Martin Roy Hill's Blog, page 2
June 9, 2020
How to Get Those Needed Reviews
Reviews can make or break your book and having advanced reviews can help sell more books as pre-orders before your book’s official release. But many authors, especially independents, expect reviews simply to materialize on their Amazon sell page. It doesn’t work that way. You must go hunting for them.
The number of large traditional publishing houses is dwindling. Smaller publishers often don’t provide the kind of marketing and publicity efforts the Big 5 used to do. As a result, even traditionally published authors are often forced to do their own marketing, and getting advanced reviews is part of marketing.
As an indie author myself, I am more than a writer; I am a publisher (I have a business license as M. R. Hill Publishing), marketer, and press agent. After publishing nine books in eight years, I have developed my own technique for getting both advance editorial reviews (i.e., those from newspapers, magazines, etc.) and reader reviews, though I think the former is more important at the time of publication.
Once one of my books has gone through the entire editing and production process, I set my release date at four to six months out—the longer the better. Reviewers need time to read and review a book, so I give it to them.
I create a marketing package for each book with a sell sheet, author bio, a sample author interview, and cover images. I also create an Excel file with spreadsheets for media reviewers (newspapers, magazines, and websites), reader reviewers (which also includes other authors I know), book promotion sites like Goodreads, and advertising sites—everything I need for marketing my book. The spreadsheets for media and reader reviewers includes the name and email of each publication or person, plus a column for the day I offered them a review copy, the day they responded (if they do), whether they agreed to the review, the day I sent them an ARC, and the day the review was published and the URL where the review appeared.
I’m not shy about asking for reviews. I shotgun it. I send dozens of requests out to even the largest reviewers using a mail merge app that personalizes each email. I send out so many because I know at best only ten percent will agree to do a review. Of those, I expect only ten percent will actually do so.
I use the electronic and print draft copies I get from Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing as my Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs. Since many reviewers will only accept e-books in epub or pdf format, I use a program called Calibre to convert the Kindle mobi files.
Some reviewers have online submission forms to request reviews. With independent publishing becoming more accepted in the industry, many of the premier review sites and publications are providing access to indies. Publisher’s Weekly, for instance, now offer indies an opportunity to showcase their books on its Book Life website, where PW reviewers can choose books to review. Submitting my latest Peter Brandt thriller, The Fourth Rising, to Book Life resulted in the novel receiving a very positive review in Publisher’s Weekly.
I also offer review copies to readers who have reviewed my previous books, and will offer free ARCs to thriller and mystery lovers on sites such as Goodreads. I avoid pay-for-review sites and, unfortunately, I find NetGallery is too expensive. In the past I have used web services that distribute free ARCs to readers, but the results were not impressive.
The number of large traditional publishing houses is dwindling. Smaller publishers often don’t provide the kind of marketing and publicity efforts the Big 5 used to do. As a result, even traditionally published authors are often forced to do their own marketing, and getting advanced reviews is part of marketing.
As an indie author myself, I am more than a writer; I am a publisher (I have a business license as M. R. Hill Publishing), marketer, and press agent. After publishing nine books in eight years, I have developed my own technique for getting both advance editorial reviews (i.e., those from newspapers, magazines, etc.) and reader reviews, though I think the former is more important at the time of publication.
Once one of my books has gone through the entire editing and production process, I set my release date at four to six months out—the longer the better. Reviewers need time to read and review a book, so I give it to them.
I create a marketing package for each book with a sell sheet, author bio, a sample author interview, and cover images. I also create an Excel file with spreadsheets for media reviewers (newspapers, magazines, and websites), reader reviewers (which also includes other authors I know), book promotion sites like Goodreads, and advertising sites—everything I need for marketing my book. The spreadsheets for media and reader reviewers includes the name and email of each publication or person, plus a column for the day I offered them a review copy, the day they responded (if they do), whether they agreed to the review, the day I sent them an ARC, and the day the review was published and the URL where the review appeared.
I’m not shy about asking for reviews. I shotgun it. I send dozens of requests out to even the largest reviewers using a mail merge app that personalizes each email. I send out so many because I know at best only ten percent will agree to do a review. Of those, I expect only ten percent will actually do so.
I use the electronic and print draft copies I get from Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing as my Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs. Since many reviewers will only accept e-books in epub or pdf format, I use a program called Calibre to convert the Kindle mobi files.
Some reviewers have online submission forms to request reviews. With independent publishing becoming more accepted in the industry, many of the premier review sites and publications are providing access to indies. Publisher’s Weekly, for instance, now offer indies an opportunity to showcase their books on its Book Life website, where PW reviewers can choose books to review. Submitting my latest Peter Brandt thriller, The Fourth Rising, to Book Life resulted in the novel receiving a very positive review in Publisher’s Weekly.
I also offer review copies to readers who have reviewed my previous books, and will offer free ARCs to thriller and mystery lovers on sites such as Goodreads. I avoid pay-for-review sites and, unfortunately, I find NetGallery is too expensive. In the past I have used web services that distribute free ARCs to readers, but the results were not impressive.
September 26, 2019
Thriller Writers and WWII
Not long ago, I took part in a International Thriller Writers round table discussion on why writers—particularly thriller authors—frequently return to WWII Europe and the Holocaust as themes in their books. I believe there are a couple of reasons we turn to the Nazi-era of the 1930s and 1940s for story lines. The evil manifested by the Nazis was so horrifying and insidious, it left an indelible scar on the human psyche. The horrors they wreaked on Europe—the death camps, the mass murders, even the wholesale theft of art and culture from occupied nations—was so blatant that, unlike wars before and afterward, the Nazis represented a clear and, to most people, undeniably malevolent enemy. It was black and white, good vs. evil.
The phrase “most people” in the last paragraph is the key to the second reason I think we return to the Nazi-era for inspiration. Not everyone believed, or wants to believe, the Nazis were as evil as they were. Even today there are Holocaust deniers. Allied leaders recognized that might happen. It was one of the reasons General Dwight Eisenhower wanted as many people as possible—both Allied soldiers and German citizens—to witness the liberated death camps so there could be no denying the hideousness of the Nazi monster. Even back then, there was a fear there could one day be a resurgence of Nazism and fascism.
It was a well-founded fear. In the 1930s, pro-fascist sentiment was widespread in Europe and the United States. The 1930s in America saw brown-shirted, jackbooted thugs of the German American Bund—essentially the Nazi Party affiliate in the U.S.—marching proudly through American streets. There were pro-Nazi Silver Shirts training in secret forest camps in California and elsewhere. It was an America where pro-German business groups openly shut down Jewish businesses, and where Father Coughlin spewed Jew-baiting, pro-Nazi propaganda in national radio broadcasts. In the early 1930s, wealthy pro-fascist Americans actually attempted a coup to overthrow the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt in what is now known as the American Putsch.
All this inspired Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here, about a populist fringe candidate who becomes president and turns the country into an armed camp. The same period in history inspired Phillip Roth's alternative history novel, The Plot Against America, about anti-Semitism in the United States after Charles Lindbergh, who was pro-fascist, defeats President Franklin Roosevelt. This time period also inspired Arthur Miller's 1945 novel, Focus.
Some of my own work was inspired by the events of the 1930s. For instance, in my Paul Klee series of alternative history short mystery stories I visualize a defeated United States occupied by the German military and pro-Nazi Americans. Klee, a former police officer and OSS spy, is forced to work for the Nazi SS. These mysteries expose the reader to a dark period of American history not taught in schools today.
Unfortunately, today we again see the rise of nationalism, racial scapegoating, anti-intellectualism and anti-science, the comingling of religion and politics, and corporate influence over government—all major components of fascism—not only in Europe and Latin America, but here in the United States as well. I believe this is also causing writers to look back to the Nazi era for plots that can mirror the politics of today.
My current work in progress, a new Peter Brandt thriller called The Fourth Rising, was inspired by the work of researchers who maintain that while Germany surrendered in 1945, the Nazi Party did not. Instead, they believe much of the Nazi leadership escaped Germany to parts unknown to continue the party’s quest for world domination—this time through politics and economics rather than open warfare.
In The Fourth Rising, due out in early 2020, the gruesome murder of the husband of one of Peter’s old flames launches him on a hunt for hidden Nazi gold—a hunt that leads him from the drug cartels of Mexico to a neo-Nazi training camp in the Southern California mountains, and uncovers a decades-long plot to re-establish the Nazi Party and a new Fourth Reich.
As long as such evil as was scene in the 1930s and 1940s continues haunting our existence today, thriller writers will return to those horrors for plot lines and inspiration.
The phrase “most people” in the last paragraph is the key to the second reason I think we return to the Nazi-era for inspiration. Not everyone believed, or wants to believe, the Nazis were as evil as they were. Even today there are Holocaust deniers. Allied leaders recognized that might happen. It was one of the reasons General Dwight Eisenhower wanted as many people as possible—both Allied soldiers and German citizens—to witness the liberated death camps so there could be no denying the hideousness of the Nazi monster. Even back then, there was a fear there could one day be a resurgence of Nazism and fascism.
