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The first thing she does after watching the news is call her son. Come home, Iván, she wants to say. Come before it gets worse, and stay with me through the storm. But instead, after apologizing for interrupting his routine in the city, she tells him the contrary: “Don’t even think about getting on the road tomorrow.” It’s Thursday, and school’s just started. Iván is supposed to spend the weekend at home. But she wants him to stay in Murcia. Even if the news there is worrisome too. Better there than on the roads. She’ll have to be alone. But anyway, she always is. He could come see her every week. Every day, if he wanted. It’s just forty minutes from the capital to the village. But he’d always been determined to live close to school. It was better for his studies. Commu nications and media. What he really wanted to study was film. At least he didn’t go to Madrid. He’s better off there, she thinks to herself, far from the sorrow, the melancholy of home. But today she wishes he was close to her. So she could protect him from the storm. Even being with him in the city would be better. To not feel the difference, short as it may be. Distance always means possibly not getting there in time. Being late. When there’s nothing more you can do. “Don’t worry, Mom, I won’t leave. I’ve got stuff to do this weekend.” This eases her mind, but in her heart, she wishes he’d argue with her, not yield to common sense. What do you mean, don’t come, Mom, how could I leave you there and stay here just because I have stuff to do? How could I not catch the bus, or drive, or even walk under the rain to make it home so the two of us could hold each other and keep each other warm? How could I not drop everything, Mom, to be with you as the sky rips open and everything collapses? No, Iván just says, don’t worry, he’ll be fine, as if nothing were happening, as if he felt free of the obligation to have to return to a home marred by afflictions. After dinner, Dolores peeks out the window. It’s still raining hard. Lightning gleams on the stream where the street once stood. Soon after comes the thunder, its roar encircling the house. She remembers all at once what happened three years ago, in December of 2016. No one could forget. The rain, the flooded ravines, the swamped streets. She’d seen something like that as a teenager too. The town was cursed, she’d told Clemente Artés that afternoon. But it’s also fated to resist, to rise up over and again, not caring that the world was going to hell. Every time the rain comes, though, the disquiet and uncertainty return. The fear. The resignation. Hopefully this time it will blow over. She unplugs the TV. Unscrews the coaxial cable. She’s never known why she does this, but her mother used to do it too. Or unhook the antenna, rather. The antenna attracts lightning, she used to say. The TV does, all electronic appliances do. It also hits the plumbing and it can come out if you open the tap. One neighbor had to have his finger amputated, another had lightning come right through his window. So you close everything and keep quiet, play hide-and-go-seek. This is just superstition, she thinks, but she can’t help it, it’s part of the ritual when the storm comes. Like checking the batteries in the flashlight and getting the candles and lighter ready in case the power turns off. Tonight, though, the lights have held out. Still, she keeps the angular flashlight on her nightstand, with a candle stuffed in an empty beer bottle next to a lighter. She picks up the book Clemente Artés gave her. It’s not the best reading for a stormy night. But it’s piqued her curiosity. When she opens it, the old man’s aroma returns. And she smells something else this time, not just cut wood, but a vinegary scent that reminds her of fixer in a tray. She’s sure of it: that scent impregnates the entire book. She finds a large whitish spot on the cloth binding. And more than one wrinkled page. As if he’d spilled fixer on the book itself. She strokes the cloth and turns the wavy pages. Then, instinctively, she brings them to her lips. The book smells like photography, and it tastes like it too. Perhaps for that reason, everything she reads that night takes on a special bodily reality, even the dedication, which confronts her as soon as she’s begun leafing through it: To Gisèle, in life and in death. She doesn’t intend to read it now, but she can’t help glancing at the index and introduction, along with a few of the photographs. Right away, she realizes Clemente Artés isn’t an essayist, exactly. The book is a kind of inventory, tallying works, compositional techniques, iconographical information. There is a ten-page introduction and several paragraphs before each selection of images. The illustrations vastly exceed the amount of text. Like every photography aficionado, Dolores knows of the tradition of mortuary photography. It’s mentioned in the histories of photography she has at home. It’s an old practice, one that has always put her in mind of nineteenth-century eccentricity, a strange custom from the beginnings of the art, one of many pathways that receded and vanished in time. In his introduction, Clemente Artés delves into the origins of postmortem photography, the last image, as he apparently prefers to call it. The tradition of represent ing the dead predates photography and lies in the very origins of art itself. “The mystery of life and death,” he writes, “the beginning of representation.” Artés alludes to Pliny the Elder’s fable about the origin of art: the Maid of Corinth traces on a rock the silhouette of her beloved before he embarks on a long journey. “The image as a form of mourning, as the memory of an absence.” Mortuary photography is the drawing into the present of the last image—an attempt to capture what is on the verge of being erased. It is linked to the spread of photography in the modern era. “Everyone had to have a photo. Not to have one meant not to have existed. Not to have one was to run the risk of not being remembered.” Throughout, Artés is prone to these episodes of would be lyricism in his attempts to pin down the meaning of his subject. “To capture the figure,” “to entrap the memory,” “to pin the body down before it vanishes forever.” She’ll go back to the text later, she tells herself. Right now, she’s more tempted by the photographs. The book catalogues them in three broad categories: the living, the sleeping, and the dead. These categories suggest a peculiar attitude toward death, denial, and acceptance. As she turns the pages, she finds dead people who appear to be asleep. Others with eyes open, so it’s hard to distinguish them from the living. She pays special attention to the children, held by their mothers or posed in the company of their siblings, all of whom stare straight into the camera. The eyes of the dead are wide-open. Those photos are the most unsettling, at least to her. Much more so than those in which the dead are posed as if asleep. In bed, on a divan, in an armchair: the corpse with eyes closed, in a state of lethargy or “eternal sleep,” as the book has it. Really, it’s hard for her to grasp that they are truly dead and not simply at rest. Finally, there are the deceased portrayed as such, as lifeless bodies. Death is natural here, mundane. The coffin. Flowers. The wake and the burial. The body in repose, the body in the company of friends and family. Again, the contrast: some of the living look far more dead than the dead themselves. As she contemplates them, she feels something pulling her in and repelling her at once. It’s not just the sordidness of it, though she knows that must be what most people find alluring here. It’s something that goes beyond curiosity. A feeling that starts in her chest and extends through her body. Sorrow. That’s the word. Grief, expanding at the sight of these children, faces sleepy, serene, mouths open slightly, fingers interlaced, little hands . . . More than once, she has to stop to take a breath. She’s certain she shouldn’t see this, and it unsettles her to do so: these images that once were private, treasured memories intended for loved ones. To see them is to enter, almost to profane, a world of others. The feeling grows more