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This is a Public Service Posting.

I got two out of three right on the Memorial Day Challenge yesterday: wear white linen - yep; drink iced tea - nope (see mug above); and, most important of all, start closing your car windows when you park so people can't give you zucchinis - oh yes. I'm in a courgette glut of mammoth proportions but it's all my own work. Here's what grew in just two days on just two plants and made me slave over a hot stove for the holiday:

So, to help out everyone else sharing my plight, I thought I'd also share the recipes for the dishes I made - one for pasta sauce and one for a  . . . salady, side-dish, appetiser thing. I prefer to face the facts and give the courgettes centre-stage rather than just sneak a bit of the glut into everything I eat. That way madness lies.

Now, the name of the pasta sauce recipe is not great - Courgette Mush - and it doesn't sound much better in American - Zuke Mush - but it tastes lovely, it's dead easy and it uses a ton of the little green horrors. Mind you, the resulting dish lasts a few days too, by which time . . .  

Courgette Mush

Ingredients

All the courgettes (especially the wonky-shaped ones because it doesn't matter)

olive oil (as much as will make it as oily as you want it)

grated garlic (as much as will make it as garlicky as you want it)

black pepper (guess how much)

less salt than you'd think because it's going to cook down and instensify

Optional cream, crème fraiche, yoghurt, grated cheese.

Method

Slice the courgettes thinly with a mandolin, the slicing side of a box grater, or an electronic gadget, I suppose. Warm the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the sliced courgettes, grated garlic, salt and pepper and cook very slowly, uncovered, stirring hardly ever, for a couple of hours at least, until it looks like this:

 It'll keep in the fridge for a week. When you want a bowl of pasta scoop some out, warm it up, add cream/crème fraiche/yoghurt, and mix with cooked pasta, top with cheese and enjoy.

 

The second recipe - Courgette Ladders - doesn't use up such a lot of the glut unless you deliberately make a lot, but I've taken a huge platter of this to more than one summer party and have never come back with any leftovers.

 

Courgette Ladders

Ingredients

All the straight and medium-sized courgettes

oilive oil

grated garlic

salt and pepper

some snips of rosemary (speaking of gluts)

lemon juice and zest

 

Method

Cut the courgettes into strips longways. You'll get maybe five strips from each one. In a big bowl, toss the strips in the oil, garlic, salt, pepper and rosemary until coated. Heat a ridged griddle until it's shimmering hot. In batches, grill the strips until the underside is stripy, pressing them down with a potato masher so you feel like Satan, then turn, grill and press again until they're soft right through. Resist the temptation to move them about: that spoils the pattern. Lift them out onto a plate, spritz with lemon juice and eat at any temperature from piping-hot to clap-cold. They're better without being refrigerated, though.

I hope this helps. Do you have any glut-busting recipes of your own? I'd love to hear them.

 

 

 

 

 

True crime and me

By Charlaine Harris.

I am currently reading Skip Hollandsworth’s excellent true crime book, THE MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN. It’s the account of the horrendous series of crimes which shattered Austin, TX, beginning in 1884. In an eerie parallel to the Jack the Ripper murders, the perpetrator was never seen clearly, and yet struck in populated areas. And like Jack the Ripper, this killer was never caught, and the deaths stopped abruptly. Also like Jack, the Austin murderer killed women.

We’ve become so acclimated to the TV version of scientific crime solving that it’s very hard to picture a scenario in which the police had no clues to follow. The few people who lived to describe the attacker said he wore a mask, or that they never saw him clearly. They could not even determine his race. Blood hounds brought to the scene were unable to pick up a scent. And this was what we might term today a “disorganized” killer; he used a gun, a knife, a rock, and a thin metal rod of some kind, at different sites.

The solution of the law enforcement at the time was to round up any ‘suspicious’ black male, chain him to the floor, and beat him up. But they obtained no confession that way.

THE MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN is (at times) distressing, appalling, and fascinating as a picture of the way life went in Texas in the 1880s. And I began to wonder if that’s not the fascination with true crime accounts. Whether the crimes took place in the far past or in contemporary times, we get a cross-section of life, death, and law enforcement in a specific time and place.

