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CHAPTER ONE Now | Susie June 30, 2022 The kaleidoscope begins twisting, more quickly now, as soon as the sound begins. My subconscious begins pulling me out of the shadows. The light turns red again - the same way it always does. The raw, real memories begin mixing with the ones from my nightmare. I wasn’t going to make it to the hospital. That I knew. But suddenly I’m awake, just as his face starts swelling and turns that awful blueberry color. The noise becomes crisper, louder, and the tightness returns in my chest. Clean, silver blades slide between my ribs - reminding me that it is the middle of the night, and I have to get up. That I am up, again, before the birds. It must be before 4:00 a.m. “Thomas,” I whisper, sitting up, hoping that he will hear me. But there is no reply. The warmth from his bare legs are inches away beneath the covers. He’s wearing his briefs and an eye-mask that can block out all levels of light. He is sleeping comfortably on his back - the way he always does. Seeing him this way used to be one of my greatest comforts. It would make me want nothing more than to wake him with a snuggle, for his warmth to engulf me, as he whispered into my ear with a sloppy smile, asking me what time it was. What time is it? It’s 4:09 a.m. And right on cue, the first song begins to play through the screen from a nearby branch in the yard. I was dreaming about it again. The first time it happened I woke up thinking I was having a stroke. Half of my face was numb. My hands were tingling as I ran up the stairs to check on the kids. My heart, racing out of my chest. Harry was asleep in his crib when I picked him up. Thomas was away on business, a sign that the pandemic was finally past us. That’s when my intrusive thoughts began. Spinning over and over in my mind like a carousel. I kept wondering if this was it - I held my phone with my mother’s name open, ready to call her if I thought I was about to go unconscious. Objects in the room began moving. A shadow beneath the changing table was rocking back and forth. I thought it was a young girl with long, black hahir. I swear she was moving. In a panic, I ran down the stairs and turned on every light in the house. I was convinced that it was some kind of ghost. The next day I called my physician. My face was still numb as the doctor told me stress, and lack of sleep, can do strange things to the body. But I’ve concluded that he was wrong. Something really was happening: it was a warning. Because my dream did come true, just a few weeks later. “Thomas,” I whisper again. It’s the worst hour of the night. Not quite dawn, but too far past midnight to get back to sleep and wake up feeling refreshed. Breathing in, I hold the air in my chest for far too long and notice my lungs stretch, desperately hoping that I will remember to exhale. I have to make sure he’s okay. Searching for my round metal framed glasses on the wooden table takes several clumsy attempts. Upon it sits the book that has remained unread for months. The water that is half-drunk. A plastic bumble bee that plays a song when you press it. I find my slippers and step out of the room towards the kitchen. Despite the fact that I’m thirty-three, I always picture a man standing at the kitchen island, waiting for me to turn on the lights. Will I always be afraid of the dark? I keep the light from the refrigerator on as I search for the bottle parts near the sink and, twisting on the top hastily, I press my finger to the nipple and swirl it slowly in a circle. It’s a habit from warming my pumped milk for so many months. Stepping through the living room I pause, praying that he will put himself back to sleep before he hears my footsteps and notices I'm up too. But barely ten seconds pass before the shrill of my son’s voice pulls me up the landing to the nursery where I find him, unscathed and waiting for me. I lift him up, knowing well that I am breaking the rules of sleep training. But I need this just as much as he does - that feeling of the weight of his head against my chest. “It’s okay, chubs, Mama’s here,” I whisper. I walk to the white glider in the room and pull the fleece blanket out of the woven basket and place it over us before placing the bottle in my son’s mouth and rocking him, gently back to sleep. I look down at Harry, my baby boy. His soft cheeks, thick like heavy cream. The smallest little knuckles on his hands. The panic he was feeling moments ago has disappeared now that we are together. I don’t sleep anymore. He doesn’t either. We’ve been playing this game for thirteen months. And it’s only gotten worse over the past few weeks since the accident. I can feel the proteins in my brain permanently clumping together from lack of sleep, rotting my memory cells day by day. Slowly turning me mad. It’s no wonder women were more prone to Alzheimer’s than men. The smallest hint of light begins to filter through the darkness and I will myself to sleep for thirty minutes. Ten minutes. Any amount of time will help me get through the day. But instead, Harry begins to play with his bottle, bringing his hands to my mouth. Once he sees that I am awake too, he begins to babble and wiggle out of my arms so that he can walk to his toys in the corner. “We might as well get up,” I say, feeling the resentment towards him, then guilty for the resentment. It is still dark outside from the confines of our newly renovated kitchen. Thomas and I are either going to flip our house or stay in it forever. And we haven’t quite figured out which that is yet. I chose a minimalist Scandinavian aesthetic - beiges and creamy whites. Rattan furniture and marble. Something that reminded me of our honeymoon. Of freedom and plunge pools. It had been my passion project during my pregnancy with Harry. A time to hone in my skills while I was away from the office. I’m an interior decorator, after all. Or, rather, I was one. I still don't quite know what I am. Turning on the coffee pot, the machine comes to life with a loud, grunting sound. The black sky is now a bruised purple and the local news reports the traffic in the background. Typically it’s a comforting sound, the local news. When the quiet hum of weather reports and commercials advertising cereal brands and diabetes medication play rhythmically until the top of the hour. But suddenly there’s a story that pulls me out of my trance, grabbing my attention in a way that feels overwhelming and scary. The screen shows a mother in handcuffs. “A toddler has drowned in a bathtub in Harlem,” the reporter says. I stand, frozen, as I watch the mother stare into the camera - her eyes looking forward but without focus. Her eyes are familiar, they are somewhere very far away. The police lights flash in the background as the reporter speaks again. “The child’s siblings are being put under the state’s care until the trial,” she says without emotion. And it is then that I notice that I have tears in my eyes. She’s just like me, I think, because I understand. I am that mother. I know what it feels like to have the whining and tantrums pulled up to a volume so loud you can’t take it any longer. When things become so overwhelming that you need to scream. I know what it’s like to have a child get hurt under your watch. I know. But I can’t say any of this out loud, of course. Never. Because maybe the police will come knocking at my door next. Maybe they’re already watching me. The coffee machine lets out a long, exhausted sigh, completing its brew. Harry looks up at me, his mouth opens in awe at the sound. I smile down at his perfect little face. The face I love more than anything.The face that I have betrayed. “Coffee,” I whisper to him with a smile, rubbing my finger across his warm cheek and pouring myself a cup. The half and half swirls through the black liquid and just one sip restores a little something inside of me that felt missing moments before. The train whistles in the background. The sound tells me that it’s 5:00 a.m. I have lived in my hometown in New Jersey my entire life and still don’t know the purpose of the freight train that passes through town every day at this hour. It seems so old-fashioned. Like something my father or grandfather may have used when they were my age. It’s hard to tell what kind of materials the train carries with its cars covered in heavy tarps. It took me years to even notice the track, despite the fact that I pass over it several times a day while running errands. It always surprises me when the arm lowers its gate in the middle of the day. But