Pour yourself a hot toddy and grab your fluffiest blanket—this round-up from Queer Crime Writers* will entertain you as the days grow shorter and chiller. From sun-drenched Palm Springs to snowed-in lodges, 1950s San Francisco, and even the mysterious Northwoods, the list spans a wide range of settings, characters, and crime fiction subgenres. These new novels offer everything from lost treasure hunts and AI conspiracies to magical whodunits and international intrigue. You’ll laugh, cry, and, just maybe … scream! Dante and Jazz return to solve a Palm Springs murder, Andy Mills faces the mob in San Francisco, and Peter Barnett uncovers pirate lore in Maple Bay. Meanwhile, Harriet Morrow tracks a missing maid in 19th-century Chicago, and Milo and Mark unmask a killer in snowy Arizona. From moonlit murders and enchantments in the Canadian village of Denwick to the sparkling blue seas of the Mediterranean, these page-turners deliver gripping suspense, plenty of queer mischief, and a deep dive into profound themes. *Queer Crime Writers is an organization that advocates for LGBTQIA+ crime fiction authors and creates community for them. Michael Craft, Desert Reunion, A Dante & Jazz Mystery (Questover Press) Dante, the charming gay concierge at a vacation rental company, and Jazz, the sharp-witted Black former cop turned private detective, are back for a third thrilling adventure in Palm Springs. Zola Lorinsky, a retired Palm Springs decorator, hopes to revive her fabled career. But during a family reunion held at one of Dante’s rentals, a guest turns up dead, and all signs point to Zola as the prime suspect. Desperate, she turns to her trusted friends Dante and Jazz for help. As they dive into the mystery, a second murder shakes things up—raising the stakes and the question: Are they dealing with one killer or two? This latest installment delivers humor, intrigue, and the irresistible duo’s signature chemistry. Timothy Jay Smith, Istanbul Crossing (Leapfrog Press) Istanbul Crossing is a gripping coming-of-age thriller that follows a young gay Syrian refugee who flees to Istanbul after witnessing his cousin’s execution by ISIS for being homosexual. In Istanbul, his skill at smuggling refugees to Greece earns him a reputation that draws the attention of both the CIA and ISIS, who enlist him to transport high-profile individuals across borders. As he navigates this dangerous double life, he becomes entangled in a love triangle that forces him to choose between two men and two possible futures. Set against the vivid, volatile backdrop of the Mediterranean, this novel continues the author’s exploration of the region, following the success of Fire on the Island. Lev Rosen, Rough Pages (Forge) Set in the moody backdrop of 1950s San Francisco, Rough Pages explores who gets to tell their own stories—and the lengths people will go to uncover the truth. Private detective Andy Mills is drawn back to the Lavender House estate for a missing person case. Pat, the family butler, has been volunteering with a service that discreetly mails queer books to a secretive list of subscribers. When bookseller Howard Salzberger mysteriously disappears along with his subscriber list, everyone on it—including some of Andy’s friends—could be in danger. As Andy investigates, he discovers not only government interest but also Mafia involvement, both eager to get their hands on the list for blackmail. With time running out and his own past threatening to resurface, Andy must outsmart both the law and the underworld to protect those he cares about. Tom Ryan, The Treasure Hunters Club (Atlantic) Tom Ryan, known for his YA novels and screenwriting, makes his adult fiction debut with The Treasure Hunters Club. Set in the charming seaside town of Maple Bay, Nova Scotia, this cozy mystery channels the spirit of Murder, She Wrote’s Cabot Cove, complete with whispers of lost pirate treasure and long-buried secrets. The story follows Peter Barnett, who arrives in Maple Bay after receiving a mysterious letter inviting him to his estranged family’s historic mansion. As soon as he arrives, he finds himself tangled up with two strangers and an even stranger chain of events. Maple Bay’s secrets start surfacing faster than you can say “X marks the spot”—along with a surprising body count. Packed with pirate lore, simmering grudges, and a bounty of twists, this novel is bound to be a crowd-pleaser. Jaime Maddox, Scrambled: A Tuesday Night Book Club Mystery (Bold Strokes) In the quaint Pocono vacation town of Garden, retired librarian Imma Bruno—one of the founding members of the Tuesday Night Book Club—finds herself in over her head when she starts investigating her reclusive neighbor. Spotted at a Fabergé egg exhibit in New York City, the neighbor’s sudden elusiveness raises Imma’s suspicions. Meanwhile, Avery Hutchins, who lost her father on 9/11, returns to town, where she spent her childhood with her grandparents, and makes a shocking discovery about her father’s death, forcing her to choose between uncovering the truth and reclaiming a part of herself she thought was lost forever. Packed with high personal stakes and small-town charm, this story has surprising turns and emotional depth. Michael Castleman, Stolen Hearts (Bold Strokes Books) Seventeen-year-old Ella Gatz is alone in her father’s mansion on Halloween night when a thief breaks in and steals her late mother’s favorite painting. Devastated by the loss of the last piece of her mother, Ella is determined to recover it. Her father, the CEO of a security firm, refuses to report the crime, unwilling to admit that his own system failed. Driven by anger and love, Ella takes matters into her own hands. With only a single clue—a long strand of pink-and-blond hair—she dives into a dangerous game of wits with the thief. But as she gets closer to finding the culprit, she uncovers shocking family secrets that threaten not only the painting’s return but also her family’s financial survival. David Pederson, Fatal Foul Play (Bold Strokes Books) Pederson’s first contemporary standalone novel is a gripping closed-circle mystery, where a group of friends is trapped in a remote lodge in northern Arizona. Milo, Mark, and six others find themselves snowed in by a sudden blizzard, initially worried only about how to pass the time. But when one of them is brutally murdered, panic sets in. Milo’s secret attraction to Mark complicates matters, as does Mark’s unresolved feelings for his ex, Brick. Tensions rise as hidden truths emerge, and suspicion mounts. With no way to contact authorities, Milo and Mark must unmask the killer among them before they become the next victims. Fatal Foul Play crackles with secrets, shifting loyalties, and unexpected dangers that keep the stakes higher than the snowdrifts outside. C. Jean Downer, Under the Cold Moon (Bella) C. Jean Downer returns with this second installment in the Sloane West mystery series. This whodunit with a magical twist follows ex-New York City cop turned private investigator West as she navigates the quiet Canadian village of Denwick. On a frigid night, a brutal murder occurs, and a boy mysteriously vanishes. While the Royal Canadian Mounted Police suspects the child is the killer, West knows that in Old Denwick, appearances can be deceiving. As an ancient Demon and a sinister Order of Magicals threaten all she holds dear, she must rely on her sharp investigative instincts and her family’s legacy of witchcraft. With everything at stake, she must solve the murder, find the boy, and fully embrace her role as a protector of her family’s coven. Christopher Bollen, Havoc (Harper) Bollen’s latest standalone, Havoc delivers a darkly humorous, psychological suspense set in a decaying luxury hotel along the Nile. Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt, a meddler by nature, arrives at the Royal Karnak hoping to escape her troubled past. After a hasty exit from her previous hotel in Switzerland, she relishes the comforts of her suite, the loyalty of hotel manager Ahmed, and the support of fellow long-term guests. But everything changes when Tess, a tired young mother, checks in with her sharp-witted eight-year-old son, Otto. Eager to interfere, Maggie invites them into her life—only to realize that Otto is a wily adversary who challenges her at every turn. With its blend of dark humor, spiraling obsession, and unexpected rivalry, Havoc keeps readers hooked to its lingering, unsettling resolution, capturing the spirit of Hitchcock’s best stories. Jane Pek, The Rivals (Vintage) Jane Pek returns with the second installment in her Claudia Lin series, following the success of The Verifiers. Claudia, a mystery novel junkie and once-underemployed English major, has landed her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for internet-obsessed New Yorkers looking to verify their love interests’ claims. But things take a turn when Claudia and her quirky team—tech-savvy Squirrel and the glamorous Becks—uncover a sinister AI conspiracy. As they dig deeper, they realize the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets. When a client dies under suspicious circumstances, the team is pulled into a high-stakes investigation of the powerful dating platforms. Meanwhile, Claudia’s growing crush on Becks adds a dash of romantic tension to a story filled with espionage and, perhaps, betrayal. Nance Sparks, Waterlogged: A Northwoods Mystery (Bold Strokes Books) Goldie winner Nance Sparks returns with her sixth novel, Waterlogged: A Northwoods Mystery. After nineteen years patrolling the bustling lakes of southern Wisconsin, Jordan Pearce is eager for a slower pace in the Northwoods, where she once vacationed with her family. Her wish is granted when a colleague suddenly quits, opening up a conservation warden position on the same lake from her childhood. Meanwhile, Hanna Quinn returns to town to care for her Aunt Dottie after a cancer diagnosis, and the new warden quickly becomes a welcome distraction. But the tranquility of the Northwoods shatters when a body is found floating in the flowage, and strange incidents unsettle the community. Determined to protect her new town and Hanna, Pearce pushes the limits of her authority. In Northwoods, though, the truth is never as simple as it seems. Gregory Ashe, Again with Feeling (Hodgkin and Blout) In the final Last Picks novel, Dashiell Dawson Dane gets an unexpected call from Vivienne Carver—one of his many nemeses—asking for help. Her brother vanished nearly thirty years ago, and while the police and her family believe she’s guilty, Vivienne insists otherwise. Dash is reluctant, but with Bobby preparing to move out of Hemlock House, he sees a chance to spend more time together, whether Bobby wants it or not. As Dash investigates, buried secrets come to light, and he begins to suspect Vivienne has been framed. But someone is desperate to keep the truth hidden—even if it means killing again. Dash faces a harsh truth: while we may not be doomed to repeat the past, we often cling to its most dangerous lies. Rob Osler, The Case of the Missing Maid (Kensington) Set in turn-of-the-19th-century Chicago, this new historical mystery series follows Harriet Morrow, a 21-year-old, bike-riding lesbian who becomes the first female detective at the prestigious Prescott Agency. Supporting her younger brother, Harriet is determined to prove herself despite skeptical male colleagues and a wary boss. Her first case is to find a missing maid from a grand mansion on Prairie Avenue. While the maid’s employer, Pearl Bartlett, is known for misleading investigators, Harriet suspects the maid, Agnes Wozniak, is genuinely in danger. As she navigates Chicago’s Polish community and befriends Agnes’s sister, Barbara, Harriet must untangle a web of secrets, each one bringing her closer to the truth. View the full article

Years ago, I read an article in which a journalist described living in a haunted house, and a line from the article has stayed with me ever since. It wasn’t about the bloodstain on the stairway, or the mirror that leapt inexplicably from the wall. It was what the journalist’s mother said, after sleeping just once in the house’s creepiest bedroom. Locking the room for good, she refused to tell her family what had happened during the night – except to say that it had ‘something to do with time’. This, for me, is one of the things that makes ghosts so unsettling: their relationship to time. Ghosts are fragments of the past, stubbornly remaining as the future appears around them. Some, we imagine, might ‘move on’ from their temporal prison if they achieve a kind of resolution – like Hamlet’s father, crying for revenge, or Jacob Marley, begging Scrooge to change his ways. But others, even more terrifying, seem forever fixed: the Woman in Black, relentlessly vengeful. The spirits endlessly walking the corridors of the Overlook Hotel. Figures like these raise mind-bending questions: would a ghost always take the form they took at the moment of their death? How long might they stick around, watching their loved ones age? (In Evie Wyld’s beautiful new novel The Echoes, newly-dead Max wanders the flat where he lived with his girlfriend and wonders: what happens once the sun has burned out, and the earth no longer exists for him to haunt?) And this in turn forces us to consider our own relationship to time and to our identities. Awful, to think of the end of potential and opportunity, to think of ourselves becoming unchangeable: never getting any wiser; never able to learn French, like we resolved every year; never able to settle old grievances. What if we were to die at a point when we were particularly young and stupid, or sad, or bitter? Even worse, if we were to become ghosts, would generations assign us a certain character, a mere cliché – The Grey Lady, The Tall Gentleman, The Jealous Lover? These are some of the ideas I tackle in my novel And He Shall Appear. In it, a young man from a working class town goes to study music at Cambridge and finds himself feeling hopelessly out of place. He’s delighted to fall in with Bryn Cavendish, a wealthy college socialite and amateur magician – but he breaks off the friendship when he starts to suspect that Bryn’s charms are literally occult. Years after Bryn’s death, when the narrator returns to college, he fears the ghosts of the past are waiting for him. As well as being about class, memory, magic and friendship, the novel explores the way we make ghosts of one another – living and dead. As we remember and speak about old friends, ex partners, terrible bosses, long-deceased family members, we fix them in the corridors of our imaginations (and, therefore, in other people’s imaginations, too). Time washes away detail and nuance and those figures from the past become flattened, cartoonish: to us, a person becomes the nerdy kid who played clarinet, or the quiet guy who once got drunk at the office Christmas party, the girl from that terrible first date. And the most uncomfortable thing of all? We too become ghosts in the minds of others, long before we die. We lose control of how people see us, and may never know how we appeared – and still appear – to them. The Tall Gentleman. The Jealous Lover. This is one of the ways ghost stories frighten us: they remind us that, to other people, we might only ever be known in a limited way, as a shadow glimpsed at the edge of vision. To some, we will be heroes, to others we will be villains. There’s nothing to be done about this – being only partially understood is, regrettably, part of the human condition. But we can remind ourselves of a few things. First, other people are always infinitely more complex that we care to imagine. And second, we ourselves are not fixed, not a single unchanging character – we are always shifting, changing (and that is a good thing, a gift of being alive). Finally: however much we love spooky stories, none are as unsettling as the ghosts we make ourselves. *** View the full article

