Of Trains and Life Without Walls

I first encountered Hugh Lessig’s writing when he submitted “Last Exit Before Toll” to Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, and I’ve worked with him on several other projects since then. Additionally, I had the honor of reading prepublication proofs of Fadeaway Joe (Crooked Lane Books), and I believe it’ll be a strong contender for best debut novel of 2023.

— Michael Bracken

Of Trains and Life Without Walls

By Hugh Lessig

Hugh Lessig

I was intrigued by Robert Lopresti’s Aug. 2 post “Hobo Blues” because it combines two of my favorite subjects:

• Trains.
• People who go through life without four walls and a roof.

I can’t connect the two as well as he did, but I’ve somehow managed to incorporate both of these personal fascinations into crime stories, including my debut novel, Fadeaway Joe, releasing August 22.

Why trains? My grandfather, a railroad engineer, was killed in 1926 in a head-on collision of two trains in New Jersey. Thanks to a Facebook group dedicated to the rail line, I found the original accident report and a map of the crash site. He died on a nasty curve and made the front page the next day.

My grandfather was a complete unknown to me. No photos of him survive, and my own father was only 3 years old when the accident occurred. I can only imagine what he was like, and that’s what I did.

My grandfather was in my head while writing “Peace Train,” my contribution to the first volume of “Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties.” In this case, a train running through eastern Pennsylvania in the 1960s represents a fading industrial power, as trucks and the interstate highway system overtake the flow of commerce. In “Peace Train,” the locomotive is also a getaway for an abused kid fleeing the draft during the Vietnam War. The story centers on the P.I. hired to find him, a hard-bitten World War II veteran who wrestles with the ghosts that followed him home from Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The runaway knows exactly where to jump the train: a long, winding curve just before a bridge. The engineer is not a character in this story, but I always imagined my grandfather in the cab, taking his time, watching the curve. In this make-believe world, someone would relay the message that he needed to pull into a side track because another train was speeding the other way from New York. He’d come home that night to my grandmother and their eight children.

Why hoboes? This one is a bit harder to explain.

Today we don’t have rail-riding hoboes who travel to far-off job sites or simply seek a different place to live. As Lopresti cites in On The Fly, these men proved pivotal—if underreported—in influencing culture, politics and music of the era, not to mention their practical contributions to farming and industry.

If we don’t have hoboes in 2023, we certainly have the homeless. Is there a comparison? That’s tough. The homeless population of today defies a blanket description. Some are homeless for a short period. Others are chronically homeless and depend on shelters.

Still others experience a hidden form of homelessness. Instead of riding the rails, they “couch surf” with friends and relatives, or live out of their vehicles. They may even hold down jobs during this time, and their fellow employees may be none the wiser about their sparse living conditions.

I spent 36 years as a newspaper reporter and began reporting on homelessness toward the end of my career—oddly enough, when I picked up the military beat. Veteran homelessness was a problem in Hampton Roads, Virginia, which has a heavy military presence.

Over the years, I’ve interviewed homeless veterans of all types. Many battled drugs, alcohol or mental illness. Some, like that P.I. in “Peace Train,” dealt with post-traumatic stress.

I also met a few—not many—who tolerated or even favored the homeless lifestyle.

To be clear, these were not hoboes of the 2020s, on their way to some adventure or escape. And they didn’t become homeless by choice. But they found solace in their fluid world and didn’t want to go back to four walls and a roof. Maybe they put their best face forward for me, a newspaper reporter, to hide their fear or to rationalize their existence. But reporting gives you a pretty good BS detector, and I believed them.

Which brings me to Fadeaway Joe, my debut novel from Crooked Lane Books.

The main character is Joe Pendergast, an aging mob enforcer who suffers from early-stage dementia and is abandoned by his longtime boss, a man he considered a brother. Joe vows revenge, but early in the story he meets 22-year-old Paula Jessup. She’s on the run from labor traffickers, having freed a woman from their clutches. She needs protection, and her plight gives Joe a higher purpose than personal vengeance. With a clock ticking inside his head, he begins to wonder about his legacy. What will he be remembered for? Maybe helping Paula straighten out her life is more important than personal revenge.

Paula is homeless. She’s living out of her car, a vintage 1975 Chevy Nova. Her closest friend runs a homeless shelter for women. She’s tough and independent, extremely nosey and a total pain in the ass to Joe, who isn’t accustomed to dealing with strong, independent women who talk back.

Homelessness gives Paula a hard edge. It’s essential to her character, but it does not define her life. I found this to be true of homeless people I’ve interviewed over the years. They are deeper and more complex than a shadowy figure holding a cardboard sign at the exit ramp.

Many have extensive work histories and job skills. Shipyard welders. Truck drivers. I once met a former city hall employee who served as a source for a news story. He was living on the street.

How quickly can people become homeless? It’s downright scary. If you live paycheck to paycheck and develop an expensive health problem, you’re in trouble. Then your transmission goes kablooey and you can’t drive to work, which leads to a lost job. (This last one is all too common. Can’t drive, can’t work.) You can’t pay rent and stay with friends or relatives until they get tired of the routine.

Homeless people can also be resourceful. Years ago, I met a homeless guy who handed me his business card. He somehow saved up enough cash through panhandling to print a few, and he cleaned yards, garages or houses. He left those cards in laundromats, grocery stores, pretty much everywhere. I always wondered what happened to him. Maybe he got back on his feet.

And maybe he’ll be in a crime story one day.

What was, what could be, and everything in between.

One reason I love reading history is it’s already happened.  No need to fear impending catastrophe; we already know how the story turns out.  At least in the opinion of the historian, who may differ from others in the field.  And some historical commentary is energetically revisionist.   But generally, you’re safe from new, alarming events suddenly cropping up.  

I especially enjoy history where things worked out well for us, an outcome that at the time was seriously in doubt.  The big daddies of these stories focus on the American Revolution and World War II.  In fact, you could start reading books on these subjects when you’re ten years old and never live long enough to exhaust the supply. 