It was a well-founded fear. In the 1930s, pro-fascist sentiment was widespread in Europe and the United States. The 1930s in America saw brown-shirted, jackbooted thugs of the German American Bund—essentially the Nazi Party affiliate in the U.S.—marching proudly through American streets. There were pro-Nazi Silver Shirts training in secret forest camps in California and elsewhere. It was an America where pro-German business groups openly shut down Jewish businesses, and where Father Coughlin spewed Jew-baiting, pro-Nazi propaganda in national radio broadcasts. In the early 1930s, wealthy pro-fascist Americans actually attempted a coup to overthrow the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt in what is now known as the American Putsch.
All this inspired Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here, about a populist fringe candidate who becomes president and turns the country into an armed camp. The same period in history inspired Phillip Roth's alternative history novel, The Plot Against America, about anti-Semitism in the United States after Charles Lindbergh, who was pro-fascist, defeats President Franklin Roosevelt. This time period also inspired Arthur Miller's 1945 novel, Focus.
Some of my own work was inspired by the events of the 1930s. For instance, in my Paul Klee series of alternative history short mystery stories I visualize a defeated United States occupied by the German military and pro-Nazi Americans. Klee, a former police officer and OSS spy, is forced to work for the Nazi SS. These mysteries expose the reader to a dark period of American history not taught in schools today.
Unfortunately, today we again see the rise of nationalism, racial scapegoating, anti-intellectualism and anti-science, the comingling of religion and politics, and corporate influence over government—all major components of fascism—not only in Europe and Latin America, but here in the United States as well. I believe this is also causing writers to look back to the Nazi era for plots that can mirror the politics of today.
My current work in progress, a new Peter Brandt thriller called The Fourth Rising, was inspired by the work of researchers who maintain that while Germany surrendered in 1945, the Nazi Party did not. Instead, they believe much of the Nazi leadership escaped Germany to parts unknown to continue the party’s quest for world domination—this time through politics and economics rather than open warfare.
In The Fourth Rising, due out in early 2020, the gruesome murder of the husband of one of Peter’s old flames launches him on a hunt for hidden Nazi gold—a hunt that leads him from the drug cartels of Mexico to a neo-Nazi training camp in the Southern California mountains, and uncovers a decades-long plot to re-establish the Nazi Party and a new Fourth Reich.
As long as such evil as was scene in the 1930s and 1940s continues haunting our existence today, thriller writers will return to those horrors for plot lines and inspiration.
July 29, 2018
When Fact Is Stranger than Fiction
I recently read Jack Higgins’ The Valhalla Exchange, which made me think about how fiction can be inspired by stranger fact.
The Valhalla Exchange involves a fictitious an attempt by Martin Bormann, one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, to use prominent Allied POWs as a bargaining chip in the waning days of WWII. It concludes with American and German soldiers joining forces in a last stand against a SS assault force led by Bormann.
American and German soldiers joining together to fight the SS? Hah!
In fact, Higgins’ book was inspired by two actual incidents from WWII—the mystery surrounding Bormann’s ultimate fate, and the Battle of Castle Itter. The latter is considered the strangest battle of the war, and involved a small force of GIs and Wehrmacht soldiers who actually did join together in the last days of the war to protect a group of POWs from the Nazi SS.
In a forward to the novel, Higgins discusses Bormann’s disappearance and his reported escape to South America after the war. He concludes the forward rather humorously with this: “As for the remainder of this story, only the more astonishing parts are true—the rest is fiction.”
This is the type of story I love to read. James Rollins, Bob Mayer, and Robert Masello are a few of the writers who blend history with fiction in their thrillers, and who always send me to the Internet to read more about their historic inspiration. They have a knack for taking a historic event—often an obscure event—and using it to inspire and propel a story forward.
Not surprisingly, therefore, much of my own work finds its inspiration in true life events.
My second Peter Brandt novel, The Last Refuge, was inspired by news reports that came out during Operation Desert Storm that American corporations were secretly negotiating with Saddam Hussein to rebuild his military even as our troops were still engaged in combat with Iraqi forces. In the novel, a battlefield murder intended to keep those negotiations secret leads to more murder on the home front.
The Butcher’s Bill, my latest novel, involves the true-life theft of nearly $9 billion in U.S. cash from Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The theft was the largest heist in history, but it was never investigated by our government. I use this event as the launching board for a fictitious story about one man’s effort to expose the secret of the real-world crime.
Another true yet bizarre event—the mysterious and still unexplained disappearances of four submarines from four different countries within an eight-week period in 1968—was the inspiration for my current WIP, a military sci-fi thriller called Polar Melt. In the novel, the fictional cause for those sub losses leads to a confrontation between U.S. and Russian interests over a mysterious energy anomaly in today’s nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean.
The art of applying factual events to your writing is to treat them like seasoning in cooking—a little is good, too much not so good. This is particularly true when the facts are stranger than the fiction.
The Valhalla Exchange involves a fictitious an attempt by Martin Bormann, one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, to use prominent Allied POWs as a bargaining chip in the waning days of WWII. It concludes with American and German soldiers joining forces in a last stand against a SS assault force led by Bormann.
American and German soldiers joining together to fight the SS? Hah!
In fact, Higgins’ book was inspired by two actual incidents from WWII—the mystery surrounding Bormann’s ultimate fate, and the Battle of Castle Itter. The latter is considered the strangest battle of the war, and involved a small force of GIs and Wehrmacht soldiers who actually did join together in the last days of the war to protect a group of POWs from the Nazi SS.
In a forward to the novel, Higgins discusses Bormann’s disappearance and his reported escape to South America after the war. He concludes the forward rather humorously with this: “As for the remainder of this story, only the more astonishing parts are true—the rest is fiction.”
This is the type of story I love to read. James Rollins, Bob Mayer, and Robert Masello are a few of the writers who blend history with fiction in their thrillers, and who always send me to the Internet to read more about their historic inspiration. They have a knack for taking a historic event—often an obscure event—and using it to inspire and propel a story forward.
Not surprisingly, therefore, much of my own work finds its inspiration in true life events.
My second Peter Brandt novel, The Last Refuge, was inspired by news reports that came out during Operation Desert Storm that American corporations were secretly negotiating with Saddam Hussein to rebuild his military even as our troops were still engaged in combat with Iraqi forces. In the novel, a battlefield murder intended to keep those negotiations secret leads to more murder on the home front.
The Butcher’s Bill, my latest novel, involves the true-life theft of nearly $9 billion in U.S. cash from Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The theft was the largest heist in history, but it was never investigated by our government. I use this event as the launching board for a fictitious story about one man’s effort to expose the secret of the real-world crime.
Another true yet bizarre event—the mysterious and still unexplained disappearances of four submarines from four different countries within an eight-week period in 1968—was the inspiration for my current WIP, a military sci-fi thriller called Polar Melt. In the novel, the fictional cause for those sub losses leads to a confrontation between U.S. and Russian interests over a mysterious energy anomaly in today’s nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean.
The art of applying factual events to your writing is to treat them like seasoning in cooking—a little is good, too much not so good. This is particularly true when the facts are stranger than the fiction.
January 5, 2018
A New Year and the Year Just Passed
Happy New Year!
Now that we've rung in 2018 (well, to be truthful, I slept through it), it's time to reflect on the year just past. It was a tumultuous year, no doubt, in politics, weather, and publishing. The U.S. White House is in turmoil, and Britain voted to leave the European Union. Hurricanes and blizzards hit the East Coast while drought and wildfires (including one only a few miles from my home) plagued the West Coast. In publishing, e-book sales plummeted or soared, depending on you listen to.
As I look back at 2017, I must say I have no complaints. I had eight short stories published last year, including mystery stories, horror tales, and science fiction. I gave a well-received talk on how to write realistically about violence to the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime, and began taking part in the International Thriller Writers' Thriller Round Table discussions.
My latest Linus Schag, NCIS, thriller, The Butcher's Bill, was published in June to good reviews and was named 2017's Best Mystery/Suspense Novel by the Best Independent Book Awards.
Looking ahead, 2018 promises to be an exciting year for me. Pens, Paws, and Claws has scheduled an interview with me for January 17. Crimson Streets has bought another short story from me with publication scheduled for this summer.
Book-wise, I am currently moving all my books out of Kindle Select and into wider distribution channels, including Barnes & Noble and Apple iBooks. I have commissioned new covers for The Killing Depths, Eden, and The Last Refuge. And an audio version of The Killing Depths is currently in production and should be on the market in a few months.
Finally, I recently finished the first draft of my new military sci-fi thriller Polar Melt. I expect it will be ready for publication sometime late in 2018. Stay tune for more news in the coming months!
Now that we've rung in 2018 (well, to be truthful, I slept through it), it's time to reflect on the year just past. It was a tumultuous year, no doubt, in politics, weather, and publishing. The U.S. White House is in turmoil, and Britain voted to leave the European Union. Hurricanes and blizzards hit the East Coast while drought and wildfires (including one only a few miles from my home) plagued the West Coast. In publishing, e-book sales plummeted or soared, depending on you listen to.
As I look back at 2017, I must say I have no complaints. I had eight short stories published last year, including mystery stories, horror tales, and science fiction. I gave a well-received talk on how to write realistically about violence to the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime, and began taking part in the International Thriller Writers' Thriller Round Table discussions.
