MY ANNUAL MERRY NONSECTARIAN WINTER SOLSTICE RETAIL FRENZY FESTIVAL SEASON NEWSLETTER

by James Lincoln Warren

Dear Friends,

It’s been quite a year!

Perhaps the most unusual thing that happened this year was my abduction by aliens, who I am pretty sure rewired my brain. I have no direct evidence for this except for a persistent feeling that they dropped me off on the wrong planet, or at least in an alternative reality. I say this because when I look at the pictures of celebrities on the cover of Parade magazine, included with my newspaper every Sunday, I have absolutely no clue as to who any of these people are, or why I should care about them. I know, some folks say that this is merely a symptom of advancing age, like not knowing how to program a DVR, to which I reply that if I owned a DVR I would certainly know how to program it.

On the other hand, despite a once feverish adoration of new technology, I confess to being one of those Luddites who anachronistically still regard a telephone is an instrument for talking on. I know that’s a function of age; for a few brief months in 2008 I actually owned a BlackBerry, which I hated so much I went back to my now-ancient Motorola Razr, and even disabled the texting function on it. That was well before the aliens got me.

But even so, I strongly suspect that “Dancing With the Stars” and Justin Bieber are the products of a civilization completely unfamiliar to me. (Is this an unwarranted assumption, that they are the products of a civilization? Must ponder.) As far as DWTS is concerned, it’s not the show itself so much as the fact that its progress was reported on TV as Breaking News. It’s like something out of a nightmare about zombies (and this recent cultural flirtation with zombies might itself be a sign). All right, I know that Justin Bieber is just the latest in a succession of teenage heartthrobs going back more than a half-century to such child-men as Ricky Nelson and Frankie Avalon—but I don’t think any of them were nominated for a Grammy. Grammys used to be for actual musicians. How can this be true? Am I really still on Earth?

Why were all the new movies in 3-D? I suspect it has something to do with subliminal psychic manipulation. I mean, how else do you explain the Tea Party movement?

The cats, Emma and Lizzie, have had a reasonably good year and are as loving as ever. I regard this as another clue. Everybody knows that cats are aliens from the Cat Planet. Just look at their eyes. Plus, they are obviously much smarter than people; further evidence of the intercession of a more advanced culture. The final touch, of course, is that they obviously control us. We hairless monkeys clearly exist only to facilitate the feline will.

Margaret has been busier than hell this year, and yes, she’s always been busier than hell—but 2010 was worse than usual, which makes me think that maybe Time Vampires were involved. Even so, I’m almost certain that she’s the same woman I’ve been married to for 25 years—maybe she was abducted with me. The only thing that creates any doubt about it is that she now seems to believe that I’m marginally competent in the kitchen. This is scary, but I have been able to cope.

Next month, I am to be installed as Master of my Masonic Lodge. The Masonic handshakes and secret words don’t seem to have changed, unless they really have been and my memory was accordingly altered by the aliens. Somehow I don’t think so, though. I’m looking forward to my year as Master. This seems far too benign to be the product of aliens bent on the invasion of the Earth.

So maybe aliens weren’t involved at all. It was probably only the 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Masonic Global Conspiracy at work. That’s a comforting thought.

So until next year, amigos, all the best for 2011!

Love and Peace,
Jim

BOXING DAY

by Leigh Lundin

Tis the day after Christmas
    And after the fray,
Comes the burning question:
    What the heck’s Boxing Day?

Is it regifting, returning?
    Reboxing for eBay?
Please tell us, CB,
    What the heck’s Boxing Day?

It’s that time of year again, the second day of Christmas, not the twelfth day + 1, as some seem to think. Other misconceptions surround Boxing Day, even in countries where it’s officially celebrated.

Little can be said with certainty about Boxing Day except it’s

• celebrated on the 26^th of December (or the next work day),
• a medieval observation (possibly earlier) often associated with St. Stephen,
• celebrated in most English-speaking and Commonwealth nations and some European countries,
• associated with those less fortunate,
• nothing to do with repacking, recycling, or getting rid of boxes.

Some contend the ‘boxing’ in Boxing Day refers to the poor boxes contributed to by men of means for distribution to those in need. This practice may provide the link to St. Stephen.