I like reading about all the stress and worry flooding the nervous systems of people like George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower, whom we think of as implacable, irresistible over-achievers, fully confident that things like crossing the Delaware River in December, in open boats, to attack a bunch of well-trained German mercenaries was a swell idea that was sure to work out just fine.

Eisenhower wrote an apology for the failure of his planned Normandy invasion and stuck it in his pocket the night before D-Day:

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

It’s powerful reading, also poignantly written.  I’ve never undertaken anything close to what he faced, though I’ve had plenty of moments when I prayed to a God I’m not sure I believe in, “Oh please, Lord, don’t let me f**k this up.”   

I also like to learn that something we all thought had happened one way, has turned out to be something entirely different.  This results from either fresher, better research, or the historian re-examining an event unblinkered by the prejudices of prior commentators.  Or both. 

Despite the fulminations of people unhappy about academics rethinking American history, since much of it throws treasured, self-congratulatory tropes overboard, I’d much rather know.   A good example is the Revolutionary War. Historians like Rick Atkinson are explaining that it was really bloody and awful, with plenty of gruesome excess on both sides of the conflict.  Well, yeah, all wars are like this.  And rather than making our success ignoble it should instruct us that it was one hell of a fight, one over which our ancestors gave their all.

Another benefit of reading history is it reminds us that our humanity hasn’t changed that much, if at all, since people started writing things down.  While technology has evolved, the thoughts, feelings, anxieties, hopes and dreams are all pretty much the same for the Mesopotamian grain merchant as the Wall Street Master of the Universe.  The grunt hauling stones to the pyramid or the slob on the subway trying to make his way home.

How is this germane to the fiction writer?  First off, history has a steadying influence over creative writing.  Things that have happened provide the context for what could have happened, even in science fiction.  Especially. 

Plausibility, credibility, believability.  Some writers hate the notion of being pinned down by the reality of human experience, but any editor will tell you that otherwise promising fiction can be utterly thwarted by flights of fancy launched from unsteady moorings.  You know when you’re reading it that the author is confusing invention with absurdity.  The great jazz musicians knew their scales and classic harmonic relationships.  Joyce, Pound, Stravinsky and Picasso never said abandon all prior structure, but to adapt, modify and innovate within established forms. 

Listeners and readers know this instinctively.  It’s an agreement with the artist.  Know your history, and trust the creators to know it as well.  And it goes both ways.  New Journalism was premised on describing real events with the flair and artistry of fiction.  The historians we love today understand this, and eagerly employ novelists’ techniques to power their tales of the past.  

Everyone’s better for it. 

Fodder for Great Crime Stories: Amateur scuba divers

Recently, stories have appeared in the news about amateur scuba divers helping solve missing persons cold cases. 

In Florida, the team of Ken Fleming and Doug Bishop found 60 submerged cars statewide. Also, the controversial Youtube sensation, Jared Leisek, an Oregon entrepreneur who heads Adventures with Purpose, works with volunteer salvage divers to help families find their loved ones. 

Amateur scuba divers solving cold cases has all the makings of a new series of crime novels. I wish someone would write these because they’ve been bouncing around in my fantasies for decades.

About thirty years ago my husband talked me into learning scuba diving. He was trained by an army scuba diver, so he’s extremely competent and also has a great deal of talent. I got trained at a resort, and that, along with my lack of natural talent, made me a competent but not even close to excellent diver. When the children came along, they got the scuba diving fever and certified at eleven and twelve. They have their father’s talent and scuba diving became our family sport.

Over the years, we’ve had wonderful dive adventures and often, as I putter behind my elegant family of divers, I’ve fantasied about helping solve cold cases by discovering guns and bodies by diving expertly to places other divers haven’t gone. This is exactly what I do when watching gymnasts, where I picture elegant tumbling moves while trudging to the kitchen to get more popcorn.

A childhood friend and English teacher recently bemoaned her lack of writing skills by saying, “Those who can do, those who can’t, teach.”. This quote by Bernard Bernard Shaw from his 1905 stage play Man and Superman is often taken out of context and wasn’t meant to demean teachers per se. In fact, as a daughter of scientists - even though I loved Shaw in my teenage years - I also knew this quote is inaccurately used when applied to teachers, because the best scientists, the most competent researchers, taught.

I do think that, for me and maybe me alone, a riff on this quote would be accurate: Those who can do, those who can’t, write about it.

With the pandemic, we haven’t been diving in years, but one of our last dive trips set off a fantasy of a perfect crime, fostered by my fury. We were diving in the Bahamas where, I learned afterwards, they were also feeding sharks. So, when we all innocently did a back roll water entry, an entry where you sit at the edge of the boat with your back against the water, with your regulator in your mouth, held in place with your left hand while your right hand holds the back of your head to prevent your skull from smacking into the first stage regulator when you hit the water. Then, point your chin toward your chest and gently fall backwards. You do a little somersault, pop right back up but it is a tad disorienting.

We headed down into the water and when we were about 30 feet down, I turned to check with my designated ‘buddy’, my son, and saw a shark between us. I looked up, and there were sharks, I looked below and there were sharks. It was simply awful.

We have seen sharks previously, but they keep their distance and leave quickly. Never have we had sharks surround us for a dive. When I got back on the dive boat, I was not just frightened, I was perplexed by the unusual behaviour of the sharks. When I asked about it, our dive master – who looked about twelve years old - explained cheerfully that they feed the sharks to teach divers how friendly they are and, by making friends with sharks, it helps with their conservation.

I was raised by a biologist father who took me on many field trips and he and his colleagues spoke often about conservation. It made me not just an animal lover but also a conservationist. To truly protect animals, you need to also listen to the experts studying them and not anthropomorphize them. Sharks deserve to be protected and can be best protected by not misunderstanding them. A shark is not your friend when they are swimming beside you in hopes of food. It takes one woman on her period or one inadvertent coral cut to put blood int the water and turn you into prey. I’m not a biologist, so I’ll use a term I hope is also used by experts to describe this behaviour: it’s nuts.

