Cicero's Children

Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

2012-02-16T19:42:00.010-06:00

The weekend is coming, a time to relax and forget about work for a while. There's no better way to relax than with a good mystery novel, so to help you find the perfect one, I present for your reading pleasure five book reviews by my good friend Carl Brookins.

Assignment:Nepal
By J.S. Squires
ASIN: B005VFMK6Q
2011 E-book release from
Echelon Press
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

Readers of this review should be aware that this press has published some of my crime fiction and I am acquainted with the publisher, though not with the two authors writing under a single pseudonym.

The protagonist is named Irene Adler. Not the woman who beat Sherlock Holmes at his own game, but her modern namesake, a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology at Boston University. Adler has a semi-cynical outlook on life and it turns out she supplements her income by playing poker, specifically Texas Holdem in the gambling parlors around the New England area. Irene Adler is a bright, smart, single woman, and an endearing protagonist.

Her former adviser, a fellow faculty member, prevails on Ms. Adler to travel to Nepal to inquire into the life and times of a former fellow undergraduate student of Irene’s, a Margot Smith, who’s in Nepal doing research on one of that country’s goddesses, one Chwwaassa Dyo. The problem is, it appears something's gone awry with Margot and her physician husband, and Adler is supposed to sort things out. What needs sorting turns out to be only part of the story. Irene agrees to go half-way around the world to see a woman she barely knows. From this most unlikely beginning, the plot drives poor Adler into one complexity after another.

Her assignment clearly has unstated dimensions about which neither we readers nor Irene Adler herself are clear. Now, Nepal is an exotic nation from which assaults on Mount Everest are mounted and the ubiquitous Sherpa play an important part, as do digital cameras, former Cold War adversaries, political unrest in the country, and a whole series of meddlesome individuals who seem to still show up on the fringes of the former English Empire.

The novel winds its way through a variety of conflicts among wanderers, a boorish American tourist couple, and murder and bomb blasts. At times the narrative suffers from a pedestrian pace and some lapses of editing discipline over the point of view. Still, the story is interesting, Irene is definitely a character to build a series around, the exotic setting in and around Katmandu is, well, exotic, and a satisfactory conclusion is fashioned. I think four stars is too strong a rating, but the novel is more enjoyable than three stars would indicate. Sample the story and make your own judgment.

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LETHAL Lineage
By Charlotte Hinger
ISBN:978-1-59058-837-6
2011 Release from
Poisoned Pen Press
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

This is an amazing novel. Almost from the first line, one is interested, entertained, and enthralled. Lottie Albright is a first-class protagonist, a bright, wealthy, well-educated woman with a healthy measure of community sense and human empathy. The fact that she’s now living on the isolated windy plains of northwestern Kansas, second wife of a widowed farmer, only enhances her claim on the reader’s attention.

The author writes with such clarity, precision and verve, one is swept into the lives of these people with intimacy, with love, and with a clear eye on the realities of life in this place in the Twenty-first Century. As isolated as they are, and feel themselves to be, the citizens of four sparsely-populated counties will be touched in tender and horrific ways by larger events happening continents away beginning with a confirmation in a new Episcopal congregation meeting in a new church.

The novel’s sojourn into the world of historical research, especially Albright’s struggle to deal with the surprises of family history projects is a fascinating and relevant subplot. The characters are all well-laid on and consistent in their roles. All in all an outstanding effort.

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Damage Control
by Denise Hamilton
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9674-8
a 2011 hardcover release from
Scribner. 372 pages.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

More than just romance can often flower under the hot desert moon. In southern California, a lot more. In the artificially irrigated hothouse of perfectly sculpted bodies, overabundance of wealth, aggressive power and overweening ambition are a dangerous combination that leads, almost inevitably, to corruption. And it is corruption that’s at the heart of this complex, lyrically written tale, along with a strong dose of murder and mystery.

Maggie Silver grew up on the far side of the tracks. Now in adulthood with a mortgage, a failed marriage, and an ill mother, she’s scrambling for a place, if not in the sun, as near as she can get without singeing her fingers. Her values are aspiring middle class. She’d like to be one of the beautiful people, and for a while in a private school with a rich girl friend named Anabelle Paxton, the giddy, youthful exuberance of unsupervised teenaged life seems to point to a life to come of luxury and happiness.

Fast forward to today. Having lost that youthful connection to the good life, Maggie is establishing herself as a fixer. Working for the powerful public relations firm, Blair Company, she find herself once more entangled with the Paxton family, Henry, now a powerful U.S. Senator, Luke, the golden son, and Anabelle, once her very best girl friend. A murder has happened and the situation must be managed. The Blair firm gets paid a great deal of money by wealthy clients to do exactly that. What happens then, to Maggie, the Paxtons, to other members of the firm is enthralling, complicated, and almost a Greek tragedy.

The author has taken a common theme, power, wealth and their corrupting influences, and infused the story with a strong dose of both good and evil. and while she carefully and fully illuminates much of the evil that resides in Los Angeles and its special culture, there is at times, a faint but fascinating aura of envy, as if the author yearns, however ruefully, for just a little taste of the life she writes about. The genius of the novel lies in part in the complex and convoluted story and the way the author infuses this story with life.

Hamilton has not penned a polemic against the culture of southern California. Rather she holds up the citizens, and the organizations to a searing light and lets readers judge the actions and the influences that result. Unlike Raymond Chandler, with whose writing she is compared, her sympathies clearly lie with all the characters, while never condoning their actions, or trumpeting the consequences. So in the end, readers, themselves having perhaps experienced a little bit of envy for the characters, can close the book and ponder the questions we all may ask ourselves, to whom do we really owe the greatest loyalty?

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The Lost Women of Lost Lake
by Ellen Hart
ISBN: 978-0-312-61477-5
2011 hardcover release from
Minotaur Books, 320 pgs.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

It is interesting how these things come in multiples. Libby Hellmann recently released a novel with its genesis in the riotous summer and fall of 1968. The Minnesota History Center has just opened an elaborate exhibit focused on 1968, and the History Theater in Saint Paul has mounted an original play, “1968, The year That Rocked The World.” And now here we have a powerful, emotionally intense novel by that excellent Minneapolis writer, Ellen Hart. It is a story of two women who are unable to divorce themselves from that same year, 196, and the decisions and actions they took then.

The story is another event in the evolving saga of Minneapolis restaurateur, Jane Lawless. This time she and bosom chum Cordelia take what they intend to be a short vacation trip into Minnesota’s benign northern wilderness to the Lawless family lodge on a lake north of the Twin Cities. It’s a common enough activity, and bucolic time on placid water amid peaceful forests is expected to provide calm and rejuvenation. Jane is trying to decide whether she can commit to working with a close friend toward becoming a professional private investigator.

The peaceful appearing forest, like so many lives, conceals dark doings, and Jane is drawn into a maelstrom of murder, revenge, drugs and double dealing. The multiple threads of this complex story intersect, divide, and then reweave. At times the action is high with tension, the pace frantic. At other times, the story becomes thoughtful, calm, like the smooth waters of the lake itself, allowing readers moments to reflect, perhaps, on their own lives and paths not taken. The women of lost lake, must, in the end, decide for themselves, and take for themselves the heart-rending consequences of their lives.

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Murder in the 11th house
by Mitchell Scott Lewis
ISBN: 978-59058-950-2
a 2011 release from
Poisoned Pen Press
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

A team of intrepid and intelligent agents in league with an astrologer take on difficult cases of potential injustice. The feeling one gets from this debut novel about the Starlight Detective Agency is one of a small team of right-minded individuals with varied skills united around common goals. When government doesn’t get it right, the agency will. And they’re not above bending the law for all the right reasons. How that affects the lawyer/daughter on the team remains to be seen. The agency does work with police in New York City whenever possible, and because of his wealth and reputation, that seems to be often, but David Lowell, Astrologer non parallel, is not above spending his considerable money and influence to right apparent wrongs.

Angry bartender Johnny Colbert has a loud confrontation with a judge in a small New York Courtroom. It’s a civil case but the judge is soon dead in spectacular fashion and the bartender has no alibi. Enter Lowell’s daughter, defense attorney, Melinda, who prevails on her father to attempt to solve the mystery of who killed the judge and why, thus, presumably, exonerating Ms Colbert. The why of the murder proves far more fascinating that the astrological explanations. There are many explanations, and in some detail. They tend to slow the pace of the story considerably.

But it doesn’t matter whether you believe in astrology or not, the writing is generally smooth and the story develops logically. All of the characters stay in character, even if it’s a bit of a stretch for the young idealistic attorney to countenance what she knows is marginally illegal activity on behalf of her client. Several of the characters, Sarah and the client in particular, are interesting and well-drawn. all in all a nice traditionally-styled crime novel for a pleasant reading afternoon.

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All reviews by:
Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com
agora2.blogspot.com
Reunion, Devils Island, Red Sky, The Case of the Great Train Robbery
The Case of The Missing Case

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FRAMED -- from HEARTS AND DAGGERS

2012-02-10T16:02:00.009-06:00

In my last post I presented the "Introduction" from HEARTS AND DAGGERS, a January Ebook release containing three romantic suspense novellas, one by Amy Alessio, one by Margot Justes, and one written by me. Each novella has a Valentine Day's theme and features the writer's main series character. In my case, that character is Caroline Rhodes, the intrepid ER nurse first introduced in A MERRY LITTLE MURDER. To make things even more interesting, we also gave each other's main characters bit parts in our stories. Incorporating Amy's Alana O'Neill and Margot's Rebecca Standish into FRAMED, my novella, was a fun but challenging assignment.

Today I'm presenting the first chapter of FRAMED on my blog. If you enjoy it and want to read more, you can click on the title below. That link will take you to my Amazon page where FRAMED can be found in HEARTS AND DAGGERS.

Hearts and Daggers: Three Valentine Mystery Novellas

Chapter One

The letter was delivered shortly before dusk on a chilly Friday in February. Time and the postal service had taken their toll on the once pristine missive as it traveled from Chicago to the Illinois town of Rhineburg along a circuitous route marked by zigzagging detours and much backtracking. Its tattered edges, torn flap, and smeared return address bore witness to a ruthless mechanical wizard in the main Chicago office; this monster digested rather than sorted mail before burping a semi-mutilated version of the original into the waiting hands of a bored postal employee. Further manhandling along the way resulted in several barely decipherable messages having been stamped across the surface of the envelope in faded shades of red and blue.

The letter had certainly taken a beating on its two-week journey across the state. Nevertheless, it arrived at its final destination in one piece (more or less). Caroline Rhodes found it in her mail slot early Saturday morning when, after working an unexpected double shift in the ER, she entered the lobby of the red brick nursing dormitory attached to St. Anne's Hospital. Sleepy-eyed and low on patience, the middle-aged nurse dismissed the colorful but smudged printing on the envelope with a disdainful 'harrumph' born of long experience with junk mail.

"Sorry, guys. Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying."

Summoning her last reserves of energy, she crumpled the envelope into a ball, assumed a Michael Jordan-like stance, and launched her unread mail toward a wicker trash-basket stationed beneath the farthest mail slot. What looked like a sure thing wound up a miss as her three-point shot fell just short of its target. Ricocheting off the edge of the basket, the wad of paper skittered across the marble floor.

"Rats!"

Caroline chased down the envelope and stomped on it, effectively killing the dust bunnies accumulated on its journey across the lobby. Deciding a slam-dunk was in order, she was about to toss the entire mess in the trash when a young woman clattered down the dormitory stairs, skidded to a stop in front of the mail slots, and, with a nervous glance in Caroline's direction, began rummaging through the wastebasket.

"Lose something?" Caroline recognized the girl as a first-year student who lived on the second floor. Judith, or Janice, or something like that.

"Umm, not really. I…ah…" The girl reached deeper into the basket and pulled out a torn envelope. She studied it intently for a moment before satisfaction wedged her lips into a dreamy smile that slowly edged the tension from her face.

A keen observer of human nature, Caroline immediately recognized the look as having graced the faces of hormonally challenged young women since time immemorial. It meant only one thing: unrequited love was rearing its heart-breaking head again.

"You found what you were looking for?"

"What? Oh…ah…yes!" Overcome by a sudden case of teenage angst, the girl stumbled on uncertainly. "I…I'm on a scavenger hunt. I had to find…old mail. Any old mail." She put a finger to her lips. "It's all very hush-hush."

"Hmm. A scavenger hunt at seven-thirty in the morning." Caroline plucked the envelope from the student's hands and examined the name on the address line. "Peggy Winkler. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Peggy a shorter-than-average blond who favors the preppie look in clothes?" She fingered the torn sleeve on the girl's faded sweatshirt. "You, on the other hand, are a five-foot nine redhead who obviously prefers tattered sweats to tailored blouses." She shook her head. "You'll have to come up with a better story, young lady. No way does this belong to you."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Aw, come on, Mrs. Rhodes. Peg's my roomie. Please don't tell on me."

"When people say 'please don't tell on me', it usually means they've been up to no good. As housemother for this dorm, Judy…"

"It's Jackie. Jackie Harlan."

Caroline mentally kicked herself. Ah, well. Close enough.

"Right. You're Jackie. Yes."

Pull yourself together, woman!

Caroline responded to her inner voice with what little energy she had left. Raising one eyebrow, she lifted her chin and peered down her nose at Jackie in what she hoped was a look of stern admonition. "As I was saying, as housemother, I'm trusted to protect each student's privacy. This letter…"

"It's just an envelope!" Jackie squealed. "Look, Mrs. Rhodes. Peggy broke up with her boyfriend a week ago. Andy wrote her a soppy letter begging her to take him back. I was standing right here with her yesterday when she read it. She was so mad, she tore the note into a million pieces and mailed it back to him." Jackie pointed at the envelope. "She threw that in the trash."

Caroline cocked her head to the left. "And you want it because…"

"His address is on it." Jackie sighed while staring longingly into space. "You won't believe how cute Andy is. He's got these puppy dog eyes. And when he smiles, it's enough to break your heart." She shook her head disgustedly. "Peggy's nuts to let him get away, Mrs. Rhodes. I figured if she doesn't want him…" She broke off with a shrug.

"Who am I to stand in the way of true love?" Caroline handed Jackie the envelope, but stopped the girl as she turned to leave. "Not so fast, Miss Harlan. Before you run off, I want to give you a piece of advice."

Jackie's eyes glazed over. "If this is about safe sex, you needn't worry. I got that lecture from my mom years ago."

"It's not about sex," Caroline said with a smile. "It's about friendship. If you're really Peggy's friend, you should tell her how you feel about Andy. Don't go behind her back and contact him secretly. If she hears through the grapevine that you two are dating, you could spend the rest of the school year sharing space with a very angry roommate."

"I'm willing to take that risk," Jackie replied defiantly.

"Don't forget, Valentine's Day is coming up. Unless Peggy has another fish on the line…"

"No way! She and Andy have been dating for years. She's never even looked at another guy."

"All the more reason to reconsider what you're doing. I doubt Peggy will enjoy spending Valentine's Day alone in the dorm when everyone else is out celebrating. She may decide to make up with Andy before then. If she does, where does that leave you?"

"I don't care. I've got to try. Andy's worth it."

Caroline knew when she was beat. The girl might be naïve when it came to romance, but she certainly was stubborn. "Think about what I said, Jackie. That's all I ask." She thumbed over her shoulder. "Want to ride up with me in the elevator?"

Jackie took one look at the ancient elevator with its wrought-iron grillwork door and shook her head. "No thanks," she said, backpedaling down the hallway. "I need to find a street map and check out this address!"

Feeling suddenly older than her age warranted, Caroline watched the girl skip away, the all-important envelope clutched tightly in her hand. Young love was exasperating, but she had to admit it was also blindingly exciting. Memories came to mind of her own youthful adventures with Cupid. That little winged bugger had found a ready bull's-eye for his arrow when, as a mere seventeen-year-old, she first met Ed at a high school football game. Three months later, on Valentine's Day, the two of them exchanged class rings. The following Valentine's Day, with graduation now well behind them, they exchanged something more precious—their wedding vows.

They'd shared a good life, raising three children together before Ed's untimely death in a hit-and-run accident. Most of the year she could deal with her loss, but there were times when it took all her strength to stave off depression. February was one of those times. As the month wore on it became more and more difficult to think of the upcoming holiday without falling into a blue funk.

Straightening her shoulders, Caroline shook off her sudden attack of gloominess. Back on New Year's Eve she'd resolved to make this year different, and different it would be. She was done giving in to the blues, allowing them to ruin an entire month of her life. February was a challenge to be faced head on, which is why last week she'd volunteered to chaperone the Valentine's Day dance at Bruck University. Babysitting a bunch of moonstruck teenagers might not be the most romantic way to spend an evening, but it sure beat sitting alone in her apartment with a glass of wine listening to Barry White croon "Can't get enough of your love, babe."

"And that means one less cold shower to take," she muttered as she contemplated the effect of White's sexy bass on her long neglected libido. Just thinking of that voice was enough to send shivers down her spine.

Banishing Barry to the far recesses of her mind, she glanced once more at her mail. Considering the fiasco she'd just witnessed vis-a-vis Jackie and her precious envelope, the first floor wastebasket might not be the best place to dispose of any personal communiqués. She tucked the letter in the pocket of her scrubs disgustedly and headed upstairs to her apartment.

The dormitory Caroline called home had been built several decades before to accommodate young women studying nursing at St. Anne's. The three-year diploma program had produced many fine graduates, but when Bruck University began offering a bachelor's degree in the same subject, enrollment at St. Anne's dwindled. The hospital closed its school in 1978 while brokering a deal with the university to keep the dorm open. The building was now reserved solely for nursing students attending nearby Bruck.

Renovated in 1980, the dormitory housed most of its residents on two floors situated above the lobby and its connecting classrooms. A sprawling three-story wing had been added west of the building the following year. The Stromberg addition, named for the woman who'd financed its construction, contained staff offices and a small auditorium on the first floor. The spacious rooms on the upper two floors were the private domains of several dozen lucky seniors.

The small stipend Caroline received for serving as housemother barely counted when she filed her taxes. What attracted her to the job was the promise of rent-free lodging in Stromberg. Her apartment extended across the width of the addition at the far end of the third floor. It was far smaller than her previous home in Chicago, but it suited her immediate needs.

At the moment, one of those needs was sleep. Caroline locked her door with a sigh of relief and made a beeline for the bedroom, shucking her scrubs along the way. She shivered when the cold air hit her bare skin. Winter still had a hold on little Rhineburg.

"You wouldn't know it by this," she said as she checked the thermostat anchored to the wall outside the bedroom. Permanently set at sixty-six degrees by the hospital's maintenance department, it was covered by a wire cage that made increasing the temperature impossible. "Damn skin flints act like it's summer all year 'round. Free doesn't mean FREEzing!"

She hustled into the red flannel pajamas she'd received as a Christmas present from her oldest daughter. Imprinted with prancing reindeer and grinning elves, they'd been meant as a gag gift after she'd complained about the frigid conditions in her living quarters. They'd soon become her favorite nightwear, second only to her Chicago Bears sweatshirt in both warmth and comfort.

Caroline snuggled under the covers and closed her eyes, choosing to ignore the red message signal blinking on the nightstand's answering machine. Whoever had called could wait until she had eight good hours of sleep under her belt. Her brain cells were shutting down, and with them, her desire to talk with either friends or family.
Family. She shot up in bed and reached for the telephone. Her daughter-in-law was pregnant. Maybe something had happened to Nikki. Maybe she was sick or, God forbid, she'd gone into early labor. Who else would call her this early in the morning? It had to be Nikki, or her son, Martin. Thinking the worst, she punched in Martin's number, than just as quickly cancelled the call.

Idiot! Check the answering machine first! You've been away for sixteen hours!

"Right," she mumbled irritatedly. The call must have come in after she'd left for work. Aggravated with herself, she jabbed the message button. An unfamiliar voice filled the room.

"I'm trying to reach Mrs. Caroline Rhodes. If Mrs. Rhodes is there, please answer the phone." A moment of silence preceded a drawn out sigh. "Mrs. Rhodes, this is Henry Hillerman of Hillerman and Murphy, Attorneys at Law. It's three o'clock on Friday, February the sixth. Some time ago, I sent you a letter concerning the late Mrs. Geraldine Miller. I received no response from you concerning the matter described in that missive. A second letter was mailed from this office two weeks ago. Again, I have not heard from you as to your interest in the wording of Mrs. Miller's will." The nasally voice dropped an octave. "As executor of Mrs. Miller's estate, it is my duty to contact you one last time before invoking the final provisions of the will. Distribution of the estate will take place this Saturday at 10 a.m. in the home of my recently departed client. If you wish to receive your inheritance, you must appear at the house on time and in such condition as to prove your identity."

Apparently the lawyer had little training in manners. His last words were followed by a loud click indicating a phone slammed down in anger. Caroline stared at the message machine with raised eyebrows. The name Miller was unfamiliar to her. She had no friends or relatives called Geraldine, nor had her late husband.

At least, none that I know of.

She bounded off the bed. Racing to the living room, she retrieved her abandoned scrubs, reached into the pants pocket, and extracted the letter she'd found in her mailbox. Sure enough, the smudged return address listed the two lawyers mentioned in the phone message. Beneath her own address were a series of messages stamped in red and blue ink, each one smaller than the last. She examined them closely, then silently cursed the world at large. What she'd assumed at first glance to be advertising was, in fact, warnings from the postal service that a) the letter was undeliverable as addressed; b) the zip code listed did not exist; and c) the envelope was being forwarded not once, but multiple times.

"Which is why I didn't receive it until now," she snarled. "It's a miracle I got it at all!" She ripped open the envelope, withdrew a cream-colored sheet of paper embossed with the name and address of Hillerman's Chicago law firm, and quickly scanned it.

The letter was short on details. The first paragraph reminded her of Mrs. Geraldine Miller's death the previous year and the forwarding to Caroline of copies of the will and other forms related to probate. The next two paragraphs were a mumbo-jumbo of legalistic terms, but what it came down to was this: she'd had been named a beneficiary in Geraldine's will.

"Me? A beneficiary? How can that be?"

She glanced at the final paragraph. It began innocently enough; Mrs. Miller's address was listed along with the date and time mentioned by the disembodied voice on the message machine. The final sentence proved more perplexing.

"'Please refer to the provisions of the will re failure to appear on the above indicated date.'" Caroline rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about? I never got a copy of any will. And I don't know any Geraldine Miller!"

She re-read the letter, letting the words slowly sink into her consciousness until their full meaning finally hit her. Someone she'd never met before was about to enrich her life in some unknown way.

Sinking onto the couch, she thought of the health insurance she'd lost after Ed's death and the debt she'd incurred from her own hospitalization soon afterwards. She'd sold her home to pay the bills, and while her present job gave her an income, she had little saved for the future. An inheritance could mean the difference between just making it financially and not having to worry she'd be dependent on her children in her old age. Yes, retirement was a long way off for her. But the years had a way of passing all too quickly. An inherited nest egg–even a small one–would be much appreciated.

Caroline glanced at the clock and quickly shook off her reverie. It was eight-thirty, and Chicago was over an hour's drive away. She jumped off the couch and hurried to the bedroom where she exchanged her pajamas for a pair of black corduroy slacks, a red turtleneck sweater, and black suede loafers. The last sentence of the letter continued to bother her as she slid her arms into her parka and headed for the door. She had no idea what the will actually said, but she bet those 'final provisions' could strip her of her inheritance.

"Not if I can help it," she promised herself as, car keys in hand, she ran out of the apartment.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

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Hearts and Daggers

2012-01-31T17:59:00.005-06:00

I'm pleased to report HEARTS AND DAGGERS is now available on Amazon in Kindle format. Along with one of the included novellas, I wrote the introduction for this book. I present it here for your reading pleasure.

INTRODUCTION

Two years ago Amy Alessio approached Margot Justes and me with a unique idea for a writing project. She suggested we each compose a story that not only highlighted our own protagonists, but also included the main characters of the other two writers. The end result would be a three-novella romantic suspense book based on the theme of Valentine's Day.

Amy's novella would feature Alana O'Neill, bookkeeper for an antiques store called Attic Treasures and the protagonist in several of Amy's short stories. Margot's tale would revolve around Rebecca Standish, a Chicago art gallery owner who first appeared in the anthology Heat of the Moment. As for me, I'd write about Caroline Rhodes, the star player in my 'Rhodes to Murder' mystery series.

Alana O'Neill. Rebecca Standish. Caroline Rhodes. Each leading lady would have a chance to shine on her own while also appearing in a minor role in the other novellas.

Margot and I were undeniably intrigued by Amy's plan. The problem was, we were each involved in other projects at the time. Margot was working on her second mystery novel, A Hotel in Bath. I was concentrating on short story writing, editing for other authors, and promoting my own mystery series. As for Amy, she was busy co-authoring a book while also building her resume as a public speaker at libraries across the state. And at the time, all three of us were also working in careers other than writing. Where were we to find time for such an ambitious project as a three-novella romantic suspense book?

Like many 'best laid plans of mice and men', Amy's suggestion languished in writers' purgatory for almost a year. But when struck by a good idea, Ms. Alessio is not a woman easily denied. Early in 2010, she rallied her troops--those troops being Margot and me--into action with a battle plan for success. We responded as desired: we wrote and revised, wrote and revised, until at last we had stories fit for inclusion in Hearts and Daggers.

So now we present those stories for your reading pleasure. Amy's Blast From the Past has newlywed Alana O'Neill up to her ears in trouble when a murder occurs during a Valentine's Day party at Attic Treasures. Margot's A Fire Within deals with broken hearts, some of which can be mended and some of which never find peace again. And my Valentine offering, Framed, finds Caroline Rhodes falling for a handsome gambler who might be more than just a thief of hearts.

Mystery? Yes. Suspense? Definitely. Romance? All you could want. So go ahead and take a chance on us. We think you'll enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed writing it.

(And, BTW, have a happy Valentine's Day!)

Mary V. Welk, author of the 'Rhodes to Murder' mystery series

Criminal Cats? Unbelievable!

2012-01-26T22:35:00.006-06:00

Dark Things II: Cat Crimes
Edited by Patty G. Henderson
Savage Tiki Digi Books, Dec. 2011
ISBN 9781468055481
trade paperback, 243 pages
also available in E-book format

First things first. Yes, it’s true that I wrote one of the short stories selected for this collection of criminal capers involving cats. My story, Diamonds Aren’t Forever, is a piece I’m proud of and truly enjoyed writing.

But it’s also true that I have no close association with either the editor or the other writers who donated their stories to Dark Things II: Cat Crimes. I’m reviewing this book for two reasons only. First, because all proceeds from the sale of this book will go to support feline rescue and support facilities in California and Florida. And secondly, because I’ve read every story in the book, and I’m truly impressed with the quality of the work Patty chose for inclusion in the anthology.

Let me give you a brief sample of the tales so lovingly penned by the twenty-one contributors.

