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Escape From Paris

by Mary Saums

It's hard to imagine anyone, in today's world, who would want to escape from Paris. Surely it's the #1 escape 'to' dream city. At least in the top five. There are so many reasons to stay there, like outdoor cafes ...

 

@photo by Mike Schaffner

 

... fine wines, pastry shops and bistros...

@photo by Mike Schaffner

 

... men arguing with broad gesticulations and curses like arias, architecture so divine it'd make an atheist drop to his knees and cross himself, right there in the middle of the street.

But during World War II, when German tanks rolled in to expand Hitler's Depraved New World, Paris was a dark place.

Families were torn apart, friends murdered, strangers beaten and shot for no reason. A time of cruelty. 

And, in spite of all these horrors, also a time when everyday people became heroes. 

ESCAPE FROM PARIS by Carolyn Hart is a stand-alone novel about such heroes.

 

From the cover:

"The year is 1940. As England braces for German invasion and the Nazis devour Europe, two American sisters in Paris risk their own lives to save downed airmen from the Gestapo."

This book has an interesting history of its own. Carolyn wrote it almost 30 years ago. Her publishers decided they wanted a shorter version. They asked her to cut the book from 93,000 words to 55,000 words, and she obliged for the 1982 edition.

Now, ESCAPE FROM PARIS is a brand new release again! Only this time, it is the unabridged book, just as Carolyn intended it to be when she first wrote it.

This tradepaper edition comes from Oconee Spirit Press, a new small press from publishers Deborah Adams (a former Femme Fatale!) and book maven Justine Honeyman. It's available from your favorite bookstore and online at B&N and Amazon.

I just got my copy. Can't wait to read it! I love books and movies set around WWI and WWII. A couple of favorites - the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear and the Inspector Rutledge series by Charles Todd. Movies - can anything beat Casablanca from the #1 spot? Doubt it. One that I think about a lot is The Train with Burt Lancaster.

What are your favorites?

 

Let Me Entertain You

by Charlaine Harris

Among the many predictable questions I get asked at almost every interview (What was your inspiration? Why do you write about vampires? Do you like “True Blood”?) is one that never fails to make me grit my teeth. Here it is:

“Lots of people have said that your books are really about the gay rights movement. Did you plan that?”

Some day the top of my head will literally fly off when I’m asked that . . . and won’t that be a mess?

I have lots of answers just waiting to trip off my tongue.

    “No, I’m so stupid I didn’t see that my books have a subtext.”

    “Really? I have an agenda?”

    “Who told you that? I’ll sue!”

My better and wiser nature has gotten the better of me so far, and my standard reply is, “Yes, my books do offer ideas for consideration by the reader, and they extend a message of tolerance. But I write to entertain.”

Lest you should think I’m an irritable person, let me point out . . . well, wait. Maybe I am an irritable person! About this topic, anyway. Under normal circumstances I’m fairly amiable and polite.

I think most writers have points they’d like to make, no matter how cozy or traditional their books may seem. But few people are introduced to a new point of view by being violently shaken. I think a mild “think about this” wrapped up in good entertainment is the best route to take.

Just don’t ask me if I knew what I was writing.

Charlaine Harris

 

Life's a beach, and I am a camera

by Donna Andrews

I just returned from Novelist's Inc's 2011 conference in Tampa, Florida.  I should probably talk about the conference and the cool people I met, and everything I learned about social networking and all the fascinating discussions I heard about the future of publishing. And maybe I will later, once I digest it all.

Right now I'm more in the mood to talk about photos.  And water. Like the Gulf of Mexico.  Because our hotel was on St. Pete Beach, literally yards away from the Gulf of Mexico, and when not actually sitting in panels, dining with fellow writers, or sleeping, I was usually taking pictures on the beach.

Now I have to catch up on my 365 project, which means picking a single photo to represent each day. Only one for each day? I'm not sure that's possible.  I could easily come up with five or ten for each day. So I'm going to cheat, and share a few more here. 

I flew into Tampa Wednesday, on the heels of what I gather was a pretty intense bout of rain and thunderstorms.  The flight crew and the shuttle driver and all the hotel staff kept apologizing for the weather, and I didn't even try to convince them I wasn't upset.  I didn't mourn the lack of sunshine.  I knew we'd be getting some later that week, and meanwhile, on a rainy, windy day the shoreline would be just as beautiful, only in a different and more unusual way.  So I smiled when they promised me sunshine and tried to keep my fingers from twitching until I could get outside and start playing with the camera.

