Category: crime fiction

Season of the Witch

I read a lot of Norah Lofts when I lived in the suburbs of Chicago.

I originally found her through her historical fictional biographies of royal women, or royal-adjacent. I was in a Henry VIII phase–the whole six wives thing–and I saw a copy of her book about Anne Boleyn–The Concubine–on the wire racks at Zayre’s, so I bought it. It was very well done, and Lofts tried to get into the head of Anne and who she was, the reasons she basically changed Western civilization, and gave me an entirely new perspective on the infamous Anne. From there I went on to A Rose for Virtue (Napoleon’s stepdaughter/sister-in-law Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland), The King’s Pleasure (Katherine of Aragon), Crown of Aloes (Isabella of Castile), The Lost Queen (Caroline Matilda of Denmark), and Eleanor the Queen (Eleanor of Aquitaine)1. I also read, from there, some of her historical fiction, which I greatly enjoyed (Nethergate comes to mind). What I liked most about Lofts was she was not, in any way, a sentimental writer; her stories didn’t end happily all the time (especially her books about royal women; they all died miserable). I always wanted to read her Nativity novel, How Far to Bethlehem?, or her book Esther (obviously, the Bible’s Queen Esther). I remembered Lofts sometime within the last four or five years, and got a copy of her ghost story collection, which I enjoyed.

And then I remembered one whose plot I really couldn’t recollect–The Little Wax Doll, and got a second hand copy on-line.

It was like reading an entirely new novel, and I am glad I revisited it, believe you me.

The interview had been arranged to take place in London at half past three on a Saturday afternoon. This was a time so extremely convenient to Miss Mayfield that she was disposed to regard it as providential. It had saved her from the embarrassment of having to ask for time off to attend an interview in which she might not be successful, and from which she might be obliged to return to face her present Head’s resentment. In her diffident attempt to maintain secrecy she had left Alchester without the precaution of obtaining a testimonial. This she recognised as the action of a fool, but she had taught in the ugly Midland town for a bare two years, and she carried in her shabby handbag a coolly eulogistic report of her twenty years’ work in Africa, If that did not suffice, and if the interview showed any sign of leading to a new appointment, then would be time enough to approach Miss Stevens and break the news she was contemplating a move,

Canon Thorby had written, “Claridge’s Hotel would be convenient for me, since I have another appointment there earlier in the day. I shall be waiting for you and if you ask at the desk someone will will point me out to you.”

He wrote on thick smooth paper which justified the term “cream-laid.” His writing was small, elegant, meticulously legible. It called up an imaginry vision of the writer, plump, rubicund, with a fringe of silvery hair and tranquil blue eyes. Kindly, perhaps a trifle pompous.

As I said earlier, I didn’t really remember much of this story, other than the main character was an older schoolteacher moving to an idyllic village in East Anglia to teach at the village school, and the little rural village has some pretty dark secrets that she’s going to stumble into. Another thing I’d forgotten–although I should have remembered from reading her ghost story collection–was how compelling a writer she was. There are beautiful turns of phrase everywhere, as well as observations about life–particularly in a small village–that are really spot on, clever and insightful.

I also love that her heroine is a woman many people would overlook–particularly in the time in which this book was written (originally published in 1960)–a dowdy, plain spinster in either her late thirties or early forties. I wouldn’t have thought much about it when I first read the book, but the deep devotion of her attachment to a woman named Ruth, with whom she built a school and hospital in Kenya and worked there with her for forty years, and her determination to save enough money so she and Ruth can retire together and share a cottage blissfully for the rest of their lives?

In this read, this friendship just screamed lesbian to me.

Deborah Mayfield could easily have turned into a stereotype–the old maid schoolteacher–but Lofts isn’t interested in stereotypes; she created a character who is interesting by virtue of the journey she takes over the course of the story. She is a bit unsure of herself at the beginning of the book, always afraid of calling attention to herself and just keeps her opinions to herself. But as she falls in love with this interesting little village and blossoms with not only her students but the other villagers–she still sees herself as a nonentity, not really seeing herself as the others see her–she also, slowly but surely, finds herself being pulled into a strange situation which makes her, always questioning herself, question herself further. Surely, what she suspects cannot be? There can’t be people who believe in the dark arts and witchcraft in this town? But it’s really the only explanation, and as she gets pulled further and further into the odd circumstances regarding her student Ethel and her grandmother Granny Rigby–to the point where she is willing to give up her comfy little home and job to try to call out what’s going on in Walwyk–she begins to get a sense of her own power; the inability to stand by and do nothing while something untoward is going on strengthen her resolve and makes her stronger.

