Lea Wait's Blog, page 29

CITY GONE ASKEW by Matt Cost

The second book in my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, City Gone Askew, is pubbing on Wednesday, July 31st. It is the book that my editor publisher calls my best yet in crime fiction. I believe that means her favorite book of mine is still Love in a Time of Hate. It is set in 1924 Brooklyn, Bushwick to be exact, and focuses on private investigator 8 Ballo. He ended up with this name due to his mother being certain he was going to be a girl to even her brood at four and four, so when he was born a boy, the name Margrit didn’t work. She wrote down the number 8 on the birth form, meaning to change it when her husband returned from being out to sea, but never did.When Theda Lazar Vogel hires Brooklyn PI 8 Ballo to prove her husband was murdered, he has no idea the can of worms that is about to opened. His investigation leads him into the heart of the Eugenics movement, twists in with the Ku Klux Klan, and finally melds together with the Nazi Party.8 guessed that she was about thirty, a very attractive thirty in a mysterious, sultry, sort of way. She wore a cloche hat with a brim that allowed her straight black hair to escape down one side of her face. Her lips were a dark red and her eyes brown.Theda Vogel hires 8 to investigate the mysterious death of her husband. A priceless ancient Aquila—the eagle Roman standard carried into battle 2,000 years ago, was stolen from Karl Vogel when he was killed. This heirloom had been protected by a secret German society through the years and had recently been displaced by the Great War.Vogel had also been on the board of directors at the Department of Genetics at the Carnegie Institute on Long Island. “The Capital? No, my good man, the offices of the Department of Genetics are just out Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor.“What is it that Herman Wall is an expert in?” 8 asked.“Some sort of notion that certain races of people are superior to others, just due to their genes,” Luciano said. “What was it that you called it, Meyer?”Lansky crossed one leg over another and cleared his throat. “Eugenics,” he said.How is Herman Wall connected to the death of Karl Vogel? “Thoroughbreds breeding with zebras has only one outcome,” Wall said. “The end of the civilized world.”And what is the Department of Genetics up to in Cold Harbor? Bettie Young didn’t want to go down to the free clinic and stand in line with a whole bunch of sick people, but the pain in her stomach wasn’t going away. She is a mother, a prostitute, and a singer.Can Bettie realize her dreams and overcome her poverty? “My name is Fletcher Henderson. My friends call me Smack. I hope you’ll do the same.”The case of the mysterious accident that claimed Vogel’s life leads 8 to a startling realization.“You think they’re still performing illegal sterilizations in the city?” 8 asked.Marty shrugged. Finished his sandwich. Stood up. “If they are, it’d be out to Damnation Island.” He turned and walked off.Was it all connected, 8 wondered?The death of Karl Vogel. The theft of the Aquila. Jack Johnson. The Reed-Johnson Immigration Act. The stalking of Asta. The sterilization of Bettie Young. His mind whirled, each of these things leaping forth to be replaced by another, as if underlined in bold on the page. Murder. The secret order of the Batavi. A Roman Legion Standard. Lucky Luciano. Herman Wall. Ronald Dankworth.Careening down the streets of 1924 Brooklyn, 8 Ballo and his trusted associates race to prevent the unification of three incredibly powerful hate groups that would change the course of history if not stopped.

 

Bio for Matt Cost

Over the years, Cost has owned a video store, a mystery bookstore, and a gym. He has also taught history and coached just about every sport imaginable.

During those years, since age eight actually, the true passion has been writing. “I Am Cuba: Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution” (Encircle Publications, March, 2020) was his first traditionally published novel.

Cost has also written five books in the Mainely Mystery series starting with “Mainely Power” and five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series starting with “Wolfe Trap”.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.

Questions, and a Big One

I’ve been facilitating a discussion course at the local Senior College this summer, using one of the Best American Essays anthologies as a text. One of the more interesting essays, by the novelist Sigrid Nunez, considers the questions readers ask writers and the ones writers ask themselves.

The readers’ questions will be familiar to anyone who’s ever attended a reading or other writer’s event:

Why do you write?Where do your ideas come from”How do you create characters?Is your travel for research really tax deductible?

Nunez goes on to repeat the complaints writers make about how difficult the work is.

Red Smith—“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down and open a vein.”Georges Simenon—“Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness.”

I’m happy to think writing is mostly a pleasure and a way of breathing, but I won’t contradict my betters.

Nothing else in the essay tickled my interest, until she got to this question: Why do writers do this? Why do they write?

One of the standard answers is that writing is an obsession, a vocation, something a writer cannot not do. Or it is a personal attempt to understand what we know or think. Some writers write strictly to entertain.

But beyond the why, how do we justify spending our time inventing stories and people when we might use that time for something more directly useful to the world? (Not to mention something that pays better.)

In the political, cultural, and historical maelstrom we live in, do we need to do something more than entertain others and ourselves? The immediate political fracas, the climate crisis, the long-term effects of living in a world where factions struggle for power for its own sake are enough to send anyone screaming into the woods.