As we headed back to shore on the dive boat, my fury gave rise to a plot: chum the waters near a cheerful, far too young dive master (who might be an heiress to millions), and you have a perfect crime.

As I said, those who do, do, those who can’t write – or in my case – fantasize.

On our next dive trip I ensured that the country we went scuba diving banned shark feedings – many of them have – and we had lovely dives where sharks kept their distance.

So, from solving cold cases to creating a perfect murder scenes, amateur scuba diving provides a wealth of story ideas. I’m sure I’ll think of more stories the next time I putter behind my elegant family, pretending I am them.

Holy Turnstiles! When Batman Took the Show to Shea

It was showtime. After two years of development, industry vet William Dozier's Greenway Productions let its Batman project roar loose on a caped crusade. Dozier wasn't especially a batfan--he'd barely read the comic--but he saw opportunity in reviving a tired yet bankable franchise. Most everyone else wasn't quite so sold. On January 12, 1966, Batman's ABC debut was put up or shut up.  

Dozier drew an inside straight. Batman smashed past its guarded ratings expectations, biff-ing and boff-ing aside The Virginian and Lost in Space. Batmania was born. It would die young as crazes must, but not before a glorious 1966 ride all the way to a Shea Stadium spectacular. 

We all know Dozier's Batman, a groovy, goofy riff on the World's Greatest Detective. He's the ultimate square, the droll upholder of the establishment. Dozier believed that the whole Batman concept, on an objectively rational level, was silly. Here's a guy wearing bat-themed tights and cape. To fight crime. Against gang leaders self-styled as penguins and clowns. For Dozier, nothing so fantastical held together as a TV series unless done for comedy. Dozier leaned in on an epically comic vision, that of a deadpan hero contrasted against gleefully villainous villains and all of them in on the joke. Dozier himself jumps in as "Desmond Doomsday," the overly-dramatic narrator. 

Critics and purists tried to kaplonk this over-the-top style. Didn't matter. In those early weeks, the Wednesday and Thursday Batman camp-fests weren't just winning their time slots. The show zapped atop every major television market for any program on any night. For its half-season, Batman beat out The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Bewitched.

ABC had bet on Batman with hesitation. Network execs grumbled at Dozier's production budget, but their line-up was taking a powie off CBS and NBC. ABC needed something with zam. Never mind that Adam West barely won a screen test to play Batman. Never mind that those preview audiences hated the pilot. ABC had slots to fill and a Bat Cave full of interested advertisers, so many advertisers that the writers were forced to accommodate an unheard-of fourth commercial break. Batman got rushed in as a January replacement. 

The accelerated TV debut jumped months ahead of the summer movie Dozier had expected to launch the franchise. In its hurry, ABC backtracked on a one-hour time slot. Thirty minutes was the max in their patchwork schedule, but ABC could make back-to-back Wednesdays and Thursdays happen. Dozier's team rewrote episodes into halves, with those now-famed woe-is-our-dynamic-duo cliffhangers tacked on to the Wednesday half. As happens, luck met opportunity. Batman's short scenes zip along antically to leave audiences wanting more, more, more.

And oh, the '66 marketing. Stores filled up with Batman costumes and gear, pedal Batmobiles, Batman playsets, Batman watches, Batman housewares, Batman toiletries, Batman snacks meant for Batman lunchboxes. Batman and Robin (Dick Ward) did a commercial for Lava Soap. West was on the cover of Life and TV Guide. He'd agreed to a summer live tour ahead of the movie release and before season two began shooting.

No small part of Batmania were those cackling and mugging villains. Credit Dozier here, too. He'd been around the biz for decades. He knew everybody and how to land his guest stars. Season one's baddies included Burgess Meredith (The Penguin), Cesar Romero (The Joker), George Sanders (Mr. Freeze), and Julie Newmar (Catwoman). 

That first January episode pitted Bats against Frank Gorshin's Riddler, a lavish bad guy performance that would land an Emmy nomination. In that debut episode, Batman tracked the riddle-wrapped clues to the What a Way to Go-Go nightclub where he breaks into the Batusi with Jill St. John. Robin gets nabbed, and Batman only escapes with the random aid of the Batmobile's Batostat Antifire Activator. The Batusi and the Batostat in the first episode? The audience knew what this show was about. And they loved it, again and again, same Bat time and same Bat channel. 

Batman tempted viewers with more than humor. The episodes zip madcap through those shortened scenes. The sets and costumes brim with Pop Art flair.  Those now-iconic WHAMM! and SOCK! bat-fight overlays splooshed onscreen amid each inevitable brawl. The camera perspectives could go Dutch Tilt rakish. In April, Dozier used that camerawork to introduce a recurring gag, the Batclimb. He'd scored Jerry Lewis to open a window and chat up Batman and Robin scaling the building after the Bookworm (Roddy McDowell). Whatever Batman lacked in serious tone, it brought style, satire, and production value. The overall package was almost too polished for camp. That polish came with a cost that vexed ABC. But in spring '66, the money and ratings flowed. Bat life was good.

Here's how good: In March, Neil Armstrong and the Gemini 8 orbiter suffered America's first critical in-space system failure, and ABC couldn't bring itself to scrub Batman. Instead, an announcer broke in with occasional updates on the spacecraft. ABC was flooded with complaints -- about interrupting this week's tangle with Catwoman. 

Meanwhile, on the Billboard charts, the Batman Theme was peaking at #17. Nelson Riddle's official TV show soundtrack album would be a swingin' must-have. In June, shooting wrapped on the movie tie-in. Twentieth Century Fox had a July release set. Fox grumbled over the film's massive cost ($1.8M), but the outlays would introduce new opportunities into the marketing mix. Dozier rented a spiffy new Batcycle for $50 a week. He traded a promise to premier the movie in Austin for a custom-modified Batboat. Bat life steamed along.