The inevitable conclusion is that (trite but true) people haven’t changed in any significant way. People in the late eighteen hundreds in Texas were just as shocked by violent crimes as are people these days. Law enforcement officers struggle to find a solution, to get a killer off the streets, to discover the truth. Contrary to the belief that people were more caring in past times, two people who heard a black man, severely wounded, screaming for help after his wife had been killed, turned him away from their doors.

I suppose, apart from the picture of society we can study, we are fascinated by the puzzle inherent in the crime. Who was the murderer? Why did he stop? How did he go undiscovered?

Do you read true crime? If not, why not?

Charlaine Harris

When Does An Old Car Become a New Car?

by Leigh Perry / Toni L.P. Kelner

Ever run into a classic car collector, or just somebody who has an old car they love? They keep those vehicles running by replacing broken parts as the year go by, and after a while, I have to wonder if it's the same car. How much can you replace without ending up with a whole new car?

Sometimes I ask that same question about fictional characters.

Don't get me wrong. I applaud character growth throughout a character's adventures. I love the way Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody and Vicky Bliss changed over the years, and I wanted Harry Potter to learn from his adventures and mistakes, and watching Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott progress has been an absolute joy. On TV, the character arcs in Star Trek: the Next Generation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Leverage, and Monk are so much fun. But each of those characters stayed entirely consistent with their previous incarnation. In fact, later books are made richer by knowing where character traits come from. For instance, I know that Vicky Bliss in Night Train to Memphis is claustrophobic because of events in Borrower of the Night. I know where Jean-Luc Picard learned to play that little flute, and why a parasol is so important to Buffy. Despite the changes, they were still the same cars.

I'm happy with even radical reinvention of characters, as in the modernization of Sherlock Homes and Doctor Watson in Sherlock and Elementary. I enjoy Treasure Island even when it's been morphed into Treasure Planet or Muppet Treasure Island. I love the original Oz novels, the 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz, and Wicked. I'm even very fond of a fairly violent version of the Land of Oz in the comic The Oz Squad. In each of these cases, it seemed to me that the new editions kept the heart of the characters even as the trappings changed. Sherlock and Watson still team up to solve crimes. Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver still have their complex relationship. Dorothy still loves her companions. To me, they were the same cars.

 

But now there's the new twist that's been made to comic book hero Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, where it turns out he was a Nazi-sympathizing part of evil organization Hydra all along. No matter that he slugged Hitler in his very first appearance, that he'd gone up against the government when he thought it betrayed the spirit of America, that he'd been a bona fide hero both before and after a stint of suspended animation. Nope, now we're supposed to accept him as a villain. As far as I'm concerned, this is a whole new car and one I do not want to drive.

 

Of course, everybody's line in the sand is different. Maybe you love the L. Frank Baum novels and not the MGM musical, or maybe you only like the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So tell me: when does an character become something new?

 

 

Crazy Cozy Car Chase

By Elaine Viets

A good detective story needs a car chase. We all remember "Bullitt," with Steve McQueen's Mustang hurtling down the San Francisco hills. Michael Caine's crafty Mini Cooper mixup in "The Italian Job" is another classic.
I wanted a car chase in The Art of Murder, my new Dead-End Job mystery. My private eye, Helen Hawthorne, doesn't drive a muscle car – good detectives have to blend in. In South Florida, that often means a white car. Helen has a white four-cylinder PT Cruiser.

But I got my car chase, thanks to an equalizer – speed bumps. The extra-wide ones, a.k.a. traffic calmers or "speed humps." (Cue the risque jokes.) These speed bumps are in a lush Fort Lauderdale neighborhood known as The Landings, where residents dock their yachts outside their back doors.