I settled into a routine while I was at the conference.  I was staying at the overflow hotel, two buildings down the beach from the main conference hotel, so  every morning I’d get up as early as I could manage, gather everything I might need for the day, and then set out along the sand.  The brochures claimed it was a mere three-minute walk between the two hotels, but I never made it anywhere near that quickly.  Too many things to look at and photograph along the way.

Seagulls.  Sandpipers. Surfers.  Para-sailers. Cabanas, which I always thought of as small tents, but the hotel used the term to refer to the wooden lounges with little canvas awnings you could pull up to shelter from the sun.  Waves.  Clouds.   Dramatic Florida beach architecture.  Palm trees.  Pools.  Swans.  And sunsets.

Maybe if I lived by the beach full time I'd be this excited about coming to Reston to photograph the green woods--rapidly becoming the red, yellow, orange, brown, and green woods as autumn rolls on.  But much as I love my home state, I've been spending a lot of time here this spring and summer, tethered to my computer by my deadline. 

I can't count the days that I finished my daily quota only to find that it was too late to grab my camera and head out to find some interesting nearby sight to photograph. If I was lucky, I could still go out and scout the yard for photo fodder, and all too often it was after dark, maybe even nearing bedtime,  Lot of oddball photos in my 365 project--pictures of things I happen to have lying around the house, photographed at what I hope were interesting angles.

So I greedily drank in all the sights I could find at the beach, and wished I'd added a day or two to my trip after the conference was over, so I could roam a little farther from the hotel, and lose myself in the beach scenery without feeling guilty that I was missing a panel. 

Next time.  And I'm not waiting till next time to go out and find some new and different camera fodder.  Just until the end of the month, when I'll be finishing my revisions and turning in Some Like It Hawk.  And then watch out, nearby scenic vistas! 

Any suggestions on where I should go next?

Are they out there? Are they having fun?

By Kris Neri

Given Sedona’s reputation for being Woo-Woo Central, I suppose it’s inevitable that some visiting smart alecks ask, “So…any spaceships land here lately?”

I answer with the straightest of faces, “The mothership lands every afternoon in the parking lot, but I wouldn’t advise taking it, since it’s the local, not the express.”

They usually just stare at me then, and I’m never sure whether they think I’m crazy, or if they are. I’m honestly surprised by how often we get that question — really, too many times to count. I don’t even know where it comes from. I associate Sedona with crystal stores and psychics, along with such non-metaphysical avenues as hiking and great views. Not aliens. 

I’m not one of those people who has ever seen evidence of alien visitations. If E.T. popped up in my kitchen, I think my heart would stop. 

And yet, as a lifelong science fiction fan, I love the idea. I was weaned on it. Who can forget when, in The Day the Earth Stood Still, Michael Rennie instructed Patricia Neal to give the robot Gort the command, “Klaatu barado nikto,” to keep it from destroying the Earth?

So it’s not a surprise that a sci-fi strain has found its way into my writing in the forthcoming second adventure in my Samantha Brennan and Annabelle Haggerty Magical Mystery, Magical Alienation, which will debut shortly. For a writer, fantasy of any kind presents the ultimate “What if…?” situation. The most exciting aspect is when the writer takes actual facts and/or widely accepted urban legend, and mixes in a giant helping of imagination, to create something that nobody has ever seen before, but which feels as if it really could happen right in our world.

The first book in the series, the Lefty Award-nominated for Best Humorous Mystery, High Crimes on the Magical Plane, introduced fake psychic Samantha Brennan and genuine Celtic goddess/FBI agent Annabelle Haggerty, along with Angus, the ever-hot ancient god of youth and love and laughter, who becomes Samantha’s love-slave, as well as leprechauns, banshees and other mystical beings, who shake up Samantha’s view of the universe.

Magical Alienation picks up with High Crimes on the Magical Plane left off, introducing new gods and goddesses, including Fiona, Annabelle’s secretive goddess mother, and the trickster gods of Lugh and Taliesin, responsible for such real present-day phenomenon as bizarre weather patterns and crop circles. There is a reason why Allyson James, the national bestselling author of Stormwalker called Magical Alienation, “…a hilarious tangle of gods and goddesses.” And why Juliet Blackwell, National bestselling author of Hexes and Hemlines and If Walls Could Talk wrote: "If you hold the secret suspicion that mythical creatures not only exist, but are present in our modern lives, check out Neri’s Magical Alienation. You’ll be glad you did."