“Every novel that’s worth its salt is about something other than the story; something other than the plot.” — Walter Mosley “Be curious, not judgmental” — as quoted by Ted Lasso When I came out as a transgender woman and transitioned in 2009, I was the managing partner of a 19-lawyer law firm. At that time, most people didn’t even understand what it meant to be transgender. Even today, a Pew Research Center study found that more than 55% of Americans don’t personally know someone who is transgender, and about 75% don’t know anyone who is non-binary. This lack of familiarity may come from the fact that, according to the same study, only about 1.6% of the population is transgender or nonbinary. Yet, if you listen to certain commentators, politicians, or even a well-known author, transgender and nonbinary folks are charlatans and the source of all manner of societal ills. Which raises the question: why is there so much vitriol against such a small segment of the population? I’m not a psychologist or sociologist, but I believe some of this hostility is political theater designed to gin up those who oppose LGBTQ+ rights. But another part, probably the largest part, stems from a fear or distrust of a segment of the population that many people simply don’t know or understand—the proverbial fear of the other. And therein lies one of the goals of my novels: to introduce this latter group of readers to a transgender character and, through that character, help folks to understand what it means to be transgender and the issues faced by the transgender community. While I’m not the first author to take this approach, focusing on the challenges, pains, and joys of transgender individuals is a relatively recent development. I was born in the 1950s, a time when conversations about being transgender were nonexistent. Growing up, I thought I was the only person in the world who felt like I did. With no role models to look to, I tried turning to books for representation. Unfortunately, I found none. I was already an adult when I read the first sympathetic portrayal of a trans character in The World According to Garp by John Irving. Unfortunately, aside from Garp and, later, Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian, the historical treatment of trans characters in literature and film has been problematic. For years trans people were marginalized as nothing more than the punch line for bad jokes, or the target of ridicule and disdain. This was especially true in the crime/mystery genre, where trans characters often appeared as victims or, worse, as psychopaths, reduced to one-dimensional stereotypes rather than fully realized human beings. I suspect that one of the main reasons for the way these characters were portrayed was because they were all written by cisgender authors, who not only did not have the lived experience of being trans, but also did not use sensitivity readers to ensure that their version of a trans character was an accurate one. Change began to occur in the crime genre when Renee James and Dharma Kelleher created strong trans protagonists who reflected their authors’ experiences as trans women. Like Renee and Dharma, my novels are shaped by my lived experience. Having embarked on my writing career later in life, I embraced the adage: write what you know. Drawing on over 40 years as a practicing attorney and my identity as an out and proud transgender woman, I created what I believe is a unique character in the crime fiction genre—transgender criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe. Erin is the protagonist in my four published novels—By Way of Sorrow (2021), Survivor’s Guilt (2022), Remain Silent (2023), and Nothing but the Truth (2024). All are legal thrillers aimed at fans of the genre. But my intent in writing them was to do more than entertain. As Mosley suggested, I want each of my novels to be about more than just the plot. My goal was to bridge the knowledge gap for cisgender individuals who may not know anyone who is transgender and to allow Erin’s journey to humanize transgender individuals, breaking down barriers that often stem from ignorance or fear and allowing the reader to reconsider their preconceived notions and attitudes towards transgender individuals. Or as Ted Lasso might say, help them become more curious and less judgmental. So, turning to the topic at hand—has Erin been successful in changing real world attitudes towards transgender people? Lacking the kind of empirical data an academic would rely on, all I have is anecdotal evidence based on emails and online reader reviews from Amazon and Goodreads. However, based on that evidence, the answer is yes. I can’t say how many readers have come to a better understanding of trans people from reading my novels, but again, judging from the comments and reviews I’ve received, Erin has had a positive impact on many readers. Here’s a sampling of some responses that lead me to believe that Erin has helped. —“I’m really glad I had a chance to read this book. I felt that it opened my eyes more so to the struggles that transgender folks deal with on daily and even lifetime basis.” —“I am a . . . straight white male, married with two adult children. . .. I knew virtually nothing about transgender issues but your books very much heightened my awareness.” —“I know nothing about transgender persons nor do I know any. This book was an eye-opener with revelations and overtones that give a completely different aspect to the basic stories in this genre. I fell in love with the character of Erin McCabe . . ..” —“I loved how gently and respectfully the author provided clarity around appropriate language to use when talking about transgender people and a window into the attitudes and struggles inherent in society and especially the legal system.” —“I’ve gained knowledge and greater understanding of and empathy for transgender people. Please do continue to write.” —“I truly appreciate you helping me better understand the transgender community.” Of course, I must acknowledge that I didn’t have a positive impact on all readers, especially those that didn’t get past page 3. —“TRANS PROTAGONIST? REALLY? If you are offended with the idea of people THINKING they can change their sex, then don’t buy this book. Thankfully, I checked it out of the library. By page 3, when the character’s sex change is discussed, I stopped reading it.” —“Not a novel. A social/political statement.” —“You are male or female. DONE.” Successful or not, my approach in trying to change attitudes has been to give readers what they want in a legal thriller—a twisty, character-driven, page turner set in and around an unfolding criminal case. But in doing that, I also wanted to create a character who could challenge and deconstruct some of the harmful stereotypes surrounding transgender people, in particular, transgender women. Erin, as both a successful lawyer and a trans woman, is intelligent, resourceful, funny, and occasionally plagued by self-doubt—in other words, she’s human. I wanted Erin’s struggles, successes, sorrows and joys to allow the reader to see transgender lives as rich, complex, and just as deserving of attention as any other, which in turn allows readers to see transgender individuals as a normal part of society rather than as outliers. It’s my hope that the richness and complexity of Erin’s life helps to humanize transgender individuals. I’m sure there are many authors who don’t necessarily agree that a novel, particularly one in the mystery/crime genre, needs to do more than entertain. And while that may be a valid position to take, for me, because there are so few authors, particularly in this genre, who can write a trans character from lived experience, I felt it was incumbent on me to try to present and humanize that experience so that others will at least experience it vicariously. In that vein, I feel I have learned so much from reading diverse authors whose lived experiences are different from my own. There are so many authors to whom I am indebted for writing books that have helped me to see the world from their characters’ perspectives. I’m thinking of some of the amazing authors who are part of Crime Writers of Color. Also, since not all LGBTQ+ people have the same lived experiences, there are some wonderful Queer Crime Writers who have helped me see different perspectives within the Queer community. All of these authors have written novels that have both entertained and educated me on important issues. Obviously, I hope everyone who reads my books will find them to be page turning legal thrillers. But for those readers who come to my books unfamiliar with the issues transgender people face, I do hope they will come to understand that no one chooses to be transgender or nonbinary, it’s not a lifestyle choice. We’re just like everyone else; each in our own way trying to live our best lives. To that end, if my books can have a positive impact on readers’ perceptions of transgender people, I will consider them a success. *** View the full article

