Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 22

The True Joys of a Maine Winter

Last month my esteemed colleague Barbara Ross wrote a “what were we thinking?” post about moving her primary home this winter from Somerville, Massachusetts to Portland. It started out like this:

Move to Maine they said.

It’s not as cold and snowy as you think, they said.

The ocean mitigates the temperature on the coast, they said.

To which I say, “HA!”

A bunch of us commented, all along the lines of “Oh, Barb, it’s not that bad.”

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But as anyone who has been here knows, the weather these past few months has been pretty awful.

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The driving has not been easy

Winter started early. Christmas week was marked by bad weather, including a nasty ice storm that had everyone fretting about family members who were traveling in the days around the holiday.

Then the deep freeze set in, a sustained spell of bitter, painful cold that sucked fuel out of tanks, induced car batteries to die and forced us all to bundle ourselves in six layers of clothing before stepping outside.

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A typical reading on the thermometer on our porch those two hellish weeks after Christmas

Stuff inside the spare refrigerator in our garage froze, memorably several cans of ginger ale, which exploded like little soda grenades.

It was grim, but we survived it, and now we’re in the first week of February, so things are looking up. I’m writing this on Superbowl Sunday. It’s gray out there, and spitting snow. But if the sun were visible, we would have first seen it at 6:53 a.m., and if skies were to clear today (they won’t, I’m using my writer’s imagination here), sunset would occur at 4:58 p.m. This translates to ten hours of daylight, up from slightly less than nine hours at the solstice, and 11 (count ‘em) hours of visible light.

It’s enough to make a woman’s heart sing.

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Here comes the sun

But the point of this column is not to say Barb is right, though truth be told, she is right about many, many things. But she’s not wrong either, not exactly. She’s simply unaware of the many joys of winter in Maine, and I know she’s looking forward to experiencing them. For example:

There is no need to spend money on fancy balance classes like Tai Chi when you have a front walk of your own on which to practice balance and mindful motion. The end of January ice was a gift from Mother Nature in this regard, though I prefer the gift of grippers to keep me upright and my limbs and joints intact.

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Can’t get through a Maine winter without these babies

All the little joys of life that you miss in the rush of summer are front and center. The pleasure of a finding a mitten you thought you’d lost. It’s frozen to the driveway, but at least not gone forever.

The ecstasy of the car wash on one of the few-and-far-between warmish days, scouring the salt off not just the car’s exterior, but the filthy floor mats as well.

And the bottom-warming bliss of a car with heated seats, which makes the drive to work a high point of the day.

You can have the table of your choice at some of Portland’s hottest restaurants on Portland’s coldest nights. The summer lines out the door are a distant memory when the mercury is below zero. The staff is delighted to see you, and, you know, reservations, schmezervations.

But for me, the best thing about the cold weather months is having the beach to ourselves.

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Slush on the water

Barb might be strolling the soft sand in Key West right now, but I’m getting ready to put on my big boots and cruise the slushy verge where the ocean meets the Maine shoreline, to feel the wind bite my ears through my hat, and savor the relief of hiking back to the car. The one with the heated seats.

Brenda Buchanan is the author of the Joe Gale Mystery Series, featuring a diehard Maine newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. Three books—QUICK PIVOT, COVER STORY and TRUTH BEAT—are available everywhere else quality ebooks are sold.

  NOTE FOR THOSE LOOKING FOR FUN THINGS TO DO IN MAINE THIS WINTER:[image error]

On Monday March 5th, hot scenes from books by MCW bloggers Barbara Ross, Lea Wait, Richard Cass, Brenda Buchanan and MCW alum Chris Holm will be given staged readings by professional and community actors at Portland Stage Company. The fun starts at 6:30 with a reception in the lobby, followed by readings in the theater beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door, so why not buy yours early? Portland Stage Company is at 25 Forest Avenue in Portland.

Weekend Update: February 3-4, 2018

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday) , Lea Wait (Wednesday), Barb Ross (Thursday), and Kate Flora (Friday).

