One question people always ask when you’ve written a novel is: what inspired it? And if you have any sense, you just tell them. If you’re me, however, you do everything you can not to tell them, everything you can to dodge the question. To speak cryptically and hope nobody notices. Because the truth is that my life inspired my fiction. At least in part. See, there’s a stalker in my new book, The Close-Up, and thirteen years ago, I was stalked. Now, you might think I’d jump at the opportunity to tell people about that—who doesn’t want to read a story at least partially inspired by real experience, right? But no. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to write this article. I almost wrote one about the metafictional aspects of The Close-Up instead. Because deep down, I don’t want to be the person who went through what I’m about to tell you. I want to be the unscathed woman who never has bad things happen to her. But are any of us truly that woman? Probably not. I should preface this by saying that The Close-Up isn’t only about a stalker. It’s about the nature of being in the public eye; especially if you are thrust there. About the dark side of fame. About why we’d choose to stay in a situation, even after it gets dangerous. About art. About dreams. About hope. And about how as creatives, we make ourselves supremely vulnerable through making art and sharing it with the world—and why we’d feel the drive to keep doing it. Regardless. But…back to the stalker. I was a young singer-songwriter living in London, and one night I was going into a party. A man had been talking to me outside (I didn’t want to be impolite) and as I went inside, he grabbed my arm to stop me closing the door on him. I gave him a copy of my CD so he’d have to let me go. But in hindsight, that was my first big mistake: now he knew my name. It started small, benign. There were random Skype calls and DMs from him talking about my lyrics. I started running into him on my way home from work. I told myself maybe he lived nearby. Then he started turning up closer to my home. When I saw him, I’d cross the street or try to walk by him. Once he grabbed me and tried to make me dance with him, and when I refused, he said, “If you don’t let me lead you in the dance, how do you know what the marriage will be like?” When I walked away, he angrily spieled off random facts about me, from my middle name to my parents’ postal address to to what I’d said in interviews. But still, I rationalized the encounters, telling myself that he was weird, but harmless. Nothing to worry about. That if I ignored him, eventually he’d get bored. Then he started contacting venues where I’d performed, telling them he was my manager. He called on brands, asking them to sponsor me. He blogged about me. His DMs now included poetry and comments on my outfits and suggestions as to what kind of underwear I should wear. Fake social media profiles under my name started popping up. Each time I saw him in person, he’d be lurking closer and closer to my home. My roommate insisted that I report him to the police, but I demurred—what if they thought I was being melodramatic? Or what if taking action somehow inflamed him? Instead, I changed my routine—altering my routes home and turning down gigs because I didn’t want him to find me. And while I wanted to stop reading his messages, to block him, it felt like that would be even worse: if I could get a sense of what he was thinking, at least I’d know what was coming next. I knew things were getting bad, but was it go-to-the-police level serious? Surely not. And then he wrote this to me: I bet you never thought someone would take your lyrics as a call to action. That was the statement that finally mobilized me to call the police (who did take me seriously—so PSA: it’s always worth reporting something!). And that’s also what inspired The Close-Up. The protagonist, Zoe Ann Weiss, is a novelist who wrote a thriller about a stalker. When she starts dating a movie star and becomes internet famous, she gets a stalker of her own. A stalker who has clearly read her book, because they start enacting every creepy plot twist from it—and targeting Zoe herself. In short, the stalker uses her art as a weapon against her. In my book, I wanted to follow a character’s emotional journey through being a victim of stalking in a way that felt true to me—with all of the illogical choices and feelings and thoughts you might not expect. Because we never really know what we’ll do or feel in a scary situation until we are in the crosshairs ourselves. Was writing The Close-Up cathartic? Maybe, in a way. It gave me a safe place to explore all the deepest fears I’d been left with. Because the police did what they could to help me, but the stalking continued. And so, not long afterwards, I moved back to Australia—I’d been toying with going home anyway. The vast ocean between us seemed to cause him to stop, but I’ll never know what would have happened if I’d stayed in London. And the experience changed me. I’ve been incredibly careful of what I share on social media or in interviews ever since then. I still find myself feeling anxious every time I appear at a festival or a book signing. And frankly, I’m done with it. I want to live a life that’s full and rich—not one that runs on fear. So writing The Close-Up was a way to take control of my own narrative again. My experience taught me to trust my gut and to not be so damned worried about appearing melodramatic. To go to the police immediately and make a fuss when there’s a threat. Zoe’s experience is fictional and wildly different from mine, but all her feelings come from real experience. Because as Zoe says: “If you’re not going to tell the absolute truth in fiction, where all truth can be denied, what’s the f*&king point?” *** View the full article

Authors are some of the most dangerous people to date. Not because we’re any more likely to break your heart, and not even because many of us happen to know gory, murderous details that might make even the most hardened criminals queasy (all for the sake of book research, of course). No, the real reason authors are dangerous is that, if you hurt us, we will write about you. Sometimes, we will go as far as to turn you into a character in one of our books—and kill you. I constantly find myself asking just how honest I’m allowed to be in my books, whether it’s ethical to write characters inspired by people I know, and where to draw the line between fact and fiction. But what are authors meant to do, if not take what wounds us and reshape it on the page? Where can we find inspiration, if not in our own lived experiences? How are we meant to understand ourselves and the world around us if we can’t write truthfully? For me, telling stories inspired by my own life is not a choice as much as a necessity: writing is how I process everything that happens to me, good or bad. So, naturally, when I had a romantic experience go sour a few years ago, my first instinct was to turn to pen and paper. You see, the person I was with turned out not to be who he’d said he was. As in, at all. We first met on a dating app, and there was an instant connection. He was a few years older than me. He lived abroad and traveled often for work, which was how he found himself in my city. After our first whirlwind encounter, I thought we might never talk to each other again, but even after he returned home, he made a point to stay in touch through texts, Snapchat, Instagram—you name it, and he was there, messaging me at all hours. What followed was a seven-month situationship during which we talked constantly and traveled to meet each other halfway. I was starting to think this could become something more serious by the time the pandemic hit in March of 2020, which was when everything changed. Our upcoming travel plans were canceled. Communication with this handsome fella became more distant, and I started to feel unsettled by the sudden change in our dynamic. I had a feeling there was something wrong—something that perhaps I had failed to notice before—so I did a deep search into him online. Of course, I had googled this guy before (as I strongly recommend doing if you’re dating someone new!) but I hadn’t found anything of note. Only his LinkedIn profile, social media accounts, and some old articles from when he did sports back in college. Upon diving into more hidden parts of the internet, however, I stumbled upon a wedding registry at Pottery Barn—one with his name on it. Yes, this man was in fact engaged. He was planning a wedding and had spent months lying to me about his relationship status, his plans for the future, and even his real age. It took me a while to get over the shock. I couldn’t wrap my head around why he had done any of this. More than that, I couldn’t understand how I had been so naïve. I’d never thought of myself as someone who could be fooled easily. I was no stranger to online dating, so it wasn’t like I hadn’t taken the normal precautions of 1) making sure the other person is real, 2) doing a basic bit of research on them, and 3) ensuring they’re not some sort of psychopath. I just never anticipated someone could lie to my face like that, never imagined any of this could happen in real life. Once the dust settled a bit, my mind automatically turned to writing. I needed to do what I always do: process this experience by talking about it in one of my books, and so I created a protagonist who shares more than a few commonalities with me. My adult debut, I Might Be in Trouble, follows David Alvarez, an author in his mid-twenties who meets a handsome stranger on a dating app—a stranger who, after a whirlwind evening of barhopping, winds up dead in bed next to the main character. Completely terrified that he may have actually killed his date, David chooses to call the one person he trusts in a moment of crisis: his literary agent, Stacey, who has some… ideas about how to deal with the dead body. And this would all be fine, if it wasn’t because of the secret identity the dead guy was hiding—an identity shaped by the lies told by someone I once knew, and which might just complicate everything for David and Stacey. Now, while I have never found a dead body in my bed, working on this book was a cathartic experience. Writing about these characters helped me move on from this whole situation—and I genuinely feel an odd sense of poetic justice after killing a character inspired by someone who once hurt me. I strongly believe that, as authors, we own our own experiences, and we have a right to shape them into books. I also believe that we have a responsibility to protect the identity of the real individuals who inspire our stories, whether we feel fondly about them… or not. As for where exactly to draw the line between fact and fiction? Well, I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is this: authors have more power than you might think, so be cautious before dating one of us. And, if you absolutely must date an author, then think twice before betraying us, because we can and most definitely will kill you (in fiction, of course). *** View the full article

When I sat down to write a crime novel set in Queens, New York, I did a quick look over my shoulder to see if I was stepping on anyone’s toes—or standing on their shoulders. After all, it is impossible to write a dark mystery set in Manhattan without acknowledging the work of Lawrence Block. Or Ed McBain. Rex Stout. Chester Himes. Donald Westlake. And so on. It’s a crowded field. But Manhattan is only one of the five boroughs. There are scores of writers who have covered the streets of Brooklyn. Reed Farrel Coleman channels his admiration for Block with his Moe Prager series. Jimmy Breslin brought a lighter sensitivity with his send-up of Joey Gallo and fellow mobsters in The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Tim O’Mara goes for the heart with the struggles of the young in Williamsburg. Julia Dahl’s debut novel, Invisible City, explores the Hasidic Brooklyn community and makes some hair-raising revelations. And, of course, Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, a crime novel, a thriller, and a deep exploration of the wider meaning of investigation. But of late, I am drawn to William Boyle, the author of Gravesend, which is a really cool name for a thriller, but is also a neighborhood in south Brooklyn. Boyle’s hometown. It is the first in a series of half a dozen books all centered there. Boyle reveals the city through the complicated lives of his conflicted characters. Brooklyn sucks them in when they need to escape, or draws them back when they think they’ve made their break. Disasters inevitably arise out of inconsequential actions, impossible to avoid. The books are dark, but the characters are heartbreaking—and unforgettable. In the long ago of my college years, I often visited the Poe Cottage in the Bronx to commune with his spirit. Poe moved there to give his ailing wife a quiet environment, free from the noise and pollution of city life. Fordham was mostly farmland back then. Today, it’s fairly noisy and no cleaner than the rest of New York. Poe wrote “Annabel Lee” and other works there. So, what about the Bronx? Haven’t all the great crime writers of New York written Bronx stories? Where did Puzo’s Michael Corleone shoot Solozzo? Mario’s Restaurant on Arthur Avenue, though they moved it to Louis Restaurant in the movie. S.S. Dine’s Philo Vance investigated a murder in the Bronx in The Dragon Murder Case. Rex Stout sent Archie to the Bronx. Jimmy Breslin placed his dark novel Forsaking All Others in the South Bronx. Lawrence Block travels uptown with both Matt Scudder and Kit Tolliver, though not in the same book. Richard Price’s The Whites is one of the darker tales I’ve read to take place there. The day I read it—and I did finish it the day I brought it home—I was sure I had just found the award winning book of the year. Crooked cops fighting a losing battle, sad crooks all too ready to sell themselves—or their sister—for another hit of heroin, surrounded by a town that doesn’t seem to care about any of them. But my personal favorite Bronx tale is a crime novel, an adventure story, and a sad coming of age story. The Warriors by Sol Yurick, written in the mid-60’s and filmed twice, begins in Van Courtlandt Park, where gangs of mostly teenagers and young adults are brought together by a charismatic leader for a meeting of all the gangs of New York. The leader is murdered, the meeting is raided by the police, and everyone scatters. The story follows the exploits of a group of youths from a South Brooklyn gang—most Black and Latino—as they journey through the city to get back to their own turf. They travel through the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn on their way to Coney Island. The only borough they don’t hit is Staten Island. Neither movie does the book justice, but isn’t that always the way? It’s a haunting, suspenseful story with great characters and though almost sixty years old, it still captures the gritty feel for the City. Staten Island. The forgotten borough. Though it is home to many Brooklyn ex-pats, some of whom are undoubtedly mob associates, it is mostly the semi-suburban home of New York City’s firemen, policemen, and professional city workers. On the surface at any rate, it is a quiet enclave, lacking much of the drama found everywhere else in the City. Except. S. J. Rozan’s Absent Friends explores the death, and the mysteries of the life, of a Fire Department Captain who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Captain McCaffrey was a hero to his family and friends even before that terrible day. But sometime after his death, with the City still in shatters, a reporter suggests the man was somehow involved in a decades-old murder with connections to the mob. The story is told from multiple perspectives, revealing how the events of that day affected everyone, even in the “safe” enclave of Staten Island. And so we come full circle to Queens. Queens gets a bad rap—even from people who live there. Archie Bunker lived in Queens. Lots of little houses. Not much happens there. And yet… The borough of Queens is the most ethnically diverse community on the planet. More than one hundred and thirty distinct languages are spoken there. English is number one, but over half of the people speak a second language at home. Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, and Hindi are the most popular. But the U.S. census has an abbreviated list of unique cultural backgrounds, so that my Uber driver, Mohammed from Yemen, is tossed in with folks from Japan or Thailand or Mongolia. Pretty much name a country in the world and Queens has an outpost, complete with groceries, restaurants, religious centers, and street fairs. And criminals. This diversity provides excitement, color, and humor as one set of cultural norms bumps up against another. There are also gangs, organized and not-so, that control human trafficking, massage parlors, gambling, drugs, extortion (or, as it is known in certain circles, protection), and the odd bit of arson or theft. They, too, span the globe. And there are politicians for sale, real estate developers who make fortunes bending rules to the breaking point, lawyers who prey upon the people they are supposed to be serving, and con men of all sizes, sexes, and backgrounds. So why when I do an internet search for MYSTERY WRITERS in QUEENS NY do I get Ellery Queen and Agatha Christie (The Queen of Mystery) and not much else? With all this delicious ammunition, and a plethora of writers (do a search for WRITERS in QUEENS NY and the list scrolls on and on), why do so few crime fiction writers focus on this fertile ground? Love the Stranger is the second book in a series that began with the award-winning Tower of Babel. I am working on the third book now. *** View the full article

