Me (a King) and the African Queen.

 Annamaria on Monday

I am revealing a private joke today.

Long, long before I ever dreamed of writing novels about Africa, I was in love with The African Queen, both C. S. Forester's brilliant 1935 novel and John Houston's 1951 film. So great was my infatuation with that story that for one of my birthdays, my dear departed David gave me a gift of an original Hirshfield cartoon with Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in their African Queen roles.

This is the best photo I could take of it.

I have watched the movie umpteen times, read the book a few times, and have taken to listening to and re-listening to the audiobook, beautifully narrated by Michael Kitchen.

In researching for the second in my Africa series, Idol of Mombasa, I did my usual deep dive in the real story, including reading heavy but also extraordinarily helpful tomes such as J. Spencer Trimingham's Islam in East Africa. How, then, could I resist, while in the research phase, also indulging in a frequent diet of those wonderful versions of the story I love so much--in all of its tellings.

Forester's story takes place just a few years after Vera&Toliver#2.  In C.S. Forester's tale, an English missionary and his sister are in German Central Africa, and WWI is in full swing. My tale is set just over the border from German EAST  Africa in late January 1912.

As usual, my research set my imagination boiling with ideas.  I knew that the main theme of V&T#2 was going to focus on the second Commandment, which forbids worshiping any but the one true God.  And that the sin that ought to have a Commandment was going to be slavery.  The missionaries in Africa in those days were as much anti-slavery activists as they were workers in the vineyard to bring converts to Christ.

It was just then that I sat down to a Bouchercon dinner with my MIE cohorts.  I brought with me to that gathering my friend and later our fellow MIE blogger, Susan Spann.  Susan was sitting to my right and on my left was my blog brother Jeff, both lawyers.  Susan, in fact, is an intellectual property lawyer.

As the shop talk progressed, at one point, I talked over a possibility for my next book that had legal implications.  I told Jeff and Susan that I was thinking about inventing two characters inspired by C.S. Forester's African Queen: the missionary Samuel Sayer and his sister Rose.  Jeff, rightly, warned me that I could not just adopt them.  I did not want to plagiarize them, just make my own version of that duo, a very similar brother and sister. Certainly it was not unheard of that a missionary would have a sister (ahem) asSISting him.

Susan confirmed that although I could not use the names that C.S. Forester gave his folks, it was permissible to create similar characters.   And so, as a private joke, I gave my invented people, who were inspired by The African Queen, the names of the actors who played Samual and Rose in John Huston's film.  My missionary's name is Robert Morley and his sister's name is Katharine and this is what they look like:

To my knowledge, only one reader has seen through my little ruse.

Of course the characters in the photo above are in German Central Africa, Forester's   fictional colony.  My characters live in the real British East Africa.

My Robert and Katharine disappear into German East Africa at end of Idol of Mombasa, more than two years before the outbreak of WWI. And out of sight, my characters and Forester's will be leading somewhat parallel lives through the war.  I am hoping that Katharine will return to BEA in 1919, for book nine of the series. She will be without her brother, I fear.  But with her husband, Humphrey.

  

Queen For an Hour and a Half

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

 

Living in Los Angeles has many delights, not the least of which is frequently passing, or entering, famous movie locations.

The Bradbury Building from the top floor.

 

I will never forget my first time inside the legendary Bradbury Building in downtown LA. You may recognize it from Blade Runner, The Artist, 500 Days of Summer, or, if you are a cop and you’ve done something dodgy, the former offices of Internal Affairs for the LAPD. This building deserves its own post, which I will write another day, and was inspired by a message on a Ouija board.

 

The Bradbury, halfway down.

I’ve had waffles in the coffee shop from Swingers, martinis in the Pretty Woman hotel, high tea in the Biltmore (recognizable from Ghostbusters to Mad Men),

 

The lobby staircase in the Biltmore Hotel. Betty Draper came down these stairs in Mad Men.

green corn tamales at El Coyote from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, dumplings at The Prince (Chinatown and Thank You For Smoking), and driven past the Hightower Apartment Buildings from The Long Goodbye and Dead Again—Michael Connelly also lived there.