I can't reveal the killer's name, gender, or vehicle model, but here's The Art of Murder car chase in The Landings. It even has a yacht:

The killer roared out of the driveway toward The Landings, blasting across Commercial Boulevard as the light turned yellow. Helen followed, accompanied by a chorus of car horns and upraised middle digits.
This wasn’t a fair race. Helen knew her trusty Igloo was seriously underpowered. The killer's car had twice as many horses as the PT Cruiser. The killer floored the car and it flew over the north bridge into The Landings. Helen's Igloo tried its best to keep up, but its workhorse engine was no match for the powerful car. Still, Helen floored her Cruiser.
And saw the speeding car slam on its brakes.
The speed bumps! Suddenly this pursuit was almost fair. The sports car raced forward again, then slammed on its brakes for a bump. Race and brake. Race and brake.
The odd stop and sprint chase continued for four speed bumps, with Helen’s intrepid Igloo managing to keep pace.
Helen struggled to push her car on the straightaway and spot the speed bumps in time to brake. The two cars lurched through The Landings.
After the fourth speed bump, the killer powered through a four-way stop to the angry blare of honking horns. Helen made a full stop.
She waited her turn for two cars, then crossed the intersection and floored the Igloo again. Her finger pressed SEND for 911. I should have called the police sooner, she thought. I can’t let the killer escape.
The killer was turning left at the next block. There were no speed bumps on that street. It bordered a canal. Helen was going to lose the killer.
She could hear the 911 operator saying, “Nine one one, what’s your emergency. Nine one one . . . ”
“Help!” Helen shouted into her. “I’m pursuing a killer in The Landings. I’m almost at Fifty-sixth. Get the police here. I can’t talk.”
Helen slammed the brakes again, and the Igloo jounced over the speed bump. Her cell phone clattered to the floor. Helen could hear the 911 operator and hoped the woman believed her plea for help.
Up ahead, she saw the killer make a screeching turn on two wheels, heading straight for a yellow moving van with its ramp down, parked in the street. The killer swerved to avoid it, and nearly hit a pony-tailed woman walking her fluffy white shih-tzu.
The killer swerved again, narrowly missing the woman and her little dog.
And the accident seemed to happen in slow motion.
The killer lost control of the car on the small humped canal bridge. It sailed over the bridge railing and crashed into the white yacht tied up at a backyard dock. The front end of the car smashed through the yacht’s pristine white hull. The car’s back end was on the dock, sliding toward the water.
A screeching, cracking sound split the air as several million dollars collided.

The Art of Murder, my fifteenth Dead-End Job mystery, has been on the Pub Alley Mystery Bestseller list for three weeks. Helen Hawthorne and her landlady, Margery Flax, tour Bonnet House, the whimsical mansion-turned-museum in Fort Lauderdale and admire a talented young artist at a painting class. When she's murdered, Helen is hired to find her killer. She discovers the artist's sketchy past. Was the promising painter killed by her jealous husband? A rival using her artful wiles? All that and a car chase-boat crash, too. www.elaineviets.com

 

Oprah's invited.

I've never been in a bookclub. Poor Cinders. But I've been the guest of many, many bookclubs who're reading one of my books - three this week as a matter of fact - and a girl can dream.

The Bookends, Sacramento

The bookclubs I've visited have all been suspiciously well-catered considering the book's the thing. (Right? (Wink.)) One of them had a full, three-course dinner, with a menu chosen to reflect the reading matter. Others go down the cheeseball and kettle chips route but liquid refreshments are always many and excellent. I learned a new drink recipe at a Sacramento bookclub on Saturday morning: it's just a cooler of water with cucumber, mint and sliced ginger floating in it, but so cleansing. We all agreed we were pretty much committed to cleansing with latte and chocolate-covered graham crackers, but it sounded lovely.

My dream bookclub will serve Taylor's of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold tea in pint mugs with cold whole milk. And Hobnobs for dunking.

And the range of books these women (mostly) are reading! Of course, when I go they're reading British crime fiction, but I get to hear about last month's and next month's and that one they all hated . . . fiction light and dark, memoirs old and new, history and science and The Casual Vacancy. There's a state law in California that every bookclub has to read The Casual Vacancy. It was signed in after the lapsing of the We Need To Talk About Kevin statute, I think. I adored both those books, by the way, and could have joined the fray. (These two books are quite divisive.)