Then about halfway through the book there is a huge plot twist, which throws everything into a different, just as suspenseful and thrilling, direction–and one in which Deborah finally comes into her own, managing to get her way back to Walwyk in order to stop a horrible outcome that isn’t predestined.

One of the other things I like about the book is Lofts’ lack of sentimentality. The ending of the book makes it seem as though the day has been saved…but has it, after all? I also love that we never really know if there is actually witchcraft going on in the town–or maybe it just looks like it? Lofts leaves this up in the air as well–which she probably wouldn’t get away with today.

A terrific reread, and a terrific author I am very happy to rediscover.

  1. She also wrote The Lute Player, about Richard the Lionhearted, his wife Berengaria, and the minstrel Blondel–which was my first exposure to the idea that Richard, the great English hero, was queer. That revelation was a bit life changing, as I began looking for hints of homosexuality being covered up in history books. ↩︎

Quiet Village

Sunday morning and Daylight Savings Time begins, which means it’s an hour later than my body thinks it is, and that’s fine. I would imagine that the real brick wall as far as the time change is concerned is going to be hit tomorrow morning when I get up for work. But there are worse things, after all; there are always worse things. But yesterday was a pretty decent day, overall. I got some things done, not nearly enough, and had my ZOOM panel for Murderous March around one thirty my time; ably moderated by Richie Narvaez, it was quite a lot of fun, but I am never sure how I am coming across when it’s ZOOM–no audience reactions to play off–so I will hope that it all went well and the audience enjoyed it as much as I did. I ordered a pizza from U Pizza (I’d been a-hankering for one all week, frankly) for dinner, and spent most of the day finishing reading The Little Wax Doll, rereading other books and stories in progress, before finally settling in to watch a couple of episodes of The Tourist–but I kept falling asleep (from being tired, nothing to do with boredom, because the show is bizarre and twisty and hilarious and kind of like a Coen Brothers movie, so clearly I am loving the show), and finally went to bed around ten. I slept very well, too. As for today, there’s still a lot I need to get done, writing wise, and at some point I have to make groceries today, too. The Oscars are tonight, but I’m not terribly interested in them, to be honest.

I also tried watching Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but shut it off after about fifteen minutes. I love Jason Momoa, but not THAT much.

I did find the missing printer ink cartridges, by the way. I guess I was looking right at it all along and not seeing it. Heavy sigh.

Sparky is feeling rambunctious this morning, and has already gashed my right index finger with one of his talons. But this helped remind me that I took his hanging toy down yesterday so it wasn’t on camera, and didn’t put it back up. Problem solved, and now he’s jumping at it, and all’s well in the Lost Apartment. Big Kitten Energy. He’s lucky he’s so sweet and adorable, honestly.

But it looks to be a beautiful day outside already, which is great, and hopefully this good mood will last as long as my energy does. I’d like to be able to get a lot done today, and get prepared for the week. A friend will be in town this weekend, which is very exciting as I’ve not seen her in a very long time, which will be so delightful. I do miss my friends.

This week the news broke that Carol Gelderman had died. Carol, a writer and professor at UNO, was an absolute delight. I didn’t know her very well, but she was a frequent panelist at the Tennessee Williams Festival, and so I’d run into her quite a lot. Every time, she would give me a dazzling smile, shove her right hand at me and say “Hi, I’m Carol Gelderman” and I would smile and say “Lovely to see you again, Carol” and she’d make a wonderful “pshaw” noise and say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” and give me a big hug, and we’d laugh and laugh. She also always had a flask in her purse. Check out her biography of Mary McCarthy sometime. It’s very sad that I’ll never laugh with her at a Festival party again. RIP, Carol, and thanks for the great memories.

You’ll probably not recognize me should there be an afterlife, either, Carol, and I hope that is the case.

And on that sad note, I am heading into the spice mines for the day. Hope your Sunday is lovely, Constant Reader, and I may be back later. One never does know, you know.

Stagger Lee

Thursday last morning in the office this week blog. I get to go in a little later because I have to stay until five tonight; and of course tomorrow morning I have PT at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. Gah. But it’s okay, really. I slept super well last night–probably the best night’s sleep of the week–and I finally got my keyboard for the iPad yesterday: huzzah! It works beautifully, too…which is the last excuse I had for not getting any writing done (or as much as I would like). Now I have a functional laptop and a functional iPad for writing anywhere in the house, which is kind of fun. I can get my iPad in the morning and write in bed if I want, or I can take the laptop up there, or…so many plethoras of options, and NO MORE EXCUSES.

