Looking Forward Through the Rearview Mirror

Jeff—Saturday

I haven’t had time to reflect on 2015, and with the way 2016 is shaping up (TRANSLATION: Look at the US Presidential race—it makes Greek politics look downright progressive), that might not be a bad thing.  For sure, I don’t want to attempt anticipating how this new year will fare in comparison.

Yes, there were ups and there were downs (aren’t there always?) but reflection only brings to mind a song from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies: “I’m Still Here.”  Ain’t that the truth, though sadly one of the song’s most celebrated performers, Elaine Stritch, is not, but here’s her memorable 2012 performance celebrating Sondheim’s 80^th Anniversary.

All of which got me thinking about the good times. The grandkids for sure (their parents sometimes:)) and, though I got to spend less than my usual time on Mykonos, I did get to reacquaint myself with my farm.  

And I spent a lot of time on tour.

That’s when I realized how blessed I am to be living a writer’s life.  Not for the book sales, awards, movie deals, or wild sex parties (that fantasy was for you EvKa), but the camaraderie of the crime writing community. At least for me, that’s what this is all about.

After all writing may be a lousy way to make a living, but it’s a wonderful way to make a life.

So, for cheery thoughts I turned to my trusty bible of modern memories, aka my iPhone. Lo and behold, waiting for me sat smiling proof of what makes it all so worthwhile.  So, dear US Presidential candidates, please move your practiced smiles off stage for a while in order that this little corner of the social networking world can show some writerly faces representative of shared good times in 2015. 

It all began in September at Bloody Scotland when Caro and Allan plied us with a magic potion that kept us smiling all weekend.  They must have had a lot of it in reserve, because everywhere Caro went hysteria ruled.

A month later most of our MIE crew turned up at Bouchercon in Raleigh, North Carolina, and though Susan and Zoë missed this photo op, they were there to keep us on the straight and narrow.

We did catch up with Zoë a few days later at her signing on New York’s Upper Westside.

Then it was off to meet up with Tim Hallinan and Martin Limon in Orange, California and again in San Diego.

From there we made it to Portland, Oregon, and while waiting for Mr. Tim to arrive, stumbled into Powell’s, found the Eoin Colfer celebratory shelf, and paid proper homage to a buddy, be he ever so Fowl—in an Artemis sort of way.

And when Mr. Hallinan finally did arrive, the local asylum gates opened wide and out emerged the rarest of local strange birds, a living breathing EvKa (left, below).

Fleeing Portland we made it to Seattle, where along with the crew of Seattle Mystery Bookshop, we hung out with fellow author Ingrid Thoft (on left).

We spent a solo day in Denver at the Tattered Cover, but I’d grown used to sharing the load and so it was off to Tucson and a duet with Donis Casey, author of the brilliant, All Men Fear My Name, followed by teaming up in Scottsdale with David P. Wagner, author of the Italy-based Rick Montoya series. Sadly my photographer assistant sat mesmerized at those events and no photographic evidence exists.

Then came Chicago, at Christmas time at Centuries & Sleuths, and I shared the stage with madrigal singers.

But my best holiday present was a surprise visit from Leighton Gage’s wife, Eide, and daughter Melina!

And it all ended up in Minneapolis, where Stan and I spent the afternoon with Pat Volgrap of Once Upon a Crime, the legendary bookstore run by Pat and her husband, Gary Schulze.  I love that place, but sadly it’s closing.  We shall though always have the memories, and more importantly, the friendships.

Viva the writing life!

—Jeff

Ground Control to Major Tim.

   

There are many gems of wisdom in the book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and one of them is that the human race can’t really afford a sense of perspective.

In the book a wife says to a husband “go and get a sense of perspective on this", so the husband goes to his shed and builds a total perspective vortex.  Anybody who enters the vortex immediately goes mad because the human brain can’t really cope with how insignificant we are in the huge scheme of things.

                                 

                                            The live broadcast waiting for the walk.

For instance, if a plane can circle the world in six hours passing the International Date Line four times why do you only gain one second in real time rather than ending up four days before you set off? And if the water at the bottom of the Mariana Trench never changes, does it go off? Such are the issues of bar room physics.

                                       

                                           Very clever, very brave people.

But watching the marvellousness of the two Tims’ spacewalk was something to behold.  As you probably know that walk was cut short due to moisture forming on the visor of Tim Copra’s helmet. But the whole televised experience was so much more than that.  The first thing was – I might need to put this into some perspective (!!!) for non UK readers.  Dara O’Briain is an Irish comedian who also has a degree in astrophysics.  He is a large chap, six feet three.  Next to him we have a pop star who used to be in the group D Ream, Brian Cox and he is a professor of astrophysics.  He is the Carl Sagan of today.  He is six feet tall. With them was the rather wondrous Chris Hadfield, who is as bright and fit as a butcher's whippet.  