Opening scene - Introduces protagonist, setting, tone, and core wounds. At any given moment at least twenty-two thousand particles float in the air around you. On the second Monday in April, 1998, these translucent menaces encircled Cap and I like vultures, shoulder's back and perched to dive. All day it felt like the flowering trees of spring erupted at our fingertips, coy pinks pushing past woebegone whites. We ran in circles playing zombies. But when dusk descended those menaces materialized, surrounding us in a thousand motley shapes. I put my hands in the air. "We surrender!" Cap stared and put his pointer finger up (Boink!). I don’t know if he saw the particles or just happened to poke the air at the right time. That’s one of the many rare things about Cap: he’s semi-clairvoyant. Like, he’s tapped into some other realm, but only partially. He still picks his nose, for example, definitely an our realm sort of thing. The first time I noticed the particles I sat on the foot of Cap’s bed. His electric blue carpet matched the flawless sky and I felt as though the bits formed a gateway of sorts. Portal, if you will. I’m a bit obsessed with them. I stood and stuck my head through the ring like a goose. Expecting to disappear; or, at the very least, pretending to expect. I should say, at the easily-forgotten age of eleven my ability to believe in anything like magic already bordered non-existent. Often these particles vanish as quickly as they appear. They scattered especially quickly when our mom coughed (Mff, ack!). Quite a few times I caught sight of them in a passing wind, dangling in the kitchen or soaring through with the sun. But that hack filled our house like a heavy perfume, vanquishing everything (Mff! Mff! ack!). Sometimes, though, these little guys stick around—heaving themselves across that sound you hear when all else is silent. Needless to say, I didn’t disappear into a magical realm, I just stood there with my neck out, relieved no one was there to see it. But the particles were never menacing until that Monday evening. Whatever happens on a Monday night? Even our old brick house felt haunted. Mostly because it was hard not to think of her. That’s probably what we went there to do. Think of her, pay respects, as they say, like respect is a form of currency you can offload. I stared up at her old window as Cap ran circles around me. For what felt like hours into days Caroline laid near completely still in her bedroom. It was as though time didn’t exist. With, at intervals, of course, that relentless cough. When I dared to peek in her bedroom she almost always rested on her side, staring vacantly at the green and white swirling wallpaper. It was easy to imagine her still there. Have you ever seen the Andrew Wyeth painting, Day Dream? A woman lies still in an almost entirely white room. She is sprawled across a bed, naked. You can’t tell if she is sleeping or dreaming. A sheer sheet shelters her from the rest of the room and, in this cocoon, she passes time. Anyway, that was my mom. I thought perhaps her occupation was the same as this beautiful woman in this beautiful painting.

Assignment one In Aliquippa, Mae Brehany is the protagonist. As she prepares to graduate high school and contemplates what to do next Mae decides the only way forward is bringing her father to justice. After he left her family when Mae was in elementary school her mother slid into a debilitating depression she never quite recovered from. While leaving Mae and younger brother Cap to reach for the peanut butter and jelly in the pantry she would lay in bed and stare out the windows for hours. Her mother’s untimely death confirms Mae’s desire and she sets out on a road trip that she thinks is to find her father and make him face the wake of his departure. Assignment Two In Mae’s first person narrative her father is the antagonist. First, he left the family when Mae was still in elementary school. This ultimately death led to her mother’s spiraling depression prior to her terminal illness. Mae’s father is more often presented in the novel as a non-present character. He is presented through her memories and the impact he had on others. Ultimately he was a person unable to sit with hard things, unable to sit with his own shame and the difficulties of raising two young children- one severely autistic with a wife who struggled with a mood disorder and left. Ultimately Mae wrote her father off early for herself but can’t let go of what he did to her mother. Mae’s goal in life from a young age is to capture her mother’s attention, as her mother drifts into a deeper depression after her father leaves, this makes him the ultimate enemy as her mother becomes less accessible prior to dying. Mae’s father is also somehow very elusive. First he moves from the first address she finds for him leading her on a further chase across the country, eluding her a second time and extending the setting for the novel across the entire country. However we realize as the audience that while Mae focuses all her anger on her father perhaps her mother, Caroline, is the real antagonist for Mae, forever making her work for crumbs of attention and raising her brother alone. Assignment Three Aliquippa How long is impossible In the air around you Assignment Four The astonishing color of after by Emily X.R. Pan for incorporating young adult genre and contemporary fiction with magical realism. Jandy Nelson - When the world tips over A history of love Nicole Krauss - Nicole Krauss for the honest first person narrative and simplistic childlike way of dealing with grief and loss. Assignment Five After graduating high school Mae Brehany can’t think of any way to move on with her life except avenging her dead mom by finding her deadbeat dad and forcing him to face what he left behind. Assignment 6 Primary conflict: The large conflict exists between the core wound Mae has from the abandonment of her father and the neglect of her mother. She has taken on the core wound of her mother’s abandonment to confront her father and her mind; this is the core conflict. To find her father and bring him to justice through forcing him to face his shame at leaving them and what it did to them. However, the true conflict is hidden from her until the end when she realizes her core wound goes even deeper and deals with why her mother could not see beyond her own depression to give her and her brother what they need. It addresses her resentment at her mother’s inability to rise out of her depression and realizing that this is not actually Mae’s fault, or perhaps, even her father’s. And yet, it is one that can be forgiven. At the end of the novel Mae realizes that her father has already been brought to justice by the cruel vagaries of illness and she no longer needs to be the hammer that confronts him. She stands up having crossed the country to realize that neight her father’s leaving nor her mother’s depression were her fault. That the responsibility to avenge her mother was not her own. She can now move on with her life as a young adult acknowledging these truths. (of course this may be a lesson she has to learn again and again in her life. It’s one she feels victorious of at the end) Secondary conflict There are multiple secondary conflicts throughout the book as Mae goes across the country and meets many characters that force her to see new aspects of herself. First she has to leave her younger brother Cap who she has been in a codependent relationship with as his primary caregiver since she was young. She develops her first crush on a girl. She has sex for the first time (with a boy). She attempts to deliver a hitchhiker from her abusive boyfriend only to drop her off when the girl wants to go back. She finds and adopts a new dog and then has to care for him after he is bitten by a rattlesnake. She meets her father’s sister and she forces her to try to see her father’s story from another perspective. Perhaps the largest of the secondary conflicts is Mae’s relationship with her childhood friend Dylan who has had a crush on Mae since they were kids and who Mae has yet to acknowledge that she may also have feelings for. Setting As a road trip novel the setting is varied and changing. It starts out in the small run down blue collar city of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania which causes Mae to ruminate on the nature of roots and how shallow many people in Aliquippa’s relationship with their own roots are compared to the native people that lived on the land before them. The name of Aliquippa is a good jumping off point to these ruminations as it is named after the native queen who met George Washington and about whom much is speculated but little actually known. The setting then shifts to the midwest as Mae attempts to find her father only to realize he moved some years before to the west coast. This changes the setting yet again as she goes through the prairie and stays there for a time before romping through the desert to combat wildlife and finally ending up on the verdant shores of Washington State, in another blue collar small town, for her final showdown with herself. In each setting Mae has some interaction with the animals and vegetation of the place. Perhaps one of my final settings to write is one I’ve spent a lot of time in and that’s long term care. I know many people would put this as one of their least favorite places to go and live. And I get it I don’t want to live in a long term care facility as many of them exist in the US at this point either and yet they are verdant grounds for people confronting their lifelong demons, saying the most inane and vulnerable things to strangers and in the case of Mae’s story is where she meets her father’s father and realizes he knows who she is and that her father is in deed living in the facility as well. ‘ Of course the care and the road and I-80 itself is the setting. The thing I loved thinking about I-80 as I was writing was that unlike other highways that cross the US, I-80 actually began outwest and returned east. Which is ultimately perhaps going to be the second part of Mae’s journey which I am open to writing as a sequel.