Are we, as fiction writers at least, hiding in the forest? Who doesn’t want to help, contribute somehow?

Nunez quotes Orhan Pamuk’s statement that that all novels are political, because writers show passion and sympathy for their characters’ situations. With our compassion, we see through others’ eyes and identifying with “the other” is a political stance. It’s a hopeful idea, but one I find unhelpful.

Is our function only giving our readers entertainment, then? That’s thin soup for someone who wants a writing life with meaning.

The comfort I took from Nunez’s piece was an offhand comment she makes toward the end. In essence, she says that everyone has the work they must do. For writers, writing is that work. We write because we must, not only because we want to. But I still think we want more.

In 2004, I was a Fellow at a writer’s gathering in Enterprise, Oregon, hard by the Idaho border. I’d won the fellowship on the basis of a story I published about an old dying woman in a wheelchair who decides not to kill herself because she is so curious about what comes next. One of the authors at the gathering, a man I admired, told me my story helped him understand the fierceness of his mother as she edged toward he own death. That, my friends, was more than enough reason for me to have written it.

Maybe how we judge the worth of what we do is whether we live up to the words of Czeslaw Milosz, who asks only that a piece of writing be “of use to at least one person in his struggle with himself and the world.” We have our work, we do our work, and we hope for the best.

Old Scenes, New Places

First an announcement, and maybe a drumroll. No Return, the first in the Maine Lodge series is finished. I’m not going to lie. Writing this book has been an eighteen-month slog. There were times it felt as long as a Maine winter, with no possibility of spring in sight.

Why did I keep at it? It’s hard to explain. The first third of the first draft flowed. Characters and settings required research, but the story had a clear trajectory and the characters fell in with my plans. All good, right? No. My characters had their own stories to tell, and they were different to the one I thought I knew. As the middle third of the story unfolded, the characters staged a coup. They won, and it meant a return to that formerly fast flowing first third. Trust developed over time, as we all learned more about each other. At the end of eighteen months, the story was done, edited, and ready for beta readers. As I write this, I’m waiting for their comments.

Photo from Maine.gov

So, what’s next? It’s summer in Maine. The horse flies are in full flight, but the black flies have abated. My plan was to take a month and do some exploration. Hike the Allagash and find the ghost train. See if it works as the setting for a future Maine Lodge book. Enjoy the riotous peony bloom, harvest this year’s vegetable crop, and read all the books I’ve squirreled away on my Kindle. Too late. The three-day rain took out the peonies, and this year’s veggie crop is on track to rival last year’s. Finding the ghost train is on the list, but that won’t fill a summer.

Plans to write a short story had been on my agenda for the past six months. An attempt to scratch that itch led me to my ideas journal. Story snippets fill the pages, some more cryptic than others, and since it’s handwritten, some I cannot decipher. One stood out. An idea for the fourth book of the Hayden Kent series.

Scan of a Scan, Marathon, FL

When I wrote Death Dive, the third of the series, it was intended as the final book. The original story arc was complete. Turns out the characters weren’t finished with me. They had at least one more story to tell, and it’s titled Death by Deception. Returning to Marathon in the Florida Keys is like coming home. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed this setting and these characters. The story ideas are flowing. Diving will be involved, and all is well in my fictional world.

Funny thing. Now that I’m immersed in a Florida story, I can feel Sassy Romano, the proprietor of the Maine Lodge, tapping me on the shoulder. I wonder what adventures she’s cooking up.

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Sisters in Crime New England. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter.

Weekend Update: July 20-21, 2024

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kait Carson (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday), Matt Cost (Thursday) and Charlene D’Avanzo (Friday).

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

 Matt Cost will be signing books at the Topsham Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop today (Saturday) from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. On Sunday he will be doing a COST TALK at the Dr. Shaw Memorial Library in Mt. Vernon at 3:00 p.m.

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

Wildlife. Real. Magical. Maybe …. Both

Sandra Neily here:

In my “Mystery In Maine” series, I had my narrator say this, but I think it might apply to me as well.

“Up close with wildlife of all sizes and attitudes, I liked to create conversations that took me some place I needed to go. Sometimes the effort saved me from trouble. Sometimes it got me into trouble.”  

Recently, I met with a book group who’d read my first novel, “Deadly Trespass.” The opportunity to talk intimately with people who now had relationships with my characters and the book’s contents, was exhilarating. I came home and made a list of what they liked, so I could make sure their enthusiasm got transferred and infused … in detail … with my current writing.

One woman said she very much liked the narrator’s imaginary conversations with animals … the “magical realism” of them.

Wow. Didn’t think I was doing magical realism. I only offer up animal conversations occasionally and they are short and used to reveal character, move the plot, or add to the drama of a situation.

I think most of us have conversations with animals. Often, it’s just us speaking, but sometimes we imaginatively supply their possible replies. I think when this happens, the moment is magically real.