Another tradition says that after servants of the wealthier classes drudged through Christmas Day supporting families of the rich, the wealthy donated food and goods for serfs, servants, and merchants to have their own lesser celebration the following day. As the New York Times noted, a mid-19^th century British store sold pre-packaged Boxing Day ‘gifts’ for servants– the materials to sew their own uniforms.

Boxing Day sale example

Most current and former Commonwealth Nations designate Boxing Day as an official holiday, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and even Hong Kong. An exception is India, although regions within India continue to celebrate the 26^th as a day for helping the poor. Others of the forty or so nations include Austria, Danmark, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Greenland, Ireland, Italy, Malawi, Nederlands, Nigeria, Norway, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

While other countries observe Boxing Day, the holiday passes virtually unrecognized in the US, except for the concept of year-end bonuses. Although it’s difficult for 21^st century minds to link slavery and humanity, plantation owners may have followed the spirit of a ‘little Christmas’, supposedly giving slaves time off following Christmas.

While modern observations treat Boxing Day as a discount sales shopping day, it’s traditionally about giving as described by one of our older Christmas carols, Good King Wenceslas:

Good King Wenceslas looked out
    On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
    Deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night
    Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
    Gath’ring winter fuel.

"Bring me meat and bring me wine
    Bring me pine logs hither
You and I will see him dine
    When we bear him thither."
Page and monarch forth they went
    They set out together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
    And the bitter weather

"Sire, the night is darker now
    And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
    I can trod no longer."
"Mark my footsteps, my good page
    Tread thou in them boldly.
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
    Freeze thy blood less coldly."

In his master’s steps he trod
    Where the snow lay dinted.
Heat was in the very sod
    Which the Saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
    Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor
    Shall yourselves find blessing.

COMFORT AND JOY

Season’s greetings to everyone.

EREV CHRISTMAS

by Steven Steinbock

Today is Erev Christmas ( ), literally Christmas Eve in Hebrew. Actually, the more common way of saying Christmas in modern Israel is Hag Ha-Molad (or ; literally “the Festival of the Nativity”).

I’m guessing most of you didn’t know that. I’m also guessing that most of our regular readers are observing their own yuletide traditions today. That, or doing some panicked last minute shopping. In either case, the last thing on your mind should be reading today’s Criminal Brief column.

Most Hebrew speakers don’t celebrate Christmas. As an American Jew, I don’t celebrate Christmas. But I do take some vicarious pleasure in the holiday. I enjoy seeing my neighbors’ lights and trees. I still enjoy the old Christmas specials: “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” “Charlie Brown’s Christmas,” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

But Christmas can be a lonely vacuum of a day for many Jews living in largely Christian areas. No shops or stores are open. All our non-Jewish friends are busy. There aren’t even any restaurants to go to except for Chinese.

Which is why it’s become a tradition for many American Jews to go out for Chinese food and a movie on Christmas day. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with my family tomorrow. But if we decide to stay in, here are two movies that I vote we watch. Both are off-beat comedies, and both, in their off-beat way, celebrate a sort of Jewish pride. And face it: on the most Christian day of the year, Jewish guys like me could use a little pride.

Warning: neither of these films is for the weakly constituted. These aren’t films for the kiddies. Nor is either to be taken seriously. They are both farces, and each is in its own way irreverent. Having warned you, the films are:

Hebrew Hammer (2003) staring Adam Goldberg as Mordechai Jefferson Carver, a stylized Jewish stud-superhero in an offensively funny spoof on early ‘70s films like “Shaft” and “Superfly.” He’s a certified circumcised private dick. Santa’s evil son has decided to eliminate Hanukkah, and only a man like the Hammer can stop him. The film pulls out the stops on every stereotype and often turns them on their ears.

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is the unlikely WWII film by Quentin Tarentino. I don’t know why Tarentino spelled the title as he did, although there was an Italian WWII film that went by the name “The Inglorious Bastards” in 1978. The Tarantino film defies the very stereotypes that “Hebrew Hammer” embraces. Brad Pitt is in the best role I’ve seen him in as First Lieutenant Aldo Raine, a Tennessee hillbilly who enlists a team of Jewish G.I.s to cross enemy lines into Nazi occupied France and put the fear of God into the Nazis. Their end goal is to attack a Nazi reception being held at a Paris cinema, but in the process they wreak a lot of havoc. As with any Tarentino film, “Inglourious Basterds” is violent. There are scalpings, bombings, and carving swastikas into the foreheads of Nazis. Disgusting, offensive, but wickedly clever.

