Lea Wait's Blog, page 15

Meaning in Books by Matt Cost

I believe in writing and reading books that there must be more meat to the pages than just a diversion from our everyday lives. This is not to say that this is how every writer and reader should think. Books are a personal experience and should be treated as such. What tickles your fancy is what matters.

More meat to the pages can mean many things. In my viewpoint, I want to make a profound social statement or create a fascinating educational component that broadens my horizons. If I’m going to spend a year getting a book researched, written, edited, marketed, and promoted, then the thing is going to have to hold my interest.

In my own books, social commentary tinges many of my plots, characters, and settings. These have ranged from the fight for social and political equality in 1870s New Orleans, over to Cuba for the revolution led by Fidel Castro in the 1950s, and tothe radically charged events of the Covid epidemic.

 

My educational components (for me as well as you) include acquiring knowledge about topics as diverse as nuclear power plants, the Civil War, cults, powerful lobbyist groups, genome editing, and unidentified aerial phenomena, just to name a few.

This April, I have the first in a new series, this time more of a thriller, that delves into what I hope is a profound social statement. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed is a modern-day Robin Hood story where Max and his band of people fight for justice for those who have been wronged by the ultra-rich.

Max Creed is not taking aim at any one individual but is making a broader statement that the United States justice system has failed us regarding individuals and corporations worth billions of dollars. There are multiple levels of what justice means in this country. The poor have one set, people of color another, the billionaires are a law-free zone, and countless other niches in between all of these.

Don’t tell anybody, as I have not yet made it public knowledge, but I recently signed a new contract with Level Best Books for another three-book series. The first one is tentatively titled 1955: A Jazz Jones Mystery. It is set in the year of the title and takes on Civil Rights in Raleigh, North Carolina. This mixes educational components with strong social statements.

When a young Black man is hung, and his friend disappears, the NACCP sends a representative to investigate. January Queen hires private investigator, Jazz Jones, to uncover the latent racism which has reared its ugly head in the wake of the recent Brown vs Board of Education ruling. This backlash against change, progress, inclusion, and equality is something that is important to understand then, as it affects now.

At some point in my evolution of understanding history, I realized that history could be fun. As a 7th and 8th grade social studies teacher, I always tried to find that balance between educational and entertaining. Nobody wants to chew their way through countless dates and events that have no flesh to them.

I hope that readers will find these two new series of mine to be informative, worth contemplation, and entertaining.

What say you, readers of this blog. How do you like your books served?

About the author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. And finally, there are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. They have been replaced in the home with four dogs. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.

A Sense of Place

Rob Kelley here, thinking about place detail in fiction. Dan Brown, whose book The Da Vinci Code has inspired numerous Paris tours, also changes several physical details about The Louvre to serve his plot (adding a window in the bathroom from which to escape the police, for example), and some readers have fussed over it.

But why do we care?

I was chatting with a reader recently about the city of Boston in fiction and how as a resident of Boston and its suburbs, details about the city really hit home with her. I think there are two versions of settings that really grab readers. The first is the fantastic and/or exotic. In Arkady Martine’s Hugo award winning A Memory Called Empire we see the imperial planet of Teixcalaan, the “Jewel of the World,” through the eyes of a new ambassador. All of its glory is overwhelming to the protagonist, who must navigate political intrigue in a world she does not know. One of the top contenders for my absolute favorite novel of all time, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, uses Marco Polo as a narrator to describe to Kublai Khan cities he has seen in his travels, each more fantastic than the rest, in what almost feels like an explorer’s version of A Thousand and One Nights. Or Jules Verne’s novels such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, which stretch out the last golden years of exploration.  But by we’ve now visited all the lands of the earth, so we look to the oceans and space for more new and fascinating places to set our stories.

