Lea Wait's Blog, page 314

The Tourists are Coming! The Tourists are Coming!

Well, and the summer people, too. Squads of them, cars and trailers and campers full, all of them with lobsters and blueberries on their minds and (let’s face it) money in their wallets. Not that we year-rounders are envious, or not much, anyway, and what few little green-eyed monsters we may harbor in our hearts are quickly banished by the benefits our visitors bring. Which brings me to:

Hello again from Sarah Graves (that’s me on the left, a couple of weeks ago), here with a few pictures from Eastport, Maine as well as a look at the top six reasons year-round Mainers love summer visitors:

1. Fashion Most of the time I feel pretty normal, but when I see a person dressed head to toe in new LL Bean gear, complete with deck shoes, water bottle, and fanny pack, I am reminded that a Wadsworth’s Hardware sweatshirt, jeans with the knees frayed out, a pink baseball cap, and sandals that I’ve worn both to church and to work in the garden — often on the same day — are not common daily garb in the major metropolitan areas many of our visitors call home. I may even imitate some of their choices. (But I draw the line at fanny packs.)

2. Food. It gets better when they’re here. From the grocery store, where garlic-studded ciabatta, bunches of fresh leeks, and barbecue-ready cuts of meat are suddenly available, to the summer-only lobster shacks where you can sit by the water eating lobster rolls and chowder until they have to carry you home, more customers means more choice, and oh, boy, do we ever enjoy it. (Also, it helps to fatten us up so we’ll be able to survive next winter’s six snow-shoveling.)

3. Fun. In winter when it’s so dark and cold,  it’s all we can do to complete the necessary tasks, like breathing in and breathing out. But when our visitors come, life wakes up! Concerts and plays, dance troupes and weekend festivals, boat races and bike rallies and fishing derbies and face-painting on the library lawn are going on all the time, not to mention the amusement we locals derive simply from observing the “people from away.” (Not that we are making fun of them, you understand. It’s just that when you have been looking at the same faces since last Labor Day, a set of features that did not spring from the gene pool of  a local family is as fascinating as if it belonged to a species that recently arrived here from Mars.)

4. Light. Especially in coastal towns, not only is the sky dark in winter but many of the houses are, too, because no one is in them from September to June. Add to that the habit many of our street lights have of fizzling out along about February and by three or so on a winter afternoon, you practically need night-vision goggles. But when our visitors arrive, the lights go on behind the curtains in little houses all over town, and on a summer evening the warm glow from an upstairs room where someone is reading in bed is about the most lightening thing I can imagine. (Curiously, the street lights go back on then, too, possibly because by mid-July they have thawed out.)

5. Perspective. No, not the painterly kind, though there’s plenty of that. What I mean is that when the visitors arrive, they bring their sense of wonder, which is a sense that many of us have had worn down to a nub by then. Maine is beautiful in winter, but it’s also difficult, dangerous, even cruel, its harsh loveliness coming at a cost — in fuel bills, in isolation, and in the compound fractures that can result when we try to escape that isolation by venturing out on foot across the ever-present ice. But then the summer people come, and in their shining eyes we see again what we knew all along, but had forgotten: that we are lucky, so lucky to be able to be here all the time. (Well, except not in January. Or February. And maybe a little of March.)

Most of all, though, the top reason we like it when the summer visitors return is –

6. Their own shining-example selves. Across the street, the stained-glass artist, bread maker, and keeper of exotic goldfish has come back. Half a block one way, the real no-kidding expert on Chinese art is about to return, and in the other direction the writer, quilter, and general enjoyer of life is opening up her summer home now, also. And all over town it’s the same: There’s a llama-keeper, numerous painters, poets and writers, a woman who cuts the most intricate silhouettes out of paper with sharp scissors, sculptors (wood, stone, cast iron) and a couple who have bought three houses one after the other, the houses in falling-down condition when they purchase them and bright, structurally-sound showpieces when they move on. Really, what better neighbors could we want? Our only complaint is that eventually, they go back to their winter homes. (Where it’s warm and pleasant in January. And in February and March.)

In short, our summer people  eat, drink, and make merry the whole season, packing in during their stay as much enjoyment of Maine and themselves as they possibly can — and that’s good for us, because by doing so they help remind us about the golden state of grace we live in all the time – one we find ourselves able to love even more when we follow their good example.

Except in January. And in February. And…well, you know.

Sennebec Hill Farm Memories: Part One

John Clark remembering today.

The original barn near the end of its days

Where you grow up defines many things, ones I suspect many folks don’t understand unless they’re put in a place where they have time to ruminate on them, or are forced to examine them by unusual circumstances. Some of what I remember about Sennebec Hill Farm comes from things my parents told me over the years, others are first-hand experiences, now viewed through the lens of 66 years on this planet. The more I write, the more I realize that my way of looking at the world has been greatly influenced by those collective experiences.

We moved to Union in 1948 when I was a year old. My father had a degree in horticulture from Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts. He and my mother worked in New Jersey, he at Revlon, she at Hoffman La Roche. They wanted to get away from the city. Mom had grown up in Old Forge, NY, my father in West New Portland, Maine. I’m unclear how they settled on the house overlooking Sennebec Lake, but I do remember Mom telling me that Dad wanted to set up a greenhouse and orchard. Unfortunately, my grandfather, who I suspect was somewhat of a tyrant, opined that he’s helped them buy a chicken farm and by God, my father was going to be a chicken farmer. There was a three story barn along with the house which had a sagging ell. Giant elm trees grew on the lawn and lined the field across the road. I remember being awed by their majestic spread and how we used to watch Baltimore Orioles nesting in the leafy canopies. One memory that recurs often, usually when I’m driving past a house near the White Oak Grange in Warren, is that Mom once pointed to a house near it and said we’d almost bought it instead of Sennebec Hill Farm. I’ve pondered who I might be and what my life would have been, had I grown up there instead. Who would I have married? Where would I have gone to college? What would I have done for work? Would I have become a writer?