For anyone passionate about both Agatha Christie as well as a wee bit nerdy when it comes to names, in reading any of her novels or short stories readers are immediately provided with a wealth of memorable and often unique names: Hercule, Amyas, Linnet, Odell and Honoria are a small sampling of some of her more unusual and eclectic character nomenclatures. Aside from simply being fun to come across, though, Christie’s use of names in her mysteries also give us a glimpse into a variety of fascinating topics, from societal conventions to Christie’s takes on characters who hail from outside of England. Names reveal quite a bit about how the social classes of Christie’s time operated. Christie gives her upper-class, wealthy characters monikers that very much reflect their higher status. These characters often have hyphenated last names and posh-sounding first names, not to mention titles. Some such instances include Sir Gervase Folliat of Dead Man’s Folly, the Honourable Patricia Brice-Woodworth from Sparkling Cyanide and Lord George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, the 4th Baron of Edgware from Lord Edgware Dies. Additionally, some of Christie’s genteel, manor-dwelling socialites sport some intriguing nicknames: Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, Diana “Bunch” Harmon, and Hermione “Egg” Lytton Gore are some of the particularly memorable ones. Many well-to-do British members of society had such eccentric and even childish nicknames for a number of reasons; one of them being simply because they weren’t going to be expected to hold down a proper job; so there were no major worries about being taken seriously whilst being called Bunny or Chip. At the time, it was common for peer groups to give each other nicknames, whether a street gang or, in this case, the upper crust. And naturally, some of the nicknames were derived from boarding school days at Eton or elsewhere. On the other end of the social pecking order, Christie’s domestic worker characters sport rather different names than their employers. The British maids and butlers are typically only ever referred to by their first names or just their last names; the maids and housekeepers have names like Gladys, Ellen, Doris, and Mrs. Bishop. Butlers are last-name only and include Tressilian, Horbury, Lanscombe and Gudgeon. What is also particularly intriguing to note about Christie’s use of character names for her domestic help is that those who work in the service but are somehow a bit “above” the typical serving class, like heroine Lucy Eyelesbarrow from 4:50 From Paddington, get an actual combination of both first and last names, subtly noting that such characters came from an initially more privileged background: Lucy, for instance, is a well-off, intelligent scholar who ventures into the nursing and housekeeping world for the money and the challenge. Christie was extremely well-traveled and had a good knowledge of French, so these areas of knowledge are reflected in her character names that represent languages and cultures that she was familiar with; French of course being the primary one but Arabic to some degree as well because of her archaeological travels with Sir Max Mallowan. Therefore, the characters with French names are quite accurate in terms of their time and place, like the French household staff in Murder on the Links: Leonie, Auguste and Denise; or her meticulously researched ancient Egyptian names for characters in Death Comes At the End, such as Satipy and Renisenb. However, it’s rather clear that Christie wasn’t quite as intimate with other languages and cultures as French: her admittedly hilarious satirical fake country, Herzoslovakia, features names that amalgamate various Slavic languages: Count Sylptich, Queen Varaga, Prince Michael Obolovitch and Baron Loloprejztyl are not exactly names that one would truly find in modern-day or historic Poland and Bulgaria, for instance. Her Chinese, “middle European” and Scandinavian characters tend to receive names that are also clearly either fabricated or stereotypical: Hildegarde Schmidt from Murder on the Orient Express, Ah Ling from The Big Four, Mitzi from A Murder is Announced and Kirsten Lindstrom from Ordeal by Innocence to name a few. Last but certainly not least, Christie often utilizes first names in such a way that indicates to the reader that the character is going to be unconventional and eccentric: simply by picking an extremely unusual first name. Dramatic, beer-loving artist Amyas Crale from Five Little Pigs comes to mind, as does mysterious, witchy Thyrza Grey in The Pale Horse. It simply wouldn’t fit to have these characters have names like John and Emily for the sake of the story, and any name nerd worth their salt appreciates that aspect of Christie’s character craft. View the full article

Premiering in 1972, Sanford and Son was an every Friday night at eight o’clock event in my Harlem household. “What channel does it come on again?” my grandmother would ask every week and every week I’d turn the television to channel four and patiently wait for the cool-ass intro music to kick in. While most program themes had lyrics, it was only fitting that a funky show like Sanford had a juke-joint instrumental to introduce this bugged junk man and his son. Yet, being a nine year old music buff who bought countless 45s from Freddy’s Record Shack on Broadway and read religiously the Soul Brothers Top 20 in Jet magazine, I began noticing Quincy Jones’ name on several television shows including Ironside and the Bill Cosby Show, which featured the wild out track “Hikky-Burr.” Although I had no idea who he was, I knew that he was the man. To this day, the musical legacy of Quincy Delight Jones Jr., who died on November 3, 2024, looms large over the landscape of popular culture. While our grandparents might remember him as the cool cat who once swung with Sinatra and Count Basie (released in 1964, It Might as Well Be Swing is a champagne music classic), most eighties babies will forever associate him with the post-disco blare of Michael Jackson’s mega-monster Thriller in 1982. Yet, that collaboration might never have happened if the two had not originally worked together on the soundtrack for The Wiz, the wretched 1978 remake of The Wizard of Oz. Directed by the king of New York City cinema Sidney Lumet, who once described the film as urban fantasy (a genre his considerable talents were ill suited for after the brilliant social realism of Serpico, Network and Dog Day Afternoon) that picture, was a visual failure. Though the much-maligned movie was almost made without Quincy’s help, who explained bluntly in his 2001 autobiography Q, “I just wasn’t feeling the songs,” he still stepped up to the plate. “I did it because Sidney Lumet, who had given me my first U.S. film-scoring break on The Pawnbroker, plus five more films, asked me to do it. I felt like I owed him more than one; I owed him a lot.” Like a post-bop Martin Luther King with a conductor’s baton and complex arrangements, Quincy Jones was a pioneer who helped pave the way for other Negro musicians in that so-called Tinseltown. “Film has never been a Black friendly industry,” says writer/director Nelson George. “But, Quincy fought and charmed his way through to become Hollywood royalty.”Though he would go on to create other great scores like In Cold Blood (his first Academy Award nomination) and In the Heat of the Night, it was The Pawnbroker that made it all possible.” Although Duke Ellington had contributed the soaring soundtrack to Otto Preminger’s 1959 film, Anatomy of a Murder, helping to define the jazz-influenced film music in same way as Henry Mancini and Elmer Bernstein, it still took Quincy to take the art form to the next level. Beginning his professional career as a be-bop trumpet player in 1947, Quincy had worked with Ray Charles, got scammed by Charlie Parker and opened for Nat King Cole in Europe. Later, as vice-president of A&R at Mercury Records, he signed Lesley (“It’s My Party”) Gore. However, once given the chance he never looked back. As critic Philip Brophy wrote in a 1997 Wire magazine article, Jones became “a key-yet ignored-figure in wrenching the film score from its Wagnerian cave and slamming it down in the midst of cross-town traffic.” The Pawnbroker was recorded in 1964 at A&R Studios in Manhattan over the period of two days. Quincy’s old roommate, friend, engineer and studio owner Phil Ramone (who later produced classic sides for Billy Joel and Paul Simon) remembered those sessions well. “Quincy stayed up days and nights for weeks writing those songs,” Ramone, who died in 2013, said via telephone. “Things were just magical. Man, that studio was so small we used to call it our basement in the sky. Q’s superstar buddies would come in to play two solos and be out. We had guys piled up in the hallway, while others would be in Jim and Andy’s, the bar downstairs; I had an intercom hooked-up, and I would call down whenever I needed somebody.” Two years earlier, Jones and Ramone recorded the whimsical “Soul Bossa Nova” in the same studio. Popularly known today as the “Theme to Austin Powers,” which featured a Roland Kirk flute solo, it was obvious that everybody loved working with Q. Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the famed Mission Impossible theme, played piano on that session. “It was like a juke joint up 112 West 48th, but it was home to him,” Ramone remembered. “Nobody ever said no to Quincy; if he called, you were there.” With a Who’s Who of cool cats that Pawnbroker director Sidney Lumet likened to “Esquire’s All-Star Jazz Band,” the line-up included Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones on drums, John Faddis on trumpet, George Duvivier on bass and countless others. “The main titles use of vibes, celeste harpsichord and harp tantalizingly cast semi-jazz clusters against a monophonic semi-blues line played by thickened strings,” critic Philip Brophy observed. “It’s like hearing Ellington and George Gershwin simultaneously. It’s black and it’s jazz and all the space between.” Despite the fact that Lumet had first approached John Cage and Gil Evans, he was more than pleased with Quincy’s efforts, which Jazz Improv magazine described as “a lush, string-laden mood pieces, interspersed with frantic jazz vamps.” In addition, Lumet was also impressed that Q. had studied under famed French composer and music educator Nadia Boulanger—who had also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Burt Bacharach. “She used to tell me back in France—and it took me years to accept it—that you only have real freedom when you set boundaries and parameters,” Quincy wrote in his bio. “When you have total freedom, you automatically create chaos. As a jazz artist, this was hard to swallow until I had to score films on a deadline.” Author Todd Boyd, who penned The Notorious PhD’s Guide to the Super Fly ’70s: A Connoisseur’s Journey Through the Fabulous Flix, Hip Sounds, and Cool Vibes That Defined a Decade (Harlem Moon, 2007), also cited The Pawnbroker soundtrack as a personal favorite. “People sleep on that movie. To me, Quincy’s music went straight into the psyche of the main character played by Rod Steiger, who is a Holocaust victim who owns a pawnshop in Harlem. You can hear the depth of his paranoia in Quincy’s music. We can also hear that in the score he did a few years later for In the Heat of the Night.” Years after its release, new jack film composer Scott Bomar still felt the influence of Quincy’s 1967 score for the Sidney Poitier feature directed by Norman Jewison. “That soundtrack heavily influenced the work I did on (director Craig Brewer’s neo-exploitation gem) Black Snake Moan,” Bomar, who also scored Hustle & Flow for the same director, said. In 2003 Bomar was musical director for a segment of Martin Scorsese’s PBS series The Blues. “Jones’ mixture of jazz, blues, country and pop was amazing. Quincy not only did the score, he did all the songs you hear on the radio and jukebox; all the music sounds like it comes from that particular world. Quincy also used vocals in a very original way; without a doubt, the Ray Charles sung title track is one of my favorite songs.” In addition to Ray Charles, the Afroed maestro also collaborated with singers Donny Hathaway (Come Back Charleston Blue), Shirley Horn (For Love Of Ivy), Sarah Vaughan (Cactus Flower Theme), Johnny Mathis (Mirage) and Diana Ross (The Wiz). Still, like Los Angeles based crime writer Gary Phillips and composer David Holmes (Out of Sight), many of Quincy’s fans prefer the Playboy chill of his caper movie scores. Mastermixing the sonic swagger of synthesizers with more traditional instrumentation, the eletro-fusion heard on the groovy The Italian Job (1969), The Anderson Tapes (1971), and The Hot Rock (1972) process a neo-noir delirium that still resonates with movie lovers and hip-hop crate diggers. The track “Snow Creatures” has been sampled by Gang Starr (“Alongwaytogo”) and Common “Tricks Up My Sleeve,” while The Hot Rock theme was lifted by both Jurassic 5 (“Improvise”) and Eminem (“Like Toy Soldiers”). “I like to listening to The Anderson Tapes or The Lost Man (1969) soundtrack when I just driving around,” explained Gary Phillips. “There is a great sense of pacing and rhythm in that music that just gets my creative juices flowing. For the crime and mystery stuff that I write, that music just takes me there. Quincy not only reflected the feel of those movies, but those soundtracks also captured the time period perfectly.” While Quincy Jones didn’t do a full-length film score after teaming with Steven Spielberg on the majestic 1985 The Color Purple soundtrack (for which he received his eighth Academy Award nomination), his movie music is still as magical as it is distinctive. “If you are putting together a compilation of great film music from the second half of the 20th century music, there is a good chance you will be using something Jones composed,” says writer David Walker, former publisher of defunct zine BadAzz Mofo. “More than anything else, Quincy Jones brought a sense of soul to film scores.” View the full article

On March 26, 1925, during a Commons session, Mr. Cecil Wilson raised an eyebrow-raising question: why were so many women in prison repeat offenders? In fact, 2,886 women had been convicted more than twenty times that year. What is more, many of these habitual criminals were elderly. Harmless while locked up, they became petty thieves or hawkers the moment they were freed, their lives a revolving door of incarceration. Wilson, in a stroke of compassionate genius, suggested that perhaps these women were feeble-minded and ought to be handled differently rather than being endlessly recycled through the expense of the prison system. Feeble-minded? Bit of a stretch given no pensions or welfare and surviving the cold streets. Desperation? Perhaps. But when facing starvation or a roof over your head, prison seems like a solid strategy. The Lambeth Riot Roll on January 1926 when a different set of women altogether found themselves up at The Old Bailey on charges of inciting a riot in an event that became known as The Lambeth Riot. The previous December, a drunken mob had marched up on a family home near The Cut in Southwark. What happened can only be described as frightening violence and intimidation, bordering on attempted murder. It is a long and complicated story, it always is. But while men had been the ones to administer much of the violence, breaking into the house itself to settle old scores. It was women at the helm. Specifically, Queen Alice Diamond, the leader of the infamous female gang of professional thieves, The Forty Elephants. The Forty Elephants When I set out to write a fictional novel based on The Forty Elephants, I realized when I shared this idea with friends some seemed apprehensive of lending compassion to characters who were unashamedly criminal. Yet could thoughtlessly indulge in gangster films without thought. It was as if it was morally wrong to shine a light on such women. It was not romantic, it wasn’t pretty. It felt… uncomfortable. We should be focusing on shining examples of womanhood, not highlighting the worst of our kind. But I don’t see it like that at all. There was even a sense that the characters must fit into binary buckets; one labelled ‘desperate’ the other ‘empowered.’ As if such wicked women, if filtered through palatable sieves of simplicity, might make it acceptable. It would be ‘ok.’ This morality hoop we expect women to leap through intrigues me. I write about complex female characters, and I’ve been asked why I appear obsessed with criminality in women. I hesitate to justify this because I’m not sure why I should. Why we need to see criminal women through the lenses of desperation or empowerment is the more fascinating question to me. What does this say about us? Victim or… Monster? We are comfortable with the depiction of women as powerless prey. We have grown desensitised to endless headlines of yet another murdered woman. A brutally violated woman, a woman murdered by her partner. We don’t react much more than a sympathetic nod of ‘it’s awful, isn’t it?.’ And we move on. We are used to this happening. Its normal. When it comes to a woman being the perpetrator of a crime, we try and assign them into the victim bucket. We see it as a compassionate act. An abused woman driven to do terrible things out of self-defence and against her natural nature to be passive. It’s hard to deny we seem addicted to fetishising female criminals into simple caricatures. We want to pity (victim) or admire (angel) but both facilitate permission to ‘like’ these women. Do people sit around when devising the next TV series about Pablo Escobar or The Krays, tearing themselves apart, asking… ‘But is he likable though?’ What a chain?! The perennial albatross around the neck to be likeable at all times. Besides who said Alice Diamond wasn’t liked? She had plenty of friends. Doesn’t a diamond have many facets? Can’t Alice, and the characters in my stories, have nuance. Can they not be at once, funny and do bad things? Can’t they be complicated, you know, human? Female Rage Alice Diamond stood five feet nine at a time when average height for a man was five feet six inches. Most women can’t punch a man and make him see stars. Alice could, that’s why the police called her Diamond Alice. Now not many women will take on a man in a fist fight. We wouldn’t go toe to toe with a man, that’s insane. A female murderer may carry the same malice, but she’ll wait until her prey is asleep and get him that way. She’ll poison his food. Or manipulate another man to do the toe to toe stuff for her. She wants to win. That premise starts to sound like empowerment, but I reject that bucket with even more ferocity. I find the empowerment tag weirdly condescending. It’s got that girl power twee vibe. As if dreamed up by a marketing team after running a focus group on positive words no one can disagree with. It erases the victims of crime. The loss of property, the scars and violence. The harm. The Forties weren’t above doing terrible things because they were women. Intimidating witnesses, blackmail and extortion is not harmless. But it was dog eat dog in 1920s Britain and what do you expect a clever, vibrant but poverty-stricken young woman to do? Sit around and wait to be eaten? Actually yes, I think as a society we often do expect exactly that. Man vs Bear One aspect of the Man or Bear story that no one asks is if that bear is a lady. Of course not! That’s irrelevant. We assume both genders of bear may wish to eat us. From the viewpoint of a different species, we don’t make silly cultural assumptions about the differences between girl and boy bears. We understand that they are fundamentally the same species with the same instincts. We don’t think: ‘Well if it’s a girl bear, she’ll be helpful and smiley.’ Do we? And yet we do this with humans, you’d have thought we’d have learned by now. Women crave adventure and excitement too. Young girls dream of spending money and having experiences and the most driven simply can’t sit back and wait for the next thing to happen to them…. What even is that state? Perpetual victimhood? And we’ve come full circle … Because that’s what’s expected of women much of the time and women are as much at fault for this, because we often demand this passivity of each other. If we find ourselves intrigued by the exploits of The Forty Elephants and desperate to exonerate them to fit into our expectations, to make them likeable. Should we be asking? Why do I have such crazy expectations that women should be morally faultless? Let them be hard to pin down, resist the buckets! Let us all be human. *** View the full article

Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom? Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks—and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought. Atmospheric and eerie, with the ensemble cast her fans love and a delightfully familiar academic backdrop, Graveyard Shift is a modern Gothic tale in If We Were Villains author M. L. Rio’s inimitable style.​ Our editor Olivia Rutigliano sat down with Rio to talk about writing habits, fungi, pivoting from academic writing, and Rio’s next novel. This interview has been edited for concision and clarity. Olivia Rutigliano: Congratulations very much on the publication of Graveyard Shift! It’s wonderful. I so enjoyed it. M.L. Rio: Oh, thank you! O.R.: Would you like to say a little bit about how this idea came to you? M.L.R: Graveyard Shift was unusual in its inception. My publisher actually approached me because Barnes & Noble had approached them about doing a novella. So they reached out to Flatiron and said, “would M be interested? Does she have anything?” So, my publisher then called me and asked the same question. And I had never really thought about that. I was in the middle of writing another book at the time, which would go on to become Hot Wax. But I said, “sure… let me look through the story drawer and see what I’ve got.” And I had this old idea that I’d been kicking around for, oh, I don’t know, years. But I wasn’t quite sure what format would work for it. It didn’t feel big enough to be a novel. And for a while I thought, oh, maybe it’s an audio drama, like, maybe I do a podcast, but like, I really didn’t want to be that guy. O.R.: Ha! M.L.R.: And when Flatiron said, “hey, how about a novella,” I said, “oh, this actually, like, might be perfect for this.” That that was the, the origin story. O.R.: So, all of these different characters meet smoking in the evening outside this church in this college town. How were you inspired to set the story that way? M.L.R.: Yeah! When I was in college, there was this policy on my campus, the smoking policy that you couldn’t smoke within a hundred feet of any campus building. Which basically meant that you couldn’t smoke anywhere because the entire town was campus buildings. So people had found these funny little pockets on campus of places they could smoke and one was like this flagpole on the North Quad. You would always see this like sad little nod of people just like huffing desperately around this flagpole in the rain or whatever because it was the only place they could stand. And the other place I used to see people occasionally smoking was in this cemetery behind my dorm. Where I used to hang out just because I had strange morbid interests even then. And was also , you know, always tormented by insomnia. And so I used to like an absolute lunatic just go walking through the cemetery, like in my pajamas in the middle of the night and I started seeing people in there just kinda standing around and smoking and was like, “what’s going on here?” And it was, you know, people who were working the night shift and just needed a smoke break. And it was the best place to be. What an interesting way to develop a report with some people who otherwise really have nothing in common. ​O.R.: So, this is one of the great fungus-forward novels of recent years! Can you talk a little bit about the fungus and ergotism and the fascinating mycological world that you bring us into with this novel? M.L.R.: I’ve always had a thing for mushrooms. I don’t know why… just from a young age! We lived in a lot of really humid environments when I was a kid and every fall, we would get these fantastic jack o lantern mushrooms, which are these wild orange mushrooms that glow in the dark. And it just seems like one of those things that is too charming and weird to be real, but it is! So, I , and I also had a really weird early fixation on Lewis Caroll, and got very into the Alice in Wonderland… trippy children’s literature that’s not really for children. So I had an early interest in mycology, and it really took a turn in my PhD program, not because I was studying mycology, but because I ended up reading a lot more science writing than I had in previous years. And