It also explores what may have happened in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The craft that crashed there then — which the U.S. government has always insisted was a weather balloon, but which local residents at the time maintained was an alien aircraft, with actual alien inhabitants — and the persistence with which this rumor has continued to circulate to this day, has
always fascinated me. In all likelihood it was a weather balloon, but what fun is that? That’s where the “What if…?” scenario and imagination comes in. Magical Alienation not only explores that crash, it probes the mysterious Area 51 in Nevada. And if you think you know what those places are all about, you’re in for a whale of a surprise in Magical Alienation!

In science fiction, particularly the old films, earthlings are often depicted as the buttheads of the universe. We’re seen as beings so careless with our own environment and theirs that other creatures have to come from planets across the galaxy to give us a collective slap on the wrist to keep us from messing up all of space. You have to admit that Michael Rennie as Klaatu seemed the ultimate universal diplomat in The Day the Earth Stood Still, while we savage earthlings sure proved him right when we shot him.

Some of the characters in Magical Alienation can’t dispute that butthead-theory, including Rand Riker, the bad boy of Rock ’n’ Roll, who’ll do anything for eternal youth, Kenny Campbell, the junior senator from Arizona, with his curious definition of “family values,” as well as a rouge militia unit whose form of domestic terrorism has a decidedly magical twist.

Throw in a horrific harmonic convergence and the darkest night the planet has ever seen, and it’s not clear which of these characters can possibly survive it.

That’s why Darynda Jones, author of Second Grave to the Left, wrote, “It’s intriguing and IMPOSSIBLE to put down! Get this book. You will not be disappointed!” And why fantasy author, Jeff Mariotte, author of the Dark Vengeance series, described it as: “…fearless, frenetic, and funny. Kris Neri's tale of gods and rock stars and fake psychics has more twists and turns than a French braid, and she employs all her mystery-writer's chops to keep readers spellbound from beginning to end, wondering who’s really who and what’s really next.”

I just call it the most fun I’ve ever written. What do you think? Are they out there?

My Criminal Mind

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Toni brought up such an interesting question this week--why are we drawn to--death? Mysteries, at least? Or to crime? And how does it happen, I wondered, that some "Criminal MInds" turn to well, crime, and others turn to the computer? To fiction?

The amazing and storied Kathleen George has been thinking about that, too...you know her, right?

She's the editor of PITTSBURGH NOIR and the author of TAKEN,  FALLEN, AFTERIMAGE, THE ODDS (Edgar finalist, best novel, whoo hoo!), and the brand new (and fabulous) HIDEOUT. (We're giving away a copy today--see below!)

PW's starred review (whoo hoo! ) says: "George makes readers care about the > people who are about to confront each other. The inevitable violence hurts> because it matters. Told in lean, efficient prose, this is a top-notch,  emotionally satisfying police procedural."

And as it turns out--she also has a top-notch...criminal mind.

by Kathleen George

Early on in my career as a crime writer, I consulted with the FBI on a novel that eventually died in a drawer.  (It later came back to life with a totally different crime in it.)  At the time, however, I found myself asking the Special Agent, “What if my character did X? And then Y?”  He’d say something, nodding, and I would add.  “Ah, then if he did Z?”  The very nice Special Agent looked at me narrowly and said, “You have an excellent criminal mind.”

My husband has since refined the phrase as he tells the story far and wide.  “Even the FBI told her she has a fine criminal mind.”  It’s funny that he’s so proud.  He is the most scrupulously honest person I know—he’d go out of his way to return a dollar if he discovered a vendor had short-changed himself.   And I—fine criminal mind that I have—abhor violence, theft, fraud, even vandalism and am myself fairly crime–free.  In fact I have a distinct memory of passing a catered table in an empty room when I was a teenager and filching a piece of watermelon that was calling to me.  Afterward, I felt miserable and elated, telling myself, “My God, I stole something, I stole something.”

How does a person who writes crime and fears it handle the news?  A little like I handle a bat trapped in the house.  At first I duck and hide; then when the bat has stopped swooping and diving, I start to look around for it.  As I search, I become braver.  And soon the goal is to trap it before it flies at me and to take it outside and release it.  (I did this just recently.  My method is to clap a garbage can over it where it rests (hangs) and while it is disoriented, cover the can, carry it outside, let it fly away). 

Okay.  Me and crime stories.  I duck, yes, they are so horrible.  But I know they’re there.  And my mind starts to work on how to trap them.  And as I understand the bat (a good creature) is just terrified, I seek to understand the mindset of criminals and victims. 