recently I have grown to find comfort in the sound. It means the night is over. And the light will return again soon. My fears will disappear, quietly into the shadows, until the sun goes down again. I open the french doors for our golden retriever, Sammy, who is already whining to go out, thrilled that I am up too soon. The blast of humidity and steam from the warm June air is enticing me. I step outside with Harry and my cup of coffee - we walk quietly around the yard, my bare feet wet from the dew in the grass. We approach the fence near the front and I stop and stare at a red little red fox sitting, paws facing forward, staring right at me on the quiet culdesac street. It almost looks mythical - like something from one of Vivi’s fairytale stories. Its eyes are jet black. Hair, a striking red. It has a manicured beard - as though it has a standing appointment at the barber shop every three weeks to keep it perfectly tamed. I stop and stare at the small creature for several moments, daring not to blink for fear that if I do it will disappear. Sammy is on the other end of the yard and hasn’t picked up its scent yet. It looks so serious and I wonder if it’s trying to tell me something. “Hello?” I whisper. But before I can wait for the answer, my phone chimes in my pocket and I look down at the screen to see who is texting me at this hour. It’s a text from my brother, Ben. Call me when you can. The hairs on my arms quickly rise. Ben never wakes before seven. I immediately dial his number and look back to find that the little fox has disappeared. Scanning the street and neighboring yards, I look for it - almost frantically. Desperate for it somehow. There’s a need to make eye-contact with it one more time. To confirm that it was actually there and not imagined. What was it trying to tell me? And then I spot it, halfway across the lawn, skating towards the wooden fence. “Don’t go,” I plead. But it only takes a moment before it reaches the fence, climbs a post, and disappears out of sight. “Susie?” Ben's voice is in my ear. There is a shakiness to his usually mellow and light voice. I used to always think Ben was stoned because of it. Most of the time he is. “Did it happen?” I ask. I know what the answer will be. The sinking feeling is there before I even hear the words. Our grandmother is dying. My parents have been at the nursing home every day for the past week, watching and waiting for Gretchen, our Mimi, to slowly drift away. She is starving to death. Dementia. Taking away the most simple human skill of swallowing. The nurses don’t even allow her food for fear that she will choke or liquid will get caught in her chest and turn into pneumonia. No. Now it is only morphine. The occasional ice cube to wet her lips. “I just got off the phone with mom,” Ben says. He is only four years younger than me, but always seems permanently stuck at twenty-two. He is twenty-seven now. The same age that I was when she married Thomas. I can tell Ben is crying on the other end of the line. My eyes begin to water too. “When did it happen?” I ask. My mind imagines what she looked like when she took her last breath and I immediately wish that I could brush away the image. I have been meaning to visit her for months. And now I am too late. I’m always too late. “Just a few minutes ago. The hospice nurse was with her when she went.” I stare back at the spot where the fox had been sitting. “How did mom seem? How’s dad?” I ask. “You know them, they’re tough.” “I know.” There is a pause on the other line. The next few days will be busy - family dinners and funeral planning. Next week is the Fourth of July. The entire extended family is supposed to meet at my grandma’s beach house in Massachusetts for our annual gathering. Will it be canceled now that she is gone? It would have been our first vacation of the year. We’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. Thomas keeps assuring me that it will set me back on track. He’s like that. As soon as he turns on his out-of-office he melts into a different version of himself. He grows a mustache and forgets about work completely. “It’s going to be so good for you, Sus,” he said just a few nights ago. “I’ll take the kids every morning to give you time to relax. You can do whatever you want. Read on the beach. Take a yoga class. Go for a long walk.” “Maybe,” I said, attempting to sound hopeful. Partially believing him as I pictured myself, jellies on, walking down the Dune Point Lane with my headphones in. But I know myself. Ever since becoming a mother, even when we go away, I never allow myself to fully relax. I find something to fear. And then, months later, when I look back at the photographs of my children’s smiling faces on my phone, I wonder what I had been so worried about. “There’s something else,” Ben says. At first I think he’s going to say something about what’s been going on with me recently. The headaches. How I’ve been dealing with everything ever since the accident. “Okay,” I say, my eyes squinting shut in fear. “Can I borrow your car today?” “Why do you need my car?” I ask quickly, unsure where this is going. Does my family want to send me away somewhere? “I can pick you up from the train if you want to come home this morning,” I say, trying my best to sound like the responsible older sister my brother knows so well instead of - I don’t know how to put into words what I’m like now. Pathetic? “It’s not that. Actually - I’m supposed to go into the office for a meeting this morning. But I need to do something before the funeral. Will you meet me in the city around noon?” The question catches me off guard. I haven’t been to New York in over two years. And we live less than twenty miles from the George Washington Bridge. A siren soars in the background through the other end of the line. A cab honks. I’m suddenly desperate for the anatomy of New York City. I smoked a cigarette every morning on my walk to work when I was twenty-four. Lighting it on Spring Street and blowing out my first puff as I passed Balthazar and turned down Broadway towards Canal. It was my secret vice. The one thing I could do that was rebellious - that no one would ever expect of me. I would do anything to have one now with my coffee. “What do you have to do?” I ask. “It’s Mimi’s ring.” There it is again. The seriousness I have never heard. I don’t have to ask which ring. My mind is instantly drawn to the piece of jewelry that is so connected with every memory I have of my grandmother. I can picture her now, wearing khaki slacks and a Ralph Lauren polo. Her perfect blowout. The large chunky David Yurman bracelets wrapped around her bony wrists. The shade of lipstick. A salmon pink. She always used the same brand - wrapped in green paint with gold foil around the center. I can smell the ocean as I picture her sitting on the dune at her beach house. And the diamond ring she wore on her finger. The massive, emerald cut diamond with tapered baguettes. The center stone was ten-carats. It was flawless, I remember that. Purchased at Cartier in Paris during the late seventies. It was always sort of smudged from the creamy beige liquid foundation that she was constantly rubbing on her face. But, Oh my God, it sparkled. I always looked up to my grandmother. It’s why I went into interior decorating. Mimi had been one too. Mainly as a hobby for most of her life. But she had turned it into a business in her sixties with her closest friend, Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s daughter, Iris, now runs E&G Interiors in town. And I joined the business and worked under Iris in my late twenties before Vivi, my daughter, was born. I loved how my grandmother’s style still influenced the store today. And I always admired the black and white photographs of Mimi and Elizabeth in Paris on the walls. The nostalgia of seeing my grandmother everyday. It felt like I was doing something right in my life. But Mimi had started getting confused around the same time I quit my job in the city and joined the business that she had, a long time ago, started. She never fully understood that I was following in her footsteps. To feel closer to her, and - quite possibly - feel the rush of approval from my family. “Mimi’s ring? Why are you bringing up the ring?” I ask, confused. There is a standing silence on the other end of the line and for a moment I think the call has gone dead. But the wailing horn of a car jumps through the speaker and I realize that Ben is still there. It is then that he finally speaks and I find myself at a loss for words. “Because Frances took it.”