My dream bookclub would be reading Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy, Dickens (something's going to make me do it one day), The Martian if it's not too late, and Beowulf. I'd assign Beowulf when the meeting was at my house and when no one came I'd curl up and watch a Gilmore Girls box-set.

It's always fun to try to work out how this disparate group of women ever came to be in a club together. Some drive so they're not all neighbours; they don't work together; they certainly don't enjoy the same kind of books as a rule - The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Jonathan Franzen in consecutive months? (This is a true example from a bookclub I visited years ago. I don't know if it's still going.) But while I've witnessed plenty arguments and a few quite lively ones, I've never seen a rolled eye or heard a derisive snort.

My dream bookclub would have in it women of all ages, from everywhere, none of whom I've ever met. And a man if he wants to be there. Plus another one if he needs a friend. And at least one of the women should be a scientist to explain things in The Martian. If I get to handpick, I'd like to have my old Latin teacher from school, Jane Austen (why not, since I'm dreaming) and like I said . . . Oprah is more than welcome.

Who's in your dream bookclub? And what are you drinking reading?

 

 

 

 

 

Out Of My Comfort Read Zone

 

by Mary Saums

 

 

You're not going to believe this. So far this month, I haven't read a single mystery.

 

WHAT??!!! Has the big clock in the sky stopped ticking? Have pigs flown? Did the fault line finally open wide and swallow Nashville like a crappie on a June bug? Well, not yet. Still, it's the first time in decades that I haven't had a mystery or two in my purse or on the nightstand.

 

All I can say is, other books grabbed my attention lately. See what you think ....

 

 

THE BAD-ASS LIBRARIANS OF TIMBUKTU And Their Race To Save The World's Most Precious Manuscripts

by Joshua Hammer

 

Such a title. How could I resist? This is the story of how one man spent the best of two decades acquiring a huge treasure trove of ancient and medieval manuscripts. Written by renowned Islamic scholars through the centuries, these contained knowledge of sciences, physics, religion, everything imaginable, of their times. The man on the mission, Abdel Kader Haidara, searched the deserts of North Africa to find and rescue these important books, beginning in the 1980's. 

 

His dream was to build a state-of-the-art library and preservation laboratory for the books in Timbuktu, a place where people could come and see their own history in these works of art. With the help of grants and backers, the library was built and the books were safe.

 

Until 2012 when the city was taken by jihadist extremists. Now Haidara had a bigger problem - how to protect the priceless manuscripts from being destroyed by the new regime.

 

I loved reading about the history of this part of the world. The author knows the area well and does a great job of bringing the setting and the people to life. The details on how other countries reacted and contributed to the final resolution was all new to me. Learned a lot and really enjoyed the book.

 

 

 

 

 

SUPERNATURAL: Meeting With The Ancient Teachers Of Mankind

by Graham Hancock

 

You know how I love my woo-woo. So when I saw the big SUPERNATURAL on the cover, it was automatic. My arm just shot out and grabbed the book before I even thought about it. And I'm glad it did. Even though this isn't about ghosts or hauntings, I still enjoyed all the weirdness and new ideas.

 

Here, Hancock explores the customs and tales of shamans, the "witch doctor" spiritual leaders of remote tribes. He goes to South America to a tribal gathering in order to experience ayahuasca, an hallucinogen which, the shamans say, allows a person to see the spiritual realm. Hancock had made a connection to ayahuasca stories while doing something very different, studying cave art images in France and Spain painted by neolithic people.  He was amazed that some art figures were the same as those said to be seen during the shamans' ceremonies. Both involved creatures that were half-human, half-animal, for example.

 

But what really amazed him was that some experiences the shamans had while on their "trips" were remarkably similar to stories told by people who believe they've been abducted by aliens. Some examples - the physical characteristics of the aliens, the idea of being operated on by alien doctors, matching descriptions of spacecrafts and their interiors.  Ooo-WOO-ooo!

 

So, for him, the past, present and future are possibly accessible through use of certain naturally-occurring hallucinogens. But why? What is behind it all? 

 

Lots of questions and speculations. And a lot of fun to have your brain stretched a little. :) Of the non-fiction woo-woo crowd, I like Hancock who is very good at looking at things from all angles.

