What's in a Name?

A belated Happy Canada Day and Independence Day to our Canadian and American readers!

For new readers of the blog, my name is Brian Thornton. "Doolin Dalton" is the Blogger handle I've had for over a decade. Long story on getting it changed, which makes it a story for another time.

There's a funny story about how my parents came up with my first name.

I was born in 1965. During the previous year, while my mom was pregnant with me, there was a song all over the radio called "Sealed With A Kiss." My dad just loved it. And he liked the name of the singer who released it.

A guy named Brian Hyland.

He had a number of puppy love type hits over the course of the early-to-mid 1960s. The best of these was the aforementioned "Sealed With A Kiss." (You've likely heard it. If you're curious, you can listen here.).

However, Brian Hyland's biggest hit wasn't about puppy love and letters and Summer. It was a novelty song about a swimsuit.

Title: "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."

Yep. This one.

My parents got the idea for my name from the guy who sang this song!

Fast forward to 1993. I was a graduate student (History, naturally) at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. I was sitting in my off-campus apartment one night, when the phone rang. The following conversation is transcribed as I remember it:

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Brian?

Me: Yes. Who's this?

CALLER: (Confused) It's Jen.

ME: Oh, hi Jen.

(I know a LOT of women named Jennifer. Wasn't sure which one this was. Just couldn't place the voice.)

CALLER: (Still confused) This is Brian?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Oh, okay. Whew! So anyway, I was calling because I'm really concerned about Bill and his relationship with The Lord.

ME: Bill?

CALLER: Bill.

ME: Bill?

(The only Bill I knew well enough that one of my Jen friends would talk about his spiritual life was a practicing atheist).

CALLER: Bill. 

ME: Bill's an atheist.

CALLER: Are you sure this is Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes. Which Jen is this?

CALLER: Your sister.

ME: I don't have a sister.

CALLER: This is Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Brian Thornton from Oak Harbor?

ME: No.

Funny story, turns out there were two Brian Thorntons enrolled at E.W.U. that year. Myself and a freshman attending on a golf scholarship. His sister called directory assistance for Cheney and got my number instead of his.

Nothing like this had never happened to me before. Jen and I cleared that up, had a good laugh, and hung up. And I thought that would be the end of it.

Turns out it wasn't.

To this day I have never met this other Brian Thornton. Not while we were both at Eastern, and not since.

Which is not to say that our paths haven't continued to cross.

I got a job teaching in Kent, Washington (Southeast of Seattle in the Seattle-Tacoma metroplex). Turns out, the other Brian Thornton got a job as a golf pro at a nearby golf course. Every year or so one of my students would mention this golf pro who had the same name as myself.

And then it got weird.

Not a reenactment. I was NOT smiling.

I went in to the dentist's office to get a crown on a tooth where the filling had fallen out. At the time I got
my dental care at one of those open bay places which resembles nothing so much as an assembly line. The dentist working with me that particular day was new to the practice, and likely to the country. It would be putting it kindly say that his grasp on the English language was "evolving."

So imagine my surprise when he began to try to numb up the wrong side of my mouth. 

Once I got over my shock, I put a stop to this but quick.

A quick consultation with ladies in the front office revealed that the dentist was planning to give me a crown using the dental records of the other Brian Thornton.

Needless to say, I changed dentists.

So next time you read one of those stories where there's a mix-up with the names of a couple of very different people, rest assured it does happen in real life.

And maybe it's time I tackle this sort of story.

And that's it for me this time around.

See you in two weeks!

Choose Somebody's Own Adventure

A few months ago I woke up in the middle of the night and asked myself: "Whatever happened to adventure stories?"

Yeah, I know.  Other people dream of snakes eating their own tails, thereby revealing the structure of benzene.  But this is what I get.  Blame a faulty imagination. 

But let's talk about adventure as a genre, and then maybe I can get some sleep. Wikipedia quotes Don D'Ammassa in the Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction:

An adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting and other elements of a creative work.

Of course adventure stories flourished for a long time - think of Dumas, Stevenson, Scott - and were a staple of the pulp era.  But while other genres from that period are still flourishing (mysteries, science fiction, horror, romance) or at least hanging on (westerns), the adventure story per se seems to be a vanishing species.

In books, that is.  It survives in movies. (How old is Indiana Jones in his next adventure?)

There has always been overlap between the adventure story and other genres.  Elizabeth Peters's brilliant Amelia Peabody novels are considered mysteries but many of them have little to do with crime-solving. See The Last Camel Died at Noon for a pure adventure tale.