Jim Silvestri’s Eating Cleopatra features a young man who must compete with a bird and a cat for his mother’s love. All poor Chauncey wants is a little attention from dear old mum, but is he willing to go to any lengths to get it? Read the story and find out.

In Nat Burns’ Hisss, Darla is convinced that a dream about snakes shape-shifting into cats is not just a nighttime fantasy, but a true evolutionary explanation for the existence of felines. No one believes Darla—except her cats.

Dogs may enjoy the feel of a good brush down, but cats look on grooming by a human as sheer torture. In Room Service, by Patty G. Henderson, we learn how an angry Angora takes her revenge when a groomer’s shears leave her looking like a shaved poodle.

J. S. Watts’ Cats and Bags tells the story of a sympathetic feline whose beloved mistress suffers a sudden and severe decline in her health. Is a swift mercy killing preferable to an agonizing natural death? Only the cat knows.

Baby Lamb is an unusual cat. She won’t eat store-bought food, preferring to hunt for her dinner in the great outdoors. The weird thing is, when she catches a mouse or a pigeon, she never eats the flesh. Is it simply a coincidence that her former master once investigated the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the model for the fictional Count Dracula? You’ll have to read Anna Sykora’s Baby Lamb to find out.

Have you ever watched a cat play with his image in a mirror? In Edward DeGeorge’s The Other Cat, Skeeter the tabby undergoes a life-changing experience when he discovers another cat lurking behind a glass ‘window’ in his house. He can’t get at the intruder, and this irritates him no end—until the day the other cat passes through the window, causing all hell to break loose in Skeeter’s domain.

Last but not least, my own tale, Diamonds Aren’t Forever, features a trio of feline thieves who must compete with four robbers of the two-legged variety when they attempt to steal the famed Duchess Diamond of Baldagovia from a local city museum. Can Eddie G. and his trusty friends outwit a couple of behind-the-scenes manipulators, two not-so-trusty museum guards, and a doped-up Doberman Pinscher to save The Boss from the feared Axe Man? Given the plates of fresh catnip waiting as their reward, they’re sure going to try!

These are just a few of the tales recorded in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes. If you love cats, you’ll enjoy not only them, but also the other offerings this anthology of odd, funny, scary, and/or off-beat stories.

If, on the other hand, you hate cats, you’ll still enjoy this book: it will definitely confirm all your beliefs about conniving cats and their criminal natures.

And if you don’t care about cats one way or the other, buy this book for someone who does. I guarantee they’ll thank you for it.

And so will our furry little friends in California and Florida.

**************

2012-01-16T12:31:00.010-06:00

It snowed here in Chicago last week. Snow was falling when I woke up Thursday morning, and it didn't end until late Friday afternoon. We wound up with five inches of the white stuff, and were only saved from more because the ground was still warm due to the fifty-degree weather preceding the storm. Still, it made for some shoveling, and that I didn't mind. Shoveling gave me an excuse to abandon the dining room where I was struggling through the annual chore of sorting through bills, receipts, and records needed for filing our income tax.

(It also gave me that righteous feeling of burning off some calories, something much needed considering my post-holiday scale numbers.)

Thankfully, my husband does the major work on our taxes. My job consists of putting the records for my two C-Schedule forms into some kind of recognizable order, 'recognizable' meaning our accountant won't tear her hair out when she sees them.

You see, I have a bad habit of tossing everything into a folder in the file cabinet with the promise that "I'll get to it next week." Like tax procrastinators everywhere, "next week" usually means somewhere around April 10th.

This year, though, I decided to mend my evil ways. With my latest writing project finished and off to be formatted, I dug into my tax folder early. Good thing I did. It seems I'd misplaced the pamphlet from the Illinois Tollway Authority on which I'd scrawled the user name and password I use for their website. Without that, I had no way of downloading my toll records for the year. That might not seem a big deal if you don't use your car for business, but as a writer, I travel a lot, and those tolls add up quickly.

If you're reading this and you write on an active basis with profit as your goal, do you use Schedule C to report your income and losses? If you don't, you're liable to run into problems with the IRS. Royalties, advances, and any other profits from the sale of your books -- private sales at book fairs, presentations, libraries, or other customer events -- must be recorded on a Schedule C. Business expenses such as mileage and tolls to and from book events, lodging costs for conferences at which you're speaking, and ordinary business expenses connected to your writing -- office supplies, editing fees, advertising and marketing costs -- are deductible on a Schedule C form, as is depreciation of home office equipment such as your computer.

Whatever you do, don't be tempted to avoid paying the self-employment tax by reporting book profits -- royalties or other payments -- as "Other Income" on a Schedule A form. The IRS may treat your writing as a hobby rather than a business and may even audit your past tax returns, leaving you in a whole heap of trouble.

My best advice to serious writers is, get yourself a good accountant who understands publishing and the tax laws related to it.

And don't be like me and put off your tax chores until the last possible moment. I was lucky and eventually found my ITA pamphlet tucked in with the 2008 tax forms. How it got there I'll never know, but it sure came in handy for recording my 2011 toll payments. If I'd waited until April to look for it, I'd have been scrambling to get done by the 15th.

Then I really would have been snowed under! :)

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Books, Books, Books!

2011-10-24T22:04:00.006-05:00

I have two new book reviews for you today, the first one written by yours truly and the second one written by Carl Brookins. Before I get to them, though, I have some good news to share. DARK THINGS II: CAT CRIMES will be released later this year in time for holiday gift giving. Published in both print and eBook format, this anthology features short stories in which cats play a major role in some pretty unusual crimes. I'm thrilled to report that my short story, "Diamonds Aren't Forever", will be included in the anthology. I don't want to give away the plot of my story yet, but stayed tuned because I'll be putting more information about the book and the charity it will benefit in my November blogs.

And now...on to the reviews!

Dear Priscilla
Mark Schweizer
Faintinggoat Press, 2011
ISBN 9780984484614
316 pages, $23.95

Mark Schweizer is best known for his nine Liturgical Mysteries, humorous tales of murder and mayhem set in the fictional town of St. Germaine, North Carolina (The Tenor Wore Tapshoes, The Alto Wore Tweed, etc.). With Dear Priscilla, Mr. Schweizer begins a new series set in 1943 Chicago that features Detective Merl Cahill, former Chicago Bears lineman turned policeman, and his bookie cop partner, Fish Biederman.

As the book's jacket so succinctly puts it, "Chicago in 1943 is a very lucrative place to be" if you're a cop. Crooks like Larry the Dip visit Cahill's Maxwell Street police station every Monday to deposit the squad's share of their weekly take. Guys like the Nowak brothers are just as helpful. Little Eddie is Fish's muscle man, brilliant at convincing people to pay up when they've lost a bet. Big Eddie is...well, 'really big!' says it all. And Just Plain Eddie, while neither big nor little, is the meanest of the three brothers. Just Plain Eddie is the man to go to when a cop needs a drop gun that can never be traced back to him. Last but not least, there are the merchants of Maxwell Street, a mile-long outdoor market where anything can be bought or sold. They're happy to service the police with everything from cut-rate overcoats to whispered-in-the-ear information.

All these sources come in handy when Merl and Fish investigate the murder of a young woman found beheaded in an Army duffle bag behind a Maxwell Street grocery store. Lacking the modern conveniences of today's police force, the two must trust their brains to decipher the few clues left at the scene of the crime. Their big break comes when The Chicago Times receives a letter from the killer addressed to "Dear Priscilla", the newspaper's lonely hearts columnist. When the woman who writes as Priscilla quits because she thinks the killer is targeting her, Merl is persuaded to take on the column as a side job. His rationale is simple: not only does The Times pay him more than the police department, but the job also allows him to keep in touch with the killer. This latter fact becomes even more important when the man strikes again.

Schweizer has a sure-fire winner in Dear Priscilla. Not only is the plot strong, but the characters are also some of the most entertaining to come along recently. Merl is more or less an easy going sort of guy, an ex-football player who left the game due to an injury and is now living on a limited income. He believes he might be engaged to a young woman he only sees on occasion (he didn't really propose, but he thinks she thinks they're engaged), but he's attracted to the first female cop ever promoted to the detective division. Merl is definitely not up to speed in the romance department, but it's fun watching the fireworks fly between him and the lady cop.

And then there's Fish, a complicated character if you ever met one. Addicted to yellow silk jackets, Fish sings tenor on Fridays at his synagogue and Danny Boy on other days at police funerals. His voice is outstanding, but his knowledge of the street and how to profit from it surpasses even his singing. He'll take a bet from anyone on anything; he pays off gracefully when he loses (which isn't often), and collects ruthlessly when he wins. Fish never falls for a hard luck story, but he's generous with his friends, especially Merl.

The other characters in this mystery are equally well drawn, and the dialogue fits both them and the era in which the story takes place. You don't have to be a Chicagoan to enjoy Schweizer's knowledge of the city and it's past. Schweizer describes places in Chicago with such accuracy that readers will almost smell the hogs in the Union Stockyard and taste the hotdogs once sold from carts at the now gone Maxwell Street market.

I've appreciated Schweizer's abilities as a writer ever since being introduced to his clever Liturgical Mysteries. His move to historical mysteries surprised me, but not as much as the ending of this book did. A bit of a shocker, it left me eagerly looking forward to the next offering in the Merl and Fish series.

Viper
by John Desjarlais
978-1933184-80-7
2011 trade paper release
from Sophia Institute Press
238 pages.

Set in rural Illinois, the novel follows disgraced DEA agent Selena De La Cruz as she tries to re-order her life into some semblance of normality after a drug raid gone bad results in a tragic aftermath. Leaving that life turns out to be more than just difficult. It is impossible. And so Selena leaves her insurance company and re-enters the dangerous world of undercover drug enforcement among a Latino population that is turbulent, ever-changing, and marked with friends who become enemies and family members short on understanding.

The author cleverly establishes Selena as an independent, capable woman beset on all sides by the chauvinism of her bosses and the cultural disapproval of her family. Good Latina women do not carry guns and arrest drug dealers. There is an invasive Latin Catholic presence throughout the book. The basic theme of the story is a list of names entered into a church’s Book of the Dead, requesting prayers for their souls. The problem is that the people represented are still alive as the book opens. But one by one they are murdered. Since Selena’s name is last on the list, she has more than usual reason to be concerned. Her interaction with law enforcement and Church officials becomes more and more intense as the list is shortened, one by one.

The novel is smoothly written, logical and mostly gripping. There are several sections of Aztec and other religious history and legends used by the author to explain some of the ritual Selena encounters which, while interesting in themselves, have a tendency to slow the narrative. Nevertheless, Viper is a worthwhile read, blending religious mystery with brutal modern crime.

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

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Computer Frustration: How Not to Have a Good Day

2011-10-12T11:18:00.007-05:00

Have you ever been so frustrated with your computer that you wanted to drop kick it right out the window? Happened to me last week, and this with a new, up-to-date, can-do-anything computer recently bought to replace my four-year-old dying one. this new one has Windows 7, so of course I have to relearn practically everything I thought I knew how to do. Grrr! But okay, I accept the fact that computer gurus love to 'simplify' things by making them more complicated. That's just a fact of life. Still, I didn't expect those complications would affect my ability to use the Internet.

Silly me.

Two weeks after installing the new computer, I began to have trouble connecting to the Internet. Didn't matter if it was morning, noon, or night, sometimes I connected immediately and sometimes I got that "Access Denied" message. Then I noticed that the green light on the modem wasn't lighting up, nor was the little world doodad on my router blinking as it did in the past. 'Ah ha!' I thought. Obviously something was wrong with my hook-up to AT&T.

After checking all my line connections and finding everything in order, I called AT&T for help. Of course, the first thing I got was an automated voice that informed me it would perform some tests on my line. After a minute or so of beep-beep-beep-beep, the voice informed me that everything was fine with my line and I should hang up and check my home connections, then turn off the computer, reboot it, and call back within 24 hours if that didn't solve the problem.

That's like a doctor saying, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." But I did as I was told, and guess what? Still no connection to the Internet. Rather than wait 24 hours, I called back immediately. Another pleasant but automated voice told me it would perform more testing. Again I was subjected to a series of beeps before the voice returned to inform me that I was being connected to a AT&T technician who would help solve my problem.

And yeah, you guessed right, I was connected to a gentleman in India who advised me to pull up Internet Explorer and put some numbers in the URL bar. I told him I couldn't get IE because I couldn't connect to the Internet. He said, "Try anyway." So I did, and I got an IE page saying "Access Denied" because I wasn't connected to the Internet. The technician dismissed this bit of news and insisted I enter the series of numbers he'd given me. Due to a slight language barrier problem, I had to ask him three times to repeat the numbers. When I finally had them straight, I hit the "Enter" button as requested, and of course got nothing since I WASN'T CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET.

At this point the technician made a fatal mistake.

He asked if he could speak with my husband.

I won't bother repeating my reply here since you've probably already guessed what I said to the man. Suffice it to say, he backed off pretty quickly. He then asked if I had a router, and when I said yes and gave him the router info -- name, serial number, etc -- he seemed very pleased. He told me he could solve my problem. I would just have to disconnect the router and he would hook me up to AT&T via my main computer. I would, of course, have to leave the router disconnected, meaning I'd have no Internet access on my laptop. Nor would my daughter have access on her laptop, the computer she uses for her college masters degree program.

Of course that was unacceptable, which I told the technician. Couldn't he hook me up to AT&T and then get it to work through the router, I asked? No, he said. He was sorry, but he hadn't been trained to do that.

At this point I exploded. Surprisingly, I didn't swear, but I did tell the man exactly what I thought of AT&T and their service technicians. I then hung up. I waited one day, then called AT&T again and got another automated voice. Once again we went through the beep-beep-beep of testing, then the voice kindly told me I had a connectivity problem. After banging my head on the wall a few times, I hung up and waited for my daughter to get home from school (she's a teacher) so she could call her boyfriend, a young man possessed of considerable computer savvy. He had originally installed the router, so I figured he'd know what to do.

And he did. It took him less than 5 minutes to find the problem: when we installed the new computer, we failed to link the Internet connection to the hard drive through the computer's program listing, so it had been giving us Internet access through wi-fi instead of through the phone line. Sometimes we got wi-fi, sometimes we didn't. (At least, that's what I think he said. His explanation was way over my head.)

Anyway, we are all now online all the time and happy to be so. As for AT&T, maybe they'd like to hire people who know what they're doing.

How about you? Happy with your service provider, or frustrated like I was?

************

Review of REUNION by Carl Brookins

2011-09-30T00:09:00.003-05:00

REUNION
by Carl Brookins
Trade paperback, 8/31/11
Echelon Press, 268 pages
ISBN 9781590806685

Jack Marston's past includes a stint in the Navy as a NCIS investigator. Now living a more sedate life as the director of student services at City College in Minneapolis, Jack has no idea his former occupation will prove useful when he accompanies the woman he loves to her twentieth-year high school reunion in the Minnesota farming community of Riverview. But he soon learns that psychologist Lori Jacobs' hometown in no way resembles the idyllic rural locale he imagined. Deeply held secrets dominate life in this pastoral setting of white-painted farmhouses and lush fields of wheat. Backbiting gossip, sly innuendo, and downright hostility mark the opening festivities of the class of '89's reunion. Unsettling as they may be for Jack, these activities pale in comparison to the gruesome murder of one of Lori's classmates outside Georgiana's 40-Mile Club.

Elroy Guteman's death puts a damper on, but doesn't stop, the weekend celebration. While Sheriff Arnason investigates the crime, the remaining members of Lori's class continue their scheduled activities in and around town. Then another former graduate winds up dead, and Arnason enlists Jack as a second pair of eyes and ears within the reunion group. What Jack observes is often confusing to him, but having grown up in Riverview, Lori is able to supply answers for most of his questions. Some of those answers exact a toll on Lori; resurrecting old memories requires her to face long denied demons from her early life.

Working as a team, the pair gradually pieces together a stunning puzzle that links underhanded deals and long forgotten deaths not only with people from Lori's past, but also with present residents of Riverview. But obtaining final justice isn't easy for Jack and Lori. Death and danger dog their every footstep as they pursue truth in a town dedicated to preserving easy lies.

Carl Brookins presents readers with a complicated but logically constructed story in REUNION. Jack and Lori are fabulous characters with strong personalities that mesh nicely even under stress. Other characters are equally believable and well described, as is the rural setting of Riverview. The author displays a keen awareness of life in small communities, where relationships between neighbors are generally close, and gossip and secrecy often distort the truth of a situation. This awareness is complimented by Brookins' understanding of rural economic conditions where farmers are held hostage to both the weather and the whims of the futures market. By introducing a third complication into this mix -- namely the mortgage-and-loan business -- Brookins successfully engages readers in not one, but two distinct mysteries within a single story. The plot moves along at a nice pace and is complimented by dialogue that is natural and flows smoothly. I greatly enjoyed this book. My only criticism of it concerns the number of characters with similar sounding names. With a cast as large as the one in REUNION, it was easy at times to confuse one minor character with another when their names sounded so alike.

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Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

2011-09-26T14:10:00.007-05:00

What would Monday be without some great book reviews by Carl Brookins? Without further ado...

Where Danger Hides
By Terry Odell
ISBN 978-1-43282-512-6
Five Star Mystery from Gale
May, 2011

The novel is a suspenseful thriller with a healthy dose of romance. Or maybe it’s a romantic thriller with a good deal of suspense that keeps this moving at a sometimes alarming pace. “Where Danger Hides” is both, and it’s also a fantasy in particular in the way and the speed with which the two principal characters are drawn together.

Miri Chambers is the caretaker and overseerer of a San Francisco shelter primarily for abused women. Galoway House also manages to shelter and care for a number of children and men, as well. There’s a lot more to Miri Chambers. She is adept at disguise, light-fingered, and as prickly as one can get. Two wrong words and she is liable to go off like a rocket. That propensity for shoot-from-the-hip judgments and attitude may also be the reason for her nearly unbelieveable hormonal response to the hunk she meets on a clandestine foray into the home office of a wealthy art patron.

Her reaction to “just” Dalton isn’t much different from his. He works for a private security firm that has a large well-funded and mostly covert group of operatives working well outside the usual legal limits. Dalton, one of Blackthorn’s elite black ops operatives, has an appreciated eye for female anatomy wherever he finds it, including hiding under the desk of the aforementioned wealthy San Francisco Art patron.

Dalton and Miri Chambers are all fire and sparks and hot sex throughout this rollicking novel. The author has created a pair of characters who could each carry the novel solo, but when you pair them, look out.

The action carries Dalton and Chambers from posh and elegant settings to gritty exceedingly dangerous operations. Readers are not likely to predict each succeeding move. One is required to suspend disbelief and recognize from the outset that explicit play, both sexual and with firearms, is integral to the story. Nevertheless, the plot is carefully and fully laid out, the dialogue is mostly logical, and the tension carries well through the entire book. Gritty, tender, frustrating by turns, I did feel that there were times when both characters exhibited too obtuse attitudes and were slower on the uptake than they should have been, given their life experiences.

Nevertheless, this is a fun read that makes several important points along the way.

Danger In Deer Ridge
by Terry Odell
e-book available at all the usual retailers.
released in 2011

All right, so there’s a big fat coincidence at the beginning of the novel. These things happen in real life so why not in crime fiction? The coincidence does not, however, make things easier at the beginning for Elizabeth Parker. Even late into the novel the woman has understandable trust issues. Paranoia is always nearby.

Elizabeth is running from an abusive marriage and has taken her son deep underground. The problem is, that isn’t all she took with her when she disappeared from the relationship and from her home city.

The characters in the novel are well-written and develop in reasonable and meaningful ways within the fabric of the story, and that includes most of the relatively minor ones. The setting, rural mountainous Colorado, is both beautiful and menacing at times. Two major threads, often in conflict, wind through the novel. In order to remain free and see her son develop a normal life, Elizabeth must try to set aside all-encompassing suspicion and mistrust. Beyond that, she has to develop some real relationships. No one can live in society without relating to others, even if it’s just arms-length situations. For Elizabeth, a healthy woman with normal drives, that is difficult. To return to anything approaching a normal life, she also needs to resolve the dangers still associated with her former husband.

Odell has a good handle on Parker character and the themes of the novel. I look for more worthwhile reading from her.

The Rock Hole
by Reavis Z. Wortham
ISBN: 978-1-59058-884-0
2011 release from Poisoned Pen Press. HC, 284 pages

A sensitive, suspenseful debut crime novel. Full of twists, wry and earthy humor, it epitomizes the grit, the patience and the perseverance, of middle America. Folks who grew up in Texas, where the novel is set, or anywhere in the belt that runs from the northwest angle of Minnesota to the Padre Islands and from the middle of Pennsylvania
to Cody, Wyoming, will recognize themselves in this novel. Their humor, their practicality, their keen natural observations, are all here to savor.

Welcome to 1964. In Center Springs, Texas, farmer and part-time constable Ned Parker is faced with a puzzling series of animal deaths. That they are brutal, atrocious, unnecessary killings only adds to the tension and suspense. Across the river, the black deputy, John Washington, is trying to find reasons for the same killings, while also dealing with the added difficulties of racism in the county. All these factors entwine to create a real and growing calamity for the small communities in the county surrounding Center Springs. As the killings continue, strange footprints are found near bedroom windows and citizens begin to carry weapons and look suspiciously at their neighbors.

Laced with forthright humor, the novel proceeds at a racing pace through event after event as suspicion grows and plot twist after twist keeps readers off-balance until the stunning climax is reached. Ned Parker is a real character who carries the story in an authentic and realistic manner.

The novel is not without its problems. Abrupt and annoying changes of points of view are occasionally confusing, but the writing, like the stories within the narrative, is solid. This is an eminently satisfying novel. I look forward to the next.

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky
*************

Carl's latest book is REUNION, a Jack Marston mystery, that I'll be reviewing here shortly. Jack works with adult students at City College while his lover, Lori Jacobs, is a psychologist and part-time employee of the same institution of higher learning. Returning to Riverview, Minnesota, for Lori's 20th year high school reunion gives Jack an opportunity to learn more about Lori and her life before they met. Unfortunately, it also puts him smack dab in the middle of a gruesome murder case involving one of Lori's former classmates. Stay tuned for the full review of this puzzling new mystery by accomplished writer Carl Brookins.

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Responding to False Email Stories

2011-09-22T14:55:00.020-05:00

Several days ago, a friend sent me this photo and the others shown here in an email. The text accompanying them read: "Wow! Your tax dollars at work! Can you guess what this is?? It is the new Cook County Correctional Center in Chicago, Illinois. This is where the Administration plans on putting the terrorists from Gitmo, and we have Americans living in cardboard boxes on the streets that have never killed anyone. Nothing makes sense anymore. How's that compare with "Sheriff Joe's" prison in Arizona???? PLEASE PASS THIS ON! MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THIS!!"

Well, there's a reason most people don't know this, and that's because it's not true. Oh, sure. If you live in Chicago, you'd recognize the pictures as false. For one thing, like a lot of states, Illinois is broke. It has no money to pay for new correction centers, nor does Cook County, the county in which Chicago lies, have any money. I know, because the Cook County Board is always pushing for new taxes to support itself.

To the right is a picture of a cell in the supposed "new" Cook County Correctional Center. To the left is a picture of a cell in the REAL Cook County Department of Corrections facility at 2700 South California in Chicago. Built in 1929 during the administration of Mayor Anton Cermak, the facility covers 96 acres, over eight city blocks, and looks its age.

Another picture of a REAL cell at the jail. Not quite as comfy looking as the one above, is it. And compare the below picture of the REAL cell catwalk in the jail with the second picture above, the supposed "new" cell catwalk. Again, no bright airy look to the scene as in the false pictures, just a no-nonsense walkway that restricts crowding by prisoners.

This is a view from the supposed "new" jail showing an inmate sitting on a porch looking out at the beautiful countryside. In reality, all prisoners can see from their windows in the REAL Cook County jail is blocks of old factories, railroad tracks, and parking lots. This next picture is what Cook County inmates see from the 'recreational' area of the facility -- no basketball courts or fancy running tracks as shown in the false pictures, most of which I've chosen not to include here.

The truth is, all those "false" pictures were of the Justice and Detention Center in Leoben, Austria. Designed by architect Josef Hohenstinn, the facility houses both court rooms and a penitentiary. More information on the center can be found at Snopes.com, the website that exposes urban legends and downright lies that float through space via the Internet.

The person who first put that email together obviously knew he was perpetuating a falsehood. But he was willing to lie because he had an anti-Administration agenda, and lies always help when you can't depend on the truth. Now, I don't agree with everything President Obama says or does. I didn't vote for him in the primary election because I believed Senator Clinton was more qualified than he. But I voted for him in the general election because I couldn't vote for a John McCain who, given the chance to select an intelligent, experienced, and truly capable woman as his running mate, chose instead to team up with a clearly inexperienced and unqualified Sarah Palin.

I'll be the first one to call out the President on a policy I believe isn't working. I have no problem with anyone else doing that too, as long as it's done in a civilized manner. Object if you will, but refrain from resorting to lies, crudeness, and bigotry to make your point. And the author of this particular email sought only to inflame passions against the Administration; i.e., President Obama.

I wrote back to my friend after receiving this email and told her to check Snopes.com. I do that with any emails I receive that falsely portray other people or their actions. Sure, I could simply delete them and forget about it, but isn't that avoiding responsibility? If we truly want to live in a country where we can discourse on politics and agree to disagree in a civilized manner, we all have to respond to unwarranted lies circulated by unprincipled people.

Falsehoods don't make you a patriot. They only make you a liar.

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September 11, 2001: My Story

2011-09-09T12:46:00.006-05:00

Sunday will be the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy in New York. We'll all be remembering where we were and what we did that day, and we'll all be hoping it never happens again. Below is my story of that day. I wrote it that evening, trying in my own way to kill the demons in my head by putting my thoughts down on paper. It was later published in Futures Magazine.

September 11, 2001: My Story

6:30 am: My granddaughter wakes me with her crying. She is three months old, wet and hungry. I change and feed her, still in my nightshirt, aware that her parents are even now on their way to O'Hare Airport. A three-day vacation in Vegas, time alone for the two of them, time for me to cuddle this latest little member of the family.

8:00 am: I'm bathing Cinnamon Rose, the radio tuned to my favorite station. Sarah and Tim should be on the plane, waiting to taxi down the runway. A break in the talk on the radio -- a plane has hit the World Trade Center in New York. How sad, I think. A plane taking off from Kennedy, a tragedy of some kind. Then word that a second plane has hit the building. I gather Cinnamon in my arms and rush to the TV. No accident, I think. This is more. This is a terrorist attack. I call my husband at work at the SSA building downtown. How many thousands there? Too many, too many floors. Have to rush, says Fred. Security problems. Fred is a Facilities Inspector, works with the contractors, 'Don't cheat the government! Do it right!' and 'Damn those idiots in Baltimore! They want to build a plaza outside the front entrance. Perfect for car bombers.' I visualize a plane hitting the building. No, don't think that way. Not in Chicago. Not today.