 

 

 

Okay, that's me - What about you? Please feel free to share or recommend your recent reads!

 

 

Tales, sigh, from the Maze of Voice Mail

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How many times? HOW many times! Yes, there are many wonderful communication procedures today, and the advantages of shipping and technology and priority mail and overnight delivery and tracking…and unlike the days of fighting with fax machines (anyone?) and taking your novel-on-diskette to Kinko’s to be printed (anyone?), nowadays, we can zap a package to someone important overnight, and track its every move.

Lovely.

Fabulous.

Until it doesn’t work. And then, just try talking to a human. Bwa ha ha. The amazing Cynthia Kuhn shares a moment in the writing life. One we all—all!—have encountered.

“How to Lose It (Tales from the Writing Life)”

by Cynthia Kuhn

Mail Very Important Manuscript (and irreplaceable paperwork), shelling out for the super-duper-express-priority mode with delivery confirmation.

Live blithely for two weeks, unworried because editor is out of office. Eventually email editor to confirm receipt of manuscript. Receive notice that package has not arrived.

Panic.

Zoom to post office website, track package, which appears to have left a location close to the ultimate destination twelve days ago. Yelp. Freeze. Reread.

Process the fact that there is no more information. Accelerate panic level. Call post office. Have following conversation with automated voice:

Automaton: How may I help you? Please press one for track and confirm, two to schedule a pick-up, or three for other options.

You: Three.

Automaton: Please press one for track and confirm or two to schedule a pick-up.

You: That’s not an “other option.”

Automaton: I’m sorry. I could not understand you.

You: Customer Service.

Automaton: I’m sorry. I could not understand you.

You: Cus-to-mer Ser-vice.

Automaton: Please press one for track and confirm or two to schedule a pick-up.

You: CUSTOMER SERVICE! OPERATOR! HUMANOID!

Automaton: You have selected track and confirm. Please enter your delivery confirmation number.

You: [punching buttons] Unbelievable.

Automaton: Your package is on its way to its destination.

You: No, it’s NOT.

Automaton: Can I help you with anything else?

You: CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Automaton: One moment, please. [pause] Live operators will not, in most cases, be able to provide any additional information. Do you still want to talk with one?

You: Yes, please! An operator! My kingdom for an operator!

Automaton: I’m sorry. I could not understand you.

You: [gritting teeth] Yes. Have insanely long conversation with live operator who basically fills out a claim form and gives a new confirmation number. Repeat twice to make sure it’s correct.

Call back several hours later…have another ridiculous version of the conversation above with unhelpful automaton.

Reach live operator #2, who explains that you “appear to be missing one digit in your confirmation number.” Explain that this is the number you were given, the one that was read back and agreed upon…it’s the confirmed confirmation number, for goodness sakes. Emphasize that this is the most important mailing of your life.

Recognize that operator #2 (like operator #1 and the automaton) does not care one bit about what has happened to your package but has been trained to very politely thank you for calling.

(The manuscript was eventually located, but I’m still working through the trauma experienced while trying to find it...can anyone relate?)

HANK: Yes, yes, yes. But Cynthia—what happened???

************

Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean academic mystery series. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Literary Mama, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD and other publications.

She teaches English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, serves as president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado, and blogs with Mysteristas.

For more information, please visit cynthiakuhn.net.

Decluttering and writing

by Donna Andrews.

“Show me a writer with a clean house and I'll show you a writer on a deadline.”

I'm not sure who originally said that, but if it wasn't a writer, it was someone who lived with a writer. Yes, a looming deadline can make otherwise unappealing chores seem fascinating. And the more writing pressure I'm under, the more appealing various cleaning, organizing, and decluttering chores become. I'm still 500 words short of my day's quota. Egad! My spice cabinet needs alphabetizing! I'm a week behind where I'd like to be in my draft. I cannot go on until I purge the coat closet! The book is due tomorrow. My pantry needs to be completely emptied and reorganized!

