HEARING VOICES

by James Lincoln Warren

Any scribe worthy of a paycheck works hard to make sure that his characters all speak differently from each other. Having everybody use exactly the same diction is boring and unrealistic. Where it becomes hardest to consistently keep a character’s voice unique isn’t in dialogue, though, it’s in a first person narrative. This is because the author, being a wordsmith, directly impinges on the character’s mode of expression. Most of my stuff is in the third person limited POV, but I have several stories in the first person—the first story I ever sold was told in the first person. I try to make them as different from me as they are from each other, but I don’t always succeed.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Warcoombe Witch” (AHMM, Nov 2008). It’s a double-first, because the text is supposed to be an excerpt from one character’s diary describing another character’s telling a story:

     “On the Edge of this Hamlet, on the Squire’s side, there lived an ancient Crone named Jane Thornwold, who had some local Infamy as a Cunning-woman. She dwelt alone, except for a Family of tame Crowes, a nastie grey Tabbie Cat, and an abominable brindled Mastiff, in a decrepit Hovel, that had during the previous Century been a fine Cottage, but was now blackened with Soot & Age, and had long since fallen into Ruin.
     “Her History was, that in the Days of Charles II., she had been a magnificent Beauty, tall as a Yew, with billowing black Hair like an April Thundercloud, and shining Eyes that verily flashed with Lightning,” Ambury told us, with a fine Ear for Poesy.

This one was easy in a way. Ambury is telling his story in 1750 and uses 18th century sentence structure. The recorder, whose name is never given, follows the orthographic customs of his age. All right, maybe imitating language 250 years old takes some research and a keen ear, but the personality of the character pretty much takes care of itself.

Here’s another excerpt, from “Shanghaied” (AHMM Jan/Feb 2009).

     One thing I’ve noticed about lunacy is that it can be catchier than a tune in a minstrel show. It’s got its own crazy rhythm that infects everybody around. The sailors climbed the ratlines as quiet as moss growing on a tombstone, their eyes wide as lenses on a lighthouse, grinning like a bunch of Jolly Rogers. Not a sound was heared except for the scuffling of bare feet on the white oak planks, the turn of the capstan, the creaking of cordage and strakes under strain, and the whisper of water against the hull. Even the sails was lowered as careful as you might let a baby basket out a window. It was like our captain was the Angel of Death, sailing off to collect dumb souls from out of the deep.

The narrator is my version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Davy Balfour in Kidnapped, but whereas his Davy was a serious and decent 18th century Scots Presbyterian, mine’s a 19th century California guttersnipe. Obviously, my model for the tone of the language was Huckleberry Finn. Again, I did some careful wordsmithing to catch the right flavor, but the character came easily out of the words themselves.

Finally, here’s Carmine Ferrari of Cal Ops in “Cold Reason” (AHMM Apr 2008).

     Little old Stanley Stowicz is the only guy I know who buys the newspaper for the chess column. I don’t mind chess. My brother Joe, the Ferrari family boy genius, taught me how to move the pieces when I was a kid back in New York, and explained things like castling and discovered check. That’s as far as I got. Barroom billiards turned out to be a lot more my speed. To me, a Sicilian defense is the Fifth Amendment.

Not hard to tell that Carmine is a tough P.I., is it? His spiel has all the hallmarks. I have fun writing as Carmine, but I think I may have fallen into a trap.

Here’s an excerpt from a work in progress:

     Dad desperately wanted me back—you know what some fathers are like when it comes to their little princesses, not that I’m remotely little or have ever been anything like a princess—but he wanted me home, in Fresno in general and at Sherwood Brothers in particular. I might mention that our name isn’t Sherwood and I don’t have any brothers, but when Dad formed the business, he decided there should be “wood” in the name somewhere, and the Robin Hood and his Merry Men angle struck him as cute. Like cute is a big part of the bail bonds business. As far as I’m concerned, drop the Robins and what you’re left with is the Hoods.

See the problem?

The narrator, whose name is Erica H. Wooding, is obviously young and female and smart.

So how come she sounds like Carmine Ferrari, who is close to middle age and male and although not stupid, not any kind of a genius?

Furthermore, Erica is only a high school graduate and Carmine has a Master’s Degree. A lot of how people sound when they talk is determined by their educations. Not here, though.