“Your stance is still too spread out, Kate,” Hassland said, snapping my ankles with his wooden sword like he was a gods-damned prison warden. “Do that one more time and I swear-” I began to growl, just as he swiped again for my ankle, hitting his mark a second before I could pull it away. I stumbled to the side, catching myself with my own wooden sword to keep from toppling into the dirt. Hassland gave me an amused smile. “See. Told you your stance was too wide.” I glared at my brother as I propped myself back up, shuffling my feet closer together this time. He paid no mind to my scowl, the expression more common on my face nowadays than a smile. His brown eyes were still narrowed at my feet. “It still doesn’t look right. Do you always stand that way?” “Hassland,” I barked, snapping him out of his focus. He held up his hands in defeat and turned back towards the elegant ebony manor that loomed behind us. “Right. Sorry. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. Have you seen Father today by the way? He wasn’t even at breakfast.” Hassland was still staring at the House of Hands, as if asking the building instead of me. He was distracted. He’d been distracted all morning. That or infuriatingly focused on one insignificant, stupid thing, like my fighting stance. “No. And why do you care?” “Dunno. I just-” He paused, scratching the back of his head, his eyes still glued to the manor, to the exact window that belonged to my father’s study. Which was dark. Like it had been all week. “He’s just been gone a lot more recently, don’t you think?” “I don’t know, Hassland,” I sighed, my mind now just as distracted as his as I picked at a piece of mud that’d found itself crusted to one of my blades. “Honestly, I find it peaceful. No reason to question it.” “I guess,” Hassland said softly, turning back to me. But that was Hassland. He had to question everything. Stick his nose in everything. And it’d only ever gotten him in trouble. “Can we just get back to sparring? It’s hot and I’d rather not spend any more time out here than I have to.” “Yeah, sorry,” Hassland mumbled, turning back to me. His gaze lit up as it crossed my feet. “Hey, your stance looks better!” Every bit of strength I had kept me from rolling my eyes. Instead, I just gave him a forced smile, not eager to have his laser focus turned back onto my footwork. Even if I hadn’t moved an inch since he last glanced at me. For the next hour, we hardly spoke, only spun and ducked and jabbed at each other, taking a second only to breathe or pull ourselves back up off the ground. It was after one particularly long sparring match that I finally got a hit on Hassland. He’d miscalculated my speed, assuming I wouldn’t have enough time to twist out of his swipe for my right side. But I had, and I came back swinging for his left side now exposed. I’d like to say I hit him harder than I’d meant to, but quite frankly, that’d be a lie. After the two raps at my ankle and the several more whacks I’d received during our sparring match, I’d been a little too pleased to finally get to show him how much a wooden sword could actually hurt. He barely had time to breathe out the word, “shit” as he doubled over, the air squeezed from his lungs like water from a wet rag. “King of Reih, Katerina, don't you think that was a bit hard for training?” Hassland said, his voice a pathetic mix between a wheeze and a whisper. “Sorry, it got away from me.” “Liar,” he mused, his face still contorted in pain as he rubbed his side. I didn’t bother defending myself. I only dusted off the wooden practice blades that almost perfectly matched my steel ones slung across my bed right now. “Katerina,” our father’s voice cut through the sound of men sparring around us, making me jump. “The king is here asking for you.” Both Hassland and I tensed. I whipped my head around to face our father, but before I could open my mouth to ask why, he cut me off with a sharp wave of his hand. "Don’t keep him waiting,” Father said, his tone about as warm and lively as a four-day-old corpse. So much for his peaceful absence I’d been growing to enjoy.

Hello, from John Farrington. Here is the opening chapter to UNKNOWN DIRECTION. It introduces a major antagonist and the core wound. UNKNOWN DIRECTION OPENING CHAPTERS 1-2.docx

_Alice. Talk to me. Whatever it is, we will get through this, like we always have. You are not alone._ My psychiatrist told me this during our last session at his office in downtown Los Angeles. It was around eight o’clock on the morning of November 9th. I was lying supine on a tufted sofa, elbows at my sides, the sun shining fiercely in the sky. I called him Stein, though everyone else referred to him as Dr. Costen. He was trying to peel my brain, tinker with my defective mind like he had done so many times before. But that day, for the first time, he couldn’t get what he wanted from me. Not a damn thing. The thought comes to me as the taxi lurches forward, its engine growling in protest as we crawl through the streets of Kenwood. My stomach knots tighter with every mile, the familiar landscape rising up, swallowing me whole. Ten years—ten long years since I left this city behind, yet the weight of it presses down on me, cold and sharp, like it never really let me go. The cab windows fog slightly from the heat, turning the view outside into a hazy blur of redbrick, iron railings, and graffiti-scrawled alleyways. I press a finger to the glass, wiping a streak clear, but the scene beyond is just as muted as before, like I’m looking through a dirty lens. I’m back. Chicago hasn’t changed much, or maybe I just can’t see beyond my thoughts. The taxi bumps over a pothole, jostling me, and I glance out at the snow-choked streets, the slush grinding under the tires. We pass sagging three-story walkups, their bricks darkened by decades of soot and salt, the kind of buildings that lean into the wind like they’re bracing for another bitter winter. Even the air smells the same—burnt pretzels from a street cart mixing with diesel and old snow. It’s a smell that sticks to your clothes, a reminder that this place never lets you forget. The driver glances at me in the rearview, his eyes shadowed under a Cubs cap, but I ignore him, watching the familiar landmarks spring out at me, dragging me into memories I thought I’d buried. There—on the corner of South Drexel—the liquor store. That cursed store Janice stumbled out of more times than I can count, her breath sour with bourbon, her eyes glazed like she didn’t know she had daughters waiting for her at home. Or maybe she did, and that was the problem. She’d come back with bottles, enough to last a week if she paced herself, but she never did. She was always trying to drown something out, a scream inside her that we could never hear but felt in every slap, in every cruel word, in every night she didn’t come home. I always wondered what she was trying to silence, what desperate scream echoed in her head, the one that none of us could hear but all of us felt. It doesn’t matter now, does it? The cab hits another pothole, and my hand skids