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

Congratulations to Jessie Crockett.

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Writing as Jessica Ellicott, Jessie’s first book in a new series, Murder in an English Village, is a finalist in the historical mystery category for the Agatha award. To learn more about the Agatha Awards, given out at Malice Domestic in April to the best of the previous year’s traditional mysteries, go to http://www.malicedomestic.org

 

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

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

 

Farewell to the Family

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On September 21, 2012 I worked my last official day as a Portland police officer. Tradition dictates a PD luncheon/sendoff where plaques are presented, speeches are made, and good wishes are bestowed. It is an emotional time for both the retiree and those remaining on the job. In typical writer fashion, I had prepared and practiced giving my final remarks. Those who know me know that I enjoy public speaking. I thought this final speech to my coworkers would be easy—after all, I had witnessed many of my brethren take part in the same ceremonial last lunch. I was wrong. In the end, I was forced to wing it. The words I had written were simply too full of emotion to be spoken aloud.

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The other day, while cleaning my writing studio, I came across that final speech—the one never made—and I have decided to share it with you, resisting the urge to edit it. So here it is, warts and all, my farewell to the family:

I have given a great deal of thought to what I would say to all of you today. Well, after much consideration… I’ve got nothing.

No. Seriously, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of your family for the past 27 years. I have always considered being a police officer as who I am not just what I do. I’m still not sure how that much time could have passed so quickly, but it has. They say that this job, and the experiences that come with it, change a person. Well, after nearly three decades I can say with a certainty that it has changed me, but I believe for the better.

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I have made friendships and memories, that will last me the rest of my life. I have seen and done things that others, outside of this profession, can only imagine. I have experienced first hand the best and worst that society has had to offer. I enjoyed the opportunity to play a small role in the honorable calling that is, law enforcement.

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I want to thank my entire family for their unwavering support and for instilling in me the values that made me want to become a police officer in the first place. I couldn’t have succeeded without you. More specifically, I want to thank my wife, Karen for believing in me and in this way of life, for putting up with the late night and weekend call ins, the missed holidays and family get togethers that you had to attend solo. Thank you for always understanding and for always being there.

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And finally, I want to thank all of you for your service, your professionalism, and your friendship. It has truly been my pleasure to work along side each of you. I may go on to work at a different career, in a different venue, but I will always consider each of you part of my family and I will always consider myself a Portland Police Officer.

Thank you.

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Does Your Cozy Sleuth Have Superpowers?

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, pondering this question, which was inspired by a recent email from a reader. He wrote that he has read and enjoyed all of my Liss MacCrimmon mysteries and plans to buy the new ones as they appear. Having said that, however, he went on to explain that since he considers my books “realistic fiction” (at least compared to Harry Potter), some of the things I had Liss do in the third entry, A Wee Christmas Homicide, were “almost insulting to the reader” in that there was “no way that could happen.” He referred specifically to the chase scene with snowmobiles, in which Liss, a novice, had to go after the bad guy at high speed in less than ideal conditions. He wasn’t convinced that she was strong enough to handle such a powerful machine or that (thanks to her former career as a dancer) she had the extraordinary balance necessary to maneuver it.

[image error]Since this criticism was expressed in a polite manner, devoid of snark, I took my time composing a reply to explain why I chose to write the scene that way. To tell you the truth, I had some of the same concerns when I was working on the book, which is why I had several people with experience driving snowmobiles read the pages in question and offer suggestions. None of them indicated that they found it hard to believe that Liss could do what she did.

A side note: one of the reasons I had her take risks during the chase scene was to make her, and State Trooper Gordon Tandy, realize that she was getting to like that sort of thing a little too much. Continuing their relationship on a personal level wasn’t going to be a good move, emotionally, for either of them.