intense as the photos become more recent, some of them taken in the eighties, in color, bringing everything into the present. It’s strange to her that this tradition continued so late into the twentieth century, so close to her own time. She can’t help but notice the credits of the photos are all the same: the Artés Blanco Collection. She hasn’t counted, but there must be a hundred fifty of them, of diverse techniques (daguerreotype, albumin, collodion, gelatin) and origins: the majority French, but others English, American, Spanish. She’d like to see the originals one day. Even if, as the pages turn, her dejection and listlessness have worsened. Along with a burdened feeling in her temples. The discomfort is worst when she reaches the last page. In black and white, centered, without a caption, is the reproduction of a daguerreotype. Or so she thinks, though there’s no reference to the technique, the photographer, or the collection it belongs to. It’s a colophon, and it seems not to belong to the sequence that precedes it. Something in it makes her turn her head away. Something that disturbs her, though she can’t say what. All the elements are perfectly defined, almost saturated: the frieze of wallpaper in what might be a bedroom, the curtain in the back, the landscape over the bedstead, the glass of water on the nightstand. Everything except the figure of the deceased—or what she imagines must be the deceased, a man or a woman, a white shadow on the bed—whose body is blurry, veiled in haze. She can see, just barely, a spot over what must be the face. The contrast between the limpid surroundings and the vagueness of the body in the bed turns her stomach, sends a bitter aftertaste up into her throat. Too many dead for one person’s eyes to see, she thinks, closing the book and leaving it on the nightstand. Probably it’s the storm, the unceasing thunder, the penetrating scent of fixer that’s gotten to her. That odor hovers all night around the bed. And the images don’t go away when she turns off the light and gets under the sheets, despite the heat. Everything is still there, and closing her eyes doesn’t help. Above all, that vaporous gray impressed on her retina, lingering like a fog that refuses to lift. At least I don’t believe in ghosts, she thinks. Otherwise, she might feel that the photo was possessing her. This crosses her mind as she tries to sleep and the dense absence by her side steals her breath. She refuses to open her eyes and look at it. She knows it’s darker than darkness itself. __________________________________ Excerpted from Anoxia by Miguel Ángel Hernández, published by Other Press on February 4, 2024. Copyright © Miguel Ángel Hernández. Reprinted by permission of Other Press. View the full article

Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Ande Pliego, You Are Fatally Invited (Bantam) “Readers who love puzzles, locked-room mysteries, and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None will enjoy this inaugural effort by Pliego, with its chilling conclusion.” –Library Journal Anna Sophia McLoughlin, A Girl Like Us (Sourcebooks) “A Girl Like Us is a captivating, suspenseful tale of marriage, murder, and madness. Anna Sophia McLoughlin crafts a layered, atmospheric look at celebrity, wealth, and vulnerability―and what happens when those closest to us take advantage of it. I didn’t want it to end, but I desperately needed to keep reading!” –Clémence Michallon Heather Levy, This Violent Heart (Montlake) “Get ready for This Violent Heart, an explosive and well-crafted mystery wrapped in identity and love, and the effects long-held secrets can have on insurmountable guilt and grief. Levy’s storytelling delivers with a layered dual timeline and soulful voice that will leave you entirely gutted.” –Yasmin Angoe Margot Bennett, Someone From the Past (Poisoned Pen Press) “An acerbic, tightly structured whodunit that remains a brilliant example of how to do more with less.” –Kirkus Reviews V. Castro, The Pink Agave Motel (CLASH) “Castro is one of the most exciting genre authors on the scene right now, and this might be her most powerful book yet.” –Paste R.S. Burnett, Whiteout (Crooked Lane) “The opening chapters drop readers into a gripping, claustrophobic scenario . . . Burnett shows promise.” –Publishers Weekly Jo Nesbo (t. Robert Ferguson), Blood Ties (Knopf) “Nesbø brilliantly plunges readers into the psyche of a charming killer, leavening the bloodshed with pop culture references and dashes of the lacerating humor that suffuses his Harry Hole series. The result is a chilling and darkly funny noir that will haunt readers long after the last page.” –Publishers Weekly Laura McCluskey, The Wolf Tree (Putnam) “[An] eerie, gothic-tinged debut mystery . . . Thanks to McCluskey’s expert melding of modern crime procedural and ancient folklore, suspenseful slow burns and intense high-stakes action, fans of stories set in closed communities with something to hide will revel in this assured and absorbing debut.” –Book Page Jeff Macfee, The Contest (Datura) “The Contest is a thrilling suspenseful mind bending adventure.” –S.A. Cosby Callan Wink, Beartooth (Spiegl & Grau) “One of the best and fiercest heist stories since A Simple Plan . . . Beartooth is unstoppable, the literary treasure you’ve been looking for.” –Junot Diaz View the full article

In recent years, the art of genre-blending has seeped steadily into the mainstream, and I for one am waving a welcome banner for its arrival. As a reader first, I crave a book that will give me the things I know I love, but I want them fresh. Raw and wriggling, you know what I’m saying? It’s quite a conundrum, not only for readers but for writers, too, wracking their brains to develop a shiny idea that will arrest readers in such a saturated market. How can we have a meal that satisfies the same cravings, but does it differently? My favorite solution: by mixing in something opposite, contrasting. A seasoning to coax out the flavors that are already there, while adding something new. In the case of genres, romantic comedies aren’t the new kid on the block anymore, and I could not be more pleased to see the fear genres receiving that fresh injection of comedy. These last few years, we’ve been gifted movies like Get Out, The Menu, and Game Night, and books like Grady Hendrix’s outrageous The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and Amy Tintera’s brilliant Listen for the Lie. They’re weird; they’re dark (and content warnings are a beautiful thing); they’re hilarious. It’s my perspective that this strange union has helped the fear genres reach and connect with more readers than ever before. Let’s pick at that. When I brandish the term ‘fear genres,’ I’m primarily talking about thrillers and horror—stories that might send a chill spidering down your spine. Fear is such a primal, innate part of our being; it can be so stark and all-consuming that it can wash away the pleasantries, social differences, and barriers between us. Fear strips us bare, leaving our frantically pounding hearts vulnerable, and in the end, aren’t they all the same? Aren’t we all the same? And while the monsters are terrifying, more often than not they are a reflection—a caricature—of something even deeper. Maybe the true thing to face isn’t the alien clown (which is still, understandably, distressing), but the abusive father (It, Stephen King). Maybe it’s not the eerie happenings of Hill House, but the way they bring out something twisted in Ettie (The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson). The fear genres—particularly horror—excel at cutting the small talk and slicing straight to the heart of the conversation. In such stories, as the characters are reduced to their truest selves, they are given a choice: to give in or face it. Now that’s a story, Jack. Heavy stuff, though. Every feeling is heightened, every decision tested. The characters prodded to the breaking point and elbowed over the edge. There’s a reason so many horror stories center around familial tensions; that’s a pyre of emotion, just waiting to be set ablaze by the thing lurking in the basement. And while that level of intensity can make many a person feel seen, it can also limit its readership (which isn’t innately