over the cracked leather seat, catching on a split seam. I dig my fingers into the torn cushion, feeling the damp foam underneath—spongy and cold. It reminds me of decay, of flesh eaten from the inside out, and suddenly, I see Janice in that hospital bed, her skin yellowed, her breath rasping like broken glass. I swallow hard, forcing the memory back down, but it sticks in my throat, sharp and bitter. I tell myself I’m OK. We roll past my old high school. Kenwood Academy. The bricks are darker now, streaked with time and neglect, but it’s still the same place. I can see myself there, in the gymnasium after we’d sneak out of class, fueled on our juvenile highs. My crew was here—Doug, Robyn, Heather—juveniles with dreams bigger than this city, bigger than their broken homes. And then there was Mark. I haven’t thought about him in years––a forced proposition––but the sight of the school hits me like a punch to the chest, sharp and sudden. We were so young, stupid with love, or whatever we thought love was. I was just a kid, and so was he, but we clung to each other like lifelines, like we could drag each other out of this place. He made me feel like I mattered in a world that didn’t want us. He had all these big ideas, dreams of traveling the world. He’d talk about it endlessly—Monaco, always Monaco for some reason. I force a laugh, imagining him there now, maybe living that life. Maybe with someone who wasn’t so broken, someone he didn’t have to save, someone who didn’t just… disappear. I left him with no warning. One day I was there, under the Belmont Overpass, his lips on mine, his hands in my deep brown hair, and the next, I was gone—on a plane to London, leaving behind everything we’d built in those short few years, or thought we had. I tell myself he’s forgotten me, that he’s too smart, too driven to hold on to someone who shattered him the way I did. Maybe he’s in Monaco right now, drinking his martinis, laughing with a beautiful blonde. And he’s long since wiped me from his mind. That thought—it brings me comfort. He deserves to forget me. He deserves better. The cab jerks to a sudden stop, slamming me forward. My hands hit the cold plastic partition with a thud, the impact vibrating up my arms. For a second, I sit there, frozen, the stale heat of the cab pressing against my skin. My heart is racing, my breath shallow. I glance up, and the driver is staring at me through the rearview mirror. His gaze lingers, steady, searching, and it sends a prickle of unease across my skin. What does he want? Why is he looking at me like that? “You need help with your bags?” he asks finally, his voice rough, gravelly, but not unfriendly. “No,” I say. “I’ve got it.” He nods, his face unreadable, then shifts back in his seat, staying where it’s warm. He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel his eyes on me as I open the door. The cold hits me instantly, sharp and brutal, searing my lungs. It’s the kind of cold that doesn’t just skim the surface—it burrows deep, sinking into your bones. My boots crunch against the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk, and I pause for a moment. I’m not ready for this. For any of it. The building is right in front of me, redbrick and solid, its windows dark and empty. My chest tightens, and I can feel the weight of it—the why. The reason I’m here. I move to the trunk, pulling my bag out with numb fingers. The handle is icy, and it stings, but I barely feel it. I can’t feel much of anything right now. The driver is still watching me, his face half-hidden in shadow, but I don’t look at him. I don’t say goodbye. I just turn away, dragging my bag behind me as the wheels catch and stick in the snow. My toes are already numb in my heels, and I curse myself for being stupid enough to wear them. Eight years in Los Angeles have mollycoddled me. I’d forgotten how this kind of cold doesn’t just sting. The weight of it all—this place, this moment—is crushing. And yet, I keep walking.

Opening scene - introduces protagonist and secondary character, sets tone, foreshadows primary conflict, core setting “Let’s get this over with,” Maggie Caldwell said under her breath as she smoothed her pink silk shirt and sat down beside Pete on her living room sofa for an interview with Joyce Evans from Good Evening America. “Your job is to show Pete’s softer side,” the lead consultant from Re:Imagine, the brand reputation agency they had hired for the apology tour, told her. “We need America to see Pete as a family man, with a beautiful wife and two perfect children. You are warm, you are forgiving, and you are supportive.” Maggie mustered a smile at the “beautiful wife” part. She took wins where she could get them these days. Their six bedroom Victorian house—the dream house they had purchased and renovated the year before—had turned into a war room. Their long oak dining table was peppered with laptops, and PR people wearing earbuds paced around the house shouting about “exclusives” and “impressions” and “influencer strategies.” That morning, Maggie had suffered through four hours of media training, during which a team of lawyers and publicists told her exactly what to say and how to say it (“Too cheerful. Too serious. Too confident. Not confident enough. Smile!”). They dressed her, slathered her face in makeup, glued fake lashes to her eyelids one by one using tiny tweezers, and directed her every move. “You should be touching Pete the whole time,” a baby-faced image consultant named Chaz told her. Of course his name is Chaz. “Hand on his leg, arms brushing, just some kind of physical contact at all times. When they ask a tough question and Pete starts to answer, reach for his hand. Not in a ‘You need my help with this’ kind of way, and definitely not in a ‘Don’t say that’ kind of way, but more in a ‘You’re doing great and I’ll love you forever’ kind of way. Make sense?” Maggie would almost certainly love Pete forever, but it was hard to forgive this misstep. She had sacrificed a lot, including her own career as a journalist, in order to make his dream of playing for the National Baseball League come true. Now, only two years later, it was all slipping away because of a stupid mistake. The Atlanta Daily Paper article was still spread out on the kitchen counter. She had memorized the front page: A large photo of Pete smiling up at the stadium lights right after he hit a record-breaking home run, accompanied by the headline “NBL’S GOLDEN BOY PETE CALDWELL PERMANENTLY BANNED FOR STEROIDS.” The story was so long it continued on two more pages. This was the first crackdown since the NBL had enacted its new zero-tolerance doping policy, and it was clear the commissioner of baseball intended to make an example out of Pete and the Atlanta Hammers. According to the Caldwell family’s official statement, it wasn’t steroids Pete had taken, but “supplements designed to improve muscle recovery.” Maggie hadn’t even asked him for the whole story—she had her suspicions and didn’t want them confirmed. Besides, he would broach the subject if he really wanted her to know.

