Tucson, MIE's On Its Way.

 

Saturday–Jeff

 

Next Thursday I’ll be in Tucson for Left Coast Crime, a conference I love, and not just because it once honored me as a nominee for Best Mystery in a Foreign Setting.  As an aside, when you’re nominated in the same category as Louise Penny (or William Kent Krueger) you soon learn to appreciate just the honor of the nomination. 

 

Left Coast Crime simply is one of those gems of a conference that always seems to pick just the right place to be, and the perfect folk to honor.  In this year selecting our own Sujata Massey as a Guest of Honor, LCC continues a tradition of conferring well-deserved praise upon our MIE contributors. In 2014 LCC Monterey chose Cara Black as a Guest of Honor, and in 2015 LCC Portland selected Tim Hallinan.

 

How can you not love a conference that shows such terrific taste in choosing its Guests of Honor?  By the way, each year’s LCC picks a catchy name for itself, and Tucson’s is “Trouble in Tucson.”  Here’s a link to all the info on next week’s conference.

 

I’m looking forward to breaking my three-year-long Covid induced absence from the US mystery conference circuit with this trip to Arizona––land of the Saguaro and other prickly things.

 

I’ll be participating in two panels, one as a panelist on Friday and the other as a moderator on Saturday, each kicks off at 9AM Pacific Time. I think I pulled that time slot because I’ll still be functioning on Eastern Time aka 12 noon.

 

Here are the details on my appearances:

 

Friday, March 17 @ 9:00AM

Left Coast Crime

Tucson, AZ – El Conquistador, Turquoise 1

Participating in Panel moderated by Alice Volpe titled, “Crimes Around the World,” with co-panelists Connie Berry, Juliet Grames, Carlene O’Connor.

 

Saturday, March 18 @ 9:00AM

Left Coast Crime

Tucson, AZ – El Conquistador, Presidio 1-2

Moderating Panel titled, “Both Sides of the Law,” with panelists Curtis Ippolito, Margaret Morse, Karen Odden, Michael Sears

 

And here are some photos from a past LCC conference in Hawaii.  I’ll have new ones for you next week.

 

––Jeff

 

The view from our hotel room of the complex hosting the conference:

Our Murder is Everywhere blogmates hard at work...on the right:

Sujata

Susan

Faces in the crowd:

Maryglenn McCombs, Ovida Yu, Dru Ann Love,  Anonymous Photobomber

Robert Rosenwald, Barbara Peters, Interloper

Ragnar Jonasson, Barry Lancet

Christopher Fowler

                                                                  

In space no one can hear you scream. Because I’m old and cynical there are very few authors that I get really excited when a new book comes out. And one of those authors was Christopher Fowler who passed away last week. He had been suffering from a very rare form of cancer for 2 years or so and was trying an experimental treatment as that’s all that was really on offer. Maybe that treatment gave us another book, another short story to a collection. He was certainly writing right up to the end.

In his youth he ran a company that marketing movies. And he was one of those that coined the phrase 'in space no one can hear you scream'. Ridley Scott had put in front of him a picture of an egg and said 'It's very scary.' That’s all the marketing agencies had to go on so a few folk came up with the hookline.

                                                       

Of all Christopher's work, and there is a lot as he was a prolific writer and blogger, my favourite by far are the Bryant and May series, 20 books long. They feature two detectives, both in their eighties who started working together at the Peculiar Crimes unit in London during the second world war. The unit was designed to investigate crimes that could have an effect on the morale of the nation. Arthur Bryant is a grumpy bad tempered old git who abuses mobile phones terribly. John May eighties is still tall, well dressed with a charismatic twinkle in his eye. So they are known as Bryant and May, the perfect match.

The books a clever, funny and unlike anything else. Christopher always has a good, insulting turn of phrase, something about a face like a  overboiled cabbage, or something like that.

Christopher’s one of those rare people in life who no one has a bad word to say about. I’ve maybe spoken to him 2 or 3 times, but the best discussion was definitely about Arthur Bryant running the country and what a job he’d make of it. There’s all kinds of fabulous stories to be found about Christopher Fowler including one about him organising a human chain to move the books of a library to a save place. The library was about to be bombed and all the books were placed safely underground. He is much better with words than I could ever be so here’s his final blog. I think the last line of it gives you an idea of the man.

                                                      

"It was when I realised I could not handle short staircases that my future became apparent. My muscles had wasted away. I suddenly looked like my grandfather. Physical deterioration, accompanied by mental fog. As the illness increased its invasive speed I could no longer keep my head clear enough to work. I needed the time I had left to try and finish a short story, but even that is now in danger of remaining unfinished. Arabic architects are supposed to leave a corner of their work unfinished for Allah.