a bad thing). But what if we added balance? Contrast? Release? Enter, humor. That’s the beauty of genre-blending: adding a new seasoning, to draw a new readership in. With such a saturated emotion like thrills and chills, contrasting feelings become similarly vivid. Comedy particularly can crack high tension and allow the reader to release that baited breath into a laugh. This tidal rise-and-fall allows the reader to go on a journey dappled with both the dark and the light and experience the rich storytelling that fear can give us. Carissa Orlando’s The September House is a prime example; it follows a woman determined to live out her days in the beautiful dream house she’s always longed for—never mind the fact that every September, the house takes after The Overlook Hotel from The Shining. It’s definitely a horror story, but through the lens of humor, Orlando holds a magnifying glass over self-deception, and the lengths a person will go to hold onto something they’ve dreamed about for years. In the thriller vein, Eve Kellman’s How to Kill a Guy in Ten Ways takes an unflinching look at the harrowing dangers girls face in the real world, and one woman’s pursuit to bring her sister’s abuser to justice. While you wouldn’t think the story could be comedic at all, the hilarity of our anti-hero-villain’s accidental foray into vigilante-ism both amplifies the grittiness of the topic and provides a welcome relief from it. When I began writing You Are Fatally Invited, I was hounded by the knowledge that every story has been done before. How could my fresh blood actually be fresh, and particularly, how could I write this dark story of revenge and want, without it being relentless? Effective, quirky parodies like Galaxy Quest, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and Game Night gave me the idea: humor. Satire. Taking the serious tropes of a genre and spinning them in a fun, tongue-in-cheek light. The end result is this: a book about six thriller authors, all masters of their genre, who are invited to a private island for a writer’s retreat, where they quickly find themselves in a murder mystery as their anonymous host begins killing them off using the tropes from their books. Every bit of the situation is what a thriller author would, in theory, know only an idiot in a mystery would fall for: private island, anonymous host, storm coming. This panicked self-awareness from the characters evolved into a fun meta-commentary on the fear genres, while also—I hope—giving the reader the courage to look in the eye the consequences of our darkest desires coming to life. Scary stories with a smattering of levity entice the reader with a good time, but deeper than that, they’re a promise not to leave you alone in the dark for too long. Here there be monsters, the stories say, but don’t worry; we’ll give you the chance to laugh at them. And sometimes, maybe that’s just what a person needs to face the dark. *** View the full article

Attached. Final-Pre-Event Assignments.docx

1. Leo Flores must save Earth from a galactic plague. 2. Life in the universe was catalyzed by a primordial entity that has no identity, personality, or memories. It has no objectives, but it enjoys being alive, occupying hosts and living vicariously through them. Once it had filled the Milky Way with life, it was attracted to the new life forms it had created. Unfortunately, this primordial force doesn’t create life on an inhabited planet; instead, it destroys life and moves on to the next source of life, like a moth drawn to a candle. The primordial has thus annihilated a galactic civilization that lasted a billion years. There is only one source of life left in the Milky Way – Earth. The primordial has concentrated on Earth, sharing the minds of humans, sometimes making them brilliant physicists or politicians, more often driving them insane. It cannot be seen, contacted, influenced, or coerced. Blind to its destructive effects, the primordial will go down with the sinking ship then drift into the universe and begin the cycle of regeneration and destruction again. No power in the galaxy can stop its relentless pursuit of feeling alive. 3. Peacekeeper; Beyond Space; Primordial 4. 2001 a space odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke) presents a story of the assistance of human development by an unknown arbiter. The sequel, 2010: odyssey two, further explores several concepts developed in my novel (e.g. interference in human development, an automated sentinel with an objective). For example, Clarke’s enigmatic interloper is unidentified yet cannot be ignored or coerced because they are long gone, having left a token of their power behind. This is what the Peacekeeper is in this story. Spin (Robert Charles Wilson, 2005) is set in contemporary earth and involves the interference of machines to save civilizations on the verge of collapse. This is analogous to the Probation program offered to earth in "The Edge of Space" and implemented by the Peacekeeper after all life in the galaxy has been exterminated. 5. Leo Flores is certain that The Galactic Federation is a farce, and Earth is being colonized by a world-killing pathogen that can’t be stopped or contained. Humanity’s fate is in his hands with help from an extinct galactic civilization. 6. “Inner Conflict”: Leo is in love with a Primordial. He first met Madison when she was a human, with a Primordial symbiote; when Madison was killed, the Primordial took control of her body, keeping it alive and healthy. Leo and Madison fell in love and were pledged to be married, until she died suddenly from a massive stroke. He then meets her in a synthetic Madison body and she explains who (what) she is, while expressing her continuing love for him. His mental torture is increased when the Primordial admits that it is now hosted by a friend of Madison’s with her full support. The Primordial wants to live vicariously through Madison’s friend, and continue its relationship with Leo. With all of this emotional baggage, he also knows that the Primordials are colonizing Earth. That’s all background (developed in The Edge of Space). a. In this story he abandons and then betrays Gan (Madison’s friend and host of a Primordial), to whom he is engaged, because he can’t accept the idea of such an invasive symbiotic relationship with an invader and colonist. His mind is torn, and he soon severs every contact he has with society. He is eventually rescued by the Peacekeeper and learns that only he can save earth from annihilation, but he must do the one thing he cannot do: Leo must accept the Peacekeeper into his mind without reservation, so it can communicate with the Primordial using his bond with Madison. He has to let someone else speak directly to Madison through him; he won’t even be able to tell her he loves her. Will he finally be spiritually reunited with Madison? Yes, but he won’t know it consciously because, if he agrees to the Peacekeeper’s terms, he will be an emotional observer of what occurs. That’s the deal. He accepts it and is spiritually reunited with Madison. He makes up with Gan and everyone is happy ... b. “Secondary Conflict”: Leo is in conflict with society. He is a loner and has been expecting an apocalyptic end of civilization all his life. In this story, he must turn to his friends (after he has left Gan), who reject his wild speculation. He rejects the president’s direct threat of permanent incarceration and, when helped to escape custody, joins a violent, anti-Federation group. He suspects that they’re a front for the Primordials, collecting their opposition in one place for later extermination. He is alone. He is contacted by the Peacekeeper in an ironic twist: they are both alone, and they must become one, not only with each other, but with all Mankind – and their common, immortal adversary. This is the only way to resolve all the conflict: Leo and the Peacekeeper save the galaxy from annihilation; Leo is reunited with both Madison (the Primordial) and Gan (the human with a Primordial guest); Leo and the Peacekeeper accept Human civilization as the only hope for a future .. 