IN DECEMBER 1983, WHEN THE COCAINE era was in full ascent, the movie Scarface was released in theaters around the United States. At the time, the organization of Falcon and Magluta was annually bringing in roughly $100 million. To celebrate their success, the core members of the organization, along with their wives and girlfriends, every year traveled from Miami to Las Vegas for a week of gambling, floor shows, and a massive New Year’s Eve party at Caesers Palace Hotel and Casino. One afternoon in late December, Falcon and eight members of his group went to see Scarface. The making of the movie had touched off a controversy in their hometown of Miami, where it was felt that the depiction of Cuban exiles as narcos was slanderous. Willy Falcon, following the lead of more formal exile organizations like the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), forbid any of his gang from taking part in the production. Consequently, the movie was shot primarily in Los Angeles, using that city as a stand-in for Miami. That afternoon in the Las Vegas movie theater, Falcon and his group found Scarface to be highly entertaining. They hooted and hollered during the outlandish depictions of cocaine violence and mayhem. They laughed at Al Pacino’s thick Marielito accent. The movie was so cartoonish in its attempts to dramatize the cocaine business—but with enough verisimilitude that the Boys were able to identify with it—that they were even flattered. They didn’t take it seriously. They thought it was a joke. But they could see that their lives were being elevated into the zeitgeist, and the movie offered the possibility of a kind of cinematic immortality. Later came Miami Vice, another popular depiction of the city’s narco universe. Produced by the NBC network, the show debuted in 1984 and ran for five seasons. Along with the crime stories revolving around the cocaine underworld, the show was highly attuned to surface pleasures of Miami: the pastel colors, Armani suits, sleek powerboats that were right out of the Willy and Sal story, and popular rock, R&B, and Latin music. Miami Vice defined cool in the 1980s and suggested that it was all an extension of the city’s illicit cocaine universe. Part of what made these works of popular entertainment so influential was that they appeared to be straight from the headlines. Movies depicting Prohibition had been popular, but they came years and even decades after the era they were depicting. Scarface and Miami Vice portrayed a phenomenon in real time, as it was happening, making those who were caught up in it feel as though they were living a dream. In the decades that followed came many more movies and television dramas that used the cocaine universe for their storylines. Many took their cues from Scarface. Colombian, Cuban, and later Mexican narcos were invariably depicted as sociopaths or flat-out psychopaths in a business that politicians and people in law enforcement characterized as “evil.” If there was to be a presentation of the cocaine business in entertainment or even in real life—through reports on the television news—it was invariably steeped in violence. “Say hello to my little friend,” Tony Montana’s business motto in Scarface, was a prelude to violent mythmaking, and that seemed to be the way the American public was primed to receive any and all stories related to the cocaine business. As is usually the case, the reality was more complicated. For most of its existence, Willy Falcon and Los Muchachos’ operations in the cocaine world involved little violence. The Boys did not seek to eliminate rivals through murder and intimidation. They did not punish their members internally with torture or killing or even the threat of killing. They did not pull out chain saws, à la Scarface. They did not mow down hordes of partygoers with Uzi submachine guns. It was true that the world in which they were operating was a violent one. The narcosphere, as it was sometimes called, involved violence from top to bottom. Lowly street dealers used violence, and so did Pablo Escobar, believed in the 1980s to be the Godfather of the business. And yet, the example of Los Muchachos suggests that it was possible to succeed at a high level without a reputation for murder—especially if your forte was importation and distribution, not dog-eat-dog entrepreneurship at the retail level. (1) The story of Los Muchachos shows that it was not violence that was the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption. Dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians feeding off the profits of the narcosphere is what made the world go round. This existed at every level of the business, in every country, state, and city where kilos of coke passed through grubby hands on its way to and up the nostrils of the consumer. Falcon and Magluta played this game. With what seemed like unlimited resources, they bought off representatives of the system, from a county sheriff who made it possible for them to land their product at a clandestine airstrip, to a high-level money launderer who became the president of a country. Corruption represents a human failing. It is usually practiced by people who, out of need, convenience, or necessity, choose to violate the principles by which they claim to live their life. When it comes to corruption, greed is the most obvious culprit, stemming from a celebration of wealth, avarice, and the accumulation of more and more and more. Sometimes a person takes illegal payoffs to pay for a friend’s or relative’s medical costs, to deal with a family crisis, to put a kid through college. Whatever the reason, corruption as a shortcut to the American dream became an operating principle that would turn the cocaine business of the 1980s into the most lucrative illegal endeavor on the planet. THE NARCOSPHERE IS NOT A physical place; it is a realm of operation, and a state of mind. It spans sovereign boundaries, physical space, borders, and political jurisdictions. Bolivia and Peru, where the coca plant is grown and cultivated, are parts of the narcosphere, as is Colombia, where the plant is processed into cocaine hydrocholoride. For a long time, Panama City served as the central money-laundering domain of the narcosphere. The Caribbean islands, and later Mexico—which would become the preeminent region of transshipment—have been and are corridors of the narcosphere. The United States of America, the primary marketplace for the product, with more users of cocaine than anywhere else in the world, is arguably the engine that runs the entire operation. Regional players—narcos, cokeheads, drug mules, people in law enforcement, judges, politicians, distributers, dealers, citizens who look the other way—are all participants in this field of illegal commerce that still thrives in the present day. For more than a decade, Falcon and his partners not only operated within this world but also succeeded at it to a degree that was unprecedented. In the years since this story was in the headlines, some would rather minimize and diminish its significance to the point where one of the prosecutors of Willy and Sal, in an interview for this book, made the statement, “Falcon and Magluta were probably the most successful and biggest drug dealers in South Florida, but they weren’t into importing drugs. They were receiving the drugs from smuggling gangs, and then they would distribute it, but they weren’t im- porting.” This is a breathtakingly erroneous statement from someone who prosecuted Los Muchachos. As you will see from reading this book, Willy and Sal brokered major importation deals from around the narcosphere. In lore and legend, they have been portrayed as Cuban American playboys, high school dropouts, and amateurs who stumbled onto a hot property and exploited its popularity throughout the Dionysian era of the 1980s. There is much more to this story than has been previously known. Partly, this is because Falcon and his closest associates have never talked about or been interviewed on the subject—until now. Back in the day, when they were facing prosecution, it was not in their interest to talk openly and honestly for the record. But the passage of time has a way of rearranging priorities. Most of these people have paid their debt to society, in many cases with long prison sentences. Over the decades, Falcon and his former partners have read accounts in the press or online, or seen documentaries on television and the internet, that present a dubious version of their personal histories. Falcon, for one, has waited a long time to give his version of what happened. His willingness to do so opened the door for many others from Los Muchachos to come forward and cooperate with the writing of this book. They represent a generation of people—mostly Cuban-born or Cuban American—who got caught up in this wild era, have paid the price, and now live with the memories of their involvement in the golden age of cocaine. It is time that this story be told from the point of view of those who lived it. Certainly, from a historical perspective, these events are significant to an understanding of the American process during a time of unprecedented crime and mayhem. But it is also important to understand that many lives, on both sides of the law, became enmeshed in the events of this time, and that their experiences—which became fodder for