C.X. Wood's Blog

Two Cursed Names & One Romantic Tragedy

Vice Report is a hard-boiled mystery. But, like most detective novels, there is a romance at the heart of it.

Even the hardest boiled of them all — Sam Spade — was as motivated by love as he was by money, mysteries, or Maltese Falcons.

Spade combed her red hair back from her face with his fingers and said:
“I’m sorry, angel. I thought you’d sleep through it. Did you have that
gun under your pillow all night?”

“No. You know I didn’t. I jumped up and got it when I was frightened.”

He cooked breakfast—and slipped the flat brass key into her coat-pocket
again—while she bathed and dressed.

She came out of the bathroom whistling En Cuba. “Shall I make the
bed?” she asked.

“That’d be swell. The eggs need a couple of minutes more.”

Their breakfast was on the table when she returned to the kitchen. They
sat where they had sat the night before and ate heartily.

“Now about the bird?” Spade suggested presently as they ate.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammet

A tragedy by any other name

In Vice Report, the detective is a female reporter, working for a true-crime site that turns clicks into cash.

It is more in the style of Roderick Thorpe’s The Detective than Hammet’s Maltese Falcon, since we learn as much about the sleuth — and her romance — as we do about the mystery she’s trying to solve.

In Mona Breen’s case, the romance is steeped in a tragic backstory. It also foreshadows the tragedy that is yet to come.

In a flashback, Mona tells us how this romance started.

Tragedy in Five Actsfrom Chapter 2 of Vice Report

Changing my name from Desdemona to Mona had been easy. In fact, my mother started it. She regretted the long moniker when she had to write it on every item I took to preschool. She shortened me to Des. I had changed that in middle school, to Mona. And early in life, someone else shortened that to Mo.

Otto was not amused, not participating. 

I ventured in.

“I have wondered at the sanity of my parents,” I said. Though, at that moment, I was mostly wondering at the sanity of his. Calling their son Othello seemed downright cruel.

Vice. It’s slippery work. by Christina Wood May 16, 2023

“Why would anyone name their daughter after the most famous domestic abuse victim in literature?” (I was reprising an argument I’d had with my mother. I did not expect this professor to have answers as intelligent as Mom’s.)

“Ha-ha!” the professor laughed, pleased. “A modern interpretation. Is that all it is? Domestic abuse?”

The rest of the class looked lost. Clearly, no one knew the play. Or maybe they weren’t paying attention. This was turning into a private joke between the professor and two victims of parallel pretentious parenting.

“All?” I asked with a youthful passion I wasn’t feeling, even then. “Isn’t that tragic enough?“

“Don’t you think every abuser has someone like Iago whispering to him, convincing him she deserves to be abused—or killed?

Why say, ‘Is that all?’ about a tragedy Shakespeare detailed clearly and that plays out every day somewhere still?”

I was pandering to this annoying professor. If I was going to sit through this shit, I wanted an A for it. Maybe my schedule—otherwise full of graduate seminars—could use a break.

“Delightful!” exclaimed McQuade. She flung her long hair over her shoulder as she turned to the blackboard to write something, for no reason other than the drama of writing on the board. “Othello,” she wrote in big letters. Some of the lost students who hoped to catch up wrote it down.

“Let’s go right ahead and have this discussion. A modern interpretation of this famous study of race, jealousy, envy, and violence. But let’s give the rest of the class a chance to purchase and read it first, shall we?”

The class started to gather their things, thinking this strange professor was letting them go early. There was a murmur of small conversations.

“Not so fast!” she shouted into the murmur, picking on a student seated so close to the door he had been unable to resist attempting a quick exit during the confusion. He skulked back to his seat. She looked at him crossly.

“This only works, of course, if Otto here is as versed in this tragedy as the lovely Desdemona.”

I should have corrected her about my name right then. Instead, I watched the drama unfold. She was waiting, expectantly, for Otto to do something other than stare sullenly back at her.

“I can’t help imagining that there is some force at work here to give me a class—where I am tasked with teaching Shakespeare—that contains two students named for two of my favorite Shakespearean characters,” she announced. “These two characters hold up to the test of time like not many others in the Bard’s work. Desdemona herself points that out.” 

She waved an ornately ringed hand in my direction.

Otto continued to glare at her, refusing to join in.

