IF YOU CAN READ THIS . . .

by Steve Steinbock

My two boys and I are in Seattle. While on a half hour drive down I-405 the other night we made an observation: There are fewer bumper stickers in the Pacific Northwest than there are in Maine. It may have been a coincidence, but during that entire drive during rush-hour traffic, we spotted three cars with decorated bumpers.

When I was around six or seven years old, I bought a copy of Tom Swift and his Flying Lab at a garage sale.

Ironically, when I teach writing to kids, I use the metaphor of a bumper sticker to force the kids to be concise.

Bumper stickers are, by their very nature, concise, pithy, and direct.

I get a kick out of the humorous bumpers tickers, the ones like:

If you can read this, you’re too close

or

My Cat Can Beat Up Your Honor Student

or my favorite:

Visualize Whirled Peas

But the most common bumper stickers are the political ones. And I find them not just useless and ineffective, but annoying. Has anyone ever changed their political beliefs as a result of a bumper sticker? If so, it says more about the beholder than the bumper sticker. Consider this: when you see a political bumper sticker that you agree with, on a scale of one through ten, to what extent are you likely to raise your arm in solidarity?

There. Hmmm.

See you in a week. Meanwhile, feel free to share comments about your favorite (or most annoying) bumper stickers.

A READER’S BUCKET LIST

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

In everyone’s life there are many stories we’re told. We may call them anecdotes¹, wishful thinking or out-and-out falsehoods. Sometimes we hear them at family gatherings during the holidays, sometimes read about them in diaries and sometimes they only come to light at funerals. The ultimate short story of someone’s life is their obituary.

The recent deaths in the entertainment world of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson touched us all in ways we may not have realized until after their deaths or certainly not until their tributes have been presented in publications and TV screens. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Remember somewhere in time where a teacher instructed us to compose our own obituary? Of course, we were young and our dreams big. Everyone was President, a movie star or at least a CEO. No one wrote they were destined to be laid off from a big corporation going bankrupt. No one had ended up living on the streets. No one had turned to a life of crime.

When I found myself reading the obituaries more often, I wondered why, and it hit me perhaps because people my age and younger were actually dying and I no longer could consider myself bulletproof. I guess that comes with maturity, which I like a lot better than saying that it’s because I’m getting older. My maternal grandfather used to say he didn’t mind getting older because it sure as hell beat the alternative. The good die young? Hmm, maybe that’s why I’m still kicking.

Movies like “The Bucket List” do well at the box office because all of us have things we’d like to do before we die and some discover we might need to get started before it’s too late. So, I’m wondering what would be on a reader’s bucket list? Are there certain books we’d want to have read before we die? Is there a magic number that says, “This is enough!”? Should we all write Our Story to leave behind as a legacy?

Maybe. Maybe not. Personally, I can’t put a cap on the number or titles of books I’d want to have finished. Every day more appear on the shelves and on the web and it seems they find their way into my hands. Should I write my personal odyssey? I’m not sure anyone would care. I haven’t climbed Mt. Everest, saved someone’s life, or witnessed a famous (or even not-so-famous) crime.

That doesn’t make my life any less worthwhile than another’s, but it may be relatively a boring tale.

At this time of my life, I find I have more questions than answers. What makes one person’s story important enough to write down? What would be critical for others to know about us in an obituary? Is where we were born, went to school, or to the job we did more important than how we lived? And yet that is rarely addressed in an obituary. Sure, we were loved and will be missed. (I’ve read that often in obituaries.) Be warned: I am about to do an impression of Andy Rooney: So, is there ever anybody who dies that we didn’t love and won’t miss? Of course there is, but we can’t say that.

On my death-bed, I will probably wish I’d done many more things with the time I’d been given. My family and friends will know I needed more time to do everything on my list. (It is quite lengthy still because I keep adding to it.)

We all touch each other in so many ways. It is my wish that your time spent with us at Criminal Brief is worthy.