So I thought about some special animal moments I’ve experienced and have decided they were prepping me for my author foray into magical wildlife realism.

For sure. Bigger than a kayak!

In a Florida island state park, I was kayaking with another Maine woman in a sheltered cove. All off a sudden the manatees we’d quietly been watching, started bumping into us, threatening to capsize us. Not intentionally though. “We’re mating. Go away,” seemed the clear message. “OK,” I said. “Leaving now.” And we did.

Yup. Larger than a budget rental car.

Once, on a trip to visit a Wyoming environmental education program, staff warned me to allow time and space for any cranky male I might find in the parking lot. Buffalo are really huge I thought, as one loitered near my smaller rental car. Huge. It pawed the dirt into dust and flicked its tail in a clear message. “Buzz off. Now.” I thought I was giving him lots of space but apparently not. I sent another, “Leaving now,” message and back away. “Not far enough,” my imagination had him say as he turned to face me. “Right. Going far away now,” I said out loud.

In retrospect, these moments (and others) seemed about animals claiming some space or attention in ways I needed to respect. They were teachable moments. Somehow this awareness has migrated to my mysteries.

***********

Here are some magical realism excerpts.

In “Deadly Trespass” Patton meets a wolf when she’s sleeping with her dog, Pock and then later, an angry mother partridge.

I was tempted to squeeze my eyes shut—not look at the bad headed my way—but nothing felt wrong with our lying on the ground separated by a sliver of mosquito netting.

He cocked his head. Where is the man that leaves us meat?

I exhaled. He escaped before he could be caught and caged. Why did you leave the pack?

To follow something humming in my blood.

Stray too far from this land and you will be hunted.

I am hunting now. Is the animal I smell near you available for food?

Pock whimpered in his sleep. With a silent snarl the wolf found its feet, hunched, and froze. All my pores pricked open with sweat. A scrap of nylon tent was nothing.

In the rearview mirror I saw the mother partridge charge my taillights. You driving to a fire?

You trying to reduce the size of your family?

You couldn’t know how good a roll in dust feels.

Is that an invitation? Cause it sounds better than what I’m up to right now.

I saw her hop off the road to find her family as Ian thumped his computer onto his lap.

“You won’t find a signal,” I said.

 

*********

In “Deadly Turn,” Patton must deal with an illegally-raised eagle and later on, a pine marten as she searches for her dog.

My dog lay wagging in front of a portable dog crate I’d last seen stored in my barn. In its dark interior, one huge, yellow eagle eye found me. Where’s my boy?

This pic was my screen saver. It said, “Get your butt in the chair and just do this.” Hahaha

I knelt before the cage. Causing trouble, but maybe not as much as you’ll cause.

Teddy swiveled his head from side to side, catching filtered light from overhead leaves. I was inches from him.  Holy cow. Your eye’s almost the largest part of your head.

He blinked. We have eyes and brains almost the same size. You should be so lucky.

Well, we’re going to need all the brain power we can find to figure out your future. You can’t stay with the boy.

I’m hungry. The boy lets me catch food.

I saw that. Nicely done.

Teddy thumped his wings against the cage’s sides and beat his beak on the front bars. Let me out.

I pulled Pock away from the cage. Sorry. Can’t do that, but I’ll see if I can find your boy.

He’s your boy too.

 

Claws scratched bark in my direction, and inches from my face, a small brown face popped up over a log. The pine marten and I were eye to eye. It sniffed and showed me sharp weasel teeth, scolding me with barks that sounded like quick, wet kisses.

Up close with wildlife of all sizes and attitudes, I liked to create conversations that took me some place I needed to go. Sometimes the effort saved me from trouble. Sometimes it got me into trouble. I smiled at the marten. Seen a black dog pass by here?

It snarled back at me. What’s a dog?

Like a coyote but not as smart. He had something shiny flopping around his neck.

A trap? Was it a trap? Are you a killer?

Killer? No. He’s . . . he’s . . . family. I wouldn’t hurt him.

The pine marten cocked its head and rose on its hind legs, huffing angry air at me. You’re all killers.

******

And in “Deadly Harvest” (my next), Patton and her dog Pock are trying to spend the night up in a large tree stand when they meet competition.

 I played my headlight onto the floor and saw a pile of scat. Someone had scratched a few dried leaves over it, but the black tube-like feces looked like someone had already claimed the tree. I looked up and found eyes.

The lynx snarled and settled itself on a wide limb, a leg dangling over each side. I saw you. You followed me today. On the snow. You follow me here?

           No. Finding you was an accident. Honest. I just wanted to spend the night up here.

           So do I.

          Well, we can share.

The lynx stared at Pock and, without opening her mouth, growled low in her throat. Not likely.

********

So please feel free talk honestly to animals and maybe, they will, in a magic but real way …talk back.