7. There are many settings in this story. I’ll describe a few of them . The story opens in an executive office overlooking a park-like campus on a rainy day, then moves to Leo having an argument with his girlfriend, Gan Suwan, in a one-bedroom apartment in Baltimore, Maryland. The action takes place over breakfast at a small table, with an emphasis on coffee (theme introduced in “The Edge of Space”). He visits a friend (Adam Cooper) in Cadiz, southern Spain. They are sitting outside at a small coffee shop. There are people and cars passing by. He visits another friend in a penthouse apartment in New York City, where the conversation is centered on a video game introduced in “The Edge of Space”. They play the game and the scene becomes a 3D video game (a barren planet) in which they argue about Leo’s obsession with an invasion. Leo is incarcerated in a low-security prison where he interacts with several other “political” prisoners in the dining hall, exercise area, and kitchen areas. When he escapes, he travels on a cargo ship to South America, travelling through the Panama Canal. He joins “The Resistance” in Santiago, Chile. This is a warehouse with housing and workspaces separated by low walls. There are lots of people and he moves between different rooms, always on concrete floors. The focus here is on technology, maps, plans, strategy. The mood is anticipatory. Leo and Gan drive a stolen car through Santiago and stop on a narrow street. He buys a notebook computer and they go to a coffee shop, where he contacts Adam Cooper, who promises to get false passports for them. They go to a cheap hotel. One scene takes place in their room, which is furnished with a double bed, desk, and chair. There is also a desk lamp. The window looks out on an alley. Leo meets the Peacekeeper, which presents itself as an elderly man wearing a dark-blue suit but no tie. They are in a spacious office with a large window looking down on a planet similar to earth, but with less water. The penultimate scene is kaleidoscopic: Leo is on a subway; he is with Madison in her apartment; they are fighting in an arena with thousands watching; they are fighting together against a throng in a series of labyrinthine passages; they are making love; they are overwhelmed by a horde of apes in a jungle; they are lying together on a bed, exhausted from sexual activity. The final scene shows Leo and his friends in Larry’s penthouse, looking out on Manhattan

Welcome to “Wait, What?,” a recurring column in which we examine confusing or incoherent details in crime movies. I can’t drive. I mean, I can drive…technically… but I’m not legally allowed to. When I was 17, I passed my written driver’s exam, failed my road test, and never took either again. Not out of anything other than convenience, mind you… I lived in a city and public transit satisfied my needs and I didn’t feel a burning need to get my driver’s license again. The thing is, I’m still not exactly sure why I failed my road test. I was driving, and everything seemed to be fine, and then the instructor looked at me and went “Get out. Just get out.” No explanation, no elaboration, just… evacuation. I’m told most people fail their road tests their first time. Driving isn’t easy. It becomes easy (I’m told) the more you practice. But it isn’t really a thing anyone just knows how to do from the get-go. No one is born knowing how to drive. Which brings me to Halloween (1978), John Carpenter’s classic horror movie about a small-town psychopath who escapes from a mental institution to go on a killing rampage. Michael Myers (the psychopath in question) murdered his sister when he was six years old. After his crime was discovered, he was sent away. When Halloween begins, Michael has spent fifteen years at an institution called Smith’s Grove Sanitarum. When he escapes, he hops into a car and drives away. Which is… what? He can’t be driving a car for the first time, so well? He had to know how to drive. How did he learn to drive? Was he given a tutorial as a very young child? I do like that the film acknowledges this. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is informed that Michael can’t drive, but Loomis yells in response: “He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons!” Maybe someone did, indeed! This development is never really explained. But it is oddly empowering to me? If Michael Myers can find his feet operating a break pedal and gear shift, perhaps I can too? View the full article

February’s international crime releases are as varied in setting as they are excellent in quality. Perhaps this column can distract us from the nation’s turmoil; or perhaps it’s a useful remembrance that there are places outside, places we either want to move to or at least feel comforted in the knowledge that everyone has issues, even people in Paris who get to solve crimes while philosophizing and wearing stylish coats. Thanks, as always, for reading fiction in translation—the world is vast, and the need to decolonize our reading lists and decenter our nationalist impulses are served well by reading (and traveling, and imagining) widely. (My dad told me when I get preachy I sound like Rod Serling, so please imagine this intro delivered between gritted teeth and with cigarette in hand). Eva Menasse, Darkenbloom Translated by Charlotte Collins (Scribe) In the sleepy town of Darkenbloom, located on the border between Austria and Hungary, a seemingly bucolic surface covers a dark history of unspeakable crimes. Those who suffered under the Nazis (at least, those who survived) live side-by-side with their former tormenters in a fragile detente. Their peace is shattered by the end of the cold war and the Pan-European Picnic, in which hundreds of East Germans on holiday in Hungary fled across the border, seeking asylum and unwittingly opening old wounds. Meanwhile, a mysterious visitor to the insular community is poking around in the past, a past much of the town would prefer not to recall. Stunning & shattering, Darkenbloom is also the rare historical novel to make full use of its setting. It’s also a disturbingly relevant piece of fiction, as we watch our friends and neighbors being taken away by governmental forces hell-bent on enforcing brutal and deeply damaging policies with no purpose beyond bigotry. Baalu Girma, Oromay Translated by David Degusta and Mesfin Felleke Yirgu (Soho) Baalu Girma worked as a journalist during the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea and wrote this novel just before he vanished, presumed murdered. In his magnum opus, translated into English for the first time, a cynical journalist helms a vast propaganda effort aimed at convincing Eritrea’s rebel forces to capitulate, while struggling to contain his growing disillusionment. Despite its heavy subject matter, Oromay is full of dark humor and heartfelt sentiment, and to read it is to gain a sense of the dynamism and liveliness of its author, making his fate all the more tragic to contemplate. Patrick Modiano, Ballerina Translated by Mark Polizzotti (Yale University Press) Yale University Press brings American readers another gift this year: a new translation of the Nobel-prize winning Modiano’s rich, evocative Ballerina, set in the world of dance (and oblique existential mysteries) in 1960s Paris. –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief Miguel Ángel Hernández, Anoxia Translated by Adrian Nathan West (Other Press) A photographer mourning the sudden loss of her husband finds new purpose in photographing the dead for an eccentric patron determined to revive the art of Victorian death portraiture. Moody and multi-layered, this novel, like its photography subjects, has earned a long and eerie afterlife. Ricardo Silva Romero, Rio Muerto Translated by Victor Meadowcroft (World Editions) A murdered man’s ghost tells the story of his widow’s quest to confront the men who killed him in this new novel from renowned Colombian author Ricardo Silva Romero. –DM View the full article

