Edit. Edit! EDIT! -- On Writing

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"Is it blood? She is, after all, a murder mystery writer."

Blood? No. It's red ink. And, yes I am a murder mystery writer. More importantly for this blog post, I'm a murder mystery reader.

I'm not an Episcopalian. I'm not a Pastafarian who believes in the Great Spaghetti God. I'm an Editorian. An Editorian's tenets are simple. 1. Write. 2. Submit to an Editor. 3. Submit to another Editor, and another and another, as many as it takes. 3. Trust your reader. Cut unnecessary words.

Oh, yes. And number 4. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! (Thank you Henry David Thoreau.)

"But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here to talk about the draft." Well, no. Not the draft. Apologies to Arlo Guthrie.

Editing! That's what I want to talk about.

I'm reading Fatal, the newest John Lescroart novel. If you've read any of my previous reviews of his books, you'll know he's my favorite crime novel writer. Not because of his writing style, but because of his characters -- Defense Attorney Dismas Hardy and Homicide Investigator Abe Glitsky and their various and sundry friends and relatives.

Lescroart's stories are sufficiently salted with twists and turns to keep me reading and clues sprinkled here and there to keep me guessing.

His twelfth Dismas Hardy novel Betrayal was a change up. Much of the first part of the book took place in Iraq with no mention of Hardy or Glitsky. But I kept reading and finally they showed up.

This Lescroart book is ominously touted as a "stand alone" novel. I'm afraid that may mean that the Hardy/Glitsky crowd won't show up.

So I'm on page 74. This is the scene. Two women, Kate a housewife and her cop friend Beth, are having lunch in a downtown San Francisco restaurant. "But suddenly, from outside in the main hallway came the booming sound of an explosion, followed quickly by two others, and then a volley of pops, like strings of firecrackers." This could be improved. It should start off slow and confusing as the situation really would have been --  From somewhere came a booming sound. Then two more and a volley of pops like strings of firecrackers. In the amount of time it takes the reader to read the word 'suddenly' the suddenness is lost. Kate and Beth don't yet know what is happening or where it's coming from. An explosion is not what one would think of in the middle of a meal in a nice restaurant.

The next paragraph reads "Both women turned toward the restaurant's entrance where now they heard another enormous explosion, then more of the popping sounds, accompanied by the completely unexpected, terrifying, and unmistakable noise of people screaming." Both women? Really? I thought we were reading about the Ohio State Marching Band. Turning toward the restaurant's entrance they heard another explosion, then more popping sounds and people screaming.

Of course the screaming is unexpected, terrifying, and unmistakable. All unnecessary words that slow the action. Now they're starting to think explosion.

Next paragraph: "Then Beth was on her feet, reaching behind her back for her service weapon, which she realized too late that she never carried on their walks. Swearing, she turned, looked back at her table. 'Get up! Get up!' she yelled at Kate. 'Let's go!'" Short sentences! Short sentences! The reader should be getting short of breath at this point. Beth leapt to her feet and reached for her service weapon. It wasn't there. It was in its lock box at home. She looked back at Kate. 'Get up! Let's go!' 

There is no need for attribution for the dialog. Who else would she be yelling at. There's no need to even say she's yelling. That's what exclamation points say. 

Then page 75 is more of the same -- too many words, too many prepositional phrases, too much telling. All ending in the phrase "as thick smoke wafted its way into the room."

At this point I slammed my open-palm down on the dining table, making my own explosion. Wafted? Wafted?! What are we talking about here? The scent of jasmine wafting across the veranda? Give me a break! There is a terrorist attack going on and we're being fed thick smoke wafted?

I don't think so. Hemingway, Hemingway. Where for art thy mot juste?

Ah, well. I've still got to read further. Can't stop on page 75. Dismas and Abe may yet show up.

Betrayal -- Book Review

Those of you who know me, know I like John Lescroart's police procedurals.

Goodreads calls this one a "thriller." And I suppose it is, but it's not the kind of thriller that will leave your stomach tied in knots or make you dread the morning's news. It may, however, just keep you up too late because you gotta see what happens next.

I do have the same complaint about it that I had the first time I read it. Uncharacteristically (pun intended) we don't really get Dismas Hardy or Abe Glitsky until Chapter 16. Of course, all that stuff that comes before is important to the plot.

Oh, his plots, his plots. Lescroart does really good plots. He doesn't spoon feed us readers, but if he puts it in the book, it is important to the plot. He definitely takes Chekhov's advice, "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."

Betrayal was published in February, 2008. So Lescroart wrote it during the fourth year of the Iraq war. As a writer, I can understand the attraction of using current news stories in your work. And war seems to be a lucrative field, shot through with second-hand adrenaline for both writers and readers. Lethal flashes in the night. Explosions. Bullets peppering the ground around the new characters. Life and death -- conflict, conflict, conflict.

For me, I don't like it so much. But, it is necessary to the plot of Betrayal.

I was so glad when we got through the war part of the book. But then it was necessary to get through a trial without Dismas Hardy, our canny defense lawyer. In a courtroom not in our familiar San Francisco Hall of Justice.

