LITERARY ARCHEOLOGY

by Janice Law

Inspired by the big white square on the computer screen, I’ve been off on some literary archeology this week, 697 pages worth, to be exact, of the early gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho. Published in 1794 by Ann Radcliffe, always known to her admirers as Mrs. Radcliffe, The Mysteries brought the gothic to the height of its popularity and ushered in the blockbuster novel that has been with us ever since.

Why should we care about a tome that is on graduate school life support? Several reasons. First, it still reads well, brightening many a doctoral student’s reading list on the way to comprehensives. Second, Mrs. R found out a formula for broad-based success which still works pretty well. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, we have the ever popular “woman in jeopardy,” the haunted castle—more recently modernized as the “old dark house”—the star crossed romance, the foreign villain, lots of local color, and a good handful of misunderstandings, bad timings, and coincidences. The heroine is beautiful; the hero, handsome, the sixteenth century clothes occasionally splendid. All attitudes are resolutely of the 1790’s.

Naturally, over two hundred years readers’ requirements have changed. A great deal of The Mysteries of Udolpho is taken up with descriptions of scenery; we are treated to travelogues of the Pyrenees, Tuscany, Venice and its hinterlands, as well as the heroine’s native Gascony. No thrill today when we can see live footage from around the globe on our phones and watch cyclists maneuver on the formerly banditti-infested Pyrenees and Dolomites.

At the end of the 18th century, however, such armchair travel was a big treat, and Mrs. R. obliged, even if she had to beef up her own experience with a bit of literary research of her own. She is supposed to have made liberal use of Dr. Johnson’s buddy Hester Thrale Piozzi’s firsthand account of Venice.

Either way, Radcliffe’s descriptions were not just pretty scenery. The dawning Romantic era had a big taste for the sublime, for what might be called the terrifyingly beautiful. Snow covered mountains were ceasing to be a horror for travelers and becoming a spectacle for tourists. Ditto plunging waterfalls, dizzying chasms—and do please note their proper epithets. Ruins, no longer either an obstacle or a stone quarry, were promoted to décor highly suitable for fashionable melancholy. Even banditti, once the scourge of the mountains, became, in more settled times, an accent of local color. Mrs. R served all this up in spades.

But what interests me in particular was her attitude toward mystery, both of the criminal and of the supernatural type. While Poe, whom she influenced, split the genre into tales of the supernatural and accounts of his rational detective, Radcliffe combined them into one large, tasty literary bonbon.

We have mysteries and horrors aplenty especially in Udolpho, but sooner or later the supernatural aspects are undercut by rational explanations. Mysterious music has a source and even spectral visitors turn out to have their feet on terra firma. Indeed, Radcliffe manages to have things both ways—she gets every bit of suspense out of the possibilities of decaying castles, ancient crimes, vaults, dungeons, towers and chains, strange noises and old crimes, while maintaining a rational universe and the rule of reason.

Her heroine, Emily St. Aubert, fits this scheme very nicely. Raised in rural seclusion by loving and cultivated parents, she is very much the sheltered Regency belle. Neither her living arrangements nor her personality smack much of the 16th century, but then as now the best-selling author is wise to let current attitudes trump historical accuracy.

Balanced between the Enlightenment and the dawning of the Romantic era, Emily is prone to tears and “sensibility,” to ecstasies over scenery and swoons over music—¬just the sort of gal Jane Austen would later satirize. Emily’s a delicate flower and her mortally ill father warns her against over-emotionalism, a caution which she takes to heart. Fortunately so, for later, orphaned and friendless, she proves equal to combating not only her difficult aunt but the evil Signor Montoni. She weeps, she sighs, she faints in high Romantic style, then pulls herself together and behaves like a proper child of the Enlightenment with reason for her guide and a good deal of what we would today call self-esteem.

Emily’s a rationalist with a tender heart. Disillusioned with her lover, she weeps and mopes but resolutely turns her face from him. Confronted by the blustering villain, she refuses to sign away her inheritance until it is clear that she is out of options, and she wanders around the unlit castle in search, first of information, then of her aunt, and later of her lover. She’s proper but intrepid in her own way, and while she gives in to her emotions, her ultimate resource is reason. Jane Austen clearly admired Mrs. R as much as she mocked her conventions.