Looking at the house in winter with some of the elms still reaching skyward.

Kate was born prematurely not long after we bought the farm. East Sennebec Road was pretty rural, but my parents began making friends that would last for a lifetime quite quickly. There was Norman and Mary Clark, he the family plumber, Sandy and Mary Helen Hardie, she of the Eastport Rae mustard clan, and Norman and Mary Smith. The Smiths and the Hardies were also poultry farmers like my parents. I remember Norman, an avid ham radio operator, talking on his shortwave radio, describing himself as a Feather Merchant. His son, Sandy, became one of my two best friends during my youth, a friendship that included double dating, marathon chess matches and an early fascination with horror movies and Frankenstein’s Country Jamboree. For those who never had a chance to view this show, it aired on one of the Bangor TV stations at midnight on Saturday from this furniture store in Milbridge. Anyone fool enough to get up in front of a TV camera and sing got the chance and we loved it for the suspense of which singer would be the worst of the week.

My other friend was Andy Payson whose father Curt was a lawyer in Rockland. When we were middle schoolers, Curt often worked at his office on Saturday mornings. He’d drop us off at Oakland Park, the candlepin bowling lanes on Rt. 1 in Rockport where we could bowl from 9-12 for a dollar. I never got good and often left with a swollen hand, but it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning when you were a kid. Just up the road on the opposite side from the bowling alley was the Rockport Drive-in. One of my early memories is of Kate and I standing in the back of our 1949 Dodge pick-up, listening to the soundtrack of A Night To Remember and straining (without much success) to see the movie because the fog was so thick. In later years, that place was a summer date staple, as were dances at the Rockland Community Center.

The geography of Sennebec Hill Farm plays a big part in my growing up as well as my writing. The farm had 189 cares. West of the road, we had a long stretch of shoreline on the lake, bordered by an old stone wall with big oak trees to the north and a gully with more oaks to the south. Most of that side of the road was hayfield and gardens, with a few old apple trees. Dad grafted a Wolf River branch on one of them and for years, we were amazed and delighted by the monster pie apples it produced. There was a Macintosh beside it, two sour cherry trees (I used to drive our Farmall Cub tractor underneath them and stand in the seat so I could pick the fruit), and two pear trees that still produce an abundant crop every year. During pear season, we learned to be careful when collecting fallen fruit because yellow jackets tended to gorge themselves on the fermented parts and pass out in the small cavities they created.

Another of our pear trees. The fruit from this one keeps for months.

We had a regular swimming spot with a nice sandy beach shaded by oak and birch trees. Beth and I were married there and my sister Sara and my father are buried under lilacs and a clump of birch trees off to one side. Most of Mom is in the lake. The path from the back door of the house goes down two hills before reaching the spot. It was always a race down and a slow walk back. Mom generally swam from late April until early October and had a cadre of swimming buddies right up to the day she had her stroke. South of the swimming area was a boat launch at the edge of what everyone called Katie Cove. I don’t know how it acquired the name, perhaps my sister does as it’s been associated with her for more than 50 years. One hard and fast family rule that continued long after we became adults, was that you raked leaf mulch (the ground up leaves that had fallen into the pond the previous fall) and filled one of the colorful egg pails lining the rocks above the sandy beach. After they dried, you ere expected to carry one back to the house. Mom mixed wood ashes with them to neutralize the acid and composted them in raised beds behind the house. By the time she died, I’m willing to bet that her garden had 18 inches of really soft, rich soil.

Looking down the hill where the path leads to the swimming hole.

Across the road were the barn, a two story hen house, built in the early 1950s, a blueberry field, an orchard Dad planted and lots of woods. There was a time when I knew pretty much every inch on that side of the property like the back of my hand. Dad took me hunting for the first time when I was nine and I was hooked. Times were pretty lean when we were in the poultry business and I made spending money shooting porcupines and collecting the bounty. You had to cut off the feet and present them to the town clerk in order to get your 50 cents for each one. I hunted all fall and winter, tossing the feet in a bag that occupied one side of the chest freezer. When spring came and I hauled them into town clerk Marion Alden’s kitchen, she was less than thrilled to see me, but that, along with collecting returnables from the roadside ditches (something I still do today), helped me have spending money until I started taking care of chickens for a neighbor and raking blueberries when I was thirteen.

The woods were my sanctuary. I wasn’t very good at socializing, feeling extremely self-conscious as a pre-teen, so disappearing into the woods was almost automatic when the weather permitted. I had places where I could go that nobody knew about, particularly the ledges on the hill across from the house. There were unique spots up there, a place we called the deer’s bedroom, a spot where I built a lean-to that overlooked the swamp, and certain pine trees where I could climb 40 feet into the canopy and feel the gentle movement as wind off the lake made the tree sway. I became fascinated by the sounds of wind through pine boughs, imagining it to be the voices of wood spirits. There’s one spot halfway up the hill on the other side of the swamp where our property line touches two other towns. You can sit in Hope and have your left foot in Union and the right one in Appleton.

Dad, me and Kate with an early squash harvest.

When Mom was active in the Methodist Church, we often had bunches of kids spend a Saturday afternoon on woodland treasure hunts. My parents blazed three not so obvious trails (red, blue and white) through the woods with a canister of buried treasure hidden near the last marker. These went on for several years and were extremely popular.

No childhood is complete without mysteries and discoveries. I remember several, starting with the Saturday in November when I was hunting on the woods road that went from the back of the orchard down to the swamp. I looked up and was astonished to see two large black creatures walk across the road. They were easily eight feet from nose to tip of tail and black as coal. I was so shocked I just stood there until they vanished. On New Years Day, we saw one of them playing in the orchard. I tried to make a plaster cast of the print, but failed. The distance between leaps, however was twelve feet. Despite what anyone said then or since, I’m convinced they were mountain lions. The other true mystery happened when we were on our way to church one Sunday and saw two UFOs hovering over a silo on the North Union Road. They might have been weather balloons, but It’s more fun to believe they were otherwise. Later, possibly that same year, I looked across the lake one night and saw lights streaking along the top of Appleton Ridge. They were just above ground level and moving way too fast for cars or trucks. I watched until they disappeared.