Oh, I’ll still make excuses, of course, to get out of doing the day’s writing. And I did do some yesterday–I wrote about seven hundred or so words on “Passenger to Franklin” (an Agatha Christie title homage that really pleases me far more than it probably should)–but very little of anything else other than watching Part II of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion (Kyle Richards remains a disgusting piece of shit bitch who doesn’t need to be on my television screen anymore). I then spent the rest of the evening watching the news (or clips from the news) and despairing further about the future of the country and grateful again that I am old. It’s about the only benefit to being old, really, and not having children: the future isn’t really my problem, but at the same time, I also don’t want the adults of the future to have to deal with a destroyed and/or increasingly hostile and damaged planet, either, because I am not a monster. Sometimes I think I worry about the future more than people who actually do have kids, or are young.

I watched a really interesting conversation between Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace last night–and they were both right: the Republican Party of today wants to eliminate our democracy and set up an authoritarian state where they are always in charge and they can get rid of everyone they don’t like. Sound familiar? See Berlin, 1933. It’s scary to contemplate, and even scarier to realize The Handmaid’s Tale was actually very prescient. I became worried about authoritarianism coming to the US during the Reagan years and what followed, when the Republican party became convinced that they had a divine right and mandate to always be in power. As I watched people get subsumed by Fox Propaganda in the 1990s (when the character assassination of Hilary Clinton truly began), I saw it for what it was: definitely not a news organization, and it’s partisan nature had everything to do with the rollback on rules about what is and isn’t news…during the Reagan administration. It’s astonishing how little people think about the recent past, or even try to put the present in the context of the recent past.

Let alone thinking about the older history, which no one knows1. Then again, I am from a part of the country that proudly claims hatred and bigotry as their heritage, so maybe knowing history might not help as much as I would like to believe.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

I’m doing a panel for a Sisters in Crime chapter on-line event this weekend, do tune in to any or all of the antics this weekend. It’s called Murderous March, and it’s being put on by the Upper Hudson Sisters chapter, and you can register to view the panels here. My panel is at 2:30 eastern, it’s called “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night,” and is being moderated by the wonderful Richie Narvaez. My co-panelists are the amazing Carol Pouliot, Edwin Hill, Tina Bellegarde, and M. E. Browning. It should be a pretty good time, I think.

And on that note, I think I’ll head into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.

The Battle of New Orleans

Every once in a while, I need to remind myself of how much I love my home town.

I was thinking about this the other day. I think part of the malaise I’ve been experiencing lately has everything to do with my creative muscles being tight and unexercised for so long–and almost every time I manage to write fiction, it’s so exhausting and draining that I can’t write more, either. Monday got derailed early, and that night we had another torrential, street-flooding thunderstorm…and the kitchen roof started leaking again. I mean, it only does this during that kind of rain; but we have many downpours like that over the course of a year. That kind of kicked the malaise back up into higher gear–I just am so tired of having to deal with things like this over and over when all I really want to do is just go about my day, moving from A to B and getting things done and being productive. It all becomes so much, you know? The rise of queer hate to levels not seen since the 2004 election (may you roast forever on a spit in hell, Karl Rove), and it’s very tiring. It’s also tiring to think that I may be living in the last days of the American experiment with democracy, too–and the fact that far too many of my fellow Americans are just fine with that is kind of upsetting.

Such good Germans.

But I do love New Orleans, even if I have to remind myself of that from time to time. I do; there’s just something about this city that is in my blood, my DNA, and my being; I cannot imagine being happy anywhere else. I could exist somewhere else, of course, but I really don’t want to really just exist anymore. My blog is getting feisty again because I am feeling feisty again and pissed off about a lot of things. I’ve also been immersing myself in gay and queer culture again lately–Capote and Isherwood, anyone?–and remembering how hard life used to be for people like me (see Fellow Travelers and It’s a Sin), it invigorates my senses and intellect against injustice and unfairness as it always does. Recounting stories of my past recently as well as all the introspection I’ve been doing since losing Mom last year (and really, I started thinking about it more during the pandemic, and a lot of it was because of It’s a Sin) has me remembering things, how they used to be, and what New Orleans is like now as opposed to how it was when I first moved here all those years ago, or all the times I came to visit when I worked for Continental. The city is different now than it was then–sleepily crumbling away in the hot sun and heavy wet air–and I’ve been a bit resistant to those changes. I don’t like that it’s insanely expensive to pay rent or buy a home here now–one of the strengths of the city was how many working class people owned homes here, and that seems to be going away as the city continues gentrifying itself.

Monday I also gave a co-worker a ride home from the office, and since it was a torrential rain, I drove her into the Quarter and let her out at her door on St. Ann Street close to the corner at Dauphine. I honestly can’t remember the last time I drove through the Quarter, and I really don’t go down there much anymore other than for the TWFest/S&S. I took Dauphine out of the Quarter, and a lot has changed since the 1990’s, or even the last time I drove through. I think during the festivals this year I am going to explore the Quarter a bit more than I have the last few years, and hopefully drink in some more atmosphere. I’ve kind of felt a little phony writing the Scotty books lately, since I am rarely if ever down there now since my office moved, and have been telling myself I need to explore and take pictures again.

