All love is good love (in writing as in life.)

I have a particular hobby horse when it comes to mystery writing that I keep well fed and groomed, and in a comfortable barn. 

Good writing is good writing irrespective of the genre.  I’ve got the degrees and read thousands of books of all kinds, and some mysteries are examples of transcendently exquisite writing.

Classical, didactic definitions of exceptional literature are meaningless to me.  What constitutes good writing is in the mind of the reader, though I think we can fairly say that if it engages you, holds your attention to the end, and leaves you feeling a bit excited, the writer’s mission was a success. 

To those who think genre writing, in particular the mystery/thriller species, is somehow second rate, I like to say, “You try it.”  I also play in a rock band. Trained classical musicians might think our musicality is primitive, but if you don’t have a feel for the nuances and texture of the form, it will stick out like a sore thumb.  I love ballet, but I’ve known some ballet dancers who have no idea how to get it done on the dance floor, especially with a disco ball overhead and giant amplifiers pounding in their ears. 

Writers of both literary fiction and mysteries select from the same toolbox.  They both need vividly rendered characters, clever and mellifluous prose and a sturdy, satisfying plot.  In fact, mystery writers cannot succeed without that last ingredient, whereas the literary breed can sort of drift off toward the end of a book with a vague, exhausted glance at their premise and often get away with it. 

The debate over high vs. low art is eternal and unresolvable.  Partly because what’s high or low has been historically fungible.  To me, the Olympian height of visual art was achieved by the Impressionists, though in their own time, the French Academy wouldn’t invite them to a cocktail party, much less to a spot on the wall of the Louvre.  There isn’t a music critic alive today who wouldn’t regard Duke Ellington or Miles Davis as a consummate genius, but go look at their contemporaneous reviews. 

Everyone is entitled to like what they like and disregard the rest.  I have a list of songs and movies I love that my best friends think are complete crap. And vice versa.  That’s not only okay, it’s what makes the arts so richly wonderful.  There’s something for everyone.  That doesn’t mean there can be no objective measures of quality.  There is often a general consensus (few would regard Bo Derrick’s Tarzan movie on par with the best of Truffaut), but you have a right to stand bravely outside the mob and declare your devotion to Bo’s “They’re painting me!” pathos. 

What I argue with is condemnation, or ridicule, of entire swaths of creativity, based entirely on whether or not it fits within a prescribed set of criteria – a frozen, sclerotic definition.  Most, if not all, the mystery writers I know would say they could care a toss about this.  But of course, deep down, they do.

I just know that Scott Turow set out as a young writer to create a mystery/thriller informed by literary techniques and sensibility, and came up with Presumed Innocent, an artistic tour de force.  As did Dennis Lehane with Mystic River and Gillian Flynn with Gone Girl. 

I’m convinced that in a future time, these works will be sitting alongside Faulkner, Twain and Flaubert, and no one will think a toss about it. 

Thrush at Bat

’Tis the season of the witch, the jack-o-lantern, the sugar skull, and unseen things that go bump in the night.

In near darkness of the wee hours, friend Thrush stumbled into his bathroom. In the sink sat a tree frog, a small amphibian that clings to glass doors and snarfs mosquitoes. Yay, tree frogs. Thrush didn’t want it to dehydrate but, half-awake, he didn’t want to deal with it at that hour. He dribbled water over it and stumbled back to bed in the dark.

He rose early before dawn and found the creature still in the sink, still in near darkness. Thrush wasn’t wearing his glasses, so he dribbled more water on it.

It was game day, Penn State versus Auburn. Thrush forgot about wildlife in the bath until mid-afternoon when he told me, hoping I’d rescue it. That’s me, Mr Neighborhood Wildlife Rescue.

There in the sink huddled a small dark lump. I didn’t have glasses on either, but I’d never seen a black tree frog. Suspicious, I pulled on gloves and scooped the tiny critter into a paper napkin. What the hell?

It had a stick-like projection… two, in fact… and a small tail. Frogs lose their tails when they’re young. And the little thing was shivering.

Halloween season– I found myself face-to-face with a bat.

a very wet bat	shivering, can't open eyes
stick-like part is a folded wing	struggling to open its eyes

Most bats in North America are small, the majority barely two inches. As a kid tramping through our woods, I encountered one that looked like a tan cocoon clinging to a branch of a bush. I imagined it emitting inaudible little zzzs as it napped. Some varieties of bats like caves, some trees, and others prefer man-made structures– attics and belfries.

Florida has thirteen flavors of bats. This little guy was probably its most common, the Mexican (or Brazilian) free-tail bat. He wasn’t at all aggressive or even defensive. He lay in my hand resting and quietly shivering. I took him outside in the sun. Thrush grabbed his camera.

The majority of bats are insectivorous. Like dolphins, they use echolocation to find prey. Bats eliminate tons of mosquitoes, flies, and other bugs each season. That’s tons literally. The largest are fruit bats, not carnivorous at all.

The ‘free-tail’ part of my little bat means it has more than a stub that’s not part of its wing. This bat can use a couple of Halloween tricks.