it turned into something a little bit more academic, and the more I started reading, the more I got into it. I also have always had morbid literary interests. I was very fond of the Victorian Gothic when I was at that angsty adolescent high school reading stage. Um, and there is a lot of overlap between the Gothic and proto-science fiction. You know, you think about things like Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde and, um, even Dracula, where Ven Helsing is doing this weird field medicine. O.R.: Yes! M.L.R.: So, as I was thinking about Graveyard Shift in the context of horror and the neo-gothic, fungus just seemed like a really natural place to take that, no pun intended. I think the reason we are fascinated and sometimes repulsed by fungus is we associate it with death and decay because it tends to grow on rotting things. It tends to feed on dying things. And I think we just find that naturally unsettling? The other thing that’s really fascinating about fungus is mycelial networks have this really complex mode of communication that we don’t fully understand as humans. It’s interesting and unsettling because it’s not plant life, it’s a separate kingdom… it’s closer to animal life, it’s closer to human life than it is to a lot of plant species. But it has this weird alien sentience that we don’t quite understand. And I think something about that uneasy liminal space between “is it sentient? is it not?” is a little bit freaky, and a little bit fascinating, and I think that’s partly why we’re seeing a boom in… this fungal horror genre. O.R.: Perfect for the cemetery setting. M.L.R.: Yeah, it just seemed like a natural fit with the cemetery. It’s a place where you think about that space between life and death, and you have to confront the reality that it isn’t a binary. It isn’t just “you’re alive and then you’re dead” but that the process of death biologically is in fact a process. A process that involves organisms. It’s unsettling to think about fungus feasting on your body, your dead flesh. And there’s also this weird element with mushrooms where there is something fleshy about them. Like we so often use portobello mushrooms as a substitute for meat. That there’s also this very strange quasi-cannibalistic quality to it, if that makes any sense. So, yeah… the wide weird world of fungus just became very interesting to me and I thought “what a fun thing to explore in fiction.” O.R.: Thank God you did! So, the last time we talked, we chatted a little bit about your research as an Early Modernist, a Shakespearean scholar, and how that factored into your previous novel If We Were Villains, but also the way that this novella deals with the proper ensemble cast, too, and has many theatrical elements. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your research into this definitely more theatrically-forward time period of literary history, and how that has influenced you as a novel writer. M.L.R.: Yeah, absolutely. I wrote Villains before I got my master’s degree. It was the year before I went off to King’s College to do my MA in Shakespeare Studies. But, before that, I had been an actor, and principally a Shakespearean actor, for something like ten years. And, you know, I started writing really quite young, and I wrote a bunch of novels that I knew weren’t very good and I wasn’t really sure why. And I was very frustrated. I was like “I’m writing a novel a year, but all of these novels are bad.” Then when I was a senior in college, I was doing my honors thesis on, I was taking three parts of Henry VIII and smashing them all together in one play, performed in the forest theater with 10 actors playing 77 parts, including me. It was absolute chaos, but it was a lot of fun. And I just had this lightbulb moment where I went, “wait a minute, why have you never written a book about this? About this weird culty world of Shakespearean theater?” I had never seen it represented in fiction the way I had experienced it. And I went, oh, maybe you’re the person to write this novel. And once I sat down to do that, it just came very, very naturally. And that was my realization that, that hackneyed advice, “write what you know” is actually really good advice because there’s a certain authenticity and fiction that you really can’t fake. O.R.: Yeah. M.L.R.: I think it’s telling that the people who love this book the most tend to be theater people who immediately recognize that world. So yeah, it has been a big influence on my writing and, And even in Graveyard Shift, obviously it’s a little further removed from Shakespeare, but once I finished my M.A. and went to do my Ph.D., I ended up in the medical humanities camp where what I do is one part literary studies and one part history of science. I’m looking at how those things intersect. And so I fell down a lot of interesting rabbit holes of fascinating pre-modern scientific thought. And one of them that informs Graveyard Shift has to do with Early Modern encounters with hallucinogenic plants and psychedelic experience. Because we think of that as a very modern, like, 1960s phenomenon, but it’s really not. And, so my research was into St. Elmo’s fire and how that might explain some pre-modern witchcraft phases, that thing. And that really did inform the writing of Graveyard Shift, because I had this wonderful setting of this moldering old church and got to design this bizarre Boschian mural behind the altar that draws on all of that scientific and medical history. So, even though it’s not Shakespeare, it does still draw on my academic research. O.R.: This is fascinating! I was wondering if we can pivot to talking about your next novel, Hot Wax? M.L.R.: Oh, sure! I’d love to talk about Hot Wax! O.R.: I wanna get the goods on it now! When it comes out, maybe in a year’s time, you’re gonna be so tired of talking about it, so I want to get the good stuff early! M.L.R.: Well, you got good, you’ve got good timing because my production draft of Hot Wax is actually due tomorrow. O.R.: Oh man. M.L.R.: Yes, so I have been on tour for Graveyard Shift and doing the big final push for Hot Wax at the same time, which has been a real adventure! So, I actually wrote the first version of Hot Wax like seven years ago. It was the first thing that I wrote after Villains that I really wanted to be my second novel. But just because of what happened when Villains was first released (it didn’t have the warm reception that it got belatedly… you know, three or four years after publication when it really found its audience), at the time, my agent and I had like four or five books die on sub because what editors kept telling us was, “Oh, we’d like this, but the sales numbers for your first novel just aren’t there. And we can’t convince the publisher.” So that was heartbreaking because I was like 25 and thinking that Villains was going to be the start of my career… and it was looking like it was going to be the end! And I wrote this big, crazy road trip concert tour novel that I was really in love with and my agent really loved. And we just could not find a home for it. So I said, “okay, I’ll put it aside and try the next thing and maybe I’ll come back to it someday.” And then the tables turned in our favor and Villains did find its people! And suddenly people were interested in what I had to write. I said to my agent, “I really want to go out with the concert tour book again.” And she said, “you know what? Of all the stuff you’ve written in the last few years, that’s the one that I still think about. So yeah, let’s do it.” O.R.: Hell yeah! M.L.R.: So that’s another hat that I wear. I’m just still in the camp of “write what you know,” because in addition to being an actor and an academic and a writer, I’m a music writer. I don’t mean that I write songs, I write about music. I do a lot of reviews and artist interviews and that thing. So, I’ve also spent a lot of time in that world. I’ve spent a lot of time backstage and with musicians and on the road with a couple of different bands. So, that was something else that I really wanted to play with in fiction. It’s another place for a great ensemble, cast, big group story. And, at the end of the day, I’m still a performance studies scholar… I really love writing about performance. And music in particular is such a delicious challenge as a writer because