With women protagonists popular in our genre, it seems fair to salute the great-grandmother of all those intrepid snoops and avengers, those investigators of low crime and unexplained phenomena, and, yes, women in jeopardy—Ann Radcliffe.

WHEN GOOD SPOUSES GO BAD

by Leigh Lundin

While wannabee spectators arrive between 2:30 and 4am for tickets to the Casey Anthony cirque du soleil, Florida crimes and crime-busters haven’t paused, but not all misdeeds take place in Florida. I promise you the last two stories will be worth reading, but first, the headlines:

Black-hearted Dalia

Boynton Beach, Florida.  Last month, Dalia Dippolito was convicted in a murder-for-hire plot of her husband, but she deserves credit for an imaginative defense. She claims the planned murder wasn’t real, but a stunt she wished to sell to reality TV. Just one small setback– her husband denied knowing any such scheme.

When you plan these made-for-TV murder plots, you should tell your husband. And a producer. Maybe. Just sayin’.

1st Mate

Tampa, Florida.  Four years ago, tugboat first mate Thomas Lee Sehorne was shot to death in the carport of his home. Insurance money, of course, and no mention of reality TV. Last month, federal authorities filed murder-for-hire charges against his wife Christie and two other men.

The seaman’s own first mate was the death of him.

Another Reason to Hate Facebook

Beachwood, Ohio.  At first, ex-Army Ranger Patrick Sabo didn’t take his old high school friend Christine Metter seriously when she told him she hated her husband so much she could kill him. However, she took him seriously when he joked about a Facebook hit and she offered him the job. He turned the job over to undercover investigators.

I think her high school yearbook reads "The girl most likely to…"

And now the news …

Facebook Again (You won’t believe this!)

South Bend, Indiana.  Angela Voelkert was an ill-tempered wife in a nasty divorce. She created a Facebook page featuring a fake 17-year-old Lolita, ‘Jessica Studebaker’, to manipulate her husband and set him up sexually to obtain the upper hand in divorce proceedings. Fortunately (or not), she learned more than she ever imagined– he revealed he intended to kill his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Here’s what happened: ‘Jessica’ ‘friended’ David Voelkert who opened up to the teen. Instead of falling for the sexual tidbits, Davy in a tender mood expressed concerns about losing his children and spoke of the stress regarding his ex–to-be. He revealed he planted a GPS tracking unit in her car so he could track her to decide where the best location might be to have her killed. On 31 May, David told the teen he didn’t want her to “get arrested as an accessory to all this,” but asked if she knew any gang-bangers who might bust “a cap in her ass for $10,000.”

Tch, tch, such negative talk. But wait, there’s more!

Hardly believing her luck, the giddy Angela produced the eMails and had David arrested. He spent four days in jail before federal prosecutors abruptly dropped all charges and Magistrate Judge Christopher Nuechterlein signed an order dismissing the case against Voelkert.

Why?

Early on, David guessed his wife’s intentions. He wrote a notarized letter saying in part,

He lied to his wife about wanting her dead! Some days a girl just can’t get a decent husband to whack her.

When Bad Men go Good (aka Where’s Waldo?)

Lake Monroe, Florida.  While Florida probably doesn’t have many more than the average number of homicidal spouses, we seem to have more than our share of homicidal preachers (including a guy named Preacher). One of those was George Crossley, an ultra-conservative evangelist with his own fiery radio station and television shows self-described as "the Jerry Falwell of Central Florida." This was a man who formed Citizens for Decency and successfully campaigned to keep such films as The Last Temptation of Christ and a biography of Charles Darwin out of central Florida theatres.

The problem was the married minister fornicated. He fornicated with his church receptionist, the wife of another fundamentalist pastor, Butch Waldo. They fornicated so much, it put his church, radio, and television franchise at risk and he decided to kill the Right Reverend Butch Waldo.

With that in mind, he asked his best friend to find a hit-man to kill Waldo. (Crossley later denied he also planned to kill his wife.) Instead of an assassin, his friend brought in an undercover ATF agent. Crossley gave the putative triggerman money and a pistol, and said, "I’d be just thrilled to put a bullet between his eyes."