Or is it that they both sound like me? I am neither female nor young, being at the other end of middle age than Carmine, nor do I have a Master’s Degree, although I’d like to think I have a modicum of brains.

Or is it something worse?

Could it be that they sound alike because they’re both formulaic?

When I first looked at that last passage a few hours ago right after firing up the old computer, I said to myself, “It sounds like the opening of a detective story.”

Not exactly what I wanted. Yes, it is going to be a detective story, but first and foremost it should be Erica’s story. I think I’ve let her down.

In other words, maybe there’s no character there at all. So I think I get to know Erica a little bit better before I start giving her wisecracks. Maybe I ought to make her a little less forthright, although self-confidence has to be one of her most salient characteristics for the story to work. Confidence isn’t always expressed in the same way, after all. Sometimes it’s brash and sometimes it’s subtle. Erica is probably somewhere in between.

So what I have to do is start listening to voices. Melodie suggested that I buy a copy of Elle magazine to see what kind of clothes Erica wears. (Good advice, that.) I also better tune in to what women in their twenties are saying, although God forbid that Erica ends up spouting clichés in a Valley Girl whine. This is a bit more challenging than writing 18th century sentences, because I don’t know a lot of women in their twenties. But do I have young male acquaintances with wives and girlfriends, so I can listen to them instead—they may not be able to tell me what their wives and girlfriends actually say verbatim, but they can tell me what they hear, which in some ways is even better.

A writer does not only have to know how to read. He has to know how to listen. So now I’m going to shut up.

NOT-SO-COLD OLD CASES

by Leigh Lundin

Before I wrote mysteries, my interest focused on the puzzle, figuring out the whodunit or howdunit. Classics where the puzzle reigns paramount are still my favorites.

As I turned from reading to writing and my drive for verism and verisimilitude, I grew interested in true crime, which I once associated with garish True Detective tabloids. While I can’t say I’ve read Ann Rule, I discovered that while most crime is sordid and dull to the extreme, some cases make fiction pale.

The other thing I learned is that overturning wrongful convictions borders on the impossibly difficult. A federal act, the 1996 AEDPA, severely restricts judges’ options regarding appeals. A few months ago, a split Supreme Court ruled that after conviction, prosecutors are not required to turn over DNA evidence to the defense.

Considered a rebuke of the Innocence Project, court observers noted DNA evidence has exonerated condemned prisoners around the nation. Still, some old cases in which DNA testing wasn’t available still show signs of life.

A Witch Trial   (literally)

Baldwin	Echols	Misskelley

Seventeen years ago, three Arkansas teens were sentenced in a capital case about the deaths of three 8-year-olds. Although none of the physical evidence tied the teens to the boys’ deaths, authorities obtained an emotional conviction based upon (a) a possibly coerced confession from mentally handicapped Jessie Misskelley Jr following 12-14 hours of interrogation (only 45 minutes supposedly recorded) after falsely telling him he’d failed a polygraph exam and (b) a claim by an accused embezzler, Vicki Hutcheson, that she attended an ‘esbat’ (a Wiccan holiday described by the prosecution as a satanic ritual) with Echols and Misskelley, where they confessed to murder.

Apparently, the so-called esbat did not take place. She later recanted her story, saying she fabricated it to avoid larceny charges. What prosecutors claimed was satanic mutilation later turned out to be rents from scavenging animals. With a lack of evidence, prosecutors raised the spectre that Echols listened to Metallica and read Stephen King.

There has been an outcry about attention and financial support going to the accused instead of the victims. The stepfather of one victim once felt that way, but he’s since gone on record saying he believes the stepfather of another victim and an associate are guilty of the crime, as later hair DNA evidence found at the scene suggests.

Arkansas’ governor refused to take action and the original judge repeatedly rejected new evidence. A former prosecutor admitted having repeated conversations with the jury foreman, knowing of "blatant misconduct" in which the foreman wrongly used Jessie Misskelley’s initial false confession (rejected by a judge) during deliberations in order to convince his fellow jurors to convict.

Damien Echols remains on death row and the other two accused are fighting life sentences. The foreman’s misconduct and new DNA evidence are presently being considered by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

• HBO’s Paradise Lost 1
• HBO’s Paradise Lost 2

Here in Orlando

Zeigler

On Christmas Eve thirty-five years ago, five people were found in a suburban furniture store, four dead and the fifth barely alive. The fifth, store owner Tommy Zeigler, was accused and convicted of killing his in-laws, his wife, and Charles Mays, characterized by state attorneys as merely a customer and bystander. Prosecutors contended Zeigler gripped his father-in-law in a headlock and bludgeoned him, accounting for blood around the armpit of Zeigler’s shirt.