As for mysteries with solutions or natural adventures, Kate and I explored the farm a lot and one time, we dug some clay streaked with minerals from the gully at the back of the orchard. We were excited at the idea we might have discovered something valuable, so Mom took a sample and sent it to her former boss at Hoffman LaRoche who had his lab do an analysis and send us back a printed report. We hadn’t found anything particularly rare, but we were excited to be able to show our friends the report.

There was a cellar hole at the back of the adjoining property we called the Teal Place. I don’t remember how it got that name, but it was a great place to hunt partridge and harvest Concord grapes in early October. One day when Sandy Smith and I were exploring out there, I found the remains of a weather balloon that had a transmitter attached with an address where the finder was to mail it. In return, you received a report on where it was launched and what it noted while in flight. I got mine several weeks after mailing the part back to some place in Illinois and it was the highlight of one of our sciences classes.

Early collage of Mom, Kate and our late sister Sara.

Kate and I were also fascinated with ‘goldies’, the fat yellow-shelled clams that lived on the bottom of Katy Cove. It was our dream to find one with a freshwater pearl in it. I think we did finally find one small misshapen one. I used this bit of our personal history as the way Berek and his sister Kylin saved the family farm from foreclosure in my second Wizard of Simonton Pond book, Hither We Go.

There was little or no money in the poultry business, but we were stuck in it for years. Despite a string of hired men, I had certain chores associated with the egg side of things. For a long time, I was required to clean and grade five pails of eggs every night after my homework was completed. This involved taking each egg, examining it and using a small sandpaper pad that was held in my palm by an elastic band, to sand any hen poop off before it was set on a slight metal incline that was part of the mechanical egg grader. Each egg was sent along a rail and when it reached the slot where its weight tripped a lever, it rolled into a larger square area that was padded. Each size, peewee, small, medium, large, extra-large and jumbo were packed 2 ½ dozen in a molded cardboard flat and then stacked in a cardboard box that had the egg size checked off on the side. We had somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 laying hens at one point, with almost every one laying an egg a day. You can understand why I went four years after we got out of the poultry business unable to eat any eggs or chicken.

When a flock of hens reached a certain age, their production dropped to a point where they no longer earned their keep. When that happened, a crew from one of the processing plants in Belfast came at night when the hens were sleeping and set up a modified corral with a chute leading into it. The crew would chase the hens into the corral where they were packed into wooden crates and sent off to Belfast.

Once they were gone, one of the more odious parts of raising laying hens took place. All the manure which had built up while that particular flock was producing had to be broken up and removed. The upper floor wasn’t so difficult, at least it wasn’t when we located the removable squares in the floor. Someone Dad hired would back a dump truck under the hole and we’d start pushing giant clods of crap into the cargo area. It was a fact of life that rats would set up housekeeping under the manure and feed on grain and broken eggs. I remember one clean out when we had a rattathon and by the time we had the upper floor cleaned out, dead rats were lined two deep all across the large door that was the size of your basic garage entrance.

The Clark kids in front of one of the elms.

Once everything was cleaned, we fumigated to kill lice and any remaining rats. A day later, fresh shavings were blown in, spread and the next batch of baby chicks were delivered. We had to set up large six sided metal covers with gas burners near the top to keep the new chicks warm. If we got a new batch during the winter, my father lost a fair amount of sleep because he had to keep checking to make certain the gas burners stayed lit. I remember one hen house a couple miles down the road going up in flames because of a gas heater malfunction.

When I turned thirteen, I started taking care of chickens for a neighbor two houses down the road whose husband had dropped dead while grading eggs. That, along with raking blueberries, became my main source of spending money when I was a teenager. Berta Dirion, the widow I worked for, experienced a very unusual loss of several hundred chickens in the mid 1950s. It happened the first time a military jet broke the sound barrier over Knox County. The chickens panicked and piled up in one corner, smothering the unfortunates who were at the bottom of the pile. I think she was able to prove that her loss happened at the exact time others in the area reported getting scared to death by the sonic boom.

Next time I’ll talk about hot cars, Mercury, Grandpa’s sex manual and more memories of Sennebec Hill Farm.

Weekend Update: June 7-8, 2014

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by John Clark (Monday), Sarah Graves (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Wednesday), and Vicki Doudera (Friday), with a guest blog from Maureen Milliken on Thursday.

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

MCW regulars Barb Ross and Al Lamanda, as well as our alum, Paul Doiron, were this year’s nominees for the Maine Literary Awards. Al took home the blue balloon for Sunrise. Congratulations to all of our stellar writers! As Barb noted, getting nominated for an Agatha and the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction for her paperback original, Clammed Up, was very exciting. Al is a previous Edgar nominee.

Al with Tiffany Schofield from Five Star with Al’s blue balloon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since Al and Kate share a publisher, their publisher, Waterville’s own Five Star/Cengage, made a big poster for their Facebook website:

Five Star celebrates two Maine Literary Award winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 availble to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora: kateflora@gmail.com

 

Chez Michel

 

A rainbow in Lincolnville illuminates Chez Michel.

Dorothy Cannell: I love late spring in Maine even accompanied by days of rain and still chilly temperatures. Bliss to look out my windows and see green everywhere and walk around the cove near our house with dog Teddy in tow, searching for sea glass before it gets picked over by tourists. Another cause for celebration is when favorite restaurant, Chez Michel in Lincolnville Beach, reopens for the season on Mother’s Day.