My latest Linus Schag, NCIS, thriller, The Butcher's Bill, was published in June to good reviews and was named 2017's Best Mystery/Suspense Novel by the Best Independent Book Awards.
Looking ahead, 2018 promises to be an exciting year for me. Pens, Paws, and Claws has scheduled an interview with me for January 17. Crimson Streets has bought another short story from me with publication scheduled for this summer.
Book-wise, I am currently moving all my books out of Kindle Select and into wider distribution channels, including Barnes & Noble and Apple iBooks. I have commissioned new covers for The Killing Depths, Eden, and The Last Refuge. And an audio version of The Killing Depths is currently in production and should be on the market in a few months.
Finally, I recently finished the first draft of my new military sci-fi thriller Polar Melt. I expect it will be ready for publication sometime late in 2018. Stay tune for more news in the coming months!
October 25, 2017
Your Logline - The Hardest Sentence You'll Ever Write
Quick. In one sentence, describe the plot of your current work in progress (WIP) .
If you are like me, when asked a question like that you probably stumbled over your words trying to explain the premise of your WIP's plot line. Perhaps, like me, your brain is so wrapped around the details of the plot, you find it difficult to explain the story line in a single sentence.
But you've got to do it.
What we are talking about here is your novel's logline. And it is, perhaps, some of the most important and difficult writing you will ever do.
Loglines and cover blurbs have the same mission--to sell your book. However, where the cover blurb is designed to entice readers to buy your book, the loglines is your elevator pitch: How would you describe your plot if you were in an elevator with a producer, agent, or publisher for a 30-second elevator ride?
Yet the logline plays another important role.
If, as a writer, you are a plotter rather than a panster, writing a logline after you've completed your plotting can also help keep you on track as you start writing the novel. This is why people like Blake Snyder, author of the screenwriting book, Save the Cat!, emphasizes the need for a logline when using his story beat sheets.
Bob Mayer, the best-selling author of numerous thrillers, calls this one-sentence description of your plot the "foundation" of the book.
A logline is a short, usually one sentence description of your plot, and only your plot. This is not the place for a detailed description of your characters, the environment, the theme, or anything else. Just the plot, ma'am. Just the plot.
For instance, a logline for Herman Melville's Moby Dick might read like this: A deranged sea captain, disfigured in an encounter with giant white whale, risks his ship and crew to wreak revenge on the creature.
Some writers insist if you can't write a logline for your book, you don't have a plot. That may not apply to pansters--authors who don't plot but write "by the seat of their pants"--but it does to those who plot out their books before they start writing.
I'm one of the latter, so loglines are essential to my writing process. Here's the logline I wrote for my newest book, The Butcher's Bill: An NCIS agent must uncover the reasons his closest friend and former colleague has gone rogue, leaving behind him a trail of bodies.
This is the logline I'm using for my current WIP, a military sci-fi thriller called Polar Melt: As the Arctic thaws, a Coast Guard team links the disappearance of a research ship's crew to a Russian oil platform and the mysterious energy source that lies beneath it.
I am in the early plotting stages of a possible WWII thriller. The logline I wrote for that project goes like this: A war-weary team of commandos searches behind enemy lines for the Nazis' National Redoubt to sabotage Hitler's dream for a never-ending guerilla war.
Many authors write their loglines before they do anything else. I, on the other hand, usually write my logline after I have done much of my research and started the plotting for a new book.
I don't believe it's verboten to change your logline as your story progresses. Even though I spend a lot of time up front on plotting, I find the story often evolves as the pages grow. The important thing is it helps you stay on track while writing and, once finished, can help you sell your book.
If you are like me, when asked a question like that you probably stumbled over your words trying to explain the premise of your WIP's plot line. Perhaps, like me, your brain is so wrapped around the details of the plot, you find it difficult to explain the story line in a single sentence.
But you've got to do it.
What we are talking about here is your novel's logline. And it is, perhaps, some of the most important and difficult writing you will ever do.
Loglines and cover blurbs have the same mission--to sell your book. However, where the cover blurb is designed to entice readers to buy your book, the loglines is your elevator pitch: How would you describe your plot if you were in an elevator with a producer, agent, or publisher for a 30-second elevator ride?
Yet the logline plays another important role.
If, as a writer, you are a plotter rather than a panster, writing a logline after you've completed your plotting can also help keep you on track as you start writing the novel. This is why people like Blake Snyder, author of the screenwriting book, Save the Cat!, emphasizes the need for a logline when using his story beat sheets.
Bob Mayer, the best-selling author of numerous thrillers, calls this one-sentence description of your plot the "foundation" of the book.
A logline is a short, usually one sentence description of your plot, and only your plot. This is not the place for a detailed description of your characters, the environment, the theme, or anything else. Just the plot, ma'am. Just the plot.
For instance, a logline for Herman Melville's Moby Dick might read like this: A deranged sea captain, disfigured in an encounter with giant white whale, risks his ship and crew to wreak revenge on the creature.
Some writers insist if you can't write a logline for your book, you don't have a plot. That may not apply to pansters--authors who don't plot but write "by the seat of their pants"--but it does to those who plot out their books before they start writing.
I'm one of the latter, so loglines are essential to my writing process. Here's the logline I wrote for my newest book, The Butcher's Bill: An NCIS agent must uncover the reasons his closest friend and former colleague has gone rogue, leaving behind him a trail of bodies.
This is the logline I'm using for my current WIP, a military sci-fi thriller called Polar Melt: As the Arctic thaws, a Coast Guard team links the disappearance of a research ship's crew to a Russian oil platform and the mysterious energy source that lies beneath it.
I am in the early plotting stages of a possible WWII thriller. The logline I wrote for that project goes like this: A war-weary team of commandos searches behind enemy lines for the Nazis' National Redoubt to sabotage Hitler's dream for a never-ending guerilla war.
Many authors write their loglines before they do anything else. I, on the other hand, usually write my logline after I have done much of my research and started the plotting for a new book.
I don't believe it's verboten to change your logline as your story progresses. Even though I spend a lot of time up front on plotting, I find the story often evolves as the pages grow. The important thing is it helps you stay on track while writing and, once finished, can help you sell your book.
August 30, 2017
What's In Your Character's Background?
I'm not a reader of cozy mysteries, at least not since I finished all of Agatha Christie's works, but my wife and I do enjoy watching the cozies on the Hallmark Mystery Channel. In spite the entertainment value they afford, they make me wonder what it are in the backgrounds of these amateur detectives that draws them to sleuthing and makes them good at it? As fictional characters, do they need a specific skill background to make them believable, or is their motivation enough?
A case in point. I loved the TV show “Murder, She Wrote,” and still watch it in reruns whenever I can. But, in my opinion, the show had one major flaw; it never explained what made J.B. Fletcher a great crime solver. Upon becoming a widow, J. B., a retired school teacher, takes up writing mysteries and is suddenly capable of solving crimes better than professional investigators. The show hinted that J.B.'s in-depth research for her books gave her the edge.
I find that reason hard to believe. For my military mystery thriller, The Killing Depths, I did extensive research on submarines and their tactics. I read books. I talked to submariners. I toured a Los Angeles-class submarine. None of that, however, made me a submariner.
In real life, of course, not all detectives are great investigators. All detectives pretty much get the same training. In the field, many simply follow well-established routines without adding any special insight. Those who bring something special to the investigation become legends. The same is true in fiction.
For instance, in the TV show “Monk,” the character played by Tony Shalube, is a trained detective, just as his former captain is. But what makes Monk a superlative sleuth is his attention to the smallest detail, a quirk spawned by his out-of-control obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In one episode, Monk is given medication for his condition. The drug cures the OCD, but also robs Monk of his deductive powers.
The successes of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes were also due to the consulting detective's compulsive attention to detail generated by his obsessively restless mind. When not solving an impossible case, Holmes kept his mind busy with crime-related research (like identifying the differences in the ash left behind by different brands of tobacco). When his restless mind wasn't engaged in such endeavors, he resorted to a seven percent solution of cocaine to calm it.
In his Billy Boyle WWII mystery series, author James R. Benn faced similar background problem as I saw in “Murder, She Wrote.” Billy is a young, inexperienced Boston policeman who gets drafted only days after receiving his gold detective badge—which he got largely due to family influence. The Army assigns Billy to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's staff as a special investigator, not knowing his investigative experience is virtually nonexistent.
Benn, however, cleverly avoided "the J.B. Fletcher problem." Billy's father was a successful Boston police detective who mentored his son's police career, always making sure Billy was on scene for any murder investigation so he could learn the trade. When a case stumps Billy in his role as Ike's investigator, he falls back on the lessons he learned from his father's mentoring.
In David Morrell's inaugural thriller, First Blood—the book that gave us Rambo—the author had a young Vietnam vet fighting off repeated assaults by police officers and National Guard soldiers. Contrary to what many people think, most service members are not highly trained in combat skills. For every trigger puller on the front line, there are 10 soldiers sitting behind computer consoles and desks, driving trucks, and pumping gas. Only because Morrell made Rambo a veteran of the Army Special Forces was it believable he could struggle against the overwhelming forces thrown against him by the book's antagonist, a sheriff in the rural South.
Morrell said he based Rambo on Audie Murphy, America's most decorated hero of WWII. But what was it about Murphy—a short, skinny Texas teenager rejected by the paratroops and the Marines—that made him such an effective combat soldier? After all, he received the same training as other infantry soldiers.