The epigraph is a part of the book, I think, would better have been left out. In my opinion, there are some bits of a mystery best left to the readers imagination.

To be honest, I'd rather spend time with Lescroart's Hardy and Abe Glitsky, the dour police lieutenant, than with Lescroart himself. He's probably a very nice man, but I know his characters much better than I know him. I have a history with them.

To develop your own relationship with them, it's best to start with the first book in the series, Dead Irish. Each book is complete in itself, but the characters continue through the series -- maturing, losing loved ones, marrying, having babies, dying. And all the while searching for the truth. What really happened.

Murder Mysteries -- An Essay

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Or why I quit reading one book without finishing it and go on to one of my goto writers even if I've read their book before. I know, I know -- where's the mystery in a mystery book you've read before. Or if you're binge watching TV and it's the fourth time you've seen that episode of Blue Bloods? You know whodunit already.

And we're talking mysteries here. Not thrillers. The difference? Well, in a thriller you know whodunit. Or, maybe not. But you're inside the whodunit's head and you know what he's going to do, but the hero doesn't. Or that poor dumb ingenue at the head of the steep, dark stairs into the dreaded basement. Why do they always go down there?

Okay, so I don't like thrillers. They're like horror movies. They're either really dumb or really scary. Either way, I'm not interested. And I sure as hell wouldn't go down those stairs.

What brought this on? As you might know, I am recovering from total knee replacement surgery, which here means that between pain meds and restricted activity, I just haven't been writing. I have, though, learned many important lessons: You can sleep on your back. But not in your bed. That's what lounge chairs were invented for. Rehab exercises can be painful. That's what pain meds were invented for. And when you take pain meds you can sleep on your back in lounge chairs. But you cannot string thoughts together in any kind of coherent fashion. You can read and you can watch TV. Especially if you've already read that book or seen that episode. But you cannot write.

Maybe I'm far enough along in my rehab that I can write. Nothing deep and maybe not particularly thought provoking unless thoughts come to you largely unprovoked. But here goes.

I finished the 14th and last book in Robert Jordan's fantasy series Wheel of Time a couple of weeks after the surgery. I'd read them before, but as always there were things I'd missed or forgotten. And it didn't matter much if I drifted off to sleep, I knew where I was when I woke again.

Then I went to John Lescroart's Dismas Hardy murder mysteries. I'd only read them once before. I was still enough in a fog that my previous reading didn't get in the way of my enjoyment -- once I got past that editor-in-my-brain who kept saying "I'd write it this way!" Obviously my health was improving.

I ran through the first four books in a little more than a week. It's just fascinating how many ways murder can be done and for how many reasons.

Anyway, I didn't have the fifth Dismas Hardy book on my Nook and I can't navigate the stairs (even with the lights on) into the basement where our library lives so I don't know if I have that book in hard copy or not.

I could have asked my husband to look for it. But I'd already asked him to find our Bend It Like Beckham DVD and he never did. Maybe he forgot. But, hey! He's been doing the laundry, cooking, dishes, grocery shopping, driving me to doctor's appointments and physical therapy, and cheering me on. So, what I'm doing here is what my Grandmother used to do. She never complained. But she did point out exactly what it was she never complained about.

I do appreciate him and all the help he's being. And he knows we'll be doing this all again in a couple of months. He's a rock! And it doesn't hurt that he's pretty cute, too.

Anyway, under all the detritus on my side of the bed (that I am only just now being able to sleep in again) was a Ken Follett book, A Place Called Freedom, that I'd never read. I don't even remember buying it, but it has a pink sticker on it marked $1.99. So I'd say I got it at ARC, my favorite thrift store. And now you know why I usually steer clear of their book section. If I go there, I'm gonna buy one. Or, at these prices, a dozen. And the money goes to good purpose.

I like Ken Follet's work, but ....

Having grown up in Oklahoma, I'm quite familiar with my country's despicable history with slavery, segregation, and discrimination. And the continuing ramifications. Interestingly enough, I'm always a bit surprised to discover that slavery was not peculiar to the American South, indeed, not peculiar to America at all.

A Place Called Freedom takes place just before the American Revolution. It follows a young man from his life as a miner in Scotland -- where miner's children were 'dedicated' during their baptismal rites "to work in [the laird's] mines, boy and man, for as long as he is able, or until he die.'' Not strictly legal, but the miners didn't know that. They were required to go down in the mines as children and if they worked in the mine one year and one day following their 21st birthday, they were the mine owner's property for the rest of their lives. And that part was strictly legal.

Malachi McAsh escapes the mine, Scotland, and eventually England, too. But so many bad things happen to him with no let up that I just could not continue reading the book.

You know, I almost quit reading in the middle of one of the books in the Harry Potter series. I don't remember which one it was but it was the one with Dolores Umbridge as the onsite bad guy. Probably the only reason I kept reading Harry Potter was that I was so invested in Harry that I couldn't quit and after I'd read that particular volume, I knew I didn't ever have to read that one again.

Chances are good that I'll never know how Mr. McAsh's life turned out.

