family, Moore finally took credit as the author, however, it is alleged that before he took the credit, he first wrote to the newspaper to inquire if anyone there knew who the original author was. By that time, those who knew the real name of the author were dead.

When the poem was first published, two of Santa's reindeer were named as "Dunder" (Thunder) and "Blixem" (Lightning), which is Dutch. Years later, when Moore hand wrote some copies of the poem, he named the same reindeer as "Donder" and "Blitzen," which is German. Moore spoke German, but not Dutch. Livingston spoke Dutch.

The Livingston family claimed that Major Livingston wrote the poem, but they had no physical proof to their claim. In recent years, the family sought the help of Don Foster, an English professor at Vassar University. He is also a scholar of authorial attribution. Foster made comparisons between the Christmas poem and Moore's body of works, beliefs and personality. He also made comparisons between the poem and Livingston's body of works, beliefs and personality. The end result was that Forster said Livingston was the author. Critics claimed that a bible man such as Moore would never make such a false claim. Foster countered with an incident of Moore hand-writing in the front of a sheep farming manual that he had translated this book from French into English, however, a small copyright in the back of the book gave that credit to someone else.

Then, in 2016, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of New Auckland McDonald P. Jackson published a book in which he analyzed the opposing arguments. Jackson used modern computational stylistics and statistical analysis of phonemes. His conclusion was that Livingston wrote the Christmas poem.

So, in short, there you are. You can dig deeper into the various arguments, comparisons and what facts do exist, or you can just choose a side and enjoy the poem regardless. The original claimants and their witnesses are all deceased, so we can't polygraph any of them now to see who is telling the truth. Bottom line: Somebody tried to steal Christmas, but which claimant is the original author and which is the Grinch?

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

That's another thing. One claimant said Happy Christmas instead of Merry Christmas.

Just make sure your works get a copyright, even those you may consider to be a trifle. Who knew?


29 December 2018

Grand (?) Openings


Earlier this month my old (or maybe I should say long-time) friend O'Neil De Noux wrote an interesting column here at SleuthSayers about his best, worst, and favorite opening lines of stories and novels that he himself has written. That set me to thinking: since I admire O'Neil and since one of the best things a writer can do is try to copy other writers he admires . . .

Here are some opening lines of my own short stories, lines that might not be grand but that I hope are at least--how should I put it?--effective.


First, a quick note. I've always heard that ideal openings should (1) introduce your lead character and/or (2) establish the setting (time, place) and/or (3) introduce conflict. A fourth goal is to make the reader curious about what might happen next. I tried to do some of those things in these openings:


Jason Plumm lay on the beach for five hours before he was found.
--"The Blue Wolf," AHMM, Feb 2000

All things considered, Jerry thought, it wasn't a bad day to die.
--"The Last Sunset," Listen Magazine, Dec 2005

Ed Parrott was cleaning his gun by the campfire, a hundred yards south of the herd, when the stranger stepped from the shadows.
--"The Pony Creek Gang," Reader's Break, Vol. VII, 1998

"If he's sick," O'Neal said, "maybe he'll die on his own."
--"Flu Season," The Norwegian American, Nov 2016

The dead woman lay in a pecan orchard fifty yards from the road.
--"Oversight," Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Winter 2003

Terry Gibbs could remember a thousand unpleasant duties in the course of his twelve years on the police force.
--"200 Feet," Strand Magazine, Feb-May 2014

The two brothers lived together in the city at the end of the valley at the foot of the great blue mountains.
--"Custom Design," Lines in the Sand, May/June 1994

Lou Rosewood stepped into the laboratory, closed the door behind him, and locked it.
--"A Place in History," T-Zero, July 2003

I met Jenny Bartlett two days ago, when she rang my doorbell at six in the morning.
--"Rainbow's End," Woman's World, July 27, 1999

At first Eddie thought he'd been carjacked.
--"Wheels of Fortune," Heist Magazine, April 2002

Joe Higby stomped into the ice cream shop, leaned his axe against the wall, and took a seat at the counter.
--"In the Wee Hours," Over My Dead Body, April 2012

"Is he still out there?" Patty asked.
--"Knights of the Court," Red Herring Mystery Magazine, Vol. 3, #3.5, 1996

The bank stood on the west end of Palmetto Street, an old and gray lump of a building in an old and gray part of town.
--"Molly's Plan," Strand Magazine, June-Sep 2014

It was quiet at the edge of the woods.
--"The Blue Delta," Blood on the Bayou (Bouchercon anthology), Sep 2016

"What I can't figure out," Nate said, as he lay in the dirt behind a clump of cactus near Rosie Hapwell's house, "is why you married that idiot in the first place."
--"Saving Mrs. Hapwell," Dogwood Tales Magazine, March/April 1997

Two dozen people stood in a group around the hanging tree.
--"Sand Hill," Gathering Storm Magazine, April 2017

Hank Stegall saw her as soon as she stepped out of the building.
--"Ladies of the North," Phoebe, Spring/Fall 2002

Ames and his driver sat in the black Lincoln outside Ross Vardeman's apartment building, in a parking space as far as they could get from a streetlight.
--"Watched," Untreed Reads, Oct 2011

Around nine a.m., Billy Roland saw the water tower and the first cluster of buildings in the distance, steered his rented Ford to the shoulder of the road, and stopped.
--"Saving Grace," The Saturday Evening Post, July/Aug 2015

"Driver?" the senator's wife said. "Where exactly are we?"
--"Driver," Strand Magazine, Feb-May 2015

Angela Potts noticed, as she plopped down on the park bench beside Sheriff Jones, that he looked grumpy--but that was nothing unusual.
--"Picture This," Woman's World, July 22, 2013