1. anecdote (noun) 1. A short entertaining story about a real incident or person. 2. An account regarded as unreliable or as being hearsay. — DERIVATIVES anecdotal (adjective) anecdotalist (noun) anecdotally (adverb) ORIGIN from Greek anekdota “things unpublished”.

PATRIOTIC GORE

by Rob Lopresti

This being the week of the Fourth of July I would like to say a few words about one of our country’s most successful exports. We didn’t invent it, but we have certainly helped spread it around.

In fact, this product has become so popular that even countries which objectively seem to be lacking in it will claim to be rolling in the stuff. See Iran, for instance.

I am referring to is democracy.

Reasons for flag-waving

You may be thinking: well, sis boom bah, but what does this have to do with mystery fiction?

A lot, as it happens. I’m not the first to say this but it bears repeating: mystery fiction only becomes popular in democracies.

I think I know why this is the case. If you live in a country where the laws themselves are secret (as used to be true in the Soviet Union) or the King/Ayatollah/Dear Leader can arbitrarily decide who is guilty, then what’s the point of reading about detectives? If trials are just public theatre to reveal what has already been decided behind the scenes, then who cares about crime novels?

The author of a cozy mystery believes (or pretends to believe) that she is describing a society in which justice can be done, and therefore investigation matters.

The hardboiled hero lives in a more cynical world, but even he believes that there is some possibility of justice that is worth fighting for. And the author believes that she lives in a society in which she can get away with writing so cynically.

Brainstorm

Ooh, here is a doctorate dissertation topic for somebody, and I am providing it free of charge in honor of the holiday.

Maybe the popularity of mysteries correlates to people’s faith in the government of their country. (Sales have been dropping for the last few years. Hmm…)

Expand this to 300 pages and send me a photo when you get your Ph.D.

An old example

One of the earliest proto-detective stories is Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. (It has a detective, a Watson character, interrogation of suspects, and a most unlikely killer.) And it is a product of Athenian democracy.

(Yes, I know Athens wasn’t such a great democracy, allowing only male citizens to vote. On the other hand, ancient Athenians might argue that a country that only votes every few years and lets representatives decide all the specific issues is a funny kind of democracy, too.)

Another play from that era is Aeschylus’ The Eumenides, which shows the punishment of crime moving from vengeance by family members or representatives of the gods, to the verdict of impartial juries.

Boom!

That’s enough about that. Have a glorious Fourth. Light a firecracker (or don’t), have a hot dog, and go ahead and wave a flag. It’s the mysterious thing to do.

Dorothy L. Sayers was not only one of the best mystery writers of all time, she was also a religious, um, well, not to put too fine a point on it, zealot. She abandoned Lord Peter Wimsey in order to write Christian religious tracts. But her spiritual erudition bears an item of interest for us: Sayers claimed that the earliest detective stories were in the Bible, and that the detective was the prophet Daniel, he of the lion’s den and the writing on the wall. She was referring to two Apocryphal stories, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon, which were appended to the Old Testament Book of Daniel (the former in Greek, the latter in Aramaic). They are not part of the Tanakh or any Protestant Bible, but you will find them in Catholic Bibles as Chapters 13 and 14. I don’t know if a Hebrew version of Susanna exists (St. Jerome said it didn’t), but I’ll bet Steve Steinbock does.

Here’s the story of Susanna, from the Bestselling Translators who brought you the King James Bible. I’ve done some light editing to make it a little easier to read —got rid of the verse numbers, organized it into paragraphs, added quotation marks, and removed some of the capitalizations.

—JLW

SUSANNA

There dwelt a man in Babylon, called Joacim: and he took a wife, whose name was Susanna, the daughter of Chelcias, a very fair woman, and one that feared the Lord. Her parents also were righteous, and taught their daughter according to the law of Moses. Now Joacim was a great rich man, and had a fair garden joining unto his house: and to him resorted the Jews; because he was more honourable than all others.

The same year were appointed two of the ancients of the people to be judges, such as the Lord spake of, that wickedness came from Babylon from ancient judges, who seemed to govern the people. These kept much at Joacim’s house: and all that had any suits in law came unto them.