Murder mysteries? Why on Earth would I leave a book following a character who is constantly besieged by perfectly dreadful events and turn to a murder mystery? Speaking of 'perfectly dreadful events.'

Because! Especially because it's John Lescroart's murder mystery. His characters are all three-dimensional. Four dimensional, actually, because the books not only show their whole selves, but their selves as they live through time. They experience: dark thoughts in dark events overseen by dangerous people in their work as policemen and attorneys; humorous interactions with people they love; joyous events in their lives quite separate from their work; and, sometimes, even sad events in their lives separate from their work.

And in John Lescroart's murder mysteries we're given things to think about. Like this from Nothing but the Truth. Dismas Hardy's cop friend Abe is half Jewish, half Black and all homicide inspector for the San Francisco Police Department.

Abe's father is thinking:
     "Lots of times when he'd been younger, he'd been less than diligent at keeping the Sabbath,
     but now in his eighth decade he'd come to believe that the Ten Commandments had gotten
     everything exactly right if you wanted to have a world full of healthy and productive
     people. People should pay attention to the wisdom in all ten of them, he believed. They
     really should. Keeping the Sabbath, taking a day off, kept you sane."

Now this passage may not help you or the book's heroes solve the mystery, but it goes a long way to tell us who our main characters are and how they got that way -- all the while dispensing some very useful wisdom.

Plus! At the end of most murder mysteries, we as readers have the satisfaction of not only finding out whodunit and why, but the baddies get their just deserts. (With a nod to Lemony Snicket) which here means "what they deserve."

"...the word 'desert' — [when pronounced with the accent on the second syllable like the word dessert] — ...refers to a deserved reward or punishment. Therefore, someone who does wrong and is punished in a suitable manner has received his 'just deserts.'" http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/deserts.asp

Dead Irish --- A Book Review

Dead Irish 

This is the first of fifteen crime fiction books featuring Dismas Hardy by New York Times Best Selling Author John Lescroart. And I've read them all.

In the beginning our main character, Dismas Hardy, describes himself as a bartending, divorced ex-marine, ex-cop, ex-attorney thirty-eight-year-old who doesn't know who he is.

Sounds like almost every hard-nosed, plain-spoken, crime-solving Vietnam veteran ever, doesn't it?

Then his boss's brother-in-law comes up dead. A probable suicide. Other people end up battered or dead. All connected. Or possibly not. And Dismas is among the living again.

The plot has twists and turns and enough suspects to keep me turning pages. Even this second time through, and I know whodunnit.

Named for the good thief crucified with Christ, Dismas Hardy is floundering. It's been ten years since he lost his baby, his wife, and any future worth caring about. He keeps his few friends at arms length for fear of losing yet more. He avoids anything that might rekindle any passion for life. Hardy has two interests -- competitive darts and an old but well-cared-for iron skillet.

Hardy's best friend and boss -- a buddy from Marine days in Vietnam -- Moses McGuire owns the Little Shamrock, a typical San Fran neighborhood bar where Hardy's flotsam self has washed ashore.

Frannie Cochran (nee McGuire) is Mose's much younger sister. It's been just the two of them since their parents died and Moses loves her more than anything in the world. When her husband Eddie Cochran is found dead of a gunshot wound, the plot's afoot. The McGuires and Cochrans are Catholic so suicide presents a certain complication. Not to mention that life insurance doesn't pay out on suicide.

No one who knew Eddie Cochran wants to believe he could have killed himself. He was too idealistic. He had plans. He loved his wife. They had a future. But there's nothing at the scene that substantiates any other possible cause of death. McGuire asks Hardy to look into it.

Abe Glitsky is a hard-working homicide detective with San Francisco's finest. He and Dismas were partners back in Hardy's days as a cop. Their friendship is still there, but it's been allowed to lie fallow. Naturally, Hardy contacts Glitsky for help.

Abe is up for promotion and a much needed raise to support his growing family. There are three men in the running for that promotion, a white man, a Latino, and Glitsky who is half-black and half-Jewish. Now we've got department politics in the mix. Abe didn't catch the Cochran assignment. The white detective did. Which puts Glitsky in the position of stepping on a fellow officer's toes if he helps Hardy. And that officer is prickly enough without the competition.

As events unfold, even Hardy's ex-wife Jane and her father Judge Andy Fowler show up .

What Lescroart does so well (and why I read him) is his character development. Each of them is unique and recognizable.

These people will show up in the next fourteen books. And by the end of Dead Irish, that's what they are. People -- not characters. They grow and change. Friends die. Babies are born. And you're left looking forward to the next book in the series.

When the Writer Can't Write -- Nonfiction

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Yep. I've got post-surgery, drug-induced writer's block.

The surgery went well. Rehab is coming along. Ten days in and counting. I still have trouble putting thoughts together in any consistently coherent way. A writer can't write if they can't think.

I can't stand another moment in front of the TV. TV News? My thinking is so muddled, I can't even maintain appropriate depression. Daytime TV? All those talk shows? They're just so much noise. Those folks are less coherent than what's going on in my head. Nighttime TV? There is PBS, but I can't seem to keep up with anything. Except the cooking and travel shows. Even with them, I tend to dose off which, admittedly, is not terribly unusual for me. But this is ridiculous.