Anyway, getting back to Liss’s “superpowers” and the whole subject of realism in a cozy mystery, I came to a couple of conclusions in writing my reply. Keeping in mind that I do think it’s important for details of geography, police procedure, weather, local customs, etc. to be correct, here’s part of what I wrote in my email:

[image error]“The entire concept of the amateur detective forces the reader to suspend disbelief. In what real situation do former Scottish dancers or little old ladies from St. Mary Mead succeed in finding the killer where trained police detectives cannot? For that matter, if Maine had as many murders as are found in novels set here, let alone in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, I would seriously consider moving. . . . in a broader sense, realism doesn’t come into the equation. The exciting chase scene is a literary device. Liss isn’t James Bond, but in a crisis situation, she’s able to go above and beyond what someone might realistically be expected to do. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t be trying to track down a killer in the first place. Like most people, I’d leave that to the police.”

[image error]It seems to me that the protagonists in most mysteries, no matter what the sub-genre, have a little of the superhero in them. I can’t count how many times I’ve read a novel in which the detective, amateur or professional, gets knocked unconscious, sometimes more than once, but never seems to suffer a concussion. Recovery time from other injuries, some of them quite serious, is remarkably swift. Sometimes the narrator says something like, “I don’t know how I found the strength” or “what happened next is a blur” to skim over a remarkable physical feat that allowed the protagonist to overcome the bad guy.

Then there’s that old standby, the berserker rage, used to such hilarious effect in one of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries. Realism? Not so much. Did it spoil the book for me? Not a bit. As a reader, I was very willing to suspend my disbelief and accept that it could happen that way. Of course, when the mystery is supposed to be humorous, as Peters’s historicals are, then much can be forgiven for that reason alone. I like to think my own mystery novels are, if not laugh-out-loud funny, at least mildly humorous, and all cozies, by definition, are on the light-hearted end of the mystery spectrum.

[image error]In creating a cozy sleuth, the writer usually gives the amateur detective a special skill, physical attribute, or occupation that allows him or her to solve a specific type of crime. People who own specialty shops are so popular as cozy sleuths because they come in contact with customers who talk to them and tell them things they haven’t told the police. Realistic? Well, people do gossip, and most readers will accept the coincidence that one or more of them just happen to know something related to the murder.

In the first Liss MacCrimmon, the fact that Liss had been a professional dancer made it realistic that she could escape from the bad guy by means of a well-aimed kick. Is it that much of a stretch to have her dance training endow her with extraordinary balance and motor skills? Since this is fiction and I’m making stuff up, I’m allowed to give my heroine the abilities she needs to survive.

In the new series, where my protagonist is sixty-eight years old and wears glasses and hearing aids, and her same-age sidekick is partially disabled in spends much of the book riding a mobility scooter, physical superpowers are in short supply, but you’d be amazed how much a couple of ticked-off senior citizens can accomplish! Realistic? You’ll have to read Crime & Punctuation when it comes out in late May and let me know.

Or, you can comment on this post. One lucky reader will win an Advance Reading Copy and won’t have to wait until May to weigh in on the subject.

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Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of more than fifty-five traditionally published books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series (Crime & Punctuation—2018) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” mysteries and is set in Elizabethan England. Her most recent collection of short stories is Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

A Taste of Things to Come

A Maine Crime Writers compilation of opening lines (or paragraphs) from works coming your way in 2018:

Kate Flora: From the opening of Schooled in Death, the 9th Thea Kozak mystery

It was Monday. Always the worst day of the week in the working world. So when my phone rang before I’d showered, brushed my teeth, or even opened my eyes, I knew I was about to be the recipient of bad news and a summons to someone else’s troubles.

I was not wrong.

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett: from the opening of Crime & Punctuation, publication date May 29, the first in the new Deadly Edits series featuring retired teacher turned book doctor Mikki Lincoln and set in rural New York State

“I don’t know, Cal. It doesn’t look good.”

Always the silent type, Cal stared back at me with big green eyes and an enigmatic expression.

“You should be concerned,” I said. “If I can’t pay the bills, both of us will be reduced to eating cut-rate cat food.”

That earned me what we used to call “the hairy eyeball.”

“What do you know?” I muttered. “You’re a cat.”