The answer lies in Murphy's childhood. Coming from a fatherless, Depression Era family, Murphy took on the responsibility of the man of the house at an early age. He provided for his mother and siblings by hunting for food and working odd jobs for money, instilling in the boy a strong sense of obligation to take care of others. In combat, his skills with a rifle and his sense of responsibility for his fellow GIs made this baby-faced soldier a superb combat leader.
In his Reacher series, author Lee Child's hero is a former Army military police major who roams the country taking on odd jobs and righting wrongs, sometimes with extreme prejudice. As a former state guard major of military police myself, I can't see me doing anything like that. However, Child built a detailed background for Reacher to explain his actions. (He's not just a MP, but led a special Army criminal investigative unit; he's an expert in martial arts, etc.)
On the other hand, Alfred Hitchcock gave us several examples where an "Everyman" character is thrown into mystery and danger, and comes out triumphant in the end. North by Northwest and The 39 Steps (based on a novel by John Buchan) come readily to mind.
So does your character need to have a specific background to become a success crime solver, or is motivation enough? A topic for more debate, I think.
A case in point. I loved the TV show “Murder, She Wrote,” and still watch it in reruns whenever I can. But, in my opinion, the show had one major flaw; it never explained what made J.B. Fletcher a great crime solver. Upon becoming a widow, J. B., a retired school teacher, takes up writing mysteries and is suddenly capable of solving crimes better than professional investigators. The show hinted that J.B.'s in-depth research for her books gave her the edge.
I find that reason hard to believe. For my military mystery thriller, The Killing Depths, I did extensive research on submarines and their tactics. I read books. I talked to submariners. I toured a Los Angeles-class submarine. None of that, however, made me a submariner.
In real life, of course, not all detectives are great investigators. All detectives pretty much get the same training. In the field, many simply follow well-established routines without adding any special insight. Those who bring something special to the investigation become legends. The same is true in fiction.
For instance, in the TV show “Monk,” the character played by Tony Shalube, is a trained detective, just as his former captain is. But what makes Monk a superlative sleuth is his attention to the smallest detail, a quirk spawned by his out-of-control obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In one episode, Monk is given medication for his condition. The drug cures the OCD, but also robs Monk of his deductive powers.
The successes of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes were also due to the consulting detective's compulsive attention to detail generated by his obsessively restless mind. When not solving an impossible case, Holmes kept his mind busy with crime-related research (like identifying the differences in the ash left behind by different brands of tobacco). When his restless mind wasn't engaged in such endeavors, he resorted to a seven percent solution of cocaine to calm it.
In his Billy Boyle WWII mystery series, author James R. Benn faced similar background problem as I saw in “Murder, She Wrote.” Billy is a young, inexperienced Boston policeman who gets drafted only days after receiving his gold detective badge—which he got largely due to family influence. The Army assigns Billy to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's staff as a special investigator, not knowing his investigative experience is virtually nonexistent.
Benn, however, cleverly avoided "the J.B. Fletcher problem." Billy's father was a successful Boston police detective who mentored his son's police career, always making sure Billy was on scene for any murder investigation so he could learn the trade. When a case stumps Billy in his role as Ike's investigator, he falls back on the lessons he learned from his father's mentoring.
In David Morrell's inaugural thriller, First Blood—the book that gave us Rambo—the author had a young Vietnam vet fighting off repeated assaults by police officers and National Guard soldiers. Contrary to what many people think, most service members are not highly trained in combat skills. For every trigger puller on the front line, there are 10 soldiers sitting behind computer consoles and desks, driving trucks, and pumping gas. Only because Morrell made Rambo a veteran of the Army Special Forces was it believable he could struggle against the overwhelming forces thrown against him by the book's antagonist, a sheriff in the rural South.
Morrell said he based Rambo on Audie Murphy, America's most decorated hero of WWII. But what was it about Murphy—a short, skinny Texas teenager rejected by the paratroops and the Marines—that made him such an effective combat soldier? After all, he received the same training as other infantry soldiers.
The answer lies in Murphy's childhood. Coming from a fatherless, Depression Era family, Murphy took on the responsibility of the man of the house at an early age. He provided for his mother and siblings by hunting for food and working odd jobs for money, instilling in the boy a strong sense of obligation to take care of others. In combat, his skills with a rifle and his sense of responsibility for his fellow GIs made this baby-faced soldier a superb combat leader.
In his Reacher series, author Lee Child's hero is a former Army military police major who roams the country taking on odd jobs and righting wrongs, sometimes with extreme prejudice. As a former state guard major of military police myself, I can't see me doing anything like that. However, Child built a detailed background for Reacher to explain his actions. (He's not just a MP, but led a special Army criminal investigative unit; he's an expert in martial arts, etc.)
On the other hand, Alfred Hitchcock gave us several examples where an "Everyman" character is thrown into mystery and danger, and comes out triumphant in the end. North by Northwest and The 39 Steps (based on a novel by John Buchan) come readily to mind.
So does your character need to have a specific background to become a success crime solver, or is motivation enough? A topic for more debate, I think.
June 30, 2017
How Shakespeare Influences Our Everyday Writing
In the spring semester of 2017, my son, Brandon, a self-avowed Shakespeare nerd since at least high school, took a college English course that studied the Bard of Avon. As their final, Brandon and his fellow students had to write, produce, and act in a play dealing with the playwright contemporary critic Robert Greene called "an upstart crow."
The play the students produced was amazing, not just for its professionalism but also for its literary ingenuity. A play within a play, the story focuses on an acting troupe preparing to perform Macbeth. As the story proceeds, jealousy and avarice among the actors results in plots and counter-plots to the point where the entire troupe is experiencing "the Scottish play" in their own lives.
Nearly all, if not all, of Shakespeare's works incorporate a "fool," a character who provides comic relief even in his most tragic plays. In the play his class created, Brandon played the fool, a Shakespeare nerd (Brandon acknowledges it was typecasting) who is always pointing out the Bard's contributions to the English language.
An upstart crow he may have been, but the Sweet Swan of Avon left behind a lasting legacy of phrases used to this very day. Below, courtesy of The Pathology Guy, is a list of Shakespearisms we have probably all used in our writing and day-to-day speaking.
• All our yesterdays (Macbeth)
• All that glitters is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)("glisters")
• All's well that ends well (play title)
• As good luck would have it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• As merry as the day is long (Much Ado About Nothing / King John)
• Bated breath (The Merchant of Venice)
• Bag and baggage (As You Like It / Winter's Tale)
• Bear a charmed life (Macbeth)
• Be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)
• Beggar all description (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Better foot before ("best foot forward") (King John)
• The better part of valor is discretion (I Henry IV; possibly already a known saying)
• In a better world than this (As You Like It)
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Hamlet)
• Brave new world (The Tempest)
• Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)
• Breathed his last (3 Henry VI)
• Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)
• Refuse to budge an inch (Measure for Measure / Taming of the Shrew)
• Catch a cold (Cymbeline; claimed but seems unlikely, seems to refer to bad weather)
• Cold comfort (The Taming of the Shrew / King John)
• Conscience does make cowards of us all (Hamlet)
• Come what come may ("come what may") (Macbeth)
• Comparisons are odorous (Much Ado about Nothing)
• Crack of doom (Macbeth)
• Dead as a doornail (2 Henry VI)
• A dish fit for the gods (Julius Caesar)
• Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war (Julius Caesar)
• Dog will have his day (Hamlet; quoted earlier by Erasmus and Queen Elizabeth)
• Devil incarnate (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)
• Eaten me out of house and home (2 Henry IV)
• Elbow room (King John; first attested 1540 according to Merriam-Webster)
• Farewell to all my greatness (Henry VIII)
• Faint hearted (I Henry VI)
• Fancy-free (Midsummer Night's Dream)
• Fight till the last gasp (I Henry VI)
• Flaming youth (Hamlet)
• Forever and a day (As You Like It)
• For goodness' sake (Henry VIII)
• Foregone conclusion (Othello)
• Full circle (King Lear)
• The game is afoot (I Henry IV)
• The game is up (Cymbeline)
• Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)
• Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida)
• Jealousy is the green-eyed monster (Othello)
• It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)
• Heart of gold (Henry V)
• Her infinite variety (Antony and Cleopatra)
• 'Tis high time (The Comedy of Errors)
• Hoist with his own petard (Hamlet)
• Household words (Henry V)
• A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! (Richard III)
• Ill wind which blows no man to good (2 Henry IV)
• Improbable fiction (Twelfth Night)
• In a pickle (The Tempest)
• In my heart of hearts (Hamlet)
• In my mind's eye (Hamlet)
• Infinite space (Hamlet)
• Infirm of purpose (Macbeth)
• In my book of memory (I Henry VI)
• It is but so-so(As You Like It)
• It smells to heaven (Hamlet)
• Itching palm (Julius Caesar)
• Kill with kindness (Taming of the Shrew)
• Killing frost (Henry VIII)
• Knit brow (The Rape of Lucrece)
• Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth)
• Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)
• Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Laugh yourself into stitches (Twelfth Night)
• Lean and hungry look (Julius Caesar)
• Lie low (Much Ado about Nothing)
• Live long day (Julius Caesar)
• Love is blind (Merchant of Venice)
• Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water (Henry VIII)
• Melted into thin air (The Tempest)
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("There's a method to my madness") (Hamlet)
• Make a virtue of necessity (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
• The Makings of(Henry VIII)
• Milk of human kindness (Macbeth)
• Ministering angel (Hamlet)
• Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows (The Tempest)
• More honored in the breach than in the observance (Hamlet)
• More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)