I have been reading. Finished A Memory of Light, the 14th and final volume of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I did just fine with it. Of course it's my third time through and I'm thoroughly familiar with the umpteen characters. And Memory is 885 pages of the "Last Battle." How could anyone get confused about what's going on there?

I still was not ready to write. So the thing to do was to start another series that I've read before -- so I don't have to figure out who's who or what's going on.

John LesCroart's Dismas Hardy series. Unlike Wheel of Time, each book is a complete crime fiction story. But you need to start with the first one, because the stories are in the same world with the same characters. The thing I like about them is that the well-developed characters live and change as the stories go along. I have a vested interest in them.

So last night I started Dead Irish. Also, it was my second try at sleeping in my bed after the surgery. I haven't been able to get comfortable sleeping lying down. I've been sleeping in a recliner. So...I took the book, cuddled down in my bed, next to my warm husband, and prepared to read myself to sleep.

He likes to read himself to sleep, too. Normally, I am courteous enough not to interfere.

I'm reading along quite happily when I come to this paragraph:

       "In a way, he thought it was too bad the plane hadn't crashed. There would have
        been some symmetry in that -- both of his parents had died in a plane crash when
        he'd been nineteen a sophomore at Cal Tech."

My mind kicked into editor mode.

"Listen to this," I said interrupting Scott's reading. He didn't care about the crime novel I was reading. But he's in his care-giver mode right now. He's a nice man. He'd've been courteous regardless of my medical situation.

Anyway I read him the paragraph as Mr. LesCroart wrote it. And proceeded to followup with the wording I thought the writer should have used. And why.

        "It was too bad the plane hadn't crashed. (No need for the attribution. It was third person close. Obviously, we were inside the main character's head.) There would have been symmetry in that -- his parents died in a plane crash when he was a nineteen-year-old Cal Tech sophomore. (Fewer words, same information. Stronger language.)"

"Hmmm," my husband said.

For several days now, I've been verbally rewriting the dialog on TV commercials. And in syndicated episodes of  Blue Bloods, one of Scott's favorite TV shows.

If a writer can't write, there is only one alternative. Edit!

I think my husband is going to be glad when I've completed rehab and started writing again. Maybe then he can watch his shows and read in peace.

Red Ink -- Passive Verbs

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William Bernhardt started me on the path to writing as craft. (He also ruined my enjoyment of using the exclamation point -- only one per novel -- which also restricts my ability to comment on Facebook posts.)

Bill admonishes us to "show, don't tell" and eschew the passive verb. Ernest Hemingway advised against adverbs, championing the mot juste, meaning the right verb needs no adverb.

Passive verbs and adverbs weaken a sentence and distance the reader from the vision we create. Let me show you. This is the opening from John Lescroart's first Dismas Hardy crime thriller Dead Irish.

     From his aisle seat, Dismas Hardy had a clear view of the stewardess as her feet lifted from the floor. She immediately let go of the tray -- the one that held Hardy's Coke -- although strangely it didn't drop, but hung there in the air, floating, the liquid coming out of the glass like a stain spreading in a blotter.

To rewrite this using active verbs and removing adverbs, it would look like this:

     From his aisle seat, Dismas Hardy saw the stewardess's feet lift from the floor. She let go of the tray -- the one that held Hardy's Coke. The drink didn't drop but hung there in the air, floating, the liquid coming out of the glass like a stain spreading in a blotter.

Nothing is lost from the meaning. The word 'strangely' is unnecessary because the Coke that Lescroart shows us floating is strange enough. We don't need to be told that it is strange with an adverb. (I also replaced the imprecise pronoun. And being an old poet, I enjoy the alliterative d's which are by their nature sudden, strong sounds, even if we read without moving our lips.)

In the heat of writing, it's hard to keep all the good advice in mind. My flash fiction blog Danger from earlier this week contains the following:

   Rain and wind were being sucked into the storm. Once outside the false harbor of my car, I could feel the storm's pull. It was too close.

Open plea to editors and beta readers: Please help us writers to avoid passive verbs. You don't have to figure out what we should say instead, just point out the problem. It may take a while, but we'll figure it out.

One final example from John Lescroart's Dead Irish:

   Moses had raised his younger sister from the time he was sixteen and she was four. When he'd gone to Vietnam, which was where Moses and Hardy had met, she had just been starting high school and Moses was paying to have her board at Dominican up in Marin County.

There you go. Something to be chewed upon. Blech!

Think I'll park my editor's cap and read the rest of John Lescroart's very good book. Good enough that this is my second time through. Alas, we always read faster than our favorite writers can write.

The Art of Misdirection

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"The cat made a mess on the floor," my husband announces in disgust.

I am half asleep and, truth be told, I don't want to wake up. The bed is warm and I am snuggled into that perfect place where the pillow fits your head just right, the blankets are swaddled close so there are no drafts anywhere. And nothing aches. This early in the morning, any morning, having no aches is a miracle and I don't want to tempt fate by moving.