Now when the people departed away at noon, Susanna went into her husband’s garden to walk. And the two elders saw her going in every day, and walking; so that their lust was inflamed toward her. And they perverted their own mind, and turned away their eyes, that they might not look unto heaven, nor remember just judgments. And albeit they both were wounded with her love, yet durst not one shew another his grief. For they were ashamed to declare their lust, that they desired to have to do with her. Yet they watched diligently from day to day to see her.

And the one said to the other, “Let us now go home: for it is dinner time.”

So when they were gone out, they parted the one from the other, and turning back again they came to the same place; and after that they had asked one another the cause, they acknowledged their lust: then appointed they a time both together, when they might find her alone.

And it fell out, as they watched a fit time, she went in as before with two maids only, and she was desirous to wash herself in the garden: for it was hot. And there was no body there save the two elders, that had hid themselves, and watched her.

Then she said to her maids, “Bring me oil and washing balls, and shut the garden doors, that I may wash me.”

And they did as she bade them, and shut the garden doors, and went out themselves at privy doors to fetch the things that she had commanded them: but they saw not the elders, because they were hid.

Susanna and the Elders (1610)
by Artemesia Gentileschi

Now when the maids were gone forth, the two elders rose up, and ran unto her, saying, “Behold, the garden doors are shut, that no man can see us, and we are in love with thee; therefore consent unto us, and lie with us. If thou wilt not, we will bear witness against thee, that a young man was with thee: and therefore thou didst send away thy maids from thee.”

Then Susanna sighed, and said, “I am straitened on every side: for if I do this thing, it is death unto me: and if I do it not I cannot escape your hands. It is better for me to fall into your hands, and not do it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord.”

With that Susanna cried with a loud voice: and the two elders cried out against her. Then ran the one, and opened the garden door. So when the servants of the house heard the cry in the garden, they rushed in at the privy door, to see what was done unto her. But when the elders had declared their matter, the servants were greatly ashamed: for there was never such a report made of Susanna.

And it came to pass the next day, when the people were assembled to her husband Joacim, the two elders came also full of mischievous imagination against Susanna to put her to death; and said before the people, “Send for Susanna, the daughter of Chelcias, Joacim’s wife.” And so they sent.

So she came with her father and mother, her children, and all her kindred.

Now Susanna was a very delicate woman, and beauteous to behold. And these wicked men commanded to uncover her face, (for she was covered) that they might be filled with her beauty. Therefore her friends and all that saw her wept.

Then the two elders stood up in the midst of the people, and laid their hands upon her head. And she weeping looked up toward heaven: for her heart trusted in the Lord.

And the elders said, “As we walked in the garden alone, this woman came in with two maids, and shut the garden doors, and sent the maids away. Then a young man, who there was hid, came unto her, and lay with her. Then we that stood in a corner of the garden, seeing this wickedness, ran unto them. And when we saw them together, the man we could not hold: for he was stronger than we, and opened the door, and leaped out. But having taken this woman, we asked who the young man was, but she would not tell us: these things do we testify.”

Then the assembly believed them as those that were the elders and judges of the people: so they condemned her to death.

Then Susanna cried out with a loud voice, and said, “O everlasting God, that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be: Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me, and, behold, I must die; whereas I never did such things as these men have maliciously invented against me.”

And the Lord heard her voice.

Therefore when she was led to be put to death, the Lord raised up the holy spirit of a young youth whose name was Daniel: who cried with a loud voice, “I am clear from the blood of this woman.”

Then all the people turned them toward him, and said, “What mean these words that thou hast spoken?”

So he standing in the midst of them said, “Are ye such fools, ye sons of Israel, that without examination or knowledge of the truth ye have condemned a daughter of Israel? Return again to the place of judgment: for they have borne false witness against her.”

Wherefore all the people turned again in haste, and the elders said unto him, “Come, sit down among us, and shew it us, seeing God hath given thee the honour of an elder.”

Then said Daniel unto them, “Put these two aside one far from another, and I will examine them.”