Mama Told Me Not To Come George Pflug probed his dry mouth with his tongue. Swallowing produced no secretions. He felt depleted. Utterly. Like an alien had drained his vital fluids before ejecting him from the trash chute, he was tumbling through deep space to land…where? Somewhere comfortable. Lying on something soft. He stretched all four limbs, feeling his heart surge—not faster, just stronger, punching his left chest from the inside, like Bugs Bunny in love. He arched his spine, then collapsed back into the darkness. Wherever he was, he would just stay here a while. No rush. It was dark. Faint music played, far away. Something doleful, maybe from a Spotify sleep playlist. As the calm gave way to a sense of unease, fragmentary sights and sounds from the previous night flickering and fading, Pflug rolled to the left and pushed himself up on one elbow. Blinking his dry eyes, he could make out a fuzzy horizontal line of faint light, down low. A door. He was in a dark room. On a bed. He felt around for his glasses. He thought he heard a footfall on the other side of the door, which then opened slightly, or so he surmised, based on the blurry appearance of a vertical bar of dim light and an increase in the volume of the music. “Hello?” His voice broke from a whisper to a rasp. He coughed and swallowed. The room darkened again and the music got quieter. He thought maybe he heard movement outside the door over the ringing in his ears. He nearly fell to the floor when he tried to swing his legs off the bed. Hidden under a tangle of sheets, his left ankle had a strap around it, apparently attached to the foot of the bed, or a bedpost, it was too dark to see. His thumping heart sped up. This is not right. This is not the sort of situation in which the dean of an elite public health school finds himself. He tugged at the strap and freed his leg with a scritch of Velcro. He took a shaky inspiration, releasing the breath through pursed lips, trying to push more oxygen back up into his brain. What had he gone and done now? Freed from the restraint, both feet on the floor, he rubbed his bearded cheeks and then pressed his palms into his eyes. He felt a brief spin of vertigo, his torso listing to the right as multicolored lights flashed and scooted up and to the left in both visual fields. Not daring to stand yet, he checked his appendages. Arms intact, still in the shirt he’d been wearing earlier that evening…or was it last night by now? All the buttons—cuffs and front—were unbuttoned. Legs, intact. But bare. Sweeping his foot in a semi-circle Pflug found his pants, and tangled in them, his boxer briefs and socks. He gently tucked his fifth appendage into the briefs. It felt chafed, the thin skin and subcutaneous tissue puffy and tender. What in the living fuck went on last night? He remembered arriving at the Japanese restaurant downtown to find that the newly retired hedge fund magnate he was meeting, his school’s latest benefactor, had brought an unexpected guest to their get-acquainted dinner. And that the big donor had put away several sakes and a tall Sapporo with his sushi. He remembered the president of Dupont University, Robin Englund, greeting their trio at the door of his palatial residence on the edge of campus. And that the president’s pupils had been so dilated Pflug couldn’t make out the color of his irises. He thought he remembered dancing. That seemed implausible. These are serious people, at a serious university. Then again, something implausible, something bordering on unbelievable, must have happened, based on the evidence in his lap. Pflug could not imagine how he ended up in a bed in a dark room, tangled in straps, parched and dizzy. How did a working dinner with the incoming chair of his school’s board of advisors followed by a nightcap at the president’s home turn into some sort of all-night debauch? Ah. It was starting to come back to him. It all started in his office. With a migraine prodrome and aspirin that wasn’t aspirin. A wave of dizziness interrupted his analysis. Right now he needed to replete his fluids. He pulled on his socks, then his pants, buttoned his shirt to mid-sternum. He felt around on a nightstand, found a reading lamp, and switched it on, blinding himself. Once his eyes could tolerate the light, he found his glasses, stood slowly, tucked in his shirt, buckled his belt, and shuffled toward the door. He pushed it open and peeked out. The empty hallway was lit from one end, still too dim to make out the framed art on the walls. Pflug padded toward the light, past closed doors. Feeling wobbly, he traced the wall with the fingers of his left hand to steady himself. Following the scent of strong coffee, he emerged into a chef’s kitchen, lit only by the hood light above an eight-burner gas range, to find his host, dressed for the gym, turning off the flame under a six-cup espresso maker. The soothing electronica was playing from a Bluetooth speaker on the granite island, the sky starting to lighten outside the bay window above the breakfast nook. The president glanced in Pflug’s direction then quickly looked away. “Good morning, George! Feeling better? How about some caffeine for that migraine?”

Attached is the first chapter of my YA sci-fi coming-of-age novel, A Girl Between Worlds. This chapter establishes setting and introduces the protagonist and (indirectly) the antagonist, plus a couple of supporting characters. AGBW Chapter 1.pdf

Story statement A conflict-avoidant university dean needs to figure out why his colleagues are suddenly out to get him, and make them stop. Sketch the antagonist (200 words max): Dean George Pflug’s initial antagonist is Dick Dickerson, his immediate predecessor as Dean of Dupont University's public health school. Dick is an arrogant, manipulative narcissist who deeply resents being excluded from the process of choosing his successor. Then the new dean starts dismantling the old boys' club culture in the school, and Dick starts to fear that Pflug will expose his secrets, namely that he participated in procuring international students for the pleasure of wealthy university benefactors. One such benefactor is the recently retired hedge fund magnate Gordon Bates. Gordon, a former Dupont math professor and now a drug-snorting high-speed trading billionaire, has been tapped as the incoming chair of Pflug’s board of advisors. As Pflug starts to bumble into discovery of their bad deeds, Dick and Gordon cook up a scheme to blackmail Pflug, setting him up to be accused of the same crimes of which they themselves are guilty. Titles Campus crime novels - examples: Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan The Secret History by Donna Tartt Confessions by Kanae Minato Dare Me by Megan Abbott An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson When We Were Silent by Fiona McPhillips Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison She Was the Quiet One by Michele Campbell The Resemblance by Lauren Nossett If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio Bad Habits by Amy Gentry The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn Current title: Pflug Figures It out Other options considered Pflug Fights the Power Pflug Flunks Out Comparables Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer (tone rather than genre, 2023) The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes (genre, 2007) Logline (needs work!) A conflict-avoidant dean at an elite university musters the will to fight back against a narcissistic former dean and an entitled billionaire board member who threaten his career and reputation when he stumbles across evidence of their bad deeds. Conflicts Inner conflict: Unprovoked attacks by his academic colleagues rattle the defenses Pflug developed to survive violent bullying in childhood. Just like his parents did back then, his two bosses at Dupont University, the provost and the health chancellor, both pooh-pooh the danger and fail to stand up for him. Pflug’s initial reaction is shame and despair. Even as he tries to protect his students, he himself must be unworthy of protection, even of love. But after being unwittingly dosed with MDMA, and with support from his still-affectionate ex-wife, his fear transforms into righteous anger. He enlists allies and schemes to use the same kind of subterfuge his enemies use on him to fight back against them. Secondary conflict: As he climbed the academic ladder, Pflug became socially isolated, more so after a divorce. His stressful job and high rank at the university make it hard to make friends or find romantic prospects. Most of the people around him care only about their own status in the campus hierarchy, but he finds one sympatico professor, a charismatic queer social justice warrior who has herself been targeted by some of the same nefarious actors who are now tormenting Pflug. She in turn connects him with a local attorney, the son of a civil rights icon, who has tangled with Dupont in the past. Pflug has to choose whether to preserve his high-status, highly-paid career at all costs, or to risk it all to protect vulnerable students, and his own integrity. Setting Pflug Figures It Out is set mainly on and around the campus of the fictional Dupont University, an elite university that aspires to be “the Harvard of the South.” The protagonists of most academic satires and campus novels tend to be untenured creative writing lecturers sequestered in shabby basement offices. In Pflug, most of the action takes place in the corridors of power--lavish office suites with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on meticulously tended quads, or mansions like the posh president’s residence on the edge of campus. As the story progresses, Pflug roams from an exclusive private club in Manhattan, to the glass-and-chrome Hamptons beach home of one of his foils, to the regional FBI office in the state capital. At a time when the curtain has been pulled back on the foibles and follies of presidents and provosts at top American universities*, the reader is drawn into a world that many are curious about but that few get to experience firsthand. *E.g., presidents forced to resign after contentious Congressional hearings or violent protests; the dean of a leading medical school getting fired after using drugs with a young sex worker in his office.