                                           

                                                     Tim team GB

Tim Team USA

So on the tv screen Dara O’Briain looked like a giant sitting on the sofa built for children and Chris Hadfield looked like a three year old sitting on a sofa built for giants. The engaging sight of the panic on Dara’s face as his earpiece told him that the spacewalk was being cut short due to some kind of malfunction.  It was an extremely human response and Brian turned and looked at Dara and you could see on his face the words “Are they safe?”  They then both turned to Chris who had no knowledge of the situation at all at that point – and I’m imagining the director saying “don’t go to the live stream in case something awful happens” and Chris was just so wonderful, so calm,' we might be panicking but they won’t be, anything that may have happened to them they will have practised. They will slowly be making their way back to the module etc etc' and then further news came through about the moisture in the helmet and again very calmly he went through the two reasons why this might be, 'leaks don’t get better they only get worse'.  He single-handedly controlled that live transmission but I guess that part of his character is why he’s a Commander.

                                          

James Tiberius Kirk

Doing a bit of reading about him I guess NASA think he’s almost perfect.  His build, his intelligence, his character, the fact that he’s a Canadian (very proud of his northern English and Scottish ancestry), his scandal free life of marrying his childhood sweetheart, his media savvy son who engineered the Twitter conversations between Chris in space and James T Kirk on earth (he will always be James T Kirk to me). And, of course, more poignantly he can sing.

 Everybody in my living room was on the edge of their seat as the astronauts made their way slowly, hand over hand, back into the module.  Too many Hollywood films had programmed us to believe if they didn’t get into that module quickly, some dreadful shark toothed alien was hiding in the shadows waiting for them. 

                                           

                            Yeoman Janice Rand ( I used to practice that stare in front of the mirror)

Of course they returned safely and all is well.

Other highlights were a quote from Tim Peake’s dad who had just seen his son walk in space and he said “that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that boy at his work”. 

And then Brian Cox explaining that Jupiter is visible in the sky at the moment and that gravity of Jupiter is one hundred million times what it is on the earth, so I guess we would all be half a millimetre tall and three miles wide. 

                              

And then the man from the Rosetta project came on and said among other things that Philae on the comet 67P/C-G has recovered hydrocarbons (I think he said that as I was too excited to pay much attention) and then went on to say that this means - the building blocks of life, the building blocks of DNA have been found on a comet particle that was created at the Big Bang!!

So thinking about that, my head now hurts and I will hand over to one of my heroes;

There's a starman waiting in the sky

He'd like to come and meet us

But he thinks he'd blow our minds

There's a starman waiting in the sky

He's told us not to blow it

Cause he knows it's all worthwhile

He told me:

Let the children lose it

Let the children use it
Let the children boogie.

                                      

 Caro Ramsay Planet Earth

The Folly of Dr. Jameson

Michael - Thursday

Dr . Jameson

This month is the 120^th anniversary of the Jameson Raid, a curtain raiser to the Boer War between the Afrikaner/Dutch republics of southern Africa and Britain. It's interesting because it's been variously portrayed as a mad adventure, underhand foreign policy, Rhodes plot to take over the gold fields of Johannesburg, and a noble mission to save the suppressed English men and women in Johannesburg. 120 years on, historians still aren't in complete agreement about the motivations behind the raid.

Leander Starr Jameson was a doctor turned soldier working for the British South Africa Company.  He moved in high circles both in South Africa and in England, being known to the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, and a close associate of Cecil Rhodes, whose empire by then included De Beers, the British South Africa Company (which essentially owned what is today Zimbabwe) and the Cape Colony (of which he was prime minister). What is not clear is how he came to be involved in a quixotic adventure which seemed quite out of character for the conservative and somewhat cynical Englishman. My take is that he was persuaded by Rhodes (certainly) and also by Chamberlain (probably).

Johannesburg in 1896

What in any case is crystal clear is why these men cared about Johannesburg in the first place. The reason was gold. After its discovery, a gold rush started and Uitlanders (foreigners) as Kruger’s Transvaal Republic called them, rushed to the area to make their fortunes. They were completely at odds with the boers. The boers were God-fearing Calvinist farmers many of whom had left the Cape in order to get away from the English. They were suspicious of the gold diggers, fearing that they would grab their country. The Uitlanders might even take over the republic by sheer numbers! Kruger responded by imposing heavy taxes and long residence periods before civil rights were granted. Certainly the gold diggers were not made welcome, but there is no evidence that they were ill-treated or in personal danger. Hardly the situation Austin, Poet Laureate of the day, described in his poem eulogizing the raid:

There are girls in the gold-reef city,

There are mothers and children too!