Several years ago we had a local crime that made screaming headlines in Pittsburgh.  A young boy had been found sliced open and eviscerated in a park.  He wasn’t homeless but he was a street kid, lonely and looking for a handout on most days.  The man who was eventually arrested said he’d killed the boy in an argument over a radio.  I was talking to the police about it, not able to understand so much brutality for a radio, and the policeman told me, “I wasn’t about the radio.”  Eventually it was revealed that the crime was sexual and the evisceration done to make the police think a deranged killer was giving in to some sort of ritual behavior.  That made more sense.  So I approached the crime cautiously, I absorbed its details, I trapped it so to speak.  What part of it sticks with me?  The coverup, the presence of mind of the killer to attempt a coverup—chilling.

People who knew I wrote crime novels asked me at the time if I would write that story—if I would use it.  The answer is “use it, yes” but in some other analogous way.  Just as I felt taking that piece of watermelon was wrong, I feel moving too close to a real crime is wrong, intrusive, exploitative. 

And yet, what do I do when the crime follows my writing about it?  Will people think I copied it?  As writers know, the book is written long long before it hits the shelves.  Two recent Pittsburgh crimes mimic ideas in something I first drafted three years ago and that has just come out.  It’s not that the crimes were unusual, exactly, but they were local and so are my books.  The first crime was the murder of a 91-year old man and the next, not long after, of a 92-year old woman.  The crimes weren’t connected except that in both cases the perpetrators felt that old people who possessed goods or money should be relieved of those things—and of life.  Both victims were described as quiet people.  They lived alone.  Yes, it sounded much like what I had already written.  I had made my perpetrators as heartless as the real ones. 

And what about the near perfect crime I committed on paper a year after the previous ones?  When I called the forensics lab to discuss how I was tyring to erase all trace evidence . . . on paper, that is, I said, “I need to make this hard for the police.”  He said, “You have.  Believe me.  Hard for the police.  Impossible for the labs.”

If I could think it . . . fine criminal mind that I have . . . someone else will.  I feel miserable and yes, elated.

HANK: So when you come up with a great crime--how do you fel? Do you wonder if the bad guys have already thought of it? And if you put it out there as fiction--what if someone copied it?  

And we're giving away a copy of HIDEOUT--to one lucky commenter!

 

 

Death is not the boss of me!

by Toni L.P. Kelner

My daughters and I have been enjoying watching the third season of Castle on DVD. For those of you who haven't watched the show, first I goggle at what you're missing. Then I'm happy to explain that this is a show about mystery writer Rick Castle, who spends his days following NYC homicide detective Kate Beckett on her investigations to research his Nikki Heat books.

Obviously, this is not a documentary. In fact, the depiction of the life of a mystery writer is pretty much a fantasy, one that gives me a happy. But the dialog is great fun, the mysteries are tricky, and I get to watch Nathan Fillion as the title character.

In an episode I watched today, Castle tries to psych out a serial killer by analyzing how his background and feelings turned him into a killer. Then the killer turned it around on him. "You're drawn to death," he told Castle, and implied that maybe writing about murder and following murder investigations was Castle's way of dealing with his own murderous impulses.

"No he's not!" I yelled at the TV. (Fortunately my family is used to me yelling at the TV.) Castle isn't drawn to death because he likes it--he's drawn to it because he's afraid of it, and the only way to conquer that fear is to get close enough to death make sense of it. So he writes stories in which the murders make sense--even though he knows many murders make no sense at all. And he helps solve murders to understand why, and to stop killers--even though he knows they'll never stop them all.

Okay, there's some projectiong going on here. Is that really what the fictional character Rick Castle is thinking, or is it what the non-fictional character Toni L.P. Kelner is thinking? I mean, I'm a mystery writer and I worry that I'm drawn to death in an unhealthy way. So I've give a fair amount of thought to why it is I like writing murder mysteries, reading true crime books, and sometimes watching some pretty gory stuff on TV and in the movies. It's not my murderous impulses. If I had any, over twenty years of dealing with Boston traffic would have brought them out by now. No, this is what it is:

Death scares me.

Murder scares me.

The endless cycle of torture and mayhem that goes on every day scares the crap out of me.

The only way I can deal with that fear is to face it. Reading and writing about it is my way of trying figure out why it happens and how maybe I can protect myself and my family. Plus there's the satisfaction that at least in my fiction, I can make sure things end up in a satisfying way, and make some small of oasis of order in a world of chaos.