I was thinking Tuesday night when I got home from work that I was becoming as bad as all those locals who look back nostalgically for the past and the way things used to be. I also know I am glossing over what the mid to late 1990’s were really like here, as well as for us. New Orleans has changed and has never remained the same throughout its history, but the foundation of the city remains the same. I want to write about that time in New Orleans (“Never Kiss a Stranger”), so that’s it preserved forever, those days when the sodomy laws hadn’t been overturned yet, and when the gay bars always got raided in the weeks leading up to Decadence so that we knew they were “letting” us have Decadence; the people we thought were insane in state politics in 1996 are now running things and trying their damnedest to turn Louisiana back to 1860 and shoving their religion down everyone’s throats. My primary issue with still writing about the city has nothing to do with how much I love the city, or how I feel about things around here, but mainly because I don’t know what it’s like to go out on the weekends to the bars in the Quarter, or what it’s like for gay men in their forties here now.

So yes, I am looking forward to writing the next Scotty–and revisiting the Chanse series, as I’ve been doing, has me actually considering doing another Chanse story. I have two ideas for him, actually, but am not sure either is going to amount to anything.

And I will always love New Orleans.

Pink Shoe Laces

My blog has gotten a little more feisty than it’s been in quite some time. I’ve talked before about how I toned myself down a bit on here–I have no desire to argue with anyone about my opinions, thank you very much–but I’ve also started speaking out again against insanity and cruelty and stupidity. Despite the loss of the anxiety, I still get angry about cruelty and injustice. I also tend to not talk about things where my opinion isn’t perhaps as educated as others’; I defer. I also don’t want to ever speak for another marginalized communit1y other than my own–and I always make it clear I only speak for myself. I am not a tastemaker or an influencer or anything like that, not am I some great authority on anything other than my own experience, education, and feelings–and sometimes I even question that. I’ve also recently realized how I am not nearly as self-aware as I have always smugly told myself I am; in fact I am capable of self-delusion to an almost pathological extent. But as long as I continue to learn and grow, and don’t dismiss anything out of hand because something isn’t my experience. I do think I am different from most in that I listen to new perspectives and don’t reflexively react negatively to changes in culture and society. It gets frustrating for me when people are obtuse about queer issues and often refuse to listen (there’s nothing quite like being straight-splained about queer experience); so I always want to be open to anything that isn’t bigotry or prejudice (I will never be open to either of those). My trans friends have been an incredible exercise in educating myself and understanding and above all else, compassion…and so have my racialized friends (I saw a Black woman use that term on social media instead of non-white or people of color; I kind of like it because it’s true. White people invented the construct of race identity and racism to begin with, so using racialized seems appropriate to me).

I hate that I’ve basically had to spend most of my adult reeducating myself, but at least I never get tired of learning. Society and the culture have gotten a lot better about a lot of things, but we still have a long way to go.

I finally appealed an egregious medical decision by the most evil of insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, and faxed the form along with my letter of complaint (about multiple issues since they have taken over insuring me the first of this year) and all the necessary documentation–the entire thing wound up being fifteen pages and OOPS, I may have sent it to them twice. They were a shit company when I was saddled with them because of preexisting conditions before the Affordable Care Act; I couldn’t switch insurers fast enough once that became law, and now I am stuck with them again–and they are just as shitty as they were before (which I pointed out again in my letter, along with all the violations of the Affordable Care Act they’ve committed with just ME alone; God only knows what an audit would show). Y’all fucked with the wrong faggot, and if this isn’t resolved, I will not rest until they’ve all been fired.

Obviously, they’ve clearly never met me.

I slept better last night than I have all week so far, which is definitely weird. We’re in a dense fog advisory with potential rain today, but it’s bright and sunny and the sky is clear and beautifully blue this morning. I ain’t gonna lie, much as I love rain, I don’t like being out in it. I love rainy days on the weekend, when you can just snuggle up under a blanket and get some reading done. I’m starting to get better organized with everything, and my life is slowly starting to come back to what it was before the surgery. I’ve also realized that I’ve been in a kind of transitional malaise, the way I feel only after I’ve finished a book and need to get started writing another one. I also am coming out of the malaise, I believe. Both days this week so far had been a bit off, and today I feel…more normal than I did the last two days. I don’t know what that will translate into in regards to writing, but I am hoping to climb back up on that horse this week, maybe even tonight when I get home. The apartment is looking better still, doesn’t need a lot of straightening, but there are some incomplete chores that I do need to finish before the weekend, preferably tonight–but that will depend on how I feel when I get home–how I survive another day at the office.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, all, and I will probably check in again later.

