The End Of an Era.

Jeff––Saturday

Following up on Caro's post yesterday on the passing of CrimeFest, here are photos of how some current and alumni members (and friends) of MIE paid homage to an annual get-together that will be dearly missed.  The photos are in no particular order--the same as was our behavior.:)

 Thank you for many wonderful years, dear Adrian and Donna.

 

 

 

 

The end

––Jeff

Scattered but Stepping Forward--

Ovidia--the post that should have come out on Tuesday!

We've been living in very interesting times lately--we just had our 90 year old Dad move in due to a bunch of stuff that came out.

So after a whirl of medical appointments and investigations and nutritional consultations All's Well and his health is stabilised/ being seen to, but we had to try to find a live in caregiver before leaving for Crimefest.

We discovered some interesting things--like there's a $300 levy on hiring a FDW (Foreign Domestic Worker) to be paid to the Ministry of Manpower. But because Dad is a 'senior' the Ministry levy is lowered to $60!

We have a flat (angel of a grandson) where he can stay temporarily and we're meeting his new caregiver (wonderfully she's trained as a nurse in Myanmar where she's from) at 5pm today and we'll see how it works out.

And I'm looking forward to Crimefest in Bristol! Very sadly the last one, so I really didn't want to miss it!

I'm looking forward to my panels but even more to meeting up with our MIE family memebers like Stan Trollip, Jeff Siger, Caro Ramsey and Michael Sears--and am going to miss Pat!!!

Again, many apologies and I hope to see you all soon!

Crimefest ahead!

 Michael - Alt Thursdays

Adrian Muller

When this posts, I'll be on my way to what will be the last Crimefest. Certainly the last one managed by Adrian Muller and Donna Moore. Crimefest is always a pleasure, but this one will obviously be tinged with sadness.

In 2006, Left Coast Crime – the annual mystery convention that makes its way around the western states of the US – decided to go very far left and hold its convention across the pond in Bristol in England. It was a huge success. The host of big name participants included Lee Child and Jeffrey Deaver. The latter even included a delightful poem pointing out that the reports of the death of reading were exaggerated. You can read it HERE. The sentiments are as true today as they were nearly twenty years ago.

Coincidentally, that was the sixteenth Left Coast Crime. Next week will be the sixteenth Crimefest.

Toby and Bill Gottfried
with Donna Moore at LC Crime
in Bristol

The success of the 2006 event persuaded Adrian and Myles Allfrey that the conventions should continue. So they launched an annual convention in Bristol and christened it Crimefest.

Crimefest has been very much a part of our book life. Our first Kubu novel, A Carrion Death, was published in 2008, the year of the first Crimefest, and we’ve attended most of the conventions since then. The Murder is Everywhere team has always been well represented. This year Stanley will be chairing a Murder Is Everywhere (Evil Crimes in Foreign Climes) panel including Ovidia and Jeff, and I will be on Caro’s panel, so a good showing of blogmates.

Previous MIEer Yrsa Sigurðardóttir will be joining us this year too. Many of us remember her efforts to initiate us into Icelandic delicacies. At one Crimefest, she offered fermented shark with brennivin to wash it down. The weather was pleasant, and she suggested we find a table outside on the hotel patio. We soon discovered why. Once she opened the container of shark, the patio rapidly emptied of all except the most hardened drinkers. I remember a strange, unpleasant flavor heavily tinged with ammonia. The brennivin was fire water but essential. Also, the more of the alcohol we drank, the less bad the shark tasted…

For its tenth anniversary, Crimefest produced an anthology of short stories called Ten Year Stretch. We were represented with our story The Ring. This year they are releasing a second collection titled Leaving the Scene, a most appropriate punctuation mark…

We all have lots of great memories of Crimefest. Good panels, not so good panels. Always good conversation and friendship. Crimefest calls itself the friendliest crime convention and lives up to that.

I’m greatly looking forward to it! Hope to see you there!

_________________________________________________

Michael and Stanley will be at CRIMEFEST in Bristol from the 15^th to the 18^th of May. We’d love to see you at one or more of the panels we’ll be on.