For one thing, the Mexican free-tail bat can jam ultrasonic signals of other bat species. They let a cousin find an insect, blast its echolocation frequency and swoop in for a snack.

The Mexican free-tail bat is also the fastest mammal in the world. It can clock 100mph (161kmph) on straight and level flight. Little else can come close.

As I held the tiny bat in the sun, it stretched one thinner-than-paper wing, tucked it in and stretched the other. They were nearly transparent.

Moments later, he stretched both and paused. The wingspread of this tiny thing astonished me, 10-12 inches (25-30cm) on a body hardly two inches long (5cm).

It knew when it had dried sufficiently to fly. It lifted off my palm, those impossibly tissue-thin wings not so much flapping as sailing. Within a moment, it shot amid the plants that line the canal and was gone. Gone like ghosts of Halloween.

May you and your bats stay safe this holiday.

A Look Behind the Names

Well, only a little bit is by me today.  Instead, it's my pleasure to welcome friend, colleague, and fellow Canuck Judy Penz Sheluk to these pages.  Judy hits on a topic particularly dear to my heart. I'll tell you why after her post.

— Melodie

A Look Behind the Names

by Judy Penz Sheluk

If you follow me on social media, you'll know I'm the owner of  Golden Retriever named Gibbs (after Leroy Jethro Gibbs of the long-running TV show NCIS). Gibbs, who will turn seven on October 15, is a good dog who lives up to the stubborn streak of his namesake and the Semper Fi (always faithful) motto of the marine corp.

Now, you might be asking what any of this has to do with Before There Were Skeletons, the latest book in my Marketville Mystery series, and I'm getting to that. You see, I've long been a supporter of Golden Rescue, a wonderful Canadian non-profit that connects Golden Retrievers of all ages in need of a home with folks hoping to adopt one. And like so many charitable organizations during the height of Covid, Golden Rescue's primary annual picnic and auction fundraiser was cancelled.

Enter Wanetta Doucette-Goodman, a tireless behind-the-scenes worker who organized more than one Facebook silent auction to raise those much-needed funds.  When I saw the one in the Fall of 2020, I thought, I could donate a book copy or two, maybe even a "name the character" in my next book."

I floated the idea of a "name the character" by Wanetta and she loved it.  In fact, she loved the idea so much that she became the winning bidder.  But Wanetta is the giving sort.  She didn't ask for a character to be named after her, but rather, her daughter-in-law, Kathleen "Kate" Goodman, nee Lindsay.  She also sent me photos of Kate, and told me she had two older sisters, Kelly and Kristine.

I could have stuck to the original bargain - a character named kate Goodman--but what fun would that be? Besides, it's not as easy to come up with character names as you might think.  And so, Before There Were Skeletons has several nods to Wanetta's winning bid:

Kathleen “Kate” Goodman: a twenty-eight-year-old woman who hires Callie to find her mother, who disappeared on Valentine’s Day 1995, following her shift at a local bar in Miakoda Falls. Veronica Celeste Goodman was 18 at the time, and by all reports, a devoted single mom who’d just signed a one-year lease.

 Lindsay Doucette: Veronica’s older sister and Kate’s aunt. Lindsay raised Kate after Veronica disappeared, and, having been duped in the past, is not entirely on board with Callie’s investigation.

  Wanetta Georgina Bulmer: Last seen in Miakoda Falls on January 17, 1995, Wanetta was twenty years old and new to town.

 Kelly Anne Acquolina: Last seen in Miakoda Falls on January 31, 1995, Kelly Anne was twenty at the time.

Kristine Paris: An important character with a secret past.

Of course, Callie’s first instinct upon reading the missing persons profiles of Veronica, Wanetta and Kelly Anne is that they are linked, though the police have never formerly reported that connection. Is she right? Ahh… you’ll have to read the book to find out. But at least now you know what’s behind the names.

Melodie here again: After I read this post, I talked to Judy and we both got a kick out of the fact that I had done something similar — that is, five years ago, donated a character name to a charity auction.

The charity was the Burlington Humane Society, and the winner was a pug called Wolfgang!  (Yes, his good buddy/owner may have put him forward.)  If you look on the cover of Crime Club, you will see Wolfgang in all his glory.  He plays an important part in the investigation as well.

 

 

Check out Judy's latest mystery!

About Before There Were Skeletons

The last time anyone saw Veronica Goodman was the night of February 14, 1995, the only clue to her disappearance a silver heart-shaped pendant, found in the parking lot behind the bar where she worked. Twenty-seven years later, Veronica’s daughter, Kate, just a year old when her mother vanished, hires Past & Present Investigations to find out what happened that fateful night. 

Calamity (Callie) Barnstable is drawn to the case, the similarities to her own mother’s disappearance on Valentine’s Day 1986 hauntingly familiar. A disappearance she thought she’d come to terms with. Until Veronica’s case, and five high school yearbooks, take her back in time…a time before there were skeletons. 

·       Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mqXVze

·      About the Author:

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including the Superior Shores Anthologies, which she also edited

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served as Chair on the Board of Directors. She lives in Northern Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior. Find her at judypenzsheluk.com.