One recent (starting 2007) stalwart example of the genre is the Ethan Gage series, created by William Dietrich, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who was a professor at the same university where I worked for many years.  Gage is a classic rogue character, a yankee gambler and world traveler in the Federalist era, trained in the science of electricity by none other than Benjamin Franklin himself.  Based in France, he is constantly involved with Napoleon who can scarcely decide whether to send him on another dangerous mission or shoot him as a possible American spy.

Gage's journeys take him to Egypt, the Holy Land, the Great Lakes, and even Haiti.  And they are a lot of fun.

But taken together the works of Peters and Dietrich may give us one hint why the adventure story is less popular today than it once was.  These books are set in the past and mostly in lands that, to American/European eyes, seemed wild, unexplored, and (as a person of that time might say) primitive.  There are not so many of those lands left in the present day, and even writing about the past authors run the risk of being accused of colonialism or even racism.  If your villain is Asian are you re-creating Fu Manchu?  

You can finesse that problem, perhaps, by having your hero battle a civilization on another planet, instead of another continent, but now you have changed genres.

All of which brings up a related topic, which may earn me some complaints, but here goes.

There is a popular BBC mystery series called Death in Paradise which has been running for more than a decade.  It is set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie.  It is a commonwealth country and a Scotland Yard detective is assigned there.  And remarkably enough, this White, English-trained cop with no knowledge of the island's people, customs, or geography  is always able to solve murders that baffle the mostly Black locals.  Not problematic at all!

The show tried to dodge that bullet by making the hero a classic English eccentric - the only man on the island who wears a suit and carries a briefcase, for example.  This makes sense: you can't expect the local constabulary to outsmart a Sherlock Holmes-type genius.

But that actor left and they brought in another Englishman with a different set of eccentricities.  I quit watching the show after that but I hear they have had four different stars, all White Englishmen.  Maybe next time they make a switch they should bring in a Black copper.  

That would be a new adventure, so to speak.

---

The Problem with Coincidences

Today I'm going to talk about one of the no-nos in mysteries. The C word. 

No, not that C word. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about the other C word of mysteries: coincidence.

How many times have you heard that you can't have coincidences in your mysteries? Coincidences might occur in real life, the reasoning goes, but readers plunking down cold hard cash for good stories deserve ones created by authors who don't lazily rely on coincidence for their stories to work.  

I agree—to an extent.

A coincidence that occurs later in a book or short story, enabling the sleuth to figure out whodunit ... don't do it! Your sleuth should be smart enough to figure things out through investigation, without relying upon, essentially, divine providence. That's the kind of thing that makes readers roll their eyes and mutter, "Oh come on!" 

But a coincidence that occurs early in the book or story—that, as they say, is a horse of a different color. (Yeah, yeah, I know. That was another C word. A cliche. Those are no-nos too. But we're talking about coincidences today, not cliches, so lay off.)

A coincidence that happens early in a book or story is okay because usually it is the inciting incident that kicks things off. Take the movie My Cousin Vinny. Billy Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein were driving a 1964 metallic-mint-green Buick Skylark convertible from NY to Southern California by way of the back roads of Alabama. (I'd like to talk to whoever planned that direct route.) They stopped at a convenience store. A few minutes after they left the store, it was robbed and its clerk was murdered by two yoots ... excuse me, two youths ... who not only resembled Billy and Stanley but who were driving a similar-looking metallic-mint-green convertible. Coincidence? Big. Huge. (Sorry, that was a Pretty Woman reference. I'll try to focus.) Because of the similarities, Billy and Stanley found themselves pulled over and ultimately arrested for murder. But the coincidences not only weren't a problem, they were vital to the plot. Without them, Billy and Stanley wouldn't have been pulled over and there would have been no story, not involving them anyway. Mr. Tipton wouldn't have embarrassed himself claiming the laws of physics didn't apply in his kitchen. Vinny may never have won his first case. And Mona Lisa Vito's biological clock would still be tick tick ticking away. (I'm assuming they got married and had little Gambinis who like to argue over everything. I'm a sucker for a happy ending.)

So, you're reading this and thinking, That Barb makes a lot of sense. But crud, crap, criminy, I have a big freaking coincidence in my book and it's not the spark that incites the story. What do I do?