THURSDAY 14:40 – 15:30

Murder is Everywhere: Evil Crimes in Foreign Climes

Heidi Amsinck, Michael Ridpath, Jeffrey Siger, Ovidia Yu

Participating Moderator: Michael Stanley (Stan Trollip)

 

THURSDAY 15:50 – 16:40

Dark Pasts and Dark Presents: Secrets and Lies

Samantha Lee Howe, M.A. Hunter, Alison Joseph, Michael Stanley (Michael Sears)

Participating Moderator: Caro Ramsay

 

FRIDAY 14:50 – 15:40

One of A Kind: Atypical Characters

Paul Durston, Christina Koning, Tom Mead, Bridget Walsh

Participating Moderator: Michael Stanley (Michael Sears)

 

SATURDAY 13:40 – 14:30

Not All 999: Police Procedurals Across Time and Place

Tana Collins, Mark Ellis, Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Michael Stanley (Stan Trollip)

Participating Moderator: Jeffrey Siger

 

Spotted hyenas - our favorite predator

 Michael - Alt Thursdays

Most people dismiss hyenas as scavengers and even call them cowardly. Certainly they scavenge. They are willing to eat anything that is, or once was, flesh and bone. Especially bone. Their jaws can crunch them to powder, and their stomachs can digest and dissolve the calcium in strong acids. It's easy to recognize their feces as they appear white or grey from all that calcium.

However, the spotted hyena is primarily a predator. On their own they will hunt small animals or young ones - basically anything they can catch. But once they team up they'll go for much larger prey.

All the better to eat you with!

I’ve spent a night in the Kalahari with a hyena researcher following a group of seven of them. They seem to tirelessly cover the veld just loping along until one catches a scent, and then they suddenly all turn and race off in the same direction. During that night they had a go at an eland — that proved too much for them, chased a lioness up an acacia tree and circled the base with their tails up like dogs around a treed cat, and eventually pulled down a wildebeest.

Taking on a Gemsbok at night

And a lioness

In Botswana, Stan and I witnessed a much larger pack pull down a wildebeest and completely consume it over a period of a few hours. Everything is eaten except the horns and hooves. Watching that was what sparked the idea of destroying a body that way for the perfect murder, and eventually led to our first novel, A Carrion Death. When our third book, Death of the Mantis, won the Barry Award for best paperback original mystery of the year, we publicly thanked the hyenas for their encouragement.

Spotted hyenas have a very complex social structure. The females are larger and almost always form the leaders of the pack or clan. It's a competitive world, with access to kills and mating opportunities depending not only on the ability to dominate others in the clan but also on forming alliances. Leadership is usually based on the strongest alliance. 

The females build dens - often co-opted burrows - and look after the young. The males don't help and neither do other females. No "one for all and all for one" here. Their hunting, however, is cooperative and shows a lot of aggression. No cowards here either. However, the social bonds are important. Hyenas like to spend time resting together and communicating with each other in various ways. 

Even more surprising is that hierarchy usually depends on inheritance. The matriarch's cubs will generally supply the new matriarch when she dies. Presumably, the matriarch favours her cubs and so raises their status in the clan. If a male leads, he will be one of her cubs too. Males tend to hang out with their adult daughters, and the daughters tend to be more accepting of them.

In modern times, it's unusual for hyenas to attack humans, but they are certainly partial to human corpses. Some cultures even put out the bodies of the dead for hyenas to dispose of, sometimes even dressing them with blood or fat to try to lure hyenas. The hyenas are happy to co-operate in general, but may reject the odd human body, apparently a very bad and embarrassing omen.

Surprisingly, spotted hyenas have a reputation for making good pets. They socialize easily with people, but they are not easy to house train and have a strong scent which they use to mark their territories. Not ideal. 

There is even a city where spotted hyenas have become welcome nightly visitors. Although they are totally wild—in the sense that they live outside in the surrounding bush and come and go exactly as they please, they come through the city to clean up, accept offerings, be admired by tourists, and socialize with their favorite people—the ones who feed them (who are designated by the city).

The ancient city wall of Harar

Shewaber gate

The city of Harar itself is interesting. Situated in eastern Ethiopia near Somalia and the horn of Africa, it was established as a walled city in 1551 and is one of the earliest Muslim centers of importance, supposedly fourth after Mecca. Now about a quarter of a million people live in the city and surrounds. And beyond that, the hyenas live.

'Hyena man' with a friend

Don't try this at home...

Sharing is caring.