In fear of his life and wearing a bulletproof vest, Crossley’ friend went into hiding. The ATF arrested Crossley. Even though Florida loves to execute, it’s not easy to convict a preacher, even one hellbent on killing another man of the cloth. A judge sentenced Crossley to four years.

Maybe that was about right. Witnessing beatings, rapes, and abuses, Crossley discovered prison was hell. Once he’d railed against liberal leniency and argued for stiffer penalties, but now he was one of the condemned.

For the first time, Crossley underwent a truly religious transformation. He prayed like he’d never prayed before. His wife stuck with him. His first and true love became his "source of inspiration and activism."

He became empathetic, a pacifist, advocate of human rights, a man who shied away from former extreme causes and truly cared for those with fewer blessings. One might argue he became a liberal, but certainly he became a civil libertarian, turning his back on the religious right when it turned its back on him. He joined the ACLU as an unpaid volunteer and became the leader of its Florida chapter. Moving beyond Citizens for Decency, he formed such groups as CopWatch to monitor suspects’ rights.

The good Reverend became a man the corrupt feared and everyone else respected. He left the days of six to eight figure salaries far behind. Taking no wages, Rev. Crossley helped the poor and the homeless, often eating in soup kitchens himself. It’s impossible to say if he considered himself a man redeemed, but most central Floridians decided so.

Either he found God or God found him.

None of us can ask more of a man’s story.

FORT LAUDERDALE VICE

by John M. Floyd

A little over a year ago I did a column at this blog on the fiction of John D. MacDonald, and that would normally be enough to make me steer clear of writing about him and Travis McGee for a while. After all, how much can you say about one mystery author, or his series protagonist? But I recently re-read one of the McGee books, and was reminded of how good they were—and how interesting a hero he is.

It’s probably because he’s so different. According to Travis McGee’s official fansite, he is—unlike most professional detectives from crime fiction—“neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator; instead, he is a self-described ‘salvage consultant’ who recovers others’ property for a fee.” H. R. F. Keating once noted that McGee started out as a bad guy but evolved into a good guy, an “avenging private eye with a somewhat sloppy center.” (The recovered property mentioned in the first quote was often recovered by stealing it from those who had stolen it in the first place.)

Anyhow, long story short, I decided to take another dive off The Busted Flush and paddle around at least a bit more in that delightful series of novels. The way I’ve done it this time is to ask you to match MacDonald’s famous “colors” with the rest of his titles. (Example: Number 1 goes with letter M, to create A Purple Place for Dying.)

Give it a try:

1. purple
2. green
3. brown
4. blue
5. cinnamon
6. scarlet
7. lemon
8. gray
9. pink
10. indigo
11. silver
12. copper
13. turquoise
14. red
15. orange
16. crimson
17. lavender
18. gold
19. tan
20. yellow
21. amber

A. free fall in
B. for guilt
C. darker than
D. girl in the wrapper
E. for the shroud
F. lonely rain
G. goodby
H. long look
I. one fearful eye
J. lament
K. nightmare in
L. deadly shade of
M. place for dying
N. empty sea
O. ruse
P. skin
Q. sandy silence
R. ripper
S. quick fox
T. dreadful sky
U. dress her in

If your matchmaking skills didn’t work because you aren’t familiar with these books, I encourage you to read one of them. I think you’ll be glad you did. But if you got a perfect (or even a pretty good) score, you probably already know all about Travis and Meyer and 1960s Florida and the Bahia Mar Marina—and how much fun those adventures can be.

Either way, here are the answers:

1M—A Purple Place for Dying
2R—The Green Ripper
3D—The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper
4G—The Deep Blue Goodby
5P—Cinnamon Skin
6O—The Scarlet Ruse
7T—The Dreadful Lemon Sky
8B—Pale Gray for Guilt
9K—Nightmare in Pink
10U—Dress Her in Indigo
11F—The Lonely Silver Rain
12N—The Empty Copper Sea
13J—The Turquoise Lament
14S—The Quick Red Fox
15E—Bright Orange for the Shroud
16A—Free Fall in Crimson
17H—The Long Lavender Look
18L—A Deadly Shade of Gold
19Q—A Tan and Sandy Silence
20I—One Fearful Yellow Eye
21C—Darker Than Amber

Parting questions: Did any of you like these books? If so, was it because of McGee? The setting? The plots? All of the above?