My husband Julian and I heard enthusiastic reports of it from neighbors when we moved to Northport five years ago, and we have thought of it as ‘our place’ ever since. Since moving a half-mile or so from us, my sister and her husband also speak of it as such. The four of us have had some wonderful evenings there. On one occasion we met a friend of Julian’s from his Wednesday and Thursday bridge group leaving as we were going in. His last name is Lavender, which I think would be quite wonderful for a character in a future book. He graciously said I could have the use of it. Not yet decided whether the character will be male of female. His first name is David which could be converted to Davida. Whoever it is will live in a white, picket-fenced cottage surrounded by cats and be an avid knitter. My father taught my sister and me to knit, and I see it as a manly as well as feminine art.

Julian told me recently that David had decided he’d reached the age when it was time for him to leave Maine and live with one of his sons in Massachusetts. So this past Tuesday we took him for a farewell dinner at Chez Michel, where he’d been in the habit of going even more frequently than we do. One of those bitter sweet occasions. We sat on the upper level looking towards the ocean with its ferry to Islesboro and dotting of sail boats. The atmosphere warm and welcoming as always. Julian and I usually think we know what we will order but the menu offers so many tempting choices we frequently change our minds.

Included in the Starter selection are Raw Maine Pemaquid oysters served on the half shell,

Seafood Brochette

Michel’s Rabbit Pate, Crab Cakes served with Rouille and Clams – either fried with tartar sauce, or steamed and served with broth and butter. The Chef’s Specialties include Coquille St. Jacques, Duck Au Poivre, Chicken Béarnaise, Lamb Shank, Beef Bourguignon and Haddock Oscar – lightly breaded, pan fried haddock filet topped with fresh asparagus and Hollandaise sauce. David decided on the latter. Julian had ordered it on our last visit and said it was the best haddock he’d ever eaten. But he is also a fan of the lamb shank and went with that. I had a beef filet with Béarnaise sauce. The three of us had the potato croquets and garden salads, and shared a desert. All are marvelous.

There is something essentially, wonderfully human about sharing a meal in happily familiar surroundings. It is an evening I will remember. I enjoyed hearing some of David’s life story, liked his sense of humor, and admired his buoyant spirit. When I asked what he would miss most about Maine, he paused and looked around the room.

“This place,” he said wistfully.

My Take on the Amazon-Hachette Dispute

Hi. Barb here.

I’m not sure the world really needs another take on the ongoing, fraught, negotiations between Amazon and the publisher Hachette, but it’s a main topic of conversation among the writers, readers, agents, editors and booksellers I know. Besides, I’ve been on all sides of this one, as a technology executive, author and publisher, albeit all on a small scale.

The two points I see most often in commentary are

Amazon is not like other booksellers.
Books are not like other consumer goods.

I agree Amazon is not like other booksellers. At this point, I’ve seen estimates that Amazon handles between a third and 50% of all combined ebook and print sales in the US. But more important, Amazon has never been about books. Founder Jeff Bezos understood from the beginning that selling books was a way to collect a list of educated, upscale consumers. The value of Amazon has always been in its customers, not its goods.

Therefore, Amazon’s laser focus has always been on making it stupid simple to buy things. And let’s face it, that’s why we keep going back. Because we know we’ll find what we want, can buy it in one or two clicks and it will arrive in a couple of days. (Or if it’s an ebook or a streaming video, it will arrive RIGHT NOW.)

It’s also why Amazon’s Kindle dominates the ebook market. It may not be the greatest device (or App if you’re using it on your tablet or phone), but it is crazy easy to load it up with books.

“The money’s not in the razor, it’s in the razor blades,” is an old business saying. It means that you don’t make money on infrequently purchased hard goods, you make it on frequently-purchased, consumable goods. But to seduce you into the ebook market, Amazon deeply discounted both. They didn’t make money on either the razor or the razor blades, but their shareholders didn’t care. It was about owning the market.

Now they do. Now they need to make money on the blades, but they’ve trained us all to expect ever-lower prices for them. So they need their suppliers, the publishers, to take a lower cut, or to share in the discount.

So that brings us to the other side of the argument.

2) Books are not like other consumer goods.

The crux of this argument seems to be that books are not like other consumer goods because they contain ideas. This is the argument Hachette put forward in their statement and it’s been taken up by many others.

Frankly, I find this idea laughable. Maybe it would have moved me if I lived in an era when books were one of the few ways to transmit ideas, but now, in the era of the Web, I doubt there’s a single idea humans are capable of having that isn’t out there somewhere, with proponents and opponents arguing over principles and esoterica and calling each other Nazis in the comments section. (Unless they actually are Nazis. Then what do they call each other? Nevermind, it’s too easy to imagine.)

What publishers face is a radically restructuring of their cost structure. Right now, they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, laying out, printing, storing, shipping print books and accepting all those returns, and laying out ebooks. And paying Barnes & Noble for endcaps and faceouts and to appear on their bestseller lists (As opposed to the super-secret bestseller list B&N provides to the publishers about what’s really selling.) And then turning around and paying massive marketing dollars to Amazon for online marketing. If you like this book, you’ll like that one! Etc.

Something’s got to give, and my guess is, it’ll be print. We’ll see more programs like the e-first Witness Impulse program Jim Hayman is in. Let’s work together to prove we can sell your book, and then maybe we’ll print some.

When that change really comes, it’s going to cause a lot of dislocation and misery, as all sea changes do, but it’s not going to be the end of books. Not even close. All those games and videos and social media on your devices are a much bigger threat to books than Amazon is. And I think long-form, prose fiction and nonfiction intended to be read linearly (because that’s what we’re really defending here) will survive even those. For awhile at least. For way longer than I need to worry about.

So back to Amazon. I have to say their bullying behavior with Hachette surprises me. Not because they haven’t done things like this before, and not because I think they’re in any way above bullying. But I always say businesses are motivated by either greed or fear. In general they’re motivated by greed on the way up, and by fear on the way down. For a long time now, Amazon has consistently acted out of greed, the publishers out of fear.