I’d missed another chance to correct her. It seemed too late now, like grabbing the limelight. If she said it again, this group of just-met students would remember my name as Desdemona.

“We don’t often murder our kings these days,” she continued, preaching her predictable monologue. “And it’s the rare mother that offs her husband and takes up with his brother. You don’t see a lot of witches gathering around cauldrons while people are being murdered in castles. But a black man murdering his white wife? That story isn’t old at all yet, is it?”

Otto laughed. She was in dangerous territory here.

Race relations being what they are in California, most professors would have stayed on safe ground, too politically correct even to use the words “black man.” Yet here it was. She had the Bard’s work to back her up. She wasn’t talking about race. Shakespeare was.

Otto took a deep breath, stood up, and spoke—giving the stage to the Bard.

“Rude I am in speech and little blessed with the soft phrases of peace.” His voice was rich and dark. He spoke the words conversationally, with no drama, as if he had been asked a question and was answering it. 

He schooled the professor not only on the text but on drama itself. 

He owned the dialogue so completely that there were those in the class who thought, probably, that he was foreign or this was slang.

“Little of this world can I speak that does not pertain to feats of battle. Therefore, little will I speak of myself.

Yet, by your gracious patience, I will deliver an unvarnished tale of my course of love. What drugs, charms, conjuration, and magic, I used….”

The professor clapped, interrupting him. She was an idiot, I decided. Why not let him say the passage? This was a Shakespeare class, wasn’t it? Not a stage for an idiot and her hair.

I didn’t consult the text either when I answered.

“My noble father,” I turned to the professor as if she were the father. 

“I perceive a divided duty: To you I am bound for life and education; I am your daughter. But here is my husband….”

I waved a hand at Otto and wanted to pull it back because of the word “husband.” 

I hesitated and blushed. I found him attractive. Using that word felt too intimate.

“So much duty as my mother showed to you,” I whispered—a stage whisper—shy, as I imagined Desdemona would say this line, “preferring you before her father, that I profess is due to the Moor.”

I wanted to give the look of devotion I knew Desdemona felt for the Moor. But I am shy, in fact, and held it back.

Otto told me later it was better that way. Too bold a look of passion from Desdemona in front of all those lords would have been a mistake. He said it was that look, wanting to express complete devotion but hiding it from those strangers who might see it, was brilliant, how the moment should be played. And it was the moment he fell in love.

“Wonderful!” squealed the professor, interrupting me as well. 

“You both know your namesakes! That settles it. I had planned to read Macbeth. But it’s difficult to get through life without learning that story anymore. While Othello, though it is so relevant, is easy to miss. If anyone has already bought Macbeth and does not want to read it, just return it to the bookstore for a full refund.”

She jotted a note into a hardcover planner on her desk. And I wondered how a college professor thought any of us had gotten out of high school without having already read, written about, and memorized portions of Macbeth. She was ridiculous.

This time the class was free to go. I gathered my things. I was shaking, embarrassed, nerves wreaking havoc. My cheeks were red. I was breaking out in a mild sweat. I looked down at my things to avoid everyone’s stares, if they were staring. 

I jumped, startled, when Otto said, “Otto Devlin. I’m going to guess you do not go by Desdemona.”

He was standing, his backpack slung over one shoulder, a hand out to shake mine, a look of man-smitten on his face. 

I knew that look. It frequently led to trouble, sometimes got me exactly what I wanted, and inevitably involved negotiation. I tried to decide quickly how to handle this one. 

I had already decided he was attractive. He was the wrong age, though. At that point in my life, I preferred older men. He was waiting to shake my hand, holding his hand out steady, ignoring my hesitation. I ignored the smitten look, the easiest way out.

I smiled, wishing my face didn’t feel so hot.

Vice Report, by C.X. Wood

Buy Vice Report On Amazon

Vice. It’s slippery work.

Why is Vice Report — the mystery — set at Vice Report, a true crime site? Vice Reporta mystery by CX WoodBuy on amazonMona Breen, crime reporter

Vice Report is the true-crime site where Mona Breen, my female crime investigator, works as a reporter. She is conflicted about this job. But her boss, Grant Renard, wants her to stay. She has a gift for the work. And he likes her.