8:30 am: My daughter Jenni calls. She works for United Airlines. Have you seen what's happening, she asks. Terrorists hijacked those planes. No one knows how many more. The west coast next? My thoughts turn to O'Hare. A huge airport, an international hub. No God, please. Not Sarah and Tim's plane. I rush to call America West Airlines. Our system is down, they say. Call back later for news. No God, no. Not their plane, too. I hug Cinnamon and call Jenni. Find out what's happening, I demand. I call my husband again. No answer. Too busy locking down.

8:45 am: Jenni calls back. Sarah and Tim are safe. Their plane was stopped on the runway and turned back. I cry in relief, and hug little Cinnamon. Your mom and dad are safe. What about Fred? Damn these terrorists! Do they care if we hurt?

9:00 am: I call my sister, back from the grave after a January MI and cardiac arrest. She shouldn't be alone with this stuff on TV. She gets too upset. I'll come by you, she says. Carrie will drive me. Fred's sister Fran calls. 'Is Fred OK? Terrorists!' I know, I say. He can't come home. They're locking down. I carry Cinnamon outside and put the flag in the standard by the front door. It hangs limply, then catches in the breeze and unfurls. I watch it pivot in the wind, my private act of defiance. I am an American. I am an American! I shout it in my head. You cannot hurt me! You cannot stop me! I am an American!

10 am: The Pentagon hit. My God! My cousin Dan works there! His wife works there! Call Kathy, Dan's sister. No news. Call my brother in California. Chuck's son lives in New York, ten blocks from the Trade Center. No word from Jeff. Will call when he hears. My daughter-in-law calls. Have you seen the TV? Are Sarah and Tim safe? They're at O'Hare, somewhere, I say. I haven't heard from them. My sister arrives. Be careful, Virginia! No! She falls on the stairs, rolls to the cement driveway. I'm OK, she says as I lift her to her feet. But her wrist is painful, beginning to swell. We ice it. She refuses to go to the hospital. I watch her carefully. She's on Coumadin, a blood thinner. She's hit her head.

11am: Sarah and Tim arrive. They hug their baby, then join Virginia and I in front of the TV. My son John calls from work. His cell phone dies before I can tell him Sarah and Tim are safe.

11:30 am: My son Matt arrives. Golfing with friends when he heard the news. Ex-Army man, Kuwait. He's glued to the TV. Bomb the bastards, he growls. Turn the desert to dust. He remembers the heat, the hatred, the fear. He remembers being young...before he learned to use a gun. My sister squirms, uncomfortable with such talk, uncomfortable with the ice on her wrist.

12 noon: Fred arrives. I hug him. He's safe. They've closed the building. 45 minutes in line to get on a train. 500 people at the station. One man goes down. A heart attack. Paramedics arrive. The train leaves.

1:00 pm: Kathy calls. Dan is OK. He couldn't find his wife, then learned she'd been sent to Crystal City for a meeting. Her office is in the wing that was hit. She's safe. Jenni calls. She's assigned to call the families of the plane that crashed outside of Pittsburgh. I hate this duty, she murmurs. Someone has to do it. My heart goes out to her. No news from California.

1:30 pm: My sister Martha calls, on break from her duties as an 8th grade teacher. What do I tell the children? she asks. They want to know why people hate us so. I have no answers, at least not for thirteen-year-olds. My daughter Mary Caroline calls. She's crying. She and her dorm friends are gathered in the university's Great Room in front of the TV. She's on a cell phone. The college lines are all tied up. Are Sarah and Tim OK? Yes, I tell her. They're safe. Her first real disaster, a bitter taste of war at the tender age of nineteen. She'll grow up quickly now. Nowhere is there safety. I love you, she says. Big words from a cool teenager suddenly a little kid again. I love you too, I say. I love you very much. Reassurance. We both need it.

1:45 pm: Fran calls. Her husband is home with a wild story. Jet fighters forced a helicopter down in the parking lot of Home Depot. "Get out of the skies!" they scream as they circle the mall. "Get out of the skies now!" We are safe. No in-the-sky minicam to witness an emptying city.

2:00 pm: Virginia agrees to go to the hospital. We talk in the car -- just a little, each with our own thoughts. I think of the medical personnel, the nightmares they'll have when this is done. The firemen. The policemen. The ER nurses -- my own people, my comrades in medicine -- I know what they feel. Adrenalin rush, then overwhelming fatigue. I pity them, then thank God I'm not in New York. My own ER is safe in a Chicago suburb. No skyscrapers for us.

3:30 pm: Virginia has a broken wrist. No bleed in the brain -- CT is clean. A half cast on the arm, a splint on her sprained ankle, home to her own place with pain killers for company. I start the long drive home.

5:00 pm: What are these fools doing driving into a mall? Why aren't they home in front of their TVs instead of shopping? Why are you cutting the grass? It's a day to mourn, not tend a lawn. Kids playing football. Go inside, dammit! I drive home angry, sad, scared. Thank God for a red light. I can wipe away my tears.

6:00 pm: Jenni is home. She lives next door, married the young man next door, moved into his home, her home now, the two of them building a future in a squared-off Georgian. We hug. I cry as she tells me of the phone calls she made. This is Jennifer J. of United Airlines. I regret to inform you.... A mother -- oh no, don't tell me it was her plane! Yes, say Jenni. A 9-year-old, off to see grandma, an only child. The mother screams. One of the big bosses walks into the office, walks over to a nearby desk. Jenni's co-worker looks up. Your daughter....a flight attendant...the woman lowers her head and weeps. Jenni's eyes are red, but she doesn't cry. It's all part of the job.

7:30 pm: Sarah and Tim gather up a sleeping Cinnamon. They pack their car with all the toys, the bottles and clothes, the diapers, the playpen. So much for three days with Grandma. We hug. I love you, I say. Thank God you're safe. Sarah smiles. She's used to an emotional mom.

8:30 pm. Fred can't stand the TV pictures any longer. He wanders outside, strokes the cat, checks the garden, takes out the garbage. Ordinary things. Safe things. Life in the neighborhood. A Chevy truck roars down the street. A Chevy...like a rock. Two American flags float in the breeze, high on standards attached to the truck's bed. I give the boys the thumbs-up sign and they wave back. Somebody feels like I do. It comforts me.

11:50 pm: The TV is off. Fred is asleep, the cat curled up in his armpit. I sit here pecking away at the keyboard, keeping the day alive, too pent up to sleep. Tomorrow I'll read the papers, listen to the pundits expound on what we should have done to prevent this attack. The skies are silent. No planes heading into O'Hare, no planes all day, none until later tomorrow, if then. The telephone rings. My brother in California. Jeff's safe. He's okay. He was down in the streets, helping the wounded. I hang up on Chuck, relieved, exhausted.

The last lost sheep is home.

Now I can go to sleep.

*********

Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

2011-08-26T11:36:00.005-05:00

Today I'm happy to present three book reviews by Carl Brookins, a noted author and reviewer. Enjoy!

Invisible Path
By Marilyn Meredith
ISBN: 978-1-60659-239-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60659-238-0
2010 Release from
Mundania Press. 224 pages

This charming story from a veteran author is the ninth in her series of Tempe Crabtree crime novels. Tempe is a deputy sheriff in the small town of Bear Creek near an Indian reservation in the mountains of central California.

A young man named Daniel Tofoya is sadly murdered and it develops that while he was a talented and often charming athlete, he could be a nasty bully if the mood took him. There are several possible perpetrators, but as often happens, most attention focuses on a stranger who has come to live on the reservation. The story is complicated by the appearance in town of a small separatist movement, stockpiling supplies in anticipation of a coming explosion of what could be racial and class warfare.

All of this gets sorted out by the patient and wise Deputy Crabtree. With help from her long-suffering pastor husband and exuberant son, Tempe is able to avert several disasters and calm some difficult situations.

The novel is in the classic traditional mystery mode with a lot of emphasis on character development and setting. Relations between members of different races and religious beliefs are very well handled with insight and care. This is another enjoyable and satisfying adventure with Deputy Tempe Crabtree.

The Innocent Woman
By Parnell Hall
E-book
B0050W9HD4

A Steve Winslow zinger.
Here's an author who can write! He has enough novels out you'd expect that, right? This was my first Steve Winslow mystery. It won't be my last. Fine, distinct interesting characters. Limited cast. A creative defense attorney hard at work for a surprisingly uncooperative client. First she's fired after accusations of theft from her employer, then one of the owners of the firm is shot to death and Winslow's client is arrested. Watching this lawyer both in and out of court is a real treat. The dialog crackles, the pace is next to pell mell and the explanations are precise. There is a good deal of detail, especially at the end. I would have preferred a more succinct closing to the novel with less sniping between attorneys, but it was a small price to pay for a fast, well done story.

Devil’s Plaything
By Matt Richtel
ISBN: 978-1-59058-887-1
Released, 2011, 324 pgs,
Hard Cover.

This is a novel born of the twenty-first century. It is technology-rich, abrupt, punchy, and filled with first-person pithy observations. It has a modern complicated plot and some dark conspiracies worthy of flat-worlders and those who still appear to believe the landings on the moon were merely another government scam.

Blogger Nat Idle is drifting through life as a medical reporter and occasionally paying attention to his rapidly aging grandmother, the only member of his family in close proximity. When he and Grandma Lane are on a casual outing in a San Francisco park, a mysterious stranger, apparently driving a Prius, shoots at him, or her, or them. How could this gentle, rapidly aging woman, with no apparent enemies attract an assassin? Not possible so it must be Nat who was the target. After all, he was engaged in a controversy with some San Francisco cops about Porta Potty corruption.

The novel uses a criminal conspiracy of immense possibilities and proportions to raise questions about the rising dependence on technology to replace our individual memories, and to sermonize about American society’s eagerness to shuttle its older generations into places where they can die out of sight and mostly out of mind. Those shortcomings aside, the novel develops and carries along an inventive idea that is highly fraught with tension and believability.

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Improving Your Story with Self-Editing

2011-08-05T12:16:00.004-05:00

I recently completed some revisions on two short stories I'll be placing on Amazon soon. THE CASEBOOK OF CAROLINE RHODES will feature the main character in my "Rhodes To Murder" series, first in The Case of the Fugitive Farmer, a cold case concerning a farmer/soldier who went missing during World War I, and then in The Case of the Extra Ingredient, a present day puzzle in which Caroline witnesses a man die unexpectedly while on a whale-watching tour in Maine.

I was pleased with the stories when I first finished them. Then, while cleaning out some files, I came across a hand-out authored by Kathleen Nance, a piece on self-editing she'd written and distributed at a mystery conference. After reading the 8-page article, I decided to re-read my stories to see if I couldn't make them even better using Kathleen's advice.

Well, I could. And I did. Now all I have to do is format them for Kindle and they'll be up at Amazon in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I thought that other writers might want to take advantage of Kathleen's advice. Yes, you've probably heard all this before from writing instructors, or at conferences featuring speeches by best-selling authors. But I think most of us can benefit from hearing it again; definitely one of the biggest reasons manuscripts are turned down by agents or publishers is because they're poorly edited.

So what does Kathleen say about improving your work? She advises writers to make their stories more concise, more accurate, more precise, more logical, more dramatic, more memorable, more vivid, and more harmonious. Does the plot make sense with a logical flow of events and clear causes and effects? Do things happen because a plot needs it, not because it's a natural outcome?

Speaking to that point, I recently read a story where a man set out one afternoon to find a certain house in a village. Darkness fell while he was walking and he switched on his flashlight. The author hadn't mentioned the man having a flashlight previous to this, so to explain its presence, she wrote -- and I won't quote her exactly -- ("He'd stopped at a store and bought one before setting out for the house."). And yes, the author did put the sentence in parentheses. This is clearly a sign of a writer making something happen because the plot needed it rather than it being a natural thing for the character to do.

Continuing with plot, Kathleen asks if the writer has avoided coincidences, contrivances, conveniences. With characters, do they over-react or under-react to situations? Do they grow or change? Does each scene have a purpose? Does the scene advance the internal or external tension of the plot? Does the writer establish sufficient motivation for the characters' actions? Is there too much or too little backstory, and should it be broken up or trimmed? Has the writer planted information that will become important to the reader later on? Does the writer show, not tell when it comes to establishing a character's personality, physical description, motivation, goals? Does the dialogue sound natural when read aloud?

And of course, has the writer obeyed the basic rules of grammar and punctuation? Used adverbs and adjectives sparingly and precisely? Resisted overuse of words, passive construction, cliches, negative phrasing, and redundancies?

As Kathleen admits, it may take several read throughs to catch all the little problems in a manuscript. But self-editing and revising gets easier with time and will undoubtedly improve your story.

I know it improved mine. :)

*********

Summertime Book Reviews

2011-07-19T12:42:00.010-05:00

So I've been reading a variety of books this summer, some old, some new, most very good. My sister loaned me a copy of THE HELP, and if you haven't read it yet, do so before August 15th when the movie version is released. (Ten bucks says they'll massacre the book, but you never know; sometimes Hollywood gets it right.) Kathryn Stockett's tale of life in the 1960's in Jackson, Mississippi may or may not be semi-autobiographical, but that really doesn't matter. What does matter is, she's written a compelling novel about a young white woman whose clandestine recordings of meetings with local black maids becomes a bestselling book that starts tongues wagging in Jackson. Skeeter Phelan is only looking to attract the attention of a New York editor when she convinces cautiously wise Aibileen and sassy-as-hell Minny to share their accounts of working for the town's white elite. But the task takes on a life of its own when Skeeter's best friend Milly proposes a local ordinance that will greatly affect the maids. Written in 2009 and set during the civil rights struggles of the '60's, this is both a coming-of-age and a coming-to-freedom story for black and white women alike.

Lee Driver's just released FATAL STORM is the fifth book in her mystery/paranormal series featuring sexy mystery man and P.I. Chase Dagger and his Native American shape-shifting companion Sara Morningsky. The pair investigate when newspaperwoman Sheila Monroe, Chase's old girlfriend, goes missing while spending a stormy night in the abandoned Sebold mansion with three members of a group called the Indiana Paranormal Investigators. Cedar Point's finest are stumped by the disappearance, but welcome Chase's help when they find a corpse with Sheila's scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Is Sheila a murderer, or is she the kidnap victim of a murderer?Chase and Sara must delve into another long forgotten disappearance to solve this puzzling case. This is another fun read in the ever-evolving Chase Dagger series.

As a fan of military thrillers, I looked forward to reading Patrick Robinson's NIMITZ CLASS, a book written in 1997 but set in 2002 that I found at the library. Unfortunately, this novel didn't match the brilliance of Tom Clancy's early work, relying more on flag-waving jingoism and stereotypical characters than crisp writing and original thinking. While the plot had merit, the action was so slow as to be boring. The biggest mistake made by the author was setting the story so far in the future; what might have seemed reasonable in '97 was no longer believable in 2002, much less today. Along with NIMITZ CLASS, I borrowed a second Robinson book from the library, but I'll be returning that one unread.

If you enjoy historical novels enriched by reliable details and stunning characters, you'll love Edward Rutherfurd's NEW YORK. This is the saga of the van Dyck/Masters family, starting in 1664 Old New York, also called New Amsterdam, and leading up to several years post-9/11. The book is 800+ pages long, and I hardily recommend you chose the 2010 trade paperback edition over the hard cover if, like me, you read in bed. But don't let the length of the book dismay you. This is a real page-turner that will keep you reading long after the twilight hour. From fur traders to bankers to artists, from Dutch to English to Irish and Italian, from wealthy to poor, free men to slaves, this book tells the story of those who struggled to create a great city out of an Indian fishing village on the American coastline. This well written novel will leave you wanting to read more by talented author Rutherfurd.

Sometimes it's fun to re-read books by favorite authors. I did just that this summer, once again enjoying NATURE GIRL and SICK PUPPY by Carl Hiaasen. SICK PUPPY features Twilly Spree, an independently wealthy young man with an anger management problem who loathes human despoilers of the Florida wilderness. Determined to teach litterbug Palmer Stoat a lesson in eco-friendly living, Twilly engineers a series of mishaps to Stoat's property that, unfortunately, leaves the man befuddled but unrepentant. It's not until Twilly kidnaps Stoat's Labrador retriever that Florida's most powerful political lobbyist takes action. What happens next is ribald entertainment at its best.

In NATURE GIRL, single mom Honey Santana takes revenge on Boyd Shreave, a telemarketer who makes the fatal mistake of interrupting her cherished dinner hour with her son Fry. Having thrown away the psych pills her latest doctor prescribed, Honey's in a mood to do her worst to the foul-talking Shreave. And she does just that after luring Boyd and his reluctant mistress Eugenie into the wilds of Florida's Ten Thousand Islands. Unbeknownst to Honey, she's being followed into the wilderness by her former employer Louis Piejack, a man obsessed with ridding himself of his wife and installing Honey in her place. And unbeknownst to Piejack, he's being followed by Honey's ex-husband Perry and her son Fry. Unbeknownst to all of them, they're being followed by a P.I. named Dealey who's been hired to take pictures of Boyd and Eugenie's illicit lovemaking activities by Boyd's divorce-seeking wife Lily. Adding to the mayhem, the island to which Honey leads them is already inhabited by Sammy Tigertail, a half Seminole and half white young man who is hiding from the law after the unfortunate death of a tourist on his swamp boat. The resulting confusion makes for great satire.

That's my book list for June and July. Hope you enjoyed the reviews. Next week I'll be featuring more book reviews, but these will be by my good friend Carl Brookins. Hope you can stop by then.

******

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-28T20:08:00.002-05:00

In Flanders Fields
by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

Written during the World War I battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

*********************

Who's Son Is This?

Who's son is this?
Your boy or mine?
The fruit of love
plucked from the vine.

He's all our sons.

Who's son is this?
Your boy or mine?
From child to man in
too short a time.

He's all our sons.

Who's son is this?
You boy or mine
who rests in peace
for all of time.

He's all our sons.

"Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God"

****************

Honesty: Who Can You Trust Today?

2011-04-11T12:41:00.012-05:00

Last week I came across an interesting tidbit of information in the March copy of the magazine Nursing2011. According to the brief article, nurses once again outranked other professionals in Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics survey. The survey, conducted in Nov. 2010, measured respondents' satisfaction on a "Very high/High" to "Average" to "Very low/Low" scale. Nurses ranked first, with 81% of respondents rating them "Very high/High".

Ranked next highest in 2010 were military officers at 73%, pharmacists at 71%, grade school teachers at 67%, and medical doctors at 66%. Lobbyists and car salespeople sat at the bottom of the barrel, sharing a 7% "Very high/High" rating. The third lowest rating was reserved for members of Congress at 9%, two points lower than advertising practitioners at 11%, three points lower than state officeholders at 12%, and six points lower than business executives at 15%.

The ethical standards of police, lawyers, and judges were called into question by a good many of the respondents. Police only scored a 57% rating for "Very high/High", while judges tied with day care providers at 47%. Lawyers fared much worse at 17% in that category.

The first Gallup Honesty and Ethics Poll was conducted in 1976. Medical doctors took top honors that year with a 56% "Very high/High" rating. After that, clergy and pharmacists led the list until 1999 when nurses were first added to the poll. Nurses have topped the rankings every year since, consistently surpassing medical doctors by as much as twenty points, except for 2001 when -- after 9/11 -- firefighters were added on a one-time basis and scored 90% to finish first.

Three things came to mind when I read the results of the 2010 survey. First of all, why do nurses consistently rank higher than doctors in honesty and ethical standards? As a nurse myself, I believe it's because good nurses see their role as advocates for the patient, and therefore are more open and honest in speaking to people about their medical conditions. Hospital nurses spend more time with patients than doctors do, are more accessible than doctors when patients and families have questions, and as home health care employees, they do more hands-on follow-up care when patients go home after hospitalizations. Nurses have nothing to lose by telling patients the truth; doctors are more prone to hedge their bets on the success of certain treatments because their reputations as "good" doctors are at stake. Added to this is the fact that the American Medical Association is extremely reluctant to police its members, often protecting poorly qualified doctors even when verifiable complaints are lodged against them. This "old boys' club" mentality does neither the AMA nor the public any good, but it will continue to exist as long as doctors refuse to testify against each other in hospital disciplinary meetings or in court.

It seems no one likes to read long blogs, so I'll hold my thoughts on justice professionals and members of Congress for another day. Let me assure you, I have plenty of thoughts on both! :) Meanwhile, I'd be interested in knowing who you feel you can trust today. Doctors? Nurses? Lawyers? Police? Your elected officials? All comments welcome!

*****

Love Is Murder and Book Reviews

2011-02-18T12:19:00.004-06:00

January flew by as I, along with the other Board members, prepared for the Love Is Murder conference Feb. 4-6, 2011. The blizzard that hit Chicago and other parts of the Midwest on Tuesday, February 1st, didn't help; along with my husband and daughter, I spent most of Wednesday digging out the driveway and sidewalks before our neighbor's son arrived in the evening to plow out our street. Thanks goodness for Ibrio; he did a marvelous job that allowed me to escape our block on Thursday morning and head for the Intercontinental Chicago O'Hare hotel.

If you've ever been involved in the planning of a conference/convention, you'll understand why blogging is the last thing you think of in the weeks just before the con. Seems like there are so many last minute decisions to make and jobs to do in order to put on a really good con. And I think we did put on a good con. At least, that's what everyone who attended has been telling us.

But getting back to the subject of Cicero's Children, I'm still a bit behind on everything, including this blog. I know, though, that every mystery fan appreciates learning about new books, and therefore I'm dedicating this blog to two book reviews by Carl Brookins. I hope you enjoy both the reviews and the books.

*****

Death Pans Out
by Ashna Graves
Hardcover, 288 pages,
from Poisoned Pen Press

Reporter Jeneva Leopold, faced with a life-altering decision, takes a leave of absence from her job to recover from surgery. Breast cancer has claimed part of her body and she wants time to recover in relative peace. Not just from the debilitating effects of the surgery itself, but she wants to be in a place where she can think about her life and her existence. This is a novel about an unusual woman with an unusual plan to rehabilitate herself.

There are great stories surrounding the searches for precious metals from California, South America and the Yukon, as well as the production of gold from less well-known regions, and this one takes its cue from those stories. Fact or fiction, we are never quite sure, but here is a story which may well become a part of that so interesting body of literature.

Jeneva’s family has long owned an idle gold mine in the mountains of Southern Oregon, a harsh, vastly rural region of high deserts, mountains, isolated communities, wild animals and, legends. One legend surrounds the mysterious disappearance of Jeneva’s uncle, Mathew. Mathew disappeared one night from the cabin at the mine almost twenty years before the story opens, and his mining partner has retreated into a silent years from which he may never emerge.

Jeneva takes a long leave of absence and moved to the cabin at the mine where she intends to spend several months of the summer physically and mentally recovering from her trauma. Almost immediately, a parade of compelling characters begins to invade her peaceful existence, from a weird self-styled “artifact hunter,” who insists that he always camps on Bureau of Forestry land and visits the area regularly, to a hearty sheriff who seems at times too good to be true, to a taciturn former model and beauty queen turned rancher, to assorted miners, a tall funeral director and other assorted characters. They all make for some fascinating scenes and while the action is never of a high order, the rising tension and sense of danger to Jeneva and her friends, is well-handled.

I enjoyed the story, learned some things about governmental land management and local attitudes toward government, and found the ending quite a surprise. If there are small problems with this debut novel, they stem from an experienced reporter acting entirely too trusting and naive to serve the story, and a couple of the rants are a little too long. That said, I look forward to another adventure with Jeneva Leopold.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

******

Kind of Blue
by Miles Corwin
ISBN: 978-1-60809-007-5
from Oceanview Publishing
323 pages, November, 2010

A few years ago, this author wrote a couple of serious non-fiction books about the Los Angeles Police Department. He spent a lot of time with cops in that city and wrote books that became best-sellers, “The Killing Season” and “And Still We Rise.”

Now he’s back with a powerful persistent novel that draws from the same source material. “Kind of Blue,” is not your ordinary police procedural. It constantly reminds readers that the cops involved are no super beings, rising above the worst humanity can offer to save their city; nor are they all thugs, wife beaters and abusers. They are ordinary citizens, sometimes corrupt, sometimes honorable and brilliant, often prejudiced, but too often willing to make the supreme sacrifice for the citizens they serve. And, occasionally they violate the rights of criminals.

Author Corwin bends a keen and discerning eye on this stew of varying humanity to fashion a fascinating novel of human relations. Asher Levine, a dedicated, mostly honest cop, is one of LA’s best homicide detectives. But as the book opens, Levine is a former cop, having abruptly resigned after he was unable to protect a vital witness from being murdered. The death of Latisha Patton, never solved, devastates the detective and causes him to question his abilities, even though it is clear that apart from his dedication, he is a brilliant detective. So he resigns.

A year passes and a decorated officer has died, murdered in his home and the special homicide squad needs Levine’s help solving the case. More to the point, certain key executives in the LAPD hierarchy need the case solved or at least put to rest. Levine has had that year to discover his resignation hurts him more than it does the LAPD. With clearance from the top cops, Levine is fast tracked back to the force and handed the case.

The problem, of course, is that Levine won’t just concentrate on the current case and thus all sorts of actions that need to be buried along with the ghost of Latisha Patton. Traces of other earlier activity begin to resurface as Ash Levine winds his way through labyrinthine police and social structures of the street until he comes to the shocking final solution.

The title is apt, a riff on a 50 year old Miles Davis studio piece, the cover fits the mood and the attitude of the novel. All the elements fit nicely and it was a pleasure to read this excellent book.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

***********

Christmas in Chicago

2010-12-24T15:26:00.008-06:00

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and here in Chicago we don't have to be "dreaming" of a white Christmas -- we're having one! It's snowing here, a gentle kind of snow that will whiten the already snowy lawns in my neighborhood. I took these pictures earlier this week when we had one of those crystal snowfalls that leave icy diamonds sparkling on the already frozen ground. Looking out my kitchen window, I can see the birds scrabbling to eat the last of the seed we put out for them before it's totally covered by the new snow. Sharing their late afternoon meal are mourning doves and chickadees, black-eyed juncos and ruby-red cardinals, and of course, the ever-present house sparrows. A squirrel was eating his fill earlier when our resident hawk swooped down, intent on catching his own dinner. But the squirrel must have seen him coming; he made a leap for the little tree next to our garage and escaped in a maze of branches, forcing the hawk to make an abrupt upturn that took him winging over the garage, missing the gutter by less than an inch. The hawk will probably be back; the feeder attracts dozens of birds each day. Every evening, a rabbit makes its way from the front of the house to the backyard to glean the leftovers scattered around the covered pond. It's nesting under the evergreens that flank our front door where hopefully the hawk won't find it. So far this winter we haven't seen the two red foxes that strolled through the neighborhood all summer. I'm betting they headed for the safety of the forest preserve and the dead fallen trees there that offer some shelter to creatures their size. It's been a cold winter here so far, and that's tough on the animals that call the outdoors their home. It's equally tough on their human counterparts, the homeless men and women who are lucky if they can find a bed in a city shelter, and the down-on-their-luck unemployed folks who may have a roof over their heads, but can hardly afford to pay for heat, much less rent. for sure it'll be a tough Christmas for these people. Last week we packed over 470 bags of food at our local food pantry. By the time we were done, our shelves were stripped bare. The families who received that food have experienced the economic downturn in the worst of ways. Many have lost their jobs, some have lost their homes, and the elderly among them have often lost hope that life will ever get better. Having food on the table at Christmas seems normal for those of us fortunate to have some income. For those who come to the food pantry, a Christmas dinner is a blessing they wouldn't enjoy except for the generousity of their neighbors.