Ballet boys (ballerinos) have unbelievable bodies. I’ve always wanted to write a gay noir set in a ballet company…I mean, look at that effortless perfect split!
  1. I will never forget–or forgive–the straight white bitch who responded to a tweet I made about Marianne Williamson’s horrific lies about HIV/AIDS in the 1990s who told me to “be quiet and listen to Marianne’s beautiful message”. I doubt that bitch will ever tell a gay man to shut up about HIV/AIDS again. ↩︎

Put Your Head on My Shoulder

Yesterday was one of those days.

If you will recall, I woke up feeling pretty good yesterday and was all amped to get to the office and get to work. As I pulled into my parking spot for the day I got a text message notification: the building had no power. Sigh. Since I was already there, I texted my supervisor that I had arrived and should I wait? (You never can be sure when power will be restored in New Orleans and there are any number of variables involved that you can’t calculate.) Apparently the outage was cause because someone in the Bywater neighborhood took a chain saw to a power pole? #idiot

But the power came back at around nine thirty-ish, so I sat there for two hours waiting, and of course, once you stop moving when you’re feeling ambitious, it’s not easy to kick everything back into gear and get moving again. Sigh. But I did get my work going again, which was great, and then when I got off work I came home for a ZOOM chat with some writer friends that I don’t see enough of as it is. It also struck me yesterday that when Bouchercon comes to New Orleans, I don’t have to register. I live here, and can see my out-of-town friends whenever I want to and just hang out in the hotel lobby. So…my future attendance and registration is going to depend on changes being made to the dinosaur the event is, hopefully dragging it into the twenty-first century or at least make steps to making it a more inclusive place.

Beginning with no more fucking diversity panels–which they are doing again in Nashville.

There are few things that make diverse writers feel welcome at conferences more than putting them on display like fucking zoo animals.

And the code of conduct? I don’t have any confidence that they will respond to any complaints made to them–I’ve seen how they’ve mishandled things in the past–so why on earth would I believe that they’d take a complaint from me about the Very Important Writer who said “faggy” to me face a couple of time and act on it? “Oh, it was in the bar” would be the first response, and you know what? Having a code of conduct is meaningless when you don’t have the balls to enforce it. For the record, going into a hotel bar and having a few drinks doesn’t make a Very Important Author using a homophobic slur to me okay.

Likewise, I had another incredibly uncomfortable experience at Left Coast Crime the one time I went–both racist and homophobic–that sometime I will have to share here. (And yes, I am white–but the woman assumed I wasn’t…it really is a story best told in its entirety at some point. And yes, I’m still shaking my head over it. In-SANE. Almost two years ago to the day, really, and I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I think the reason I haven’t posted about it because I’m not sure how a white man writes about racism he’s experienced? (For the record, I wasn’t offended because she didn’t think I was white, it was about her approach and what followed–including doubling down on the racism and going to town on homophobia– that I still can’t wrap my mind around.)

It was also pouring rain when I came home, so thank heavens I left early for PT…only to get home and think ugh, I am not walking to the gym in this downpour with the streets flooding, so I’ll have to go after work tonight. It shouldn’t be bad, no matter how crowded it may be, because my workout is actually pretty simple and quick and easy. (Not easy, but definitely can be done quickly and I don’t have to really take up a lot of space, is what I meant. I think there’s only one machine I have to use.) The streets were flooding too–I had to drive through some standing water, fortunately not too deep–and guess what? We’re having a thunderstorm right now, but it doesn’t seem as though it’s as bad as last night. I guess I’ll find out on my way to work this morning? Not a very appealing thought, really.

And on that sad note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in again later I am sure.

Six Feet Under

Ah, Murder in the Irish Channel.

I really enjoyed writing this one.

It was the sixth Chanse, and I was trying something different with the opening of this one. I hadn’t read Ross Macdonald before I became a writer, and I was very much in the “John D. is my favorite Macdonald crime writer” camp. I had been on panels with Chris Rice a few times and he raved about Ross every time, so I kept thinking you need to read Ross Macdonald and so, sometime after Katrina, I started reading the Archer novels, moving on to stand alones and the short stories eventually. When it was time for me to write this book, I thought, try to write an opening in Ross Macdonald’s style, and try to keep that world-weary, cynical pov through the whole book.

The house was a tired-looking single shotgun, badly in need of paint and listing to one side. It was in the middle of a block on Constance Street, facing the river. There was a rusted cyclone fence around the front yard. A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary sat inside a circle of stone to the left of the walk leading to the front gallery. I put my car into park and verified the address—sorry I’d quit smoking for maybe the ten thousandth time.