As you may know, I write murder mysteries -- Murder on Ceres. To begin the mystery, there must be a murder, or at least a dastardly deed. In this case a catastrophe. So I, the reader, am on the hook wondering exactly what has happened. And the misdirection is a simple lack of information. I'm allowed, nay encouraged, to imagine my own misdirections.

A mess? Without moving a muscle, my mind races through the possibilities -- in descending order the worst possibilities first.

Diarrhea. Cat diarrhea would surely be the worst. Kocka has never had diarrhea. (Kocka, pronounced kotch-ka with a long o. It means cat in Czech.) I know he hasn't had access to anything unusual to eat. Though I did see him toying with a small jumping spider. Would that upset his digestive system?

A hairball. The damned cat has long hair. Ooooh, I hate stepping on a fresh hairball, barefooted. No wonder my husband sounded disgusted.

I don't open my eyes. I don't ask what kind of mess. I just hope my dear, sweet, kind husband will clean it up and let me go back to sleep.

I read murder mysteries -- John Lescroart is my favorite. I watch murder mysteries on television -- Midsomer Murders, which my husband refers to as the Gilligan's Island of cop shows. Mysteries use misdirection.

To make a good story, misdirection must be done properly. Like the picture at the top of this post. The misdirections must let the reader imagine several directions, gradually moving through the possibilities.

The best misdirections do not seem contrived. They don't flash like neon No Vacancy signs. They just offer a nod toward the husband as the killer. If the misdirection were too obvious, we Americans would be convinced it was a red herring.

(Having been raised on Oklahoma Prairie and now living at the foot of the Rocky Mountain foothills, I don't have a clue what a herring is -- red or otherwise. I do know it's a fish of some kind. Not a trout or a farm-raised catfish, both of which are tasty, tasty.)

Maybe I should write a murder mystery involving a husband who not only is the most obvious killer -- BUT who, in fact, done the dirty deed. Oooooh. Then the misdirections would have to be tasty, tasty. He'd be so aggrieved -- mostly. And solicitous of his poor, dead wife's family -- maybe a little too solicitous of his wife's younger, blonder sister.

"He's shredded paper," my husband declares, merely disapproving.

That's not so bad, I think.

Maybe this is the most devious misdirection of all. A possibility that it's not a crime. Maybe an accident. Suicide. I can relax a bit. Have some sympathy for the poor widower -- errrr, cat.

And then the mystery writer drops the hammer. Our hero is about to be bludgeoned in the dark, dank basement.

Did I leave one of those checks from the insurance company where Kocka could get it? Or is it the latest iteration of  my last short story. Have I backed that up? What changes had I made? God, I hope it's not really my "last" short story. Surely I can write more.

In the end, the solution to the mystery must be congruent with the general direction of the story. Nothing out of the blue.

"It's toilet paper," my husband says.

Toilet paper? But my husband is discussing a mess the cat made at the door into the hall. Our bathroom is all the way across the bedroom. Kocka is famous for unrolling the toilet paper beside the toilet, but how could he get toilet paper from the bathroom unrolled all the way to the hallway door?

I can't lay in bed any longer.

Indeed, my husband is standing over a mostly shredded, one-quarter-full roll of mangled, only slightly damp, toilet paper.

Oh, I see.

A couple of days before I'd discovered that same partial roll of toilet paper in the toilet in the main bathroom. No doubt knocked into the toilet by a certain long haired cat. I'd fished it out (the toilet paper not the cat) and dropped it into a plastic basin on the counter beside the sink, intending to return soon and dispose of it properly. (What is it they say about the road to hell?)

The main bathroom door is a scant two feet down the hall from our bedroom door. Figure maybe four more feet to where the basin in question -- now empty -- rested upside down on the floor. Kocka carries things in his mouth. (Maybe he was a dog in one of his last lives.)

No more misdirection. Mystery solved. In fact, two mysteries. We'd heard a muted crash in the night, my husband and I. We both said, "The cat." Rolled over and went back to sleep.

Manner of Death and Means of Murder

Lone Star Tick Image from
dailynewsdig.com

“Death by misadventure,” a phrase describing manner of death catches my ear and stimulates my imagination. “Unintended consequences” does too. Both spring from the concept of “accident” but imply some sort of human intent, though not necessarily “good” intent or “well considered” intent.

The idea of someone meriting a Darwin Award by bumbling into their own death does not make for a good murder mystery, in my opinion. However, if a third party bumbles into someone’s death while that third party is involved in some nefarious activity – now I’m interested. Or if the dead person colluded in the crime. Or some other crime.

If the dead person were an innocent, and the murderer a jealous lover or crooked business partner or a crazed serial killer, the story very well may not be a mystery at all, but a news story. And those stories can and do inspire murder mystery writers.

All murder mystery writers understand that the most dangerous animal in the woods is homo sapiens sapiens – modern humans. Naturally, the fact that most murder mystery readers are modern humans makes them inordinately interested in what their confreres do or have done to them.