 

Dick Cass, from The Right Brother, a standalone thriller:

After the fire upstairs, Philip Fecteau was forced to close the deli counter at the IGA in Cape Blandon. Too many of the customers waiting for their salami or Muenster cheese complained of smelling roast pork. Some of them hadn’t even been living there when the fire happened and Philip tried hard to convince people it was a mass hallucination until people started driving the extra seven miles to the Hannaford downtown for their groceries. For most of the town, that was as personal as the tragedy got.

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The cover photo for Bad News Travels Fast, by Maureen Milliken, due out early summer.

Maureen Milliken, from Bad News Travels Fast, the third in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. The book is tentatively due to be out in June.

Lydia Manzo lay dying half a mile from where searchers passed not once, not twice, but four times.

She lay dying as the search turned to areas farther and farther away from her campsite somewhere in the deep Maine wilderness of the Appalachian Trail, then was scaled back.

There she lay, nearly dead, about as close to expiration as a human body can get without being there. Then some asshole murdered her.

 

Susan Vaughan, from Dark Vision, an addition to The DARK Files series, coming in early spring.

[image error]The sight of her her slammed Matt in the chest. When Nadia Parker climbed into the limo, he slid from the backseat to the rear-facing one, just catching a whiff of lilacs. He stretched out and crossed his ankles. He’d steeled himself for this first meeting, but with every muscle tensed, it was a hell of a hard job looking like he didn’t give a shit.

She took the seat beside Princess Sarika. When she saw him, her high-boned cheeks paled and hurt flashed in her green eyes. Like on the day he’d arrested her father for treason.

[image error]Barbara Ross, from “Logged On,” which will be published in Yule Log Murder on October 30, 2018. (Pre-order links coming soon.)

“It looks like a mousse,” my sister Livvie said. Charitably.

“It looks like something a moose left in the woods,” her husband Sonny corrected. “An unhealthy one.”

Page, my ten-year-old niece, leaned in toward the disaster sitting on a board on the countertop. “At least it must taste good.” She dipped a finger in the mess and popped it in her mouth. “Yuck.”

“There’s the final verdict.” I used a big kitchen knife to sweep it into the garbage bin. “Tomorrow I try again.”

Brenda Buchanan, from a work in progress she calls Big Fish, the first book in a new series featuring a criminal defense lawyer named Neva Pierce, for which she has no publication date (but high hopes!)

The skinny kid who called himself Taggerboy Tommy strutted back and forth in front of a virgin brick wall, a can of spray paint in each hand. Neva Pierce watched his every move from the doorway of a slumbering office building fifteen yards away, a whistle around her neck, phone at the ready. If Skye Littlefield was right, the thug who’d been beating up Portland’s midnight artists would soon emerge from the shadows, but this time he’d be caught before he could get off a punch.

Neva hoped Skye’s hunch was wrong. She signed on to the stakeout in a moment of misplaced solidarity and couldn’t figure out how to back out gracefully when the idea of trapping the graffiti-hating vigilante evolved from big talk to nervous reality. An LED flashlight and 911 on speed dial was no match for a mugger bent on trouble, and if things went sideways, it wouldn’t be Skye who caught the flak. Not when a lawyer was in the middle of it, even a well-intentioned lawyer trying to bring an end to street violence the Portland PD couldn’t be bothered to investigate.

 

 

 

Possible Second Thoughts

After a hiatus, and surgery, Dorothy Cannell rejoins us this month

         It’s insufficient to say I’m a dinosaur living in this ultra-techno age.  I’m whatever [image error]came before Brontosaurus and his kith and kin.  I picture blobs of gray Jell-O with brains indiscernible under the most powerful microscope.  I don’t have a cell phone, let alone text or tweet. Doubtless the next thing will be twizzle and I’ll feel more alone than ever on an island the size of dinner plate. It’s not that I don’t approve of certain advancements. I have no wish that Thomas Edison had never been born. The advent of the vacuum cleaner was nice, also washing machines and dryers and sensible telephones; not ones that don’t stay in place rather than wandering all over house and pretending not to hear when summoned.