The second version, the one that I’m more interested in as an author, are novels set in actual places in specific times (though, yes, I have an SF story outline set in space that I’ve been fooling around with for years. Maybe more on that in another post!). My first two novels are set in Cambridge and Boston. The first is set in Boston in 1990, the second in the present day. Raven (High Frequency Press, 2025), the first novel, features long lost places in Cambridge: the Wursthaus, the Tasty, and the Manray (recently reopened at a new location after 20 years!). Obviously for me as an author, and for readers who know Cambridge and Boston, the nods to landmarks, especially those known to college and graduate students at Harvard and MIT at the time, will be fun reminders. But also relevant are the things not present. No Big Dig, just the old ugly Expressway blotting out daylight to parts of the North End for decades until it was brought down.

Robin Lubbock/WBUR

In my second novel, Critical State (High Frequency Press, 2026), we have the Boston of today, with surveillance cameras on power poles, “The Embrace” in the Boston Common, and the leaky beautiful/ugly Stata Center replacing the infamous World War 2 Building 20 between the time of my first and second book.

While there are writers currently working who do Boston just right–Dennis Lehane, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Joseph Finder, and many others–I think we all look back to Robert B. Parker, whose private eye Spenser wanders the city from the 1970’s to the 2000’s, observing Boston and its residents with a critical eye. One of the joys of reading his work is observing the evolution of our second favorite character after Spenser: Boston itself.

My third book remains in New England but comes closer to home. Set in the fictional town of Bedford, Maine, this story draws from many small Maine towns I know well, much as Stephen King’s Castle Rock or Tess Gerritsen’s Purity do. I confess, I find it more challenging to create a fictional place that seems real than to narrate a fictional narrative in a real place, making something fictional familiar.

What are some of your favorite locations in novels, places real or imagined?

 

Weekend Update: February 15-16, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Rob Kelley (Monday), Matt Cost (Tuesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Kate Flora (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers: On February 20, 2025, Vaughn C. Hardacker and several other Maine authors will appear after the Penobscot Theater Company’s 7:00 pm performance of Dial M For Murder at the Bangor Opera House (131 Main Street, Bangor, ME ). If you’d like to see a terrific play and meet a group of Maine Crime and Thriller writers, you can obtain tickets at https://www.penobscottheatre.org/…

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Practicing Gratitude

Last night, after a rushed dinner, I packed my eleven year old son into the car to drive him thirty minutes to batting practice. The weather was fine. The car seemed fine. And I packed an excellent book that I’d been looking forward to reading. But alas, February, which has always been the most honest and brutal of months, continued her own particular brand of torture.

One moment we were listening to the radio talking a little about the Odyssey, because no matter what people tell you, the kids are alright, and the next minute the check engine light turned on and what had once been my most reliable vehicle abandoned the title with a zest that was both sudden and terrifying. Unable to accelerate above 45 mph, which is not ideal on the highway, I managed to get off at exit 63 and pull into a gas station.

Things were not great.

The guy at the station confirmed this. “Things aren’t great,” he said. “But there’s a place a mile down the road that says it’s open for service. They might be able to help you out. I’ll call for you.”

But being February, there was no answer.

“I bet you can make it one mile,” the guy at the gas station said in a manner that wasn’t entirely convincing.

But, as fortune favors the bold, I proceeded onward. It was arguably the slowest, longest mile of my life, ending at what appeared to be a dimly lit private residence.

My boldness gave way to the good sense I was born with and sometimes exercise.

I kept driving and pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens.

“Can you get me a snack?” My son asked because he’s eleven and never not thinking about food.

“Sure,” I said because it was warmer in the store than in the car.  I called my husband and then roadside assistance while my son walked the tidy aisles, inspecting the Valentine’s Day cards and snack selection. I bought a chocolate box and we sat at a card decorating station and waited for my husband to collect us, listening to ’90s rock and the cashiers chat about the cost of rent.

When my husband arrived, we were ready to go.

By the time we got home, I was tired and little cranky and trying really hard not to think about how much a new engine might cost because, man oh man, sometimes it feels like no matter how careful we are, we will never get ahead.