I had a book I had taken from a hotel. Bookworms had left curlicues through its pages, adding to its beauty. Below, a bookworm cast earlier today.

There is something magical about an unopened novel. There are all those shelves filled with luscious unread books…and now I can’t even reach them.

So this is my last post. The blog will remain but be dormant. In the meantime I’m planning to leave thousands of blog pieces and let the the books speak for themselves.

A Book Is A Living Object

Its life can be be infinitely extended or strangled at birth.

It may start lifelong love affairs or wars.

It may simply fail to to ignite with wealthy members of the public and penniless poets alike.

It is a weapon and a companion. Once the words are written down they become real.

The blog is ephemeral, like most newspaper articles. Books are not, because they are physical artefacts. That’s my two-penneth, and now it’s spenteth.

Hard To Write

It’s very hard to write now without falling asleep or forgetting what I was going to say. If there’s something I really need to get out I’ll put it on Twitter. So you might want to check your old  @peculiar feed once in a while. All fun things have to come to an end. I love you all. Except for that horrible old troll – are there any other kind?

There, now you have a smidgen of extra time on your hands, go have fun.

…and read a book.

                                                                                

Thank you for all your words over the years Christopher,

Sleep well

Caro

Cast Iron Girl

 

Wendall—every other Thursday

 

When the kind writers of Murder is Everywhere invited me to join them, they probably didn’t know how many posts they were going to wind up with about London. This will be the first of many. . .but I will try to control myself and space them out.

 

I love London. A lot.

 

I first visited the United Kingdom in the summer of 1982, a year into my teaching career, and on a tiny budget, which meant mostly hostels and hitchhiking, and almost no time in The Big Smoke, since even then it was too expensive.

 

I fell in love with Bath, York, Oxford, and western coast of Ireland. By accident, my friend and I wound up traveling to Belfast by train on the anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death, and found a city full of barbed wire and chaos, where we were hustled off the train by a cab driver and told it would be best to take the night ferry from Larne to Stranraer.

 

Our luck changed once we reached Scotland, since, also by accident, we arrived on the first day of the Edinburgh Festival, were lucky enough to find a B&B, and I got my first taste of that wonderful city and “real” theatre. As we passed through London again on our way home, I vowed to return when I could really spend time in the city I’d only glimpsed on this trip.

 

By some miracle, my next visit was on a producer’s dime, to research a pitch I’d sold. I was not only able to stay in London for two weeks (!) which gave me the time to wander where I would, rather than hurry around on the Tube. I stayed above ground. And, since I knew absolutely no one there, I was free every evening go on a series of London Walks.

 

Me and Emily Richard walking in London

 

On my first free night, I wanted to go on a walking tour of the East End of London, but only had time to make it to the one in South Kensington, which was led by, as the pamphlet promised, “smokey-voiced” actor Emily Richard. I was so impressed with Emily’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for the city, I went on several of her walks and after I left, we continued to correspond and become friends through our airmail letters—remember those, the almost transparent blue missives from the old days—and an occasional phone call.

 

Emily and Edward in their back garden, after they met and married on the set of Nicholas Nickleby

The next time I was headed to the city, she and her husband, actor Edward Petherbridge—some of you might remember him as Lord Peter Wimsey in the 1987 BBC adaptation of the Dorothy L. Sayers’s novels—invited me to use their guest room and that’s where I stayed on all my trips for the next ten years.

 

Edward doing one of his walking tours

 

They not only gave me their guest room and endless cups of tea, they gave me an entrée into the dressing rooms, cast parties, disappointments, and gossip of the West End. From them, I also learned about the down and dirty “backstage” of the walking tour world, filled largely with out-of-work actors, and backbiting retired academics. I was fascinated by the drama and spite behind the guides seen leading groups on every corner in the city. This world became the inspiration for my most recent Cyd Redondo mystery, Fogged Off, set in the world of the Jack the Ripper walks, so many years later.

 

Many Jack the Ripper walk guides dress in period costume

 

The way Emily taught me to look at the city has informed every trip since and led me to find so many magical bits beyond the theoretical Angophile list I arrived with. Now, after probably twenty-five trips over the years—and the credit card bills to prove it—I have my own London, filled with places I visit on every trip and that delight me every time.

 

The stairs leading up to the Cast Iron Gallery in the V&A

 

One view down the gallery

One of those is the Cast Iron gallery, found on the second  (or in London vernacular, first) floor of the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. For some reason, my early visits must have so amazed me, that I couldn’t keep my camera level, so apologies for the photos that are somewhat askew.