It was time to take the show on the road. To Shea Stadium.

Batman Live! would have everything. Everything. The two-and-a-half-hour Batarama would have the Temptations, Junior Walker, and the Chiffons among the opening acts. The Young Rascals would bring their #1 sensation "Good Lovin'." Twenty-six go-go girls would dance the Batusi. This thing even had Skitch Henderson and his Tonight Show Orchestra. And of course, it had Adam West in cape and cowl squaring off against Gorshin as the Riddler. This spectacular had everything, and it was set for Saturday, June 25, 1966.

It flopped. 

Only an estimated 3,000 tickets sold for a stadium that seated 54,000. For two hours, those bands played to an empty house. The bands that showed up, anyway. Some pulled out over ticket sales warnings or when the event promoter landed in a newspaper expose. Cost-cutting cut the Batmobile. West rode onto the field in a Cadillac. The crowd roared approval anyway. His short give-and-take with Gorshin was filled with groaner jokes about Mets baseball. Soon enough, West and Gorshin were even out of costume. West sang a song. Gorshin did celebrity impressions. And then it was over. 

And it really was over. A few weeks later, the movie thunked at the box office. After Labor Day, season two's premiere fizzled. Sure, it brought the same Bat formula and those new Bat vehicles. It brought Art Carney, Shelly Winters, Vincent Price, Liberace, Lesley Gore, Otto Preminger. The problem was what season two didn't bring. More penny-pinching replaced the Bat-fight word overlays with title cards. Gorshin was holding out for a raise. And the gags were last January's news. Batman didn't win its time slots. 

Worse, NBC and CBS copycats had arrived to compete for any viewers still jonesing for goofball. Dozier launched his other pet resurrection project, The Green Hornet. None of them lasted, and neither could Batman. For 1967's season three, Dozier resolved things with Gorshin and tinkered with the format and introduced Yvonne Craig's Batgirl, but nothing could rekindle the magic. ABC brought down the big splatt. 

Batman was pop art indeed, perfect for its moment. And what a moment, one of luck meets skill, one with undeniable appeal even today, a moment with its high water mark lapping at Shea's gates.

Your essayist's personal Bat Signal

The Day-Hike Bag We Should Have Brought (But Didn’t)

View from the Blue Ridge Parkway, in summer.

About a month ago we set out for an impromptu hike at a nearby state park. We haven’t hiked since before the pandemic. The idea popped into our heads the night before, when we saw that the weather would be beautiful. I am the world’s least spontaneous person, so I mentioned to my wife that I really needed to spend the rest of today preparing for tomorrow.

I’d ghosted a book for NBC-TV’s medical and science correspondent, Dr. John Torres, who has kindly contributed to SleuthSayers in the past. Somewhere in that book was a list of what to pack for a day hike. Dr. Torres—an avid outdoorsman, former Air Force pilot, and ER physician—shared horror stories of people bringing nothing or an incomplete kit on short hikes, and later encountering problems that could have been averted. On his advice, during 2020 I assembled a much more complex “Bug-Out Bag” that would have sustained us if we had to traverse the terrain of Middle Earth to drop jewelry into a volcano.

I just needed a few hours to transfer some choice pieces of equipment from the big bag to the smaller bag. “It can’t be rushed!” I told Denise. “I need time to think.”

“We’ll be back in no time!” she scoffed. 

 
By now she well knows my penchant for overthinking things. But hey, does no one remember that the shipwreck that birthed 99 episodes of Gilligan’s Island originated as a three-hour tour?

The upshot: we set off with nothing more than water bottles strapped to our waists and some snacks for the dog.

A lot can happen in an hour in the woods. Seeing a trio of other dogs, our guy tore ahead on the trail, tugging my wife so hard that she tripped on a tree root, and sprained two of her fingers. Hike over, folks!

As we headed home, she remarked that she couldn’t believe how quickly her hand had morphed into a hideous, purplish balloon. She iced it upon reaching civilization, but gee, it really would have been nice to have had one of those instant cold packs in our (nonexistent) bag.

While it is still summer, I thought I would share Dr. Torres’s list with you, with my own commentary. Most of us are capable of assembling these basic items, either at your local pharmacy, a reputable outdoor store, or via online shopping. And who doesn’t love shopping?

Dr. Torres’s List:

Blister or moleskin bandages. These bandages are designed to cover a fresh blister before it pops and becomes painful to walk on. They cushion the blister and keep it from getting worse, then fall off on their own when the blister has sufficiently “heeled.” Look for Compeed or Band-Aid’s Hydro Seal.

Cold-weather clothing. I know it’s summer but deserts and mountains get chilly mornings and nights. If you’ve been sweating or got caught in the rain, you’ll feel cold without a fleece or extra layer.

Duct tape. Why? Because you can do many things with it. You can fashion a quick and dirty splint, for starters, which might have helped us.

Lighter, waterproof matches, or a fire starter tool. I’m listing these in escalating order of complexity. A lighter will be fine if you need to make a fire. But if you run out of fuel or something goes wrong with the flint mechanism, waterproof matches—which can literally be struck underwater—or ferrocerium rods that allow you to start a fire, caveman-style, could be lifesavers.

Food and water for each person. I’m thinking lunch, protein bars, and water bottles; more if you’re staying out for longer.

Headlamp. Dorky? Yes. But these allow you to keep both hands free in the dark while you study a map or compass. They come either rechargeable or battery powered. Take your pick, but make sure you have fresh batteries or a fresh charge before you leave home.

Headlamp (left) and compass.

Insect repellent. ’Nuff said.

Knife or multitool. I like Benchmade for folding knives, Victorinox for Swiss Army-type knives, and Leatherman multitools. Deploying multitools can be a pain if you don’t use them often, so pack a copy of the instructions as well.