Here's what you do: you take your coincidence and make it purposeful. Instead of Suzie Sleuth coincidentally ending up sitting in a diner booth adjacent to that of the two killers, where she overhears them talking about how they killed Mr. He Deserved It, change things so Suzie realized Killer One seemed shady so she was investigating him. In the course of her sleuthing, she followed him, purposely getting seated in the next booth. That way, when she eavesdrops and hears all the juicy details, she's done it because she figured things out, not because she stumbled upon the solution thanks to an unbelievable coincidence.

(Disclaimer: That was an example. It was only an example. If it this were a real story and you had killers admit their plans in a restaurant where they could be overheard, readers would be wishing they'd had an actual emergency alert in advance, warning them off such a contrived event.)

Contrivances. That's another C word. A blog for another day.

What Are The Odds

Over the past 15 years, I've won a couple of awards and not-quite won a few others. RT's discussion of his Edgar-winning story last week made me think about what that really means. This is a completely unscientific assessment, but maybe there's something you can take away from it anyway.

If you're barely published, some of these figures may apply to your chances of making a sale as well as your winning an award. The salient feature in either case is that you have to write the best story you can. You've heard that before.

Gamblers know the odds before they toss money on the table, and here are some of the numbers for publishing. They keep changing, but this will give you the idea.

Years ago, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine received over 40,000 story submissions a year, and published about 75 of them. If all the stories were of equal quality, which, of course, is not the case, your chance of being selected was one in 533. I don't know how many stories come in now, but the magazine now publishes six issues instead of ten, and roughly the same 75 stories. If there are fewer submissions, the odds are slightly better. 

This morning, the Mystery Writers of America Edgars site lists 173 books eligible for the Best Novel of the year and 166 stories for the Best Short Story. The eligibility period runs from December 1 to December 1, so it's slightly more than half over. The year I was a finalist, there were 408 short stories, which meant the chance of becoming a finalist (again, all things equal, which they aren't) were 81 to 1. Theoretically, the chance of winning from those finalists was five to one. Getting there was the problem. The weeding out is the same in other awards, too, the Agatha, Derringer, Shamus, and all the others.

In the 1990s, Connecticut introduced the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) in high schools. I've never been a fan of standardized tests, but the Language Arts portion of that test had the clearest and most concrete set of criteria I've ever seen for evaluating writing. When my colleagues and I used it for grading practice tests, we almost never disagreed on a score. I liked it so much I've used something like it for a rubric when I edit or judge even now. 

Several years ago, I was a judge for the Al Blanchard Award, sponsored by MWA New England. I read all of the 141 stories submitted because only a few came in early and 41 were submitted the last day of the three-month deadline. Really. I rated each story from 1 (low) to 10 (high) and kept a spreadsheet of why: too much backstory, unbelievable or impossible ending, inconsistent character, good/bad dialogue, etc. It was inspired by the CAPT test from the 90s.

I gave 50 stories--over 1/3 of the entries--a grade of 1. Only a dozen earned a grade of 7 or higher, one of them an 8.

Now, the important part. I was one of four judges who had to turn in their top ten stories so the others could read the top 40. I'd already read every story (No, I don't have a life), so I already had notes on the other stories already. I looked at my notes and re-read the stories, but changed no scores. NONE of my top twelve stories made the cut from any other judge. In fact, the eventual winner only got a five from me. 

I've had a similar experience judging the Derringers for the last two years. I read many of those stories before they're nominated because I subscribe to several of the source magazines. Stories that I consider brilliant seldom make the cut. Obviously, I have tastes that run outside the lines. But in judging the Flash Fiction (the only length I can judge because I don't write in it), three of my top five stories have been finalists both times I've judged because the other nine judges agree. 

We can objectify and quantify only so much, and it's true of both judges and editors. People with experience and (maybe) training can narrow down a group of stories that are "better" or "worse" than others, but within that select sample, it's a matter of individual taste and preference. One person doesn't like noir. Another wants a surprising plot twist. Yet another pays more attention to prose style than the others. And so on.

How do you stand out? You write a damn good story. MAYBE you include something a little exotic that readers can latch on to. RT's Edgar winner involved a landmark in Hawaii. People know it and it's unusual. That's not the only reason he won, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Remember to add a little bit of yourself. THAT will make the story unique so the editor or judges notice it. You've got to be noticed.

Easy, huh? Sure it is.

Now forget about all the odds and go write that damn good story.

More Boxes, More Idiots

This column drafts in the wake of John’s article yesterday regarding favorite series on the Harlan Coben channel, aka Netflix. I love a great plot but what I tend to remember are characters. John, I, and others have mentioned Queen’s Gambit. It is one of the few shows that I give its rating a slight edge over the novel. It’s that good.