Much of the evidence collection was botched and the timeline severely strained to make events fit. However, Sheriff’s Detective Donald Frye deduced, probably correctly, that whatever took place in that store occurred in episodes, not one horrific event. Although a tooth (found and subsequently lost) could not be matched to any person present and a shell casing found that matched no gun, the jury accepted prosecutors’ convoluted theory, but some small doubt kept them from recommending the death penalty. The judge, accused of a conflict of interest, had no such compunctions and sentenced Zeigler to death.

After DNA testing became available, Zeigler applied to have the shirt tested and the court finally granted testing of the armpit a few years ago. Analysis of the bloodstain supported Zeigler’s story, that Charles Mays was part of a gang who attacked Zeigler and massacred his family. As a side note, Zeigler had worked to expose a loan-shark operation, arousing the resentment of criminals including some local police, the ‘enforcers’, and some believe Mays may have been involved.

Prosecutors ridiculed the result and subsequent petitions for blood testing. Although blood evidence agreed with Zeigler’s assertions, the judge decided the results did not vindicate Zeigler. However, six years later and still opposed by prosecutors, Circuit Judge Reginald Whitehead has granted further testing.

Former Chief Deputy Leigh MacEachern stated much evidence wasn’t processed because the Orange County Sheriff’s detectives considered Zeigler guilty but MacEachern now feels that Zeigler is innocent. It’s not clear what or how much it would take for a judge to declare the evidence exculpatory, but one way or another, a man has spent nearly three and a half decades on death row.

PROLONGING THE AGONY

by John M. Floyd

Several weeks ago, during a TV appearance to promote my new collection of mystery short stories, I was asked a question I hadn’t heard before. The interviewer said, out of the blue, “Why do you think so many people like to read crime fiction?”

Say what?

After my heart starting beating again, I replied with something about the fact that readers like to see conflict in a story—the more the better—and with mystery/crime fiction, some level of conflict is always there. It’s already built in.

I believe that, and I thought it was an okay answer, but mulling it over as I was driving home from the studio, I thought of a better one (I often do, after the fact). The main reason readers like crime fiction is probably that we as human beings feel constantly threatened by the possibility of injustice and violence—and in crime stories justice is usually served in the end, and criminals get what’s coming to them. I think that gives readers a feeling of security and comfort and fairness that they certainly don’t get from the headlines they see in the newspapers every day.

Bad things happen to good people

Enough speculation, though; here’s something I’m actually sure about: the more problems that I as a writer can heap onto the back of my hero or heroine in a story, the better my story will be.

A mystery-writer friend of mine, Phil Hardwick, says he keeps a note pinned to the wall above his computer that says MAKE THINGS WORSE. “Protagonist” and “antagonist” have agony as part of the words themselves, and we writers should make our main characters feel that pressure right away, and then add to their burdens and hardships at every opportunity. That’s the way to build tension and suspense. Margaret Lucke says, in Writing Great Short Stories, “Pick your protagonist up by the scruff of the neck and fling her headlong into a conflict.”

Bourne again

I’ve probably made this point before, but one of the best examples (of “making things worse”) is Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity. Right off the bat, good old Jason’s in trouble: he wakes up with amnesia. He has no idea who he is or where he is or why he’s where he is (on a freighter in the middle of the ocean). What could be worse than that? I’ll tell you what: he soon finds out people are trying to kill him. He’s alone and hunted and without friends of any kind. What could be worse than that? Well, he then discovers that his own government is trying to kill him. Talk about having a bad day . . .

All of us like to identify with the characters we’re reading about, and if I were in Jason Bourne’s sneakers I might just pull the covers over my head and give up. When likable characters feel pain, we as readers feel their pain as well. When I think of this kind of thing, I always picture Sir Laurence Olivier standing over Dustin Hoffman with a dental drill, saying “Is it safe?”

What’s your dirt doin’ in Boss Kean’s ditch?