 

The Hightower Apartments

 

Buildings on my street have appeared in Mulholland Drive and Lethal Weapon and my first LA apartment’s lobby appeared in Body Double.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

However, last week in Key Largo, Florida, I experienced something infinitely more profound, at least for me. I took an hour and a half cruise on the honest-to-god African Queen. 

 

At the dock.

Yes, the actual boat used in the 1951 film itself. The movie, based on the novel by C. S. Forester, garnered Bogart his only Oscar and is one of my favorites.

 

The original novel.

 

So, sitting on the same bench where Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart( and wife Lauren Bacall), and director John Huston once sat, moved me more than I expected.

 

 

We arrived on a windy day, which limited how far we went out into the Atlantic. We did travel far enough, though, for me to realize how low it sits in the water and to appreciate a bit of what it must have been like for those actors.

 

Sitting in front on a choppy day and James holding onto his bottle of gin. My hair is in the lower right.

 

According to Captain Dave, our host, the boat still used a steam engine until recently. The apparatus is still there, but he says it’s a lot quieter now. It still has a bell, that cranky engine, the original black mahogany benches, and permission from the Royal Navy to fly a torn Union Jack.

 

Captain Jack, James, and that bell.

 

The engine, sadly not the original, but still...

Not every boat gets to rip the Union Jack.

 

The boat has quite a history. It was built in England in 1912 for the East Africa British Railways company and carried hunting parties, missionaries, and supplies across Lake Albert and down the Victoria Nile in the Congo, until it was bought by John Huston for the film. According to Katherine Hepburn’s account in The Making of the African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind, the boat actually sank to the bottom of the Ruiki river during filming.

 

John Huston delivered the news to Hepburn, saying “she’s at the bottom, just the top of the boiler showing.”  When Hepburn asked what happened to the man who was guarding it, Huston told her that when he saw it was leaking, he got off.

 

Crew pulling the boat out. Copyright Horizons Mgmt.

 

Apparently it took the entire cast and crew, pulling on a cable wrapped around a tree, to pull up the boiler. As that was the heaviest part, once it was ashore, the boat resurfaced, but it took two days to bail her out. Then they cleaned up the mud and removed and restored the engine while the boat dried. Eventually, they were able to resume shooting.

 

After the film, the boat, now officially named The African Queen, stayed in service in Africa until 1968, when she was bought by a San Francisco restaurant owner for charter tours. In 1970, it was bought for charters in Oregon and was so successful there that owner Hal Bailey brought it to Florida for year-round tours.

 

Eventually it went out of service and was found in a Florida cow pasture by the late attorney Jim Hendricks, Sr.—a Bogart fan. Hendricks restored this piece of film history and started tours running out of the Key Largo Holiday Inn in 1982. 

 

On the Thames.

 

In New York and Sydney.

He also shipped it all over the world—for the Queen Mother’s 90^th birthday celebration and the 50^th anniversary of Dunkirk, and to Ireland, New York, and Sydney. Its original engine lasted until 2001.

 

Dunkirk Plaque.

 

The current lease holders, Captain Lance and Suzanne Holmquist of Calypso Sailing, restored it for its hundredth anniversary. It is now registered as a National Historic Site, albeit a floating one.

 

There are many famous film items in the new Motion Picture Academy Museum—E. T. , Dorothy’s shoes, the model shark from Jaws—but none that let you climb aboard.

 

Worth the trip.

 

 -- Wendall

 

 

 

 

 

You Found WHAT in Burma?

No, this isn’t Tim Hallinan.  He’d know to say Myanmar and what he’s talking about.

This story starts on the other side of Tim’s planet, in the reception area of a New York City law firm.  I stopped by the other day to say hello to old friends.  Sort of like the moth drawn back to its flame experience, what with my name once appearing on that sign in the photo below.  Now my moniker appears elsewhere, on things such as the item pictured to the right (PREY ON PATMOS, An Aegean Prophecy, coming January 4th from Poisoned Pen Press (U.S.) and Piatkus Books/Little Brown (U.K.)).