As to “means of murder.”

Agatha Christie was particularly fond of poison. Check out the Agatha Christie section of Torre Abbey Gardens in her hometown of Torquey, England. (May have to add Torquey to my Bucket List.) John LesCroart’s The First Law uses guns – up to and including a major shoot-out. (Maybe I should put San Francisco on the Bucket List.) Nevada Barr in Ill Wind takes advantage of a geologic peculiarity. (Definitely should put Mesa Verde on the ole Bucket List. It’s a lot closer to my house.)

My husband’s education and a lot of his professional experience is in the field of Veterinary Medicine. He says “The most dangerous animal in the woods, after man, is the tick.” Just imagine a man with a tick.

What an intriguing thought. Ticks, as described in Wikipedia, will make your blood run cold and reach for the DEET. And that’s just reading about them.

They have eight legs like their arachnid relatives, spiders and mites. They meet all their nutritional needs by sucking blood. They can carry disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. Indeed, they can carry more than one pathogen at the same time making diagnosis and treatment more difficult.

In far southeast Arkansas, where we had a veterinary clinic, my husband provided blood samples from our patients with ehrlichiosis to Dr. Sidney Ewing at Oklahoma State University School of Veterinary Medicine. Ehrlichiosis is caused by members of the genus Ehrlichia, a genus of bacteria named for the German microbiologist Paul Ehrlich. One of those little beasties is Ehrlichia Ewingii, named for OSU's Dr. Ewing. (Rather a perverse honor, I think – having a disease causing agent named for you.)

Ehrlichiosis in dogs and humans has long been successfully treated with Doxycycline but some of our cases were proving to be drug resistant. And untreated or unsuccessfully treated, the disease is lethal.

The important thing in treating any tick-borne disease is beginning treatment immediately which requires early diagnosis or at least awareness that the sufferer has been exposed to a tick so treatment can be started. 

Just think, if the intended victim had not been in the woods – maybe did not even live in an area known to be a tick-bite risk area . . . .

The murderer could acquire the ticks elsewhere. Overnight by UPS then give the little buggers easy access to a blood source to keep them alive – say a mouse the murderer is not particularly fond of. And then access to the victim -- say in the hair behind the ear.

The local medics wouldn’t know to ask about recent tick bites or look for ehrlichia or promptly start proper treatment. Voila – Murder by Tick.

Atkinson's Case Histories -- Two Stars At Best

I listened to a review on NPR of Kate Atkinson’s newest novel, A God in Ruins. The glowing review described Atkinson as being capable of inspiring tears on one page and laughter on another. That is exactly the kind of writing I look for.

I’d never read Atkinson before, so I thought I’d give her a try. And when I found out she wrote murder mysteries, which I especially like, I decided to try the first of her Jackson Brodie series.

You know how disappointed you are when you eat meatloaf at a restaurant and it’s not as good as the meatloaf you make yourself at home? That’s how I felt about Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories.

When I started reading it, I realized I had seen it. On PBS’s Masterpiece Mysteries. And I enjoyed that production. I’m one of those people who say “the book’s better, but not in this case. The BBC production is much better. And not just because it’s set in Edinburgh instead of Cambridge.

Atkinson's skillful use of the English language is not enough to cover the mishmash plot.

Jackson Brodie, the main character has personal problems – a new divorce, a daughter he loves, and a wife he still doesn’t understand. He and his life are much more interesting than his Case Histories.

The construction of the novel was a bit disconcerting for me. The first case is the missing child case and its six significant characters. The second case is a seemingly random knifing of a fat lawyer’s daughter and his partner. In the third case Ms. Atkinson gives us a really great ax-murder. Each is presented as unrelated.

The only interesting constants are a crazy, old cat lady and Brodie’s sensible child.

The novel is predictable. And not just because I’d seen the TV production. The only real surprise was in the Michelle/Shirley story. And it was so out of left field as to be unbelievable.

Atkinson’s machinations to connect the stories are so obvious as to be irritating. And where we have been trained since Holmes and Christie that there are no coincidences, Atkinson makes such liberal use of them as to “gag a maggot” – to resurrect an admittedly disgusting phrase from my youth.

Immediately following the saccharine ending of Case Histories, I read John Lescroart’s Treasure Hunt. Lescroart does a yeoman job of giving us a mystery complete with a gathering of the suspects ala Agatha Christie. A gathering that had me holding my breath and laughing out loud.

He did indulge his writer-self following the exposure of the baddie. Which I enjoyed thoroughly. And, as always, he turned me on to other books I must read. In his Acknowledgements he names The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. Years ago I read that his character Abe Glitsky reads Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, the first of which is Master and Commander. I have enjoyed reading O’Brian ever since.

I have a tradition of reading at least two books by any one author before I strike them off my reading list. Which I will do with Ms. Atkinson, but no more of her mysteries for me. You don’t have to follow that tradition unless you’re just hard up for something to read. If that is the case, I’d recommend the BBC productions instead of the book and/or visiting your public library for an unlimited banquet of good books.