So it's Christmas in Chicago, and for most of us, there's much to be thankful for. I truly wish everyone a peace-filled and joyful Christmas season.

And if you have a few bucks left over after paying off the bills for your holiday gifts, how about donating some food to your local food pantry. The shelves will be bare this winter without your help.

***

Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

2010-10-25T21:57:00.006-05:00

The Bone Chamber
by Robin Burcell
ISBN 9781590583753
HC from Poisoned Pen Press
2009, 378 pages

Feisty independent-minded FBI forensic artist Sydney Fitzpatrick is off again. This time she bouncing between Washington, DC, San Francisco and various Italian locations. All the while she and her cohorts dodge international hit men. Burcell is a good writer and her varied law enforcement background gives her writing a level of authority lacking in some crime fiction.

The novel is a wide-ranging tale of intrigue, sanctioned and unsanctioned black ops, the CIA the FBI, and several other sometimes questionable agencies. Here are active old and new world mafia figures, the Knights Templar, and several world overnments. The story dredges up long standing rumors, beliefs based on very sketchy and tenuous evidence, ancient legends and involves some vast and secretive organizations such as the Vatican, Freemasonry and maybe some left-over bits of the Tri-Lateral Commission.

Conspiracies within governments, especially those involving questionable banking institutions and practices are fruitful and always interesting. That is especially the case when the venal actions of important institutions from the distant past are held up to the unblinking gaze of modern research. This novel has 'em all. And that's part of the attraction of the book. Burcell has linked in an essentially fanciful way, an incredible chain of real events that reach back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and possible implications in the modern era. The novel proves that murder, corruption and cynical manipulation with the goal of great power and wealth are not the province of our times.

If the novel has flaws it is the multiplicity of threads that wind through
the book, sometimes creating a Gordian's Knot of complexities. Nevertheless, "Bone Chamber" never completely loses its foundation in the real world of plausible outcomes. A tense and intriguing ride from start to finish.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

******

Fly By Wire
by Ward Larsen
ISBN: 978-1-933515-86-1
Hard Cover, 301 pgs.,
Published by Oceanview Press, 2010

An unusual and fresh plot device blends world finance, international espionage, religious zealotry and cutting edge aviation technology in a fine and mostly fast-paced thriller. It is clear that the author knows intimately the setting of his story, aviation accident investigation.

A new design, a flying wing cargo plane, has crashed in France and a former Air Force pilot, now working as an accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board is sent to the crash site as liaison. His name is Jammer Davis and he's something of a hot-shot loose cannon. Think the macho pilots in the movie "Top Gun," and you get the idea. Davis's life is complicated by the presence of his teen-aged daughter-and her dating difficulties-Davis is a widower. It's a nice touch, and while Davis is in France struggling to figure out a series of odd circumstances around the place crash, his daughter occasionally calls him on his cell, disturbing and altering the rhythm of the plot. The story line is also interrupted from time to time by the machinations of the evil cabal behind the plot which serves to ramp up the tension. The author is careful to dole out intriguing information in tantalizing dollops which maintains reader interest.

That's a good thing, because there are several sections of fairly technical information which are necessary to explain the plot, but occasionally are too long for my taste. The major flaw in the novel is the somewhat old fashioned macho attitude expressed by the narrative in several places. There is at times a sense we are living once again in a simpler time when there was a perception that men and especially women had their defined roles with lines to be crossed at considerable personal risk. It was a time when enemies of the nation were always summarily dealt with. Moral ambiguities and our system of legal niceties were almost as much obstacles to getting the right thing done, as protection of the rights of everyone.

With these caveats, I found "Fly By Wire" to be a rousing patriotic story that moves along at a decent pace to an eminently satisfying conclusion. I particularly like the domestic surprise at the end.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

******

A few thoughts on cat baths

2010-10-22T19:44:00.015-05:00

I don't know who first put this together for the Internet, but I had to laugh when my sister sent it to me in an email. I hope you enjoy it, too!

A few thoughts on cat baths by

The Cat

'But you said you loved me!'

'You will pay! As God is my witness, you will pay!'

'Holy crap, you call this water warm???'

'I don't think I like you anymore.'

'You Lied!!!!!!'

'E.T. phone home......quick!'

'No, I'm not your Good Little Kitty anymore.'

'Traction... .I'm losing traction!'

'I want my Mommmmmmyyyyyyyyyyy !'

'Oh, no!!!!'

Even if you're not a 'cat person', these pictures are priceless!!

New Books from Poisoned Press

2010-10-16T13:51:00.003-05:00

Once again I welcome reviewer Carl Brookins to Cicero's Children. Today Carl is reviewing two books published by Poisoned Pen Press.

Her Deadly Mischief
by Beverle Graves Myers
Poisoned Pen Press, 2009
ISBN 978-1-59058-233-6
286 pages

Here we are transported to the gaiety, the intrigue and the complicated machinations of the ruling classes of that Adriatic gem, Venice. By now, mid eighteenth century, Venice is in decline, and no longer the regional superpower with absolute dominion over the Adriatic. Still, her cultural climate is a world-wide force to be reckoned with. That includes her innovative grand opera.

Behind the crimson curtain of the Teatro San Marcos, difficult economic times are at work. In the lofty boxes of the well-born and the wealthy, murderous intrigue is also at work. When one of the city's celebrated courtesans, Zulietta Giardino, is murdered by a knife in her lovely chest, fingers of accusation are immediately pointed at one of Venice's leading and most desirable young scions, Alessio Pino, heir of one of the most important Murano glassmaking families. The murder occurs during an opening aria by one of the city's cultural stars, a well-known singer, the castrato, Tito Amato. Thus, Amato becomes a crucial witness to the murder and therefore a target as the plot twists along the winding and sometimes narrow canals of the city.

Drawing effectively on her meticulous and extensive research, the author brings to life not only the glittering upper crust revels of the city, and its artistic culture, but readers will come to understand the life and times of ordinary citizens of the period. The novel is well-paced, the characters are enthralling and the twisting mystery well resolved. Myers continuing series about the life of the prominent singer is a very pleasurable experience whether one is or is not an opera fan.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

The Eye of the Virgin
by Frederick Ramsey
Pub. Poisoned Pen Press
June, 2010, Hard Cover.
254 pages.
ISBN: 9781590587607

Sheriff Ike Schwartz is in it again. Some odd break-ins have occurred in the area around the town of Picketsville, Virginia. What were thieves looking for in the studio of an iconographer? Why is an unknown individual discovered dead of gunshot, but in a chair in the Picketsville clinic? Are these incidents related? And who is the mysterious woman Abe Schwartz has been squiring about?

Sparkling dialogue and a whee of a climactic scene distinguish this crime novel. It's the xxx in Ramsey's continuing saga of the home-town adventures of ex-CIA spook Isaack Schwartz. He's retired from the international scene to become the elected sheriff of the aforesaid Pickettsville, Virginia. He's bright, sharp, aware of the ways of international espionage so when he sees it, he recognizes it. As the elected sheriff he has to deal with a loose collection of varied and interesting characters. Some of them make life quite interesting; the president of the local college, Ruth XXX for instance. Others, inept contract spooks and burglars, for example, are dangerous. Schwartz and his deputies manage to keep the peace and solve crimes in interesting if not always legal ways.

They are aided, in their tasks, as are readers who find their way to this lovely novel, by carefully thought out if sometimes complicated plots, good pace, and crackling spot-on dialogue. Threaded through the cleverness and the funny bits are thoughtful musings on the state of world affairs today in which enemies become friends and friends enemies.

An excellent enjoyable novel.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

*************

Advice from Curtis and Leroy on Elections

2010-10-13T12:56:00.004-05:00

Advice from Curtis and Leroy:

Limit all US politicians to two terms..
One in office.
One in prison.

Illinois already does this.

And I ought to know. I'm from Illinois.

******

Favre Loses Both a Game and His Halo

2010-10-11T23:53:00.005-05:00

So I'm watching Monday Night Football tonight on ESPN and wishing John Madden and Al Michaels were doing the commentating instead of Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden. Mike Tirico is good at play-by-play; he knows the game and he's fair. And I can live with Jon Gruden. He's not Madden for sure, but he's not bad either. But Jaworski drives me nuts with his gushing commentary and his know-it-all attitude.

Tonight was the worst. If Jaworski could have climbed out of the booth, gotten down on his knees, and kissed Brett Favre's feet, he would have done it. I mean, the man practically crowned Favre "King of the Universe".

Don't get me wrong. Favre was once the best quarterback in the game. And yes, he broke the record for touchdown passes and yards passed tonight.

But he also broke the record for most fumbles ever in the NFL.

Yes, folks. The "King" isn't perfect. Not only did he fumble the ball twice tonight, but he also threw an interception that sealed the win for the Jets. Mr. "Maybe-I'll-retire-maybe-I'll-play" Favre lost the game -- again.

Meanwhile, Jets winning quarterback Mark Sanchez rated hardly a word of praise from the talking heads of ESPN, even though his passing percentage was better than Favre's, he never fumbled the ball or threw an interception, and he moved his team downfield for one touchdown and five field goals. Nick Folk was treated equally badly by Jaworski and company, even though he kicked those five -- count 'em, folks: five! -- field goals.

So what gives here? How is it that loser Favre gets more attention than winner Sanchez? And why should I care if Jaworski gushes like a broken water fountain over his idol, Brett Favre?

Maybe it's because I love the game of football when it's played well, and I hate the bait-and-switch tactics of a quarterback who left the game at the right time, when he was still respected as one of the best in the business, but couldn't stay retired. Favre's ego got in the way of his common sense, and now his team is paying the price.

Favre's playing injured on the field. Off the field, he's just playing.

On the field, he's getting sacked. Off the field, he's trying to get sacked.

And now his off-field shenanigans have caught up with him. It seems the All-American Boy is just another dirty old man who can't keep his jeans zipped up. (Don't look now, kids, but you've lost another role model.)

And maybe that's why Jaworski's drooling hero worship bit didn't go over well with me tonight. Favre is nobody's hero. What he does best is throw a ball, and for that he's paid very, very handsomely. What he does worst is live up to his marriage vows, and for that he very well might pay handsomely.

First it was Tiger Woods. Now it's Brett Favre. Again, it's that old celebrity ego thing that says 'I'm so above everyone else, I can get away with anything'.

Sorry, Brett, but it's over. Try as he may, even Ron Jaworski can't rub the tarnish off you.

At least, not for this football fan.

*******

Reviews by Carl Brookins

2010-10-04T14:27:00.009-05:00

THE KINGDOM WHERE NOBODY DIES
by Kathleen Hills
Poisoned Pen Press, January 2008
hard cover,316 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59058-476-7

The author of this novel has a strong background in rural America,particularly in the Upper Midwest. It shows in many of the nuances that affect the progress of this story. The novel is replete with icons of small towns, some of which are isolated from the mainstream.

The book is set in the tiny Upper Peninsula Michigan town of St. Adele where once again we ride along with one of the most reluctant and phlegmatic lawmen we are likely ever to encounter. His name is John McIntyre and he is the town constable. He didn't want the job in the first place and he can think of a hundred things he'd rather be doing and places he'd rather be than the sun-blasted hay field of former conscientious objector, Ruben Hofer.

Hofer has been murdered, that's plain to see. His head was blasted open by a rifle shot while he sat on his tractor raking hay. It is almost immediately clear that the man's family is one likely source of murderous intent. Hofer was not a nice man. He drove his two teen-aged sons in cruel and oppressive ways; and his eleven-year-old daughter, Claire, has already been pushed to warped and dangerous attitudes about life. His wife is morbidly over-weight and only the youngster, Joey, constantly playing with his make-believe farm in the yard outside the kitchen of the school-house-turned-family-home, seems almost normal.

Author Hills continues to invest her stories with an array of intriguing characters, although I got a little tired of the sheriff's on-again-off-again almost incompetent investigation. Moreover, the two teen-agers do not become distinct characters in this book until very late, which I found to be a weakness.

Nevertheless, the story is informed by very real human emotions and conflicts and the author's handling of the religious, political and historical elements of the book tell us she has done careful research. The book is, as is true of all her books, well-written.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

* * *

Vermilion Drift
by William Kent Krueger
ISBN: 9781439153840
Hard Cover from Atria,
2010, 305 pages

Authors of crime fiction, like authors working in any other genre, often use their talents to work through personal issues, sometimes intensely private issues. Although it is not entirely clear, the writer may be working through some family issues with this novel. Does that matter?

Perhaps. That depends on the result. In this case, the author, possessed of well-honed, significant writing talent, has produced a novel of finely wrought proportions, multi-layered with considerable depth. By that I mean that the characters demonstrate multiple levels of engagement, and the story itself works on more than one level. Almost every character who appears in the book is involved in the story in more than one way. Some of their levels are casual or socially related, such as what may be routinely expected of law officers in Tamarack County, the Northern Minnesota location of this novel. Other characters, Henry Meloux, for example and other Native Americans; Sam Wintermoon, appears, and of course, Cork's mother and his father, Liam, all have, at different times, visceral involvement in the story.

The problem, if there is one, is that this story is much more a novel of family and community relationships than it is a novel of suspense, or crime, horrific and awful though the crimes were. Death is always the ultimate judge, from whom there is no appeal.

So, in my view, the problem is one of balance, or perhaps of categorization. The involvement of Cork O'Connor, now a private investigator, alone in Aurora, is mostly one of self-examination. The novel is one of Cork's journey of discovery. What was the meaning of his occasional nightmares? What were the issues that consumed and separated the O'Connor family in those last fateful months of Liam O'Connor's life?

The novel begins with Cork once again at odds with his Ojibwe heritage. His mother, remember, was a member of the tribe. He's hired by the owners of the Vermilion One and Ladyslipper mines to deal with threats against the mine. But then he's also tasked to try to locate a missing woman, sister of the mine owner. Lauren Cavanaugh has gone missing. Finding the missing woman opens a window on old unsolved crimes from a previous generation, from a time when Cork's father was the sheriff of Tamarack County.

Sorting through old albums, records and memories, fresh and repressed, takes up the body of the novel. As with all of this author's previous novels, the explanation is logical, satisfying and meaningful. Krueger, as always, is skillful in evoking the landscape, not just its physical self, but its atmosphere, its mystical presence and its influences on the people who reside there.

In the end, this thoughtful exploration of law, truth and justice and their profound influences on all of us is a highly successful emotionally moving effort.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

* * *

Part Two: Multinational Corporations Take Over Publishing

2010-09-08T15:44:00.009-05:00

Gulf and Western managed companies as diverse as auto parts suppliers, zinc mines, and sugar cane producers. In 1966 it strayed into the entertainment business by acquiring Paramount Pictures, a company dating back to 1913 when Adolph Zukor, owner of a New York nickelodeon and founder of the Famous Players Film Company, invested in a film distribution company by that name. Paramount had produced such notable films as IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, GOING MY WAY, SUNSET BOULEVARD, A PLACE IN THE SUN, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, ROMAN HOLIDAY, SHANE, and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. The purchase of Simon and Schuster gave Gulf and Western an opportunity to cash in on Pocket Books’ movie tie-in paperbacks

(Left: The Simon and Schuster Building, N.Y.)

Under the umbrella of Gulf and Western (renamed Paramount Communications in 1989), S and S began expanding through acquisition. Between 1984 and 1994, it purchased more than 60 publishing companies, including the prestigious Macmillan Publishing Company. Subsequently, company revenue grew from $200 million in 1983 to more than $2 billion in 1997.

Shortly after the 1994 Macmillan acquisition, Paramount – along with S and S – was sold to Viacom Inc. Viacom (short for "Video & Audio Communications") was founded in 1971 as a division of CBS. It was purchased in 1986 by movie theater owner National Amusements, but retained its original company name. Simon and Schuster benefited from the sale by launching new imprints based on programming by Viacom’s MTV Networks.

In 2005 Viacom was split into two companies – Viacom and CBS Corporation – with National Amusements retaining control of both entities. Simon and Schuster became the property of CBS Corporation.

As part of the world’s fourth largest media conglomerate behind the Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, and News Corporation, Simon & Schuster continues to publish tie-ins to films by Viacom-owned Paramount. As one of the four largest English-language publishers – Random House, Penguin, and HarperCollins being the others – it has approximately 1350 employees, publishes approximately two thousand titles annually under 35 different imprints, is a leading audio and ebook publisher, and distributes its titles in more than 100 countries and territories around the world.

It is also the ONLY major publisher in the United States that is owned by an American corporation.

(Right: Current S and S logo)

Multi-national corporations headquartered outside the U.S. own the other five major publishers operating here. Those publishers and corporations are:

Random House with its 100+ imprints, owned by Bertlesman (Germany).
HarperCollins with its imprints, owned by Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation (United Kingdom).
Penguin Group with its many imprints (among them Viking, Putnam, Dutton, Berkley. Grosset and Dunlap), owned by Pearson (United Kingdom).
Macmillan with its imprints (Farrar Straus and Giroux; St. Martin’s Press, and more), owned by Holtzbrink (Germany); bought in 1999 after 156 years of ownership by the Macmillan family.
Grand Central (formerly Warner Books) along with Little, Brown (American publisher founded in 1837), owned by Hachette Livre (France).

How does multi-national corporation ownership of publishing companies affect writers? Clearly, as large conglomerates take over the publishing business, smaller companies either die off or are acquired by the big guys, with the result being layoffs of skilled workers and fewer publishing outlets for authors.

Simon and Schuster (CBS Corp.) posted $794 million in revenue in 2009 while employing, according to their website, only 1350 people. Random House (Bertlesman) laid off employees in 2009 and 2010 while posting $1.7 billion in revenue for 2009 and this year agreeing to pay Janet Evanovich $50 million for her next four books. Macmillan (Holtzbrink) lowered ebook royalties to authors while its St. Martin’s Press division is accused of slashing royalties under “high discount” provisions.

The bigger the corporation, the more power its affiliated publishing companies have to influence the placement of books in stores, to negotiate author rights and payments, and to limit big time advertising to a chosen few writers. Likewise, the bigger the corporation, the more it must answer to its stockholders, thus making it almost de rigueur for publishers to abandon moderately selling first-time and midlist authors and concentrate instead on titles by best-selling novelists, ghost-written celebrity tell-alls, and non-fiction self help books.

Publication by a major publisher is the dream of practically every fiction writer. Given the consolidation and elimination of publishing companies over the past twenty-five years, that dream may be harder to fulfill today than ever before. While it still comes true each year for a good number of first-time authors, many writers have abandoned the dream and instead pursue vastly different avenues to publication.

More on that next time.

*************

Publishing's Journey from Privately-held Companies to Multi-national Corporations

2010-09-07T23:32:00.003-05:00

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”

From a letter by President Abraham Lincoln to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

***************

“Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It’s to see my dividends coming in.” And: “God gave me my money.”

John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937; founder of the Standard Oil Company and the first American billionaire.

***************

“To widen the market and narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.”

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I (Everyman’s Library, 6th Printing 1991)

***************

There’s not a person on this earth today who isn’t in some way affected by the growing power of multinational corporations. From retail giants to telecommunication syndicates, from energy conglomerates to international investment banks, global business interests influence how we live and work.

Writers are no less affected than anyone else by this change in the worldwide economic blueprint. American publishing companies that independently prospered in the 1800’s and early 1900’s are now mere cogs in the wheels of corporations so vast and ever-changing that some employees aren’t sure from day to day exactly who they work for.

How did it get this way? Who owns what? And how does the ownership of publishing companies affect writers?

Well, let’s take a look at Simon and Schuster. S and S was founded in 1924 after Richard L. Simon’s aunt, a devotee of the crossword puzzles printed in the New York World newspaper, asked if there existed a book of such puzzles. On finding there wasn’t, Simon teamed up with M. Lincoln (“Max”) Schuster to become the first publisher of such books. The pair marketed the books aggressively, including a pencil with each copy and assuring buyers through their newspaper ads that crosswords were the country’s next craze.

The ploy worked well. The book became a bestseller and launched S and S as a publishing company to be reckoned with. (Adding to the proof that the two men made a wise decision with this initial effort, it should be noted that even today, Simon and Schuster is the leading U.S. publisher of crossword puzzle books.)

(photo on left: Simon and Schuster logo, circa 1961)

Dick Simon and Max Schuster were not content to be just another pair of struggling entrepreneurs. They took risks other book publishers of their time were unwilling to make, spending up to ten times more than their competitors on advertising and introducing schemes that made their products highly attractive to booksellers. They are probably best known for introducing the return system where bookstores could return unsold titles for credit towards future purchases.

The pair made another good move in 1939 when they teamed up with Robert Fair de Graff to found Pocket Books, thus becoming America's first modern paperback publisher.

Paperback books actually got their start in the U.S. in the mid-1800’s with the publication of New York printer Erastus Beadle’s A Dime Song Book, a paperbound collection of popular song lyrics. It sold so well that Beadle published another “dime” book, Maleska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, an adventure novel by Anne S. Stephens.

“Dime novels” were all the rage in the late 1800’s and early twentieth century, but they fell out of favor in the 1920’s with the advent of pulp fiction magazines. Although cheaply produced reprints of Victorian novels continued to be sold in paperback, it wasn’t until 1935 when British businessman Allen Lane founded Penguin Books in London that good quality contemporary novels began being published in that format. At the time, modern novels were printed only in hardcover at prices above what the average worker in England could afford. Lane made books by writers like Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway available to the general public at much lower prices and sold his paperbacks not only in bookstores, but also in tobacco shops, train stations, and grocery stores.

Attentive to Lane’s success in England, Dick Simon and Max Schuster eagerly followed in his footsteps when entrepreneur Robert Fair de Graff approached them with the idea to create Pocket Books. The Simon and Schuster imprint bore the logo of "Gertrude the kangaroo" (named for the artist’s mother-in-law) and featured reprints of works by writers like Dorothy Parker, Agatha Christie, Emily Bronte, and Thornton Wilder in glued rather than stitched paperbacks. Bronte’s Wuthering Heights made the best-seller list and was one reason S and S sold more than 1.5 million Pocket Book editions by the end of the first year of production. With de Graff at the helm of the imprint, mysteries and movie tie-ins became staples of the line.

S and S took another giant step forward in 1942 by launching the Little Golden Books series in cooperation with the Artist and Writers Guild, Inc. These children’s books originally sold for twenty-five cents each and included such all-time favorites as The Little Red Hen and Mother Goose. S and S published the books for sixteen years before selling their interest in the line to Western Printing and Lithographing. Ownership of the series changed hands several times after that with Random House acquiring Golden Books for about 85 million dollars in 2001. Probably the most famous Golden Book of all time is The Poky Little Puppy, one of the twelve original titles published in 1942. As of 2005, 15 million copies had been sold worldwide.

In 1944, Dick Simon and Max Schuster sold S and S and Pocket Books to Marshall Field III, founder of the Chicago Sun newspaper (now the Chicago Sun-Times). They bought S and S back from Field’s heirs in 1957, but left Pocket Books to be purchased by their new business partners, Leon Shimkin and James M. Jacobson. Pocket Books returned to the S and S umbrella in 1966. For the next nine years the four partners varied their levels of ownership in the company. In 1975, majority holder Leon Shimkin sold Simon and Schuster to Charles Bluhdorn, founder of the American conglomerate Gulf and Western.

More on Gulf and Western's alliance with Simon and Schuster tomorrow.

****************

New Reviews by Carl Brookins

2010-09-06T22:25:00.004-05:00

McMansion
by Justin Scott
Poisoned Pen Press
255 pages, hardcover
ISBN: 1-59058-063-X

Justin Scott has written over a dozen mysteries, thrillers and adventure novels under several names, taut, exemplary stories that illuminate and explore many of our social concerns. They are good stories, well-written with drive and panache. This is another, peopled with interesting characters, a serious underpinning, and enough crime and mystery to satisfy the most enthusiastic crime fiction reader.

Ben Abbott is a sometime private investigator, sometime real estate agent,and a full time commentator on some of the more egregious aspects of our modern society and the influence on small town America. Abbott is also one of the more pleasant and thoughtful investigators readers are likely to run across in this age. Abbott is concerned about the effects of aging on his Aunt Constance who lives nearby, he takes in children in need of adult supervision, and he worries about unrestrained development of open spaces in the Connecticut town of Newbury where he lives. That last concern forms the core of this interesting novel about crooked developers, and a badly twisted legal system.

One of the worst developers, a Billy Tiller, possessed mostly of terrible taste, monumental greed and a willingness to break the law anytime he thought there was profit in it, gets his come-uppance when somebody drives a bulldozer over him at a construction site. The perpetrator, a young member of ELF, is discovered by the local troopers sitting at the controls of the offending 'dozer with the crushed body of Billy Tiller underneath. Open and shut, but Abbott, retained by the boy's lawyer, doesn't believe it. His pursuit of the truth leads him into some interesting and stressful situations.

**************

The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger
By Alec Wilkinson
Pub by Vintage Books, 2010,
ISBN: 978-0-307-39098-1
Trade Paper, 152 pages, including
credits, acknowledgments and testimony.

The mystery is that Pete Seeger survives and endures. In his lifetime which spans much of the turmoil of the Twentieth Century, he has been beset by some of the most vicious and evil forces we have experienced in this country and in the world. Yet, here he is, still pluckin’ and singin’ and taking on injustice and good causes, like cleaning up the Hudson River.

I suppose I’m biased. I grew up in a time when folk singing in America was in the ascendency and I have a lot of old records and memories of these folks, including Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, several others, and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Seeger through the good offices of my friend, another fine folk singer, Gene Bluestein. So it was great to read about all those folks, many of whom it’s easy to think of as friends, whether personal or only through their music, through the sensibilities of Seeger and Wilkinson.

It is wonderful, although disturbing, to read this elegantly written, honest look at a man, his friends and companions, his family, his trials and his triumphs, who sang his way into the hearts and memories of a lot of people. Seeger’s influence is found not just in the music world; after all, the Weavers recording of “Goodnight Irene” in 1950 sold over a million copies. It is and will be enduring.

This slender book, written in the kind of engaging style that is somehow the essence of Seeger’s approach to a principled life, is a moving tribute to him and to everything that’s right in these United States. Readers may disagree with his points of view, but you cannot disagree with the way Mr. Seeger fashioned his protest. Wilkinson has set down, in a most engaging manner, for readers everywhere, the values and the reality of a true American.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

**************

COMING WEDNESDAY: Part One of "Publishing’s Journey From Privately-held Companies to Multinational Corporations". Part Two follows on Thursday.