By the way, I plan to leave Mr. MacDonald and his colorful characters alone from now on—at least as column fodder. But I’ll probably continue to re-read the novels.

lol

by Steven Steinbock

Earlier this week, Melodie got WORDY on the subject of unpleasant sounding words. She dissed does, gunt, green, and gas among other words. I understand Melodie’s lingual discontent, but frankly I can think of a lot more irritating words.

In the comment section on Tuesday, I kvetched about cummerbund. Something about it sounds oddly perverse and reptilian. Not to mention cumbersome. The object itself is inoffensive, but the thought of wrapping something with that name around a young man’s waist before going participating in a wedding or prom is icky.

Icky is a useful word, but it has an unpleasant ring to it. I suppose it’s appropriate. Likewise, kvetch, which I used in the preceding paragraph, has a grating tone. But again, the thing it describes is itself grating, so it’s reasonable that the word should also be.

But what about odd ones like mellifluous? I came across that one earlier today. The word means “dulcet” or “sweet sounding” and comes from the Latin for “honey-flowing.” But to my ears, it isn’t honey that’s flowing. I keep hearing “effluent” (which has the same Latin root for “flowing” but is more apt to describe sewage).

Then there is the effluence of kid-speak (and kid-text). The words sick and fail come to mind, as well as the obnoxiously ubiquitous lol, rofl and lmao. Sick has come to mean that something is really cool. Ten or twenty years ago, I guess kids were using bitchin’ in the same way. There’s a term for words like that – words that take on their opposite meaning. JLW has probably told me the term more than once, but it’s evaporated in the summer heat.

It is odd, though, that cool and hot are both used to describe things that the speaker likes. But you would never hear a person say, “Wow, that’s really warm” about a new music star.

Fail is a single word statement that my kids use when someone does something wrong. I spill my coffee. . . “Fail.” I use the wrong word for a microprocessor. . . “Fail.” I use a teenage expression in the incorrect context. . . “Fail.” Apparently there’s an age limit on the use of fail. The other day I asked my son if he’d finished a paper that was due in class the next day. “Oh crap,” he said. “I left it at school.”

I looked at him, and in an attempt at coolness (“sickness”) I said, “Fail.”

As soon as the word was out of my mouth, a look of disgust came across my son’s face, and he responded, “Fail.”

I apparently failed at “fail.” What does that make me? Warm?

I thought that Internet shortcut expressions like lol, rofl, and lmao where clever the first time I saw them. But they’d already worn out their cleverness after encountering them a zillion times on discussion boards, emails, and instant messages. But they’ve come to be so common that they’re useless. I find them really dishonest, too. If someone really was rolling on the floor or laughing their ass off, how on earth would they be able to type? Seriously, how many times have you actually been audibly laughing when you typed “lol”? I have three things to say to those of you who persist on peppering your messages with these inanities: “giuf,” “sad,” and “gal.”

Moving on, there’s another ill-sounding word that I want to mention. Unfortunately, I don’t have a better alternative. The word fanzine sounds, to my ears, like it’s either a time-saving device being hawked on late night TV, or it’s the name of a character or an interplanetary race in a 1950s science fiction story.

The word did actually get its start in the science fiction community, which is no surprise. It never ceases to amaze me how many tin ears there are among sf aficionados. But that’s the topic for a separate column which I’ll never write.

Despite my disaffection for the word, fanzines are dear to my heart, and it’s the subject that I’ll devote next week’s column to. But as to the word, it’s an awkward gluing of fan (which is short for “fanatic”) and the last half of magazine (a word that wasn’t meant to be split in two, and means “storehouse” or “publication”).

Perhaps in addition to talking about the histories of several mystery fanzines, next week I’ll share some thoughts about the origin and use of the word magazine. If I do, I’ll tell you about an inaccuracy about firearm terminology that is very common in books, film, and television.

TAKE A SEAT

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

In my “Writing & Marketing the Short Story” classes at the local college, I could tell who would be the best writers from the moment they chose a seat.

