Great Expectations: preparing to travel in the States

Zoë Sharp

I was intending to blog about today’s momentous date – September 11^th – today, but Jeff Siger’s ‘Fifteen Years Later’ blog from yesterday has said it all in a far more moving and arresting way than I could. I can clearly recall watching events unfold on the TV news and thinking that things would never be quite the same again. He, on the other hand, was there.

So instead I’m going to look forward – for the next couple of weeks, at least.

Next week I’ll be on my way back to New Orleans for Bouchercon, and I can’t wait to see the place again. I went there last when I was researching DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten, which, as the title might suggest, has the Big Easy as its setting. Back then, I was lucky enough to spend some time with fellow mystery author Toni McGee Causey and her husband, Carl. Louisiana natives, they were brilliant guides, showing me the hidden parts of the city that proved invaluable when it came to background for that book, including the incredible giant scrapyard, Southern Recycling, where old school buses and the engine blocks from container ships go to die.

After Bouchercon I’m picking up a car and going on a road trip. Fellow Brit thriller author, John Lawton and I have just brought out our first joint project, called AN ITALIAN JOB, and teaming up to do some bookstore and library events together seemed a good way to celebrate.

I know at first glance we seem an unlikely combination for such a collaborative effort. Lawton’s books are meticulously researched historical espionage tales. I write contemporary crime thrillers. Our writing styles are very different. But that, in part, was the challenge of it – working on producing a story written by both of us, without people being able to see the joins.

And I confess it was fun to finish a scene and hand it over to Lawton, only for the story to come back heading in a direction I never would have thought of. It not only made me up my game and kept me constantly on my toes, but also filled me with even more respect for my collaborative colleagues at Murder is Everywhere, Michael and Stan.

The first stop for Lawton and myself is Houston, Texas, and Murder By The Book. The last time I was there it was summer. I had lunch at a restaurant just down the street from the bookstore and decided, perhaps foolishly, to walk from one to the other. It was hot, even by Texas standards, and the thing I remember most is how my shadow was little more than a shrunken puddle around my feet.

From there we go to Book People in Austin, who have organized a Noir @ The Bar at Threadgill’s South, which is a theme restaurant with the theme of Austin, apparently. I’ve never been to Austin, so I can’t wait to go there.

From Austin it’s up to Dallas, once famous as the home of the Ewing family. Indeed, I remember back when I was photographing for motoring magazines, borrowing an F150 Lightning pick-up truck from Ford’s Press Office. Where else could I take it other than to Southfork Ranch?

At that point we leave Texas and fly up to New England, or more precisely, to Cape Cod. I’ve never been to the Cape, and for someone who loves being near the sea, I confess I’m truly looking forward to experiencing what Provincetown has to offer.

The architecture alone makes it a must-see, and the Public Library building itself looks wonderful. I understand you can rent a bicycle to explore further. Sounds like a great way to see t   he place at a slower rate than normal. Expect photos next time. Of course, we’ll also be calling in at the Provincetown Bookshop, and at Truro Library while we’re there.

And the day I get back, September 30^th, I’m at The Bakewell Bookshop in the Derbyshire Peak District, with fellow crime author Sarah Ward. It would seem that there is, indeed, no rest for the wicked.

So, this trip will include quite a few visits to places I’ve been before, and yet others to places I’ve heard about but never been. I have an image of Cape Cod in my head, and am curious to know if the reality lives up to it. After all, as writers, we can’t always use locations we’ve personally experienced. Sometimes we really do just have to make it up as we go along, looking at images on the internet and particularly reading weather reports, which can be a real eye-opener.

What are the places for you that were exactly as you imagined them, and what has taken you completely by surprise?

This week’s Word of the Week is logomachy, meaning an argument about words. It comes from the Greek logos, meaning word or speech, and machesthai, meaning to fight.

Things You Can Learn in Texas

I’m spending a few days with my son and his family in Houston, Texas.  Actually just north of Houston in Spring, hometown to Lyle Lovett. And if you have to ask who he is (that’s him in the above photo with his Pretty Woman ex-bride), just skip the next paragraph entirely.

Ray Wylie Hubbard (Photo Todd Wolfson)

Anyway, every time I come down here I learn something new.  Like, for instance, a new musician—new to me at least—Ray Wylie Hubbard.  His work mixes country, folk, and blues elements and he’s an “elder statesman” of the Texas music scene with such catchy tunes as “Drunken Poet’s Dream,” and the ever-popular, “Snake Farm.”

This trip I also learned that the new Super Mario 3D World Wii U game by Nintendo is a sure hit with eight- and six-year-old grandkids celebrating their birthdays. 

Those games always seemed such a big waste of time to me compared to all the many other things they could be doing. Then I witnessed the dexterity and quick thinking required to master the controller for those games and realized that, with all the progress in robotics, there’s no telling where such a developed skill set might take them.  Though I still prefer to watch them playing with Gus-the-runnerdog in their backyard.

In two weeks it’s off to Mykonos for me, and in case any of you are wondering why I’m not writing about what’s happening in Greece, the answer’s simple. I’m taking a sabbatical on the subject until I land there.  Besides no one really knows what’s going on, though possibly another of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s tunes might lend a clue to the currently postured attitude of Greece’s powers that be: “Screw You, We’re From Texas.” 