As I said in the beginning, the value of Amazon has always been in its customers, not its goods. And it’s been driven by greed. So where does not selling certain goods to your customers come into it, and even more radically, telling them to shop elsewhere? It doesn’t make any sense. The old Amazon wanted every customer it could get and every penny they would give.

Shooting yourself in the foot is a key indicator (maybe the key indicator) of a business acting out of fear. Which tells me that inside Amazon the pressure to increase profit margins must be intense. Like coal into diamonds pressure.

In the meantime, as a consumer, if you think Amazon is behaving like a jerk, what should you do? You should do what you would do if your favorite convenience store stopped stocking your razor blades. Go down the street. And while you’re there, in that store that stocks your razor blades, do your other shopping, too.

I’m not saying it won’t be hard, particularly if you live in a rural or shopping-deprived area. And little you, going to your local bookstore, or to Target online, for that matter, to buy your next book may seem like a drop in the bucket. But the machine at Amazon is finely calibrated to notice these things, and they will.

I’m not saying to quit them forever. Getting through a day without Amazon is like getting through a day without using a Microsoft product or Google. It can be done, but it’s a full-time job.

You can go back, but right now, you might want to send them a message. That you want greedy Amazon back. The one that would never withhold goods and would do anything to have you as a customer.

The Cutting Redux

James Hayman: For thriller fans who may have missed it the first time around, my first McCabe/Savage book (and the first fiction I ever wrote), The Cutting, was re-released as an e-book yesterday (June 3rd) by Harper Collins Witness Impulse imprint. A paperback version will be released in July.

A new cover for The Cutting

The primary hero of The Cutting is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe who, like me, is a transplanted New Yorker. In fact, when I wrote my “official” online biography, I realized there were a lot of similarities between McCabe and myself.

“Like McCabe, I’m a native New Yorker. He was born in the Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn. We both grew up in the city. He dropped out of NYU Film School and joined the NYPD, rising through the ranks to become the top homicide cop at the Midtown North Precinct. I graduated from Brown and joined a major New York ad agency, rising through the ranks to become creative director on accounts like the US Army, Merrill Lynch, and Lincoln/Mercury.

We both married beautiful brunettes. McCabe’s wife, Sandy dumped him to marry a rich investment banker who had “no interest in raising other people’s children.” My wife, Jeanne, though often given good reason to leave me in the lurch, has stuck it out through thick and thin and is still my wife. She is also my best friend, my most attentive reader and a perceptive critic.

Both McCabe and I eventually left New York for Portland, Maine. I arrived in August 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, in search of the right place to begin a new career as a fiction writer. He came to town a couple of years later, to escape a dark secret in his past and to find a safe place to raise his teenage daughter, Casey.

There are other similarities between us. We both love good Scotch whiskey, old movie trivia and the New York Giants. And we both live with and love women who are talented artists.

There are also quite a few differences. McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks. McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.”

The Cutting tells the story of a greedy and sociopathic bad guy who concocts a scheme to make millions by selling harvested human hearts for illegal transplants.

Where does he get the hearts? Don’t ask.

Who buys them? Octogenarian billionaires who, because of their age can’t qualify for legitimate transplant programs and are willing to pay anything for a few more years of life.

When I started talking to doctors about the possibility of performing illegal heart transplants, most said the procedure would not be possible. I asked why and was told hearts are viable for transplant for only about four or five hours at most after they are harvested from a donor.  A second problem was that fairly large team of different medical specialists are required in the OR during the procedure. And, finally, the operation itself requires a lot of expensive equipment that can only be found in major “Tier 3” hospitals.

However, the more I researched the procedure, the more convinced I became that a determined bad guy with deep pockets and the right connections could make it work. So I moved ahead and wrote the book.

My decision to ignore the initial advice and move forward in writing the story was vindicated when I showed the first draft manuscript to Dr. Robert Zeff, a leading American transplant surgeon (who also happened to be a classmate of mine at Brown). Dr. Zeff loved the book. More importantly, he said if illegal heart transplant procedures were done the way I described, they were not only possible, but were every bit as likely to be medically successful as those performed in a major transplant center.

The Cutting was the first book to introduce Mike McCabe to thriller readers. His partner, Detective Maggie Savage, played a fairly small role in this tale. However, I liked Maggie so much and felt she was such a good character that I gave her co-star status in book #2, The Chill of Night. And then decided I wanted her to play the leading role in McCabe/Savage #3, Darkness First.

I’m currently working on book #4, which is still untitled, in which both McCabe and Savage are both prominently featured.

While all the McCabe/Savage books work well as stand-alones, those who want to read the series in order can now order The Cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adding a (feline) family member …

Lea Wait, here, admitting to a (probably unusual) paucity of personal history with pets.

As a child my family, and then I, had parakeets. The first one was Happy. He talked (“Hello, pretty bird! Mommy is a pretty bird!” and often was allowed to fly around our large Victorian home.  We knew that if we clapped, he’d come from wherever he was (nibbling the wallpaper on top of one of the windows? Sitting in the crown of the ivory statue of Charlemagne who stood on a mantle in our living room? picking up pieces of thread from my grandmother’s sewing table?) One day my sister Nancy, used to Happy’s riding on her head, walked out the back door with him perched there. Happy circled the back yard to check out freedom .. and then returned to Nancy’s head when she clapped.

Happy was followed by Sunny, Enoch, Flit, Flirt, Flip, Flutter, Jinx … and others. When I was in college I even wrote a children’s theatre play which included a parakeet … so I’d have an excuse to have one in my dorm room. (And in the production, of course!)

After college I moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, where my roommate, Linda, and I bought a weimaraner. His name was Justin, and he was clearly too large and needy for our apartment. We had him for about four months. When Linda moved back to Connecticut for grad school she took him with her. He was the last pet I had any claim to owning.