Whenever I’m formally hawking my books the most common interview question I’m asked is, “Why did you give up your partnership in a successful law practice to become a writer?”  I do not take that as criticism of the value of my prose, but of my sanity.  Translated, the question means, “Were you out of your &%^# mind to give up that kind of money just to write books [even with increased e-book sales and royalty rates]?”

Lawyer in captivity

My answer is always the same:  Once I realized that I would not live forever the decision was simple.  I walked away to do what I truly loved and always longed to do.  I think most of my colleagues at the law firm understood my thinking for they’re doing today what they want to do, practicing law.  Different strokes, so to speak.

But for those of you out there who still don’t quite get it, perhaps this quick story will explain.

So, a lawyer walks into a law firm...

After an hour or so of exchanging hellos and catching up on eight months of missed gossip, I bumped into a friend leaving one meeting and running out of the office to another.  He and I practiced law together for over forty years.  Let’s call him Roy.

Honore Daumier, The Two Lawyers

We did a quick hug and exchange of information on the kids and grandchildren.  I could tell he was in a hurry—I remember those days in nightmares—but he pulled me into his office and made a speaker phone call to another friend and former partner (let’s call him Steve, and since his wife features in the story let’s call her Virginia).

“Steve, it’s Roy. Jeff’s here.  Tell him that story about your trip.”

“What, no photos?” I said.

“I’ll send you a couple.  One is of three of your fans waving to you.”  Steve always was a bit of a (loveable) wiseass.

Loyal Fans

He and Virginia are adventurous world travelers and I’m certain Steve doesn’t mind sleeping under the stars—as long as there are five of them.  Their journey this time began with a flight into the airport at Sittwe, a coastal town on the Bay of Bengal.  Sittwe is the capital of the western Burmese state of Rakhine.  It is the birthplace of British writer Hector Hugh Monro, better known by his pen name of Saki, and the town is badly in need of a better press agent.  As one travel site puts it, “Only an overnight stop is warranted here…to board a boat for the 50 mile journey up the Kaladan River or to start the day-long drive to remote and little-visited Mrauk U.”

Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn

Having undoubtedly enjoyed Sittwe to no end, Steve and Virginia were off on their five-hour trip up river; an adventure I’m sure of the Bogie and Great Kate The African Queen (1951) variety putting Steve in generally the same state of mind as Captain Charlie Allnut. 

When the couple finally arrived at Mrauk Oo (or Mrauk-U if that helps you figure out how to pronounce m’yawk-oo) they must have been wowed.  How could they not?  It’s an ancient city surrounded by hundreds of significant monuments enshrining relics dating back to Buddha's lifetime.  Mrauk Oo is one of South East Asia’s splendid archeological sites; a glorious place forgotten both by time and the Ritz-Carlton.

Mrauk Oo

But enough about that, let’s get to the important part of Steve’s story.  I’ll let him pick up from here in his own words.

The Setting for the Story

“We were exhausted after the boat trip, standing in the lobby of this charming hotel in the middle of nowhere, trying to find out where—and what—we could eat when this gracious tattooed lady at the desk said, ‘Don’t worry, sir, I will take care of everything.  Please wait over there,’ and she pointed us toward a tiny room. ‘It’s our library.’

“Some library, a couple of bookshelves with maybe sixty books max, no more than a half dozen in English.”  

Yes, folks, I’m sure you can tell what’s coming.

“So there we were in the middle of nowhere, away from all ties to modern civilization, and what did I see staring me in the face but a copy of your book! Murder in Mykonos!” 

Cover of version published in Greece by Aikaterini Lalaouni Editions

I’m still smiling.  The writing life is valued by rewards of a different measure from those of my past, and this utterly unexpected one was priceless.

Thank you Steve and Roy for sharing, and Virginia for the photos.  It meant a lot.  And, yes, I think that hotel deserves five stars on Trip Advisor just for its discerning taste in literature.

PS.  And big congratulations to Leighton on the wonderful review Every Bitter Thing and Chief Inspector Mario Silva receive in tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Book Review!

Jeff — Saturday