_______________________________________________

Michael and Stanley will be at CRIMEFEST in Bristol from the 15^th to the 18^th of May. We’d love to see you at one or more of the panels we’ll be on.

THURSDAY 14:40 – 15:30

Murder is Everywhere: Evil Crimes in Foreign Climes

Heidi Amsinck, Michael Ridpath, Jeffrey Siger, Ovidia Yu

Participating Moderator: Michael Stanley (Stan Trollip)

 

THURSDAY 15:50 – 16:40

Dark Pasts and Dark Presents: Secrets and Lies

Samantha Lee Howe, M.A. Hunter, Alison Joseph, Michael Stanley (Michael Sears)

Participating Moderator: Caro Ramsay

 

FRIDAY 14:50 – 15:40

One of A Kind: Atypical Characters

Paul Durston, Christina Koning, Tom Mead, Bridget Walsh

Participating Moderator: Michael Stanley (Michael Sears)

 

SATURDAY 13:40 – 14:30

Not All 999: Police Procedurals Across Time and Place

Tana Collins, Mark Ellis, Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Michael Stanley (Stan Trollip)

Participating Moderator: Jeffrey Siger

Crimefest Retrospective - Serious Research

From today until Sunday it's Crimefest, the UK's premier crime book festival. Crimefest takes place every year in Bristol, but for one reason or another I haven't been since before covid, so I'm greatly looking forward to it. However, the railway unions chose Wednesday for a strike forcing us to travel by coach. The coach arrived "unroadworthy" and we were delayed nearly four hours as we waited for a replacement. But here we are.

I had planned a post about Henry Moore's home and estate that we visited on Sunday, but that will have to wait for another occasion. No doubt Caro and Jeff will report on Crimefest itself as the week progresses, but we've yet to have our first event. So I was blogless until Stanley volunteered one of his old blogs, so the Crimefest Retrospective is of blogs rather than Crimefests. Here's Stan on Serious Research. 

The writers I know take their research seriously. Just take a look at the writers on this blog. Annamaria goes to South America and East Africa to ensure she gets her facts right. Jeff heads to Greece, Sujata to Japan or India. Susan went and lived in Japan - that's taking research really seriously! Craig pops up at conferences all over the world, and Kwei is often seen being driven all over West Africa. Caro traipses through the rain all over Scotland. Ovidia takes her research on Singapore so seriously that she insisted on being born there. As for Zoë, we never know where she is.

Michael and I also take our research seriously, which is not surprising since we both had careers as professors. For us, it is important to dig into all aspects of the story we are going to tell: the backstory, the front story, the characters, and the location. Actually, I should have written that list differently. Location should have come first and not last, because it was while we were on location on the Savuti plains of the Great Chobe Game Reserve in Botswana that we had the idea to write a mystery set in Botswana in the first place.

I'm sure you're bored of hearing how that came about, but I'll repeat it anyway. One day, we watched a pack of hyenas hunt and kill a wildebeest (click here to learn about the wildebeest by its other name). Even though they are known as scavengers, hyenas when hungry, are very successful hunters. After a few hours, three or four if I remember correctly, the wildebeest had disappeared, because hyenas eat both the flesh and the bones.

Cleaning up after dinner

'Aha!' we exclaimed. 'If we ever need to get rid of a body.... No body, no crime.'

And that was how it all started. Fifteen years later, with typical academic alacrity, we started to write A Carrion Death, which needless to say opens with an academic and a game ranger stumbling across a hyena that was savouring a human body.

So location, or place as some call it, plays a big role in all of our books. And we've been delighted by the number of times reviewers have commented on the fact that place is itself a character in our stories.

We have visited all the places we've written about in Botswana, as well as other places in neighbouring countries - just to get the feel of the places. And the feel is often the most important, not necessarily the look or topography.

So I would like to share some glimpses into the extent to which and the seriousness with which  Michael and I take our research into place.

Most of our adventures have started in a small plane in Johannesburg, which I then flew to Botswana or Zimbabwe. There have been some adventures related to the flying that I'll relate some other time - contaminated fuel lines, maps being sucked out of the plane over the Kalahari through a door that popped open, and so on.  Nothing too serious. (I recall a head on collision with another plane. But at least it was on the ground at the time...M)

I have a very basic philosophy of being a pilot, namely that I want parity - that is, the number of landings should equal the number of take-offs. I'm pleased to report that I have always achieved that goal.