 

 

A few views of the central section of the gallery

I don’t know what it is about cast iron that just makes my heart ache. Perhaps it's the idea of iron becoming something so decorative, with a touch of whimsy. The way it is displayed in this gallery, stark and gorgeous against the white walls, just kills me every time. Happily, the gallery is filled with benches and has become a place where I often go and sit to make notes on whatever I’m writing. 

 

 

 

A few details from the gallery

The images above are some I’ve managed to capture there over the years, but they can’t really convey the glory of the long corridor or the imagination of the curators who laid it out. If you haven’t stumbled into this part of the V&A, I highly recommend a visit.

 

 

The whole gallery is diffused with a blue light

UPCOMING APPEARANCES:

 

I will be attending next week’s Left Coast Crime Conference and appearing on the “Creating Memorable Characters” panel, moderated by Naomi Hirahara, on Friday March 17, at 9am.

 

My husband James Bartlett and I will also be participating in the new event “Continuing Conversations,” and will be at the round table together from 4 to 4:30pm on Saturday the 18th.

 

Otherwise, please find me at meals or in the bar and say hello.

 

--- Wendall

 

 

 

 

The Seed of a New Story

 Sujata Massey

We are emerging from a strange winter in North America. Recent snowfalls have shocked California and Arizona, while there was no virtually no snowfall in Maryland. The temperatures here in Baltimore were so mild that the ground could be dug in early January for the planting of trees. I’d hoped for snowfall to bring them water—but at least there was some rain.

First cherry display on my street

The second year appearance of  my hellebore transplant

 

All over the east and south-east, spring activity began ahead of schedule. Cherry, magnolia, quince and plum trees are in bloom. In my garden, daffodils and hellebores are showing their faces. A chillier vibe is forecast, but I'm already in "the trenches" planting seeds. 

 

Seed gardening is my new pastime. Typically, I sit around until May, and then I dig in transplanted seedlings from gardens or nurseries. Perennials are my favorite, because if I’ve gone through the drudgery of weeding, I’d rather fill thouse spaces with beneficial plants that will spread their roots and make my gardening life easier in years to come. 

 

This year, I fell prey to seed catalogs and seed company websites promising perfect mixes for pollinating insects and birds. Who can resist the allure of the elegant botanical illustrations on paper seed packets? I certainly can’t—and I swoon over these flowers’ elegant Latin names, like cosmos, helianthus, calendula, and lobularia. Don't these names fit heroines in an upcoming season of Bridgerton? Even more racy are the varietal names made up by growers: Orchid Cream, Milk Maid, and Black Velvet. These are just a few of the varieties of nasturtiums that I’ve ordered from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds. Because these flowers are annuals, my plan is to plant them in pots and the ground near any vegetables and flowers that attract aphids—and to eat whatever blooms they miss in salad—or better yet, on top of cake! 

 

Another advantage to seed gardening is the vast number of seeds per packet at a bargain price. Not all the seeds will grow into flowers, but some will reward me this year, and surely grow their flower families in upcoming years. I refrigerated and soaked some seeds, per directions, to help them get in gear.

 

The process of throwing seeds into earth reminds me of the way I write. When I start a new book, I never start on Page One. Before that, I ponder the many notes that I’ve taken from reading and brainstorming. I also list places I need to visit to learn important things for the book and write down the names of experts I’d love to interview, either in person or through e-mail. I prepare the ground. 

 

A huge challenge that comes next is the arrival of emerging weeds, which look so innocent when only one inch tall. How can I possibly tell an emerging weed from a baby coreopsis? My phone has an app, Picture This, that can name most plants, whether desirable or not. Sometimes I just  let the weed or flower keep growing before I decide what to do.It’s a guessing game, just like when I’m rolling along in my book’s narrative. And when I garden, my thoughts are often on my book.

 

 

I can write faster when it's easy to look at synopses and notes. A word processing program called Scrivener helps me store these inspirations and reminders on digital index cards that are kept close to each chapter. In the garden today, I was planting lupines just ¼ inch under the soil. Nearby, I placed wooden sticks with their names, so they aren’t overlooked or, worst of all, weeded!

 

When I'm involved in a book I ramble, letting conversations unfold as they will. I'm the first to admit that these explorations lead to what I call "over-writing." These trailing vines and redundancies can choke the life out of the novel's central structure; but I can't see it until the first draft is complete.  Then, I begin to thin out sentences and paragraphs, just as I’ll have to lift out some baby seedlings to provide enough mineral resources for the others. I can move some of the banished babies to other spots in the garden—just as I sometimes shift scenes in a book, or details about people. Although whether they will live is yet to be seen.