Lone wolf protagonists, like guns and knives, come in all shapes and sizes. They can be cops, like Jo Nesbo’s gruff, go-it-alone Oslo detective Harry Hole, or private eyes, like Mike Hammer, Mickey Spillane’s justice-at-all-costs private eye. On one page, you’ve got Stuart Kaminsky’s low-boil, part-time Sarasota process server Lew Fonesca, on another there is John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, a sun-loving, skirt-chasing boat dweller (“The Busted Flush”) with possibly the best job in mystery fiction: “salvage consultant.” Lawrence Block’s unlicensed private eye, Matt Scudder, did things his way, as does Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin, an expert on finding missing persons who travels the country to ply her trade. These iconic crime fiction characters and more were on my mind as I created Mercury Carter, the protagonist of my new thriller, The Mailman. In bringing Carter to life, I strove to craft an agent who stands both outside of law enforcement and any other recognizable security structure. To do that, I gave Carter a career that as far as I know doesn’t exist in real life. He’s a freelance courier, a private mailman who delivers pretty much anything for a price—nothing illegal, though—with one overarching rule. Carter has never missed a delivery and will stop at nothing to keep that streak alive. Woe betide the bad actors who get in Carter’s way, regardless of how innocuous the delivery. (One year, Carter’s most popular item was French Bulldog puppies.) Despite the violence that Carter unleashes against anyone standing between him and his clients, and despite his background as a former federal agent, Carter doesn’t consider himself a do-gooder. He just wants to make his deliveries and go home. Full stop. The Mailman opens with Rachel Stanfield and Glenn Vaughn, wife-and-husband attorneys, held captive inside their suburban Indianapolis home by a gang of home invaders. The team, led by a scar-faced killer named Finn, is ready to torture the couple to death for information about a woman Rachel’s firm is in litigation with. What no one realizes, neither Rachel and her husband nor the band of brutes, is that outside the door at this very moment, Carter has arrived with a package for Rachel. “Delivery has to go to the name on the invoice,” Carter explains to Finn after Finn offers to sign for the package. When Finn presses, Carter stands his ground. “Rules are rules,” he says. Here are seven lone-wolf protagonists whose adventures helped inspire The Mailman. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher There’s a reason that ex-Army major Reacher is one of the greatest characters in modern crime fiction. Child created a brilliant conceit with the concept of a man with no address, no belongings other than a toothbrush and a money clip, and no interest in personal or professional attachments. Reacher travels randomly across the country on bus, rail, or via hitchhiking, minding his own business until circumstances require him to intervene and clear the field of malcontents. Finished, he’s back on the road again. (Books in the series that flash back to Reacher’s time in the military bolster his image as a man who charts his own course.) It’s tough to pick a favorite adventure, but for my money, 2015’s Make Me is the quintessential Reacher book. Disembarking in Mother’s Rest, a tiny Midwestern town whose name fascinates him, Reacher takes out a thieves den of miscreants before uncovering and stopping a truly shocking crime venture. Gregg Hurwitz’s Evan Smoak Smoak is better known as the Nowhere Man, a shadowy figure who’s available to help the neediest in the ultimate “pay it forward” system: he urges the latest recipient of his extraordinary and lethal skills to pass his number onto someone else in trouble. (1-855-2-NOWHERE in case you need it.) Smoak is a certified loner, content in what passes for his downtime to live in his fortified LA apartment—with multiple safe houses on stand-by—and sample his extensive collection of high-end vodka. But Smoak has a problem: he’s a refugee from a defunct government assassin program that recruited and trained orphans, and now someone from his past wants him eliminated. With that, Smoak faces the biggest challenge of his new, secret life: “Who better to hire to go after the Nowhere Man than a former Orphan?” Steve Hamilton’s Nick Mason Mason is serving a long sentence for robbery in an Indiana prison when, with no explanation, Darius Cole, an imprisoned crime boss who rules the penitentiary, makes him a deal. Freedom in exchange for 24-hour on-call servitude to carry out missions that Mason can’t, if he wants his family to survive, turn down. Mason questions the deal almost as soon as he takes it but understands he has little choice. Mason sums up his manacled existence by likening it to rules for survival in prison. “You exist from one moment to the next. You don’t look ahead. You don’t look back,” Mason observes in An Honorable Assassin, the third (2024) book in the outing. “You survive.” James Byrne’s Desmond Aloysius Limerick There’s pretty much nothing not to like about Byrne’s enormously entertaining Limerick (Dez to his friends), who first appeared in 2022’s The Gatekeeper. Starting with Dez’ military-grade combat and tech skills and moving onto a murky past that hints at mercenary action but who really knows; a tossed salad of various UK accents (“From England?” “Thereabouts.”); his moral compass; and above all his opinions on beer. Finding out who attacked a client is important, Dez notes in The Gatekeeper. “Just not important enough to drink a typical American beer. Nothing’s worth that.” As The Gatekeeper opens, Dez—“five-eight but built like a tank”—is relaxing in his 18th-floor LA hotel room after a night playing bass guitar at a club when he happens to look outside, spots a sniper on the opposite roof, and leaps into action without being sure whose day he’s about to save. You can only pray for the bad actors after this. Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins By the time we meet up with Easy Rawlins in Farewell, Amethystine (2024) the sixteenth outing of Walter Mosley’s storied Los Angeles investigator, it’s 1970 and Rawlins is a certified private detective with his own firm. But it took a lot of legwork and hard knocks to get there. In earlier Rawlins novels—the series began with a bang with Devil in a Blue Dress, set right after World War II—Easy is just a guy trying to mind his own business as he makes his way in the world. Yet people, often the police, keep coming to him with problems and soon enough, he’s embroiled in yet another engaging mystery. “I knew when he called me mister that the LAPD needed my services again,” Easy says at the beginning of 1992’s White Butterfly, one of my favorites in the series. “Every once in a while the law sent over one of their few black representatives to ask me to go into the places where they could never go.” Reed Farrel Coleman’s Nick Ryan Ryan may be a sworn New York City police officer but he’s beholden to no one but himself and a few trusted associates. The beauty, and fun, of this series—2023’s Sleepless City and 2024’s Blind to Midnight— is the long leash Ryan is given to investigate sensitive crimes. That, and Ryan’s ability—and willingness—to operate outside the bounds of NYPD rules and regs. When Ryan comes across a gang of fellow officers beating up a man who threatened to file a complaint against one of them, one of the officers tells Ryan it’s not his concern. Ryan’s reply: “When people tell me not to be concerned, it concerns me.” Although this is far from a typical police procedural, it’s also hard not to love the series’ tagline: “When you’re in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan.” Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander There are bad-ass lone wolves who want to be left to their own devices, and then there’s Salander. A brilliant hacker with little formal education, a troubled past, and that iconic dragon tattoo on her left shoulder blade, Salander literally stands out in a crowded field of singular female protagonists: “She looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers,” Larsson writes in the first of his Swedish-language trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and with Salander, that might be the case. Or as Mikael Blomquist, Salander’s sometimes investigative partner and occasional lover, observes, Salander “was an information junkie with a delinquent child’s take on morals and ethics.” She also brings a white-hot fury to investigations focusing on the abuse of women, unearthing dark personal and societal secrets along the way. “Do you like pain, creep?” Salander asks the psychotic villain in a climactic scene near the end of the first book. With Salander, it’s a question you don’t want her to pose. *** View the full article