Sometimes characters (Martin Brody, Charlie Allnut, Forrest Gump, Will Kane, Frodo Baggins, Rocky Balboa, Clarice Starling, Zack Mayo) make it past their trials and live to fight another day. Others (Ratso Rizzo, Fast Eddie Felson, Shane, Gus McCrae, Randall McMurphy, Vincent Vega) don’t.

Quite often, our fictional heroes’ final failures/misfortunes are heartbreaking. Cool Hand Luke Jackson, after enduring more prison grief than most mortals could handle, finally makes good his escape only to find that another well-meaning inmate has led the Law straight to him. The crew of the Andrea Gail makes the biggest swordfish catch of their lives and are then capsized and sunk by a perfect storm on the way home. The Roman slave Maximus survives countless battles in the arena only to be murdered by a cowardly emperor with the unsavory-sounding name Commodius (or Commodus, depending on which reference you use).

But even those characters who don’t finally succeed do succeed, in a way: they might be dead or disgraced or lobotomized, but they’ve had a profound influence on others in their lives.

Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

I like the old problem/complication/resolution saying about story structure. (1) Force man up a tree, (2) throw rocks at man, (3) get man down again. That second item (complication) is just as important as the others. Who wants to see someone with a problem that gets solved easily and immediately?

The bigger and harder the rocks are, the better your story will be.

TOUGH GUY, HUH?

by Steven Steinbock

All this week, and until next weekend, I’m hosting a forum on hard-boiled heroes at AudioBook Community. I hope you’ll stop by if you haven’t already.

The landing page features interviews with tough-guy narrators Stacy Keach and Richard Ferrone, as well as my own interview with “Jack Reacher” and narrator Dick Hill. It also includes a link to download ten episodes of Tom Lopez’s “2-Minute Noir”, an amusing twist on the tough-guy theme.

(I’ve been a fan of Tom Lopez and his ZBS radio dramas for thirty years. If you don’t know them, you owe it to yourself to check them out. Hmmm, do I perceive an idea for a future column?)

Each weekday at the Get Caught Listening discussion area, I’m profiling a different “tough guy” character. I thought I’d share the first five with you here:

Sam Spade

You can’t begin talking about hard-boiled heroes without beginning with Samuel Spade, the tough-guy private eye hero of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and a small handful of short stories. When I picture Spade, like most people who have seen the 1941 movie, I picture Humphrey Bogart as the jaded, smart-talking private eye. But Spade appeared on the silver screen on two earlier occasions, first in a 1931 adaptation starring Ricardo Cortez, and then in 1936 in a mediocre humorous adaptation, “Satan Met a Lady” starring Warren William.

Spade was heard on the radio in several audio-adaptations of The Maltese Falcon, including a half-hour version starring the cast of the 1941 film, and a full-hour version starring Edward G. Robinson as Spade. “The Adventures of Sam Spade” ran from 1946 to 1951 and starred Howard Duff, and later Steve Dunne.

Philip Marlowe

I can say without hesitation that Philip Marlowe is my favorite Tough Guy. I have read and reread all seven novels featuring the Los Angeles private detective, and my enjoyment of them hasn’t diminished. Raymond Chandler was a big fan of Hammett’s work, and tried—successfully, I think—to take the tough private eye to the next level. Chandler did it by telling the stories in first person, from the cynical, sarcastic, and witty perspective of Marlowe.

Marlowe was portrayed on film by Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, James Garner, Robert Mitchum, and Elliott Gould. (George Sanders and Lloyd Nolan each appeared in a film based on the Marlowe novels, but with the detective’s name changed). Since the 1940s there have been numerous radio versions of the great PI, including a BBC Radio series (1977-1988) starring Ed Bishop.

Mike Hammer

Mike Hammer is the ultimate tough guy. When he created Hammer for the 1947 novel I, the Jury, Mickey Spillane took the archetype established by Hammett and embellished by Chandler, and took him to the nth level. Hammer is violent, misogynist, and carries his own sense of justice (along with a Colt .45 called “Betsy”) that he’s willing to cross the line to defend. Hammer was judge, jury, and executioner rolled into one.

Two notable audiobook narrators have portrayed Hammer on television. Darren McGavin played Hammer in the 1958-1960 syndicated series “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer.” Stacy Keach took on the role in the more successful 1980s series. (Incidentally, Brian Keith of all people starred in an unsuccessful pilot of Hammer prior to the McGavin series. It was directed by Blake Edwards, who later went on to produce and direct “Peter Gunn”).