In my line of work, it’s never a good idea to make a decision when you’re tired.

But I’d given my word, even though I’d been ready to fall asleep. It didn’t mean I had to take the job—whatever it was. All I had to do was find out what the problem was, maybe even just give some advice—which would most likely be either nothing anyone can do or this is a job for the police.

Besides, whoever lived in this dump sure as hell couldn’t afford a private eye.

I shut off the engine and got out of the car. It was already over eighty degrees, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. Early April, and it felt like summer already. I sighed and pushed the gate open. It only opened about six inches before it caught on the cracked pavement of the walk and stopped. I sighed and stepped through, catching my jeans on the fence with a slight ripping sound. I swore under my breath and examined the tear. The jeans weren’t new, but it was still annoying.

This book had several different inspirations.

First, the casino used to have MMA fights every weekend, so we had MMA fighters in the city. One of their requirements to fight was they had to have a current negative HIV and Hep C test, and guess what we do at my job? For the longest time, all these hot young fighters would come into the office every Saturday to get cleared to fight, and they came in fairly regularly. I used to talk to them a lot–I wrestled, and MMA is a lot more violent–to get some kind of idea why they did this, how they got into it, and so on. I had thought about writing a mystery about a murdered MMA fighter, but could never really get my mind around it…and then I decided, what if he was the client? Interesting.

The second source of inspiration came from a decision of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to close some churches/parishes in the city, and my friend Billy Martin was involved in the protests to save Our Lady of Good Counsel (it was a gorgeous church), even getting arrested. I wanted to do something around this as it was something that actually happened, and I also got to skewer the Archdiocese (any place that could hire David Vitter’s horrific wife to be their legal counsel deserves every skewering it gets)…so I filed that thought away.

The third and final inspiration was serving on jury duty for a civil trial. It was, of all things, a Katrina insurance fight–in which the insurance company was trying to not pay out a claim (all of us in the jury were like, “why on earth would you allow a Katrina insurance case to go to trial in New Orleans? We fucking hate insurance companies.” The fact that it was Lloyd’s of London (who became famous in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake when the president of the company wired the San Francisco office, “pay every claim”) made it even more of an eyeroll for me. An apartment complex on the west bank had sustained damage in the storm, and the insurance company was claiming they didn’t have to pay out “because the claim is for issues that predated Katrina and the place was a shithole” while claiming the complex could have reopened after Katrina “because it was gorgeous” and so they didn’t have to pay out for lost income. The first person who was called to the stand was the complex’s forensic accountant who corroborated all of the plaintiff’s claims and basically made it clear that Lloyd’s was just trying to get out of a huge payment. After he testified, we took a long lunch as they were all in conference…and the claim was settled. I think the lawyers from Lloyd’s hoped that the plaintiff would eventually back down and wouldn’t go to court–and they called that bluff and were decimating Lloyd’s in court.

I mean, the place couldn’t be a shithole and a beautiful property available for rental. Make up your fucking minds, trash at the insurance company.

And what if the MMA fighter’s mom was fighting the closing of her church, had worked for someone suing an insurance company, and then she disappears?

Yes, that was a lot of fun to write. And I was pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end, too. It was also my first Chanse novel with Bold Strokes, and they gave me that beautiful cover above that I love. It made a lovely transition for the series.

Sleep Walk

Monday morning and back to the office afternoon a really lovely weekend, which wasn’t nearly long enough to satisfy anyone, really. I am wide awake, which is lovely, and I thought I wasn’t sleeping well last night–but this morning I feel rested and fine. Odd, right?

I really need to buckle down and start writing. I started three short stories ideas yesterday (“Passenger to Franklin”, “The Adventure of the Kaiser’s Spy1,” and “The Haunted Bridge,” for specifics) and I reviewed some of what I have already written on the next book, which was interrupted by the surgery. It’s now extended deadline is April 1, so yes, I need to get cracking. I did get a lot of work on the apartment done this weekend, and I was correct that I had ordered the wrong smart keyboard folio for my iPad, and Apple no longer makes them for mine because it’s too old. They recommended Amazon or eBay; I found one on eBay and ordered it so it will come later this week, which is terrific. Once I got home from refunding and returning that magic keyboard, I decided to go ahead and order two things from the Apple store to be delivered–an external wireless keyboard for my desktop, that is wider than the basic one and has the number pad, too, and a super storage flash drive that will also connect to my phone and iPad…and that resulted in an insane Kafka-like experience. The delivery was supposed to come between 3 and 5; their website showed that “Orrin” picked up my delivery at 4:46, and about half an hour later it was marked “out for delivery”–and the stuff can’t just be dropped off; it has to be handed to a person so you have to be available to go meet the delivery when it arrives. The website never updated, and the delivery never came. I finally connected with Apple Support on my phone, which was insane. Their records showed the driver had never picked it up–and it couldn’t be rescheduled for delivery today, all they could do was cancel it and refund the money. I don’t know if the “support person” I was communicating with was a real person or not, or if it was AI. Whoever it was, either they were AI, or English wasn’t their first language. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t just reschedule the delivery till today, but here we are, you know?