When I’ve completed a long book, like The Enigma Girl, I often wonder where the story came from, for the truth is that the book is always so very different to what was hazily in my mind at the outset. For a writer like Frederick Forsyth, this will seem bizarre, because, as he once told me during a photoshoot for a magazine, he plans every scene on index cards before he starts writing and knows exactly what happens right up to the denouement. I have almost no idea of the way things will unfold, which means there are lots of surprises and many unnecessary diversions along the way—one reason I had to reduce the book from 180,000 to around 135,000 words over the winter of ’23 to ‘24. Yet, there are advantages to my lack of method. Themes and subplots emerge as I allow myself to dive down rabbit holes during my rather haphazard research. These excursions are often a waste of time, but sometimes they become very important to the book. My obsession during the last days of lockdown with the Bronze Age archaeological sites of eastern England looked like a classic Porter dead end. But soon after returning from looking at the 3,000-year-old log boats near Peterborough and the Sea Henge in Norfolk – an ancient circle made of tree trunks that have been precisely dated to the spring of 2049 BC – I knew that the hero of The Enigma Girl, Slim Parsons, was lying low on an archaeological dig. And from her experience on that dig came important themes about loss and death. Likewise, a Polish theme began to develop after my first visit to the UK’s wartime codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park. One day early in 2022, I travelled the 40 miles from my home in the Cotswold to Milton Keynes, with a rough idea that the New Town planned in the Sixties might be an original setting for a story involving my young MI5 undercover specialist. I didn’t know until I reached Milton Keynes that it contained Bletchley Park, the site of the heroic British effort to crack the Enigma enciphering machine during World War II. After crisscrossing the town in dense fog and becoming intrigued by the thoroughly un-British grid of boulevards, I had time to spare and decided to visit the Bletchley Park museum. The story of the frantic work conducted in the huts that were hastily erected around an ugly Victorian mansion in the then village of Bletchley has become one of the key myths about Britain’s war against Germany. Miraculous feats were achieved at Bletchley, especially Alan Turing’s work on computing and the construction, by a man named Tommy Flowers, of the world’s first programmable electric computer – Colossus. But not until I wandered into the courtyard of the old stable block beside the mansion did I become aware of the vital role of Polish cipher experts in cracking Enigma. In an obscure part of the courtyard, there is memorial of an open book with the names Jerzy Rozycki, Henryk Zygalski, and Marian Rejewski carved into the stone. Research on my phone while I was standing in front of the memorial revealed that during the 1930s the trio used mathematics to reverse engineer the commercial version of the machine and developed a mechanical device to calculate the Enigma settings that changed the German cipher every day. They called it the Bomba, possibly after their favourite ice cream desert, or because the machine made the sound of a ticking bomb. Their work saved the British codebreakers, Alan Turing and the arrogant genius Dilly Knox, two years of hard slog, not to mention tens of thousands of lives. None of this had much to do with my book, which was to be set in the present day and was about the struggle between journalists bent on revealing the truth and the government and Big Money who want to bury it. But on that visit to Bletchley, I had the idea of a news website that was based in Milton Keynes and staffed by the descendants of people who worked at the Government codebreaking centre during the war – a gene pool of talent and brains that worries the authorities. As I walked back to my car, I knew that my tough but thoroughly human, bisexual spy, Slim Parsons, would have Polish ancestry and, moreover, that she came directly from a line of spies, some of them Jews whose families had assimilated into Polish middle classes during the nineteenth century. Those three Polish mathematicians were excluded from the work at Bletchley, but just after the invasion of Poland by Germany in September 1939, Major Maksymilian Ciężki, head of Polish Cipher Bureau’s German section, did the Allies a crucial service. He and a small company of men went behind enemy lines and reached the secret codebreaking facility at Pyry, where all the evidence of the Polish success with the Enigma machine was waiting to be seized by the Wehrmacht. If the Germans had discovered that he and his colleagues had broken Enigma, a crucial advantage would have been lost and the war would certainly have taken many different turns. The radio mast used to intercept German radio transmissions was blown up, all the secret papers and equipment burned, and the Enigma rotors and machines were spirited away by Ciężki. So, my unplanned visit to a deserted museum provided many fundamentals of the book and, when, later, I read about the raid on Pyry, I knew that this was precisely the sort of action Slim’s ancestors would have taken. I was discovering my hero in history that long preceded her existence, which is a strange way of building a backstory, yet it was how I came to know the forces that were responsible for her courage and sense of justice. The Polish theme wasn’t done with me. That winter, which seemed particularly cold and damp even for Britain, I hiked through the dismal countryside near where I live to an old prisoner of war camp that was hurriedly built at the same time as the sprawling network of huts at Bletchley Park. It was never used for German POWs but instead became the home of hundreds of displaced Polish soldiers and their families after the war. Just a few hundred yards from where I write now, there is a cemetery with a section reserved for the people who never returned to Poland and died at the camp. I find it rather moving that over fifty years after the closure of what became known as the Northwick Park Resettlement Camp, fresh flowers are still placed on the graves of the people who lived in the camp. I circled the camp, which is now a rundown business park, and came across another memorial, hidden from the track by a low stone wall and privet hedges. I had often passed the small enclosure but never ventured inside. How glad I am that I went in and crouched down to read a plaque dedicated to servicemen and their families who lived at the camp. “Their ordeal,” reads the inscription, “started with deportation to Siberia in 1940. After their release, the Polish Army was formed in 1942. Following retraining in the Middle East, they contributed greatly to the Allied Victory of World War II. In 1942 most of the civilians were separated from the soldiers in Persia and transferred to East African countries to be returned in Great Britain during 1948.” Those few lines contain one of the great forgotten stories of the war – a whole army and thousands of civilians seized and imprisoned by Stalin then let go when Germany attacked Russia in 1942. Thousands of Polish men and women walked across the Soviet Union then boarded ships to cross the Caspian Sea, only to begin another journey through present day Iran. Led by General Wladyslaw Anders, the soldiers became a ferocious fighting force. Some of them choose to stay in Palestine and fight for the nascent Israel, others joined the Allied forces in the Italian campaign and fought all the way up Italy, many being decorated for the bravery at Monte Cassino. And when this epic journey ended in the quiet English countryside in 1945, these extraordinarily brave and hardy Polish soldiers were forced to wait another three years to be reunited with those family members who had survived a Siberian ordeal of their own. The resilience of both men and women is astonishing. What relevance does this have to a thriller set in 2025 about a spy sent to infiltrate a troublesome website? Everything I have written here was used in the book. Apart from giving Slim what I believe to be a rich backstory, I was pleased to be able to write about the forgotten heroes who cracked the commercial version of Enigma, who saved the secret from the clutches of the Nazis, and who crossed Russia and the Middle East to fight for freedom again. I never know where I’m going to find material, which is both exciting and unnerving. I am constantly aware of the things I must be missing, whole stories which may be out there but are lost to me because I failed to follow my nose, or take a trip, or look behind a stone wall and some privet hedges on a rather dismal day in Gloucestershire. *** View the full article