Merry Christmas, and God bless us everyone, Jew, Gentile, and Pagan.

REGIONAL MYSTERIES

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

This is certainly a season to gather with old friends and family, but also to meet new people—who are usually friends or family of those we already know. Something about cocktails and new acquaintances bring interesting conversation topics to the forefront. I thrive in social settings. Those like me are almost always married to those who prefer a quiet setting with familiar faces. So while my husband is enjoying reminiscing with old pals, I find the hostess introducing me to new friends.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my man surrounded by his peers. Laughter surrounds him. He is fun to be around. He has great stories, but he’s a good listener, too. Just don’t ask him to tell a joke as he invariably forgets the punch line. He will however remember who told him that fantastic one about the blonde or the traveling salesman. I will be the one talking softly to someone who is new to the group and likes to talk about history, movies or books.

This particular night, I find a distinctive gentleman (I’ve always assume they are gentlemen until they prove me wrong) that likes history, movies, and books. His stories prove he’s led an interesting life and I’m fascinated. I’ve heard about his military service, his work in the corporate world, and how he’s planning an early retirement so he can travel “before I’m too old to enjoy it,” he says. By the time we’ve moved from his life story and onto mine, his expression shows his surprise to hear I’m an author. He has never met “a real author,” he tells me. I suppose I don’t fit the mold he had in mind, especially for a mystery writer.

We talk about what he’s read, which books and authors we both enjoy as well as those neither of us appreciate.

He asks what I’m writing now and when I mention it is a regional novel, he grimaces and says, “I don’t care for mysteries with small town settings.” He takes a healthy sip of his drink and adds, “They are usually romances in disguise.” He places his arm on the back of the sofa as if “that settles that.”

I disagree and tell him about my friend Jan Grape’s essay, “A Trip into the Hinterlands” for Writing the Private Eye Novel. “Any author whose story takes you where you’ve never been before—even if it’s familiar territory—and where that author’s creativity lets you smell, hear, see and feel an area like never before is a regional.”

“Agatha Christie, Nevada Barr, and Sara Paretsky have written regional stories,” I remind him. “Have you read Linda Castillo? She writes of a small Amish community and it is anything but a romantic mystery.”

He seems taken aback. Maybe he’s surprised that I took his statement to task or (and this is more likely) that I questioned his hypothesis. I could tell he’s used to “being right.”

Personally, I enjoy people who aren’t afraid to say what they think—as long as they aren’t rude or obnoxious. We end the evening discussing a myriad of subjects and he promises me he’ll read Castillo and let me know what he thinks. I may not have changed his mind, but he is now more open to possibilities. I count that as a victory for those of us choosing to occasionally set stories in locations beyond New York City or Los Angeles.

One formidable lawyer once told me he didn’t like women authors. Lawyers are fun conversationalists. They love to argue; it’s what they do best. I know he expected an argument by making such a blanket statement. Mentally noting he didn’t say he preferred male writers (an interesting tidbit to me), I asked, “Why don’t you like women authors?”

Puffing out his chest, he sputtered, “They put too many details in.”

Too many details?

That makes as much sense as saying you don’t like regional mysteries because they are romances in disguise. I’m not saying that some female writers don’t put in too much detail, but then again, some male authors are as guilty. The same with some mysteries not set in a major metropolis. There are some really great stories written by women and/or in a regional setting.

The first mystery novel I reviewed for a newspaper was Jan Grape’s Austin City Blue—hardly a small town setting, but definitely a regional mystery. Barbara Burnett Smith wrote of a small town, and although the books are considered a cozy mystery series, the stories are definitely not classified as romance. (At this point, I feel like I should borrow a line from “Seinfeld” and mention, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . . .”) The entire Miss Marple series is a regional setting.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess I like regional mysteries. Probably as much as I do those set in metropolitan areas. I don’t separate them into a “one or the other” category. I can have both on my bookshelf and so can you.