 

In my July 2023 release, THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE, I'd written a scene with an Indian family eating a particular regional fish nicknamed Bombay Duck as part of a large breakfast. Reflecting on it, I realized the fish would be no big deal for the Mistrys, but it could play an amusing role if served to someone else. My redo had Perveen’s friend Alice Hobson-Jones enjoying Bombay Duck at the Taj Mahal hotel, and the dish becomes a commentary on 1920s colonialism. 

 

My Bombay Duck swap reminds me that a big part of both writing and gardening is impulsivity. The ambitious screenwriter making a first appearance in my work-in-progress suddenly got upstaged by a much more intriguing assistant cameraman. It’s early enough in the writing process that I can delete one character for the other, thus avoiding one of my classic writing problems: too many characters!

A few days ago, I was in a nursery and noticed a thick bag of Dutch clover seeds. And in a moment, I realized that flowering clover could fortify my anemic lawn. Clover deposits nitrogen. It also crowds out weeds and feeds insects and animals. And the best part is that it’s not too late in the season to scatter this seed.

 

Although I consider myself a writing who gardens, I don’t always wake up eager to create on paper or in the earth. But I know that gardening outdoors sends Vitamin D into my body and raises my mood. Putting my fingers on the keyboard and banging out a few paragraphs provides a similar release. Relaxation and pride always follow a writing session.

 

A cosmos bloom might be tiny, but when massed together with others, it has a vast impact. I believe there will be thousands of individual flowers, small and large, in my garden this spring and summer. I'll let you know whether the words follow.

 

On March 15 from 1-2:30 p.m., Sujata will speak along with the mystery authors Naomi Hirahara and S.J. Rozan at a free event open to the public at the Wheeler Taft Abbet Sr. Library in Tucson, AZ. While she’s in Arizona, she’ll also have daily panels and interivews at the 2023 Left Coast Crime Convention, featuring more than 100 authors and taking place March 15-19 at the El Conquistador Tucson Hilton. All convention registration information, including the option of a daily admission pass, can be accessed here.

Getting the reading fire roaring, again...

 

Expectant, the fifth novel in a terrific, CWA Dagger-shortlisted series starring headstrong young female Detective Sam Shephard, is among my recent great reads

Craig, every second Tuesday. 

Kia ora and gidday everyone.

Have you ever been in a reading funk? I've been a lifelong reader, loving books and stories since my earliest childhood memories. Growing up in New Zealand I spent a fair bit of time outdoors and playing various sports, but I also loved curling up with a good book - whether on a rainy day, on the couch in the evening, or in bed at night. 

I devoured books from Asterix to Agatha Christie, from CS Lewis to Roald Dahl to JRR Tolkien and so much more. 

That's continued throughout my life. There are times where I've read a lot more than others, but I've always read. Even when having a very busy job, or at law school, or travelling around the world, a novel has never been far from my reach. Recently however, to end 2022 and begin 2023, I was in a bit of a reading funk. I hadn't stopped reading as such - like I said, I've always read - but I was glacial. A small handful of novels read in a couple of months, rather than multiple books a week like usual. There was a lot going on personally that played a part. Even the books I really enjoyed were taking days or weeks to get through, rather than tearing through them in a day or two like usual. 

A love of reading is passed from generation to generation in my family

I just wasn't reading for sustained periods of time, for various reasons. I knew (hoped) I'd shake it off at some point, and that point thankfully arrived in last month when I picked up a novel I needed to read for an upcoming interview for a magazine article. I just couldn't put it down. I tore through it in hours. Back to my old self. 

The next day I started another crime novel I'd been looking forward to, and that was done by the following day. Two more that week. I was back! Even though I was just as busy, or busier, with work and family stuff than I had been during my protracted reading funk, I was really loving reading again and making time for that rather than mindlessly whiling time away with re-runs, YouTube videos, or other 'not have to think too much' decompressions. 

So today I thought I'd showcase some of the new books I've devoured in recent weeks - each gripped me from start to finish in a day or two - starting with the one that hauled me back to my usual reading self. Thanks Liz Nugent! 

STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND: released last week in the UK and Commonwealth, the fifth novel from star Irish storyteller Liz Nugent is a real cracker, introducing us to a beguiling, unusual 'heroine' as the gateway to a disturbing yet riveting tale. Nugent has shown with her past novels (eg LYING IN WAIT, OUR LITTLE CRUELTIES) that she has a masterful touch for dysfunctional families and memorable main characters - along with killer first lines and twisting storylines - but in her latest psychological she throws in a twist: the protagonist is actually kinda likable! 