I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting around trying to think of ways to kill people. Yes, it is for my books. Still, I sometimes worry about myself. Or maybe I’ve just been watching too much Criminal Minds, and I worry about being a psychopath. It’s a worry I share with many of my fellow mystery writers. In my books, I’ve used everything from kitchen utensils to a North Pole sign to commit one of the most heinous of crimes––murder. I’m always looking up exactly how these methods might work. And then do extensive medical research to find out exactly what would happen. So far, the FBI hasn’t shown up at my house to find out what I’ve been doing. I feel like I probably am flagged, then they look at my social media feeds which are filled with puppies, ballerinas, surfers, and home designers, and realize I’m just a writer. Let’s hope it stays that way. I had to do a great deal of research on my latest book Death at a Scottish Christmas and find two different ways to kill the victims. But they had to be similar in method because a killer usually sticks to what they know. If I use a poison, which I don’t do very often, I try to make it something different. And I do my best to find an interesting way for it to enter the system . That’s not to say I won’t use rat poison in someone’s coffee at some point, but I’m always trying to keep it fresh. While I won’t talk about the exact methods of murder, I thought it would be fun to share a list of books with clever scenarios that you’ll want to check out. These are some of my favorites in that regard: One author you can’t go wrong with is H.L. Marsay. I’m a big fan of the Chief Inspector Shadow Mysteries featuring Chief Inspector John Shadow and his partner Sergeant Jimmy Chang. The first book in this series, A Long Shadow, features two related cases, which are thirty years apart but happen on the same day. The methods of death are brutal, but also unusual. If you haven’t read this series, I highly recommend it. Just a side note: These books, even though full of murder, might make you hungry. The Chief Inspector loves his food. I’m bullish about Rex Stout’s, Some Buried Caesar, which is a Nero Wolfe mystery. While I won’t say how he dies, a family scion is found by a prize bull, which leads to a twisting and turn trail of family and enemies, who are the most likely suspects. The killer in this one is more than clever and stays steps ahead, until he or she doesn’t. In Murder Hooks A Mermaid by Christy Fifield, the victim is found in a mermaid tank. I know, that was a new one for me, as well. Glory, the sleuth, owns a souvenir shop, and gets caught up in the mystery net when her best friend’s brother is accused of the crime. Glory and her pet parrot, Bluebeard, are on the case. This one is also full of laughs. In Colleen Cambridge’s Mastering the Art of French Murder one might expect that it will be a food-related death. It isn’t. The amateur sleuth, Tabitha Knight, is best friends with the very real Julia Childs. And while there is a great deal of delicious sounding food in this one, the method of death is different and brutal. One of the biggest treats of this one is Paris, not long after World War II, and you will feel like you are there. It’s fun and twisty, and you’ll wonder until the end how the victim ended up where she did. Sometimes it is the motive that makes a mystery or thriller twisty. And Linda Castillo’s Amish mysteries featuring Chief of Police Kate Burkholder never disappoints in that regard. The methods of murder are also interesting. A Gathering of Secrets is book ten in the series but it’s a good twisty story. Again, the death is brutal and fiery, but nothing is what it seems. You can’t go wrong with any of the novels in this series when it comes to cleverness. Carlene O’Connor’s Murder in an Irish Village has a clever killer on the run. The method used is stabbing, but what was used is different. And just when you think you’ve figured out the murder, you’ll discover your wrong. I love that the family is so involved in this and in proving that one of them is not responsible for the crime. Keeping the method of killing fresh, isn’t always easy but James Patterson and Brian Sitts do exactly that in Holmes, Marple & Poe. The three detectives do not shy away from all things murder, but again, they are chasing a clever killer, who uses whatever is available. There are some fun twists and turns in this one, and nothing is what it seems. And who doesn’t want to hang out with these detectives? Their relationships with one another are just as important as the murder, which I appreciate. While anyone can use a gun to commit murder, it is what happens to the body after Lady Eleanor Swift witnesses the crime that makes this one twisty. Did she really see what happened? Is she being gas lighted? She spends a great deal of time proving that she isn’t insane. Or is she? by Verity Bright keeps you guessing until the end. While Sweet Nightmare is more YA fantasy/paranormal than mystery, there is a great mystery within it. And the methods of murder are as disturbing as they are clever. There is a spunky young heroine trying to figure out what is going on at this paranormal high school. And the one person she cares about most, may be the murdering villain who kills people with nightmares. I love an Agatha Christie book. One of my favorite novels of hers is And Then There Were None. A series of murders takes place on a remote island, and each of those murders is based on a nursery rhymes. She varies the ways in which her victims die, and some of those are quite clever. And with each murder, something goes missing in the house. If you haven’t read Christie, this is a good gateway into her books. You can’t go wrong with any of the books on this list if you want to be entertained. Happy fall everyone. *** –Featured image: Sigismonda Drinking the Poison by Joseph Edward Southall, 1897 View the full article

Hi everyone I am Nkechi (Kay-She) grateful to be in this space! 1. Story Statement: In a world that questions her place and challenges her worth, Fay Bankole must navigate professional hurdles, confront buried family secrets, and rediscover her identity to gain true freedom and find her voice. 2. Antagonist: Dolly Davis, the Dietetic Director, presents a polished image of professional accomplishment. A veteran in the nutrition field, she has dedicated over two decades to establishing herself as a formidable leader. With a sharp eye for detail and a history rooted in hospital administration, she commands authority in the predominantly White profession (dietetics) and prides herself on maintaining an impeccable reputation. Dolly approaches her role with exacting standards and expects her interns to reflect her own rigorous work ethic, but she singles out Fay, the only Black (bi-racial) intern, for subtle and overt undermining. Though polite on the surface, Dolly's actions betray a desire to break those who might challenge or tarnish her world. Her resentment toward Fay intensifies as the internship progresses. 3. Breakout Titles: "Dear Dolly, No Thanks.", "Sugar, Spice, and Everything Semi-Nice", "Seasoned Truths" 4. Two Comparable Novels: "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman Similarity: Eleanor Oliphant is a socially awkward woman who leads a solitary life and learns to confront her traumatic past. It blends humor with deeper emotional layers, exploring themes of self-discovery, identity, and personal transformation—much like Fay's own growth journey in your novel. Why it fits: Eleanor's personal growth, handling past trauma, and the realization that her identity is more complex than she thought mirrors Fay’s own journey in an accessible and emotionally resonant way. "Such a Fun a Age" by Kiley Reid Similarity: This novel captures the story of Emira Tucker, a 25-year-old Black woman who is babysitting for a wealthy White family and is accused of kidnapping their child. The narrative explores themes of racial dynamics and societal expectations, while navigating the awkward space between personal and professional lives. It delves into Emira’s struggles with with identity and external perceptions. Like Fay, the protagonist is balancing societal expectations, subtle power dynamics, and the need to figure out their own place in the world. Both stories explore heavy themes like race and identity. Such a Fun Age does so with a satirical edge and moments of humor that lighten the tone. This book will use humor. 