• More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)
• Much Ado About Nothing (play title)
• Murder most foul (Hamlet)
• Naked truth (Love's Labours Lost)
• Neither rhyme nor reason (As You Like It)
• Not slept one wink (Cymbeline)
• Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it (Macbeth)
• [Obvious] as a nose on a man's face (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
• Once more into the breach (Henry V)
• One fell swoop (Macbeth)
• One that loved not wisely but too well (Othello)
• Time is out of joint (Hamlet)
• Out of the jaws of death (Twelfth Night)
• Own flesh and blood (Hamlet)
• Star-crossed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)
• Parting is such sweet sorrow (Romeo and Juliet)
• What's past is prologue (The Tempest)
• [What] a piece of work [is man] (Hamlet)
• Pitched battle (Taming of the Shrew)
• A plague on both your houses (Romeo and Juliet)
• Play fast and loose (King John)
• Pomp and circumstance (Othello)
• [A poor] thing, but mine own (As You Like It)
• Pound of flesh (The Merchant of Venice)
• Primrose path (Hamlet)
• Quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice)
• Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Sea change (The Tempest)
• Seen better days (As You Like It or Timon of Athens)
• Send packing (I Henry IV)
• How sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child (King Lear)
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day (Sonnets)
• Make short shrift (Richard III)
• Sick at heart (Hamlet)
• Snail paced (Troilus and Cressida)
• Something in the wind (The Comedy of Errors)
• Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth)
• A sorry sight (Macbeth)
• Sound and fury (Macbeth)
• Spotless reputation (Richard II)
• Stony hearted (I Henry IV)
• Such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)
• Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep ("Still waters run deep") (2 Henry VI)
• The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Sweet are the uses of adversity (As You Like It)
• Sweets to the sweet (Hamlet)
• Swift as a shadow (A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Tedious as a twice-told tale (King John)
• Set my teeth on edge (I Henry IV)
• Tell truth and shame the devil (1 Henry IV)
• Thereby hangs a tale (Othello; in context, this seems to have been already in use)
• There's no such thing (?) (Macbeth)
• There's the rub (Hamlet)
• This mortal coil (Hamlet)
• To gild refined gold, to paint the lily ("to gild the lily") (King John)
• To thine own self be true (Hamlet)
• Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
• Tower of strength (Richard III)
• Towering passion (Hamlet)
• Trippingly on the tongue (Hamlet)
• Truth will out (The Merchant of Venice)
• Violent delights have violent ends (Romeo and Juliet)
• Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
• What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• What's done is done (Macbeth)
• What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet)
• What fools these mortals be (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)
• Wish is father to that thought (2 Henry IV)
• Witching time of night (Hamlet)
• Working-day world (As You Like It)
• The world's my oyster (Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Yeoman's service (Hamlet)
Check out The Pathology Guy's website for more information on words first coined by that upstart crow and which we still use today.
The play the students produced was amazing, not just for its professionalism but also for its literary ingenuity. A play within a play, the story focuses on an acting troupe preparing to perform Macbeth. As the story proceeds, jealousy and avarice among the actors results in plots and counter-plots to the point where the entire troupe is experiencing "the Scottish play" in their own lives.
Nearly all, if not all, of Shakespeare's works incorporate a "fool," a character who provides comic relief even in his most tragic plays. In the play his class created, Brandon played the fool, a Shakespeare nerd (Brandon acknowledges it was typecasting) who is always pointing out the Bard's contributions to the English language.
An upstart crow he may have been, but the Sweet Swan of Avon left behind a lasting legacy of phrases used to this very day. Below, courtesy of The Pathology Guy, is a list of Shakespearisms we have probably all used in our writing and day-to-day speaking.
• All our yesterdays (Macbeth)
• All that glitters is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)("glisters")
• All's well that ends well (play title)
• As good luck would have it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• As merry as the day is long (Much Ado About Nothing / King John)
• Bated breath (The Merchant of Venice)
• Bag and baggage (As You Like It / Winter's Tale)
• Bear a charmed life (Macbeth)
• Be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)
• Beggar all description (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Better foot before ("best foot forward") (King John)
• The better part of valor is discretion (I Henry IV; possibly already a known saying)
• In a better world than this (As You Like It)
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Hamlet)
• Brave new world (The Tempest)
• Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)
• Breathed his last (3 Henry VI)
• Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)
• Refuse to budge an inch (Measure for Measure / Taming of the Shrew)
• Catch a cold (Cymbeline; claimed but seems unlikely, seems to refer to bad weather)
• Cold comfort (The Taming of the Shrew / King John)
• Conscience does make cowards of us all (Hamlet)
• Come what come may ("come what may") (Macbeth)
• Comparisons are odorous (Much Ado about Nothing)
• Crack of doom (Macbeth)
• Dead as a doornail (2 Henry VI)
• A dish fit for the gods (Julius Caesar)
• Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war (Julius Caesar)
• Dog will have his day (Hamlet; quoted earlier by Erasmus and Queen Elizabeth)
• Devil incarnate (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)
• Eaten me out of house and home (2 Henry IV)
• Elbow room (King John; first attested 1540 according to Merriam-Webster)
• Farewell to all my greatness (Henry VIII)
• Faint hearted (I Henry VI)
• Fancy-free (Midsummer Night's Dream)
• Fight till the last gasp (I Henry VI)
• Flaming youth (Hamlet)
• Forever and a day (As You Like It)
• For goodness' sake (Henry VIII)
• Foregone conclusion (Othello)
• Full circle (King Lear)
• The game is afoot (I Henry IV)
• The game is up (Cymbeline)
• Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)
• Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida)
• Jealousy is the green-eyed monster (Othello)
• It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)
• Heart of gold (Henry V)
• Her infinite variety (Antony and Cleopatra)
• 'Tis high time (The Comedy of Errors)
• Hoist with his own petard (Hamlet)
• Household words (Henry V)
• A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! (Richard III)
• Ill wind which blows no man to good (2 Henry IV)
• Improbable fiction (Twelfth Night)
• In a pickle (The Tempest)
• In my heart of hearts (Hamlet)
• In my mind's eye (Hamlet)
• Infinite space (Hamlet)
• Infirm of purpose (Macbeth)
• In my book of memory (I Henry VI)
• It is but so-so(As You Like It)
• It smells to heaven (Hamlet)
• Itching palm (Julius Caesar)
• Kill with kindness (Taming of the Shrew)
• Killing frost (Henry VIII)
• Knit brow (The Rape of Lucrece)
• Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth)
• Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)
• Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Laugh yourself into stitches (Twelfth Night)
• Lean and hungry look (Julius Caesar)
• Lie low (Much Ado about Nothing)
• Live long day (Julius Caesar)
• Love is blind (Merchant of Venice)
• Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water (Henry VIII)
• Melted into thin air (The Tempest)
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("There's a method to my madness") (Hamlet)
• Make a virtue of necessity (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
• The Makings of(Henry VIII)
• Milk of human kindness (Macbeth)
• Ministering angel (Hamlet)
• Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows (The Tempest)
• More honored in the breach than in the observance (Hamlet)
• More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)
• More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)
• Much Ado About Nothing (play title)
• Murder most foul (Hamlet)
• Naked truth (Love's Labours Lost)
• Neither rhyme nor reason (As You Like It)
• Not slept one wink (Cymbeline)
• Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it (Macbeth)
• [Obvious] as a nose on a man's face (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
• Once more into the breach (Henry V)
• One fell swoop (Macbeth)
• One that loved not wisely but too well (Othello)
• Time is out of joint (Hamlet)
• Out of the jaws of death (Twelfth Night)
• Own flesh and blood (Hamlet)
• Star-crossed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)
• Parting is such sweet sorrow (Romeo and Juliet)
• What's past is prologue (The Tempest)
• [What] a piece of work [is man] (Hamlet)
• Pitched battle (Taming of the Shrew)
• A plague on both your houses (Romeo and Juliet)
• Play fast and loose (King John)
• Pomp and circumstance (Othello)
• [A poor] thing, but mine own (As You Like It)
• Pound of flesh (The Merchant of Venice)
• Primrose path (Hamlet)
• Quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice)
• Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Sea change (The Tempest)
• Seen better days (As You Like It or Timon of Athens)
• Send packing (I Henry IV)
• How sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child (King Lear)
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day (Sonnets)
• Make short shrift (Richard III)
• Sick at heart (Hamlet)
• Snail paced (Troilus and Cressida)
• Something in the wind (The Comedy of Errors)
• Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth)
• A sorry sight (Macbeth)
• Sound and fury (Macbeth)
• Spotless reputation (Richard II)
• Stony hearted (I Henry IV)
• Such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)
• Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep ("Still waters run deep") (2 Henry VI)
• The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Sweet are the uses of adversity (As You Like It)
• Sweets to the sweet (Hamlet)
• Swift as a shadow (A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Tedious as a twice-told tale (King John)
• Set my teeth on edge (I Henry IV)
• Tell truth and shame the devil (1 Henry IV)
• Thereby hangs a tale (Othello; in context, this seems to have been already in use)
• There's no such thing (?) (Macbeth)
• There's the rub (Hamlet)
• This mortal coil (Hamlet)
• To gild refined gold, to paint the lily ("to gild the lily") (King John)
• To thine own self be true (Hamlet)
• Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
• Tower of strength (Richard III)
• Towering passion (Hamlet)
• Trippingly on the tongue (Hamlet)
• Truth will out (The Merchant of Venice)
• Violent delights have violent ends (Romeo and Juliet)
• Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
• What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• What's done is done (Macbeth)
• What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet)
• What fools these mortals be (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)
• Wish is father to that thought (2 Henry IV)
• Witching time of night (Hamlet)
• Working-day world (As You Like It)
• The world's my oyster (Merry Wives of Windsor)
• Yeoman's service (Hamlet)
Check out The Pathology Guy's website for more information on words first coined by that upstart crow and which we still use today.
