AVOID THE MONKEY

Jule Selbo/ April 2025

Deep into mid-book angst on 6 Days, A Dee Rommel Mystery, I start hoping for those story-fixer dreams that – for me – often happen in that last wave of sleep before getting up in the morning. As it happens, I like to get up around 4:30 am to start my workday, so I pray that after that 3 am slight wake-up to sip water and to check the clock (I hate to oversleep) that magic story-fixer dream will kick in.

90 minutes left to snooze, I hope that the deep pull downwards into that last drowse will solve all my story problems.

It happened the other day.  All story problems disappeared.

Because it turned out –

The monkey did it.

The villain, apparently, was a disguised marmoset.

Her henchman were part of an obscure gibbon tribe from India or New Guinea and they had definite spy-worthy reasons for invading Portland Maine’s justice systems.In my ‘creative sleep’ I was so happy that all motives and motions and aliases were reasonable and certainly not predictable – they fell into that ‘didn’t see it coming but it sure make a lot of sense’ category.

In my ‘creative sleep’ I was so happy that all motives and motions and aliases were reasonable and certainly not predictable – they fell into that ‘didn’t see it coming but it sure make a lot of sense’ category.

The euphoria lasted as I swing my legs out of bed. And as I get ready to head to Becky’s Diner for the first butt-on-the-stool write of the day. I’m almost skipping down the hallway of my ancient condo building to the elevator…

I press the elevator button to go down ten floors to the parking garage sure that primates and orangutans were my saviors. Can’t wait to get to working longhand on the pages, to ‘fix’ all problems and sail through to ‘The End.’

In the small elevator cubicle, questions begin to present themselves. Wait. Does this monkey wear clothes? With style? Is she a grunge monkey? Is she a silverback? Does she have a monkey accent?

                                                

How do Dee (my protagonist) and these monkeys relate to each other? Are the anthropods really here to take over the world or just Portland Maine?

I walk into the quiet concrete parking area. Euphoria is dissipating. The Dee Rommel books are realistic. There’s no fantasy or sci-fi elements or horror (besides the realistic horror of crime and criminal minds) in the tales. How do I explain the fact that no one notices that there’s a bevy of King Kong sized primates eating burgers at Gritty’s? Or enjoying a lobster roll at Luke’s?

Sometimes those dreams are helpful and sometimes not.

After sufficient wakeful moments that morning, I realized that the day’s final 90 minutes of sleep fell into the ‘not helpful’ category.

But it did make me laugh. And think about a few other things.

That I had never been fond of the deus ex machina being a highly intelligent and/or evil four-legged hairy creature.That I had no idea why my brain was searching for non-sensical answers to clues/questions/motives and circumstances. Was I tired of working in ‘rational’? At least that day/night?

I had done some research on Agatha Christie a few months back and read about the DETECTION CLUB – this was a group of mystery writers (Dorothy L. Sayers, A.A. Milne (yes, he did write mysteries other than the ones that stumped Winnie the Pooh), G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, Margaret Cole, E.C. Bentley, Anthony Berkeley and a few others. As a group they came up with rules to abide by – so that the mystery/crime genre could keep gaining in respect.

All members had to accept the rules – no one should employ certain elements in their stories such as:divine or supernatural revelationsmumbo jumbojiggery-pokery (meaning dishonest or deceitful behavior on investigator’s side)feminine intuitioncoincidences or acts of God

Also:

the murderer shouldn’t come in towards the end of the storyno more than one secret passage per bookno twins or doublesthe detective can’t be the murderer

I am going to add to their list for myself : no monkeys, chimps, gibbons, marmosets or primates of any kind.  AVOID THE MONKEY

QUESTION:

ARE THERE some things you – as a matter of pride or taste or intuition – WON’T USE in solving your crime/mystery plots?

SIDELIGHT AND QUESTION: Chronotypes refer to the natural preferences for our body’s sleep patterns. They are determined by our genetics and affected by circadian rhythms. They affect our performance during the day – our alertness, our appetites, and more. Adapting/accepting your genetically set chronotype can affect your moods and energies. Are you an ‘lion’ (early bird) or a ‘bear’ (follows the sun and likes traditional office hours) ‘wolf’ (night owl) or ‘dolphin’ (alert even when asleep – a semi-insomniac). When are you most productive/amenable/creative/kind during the day?

 

After years of being an ‘early bird/lion’, I did a bit more research. I found that I probably have a longer allele on the PER3 circadian clock gene (if you want to get scientific about it).

So – no wonder I don’t party well into the night.