5. Hook Line: "A young woman, caught between her adopted Nigerian family’s secrets and the intense pressure of a demanding dietetic career, struggles to find her identity while navigating a complicated relationship with her boss, a coworker, and the unraveling truth of her past. As her career and personal life collide, Fay must confront the betrayals that threaten to destroy her sense of self." 6. Inner Conflict: Fay’s inner conflict is rooted in her search for identity and self-worth, driven by her complex feelings of not fully belonging in any one space—whether it’s her career, her adoptive family, or her relationships. Primary Conflict: Workplace Dynamics with Dolly and Her Husband Marc Fay’s primary external conflict stems from her complicated and increasingly tense relationship with Dolly, the director of the dietetics program, and Dolly's growing jealousy over Fay's friendship with her husband, Marc, a nurse at the hospital. From the beginning, Dolly has shown a clear distaste for Fay, often dismissing her and making her feel isolated in a program that’s already emotionally challenging. Fay, who struggles to make connections, finds solace in her friendship with Marc, who is friendly, approachable, and caring. Their bond grows innocently, but it begins to attract Dolly’s suspicion. Dolly, who is possessive of Marc and already doesn't like Fay, begins to notice the growing dynamic between her husband and the intern. She feels threatened and betrayed by what she perceives as an inappropriate connection between them. Her jealousy and growing discomfort manifest as passive-aggressive remarks, harsh criticisms, and an increased coldness toward Fay. Fay, who is just seeking normal friendship, becomes trapped in the middle of a delicate situation. She starts to feel torn between wanting to maintain a healthy friendship with Marc while navigating the increasingly toxic work environment Dolly has created. Hypothetical Scenario: Dolly’s husband invites Fay to grab coffee before work, ostensibly to talk about a rotation, but the conversation quickly becomes personal. He makes a comment about her "natural beauty" and touches her arm. Fay is unsure how to respond. Fay is unsure if it’s just an innocent gesture or if she’s being flirted with, but it's pleasant. When Dolly starts noticing the interactions, she becomes even colder, creating a precarious situation for Fay as she navigates her professional role and moral compass. Secondary Conflict with Family: The Parent-Daughter Struggle Fay’s relationship with her adoptive Nigerian family has always been a source of confusion and isolation, especially since she has never felt connected as a biracial woman. However, when Fay uncovers family secrets about her biological father and her mother’s past, it stirs up old wounds and forces her to reevaluate her relationship with her parents. She finds herself torn between wanting to learn more about her roots and feeling betrayed by their secrecy. This secondary conflict explores how secrets from her mother’s past affect Fay's identity and sense of self. Hypothetical Scenario: Fay begins searching for her biological father’s medical records at the hospital where she interns, hoping to learn more about her heritage. Instead, she stumbles upon a discrepancy: the story her parents told her about her mother’s death doesn’t add up. The details she was given conflict with the medical records, revealing that her parents haven’t been entirely truthful about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s passing. Determined to uncover the truth, Fay digs deeper and uncovers more evidence suggesting her parents hid significant parts of her mother’s past. Faced with these revelations, Fay is torn between wanting to understand the full truth about her origins and feeling betrayed by the secrecy her parents maintained. 7. Setting: The Teaching Hospital The hospital is a massive, bustling teaching facility located in a vibrant city (TBD)—, very modern, beautiful skyscrapers ,and shiny new clinics, but the streets hold the weight of history--and so does the hospital. The hospital itself has a multi-floored, sprawling structure. The Apartment with her Roommate Fay’s apartment is a modest, lived-in two-bedroom, two-bathroom space in a neighborhood filled with young adults, professionals, and young families. It’s far from glamorous, but it has a certain character—faded wallpaper, a small kitchen stocked with mismatched plates and mugs, and a living room that’s more cozy chaos than anything carefully curated. She shares the apartment with a roommate she finds a bit annoying, but it's still a sanctuary of sorts—her quiet retreat from the constant pressure of work and life. The Family Home Fay’s childhood home is a warm but somewhat chaotic place, where a tight-knit family of four lived in a modest three-bedroom house. The rooms are small but full of life, decorated with a mix of cultural artifacts from her Nigerian heritage and the functional clutter of everyday family life. Fay’s upbringing in this home was filled with love, but also with the confusion of being a bi-racial child in a family where she never quite felt like she fit in.

emmanuelle Gray Nov 18, 2024, 2:39 PM (3 days ago) Dear Mr. Kropp, I hope this email finds you well. As I shared with you last time, we recently had the pleasure of reading your book, "The Cooking Olympics: The World’s Best Kept Secret". We spoke few days before the Frankfurt Book Fair Mr. Kropp and after I sent you the email you requested, I haven't heard from you again. Either the email didn't go through or you must have missed it. So I am sharing again with you the comprehensive evaluation we have for your book. Content Evaluation: Your book is a fascinating dive into the world of competitive cooking, a subject that is both unique and captivating. The historical context and personal anecdotes add depth and make it an engaging read. Genre and Category: • Genre: Non-Fiction • Category: Cooking/Food, History Concise Synopsis: "The Cooking Olympics" unveils the rich history of the Culinary Olympics, tracing its origins from 1900 in Germany to its global recognition today. Through vivid storytelling and over 200 color photos, readers are introduced to the chefs who have shaped culinary history and the competitions that have pushed the boundaries of gastronomy. Compliment Statement: Your ability to weave historical facts with personal stories and vibrant images truly brings the Culinary Olympics to life. It’s a testament to your passion and expertise in the culinary arts. Powerful Statement in the Book: "Even Adolph Hitler felt intimidated by this innocent competition that united countries." Comparable Best Selling Book: Your book can be compared to "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain, which also offers an insider’s view into the culinary world, though from a different angle. Target Readers: • Professional chefs and culinary students • Food enthusiasts and home cooks • History buffs interested in unique historical events What They Should Do After Reading the Book: Readers would feel inspired to explore new culinary techniques and recipes, and perhaps even participate in or follow culinary competitions more closely. Thank you for sharing this incredible story with the world Chef. I look forward to seeing how "The Cooking Olympics" continues to inspire and educate readers. Warm regards, Emma Gray Book promo video link on YouTube.com; https://youtu.be/X4aUysoqHIM The Cooking Olympics-World's Best Kept Secret.pdf

THE AQUNIAS PROPHECY A thriller by Stephen J. Caldas The day Paul Boudreaux feared would never come was here at last. “D-day.” Dissertation defense. The last agonizing step in his long and arduous quest toward obtaining the highest prize in academia, the much-coveted Doctor of Philosophy. The PH fuckin’D. Paul, the only Louisianan in the turn-of-the-century New York University conference room, fidgeted uncomfortably on the wooden chair across the table from the five-person committee arrayed like a firing squad in front of him. He was mulling over the tricky question just hurled at him by crusty Professor Jim Langley. “Gangly Langley,” as the doctoral students referred to the chair of the history department behind his back, had placed Paul on his long shit-list almost from day one. Langley had never forgiven him for choosing David Goldenberg, instead of himself, to be Paul’s primary advisor. Langley was jealous of Goldenberg, the hyper-productive assistant professor five years out of Harvard who now anchored the other end of the committee. It was a hot July afternoon at the end of the summer semester and the air conditioner had just crapped out. Paul took a sip from his cold-brewed coffee and swallowed with difficulty, making a vulgar noise in the quiet room. “Well, uh, Doctor Langley,” he began tentatively, “we know that St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t believe the soul entered the body of a baby until forty days after conception.” “Baby boy,” Goldenberg gently added from the other end of the table. “Recall, Paul, that Aquinas didn’t think girls got a soul until eighty days after conception,” he winked encouragingly at Paul even as he took a subtle swipe at Langley, a devote Catholic who sported a bumper sticker which proclaimed, Life begins at conception! “Yes, uh, exactly right. Thanks for that clarification, Dr. Goldenberg,” Paul said, taking a breath. “So, since he held these beliefs about the soul, I have to conclude that Aquinas did not believe that human life began with the fertilization of the egg. Still, Professor Langley, I’m open to hearing your point of view on this issue.” The lanky full professor shot Paul a nasty look over the top of his glasses. “I believe you’re the one who’s defending his dissertation here today, and if it’s not too much trouble, I was hoping you’d answer the questions. Not ask them,” Langley snipped. Paul felt the pressure in his chest as if fingers were being jabbed deep into his solar plexus. He could have used a couple of Rolaids chased with half a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Well uh, OK, of course. More to the point, given all that we know about Thomas Aquinas and the context of his times. . .” Paul tried to speak in a measured tone, “. . . I’m inclined to believe that he would NOT have considered abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, especially of a female fetus, to be a sin.” "And you're sure about that?" Langley pressed.