And readers, therein lies madness.

And so last night when I laid in my bed waiting for Trish with roadside assistance to confirm that my car made it to my car guy, I thought about when I was little and staying at my grandma’s house. She’d come into the bedroom and turn off the light and crouch down and ask me what I was grateful for. I’d list off all the silly things, making the list as long as possible because it meant a few more minutes of being awake. And when I was done, she’d squeeze my hand and say, “I love you very much.”

So I guess this post is just to say I’m grateful for the extra time with my son and for the fact that I could drive the car off the highway safely and for my ability to keep a level head in a tense situation and to be kind to the people who were kind to me. I’m grateful for the Walgreens in Gray, which is way more delightful than the online reviews would lead you to believe. I’m grateful for my husband and my two boys and my dog and for my grandmother and for the cold and brutal honesty of February.

Updates

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My short story “Quick Turnaround” is out in the March/April Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. “The Cottage” is available in A Rock and Hard Place magazine.

You can catch me and a bunch of other crime writers at a Noir at the Bar in Swampscott, MA on 2/20.

A Different Outlook!

Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn Hardacker here: In my last post, I talked about my battle with motivation to write. There’s not a lot of change in that. However, the day after that post, I had the cataract removed from my left eye. I found the prospect of having my eyes operated on. I met with the ophthalmologist to discuss the procedure. I found myself studying his hands closely. Mentally, I asked myself some questions: (1) Does he have Parkinson’s? (2) What if halfway through the procedure, he sneezes?

The second question brought to mind memories of my first surgery. After I left active duty (Marines never get out of the Corps- we go into a state we call “no longer on active duty.”), I joined the National Guard. When I had been in for a year, the commanding officer asked me if I wanted to become an officer. My highest rank in the Corps was sergeant (my officer-in-charge in Vietnam asked me the same thing … at that time, I deferred, saying I planned to go to college,) and the thought of becoming an officer (in the military Offers are considered to be gentlemen and ladies. It was my experience that many of them are neither. Enlisted men and women are rabble.) was enticing.

The first requirement was that I undergo a physical at Loring Air Force Base (anyone who has ever taken a draft or military physical will tell you how inhuman they can be–usually, they are done in a large, cold room, and there are twenty or more men there at the same time. During the exam, you are told to drop your boxer shorts, bend over, and spread your cheeks (I will never forget the guy who pulled his facial cheeks during our draft physical.). To this day, I have no idea what they were looking for. The result of the physical was that I did not pass due to a funny chest x-ray. I spent five weeks in the Togus VA Hospital, where they ran various tests. They did a tuberculosis tine test, to which I did not react. I sat on a stationary bike and pedaled my butt off while I inhaled through my nose and exhaled into a mouthpiece. After some time, I noticed something appear on my right.

I had blown up a weather balloon! Still nothing. Finally, they opted to do a right chest biopsy. After which, I spent a wonderful five days in the ICU (the first three of them, all I recall was waking up and asking for a pain killer–they later told me it was morphine, and after three days, I was taken off before I became addicted). I had a tube coming out of my back that terminated into a bottle on a unique caddy on wheels. I was told that I needed to walk, and I did so by pulling the bottle behind me. I called it walking my dog. Finally, the doctor came in and asked if I wanted to see what he did to me. I said, “Yes.” He got a couple of mirrors and handed one to me. Then he opened my Johnny and used the second mirror to show me the foot-long scar on my back. I was shocked and asked, “How much did you take out of me?” His reply was, “Not much. Just enough to get enough to study on a microscope slide. My reply was, “What happened? You start cutting and sneeze?” He laughed and said to get at your lungs, we go through the back rather than cut through your pectoral muscles.” It turned out that they found TB.

The strangest thing about the cataract operation is that the anesthesia is only used so they can put the eye to sleep. During the last five minutes of the surgery, I conversed with the anesthesiologist and doctor.