Sandy’s debut novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” was published in 2021. Her third “Deadly” is due out in 2024. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cemetery Watchman

Vaughn C. Hardacker

As commandant of the Meo Bosse Detachment 1414 Marine Corps League, I received a request from a friend for a Marine Corps presence at her husband’s funeral on Saturday, July 13, 2024. She asked if we could be present at the interment at the cemetery. My reply was that we would not only attend but also provide an honor guard, present a flag, and perform a rifle salute. Her husband was a member of our detachment and, after six years of service with the USMC, served over twenty years with the Maine State Police. She told me that the Maine State Police were also having a flag ceremony and presenting one to her. She said, “If you can also give one, I will pass them on—one to each of my two sons.

The ceremony went off like clockwork.

There are many ways to describe the Armed Forces of The United States. At a recent VFW meeting another veteran told me what the differences between them are: “The Army and Navy are services; the Air Force is a corporation; but, you Marines are a cult.” I replied, “You’re right … and we’re damned proud of it.”

Sgt. Vaughn C. Hardacker, USMC, Iwakuni, Japan 1973

I returned home from the funeral and received the email below. After reading it I knew I had to share this … it actually should apply to all veterans. (Don’t be surprised if I share it again on November 11–AKA Veterans’ Day.)

 

 

 

 

 

Emblem of The United States Marine Corps

I received this from a fellow Marine Brother and have no recourse but to share it.

  “Cemetery Watchman” 

My friend Kevin and I volunteer at a National cemetery in Oklahoma, and we put in a few days a month in a ‘slightly larger’ uniform. Today had been a long, long day, and I just wanted to get the day over with and go down to Smokey’s for a cold one. Sneaking a look at my watch, I saw the time: 16:55. Five minutes to go before the cemetery gates are closed for the day.

Full dress was hot in the August sun. Oklahoma summertime was as bad as ever, with heat and humidity at the same level—both too high.

I saw the car pull into the drive, ’69 or ’70 model Cadillac Deville, looked factory-new. It pulled into the parking lot at a snail’s pace. An old woman got out so slow I thought she was paralyzed; she had a cane and a sheaf of flowers–about 4 or 5 bunches as best I could tell.

I couldn’t help myself. The thought came unwanted, and left a slightly bitter taste: ‘She’s going to spend an hour, and for this old soldier, my hip hurts like hell and I’m ready to get out of here right now!’ But for this day, my duty was to assist anyone coming in.

Kevin would lock the ‘In’ gate and if I could hurry the old lady along, we might make it to Smokey’s in time.

I broke post attention. My hip made gritty noises when I took the first step and the pain went up a notch. I must have made a real military sight: middle-aged man with a small pot gut and half a limp, in marine full-dress uniform, which had lost its razor crease about thirty minutes after I began the watch at the cemetery.

I stopped in front of her, halfway up the walk. She looked up at me with an old woman’s squint.

‘Ma’am, may I assist you in any way?

She took long enough to answer.

‘Yes, son. Can you carry these flowers? I seem to be moving a tad slow these days.

‘My pleasure, ma’am.’ (Well, it wasn’t too much of a lie.)

She looked again. ‘Marine, where were you stationed?

‘Vietnam, ma’am Ground-pounder ’69 to’71’

She looked at me closer. ‘Wounded in action, I see. Well done, Marine. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

I lied a little bigger: ‘No hurry, ma’am.’

She smiled and winked at me. ‘Son, I’m 85-years-old and I can tell a lie from a long way off. Let’s get this done. Might be the last time I can do this. My name’s Joanne Wieserman, and I’ve a few Marines I’d like to see one more time.’

‘Yes, ma ‘am. At your service.’

She headed for the World War I section, stopping at a stone. She picked one of the flower bunches out of my arm and laid it on top of the stone.

She murmured something I couldn’t quite make out.The name on the marble wasDonald S. Davidson, USMC: France 1918.

She turned away and made a straight line for the World War II section, stopping at one stone I saw a tear slowly tracking its way down her cheek.

She put a bunch on a stone; the name wasStephen X. Davidson, USMC, 1943.

She went up the row a ways and laid another bunch on a stone,Stanley J.  Wieserman, USMC, 1944.

She paused for a second and more tears flowed. ‘Two more, son, and we’ll be done’

I almost didn’t say anything, but, ‘Yes, ma’am. Take your time.’

She looked confused. ‘Where’s the Vietnam section, son? I seem to have lost my way.’

I pointed with my chin. ‘That way, ma’am.’

Oh!’ she chuckled quietly. ‘Son, me and old age just aren’t too friendly.

She headed down the walk I’d pointed at. She stopped at a couple of stones before she found the ones she wanted. She placed a bunch onLarry Wieserman, USMC, 1968, and the last on Darrel Wieserman, USMC, 1970.

She stood there and murmured a few words I couldn’t make out and more tears flowed.

‘OK, son, I’m finished. Get me back to my car and you can go home.’

‘Yes, ma’am. If I may ask, were those your kinfolk?’