Responses: Lesson 1 Story Statement Merrill Ryan is an undergraduate student at NYU, born into privilege, whose father has insisted on his pursuing a career in business while his own preference and talent lay in writing. Unknown to his parents, he attends a writers’ conference in Vermont where, when his car breaks down, he meets a 76-year-old farmer, Albert Hull. After having spent his entire life in Manhattan, Merrill is introduced by Albert to a way of life that is simple by natural design. Albert’s Door is the portal through which Merrill finds his own path to a life worth living, where he feels both rich and satisfied, and neither has anything to do with money. It is an existence reduced to the most basic of necessities, the greatest of which is friendship. Merrill must confront his father who has spent 20 years planning his son’s future, working countless hours with that single goal in mind, but he never took the time to see just who Merrill was. His son’s wish to relocate and finish school in Vermont is interpreted as an opportunity lost, while to Merrill, it is an opportunity found. Antagonist Both Merrill’s parents serve as antagonists in the story, though Merrill’s father takes the lead. He is as much the product of his time as his father was, as so many fathers have been, dating back to the industrial revolution. He is intent on Merrill’s meeting his educational obligations though there had never been any negotiation, much less discussion about them. He considers Merrill’s future in business a pathway he has cleared through his own hard work and determination. He leads a life meeting obligations and deadlines, and while adept at his job as a money manager, he lives in fear of failure as so many modern men do. Unfortunately, he has been so preoccupied with responsibilities and commitments, he has failed to recognize the individual talents and needs of his children, Merrill’s in particular. Breakout Title Albert’s Door The Meek Shall Inherit Growing Good Comparables Fathers and Sons The Lincoln Highway This is a tough one, and it is my hope that the breadth of reading experience among the group and its instructors can help. I haven’t read nor have I been able to find fiction with similar conflicts as those found in “Albert’s Door” that are set in a period after the 1950’s. “Fathers and Sons” does deal with the challenges between generations, but it takes place in 1860’s Russia. I only mention “The Lincoln Highway” because it is a coming-of-age story. I feel my protagonist, Merrill, is an older version of Billy Watson, a younger protagonist in Amor Towles novel who still believes there is magic in the world. Merrill is in a quest to find it. Log Line A privileged but introverted college student, having grown up in Manhattan, attends a writers conference in southern Vermont where he meets a 76 year old farmer who reveals the true meaning of wealth. Inner Conflict The inner conflict of the protagonist in “Albert’s Door” involves one of decision, to maintain his present course fulfilling his parent’s vision of his future, or strike out in another direction, one that would make him happy but which he’s certain they won’t understand or agree to. Excerpts: “You’re probably right. I don’t have many friends in New York. Don’t date much either. It feels like one big popularity contest to me. Students in my business classes look like they’ve got an office on Wall Street waiting for them, always dressed to the nines and acting superior to everyone else. They’re always trying to get ahead by putting each other down, yet they call themselves friends. From what I can see, I mean if my dad’s career is any indication, it just goes on and on. I don’t want to spend my life like that.” “Tell me about your mom.” “She’s a good woman, maybe a little preoccupied with what other people think about her and the family, though. My dad calls her a social butterfly with all the groups she belongs to. I still live at home while I’m in college, but we pretty much lead separate lives.” “Does she listen to you?” “Sorry?” replied Merrill. “Does she listen to what you have to say ‘bout things, your opinions? Your dad seems to have a mind about what your future should be, and I know from experience, dads can be like that. My sons and me, we had differences of opinion on that subject, believe me. It took me too long to learn their lives were their own. Strange how fathers don’t realize that sometimes till they’ve put too much distance between them and their sons.” There was an uncomfortable moment of reflection for both, each considering the other’s point of view. “But like I asked, “Does your mom listen to you when you talk?” Merrill put his sandwich down and sat back in his chair. He scanned the people moving about the store as he pondered Albert’s question. “Now that you mention it, I think she listens, but I’m not sure she hears me. She likes to tell me how I should feel about things, and it’s when I feel differently than her that I don’t think she hears me.” Setting The story takes place in and around the town of Putney, Vermont, a small township located in the southern part of the state. Nature is a theme throughout the novel from which the protagonist, Merrill, learns many lessons, most of which are taught by Albert, the old farmer. It is the uncomplicated synergy of nature and the respect the local people have for it that captures Merrill’s intellect as much as his heart. The climax of the novel takes place in the protagonist’s parents house on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Excerpt: He was immediately struck by the air, clean and sweet, scented with what he didn’t know to be bush honeysuckle. There was a light rush of wind through newly budding tree branches, and he could hear the crackle of squirrel claws as the small animals scurried up the course bark of a nearby elm. A few weathered pinecones lay beneath a tree to one side of the road and capless acorns lay like loose bronzed pearls beneath an oak on the other. His perceptions of his surroundings were stark and pure. He could feel them to his core, an effect the city had never delivered. The landscape appeared to have been gently ladled into place by the hands of Providence while the skyline of Manhattan, the countless concrete monoliths he was so used to seeing, now seemed as though they had been jammed angrily into the ground. He felt a foreign, yet benign sensation guarded with a quiet that was deafening. Raising his closed eyes toward the sky, he breathed deeply. His lungs took in the chill of the air, the sun not yet clearing the tree lines, and he drew an odd strength from it. Knowing there was no one living between him and the paved state road below, Merrill began a slow climb up the gravel lane. Old Cricket would not be The Road Not Taken. About a quarter mile up the lane, he could see breaches in the tree lines to both sides of the road, where singular rays of the sun cut through the space of the openings. He hoped the gaps made way for a house or some other structure with electricity. As he cleared the greenery, his gaze was drawn to the right. The Windmill Hill Ridgeline, a series of small peaks 16 miles long, stretched out before him. His breaths shortened as the beat of his heart grew faster. It was more than his senses could take in, and his eyes become glassed with a thin veil of involuntary tears.