Elise Wassermann, Karl Roebuck

The Tunnel (and The Bridge and The Bridge)

Two series I recommend are related, The Tunnel (French) and The Bridge (Mexican). I've not yet seen the original Scandinavian version. The Bridge is good, but I especially liked The Tunnel. The heroine reminds me more than a little of a French friend. Elise (actress Clémence Poésy) is probably on the spectrum, as folks say, and she’s constantly surprised that people like her. The wrapup is a shocker.

Behind the scenes, producers added a touch of class. They presented every Chunnel (Eurotunnel) employée with DVDs of the series as thanks for their time and effort in advising and assisting the film crew in a highly secure site.

The family: Chema, Mariana Lazcano, César Lazcano, Alex, Sara, Rodolfo, Elisa

Who Killed Sara

I haven’t seen the new season, but this Mexican production is particularly well cast and well acted. The characters, particularly César Lazcano, the primary bad guy, are complex with diverse motivations. He wistfully mentions he wishes he had a son like his adversary.

It’s become de rigueur to insert gay characters in gratuitous spots and then draw attention to them. (“Hey, look who we included!”) Sara takes the time and effort to flesh out the Lazcano son Chema, a fully realized character from childhood crush to, well, adult crush. The viewer might not be gay, but he (or she) would have to be one cold-hearted bastard not to feel Chema’s heart break.

Fletcher 'Ice Pick' Nix

Justified

SleuthSayers agree. This is Elmore Leonard’s modern old-fashioned Kentucky cowboy quick-draw Federal Marshal whereupon we happily suspend disbelief, including disbelief the series will reprise as Justified: City Primeval. You’ve probably seen Justified, but if not, it’s catching its breath over on Prime.

I kept rooting for the bad guy, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), wanting him to find the right path. No matter what Crowder does, he’s shunted to the dark side. Both good guy Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and Crowder are brilliantly cast.

Another cleverly cast baddie appears in the first episode of season 3, Fletcher ‘Ice Pick’ Nix, assuming of course anyone still knows what an ice pick is. The kind of guy who brings a knife to a gunfight is chillingly portrayed by Desmond Harrington in an ingenious plot tactic.

It’s too easy when you’re the good looking lead, and I say that with all modesty. But one other wonderful character is Constable Bob (actor Patton Oswalt). Bob Sweeney looks like a small man with a trashbox car, but he’s huge on the inside. Unlike hero Givens, he’s not the fellow most guys would like to be; he’s the fellow most guys need.

Intimacy/Intimidad

Intimidad is a Spanish political mystery drama set in a city I so wish to visit, Bilbao. The title should translate more like Privacy than Intimacy, but it’s more about intimidation.

Two threads involve the illegal sharing of private sex videos. In one plot line, Bego deals with the suicide of her friend Ane, and in meeting Investigator Alicia, crosses paths with Malen, a smart and clever politician who has just been appointed Mayor pro term of Bilbao. Videos of Malen, who is married, surface. Her lover turns out to be the reckless son of a major businessman, killed in an auto accident.

The question arises: Who paid the lover to seduce Malen, and then beat and subsequently kill the lover?

Here we run into a problem where the producer believes in characterization at the expense of plot. We come to admire Investigator Alica and Bego (Begonia), and we ache for Ane. Malen is made of sterner stuff and the fallout from her public indiscretion affects her husband and child as much as the politician. As a bonus, the series presents a believable insight into politics.

But the dénouement presents a major problem. The designated bad guy previously had mere moments of screen time and the weakest of motives. Indeed, Inspector Alicia and others seem to apologize profusely, trying to explain away why this particular guy masterminded this dastardly plot.

As mystery readers and writers, we have expectations. Authors don’t pick a perpetrator out of thin air and appoint a bad guy, not without good reason, not without clues. And Intimidad had so many choices! Seriously.

Cast of Intimidad: Ane, Bego, Malen, Leire, Alicia, Miren

Have you seen Intimacy/Intimadad? What say you?

Let us know. Thanks to John for initiating this train of thought and chain of events.

Good Times with the Idiot Box

My home theater is just the way I want it. A TV on one end and my recliner on the other, the remotes and earpods within arm's reach, free food and drink only one room away, no noisy crowds or dress codes, and the ability to watch what I like anytime I like. I admit my selections are limited, but much less so than they once were. I can't complain.

As for the delivery system for all this, the movies and shows I see these days are acquired in one of three ways: (1) streamed on Netflix, (2) streamed via Amazon Prime, or (3) ordered via Netflix's DVD mailing program. There are plenty of other premium services out there but I'm too cheap to subscribe to them, and besides (at least according to my wife), I have enough to watch as it is.