She paused. ‘Yes,Donald Davidson was my father, Stephen was my uncle, Stanley was my husband, Larry andDarrel were our sons. All killed in action, all Marines.’

She stopped! Whether she had finished, or couldn’t finish, I don’t know.

She made her way to her car, slowly and painfully. I waited for a polite distance to come between us and then double-timed it over to Kevin, waiting by the car.

‘Get to the ‘Out’ gate quick. I have something I’ve got to do.’

Kevin started to say something but saw the look I gave him. He broke the rules to get us down the service road fast. We beat her. She hadn’t made it around the rotunda yet.

‘Kevin, stand at attention next to the gatepost. Follow my lead.

‘I humped it across the drive to the other post.

When the Cadillac came puttering around from the hedges and began the short straight traverse to the gate, I called in my best gunny’s voice: ‘Tehen Hut!   Present  arms!’

I have to hand it to Kevin; he never blinked an eye–full dress attention and a salute that would make his DI proud.

She drove through that gate with two old worn-out soldiers giving her a send-off she deserved, for service rendered to her country, and for knowing duty, honor and sacrifice far beyond the realm of most.

I am not sure, but I think I saw a salute returned from that Cadillac.

Instead of ‘The End, ‘just think of ‘Taps.’

As a final thought on my part, let me share a favorite prayer: ‘Lord, keep our servicemen and women safe, whether they serve at home or overseas.

Hold them in your loving hands and protect them as they protect us.’

Let’s all keep those currently serving and those who have gone before in our thoughts  are the reason for the many freedoms we enjoy.

‘In God We Trust.’

Sorry about your monitor; it made mine blurry too!  If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under!

As I write this, I have the TV news reporting that an assassination attempt had been made on former President Trump. I don’t know what has happened to our culture. I grew up believing that everyone had a right to their own opinions and beliefs … a right that no longer seems to hold. We are being governed by politicians who no longer believe that they serve we the people. It seems to me that they only serve a few things. Among these are their interests and keeping their party in power (which they believe will keep them in their over-paid positions). The people in the above post died for us and our country. If they are looking down from above, they have to wonder what they sacrificed their lives for.

(I never thought I would ever say this.) I am glad I am approaching the end of my life,. I shudder at the thought that if things continue, I would not want to see what this country will be like when my thirty-year-old grandson is my age.

I will now retire to my mancave and reflect—make that mourn—for the days when the United States of America stood for open-minded communication, a discussion that was constructive and not vituperative. When differences were discussed, and while we may disagree, we could at least listen and accept the opinions of others when our elected officials worked for us, the people, rather than their own petty goals.

In closing, we need to wake up and ensure that all those who gave their lives for the American ideals did not do so in vain.

 

Soupçon

Kate Flora: I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately because of summer guests and that has sent me back to my old wooden recipe box. The trouble is that when I open it, I get stuck there. The box is a trip down memory lane. I can thumb through it and find not just food that I associate with special people and special occasions, but also familiar handwriting. There are even some small blue cards with my own early and awkward cursive. I’ve had the box since I was about eight, and over time, the cardboard dividers have disintegrated so that I have to thumb through the whole box whenever I want a recipe.

My mother used to type recipes to go in my box

The other day, I was prowling through the box, looking for something to cook, and found Judy Dickson’s black bean soup. I was carried through law school on a tide of Judy’s soup. Judy was a little older, had a decent apartment, and was nurturing. She was also a great cook. Our study group met at her place not just because it was pleasant but because we could always count on being fed. Food, it is said, is good for the brain, and mine was well nourished. I doubt that most lawyers associate law school with soup, but thirty years later, I still do.

Sadly, last year we lost Judy, and now making her soup will become a memorial act. Her soup and her stuffed cabbage known as the “heartburn special.”

Maybe it won’t make you smarter or turn you into a lawyer, but here’s Judy’s recipe:

Judy’s Black Bean Soup

1 c. dry black beans

¼ c. oil

1 c. chopped onion

1 c. chopped celery

2 cloves of garlic, crushed.

2/3 c. raw brown rice

5-6 c. stock

½ t. dry mustard

1/8 t. cayenne pepper

2 whole cloves

1-2 t. salt

1 bay leaf

Cook beans ‘til tender; drain and mash slightly. Save water for stock. Heat oil in a large pan sand sauté onion, celery, garlic and rice until veggies are soft. Stir in 1 c. stock & simmer while adding herbs & spices. Add rem. stock and beans. Simmer 1 hour or until rice is tender. You can mash some of the beans to make it thicker. Serve topped with plain yogurt.

Soup was then, and still is, a comfort food. So many people associate soup with comfort and nurturing that chicken soup is a universal remedy for disaster, distress, and the common cold. I even put chicken soup in one of my early mysteries. In Death in a Funhouse Mirror, Thea arrives to comfort her old college roommate whose mother has been murdered. Remembering how she was comforted with soup after her husband died, Thea brings supplies, and as soon as she’s through the door, she begins to cook a pot of soup. As she throws together a pan of blueberry muffins to go with the soup, detectives interview her about the dead woman, Helene Paris, and Helene’s family. Then everyone—Thea and Andre, the victim’s husband and daughter, the husband’s boyfriend, and the detectives, sit down to a most uncomfortable meal.