April 27, 2017
The True Facts Behind the Plot of The Butcher's Bill
My latest mystery thriller, The Butcher's Bill, will be published June 30. Though a work of fiction, the plot of The Butcher's Bill, like most of my books, is firmly rooted in facts. A sequel to my first Linus Schag, NCIS, novel, The Killing Depths, The Butcher's Bill involves one man's attempt to uncover the truth behind the theft of nearly $9 billion in cash during the Iraq War, the largest heist in history and one that has never been adequately investigated.
What follows is the true story behind the fictional story in The Butcher's Bill.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Bush Administration made a controversial decision. Billions of dollars belonging to Saddam Hussein and his government sat in frozen financial accounts in U.S. banks. After the fall of the Baghdad government, the White House decided to confiscate those funds and use them to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq.
That, itself, was not controversial. How the administration did it was.
Rather than place the Iraqi funds in a holding account and pay contractor bills as they came due, the Bush administration decided convert the holdings into $40 billion in U.S. greenbacks and send it to Iraq by the planeload. Once in Iraq, the cash was handed out to contractors without much regard to receipts for work performed. Some witnesses claim the money was stuffed into duffle bags then handed over to contractors.
While the haphazard distribution of $31 billion was controversial enough, there was an even greater outrage. Nearly $9 billion in cash—$8.9 billion to be precise—simply disappeared, apparently stolen. Any attempt to investigate the theft was blocked at the highest levels of the government.
Graft and corruption plagues every war, but the Iraqi conflict may have seen the most overt war profiteering in history. The Bush administration's excessive use of private contractors for everything from operating mess halls to building bases set the stage for widespread illegal activities. The president's granting of immunity from prosecution to all contractors for any questionable activity only exacerbated the problem.
Contractor-operated mess halls knowingly served rancid food to troops. Construction of facilities for both U.S. and pro-U.S. Iraqi troops was at best careless. Several American service members died when electrocuted by improperly wired barracks. Inadequately constructed plumbing poured raw sewage into newly built building, rendering them inhabitable. (Read more about this fraud here.)
The widespread use of so-called "security contractors"—i.e., armed mercenaries—was the most controversial. These private military companies claimed their personnel were highly trained former military or law enforcement professionals. In fact, many of these security contractors had little or no military or law enforcement background. Many had criminal backgrounds and some were known former members of Latin American death squads. (I know one such contractor who was hired by a security firm even though he had no military or law enforcement background at all. Asked why, if he felt compelled to serve his country as he claimed, he didn't join the army, he replied, "They wouldn't pay me enough.")
Security contractors were responsible for some of the most egregious acts. There were allegations of security contractors smuggling weapons into Iraq, possibly to sell to insurgents. Some were accused of smuggling drugs, which they sold to U.S. troops. Many contractors were accused of killing Iraqi citizens without cause. Only when a group of "security contractors" machine-gunned more than 20 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007 were any of these people prosecuted. (Read more on these abuses here.)
These are the facts behind the plot of The Butcher's Bill.
In the novel, NCIS Special Agent Bill Butcher finds himself in the middle of this byzantine environment when posted to Iraq during the war. A former Navy SEAL, Butcher is a man of high moral standards, with a strong sense of right and wrong, especially when it involves the welfare of serving men and women.
Butcher is continually frustrated when Bush's immunity proclamation prevents him from investigating the myriad acts of profiteering he sees around him. When he is pulled off an investigation into the missing $9 billion in cash, he refuses to give up. Butcher continues to probe the theft even after returning to the States. His obsession with the missing funds will cost him his job and his marriage. When Butcher discovers the truth behind the missing money, it threatens to cost him his life.
Those who stole the money want Bill Butcher dead. The cops want him for murder. Butcher's only hope is his former NCIS colleague and closest friend, Linus Schag.
Torn between loyalties, Schag walks a thin line between doing his job and helping his friend. Working from opposite ends, Schag and Butcher peel back the layers of conspiracy, revealing a criminal enterprise reaching into the highest levels of government.
Taken straight from today's headlines, the plot of The Butcher's Bill ranges from the California mountains to the waters of the Pacific, and will keep readers on edge until its final, explosive climax.
The Butcher's Bill will be available in paperback and Kindle e-book. Stand by for more news
March 12, 2017
Forget 1984. This Is the Book Americans Should Read
The basic plot of this book reads as if it were taken straight from today's headlines. A pompous, blustering, populist politician gets himself elected president running on a platform that is anti-woman, anti-Jew, and anti-black, by making promises he can never deliver on, by accusing the news media of spreading lies, and by proclaiming only he can cure the country's ills and make it great again. Once he takes office, he begins issuing orders that by-pass the law-making powers of Congress and the legal review of the judiciary, and strips the rights of millions of people.
As timely as it sounds, author Sinclair Lewis actually penned It Can't Happen Here more than 80 years before the election of Donald Trump to the White House.
Sinclair's bitingly witty story of how fascism could come to the United States holds so many parallels to the results of the 2016 election as to be unnerving. Written at a time when fascist governments were popping up throughout Europe, the book was inspired by the naïve belief of Americans at the time that what was happening across the Atlantic "can't happen here."
Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip is a populist U.S. senator loosely based on the bombastic Southern Senator Huey Long, whose quest for the presidency was ended by an assassin's bullet in 1935. Windrip curries the favor of Americans disgruntled over the economic blight of the Great Depression by claiming he would end unemployment, much as Trump promised to "bring jobs back" to America.
A man of little intellectual curiosity, Windrip maintains his autobiography is the world's greatest book next to the Bible, the same claim made by an equally incurious Trump about his ghostwritten autobiography The Art of the Deal. Windrips' political base is a rag-tag group of agitators called The Minute Men, or MMs for short. Think of the MMs as a combination of the Tea Party radicals and Alt-Right white supremacists who helped put Trump into office.
Windrip runs for office as a progressive populist, much as Trump did, with promises of taking power in Washington away from industrialists and bankers and giving it back to the little man. Once in power, however, Windrip begins appointing incompetent cronies to key government leadership roles. Trump, who promised to "drain the swamp" in Washington, has filled his Cabinet with controversial D.C. insiders, wealthy financiers and corporate CEOs, and lobbyists.
Almost immediately, Windrip by-passes Congress and begins issuing orders ending President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal social programs, stripping women of the right to vote, and Jews and blacks of their civil rights. He replaces key military leaders with buffoons from the Minutemen, and abolishes all regulations on businesses.
In the first few days of his administration, Trump stripped regulations on banks, industry, and polluters; demanded the repeal of President Obama's Affordable Care Act; ordered the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants (at least those who are non-Anglo); and removed the nation's top military and national security leaders from the National Security Council, replacing them with his Alt-Right strategist, Steve Bannon.
To consolidate power, Windrip sends handpicked "commissioners" to assume the leadership of local governments. The move is very similar to the Nazis use of gauleiters to take control of areas of Germany. Trump hasn't done that—yet—but several Republican governors have dispatched "emergency managers" to take over local government bodies in their states. (Two such emergency managers have been charged with felonies for their roles in the Flint, Michigan drinking water fiasco.)
Windrip fails to make good on any of his campaign promises save one; he ends unemployment by sending the unemployed to labor camps. Workers from labor camps are provided to companies for a fee. This, of course, means those companies lay off paid workers who, now unemployed, are sent to labor camps.
As one of his first acts, Trump rescinded President Obama's executive order to withdraw federal prisoners from privately operated prisons, which have been criticized for bolstering their profits by outsourcing inmates as prison laborers.
Windrip fulfills one of Trump's campaign promises when he strengthens border security to prevent illegal immigration—out of the United States into Canada and Mexico. Walls, after all, keep people in as well as out.
Eventually, as Windrip consolidates his power, he does away all political parties except the new Corporatist Party, whose members are called Corpos. The country is now ruled by and for corporations and wealthy oligarchs, the very definition of fascism as defined by the father of fascism, Italy's Il Duce, Benito Mussolini.