Assorted knives/tools. The folding black one (by Benchmade) has a combo blade—half straight, half serrated.

Lightweight emergency blanket. These can be acquired quite cheaply. The chief ingredient is Mylar, which is annoying and crinkly, but helps retain much of your lost body heat. You can find more durable, tarp-like ones that could help you build a makeshift shelter if you needed it. Others resemble sleeping bags. The key is to choose ones that are not too heavy. You can always toss a wool blanket in the trunk of your car, but you need to get off the trail safely first.

Navigation tools. A compass and/or a GPS device.

Small first aid kit. You will want to amp up what you get in the kit from your drugstore. Most do not have the cold packs we so desperately needed, nor cooling gels and packs in case of burns.

Sunscreen.

It's been a terrible year for ticks where we live. We've used the tweezers and other supplies in here several times.

Tweezers. You want ones with very fine tips for extracting ticks or splinters. I’m fond of the kit put out by Tick-Ease.

Waterproof notebook and pen. You’re a writer, for heaven’s sake! Bring writing materials. Choose ones that won’t crap out if it rains.

Whistle. There are tons of really loud safety whistles on the market. I like the new titanium ones because I have actually crushed cheap plastic ones in my backpack. Dr. Torres taught me that three short blasts on the whistle is the universal code for SOS/HELP. 

That’s the end of Dr. T’s list.

As I reflect on this a few years later, I recognize that things get exponentially more complicated the longer you stay in the woods, and the more people and pets are in your party. For one, you’re obliged to bring along more food and water, not to mention blankets for everyone. 

Dog people recommend packing booties for the pooch. If beloved Rover hurts a paw, you don’t want to be stuck carrying him or her out.

I also notice that our list didn’t recommend bringing toilet paper, which you’ll miss immediately if you really need to go and you’re two miles from a bathroom or transportation. Most state and federal forests urge you to “pack in, pack out,” which means you’d also want Ziploc bags or plastic grocery bags to pick up after yourself, not to mention your animal.

If you want to go deeper—much, much deeper—you might enjoy this Substack post by former SleuthSayer Thomas Pluck, who took a course at a survive-in-the-woods/tracker school in New Jersey that has been in operation for 45 years.

Over to you, gang. Surely I’m not the only one to obsess over this stuff. I’d love to know what items I’ve forgotten, and what you tote when you venture outdoors.

I’ll close by pointing out that the pages of any back issue of EQMM or AHMM would serve as excellent toilet paper. The wonders of pulp fiction.

* * * 

See you in three weeks—if I survive the next outing.

Joe

josephdagnese.com

Great Mistakes in Criminal History / Mystery

Some days you run across things that just make you go, wait a minute, that's not right.  And I'm not talking about Florida Man or South Dakota Man.  I'm talking about people who have actually planned crimes, meticulously, and made some of the stupidest mistakes you can imagine.

For example, a married Colorado dentist who fell in love with another woman started looking up things on the internet like, “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy?” and “how to make murder look like a heart attack." (Yes, I know we at SleuthSayers have all probably done something like that, but at least we had the excuse that we're crime writers, right?)  But this guy not only left a suspicious internet trail a mile long, but he actually ordered a rush shipment of potassium cyanide that he told the supplier was needed for a surgery. To his office.  Where, of course, an employee opened it and went, "Wait, what does a dentist need with cyanide?" And that wasn't the only poison he ordered delivered. Sadly, all of this did not come out early enough to save his wife's life.  (AP News) 

But from it we can learn three things:  

• Never use your own computer; 
• Always delete the cookies and the history on the browser; 
• Never have poison, etc., delivered to your office or home.  

Another example is researching Amber Alerts, watching a movie about a woman’s abduction, and writing and delivering to 911 a pretty believable script about finding a white toddler all alone on the side of the road and then vanishing, leaving the car open and running and her cell phone, and having law enforcement searching for her and the toddler, and two days later showing up, claiming to be kidnapped and held hostage but escaping - for nothing?  Ten days later, her attorney shows up and recites a flat statement that it was all a hoax. ??? (AP News)  Honey, if you need a couple of days off, just take off!  

And then there's other things that people have obviously written meticulously, carefully, and made a bestselling novel or movie out of it and... there's a major flaw.

I've talked about the 1998 movie A Simple Plan before.  Very good, understandable, greed and stupidity win over planning.  BUT, when an FBI Agent named Baxter arrives in this small town, Sheriff Carl Jenkins asks the "heroes" to work with him without ever having checked Baxter's credentials.  This does not happen in the real world.  No rural county sheriff would ever just say, "Nice to meet you, what can I do for you?" to someone claiming to be an FBI and wanting to investigate something.  Sadly, if Sheriff Carl was that dumb, he deserved what he got. 

(BTW: The fact that Sarah the librarian does and figures out who Baxter really is makes perfect sense to me but then I know that librarians can find out anything in the world, given enough time.)

This fact that rural, state, and national law enforcement do not always work smoothly together - indeed are often loath to listen to each other - explains a lot about some of the disastrous decisions made in recent years.  The latest is the video from Circleville, Ohio, where State Highway Police had Jadarrius Rose surrendered, hands up, while a Circleville City Policeman arrived on the scene with a German Shepherd K-9 and totally ignored the state trooper yelling three times, "Do not release the dog with his hands up!" and released the dog, which promptly mauled Mr. Rose. (Link)  I believe the city policeman figured he didn't have to listen to some state trooper.  

But a while back I figured the most egregious example of mistake that ruins the whole plot (for me) is in Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.  Heiress Linnet Doyle is murdered at night in her cabin.  Everyone is a suspect.  Linnet's maid, Louise, is the second victim.  And that right there is a major flaw, because (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Louise knows who Linnet's murderer is, and has already pried money out of the murderer.  But murdering her right then and there makes no sense at all. You're the goose that lays the golden eggs, and she's a maid. She'll keep her mouth shut until everyone gets off the boat, because she wants more money. She'll follow you anywhere and keep your alibi, because she wants your money!  You don't kill the goose that has the golden alibi.  Instead, you pay her off for the next year or so, and then, away from Hercule Poirot, you kill her and make it look like an accident. 