Some guidance might also be found in those fantasy aspects of the Super Mario game where gold and renewed power is pulled out of thin air.

But for those of you looking for a solid news update, here’s an opinion piece posted a few days back in The New York Times.  It’s written by Nikos Konstandaras, managing editor of Greece’s Kathimerini and is titled, “Greece’s Eerie Calm.”

Nikos Konstandaras

As Greece teeters on the edge of default and possible exit from the European common currency, foreign officials cannot understand how Greek government officials can appear so sanguine.

An explanation of the government’s motives and behavior can be found in spheres beyond the economy, where the government has moved swiftly to impose its agenda on domestic and foreign policy — to the alarm of allies, opposition parties and investors.

Nowhere has the government shown an appetite to compromise. This mentality is rooted in a century of conflict between left and right, when foreign powers helped right-wing governments maintain power at the expense of leftist forces. Now, with a radical leftist party, Syriza, in power for the first time, working through this situation could be as self-destructive as it is inevitable.

Since its election on Jan. 25, Syriza has adopted programs aimed at easing some of the effects of austerity, while promising to crack down on tax evasion, particularly by the rich.

It has taken a more tolerant policy toward migrants and refugees, tested relations with foreign partners, and frozen or rolled back a number of reforms, not only in the economy.

In education, a new law would give students and political parties greater influence in the running of universities, restoring a model adopted in the early 1980s that seriously undermined universities (and was changed only in 2011).

The police have been instructed to tolerate self-described “anti-establishment” activists, to the point that protesters painted insults against the police on riot squad buses.

On judicial issues, prosecutors claim that a new law aimed at easing prison congestion and setting free ailing prisoners will release too many convicts unconditionally; the United States and families of the victims of the November 17 terrorist group condemn an impending decision that would allow Savvas Xiros, who is serving five life terms (for, among other crimes, the murder of a United States defense attaché in 1988 and a United States Air Force sergeant in 1991), to finish his sentence at home because of injuries sustained in 2002 when a bomb he had intended to plant at a shipping company’s office exploded in his hands.

In foreign policy, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras raised eyebrows in Washington and Brussels when he visited President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow earlier this month, after his government had made clear its opposition to sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Ukraine. Last week, his defense minister was also in Russia, renewing calls for an end to sanctions. (Apart from words, however, Athens has not broken ranks with its partners.)

And even as the government says it wants investments and growth, several ministers and Syriza deputies oppose a Canadian company’s gold-mining operation in northern Greece, while government members have given out conflicting signals about the potential expansion of a Chinese company’s container terminal in Piraeus.

Mr. Tsipras’s first act as prime minister was to visit a site where German occupying forces carried out a mass execution during World War II.  Since then, Parliament has debated Greek claims for reparations for German atrocities and damages, and for the repayment of a loan the Nazis forced the Greek central bank to provide during the occupation.

A government official said that the total claim came to 278.7 billion euros. Germany, which directly or indirectly guarantees some €65 billion of the €240 billion bailout, says this was dealt with in past agreements.

But the Greek Parliament has set up a committee to investigate — and press — the issue.

Another inquiry is looking into how Greece amassed a debt that reached €317 billion at the end of 2014; the committee is expected to recommend that part of the debt not be paid. A third committee is investigating the circumstances of the bailout deal signed in 2010.

The reparation and debt inquiries are headed by Zoe Konstantopoulou, the Parliament’s speaker, a high-profile opponent of the bailout agreement. They appear designed to play on the government’s message that Greece is the victim of foreign loan sharks and of a corrupt local elite, rather than a country that needs to reform its economy and public administration.

Suspicion of foreign powers is the glue that holds the coalition’s two disparate parties together. Independent Greeks, the junior partner, is a hard-line right-wing nationalist group born out of opposition to the bailout; Syriza is the offspring of part of the Communist-led resistance against the Germans in World War II. In the civil war that followed Germany’s defeat, first Britain and then the United States backed a right-wing government, and during most of the Cold War leftists were marginalized in Greece.

Challenging Greece’s allies and highlighting claims against Germany give Syriza street credibility, and allow it to appear more “patriotic” than previous governments, which had raised but not forced the issue of reparations.

In negotiations with creditors, the government refuses to reform pensions and labor law, increase value-added taxes and encourage privatization. Yet it expresses confidence that Greece’s European Union partners, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund will back down.

“I remain firmly optimistic that there will be an agreement by the end of the month,” Mr. Tsipras told Reuters on April 16. Europe would not “choose the path of unethical and brutal financial blackmail,” he said, but would opt for “the path of bridging differences.”

To avoid rifts in his party, save face over unrealistic promises he made to voters and underline that he will not be “blackmailed,” Mr. Tsipras prefers to risk a breakup with creditors, which could destroy the economy.

Relishing their rise to power, he and his party display intransigence while demanding compromise. They either have unshakable confidence that they will get their way, or blind faith that, as time runs out, others will care more about the Greek people than they appear to and will step in to avert disaster.

As I said, I’m on sabbatical.  And Praying.

Jeff—Saturday