At first, I thought it was a fluke when the students who would write the most interesting stories chose to sit in the same area where my students had in previous classes. Semester after semester, the same scenario repeated itself and I realized my theory had credence.

Mr/Ms Imagination seated themselves in the same chairs as all the Mr/Ms Imaginations had taken before. They composed delightful, unpredictable and memorable stories. I knew I would soon see their bylines in print.

The writers who argued instead of listened during critique would take the same row and chair as the Complainers had in the former class. These people did not believe their stories needed any rewriting. Obviously, I was not “getting” what they meant. When I recognized this type of student, I rarely spent much of the valuable and limited class discussion time on their work.

Why bother? The sad thing is they truly believed what they had “in their head” about the story had shown up “on the page.” If the Complainers would stop and listen to the questions their classmates asked concerning the story, they would realize much work needed to be done on the manuscript before the story would be publishable.

Clustered to my left side and to the rear of the room would be at least two students who would drop the class when they realized they were expected to write.

The person who never missed a class, yet whose work never improved, would occupy the same space — usually near the front where one would assume those most interested in learning would sit. The Always A Student took spare notes and enjoyed talking about writing more than she did actual writing.

When the phenomena repeated again and again, I expected to hear the theme from “The Twilight Zone.” It soon became my private project to see if the students shared other similar qualities with their chair’s previous tenants.

As a personality trainer, I am conditioned to note the traits of those wandering into my life or me into theirs. Every personality type comes equipped with their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. When we work on eliminating our weak traits while fortifying our strengths, we naturally become happier individuals.

As a mystery writer, I take notes on people’s nuances, quirks and motivations for my own character studies. I often use personality charts to help deduce my character’s probable reactions. Knowing their innate weaknesses and strengths guides me along a blueprint of sorts to know how they may respond when trouble comes calling.

My popularity as an instructor rose when I assigned homework watching at least one episode of “Survivor” and the movie, “Die Hard.”

On “Survivor” the plot is the same for everyone: to outlast their competitors and win the cash prize. The story playing out is altered each season not so much from the environment or challenges as much as the players’ personalities and life experiences. In “Die Hard,” Bruce Willis’ character, John McClane, takes charge because that is what a rogue cop who has a personal stake (his wife is among those held at gunpoint by the terrorists) does in that situation.

If, while sitting in my classroom, a group of Uzi-bearing terrorists entered—dressed in full commando-like gear—what would you do? What would I do? What would the person next to you do? Aha! Our actions would depend on our personality, beliefs and skills. Not all of us are the Bruce Willis action-figure type. Who would emerge as the hero of this story? I am not asking who would take on the enemy. I am asking whether you wrote or read this story, whose viewpoint would you most want to hear? If the story were told from Mrs. McClane’s point of view, wouldn’t it be a completely different film?

Studying movies, television programs, short stories and novels for the writer’s choice of characterization techniques is a vital tool to both creating and enjoying good fiction. Plot is important, but it is the characters that make the story come alive.

Bruce Willis’ portrayal of McClane makes “Die Hard” stand out from other action movies. If another actor played the part, would it have been as dynamic? Imagine someone other than Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. What if Captain Butler was played by Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper or Tyrone Powers? Or hey, even Bruce Willis?

Does it make a difference where we choose to sit? Would the ones who excel do so if they sat in the Quitters chairs? Would the Complainers gripe less and learn more if they sat on the opposite side of the room or those whose writing never evolved flourish if only they sat two seats back? Perhaps. But, consider this: What if we can create success wherever we choose as our place when we decide to conquer our doubts and forge through personality flaws we can alter?

Take a seat wherever you are most comfortable, and let’s see where this ride takes us.

TRIPLE FEATURE

by Rob Lopresti

Today I want to introduce you to three videos. They are all very short so don’t bother microwaving the popcorn.

This is what a fan looks like

Sam lives in England. She likes the novels written by Diane Chamberlain, my sister.

Oliver also lives in England. He likes Sam.

Oliver asked Diane if he could buy a specially-signed copy of a book from her for Sam’s birthday. Diane said she couldn’t legally sell him a book but she would give him a copy of The Midwife’s Confession, which won’t be for sale in England until summer.