Fran’s Muffins

2 c. Bisquick

¼ c. sugar

1 c. sour cream

1 egg

1 c. Maine wild blueberries

Beat with a fork and add the fruit. Top with sugar & lemon peel & bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

There was a brief interlude between when I stopped practicing law and when I became totally immersed in writing in every free moment when I used to join some other neighborhood mothers for lovely ladies lunches. At one lunch on a fall day, we sat in someone’s bright kitchen and watched fall leaves drifting down beyond the floor to ceiling windows. It was cozy and companionable and represented one of the rare times when young mothers ever actually sat down. Along with a crisp green salad and some warm bread, this is what we ate:

Pumpkin Mushroom Soup

½ lb. mushrooms

½ c. chopped onion

butter or oil

2 T. flour

1 T. curry powder

3 c. chicken broth

1 can pumpkin

1 T. honey

dash of nutmeg. Salt and pepper

1 c. evaporated milk

Saute mushrooms and onion in butter or oil. Add flour and curry and stir. Gradually add broth. Add everything but milk and cook, stirring, for 10-15 minutes. Add milk and heat through without boiling. May top with sour cream or yogurt.

Everyone thinks that having the writer’s life must be ideal—all that flexibility and time to myself must leave me free for errands and reading and shopping and cooking—unlike the poor office slave. But the opposite is true. Since I’m my own boss and my office is just steps from the bedroom, I make myself work all the time. That means I’m as eager to embrace quick and dirty recipes that can be produced from the cupboard as anyone. My friend Nancy McJennett’s Mulligatawny Soup is a perfect one. I once made it to great acclaim when I returned from driving my son back to school up in New Hampshire and returned to find an extra eight unexpected guests for dinner. Here’s that recipe:

Mulligatawny Soup

I began to collect quick and dirty recipes when I started including them in my newsletter, “Yours in Crime, Kate Flora.” They were attributed to Thea and her busy lifestyle, but they fit mine, as well.

Great recipes are everywhere, and most cooks are happy to share them. One generous person was Cheryl Anzaldi, the librarian at a local voc-tech high school, who invited me to speak about my true crime book Finding Amy, to all of the freshman and sophomore English classes at the school. Speaking for six periods to literally hundreds of students is a grueling task, but the students at Tri-County were a wonderful group, and Cheryl was determined to everything she could to get them interested in books and reading. During our lunch break, we went to the café where the students who are learning culinary arts made us lunch, and we talked about food.

Cheryl loves to travel and loves to cook Italian food, and the second day I visited, she gave me this wonderful “kitchen sink” soup recipe from her Italian Family Cooking cookbook.

Minestrone

1 large head cabbage (2 lbs. preferably savoy)

3 T. olive oil

1 lb. very lean Italian sweet sausage, casing removed, crumbled

1 lg. yellow onion, finely chopped

1 can Italian plum tomatoes, juice included, coarsely chopped

1 T. salt

1 t. fresh ground black pepper

2 t. sugar

2 T. fresh minced basil or 2 t. dried basil

6 large carrots, diced

8 large celery ribs, diced

2 ½ quarts chicken broth

½ c. Arborio rice

1 20 oz. can kidney beans, drained

1 20 oz. can cannelloni beans, drained

freshly ground parmigiano or romano cheese for serving

Shred cabbage & set aside. In 8-quart stockpot, heat oil until haze forms. Add sausage, turn heat to low, and sauté just until it loses its pinkness, about 3 minutes. Add onion and sauté until soft. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, sugar and basil. Cook 15 minutes. Add cabbage and cook until limp. Add carrots and celery. Cook, stirring, another five minutes. Pour in broth and bring to boil. Then lower heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until vegetables are cooked, about 45 minutes. Stir in rice and cook over low heat 10 minutes. Stir in beans. Cook, covered, another five minutes. Remove from heat and let soup rest 2 hours. Skim fat from sausage if necessary. When ready to serve, reheat. Ladle into bowls and top with freshly grated cheese.

In An Educated Death, Thea is consulting at a private school during the holiday season. When the secretary bemoans the challenge of having to put together a holiday party, Thea starts reeling off suggestions.

Take half a pound of smoked trout or bluefish, toss it in a food processor with a package of cream cheese, some lemon juice and horseradish, and mix. Serve with crackers and sliced cucumbers. Next, a can of crabmeat, another package of cream cheese, a little lemon juice and a teaspoon or two of curry power, mix together and bake for about 25 minutes. Remember that people are always impressed by piles of food, so piles lots of shrimp on a bed of lettuce, hollow out a red pepper and fill it with cocktail sauce in the center, and serve. Likewise, arrange a package of baby carrots, snap peas, strips of red, orange, and yellow peppers on a platter, then hollow out a small red cabbage and a small green cabbage, fill one with ranch dressing, the other with honey mustard. And finally, separate endive into spears, fill the wide end with softened herb cheese, arrange like flower petals on a tray, and sprinkle with sprouts.