So when they were put asunder one from another, he called one of them, and said unto him, “O thou that art waxen old in wickedness, now thy sins which thou hast committed aforetime are come to light. For thou hast pronounced false judgment and hast condemned the innocent and hast let the guilty go free; albeit the Lord saith, the innocent and righteous shalt thou not slay. Now then, if thou hast seen her, tell me, under what tree sawest thou them companying together?”

Who answered, “Under a mastick tree.”

And Daniel said, “Very well; thou hast lied against thine own head; for even now the angel of God hath received the sentence of God to cut thee in two.”

So he put him aside, and commanded to bring the other, and said unto him, “O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thine heart. Thus have ye dealt with the daughters of Israel, and they for fear companied with you: but the daughter of Juda would not abide your wickedness. Now therefore tell me, under what tree didst thou take them companying together?”

Who answered, “Under an holm tree.”

Then said Daniel unto him, “Well; thou hast also lied against thine own head: for the angel of God waiteth with the sword to cut thee in two, that he may destroy you.”

With that all the assembly cried out with a loud voice, and praised God, and they arose against the two elders, for Daniel had convicted them of false witness by their own mouth: and according to the law of Moses they did unto them in such sort as they maliciously intended to do to their neighbour: and they put them to death. Thus the innocent blood was saved the same day.

Therefore Chelcias and his wife praised God for their daughter Susanna, with Joacim her husband, and all the kindred, because there was no dishonesty found in her.

From that day forth was Daniel had in great reputation in the sight of the people.

HABITUAL OFFENDERS

by James Lincoln Warren

Why have so many short story publications gone the way of all flesh?

This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been happening gradually for several decades. When I was a kid, there were lots of short story magazines on the newsstands, and “slick” magazines regularly printed short fiction. Most of the fiction magazines have ceased publication and you won’t find anywhere near as much fiction in slicks anymore. How did this happen?

One answer may be that the American public’s tastes underwent a sea change, and that readers no longer attach the importance to short stories that they once did. According to this theory, the novel, especially the mass market paperback, supplanted the magazines in the public favor.

Except that there really don’t seem to be that many more novels on the shelves, and they’re not as widely available as they used to be. I used to buy most of my paperbacks from wire racks at the neighborhood ice house (that’s Texican for “convenience store”) or from the books section in department stores. No more, although you can still find paperbacks in large drugstores.

The novels are also a lot longer—and relatively more expensive—than they used to be. When I was a kid, you could buy a paperback for 45 or 50 cents. (Comics were 12 cents.) Those books were usually not longer than 50 to 70 thousand words, about half the length of most paperbacks these days. All of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee stories originally came out in mass market paperback until The Turquoise Lament, the fifteenth in the series. Today, there are very few mystery series that are at home in that publishing segment, and from what I can tell, almost all of them seem to be cozies. (Nothing wrong with that, of course, but the mix of available genres has certainly changed.) Have tastes changed that much?

Well, maybe, but it doesn’t look like the mass market paperback is exactly having a renaissance.

So I don’t think the paperback novel displaced the short story magazine. But something has influenced people to buy fewer of them. I think the reason fewer people are reading short stories is because fewer people are reading for their daily pleasure. They save their leisure reading for vacations and weekends and other laid-out blocks of time. In other words, they save their reading for that novel they’ve been waiting to get into.

My theory is that there are two main culprits: leisure time competition and changes in publishers’ priorities.

The latter of these is the simplest to explain. Publishing houses underwent a revolution in the eighties and nineties as imprints combined into large mega-houses or were acquired by multi-level transnational corporations, run by business-trained MBAs instead of by executive editors. These tycoons demanded changes in the bottom line. This meant that instead of being satisfied with a wide range of modest successes, they wanted fewer titles with higher returns—the so-called “blockbuster syndrome”. The same thing happened in the film industry at about the same time—and many of the big corporations were the same, too. The proximate result of this was the abandonment of the midlist title—and that includes anthologies, especially original anthologies. (Some of the slack has been picked up by the recent proliferation of small specialty houses and regional publishers, but not enough to restore the previous landscape.)