I had four girls. They kept me busy enough.

There are cats in both my Shadows series and in the Mainely Needlepoint series (first book to be published in January, 2015.) But I’ve never felt really comfortable describing cats and their behavior, since what I’ve written was based on my friends’ cats. I needed to do some first hand, primary, research.

During the past year I’ve become more and more intrigued by the pets on my friends’ FB pages. All sorts of cats. Dogs. I especially enjoyed reading my friend Cynthia Lord’s posts. Cynthia won a Newbery Honor for her book Rules, and writes other wonderful picture and middle grade books for children. She also volunteers at the Coastal Humane Society shelter in Brunswick, Maine, where she added her two rabbits and one hamster to her family’s collection of pets. (She has a dog, too.)  She has a new beginning reader series (Jelly Bean: Shelter Pet Squad Series) starting in August  about children who volunteer at a shelter. And she often posts about the animals there.

I talked it over with my husband Bob (who loves animals) and we decided that when the time was

Bob and I (half way down right side) waiting for midnight

right, we’d head to Brunswick for a pet.

Then last week Cynthia posted about a special event. The Coastal Humane Society was competing in the final ASPCA/Rachael Ray $100,000 challenge, one of only 50 shelters doing so .. and the only one in New England. (http://www.challenge.aspcapro.org/2014) Their goal? From June 1 to August 31 this year, double the number of pet adoptions they’d done last summer. That meant finding homes for 822 animals. Wow!

The kickoff event would be June 1, starting at midnight. Could they find homes for 100 dogs and cats in 24 hours?

Bob and I were intrigued. Maybe this was our time. So last Saturday night we headed for Brunswick. We’d wondered how many people would show up for an event that started at midnight Saturday night. We arrived about 11:000 … and a full parking lot full outside the building where the cats and kittens were. (Dogs and puppies were at another location.) Asked, “are you here to adopt?” we said “yes,” even though we hadn’t officially decided this was our time. We assigned the number 23.

Then we waited, with dozens of other people, of all ages. There were balloons. There was popcorn. Coffee. Movies for the kids. But the big event … seeing the cats and kittens .. wouldn’t start until the clock struck twelve.                                            

When that happened, people who had the first ten numbers were allowed in to see the cats, whose cages had been uncovered. We peeked as we waited our turn. Maybe if there were two older cats who were friends, we could take two? Bob shared that he’d always liked black cats. I didn’t have a preference. But as we peeked, we saw awfully cute orange and white kittens. But … black cats were always the last to be adopted, I’d heard, and a black cat would be fine for a mystery writer. Should we get an older cat? But the kittens were so cute!

Finally it was our turn. Bob checked out all the large black cats. (“Com’on guy. Come to the front of the cage so people will see you! You won’t get adopted hiding in the back!”) There were two older cats in one cage, to be adopted together. By us? We couldn’t decide. There were so many possibilities. One year-old cat needed to go to a home without any other animals. That wouldn’t be a problem for us. Then we looked at the kittens. Black and white. Orange and White. Tiger. Some already wore the yellow collars that meant they’d been chosen. That wouldn’t be a problem for us. We kept looking, confused by the possibilities.

Then, in the far corner, we found four more cages of kittens that other people were, at that moment, ignoring. One cage held two black kittens, active and fluffy. One already was wearing a yellow collar. We took the other one out. She jumped to Bob’s shoulder. “This one’s ours,” he pronounced. I agreed. Soon Nara .. the shelter’s name for her … had a yellow collar with our name on it. We found out our Shadows (shelter name, Nara) was two months + two days old and weighed only 1.9 pounds. She’d been spayed last week. She’d originally come from another shelter. When we lined up to have our picture taken, we were number 50 in adoptions Saturday night.

In total, sixty-seven animals found new homes that night. The shelter opened again Sunday and the total went over 100. the Coastal Humane Society had met their June 1 goal … 722 placements to go until August 31!

By 3:30 in the morning Shadow was home, equipped with a litter pan and water and food in our

Helping Lea Write

bedroom so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by our whole house. She didn’t sleep much that night … and neither did we.

It’s now several days later. Shadow has decided that my study is her playroom. She takes pencils out of my pencil holder, chases them across my desk, and then pushes them to the floor.  She likes to sit in the window and watch the bird feeder below. When we sleep, she sleeps. She doesn’t like to be away from us. Right now I’m typing with her on my lap. This is the second time I’ve written this post. She deleted the first draft. Guess it wasn’t up to her standards.

And I guess I’d better learn to type with a cat on my lap.

For more information about The Coastal Humane Society, see http://www.coastalhumanesociety.org. They need help to reach their goal; they want to purchase a large van equipped with cages so they can make more regular trips to southern states to save cats and dogs in kill shelters. They need dollars, pet supplies, volunteers, pet foster parents, and homes for their animals. And they invite you to friend them on Facebook to help get the word out.

The Characters that Share my Day

We probably all know at least one person who shares our birthday, but living in a small Maine town for nearly three decades (can that really be?) means that I know quite a few.

Vicki Doudera here. I’m not talking about the celebs, who, like me, were born yesterday on June 1st –  Marilyn Monroe, Pat Boone, Morgan Freeman, Andy Griffith, Heidi Klum, Ron Wood, Alanis Morissette  – I’m talking about the REAL stars in my world, all of whom make life on the coast in Camden the better for their birth on June the first.

Before I go any further, my apologies if this post seems a little familiar to those of you who have been reading our blog for a few years.  I admit that I’ve taken this one off from a few years ago and dusted it off for your reading pleasure.  I’m very much engrossed in getting a book done — in addition to celebrating my birthday…– so please forgive me.

Back to my favorite June firsters.