Finally, though, my favorite is from The Big Bang Theory, in "The Raiders Minimization" Amy Fowler shatters Sheldon's favorite movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark by pointing out the major plot flaw:

I still like the movie, but she's right.

Billy Friedkin

The director William Friedkin died this week.  Over a fifty-year career, his movies included, most famously, The Exorcist, as well as The French Connection, The Boys in the Band, To Live and Die in L.A., the notorious Cruising, and the hugely underrated Sorcerer, a moody, Gothic remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s bristling existential thriller, The Wages of Fear.

It’s easy to misremember what a jolt The French Connection was, when it came out.  For context, Bullitt had been released in 1968, Midnight Cowboy in 1969, M*A*S*H in 1970.  There was still plenty of room for the traditional -Westerns, musicals, rom-coms – but the new American cinema, so-called, was opening up, and the European influence was strong.  Friedkin specifically mentions Z, the Costa-Gavras political thriller, as a direct influence on The French Connection.  He and his DP, Owen Roizman (who shot The Exorcist, as well), were looking for a documentary feel, a sense of the randomly found.  Particularly in the first act, when Popeye and Buddy are following the hoods around, not knowing what it might lead to, but knowing it could lead to something, they’re shot from a distance, but with a tight zoom, as if they’re themselves under surveillance.  They’re being eavesdropped on; it’s a violation of privacy; the camera is stealing glimpses.

Everybody knows the celebrated car chase, when Popeye commandeers a civilian’s TransAm to run after the train on the elevated tracks, but less celebrated is the way the picture internalizes Popeye’s obsessive, manic fury.  The script is by Ernest Tidyman, best known for Shaft, and it’s elliptical, circling the objective.  The structure is formal, but it’s deceptive, because the story isn’t linear.  It seems intuitive, or somehow organic, just lifting off the pavement like the steam coming through the subway grates.  It’s about street sense.  Popeye and Buddy are like, Oh, we know those creeps, what are they doing out so late?  And what are doing with those other guys, since when do they hang together?

The whole story, in other words, hangs on a hunch, and it proceeds by small, dogged increments, routine footwork, ear to the ground.  And like that other marvelous observer of New York’s particular urban energy, Sidney Lumet, Friedkin taps the nervous, animal muscularity of the city to manifest a sense of dread, a presence, just outside the edge of the frame.  Roizman later said what he and Friedkin were after was to make you uneasy.

They were helped enormously by Gene Hackman.  He gives the character terrific physicality, and his single-mindedness is close to pathological.  You begin to wonder whether Popeye is just plain nuts.  Even though you know he’s right about the Frenchman, he does in fact go over the edge.

William Goldman once said his obituary would lead with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and of course he was right, even though he’d written plenty of other stuff – and me personally, I’ve never liked Butch Cassidy that much.  Billy Friedkin’s notices led with The Exorcist, natch.  I guess that’s fair, but The French Connection put him on the map.  You could do worse. 

More great books I've read

Earlier this year, I talked about three books I'd read and enjoyed. Here are three more I highly recommend.

A Novel Disguise by Samantha Larsen 

This book set in the late 1700s in a small English town has a premise that might sound ludicrous. Tiffany, an unmarried woman, lives with her half-brother, keeping his home. He is an unlikeable person, to say the least, but she has little choice in the matter, being (as I mentioned) single and a woman. Then he dies at home. Fearing she is about to be cast out of her home, and knowing she and her brother look a lot alike, she secretly buries him, then dons a disguise, and pretends to be him, going to his work every day. (He's a librarian at the manor home in town.) The premise sounds unbelievable, like farce, but damn if the author didn't pull it off.

The murder mystery (because of course there's a murder (maybe more than one)) has a lot of fun twists that made me laugh aloud and propelled me to keep turning the pages. The characters were interesting with good voices. The book has a solid ending. I did see the solution coming, but I don't think everyone will. And I didn't mind having guessed correctly. (Oh, and if you're thinking Tiffany is a modern name, an anachronism, it's actually not. It was a popular name at the time.)

The author addresses important social issues--sexism, classism, and racism--without coming off as preachy. And if you like a little romance in your crime stories, this one has a budding one. The book, which came out in May of this year, is the author's first crime novel (she's previously written romance under another name), and I'm delighted it won't be her last. It's book one in the Lady Librarian series published by Crooked Lane. May there be many more.

Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry

Divorced mom Tess and her fourteen-year-old daughter Gertie move to Tess's late grandfather's cabin in the woods of a small Washington (state) town for the summer. They haven't even moved in when when, you guessed it, they discover a dead body. But they don't  just come across it. Nope. This body falls from the sky in the first of many humorous situations. While Tess is worried about how this murder mystery will impact Gertie (who is thrilled to land an internship at the morgue), Tess isn't exactly unhappy about getting up close and personal with this mystery herself. You see, she's a successful thriller author, and she loves using things from her real life (be it research she conducts or bodies that fall from the sky) in her books. Less thrilled is the town police chief, who strongly resembles Tess's series hero, Detective Gonzalez, and who wishes she would keep her nose out of his business--and stop comparing him to Detective Gonzalez.

We encounter a lot of cozy-mystery tropes in this book, but that's okay because the author's voice is delightful and witty. She made me laugh aloud. The mystery is well plotted and interesting, even if it is over the top. Heck, it's because it's over the top that it works so well. The book came out last year from Poisoned Pen Press, and this spring it won the inaugural Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Prize. It's book one in the By the Book Mysteries series.