Thanks anyway, Apple. I have since decided that it was frivolous to buy those two items, so thank you for fucking this up and saving me quite a bit of money.

I did spend some time working on the apartment and it’s starting to look better. Hilariously, all the changes I made in the reorganization (the drawers, shelves in the kitchen, etc.) have already been forgotten so I have to go looking for things now–right now I can’t find where I put the printer ink–but that’s okay. I guess I am gaslighting myself!

I did spend some time this weekend reading Norah Lofts’ The Little Wax Doll, which I remember reading in junior high but as I read it, it feels very new to me. I don’t remember anything about it; maybe I never read it in the first place but had a copy which I started to read but never finished? Regardless, I am definitely enjoying it. It’s slow-burn horror, which is starting to slowly ratchet up (it’s one of those “rural communities that seem perfect but always have a dark secret” stories). I like Lofts’ writing style, which was more common in the mid-twentieth century work–she has a point of view character, Miss Mayfield, but her third person is removed; like a cross between an omniscient narrator and tight pov. It has a very Gothic feel to it that I really like, and I am looking forward to finishing it at some point.

We also started watching an Australian show, The Tourist, starring the always fun to watch Jamie Dornan (sigh) as a man who is in a car accident and gets amnesia, but he has to figure out who he is because a lot of people are trying to kill him. We’re two episodes into the first season (and there are two seasons thus far) so I am guessing he doesn’t find out for quite some time….

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a marvelous Monday, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never can be sure.

  1. Yes, this is a Sherlock in 1916 New Orleans stories. ↩︎

Five Minutes Alone

Interestingly enough, the plot of Murder in the Garden District is the oldest of all my books, dating back to the late 1970s/early 1980’s.

Weird, huh?

But the murder mystery plot I used for this book was the same one I used for that dreadful novel I handwrote between 1980 and 1984. In the book, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks winds up marrying the wealthiest man in town, who is more than twice her age and has a daughter only slightly younger than she is–and he also has a monstrous, domineering bitch of a mother who hated her new daughter-in-law. He is shot and killed one night, and the young wife is the primary suspect. I always liked that plot and story, and so when it was time to write Murder in the Garden District I took that plot and turned it into a Chanse mystery. I also was able to pull out a subplot involving his landlady and employer, Barbara, that I had always wanted to do and thought it made the most sense to entwine the two stories in this book.

I also wanted to deal with Chanse’s estrangement from his family, with the possibility of reconciling with his mother, who was now dying of cancer at MD Anderson in Houston. This book was, on almost every level, about mothers.

Alyson’s original cover
The Bold Strokes cover for the new edition.

I climbed out of my car and immediately started sweating. Christ, I thought, tempted to loosen the uncharacteristic tie I was wearing, this better be worth it. I slammed the car door and headed for the front gate of the Palmer House. I’d been driving back from Houston when Barbara called, asking that I come by at four to meet a prospective client. She’d ordered me to wear a tie, which meant it was one of her society friends. And society friend meant deep pockets, which is always a good thing. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. So much for making a good impression, I thought as I opened the gate and headed up the walk to the house.

The Palmer House was a historic landmark of the Garden District, and also happened to be the home of my landlady and employer, Barbara Castlemaine, who’d inherited it from her first husband. Built before the Civil War, it was a monstrous looking Italianate house painted a dark burgundy with black shutters. Black wrought iron lacework adorned the upper and lower galleries that ran around the house. The big brick fence that provided it with a semblance of privacy on two sides of the lot leaned toward the sidewalk at a gravity-defying angle from the immaculately kept lawn. A black wrought iron fountain bubbled in the center of a two-foot high box hedge.

I rang the bell at precisely four o’clock. “Hey, Cora.” I said when the door opened.

Cora had been Barbara’s housekeeper for as long as I’d known her, and Barbara once told me that Cora had worked at the Palmer House since she was a teenager. I had no idea how old Cora was—her face was free of wrinkles and there were no signs of gray in her hair. She was wearing her black uniform with the white apron and little hat to match. Her face creased into a smile.

“Chanse! Always nice to see you.” She lowered her voice and stepped onto the porch, pulling the door almost closed behind her. “How’s your mama?”