As you can imagine, flying in Botswana is very different from flying in South Africa. For example, facilities are less sophisticated. Most airports, actually air strips, we landed at were dirt strips cut out of the bush. That often posed problems not normally experienced in, say, the United States. I would always fly low over the strip to shoo away any elephants or other animals that may have wandered on to it. And when we landed and were ready to head off on our adventure, we would cover the tyres and tail of the plane with thorn bush branches to keep the hyenas from chewing on them.

Protecting the plane from hyenas

Our usual method of operating once we reached our destination was to be met either by friends who lived in Botswana or by an outfitter we'd hired.

Airport pick-up

Bush beer break

These photos were taken in the area where we saw the hyenas devour the wildebeest. Several of our books and short stories have taken place in similar places.

Haze over the Savuti plain

Walking

Dead elephant - disgusting smell

Desert oasis

Others found the oasis

King of the plains

...but who does all the work?

Our latest book, A Deadly Covenant, is set on the banks of the Kavango River in northwest Botswana, just before the river fans out into the Okavango Delta. It's the only place I've been where I suffered bird overload: too many species to really take in, in such numbers that it was difficult to believe. Here are some photos from that area.

African fish eagle on the lookout for food

White-fronted bee eater

Egrets

Fish eagles in tree

Lilac-breasted roller

Marabou stork

Waiting for dinner

Saddlebill stork. I call it the 3M stork because of the Post-it note on the beak.

White-faced owl

Perhaps a scops owl. Michael?
I think so - M

A couple of times we strayed from Botswana, usually on purpose, but once accidentally, and ended up in Zimbabwe. We had a couple of research trips canoeing down the Zambezi, always on the lookout for hippos and crocs. The strategy for hippos was to bang the side of the canoe. The hippos would surface to see what was going on. Once we saw where they were, we were very careful not to get between them and deeper water. They can be VERY dangerous. Here are some pictures of those research trips.

Wandering down the Zambezi towards Mozambique

Getting together for a chat. Or couldn't they steer?

The men worked while the lady read a book.

It turned out that we had more trouble with the elephants in and around the Zambezi than we did with the hippos and crocs. We saw this one ahead of us.

No problem at this point.

But it had difficulty climbing the bank. Then it charged along the bank, trumpeting, angry

I think it had as big a fright as we did. Fortunately we paddled away and were safe. 

On another occasion, we had stopped on an island, probably a couple of hundred metres long and a hundred metres wide. We were just setting up our lunch table, when a young male elephant appeared from under a tree. It was curious. It wandered over towards us, took a good look, then wandered off around another tree. It appeared from behind that tree, stared again, then went back. Again it re-appeared, took a long look at us and, without warning, trumpeted and charged. The only option for us seemed to be to run and jump off the high bank into the Zambezi. As we turned, our game guide, jumped out in front of the charging elephant, shouted and waved his hands. The elephant skidded to a halt, literally, because we saw the skid marks afterwards.

The elephant looked quizzically at the game ranger, turned, and sauntered off.

When we asked the ranger how he knew the elephant was going to stop, he replied that he didn't. However, he continued, young male elephants like to strut their stuff and usually back off when confronted like that. The word 'usually' has stuck in my mind to this day.

We began our Zambezi trips at Mana Pools in northern Zimbabwe. There was a small rustic camp there which was a fine place to prepare for the trip. As you can see below, we weren't the only guests in camp.

Are you in line for the loo?

One day we were delayed in leaving the camp because a temporary denture I had put next to my bed was no longer there when I woke up. We searched and searched but found nothing. I was certain that it was next to my bed when I went to sleep, so I began to suspect my travelling companions of playing a prank on me. It turned out they weren't and we eventually found the denture on top of a cupboard in the room I was staying. A mouse of some sort had been attracted to it during the night and dragged it to the top of the cupboard to inspect it in private. When it realised it wouldn't fit, it abandoned it and wandered off.

To prove this wasn't all fun, here's Michael doing his research.

This was the way to get clean - and cool. We always had to have a lookout for crocs.

I hope this blog clears up any misunderstandings readers may have had about research. It is difficult, time-consuming, and often dangerous. However, someone has to do it.