There has always been a sort of symbiosis between original anthologies and magazines. It works something like this: you see an anthology featuring a story by one of your favorite writers, say, Agatha Christie or Rex Stout. You buy the book, and discover a story you really like by a writer you have never heard of before. A month later, you see that new writer’s name on the cover of Ellery Queen, so you buy a copy. You enjoy the magazine so much you subscribe, and also start looking for Alfred Hitchcock. And then you encounter a new name in one of the magazine issues, and when you see that writer’s name on the cover of a mass market anthology—or even a novel—you buy it. And so on.

This admirable system collapses, however, when the only books being published are doorstops by megastars.

True, the laws of supply and demand state that big houses would publish more anthologies if there were a sufficiently large audience for them, but since no anthology will ever be a blockbuster, they have no motivation for publicizing anthologies. So they act as if that “market segment” doesn’t exist. No publicity, no custom. So much for rapacious publishers.

The former reason, though, is where I really lay the blame. Competition for leisure time has never been fiercer. There are lots of reasons for this, from urban sprawl and increased transit times in automobiles from home to work and vice versa, to eyestrain and fatigue from overwork once you’re at home, to the undemanding soporific of late night television. Also, of course, there’s the internet, where gratification is almost always instantaneous and easily within reach.

First, the automobile. If you don’t take a train or a bus to work, you’re not going to read on your way into town. Even if you do take a train or a bus to work, these days you’re just as likely to be listening to your iPod or actually working before you get to the office by flying your thumbs over your Blackberry’s keyboard. But if you do read on the train or bus, the ticket is short fiction. Novels are for airplanes and weekends.

Second, eyestrain and fatigue. Reading requires effort on the part of the reader. My Dad used to read the evening paper when he got home from work, as regularly as the phases of the moon. Evening papers don’t even exist anymore. It’s much simpler to plop down on the La-Z-Boy and turn on the telly. I don’t hate television, not really. But I do hate mindless, undemanding TV.

Which brings me to Point the Third, late night broadcasting. I don’t have a TV in my bedroom. Before I go to sleep, I read. Short stories are perfect fare for bedtime reading—you start a story and 20 minutes later, it’s lights out. But most folks are watching something, anything from The Tonight Show to Friends reruns to Nightline. Not mindless, except for Friends, but still easy of access, and if it makes you think too hard, you’ve already got your thumb on the OFF switch on the remote.

Finally, the internet. The reason the internet is so seductive is that gratification is almost instantaneous and surfing virtually effortless. Not a lot of people do any serious reading on the internet, but most of us read short stuff like, say, Criminal Brief. (I was interested, by the way, to see how many people would actually listen to the 75-minute discourse of last week’s “Selling Shorts”—as I suspected, there were fewer visits, since few folks have an hour and a quarter to spare.) You don’t have to go looking for the internet. It’s right there all the time. And it yields up serendipitous treasures all the time.

In short, I think American reading habits have changed. We’ve all turned into habitual offenders. As a consequence, people who would otherwise read and enjoy fiction have no motivation to do so—they don’t have time, they’re too tired, they’re too lazy. And it’s a shame, because short fiction might just be the best thing for them, without interfering with all the other demands made on them—it doesn’t take much time, it isn’t exhausting, and it takes no effort to pick up the magazine from your mailbox once a month and stuff it in a purse or coat pocket.

I have expressed to the Gentle Reader my worry that sometimes I’m preaching to the choir. On the other hand, the main reason churches have choirs is so the congregation will join in on the hymns—the choir is spreading the Gospel in a communal way, a way that the sermonizer can’t. So my question is, what’s the best way to get the choir to sing? How do we get the word out that short stories can enrich lives as easily and more profitably than the forces competing against them?

Yes, that’s the reason I created CB in the first place. Excuse me while I play an “A” on the church organ. It’s time to tune up.