Now and then, not often, I'll dive into the discount DVD bin at Walmart or Big Lots, and I'll occasionally purchase an otherwise-hard-to-locate movie via Amazon. Even less often, I'll go watch a new movie in a real theater--last week my daughter and I did just that, to see Top Gun: Maverick. But mostly I stick to Prime or one of Netflix's two services. Except for the local and national news, I never, ever, watch network TV anymore, and that goes a long way toward taking the idiot out of the idiot box. I feel certain my brain cells, what few I have left, are better off as a result.

As for what I do watch, it's probably something like 85 percent feature films and 15 percent cable series. Most of these series consist of multiple seasons that eventually end in a series finale; some, like Fargo and True Detective, encompass multiple seasons but each season is a complete and self-contained story with different characters and a definite beginning, middle, and end; and a few, like Godless and The Queen's Gambit, are what's been referred to as "limited series" designed to run for only one season. Watching a limited series is like sitting down to an eight- or ten-hour standalone movie. 

I will probably always prefer actual movies to cable series, but I have to admit that some of those series--mostly those produced by HBO, it seems--have been among the best stories I've ever seen on TV or anywhere else. More on that later.

A quick clarification: The British refer to a "season" as a "series." ("I say, Nigel, have you watched the second series of The Crown?") So far as I know, they don't have a word that describes the entire run of all episodes of a show, which is what we call a series.

Now, having said all that, here are some of the cable series that I've watched all the way to their conclusions, or that I am at least current on and awaiting "upcoming" seasons. I've found all of these to be good, or at least worth watching, and I've found some of them to be outstanding:

• The Newsroom
• Longmire
• The Walking Dead
• Westworld
• 24
• Stranger Things
• Outer Range
• Fargo
• Hap and Leonard
• Night Skies
• John Adams
• Hell on Wheels
• The Queen's Gambit
• Black Sails
• True Detective
• G.L.O.W.
• Magic City
• Lilyhammer
• The Crown
• Mildred Pierce
• Cobra Kai
• Weeds
• Californication
• The 7 Lives of Lea
• The Outlaws
• Bloodline
• Godless
• The Wilds
• Norsemen
• Lemony Snicket
• Castle Rock

There are some others that I watched for several seasons (and many episodes) and truly enjoyed, but for some reason I never finished--or haven't yet:

• House of Cards
• The Borgias
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand
• Girls
• The Umbrella Academy
• Wentworth
• Squid Games
• Outlander
• Sex Education
• Orange Is the New Black

And a few others that I have always intended to watch, and still intend to, but somehow never got around to starting:

• Mad Men
• Breaking Bad
• The Americans
• Oz
• Blacklist
• Lost in Space
• Don't Call Saul
• Sons of Anarchy

What I haven't listed are some really bad series. You can probably already guess the titles of many of those, and the only good thing I can say about them is that I was able to tell by watching their "pilot" episodes that I didn't want to waste my time on the rest. That's happened fairly often.

But … I have also watched all episodes of a few series that (as I mentioned earlier) I think are among the very best stories I've ever seen--or at least the most entertaining. Here are my top twelve:

• The Sopranos
• Game of Thrones
• Deadwood
• The Wire
• Ozark
• Goliath
• Rome
• Lost
• Boardwalk Empire
• Justified
• Yellowstone
• Peaky Blinders

NOTE 1: I think it's interesting that two of these series--Deadwood and Rome--were supposedly both canceled before they reached a "finale"--the producers, actors, and audiences thought there would be another season coming--and the series were still excellent. Deadwood ran for three seasons and Rome for two.

NOTE 2: As always, this is my opinion only, and the content of the above lists might change tomorrow. But that's part of the fun. (And yes, I realize I am probably the only person in the free world who hasn't seen Breaking Bad or Mad Men. One of my many shortcomings.)

What do you think? Any agreements or disagreements? What are some of the best cable series you've seen? Do you have any recommendations? Please let me know in the comments.

Next time, back to topics on mysteries and writing. Have a good two weeks!

A Favorite New Orleans Novel

Some books are so forgettable you make the mistake of trying to read it again until you go – Hey, I read this tripe before. Some books stay with you,

Baronne Street by Kent Westmoreland is one which stayed with me. Published in 2010, this writer's debut novel features New Orleanian Burleigh Drummond, a fixer who conducts investigations while fixing problems for lucrative clients, manipulating the legal predicaments of the rich and politicians of a notoriously corrupt city.