And they cry, ' Hurry up, for pity!’

So what can a brave man do?

If even we win, they'll blame us;

If we fail they will howl and hiss.

But there’s many a man lives famous,

For daring a wrong like this.

So with revolution being fomented in Johannesburg, the plan was that an expedition to support the new settlers would be dispatched from the north under the leadership of Dr. Jameson. As he passed through Shoshong in what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate with his small army and artillery, he paid a courtesy call on Chief Khama. Jameson berated Khama for not trusting Rhodes to look after him. Jacob Knight reports the conversation in his book on Shoshong:

Khama III

“Dr. Jameson” replied Khama, “you have got a smooth tongue, but if, as you say, I should have relied on your friendship and peaceful intentions, can you tell me why these big guns are here? What is the object of their movement? Are they not a sign of destruction and death? Please do not try to hoodwink me – I am not a child!”

“Oh no, no, Khama!”protested Dr. Jameson, “I am going to Mafeking on important business and I am taking these guns down with me to have them repaired.”

“No doctor” maintained Khama, shaking his head, “I am not blind, I can see this is a military expedition.”

And indeed it was. Dr. Jameson settled at Pitsani – a strategic area recently granted to the Company supposedly for the railway line – and waited for the signal that the Uitlanders were ready to rise, and the go ahead from Rhodes.  So far so good.

But then everything started to go wrong. The leaders of the proposed insurrection started to have second thoughts and internal disagreements.  They advised Jameson to stand down. Chamberlain got cold feet and tried to stop the raid – although he subsequently denied that he had anything to do with it in the first place - and Rhodes prevaricated. Jameson became impatient. He had 600 restless men and other pressures.  He convinced himself that if he moved, he would spark the required uprising in Johannesburg. He sent a telegram on 29 December 1895 to Rhodes telling him of his intentions: "Unless I hear definitely to the contrary, shall leave tomorrow evening" and on the next day sent a further message, "Shall leave tonight for the Transvaal". However the transmission of the first telegram was delayed, so that both arrived at the same time on the next morning, and by then Jameson's men had cut the telegraph wires and there was no way of recalling him. Jameson had started his three day trek to Johannesburg.

Jameson meets the boers

The adventure was a disaster. Instead of cutting the telegraph wires to Pretoria, they cut a fence wire. Huh? A fence wire? Anyway, Pretoria knew all about the attack and readied for it. No uprising took place, and Jameson eventually surrendered at Krugersdorp outside Johannesburg. The only positive things that can be said about the raid are that very few men died on either side, and that the boers were happy to have the extra artillery!

Jameson taken prisoner

Cabinet meeting in London

As seems often the case, the higher up you are in politics the less accountability there is.  Chamberlain denied any involvement and Lord Salisbury, prime minister, supported him. The dust settled.  Rhodes was sanctioned and had to resign as prime minister of the Cape, but kept all his assets and company rights.  Jameson was tried, but hailed as a hero by the public and the press (and the Poet Laureate), received a light sentence and was soon released.  He later became prime minister of the Cape in his own right, was made a knight, and when he died he joined Rhodes at Matopos. The leaders of the uprising that never happened – including Rhodes’ brother – were first sentenced to death for treason, then received long sentences, and finally were released on the payment of stiff fines.

Kipling, too, was taken with Jameson, who became the role model for the famous IF-

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Jameson's grave at World's View in the Matopos

Soon Kruger’s republic and Britain were at war. The gold headed north.

True Crime

by Jorn Lier Horst, Norway

Steven Avery from Making a Mrderer

Documentaries and retellings of real murder cases and crimes seem to be the new international trend in crime genre.

During Christmas I watched the documentary series "Making a murderer" on Netflix. True Crime series like this is as fascinating as they are addicting. One of those who made the most impression on me was "The Staircase" which is offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial against author Michael Peterson. “Paradise Lost” is another fascinating documentary. The same is “Murder on a Sunday morning”. Two of the latest documentaries that have received considerable attention worldwide are “The Jinx” and the podcast “Serial”.

In cold blood

True Crime is not a new phenomenon. In November 1959 Truman Capote went to the small town of Holcomb to see and describe the scene of the murder of farmer Herbert Clutter and his family. During a few days he got to know everyone who was involved in the investigation of the massacre, and most of the residents in the small town. After the arrest, he visited the two killers in prison and in the months that followed, he spent hundreds of hours with them. The unique story he was told became the documentary novel "In Cold Blood". The book came out in 1966, a year after the death sentence was executed. It was an international success and is considered one of the first examples of the genre True Crime.