There’s Allen Fernald, for one. I’ve been fortunate to know this great guy for most of my 28 years in Maine. We chat at church and the yacht club, have served together on committees and capital campaigns, and work out in the exercise room he and his wife Sally endowed at the Penobscot Area YMCA.  Like the rest of the folks born on this day, he has an interesting story. Allen came to Maine for college, then worked in New York City at the publishing company of Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. In 1977 he bought Down East magazine and returned with his family to Maine.  The company he went on to found — Down East Enterprise – published my first book, Moving to Maine.

Sue Hopkins is another June first baby. She and her husband Bob Carter live around the corner from us in a lovely old home filled with antiques. Like me, she is a lover of Nancy Drew Mysteries and has a collection of vintage volumes by Carolyn Keene. (The one she gave me occupies a place of honor in my writing space at the camp.)  Sue has the sharp mind of a lawyer, having practiced law before she moved to Maine from California, but uses it now to help organizations run more efficiently. I know firsthand what a good friend and tireless worker she is as well. Happy Birthday, Sue!

Another neighbor who blew out candles over the weekend is Jory Squibb. Known in our town as the guy who built and drives Moonbeam, a tiny car no bigger than a go-cart, Jory is an environmentalist and fellow cyclist who’s pedaled with Ed and I in the Trek Across Maine.

I can’t recall when I first met Jory and his wife Brenda, but it was probably through kids.  Our son Nate and their daughter Chloe started kindergarten together, and both ended up in Burlington, Vermont, for college. (In fact Chloe made the waffle batter for the graduation brunch we had for Nate a few years back.) It was my pleasure to help Jory and Brenda sell their home on Pleasant Ridge and then purchase another around the corner. In getting to know them better, I realized what caring and involved community members they are.

Pat Jones also celebrated her birthday yesterday. She is one of those enviable women who seem to have found the fountain of youth.  Not only have her lovely looks remained unchanged, but she is just as sweet as back when I met her in the 1980’s.  Like me, Pat sells real estate, and I’m dying to sit down with her and gather stories for plot ideas for my Darby Farr Mysteries. I just know Pat has some juicy tales to tell!

Allen, Jory, Sue, and Pat are people who share my special day, folks we used to call “birthday buddies.” Apparently that term has gone the way of “hook up,” as the online Urban Dictionary gives a second definition of the term, one that I’d never heard:  birthday buddy: a friend, most likely a lover, that lives far away and on your birthday comes to your house and bangs you. Not to worry — my birthday pals all live nearby – but where do these phrases come from?

At any rate, the first of June is a very good day to be born. For kids, it means cake and presents, as well as the start of the month when school ends and summer vacation begins. I remember — and still feel — some of that excitement.  Hooray! It’s finally June. The lilacs still linger, the lupines are blooming, and Maine’s black fly season is nearly behind us.

Happy Birthday to my fellow “June Firsters” in Camden and elsewhere. Wishing you a wonderful day and many years of celebrations.

Small Plates

Our guest today is Maine writer and MCW favorite Katherine Hall Page, describing a great new treat for her mystery fans, a short story collection.

Katherine: Small Plates is my first collection of short fiction. It includes several stories that I have written over the years, which I was happy to have the chance to rework. And I found the new ones very freeing, as some of them are much darker than the kind of fiction I usually write—although there is nothing funny about a corpse. Well, perhaps in a Carl Hiaasen or Dorothy Cannell. I describe the new stories as Shirley Jackson meets Agatha Christie for a stiff drink. My series character, Faith Fairchild does not appear in all of them and only has a cameo in one.

I have always found writing short stories much more difficult than writing a full-length work of fiction. In the introduction I quote Henry David Thoreau: “ Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short and Edgar Allan Poe’s  “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.” Taken together, these are a fine summation of the challenge posed by short story writing: that paring-down process, the examination of each word essential for a satisfactory result. I’d also add a reminder based on Strunk & White—nowhere is omitting needless words more essential!

The brevity of a short story gives mystery writers a change to pack a wallop. In the traditional mystery novel, the pace is more leisurely, albeit suspenseful. The denouement comes at the end and the hope is that readers will be stunned. Yet, the end of each chapter has a tantalizing hook baited to keep those pages turning. In the short story, all this must be compressed. Poe and Saki did it best.

Maine is the locale for two of the stories. I’m very fond of “A Perfect Maine Day”, in which the old man in the corner—in this case an old fisherman unwillingly retired because of a fool doctor—is the acute observer. There’s a lot to see just sitting on a rocky beach as the tide comes in and goes out. He’s the narrator as well and I’m fond of the story because he reminds me of the fishermen I know in Deer Isle, young and old. In “The Two Marys”, a spinster who raises goats on an island in Penobscot Bay discovers a newborn babe, and a wad of cash beneath the blanket, in her barn on Christmas Eve. It’s the start of a long journey, yes, following a star.

The settings for these stories range from coast to coast in the United States and across “The Pond”. Although I have set books in other countries, most of my short stories seem loath to travel, except in terms of time. One of them takes the reader to a century still bathed in gaslight.

The individuals who people these stories are an assorted lot. A man who longs for widowhood, dreams of the attention from the casserole brigade—good women lining up at his door with hopefully unburnt offerings and perhaps themselves an offering as well. A newlywed discovers her husband’s ingenious hiding places for objects like spare keys. One spinster turns to friends for help with the supernatural. Faith and husband Tom encounter an ideal couple on vacation in Cape Cod and she takes an immediate dislike to them. Why? In another tale, Faith and her sister team up to safeguard a bride in peril. And her own culinary prowess is tested as Faith tries to avoid being “Sliced” in a cut-throat mock reality cooking show.

The title of the collection, Small Plates, refers to the length of these servings, but also to the pleasure ordering tapas, or two appetizers instead of an entrée, often provides. It is my hope that the tastes here will linger long on the palate.