At 8:40 on a clear Friday night in July, Jesse Pratt escaped from Crow Mountain State Penitentiary, stole a pickup from the staff parking lot, and promptly drove it into a lake some fifty yards away.
--"Weekend Getaway," Pages of Stories, Summer 2010

George Tate had fed his cousin's livestock and was trudging back from the barn when he heard the woman scream.
--"Tomboy," Prairie Times, Nov 2010

The scariest day of my life--and the most wonderful--happened when I was ten years old.
--"The Winslow Tunnel," Amazon Shorts, March 2006

Dave Cotten sat on his back porch with a .38 revolver in his lap, staring at nothing in particular.
--"Blackjack Road," Strand Magazine, June-Sep 2012

The old man was popping the last of the breakfast biscuits into his mouth when the door crashed open.
--"Newton's Law," Western Digest, Oct 1998

Milo Stinson thought it would be quiet in the jungle.
--"Two in the Bush," Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Issue #2, 2018

The car was waiting in the alley, with Eddie Stark at the wheel and half a dozen cigarette butts littering the pavement below the driver's-side door.
--"Frontier Justice," Florida Happens (Bouchercon anthology), Sep 2018

Charlie Hunter sat stiff and cramped in the fake leather chair in his back office, watching the clock on the paneled wall.
--"Hunters," AHMM, May 2014

"So if he dies," Niles said, "I get everything. Right?"
--"Silent Partner," Crimestalker Casebook, Spring 2004

Amos Garrett had switched off his dashboard radio, ejected Willie Nelson, and plugged in Tammy Wynette when he looked up and saw the little white car pulled over on the grassy shoulder of the road just ahead.
--"Crow's Nest," EQMM, upcoming in 2019

Susan Weeks had never seen a monster before.
--"The Wading Pool," Spinetingler Magazine, 2006


I know, I probably included about twenty too many of these. But hang in there--here are some more, from writers a bit more famous and talented than I am, that I think are among the best opening lines ever:


We were about to give up and call it a night when someone dropped the girl off the bridge.
--Darker Than Amber, John D. MacDonald

The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.
--The Gunslinger, Stephen King

The last camel collapsed at noon.
--The Key to Rebecca, Ken Follett

It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.
--"The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber," Ernest Hemingway

I'm pretty much fucked.
--The Martian, Andy Weir

Every time they got a call from the leper hospital to pick up a body, Jack Delaney would feel himself coming down with the flu or something.
--Bandits, Elmore Leonard

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida.
--"A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor

The Rutherford girl had been missing for eight days when Larry Ott returned home and found a monster waiting in his house.
--Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin

What was the worst thing you've ever done?
--Ghost Story, Peter Straub

At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from the luxury deck of the cruise liner Sun Duchess.
--Skinny Dip, Carl Hiaasen

You better not never tell nobody but God.
--The Color Purple, Alice Walker

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex downs, and nearly stepped on him.
--The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King

There was a desert wind blowing that night.
--"Red Wind," Raymond Chandler

I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer's headless body in the trunk, and all the time I'm thinking I should've put some plastic down.
--Gun Monkeys, Victor Gischler

He rode into our valley in the summer of '89.
--Shane, Jack Schaefer


Remember any of those? I love 'em. To wind this up, here's something I found in Secret Windows, Stephen King's often-overlooked, 400-page book of essays on writing. The chapter about story and novel openings that hook the reader is called "Great Hookers I Have Known," and King says the granddaddy of all hookers is this one:

"In the beginning, God created heaven and earth."


It's hard to top that.

28 December 2018

Pronunciations


Pronunciations
by O'Neil De Noux

After reading an interesting article on why we pronounce Arkansas and Kansas differently, my mind moved home to our unique pronunciations in New Orleans. Many are secret handshakes – pronouncing a word correctly shows you are a New Orleanian, not a tourist or an ex-patriot American who moved here from Cleveland and never left. (that's a joke fellas).

Some of our secret handshakes are:



Burgundy Street is pronounced is not pronounced Bur-gun-dy like the wine – but is Bur-gun-dy.
Milan Street is not pronounced like the city in Italy but My-lin.
Beaucaire is Bo-care.
Chalmette is Chal-met.
Chartres Street is Char-ters.
Calliope Street is Cal-ee-ope.
Farbourg Marigny is Fa-berg Mare-a-nee.
Metairie is Met-a-ree.
Palquemines is Plack-a-mins.
Pontchartrain is Ponch-a-train.

There are two proper ways to pronounce our city's name. New Awlins (sometimes New Awlun) or New Aw-lee-uns, although Orleans Avenue is pronounced Or-leens. It is acceptable to call the city New Or-leens in a song or in a poem in order to match a rhyme as in "Do you know what it means to miss New Or-leens?"

Uptown dillitantes are known to pronounce the city's name as New Aw-al-yuns and Tulane University as Ta-lane instead of the proper Too-lane.

Here is a link to how the fat man pronounced the city. In my generation, Fat Domino was the Man. Here is his wonderful WALKING TO NEW ORLEANS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1z45jVlM34

In north Louisiana (we never call it upstate), our state name is often pronounced Looziana, where down here in the south we call it what most people call it - Louise-e-ana. It was named after King Louis XIV, the Sun King.

Article about Arkansas and Kansas can be found here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-we-pronounce-kansas-and-arkansas-differently-2014-2?fbclid=IwAR3Rxitax_xF7Y6leBDk2MQBRVXrHCVmOeezCoHeXy5d7WesJobtffIctBk

When we read books, it is not important we pronounce things correctly but if we read them aloud or if we writers have our books on audio, the narrator has to know colloquial pronunciations or you get your audio book to have a "Street Charles Avenue" instead of "Saint Charles Avenue" because the narrator thought St. Charles Avenue was ... you get the drift.

Happy New Year, y'all.
www.oneildenoux.com