***************

History of Publishing: Part Two

2010-08-18T15:08:00.003-05:00

I was recently asked why it’s so important for writers to know about the history of publishing. My reply was, would you buy a house without knowing its history? A house is a big investment, so you’d want to know if the plumbing and electrical work was sound, if the roof leaked or the basement flooded every time it rained. Only a fool would buy a house without first having it inspected for problems.

Likewise, a writer invests a great deal of time and money in a book. It’s difficult to estimate the cost of time spent writing, but marketing a novel certainly isn’t a cheap enterprise. Websites, bookmarks, mailings to stores and libraries, and author tours can quickly drain away a writer’s earned income. Understanding how the publishing business got to where it is today, and using that knowledge to plan for the future, are vital for predicting an author’s success.

As related previously, Harper & Brothers (today simply called Harpers) set the foundation for modern day publishing back in the 1800’s. Colonial and post-Revolutionary printers most often acted as paid publishers, charging authors to print their work and sometimes helping to disseminate that work to the public. Harpers was one of the first companies to use its own money to publish books, paying authors after they recovered the printing costs. With the emergence of the royalty system proposed by George Palmer Putnam in 1846, authors began receiving 10 percent of the cover price of every book sold. (More on royalties in a later blog.)

Following a fire in 1853, Harpers financed two new buildings to house its publishing company. One building was reserved for management, inventory, and wholesaling operations. The other six-story building served as the manufacturing plant with each floor dedicated to a separate task. Overseen by male managers, women manned the steam presses on the first floor. One story up, boys hung the printed sheets to dry before they were folded, sewed, and stitched by workers on the next levels. Higher up in the building, workers fitted the books with covers, pasted down the flyleaves, and trimmed the edges.

This early pattern of assembly line mass production of books ensured the continued rise of Harper Bros. in the publishing business. Labor was cheap in those days, with wages amounting to ten cents per hour in manufacturing, or $1.00 for a 10-hour day. At the same time, hardcover books sold for $1 or more apiece.

To examine the impact of these figures on income, consider how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was published in 1852 by John P. Jewett & Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The book numbered 340 pages. If Jewett used a cylinder printing press of the type invented by Richard Hoe in 1846, his company could print 8000 pages per hour, or the equivalent of 23.5 books per hour per printing press. In a 10-hour workday, Jewett could print approximately 235 books per press.

At a retail price of $1 per book, the gross income per press was $235/day while the cost of labor for running that press was $1/day. Add to that the labor costs for binding, etc. and the overhead costs of ink, electricity, etc. and the cost per book rose some. Despite initial costs to publish a book, the resultant income to a company could be enormous. All that mattered was operating enough presses to do a major print run.

An old picture of Harpers’ manufacturing plant shows the first floor press room where each printing press stands cheek by jowl with another press. Given the number of presses owned by Harper, it’s little wonder they were the big boys on the block when it came to American publishing companies.

Harpers would reign as “king of the hill” until the 1927 when Random House was founded by Bennett Cerf, Christopher Coombes, and Donald Klopfer. Sold in 1965 to RCA for $40 million and then again in 1998 to German private media corporation Bertelsmann AG for an estimated $1.4 billion, today Random House is the largest English language book publisher in the world.

Next: Publishing Goes From Privately-held Companies to Multinational Corporations

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Monday Reviews

2010-08-16T13:11:00.008-05:00

I'm delighted to once again present two fine book reviews by Minnesota author, photographer, sailor, and all around good sport, Carl Brookins.

The Anteater of Death
by Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press
December, 2008, Hard cover
230 pages, $24.95,
ISBN: 9781590585603

This is the beginning of a new series for this veteran author. Just look again at the title. Somewhere in the back of my head there's a Shakespeare quote. Ms. Webb is an accomplished writer with several excellent novels to her credit. This one is a distinct departure for her, and it seems she is almost unable to restrain herself. There are a great many asides and some tongue-in-cheek humor that sometimes distracts the reader from a rather thin plot, although the setting is intriguing and Webb uses it well.

Theodora Bentley, the central character in this drama, is a zoo-keeper in a private enterprise somewhere in Southern California in an old seaside town interestingly named Gunn Landing. This zoo is the private plaything of some very wealthy families who have deep roots in the community. The situation is made more complex because some of those family roots are deeply entangled in their own history. Thus there is a darkness to this novel which offers some opportunities for the author to move in directions which would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago.

One of Teddy Bentley's responsibilities is the giant ant eater of the title, in the wild, a fearsome creature indeed, equipped with razor claws designed to rip logs open in search of ants. The book opens in the mind of this anteater, improbably named Lucy, in a highly unusual approach which has the potential to cause a number of readers to immediately close the book. I suggest that such readers persevere. Pregnant Lucy is disturbed when a male human enters her enclosure and she goes to investigate. Her investigation leads to an accusation that the animal has killed the man, a director of the zoo.

This accusation against Lucy rouses anger and frustration among the zookeepers especially Teddy. Gradually Teddy becomes snarled in the murder investigation, complicated by her own roots in the community and her past relationships with the Sheriff and several others. Eventually the smoothly written and complicated plot gets sorted out and Teddy receives lots of help from a substantial range of off-beat and even strange characters, not all of whom are caged in the zoo. Funny, ironic and sometimes irreverent, the book will give readers an inside look at zoo keeping, animal protectionism and the often distorted lives of wealthy idlers.

The White Garden
by Stephanie Barron
Random House/Bantam TP
2009, 318 pages
ISBN: 978-0-553-3877-9

I scarcely know how to begin, not something a reviewer should admit publically, I suppose. This wonderfully realized and written novel is a first class literary mystery. It deals with a three-week period in l941 that marks the end of a troubled life, the life of Virginia Woolf. It is serendipitous that this novel comes to my hand at a time that epitomizes a good deal of what she was all about. In a word, independence. Independence for women and independence for writers.

Virginia Woolf was an English writer, essayist and literary critic of the early Twentieth Century. Her parents did not send her to school. She was entirely self-taught and apparently randomly tutored by her literary critic father. She was a major influence on the kind of novels being written today, yet she was always, always, self-published. Hogarth Press, established by Woolf and her husband, Leonard, a political theorist of that era, in their kitchen, published Virginia's writings along with those of E.M. Forester, and Sigmund Freud, among many others. Growing up she knew people like Henry James, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot. Her father, Leslie Stephen's, first wife was the daughter of the novelist
William Makepeace Thackeray.

In addition to her literary credentials as an accomplished novelist, she was a prolific essayist who published over 500 essays. Virginia Wolf helped coalesce the famous (or infamous) Bloomsbury Group, a collection of social, political and economic theorists of varying stripes, including artists, critics, philosophers and writers who wrote, debated, loved, married and argued life throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Woolf was sexually abused by a relative as a child, and clearly had mental problems during her lifetime. Her companions through life, including relatives, were mostly liberated intellectuals who ignored social constraints. On March 28, 1941, she disappeared from her home. Three weeks later, her body was discovered in the nearby river Ouse which had already been extensively searched. Her body was promptly cremated and there was no funeral ceremony, public or private.

Which brings us to this novel. Sixty years after Woolf's death, master garden and landscape designer, Jo Bellamy arrives in England. She is doing research for a wealthy client who wants her to recreate a famous garden of white flowers and plants at his Long Island Estate. Jo is trying to recover from her grandfather's sudden suicide. The celebrated White Garden of the title is located at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. It was created by Woolf's friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West.

What Bellamy discovers at Sissinghurst has the potential to set decades of literary analysis and speculation on its collective ear. Whilst grubbing about in some boxes in one of the garden sheds, Jo comes upon a diary which appears to have been written by Virginia Woolf. Well and good, the problem is the first entry is dated the day after Virginia Woolf is supposed to have drowned herself. Moreover, there appears to be a connection between the castle, the garden, Woolf and Jo's dead grandfather. Shocked and amid a growing desire to learn more about her grandfather's youth in Kent, Jo Bellamy sets out on a cross-country odyssey to try to authenticate the diary and uncover her grandfather's connection to one of the most famous feminists
and literary icons of the past century.

The novel is wonderfully written and mostly moves at an ever-increasing pace as Bellamy encounters an array of character who are far more interested in their own aggrandizement than in helping Jo. The diary is stolen, Jo has help from several people with questionable motives and engages in some pretty far-fetched antics in order to follow some tantalizingly obscure clues.

Ultimately of course, some of the questions surrounding the diary and the last three weeks of Virginia Woolf's life are resolved, but not all. The author, skillfully evoking a past era of English letters and philosophical thought, has provided a rich and thought-provoking experience.

The novel is written with grace and is rich in atmosphere and history. It is presented as a carefully wrought piece that could be true, and that climaxes in a stunning and most satisfying conclusion.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

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Fun Friday: New High School Exit Exam

2010-08-13T22:19:00.007-05:00

Yep, it's Friday the 13th, and to celebrate this spookiest of Fridays, here's a blood-curdling test for you. This is a new "High School Exit Exam". You only need 4 correct answers to pass. I dare you to try it!

1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?

3) From which animal do we get cat gut?

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?

7) What was King George VI's first name?

8) What color is a purple finch?

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries grown?

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

Remember, you only need 4 correct answers to pass!!!!!!

Check your answers below ...

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years
2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs
7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert
8) What color is a purple finch? Crimson
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries grown? New Zealand
10)What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange (of course!)

What do you mean, you failed???

(Me, too! And if you try to tell me you passed, you LIED!)

We both should have done our homework! Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they can feel useless, too!:)

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A Short History of Publishing in the U.S.

2010-08-12T12:53:00.013-05:00

“He who first shortened the labor of copyists by device of movable types was disbanding hired armies, and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating a whole new democratic world: he had invented the art of printing.”
(Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 1833)

Publishing as we know it today got its start back in 1450 when German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg, best known for the Gutenberg Bible, began printing poems and tracts using his newly invented movable-type printing press. Two centuries later the first printing press to hit the shores of the American colonies arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1638.

Although still hand-operated, this up-dated version of the Gutenberg invention could print up to 240 pages of one impression in a single hour. Stephen Daye put the press to good use when, in 1640, he printed The Whole Book of Psalmes, the first English-language book to be published in the colonies.

Philadelphia joined the Boston-Cambridge area as a center of American publishing when, in 1685, master printer William Bradford established a printing company there. His publication that year of Samuel Atkins’ almanac Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense led to one of the first cases of government censorship of the press in America when it drew the ire of Governor William Penn. Bradford was directed to print only material approved by the Pennsylvania Council.

Two years later Bradford again ran into trouble with the authorities. This time he was ordered not to print anything about Quakers unless they approved it. When he was officially reprimanded in 1689 for publishing William Penn’s original charter for Pennsylvania, Bradford threw up his hands in disgust and left the colony, returning to his birthplace in England.

In 1690 Bradford returned to Philadelphia, resumed his print and publishing business, and built the first colonial paper mill to service his printing needs. It wasn’t long before the long arm of the law descended once more on the spunky Bradford. In 1692 he published a tract, or pamphlet, that incensed the city’s Quaker community. Quaker leaders soon demanded the arrest of Bradford and John McComb, a tavern keeper who distributed the pamphlet. Both men were jailed and Bradford’s press was seized.

Bradford’s arguments for freedom of the press resulted in a split decision by the jury at his trial. Released from prison, Bradford left Philadelphia and moved to a more hospitable New York where he began publishing books as well as printing the city’s first newspaper, the New York Gazette.

Probably the best-known colonial printer/publisher was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin opened a printing operation in Philadelphia in 1728, publishing English novels in addition to the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanack. A lover of the printed word, Franklin set up the Library Company of Philadelphia, the colonies’ first lending library, in 1731.

Although Franklin was out of the printing business by 1748, it’s fair to say the American Revolution couldn’t have taken place without the help of Philadelphia printers who published political pamphlets written by men like James Otis, John Adams, John Dickinson, and Thomas Jefferson. Stephen Hopkins’ The Rights of Colonies Examined and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense are two of the best-known works published in the form of political pamphlets prior to the Revolution.

Following the Revolution, New York City quickly became the leading publishing center in the country. In 1817, brothers James and John Harper extended their NYC printing company into a full-fledged publishing business called J & J Harper. They were joined by two other Harper brothers in the mid 1820’s, and changed the name of the company to Harper & Brothers in 1833.

Much of Harper’s early success was due to their publishing of pirated copies of books by British authors. While American authors were covered by a federal copyright law enacted in 1791, it wasn’t until the Berne Convention of 1886 was followed up by the International Copyright Act of 1891 that foreign copyright holders were protected in the U.S. Thus, British author Thomas Babington Macaulay didn’t make one cent in royalties when, prior to the 1891, Harper published and sold 400,000 copies of his History of England from the Accession of James II.

Charles Dickens was another British author who fell victim to Harper’s pirating. In 1842 Dickens journeyed to New York in an unsuccessful attempt to secure royalties from the Harper brothers. While he returned to England no richer than when he left, Dickens did gain enough material during the trip to write American Notes for Circulation. Like with his other books, Harper also pirated this one.

At the same time Harper was prospering in New York, George Palmer Putnam and Charles Scribner opened their respective publishing companies in that city. The introduction of Richard Hoe’s steam powered rotary printing press in 1843 and the change over to rolled paper for continuous feed to the presses gave these publishers an advantage over other local book printers. The three firms could print millions of pages in a single day, which meant they could mass produce books like never before. Combined with the ability to use the Erie Canal for shipping to western markets, mass production reduced overhead costs for the three publishers and allowed them to lower prices on their products.

Similar to what's happening today in the bookselling trade, the competition provided by Harper, Scribner, and Putnam put many smaller printing companies out of business. At the same time, these companies were responsible for New York out-powering Boston and Philadelphia to earn the title in 1850 of “Publishing Capital of the Nation”.

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Next Wednesday: U.S. Publishing from Civil War Times to Now

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What Every Writer Should Know About Publishing

2010-08-11T12:43:00.003-05:00

Last night I read an article about a woman who complained she felt cheated after self-publishing her novel with a large online company. The woman admitted to being “very ignorant about the publishing industry” when she agreed to a proffered contract, but said she believed the hype on the company’s website, including a promise that her book would be available through major bookstores.

The hard truth hit her when she tried to set up a signing in a popular chain bookstore. The store’s assistant manager keyed the title of the book into her computer, but after one look at the publisher’s name, immediately nixed any talk of a signing. Why? Because the publishing company would not accept returns.

Try as I might, I couldn’t summon up a whole lot of sympathy for this woman, and I’ll tell you why.

Despite all the information available both in public libraries and on the Internet, she didn’t do her homework before signing away her rights to a company that many in the writing business call an ‘author mill’ for unsuspecting novices.

A little digging on the ‘Net would have revealed that the company in question has a checkered past that includes lawsuits by disgruntled writer clients. While calling itself a ‘traditional publisher’, it provides few of the services furnished by legitimate presses large and small, like comprehensive editing, access to wholesalers and distributors, and accommodations for bookstores to return unsold stock. In short, this ‘author mill’ survives by publishing anything sent to them, then pressuring the authors to buy their own books for resale through ‘special author’ deals.

The uncomfortable truth associated with the above story is this: like the woman featured in the article, too many ‘wannabe’ authors toil for years writing and rewriting their novels while devoting little or no time to learning the ins and outs of publishing.

I was once a wannabe author. Unlike the woman in the article, I began to educate myself about the business side of writing long before my first novel hit the bookstores. I didn’t learn all I needed to know at the time, but I made a good start at it, and I continue to study the publishing industry as it evolves into a much different animal than the one I first became acquainted with fourteen years ago.

I certainly don’t claim to be the last word on publishing; there are people who have been writing for decades who could expound on the subject much better than I. But just as others in the business have shared their knowledge with me, I’d like to share what I’ve learned with those who hope to someday see their work in print.

With that objective in mind, I’ll be writing a series of blogs on “What Every Writer Should Know About Publishing”. I’ll be covering topics such as the history of publishing in the U.S.; the consolidation of publishing companies by multinational corporations; the rise of the small press world wide; understanding publishing statistics; royalties and advances; publishing terminology; services provided by agents and editors; e-book and print-on-demand technology; book promotion and niche marketing; contracts; bookstores and libraries; and media savvy re print and Internet advertising.

I welcome all comments and suggestions from readers of this blog. Please add to the discussions here by sharing your knowledge of the publishing industry with us. Feel free to correct me if I occasionally make a blunder; mystery is the genre I work in, so romance, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror writers – among others – may look at some aspects of publishing differently than I do simply because of the varying demands of their genre.

I'll be making new posts to “What Every Writer Should Know About Publishing" on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Mondays on Cicero's Children are reserved for book reviews while the week still ends here with "Fun Fridays".

Hope you can join me on Thursday when I open this series with a brief history of U.S. publishing.

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Monday Reviews

2010-08-10T00:04:00.006-05:00

Once again I'm happy to welcome author and reviewer Carl Brookins to Cicero's Children. Carl has chosen to review two recently released titles from Poisoned Pen Press for us.

Final Approach
by Rachel Brady
Poisoned Pen Press
HC, 250 pg, October, 2009
ISBN: 9781590586556

A fine debut novel with an unusual plot line. Emily Locke is recovering from the loss of her husband and infant daughter. It is clear from the get-go there is something askew in that whole incident. Now four years later, the detective who was disgraced and dismissed from the local police department as fall-out from that calamity, is back in Emily's life. He wants her help on a case he's working on. A leap of faith is required of readers here. Is she the only person in the country the detective can count on to infiltrate a questionable sky-diving club located over a thousand miles away?

And why is Emily so available? After all she has a full-time job and is still pretty fragile from the loss of her daughter and husband. Still, the detective, not her favorite person, presses the right buttons and off she goes to Texas.

What follows is a tension-filled emotional novel of exquisite detail about sky-diving in all the right places, introduction of necessary and useful characters and enough action to satisfy the most ardent thriller aficionado. Emily is strong and distressed at all the right places; there are no real down sections of the novel.

This is a fast read, and although some of the danger Emily faces doesn't reach my punch level, Emily is an interesting woman and the sky-diving is an unusual platform on which to build a crime novel. One of the more interesting aspects of Final Approach is that readers will, from the beginning, feel as though they have been brought into an ongoing story. There is occasionally a feeling of the need to catch up with background as a way to evaluate current happenings. It's a style that adds to the tension and pace. A satisfying novel with a fine twist at the end.

Snakehead
by Peter May
Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 312 pages,
ISBN: 9781590586068

Fourth in the author's China Thriller series to be published by this press. Make no mistake this is one scary and thrilling book. So thrilling, in fact I had the sense toward the end of being carried just a bit over the top. The novel brings back two of May's most endearing characters, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, American, and Beijing detective, Li Yan. But they are no longer in China. Campbell is now the county medical examiner based in Houston, Texas, and Li Yang is learning about and dealing with America's multiple and complex law enforcement agencies as a member of the Chinese Embassy staff in Washington, D.C.

Until a major tragedy brings them together, Campbell is not even aware that they are again in the same country although still thousands of miles physically and culturally apart. The tragedy that brings these two together are the deaths of scores of illegal Chinese immigrants being smuggled to the United State via the same pipeline and organization which smuggles drugs from South America to the U.S. In this incident, the dead are found in a refrigerated truck abandoned in Texas. Those deaths appear to be accidental until it is discovered the bodies have all been injected with a dangerous virus that has no known antidote.

Now the race is on to determine what the virus is, who is behind the multi-million dollar smuggling operation, the Snakehead of the title, and Li Yan and Margaret must try to set aside their own emotional difficulties in order to help literally, save the nation from a devastating plague.

The pace is fast, the writing always to the point, the characters are genuine in their language and their emotions, and most worrisome of all, the science is real. This is a novel with the potential to scare the pants off you. It's timely, international in scope, a whirlwind of a thriller.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

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Fun Friday: Our Yearly Senior Citizen Test

2010-08-06T13:59:00.008-05:00

A friend of mine sent me this. As a dues-paying member of AARP (just call me Mrs. Senior Citizen), I couldn't resist passing it on here. Have fun!

Our Yearly Senior Citizen Test

It's that time of year for us to take our annual senior citizen test.
Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles. As we grow older, it's important to keep mentally alert. If you don't use it, you lose it!

Below is a very private way to gauge how your memory compares to the last test. Some may think it is too easy but the ones with memory problems may have difficulty. Take the test presented here to determine if you're losing it or not.

The spaces below are so you don't see the answers until you've made your answer.
OK, relax, clear your mind and begin.

1. What do you put in a toaster?

Answer: 'bread.' If you said 'toast' give up now and do something else..
Try not to hurt yourself.

If you said, bread, go to Question 2..

2. Say 'silk' five times.. Now spell 'silk.' What do cows drink?

Answer: Cows drink water. If you said 'milk,' don't attempt the next question. Your brain is overstressed and may even overheat.
Content yourself with reading a more appropriate literature such as Auto World.
However, if you said 'water', proceed to question 3.

3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black bricks, what is a green house made from?

Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass. If you said 'green bricks,' why are you still reading these???
If you said 'glass,' go on to Question 4.

4. It's thirty years ago, and a plane is flying at 20,000 feet over Germany (If you will recall, Germany at the time was politically divided into West Germany and East Germany ). Anyway, during the flight, two engines fail. The pilot, realizing that the last remaining engine is also failing, decides on a crash landing procedure. Unfortunately the engine fails before he can do so and the plane fatally crashes smack in the middle of 'no man's land' between East Germany and West Germany ... Where would you bury the survivors? East Germany, West Germany ,
Or no man's land'?

Answer: You don't bury survivors.
If you said ANYTHING else, you're a dunce and you must stop. If you said, 'You don't bury survivors', proceed to the next question.

5. Without using a calculator - You are driving a bus from London to
Milford Haven in Wales . In London , 17 people get on the bus.
In Reading , 6 people get off the bus and 9 people get on.
In Swindon, 2 people get off and 4 get on.
In Cardiff , 11 people get off and 16 people get on.
In Swansea , 3 people get off and 5 people get on.
In Carmathen, 6 people get off and 3 get on.
You then arrive at Milford Haven ..

Without scrolling back to review, how old is the bus driver?

Answer: Oh, for crying out loud!
Don't you remember your own age?
It was YOU driving the bus!!

If you pass this along to your friends, pray they do better than you.

PS: 95% of people fail most of the questions!!

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2010-07-31T22:19:00.012-05:00

The line-up of featured authors for Love Is Murder 2011 includes Michael Allen Dymmoch as Local Guest of Honor. Michael is well-known in the mystery writing community, especially that part of it that calls Chicago home. Not only is she a prolific writer, but she's also served as President and Secretary of the Midwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, and as newsletter editor for the Chicagoland Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Minnesota author Carl Brookins reviewed one of Michael's books on his website, www.carlbrookins.com. He's given permission for me to reprint that review here.

Death in West Wheeling
by Michael Dymmoch
Five Star Mysteries, Hardcover,
182 pages, Hardcover, $25.95
IBN1594144583

Who knew author Michael Dymmoch, who has written such solid noir mysteries
as "White Tiger," "The Fall" and "M.I.A.", could put together such a funny,
even hilarious novel as this one, set in a small town in West Virginia, or
somewhere close by? Homer Deter is currently acting sheriff and he has to
investigate the mysterious disappearance of a teacher at a local missionary school.

This case is just the start of something bigger. Before long, Acting Sheriff Deter is faced with three more disappearances, an odd-acting ATF agent in search of illicit stills, a few apparently random motor vehicle accidents, and including a twenty-three car pileup right in the middle of town. And the funny thing is, all these incidents eventually connect. That even includes the full-grown escaped tiger locked in the post office.

Author Dymmoch has some trenchant things to say about relationships between
men and women, and about the state of our society. It's all wrapped in fine writing, a really excellent if skewed sense of our society, and some dandy plotting. Pick up this good short novel. You'll be glad you did.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

LOVE IS MURDER, THE PREMIER MIDWESTERN CONFERENCE FOR FANS AND WRITERS OF MYSTERY. FOR INFORMATION, GO TO WWW.LOVEISMURDER.NET

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Grace Under Pressure: A Review

2010-07-22T12:51:00.011-05:00

Julie Hyzy follows up on the success of her White House Chef Mysteries with another deliciously enticing entry in the amateur sleuth field. Grace Under Pressure is the first in Julie’s new Manor House series featuring Grace Wheaton, assistant curator of historical Marshfield Manor.

Marshfield Manor has long been a showpiece of the South Atlantic region with its gorgeous gardens, cozy tearoom, and endless exhibits of antiques. Lately, though, tourism has been down, and reclusive collector Bennett Marshfield’s lawyers feel an infusion of new blood is needed in the Manor’s administration in order to bring the place back to its former days of glory.

Enter Grace Wheaton, a native of the area who returned to Emberstowne to care for her ailing mother and now lives in her deceased parents’ home. Grace has family ties to the Manor and has always wanted to work there. As the newly hired assistant curator, she faces stubborn resistance from head curator Abe and his administrative assistant, Frances, while earning only grudging respect from Mr. Marshfield.

All that changes when Abe is murdered during a freak disturbance in the tearoom. Grace is temporarily thrust into the top position where she works closely with chief of security Terrence Carr to assure the safety of Bennett Marshfield, whom the police believe to be the killer’s actual intended victim.

Bennett’s testimony in T. Randall Taft’s Ponzi scheme trial may be behind the attempt on his life. A new motive comes to life, though, when Grace discovers Bennett has been receiving blackmail letters. Can Grace get beyond Bennett’s refusal to discuss the letters and somehow make sense of the tangled affairs at Marshfield Manor? It may seem an impossible task, but Grace is determined to save both her job and her employer, even if it means risking her own life.

In Emberstowne's Marshfield Manor, Hyzy has created an intriguing setting based on the work of foundations that save historical buildings and entire estates by turning them into self-supporting tourist attractions. The cast of characters who live or work in and around the Manor are equally distinctive; Hyzy has given them personalities that work well alone or in combination with their fellow characters. Grace is an especially appealing protagonist, determined but not pushy, curious but not nosy. Her quest to solve Abe’s murder is understandable given that her very livelihood depends on Bennett’s continued existence; no boss means no job, and no job means Grace could very well lose the home she grew up in.

The plot of Grace Under Pressure is somewhat convoluted, but honest clues exist, making the ending satisfyingly clear. The complications in Grace’s life as introduced by the author also work well as an introduction to the series. Fans of her previous series will both welcome and enjoy this latest effort by the very talented Julie Hyzy.

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The Battle Continues

2010-07-20T15:49:00.008-05:00

So this morning I stepped outside to check my peach tree, and what should I find but two peaches lying on the ground, one eaten to the stone and one hardly touched at all.

Grrrr!!!!!!

This was definitely not the work of the bunnies, those lovers of clover and fine vegetables.

No, this was the work of...SQUIRRELS!!!!