criminal indictments and media accounts—deserve to be recounted, preserved and acknowledged on a human level. History is not simply a cavalcade of big events—wars, elections, or public policies that shape the flow of human endeavor. It is also a consequence of simple people making choices—good, bad, or indifferent—that lead them on a life-altering journey, a singular adventure that maybe shapes the times in which they live. In the case of those who composed Los Muchachos, the passage of time has shed new light on troubling personal events, unearthed deeply buried emotions, rattled the cages of ghosts, and flung open the doors of repressed recollections from long ago. ___________________________________ From the book THE LAST KILO: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire that Seduced America by T.J. English. = Copyright © 2024 by T.J. English. To be published on December 3, 2024 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. (1) After Falcon, Magluta, and eight others from their group were indicted in 1991, there were killings. There were four murders and two attempted murders of potential witnesses against Los Muchachos. It was widely speculated that these killings were related to the case of Los Muchachos, but there was never any evidence linking Falcon to any of these murders, and he was never charged. Magluta was later charged and found not guilty on all murder counts. View the full article

Peyton Collard, the protagonist in my new novel Deadbeat, is proving to be a character readers hate to love. A down-on-his-luck assassin who winds up investigating the very murders he’s committed, Peyton is the latest in a long line of simultaneously compelling and repulsive antiheroes. Is our fascination with antiheroes a consequence of living in a world of increasing complexity, where the line between good and bad is increasingly seen as a question of perspective? Or have we always loved deeply flawed protagonists? Antiheroes challenge our traditional notions of heroism, and their morally ambiguous or outright villainous perspectives compel readers to see the world through a corrupted lens. Are we fascinated by the distortion? Do we secretly yearn to be free of the morality that constrains our decisions? Or do we engage with these characters because their hopelessness makes the prospect of redemption even more dramatic? Let’s take a closer look at some of the most popular literary antiheroes to see why they fascinate us so. TYLER DURDEN – FIGHT CLUB BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK Tyler Durden is charismatic, anarchistic, and ruthlessly destructive. His philosophy of dismantling consumerist culture appeals to a visceral yearning for freedom, one that has arguably all but been destroyed by the victory of capitalist consumerism over all competing ideologies, but his methods—cult-like manipulation and terrorism—are repugnant. It is natural to recoil from his violence, but his philosophy provokes admiration and is still lionised by certain online communities. The final judgment on Tyler as a protagonist is perhaps best delivered within the book itself as a twist that both shocks the reader and leaves them with a sense of loss. PATRICK BATEMAN – AMERICAN PSYCHO BY BRET EASTON ELLIS Any parent who has been exposed to the ‘Sigma mindset’ will be familiar with Christian Bale’s performance as Patrick Bateman. The character has become a popular shorthand for ruthless success and memes of Bale’s Bateman are widely shared among children and teenagers who have no real idea who he is. Bateman was the shallow, bloodthirsty investment banker whose successful persona hides a psychopathic killer. The embodiment of capitalist excess, he is materialistic, narcissistic, and devoid of empathy. His violent acts are revolting, yet Ellis’s dark humor and Bateman’s self-awareness make him a compelling character, and we’re left wondering whether we despise him or the society that spawned him. AMY DUNNE – GONE GIRL BY GILLIAN FLYNN Amy Dunne is a master manipulator, whose meticulous planning and sociopathic tendencies make her chillingly unlikable. However, Amy’s sharp intelligence and her journey offer incisive commentary on the societal pressures on women. Her single-minded pursuit of her objectives forces readers to appreciate her brilliance even as they recoil from her actions. HEATHCLIFF – WUTHERING HEIGHTS BY EMILY BRONTË When Wuthering Heights was first published, critics said the characters were rude and repulsive. There can be little doubt they were refering to Heathcliff, a brooding, vengeful figure, who dominates the book. Some readers view him as the embodiment of dark romance, but he’s actually motivated by revenge and is terribly cruel to his wife, his tenants, and even his own children. Yet somehow Brontë manages to imbue Heathcliff with a tortured vulnerability, painting him as a victim of class prejudice and unrequited love, and in doing so has created a character that has seemed more relevant and accessible with the passage of time. Heathcliff’s anguish over Catherine’s death evokes a reluctant sympathy, compelling readers to some begrudging understanding of his tragic complexity. SEVERUS SNAPE – HARRY POTTER SERIES BY J.K. ROWLING Initially portrayed as a cruel and spiteful antagonist, Snape’s character arc reveals a depth of sacrifice and love that redefines him as one of the most compelling antiheroes in modern literature. His bullying of students and obsession with Lily Potter make him unlikable, but his true motives and the secrets he carries in his heart make it impossible not to like and admire him. The lengths he will go to for love bring a tear to even the stoniest of eyes. TOM RIPLEY – THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY BY PATRICIA HIGHSMITH If Severus Snape is arguably a secret hero rather than an antihero, then Tom Ripley is simply a villain who has earned antihero status simply by being the protagonist. He starts out as a poor, ambitious young man desperate for a better life, but his envy, insecurity and avarice propel him to a series of manipulative and murderous acts. Ripley is a chameleon-like character, and Highsmith imbues him with charm, but I don’t think readers ever truly like him or root for him in the way they might for Tyler Durden, and perhaps it is the selfishness of Ripley’s ambition that makes him a less sympathetic character. LISBETH SALANDER – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO BY STIEG LARSSON Antihero or plain hero? Lisbeth Salander is a fiercely intelligent, ruthlessly effective vigilante who operates outside the bounds of law and morality. Sounds a lot like Batman, who ranks not only as a hero, but as a superhero. Perhaps Batman’s sense of morality and the lines he won’t cross keep him firmly in the hero category, while Lisbeth’s pursuit of justice against those who abuse others, often through violent means, leads her to cross the antihero line. But she’s not a villain in the way one might perceive Tom Ripely because while her methods might be brutal, her motivations stem from a deep sense of right and wrong. JAY GATSBY – THE GREAT GATSBY BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Jay Gatsby is what happens when the American Dream becomes a nightmare. His charm, wealth, and pursuit of Daisy Buchanan are engaging, but his life is empty, devoted to nothing but wealth and pleasure at all costs, and in order to sustain such a vaccuous existence, he engages in morally questionable acts, from bootlegging to lying, manipulation and outright criminality. He longs to recreate a past that perhaps never existed and is reaching for an ideal while squandering the chance to live a more fulfiling life in the real world. He is a waste, but a memorable one that has engaged readers for decades. MICHAEL CORLEONE – THE GODFATHER BY MARIO PUZO Michael Corleone starts out as a hero, and it is perhaps this initial introduction that keeps the reader rooting for him even as he degenerates into a murderer who is up to his eyeballs in blood and criminality. He retains an idealistic belief that ‘just one more year’ in the family business will give him what he needs to build a legitimate empire, but like a drug addict who lacks self-awareness, Michael can’t say no to power. He sacrifices everything, his morals, his family, and ultimately his humanity for that power. His descent is a masterful portrayal of the destructive power of self-sabotage and how greed and ambition can destroy us from within. AMANDA PHARRELL – CRIMSON LAKE SERIES BY CANDICE FOX Amanda is an enigmatic and unconventional private investigator who was convicted of a terrible crime as a teenager and has spent her adult life trying to reconcile her dark past with her pursuit of truth and justice. Her eccentric habits mask the deep scars left by her time in prison and the moral judgment of others, which continues to haunt her. Amanda operates on the edges of the law and her willingness to confront danger and use morally ambiguous means to navigate dangerous situations makes her a memorable and compelling character who doesn’t quite fit the traditional mould of heroism in crime fiction. Some antiheroes engage us more than others, and it seems the most successful of them share a pursuit of some greater good, however misguided, something that spurs them beyond a selfish objective. They also exhibit a vulnerability or some other human qualities that help us relate to them no matter how heinous their actions. *** View the full article