The story is told through the disbelieving eyes of Doremus Jessup, a middle-aged newspaperman, who cannot believe his fellow citizens don't see the slow creep of growing totalitarianism in the country. When MMs begin to terrorize the citizenry, people assume they are just a small minority of rabble-rousers. Even when Windrip establishes concentration camps to house his enemies, many in the country simply cannot believe the United States is falling victim to corporate fascism. They continue to believe "It can't happen here." By the time they realize it has happened here, it is too late.
Lewis's inspiration for this book was simply the time in which it was written. In the 1930s, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression. Ninety percent of the country's wealth was owned by only three 3 percent of the population. (Today, after 30 years of Reaganomics, only 1 percent of Americans own the bulk of the nation's wealth).
Dissatisfaction over the slow economic recovery spawned several populist movements, many of them pro-fascist. Brown-shirted and jackbooted members of the German American Bund—the Nazi Part affiliate in the U.S.—were goose-stepping down Main Street. Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest, was spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric over the airways. The leader of the fascist Silver Legion of America, also known as the Silver Shirts due to their uniforms' silver camp shirts, even made a bid for the White House.
In 1932, a group of wealthy conservatives attempted a coup to overthrow the government and establish a fascist government. What became known as the American Putsch was thwarted by the man they approached to head the coup, Smedley Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, who turned the conspirators over to the FBI.
Still, Lewis's writing doesn't spare any political movement. He believes any strongly held belief system, political or religious, can produce authoritarianism. All it takes is a populace too wrapped up in their own lives to not recognize what's happening about them, or not caring what's happening as long as it doesn't happen to them.
There is no happy ending to this book. There is no great uprising of patriots; many of those who most loudly proclaim their patriotism in the beginning of the book end up in the MMs or working for Windrip. The rest of the country simply endures. Far more than Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale that all Americans should be reading—and heeding—today.
As timely as it sounds, author Sinclair Lewis actually penned It Can't Happen Here more than 80 years before the election of Donald Trump to the White House.
Sinclair's bitingly witty story of how fascism could come to the United States holds so many parallels to the results of the 2016 election as to be unnerving. Written at a time when fascist governments were popping up throughout Europe, the book was inspired by the naïve belief of Americans at the time that what was happening across the Atlantic "can't happen here."
Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip is a populist U.S. senator loosely based on the bombastic Southern Senator Huey Long, whose quest for the presidency was ended by an assassin's bullet in 1935. Windrip curries the favor of Americans disgruntled over the economic blight of the Great Depression by claiming he would end unemployment, much as Trump promised to "bring jobs back" to America.
A man of little intellectual curiosity, Windrip maintains his autobiography is the world's greatest book next to the Bible, the same claim made by an equally incurious Trump about his ghostwritten autobiography The Art of the Deal. Windrips' political base is a rag-tag group of agitators called The Minute Men, or MMs for short. Think of the MMs as a combination of the Tea Party radicals and Alt-Right white supremacists who helped put Trump into office.
Windrip runs for office as a progressive populist, much as Trump did, with promises of taking power in Washington away from industrialists and bankers and giving it back to the little man. Once in power, however, Windrip begins appointing incompetent cronies to key government leadership roles. Trump, who promised to "drain the swamp" in Washington, has filled his Cabinet with controversial D.C. insiders, wealthy financiers and corporate CEOs, and lobbyists.
Almost immediately, Windrip by-passes Congress and begins issuing orders ending President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal social programs, stripping women of the right to vote, and Jews and blacks of their civil rights. He replaces key military leaders with buffoons from the Minutemen, and abolishes all regulations on businesses.
In the first few days of his administration, Trump stripped regulations on banks, industry, and polluters; demanded the repeal of President Obama's Affordable Care Act; ordered the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants (at least those who are non-Anglo); and removed the nation's top military and national security leaders from the National Security Council, replacing them with his Alt-Right strategist, Steve Bannon.
To consolidate power, Windrip sends handpicked "commissioners" to assume the leadership of local governments. The move is very similar to the Nazis use of gauleiters to take control of areas of Germany. Trump hasn't done that—yet—but several Republican governors have dispatched "emergency managers" to take over local government bodies in their states. (Two such emergency managers have been charged with felonies for their roles in the Flint, Michigan drinking water fiasco.)
Windrip fails to make good on any of his campaign promises save one; he ends unemployment by sending the unemployed to labor camps. Workers from labor camps are provided to companies for a fee. This, of course, means those companies lay off paid workers who, now unemployed, are sent to labor camps.
As one of his first acts, Trump rescinded President Obama's executive order to withdraw federal prisoners from privately operated prisons, which have been criticized for bolstering their profits by outsourcing inmates as prison laborers.
Windrip fulfills one of Trump's campaign promises when he strengthens border security to prevent illegal immigration—out of the United States into Canada and Mexico. Walls, after all, keep people in as well as out.
Eventually, as Windrip consolidates his power, he does away all political parties except the new Corporatist Party, whose members are called Corpos. The country is now ruled by and for corporations and wealthy oligarchs, the very definition of fascism as defined by the father of fascism, Italy's Il Duce, Benito Mussolini.
The story is told through the disbelieving eyes of Doremus Jessup, a middle-aged newspaperman, who cannot believe his fellow citizens don't see the slow creep of growing totalitarianism in the country. When MMs begin to terrorize the citizenry, people assume they are just a small minority of rabble-rousers. Even when Windrip establishes concentration camps to house his enemies, many in the country simply cannot believe the United States is falling victim to corporate fascism. They continue to believe "It can't happen here." By the time they realize it has happened here, it is too late.
Lewis's inspiration for this book was simply the time in which it was written. In the 1930s, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression. Ninety percent of the country's wealth was owned by only three 3 percent of the population. (Today, after 30 years of Reaganomics, only 1 percent of Americans own the bulk of the nation's wealth).
Dissatisfaction over the slow economic recovery spawned several populist movements, many of them pro-fascist. Brown-shirted and jackbooted members of the German American Bund—the Nazi Part affiliate in the U.S.—were goose-stepping down Main Street. Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest, was spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric over the airways. The leader of the fascist Silver Legion of America, also known as the Silver Shirts due to their uniforms' silver camp shirts, even made a bid for the White House.
In 1932, a group of wealthy conservatives attempted a coup to overthrow the government and establish a fascist government. What became known as the American Putsch was thwarted by the man they approached to head the coup, Smedley Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, who turned the conspirators over to the FBI.
Still, Lewis's writing doesn't spare any political movement. He believes any strongly held belief system, political or religious, can produce authoritarianism. All it takes is a populace too wrapped up in their own lives to not recognize what's happening about them, or not caring what's happening as long as it doesn't happen to them.
There is no happy ending to this book. There is no great uprising of patriots; many of those who most loudly proclaim their patriotism in the beginning of the book end up in the MMs or working for Windrip. The rest of the country simply endures. Far more than Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale that all Americans should be reading—and heeding—today.
February 14, 2017
Military Law Enforcement for Crime Writers
Over the past year, I've assisted four fellow authors with questions about U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement operations. I helped them as best as I could, drawing on my 13 years of active and reserve experience in the Coast Guard. I began to realize the field of military law enforcement is a bewildering environment for most writers, particularly those who never served in uniform. With this primer, I hope to provide some clarity to the subject.
First, let me say that besides the Coast Guard, I also served in a component of the California National Guard as executive officer of a state military police unit. I also spent six years as a medical specialist with a local sheriff's department reserve force.
There are, as you probably know, five branches of the military in the United States. Besides the Coast Guard (yes, it is a branch of the military), there are the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Each of these branches has its own police force and criminal investigators.
Undoubtedly, the best-known military law enforcement agency is the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS. Best known because of the popular TV show, NCIS is also the employer of my own fictional character, Linus Schag of The Killing Depths and my forthcoming The Butcher’s Bill. NCIS agents are usually, but not always, civilians and are charged with investigating felony criminal cases involving Navy and Marine Corps personnel or property, including espionage and terrorism. NCIS operates independently of any base or command, reporting directly to the Secretary of the Navy.
NCIS, however, does not have authority to investigate crimes not related to the Department of Navy. For this reason, the agency does not have an office in Los Angeles, despite the NCIS spin-off, NCIS Los Angeles. That's because there are no Navy bases in Los Angeles County. NCIS Southwest Regional Headquarters is located in San Diego. The closest NCIS office to Los Angeles is located at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station in Orange County, south of L.A.
Navy masters-at-arms (MAA) are law-enforcement-trained sailors who act as the police and security force on Navy bases. MAAs perform general policing duties such as patrolling bases, handing out traffic citations, responding to on-base criminal violations, and operating brigs aboard ships. MAAs also operate entry gates and respond to any security threats that might arise. They are augmented and work closely with their civilian federal police counterparts who provide similar L/E duties on military bases.
The term "military police" or MP is also well known. As generic as it sounds, however, military police refers only to the soldiers and Marines who specialize in law enforcement operations, either on base or in a combat zone. In the former case, MPs—like Navy MAAs—act as the police and security force on Army bases. They work for the base Provost Marshal essentially the chief of police for a base. In a combat zone, MPs provide security on forward bases and convoys, operate checkpoints, and provide traffic management and direction to long convoys.
Also like Navy MAAs, Army and Marine MPs work closely with civilian federal police officers employed on their bases.