A VISIT FROM SAINT VASILIS

by Rob Lopresti

In honor of the season I am going to steal a page from my friend Peter Berryman. In this case I have taken the most famous poem about Christmas and run it through the Babelfish Translation service..Each verse went through one language, which is indicated, and then back into English. Enjoy, and have a merry one.

’T was the night before Christmas, when all by the house
not a creature stirred up, not even a mouse.
Bottoms were hung by the chimney carefully,
In the hopes which the Nicholas saint soon would be there. (FRENCH)

The nestled children were all snug in their beds,
While vision of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘ kerchief, and I in my end,
Had just settled down law has length winter’ s nap; (SPANISH)

When for it are in the lawn if it raised such clinked,
I jumped of the bed to see what it was the substance.
Moved away to the window I flied I eat a flash,
Tore open the obturators and played the band above. (PORTUGUESE)

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
has given the lustro of the noon to the objects here under,
When, what to mine to wonder eyes it would have to appear,
But one slips to miniatura and reindeer much small eight,
With an old little one driver, thus lively and quickly,
I have known in a moment that it must be Saint Nick. (ITALIAN)

More rapidly than eagles coursers passed they are,
and he whistled, and shouted, and called them name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Thunder and Blitzen!
To the upper part of the portico! to the upper part of the wall!
Now hyphen gone! hyphen gone! storm gone all! (DUTCH)

As land leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they are met with a obstacle, you place in the sky,
Thus up to home-top coursers they flew,
With the total of sledges of games, and Saint Vasilis also. (GREEK)

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
Ace I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Saint Nicholas come con with to bound. (SPANISH)

It was dressed all in the fur, from its head to its foot,
and its clothes were clouded all with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys, which it had back hurled on its,
and it looked like a Hausierer, who opens straight its sentence. (GERMAN)

Its eyes – how they scintillated! its small cavities how much merry!
Its cheeks were like the pinks, its nose like a cherry!
Its small funny mouth was elaborate like an arc,
And beard it of its chin was as white as snow. (FRENCH)

The mutilation of pipe kept tight in his teeth,
And the smoke this encircled his head as a hoop.
Had a wide person and a small round abdomen,
This shook, when it laughed, as bowlful her gelatins. (GREEK)

He was chubby and chubby, correctly very old eleven,
and I laughed then I him, in spite of me saw.
Wink of its eye and a turn of its head,
gave me shortly to I know nothing to fear had. (DUTCH)

He spoke not a word, but went straight to its work,
and filled all socks; then turned with a jerk,
and its finger even effect of its nose putting,
and a head nodding, up giving the fire-place, he rose. (GERMAN)

It has jumped to its slips, to its square it has given I hiss,
and via all they have flown like the low of a wild thistle.
I have felt but it exclaim, era has guided from sight,
“Been born them happy to all and to all l’ good night!” (ITALIAN)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Bones and I are just now going out in search of a Christmas tree and to buy gifts for the family in the pouring rain. (What? It never rains in California.) Obviously I’m a little behind schedule. So here is an essay I wrote for the book, Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, Edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner.

I wish all of you, dear readers and dear writers, a very merry Christmas. Thank you for supporting Criminal Brief. I don’t how James was able to corral such a crazy, funny, sometimes brilliant, sometimes not, maddeningly erudite, and always unruly group of writers such as us. Thank you, James.

W. Somerset Maugham’s
ASHENDEN or THE BRITISH AGENT (1928)

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was a prolific and successful English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was also one of the most significant travel writers between the two world wars. His first major novel, Of Human Bondage (1915), was decried by the critics, but saved from obscurity by Theodore Dreiser who thought it a work of genius and compared it to a Beethoven symphony. The book has never been out of print. The Moon and Sixpence (1919) and The Razor’s Edge (1944) are among his best known books. His short story, “The Letter,” was turned into a brilliant noir film starring Bette Davis. Numerous other stories, novels, and plays were adapted into movies, such as Rain staring Joan Crawford. Many of his works, including Liza of Lambeth and Cakes and Ale, featured female characters who were ruthless in serving their sexual needs while not thinking of the cost to others. Critics often condemned Maugham for letting his villains off too easily. “It must be a fault of mine that I am not gravely shocked at the sins of others unless they personally affect me,” he responded. During the latter part of his career, he fell from favor, thinking of himself as the “very first row of the second raters.” He died while reading a mystery.