I should have known better than to stake the tree yesterday. BUT, it was leaning to the west, the branches on that side so ladened with peaches that they were actually weighing the tree down. So I wrapped an old elastic bandage around the trunk (the worn out ones are perfect for use in supporting plants in the garden), tied a blue cord to the bandage, and tied that to a stake I then drove into the ground. The tree was again upright, the branches not waving dangerously close to the ground.

Of course I forgot that squirrels are notoriously good at tight-rope walking. Obviously, some furry friend simply scampered up the cord, bypassing the metal collar previously attached to the tree to ward off pesty critters, and jumped onto a branch where breakfast was conveniently waiting.

Grrrr again.

So okay, it was either come up with a plan to discourage the squirrels, or simply admit defeat and plan on eating far fewer peaches this year than originally expected.

Those who know me well know that I rarely admit defeat, and never to a squirrel. It didn't take me long to come up with an ingenious plan to discourage the little guys from feasting on my tree. After a quick trip to the garage, I was back at the tree holding a can of brake grease. I slathered the grease on the eleastic bandage and blue cord, then twisted four sharpened plant stakes into the bandage, making sure the pointed ends faced out and down towards the cord.

I stood back with a smile and admired my handiwork. Squirrels would have a hard time climbing that greased cord. Most likely they'd fall off, but just in case one did make it up to the trunk, he'd never get beyond the plant stakes with their sharp points.

It's now three hours later, and so far, no squirrels have approached the peach tree. I know it's too early to call this a complete victory on my part, but I'm crossing my fingers that I've won this most recent battle with nature.

I'm crossing them really hard!

**********************

The Attack of the Baby Bunnies!

2010-07-08T22:52:00.019-05:00

So I walked outside a couple of nights ago to check on the sky -- was it going to rain or not?? -- and low and behold, I inadvertently interrupted the dinner plans of two baby bunnies. Until I appeared, the pair was contentedly nibbling away at the clover on my front lawn. One look at me and they froze like a couple of fuzzy gray statues.

Reverting to my Doctor Dolittle personality, I began what turned out to be a totally one-sided conversation with my furry guests.

"Hey, guys, there's no reason to get nervous. I'm perfectly harmless, just one of the humans who happen to live here."

Total silence reigned as two pairs of beady brown eyes focused suspiciously on me.

"No, really, fellows. Just pretend I'm not here. Enjoy the grass, but do me a favor and leave the flowers alone, okay?"

More stony silence. The larger of the two bunnies flicked an ear in my direction, but that was the extent of his response. The smaller rabbit took a cue from his partner and also held his peace.

"An occasional dandelion is fine. Just no flowers. And no vegetables, either."

It might have been my imagination, but I could swear I saw the little guy frown when I said 'vegetables'. The bigger bunny definitely raised an eyebrow. It hit me that they hadn't yet visited the backyard and therefore didn't know about my garden. Big mistake on my part even mentioning what grew back there.

"Clover's ever so much sweeter than flowers or -- ha, ha -- vegies," I said as, trying to appear casual, I sidestepped to the right, effectively blocking my guests' view of the hardy cucumber plants enthusiastically giving birth to baby cukes in a large white flower pot on the back stairs.

My ploy didn't work. The rabbits abandoned their statue pose and slowly inched closer to me. Their tiny noses twitched in anticipation of a better meal.

While they smelled food, I smelled trouble.

I didn't want to do it, but seeing the sparkle in their beady little eyes, I suspected there was nothing for it but to bring out the big guns.

"One step closer and I'll call the CAT!!!"

That got their attention! Ears flicking madly now, the bunnies backed off a respectable distance. Their eyes were still glued on me, but I could tell they were thinking.

"Your relatives ate every one of my fall asters last year," I growled. "They nibbled the leaves down to the stalk on the lilies, and then they decimated my carnations. I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT this year!"

The bigger bunny scratched his ear with a back foot as if to say, "Your hard luck, lady. Rabbits gotta eat."

"Not in my yard you don't! You're welcome to the clover in front, but step into the backyard and you're dead meat! CAT will see to that!"

The second mention of CAT seemed to convince them I meant business. The littler guy slunk off to my neighbor's front yard to hide in the bushes. His big brother glared at me a moment longer before taking the same route south. No hiding for him, though. He made quite a show of investigating a bed of marigolds lining the sidewalk before finally settling down to snack on a patch of newly planted grass.

I stood my ground near the cucumbers until both bunnies tired of the game and hopped off to search for better pickings across the street. Satisfied they wouldn't return any time soon, I was about to go back inside when out of the corner of my eye I spied a squirrel gazing hungrily at my peach tree.

"Don't even think about it!" I hissed. I leveled a finger in his direction. "CAT climbs trees, you know. He'll catch you and feed you to his babies for dinner!"

The squirrel just grinned before scampering up the tree and grabbing a half-ripened peach. He peered down at me from his perch high on an upper branch and twitched his tail in that particularly frenetic way known to squirrels everywhere as "doing the Victory-Over-Humans dance". With the peach still clasped to his chest, he chattered away, the gist of his message being this: "Those guys were dumb bunnies, but I'm a smart squirrel! As I recall, CAT went to cat heaven last year, so this summer the peaches are mine, all mine!"

I swear I heard him laughing madly as he leaped from the peach tree and disappeared into the night. Well, he wouldn't be laughing tomorrow, not when he saw the little surprise I was planning for him.

A gift wrapped tree. Heh, heh, heh!

http://tinyurl.com/379m6lo

**************

Remembering a Good Man

2010-07-06T21:56:00.005-05:00

My cousin Paul died today.

He was 61-years-old and had been battling leukemia for a year and a half.

He was a good man.

Paul and I grew up in the same city, but as adults, we didn't get to see each other very often; Paul moved to Phoenix and I stayed put in Chicago. The last time we met was at his mother's funeral almost two years ago. But we kept in touch via emails that circulated among my many cousins, emails that spoke of births and deaths in the family, of children and grandchildren and mutual ancestors, and often, of memories of our childhoods. Then, during his illness, we communicated via CaringBridge, an on-line journaling site for patients and their families, with Paul's wife Nancy filling in when he was too ill to write.

The picture above was taken in June of this year and shows Paul with his youngest grandson, George Jacob. The other photo shows a much younger Paul, the Paul who was three years younger than I and always seemed to be involved in some kind of mischief -- or at least, that's how I remember him.

For example, see that white suit he's wearing in the picture? That's the suit in which he made his 1st Communion. He looked so good in it -- until the Sunday he wore it to a party at my parents' house. We kids were set free to play outside, and wouldn't you know it, Paul just had to check out the foundation of the new house being built two doors down from us. He never meant to fall into what was to become the basement of the house but at the time was only a muddy hole in the ground. But mud and little boys just seem to attract each other, and that hole really attracted Paul.

He was not a pretty sight when he climbed out of it.

I don't claim to have a lot of memories of my childhood. I had rheumatic fever twice as a kid, and back then the cure for that was bedrest, large doses of Penicillin, and aspirin for the joint pain associated with the disorder. A doctor once told me that all the medicine I'd been on affected my memory and caused the recurrent nightmares that plagued me back then. I don't know if that's true; I only know there are gaps in what I remember of my youth. Some events I can only partly recall, and even then the details are fuzzy, like I see them through a haze.

My childhood memories of Paul mainly fit into that fuzzy category. I wish I'd had a chance to know him better when we were older. He became a husband and a father and a grandfather, and from all I've heard about him from friends and family, he excelled in all those roles.

I do know Paul had a lot of guts. He faced his illness with courage and never complained in his posts on CaringBridge. He always seemed to be smiling in his pictures and looking forward to life improving for him. His attitude didn't appear to change even when he learned that an expected bone marrow transplant was being cancelled, meaning his chance of recovery was now practically nil.

Tonight Paul's pain is over. He is at peace, safe in the arms of his Creator.

Remembered and loved, this good man can rest now.

**************

Free Kindle App for PCs

2010-06-19T14:17:00.009-05:00

Amazon has a nifty hand-held ebook reader called the Kindle. More and more, publishers are releasing books not only in print, but also as ebooks, and most of those ebooks are being sold in the Kindle format on Amazon.

For those of us who want to read them yet can’t afford to buy the Kindle reader, here’s a fantastic bit of news:

A FREE downloadable application for Windows PC allows you to read Kindle books on your computer. No Kindle required!

Since ebooks cost way less than print books, now you can buy almost anything you want to read at a greatly discounted price.

You can find and download the application at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kcp_pc_mkt_lnd?docId=1000426311

Two of my novels are available in Kindle format at Amazon.

A MERRY LITTLE MURDER is the first in the 'Rhodes to Murder' series.

THE RUNESTONE MURDERS continues the series featuring ER nurse Caroline Rhodes and college professor of historyCarl Atwater.

I also have two shorts stories on Kindle, both at reduced prices.

HICKORY, DICKORY, DOC takes place in the horse country of Maryland, while MURDER MOST POLITIC is set in an unnamed Southern state. Both stories involve murder and mayhem.

THE SCARECROW MURDERS is not yet available in Kindle format, but can be bought at Amazon as a hardcover or trade paperback.

All my books -- in print and ebook format -- are available on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1275441940/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr1?ie=UTF8&node=1000&search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=mary%20welk%20amazon

Try 'em! You'll like 'em! :)

************

Snobs, Bums, and Liars: Part Two

2010-06-15T23:29:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a mystery series I was reading and what I considered to be a smug attitude on the part of the author. I must have hit a sore spot with readers because the topic garnered a wealth of comments both here on Cicero’s Children and to me privately via email. Seems like nobody likes a snob.

Today I’m tackling the “bums and liars” part of that blog.

The term “liar” is self-explanatory. The word “bum”, on the other hand, has several meanings. It can be used to describe tramps, beggars, derelicts, winos, or simply homeless, out-of-work street people. The meaning I chose to use here is “good-for-nothing”, as in, “That dirty rotten bum cheated me out of my life savings.”

Bums and liars are part and parcel of the mystery genre; without them mysteries simply couldn’t exist. But where do writers find examples of bums and liars on whom to pattern their characters?

The same place where many authors say they get ideas for plots: from news reports. Read any print or on-line newspaper and you'll easily find dozens of examples of bums and liars.

For instance, there’s Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum who's been in the news a lot lately. (Think Gulf oil spill and you’ll know who he is.) Good old Tony heads a company that’s paid our government more than $155 million in fines between 2000 and 2009 for 1000+ safety violations on U.S. soil. $155 million! Wouldn’t you think you’d clean up your act after the first $1 million fine? Not Tony. Obviously the man believes in taking risks, the biggest risk being that BP will save more money taking shortcuts with safety than it ever has to pay in fines.

Yeah, I’d label Tony Hayward a bum. Actually, I’d label him a "Bum" with a capital "B" because of the following statement he made on May 30th. While discussing the Gulf oil spill disaster with the media, Hayward said that "there’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Right, Tony. So would the eleven men who died when your oil rig went up in flames.

As for a bum and a liar, a newsworthy example would be Rod “Blago” Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois currently on trial for mail fraud, wire fraud, and attempting to sell Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. Rod’s playing innocent, but he got caught on tape blabbing about his sweet deals. Good old Blago even threatened to withhold $8 million in state funds from Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital unless the hospital’s CEO donated some really big money to Rod’s campaign war chest. Cutting off funds for sick kids?? That kind of behavior definitely earns Blago the title of "Bum".

So you see, it's not all that difficult to find examples of characters you'd love to knock off in a mystery novel. The newspapers are full of them!

*****

Memorial Day, 2010

2010-05-30T16:53:00.014-05:00

Snobs, Bums, and Liars: Part One

2010-05-24T13:27:00.009-05:00

Roxy the cat wasn't the only creature dozing her days away last week. Cut down in my tracks by a nasty case of the stomach flu (seeing as how I can only guess as to what kind of creepy little bug invaded my digested tract, I figure that's as good a name as any for what ailed me), I spent a whole lot of time curled up either in bed or on the couch, sometimes sleeping, most of the time reading.

I've been on a Terry Pratchett jag lately, totally immersed in the doings of Discworld and its inhabitants. Pratchett's latest, Unseen Academicals, was so satisfyingly funny that it almost made me forget why I was lolling about on the couch with a heating pad on my stomach. I finished it way too quickly, though, and found myself staring at the bookshelf, trying to decide what to read next. I generally have a non-fiction book going at the same time I'm reading fiction, but given the condition of my stomach, I didn't feel up to tackling chapter six of Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce. Instead, I turned to three mysteries I'd recently bought but still hadn't read. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th books in a series I'd begun reading last year, the novels were pleasantly cozy in structure while well plotted and nicely paced. None of the three disappointed me, but I did find myself occasionally grinding my teeth in frustration at the author's smug, if not downright snobbish, attitude towards those of us who don't share her Southern heritage.

Now, I've enjoyed many a mystery novel set in the South. Anne George's Southern Sisters' series was a joy to read, mainly because the main characters were genuinely real; with their individual mannerisms, eccentricities, and foibles, the two women could have been anyone's sisters. Carolyn Haines' Bones series is just as delightful because, again, it's easy to emotionally connect with Sarah Booth Delaney and the other series characters.

Like George did with her novels, Carolyn Haines lets her affection for the South show in her writing. Neither Haines nor George, though, ever resort to belittling or stereotypical descriptions of non-Southerners to prove that their region of the country is better than all others.

Unlike George and Haines, the author of the three books I was reading seemed to take real pleasure in portraying Northerners as rude loudmouthed Yankees who stupidly failed to understand that the Civil War was less about slavery and more about the loss of individual Southerners' rights. As a Midwesterner and an avid student of history, I found the author's attitude offensive, and I was put off by the internal dialogue of her main character when it repeatedly mirrored such snobbishness.

Have you ever read a book where the author seemed compelled to continually flex his or her "superiority complex" muscles? Did you put up with it for the sake of the story, or did you find yourself hurling the book into a convenient garbage can while forever banishing the author from your TBR list? Let me know how you handled such an issue. I'd be interested to hear your story.

******

Short Story Contest

2010-04-26T13:46:00.001-05:00

LOVE IS MURDER 2011 ANNOUNCES SHORT STORY CONTEST!
Here is an excellent opportunity for any unpublished authors of fiction to get a short story in a major crime-fiction magazine!

LOVE IS MURDER 2011 is sponsoring a contest—the winner will have his or her story published in CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE! The issue will be the one available concurrently with the Love is Murder Conference in February 4, 5, 6, 2011.

THE RULES—
Only those authors who have never published fiction in any medium are eligible.
The story must be in the crime, suspense, thriller, or horror genres.
Maximum word count—5000 words. No minimum.
Manuscript must be double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, page numbered, with cover sheet that includes your name and contact information (especially e-mail).
Put the TITLE at the top of page 1 or in the header (after the cover sheet) but do not put the author’s name or contact info on any page except the cover page. The judges will not know who wrote the stories.
Three copies of the manuscript must be mailed to—
Susan Gibberman
Love is Murder Short Story Submissions
Schaumburg Township District Library
130 S. Roselle Road
Schaumburg, IL 60193
Deadline for entry—submissions must be postmarked no later than July 16, 2010.

The winner will be determined/announced in November 2010.

Good luck!

Love Is Murder

2010-04-08T13:34:00.005-05:00

BIGGER, BETTER, BACK!!

I am so excited to report that Love Is Murder is returning to the Chicagoland area next year. Considered by many to be the Midwest's premier mystery con for fans and writers alike, LIM will take place February 4-6, 2011, at the Intercontinental Chicago O'Hare Hotel. This 12th edition of LIM looks to be the best yet with SIX featured guest authors plus a special Local Guest of Honor. There's lots to be said about this upcoming LIM, so much so that instead of trying to pack it all in here, I'm simply going to copy some of what Ophelia Julien wrote in the first issue of "The Official LOVE IS MURDER Newsletter".

"Greetings, all you Love is Murder-ites! Long time, no see! You've all waited so patiently (well, maybe not some of you, but we like your enthusiasm!), we're very happy to tell you that plans for the Love is Murder 2011 are in full swing. If you haven't seen the new website, it is now up and running. Please, please, please, stop in at www.loveismurder.net and check out our impressive list of headliners, all six of them! Pore over our list of events and activities and plan on joining us! And then register! Right away!

"Our stellar list of authors includes Rhys Bowen, Joseph Finder, Caroline Haines, Joan Johnston, Jon Land, and F. Paul Wilson, as well as local guest of honor, Michael Allen Dymmoch. There will be two Master Classes, and Pitch-a-Palooza is back by popular demand, so get those manuscripts polished and ready.

"We are also having our first-ever short story writing contest! If you have never published in any medium, this could be your ticket to breaking into print. All rules and details are at the web site under "Events." If you're serious about entering, don't delay. Entries must be postmarked by July 16, 2010 to give our judges a chance to read them and pick a winner. The winning entry will be announced at the conference, and will also be published in the February, 2011 issue of CrimeSpree Magazine so start writing!"

I will be writing more about Love Is Murder in the days ahead, but if you'd like to receive the monthly LOVE IS MURDER Newsletter, please email "subscribe" to LoveIsMurderNews@gmail.com, OR sign up for the newsletter on the left hand side of the Love Is Murder website opening page.

Hope to see you at Love Is Murder!

*********

Creating Credible Characters

2010-04-06T12:59:00.006-05:00

When interviewed by Mary Buckham and Dianna Love for BreakIntoFiction.com, author Jane Porter had this to say about the craft of writing: “Great fiction requires great characters. Avoid stereotypes!”

That’s exactly what I tried to do when I created Dr. Ben Benjamin for the short story “Hickory, Dickory, Doc”. Given the plot and the setting, my veterinarian needed to be both an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’– someone who was part of the Maryland horse country crowd, but didn’t wholly belong to it — in order to be a realistic protagonist for this particular story. I also needed his status to be obvious from the start.

To accomplish this, I began my tale by introducing Ben in company with Lawrence Wainsworth III. The very name ‘Lawrence Wainsworth III’ conjures up images of landed gentry and old money. Toss in the fact that he owns a blue ribbon-winning horse named King Tut and you can pretty much figure good old Lawrence isn’t worriedabout where his next meal is coming from.

Ben is totally unlike Wainsworth when it comes to social status and monetary worth. Rather than describe the difference through a lot of background narrative, I chose to let Ben explain his position in the community in two brief but telling sentences. His comments are in response to Wainsworth’s description of an argument that occurred during a chic party at the local country club.

“Who was I to doubt Larry’s story? He’d been a ringside witness to the main event, while I, Dr. Ben Benjamin, youthful veterinarian to some of the most pampered horses in the state of Maryland, hadn’t even been invited to the Hunt Club Ball.”

Ben’s social standing is now clearly delineated for the reader; he may walk and talk with the rich and powerful, but the young vet is still considered by them to be a servant, albeit an educated one. Ben’s financial condition is likewise revealed in his own words when Wainsworth asks a favor of him.

“I hesitated only a second. Lawrence Wainsworth III was a good guy. He was also a very wealthy man. Visions of unpaid student loans danced in my head as I screwed on a smile and replied, ‘Sure, Larry.’ ”

Creating credible characters is always a challenge. Often, the best way to answer that challenge is by letting the characters speak for themselves.

*****

"Hickory, Dickory, Doc" is available as an ebook download at the ridiculously low price of $2.00 at http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b77000/Hickory-Dickory-Doc/Mary-Welk/?si=0

Try it! You'll like it! :)

*****

YA Author Kieryn Nicolas Debuts with RAIN

2010-02-20T10:16:00.007-06:00

When Echelon Press publisher Karen Syed approached me last year with a request that I edit a YA spy novel for the company, I almost turned her down. It wasn't the subject matter that I objected to -- I'd edited YA novels before, and like those, this one was a mystery -- but the age of the author I'd be working with. Kieryn Nicolas was a high school freshman, a girl barely in her teens, for goodness sake! What could she possibly know about writing??

Quite a bit, I discovered when I finally took a look at her manuscript. Oh, sure. Kieryn made the usual newbie mistakes with her novel: too many ...'s and --'s and some chapters that ran on forever. But those were easily correctible problems. What impressed me about Kieryn's writing was her ability to create several distinctly different characters that I could care about. I saw her protagonist mature over the course of the story, changing from an up-tight child who equated emotion with weakness to a young woman who was aware of her own failings and vulnerability.

Kieryn was a delight to work with. Helping her shape RAIN into a publishable manuscript was an enjoyable experience. I'm happy to say that her novel is now available in ebook format and will be released in print later this year. I'm also happy to have Kieryn guest blogging here today. A former competitive figure skater, Kieryn sees an analogy between skating and writing and tells us why in

SKATING, WRITING, AND MOTIVATION
by Kieryn Nicolas

Writing a novel is like landing your first axel.

Okay, terminology first. No, this axel is not that little rod thing between two wheels. This axel is the epitome of all figure skating jumps. In figure skating, the axel—or double axel—or, if you’re superman/woman, triple axel—is a milestone jump. The regular axel is the jump skaters learn right before they start learning doubles, and the other axels are taught in the same pattern. Once you have landed an axel, your skating career has become a lot more intense.

It’s a similar story with writing and finishing a novel. It will take a while to complete a rough draft. The rough draft is what equates to the first time you land an axel, which will have taken, on average, about a year of work. The first axel you land will come out of the blue. Slowly you’ll blink, and realize that, while the jump was shaky and lacked power, you did not end up on your butt. The same feeling of shock and awe washes over you when you type the last word of your rough draft. Really? I landed it? becomes, Really? I finished it?

Of course, just like a rough draft is far from “done”, your first axel is far from competition worthy. During the “revision process” you start to become more consistent in landing the jump, and gain necessary power. In the writing stage, this is when you are working through plot kinks and inconsistencies.

Once your axel is consistent and powerful enough, you will start to use it. This means it will now be in your competition program, for everyone to watch and judge. In the novel process, this is when you send your work out for feedback. That also means more hard work, more revision, more hours of axel repetitions and attempts with combinations and tweaking of the plot.

Then comes the point when you realize you now “have” an axel. It is consistent, it is powerful, and it is usable. In the parallel, your novel is complete, revised, and ready. In skating this is when you move on to double jumps and beyond, using your axel knowledge. I have found that completing your first novel—or your first novel that you and others actually like—is key in motivating you to write more.

And that is exactly what I plan to do!

www.kierynnicolas.com
www.kierynnicolas.blogspot.com

Rain is available from Echelon Press at
http://www.echelonpress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=239

Rain is available from Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=kieryn+nicolas&sprefix=kieryn+ni

*****

The Marvelous Marlis Day

2010-02-15T13:15:00.008-06:00

I'd like to introduce you to a fantastic woman, a fine mystery writer, and -- I'm happy to say -- a good friend of mine, Marlis Day.

Marlis and I first met back in October, 2000 when we shared a table at a book fair in Peoria, Illinois. I'd driven down from Chicago that morning, and Marlis had come up for the day from southern Indiana. She was a teacher living in a rural area of the state; I was a nurse from a large city. One would have thought that the only thing we had in common was our love of mysteries and our desire to write them.

But as we sat there getting to know each other, we discovered we had a lot more in common than just books. Our roles as wives and mothers were similar despite the distance between us.

We also shared the same Midwestern values when it came to putting family first and self second: both of us had put our writing on hold while doing all the "mom" things that came hand in hand with raising children. I guess you could say we were late bloomers, but we sure were enjoying our new roles as published authors, Marlis with her first book and I with my third.

Now, ten years later, Marlis has two mystery series under her belt, one for adults and one for children. I'm happy to say she's here today to share with you her thoughts on writing.

"Why I Write"

by Marlis Day

If you really want to write, it will gnaw at you until you do it. It’s a calling, a need to express yourself, a deep desire to share your thoughts.

As soon as I developed the skills to write sentences and paragraphs, I began writing letters to friends, relatives, & pen pals. I was in the fourth grade. Later, as my life became more interesting, I entered essay contests at school and wrote articles for the school newspaper. When I began my teaching career in Chicago at the age of twenty, I wrote plays for my students and sent lengthy narratives home to my family. I loved doing it; it fed some deep inner need in me.

During those busy years of being a stay-at-home mom and then a working mom, it was difficult to find time to write. But I thought, and imagined, and recorded life experiences. I was forever plagued with the “what-ifs.” Since I emerged from a family of storytellers, plots formed and developed in my mind – stories begging to be told. I worked and waited. I read good books and noted how authors expressed themselves.

When the kids left home for college and the dust settled, I purchased my first computer and learned word processing. How refreshing to be able to create and delete, to let stories flow from my fingertips. I used my newly-found freedom to write articles and short stories, which I sold to magazines. I wept when I received my first check ($150.) for doing what I loved.

A few years later, I began my first book. I have never been more intense than when I wrote WHY JOHNNY DIED. My mind traveled to the fictional town and dealt daily with the host of characters I had created. What fun to determine the weather, settle scores, and kill off the bad guys at will. When it was published in 1999, I felt a love and pride surpassed only by my wedding day and the birth of my children. I now have four books in print and a fifth one scheduled for release later this year, but none of the others sent my spirit soaring like the first one. Interestingly, it’s still my best-selling book. Why do I write? How can I not?

*******

SnowQuake 2010!

2010-02-11T16:57:00.011-06:00

Okay, I admit my Chicago neighborhood only got 12.7 inches of snow this week, not 45 inches like in Washington, D.C. I'll even agree that our storm wasn't as spectacular as the one that hit the East Coast. Nevertheless, 12 inches is still a lot of snow, especially when it's the heavy wet kind that clogs up your snowblower, leaving you to tackle the driveway with only a shovel. Just check out this picture of my back yard as proof of that.
What made our storm unique was that it was accompanied by an earthquake early Wednesday morning. Oh, sure. It wasn't a HUGE earthquake; the U.S. Geological Survey first rated it as a 4.3 magnitude quake, then downsized it to 3.8 magnitude. But it woke my daughter and rattled the knick-knacks on the shelves in her bedroom. Three suburbs to the west of us, it also woke my son and his wife.
Because it's almost impossible to wake me once I'm asleep, I missed out on all the action. I needn't have worried, though. My husband -- aka, Mr. Weather Channel Addict Supreme -- happily informed me of the big event even before my feet hit the bedroom floor. "How nice," I mumbled sleepily as I stumbled off to the kitchen in search of my morning cup of Coke.
I confess that news of the quake barely registered in my brain; unlike Fred, who wakes every morning with a smile on his face, a song in his heart, and a weather report on his lips, it takes me a good half hour to go from "leave-me-alone" grouchiness to "somewhat-civilized-won't-bite-your-head-off" human being. As a result, it wasn't until hours later while shoveling snow alongside my husband that I learned from my neighbors how SIGNIFICANT and EXCITING this earthquake really was.

"You're kidding me," I said. "I mean, it wasn't all that...that...BIG!"

"But it's only the third one in this part of Illinois in the past ten years!" my neighbor gushed.

"Thank goodness no one was hurt," said another neighbor solemnly.

"It was only 3.8 magnitude!" I said in exasperation. "A quake that small, I doubt any injuries would occur."