“We look at whatever the seamy underbelly of our culture is at any given moment and push the envelope just a tiny bit. If we hit the edge—exactly—of what the vast majority of people consider to be vice, we win. And when we win, we get clicks, advertisers, and money.”

Grant Renard, Publisher of true-crime site Vice Report

He can see she is on the fence. So he tries to persuade her to believe in his cause and stay. It’s not just a job, for him, it’s a mission.

Vice is slippery work. Writers define it.

Grant is such a fan of Lou Grant, the TV character, that he calls Mona “Mare” and keeps a bottle of scotch in his desk drawer as an homage to the character and the show.

He explains why he does it, hoping to get her to stay:

“‘Ours is slippery work,” Grant said. “We look at whatever the seamy underbelly of our culture is at any given moment and push the envelope just a tiny bit. If we hit the edge—exactly—of what the vast majority of people consider to be a vice, we win. And when we win, we get clicks, advertisers, and money. If we push too far, we lose advertisers who can’t be ‘seen’ associating with us. If we don’t push hard enough, we lose readers—er clicks—as people go to more stately sites for not-so-edgy news.

The slippery line toward Vice

“Vice laws govern the hard line. But we manage the slippery one. And the slippery one is all over the place right now. Underage kids are sent to prison for having consensual sex with their also underage girlfriends. Our president is a rapist.

“This schism is the very psyche of our culture. Our concept of vice reflects our collective conscience. That is why I started this site. Yes, we cover the everyday crimes. But we push the idea of vice. We talk, every day, about our conscience. What we think is right and what we think is wrong…'”

Spoiler: Mona Breen stays at her job.

This is a five-book series. Book one is available on Amazon

This post was updated in April 2023

A Free Kindle Copy of Vice Report!

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Want a free Kindle copy of Vice Report? I’ve got on ready to give away!

It’s easy to enter this giveaway. It will only cost you an email address. I will pick one person on Friday of this week to get a shiny new read for the weekend.

Enter your email address by clicking this link.

Publisher’s Weekly Review

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I’m super pleased with this review of Vice Report from Publisher’s Weekly. Check it out!

Mona Breen, the narrator of Wood’s promising first novel and series launch, covers crime for Vice Report, a seedy website based in Oakland, Calif., and brings in additional income by writing online sex fantasies for a site that requires the stories to be ones that “a slow reader” can finish in seven minutes or less. When her boss, Grant, gets a tip, Mona responds to the apartment of Veronica Wolfe, who was found dead after a neighbor reported a suspicious smell. The woman’s sister, Dahlia Black, who’s the wife of a noted crime writer, tells Det. Devin Powers, the investigating officer, that Veronica was an addict for most of her life. The authorities later determine that she died of an opioid overdose, but both Devin and Mona suspect foul play. Mona uses Veronica’s case to persuade Grant to approve some serious journalism, allowing her to explore the human dimensions of the opioid epidemic. Fans of capable and complex female leads, who struggle to manage personal difficulties with professional ambitions, will look forward to future books. (BookLife)

Vice. It’s slippery work.

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Vice Report is the true-crime site where Mona Breen, my female crime investigator, works as a reporter. She is conflicted about this job. But her boss, Grant Renard, wants her to stay. She has a gift for the work. And he likes her.

He can see she is on the fence. So he tries to persuade her to believe in his cause. It’s not just a job, for him, it’s a mission.

He takes her out for drinks and explains why he does it:

“‘Ours is slippery work,” Grant continued. “We look at whatever the seamy underbelly of our culture is at any given moment and push the envelope just a tiny bit. If we hit the edge—exactly—of what the vast majority consider to be vice, we win. And when we win, we get clicks, advertisers, money. If we push too far, we lose advertisers who can’t be ‘seen’ associating with us. If we don’t push hard enough, we lose readers—er clicks—as people go to more stately sites for not-so-edgy news.

Vice laws govern the hard line. But we manage the slippery one. And the slippery one is all over the place right now. Underage kids are sent to prison for having consensual sex with their also underage girlfriend. Our president is a rapist.

This schism is the very psyche of our culture. Our concept of vice reflects our collective conscience. That is why I started this site. Yes, we cover the everyday crimes. But we push the idea of vice. We talk, every day, about our conscience. What we think is right and what we think is wrong…'”

I am teasing you …

I am teasing you with an excerpt from Vice Report. I adore Grant, Mona’s boss at the true-crime site Vice Report. Sure, he’s a bit of a hack. And he is terrible at hiring staff. But he has a huge heart and will do anything for you, once you are in his world.