While Joe Burgess is usually too busy to cook, he does occasionally take over in the kitchen when Chris is tired. But he’s an even more “don’t use a recipe, just throw it all together” cook than I am, or Thea is.

I know what you’re thinking: Sorry, Kate, but it’s too hot to cook right now, except out on the grill. Still, if you have any quick and dirty recipes for the next Thea Kozak mystery, please share them in the comments.

Apparently I’m Guilty of Destroying Women’s History

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Yes, you read the title of this blog correctly. In the not-so-humble opinion of a woman who e-mailed me several months ago, by putting a copyright notice on A Who’s Who of Tudor Women (a collection of over 2300 mini-biographies of women who lived in England during the period from 1485 to 1603), I have exploited a loophole in copyright law and “taken action to own their personal information, replace it with interesting but fictionalized stories, and denying [sic] that others share and consider these events when doing their own research.”

Huh?

Point of clarification: My Who’s Who is nonfiction, the result of more than forty years of research. I have also written novels that use some of the women included in the Who’s Who as characters, but those are completely separate projects.

Anyway, the first e-mail from this person seemed relatively sane, although I didn’t quite understand what she was getting at. She wrote that she had created a Wikipedia page about one particular Tudor woman and had included, with attribution, material paraphrased from that woman’s entry on my TudorWomen.com webpage. That’s always been allowable under copyright law. By the time of this correspondence, however, the website was no longer extant, since I had to take it down in order to publish a Kindle edition of the material. It was obvious my correspondent didn’t bother to look for the webpage before contacting me. I should have taken that as a warning sign. Then she wrote:

  When you copyright old stuff, you ruin for everyone else.  There are people on Wikipedia who simply delete any information also cited from you as a result.  Now, women of the Tudor period can’t have their stories told in factual sense, because you copyrighted that information and it’s hidden in a ‘wayback’ archive soon to be lost to time.

Again—huh?

original (much shorter) version of the book, published in 1984

I replied, explaining that the material was now part of a published book and that it was perfectly legal to paraphrase small sections of the whole. You’d think that would be the end of it, wouldn’t you? But no. She answered a little more than an hour after I sent my reply, telling me that the subject in question’s personal history has been made as your own personal property.  The Wikipedia won’t allow it on their site.  Now, people who want to learn about Tudor women will not be able to.  They can learn about the men, but not the women, because the men’s world is well-established.  But as any paraphrase of your material, due to its brevity in your paragraphs, will seem a copyright violation, the world is now denied knowing about them. In a separate paragraph she added: Only you can fix this.  The world is at your mercy.

 I really should have stopped right there, but the former teacher in me really wanted to educate her on copyright law. I wrote back to say, in part: “I suggest you research copyright law. Your information (and possibly Wikipedia’s) is incorrect. The personal history of a historical figure cannot be copyrighted, only the text of a book published on the subject. Further, one of my mini-biographies is only a tiny part of the entire book and quoting or paraphrasing it is definitely allowed under the law. End of discussion.”

But, of course, it wasn’t.

She wrote back to say that copyright had granted me “exclusive ownership of the personal data of these Tudor women.” She then explained that Wikipedia is a large encyclopedia itself, many different contributors could quote or paraphrase portions of your book, which is a compilation of personal data without annotation or commentary (which as you say, is not copyrightable – however in this case, as a compilation it is).  So if all these different contributors quote you, it can become too much of a quotation and thus you could sue Wikipedia for plagiarism. That’s the loophole your copyright now exploits.

Uh-huh. So by that logic, no one can use material that’s in any encyclopedia, or the Dictionary of National Biography or the mini-bios of members of Parliament in the multi-volume History of Parliament—the last two sources being ones I used in compiling the Who’s Who.

She then helpfully included “the latest from Wikipedia” on the subject. “We need to have documentation that shows the copyright holders have given permission for the material to be copied to this website. Wikipedia has procedures in place for this purpose.”

At last the penny dropped. What Wikipedia wants is blanket permission to post content from my book. Any content. Even all content. That kind of defeats one of the purposes of publishing my book—to sell copies and make a couple of bucks. And here’s irony for you—the other reason I Indy published an e-book edition was to make the material readily available to researchers. My reasoning was that an e-book was likely to last longer than a webpage, and still be around after I’m no longer here.

I didn’t answer that last e-mail. It was obvious she wasn’t going to listen to common sense. But I was curious about her. Her e-mail address indicated she was a student at a New England college, but the only person there with her name was a PhD in the Department of Physics. Then I searched for her page at Wikipedia. It took a bit of effort to find, but what finally came up still included her paraphrase of my mini-bio.