"You never know," the first neighbor said darkly. "I once knew a guy who broke his neck just rolling off a bed. We were lucky this time, but the next quake could be bigger. That's why you should always be prepared. You just never know."

And I guess he's right: you never know. So just in case I miss Illinois' next earthquake -- which I will if it happens again at night -- I'm going to commemorate this one in a special way.

I'm going to have a T-shirt made that reads "I SLEPT THROUGH THE SNOWQUAKE OF 2010".

*****

Say It Ain't Snow, Joe!

2010-02-08T20:59:00.008-06:00

Greetings from snowy Chicago! This photo of my city's cloud-covered downtown area appeared on local forecaster Tom Skilling's weather blog the last week in January. Between then and now, nothing's changed around here weather-wise. True, the sun did break through for about an hour on the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday. Other than that, though, the sky's been a flat wash of gray all of February.

And today it's snowing -- a wet, heavy, heart attack kind of snow that's not forecast to let up until tomorrow morning.

Now, I'm not complaining -- too much. We won't be getting the 30" that fell on parts of Pennsylvania and the East Coast states last week. But it's only 11 AM and already there's 4" of the white stuff on my front steps. Driving to work later today should be fun -- NOT!

Ah, well. I have my books to keep my mind off the snow. On the fiction side, I'm reading AND THE DYING IS EASY, an anthology of short mysteries edited by Joseph Pittman and Annette Riffle. My favorites so far? "Missing, Presumed..." by Dana Stabenow and "Jungle" by John Lantigua. Why? Beautiful use of logic and the English language to convey two great plots.

On the non-fiction side, I'm reading AMERICAN-MADE: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put the Nation to Work. Historian Nick Taylor presents a fascinating account of the WPA and the men in government who made it work to change millions of lives during the Great Depression. Given our present economic woes, I recommend it as mandatory reading for the President and every single member of Congress.

Hope you all have books as good as these to make your February snow days more bearable!

*****

What's Wrong With This Picture?

2010-01-14T01:15:00.006-06:00

Okay, people. You tell me what’s wrong with this picture.

First, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hits the island of Haiti on Tuesday, effectively destroying the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Brick and concrete buildings lacking rebar reinforcement tumble to the ground, trapping thousands of people in the ensuing rubble. The presidential palace collapses along with the parliament building. Haitian President René Préval escapes fairly unscathed, but many of Haiti’s legislators, along with hundreds of government workers, are buried in the wreckage.

Everywhere you look, the story is the same. Schools filled with children lay in ruins throughout the city. Five-story hotels are reduced to leaning piles of stone while stores are flattened like pancakes. Most tragically of all, hospitals are destroyed or so badly damaged that they are unsafe for use.

By nightfall, the city is in chaos. There is no electricity, but people continue working madly to rescue survivors trapped in fallen buildings. Doctors from Doctors Without Borders set up triage and treatment areas on land free of rubble. The Red Cross works with them, but quickly runs out of medicine and supplies to treat the wounded. People huddle in the streets, afraid to return to damaged homes. Many of them settle down to sleep wherever they can find room under the stars.

And then morning comes, and with it a promise of aid from the United Nations. International rescue and relief teams mobilize as Venezuela, Mexico, France and Italy commit rescue workers, medical supplies, drinking water, and canned foods to Haiti. Here at home, President Obama pledges the full help of the United States, saying, "Haitians are our neighbors in the Americas and at home. We have to be there for them in their hour of need."

So far, so good. Several nations are already responding to the crisis, and more help is being sought by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. In the U.S., concerned citizens are digging deep into their pockets and, like Americans always do in times of trouble, they are donating money to relief organizations like the Red Cross, CARE, and Doctors Without Borders.

But now the other shoe drops. The spreaders of hate, the nay-sayers and complainers, and the religious bigots of the world thrust their ugly mugs in front of microphones to spew out their messages of divisive intolerance.

And this is where the picture goes wrong.

Taking a lead role in the “quick lip” action is college dropout, admitted drug addict, and convicted felon Rush Limbaugh. Born with a glib tongue, Limbaugh is a self-made millionaire who earns his money by using the radio waves to make fun of anyone whose political opinions differ from his. He is adept at creating conflict, as when, in an attempt to undermine the 2008 Democratic primary campaigns, he asked listeners to cross political lines and vote for whichever Democrat was behind in the race. He called this effort to cause disunity in the Democratic Party "Operation Chaos". He subsequently said, "The dream end of [Operation Chaos] is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a recreation of Chicago 1968 with burning cars, protests, fire, and literal riots and all of that, that is the objective here."

As you can tell from the above, Limbaugh is not interested in promoting love and brotherhood. On the contrary, he thrives on the adulation of listeners who approve of his racial intolerance and socially disruptive discourse. Today this self-proclaimed voice of American conservatism pandered to his followers by chiding President Obama for his rapid response to the crisis in Haiti. Limbaugh indignantly claimed it took three days for the President to make a formal statement to the nation concerning Umar Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up an airplane, but less than one day for Obama to pledge help to Haiti. He called Obama’s actions self-serving and said the administration will "use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the ... the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."

Apparently Mr. Limbaugh can’t accept the fact that it took two days for government officials – the FBI, CIA, etc. – to amass all the information needed for the President to form a rational and informed statement concerning Abdulmutallab’s ability to avoid the government’s “no fly” list. Limbaugh once said of Obama, “I hope he fails.” I guess he would have rather watched the President fail by making a quick and uninformed statement re Abdulmutallab.

As for Obama’s rapid response to the earthquake, I would have to guess that Mr. Limbaugh is unaware that there are 45,000 Americans currently living and working in Haiti. These Americans expect their government to respond quickly when they are in desperate need of help, and so it will. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made that quite clear today when she told reporters in Honolulu that American citizens in Haiti are "our principal responsibility." She said that the U.S. Coast Guard would use helicopters to evacuate Americans to ships outside Port-au-Prince. According to a later briefing in Washington, the evacuees so far included eight wounded members of the U.S. Embassy staff – four of whom were in serious condition – and approximately 80 family members and non-essential personnel from the Embassy. I expect many more Americans were evacuated after that briefing.

Given Mr. Limbaugh’s history of verbal indulgence in racial bigotry, it’s not difficult to understand why he would oppose swift support for the people of Haiti. They are, after all, black and poor. It's not likely they'll be lured by the promises of American conservatism, especially the type of conservatism espoused by Limbaugh.

It’s more difficult to understand the rantings of Pat Robertson, a man who claims to have dedicated his life to spreading the good news of God’s love. Today there was little mention of God’s love by the wealthy televangelist. Instead, Robertson told viewers of “The 700 Club” that he attributed the destruction left by the earthquake to past sins of the Haitian people. "They were under the heel of the French,” Robertson said. “And they got together and swore a pact with the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.' " He went on to say that decades of poverty, natural disasters, and political unrest in Haiti can all be traced back to this pact with the devil.

It would be kind to say that senility has reared its ugly head in the case of Pat Robertson. What else could account for him coming up with such an unprovable and ridiculous story? We know God didn’t whisper it in his ear, and I doubt he’s been speaking to any Haitians lately.

Unlike with Limbaugh (who is certainly in command of his mental faculties), one can despise what Robertson says, yet forgive the man for saying it if senility is the cause of his foolishness. But one wonders if everyone around the man is equally senile since they allow him to spout such nonsense on national television. If not senile, then they are either ignorant fools or greedy underlings eager to share the limelight – and the money – earned by their boss. They, then, are far worse than Robertson. They’re in Limbaugh’s league, consciously agreeable to doing or saying anything that will give them power through wealth.

Limbaugh and Robertson and others like them are what’s wrong with this entire picture. What’s right with it are all the caring citizens of the world who are offering help, directly or indirectly, to the people of Haiti.

Bigots and power seekers may command the air waves of America, but in the end, the voices of caring people will drown out the memory of their bitter words.

*******

Christmas in Chicago

2009-12-23T15:28:00.019-06:00

"I've got the lights upon the Christmas tree, I've got the candle lit for you and me..."

Those words are from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's CD, "The Christmas Attic". It's my favorite Christmas CD, and I'm listening to it as the snow falls outside while I write this post. Christmas is one day and a wake up call away. I should be making the fudge and wrapping the last presents. But my mind is elsewhere today. I've gone back in time to another Christmas season, one that occured 41 years ago. The Christmas tree was up then, too, and the presents were wrapped and waiting beneath its branches.

But I wasn't home to see any of this. Instead, I was in a hospital, having just given birth to our first child. Joseph Frederic came into the world at 3:30 PM, and what a Christmas present he was! Fred and I couldn't have been happier. So today I'm thinking about my oldest son Joe, who himself is now the father of four beautiful children.

That's a picture of Joe above, and to the left is a picture of two of his children, Ashley in the brown coat, Christopher in front, along with my daughter Sarah's daughter, Cinnamon Rose in the pink coat. Yesterday, Joe's wife Melissa and I took the three of them to the Chicago Botanical Gardens to see the Wonderland Express, a special exhibit featuring hand-made buildings made out of natural-only material -- twigs, leaves, flower pods, seed, etc. -- nestled in a living landscape of trees and plants and made more intriguing by twelve trains that run through and over the exhibit to the delight of the Garden's many visitors.

Before going into the exhibit, we visited the two indoor conservatories where the children were duly impressed by the cacti, the orchids, and the banana trees with their green bunches of fruit.

As you can see by the pictures, even the consevatories were decorated for the holidays, with large red glass balls interspersed among the plants and huge poinsettia balls hanging from the ceilings.

With many of the plants in bloom, it was a sight to remember. I've never grown an orchid, but the one shown here took my breath away. The giant allium plants were pretty impressive, too.

And then it was time to check out the gingerbread houses created especially for the holiday exhibit. They included a train station and tunnel, a fire house, apartment buildings flanking a toy shop and candy store, and several houses surrounded by snowmen and decorated pine trees.

Four Christmas trees decorated by various gardening groups occupied the corners of the gingerbread room that led to the Wonderland Express exhibit. Picured here is a cleverly constructed copy of Navy Pier backed by the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower, all of them part of the downtown Chicago part of the exhibit. Not shown is a much smaller version of the Chicago River flowing past the buildings.

This is another view of the downtown Chicago part of the exhibit with the Chicago Water Tower, one of the few buildings that survived the great fire of 1871 that destroyed so much of the city. Next to the Water Tower is the Harold Washington Library with its gorgeous rooftop decorations.

Next is a truly gorgeous replica of one of our many museums. Again, all these buildings were created by hand and took weeks to make. Each year a few new buildings are added to the exhibit. One of the new ones this year was a replica of President Obama's Kenwood home.

This picture shows a neighborhood of typical Chicago-style bungalows. The train running past the home is somewhat blurred, but you get the idea of how the trains were incorporated into the exhibit.

This is a close-up picture of the Harold Washington Library, named for Chicago late Mayor. This new library (well, it's not all that new -- it's been around for a few years) replaced the old downtown building as our main library. It's a fantastic piece of architecture.

Lastly, this is a replica of Soldier's Field, home of the Chicago Bears, before the recent renovation. This is the only building in the exhibit that comes with sound: the Bears' fight song plays in the background.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these pictures. The kids loved the trip, which means we'll all be back in spring when the tulips and daffodils are in bloom in the gardens and hopefully all the snow has melted away! I hope you're able to do some special things with your family this holiday season, too. For us, it was a fun way to help count down the days until Christmas. :)

******

When Life Throws You a Curve

2009-12-14T13:01:00.009-06:00

I last posted to this blog on Thanksgiving when I listed everything I was thankful for. Included on that list were my children and grandchildren, most of whom celebrated the holiday with my husband and I at our house.

Missing that day were daughter Jennifer, son-in-law Jay, and grandsons Dan and Zach. They had driven to Florida to celebrate the holiday with Jay's parents and weren't expected back in town until late Saturday evening. Nevertheless, Jen called on Thanksgiving, and since her birthday was the following day, Fred and I and the rest of the family sang a merry "Happy Birthday" to her over the phone. Hearing that all was well with them, I didn't expect to talk with Jen again until the following week when life for her family had returned to normal.

But the phone rang very early Sunday morning, and that was the end of normal for all of us.

It was Jenni on the line asking us to come as quickly as possible. Jay, a long-time Type 1 diabetic, was experiencing numbness on his left side. She was taking him to the hospital and needed us to stay at the house with the boys.

Having been a nurse for a long, long time, I knew in my heart as I drove the thirty miles to their home that my 43-year-old son-in-law had suffered a stroke. Waiting and praying for the best, while hiding my fears from 6-year-old Zack and 7-year-old Dan, was one of those awful things no mother wants to do. While waiting for a phone call from Jen at the hospital, I kept hoping my gut diagnosis would be proved wrong.

Unfortunately, I wasn't wrong. Jay's MRI showed he'd suffered two strokes, one sometime in the recent past and one overnight on Saturday. Known as lacunar strokes, they occured deep in the brain and were most likely the result of complications caused by his diabetes.

The good news is, Jay's strokes were sensory in nature. He is home now and has full use of his limbs. His speech was unaffected, and his mind is as clear as ever (which means his jokes are as corny as ever!). What he's experiencing now is a lack of normal sensation on the left side of his entire body. Instead, he has painful burning sensations in his arm and leg, and he cannot actually feel anything he touches with his hand or foot. His walking is improving with the use of a cane and daily physical therapy; he's getting accustomed to not feeling the floor under his foot as he walks.

It will be a long time before life seems "normal" again for Jenni and Jay. But faith and the support of family and friends is easing the way for them. The entire family will be celebrating Christmas at their house this year with Jen preparing the turkey and the rest of us bringing all the side dishes. It will be a happy Christmas this year because Jay is with us and the family is still intact. His strokes could have been much worse, and we're tremendously thankful they weren't.

We're also thankful because Jay's sense of humor is one thing he didn't lose. He may not like having to walk with a cane, but he enjoys swatting Jen with it whenever she walks by. (His latest prank -- removing all the towels from the bathroom while she was taking a shower -- earned him a swat from her in return!)

Jay's upbeat attitude combined with Jenni's courage has inspired all of us in the family. Life threw them -- and us -- a curve. We're not sure where that curve is leading us, but we're making the journey together. The way I see it, that's what family is all about.

I hope all of you reading this post will be as thankful for life as we are this year, regardless of the curves thrown at you by fate. May your Christmas be Christ-filled and merry, and may the Source of all life give you hope and peace.

******

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T11:27:00.007-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I'm thankful today for all that God's given me. I deserve none of it, have done nothing to earn it, yet I've received it all nonetheless.

I'm thankful first for life, every single day of it. I'm thankful to wake up and see sunlight or clouds, rain or snow, outside my window. I'm thankful that I can see the sunlight or clouds or rain or snow, that I have eyesight that may require glasses, but I have eyesight nonetheless. And I'm thankful that no matter what the weather is outside, I am inside, safe and secure and fortunate to be in my own home.

I'm thankful for family, my husband and children and grandchildren and sisters and brothers and cousins and friends who are my extended family. I'm thankful we are all still together, thankful for every day we can still see or speak with each other, thankful I can hear their voices and still have a mind that remembers their names.

I'm thankful for colors that make the world around me bright and varied. I'm thankful for the natural world that gives me such pleasure, for the mountains I've seen and the rocky hills I've climbed, for the lakes and rivers I've dipped a toe in, for the trees and flowers that amaze me with their variety.

I'm thankful for sunrises and sunsets and sharing them with people I love. I'm thankful for the stars and the moon at night and the wonder of the galaxy of which I'm a part. I'm thankful for sandy beaches and backyard gardens and fields of corn and wheat and sunflowers.

I'm thankful for the good and the bad that's happened in my life. I've learned from both and grown because of it.

I'm thankful for mercy and compassion and laughter and tears. I've needed them all and shared them all.

I'm thankful for science and medicine, how it worked together to save my granddaughter. I'm thankful for education that made it all possible. And I'm thankful for all the people who give of themselves to make life better for the rest of us.

Most of all today, I'm thankful that I have faith in a God who created me and all that is around me. I'm thankful that while I often question the unanswerable, I still believe in the Source.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. May we be thankful every day of our lives and not just on this holiday.

*******

Fun Friday the 13th!

2009-11-13T12:23:00.015-06:00

Welcome to Fun Friday the 13th on Cicero's Children! It's time to have some fun with weird news stories I've collected from around the world. These first two news bit were sent to me by my son Matt. I can't verify the accuracy of the reports, but true or not, they have to make you shake your head in wonder.

From Matt: Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany. Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless protesters were trampled to death.

And: The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska a few years back was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.

This story comes from my own home state. The Kane County, Illinois Sheriff's Department orders plain white patrol units and has the graphics applied locally.
In this case, what they ordered was not quite what they got. This car was driven for one week before an officer noticed what the graphics company employee did on the passenger side of the car. The employee did this on his last day working for the graphics company before he retired.

As I always say, better retired than fired!

Worried about the swine flu?? So is my daughter-in-law Cheryl. She sent me this picture showing how she's making sure my grandson Christian is safe even at home.

Can't recall who sent me the following classified ads, but they tickled my funnybone. Hope they do the same for yours. These ads actually ran in newspapers.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER
8-years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FREE PUPPIES..
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG.
Looks like a rat. Been out a while.
Better be a big reward.

Google Street View is responsible for documenting this sign discovered along a road in Vancouver, Canada. Apparently there's an outbreak of Elephantitis among the deer population there. I feel sorry for the poor critters, but even sorrier for the driver who happens to hit one! Be careful on the roads, all you Canadians!

Talk about weird stories! This one takes the cake. A 22-year-old Norwegian citizen was arrested for smuggling in Kristiansand, Norway after arriving from Denmark with 14 royal pythons and 10 albino leopard geckos hidden under his clothes. The pythons were hidden in stockings duct-taped to the guy's abdomen, and the geckos were in boxes taped to his thighs. A tarantula was also found in one of his bags.

Did he really think he could get away with it???

Well, that's all the weird news for today. Fun Friday returns next week with more strange and wonderful stories. Until then, if you have a weird news item you'd like to see posted on Fun Friday, email it to me at kleworks@aol.com. Fun Fridays will run until the week before Christmas when YOU the reader get to vote on the best story. The sender of that story will receive a free copy of my Christmas mystery, A MERRY LITTLE MURDER. Until Monday, have a great weekend!

*******

Barbara DeShong (cont'd)

2009-11-11T09:26:00.006-06:00

Welcome back to Cicero's Children where Barbara DeShong is our featured guest today. On Monday, Barbara began telling us how she started on the path to publiction. Today she's finishing up what's turned out to be quite a unique story. At the close of Barb's blog I'll be providing a review of her book, TOO RICH AND TOO THIN: NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I hope you enjoy Barb's blog and the review.

****

"Extreme Writing for Publication"

Phase two of Extreme Writing for Publication involved submitting work at conferences where pre-conference reads were available. This was a very important element as these conferences provide a wide variety of views on the quality of writing and marketability of work. The temptation (and I did this in spades) is to want to only submit work at pre-read conferences to agents—as a way to maybe be accepted as a client. While this can happen, often pre-reads by non-agents can be really helpful. Pre-read results can also be discouraging, in fact, if you pony up the effort, discouragement is to be expected.

The next step after I had a completed and edited manuscript, was to put together the dreaded synopsis and gasp—a pitch. As I’ve learned is often the case, when I sat down to write a synopsis, I would be gripped by an attack of what is best described as ‘situational retardation’. My sentences made no sense and my attempts came out as ‘kitchen sink’ paragraphs or over-generalized, meaningless clichés. Having benefited from my conference-going fury, I returned to the Net and signed up for a couple of New York Pitch and Shop weekends.

When I gave my first three-minute pitch, the moderator said, “I have absolutely no idea what you are even talking about.” I took his suggestion and spent lunch in my hotel room redoing the pitch. The workshops focused on ‘pitch’ were very helpful and meeting at the Greer Studios was a real kick. Not all the benefits of conferences were inside meetings. Each one offered chances to talk with other people from all over the country doing the same sort of projects. Those of us suffering and learning in the pitch workshops put together on-going email groups.

The last step of Extreme Writing was taking my pitch on the road to conferences with agent and editor feedback. I met Karen Syed at a Southern California Writers Conference…I know…where I started by walking into that hotel by accident…and Echelon bought and published “Too Rich and Too Thin, Not an Autobiography.”

I know not everyone has the time or ability to do all the travelling I did, and I don’t think it’s necessary. Since I’ve calmed down, I’ve discovered programs in my own area covering the same topics I flew across the country to attend. My decision to seek help outside the state is more the result of my wanting to accomplish a lot in a short period of time.

My goal in writing this is to speak to others who don’t have twenty years to get published. The way I see it, you can speed things up if you make a plan and go at it in a concentrated and relentless way. Relentless means not allocating time to dawdling away years in a snit after a deluge of rejections. The main thing I learned was I needed to learn to write, but even more I needed to learn to listen, even when what I heard and still hear is painful. After all, I’d like it so much better if I already knew everything.

But then, you’d think I would have stayed with just one profession. If you’ve read this far, you have the urge to write, too. And what a fabulous way to go. For me, since I was a kid, books carried me away. And what a privilege to write. I remember a line from the film about Virginia Woolf (paraphrased) when one of Virginia’s sisters remarks, “Virginia is lucky. She has two worlds to live in. The one’s she’s actually living and the one she is writing.”
So, there you go.

Barbara DeShong
Mysteryshrink.com

****

A Review by Mary Welk of TOO RICH AND TOO THIN: NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Psychologist Jessica LeFave is not high on the "Favorote Persons" list of her local Texas police department. Ever since her husband's car was dragged out of Lake Austin -- with her dead husband in it -- Jessica has been insisting that the police investigate what she claims is his murder. The cops think otherwise, calling the death an unfortunate accident and pointing to a Hilton hotel receipt and another woman's wedding ring found in his pocket as proof that he was cheating on Jessica.

"Bull!" says Jessica. Convinced that her husband -- also a psychologist -- was killed in order to bury a secret revealed in therapy, Jessica begins investigating his former patients. Luck smiles on her when the cops reluctantly ask her to profile the killer of Bernice Jackson, a wealthy Texan who twisted known historical events into outrageous melodramas for her soft-porn romance novels and films. It's not a secret that Bernice was hated by historical anti-revisionists, but could an outsider sneak into a gala party held at Bernice's mansion and lure her into her mirrored bedroom in order to drive a spike through her heart? Pretty doubtful say the cops, and Jessica agrees. It's more likely that a family member or one of the actors at the party did it. But the question is, why?

Jessica begins her own investigation when she discovers that her husband was counseling Bernice Jackson at the time of his death. Jessica drags her old friend George Ramsdale into her quest for justice. A lawyer who's more concerned about his new car's interior/exterior color combination than his practice, George agrees to drive Jessica to a remote town near the Mexican border in search of answers. With George busy oogling the local beauties (human and female only), Jessica must make nice with Bernice's drug-seeking son, her binge-eating daughter, a passel of actors and hanger-oners, plus the resident motorcycle gang, while at the same time winning the confidence of the only man who can lead her to the truth.

Texas may never be the same now that Barbara DeShong hit the writing scene. Psychotics abound in this humorous and nicely plotted mystery featuring gutsy Dr. Jessica LeFave and her off-the-wall buddy George. A sprinkling of red herrings may throw the most avid armchair detective off the track, but the ending is both logical and satisfying in this series debut. Amateur sleuth fans will look forward to more mysteries by DeShong after reading this fun and action-filled adventure. I give the book five stars for originality, characterization, and a setting that can't be beat.

****

Barbara DeShong's Extreme Writing

2009-11-08T23:41:00.007-06:00

I'm thrilled to have Barbara DeShong as my guest blogger today. Barb is the author of the humorous mystery TOO RICH AND TOO THIN: NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. A psychologist in private practice and consulting in Texas, Barb previously wrote a book on stress that led to speaking engagements both in her home state and across the country. Following the publication of that book, she exchanged the insanity and long hours of the writing world for the insanity and broken bones of showing horses. She credits her current writing style to having unexpectedly dismounted and landed on her head too many times without a helmet.

A blend of doing psychotherapy and writing humorous fiction is a perfect fit for Barb since she loves stories and is constitutionally incapable of staying out of other people’s business. Today she's going to share some thoughts with us on her writing style, or what she calls "Extreme Writing for Publication".

****

What kind of crazy person trades in a two hundred dollar an hour indoor profession with all sorts of ego-patting perks for an occupation requiring infinite unpaid work hours and multileveled rejection?

A writer. My spiral into the writing world began when strolling through Old Town in San Diego a few years back, I stuck my head into the lobby of a hotel hosting the Southern California Writers Conference. In the sort of whimsical mood that comes with February sunshine in Southern California, I strolled up to the conference registration table. When the smiling woman asked if I was registered, I laughed, coyly.

“Oh, no. I’ve thought about writing fiction…maybe I will once I retire.”

“Don’t wait. Start now,” the woman said, looking straight into my eyes. (Those Southern Californians are stronger than the rest of us. It’s the freeway experience.)

“Who knows?” I said, slipping a brochure for the next conference in my jeans pocket. Any excuse to come to San Diego in February, right?

I should explain why I was more than naïve about what was required to complete a readable work of fiction and why I was oblivious to the perils of selling a novel. I wrote and sold a successful nonfiction on the heels of graduate school. The process was as follows: After presenting a workshop in New York, an editor from a respectable publishing company asked me to submit a proposal on my workshop topic. I did, they bought it, sent me a fat advance, and I wrote. Every month the editor flew to Texas to consult with me on how it was going. The book came out, the checks came in, and I received invitations to speak around the nation.

Here’s the place where you laugh. I really believed getting a novel published would be the same sort of enterprise. I know, I know. And, perhaps, had I’d kept my coy smile and thoughts of writing until I was too old to actually try, I would be one more professional, like the many you’ve met, who smiles knowingly on hearing of your writing struggles…then says, “I’m thinking I should write a novel…maybe later when I have more time.”

Discovering my view of the profession was, shall we say, a bit off the mark, I set out to learn two things: how to write fiction and how to get published.

Though I’d written many professional pieces, I did not know enough about writing fiction to complete even the most common sort of fictional piece—an auto insurance commercial. I was informed of my deficits by my kind English professor brother-in-law who, bless his heart, actually read every word of my 170,000 confessional manuscript. We met for breakfast and I handed him the four-inch stack of brilliance. Tell you what kind of guy he is, he didn’t even cry. At least not until he was out of eyesight.

I waited, heart-pounding, for return of the manuscript…which I was sure needed a few, tiny corrections and maybe neatening of a couple of chapter endings. Okay, you can laugh here, too. Brother-in-law returned the manuscript at another breakfast meeting and I should have noticed he was staring at his coffee instead of looking me in the eye. On the cover page, he’d summarized his thoughts. The first sentence went thusly: “First, dear sister-in-law of mine, (‘dear’, that means trouble ahead) let me congratulate you on your courage and discipline…”

Yep. You’ve got the picture. That first paragraph ended with a hint that I might want to take a few classes on creative writing. Me? Classes?