S is for Sci-Fi/Murder Mystery

My first novel, Murder on Ceres, is a Science Fiction/Murder Mystery. “Why couldn’t you tell the same story on Earth, present day,” asked my writing teacher, William Bernhardt. (Please don’t judge Bill by my writing prowess. He is a much better teacher than I am student.) He has a habit of asking me hard questions. And I have a habit of getting defensive before I think about the answers to those hard questions.

But I do think about them. And why write my murder mystery as science fiction? That answer is “Because.”

Because I like murder mysteries. I like them as puzzles. They are all puzzles. Some are more puzzle than anything else.

John Lescroat adds the enticement of characters I would like to know personally. His characters age and change and grow from one book to the next in his series. (Plural – I tried ‘serieses’ and Word didn’t like it so I looked it up. The plural of series is series, just like deer is deer.)

Some mystery writers take me places in a way that makes me feel like I’ve been there. I’ve seen Venice, Italy, through Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti’s eyes. And I’ve visited many of the National Parks while following Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon who is a Park Ranger and apparently gets transferred a lot. Luckily for us readers.

Diane Mott Davidson has the murder mystery puzzle plus identifiable characters plus good recipes. And I like to bake.

When I was deciding what kind of murder mystery I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to follow a set of characters as they grow and age. That I can do. I like the idea of an exotic setting. As much as I love Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, those are the only locations I’m familiar enough with to write about. None of them seem very exotic to me. And I didn’t write recipes. I have family members who will tell you that I don’t even follow recipes very well.

So the search was on. What else did I like to read? Of course there were literary writers like John Irving and Margaret Atwood. Now I may have illusions of grandeur on occasion, but that is just not gonna happen.

And because I love Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. I love their nonfiction even more than their fiction.

They inspire imagination. What will it be like to live off-planet, to emigrate from Earth to colonies scattered through the Solar System? How will humans be different? How the same? What will their everyday lives be like? Their problems? Their solutions? What will they call their washing machines?

These are subjects that could keep me interested enough, long enough to write a novel. And, in fact, these things are keeping me interested enough to get me well into my second novel. With concepts bubbling on the back burner for at least two more.

What I want to write are books I’d like to read. With my Sci-Fi/Murder Mystery crossover, I can develop my characters realistically in about as exotic a location as possible. And I believe readers will enjoy thinking about how things will be as much as I do.

Justice -- an essay

According to the American Heritage Dictionary the first definition of the word justice is “…fairness.” The second is “The principle of moral rightness; equity.” The third is “…fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.” And the fourth is “conformity with truth, fact, or sound reason.”

Fair? What if you hit Millie with your car and she dies? Completely by accident, you understand. You were driving within the speed limit. You were not impaired by drink or drugs or cell phone or rowdy children in the back seat. She stepped in front of you and you hadn’t time to stop. For the purposes of this essay we won’t even consider the question of fairness to Millie.

Because you were in no way at fault for Millie’s death, you have moral rightness on your side and equity would require that you be absolved of any responsibility for Millie’s death.

If Millie were Joe’s pet of ten years, morally all you would be required to do would be to apologize to Joe. You could also offer to pay a token amount to cover Joe’s loss or replace Millie. And maybe that would be due reward – especially if Joe had other pets he liked better or he had family and friends who would continue to provide companionship.

But what if the situation is more complex? Millie was Joe’s only friend in the world? Because Millie was not a human being, you will not be required to answer to the law for her death, nor will Joe have recourse to civil law. He cannot sue you for everything you’ve got. You receive fair treatment in accordance with honor, standards, or law. But he’s lost everything important to him. Will your apology and offer of money be due reward for Joe?  

Or what if Millie was Joe’s wife of fifty-two years? Or Joe’s mother and only support? Or Joe’s only child? Even if the law determines you were not at fault in any way. That it was truly an accident. Something beyond your control. It might take weeks or months. Can that be fair to you? Your life is on hold until the situation can be resolved. However it is resolved can the loss of Millie be fair to Joe?

Finally comes the question of conformity with truth, fact, or sound reason. The truth is that you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact is that Millie is dead and sound reason holds that nothing will change that. You can’t un-be at the moment of impact. Joe cannot un-lose Millie. Can there be justice?

Does this mean justice only happens in trivial cases? Or in our imaginations?

In murder mysteries we almost always find out who dunnit and we end the books assured that the perpetrator will be brought to justice. I think that’s what I like so much about John Lescroart’s novels. (That and the fact that they’re well-written.) And when the hero is involved in something that seems right but against the law, he gets safely out of it. But then we run into the Italian justice system as Donna Leon writes it and even though her indefatigable Commissario Guido Brunetti identifies the baddies they don’t get their comeuppance because of who they are or who their family is.

In what is considered literary fiction justice happens even less often. Steinbeck’s Goad family in The Grapes of Wrath finds no promised land. McCarthy’s cowboys in the Border Trilogy don’t find true love and live happily ever after. Unfortunately these injustices, as uncomfortable as they make us, seem more true to life.

Maybe justice is just a human construct to give us hope and keep us trying.

Editors! Who Needs 'em?