Those discoveries relegated the correspondence to the “weird file.” If nothing else, its contents provide an endless supply of ideas for Maine Crime Writers blogs.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Weekend Update: July 13-14, 2024

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Maureen Milliken (Thursday) and Sandra Neily (Friday).

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

Maureen Milliken has events across Maine in the coming week.

On Thursday, July 18, she’ll join Kate Flora and Jule Selbo for a Making a Mystery panel hosted by Friends of Vinalhaven Library, 7 p.m. at the library, on the island of Vinalhaven.

On Friday, July 19, she’ll share a table with Kate Flora at the Bath Art Hop, 3-6 p.m. in downtown Bath.

And on Saturday, July 20, she’s the guest author at the Phillips Public Library Annual Readers, Writers & Runners 5K, their major annual fundraiser. No, she won’t be running. But she will speak about her Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea series, which is set in a fictional town very near Phillips. It’s at 11 a.m., and you don’t have to run in the race to listen to the author talk.

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

Yelling at the TV, Or How I Learned to Read and Watch Like an Author

Rob Kelley thinking about learning narrative structure. I’ll start with a clarification. I never (seldom) actually yell at the TV. But my wife, author Margot Anne Kelley, is extraordinarily tolerant of my habit of pressing pause while we are watching a thriller movie or police procedural TV show to see how far into it we are. Most of the time I’m confirming that the twist is, in fact, at the midpoint, 20 minutes into a 40 minute television show. But once in a while I’m surprised to see that an event that captures my imagination is at the 25% mark, or that a substantial climax is at 80% of the run time, with more revelations still to come.

It’s those surprises I’m looking for. As a thriller writer, I’m always wondering why a screenwriter or author makes the choices they do, and trying to learn from their narrative structure. Writers first learn craft from what they read. But writers who want to improve their craft have to ask why the writer of the text they are reading, or media they are consuming, made those choices. Seeing an example of a deftly handled situation, a thrilling scene, an unexpected twist, a deeply conflicted character, all provide examples that help me to solve particular narrative challenges.

One I pay special attention to is narrative time. As an author, particularly of a thriller or suspense novel, you want to be in control of the pacing of the action. You want the reader excited by fast-paced, explosive action, or anxious for the fate of the protagonist at the edge of a cliff. Matt Bell in his wonderful book on editing your novel, Refuse to Be Done, quotes Jim Shepard on the rate of revelation: “the sense we have of the pace at which we’re learning crucial emotional information about the stories’ central figures.”

A great example of this would be a striking set of scenes in Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes. Avoiding spoilers for those who have not read the book, late in the story, in anticipation of a disaster, King pauses narrative time and takes us into the POVs of several important characters. It is like a 360 degree view around a ticking time bomb, with some characters terrifyingly aware of the danger, some dangerously unaware. (Thereby fulfilling Hitchcock’s famous analysis of surprise vs. suspense. It’s surprise when a bomb goes off and the viewer experiences the danger in the same moment as the character, whereas it’s suspense when the viewer knows there’s a bomb under the table with a ticking timer but the characters do not.) As a reader, I flew through this section of King’s novel, my heart racing, fearful for all of the imperiled characters.

In writing a pivotal climactic scene for my forthcoming novel Raven (High Frequency Press, 2025), I adapted this strategy specifically. My protagonist is in danger, my antagonist has the upper hand, and the potential for disaster or salvation hangs in the balance over several simultaneous scenes. When the three POV characters and their actions collide, I want the reader to feel a sense of satisfaction after an extended period of heightened anticipation.

And while time and anticipation are paramount to the structure of a thriller, they are critical in all fiction. As I was writing this post, LitHub featured “Ayeşgül Savaş on creating your story’s clock”, a piece that was picked up the next day in the Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s Alliance newsletter The Peavey. (If you don’t yet, I highly recommend you subscribe to both!)

On occasion, I’ve been asked if analyzing an author’s strategies and execution ruins my enjoyment of reading. I can absolutely say it does not. It enhances it. (To be fair, early on, sometimes the distance between my prose and the prose I was reading bummed me out. For anyone who is in that situation, Ira Glass of This American Life, has an inspiring monologue for you.)

In this same vein, Francine Prose, in the encyclopedic Reading Like a Writer, has a chapter titled “Reading for Courage.” She speaks specifically about channeling the strength of writers who you respect, knowing that they inevitably went through the same doubts and fears to get to the book or movie or show that you are liking and admiring.

One of the great joys in reading a physical book is the heft of what’s behind and what’s ahead of you, more action, more revelation, more heartache or redemption. On TV, I have to pause to test my assumptions and see how far we are into a narrative. And while I try not to yell at the TV when some dumb narrative move happens, I am prepared to give Audible/Amazon a piece of my mind given the fact that you can’t easily see how far you are in an audiobook.

But I’ll save that rant for another day.