A lingering heartache drives Burleigh to ignore a voice-mail plea from his ex-girlfriend Coco Robicheaux, the woman who broke his heart when she dumped him. The following morning, Burleigh learns the gut-wrenching news that Coco was murdered the previous evening.

"Love sometimes means having to solve your ex-girlfriend's murder."

Police detectives let Burleigh know they have been instructed to do little or nothing about the murder, but should he provide them with evidence ...

Burleigh soon discovers Coco's clandestine existence in the city's netherworld, how she had been drawn into a plot to disrupt the upcoming mayoral election. After a warning and a beating, Burleigh enlists a reputed mercenary, a computer hacker, a rogue reporter in the investigation as he seeks revenge. Negotiating through a maze of deception, he finds himself at odds with his wealthy clients, the police chief, the mayor and a crime syndicate.

I keep saying it – she's not big and there's nothing easy about New Orleans. She is a beautiful tragedy, as is Coco Robicheaux, the alluring victim in Baronne Street. Burleigh Drummond is as unique a hero as any preseted in fiction. He's cool, aloof, intelligent – a good looking guy haunted by his inability to make things right in an imperfect world.

The pacing is high speed in this thriller, rushing along the narrow, twisting streets of a city built for horse and buggy. Kent Westmoreland knows the city and avoids the mistakes of writers whose knowledge of New Orleans comes from guidebooks, an occasional visit and movies filled with clichéd descriptions of a city hard to replicate on paper.

Anyone who likes to read about New Orleans should take a ride down Baronne Street.

I like this book.

That's all for now.

Little Church on the Prairie

First of all, & at last, we knew it was coming:  Jason Ravnsborg has been impeached on both counts in the death of Mr. Boever, after damning testimony on the part of the DCI, etc.  He's also been removed from office, and barred from ever running for public office again in the State of South Dakota.

 

“The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.”

                    Sir Walter Scott, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"

 

And now on to other stories.

Sometimes these blogs just write themselves.  In this case, it was written by Angela Kennecke at KELO-News.  (I clearly note when I'm putting in my two cents' worth.)  Stay with it - this is quite a story.

CONTROVERSY DIVIDES SANGAAS CHURCH

“One of the gentlemen had seen someone we didn’t know, completely unaware who this person was, with what was described as an AR-15 rifle. And they took it out of their vehicle and walked into the church building. At that point, with the amount of back story and personal safety concerns, we were very hesitant to go in the building,” Jay Nelson said.

An armed guard stands on the steps of Singsaas Church near Astoria, South Dakota, looking over a crowd assembed to attend the annual meeting of the church's cemetery association, June 12.

Contributed / Marlene Kjelden

We’ll get to that back story in just a moment.

“I apologize for law enforcement and everything showing up,” Attorney Dennis Evenson said during the meeting. 

KELOLAND Investigates obtained a video from June 12th. An annual meeting was underway for the Singsaas Cemetery Association. The people outside, mostly descendants of those buried on the grounds, wanted a say in what was happening. But they found the armed men at the door intimidating.

“I did talk to some of the congregation that said the reason for the security was that they had a previous meeting and it got out of hand and they felt there were threats made and they needed some type of security,” Sheriff Stanwick said.

“Never, ever could I have imagined it could have escalated to the point where you have an AR-15 in a church building and men with revolvers sitting outside,” Jay Nelson said.

Life-long member Jay Nelson says it all started after Jason Hartung took over as pastor in 2020.

“The church was already in the process of becoming non-Lutheran, but becoming non-denominational” Singsaas Pastor Jason Hartung said.  

MY NOTE:  I don't necessarily believe this.  As we proceed, I hope you will see why.

Singsaas Church Pastor Jason Hartung

You need to know that Hartung’s congregation does not own the church building, the cemetery or the surrounding land. There is a separate fund for donors to the cemetery association, many of whom are buried at Singsaas, to maintain the cemetery and grounds, a fund that has more than $200,000 in it.