how do you render that in words? How do you do that justice on the page, in black and white. So that’s been just a really, really fun, interesting, and occasionally very frustrating creative endeavor. O.R.: Well, do you want to talk a little bit about what it’s been like, hopping back and forth between all of these different fields, all of these different industries? How does it enriches you as a writer? Do you want to talk a little bit more about the ways that this interdisciplinary background of yours has fueled you as a thinker and writer? M.L.R.: Thank you! That’s a great question. I think just even from a really young age, I have had really wide-ranging interests. People are always surprised to hear me say things like, “yeah, my two primary interests as a young person were Shakespeare and David Bowie.” But I, I actually think it’s also part of the same thing? Music has always been a huge part of my writing process, actually point zero for my writing process. O.R.: How so?” M.L.R.: I’m a really thorough outliner, because, you know… academia. I can’t do anything flying by the seat of my pants. So, whenever I’m writing something, I have this long discovery phase where all I’m doing is listening to a lot of music and doing a lot of reading and a lot of research to just get comfy in the world of the story before I actually try and put a narrative down. Writing and music in particular have always been inseparable for me, because I draw a lot of inspiration from music… whether I’m riding the vibe or if there’s just an image in a song that really sticks with me for whatever reason. So I think at a certain point it was just logical to take all that practice, all that music writing, all those hours and hours and hours and years and years of listening really fanatically… and turn it into a piece of fiction. Because part of what I love to do with a novel is use it as a way to give somebody an entry point to something they might not know much about. And with If We Were Villains, it was a way to take something I loved, like Shakespeare, and just make it more accessible. Because we have this idea that Shakespeare is like, really highbrow and hard to understand, and it really isn’t, if you present it in the right way. Um, and so I’m in some ways doing a little bit of the same thing with Hot Wax, and it’s a book about music, but it’s about a lot of music that a lot of people probably aren’t thinking much about in 2024–a lot of obscure 80s alternative songs and that thing. So I’m hoping that some people will read it and discover new old music or new genres of music that they maybe hadn’t listened to before. O.R.: Well, I’m gonna ask you one more question, which is, what is one thing about the book that you would like me to have asked you or something you wanna tell about it? M.L.R.: Well, I think one thing we haven’t talked about is just the form of the novella! O.R.: Yes, absolutely. M.L.R.: That was not something I’ve done before! I think because I’m a dyed-in-the-wool academic, I really like playing with form and thinking about form and structure and not just “what’s the story I’m telling?” but how am I telling it and why am I telling it that way. And I had never done a novella before and I am actually really a chronic overwriter. I tend to write way too much and then have to pare it way back. So that was a challenge too. When I asked my editor, “how many words do I have?” And she said, you can have like 30, 000 words. And I went, “Oh my God, that’s like two short stories stuck together.” O.R.: Man, that’s nothing. M.L.R.: Yeah, and it’s interesting–in a lot of our early reviews, we’ve heard people saying things like, “I’m just mad that this wasn’t longer. Why isn’t it a novel?” In some ways, that’s like the best criticism you can hear: “I wish there were more of this.” But, I think one thing that people don’t entirely appreciate is how difficult it is to write a solid, satisfying story in a really short space. Especially when you have like five main characters. (I refuse to write anything that has one main character.) So I was really thinking “how do I make these characters come through in such a short space?” And I landed on this fun format. I knew I wanted to write a story that took place in only one night, like 12 hours. And that was drawing on this idea of Aristotle’s Three Unities. He’s talking about what makes a good tragedy, but one of his ideas is that a really good story should take place in 24 hours in one place and have a totally unified plot! And, obviously that’s a little bit limiting, but I did want to try it to see if I could do it. I landed on these interesting characters, and they almost have a relay, where at the end of a chapter somebody hands the story off to the next person. Which just worked really well… or at least I think it worked well, and it was a really fun way to do it. And at the same time I was thinking about, okay, what is my model for this? And I ultimately had to write the first chapter of Graveyard Shift in like three weeks, just because that’s how the timing worked. O.R.: Oh my God! M.L.R.: And you know, some night… like really late at night, I was scrambling to get it done and I was really stressed out and my partner knocked on the door and was sticking his head in, like, “is it safe to enter?” And God bless him. He was saying to me “no, I know you’re so stressed about this now, but once you’re done with it, it’s gonna be a masterpiece.” And I think I said to him “I’m not trying to write a masterpiece, I’m trying to write like a mediocre episode of Scooby-Doo.” Then once I had said that, I was like, oh, that’s actually not a bad model for this! And I kept that in mind of thinking about like, I wanted this to feel like a grown up, fucked up episode of Scooby-Doo! O.R.: Oh man, yes! M.L.R.: Yeah. I think we undervalue entertainment. I think we undervalue fun in fiction. Like, we always want to be taken seriously as writers. And I think sometimes we veer away from things that are just fun. And I think that’s really sad. I think we need “more fun in the world,” to quote X, another great 80s band. I think we need more fun! I don’t think we should be afraid of fun and allergic to fun. And I think you can do fun and you can do dark at the same time. Like, there’s a reason we have this thing called black comedy and sometimes the line between comedy and horror is really, really thin. So I did want to play with that in the Graveyard Shift. O.R.: For sure. This is all great. Well, now I just want to ask one more thing… I mean, I’m guessing we have some positive feelings about Scooby-Doo? That’s one of the secret patron saint TV shows of CrimeReads. Like, are you a Scooby-Doo gal? M.L.R.: Oh yeah. I had a group of friends in high school who were all the Scooby-Doo gang for Halloween one year. Amazing. You know, my brother and I were kids in the 90s and our Halloween tradition was, you know, we would just gorge ourselves on candy and watch it. There was a Scooby-Doo movie that was on every year, and I can’t remember the title of it, but you can probably find it. It took place on a pepper plantation in Louisiana, and it would have these like crazy zombie cat people. It was so weird. Oh my god. It’s like The Hills Have Eyes meets, like, the cat, like, Jacques Tourner’s The Cat People or something like that. O.R.: What is this? M.L.R: Yeah! Exactly! It was like Cat People meets Southern Gothic, but make it ‘a Scooby-Doo movie.’ And sometimes I’m like, ‘did I hallucinate that? Was that just a fever dream, my being in a sugar coma at age eight or something?’ But, yeah, Scooby-Doo is… I don’t watch very much TV, but if I’m just flipping through the channels and it happens to be on, then I will definitely watch an episode of Scooby-Doo . O.R.: As soon as you said the fucked up episode of Scooby-Doo, I was like, oh damn, she’s gonna get hit with one more follow up. M.L.R.: Yeah, I will talk about Scooby-Doo all day. I spend a lot of time talking about Shakespeare, but I can also talk about weird kids cartoons. O.R.: Excellent. This is what I and the readers of CrimeReads want to hear. M.L.R.: Perfect! View the full article

Hi Writer Friends- so nice to meet you. Here are my 7: Best, Jennifer Answers to submit Pre assignment work.docx

Love the commentary here.

The good old Sydney mistake. Another trip wire.