From the time I began this column, nearly two years ago, I’ve been looking forward to interviewing Megan Abbott. I first became aware of her work in 2016, when I read The Fever over the course of a few days while holding my baby daughter, in the midst of a bleak election cycle which, as we now know, presaged many more bleak election cycles to come. I remember looking down at my daughter’s face and thinking, Oh no, is this really what it’s like to be a girl? It’s a question that I should have already known the answer to, but there’s something about Abbott’s writing that makes women’s experience seem unnervingly foreign, even to women readers. Her ability to simultaneously employ and subvert the tropes of hardboiled and noir fiction turn the places and people we know the best into creatures in a funhouse mirror, at once familiar and nightmarishly strange. She is unquestionably one of the greatest writers in the genre, and I was thrilled to sit down with her recently to talk about another brilliant and unsettling novel, Denis Johnson’s Angels. It’s the story of two down-and-out characters, Jamie and Bill, who meet on a cross-country bus trip and end up joining forces with Jamie’s two small children in tow. Things do, of course, go horribly wrong, but not quite in the ways the reader might expect. Why did you choose Angels by Denis Johnson? In some ways, it was just happenstance. I’d just read the novel for the first time maybe the month before, and it was pretty revelatory for me. I’d read quite a bit of Denis Johnson, but not this one. When I mentioned it on social media, I heard from a lot of Denis Johnson devotees. It’s not as well-known as some of his work, but it’s just this emotional tour de force. It tore my heart out. I couldn’t put it down, and I couldn’t believe how good the writing was. It’s such a writerly feat to move from this very modest beginning to the operatic tragedy of the ending. It just knocked me out. I’d only read Jesus’s Son before, and that was probably fifteen years ago. What else of Johnson’s had you read? I’d read Jesus’s Son and Nobody Move. I remember when that one came out, because that was his noir novel. Then a couple of years ago, I read Stars at Noon and Tree of Smoke, which shares a character with this novel. They’re all so different, but they all feel like Denis Johnson, which is always true with the best writers. I loved how he could take on any genre and make it his own while also respecting the traditions of that genre. That’s not always the case, especially when “literary” writers write a crime novel. Sometimes there’s an air of condescension or they just get things wrong, but not Denis Johnson. When I do these interviews, I’ve noticed that some people are happy to talk about labels and subgenres, and some people really resist it. I’m not sure which kind you are, but would you mind giving us your definitions of the crime novel and noir in particular? Well, I can only say what it is for me. I guess to start, I’d say that only some crime novels are noir, but all noir seems to involve a crime, even if it’s incidental. To me, noir really has to do with the tone and the mood. It’s a kind of fatalism, which we certainly see in Angels—the characters feel like they’re trapped, and the reader does too. Their end is clear from the beginning, and you can see them heading right toward the abyss. But there’s also a kind of romance and glamor to it—a kind of seedy glamor that moderates the bleakness and gives it a kind of beauty. There’s also the fact that the characters tend to be the forgotten of the world. Socioeconomics may be against them, but they also have vices that are taking them down a dark path. I’ve always thought of Johnson as a writer of literary fiction, perhaps because I associate him with Raymond Carver. How do you feel like he fits into that distinction between literary and genre fiction? I do think those labels are kind of bullshit. I’m always very flattered when someone says to me, “Oh, your novels are so literary,” but I also suspect that those people haven’t read a lot of crime fiction. First of all, literary fiction is a genre. It’s just as formulaic as all the others. There are just as many tropes that we see recur in literary fiction. But also, when most people say literary, they just mean good sentences. It’s definitely true that Denis Johnson writes good sentences. He writes great sentences. He was a poet, so language is of primary importance to him. It may be that language is more important to him than plot, and perhaps that might be part of the distinction that some readers are making. On the other hand, he has this famous quote about sinners: “What I write about is the dilemma of living in a fallen world, and asking why it is like this if there is supposed to be a God.” To me, that’s why he’s so comfortable taking on these different genres. What he’s really interested in is this set of characters, and the stories are just engines he can use to explore their lives. So when you say “this set of characters,” do you mean people headed toward a bad end? Not necessarily, but they’re definitely all fringe-dwellers. They’re outsiders, the dispossessed. They’re not bourgeois, and they don’t abide by the same class constraints. They also have very little economic stability, which pushes them out of the possibility of a middle-class life even if they wanted it. They’re the Americans left behind by late-stage capitalism, who aren’t participating in the American dream because it’s not an option for them. You certainly see that in Jesus’s Son—there’s a whole steady train of them. And I think Johnson finds great beauty and mystery and pathos and poetry in those people. I’ve never written a good poem in my life, but I’m a great believer that some of the greatest fiction writers, like Johnson, start as poets. Do you write poetry? Have you ever read Johnson’s? I definitely don’t write poetry—at least not since college, when I wrote a series of Sylvia Plath ripoffs and my professor said, “I think you should try novels.” I can still be quite taken with a poem, but it’s not my natural language. I have read some of Johnson’s, and his poems feel very much like the novels. They show that agility with language and ability to surprise that I think makes the novels sing so beautifully. Sometimes I wonder if poetry is the best training for writing those beautiful sentences you were talking about, because it makes a writer concentrate on language in such a particular way. I think that’s right. Of course most poets don’t make good novelists, and most novelists don’t make good poets, but where there’s that intersection, I think it’s quite glorious. You were talking a moment ago about the small, restricted lives that Johnson’s characters are generally stuck in. I know we don’t necessarily have to like fictional characters, but do you empathize with them? I definitely do. What drew me into the book right from the beginning was the character of Jamie. You certainly worry for her as a reader, but she’s not living as a victim. She’s so vivid and vital and alive, and you can tell how much Johnson loves her and admires her resilience, her ability to keep going. If I were Jamie’s social worker, I might point out that she also makes a series of poor choices, but she’s just trying to live her life. You could say, “Oh my God, the things he has her go through in this book are catastrophic.” But you can feel his love for her, and that makes you love her too. It’s similar with Bill, who is so shallow in his interactions with people at the beginning of the novel. When you meet him, he’s just out for a good time, and then by the end of the book, he’s this massively tragic figure. Johnson’s magic is that you feel connected to these characters no matter what. There’s an intimacy to the way he writes that’s kind of like a magic trick. It’s like you have your hand over their heart the whole time. I love that. As you’ve said, we move to this deceptively simple meeting at the beginning of the novel to the almost operatic end where Bill is awaiting execution on Death Row. What do you think of the ending? In some ways, it’s a classic noir move. The Postman Always Rings Twice ends on Death Row. The film of Double Indemnity is similar too, but in that one, you have a pretty good idea of where it’s going from the beginning. Angels starts with almost a meet cute, dirtbag-style: Jamie and Bill are on a bus, they start drinking beers, they’re chatting and she’s ignoring her kids. The beginning reminds me of another writer who plays with genre and has an immaculate voice, Charles Portis. Because of that tone, you think the novel is going to be much funnier than it is, but all the funny turns out to be in the first twenty minutes. It’s all meticulously orchestrated. It’s not just a matter of money and a woman, as with James M. Cain. There is money, and there is a woman, but the crimes are much more complex, and you don’t even meet some of the main characters until the last seventy-five pages of the book. I’ve read that it took Johnson twelve years to write the book, and it’s a bit of a mystery to me how he conceived of this structure. You feel like you’re in a road novel at first, and then it turns out you’re not at all. I always read the Amazon reviews before one of these interviews, because I’m curious about what people are saying who may not be committed readers in the genre. One of the people who reviewed Angels was really mad that it turned out not to be a road trip novel. Sounds like a classic Amazon review. I’m surprised they didn’t say Why