Friday night, I got a phone call from Leigh telling me that his computer had self-destructed and that he didn’t think he’d be able to repair it or obtain a new one in time for his column today. Now, one of the things about Star Trek that always bothered me was that silly self-destruct sequence that played such a prominent rôle in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Who in their right minds would go gallivanting around interstellar space in a big bomb? Not me. What if it accidentally went off?

Warships, the kind that float, do have scuttle plans, i.e., how to sink the ship either to preclude it from being taken by an enemy or to prevent it from becoming a hazard to navigation. This usually involves opening the hull up to the sea by allowing valves to the ocean to discharge inside the hull, and to make sure that the ship is not securely divided into discrete watertight compartments, so that it sinks like a big hunk of steel, which is what it actually is, after all. But you don’t activate any stinkin’ computerized self-destruct sequence. You have to do it manually.

I thought about mentioning this to Leigh, reminding him that installing a packet of C-4 on one’s motherboard was probably not all that great an idea, but I decided to hold my tongue. Leigh’s a friend of mine, after all. It’s not a very friendly act to deliberately make somebody feel worse than they already do. And Leigh’s a sensitive soul, most of the time.

Which brings me around to his request that I fill in for him, made for friendship’s sake, which is amply illustrated below. The Great Bird of the Galaxy knows that Leigh has done this for me often enough, to wit, last Tuesday’s column. Furthermore, Leigh already had a topic chosen and asked me to go with it, which of course meant very little actual work on my part. So out of friendship’s sake, I agreed.

And I’m not sure that his computer actually exploded. We writers are awful liars.

—JLW

THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

by James Lincoln Warren, channeling Leigh Lundin and John M. Floyd

Today, Sunday, August 1, 2010, is National Friendship Day. The way this is customarily celebrated isn’t with parades, fireworks, and barbecues. The best way is to show your appreciation to the people in your life who make a difference.

There’s a special bond among us Criminal Briefers between Leigh and John Floyd. I’m sure all of you remember their charming collaboration for Valentine’s Day last year, “Summer Rose”, Part I and Part II. Leigh also considers John something of a mentor in terms of writing fiction. (Entre nous, he could hardly have chosen a better one.) And of course, they are both veterans of IBM during the era when computers came of age. It’s the kind of bond that I imagine exists among early astronauts—they lived through history that redefined the way the world looks at itself.

So Leigh wanted to use this day to express his admiration and, not to be too girly-man about it (but we’re all mature here, or at least we pretend to be mature), love for his estimable colleague John. And he could think of no better way to show it than to call the world’s attention to John’s new book, Clockwork.

Clockwork is due out this fall, and contains forty, count ’em, forty of John’s short stories. Like his two previous collections, Rainbow’s End (2006) and Midnight (2008), its stories are all mystery/suspense, and this one again includes several installments of his highly regarded small-town mystery series featuring bossy retired schoolteacher (and amateur sleuth) Angela Potts. It’s being released by Dogwood Press, a small but traditional publisher in Mississippi.

One of the things all three books have in common is the presentation of bite-sized crime/suspense stories with all kinds of plots and settings, and characters that range from cops to aliens to housewives to cowpokes. John’s deep-seated love of plot twists is evident in every story—John says he grew up watching half-hour surprise-ending TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and One Step Beyond and Twilight Zone—the Gentle Reader may recall that I once wrote about the sad demise of the half-hour TV drama occasioned by the DVD release of the bulk of One Step Beyond episodes with special attention to their similarity to short stories—and their influence shows in his work.

The inaugural signing on the book will be at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi. (There’s another link to this event to the right in our “Court Dates” feature.) Everyone who can attend should attend.

John is very excited about this last endeavor. He was particularly pleased that jacket of the new book includes blurbs by Marcus Sakey and my friend Bill Fitzhugh (he of the annual SoCalMWA Gumbo Party), who were kind enough to read advance copies of the manuscript.

In case you haven’t seen either of John’s previous two collections, you can find information about them here.

And so, my friends, I have discharged my duty to two wonderful men and colleagues, in celebration of their rare and special friendship. It is a privilege to do so. I’m just filling in, but I would also like to say that I’m proud to be their friend, too.