I think that Castle is just spitting in death's eye, and I'm right there with him. Death is not the boss of me!

* * *

 So what about you other readers and writers of murderous events. Why do you think you're drawn to death?

The Matchmaker

Elaine Viets

I gave my first dating advice at sixteen, in the girls bathroom at school. Sandy and I were sitting on adjoining sinks, talking about boys. Sandy had a date with Mark, the cutest guy in school. She couldn’t believe her good fortune.

Neither could I. Sandy had bleached hair with black roots. Both her skin and her reputation were slightly spotty.

I was pleased that Sandy consulted me, a bona fide "good girl." In fact, I was positively puffed with pride. I would take Sandy under my wing and lead her back to the path of righteousness and a good reputation.

"Oooh, Elaine," she said, squeezing her pretty pink-nailed hands together in anticipation. "He’s so cute. I really want to keep him. Should I kiss him on the first date?"

I was shocked. "Of course not," I said.

Sandy followed my advice. She didn’t kiss him on the first date. She got pregnant instead.

That didn’t stop me from more matchmaking. My friend Carla looked a little like Sophia Lauren. She was black-haired and voluptuous, with eyes as brown as Hershey syrup. We went to college together, and I knew she’d be perfect for my husband’s friend, a professor named Joshua. He was dry and ascetic-looking as an Old Testament prophet. He wanted to date a nice woman.

I fixed him up with Carla. I knew it would work. Carla was cute and cuddly. Joshua was intellectual. They would complete each other. After they got married (I figured three months was a decent engagement period) their kids would have his brains and her looks. Heaven help the kids if it was reversed, but I couldn’t be responsible for everything.

Don and I doubled with Joshua and Carla for their first date at a Mexican restaurant. Joshua lectured us on authentic Mexican food. Carla looked at the menu and said, "I’ll have a strawberry DAY-queery."

Joshua turned colder than her daiquiri. The evening went downhill from there.

The next morning, Joshua called Don and yelled at him. "How could you fix me up with someone who was fat?"

"She’s voluptuous," Don said.

"She’s FAT," screamed Joshua. "Fat, fat, fat!"

Meanwhile, Carla called me. "How could you fix me up with a guy who had a wart on his head?" she said.

"What wart?"

"The one right on his bald spot. You got me a date with a bald guy with a wart on his head."

Carla finally forgave me. She even let me be a bridesmaid when she finally married a nice rich doctor. I didn’t think he was right for her, but I kept my mouth shut.

I’m glad I did.

They’re still married thirty years later.

 

Searching for my "Musketeers"

by Dana

A new Three Musketeers movie is due to be out soon and my heart is bursting with...ambivalence. 

I'll probably see it.  The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite books (along with The Count of Montecristo), but I'm not sanguine about this new effort.  The truth is, I've never really seen a movie version I thought lived up to the book.  No, not even the 1973 version with Michael York.  I love the book because it is an adventure, with lives and nations at stake.  A “romp” is the opposite of that, and it just doesn't work for me. 

Another book for which I'm still waiting for the ideal (okay, my ideal) movie is Little Women.  I went to IMDB just now, and was surprised about the 1994 vision:  so many super actors, and (largely) well-cast.  A great director.  But all I could remember is the clunky script.

Sure, it's easy to say the book is never as good as the movie—but I'd disagree.  Some movies do it better than the book.  Take The English Patient, for example.  I put the book down, ready to walk away, three times, because the characters did nothing for me.  Nothing.  I kept picking it back up, because everyone told me how great it was, and at the end, I still didn't buy it, and I was annoyed with myself for having wasted the time.  But the movie was brilliant—hard to watch, but so much more engaging.  I think part of that was the editing choices the director made, and part was the actors. 

I thought Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies were stunning; I know a lot of purists pick nits, but I loved nearly all of it (and plus it made Tolkien cool, again, and to a wider public).  When I went back to read the books before the movies, I was so disappointed—the prose that had worked for me when I was younger didn't do it for me now.  But the movie totally got what I had gone to the books for (about thirty times)--the adventure.