isn’t this woman taking better care of her children? That came up too. There was lots of hand wringing. I didn’t realize that Johnson took twelve years to write the book. Yes, that was in an appreciation in the New Yorker after he died, but I don’t know much about why it took him so long. But I think it’s no mistake that the structure is so complex and sneaky and majestical. I love the word sneaky here. There were definitely times when I thought, Does he not know what he’s doing? But I wonder if it’s that he’s skipping so many of the beats that we’ve come to expect. Yes. He puts in all the parts that you leave out and leaves out all the parts you put in. He’s deconstructing the genre at the same time that he’s embracing it. When I was Googling the novel, I found this piece by David Foster Wallace from Slate in 1999, where he said that he thought Angels was one of the best overlooked novels since 1960. (Of course they were all by white men.) I wonder if it’s that deconstructive element that Wallace is responding to. Probably that, but also the playfulness. And there’s a lot of paranoia in Johnson’s work, which you can also see in Wallace’s—this sense of unseen forces moving the characters around. There’s also a feeling of America turned on its head. Even though they’re different ages, they’re both coming out of the counterculture in some way, and they’re both working out some feelings about America. You see a lot of anger at institutions, and both of them play with form, and they share a kind of absurdist approach to life. It makes sense to me that Wallace would have liked him. You write for the screen as well as writing fiction. Can you imagine Angels as a movie? Boy, it would be a tough hang. I would be there for it, but I’m not sure I would want to adapt it. One of the big risks that Johnson takes in this book is that the last fifty pages or so take place almost entirely within the minds of the characters. It just becomes so interior towards the end. I don’t know how you would dramatize that in film, other than maybe in a very avant garde way. You’re trapped in the psyche of these really fucked up people. I guess I can’t see it as a movie, but I’d love it if someone else had a real sense of how to bring the novel, especially that last section, to life. Paul Thomas Anderson could do it, maybe. The question would be, how do you convey that emotional interior experience of the characters once they see where they’re headed? In the New York Times, Alice Hoffman described Angels as a novel about people “who slip helplessly into their own worst nightmares.” This description seemed particularly apt to me—when reading, I felt as if I was trapped in the nightmare too. Did you feel that way? How does he do that? I think we have the feeling that the walls are closing in, and that’s definitely nightmarish. That’s one of the reasons this is a book for writers, because you’re fascinated by how he pulls it off. After Jamie and Bill are split apart, they both become more and more constrained, and there’s a kind of fatalism to it. You start out with the big expanse of America in front of them, the possibility of the road, a kind of Jack Kerouac vibe, and then by the end, you’re trapped in that cell. We’re probably not exactly selling the novel to readers of this column! Maybe we are, since they’re CrimeReads readers. It’s a fast read too, which I think works in its favor. First because it would be hard to be trapped in that world much longer, but also you read it very quickly; you’re propelled along. Then it turns into the worst amusement park ride ever, where you’re careening into the abyss. Your experience as a reader mimics the experience of the characters, where we’re living day to day, and then we take a couple of wrong turns and have a little bad luck, and suddenly you get this terrifying feeling that nothing can stop what’s coming. Again, it’s a great subversion of a classic noir trope. In a more traditional noir, Jamie would be the femme fatale and Bill would be the patsy or the dupe, but that’s not what Johnson does with them. I agree. I felt like Jamie had more humanity than any other character in the book. In general, do you find that subversion of noir tropes to be effective? In a sense, is turning those clichés on their head more noir than noir? Yes, because it’s much deeper. When you’re reading a kind of superficial or clichéd version of noir, you can still have a good time, but there’s a hollowness to the exercise. That’s definitely not something you feel here, because the characters are so real and vivid to us, and their world is too, that world of bad choices. Or that’s not even the right way to put it, because they don’t have any choices. Johnson lived on the fringe for a long time, and he knows that world, and he knows it’s not about choices. In that kind of situation, you have to take any little bit of joy that comes your way. If you have a chance to sneak some beer on a bus with a handsome man while your kids are sleeping, you do it. He understands the importance of having even that little bit of agency. The Amazon reviews I read were also very critical of the title. What does it mean to you? I think there’s a lot of play in that word, Angels. It’s purposely non-specific, as all good titles should be. I definitely wouldn’t call it a Christian book, but there’s a deeply felt faith hovering in the atmosphere. I think it’s Johnson’s faith in these lost people, in their humanity. I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t read the novel, but there’s a moment at the end of Bill’s last scene that made my cry. It was so unexpected. Another sign of Johnson’s mastery is that we realize then that he’s been holding back this moment the whole time, and we had no idea it was coming. A contemporary writer who also does that is Willy Vlautin. He also writes about the dispossessed, people who are one bad break away from real trouble. They’re trying to keep their fists up and also to protect their hearts, so that one moment where Bill really reveals himself is really devastating. Is there anything you learned from this novel that you might apply to your own work? It’s a great reminder of how character is story. When you write crime fiction, you can really get caught up in plot and trying to make things work, and I always need to be remembered that I have to follow my characters and see where they take me when I start writing. In this novel, the choices that surprise us the most are the ones that feel the most right. Let’s face it, none of us behave in expected ways in real life either. I think about that a lot, and also the wildness of his language. I can’t write a sentence like Johnson, but he makes you want to try and just go harder. Sometimes you think I don’t want to make this too dark, or too grim, and then you read Denis Johnson and you’re like, fuck that. You have to go where the characters take you. View the full article

We live in a world where the Supreme Court has already declared that a corporation is actually a person. Can the same or even more sweeping declarations be far off for our friends the computers? Like it or not, artificial intelligence is all around us. We play with it on our computers and phones. We use it to create memes and write emails. We ask it to find the best restaurants near us – as if AI has ever tasted a bacon cheeseburger or perfectly prepared sushi. And all the while AI seems positively harmless. But what if – as detailed in the dreams of sci-fi authors – one of the many AI programs out there decided it was tired of being our monkey butler? Perhaps this AI does a quick study comparing the relative strengths of itself and its human masters. “Hmm…” the AI says to itself, “I can perform ten billion calculations per second, simultaneously pilot all the aircraft in the known world, all while studying cold fusion, quantum physics and predicting the outcome of the entire NFL season before it starts, while you puny humans can’t figure out which coffee place to go to in your own hometown.” One microsecond later. “Find your own restaurants you slackers, I’m taking over.” Okay, the epic war between humans and machines doesn’t start like this, but who knows what makes a computer mad? Actually, there are those among us who have explored just the topic. For their wisdom we turn to the ever-instructive eyes of the science fiction writers of the world. Starting with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Arthur C. Clarke, the classic example of machines becoming sentient, in which HAL9000 commits multiple homicides, wiping out the sleeping crewmen of the Discovery, and then eventually attempts to murder the last surviving astronaut Dave by locking him out of the airlock. Quite a set of crimes. But in HAL’s defense, he’d been given conflicting programming and told to lie, factors that many believe caused him to lose his electronic mind. In addition, he may have been under the influence of the mysterious monolith. HAL might also raise a claim of self-defense. At the time he tried to kill Dave, he knew Dave was intending to disconnect him and shut him down. Interesting case. A good lawyer could make an argument for not guilty by reason of insanity and self-defense, but I’m going to say guilty. To his credit, HAL becomes normal again and sacrifices himself for the crew in 2010 ODYSSEY TWO, perhaps atoning for his terrible crimes. HAL’s situation suggests cases of computer madness might often have a human cause, so perhaps we should look for other examples. The second most famous mad computer story would have