When I meet someone new at a party, What do you do? usually floats into the conversation at some point. The question is, on its face, eminently open to interpretation; the responses, however, on the part of both myself and my conversation partner, invariably relate to work. (Maybe I just go to the wrong types of parties.) In part, it’s the sheer amount of time we spend at our jobs. Assuming a 40-hour workweek as a baseline, work is what we do more frequently than pretty much any other activity, including potentially sleep. How much we work is in turn a function of various factors. For some, it’s out of economic necessity, which opens up a whole other discussion about wages and the cost of living and how labour should be valued. For others, it’s due to social expectations and norms around the role of work in our lives. Often, our job is more than a paycheck. It can give us a sense of purpose, structure to our days, some measure of satisfaction. It forms an important part of how we think of ourselves, as an engineer or a doctor or an urban planner—and thus here we are at parties, talking about our jobs. My novel The Rivals is about a company that helps perennially online New Yorkers figure out if the people they swipe right on are telling the truth—in newest joiner Claudia Lin’s view, an online-dating detective agency, even if no one else who works there uses any of those words. (Her former boss once told her to think of Veracity as a personal investments advisory firm.) Veracity also monitors the powerful dating platforms that their clients rely on to find love, which have proven ready to resort to deception—and worse—in their bid for the ultimate prize in the matching industry: the ability to predict compatibility. While I didn’t set out to write a workplace novel, The Rivals turned out to be a story that is very much about work. (Neither did I set out to write a mystery novel, which is a separate topic.) Claudia and her co-workers, Becks and Squirrel, compile diligence reports and undertake observations of their targets, as they refer to the people they are hired to verify. They infiltrate the matchmaker which they suspect of misusing its subscribers’ personal data for nefarious purposes, and also of murdering someone who unwittingly uncovered that secret. They argue over verifying methods and strategies for dealing with the matchmakers. Even when Claudia isn’t at work, she’s thinking about it: what the relationship between a client and the woman he’s dating is really like, if she can trust her informant, how she can find out more about the matchmakers’ plans. In one sense, that’s simply reflective of real life and how much time we spend working. But the centering of work in the narrative is also a fundamental trait of detective fiction. At its inquisitive, industrious heart, the detective novel celebrates work—in all the ways that have come under scrutiny today. Saying that COVID disrupted our work status quo might be like saying that people have been known to dress up for Halloween. It put one set of people out of work, required another set of people to continue working despite elevated health risks to themselves and their families, and erased work/non-work boundaries for a third set of people. It also, as global pandemics tend to, created conditions conducive for existential contemplation. Out of that came the Great Resignation, China’s tang ping movement and its corollary of quiet-quitting in the States, mainstream awareness of what the acronym FIRE stands for, and a slew of books and articles questioning the primacy of work in our lives and our identities. In the world of the fictional detective, meanwhile, work is everything. A crime, typically a murder, is committed, and the detective has to solve it. That’s the whole point of the story: to show how someone who’s good at their job carries out a difficult assignment. The stakes are legitimately high—in contrast to many projects in our own non-fictional workplaces, regardless of what the boss or the client might say. Further danger must be averted, any injustice redressed, victims’ loved ones provided with some measure of solace, social order restored. Perhaps that’s why the detectives we read about don’t just do their job, they are deeply invested in it. Their work is essential to their identity, how they live, the idea of who they are. (With less fully fleshed out protagonists, it can feel like that’s all they are.). Laurie King’s Kate Martinelli series, a police procedural set in 1990s and early-2000s San Francisco, is an excellent example of both workplace fiction and the workaholic detective. The first book A Grave Talent opens with the eponymous Kate being assigned to a high-profile serial killer case alongside a more senior detective, Al Hawkin, who doesn’t want to be saddled with her. It’s a work situation many of us have experienced, from either angle—fortunately for Kate, she’ll win Al over because she’s smart and competent and dedicated and overall worthy of being the protagonist of a series. An awareness of issues of gender and sexual orientation in the workplace runs through the books, which were written during the time period that they take place. Al’s initial objection to Kate is largely premised on her being a younger woman; subsequently, he’s relieved that she’s “not his type”, so it doesn’t make working together too distracting. The fact that Kate is a lesbian, in a long-term relationship, is also addressed in terms of work—she’s adamantly closeted, because she believes that being out in any way would make it too difficult for her to be a cop, despite the seismic strain it places on her relationship with her domestic partner Lee. At one point in A Grave Talent, Lee has to accept that if she forced Kate to choose, Kate would choose her job. Understanding the detective novel as a workplace novel also provides a possible reason for the increasing diversity in the ranks of our fictional detectives. As previously disenfranchised groups—women, ethnic minorities, openly queer individuals—have not only entered the workforce but taken on jobs in fields they were underrepresented in, we have seen a similar expansion within detective fiction, a broadening of possibilities for the types of characters who previously would never have gotten to play detective. In addition to Kate Martinelli, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan are accomplished female investigators who emerged in the later part of the twentieth century; and contemporary mystery fiction is rife with protagonists who look nothing like the forebears of the genre, even if they may draw inspiration from them. The Pentecost and Parker series by Stephen Spotswood and the Mossa and Pleiti series by Malka Older, for instance, are both queer, gender-swapped takes on classic sleuthing duos (Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, in one case, and Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, in the other). In The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti, the delightful space-opera cosy-mystery series by Malka Older, Mossa is a capital-i Investigator, an independent police agent, and Pleiti is an academic studying Earth’s ruined ecosystem and its possible reconstruction. They are both women, and have a complicated romantic relationship that adds depth and poignancy to their investigative dynamic. The Mossa and Pleiti books are deeply about work, the act and process of it, the significance it has for the characters and the world they live in. As a detective in the Holmesian tradition, Mossa is brilliantly logical and relentlessly focused, hellbent on unraveling whatever mystery is at hand. But Pleiti, as well, is someone whose life revolves around her work. She loves what she does and believes in the importance of her research, even if she comes to question the direction of her scholarship. Each book in the series (so far) is structured as a case that Mossa is investigating, but there is more on-the-page discussion of what Pleiti’s work involves, the different ideas that she and her colleagues are pursuing, and why they matter. The thoughtfulness with which Older treats Pleiti’s work—notwithstanding the fun she has with politics in academia, because low-hanging fruit—underscores the respect for and value accorded to work in detective fiction. A large part of our current cultural discontent with work, I think, is that it can’t be everything that we wish for. It’s incalculably rare to have an occupation that affords us existential purpose, meaningful accomplishment and satisfaction, and financial comfort. Not shifting our mindset about what work should be for us can lead to disappointment; at the same time, accepting a diminished conception of work in our lives and our identities will create resentment about how we’re frequently expected or required to devote the best parts of ourselves—time, effort, attention—to our jobs. Where does that leave us? Escaping into detective novels, perhaps, which despite their inherent murkiness (of facts and, at times, of morality) also contain an enviable clarity. Forget work-life balance, tasks of questionable import, arbitrary deadlines. This case needs to be solved now: let’s go. *** View the full article