I excuse this attitude on all the period novels I read when young. I longed to have lived in an age of horse drawn carriages, evenings by candlelight enlivened by conversation in the manner of the Bennet family. Wayside inns with serving wenches in mobcaps bustling about with pewter tankards and loaded platters. Bewigged gentlemen sipping port or taking snuff.  Females sketching or tending their embroidery. I can’t draw or dig a needle in the right place on a piece of cloth, but the concept was pleasant. Later I tended to think that my growing era, the nineteen forties and fifties got it about right. Until I was about ten the milkman still came round in a horse and cart, as did the coalman and rag-and-bone man. We had the red telephone boxes, double decker buses, men in bowler hats and typewriters that minded their own business instead of big-headedly correcting spelling and punctuation.

Also, and of paramount importance, the medical profession had picked up its crawl out the dark ages. I don’t suppose leaches took kindly to being put out of work; I can hear them complaining, “There goes the family business after hundreds, possibly thousands of years – I guess it means we’ll be on the dole, Jimmy”. But who spared them a passing thought even when singing All Creatures Great and Small? Then there was the matter of braving the Dentist without seriously considering the alternative – taking a lethal dose of smelling salts. Back to the Tower of London for those instruments of torture. One could imagine a dreamy eyed Henry VIII fondling them before having the fellow who had clipped a leaf from many off the maze at Hampton Court dragged before him for a game of show and tell. As for the news that one requires an operation. How pleasant one need not have one’s leg amputated or necessary internal organ removed without being told to chew on a rag unless you preferred screaming to the point you’d never get your voice back and your eyes blown out of your head.

But even nostalgia for that era dimmed from gold to brass this past year when I started having back and arm pain and eventually was scheduled for neck spinal fusion surgery. In the past this would have been a bigger deal, but though people warned me to think carefully about being drastically chopped about and likely coming off worse than before, it wasn’t anything worth dreading. Although not laser, the incision was small and instead of stitches or staples closed with super glue. I was out of the hospital the next morning and my daughter, Shana, who had taken a couple of weeks off work to take care of me went to Mexico instead.

Am I still blob of pre-dinosaur gray Jell-O when it comes to personal participation in this to me science fiction world (I do prefer mysteries). But I do have appreciation for what medical science and rapid communication now offer. After I came out of surgery Shana and her partner texted all interested parties that I was fine and continued to keep them updated on other outlets of social media, whatever that entails.

[image error]Still, enough is enough. I never wanted a dog or a cat cleverer than I, and certainly not a smarty-pants appliance telling me what to do. Now, I’m going to go and have a chat with my old manual typewriter on which I wrote three books without ever exchanging a cross word.

Good to be back,

Dorothy

Modern Society: Some Assembly Required

John Clark with a shorter than usual piece, but one that I need to write. Last night Beth and I were participants in the annual scholarship event run by our local couples club. We’ve been members for two years, like the members and enjoy most of the monthly gatherings. Last night, we had a local group The Lost and Found Band perform for free at the community center. We charged $6.00, $10.00/couple admission. 37 folks showed up and half of them were members of the club. Nobody was under 40 and possibly none were under 50 (I wasn’t allowed to check IDs). The music was really good, a mix of classic country, classic rock and tunes from the 1950s.

It was the latest example of something that’s really worrisome to me—Anyone under 40 isn’t interested in showing up physically for much these days. Sure, sporting events draw a crowd, but that’s because parents DO support their kids. Go to a Masonic Lodge, Lions Club, Kiwanis, etc. meeting in this area of Maine and count the number of younger (under 50) members. Go to town meeting and count the under 50 crowd, the numbers will be pretty slim.

Informal conversations and personal experience support my concern. Last week I was doing training at a rural high school library. The woman I worked with, doubles as town treasurer, doing most of her second job on Saturday. She’d love to pass it on to someone else, but her town has less than 300 residents and the majority are over 60. Another friend and I chatted at the concert. His Kiwanis Club, in a town of 7200 people, is down to five members and is at risk of joining the dinosaur ranks, even though they hand out a lot of scholarships annually. Another organization which I served as president and treasurer during a twelve year membership on the executive board (Friends of Maine Libraries), just folded because we couldn’t find anyone willing to step up and be a leader.