The video shows Sam’s birthday. The papers in the envelope are the email exchange between Diane and Oliver.

Mr. Lane would like a word

I have written before about New Tricks, the mystery/dramedy from Britain. I recently saw an episode I liked a lot because it was about thefts from an academic library, a subject with which I am not unfamiliar. This video shows the first ten minutes, but I am just encouraging you to watch the first minute. It shows Brian "Memory” Lane visiting his local library branch with his wife. Brian (Alun Armstrong) is a retired copper and current cold case consultant. You may sympathize with him.

Crime stalked the night while neighbors giggled in terror

You would think the victims would be more terrified, wouldn’t you?

WORDY

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Derivations aside, there are certain words that I find, odd, irritating, or just plain ugly sounding. I know this stems from my childhood when I was learning to read and pronounce words. Vocabulary was not easy for me and I remember having to be tutored. Looking back I think I may have been dyslexic. Whatever the reason, it was not an easy task. I was intrigued by words and their meanings but sometimes they would appear to me as a jumble. So as a person with a speech impediment becomes a newscaster or an actor, I became a woman of words, a writer.

Grass, as in lawn, is one that has always bothered me. No particular reason except to my ear it sounds harsh, meaningless, and anything but lush and green.

Grunt. My characters never grunt. Unless one is a really odious human being or a real pig. (I don’t think I’ve ever written about pig though I did write about a cow, but it never grunted.) In fact I don’t know why we can’t call grass grunt and vice versa. “Look how green that grunt is,” the man grassed.

When my young spongy mind was trying to make distinctions, while at the same time grouping words and ideas together, grunt fell into the scatological column and has never climbed out of it.

Does. A very useful word, but odd, even funny sounding. To my ear does should be the name of a detergent or a bar of soap. “Watch Does Bubbles work their magic on the dirtiest of stains.” Or maybe the gruntiest of stains?

If dyslexia is a problem, “does” can be a big problem. It can easily turn into dose and hide there for those of us who have to take a moment to un-jumble. Jumble is a perfect word. It sounds exactly like what it means. And I love the way it spills out of the mouth causing the speaker to actually feel the word.

I detest “spurious” because it’s a spurious word. Or maybe I detest the people who use it since they are mostly “intellectuals” or politicians. It’s sounds haughty and petty. It’s meant to stop any discussion. I read a review of a book in the Los Angeles Times last Sunday where the critic must’ve of used the word five times. What? He can’t come up with a synonym?

Synonym is another word that disturbs me. I like this word, but I admit to having never learned to spell it correctly. When I attempt to write it, I toss in a lot of m’s and o’s but never enough y’s. Then I hit spell check and hope I’m close enough to the word so it will correct it for me. I also have trouble pronouncing it. This problem comes from childhood again. I could never pronounce the very delicious word cinnamon, so how could I possibly pronounce synonym? Actually, when I said cinnamon it came out closer to symomnin. (Oops, spell check didn’t get that one) Since there aren’t many synonyms for cinnamon I would always hurry over the word, mumbling slightly or coughing. At least in a bakery I could point.

Gas station. I don’t dislike either word. Though you would think I’d hate the word gas being so close to grass and grunt. But I don’t. There is nothing logical, or even intelligent going on here. Together, these two words give me pause. I grew up in an era where we actually played with toy gas stations. We’d push our little cars into the bays and pretend to fill them up and zoom off. Yes, we actually thought gas stations were good places like churches. I was bigger than the toy station so I had an omniscient view of it. Today, gas stations are still toy-like for me. Except when I try to fill up my car. Then everything becomes cumbersome and uncontrollable and my God-like view quickly evaporates leaving me feeling more like a child than when I was one.

None of my likes or dislikes makes any sense except to me. Oh, oh, there is another word—sense. Since makes more sense. First of all it was easier to spell when I was little. The letter ‘c’ helped. And since we do use the same word for different meanings (such as duck, a word I do like) I never understood why we couldn’t use since for sense. I always felt my teachers made these words similar just to confuse me. What nonsince!

I could go on but I have other things to right. I mean write. That’s another word . . .