Books two and three have come out already, but, sigh, the publisher will not be continuing the series beyond there. I know some of you may not want to pick this book up because there are only three books in the series, but I'd reconsider. Don't deprive yourself of the happiness reading this book will bring you. It's plain old fun.

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

Imagine a secret college where you can go to learn not only to kill the person you hate (if they deserve it) but how to get away with it--or die trying. Set in 1950, the dean of this college (in an undisclosed location, of course) has penned a book about his school and three of its students, and the book you're reading is the book the dean has written. (Meta? Oh, yes.)

This book is incredibly witty and clever. It has a strong plot with interesting details baked in, complex characters, and a setting readers who love college towns will wish they could see. The book's concept is so good, I wish I'd thought of it. Overall, it's a delightful read. 

The book came out in February of this year from Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, and of all the books I've read this year that have been published this year, it's my favorite. If you like audio books, then definitely listen, because the readers (Simon Vance and Neil Patrick Harris) are great. Oh, and if you're thinking, Rupert Holmes, Rupert Holmes, where do I know this author from? Well, he's written a lot before--he's even won the Edgar Award--but you might have recognized his name from "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." Is that song now in your head? You're welcome. (Hey, I'm not going to feel bad. I like that song.)

Tired of Gun BS

I saw this piece on FB and it really struck a chord with me. Because we still have not passed even the simplest gun restrictions:

A-restrict ownership of AK-47, assault style, bumpstock, high-velocity rifles meant for warfare.

B-background checks for felonies or assaults with a weapon.

C-30 day delay in granting permits.

D-passing a gun safety class.

E-must be 21 before any gun purchase.

F-Gun shows & online sales follow same restrictions as gun shops.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY

Our children & young people are being slaughtered. No other way to say it.

- Jan Grape

TIRED OF GUN BS

by Leonidas Christian Mixon (used with permission)

We have a gun problem and a bullshit problem in the United States. Let me start by saying I am a gun owner. I have been since I was 6. I’ve had jobs that required me to carry a weapon. I’ve been shot at more than once. I’ve disarmed people who were trying to kill me. This isn’t coming from someone who doesn’t understand guns. It’s precisely because I do understand them that I’m going to call out the bullshit that stops us from having the reforms to gun laws that we needed years ago. If you want to debate any of the points below, I have no problem. These are simple facts.

1) I need an assault rifle for home defense. No, you don’t. A short barreled shotgun is the best tool for home defense. And that only counts if you’re insanely proficient with it and you get incredibly lucky. The likelihood you will get the chance to use it is next to zero. If you do, you’re very likely to kill a member of your family accidentally. In a REAL altercation, you don’t get to choose your field of fire. It happens incredibly fast, usually in the dark. If you’re popping off with a rifle, you are going to hit things you don’t intend to. Guns are tools. Period. Assault Rifles are intended to be used on a battlefield. Battlefield tactics don’t work in your house. It’s a bullshit argument.

2) I need to protect myself from a tyrannical Government... Holy Shit that’s stupid. That idea was from a time when the state of war was much more level. It isn’t now. At all. If an armored transport shows up on your front lawn with a 50 cal on the roof, you and your AK are fucking toast. Soldiers train, and their weapons are an extension of their body. You will instantly lose. And before you bring up guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan or Iraq... you need a reality check. Those people were born in a country that was at war, on their soil, for their entire lives. You don’t compare to that on your best day. And they die in FAR greater numbers than they kill.

3) Gun registration, background checks, etc are a slippery slope to confiscation. Bullshit. We register cars. We have to prove proficiency to operate them. We are required to have insurance in the event we cause damage with them. It’s been that way for decades, and no one is “coming to take your car”. Making sure people have the barest minimum of responsibility doesn’t lead to loss. Fear of loss leads to fundraising and bullshit. It’s not rational.

4) My gun is a right that can’t be modified. Again, utter bullshit. You can’t own a howitzer unless the barrel is full of concrete. You can’t own a cannon manufactured in the last century. You can’t own a fully automatic weapon without a FFL. That’s why those things are rarely used in crimes. And all of that is based on an amendment to our constitution that can be changed if we as a country see fit to do so. We have changed amendments before and we will again. If you don’t understand that you need a history lesson and a dictionary.

Creating common sense laws that put speed bumps in the way of lunatics helps. Every time. Automobile licenses, speed limits, etc don’t end accidents, but they make them less frequent and less deadly. It’s a proven concept. The time for bullshit excuses is over. It’s time to step up and take responsibility. Fuck this stupidity.

English, English

Romance writer friend Sharon sent me English usage questions to ponder, which sparked a discussion. I’ll share some of our notes.

• Double negatives are a no-no.
• In the word scent, which letter is silent, the S or the C?
• Isn’t spelling the word queue just a Q followed by four silent letters?
• When abbreviating refrigerator as fridge, why does a D appear?
• If womb and tomb are pronounced ‘woom’ and ‘toom’, shouldn’t bomb be pronounced ‘boom’?
• What is the pronunciation rule for words ending in ‘ough’? I.e, tough, through, thorough, dough, cough, bough?
• And what about bow, row, and sow that rhyme with how; and bow, row, and sow that rhyme with low?
• And why is read pronounced like lead and read pronounced like lead?
• Sharon’s correspondent says the pronunciations of Kansas and Arkansas trouble her more than it should.
• And why are all three letter ‘A’s in Australia pronounced differently? And likewise two letter ‘A’s in Stephen Ross’ New Zealand?
• Why do bologna and bony rhyme?
• Even if it’s spelled baloney, why doesn’t it rhyme with money?
• In childhood, I fretted that ‘W’ should be called double-V instead of double-U. (French and Spanish pronounced ‘W’ as double-vé and doble ve respectively.)

And finally…

• How do you console a sobbing English teacher ready to throw in the towel? “There, their, they’re.”

Wait, Wait…

Notes and jokes for those techies out there who pronounce the ‘www’ of World Wide Web as “Dub-dub-dub.”