DARK JUSTICE

by Leigh Lundin

This week, the Supreme Court reached a mind-boggling decision, an opinion more indicative of, say Iran, than a democratic people, a judgment that should offend conservatives and liberals alike. Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court held convicted prisoners do not have the right to DNA testing, even if they are willing to pay for it themselves.

In some circles, this is seen as a slap-down of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated upwards of 250 prisoners, many of whom were on death row. At a minimum, the ruling adds a pinion in the machinery of capital punishment, a view court procedure and ‘finality’ is more important than actual justice.

It was no surprise that capital case enthusiasts Alito, Thomas, and Scalia voted en bloc, as they tend to rule for government and against individual civil liberties. In dismissing the evidence, one of the justices wrote that forensic science has "serious deficiencies".

My real disappointment is Justice Roberts, whom I had hopes for. He made a curious statement in regards to this decision, that such a court challenge "poses to our criminal justice systems and our traditional notions of finality better left to elected officials than federal judges."

Forgive him, but maybe he was getting his nails done at the time. I thought the criminal justice system was exactly the purview of the courts and not politicians, and for sound reasons, too. This raises another question: If a convicted person proves innocent, the implication is someone else is guilty. To my thinking, justice fails on two counts.

William G. Osborne

In 1993, William Osborne was tried in Alaska for the rape and assault of a prostitute. Before trial, he asked his attorney to test DNA evidence. According to Robert Morgentheau of the New York Daily News, his attorney either refused or did not follow through. Osborne petitioned the prosecutor’s office for a conclusive DNA test, but they refused, more interested in convictions than justice.

In the sixteen years since his trial, DNA matching has radically improved. The Innocence Project offered to pay for DNA testing and an appeals court sided with Osborne. No less than Former FBI Director William S. Sessions sought to have the evidence revealed, arguing the Justice Department should step in and demand testing since the department’s very name implies ‘justice’. He wrote "Why should our criminal justice system be afraid?"

However, the State of Alaska appealed to the Supreme Court, which sided with the prosecutor’s office: Once a defendant is tried, a prosecutor is under no obligation to turn over DNA evidence. Alaska state law allows convicts to challenge a conviction in cases with compelling new evidence, but with the refusal of prosecutors, there was no new evidence to put forth.

It is possible Osborne is guilty. Minimal testing in 1993 showed the perpetrator to be of African origin, and apparently conviction of being black is good enough in Alaska. But wouldn’t it be better to know for certain?

Roberts expressed a fear DNA testing risks "unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice." Law professor Kevin Jon Heller ironically concurred: "It might lead to a reasonably accurate one."

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr.

I’ve mentioned my family is an eclectic and ecumenical admixture of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. My father’s side was Quaker and the Friends have one simple Biblical rule: You don’t kill anyone. Anyone at all. For any reason. That includes capital punishment.

In 1988, Florida’s Death Penalty Governor, Bob Martinez, was in election trouble. Execution is popular here and he’d entered office signing death warrants so rapidly they clearly weren’t being read. Before he went on to fail as the nation’s first drug czar and fail as an executive in a security company, he failed as our state leader. Although he outspent his political oppenent by a 20-to-1 margin, it appeared unlikely Martinez would win reelection. His solution? Step up executions.

One case was that of Willie Jasper Darden, Jr, convicted of murder, although witnesses who were precluded from testifying placed him in a different part of town where his truck broke down in front of a police station. Darden was the only black man in the courtroom, a man the prosecutor said was "an animal who should be on a leash", a man who should have "his face blown off with a shotgun". Eyewitnesses never saw a lineup, but were asked to identify Darden at trial– the only negro present.

To my growing concern and eventual horror, I watched as Darden came ever closer to execution. Popes and presidents asked the governor for clemency. It was election time; Martinez refused and on 15 March 1988, the State of Florida executed yet another in a long series, this one likely innocent.

Troy Anthony Davis

For the past dozen years, those on death row face a harsher reality, the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the AEDPA. This Newt Gingrich legislation limits the federal court’s ability to determine whether a state court correctly interpreted the Constitution, cutting off avenues of appeal.