Everyone should have someone in their life like him. Don’t you think?

Was the body dead, Mare?” Grant asked when I tapped on his office door. We start every Monday with an editorial meeting, planning the week’s lineup. I gave him a withering smile.

“Very dead,” I said, doing my best hard-boiled reporter voice. “It was a sad scene. It will make a great story, she cackled cynically.” I dropped the Humphrey Bogart and sat down in his guest chair, setting my coffee on the corner of his desk.

“I have a mess of story ideas, actually,” I told him, getting out my phone and finding my notes.

He turned off his computer screen. This was a habit. His way of telling anyone who came to talk to him that they had his full attention. Grant was big on grand gestures, rules of engagement. I liked this one. It made me feel like the most important thing in the place and gave me more of his attention than I would get if his screen continued to sip at it.

He turned in his desk chair and smiled.

“I don’t usually send you to the bleak ones, do I?” he asked, childishly excited. “But that one had a whiff about it. Was I right?”

He opened his drawer, raised one eyebrow into a question mark. It was impossible not to catch some of his infectious enthusiasm, even though—I reminded myself—we were talking about a tragic death.

I nodded. His gestures became more animated, with my approval. He pulled a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses out of the drawer where he kept them under a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, and set them on his desk.

He poured bourbon into the small glasses, after dusting them.

He often pulled the bottle out, theatrically, but we rarely took a drink from it. It was, usually, a staged gesture designed to call attention to his role in our collective theater with him playing Lou Grant and me as the eager cub reporter Mary Richards. It was a joke. Usually.

There must be something different about today. I hadn’t even had breakfast. Now I was facing a whiskey. I don’t drink this way. I don’t like whiskey.

 “I knew you would find a good story there,” he said. “All you need is a push in any direction and you find stories. You are wasted in this place.” He gave me a sly look, to measure my response. “If I was your friend, I would fire you,” he said. “But I enjoy your company too much.”

“What?” I said, shocked, reeling. Was this the thing that was different about today? Me getting fired?

Want more? Go here:

Vice Report Giveaway!

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Want a free, signed copy of my noir mystery Vice Report mailed to you?

Yes? Go to Vice.Report and enter your email address.

Need to be tempted? Try this:

A smart, sexy hard-boiled mystery wrapped in romance. Or is it a tragedy?

It was supposed to be a quick story. Mona would take photos of a dead woman and post them on Vice Report because that sort of thing brings clicks to the true-crime site. It’s a shitty job. But jobs aren’t so easy to come by.

But odd things happen at the crime scene. The detectives are too helpful. The corpse has a back-story that doesn’t fit. A famous mystery writer clearly has his hand in the plot. Mona finds herself digging deeper into the dead woman’s life than she should – and caring more than the job requires. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, she isn’t writing this one for the money? This might be a story she wants to tell. Or, maybe, the mystery is bigger than it seems.

By the time she figures out which it is, she has fled with her kids, become part of what was the dead woman’s life, and is spending way more time in the news than an introvert should.

Now go to Vice.Report and give up your email address. That’s all you have to do to enter.

I’ll pick a winner at random at the end of the month and send the lucky reader a signed copy.

I promise I won’t use your email address for anything except to update you on this book or the next in the series.

 

Big Sale on Vice Report!

I'm doing a count down sale at Vice Report at Amazon.

Go to the link below, download a quick preview, and decide for yourself.

Vice Report

Day two: Kindle Sale!

[image error]Hurry! The price is about to go up on Vice Report!

Today, it is bottle-of-water cheap. If you buy it now, you’ll have it on your Kindle when you are trapped in a waiting room with nothing to do.

Each day that passes, the price goes up a little bit. This is what Amazon calls a “Count-down sale.” Get over there and get yours!

Here is a sample and link:

Kindle sale of Vice Report!

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I am doing a super-quick sale on the Kindle copy of Vice Report because life is spendy and most of us are on a budget.

If you move sharpish, you can get this book into your library for a fraction of the cover price.

The price is starting out low and going up every couple of days till it gets back to its original price. Go now!