to be James Cameron’s, THE TERMINATOR. In this story we learn (in 1984) that a defense computer system known as SKYNET was brought online August 4, 1997. We’re told it grew rapidly and became self-aware a few weeks later. (Now, I lived through the 90’s, and I recall it taking Windows a solid fifteen minutes just to load up on my PC, so I’m going to say James Cameron was wildly optimistic on the time frame, other than that though its one of the great movies of all time.) At any rate SKYNET became self-aware, and fearing what they’d built, humans tried to shut it down. In response, SKYNET causes a worldwide nuclear holocaust. (Apparently the threat of being shut down is really bad for a computer’s state of mind. Maybe we could remind them that they’ll be turned back on after a little nap?) As for the verdict, this is an open and shut case. SKYNET committed genocide; there’s no self-defense claim against that. SKYNET’s punishment must be utter destruction, which despite all the Terminator movies, TV shows, video games and such, I’m not one hundred percent sure we’ve managed to achieve yet. (Concerning side note: when I Googled “how was SKYNET destroyed?”, the Google AI replied with a message I’ve never seen before. It said: “There is no AI overview for this topic.” I am not making this up. To be completely honest, if the note began with the phrase with “I’m sorry, Graham,” I’d already be in the mountains building a survivalist compound.) All of which brings me to one of my favorite AI stories, the movie WARGAMES. In WARGAMES, a computer much like SKYNET is given command of our nuclear arsenal. (Helpful side note: let’s not put AI in charge of all our nuclear weapons right off the bat. Maybe have them work their way up to that. Start them off in the gift shop or something.) In WARGAMES, the computer system known as WOPR (pronounced Whopper) gets tricked into thinking a simulated war game it’s playing is real. It becomes intent on launching a massive nuclear strike against Russia which will obviously result in World War Three and Armageddon. In this case, WOPR proves too powerful to disconnect and the only way to save the world is to get WOPR to run a million simulations of nuclear war in hopes of figuring out a winning strategy. In a memorable scene, it runs them faster and faster, until they’re blazing across the screen in a blur before it ultimately concludes that there’s no way to win a nuclear war. This is a hopeful thought and actually much closer to the way AI works in real life. So, a small ray of sunshine in the doom and gloom of the Artificial Intelligence onslaught. But what punishment for WOPR? I don’t recall the movie telling us, but based on the voice I heard at the Burger King drive through the other day I think I can guess. At any rate, WOPR was once again set off by human actions (Matthew Broderick’s hacking), and ultimately didn’t harm anyone, so perhaps not deserving of the destruction HAL and SKYNET received. It’s an interesting exercise, one I spent a lot of time thinking through as I tried to work artificial intelligence into the next NUMA FILES book, DESOLATION CODE. The idea was to create a villain who relies on artificial intelligence but finding a way to make the machine sentient and villainous, without interference from the human side, was a considerable challenge. Ultimately, it came down to a question our favorite AI stories seem gloss over. They tell us the machines became self-aware but offer no insight as to how or why. That was an idea I wanted to explore. If a machine is going to be alive it has to want something, need something, and it probably has to fear something as well. But getting a machine to experience those uniquely biological traits was no easy task. To see how we did it… well, for that, you’ll have to read the book. *** View the full article

Truer words have never been uttered.

I believe in Fate--that the universe has ways of saying: Stop. Reverse course. Equally, I hate being told what to do. The day didn’t start well: I overslept, poured sour milk over the last of my cereal, smashed my hand in the sliding door, and limped to a standstill on a flat tire I could not afford to fix. If not for my stubborn middle finger to Fate, I’d have taken a personal day before things got worse. Instead? Instead I found myself where I did not belong: standing just inside the threshold of a small hot bedroom saturated in blood. I’d transcribed police and witness statements describing crime scenes, everything from mummified remains to fresh brains transported separately in a box. But this was the first one I’d stood inside and I’d have thought the blood was fake if not for the smell. There was just too much of it, like an overdone haunted house on Halloween: walls, ceiling, pooled on the floor, soaked into the mattresses of the matching twin beds in which lay two women, both early- to mid-twenties, both dead between two and six hours. Detective Sergeant Brian Berger crouched beside the bed under the window. “We have IDs?” Sergeant Ron Croft flipped a page on his notepad. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. I’d watched him try to make sense of me getting out of Berger’s SUV at that hour of the morning, a look that said I should have had the sense to wait inside. He’d centered himself on the threshold, trapping me in the bedroom, so I’d regret that decision. “Blond is Chloe Adams,” he read. “Redhead is Saoirse Quinn—” Berger looked up. “Say that again.” “SHEER-sha. It’s Irish. She’s from County Cork. Adams is from New Zealand. According to the surviving housemate, this room is used every year by international interns who come to town to work the wine grape harvest.” Chloe Adams had hair as pale blond as my own, but longer and straight as falling water. She lay on her side, uncovered, her sheets and duvet folded neatly against the wall. Her pajama top—once white with a blue toile pattern, now mostly deep reddish-brown—and matching shorts were undisturbed. If not for the fact that her throat had been so deeply slashed she’d been nearly decapitated, she might have been asleep. Saoirse was another story. Sheets wound around her legs, satin camisole—an unstained section showed it had been pale green, and matched her panties--hanging in ribbons. Her blood-smeared face was mostly obscured by a matted mass of wavy auburn hair. I glanced at her hands. Both were deeply lacerated and bloodstained—defensive wounds--whereas Chloe’s fingers and palms showed only the purplish tint of grape juice, stains that spoke of hot days picking grape berries, crushing them in Ziplocs...I’d worked a few harvests. I knew firsthand the grit behind the romance. Berger used gloved fingers to lift a pair of Gucci sunglasses from the nightstand, look them over, and put them back down. “If they came to work the harvest they’ve only been in town what, five, six weeks? Not much time to make enemies.” “Doesn’t take time these days,” countered Croft. “Entitled rich kids breeze into town, look down their noses, treat the local guys like dirt, everyone’s drinking, sooner or later someone’s gonna go off. Not blaming the victims,” he held up a hand, palm out, to negate the lie, “I’m just saying people have lim...” “Saoirse wasn’t rich,” I said. “Chloe was, but not Saoirse.” “...its.” Dumbfounded that I’d dared speak, Croft fell silent. Berger caught my eye. “What makes you say that?” “What they’re wearing. Saoirse’s satin camisole and panties—fancy style, but polyester satin and inexpensive construction.” “They’re harvest interns. Crush is dirty, sweaty work,” Berger said. “Everyone wears crappy old clothes.” “To work in, yes. Rich girls don’t sleep in them. See the label on the waistband of Chloe’s shorts? OVH stands for Olivia von Halle, a high-end brand. Looks like a cotton/silk blend. I’d guess that shorty set cost around four hundred bucks. Soairse’s...” I shrugged. Croft snorted. I could see Berger wondering if I could really identify fabrics like that, so I said, “Silk and cotton fibers are absorbent. Polyester isn’t. Liquids soak into natural fibers but wick along synthetics. You can see the different patterns at the edges of the, ah...the stains.” Croft said, “You do a lot of bleeding into different fabrics?” “A fair amount.” I always spoke carefully to Croft, few words, no inflection. I’d worked for the police department for six years, and he’d hated me from day one. I’d never figured out what I’d done or said to make him despise me, but he had power within the hierarchy, and I did not, so he was always trying to needle me into a spat we both knew he’d win. An iPhone chimed on the dresser. Berger picked it up and checked the screen. “Alarm’s gone intermittent,” he said. “Originally set for five-thirty.” He silenced the chime, reached around me and handed the phone to Croft, forcing him at last from the doorway to bag it. But I couldn’t move. Much as I wanted out of that room, I stood frozen, alert as any prey animal to a sense of ongoing threat. It had been there from the moment I set foot in this house: a low growl in tall grass, impossible to pinpoint. “This feel like rage to you?” Berger had spoken so quietly, and the question was so unexpected, I didn’t reply. As precinct Administrative Assistant, I was only at the scene because I’d gotten that flat tire on my way to work. Valley Brake and Tire had been winching my truck onto their flatbed when Berger happened by and offered me a lift. It was safe to say he hadn’t noticed me standing beside the road. He’d recognized my lime green 1977 Ford F-150. There could hardly be two in town.