And the urge to clean and declutter is more insidious than other writing avoidance activities, because it feels virtuous. Not only is it a useful thing to do—which cannot be said of computer solitaire, scrolling through Facebook, or rereading all of Agatha Christie's Poirot books. Cleaning and deluttering actually feel as if they would help—wouldn't it be easier to write in a clean office? A clean office in a clean house? Would't the resulting serenity have a positive effect on my prose?

One of these days I'll find out.

The urge to purge is particularly strong right now because I have just been helping my friend Barb get her house ready to go on the market. She's not a clutterbug like me—there were only a few areas in which a jaundiced eye might say she had an overabundance. Boxes—but then, she was saving them for the move, and we've already made good use of many of them. Books—but only from the realtor's point of view; for my part I hold with the theory that there is no such thing as too many books, only an inadequate supply of bookshelves. And paper. She definitely had too much paper—and I admit that for me to say this is the pot calling the kettle black. Sherry Harris, Eleanor Cawood Jones, and I helped her fix her paper problem. The house is now on sale, and looks fabulous—and fabulously uncluttered.

And I am looking around my own surroundings with vague disfavor. If I'd just turned in a book and were waiting to hear from my editor, I'd have no problem diving into a massive cleaning and decluttering project. But I'm in the planning stage, soon to be immersed in the draft. Setting aside a vast amount of time for a complete overhaul would be unwise. I am reminding myself that my last cleaning binge, the one I had to bring to a premature close to work on Die Like an Eagle--which as my publisher would probably like me to mention is due out in August-- resulted in not being able to use my dining room table for several months.

So the complete overhaul of the house—and yard—will have to wait. Perhaps, once I get the draft well launched, I will allow myself to tackle small cleaning and organizing projects, ones that will only take a few hours. A drawer here. A closet there. A stack of papers at the end of the day, with a movie on TV, a recycling bag on my left, and the shredder on my right. Wouldn't it be nice to arrive at my deadline with a finished book—and a clean house?

Then again, it would probably be wiser to resign myself to a little clutter for the time being.

Of course—I finished this blog, didn't I? That's writing, right? So I can reward myself with a closet. Just one. It needn't escalate into doing the whole house. I can stop any time. Really I can.

(Stay tuned for the before and after pictures.)

 

 

 

 

Maketh Me Not Mental Notes

Words are everywhere these days, thanks to social media -- along with pictures, of course. Social media platforms like Facebook (aside from the cute cat and dog videos and pictures) abound with words. Blogs -- millions of blogs -- all with something to say. With those words inevitably come mistakes in grammar that bother people like me. For example, if I had a dime for every misused apostrophe in Facebook posts, I'd be retired on my country estate in England or in my chateau in the Loire valley now. It's such a simple thing to learn -- NEVER use an apostrophe to make something plural. This omnipresent misuse annoys me, though by now I should be inured to it. Some might say that I'm an overly persnickety fussbudget. Others might agree with me. English, they say, is a living language and continues to evolve. That's true, of course, otherwise we wouldn't have abominable words like selfie.

The rules of grammar that I learned so painstakingly in junior high and senior high English classes, thanks to Mrs. Gerard, Mrs. Leverette, and Mrs. England, are considered by some to be passé, but they are so ingrained that I still find their misuse annoying forty years and more later. Misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, run-on sentences, sentence fragments -- all those signs of poor grammar, once upon a time -- no longer seem to matter. And don't get me started on the subjunctive.

We all, as readers or writers or both, most likely have these quirks -- usage we find in the books we read that annoy us. One that always leaps out at me in a book is the use of the mental note. Characters are forever making mental notes, and I always wonder how one does this. I get the image of a Post-It note stuck on a brain whenever I see mental note in a book. It's a cliché and one that I wish would simply go away.

Another thing that bothers me is misquotation (along with using quote as a noun). One misquotation that always leaps out at me is "Pride goes before a fall." This has been misquoted so often that it has become standard usage. The actual quotation is: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18, King James Version) 

A second misquotation that consistently pops up is "Such stuff as dreams are made of." Well, if you're going to quote Shakespeare, methinks, you should do it correctly. This comes from The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1, and the line actually is:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

There are other examples that I will no doubt remember later, but these are two that I run across most often. In junior and senior high, and later in college, I had to read a lot of Shakespeare for various classes, and odd bits still linger in the memory banks. Like "midnight mushrumps" from The Tempest, when Prospero is casting a spell. (And yes, I know it's a sentence fragment, but what can you do?) I like midnight mushrumps. It sounds more poetic than midnight mushrooms for some reason.