During the operation and my short stay in the hospital, they sent me home wearing an eye patch. When I got home, I lay down and fell asleep. Two hours later, my eye began tearing so much it was like a stream of water flowing down my cheek. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was a log in my eye … or so I thought. The next three hours were agony, and then the pain stopped (until I had to take four different drops in that eye every hour). Then Jane, my resident sadist, reminded me I was getting the right eye done the following week.

The bottom line. Before the surgery, I needed glasses to see any distance and readers for reading. I still need readers for reading, but I have not worn glasses since. Between getting the left and right eye, if I closed the right, things looked brighter, and colors were more brilliant.

In closing, if you have cataracts, have them done! Other than the period where your eye waters and it feels like a spike has been driven into it, it’s worth it. You will, as my doctor said, get new eyes and an entirely different outlook.

P.S. If they offer to give you a pamphlet describing the procedure, DON’T READ IT! It scared me, especially when they talk about making a hole and removing the old lens.

P.P.S. On February 20, 2025, I and several other Maine authors will appear after the Penobscot Theater Company’s 7:00 pm performance of Dial M For Murder at the Bangor Opera House (131 Main Street, Bangor, ME ). If you’d like to see a terrific play and meet a group of Maine Crime and Thriller writers, you can obtain tickets at https://www.penobscottheatre.org/…

 

USING ALL CONTACTS FOR INSPIRATION

Writers never have to be “alone”.

During the final week of August, I was in Nashville Tennessee for the yearly Bouchercon Mystery Writers Conference.  Quite the line-up of excellent authors, including Brad Thor (Shadow of a Doubt, Dead Fall, Spymaster, Rising Tiger and more) being interviewed by David Morell (Rambo books and over twenty more novels). That interview was rather inspiring, how these men use all their contacts – friends of contacts – as well as cold calls, dinner party chats, and travel to locations to increase authenticity and more to provide the sense of “being there” for the readers.

I think of all the hard work we all do that stay UNDER the words and story. All the things that HELP build the authenticity of a tale, the plausibility of a tale.

7 DAYS, A DEE ROMMEL MYSTERY will be released in a week or so. (The publisher had set March 19 at the release date and the email yesterday said end of February. Of course this is great, but also annoying because I had sent emails and Instagrams and Facebook announcements with the other date – ahhh well.  The writer is always the last to know anything…)

But anyway – I am very excited. And looking back now at all the locations, research, chats, coffees, glasses of wine I had with people that were friends of friends, or that I cold-called to make sure the elements concerning the PLOT of 7 DAYS would be “authentic”.  Since the Dee Rommel Mysteries take place in Portland Maine, I do spend a lot of time walking or driving around to get a sense of location, neighborhoods and meeting places.  Places bodies can be found.

And then I make up some places to suit the story – but always try to keep the “Mainer” state of mind in play.  In 7 DAYS, I have imagined a CROAKE SPORTS PARK, that, to me, is so Maine.  Outdoorsy sports, hiking trails, vistas, un-farmed, unpolluted land next door to farms that have not been so lucky.

This Dee Rommel book takes place in the winter – so that was fun to explore.

I also explored the narrow narrow streets in “old Portland” – streets that are still creaking with age and history. Where someone could hide and be unnoticed because there’s no ‘chic-ness’ there – the gentrification bulldozer has yet to find them.  That took up a good week of exploration, a lot of ideas/fun popped to mind.

 

I also got to “re-imagine” two of Portland Landmark eating/watering holes. I took elements of the “real places” but turned them on their head a bit –  making them settings where dire things happen. My philosophy about setting the story in a “real” place, and loving that place and wanting to share it with readers – is this:  If something “bad” happens there, use the facsimile.