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This ad has been running in our local newspaper for weeks.

Here’s the crux of this issue as I see it. We have two to three generations who now believe everything can be done through social media. Good luck with that, folks. What happens on the day when not one person is willing to be a selectman, budget committee member, or serve on a school board. How about when these folks realize that getting elected to either state or national legislative or senatorial vacancies requires something as rustic as actually knocking on doors and (Egad) having a face-to-face conversation?

There is hope, but many won’t like it or feel comfortable. I was a participant in this years Womens March, and the number of younger folks who gave up a Saturday and come to Augusta was amazing. So were the speakers (some of the best I’ve ever heard at a rally). Emily Cain, head of Emily’s List, had the most heartening statistic in years. More than 26,000 women are planning on running for political office nationwide. So, there are people willing to keep some parts of society working and I can’t wait for this November.

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Weekend Update: January 27-28, 2018

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by John Clark (Monday), Dorothy Cannell (Tuesday) , group post (Wednesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson) (Thursday), and Bruce Coffin (Friday).

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

[image error]Maureen Milliken will creep into the Land of Gerry Boyle when she speaks at the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library, 37 Main St., China Village, Maine, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18. (Snow date is Feb. 25, but when do we ever get snow in February in Maine?).

Maureen, with the indulgence of the wonderful librarians who allow her to speak, accompanies her talk with a slide show that is sometimes well-received. She will also sign books and have books available to buy.

Kate Flora apologizes for being absent lately, but she’s been on a big orange bus, riding around in Northern India. Here’s proof (although she supposes it could just be photoshopped)

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Stay tuned in to our weekend updates, because next week there will be a give-away announced, and you won’t want to miss that, will you?

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

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Exploring India

[image error]Kate Flora: When I was a child, my mother, in an effort to show us that there was a world beyond our Maine farm and and a small town, got us involved in a program called the International Farm Youth Exchange. As part of the IFYE program, young adults from other countries would come and stay with us and learn about farming in Maine. Back then, I didn’t realize that for someone to have the connections and wherewithal (and language skills) to come to America, they would be pretty sophisticated people. All I knew was these visitors from Iran, Pakistan, and India, were fascinating, and that other families in town, except for those farm families participating in the program, weren’t exposed to the cultural exchanges that we were.

Back then, wide-eyed me learned to tie a sari, tried on an intricate carved ivory bracelet, sniffed a scented sandalwood box, watched our guest dress elegantly in his turban, and formed a desire to visit India. That desire was fulfilled over the past two weeks. Our journey started in Mumbai, where we toured the spice market, the thieves market, and other markets, took a Bollywood dance lesson, and toured the city and a house turned [image error]museum where Ghandi stayed. We took a boat ride to Elephanta Island to explore an ancient temple carved into rock, toured the Dhobi Ghat, an open-air laundry, and then flew to Udaipur. There we stayed at The Lake Palace Hotel–one of the most romantic [image error]hotels in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

I will spare you a day by day recap of the trip. Suffice it to say, it was an adventure, involving a lot of bus rides, plane rides, a train ride, and a half day spent in a jeep searching for an elusive tiger. Our guide was a fount of information about history, politics, social strata and customs. India is a visual feast. The architecture is stunning. The women in their saris are colorful as tropical birds, camels and ox carts share highways with the traffic, and the sacred cows wander at will, and lie down in the middle of the road if they want.

Here are some pictures from the journey:

How to tie a turban

Tourists arriving by elephant at the Amber Fort

Crazy traffic and a frightening maze of electrical wires in Old Delhi

 

Mughal empire architecture with doorway symmetry

 

Roadside animals

 

Colorful ladies and the woman in white

 

Roadside markets

 

 

And of course, a sign (I hope you can read it) that is the epitome of irony in the midst of the human and traffic jams we experienced. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of the sign just before this one, which declared that trespassers would be shot.