From the Mitchell Republic: "The Singsaas Cemetery association lies at the heart of the conflict due to an unusual relationship between the well-funded association and the church itself. Whoever controls the cemetery association controls its finances — and the church's physical future.  At stake is not only what Singsaas Church is now, but what it means as a historical location and pioneer legacy."  (LINK)  

My Note:  This is very common with country churches in South Dakota.  The church may have closed, or dwindled to almost nothing, but the Cemetery Association is well funded, by purchases (of cemetery sites) donations and legacies, and they take care of the maintenance of the cemetery and church grounds. Sometimes of the church.  Nothing unusual in this.  But, they are sitting on a chunk of change, which may have some import to what comes next:

"There were rumblings that the church was going to make changes to Singsaas that would eliminate its spot on the National Register of Historic Places, where the church was placed in 2003. Recently a cemetery association member noticed the plaque indicating the church's status had been removed from the front of the church." (LINK)  

“So this is my mom and dad. And there’s my grandma and grandpa,” McHugh said.  Nadine McHugh’s maiden name is Knutson and you can find that name all over this cemetery.  “We’d ring the bell an hour before church started. And before us, my grandparents also were the caretakers here. It’s just in the Knutsons that we’ve been taking care of this church,” McHugh said.

Despite her history with this place, McHugh stopped attending services here when Hartung took over.

“There are things that are going on that perhaps we don’t really understand and perhaps scripturally it doesn’t really sit well with us. And so we haven’t been going here now since 2020,” McHugh said.

"Hartung is no staid Lutheran preacher, and Singsaas is not a quiet Lutheran church. Congregants recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag and hear a reading of the U.S. Constitution during Sunday services. And the church has become stridently vocal on social issues of the day."  (My emphasis)  (LINK)   

MY NOTE 1 - I have never heard of a church where they say the Pledge of Allegiance and/or read the US Constitution during Sunday services.  Sounds more like the Aryan Nations or militia movement "services" to me... 

MY NOTE 2 -  So much for separation of church and state.  Looks like tax fraud to me.

Jay Nelson says he didn’t leave the church voluntarily:

Nelson: There was a congregational meeting held at which me and four other people–none of us were told about the meeting; none of us were told about what was going to happen at the meeting–it turns out in that meeting they voted all five of us out as members.

Kennecke: You got kicked out of your own church?
Nelson: We got kicked out of our own church.

Hartung: We pleaded with them to reconcile with the church. They knew that I was following and church leadership was following the doctrine of the word of God according to Matthew 18.*
Kennecke: Did they know they were going to be voted out?
Hartung: Did they? Yes, they did. They knew they were going toward that direction.

MY NOTE:  Probably Matthew 18:15-22.  

It was the direction that the church was going that led to the fallout in the first place. Nelson and two others have filed a petition with the court over the church’s constitution being thrown out.

“We want to make sure there is integrity in the process of changing the church constitution so that everyone is on board and everyone is represented,” Nelson said. 

MY NOTE:  A unsurprising reason to change the church constitution and the church membership and the Cemetery Association membership would be that $200,000 in the Cemetery Association Fund...  

“There is no such thing as having a church constitution that is unchangeable in any way shape or form,” Hartung said.

Meanwhile, the Singsaas Lutheran Church Cemetery filed a suit against Nelson and two other men, demanding they turn over any cemetery records they may possess. 

MY NOTE:  $200,000, sitting there...  

It’s a battle that has divided this community.  “It’s pitting lifelong friends against lifelong friends; people I’ve been friends with my entire life that won’t make eye contact with me,” Nelson said.

KELOLAND Investigates obtained a letter from Hartung where he asks his flock to pray for God to deal properly with the enemies of Singsaas. 

Kennecke: Are you an enemy of the church?
Nelson: I do not consider myself an enemy of the church at all. But we’ve been made aware that the pastor is communicating within his congregation, citing enemies of the church, which we would take to mean ourselves.

Kennecke: So who are the enemies of the church?
Hartung: Satan.
Kennecke: Not the people that…
Hartung: The people may allow the enemy, be used by the enemy to go against a church that preaches and teaches the word of God. I love these people and I’ve given my life for them.

MY NOTE:  Given his life???  He's only been there a couple of years.

Kennecke: Have you divided this community?
Hartung: It has revealed this community.
Kennecke: Tell me what you mean?
Hartung: It has revealed where people stand on the word of God.

Remember that Sunday meeting where all the guns and “security” showed up at church?

Kennecke: Was it an appropriate response, do you think?
Hartung: Is it an inappropriate response? Not according to the Constitution of the United States, the Second Amendment.
Kennecke: You’re allowed to have guns.
Hartung: Absolutely.
Kennecke: You didn’t break the law.
Hartung: Absolutely
Kennecke: But was it appropriate?
Hartung: Yes.
Kennecke: The sheriff said there was a rifle in the church. Was it an AR-15?
Hartung: Absolutely not.