Martin Hill Ortiz THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Rebecca "Reb" Hadley unwittingly creates a novel-type of explosive reaction in her high school chemistry class, blowing a hole in time. While she navigates friendships and enemies at a new school for promising engineers, she must figure out the formula for the explosion, ward off spies who want the secret, and survive the hazards of some dangerous school projects. After uncovering a plan to use her discovery as a weapon to blow up a local peace conference, she and her friends must foil the plot. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT There are several levels of antagonists. Part of the question is "Who can Reb trust?" Even her friends are under suspicion. The bioengineers are a snobbish group that play with life, including growing ever-larger centipedes. They conduct secret meetings called the "Kaboom Cabal," led by the rogue professor, Dr. Ezra Smalls. The school is funded by Zephaniah Claymont, a mysterious billionaire who made his fortune through chemicals and weapons. And then there is a mysterious ex-student who seems charming, but hangs around the school in spite of being expelled for some unknown reason. THE BREAKOUT TITLE Okay, I believe I have a kick-ass title: The School for Dangerous Design. I could include the name of my main character. If I did that, I would go back to an earlier version and call her Reb Radley and therefore, Reb Radley and the School for Dangerous Design. (I thought both Reb and Rad might sound like I'm trying too hard to be cool) The School for Dangerous Design can be the series title. DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES The two genres are Dark Academia and YA. The School for Good and Evil, Soman Chainani Gates of Thread and Stone, Lori M. Lee Let me deal with the elephant in the room: Harry Potter. My series contrasts with Harry Potter inasmuch as there is nothing magical that happens. It is science-based, albeit fantastical science (e.g., blowing a hole in time). While magic/fantasy does connect to wish fulfilment, that field is crowded. Fantastic science does have a charm of its own. For example, in my story a mechanical remotely-operated hand matches the role of "Thing" from the Addams Family. With a cell phone Velcroed to it, the heroes use it to sneak around and spy. The contrast with magic is part of the humor of the piece: "I invented a cloak of invisibility," Morgan said. "Really?" Reb asked. "It's called a light switch." Morgan turned it off. "Hide!" Also, in contrast to Rowling, I have an important character who is non-binary. My definition of literature is "Anything Ron DeSantis would hate." CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Primary dramatic conflict that drives the plot. Insidious agents seek to learn Reb's formula for creating her explosion. They have in mind using it to bomb a peace conference. When they do learn the secret, Reb and her friends have to spoil the plot. Personal conflict. Reb's mother is an alcoholic who cares little for her. Her father is loving but eccentric and embarrassing. She is insecure and doubts her own smarts. Reb has always been a troublemaker and a screw-up. She believes she is a fraud and only got into the prestigious school because of an accident. She must learn self-confidence and discover that she is, indeed, quite bright. Tagline: After accidentally creating a new sort of explosion, Rebecca Hadley is recruited to an elite engineering high school where she must overcome her self-doubts and fight off sinister forces who seek to use her discovery for an evil plot. OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS Other conflicts. The bioengineers have been creating ever larger centipedes which have gotten loose in the school's cellars. But something worse is going on. An unknown predator is killing off the centipedes. Who is the mysterious boy who hangs around the school even after being expelled? Why was he expelled? Is he friend or spy? Rebel's friend Samira wears bandages on her face after being injured in an accident. Will she be scarred for life? THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING This is one of the story's strengths. The setting for The School for Dangerous Design is based on a real location. I can change enough details to make it a wholly new creation if that is necessary. In the 1880s, in the small town of Montezuma, New Mexico, an eccentric millionaire built a castle as a "dude" hotel. It is set up in the mountains and quite beautiful. It has gone on to become a private school. It sits nearby hot springs. From there my story diverges. I name my school "Santa Febronia" (the patron saint of earthquakes), and it is run on geothermal energy. Deep in the sub-basements there are dynamos generating steam power. Formerly, being a Catholic school, it is run by a nun, Sister-Doctor Phang. The school is surrounded by wilderness. There is a nearby geyser. It has castle-like features and an ancient network of tunnels. The students, "nerds by the herds," are bright and often eccentric. Not that far from Los Alamos, New Mexico, there is a connection to a history of dangerous engineering. One of the ingredients for the bomb was stolen from the Oppenheimer Laboratory.

From the Salem Witch Trials to the Satanic Panic of the 80s to the narratives spread by online conspiracy theorists today, group think has been around for centuries. I’m not sure what drives it—the need to feel a sense of superiority, the desire to be part of a larger and more powerful whole, the strange bonding that comes from sharing a common enemy. It could be all of those things, combined with the simple, sad fact that if enough people repeat a falsehood—no matter how outlandish—it feels like the truth. I tackle this topic in my new novel, We Are Watching—about a small family in New York’s dHudson Valley who are targeted and terrorized by a violent group of conspiracy theorists. Unbeknownst to bookseller Meg Russo, her daughter Lily and her reclusive musician father Nathan, this cult-like group has been watching them for years, and have developed an entire mythology about them, in which Meg, Lily and Nathan are dangerous and powerful Satanists who must be stopped before they bring about the end of the world. I know, it sounds outlandish. But it felt frighteningly plausible to me, considering the real-life incidents that inspired the book. Here are three that have haunted me for years… The McMartin Pre-School Trial I was in high school when the first allegations of “Satanic ritual abuse” were levied against Ray Buckey, his mother Peggy McMartin Buckey, and other staff members at the McMartin pre-school in Manhattan Beach California. By the time the family had been brought to trial and exonerated, I’d graduated from college. I can still remember the news stories—horrifying tales of sexual abuse and torture of hundreds of children, animal sacrifice and nightmarish ceremonies, most of these acts taking place within a network of tunnels located under the foundation of this family-run daycare. I believed all the stories. Everyone did. Only later did we learn that there were no tunnels under the school, and that the allegations against the teachers were without evidence and that many of the children had denied being abused at first, only to be coaxed into it by police. (Oh, and their testimonies also included depictions of teachers flying through the air on brooms and turning children into mice.) The McMartin family was ultimately exonerated, but only after irrevocable damage to their reputations, livelihoods and emotional well-being. For more: Try 1993’s The Abuse of Innocence: The McMartin Pre-School Trial by Paul and Shirley Eberle. If you’re looking for something more contextual, author Talia Levin includes a riveting depiction of the case in her 2024 page-turner Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. Judas Priest’s “Subliminal Message” What would the Satanic Panic era be without talk of secret demonic messages burned into rock records? The furor surrounding “subliminal messaging” and “backward masking” reached new and dangerous heights in 1990, when the parents of James Vance sued the band Judas Priest, claiming that subliminal messaging in their song Better By You, Better Than Me had led to their son’s suicide attempt. (He had shot himself after making a drug and alcohol-fueled pact with his friend Raymond Belknap. Belknap had died. Vance suffered permanent disfigurement.) While the band was found innocent, the images of them taking the stand in this spurious case were jaw-dropping, particularly considering the troubled backgrounds of the two young men. “Why would a band tell their fans to kill themselves?” asked a baffled Rob Halford. Reasonable question. But at a time of heavy metal mass-hysteria, it appeared he was shouting into the wind. For more: Check out the excellent documentary Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest Pizzagate It was a shockingly implausible story that started on internet message boards and was later accelerated by Alex Jones’ InfoWars. Before long, tens of thousands of people fully believed that Hilary Clinton and her campaign staff were running a Satanic child sex trafficking ring out of Comet Ping Pong and Pizza—a small, family-run restaurant in Washington, DC. While Clinton and her staff had the benefit of tight security details, Comet owner James Alefantis did not. Before long, Alefantis found himself subject to death threats and near-constant harassment, with things reaching a peak in 2016, when Pizzagate believer Edgar Welch stormed the pizzeria with a loaded AR-15 in an attempt to save the non-existent trafficked children from a non-existent secret room. Fortunately, Welch was arrested before anyone was hurt. And Alefantis, his staff and his business survived. That aside, he may never fully recover from the trauma he suffered at the hands of this angry—and largely unseen—mob. For More: Try the insightful documentary After Truth: How Ordinary People Are Radicalized by Fake News *** View the full article