• The three most common languages in India are Hindi, English, and JavaScript.
• Many people in India know 11 languages: Hindi, English, and JavaScript.^†

What is your favorite Engish quirk?

---

^† It’s unfair not to explain ‘in’ jokes. The punchword 11 refers to binary: In English, we count 1, 2, 3, but in binary we count 1, 10, 11.

Sequels, Not Equals

  

Question: Have you ever seen a really good movie, hoped afterward that someday there would be a sequel to it, and then been sorely disappointed when that happened? Join the club. 

The Rule is . . .

Most sequels fall short of the originals. Here are some that come to mind, that I had actually looked forward to seeing:

Jaws 2

Return to Snowy River

Escape from L.A.

Speed 2: Cruise Control

Be Cool

Wonder Woman 1984

Staying Alive

Independence Day: Resurgence

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

The Sting II

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

Return of the Seven 

The Jewel of the Nile

Grease 2

Evan Almighty

Rocky II

Blues Brothers 2000

There are many, many more. By the way, for this post, I'm focusing on immediate sequels. Movies like Robocop 3, Moonraker, Lethal Weapon 4, Police Academy 6, Jaws: The Revenge, and Jurassic World: Dominion will have to be covered elsewhere. Well, hopefully not.

The Good, the Bad, and The Good

Something worth noting, about sequels: Occasionally, the second installment in a series can be terrible and the third can be excellent. Examples:

Back to the Future, Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III 

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

Men in Black, Men in Black II, Men in Black III

But only occasionally. In most cases, nothing after the first movie is all that great. My opinion only.

Creative names

One thing that movie sequels do have going for them--they can have clever titles (some of them a little too clever). Here are the ones I remember:

Oceans Twelve

102 Dalmations

Hot Shots, Part Deux

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Another 48 Hours

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

The Dentist 2: Brace Yourself

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

The Whole Ten Yards

Beethoven's Second

2 Fast 2 Furious

Finding Dory

Die Hard 2: Die Harder

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Mama Mia: Here We Go Again

Any Which Way You Can

The Lion King 1 1/2

Daddy Day Camp

The Net 2.0

Sharknado 2: The Second One

Look Who's Talking Too

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

The Naked Gun 2 1/2

After the Thin Man

House II: The Second Story

Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money

Can I Do It 'Til I Need Glasses?

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd

But a cool title doesn't mean a good story. 

Dumb and Dumberer

Exceptions to the Rule

Thank goodness, some sequels seem to defy the odds. Here are ten that I think were better--a few of them far better--than the first in the series:

From Russia with Love

The Godfather Part II

For a Few Dollars More

The Road Warrior

The Silence of the Lambs (yep, it was a sequel: Lecter first appeared in Manhunter)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The Empire Strikes Back

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

A Shot in the Dark

And in my humble opinion, the absolutely all-time best movie sequel:

Aliens

A question, and a reassurance

Which movie sequels, good and bad and ugly, do you remember most?

Promise: Don't worry--I'm not planning a sequel to this post.

 

Opening Lines – OK, here we go again

In his July 30^th posting, R.T. Lawton gave us new insights in the setting the hook in a story. Other SleuthSayers, including me, have posted about opening lines. Robert Lopresti posted about one of his opening lines (May 17^th posting).

So, I thought I'd share opening lines that worked for me in recent short stories and novels. Why not?

SHORT STORIES:

I always wanted to be a sleuth. Pfft! As if.

    opening line of   

"The First Annual Atchafalaya Coyote Hunt; or, Is There a Sleuth in the House"

    Black Cat Mystery Magazine Issue 11, March 2002

Damn car wouldn't start.

    opening line of

"The Obsidian Knife"

    The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories,

 Mango Press, July 2022

Tom steps into the dark bedroom and waits just inside the door for his eyes to adjust.

    opening line of

    "Blue Moon Over Burgundy"

    Black is the Night

Maxim's Jakubowski's Cornell Woolrich Antho, Titan Books, October 2022

“Ah, here is our French detective now,” Captain Joe Rathlee called out from his office door as Detective Jacques Dugas came into the Detective Bureau.

    opening line of

    "The Other French Detective"    Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 67. Nos 11 & 12, November/December 2022

A woman trying not to look beautiful stepped into my office a little after nine a.m.

    opening line of

    "A Jelly of Intrigue"Edgar and Shamus Go Golden Anthology, Down & Out Books, December 202

(A Jelly of Intrigue is a finalist for this year's SHAMUS AWARD for Best Private Eye Short Story)

“No offense, Officer Kintyre. But I’m smarter than you.”

    opening line of

    "Of Average Intelligence"

    Black Cat Weekly

#85 April 2023

Billy found the trunk release button and popped open the trunk.

    opening line of

    "A Pretty Slick Guy"

    Black Cat Weekly #92 June 2023

A shadow beyond the smoky glass portion of my office door had me fold my newspaper and pull my feet off the desk before the door opened and a heavy-set man stepped in, looked around the big office.

    opening line of

    "The Little Iréne Escapade"

    upcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

NOVELS:

She came in at one o’clock sharp on Decoration Day, Friday, May 30th, just as a light rain began falling outside.

    opening line of

        The Spy Who Used My Love

 Big Kiss Productions, March 2021

The high-pitched shrill of a police whistle turns Detective Mike Labruzzo around.

    opening line of

        Gilded Time

 Big Kiss Productions, March 2022

I drop the uncut gemstone back into the leather bag with the others and tell her, “Emeralds. Every one."

    opening line of

        Hardscrabble Private Eye

 Big Kiss Productions, June 2022

The body hung from the low branch of a live oak in the Bayou Sauvage swamp about thirty yards from Chef Menteur Road.

    opening line of

        New Orleans Heat

 Big Kiss Productions, March 2023

May not be the best opening lines but they hooked the editors enough for them to read on. Of course, the follow-up from the opening line needs to keep them reading.

That's all for now.

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