The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, like NCIS, is an autonomous investigative agency that reports to the Secretary of the Army through the Office of the Army Provost Marshal General. Despite its full name, it's known as the CID, a throwback when it was called the Criminal Investigative Division. CID is responsible for investigating any crimes involving Army property or personnel. CID special agents can be civilians, or enlisted or commissioned soldiers. Most often, they are warrant officers.
One of the best novels I've ever read involving a CID investigator is Nelson DeMille's The General's Daughter. If you haven't read it, and you're interested in this topic, pick up a copy.
The Marine Corps also has a Criminal Investigation Division which investigates reports of alleged, suspected, and actual criminal conduct, as well as family violence. Unlike the Army's CID, however, Marine CID investigators work for the Provost Marshal of the base to which they are assigned. Major crimes reaching outside the Marine Corps CID's jurisdiction are referred to NCIS.
Air Force law enforcement airmen have had various names over the years. Army MPs assigned to air bases became Air Police when the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. Since then, they've also been called Security Police and, now, Security Forces. On bases, the Security Forces provide basic police services. They are also charged with defending the base when deployed to a combat zone, including conducting infantry patrols "outside the wire."
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), like the Navy's NCIS and the Army's CID, is an autonomous law enforcement agency that reports directly to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. OSI special agents can be enlisted or commissioned airmen or civilians, and conduct investigations into crimes involving Air Force personnel or property, as well as counterintelligence and protective service operations outside of the traditional Air Force chain of command.
The U.S Coast Guard is the most unusual of the services. Though a branch of the military, the Coast Guard falls under civilian control. Originally, it was part of U.S. Customs. Later, it was transferred to the Department of Transportation. It currently resides under the Department of Homeland Security. That's because, unlike the other services, the Coast Guard is also a law enforcement agency, one of the most powerful police agencies in the country.
Like the Navy, the Coast Guard has an autonomous criminal investigative service (CGCIS) charged with investigating crimes involving USCG property and personnel. Unlike the Navy, however, all petty officers, warrant officers, and commissioned officers are technically law enforcement officers. Not all Coast Guard personnel will engage in L/E operations during their careers, but a very large portion does.
Under Section 2 of Title 14 USC, the Coast Guard has authority to enforce all federal laws on all federal waterways, which include coastal waters, the Great Lakes, and great rivers like the Missouri, Mississippi, and Colorado, and, to some extent, on the high seas. That jurisdiction is wide-ranging, and includes anti-drug and immigrant smuggling, and anti-terrorism operations.
By international treaties, the Coast Guard also enforces international maritime laws, including anti-piracy laws. The U.S. Navy has no authority to enforce anti-piracy laws, though it does operate task forces aimed at deterring piracy. The only exception is by special international agreement or in the event pirates attack a U.S.-flagged vessel. The Navy also has no authority to enforce anti-smuggling laws.
To get around restrictions on Navy ships, special Coast Guard law enforcement detachments (LEDET) are deployed on Navy vessels. The Coast Guard LEDETs take part in any boarding of a suspect vessel and initiate any arrests.
Coast Guard small boats, patrol boats, and cutters are all armed to varying degrees for law enforcement operations. Each of those vessels has, at a minimum, a two-man boarding team that has the authority to stop and search vessels suspected of criminal activity. Boarding teams also perform safety inspections of vessels.
In addition to search-and-rescue operations, much of my last six years on a Coast Guard reserve boat crew were spent conducting anti-smuggling operations along the U.S.-Mexican maritime boundary off the coast of San Diego. That boundary line lies at 32-dgrees, 32-minutes north latitude. The name of my new publishing imprint, 32-32 North, is recognition of that time I spent on border.
First, let me say that besides the Coast Guard, I also served in a component of the California National Guard as executive officer of a state military police unit. I also spent six years as a medical specialist with a local sheriff's department reserve force.
There are, as you probably know, five branches of the military in the United States. Besides the Coast Guard (yes, it is a branch of the military), there are the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Each of these branches has its own police force and criminal investigators.
Undoubtedly, the best-known military law enforcement agency is the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS. Best known because of the popular TV show, NCIS is also the employer of my own fictional character, Linus Schag of The Killing Depths and my forthcoming The Butcher’s Bill. NCIS agents are usually, but not always, civilians and are charged with investigating felony criminal cases involving Navy and Marine Corps personnel or property, including espionage and terrorism. NCIS operates independently of any base or command, reporting directly to the Secretary of the Navy.
NCIS, however, does not have authority to investigate crimes not related to the Department of Navy. For this reason, the agency does not have an office in Los Angeles, despite the NCIS spin-off, NCIS Los Angeles. That's because there are no Navy bases in Los Angeles County. NCIS Southwest Regional Headquarters is located in San Diego. The closest NCIS office to Los Angeles is located at the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station in Orange County, south of L.A.
Navy masters-at-arms (MAA) are law-enforcement-trained sailors who act as the police and security force on Navy bases. MAAs perform general policing duties such as patrolling bases, handing out traffic citations, responding to on-base criminal violations, and operating brigs aboard ships. MAAs also operate entry gates and respond to any security threats that might arise. They are augmented and work closely with their civilian federal police counterparts who provide similar L/E duties on military bases.
The term "military police" or MP is also well known. As generic as it sounds, however, military police refers only to the soldiers and Marines who specialize in law enforcement operations, either on base or in a combat zone. In the former case, MPs—like Navy MAAs—act as the police and security force on Army bases. They work for the base Provost Marshal essentially the chief of police for a base. In a combat zone, MPs provide security on forward bases and convoys, operate checkpoints, and provide traffic management and direction to long convoys.
Also like Navy MAAs, Army and Marine MPs work closely with civilian federal police officers employed on their bases.
The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, like NCIS, is an autonomous investigative agency that reports to the Secretary of the Army through the Office of the Army Provost Marshal General. Despite its full name, it's known as the CID, a throwback when it was called the Criminal Investigative Division. CID is responsible for investigating any crimes involving Army property or personnel. CID special agents can be civilians, or enlisted or commissioned soldiers. Most often, they are warrant officers.
One of the best novels I've ever read involving a CID investigator is Nelson DeMille's The General's Daughter. If you haven't read it, and you're interested in this topic, pick up a copy.
The Marine Corps also has a Criminal Investigation Division which investigates reports of alleged, suspected, and actual criminal conduct, as well as family violence. Unlike the Army's CID, however, Marine CID investigators work for the Provost Marshal of the base to which they are assigned. Major crimes reaching outside the Marine Corps CID's jurisdiction are referred to NCIS.
Air Force law enforcement airmen have had various names over the years. Army MPs assigned to air bases became Air Police when the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. Since then, they've also been called Security Police and, now, Security Forces. On bases, the Security Forces provide basic police services. They are also charged with defending the base when deployed to a combat zone, including conducting infantry patrols "outside the wire."
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), like the Navy's NCIS and the Army's CID, is an autonomous law enforcement agency that reports directly to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. OSI special agents can be enlisted or commissioned airmen or civilians, and conduct investigations into crimes involving Air Force personnel or property, as well as counterintelligence and protective service operations outside of the traditional Air Force chain of command.
The U.S Coast Guard is the most unusual of the services. Though a branch of the military, the Coast Guard falls under civilian control. Originally, it was part of U.S. Customs. Later, it was transferred to the Department of Transportation. It currently resides under the Department of Homeland Security. That's because, unlike the other services, the Coast Guard is also a law enforcement agency, one of the most powerful police agencies in the country.
Like the Navy, the Coast Guard has an autonomous criminal investigative service (CGCIS) charged with investigating crimes involving USCG property and personnel. Unlike the Navy, however, all petty officers, warrant officers, and commissioned officers are technically law enforcement officers. Not all Coast Guard personnel will engage in L/E operations during their careers, but a very large portion does.
Under Section 2 of Title 14 USC, the Coast Guard has authority to enforce all federal laws on all federal waterways, which include coastal waters, the Great Lakes, and great rivers like the Missouri, Mississippi, and Colorado, and, to some extent, on the high seas. That jurisdiction is wide-ranging, and includes anti-drug and immigrant smuggling, and anti-terrorism operations.
By international treaties, the Coast Guard also enforces international maritime laws, including anti-piracy laws. The U.S. Navy has no authority to enforce anti-piracy laws, though it does operate task forces aimed at deterring piracy. The only exception is by special international agreement or in the event pirates attack a U.S.-flagged vessel. The Navy also has no authority to enforce anti-smuggling laws.
To get around restrictions on Navy ships, special Coast Guard law enforcement detachments (LEDET) are deployed on Navy vessels. The Coast Guard LEDETs take part in any boarding of a suspect vessel and initiate any arrests.
Coast Guard small boats, patrol boats, and cutters are all armed to varying degrees for law enforcement operations. Each of those vessels has, at a minimum, a two-man boarding team that has the authority to stop and search vessels suspected of criminal activity. Boarding teams also perform safety inspections of vessels.
In addition to search-and-rescue operations, much of my last six years on a Coast Guard reserve boat crew were spent conducting anti-smuggling operations along the U.S.-Mexican maritime boundary off the coast of San Diego. That boundary line lies at 32-dgrees, 32-minutes north latitude. The name of my new publishing imprint, 32-32 North, is recognition of that time I spent on border.