Excited to see 7 DAYS on the shelves!  Oh yeah –  and the Dee Rommel Series is a CIBA finalist for best series of 2024.  And here’s one of the reviews that has come in for 7 DAYS:

An exquisitely multi-layered plot that comes together seamlessly to deliver a spinetingling and startling climax. If you’re missing Sue Grafton’s Alphabet series, you’ll want to read Jule Selbo’s Dee Rommel books—they’re as comforting as they are exciting!”—Holly West, author of the Mistress of Fortune mysteries and the Anthony Award-winning editor of Killin’ Time in San Diego

Weekend Update: February 8-9, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Jule Selbo (Monday), Joe Souza (Tuesday), Vaughn Hardacker (Thursday) and Gabi Stiteler (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

From Kathy Lynn Emerson: Good news! My collection of the complete short stories connected to my Face Down mysteries is now available in trade paperback and e-book formats. Lady Appleton’s World contains sixteen short stories set in the sixteenth century. This is the first time all of them have been published in one volume. It’s print-on-demand, so it won’t show up on brick-and-mortar bookstore shelves, but any bookseller or library can order a copy.

The ISBN for the paperback is 979-8-227-88201-1. It’s priced at $18.99 (the e-book is a bargain at $5.99).

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

You Will Know A New Freedom—-If you Ever Stop Coughing

 

John Clark at 5 on a Monday morning, relishing the first decent breaths in a week. I have a new chicken and egg postulate; which came first, the perils of age, or the increasing ferocity of respiratory ailments?

I’ve been at the mercy of a hellacious cold/flu for more than a week, spending more time horizontal than vertical and imagining myself as Sisyphus, only having substituted endless tissues for the boulder. If there’s a more frustrating sensation than persistent weakness, I do not wish to experience it. Sleep comes in short bursts like commuter trains through a station…Two hours here, three, there.

Creative ideas are as slippery as eels in olive oil, barely perceptible before sliding into another amnesiac coughing jag. Ribs ache, sinuses throb, food tastes like not much of anything.

Even reading is unsatisfying. I must have a dozen books I’ve begun to read since this began, but have only finished one. That alone, tells me how severe this malady is.

One ray of hope in all this is my beginning to write again after two + months where the tank was damn near empty. I decided that in order to have any hope of creativity, I needed to dive into something as dark and foul as our current political mess.

What I came up with is, for lack of a better description, a new adult post-apocalyptic dystopian road trip It has two main characters, both of whom have decided they need to have new names to match their completely different world.

Here’s the premise: A rolling EMP (electromagnetic pulse) hits (likely triggered by a huge solar flare) beginning in the far east, wiping out all electronics as it flows toward the US. The orange-haired fool reacts by pushing the red button, sending hundreds of nuclear missiles aloft where their circuitry is fried by the EMP, leaving them hovering in the outer atmosphere. They begin to fall, some detonating, others simply releasing radioactivity. The two survivors meet when he rescues her from a gang of cannibalistic thugs and have to figure out how to survive.

I’m averaging 1,000 words a day(16,000) as of the time I publish this) and enjoying the freedom of simply writing it for my own enjoyment. I’m channeling the lyrics from a classic Ricky Nelson song as I do so.

But it’s all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself.

When Do You Get Your Ideas?

It’s a classic question at author readings – where do you get your ideas?

A better question, I think is when do you get your ideas?  Where are you and what are you doing when your characters’ voices whisper in your ear, when a pedestrian passage takes poetic flight, when the plot twist reveals itself?

Sometimes these things happen to me when I’m in the shower.  Relaxed under a warm spray, I’m a creative genius.  I ought to find a waterproof whiteboard and mount it on the tiles, so I can jot down my thoughts in real time. Instead, I repeat the morning’s inspiration to myself until I’m dry and dressed and have pen in hand. Sometimes I can salvage at least part of it, but all too often, the idea dissipates like steam on the bathroom mirror.

Another regular writing meditation happens when I’m preparing a salad.

Not when I’m cooking generally, but as I wash lettuce, grate carrots, slice cukes and tomatoes. We love salad at our house—it’s on the menu pretty much every night—so my writer brain is poised when I pull the bowl off the top of the fridge and take a sharp knife in hand.