Sally Diamond is a ‘socially deficient’ lady in her 40s whose neurodivergence and occasional extreme outbursts could be nurture or nature. After an appalling childhood she can't recall, she's led perhaps a too-sheltered teenage and adulthood thanks to her ex-psychiatrist father. The man she cremates at home following his terminal illness, drawing all kinds of attention from the police, local villagers, and someone very dangerous who remembers Sally's childhood. Nugent takes readers on quite a ride, using a full palette of emotions. STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND is dark, and funny. It's got hope, and despair. It traverses some of the worst that humanity can offer (TW for pedophilia, sexual abuse, etc) - though we're usually not 'in the room' for that, just knowing it has happened - while smoothly telling a fascinating story about an unforgettable character. 

OZARK DOGS by Eli Cranor: the next day, I dived into an advance copy of this upcoming novel (out in April in USA and UK etc), one of my most highly-anticipated reads of the year. This too was devoured in <24 hours. 

Cranor, a former QB and high school football coach, produced for me arguably the best debut crime novel of last year with DON'T KNOW TOUGH, an extraordinary tale with evocative prose and the jagged voice of abused teenage football star Billy Lowe. So I had high expectations going on, while wondering how Cranor could match his first effort.

Somehow, he may have even exceeded it.  Jeremiah Fitzjurls is an old man with violence scratching at his soul; a Vietnam sniper with a Bronze Star, an armoury full of weapons, and too many bad memories. His days are spent crushing cars at his junkyard and trying to protect his beloved granddaughter Joanna from sins new and old. His son, Joanna’s father, is in prison for murder. Their town doesn’t forget, and neither have the Ledfords, a vicious concoction of white supremacists and meth dealers. So when Joanna disappears after Homecoming, a violent reckoning is coming, unless Craven County Sheriff Mona McNabb can stop it.

OZARK DOGS is the kind of book that burrows beneath your skin. Cranor’s crafted a gritty, epic tale of family burdens and long shadows cast by past misdeeds. Terrible people or good people making terrible choices; the awful impact may be the same. Superb.

THE TWYFORD CODE by Janice Hallett: The next day I began my third in book in half a week - unheard of in recent times, but lovely to get back to that kind of reading habit. Having heard great things about Janice Hallett's debut THE APPEAL, an epistolary take on classic puzzle-style murder mysteries, I was curious to try THE TWYFORD CODE, which came out in the UK last year and was published in the United States in January.

THE TWYFORD CODE continues Hallett's  ‘found documents’ approach; this time readers are given semi-accurate transcripts of audio recordings aging ex-con Steven Smith has made on an old iPhone given to him by his estranged son. Looking for redemption, or perhaps just purpose, Steven tries to find out what happened to his remedial English teacher forty years before. Miss Isles vanished after an unauthorised field trip to the countryside haunts of Edith Twyford, a forgotten children’s author whose old-fashioned mysteries may have contained a secret code to solve a real mystery, along with their racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Was Miss Isles disappearance linked to the Twyford Code? Shadowy figures seem determined to stop Steven, who cajoles some old classmates into the hunt, with mixed success, and is joined by young librarian Lucy for what becomes a dangerous mission entwined with wartime secrets and London gangs. But how much can we believe?

Hallett deftly keeps readers guessing throughout an entertaining tale that's an original, intricate mystery. A few pacing issues, perhaps, and at times the conceit threatens to overwhelm the story or our connection to characters, but Hallett brings it all together brilliantly at the end. A very good read.

Four further great reads I tore through in a day or two recently

I also ripped through EVERYBODY KNOWS by Jordan Harper, an extraordinary LA-set noir tale, that same week I'd read STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND. Four books in a week, that's more like the old Craig! Since then I've read several other novels, and seem to be out of my reading funk. For now, at least. Other highly recommended new books I tore through and loved: I WILL FIND YOU by Harlan Coben, DON'T FEAR THE REAPER by Stephen Graham Jones, and EXPECTANT by Vanda Symon, aka 'the modern Queen of New Zealand Crime'. 

Have you ever found yourself in a reading funk? How'd you get out of it? Was it a particular book that helped get you back on track? Do you have go-to-authors that can re-light your reading fire? Let me know in the comments. 

Until next time. Ka kite anō. 

Whakataukī of the fortnight: 

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life. 

Ahakoa he iti he pounamu

(Although it is small it is a treasure)