In 1991, the State of Georgia convicted a former coach in the Savannah Police Athletic League, a man signed up for the Marines, of the 1989 murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah police officer working as a security guard.

Since his trial, two of the jurors submitted petition affidavits for a new trial. Seven of the original witnesses have recanted their testimony. Of the two remaining, Sylvester Redd Coles was considered the chief suspect. He was quoted moments before the shooting screaming to a homeless man "You don’t know me. Don’t walk away from me. I’ll shoot you." Officer MacPhail responded to the homeless man’s pleas for help and was killed for his efforts.

Once again, popes, presidents, judges, Georgia congressman Bob Barr, and former FBI director William Sessions have called for a new trial. However, unless the Supreme Court greatly surprises us, the odds of a writ of habeas corpus aren’t high.

We write about crime and usually our stories focus on detection, indictment, and conviction. We seldom write about what happens after trial, which can be criminal.

McKNIGHT WORK

by John M. Floyd

Much has been said at this blog, both in columns and in comments, about how to write mystery fiction — short and long — and how to discover and rediscover works by authors who already do it well.

Photo by Jerry Bauer

I met one of those authors several years ago, at a mystery conference in Birmingham. (I was about to say we were both on the program there, but that’d be misrepresenting things a bit. The truth is, I was a mere panelist and he was a guest of honor — a minor difference.) His name is Steve Hamilton, and he’s one of those writers who is not only good at what he does, he’s a good guy.

He’s also a person who’s willing to help other writers. Steve went to work for IBM right out of college and stayed there, so he and I have that in common, if nothing else — but we’ve never talked much about the computer business. Instead he’s given me a lot of encouragement on my “second” career, and was even kind enough to blurb my latest collection of short stories, for which I’ll be forever grateful.

The Hamilton File

Steve’s originally from Detroit, and is best known for his Alex McKnight mystery series, set in the town of Paradise, Michigan. Here’s a quick list of those seven novels, plus his latest, a standalone with a different hero and a different setting:

A Cold Day in Paradise (1998)
Winter of the Wolf Moon (2001)
The Hunting Wind (2002)
North of Nowhere (2003)
Blood Is the Sky (2004)
The Ice Run (2005)
A Stolen Season (2006)
Night Work (2007)

Success Story

I once read that the chances of getting a first novel published can be compared to dropping a rose petal into the Grand Canyon and then hoping to hear it land. (That’s probably not far from the truth.) But if you think that’s a long shot, consider the chances of also winning the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Steve did that, with A Cold Day in Paradise.

He’s also good at short mystery fiction. I once had the opportunity to view a pre-release screening of the indie film adapted from his short story “A Shovel With My Name on It,” which had been published in Plots With Guns in 2003. That short film, retitled “The Shovel” and starring Oscar winner David Strathairn, went on to win Best Narrative Short at the Tribeca Film Festival. I understand the first two Hamilton novels are now under consideration for feature-length movies.

A Vision Realized?

Steve once said, in an interview, that he closed his acceptance speech for the Edgar with the words of Tommy Lasorda when he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame: “Who are you people? And what are you doing in my dream?”

Well, for Steve Hamilton the dream didn’t end there. His first novel also won the Shamus and other awards and was short-listed for the Barry and the Anthony, and his second novel was named one of the year’s Notable Books by the New York Times Book Review. Other awards and starred reviews followed, but he would probably tell you that the praise he values the most comes from his fans. The McKnight novels are a joy to read.

Why? The main reasons, for me, are fast-moving plots, a down-to-earth protagonist, a tight writing style, a quirky supporting cast, and a setting that’s unfamiliar to many of us: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where “anything under a foot of snow is just scattered flurries.” It’s an interesting and sometimes dangerous part of the country, and a huge presence in the stories. I can think of no other books, except maybe the Dave Robicheaux novels, that have such a unique sense of place. And unlike many other series, the McKnight saga shows no letup in quality, at least in my opinion, from the first book to the most recent.

Are any of you Hamilton readers already? If not, I hope you will be.