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Dame Agatha and Her Orient Express

Susan Vaughan here. Seeing Kenneth Branagh’s new film version of Murder on the Orient Express prompted me to reread Agatha Christie’s original 1934 novel. For the uninitiated, the story as written and the 2017 film are both set aboard the Orient Express luxury train traveling from Istanbul to Calais in January of  about 1934.

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For the uninitiated, it’s a tale of thirteen strangers who, along with our detective, awaken to find that an avalanche has derailed their train and one of their fellow passengers has been murdered. Novels and films must by their nature present the same stories differently, but I wondered just how differently. I promise not to reveal any secrets of either, no spoilers here, so if you haven’t read the novel or seen any of the four other iterations of Murder, feel free to keep reading.

First, a little about the author. Born in 1890 in Torquay, England, Agatha Miller took her husband’s name when she married. Her first published book was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920. The story introduced Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, one of the most famous fictional detectives ever. In 1926, after Christie’s mother had recently died, her husband confessed to having an affair. She then provided the world with a real mystery by disappearing. Her car was found abandoned, police in four counties searched for her, and a newspaper offered a reward for information. Eleven days later, she was located at a hotel in Harrogate under a fictitious name. Critics claimed it was a publicity stunt, but stress seems more likely the cause, according to others. The couple divorced, and she later married an archaeology professor, with whom she traveled on several expeditions.

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Agatha Christie published sixty-six or seventy detective novels (depending on the source; I didn’t count), 150 short stories, two romance novels, two poetry collections, several plays, and her autobiography. Some of her books feature other sleuths, but her most famous are Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Her play The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and holds the record for the longest unbroken run in a London theater. She is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. In 1971, she was honored by being made a Dame of the British Empire.

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According to reviews I read, Murder on the Orient Express (1934) was inspired by her trip aboard the luxury train in 1928. The original passenger train traveled in 1882 between Paris and Vienna and extended to Constantinople in 1889. By the 1930’s the Orient Express was famous for its cuisine and luxury accommodations.

Murder on the Orient Express is Christie’s most well-known Hercule Poirot mystery, partly because Poirot himself is such a fascinating character. I learned in my reread of the novel that he’d been the “star of the Belgian Police Force.” Dapper, and beyond his insight and attention to telling details in his observations of and conclusions about suspects, he’s fastidious about his person, notably “les moustaches.” His idiosyncrasies might be attributed today to obsessive-compulsive tendencies, most of which appear to be useful in his detecting.[image error]

The other reason, I believe, is that the story has been adapted for the stage, film, and television. The first film (1974) won awards and starred Albert Finney as Poirot, Lauren Bacall, and Ingrid Bergman. Each version is indeed an adaptation, some I doubt Dame Agatha would approve of. One of the aspects of the novel that doesn’t make it easily to film is Poirot’s method. In the novel, he observes and questions and then elicits reactions from his friend M. Bouc, a director of the railroad company, and others, while he preens his moustaches and murmurs. The lively dialog and touches of humor keep the pacing going, but in a film it would slow the pacing as much as the snowstorm slows the train and make the film too long.

I do believe Dame Agatha would approve of the current Murder on the Orient Express. Branagh’s version adheres largely to the original plot, but doesn’t let the viewer in on the detective’s process to the same extent as the book. In my view, Branagh sacrificed those details in favor of richer characterization. Branagh himself inhabits Hercule Poirot as deeply and expertly as he does all his roles. The cast is more ethnically diverse than any previous version, possibly tailored for today’s audience as well as to suit the actors.

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One last tidbit about Hercule Poirot. Christie became tired of the character and wrote Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case in the early 1940’s and stored it in a bank vault. She’d intended it to be released after her death, but she was persuaded to release it in 1975, shortly before her death in 1976. When Poirot died in Curtain, he became the only fictional character to have an obituary in the New York Times.

If you have something to add about Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie or her other novels, I hope you’ll leave a comment.