Keach has narrated several audio adaptations of the Hammer canon, including two posthumous novels that were completed by Max Allan Collins (creator of more than a few great Tough Guys of his own).

Lew Archer

Ross Macdonald named his Tough Guy private eye for Miles Archer, the partner of Sam Spade who was killed at the beginning of The Maltese Falcon. But ultimately, in Lew Archer, Macdonald created a softer, more thoughtful incarnation of Philip Marlowe. While Archer is softer, I’m not suggesting he was soft. There is a grim and dark honesty to Macdonald’s style and to the cases that Archer covers, working along the scenic California coast, often tracking down missing sons, daughters, and wives of the wealthy.

The books are intelligent and well written. Audiobook adaptations have been read by Tom Parker and by Grover Gardner, and KCRW produced two full-cast adaptations directed by Harris Yulin.

Archie Goodwin

With his “Nero Wolfe” novels, author Rex Stout managed to blur the lines between “cozy” detective fiction and the “hard-boiled” school. Nero Wolfe is the pompous, corpulent genius who seldom leaves his New York brownstone, and takes on cases only as a way to pay for his love of good food, beer, and orchids.

Mr. Wolfe is no softy, but it’s his assistant, the young and sometimes hard-edged Archie Goodwin, who is our fifth Tough Guy. Archie narrates the novels and performs most of Wolfe’s legwork. Goodwin has savvy, street-smarts, attitude, and good looks. Over the course of more than sixty novels and novellas, Archie found the favors of numerous ladies. Goodwin has been portrayed by numerous actors on film and television, but today most viewers associate him with Timothy Hutton (whose father, Jim, played “Ellery Queen” three decades earlier), who appeared in the A&E TV series. Unlike most tough guys, his favorite drink is milk.

Those are my first five. Again, come on over to join the discussion and check out the interviews. The Tough Guy will be waiting for you.

THANK A SOLDIER

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Today is Veterans’ Day. I can’t think of a better time to pay tribute to those who give their all to keep our country from harm’s way. While you’re reading this article, someone is dying for our freedom to write anything we want about the United States of America.

We are free to protest our lawmakers as much as lawbreakers. We can burn flags, hold a demonstration, gripe and complain about our leadership—all because someone stood up for our right to do so whether they believed the same as us or not—they did believe in our freedom to do so.

If you’ve wondered why this particular day was chosen as a remembrance day for our veterans, it’s because World War I formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

Our military men and women deserve to be remembered and respected every day of the year, not just on November 11. Sometimes we may not know what we should do or have the words to express our feelings.

There have been many wonderful stories written about and during wartime. Most of them do not celebrate or glorify war. For those of us who have not had to serve our country in this way, it is a way we can understand what it must be like to be in those circumstances. Real life in the military isn’t just tales of heroic adventures. Sometimes it’s just the truth of one man’s fight for honor, justice and the American Way.

Wartime books that have left strong impressions on me are First Blood by David Morell, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, and of course, just about anything by Tom Clancy.

Tony Burton has put together a crime fiction anthology with military settings and/or protagonists. Sales of Murder To Mil-Spec will benefit Homes For Our Troops, an organization that helps build specially adapted homes for severely wounded veterans at no cost to the veterans. One way to say thank you to our veterans is to help this organization. It’s a good day to do something for those who have given so much to all of us.

CHEERING THE VILLAIN

by Rob Lopresti

Melodie’s recent column about the bad guys got me thinking about my favorite villains. Let’s start out by eliminating a couple of obvious candidates. Professor Moriarty has had a very interesting (after) life since he went over the Reichenbach Falls but let’s face it, he only appeared in one short story, and barely in that. So I eliminate him.

I have written here at far too great length about my affection for Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series, but the arch-criminal in those books, Arnold Zeck, is no great shakes either. He is mentioned in three books and appears physically in only one, but more to the point, I don’t find him a great character.

So, who qualifies? Well, in Melodie’s column and comments we covered Gutman and Hannibal Lecter, so I will skip them here. But here are some of my favorites.

Ed McBain’s The Deaf Man. Now, here is an arch-villain with staying power. He appears in six 87th Precinct novels from The Heckler (1960) to Hark! (2004). He is a man of mystery (always using pseudonyms that refer to his alleged disability, like Mort Orecchio – “dead ear” in Italian); and he takes a special interest in the 87th Precinct boys, finding ways to use their investigations of him in his own elaborate crime plots. And while always defeated (and usually badly wounded) he somehow manages to hobble away to fight another day. Now that’s a great bad guy.