 

   I do. That's who. Everyone who writes for public consumption does. And we need editors for lots of reasons.

   This is a picture of a page from Murder on Ceres, my science fiction murder mystery. Please note all the red ink. That's from my editor. The green is mine.

   I use Spell Check, Google, The American Heritage Dictionary, and Microsoft's Synonyms. I read Isaac Asimov and John Lescroat. I watch Neil deGrasse Tyson and Masterpiece Mystery! on PBS. I am prepared to write (and rewrite) this book.

   Still my manuscript comes back from the editor with blood all over it.

   I read and watch lots of other things, all of which increase my vocabulary. A large vocabulary, unfortunately, does not guarantee clear communication. The picture above is an excellent example.

   In this scene my protagonist is verbally assaulted by his aunt as she takes him in to talk to his uncle. I wrote, "Unaware of his wife's broadside, Dmitri stood and extended his hand."

   My editor wrote in red,  "of her what? It sounds like you're talking about her butt."

   Obviously my editor was crazy. Where did she get THAT?

   Did I mention that I have a long history of reading naval war books?

   So, enter a twenty-something man. I read to him the passage as I had written it, assuming his reading background was sufficient to make familiar to him the term "broadside." And he blurted, "What did he do to her butt?"

   Definitely a laugh-out-loud moment.

   I think my choices are to change the word or send a copy of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander to all who buy my book with the requirement that they read it first so they will be properly prepared to read my book.



Celebrity Writers

Do you know who this is?

 

   He's a celebrity author. He is one of the "world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers" according to the publisher Simon and Schuster who's coming out with an anthology of stories from 23 thriller authors next year.

 

   Admittedly my sense of celebrity seems not to fit that of our general society. I have little interest in athletes or entertainers. Though I can admire the feats of a Michael Jordan or a Maggie Smith, I can't say that I would go out of my way to sit next to them at dinner. Though to be at table where they sat next to each other might be interesting.

 

   Celebrity writers, on the other hand, I would go out of my way to sit next to at dinner or at the same table or in the same hall. Wouldn't it be grand to listen to Ken Follett and hear him say in person that he did not sell his first novel nor indeed, his tenth? If he who has written so many good books and been so often published did not sell his first one then there is hope for me. And J.K. Rowling whose Harry Potter series was rejected by umpteen publishing houses before Scholastic picked it up, then my Rafael Sirocco series has a chance.

 

   Okay, for those two celebrities, it's more about me.

 

   Sometimes my admiration is for writers who have lived through and written about history that I'm interested in. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s novels are among the best in American fiction, but for me his celebrity status comes from his own life experiences. He was a World War II prisoner of war held in Dresden, Germany, during the Allies' bombing and subsequent firestorm there. Later, his work with PEN International to focus attention on the plight of writers being persecuted in their own countries.

 

   Maya Angelou is in this same category of celebrity writers because of whom she had known--from famous leaders in our country's civil rights movement to unknowns in that same struggle. I get a thrill every time I drive through Stamps, Arkansas, because I know she lived there as a child.

 

   Then there are some of my favorite authors--John Irving, Robert Jordan, John Lescroart (That's his photo, by the way.) Diane Mott Davidson, Donna Leon, Patrick O'Brien. These are the writers I come back to time and again. Not because they feel like celebrities to me. I'm not even particularly interested in meeting them. It's their characters that I would like to spend time with, talk to, or just admire in person.

 

   I would like to know:

 

   John Wheelwright, best friend to John Irving's Owen Meany, from A Prayer for Owen Meany my favorite novel. It's about growing up. It's about friendship. It's about living with disability and mortality.

 

    Egwene, the country girl who becomes the head of the greatest institution in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time world. She is only one of literally a world of characters with whom I would gladly spend time. Well, all except the truly scary villains and terrifying creatures. Those can stay on the pages of the book.

 

   Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky and their families from John Lescroart's San Francisco based crime novels. Beginning with the first of these novels we meet these people and follow them as they build their lives together. Maybe we could all meet at Lou the Greek's for lunch.

 

   Goldie Bear from Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mysteries. We follow Goldie and her best friend (who happens to share the same abusive ex-husband whom they both refer to as 'the jerk') and Goldie's son as they get involved in murder mystery after murder mystery. Goldie does meet and marry a Colorado, sheriff's detective named Schultz. Nice man. Nice country, since that's where I live. Goldie is a caterer so naturally there are recipes included, most of which I've tried in my own kitchen.

 

   Commissario Guido Brunetti from Donna Leon's murder mysteries set in Venice, Italy. This  policeman knows the vicissitudes of the Italian justice system but works to solve crimes and bring the bad guys to some kind of reckoning anyway. He loves and respects his wife. The stories don't always have an ending that satisfies my just-desserts sensibilities, but they feel real and I understand Brunetti's cynicism. Couldn't we have a great discussion about right and wrong?

 

   Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey from Master and Commander and the other books in this series that follow the British navalman through the Napoleonic wars. And let me just say Jack was hot in the books before the movie folk cast Russell Crowe to play him in the movie version. I might even flirt a bit.