W. Somerset Maugham was a great short story writer. He was also a spy in World War I. Blending his talent and personal experience, he wrote Ashenden or the British Agent (1928). The book is a group of sixteen short stories connected by the character Ashenden, a writer/spy, and R., a British colonel, Ashenden’s recruiter and handler.

Maugham writes in the preface to a later edition, “The work of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless. The material it offers for stories is scrappy and pointless; the author has himself to make it coherent, dramatic, and probable. That is what I have tried to do in this particular series.”

Each story contains an order from R. that Ashenden must fulfill. Sometimes he succeeds, and sometimes his goal is lost in a maze of emotion created by the unpredictability of human beings. Maugham’s sharply observed characters, wit, and stiff English compassion bring these stories to life.

Here, Maugham gives us a sense of Ashenden and R., the old soldier:

. . so long as the fine weather lasted he was prepared to enjoy himself. He did not see why he should not at least try to combine pleasure to himself with profit to his country. He was traveling with a brand-new passport in his pocket, under a borrowed name, and this gave him an agreeable sense of owning a new personality. He was often slightly tired of himself and it diverted him for awhile to be merely a creature of R.’s facile invention

. . . R. it is true had not seen the fun of it: what humor R. possessed was of a sardonic turn and he had no facility for taking in good part a joke at his own expense. To do that you must be able to look at yourself from the outside and be at the same time spectator and actor in the pleasant comedy of life. R. was a soldier and regarded introspection as unhealthy, unEnglish, and unpatriotic.

The reader never sees the effects of the war in these stories, except in eerily empty European cities where spies maneuver, scheme, and contrive against each other in the name of their country. This is Lucerne as seen through Ashenden’s eyes:

Most of the hotels were closed. The streets were empty, the rowing boats for hire rocked idly at the water’s edge and there was none to take them, and in the avenues by the lake the only persons to be seen were the serious Swiss taking their neutrality, like a dachshund, for a walk with them.

Maugham is brilliant at going from the languid overview, then moving swiftly in for the kill with a sharp devastating observation. One of my favorite stories is “Giulia Lazzari.” It is a love story turned into ugly betrayal by the war. A dancer has captured the heart of an East Indian terrorist who spies for the Germans. Ashenden must get this uneducated creature to write letters to her lover, enticing him to come from neutral Switzerland to France, so he can be captured. The main part of the story takes place in a hotel room where Ashenden cajoles this volatile, angry, sobbing woman into betraying her lover. When writing the letter, she asks him:

“How do I spell absolutely?”

“As you like.”

How succinct. How perfectly put for a spy who wants to give nothing away to the love-obsessed terrorist. When the Indian learns that he has been deceived, he swallows poison in a train station in front of his captors. In the hotel room, Ashenden tells the lady what has happened and that she is free to go. She cries and wails and then suddenly clearheaded asks:

“What are they going to do with his things?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“He had a wristwatch I gave him for Christmas. It cost twelve pounds. Could I have it back?”

And that is the end of love. Maugham captures not only the everydayness of being a spy, but the deadening loss for all those involved.

As with many of his stories, this one is based on an actual event. There was a British agent sent to assassinate the real Indian terrorist and German spy, Chattopadhaya. How deeply was Maugham involved? We don’t know. But Winston Churchill reportedly told Maugham to burn fourteen of his short stories because they gave too much information away. Another story, “The Hairless Mexican,” is about a hit man so overly confident in his murderous skills and sexual prowess that he fails miserably at his mission. Maugham uses irony in place of a gun every time

In creating the Eton-educated Ashenden, Maugham paved the way for Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and many more. I even see Ashenden in P. D. James’s Inspector Dalgliesh. Also, R. is in all likelihood the prototype for M. in the James Bond novels. Alfred Hitchcock used elements from Ashenden in his 1936 film, Secret Agent.

This group of stories was written in a long-ago era. The element of the ticking time bomb so popular in thriller writing today does not exist in them. But the human element does. And its accuracy—on a special tour of the CIA in Langley, I learned that they have a best spy novel list. It’s very short. Ashenden or the British Agent is on it.