But that’s not what a Brooking’s County Sherriff’s Deputy saw. According to his report, there was an AR-15 rifle with an inserted magazine leaning in an AV closet to the rear of the church’s sanctuary, and it was in a secure location. The owner of the rifle told the deputy he brought it to church at the request of the pastor to be armed security for the vote.  (My emphasis)  

“It’s not against the law to carry. It’s not against the law to carry into a church. No reason to secure any guns or anything. It’s just something you don’t come across, especially in this part of South Dakota,” Sheriff Stanwick said. 

At the end of the meeting that day the congregation’s attorney, Dennis Evenson acknowledged there wasn’t any real threat posed by the crowd of mostly older people who had gathered.

“Just let them clear out first. We can sit here all day. They’re good people, they’re good people. It’s not a problem there,” Evanson said in the video of the meeting in the church.

Hartung: There was a desire for order and management of the crowds, the potential crowds and there was a request by Dennis Evenson for security due to previous threats.
Kennecke: Have you been threatened personally?
Hartung: Yes I have.
Kennecke: What kind of threats?
Hartung: Death threats.
Kennecke: Have you reported those to police?
Hartung: I have talked to the sheriff’s department yes.

However, the Brookings County Sheriff tells KELOLAND investigates his office has not received any reports of death threats against Hartung. (My emphasis)  Nelson says there is an easy solution to end the conflict.

Nelson: If they wanted to go off and start their own non-denominational congregation with their own constitution, they were always free to do so. They could leave. 

Kennecke: Wouldn’t it just be easier, with this controversy you’re dealing with, to pick up your congregation and move them to a different building, a different site?
Hartung: That’s what some of the controversy; that’s what they want us to do, but the point is why?
Kennecke: And why not?
Hartung: I ask them why? What do they want the building for?

MY NOTE:  Because their ancestors built it?  That it's their building?  Not yours?  But, let's face facts - there's $200,000 just sitting there...

“We’re all a big family here and we’ve never had any issues with this until just the last few years. I just don’t want anything to hurt the cause of Christ in this situation. It’s a church and we’re here to worship God almighty. It’s just really a sad day for there to be so much confusion,” former Singsaas caretaker Nadine Knutson McHugh said.

Kennecke: What is it going to take to resolve all this?
Hartung: The truth.
Kennecke: And the truth is what?
Hartung: The truth is that, instead of having control, manipulation, and lies, we need to go, first of all, How do we honor God in this.

A lot of people on both sides of this issue have mentioned to me that none of it seems very Christian-like.  I spoke to pastors at a couple of previous churches where Hartung served in South Dakota. Both told me he brought more division than unity to their churches. In fact, one church ousted its long-time pastor shortly after he arrived.  (MY NOTE:  That would probably be Spearfish. LINK) Hartung told me that had nothing to do with him. 

Thanks, Angela!

MY NOTE:  $200,000, just sitting there, waiting...  Just one more thing that seems a little rotten in South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry, and act like Goodfellas...

The Powers That Be

At the risk of sounding unAmerican, I have never been a big fan of comic books or graphic novels (with one notable exception). 

Superhero movies don't do much for me either.  In spite of that I think I have seen a dozen of them, and half of those were about Batman.  (Yes, I know he isn't a superhero.  But he is, of course, the World's Greatest Detective.)

I believe I have only seen one superhero movie in a theatre, and that was by accident.  The film I came to see broke so I agreed to see Superman II instead.  Didn't much care for it.

But a few years ago I was thinking about the public's love for such characters and an odd thought popped into my head: What if someone thought they had a super power?  Well, that might be interesting.

Of course, it would have to a pretty minor super power.  If you thought you could fly or become invisible you would soon be disillusioned.  After some thought I wrote this opening:

When Randolph was six years old, he discovered he could control gravity.   

Not completely, of course.  He couldn’t make things fall up, or even hover in the air.  But once something started to drop, he could influence its direction.

He figured this out one rainy day when his mother told him that, no, he couldn’t go outside, so he should find something to do and stop complaining or she’d give him something to complain about.

Randolph had sat by the window, looking into the street, and noticed a drop of rain poised on the glass.  It began to slip and he thought: Go to the left.

And it did, shimmying down to the far end of the pane.  So he could do that.

The rest of the story follows our hero (?) through his life.

Is Randolph delusional or does he really have a form of psychokinesis?  That is one question that lies at the heart of "The Lord of Falling Objects" in the July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, on sale now.

The other question is of course: Why does this story belong in a magazine for crime fiction?  Read it and the pieces will, ahem, fall into place.