I try not to violate the rules of grammar as I learned them, lo those many years ago, but no doubt I have occasionally strayed from the path of righteousness. I can promise you one thing, however: I will not be making any mental notes.

 

The Long and The Short of It

Catriona writes: This is a well-titled guest blog. Not only does standing next to petite Cathi Stoler make me feel like a plough ox, but on paper the long and the short of it that we have nothing in common: Cathi is a lifelong Manhattanite from the east 60s; I live up a dirt road and barely know what "east 60s" means. Cathi is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology; I shop at the Thrift. Cathi writes about worlds even more glamourous than the one she inhabits and more dangerous too; I write about women who work in supermarkets . . . And yet, we clicked from the first moment we met and became instant permanent pals. I'm delighted to invite all Femmes Fatales readers who haven't been as lucky as me so far to get to know Cathi today. And - if you leave a comment, below - you can get to know her bad-boy alter-ego Nick Donahue too, by entering the give-away.

And now, Cathi Stoler:

 Since May is International Short Story Month, I thought I’d write about a recent conversation I had on the subject.

I was with a very talented and smart mystery writer (hint: this is her usual spot on this blog) and we were discussing the benefits of using short stories to keep your characters top of mind between books.

I agreed it was a great idea, one that could leave readers avidly awaiting your next novel. The only problem was, I’d pretty much done it backwards with my Nick Donahue adventures.

Nick Donahue, a gambler by profession, came to life in one of my first short stories, “Fatal Flaw.” The story begins when Nick, in Venice, playing Blackjack, meets a beautiful woman in desperate need of help. He obliges and is soon embroiled in a whirlwind of intrigue. He is kidnapped by a band of jewel thieves, then released and dumped in the woods outside of Prague.

Catriona: I love everything about this: Venice, blackjack, jewel thieves, Prague. I could no more write it than . . . 

The Derringer nomination I received for “Fatal Flaw” fueled my desire to continue writing about this character and I began the next story featuring Nick, “Money Never Sleeps.” It starts where “Fatal Flaw’ ends with Nick calling on his brother, Alex a banker at SuisseBank in Zurich, for assistance. Nick soon finds himself involved in Alex’s problem, the murder of his boss and a world-wide money laundering scheme the bank has been running.

Catriona: the very thought of all the research involved in getting Suissebank right and bringing money-laundering to life!

But I still wasn’t finished with Nick—now I had dreams of a movie starring a hot Hollywood star—and decided to add to stories one and two, and create the novella, “Nick of Time,” which continues the narrative as Nick blows the whistle on SuisseBank, and its main client, the New York mob, who is none too happy with his interference or their loss of revenue. The mob demands revenge and restitution, which only Nick, using all of his gambler tricks, can provide.

I probably should be writing another story or two to keep Nick going. Instead, I’m just finishing a new Nick novel, “Out of Time,” which takes Nick into the world of terrorists, and international horseracing. Will I be able to sell it? Will readers remember Nick and the escapades that led me to the new book? Will the story be optioned for a movie? I certainly hope the answer is yes to all of the above.

Catriona: The key thing is that Nick keeps calling you back. I think that kind of fascination with characters is what makes stories sing. I always think of Dorothy L Sayers and Peter Wimsey as the best example of an author so intrigued by her protagonist that she makes us fascinated. How about everyone else? What characters would you read in novels, novellas, short stories, and still want to see on the big and small screens too?

 

Cathi Stoler is a former creative director of advertising who has developed award-winning campaigns for clients as diverse as the New York Times and Folgers coffee. In the mystery world, she is the Derringer- award-winning author of short stories, novellas and novels exploring everything from diamond-trafficking to international art theft to the New York bar business. To win a chance to visit Cathi's world of high-end low-lifes, just leave a comment below