Katherine Hall Page is the author of twenty-one adult mysteries in the Faith Fairchild series and five for younger readers. She received the Agatha for Best First (The Body in the Belfry), Best Novel (The Body in the Snowdrift), and Best Short Story (The Would-Be Widower). She has been nominated for the Edgar, the Mary Higgins Clark Award, the Macavity, and the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She has also published a series cookbook, Have Faith in Your Kitchen, which was nominated for an Agatha. A native of New Jersey, she lives in Massachusetts and Maine with her husband.

www.katherine-hall-page.org

 

 

 

 

Historical Mystery Roundup

Kaitlyn Dunnett in my Kathy Lynn Emerson persona here to report that historical mysteries are thriving. Since I went on hiatus from my Face Down series back in 2008 (after writing a book on how to write historical mysteries) a number of new names have appeared in the ranks of historical mystery writers. At the same time, although some long-standing historical mystery series have faded away, others continue to sell well and garner awards. As I start work on the second book in my new historical mystery series (after next year’s Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe,) spun off from the Face Down novels to feature Lady Appleton’s late husband’s illegitimate daughter Rosamond as the sleuth, I thought I’d take this opportunity, as a reader of historical mysteries, to share some of my current favorites.

First up, a couple of my new discoveries. Mary Miley’s The Impersonator, the first in a new series, was one of my favorites of 2013. Set in the last days of Vaudeville, it features an ambitious young woman who takes on a questionable assignment to (you guessed it) impersonate a girl who went missing years before. I’m looking forward to the next installment, Silent Murders, out in September, in which our heroine tackles crime in the early days of Hollywood.  

Back in January, I read the first three books in Susan Elia MacNeal’s World War II series in two days. They’re that good. Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, and His Majesty’s Hope feature Maggie Hope, a secretary turned spy. Although the third book went a little darker than I’m usually comfortable with as a reader, I’m eagerly looking forward to the next installment, The Prime Minister’s Secret Agent, due in stores in June.

The ninth installment in C. S. Harris’s series about Sebastian St. Cyr, Why Kings Confess, is on my keeper shelf, along with the previous eight novels. Set in Regency England, they feature a complex cast of characters and twisty mysteries.

Will Thomas, whose series about enquiry agent Cyrus Baker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, set in the 1880s, has been on hiatus, has a sixth entry, Fatal Enquiry, in stores now. This one is action packed. The characters are engaging and there are mysteries in the backstory as well as in the current case. Plus a surprise twist at the end.

Lindsay Davis, best known for her Marcus Didius Falco series, has started a new one featuring Falco’s foster daughter, Flavia Albia as the detective. I enjoyed the first in the series last year and am looking forward to Enemies at Home, out in July.

Charles Todd (actually Charles and his mother, Caroline, writing as a team) won this year’s Agatha award for best historical novel of 2013 for A Question of Honor and will be guests of honor at next year’s Malice Domestic. A Question of Honor is the fifth novel in the Bess Crawford series, set during World War I. Bess is on the front lines as a nurse. The Todds also write a series featuring police detective, Ian Rutledge, who survived that war but is having difficulty returning his civilian life. I have to say I have a preference for the Bess Crawford novels, but they are all wonderfully written.

For another wartime series, this one set during World War II, you can’t do better than James R. Benn’s Billy Boyle mysteries. A new one, The Rest is Silence, will be out in September. Warning: Benn tackles difficult subject matter, such as racial discrimination in the military in A Blind Goddess. 

Victoria Thompson is a favorite in our house. Her Gaslight series set in New York City and featuring midwife Sarah Brandt and policeman Frank Malloy has been around for quite some time. The sixteenth entry, Murder in Murray Hill is just out and another terrific read. Earlier books in the series have been nominated for both the Agatha and the Edgar.

For lighter fare, two favorite historical mystery authors keep producing great reads. The latest in Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple series, set in 1920s England, is Heirs of the Body. It revolves around the same problem faced by characters in Downton Abbey: what to do about an entailed estate when you can’t figure out who the next heir is. Rhys Bowen keeps two series going. One features Molly Murphy, a young Irish woman in early twentieth century New York. In a previous book, Molly married Daniel, a policeman. Now that they have a young son, he doesn’t want her investigating crimes. The latest adventure, City of Darkness and Light, takes mother and son to Paris, where Molly promptly becomes involved in solving a murder. The other Rhys Bown series is set in England between the two world wars and the sleuth is a distant connection of the royal family. The new one, Queen of Hearts, will be out in August.

Now to a few choices that are a little different. Lauren Willig writes what’s called a past/present series, with two storylines alternating, one historical and one in the present day. The historical stories involve spies using flower names to disguise their identities and from book to book readers learn more fascinating tidbits about their organization. I’ve loved this series from the first (The Secret History of the Pink Carnation) and am looking forward to the next (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla) in August.

Deborah Harkness, historian by profession, has written a trilogy that mixes the paranormal, history, and mystery. The first book (A Discovery of Witches) takes place entirely in the present, the second (Shadow of Night) entirely in the sixteenth century. The Book of Life, due in stores in July, returns to the present day and (I hope) ties up all the loose ends.

And, stretching the definition of historical mystery even more, I have to mention another trilogy I’ve just finished reading. This one, by Emma Jane Holloway, comes from the subgenre known as steampunk. The novels (A Study in Silks, A Study in Darkness, and A Study in Ashes) are a mix of historical novel, mystery, romance, paranormal, and alternate history. The protagonist is Evalina Cooper, who just happens to be Sherlock Holmes’s niece. She also has “the blood” from the other side of her family, giving her a talent for magic, which is outlawed in a Victorian England controlled by the “steam barons,” the unscrupulous men who control the country’s power supplies. Each book is lengthy (over 1000 pages at the size print I use to read on my iPad) but the story is gripping and I ended up reading all three in the course of a month. I stayed up until after midnight finishing the last one, something I rarely do. 

All in all, lots to choose from, and there are many more, set in all eras, that I didn’t have room to mention here. How about you, readers? Any recent historical mystery titles you’d like to recommend? Just comment below to share.