But the place I most often write in my head is at the beach.

That Diane and I regularly meander along the tide line may not come as a surprise to those of you who follow me on Facebook (soon to move over to BlueSky, a topic for another day) where I post photos most every week with the hashtags #Maine #SundayBeachWalks.

Winter and summer, spring and fall, a Maine beach is the perfect environment for me to hatch ideas, smooth plot wrinkles, and dream up fresh conflicts for my characters to navigate.

This winter I’m working on a couple of short stories and ruminating on a new novel, so there’s plenty to think about while we roam the sand on Sunday afternoons no matter the weather, watching sandpipers and scoters, listening to the rhythm of the surf.

My mind is there, yet not there, making room for the magic to happen.

When do you get your ideas?

Brenda Buchanan’s crime fiction reflects her experience as a journalist and lawyer. Her three-book Joe Gale mystery series—Quick Pivot, Cover Story and Truth Beat—feature a Maine newspaper reporter covering the crime and courts beat. Her short story, Means, Motive, and Opportunity, published in Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories, made the list of Other Distinguished Stories in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022.  You can find Brenda on the web at https://brendabuchananwrites.com

Perched on the Fence. Which Way Shall I Fall?

Kate Flora: Another February. I used to joke that I always went crazy in February. I think we’ve solved that by doing more traveling in January. But the early months of the year are often a time when I find myself rethinking this writing life. Almost as long as I’ve been published, I’ve obsessed about my success or lack of it. Struggled with envy toward writers I know and love who’ve had more of it. Anguished about whether to bother to go on, despite my love of storytelling. Wondered if it is fair to the books to put them out there in the world if I’m not willing to do all the promotion they deserve.

Well…it’s February again and I’m having the debate again. The general consensus among my peers is that we’re writers and so we can’t help ourselves. But among the voices are those who say they gave it up. It was too frustrating to keep doing the “buy my book” dance. Too discouraging to launch a book into the world and then not have it read. Too disheartening to not get publisher support and having to do it all on their own.

Right now, I’m on the fence. I’ve been cooking the story for the next Thea, and as series writers know, our characters are like family and we want to know what’s happening in their lives. I want to know what little Mason is like as he grows up. I want to know how Thea and Andre will find the necessary balance in their lives between work and family. I want to know whether they’ll stay in their dream house after all the bad things that have happened there.

Even as I’m imagining the plot for that book, I’m facing the dilemma of what to do with the four “books in the drawer” that are still unsold. Two dark police procedurals that are meant to be the first books in new series. The Darker the Night, a strong male detective tracking a serial killer, and Scarred, a strong female detective facing a mysterious killer who seems to be replicating the killings of her own siblings. A crazy book called Memorial Acts about two women dealing with losses in their lives that keep them from moving forward that I don’t know what to do with. And of course I’m still puttering around with the matchmaking dog book, Unleashed Love.

Like a lot of the writers I know, I don’t want to die and leave these poor books stuck in the drawer. As I’ve recently moved, according my physician friend, from young old to simply old, these are very real considerations. I expect that my beloved children, if faced with the chaos that is my office, will probably respond with a flame thrower unless I first embrace Swedish Death Cleaning.

So . . . February. The temperature hovers in the single digits. The walk is slippery and I’m mindful of my doctor’s concern about my crumbling old bones. Even a trip out to refill the bird feeder feels slightly dangerous as I perch with snowy feet on a small stool so I can reach it. Of course, I’m a writer, however conflicted I feel, and so I know I can convert those small fears, that feeling of accepting risk, into something my characters can use. So yes. In February I will dither and consider giving it all up so that I can loaf and read and maybe take up a new hobby. But in March, I will very likely sit down at the computer and type: Chapter One.

And a question: Is there someone out there who would like to be a beta reader? Let me know.