But back to the musketeers.  I had high hopes, in 1993 movie, with the cast:  I was particularly hopeful about Kiefer Sutherland as Athos, Oliver Platt as Porthos, and Tim Curry, as Cardinal Richelieu.  Had my doubts about Charlie Sheen (as Aramis?  really?) and didn't care much one way or the other about Chris O'Donnell as D'Artagnan.  When I saw the movie, I realized it was some guys with names like characters I had read about in Dumas' book, but in situations that seemed to have been created by test audiences.  The one bright moment was when Olive Platt's Porthos says the line, “Come on, D'Artagnan, we're gonna go save the king!” (or words to that effect).  The whole script was so sublimely wrong and that moment, Platt seemed to be engaged with the spirit of the wrongness.

So yeah, I'll go see it.  I want to see Roy Stevenson as Porthos (shout out to my fellow Rome fans!).  But in my head, I'll be rewriting and probably recasting. 

How about you?  Got a dream cast for TTM or your favorite movie?  Have a favorite (or favorite "love to hate") version of a book turned into a movie?

The Femmes Fatales welcome Denise Hamilton!

The Femmes Fatales are delighted to welcome Denise Hamilton!   Denise’s crime novels have been  finalists f or the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Willa Cather awards. She also edited Los Angeles Noir and  Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, which spent two months on bestseller lists, won the Edgar Award for “Best Short Story” and the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for “Best Mystery of the Year.”

Denise’s new novel, Damage Control, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, raves from USA Today, Los Angeles Magazine and BN.com and kudos from James Ellroy (A superb psychological thriller).

She also writes a perfume column, Uncommon Scents, for the Los Angeles Times.   Take it away, Denise!

 

My Sin.

I flaunt it proudly.

In the privacy of my bedroom, I pull out the bottle and indulge. It’s intoxicating, really, these lashings of leather and bergamot, clary sage, styrax and civet. Perfect for a crime writer.

My Sin isn’t one of the Seven Deadly Sins, though smelling it might lead you to covet your neighbor’s wife.

It’s a classic French perfume, one of the many fragrances that I own.

I’m a perfumista, and in addition to writing mysteries I also pen a monthly perfume column for the Los Angeles Times.

Now I’ve managed to work my little obsession into my latest book, Damage Control.

The heroine, a young PR executive named Maggie Silver, collects perfume and keeps her cherished bottles atop her bedroom dresser. Scent even plays a role in identifying the murderer.

When I thought up this plot twist, I patted myself on the back for being so clever.

Imagine my horror when I learned that crime writers since the 1920s – including Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell - used scent as clues to solve the crime.

Even tough guys like Ian Fleming wrote lovingly of the classic French perfumes worn by Bond’s many women.

So actually I’m part of a long tradition.

But back to My Sin.

Lanvin discontinued it years ago as consumer tastes moved into pale florals and aquatics (like Eau d’Issey), but I was lucky enough to score a bottle at a garage sale. So at 7:30 a.m., I’m swanning around the house like a Femme Fatale in a Humphrey Bogart film noir.

Since this is THE Femmes Fatales blog, I got to thinking of what other scents suit the classic femme fatale. They had to be strong, dark and have great sillage – which refers to the scent trail a woman wearing perfume leaves behind as she passes through a room.

Here are a few:
Narcisse Noir by Caron - a heady mix of narcissus, dark florals and animalic civet. It’s been defanged and cleaned up for modern tastes, but every man-eater needs to hunt down a bottle of this vintage extrait.

Cabochard by Gres - Think rich leathery citrusy oakmoss. For a woman who wears leather driving gloves and knows how to crack the whip.

Bandit by Robert Piguet - A curvy chanteuse on stage at an after-hours club where cigarette smoke, sweat and single malt scotch fumes rise into the blue-tinged air

Fracas by Robert Piguet – The chanteuse in deshabille the next morning, in her boudoir with her latest lover. Tall white lilies and tuberose plants cast their narcotic spell as the talk turns to murder for hire. Tuberose is NOT a rose, it’s an indolic (notes of meat, charnel house, fecal) small white flower akin to jasmine, and Fracas is the loudest, most classic example you’ll find in all perfumery.

Shalimar extrait by Guerlain – The timeless classic by a still-great perfume house that for almost 100 years has stood as the benchmark of “Oriental” fragrance, a term for perfumes with a heady sweet mix of spices, vanilla, amber and resins. Shalimar’s blend of vanilla, bergamot, incense and spice conjures up the harem, exotic worlds, languid nights in silk sheets. It’s a perfume of seduction. It’s what I picture Barbara Stanwyck wearing as she opens the door for hapless Fred MacMurray in “Double Indemnity.”

What’s your favorite perfume, and what memories, noir or otherwise, does it hold for you?

P.S.  Leave a comment and be eligible to win a copy of Damage Control!