While it is somewhat sensationalized by this "peeping", it also has an empathetic side. We want to know something about the people who cause suffering, about people suffering, and about the people who are trying to create some kind of order in the whole. And in the wake of a crime the really big themes in life up often show up: love and hate, betrayal and justice, guilt and atonement.

And it is undeniably fascinating to get a piece of insight into a sick mind, as Capote gives us in “In cold blood”. We are getting a little closer to answering the question most law-abiding citizens will ask them self when they hear about an incident like the one in Holcomb in 1959: How is it possible?

Many of the true crime successes of recent years have also had a clear critical look at prosecutors and the judiciary. "Making a Murderer" is just a recent example. In all these cases, some of those who are supposed to administer justice in our society, failed on the coarsest. Some have lied, been one-eyed or blind, have been cowardly and evasive - and at home on the couch in front of the TV, we feel pretty confident that we'd acted more heroic and truthful in a similar situation.

Jorn

Following the Eight-Span Crow

--Susan, every other Sunday

Western legends often portray the crow as a harbinger of disaster, lurking about like Poe’s raven to observe the misfortunes of man.

In Japan, the crow is more often seen as evidence of positive divine intervention in human affairs. The Shinto pantheon even includes a crow god, Yatagarasu (“the eight-span crow”), who symbolizes guidance. A crow’s appearance portends rebirth, new growth, and supernatural guidance. According to the Kojiki (Japan’s oldest historical record), the eight-span crow led Jimmu, a human descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, to the site where he assumed the throne and became the first Emperor of Japan.

During my research trip to Japan last summer, I hoped to see a Japanese crow (Corvus macrorhynchos), also known as the Jungle Crow or Large-Billed crow. These intelligent birds are larger (and louder) than the crows we see in the United States, and since they feature in a couple of my upcoming novels (one of my Shinobi Mysteries and another project I'm writing on the side) I hoped to see one and get some notes about its behavior and appearance.

Little did I know that Yatagarasu had something even more special planned for me…

On my second day in Kyoto, I visited Fushimi Inari Taisha, one of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines. 

Torii gates. Many, many torii gates.

The shrine consists of buildings at the base of Mount Inari and a path that winds up the side of the mountain to another shrine at the very top. Numerous sub-shrines dot the mountain, and the walk itself is lined with thousands of torii gates, which represent the movement from worldly places to a sacred space:

Moving from the worldly to the sacred.

The climb takes several hours, so many people don’t do the entire thing, but I wanted the full experience, so up I went…alone.

A little way up the mountain, a path branches off from the main one. Visitors who opt to follow the “road less taken” are rewarded by a sub-shrine with statues memorializing the dragon guardians of Japan:

Dragons: they show up when you least expect them.

Another, even less traveled path, leads out and away from this sub-shrine, through a primeval bamboo grove. I knew I had a long hike ahead, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to follow the bamboo path for a little while.

The road less traveled...Japanese style

Ten minutes later, deep in the heart of an undisturbed primeval forest, I heard a flutter of wings and found myself face to face with a giant black crow. 

Japanese god or curious corvid? I'm not taking chances.

It landed not three feet away, on the side of the path, and looked at me with absolutely no fear. We stared at each other for several minutes—me, memorizing his every detail, and him doubtless expecting something more edible from the encounter. Sadly, I lacked the desired--or required--offering.

The crow flew away when it heard another couple approaching along the path, and I continued up the mountain. I reached the top:

The highest point of Fushimi Inari Taisha

and returned to the base, without another spotting of the crow.

Several days later, I visited Kasuga Taisha, another major Shinto shrine, and a primary setting in one of my upcoming novels. As I approached the entrance, a giant crow swooped down and landed on the entry post. 

Apparently, he heard I was coming.

Like the crow at Fushimi Inari (over a hundred miles away) he watched me approach and waited for me to come and stand beside him.

No fear, but disappointment when I had no food.

Japanese crows, like their brethren around the world, are confident birds with little fear of people. It’s common to see them at Shinto shrines and they often watch the visitors with interest.

Even so, I couldn’t help but feel that the crows at Fushimi Inari and Kasuga—and several other crows that appeared at critical moments throughout my trip—were a positive sign that my travels (and my writing) are taking me in the right direction.

I’m not superstitious by nature, but these eerily timely encounters with Japanese crows made me understand why Japanese people consider the crow both wise in itself and also a sign of heaven’s favor. I look forward to seeing them again, on my next visit to Japan.