Having gone through undergrad as pre-med with a biology major, I hadn’t taken an English course since high school. But, I’d taught psychology and had some neat ideas. I hope you’re giggling here at my folly, because I deserve it.

By the way, I’ve never gone back and re-worked that first manuscript because it just isn’t that good. I’d read over and over, as you have, that the first ‘novel’ written is often never publishable. When you’re writing that first novel, the very thought that the pages you are grinding out with drops of blood oozing out of your forehead…are going to end up on a shelf…is enough to make you want to stalk the author who even suggested such a travesty…that you are sitting there all those hours doing the best you can…and your plans for the work are never to be.

Thus, reality a bit closer, I decided to launch ‘Extreme Writing for Publication’. That is, since I was approaching the retirement I’d talked to the Southern Californian woman so cavalierly about, I knew I did not have time to go back for a creative writing degree or even to play around going to one or two local conferences. I needed to sink myself in the project.

Extreme Writing for Publication had several phases. Phase one was finding an editor I could listen to without threatening to jump out of tall buildings. I presented my plan to the nice lady in San Diego and she agreed to give it a go. I need to say, because I’ve since learned my experience might be unusual, the editor, Jean Jenkins, refused to accept a cent. That’s right. She thought the project sounded like something she’d like to work on and we hit it off.

With an editor who was willing to join my efforts, I launched stage two of Extreme Writing for Publication. I signed up for six Writing Conferences for the following year. I realize not everyone can afford that many trips, but I was seeing the project as consolidating ten years of conference going. I learned a tremendous amount, including that some conferences were more useful than others and that conferences vary in what is offered from ‘boot camps’ focused on hard-nosed all-day writing to ‘overviews of basics’, to conferences with inspiring speakers. If there’s an interest, I’ll make another entry on conference experiences.

The conference going stage of my process also included book-buying and movie elements. I bought around twenty books on fiction writing and studied like crazy. As with conferences, some were more helpful than others. The movie-going aspect had two parts. One, I went to several movies a week, good and bad, to learn how to follow story lines, highs and lows. Second I picked a few movies which I saw multiple times in the same week. Multiple views provided a way to see different elements of the story line. I saw “The Quiet American” daily for six days, taking something new away with each viewing.

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Barb will return on Wednesday with "Phase Two" of "Extreme Writing for Publication". I hope you will join us then for the rest of this delightful blog post and a review of TOO RICH AND TOO THIN: NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Barbara DeShong. Until then, click on the title of this blog to read about TOO RICH AND TOO THIN at Amazon.com.

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Old Friends, School Reunions, and Books

2009-11-04T19:21:00.012-06:00

If you were writing the story of your life, how would you recall your school days? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Wish you could live them all over again?

For me, grade school was great until the end of sixth grade. That's when my family moved to a new home and I ended up in a dying little academy school with nine other girls as classmates. I say dying because the school was closing down, so two grades -- 7th and 8th -- shared one room with about ten girls in each grade. Seventh and eighth grade were the worst years of my life. I was not in the "in" group, the "Big Six" who were the "cool" kids, and I didn't have much in common with the other three girls in the "out" group. Worst of all, I was of German heritage, and this was a Polish school with Polish teachers and mainly kids of Polish descent. You would have thought I'd started World War II all by myself the way my 7th grade teacher acted. She related every atrocity ever commiteed by the Nazis against the Polish people on a daily basis while my classmates pointedly stared at me. It was a hellish year, and 8th grade wasn't much better.

I hated every minute of those two years and was sooooo glad when graduation finally arrived and I could make some real friends in the larger high school setting. Like most teens, I had my ups and downs in high school. It wasn't my favorite place to be, but I did survive and I got a good education while doing so. It wasn't until I started nursing school at St. Anne's Hospital that I discovered what a joy school could be. Not only were the classes fascinating, but my classmates became my closest and dearest friends. I count the years I spent with them as some of the best in my life.

Ten days ago some of us who graduated together from St. Anne's met for lunch in a nearby Chicago suburb. That's a picture of us at the top of this page. (I'm in the red jacket in the back row.) Barb (third from the left) brought her old school uniform along, and we had a ball recounting how cool we all felt the first time we wore them in the hospital. Barb hadn't realized it, but her nursing cap was balled up in the sleeve of the uniform. That's it hanging atop the uniform in this picture, not as good looking as when it was starched and pinned to fit, but the real thing nevertheless. Back then we used to wet them down with starch, plaster them on the window to dry, and once they were stiff as a board, we'd iron and fold them to fit, then apply our black ribbons (one ribbon for a junior, two for a senior) to the right side edge of the cap. Some girls pinned the ribbons in place. Those of us who were more creative used toothpaste to glue them in place. Amazingly, the toothpaste held really well and didn't leave a mark like pins did.

I have so many fond memories of my years at St. Anne's. Not only did I make some lifelong friends there, but it's also the place where I met my future husband. (No, he wasn't a patient; he was my best friend's boyfriend's best friend, or, to put it more simply, Sue was dating Rich and Fred was Rich's best buddy.) It seemed only natural when I began writing A MERRY LITTLE MURDER to name the fictional hospital in the book after my old stomping grounds. My protagonist, Caroline Rhodes, is an ER nurse at the fictional St. Anne's who moonlights as a house mother in the nursing dorm. I patterned the domitory after the dorm I lived in while in nursing school so many years ago. Like so many community hospitals, the real St. Anne's closed in the 1980's when fiscal mismanagement of the Medicare/Medicaid program by the Reagan administration left payments to hospitals in arrears by 9-12 months. In short, St. Anne's went broke. That's one thing I don't have to worry about with my fictional hospital. Since it's purely a product of my imagination, I can have it stay solvent forever. Another difference between the real and the fictional St. Anne's is this: no one was ever murdered at the real St. Anne's. In A MERRY LITTLE MURDER, I kill off seven people in the very first chapter. The fun part for the reader is trying to figure out which of the seven was the actual intended victim. Until you know that, you can't guess who the murderer is.

As you can guess by the cover, this is a winter holiday mystery complete with snowstorms and Christmas trees. If you'd like to read the first chapter of A MERRY LITTLE MURDER, you can find it at my website at www.myspace.com/marywelk. (Hint, hint: it makes a great holiday gift for the mystery fan in your life.)

Thanks for stopping by. Next week I'll be featuring Barbara DeShong as my guest blogger. A Texan who gave up a successful career as a practicing psychologist to write mysteries with a dash of humor, Barb is the author of TOO RICH AND TOO THIN: NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I absolutely loved this book and I know you will, too. Stop by if you can on Monday to chat with Barb. Being a Texan, Barb may carry a concealed weapon, but I promise you, she won't do anything more dangerous than tickle your funny bone with her great blog entitled "Extreme Writing for Publication".

Until then, have a great weekend!

*****

Nick Valentino and THOMAS RILEY

2009-11-01T21:13:00.008-06:00

It's Monday, and that means it's Guest Blogger Day here at Cicero's Children. My guest today is Nick Valentino, author of the just-released novel, THOMAS RILEY. Nick hails from Nashville, TN. He's an ex-band member and music lover, a hockey and roller derby fan, and a confirmed beer nerd who regularly writes reviews of favorite brews. (Sam Adams Boston Lager received a 4.8 mugs rating from Nick.) He's here today to tell us about his book and explain the term "Steampunk" as it relates to his writing. And so.... Take it away, Nick!

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Many many thanks to Mary for hosting me today. This is my ninth stop on the old blog tour and it couldn’t be going any better. My novel, Thomas Riley, was just published by Echelon Press and came out Friday October 23rd. When writing blogs I usually follow up with ‘It’s a Steampunk novel’. The following question is ALWAYS, well, what is Steampunk? Another way to look at the genre is through the eyes of alternative history. Take the Victorian era, but make science evolve about one hundred years. What’s the trick? Well, you can’t use a lot of electricity or fossil fuels. Take those pretty much out of the equation and replace them with steam power. The cars, planes, blimps, and even guns are powered with steam. Anything you can imagine just power it by steam and that in effect is Steampunk.

So now that we have that weird little word defined, let’s move on to what are some basic elements of a Steampunk story. I will digress for a moment. If you’ve been to a writers conference you will learn 1) that there are very strict rules to everything in writing. Grammar, punctuation, dialog, well everything is rigidly monitored, scrutinized and critiqued. 2) You will then learn that as long as you break those rules with style, attitude, a powerful voice and a darn good story, then the sky’s the limit. (See Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Road” for a perfect example.) My point is Steampunk really has no limits. It’s what makes it fun to read and write. Steampunk spans from high flying adventure to Victorian romance, from space exploration to deep sea treasure hunts. Really the limits of the genre are pretty nonexistent.

An important rule that Steampunk breaks is the strength of women in a Victorian era setting. In Thomas Riley, the women often have jobs, responsibilities and strengths that were not necessarily available to them in true Victorian times. Cynthia Basset, Thomas’ assistant breaks many of the social standards of the day by commanding an equal and sometimes more important voice. All the women in the book are strong figures, all but one of the airship captains are women. I see the women of the book as often more calculating and dangerous than some of their male counterparts.

So just like that last writers conference you attended, there are plenty of rules, but they all can be broken if you break them correctly.

Back Cover Blurb
For more than twenty years West Canvia and Lemuria have been at war. From the safety of his laboratory, weapons designer Thomas Riley has cleverly and proudly empowered the West Canvian forces. But when a risky alchemy experiment goes horribly wrong, Thomas and his wily assistant Cynthia Bassett are thrust onto the front lines of battle and forced into shaky alliances with murderous sky pirates in a deadly race to kidnap the only man who can undo the damage: the mad genius behind Lemuria's cunning armaments.

If strong women airship pilots interest you, then take a look at the links below.

Learn more about the book:
http://www.sirthomasriley.com

Thomas Riley is available here:
http://thomasriley.bigcartel.com
and
www.echelonpress.com

*****

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T11:40:00.005-05:00

BEST WITCHES TO ALL OF YOU!!!!

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The Dance of Death

2009-10-29T10:30:00.010-05:00

Happy two days before Halloween, everyone! As you can see from the picture here, I've already been celebrating this spooky holiday. It was taken at Augie Aleksy's Centuries and Sleuths Bookstore last week during "The Big Read" tribute to Edgar Allan Poe sponsored by the Oak Park/River Forest/Forest Park libraries. That's me on the left standing next to Michael Black (Hostile Takeover), Bob Goldsborough (A President in Peril), and Luisa Buehler (The Innkeeper: A Registered Death) with Augie fronting us dressed as a monk. Thanks to the 30+ people who came out to hear us discuss Poe and all his wonderful works. We had a ball.

I promised to post a Halloween tale here today, so here goes!

THE DANCE OF DEATH
by Mary Welk

I never thought it would be so easy to die.

Death stood in the doorway, beckoning with a gnarled finger while I danced what I now knew would be my last tango. I really didn't mind Death's arrival, although I hadn't expected to meet it so soon. I was, after all, only thirty-five.

Still, I'd grown tired of Tom and his endless dance lessons, his striving for perfection with every move, his criticism when I failed to meet his expectations. I felt as if I'd been dancing for years, and now that I thought of it, I had.

I didn't know when I married Tom that his hobby would become an obsession. I even enjoyed it at first, dancing the night away with my handsome husband. But then he discovered that damned televison program where celebrities are matched with professional dancers and don outrageous costumes to compete against each other. That's when Tom decided we needed lessons and I began to fall out of love. Five years later I was sick to death of the endless evenings of cha-chas, waltzes, rumbas, and tonight, the tango.

Funny I should use that phrase, sick to death. I was sick to death of dancing. I was also sick to death of Tom. Death seemed the only way out, and now it had come for me, come to cure my pain. I almost smiled at the tall figure in the black cape as we whirled and tangoed towards him. His skeletal finger summoned me, 'Come closer, closer!' I obeyed and danced unhesitatingly towards my destiny.

Then Death stepped forward and we danced right through it, Tom with a puzzled look on his face, me with a feeling of freedom I'd long forgotten. We danced through Death's cloak like it was nothing more than a whisper of air, through its bones like they were puffs of cold breath only we could feel.

And once through, Tom stopped dancing. He wilted in my arms like a flower hit by frost.

I looked up in wonder as Tom fell to the floor. Death was smiling.

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THE TELL-TALE GLOW

2009-10-26T12:21:00.007-05:00

I'm celebrating the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe and the upcoming Halloween holiday today at http://echelonpressshorts.wordpress.com/ with a blog that includes my flash fiction short story "The Tell-Tale Glow". This is a modern take on Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" written in 500 words. Hope you can stop by this Echelon Shorts blogsite and read it. To do so, just click on the title of this blog. That'll take you directly to the blog and story.

On Thursday I'll be posting a different Halloween short story for your reading pleasure here, so I hope you'll check out Cicero's Children in three days

Until then, enjoy!

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At Witt's End -- The Importance of Location

2009-10-24T13:48:00.013-05:00

Don't be taken in by the sweet smile on the face of the woman shown here. Yes, Beth Solheim LOOKS like the kindly lady next door who bakes donuts for all the neighborhood kids, but she's actually a WANTED SERIAL KILLER!!!!

Oh, wait. Wrong picture. Uh... Mmm... Right. My serial killer blog is scheduled for next week. (blush, blush) Sorry about that, Beth.

Okay. I'll start over.

Beth Solheim actually is a kindly lady who lives in the lake country of northern Minnesota. (Think Lake Bemidji, cold winters, tons of snow.) I don't know if she bakes donuts for the neighborhood kids, but I do know she shares her life with a wonderful husband and a menagerie of wildlife critters. Blessed with two grown children and two grandsons, Beth is very much like the main character in her Sadie Witt mystery series: she was born with a healthy dose of imagination and a hankering to solve a puzzle. She learned her reverence for reading from her mother, who was never without a book in her hand.

By day, Beth works in Human Resources. By night she morphs into a writer who frequents lake resorts and mortuaries and hosts a ghost or two in her humorous paranormal mysteries. She's visiting Cicero's Children today to tell you a little about her upcoming book, AT WITT'S END, and to discuss the importance of location in a mystery novel. So, without further ado, here's Beth!

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Thanks, Mary! And hello everyone!

As readers well know, settings can be as important to the story as the plot, especially in a cozy mystery series. Cozies welcome readers back time and time again to a small community or a friendly neighborhood where returning characters confront a new adventure.

Cozies are a fun read and engage the reader by shadowing an amateur sleuth who solves crime in a gentle manner—no blatant violence, graphic sex or jarring profanity. Cozy characters are often eccentric, funny, likeable, and the kind you’d enjoy visiting on a regular basis. Settings have equal significance. Each locale offers unique features, seasons, structures, or lends credibility to the profession of the amateur sleuth.

I decided to use a resort situated next door to a mortuary as the setting for my Sadie Witt Mystery Series. That location suited the wacky twin sisters who own the At Witt’s End resort and the occasional ghost who moseys over from the adjacent mortuary. Glorious sunsets, wildlife, the sounds of gentle lapping waves, and the scent of fragrant pine are peppered throughout the story.

Sadie Witt sees the dead. She’s a flamboyant character who uses unorthodox means when challenged with the task of helping the recently departed solve their issues. Some of these issues place Sadie in harm’s way. Because the Witt’s End Resort is centered in a tight-knit community, Sadie is able to draw on her life-long experiences and her cohorts to solve a murder. Settings have to blend with the character, as well as their beliefs and their lifestyles. Sadie may visit a metropolitan area, but would never choose to live there.

A small community and the freedom to experience the beauty of nature are important to me. I live in resort country in Northern Minnesota and only have to step out my patio door to relish the wonders of nature. We have a gray fox who visits daily and two fawns to love to nibble on bread I toss to them. An occasional bear wanders through and raccoons compete with the fox for attention. I drew on these experiences when building a world for my Sadie Witt Mystery Series and a few of these critters show up on the pages now and then. So do some of the zany characters who frequent our Minnesota resorts.

AT WITT'S END
A death coach is expected to counsel patients experiencing life-threatening illness. But that’s not the case for sixty-four year old Sadie Witt, owner of the Witt’s End Resort, because her clients are already dead. They checked into Cabin 14, where no guest leaves alive. Her guests will be shocked to learn that the flamboyant Sadie is their conduit to the hereafter. Clad in the latest fashion trends (fads typically reserved for those without sagging body parts) and sporting hairdos that make bystanders want to look away but can’t, Sadie realizes that one of the guests had been murdered and must work against the clock to untangle the web and prevent further mayhem.

Five guests, all with hidden agendas, must help Sadie solve the murder and protect the mysterious contents of a black leather briefcase. They are ill prepared for the unorthodox manner in which this colorful woman leads them on their final journey.

I hope you enjoy my visit to Cicero's children. I’d love to hear your comments, so please email me at beth@bsolheim.com.

Visit my Blog, Facebook and Twitter pages and check back for updates.
http://mysteriesandchitchat.blogspot.com
http://readingminnesota.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/beth.solheim
http://twitter.com/bethsolheim
www.echelonpress.com -- AT WITT'S END, released by Echelon Press in early 2010

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Bouchercon, Books, and Babies

2009-10-21T14:10:00.019-05:00

Bouchercon has come and gone, but what a treat it was! Jim Huang and his fellow organizers put on quite a show in Indianapolis this past weekend. I drove down there from chicago on Wednesday afternoon with my traveling buddy and fellow author Luisa Buehler (The Innkeeper: A Registered Death), arriving at our off-site hotel just in time to have dinner with Echelon publisher Karen Syed and her lovely mother Nancy. Bob Goldsborough (A President in Peril)joined us at the hotel on Thursday, and off we all went to the Hyatt Regency where Bouchercon was just getting into high gear.

After registering, I was off to the Hospitality Suite where I was volunteering an hour each day. Hospitality was managed by Brenda Stewart, and a more capable, friendly, and organized woman I've yet to meet. Kudos to Brenda for an outstanding job. Working Hospitality was fun as I met a lot of old friends who stopped by there for a cup of coffee and other goodies provided by the Indy chapter of Sisters in Crime. Pictured here are Deb Baker, Barb D'Amato, Kaye Barley with Mary Jane Maffini, retired librarian extraordinaire Doris Ann Norris, and Anthony Award winner Julie Hyzy.

Deb writes two series, one set in Michigan and one in Arizone. Both are amateur sleuth series, and both are great IMHO. Doris is an avid mystery reader who goes out of her way to welcome new authors to the fold. She is truly a friend to all in the mystery community. Kaye is a long time member of DorothyL, an online list for mystery fans, and writes the "Meanderings and Muses" blog. Like Doris, Kaye is knowledgeable about books in general and mysteries in particular.

Mary Jane Maffini is a Canadian whose three series are set in Canada and feature wonderfully memorable charaters. Mary Jane is also known for her short stories, especially those found in the six "Ladies Killing Circle" anthologies.

I dare anyone to say they don't know Barbara D'Amato. Barb is the award winning author of two series and several stand-alone mysteries, a playwright and researcher, and a past president of Sisters in Crime and MWA.

Her Figueroa & Bennis novel, Authorized Personnel Only, won the first annual Mary Higgins Clark Award in 2001. Her latest book is the thriller Foolproof, co-written with Jeanne M. Dams and Mark Richard Zubro, to be published in December 2009. She has a new yet-untitled novel coming out from Tor/Forge in 2010.

Last but not least, here's a pic of Julie Hyzy speaking at the Anthony awards ceremony after receiving an Anthony for "State of the Onion" for Best Paperback Original mystery. I've known Julie for years and I was thrilled when her name was announced at the awards ceremony. Julie is a fine writer, and after years of honing her craft, she truly deserves all the success she's now enjoying.

Bouchercon was great fun and finished with a bang with an author book giveaway preceeded by the silent and live auctions benefiting Indy literacy activities. Congratulations to Deb Watson and Sandy Tooley who so capably ran the two auctions. You both did a magnificent job!

And now, just a little news of my own. The third book in my "Rhodes to Murder" series is being re-released by Echelon Press in 2010. This revised edition of "To Kill A King" will feature a new cover and will be released under the title "The Heat Wave Murders". I'm thrilled to have my entire backlist available again and hope you all approved of this newly edited edition.

Some of you have been asking to see updated photos of my youngest grandson. Well, here they are. Christian is now eight months old and is doing just beautifully. He's a happy baby, very strong and active, and wants only to walk, walk, walk! No, he can't walk on his own yet, but does he ever scoot around in his rolling walker! He loves our driveway where he can roll on and on and on.

We have another baby in the family, except this one's a dog! Bonita (pictured here with my daughter Jennifer)is a Newfoundland Lansier. Jen and husband Jay got her when she was ten weeks old. She's now thirteen weeks old and has gained five pound a week since arriving in their home.

Our grandsons Dan and Zach love their new puppy, but guess what! Bonita has already eaten their homework! Yes, at thirteen weeks she reached over the edge of the kitchen table and gobbled up their papers. If you know anything about Newfies, you'll understand how she managed it. Bonita's mom weighed 145 pounds and her dad weighed 185. We're taking bets on how big this baby will get! :)

*****

Welcome, Marilyn!

2009-10-13T09:12:00.006-05:00

Today I'd like to welcome Marilyn Meredith to Cicero's Children. Marilyn is a good friend of mine, an excellent writer and someone I admire for her life-long service to those less fortunate than she. Marilyn's Deputy Tempe Crabtree series grabbed me from the start due to her great characters, unique setting, and intriguing plots. Her latest book is called DISPEL THE MIST. And now, without further ado, here's Marilyn!

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Thanks, Mary! People always ask me why I go to mystery conventions and conferences.
My primary reason has always been to enjoy myself—and I always do on several levels.
Meeting new people and making friends is one of the big pluses at any con. Mary Welk is one of the people that I first met at Mayhem in the Midlands and I spent time with her at other Mayhem’s and at Malice too. That was my husband’s favorite conference because Mary’s husband guided him around to the Smithsonian Airplane Museums. We also had a great time at Love is Murder in Mary’s backyard in Chicago. (Well, not literally her backyard—but she did take hubby and me to visit her home and we saw her backyard all covered in snow.)

We’ve gone to many of the bigger cons, Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime—along with some of the smaller writing conferences like Epicon and the Public Safety Writer Association where we’ve made friends not only with mystery writers but police officers and firemen. Great sources for expertise on law enforcement and firefighting.

And, here I must mention that I’ve used Mary’s expertise concerning medical issues more than once. Though I know other nurses, Mary is an expert when it comes to emergency room procedures too.

Hubby and I also enjoy going to cons because they are held all over the country and traveling to them has given us the opportunity to see places we’ve never visited. I won’t bother listing them all, but one of the highlights for me was attending both Left Coast Crime and Bouchercon when they were held in Alaska. I met a Native woman who I’ve kept in contact with and even spent a few days with at her home in Wasilla.
Most writers seem to go to conventions to promote their latest book—and of course I do that too. However, not being a big name author, I’m never going to sell enough books to offset the cost of traveling to a convention and the related expenses.

Of course as I attend next year’s cons, I’ll be telling everyone about my latest Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Dispel the Mist. I had such a wonderful time researching this one and learning all about the Tule River Indian’s legendary Hairy Man. Though he is similar to Big Foot he is not as well known, but there is an eight-foot tall pictograph of him in a rock shelter on the Tule River Indian Reservation. It is the only known pictograph of any Big Foot creature in California.
While my heroine, Tempe, investigates the murder of a popular county supervisor she has an encounter with the Hairy Man.

The legends surrounding the Hairy Man are delightful as well as the stories told by locals of sightings. Is the Hairy Man a fictional character or is he real? Read Dispel the Mist and judge for yourself. It is available from the publisher at http://www.mundaniapress as an e-book or trade paperback as well as other bookstores.

Thank you, Mary, for allowing me to visit your blog today.

Marilyn http://fictionforyou.com

2009-10-10T14:46:00.007-05:00

I can't believe a week has gone by since I last wrote something here. I should be ashamed of myself, right? :) Well, Autumn is one of the busiest seasons for gardeners and writers alike, and I've been doing a lot in both fields the past few days. The garden is 50% put to bed for the winter, but seeing as how we're due for frost tonight or tomorrow evening, almost all my other flowers will be gone by the time I leave for Bouchercon on Wednesday.

Speaking of Bouchercon, this is one of the books I'll be promoting there. The Rune Stone Murders won a Readers Choice Award for Best Traditional Mystery when it was first released. Here's the blurb from the back cover:

The discovery of a rune stone on campus property threatens to disrupt the Festival of Knights, Bruck University’s annual Renaissance Faire. Andrew Littlewort is convinced the stone is a genuine Viking relic. But when the eccentric professor tries to prove his theory, he stirs up a hornet’s nest of trouble that quickly leads to murder.

With suspects as bountiful as the flowers on Bruck Green, President Garrison Hurst once again turns to Caroline Rhodes for help. The quick-witted ER nurse has quite a challenge ahead of her. Is Professor Littlewort as innocent as he claims? Is Sid Burke just another troubled student? Why does Bruck’s gardener call his flowerbeds ‘paths of gold’? And what is Agatha Hagendorf really watching through her telescope at the Rhineburg Boarding House and Home for Gentle Women?

Caroline Rhodes must heed the warning of a gypsy fortuneteller when she teams up with Professor Carl Atwater to track a killer without a conscience in little Rhineburg, Illinois.

And here are some of the things people said about the book:

"A nicely woven campus mystery…characters so appealing you will think of them as friends."

Romantic Times Magazine

"Like Elizabeth Peters, Mary Welk knows how to create a good escape world. The remarkable thing is she does so using familiar, everyday characters and setting."

Mary Saums, author of the THISTLE & TWIGG mysteries

“If I was an accident victim, I would be relieved if Caroline were my ER nurse. If I were a murder victim, I would definitely want her to investigate my death. I'm already enrolling my children at Bruck University, and can't wait for my next dose of life in Rhineburg.”

Donna Moore, award-winning author of GO TO HELENA HANDBASKET

“An alluring who-done-it with plenty of suspects and red herrings.”

Harriet Klausner, reviewer

5 star reviews from Amazon:

“A medieval extravaganza so wonderfully described you want to join in the jousting and carousing. I could almost smell that barbecue.”

“Fast-paced, funny, and keeps the reader wanting to come back for more.”

“Descriptions of the Renaissance Fair were so good I felt like I was wearing the costumes.”

“A cozy mystery with a strong plot and continuous action.”

“A diverse group of characters in a fast paced plot that was both realistic and entertaining.”

I seldom blow my own horn here on Cicero's Children, but I'm excited about this book and the prospect of introducing it to folks I've never met before at Bouchercon. If you're planning to attend Bcon and just want to visit for a few minutes, you can find me in the Hospitality Room every day from 10 am to 11 am. Stop by if you have a free minute or two. I'd love to meet you.

And if you're not going to Bcon, or if you can check this site again before you leave for Indianapolis, please stop back on Oct. 13 to read a guest blog from my good friend Marilyn Meredith. Marilyn is the author of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries, the latest being DISPEL THE MIST. I know you'll enjoy reading what Marilyn has to say.

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