Thomas Perry’s Earl Bliss and Linda Thompson. This team of hitpersons only appear in Shadow Woman, one of Perry’s books about Jane Whitefield. But boy, they made an impression on me. What makes them memorable is a scene, obviously a ritual they engage in before each killing, in which they convince themselves that the target is a danger to them that they have to destroy. It is both a psyching-up and a form of foreplay, and it is scary.

Agatha Christie. I haven’t read her books in almost forty years, but two villains come immediately to mind: the murderers in Towards Zero and Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None). You probably remember the latter (and if you have only seen movie versions you have missed the brilliant way the killer’s story is revealed in the book). But Towards Zero is a lesser-known stunner which qualifies as a twist ending, forcing you to rethink everything you saw the killer do throughout the book.

G.M. Ford’s Cast In Stone. My favorite novel in the Leo Waterman series, actually one of my favorite mystery novels, period. The Seattle private eye goes looking for a possible “black widow” killer and finds is a particularly nasty predator.

Stanley Ellin’s James Flood. Ellin was one of the all-time great writers of short mysteries, but Stronghold was the only one of his novels I really loved. Sections alternate first person narration by Marcus Hayworth and James Flood. Hayworth is a decent guy, a wealthy businessman, and a member of a modern Quaker community in upstate New York. Flood is a criminal who was raised and rejected by that group and now comes back with an elaborate plan of vengeance in mind: he kidnaps most of the women, including Hayworth’s wife and daughter. Flood is single-minded, bloody-minded, and too clever by half.

John le Carré’s Karla. The Russian master spy appears (sort of) in two books, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and Smiley’s People. He never says a word, but he is, as Moriarty was described, the spider at the center of the web. In the first book George Smiley says that “Karla is not fireproof (invulnerable), because he is a fanatic. And one day, if I have anything to do with it, that lack of moderation will be his downfall.” But, in typical le Carré fashion, it is an unexpectedly human weak point, not his famous hardness, that topples Karla. By the way, it is a nice example of the quality of British TV that they hired for Karla’s two brief, silent appearances, not a minor player, but Patrick Stewart.

So, that’s enough from me. Who are your favorite bad guys as yet unlisted?

I WRITE WHAT?

by Melodie Johnson Howe

This will be a short column today because I am off to be interviewed for a show called Literary Gumbo that airs on our local cable channel. I don’t usually do these things, mainly because they light these shows with a flashlight making everyone on camera look like twisted shadows, and the other, more important, reason is that I don’t like to talk about my writing.

When I’m on panels I feel I’m being defined in some odd way that has nothing to do with what I write. This may just be a disconnect between the writer’s words on the printed page and the words that come out of her mouth.

My fear is I’m going to be asked the question I always dread: “What kind of mysteries do you write?” And I’ll be honest and say I don’t know. Interview ended.

I was talking to Linda Landrigan at Bouchercon and she told me that she and Janet Hutchings don’t’ know how to categorize my work. I’m not cozy, not, hardboiled, not police procedural, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea that two editors I admire are talking about me (emotionally meaning not rational); I found myself moving away for fear Linda and I would find a label for me. The problem is we live in a world that is obsessed with defining and categorizing. How else could The Media bleat at us if it didn’t have its buzz words, easy definitions, and labels. Red State. Blue State.

When I was an actress I relentlessly heard, “You are like so and so.” (Put in any big female star’s name.) “You are across between so and so, and so and so.” “You can be the next so and so.” “Oh, no you don’t want to be like so and so.” I would find myself looking in the mirror and wondering who the hell am I? I wanted to run away to a nice quiet cave.

My first two novels were easily definable: The female version of Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe. When I wrote them I wasn’t thinking of labels, I was thinking of books I loved and wanted to write them from a female point of view. I fell into a category that can be easily explained in a badly lit TV interview.

However, it seems my short stories are different animals all together. When I started writing the Diana Poole stories I didn’t think of category. I created a world I am comfortable in as a writer. And I like returning to it, and exploring it. In the novel I’m enlarging this world giving it more background, history, and breadth.

So what am I going to say when I’m asked, “What kind of mysteries do you write?” I’m taking this column with me, and read it to the interviewer.