I had always wanted to deal with Chanse’s family issues from the very beginning. If you remember, I originally planned this series as being seven books. At this point, it was Book 5 and I had gone off-plan with what I had envisioned, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. When it was time to write this one, I remembered that old plot from that old book of mine, which I saw as relatively easy to adapt to a New Orleans murder mystery–and a way, when I mapped out the old plot, to bring Chanse’s family back into the story and deal with his relationship, always fraught, with his mother. Chanse grew up in a trailer park with parents who were miserable with their life choices, drank too much, and weren’t the most loving of parents. As I thought about it, I also remembered a story I wanted to do with his brother–sending him back home to his small city in eastern Texas to try to clear his brother of a murder charge, and made notes on it, as well (it would become my story “”My Brother’s Keeper,” which was in Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories). I merged the original plot with the issue of his mother dying of cancer, and I also took the plot from a now-dead Chanse book (I think this was supposed to originally be Book 4) involving his landlady/boss’ past, and folded it into Murder in the Garden District. It is his landlady that drags him into this case, as a favor to someone who knows her darkest secret, which she eventually has to reveal to Chanse.

I also wanted to write about a powerful Louisiana political family, which became the Sheehans of the Garden District, with the murder victim having just announced his candidacy for state-wide office. Warren Sheehan wasn’t a good person, and as Chanse looks further and deeper into Warren’s history and past…maybe his murder was actually for the best as he was a monster. His much younger white trash wife from the West Bank, his daughter from a first marriage, the grasping hateful mother…yeah, I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I think it’s one of the standouts of the series, in all due modesty.

Chanse’s landlady/boss, by the way, was named Barbara Villiers Palmer Castlemaine, which was actually the name of one of the most notorious mistresses of King Charles II of England; but I’d always loved the name and gladly appropriated it for this character.

This was also my last book for Alyson, as they went through another upheaval and everyone I’d worked with on the previous book had been fired and I now had someone new to work with. Alyson folded up its tent and closed up shortly after the book came out. i was never paid my final portion of the advance…and never saw another dime out of them. They kept my books in print and kept selling them…but never paid me another cent. I wasn’t sorry they closed–it was really the only way I’d ever leave them and take the series elsewhere, and it was a relief. I’d been given the runaround from them and had to constantly get used to new people to work with on every title I did for them…yeah, wasn’t sorry about this, but I was pretty pissed about being robbed.

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Come Softly to Me

Sunday morning and as predicted, I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I wanted to, but it was mostly about time more than anything else. I picked up the mail and stopped by Fresh Market, but then once I got home…well, there were chores still to be done (still have some more to do this morning) and I never did get around to writing anything besides blog entries yesterday, like a very bad Gregalicious. Today I have no choice, I have to write today…and I also have to drive out to the Apple Store in Metairie, and make groceries, both of which will be tiring. (I knew I’d regret putting that chore off until today, but at least it’s sunny out today; I think it’s going to be a rather lovely day out there.)

Sparky is always a problem for sitting at the computer as he always wants to sit in my chair–he will hang out and be obnoxious (right now he’s sprawled across the desk, his flicking tail brushing the keyboard as he knocks other things off…) and then jump into the chair the minute I get up for more coffee or anything, really. Heavy sigh, the joys of Big Spoiled Kitten Energy.

I did manage to watch Christopher and His Kind yesterday, which is Isherwood’s memoir about his life in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis, and it much more explicit than Isherwood’s earlier fictions about Berlin. During that “Staged Right” about Cabaret I watched the other night, he wrote it in reaction to the movie, to leave the record straight (as it were) about himself and his life; he hated that Cabaret made Brian/Christopher into a bisexual and that Sally was played by Liza Minnelli, when the actual Sally was marginally talented at best. It was an interesting film, but Christopher himself really came across as a bit of an asshole. There was also a lot of explicit sex, and there’s no question in watching this film about what his sexuality was, for sure. Matt Smith is simply stunningly beautiful, and Alexander Draymon as Caspar is just too beautiful for words. The two stories (Cabaret and Christopher and His Kind) are similar to each other, but I’m not really sure if a watcher didn’t know that both came from the same source, those similarities are simply base facts the story grew out of, and you might not even recognize them as the same story. I may need to revisit the books sometime when I have more time…as I recognize that a lot of the revisiting of fiction I talk about is probably never going to happen. But as always, I find rereading something as an easy way to shake off the not-reading mode I’ve been in for so long. We also watched the new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy yesterday, which we quite enjoyed…although I am waiting for the racists to complain since they cast a Black man in the lead.

So I started rereading Norah Lofts’ The Little Wax Doll yesterday, of which I remember very little of my original read back in junior high school (I read her novels about queens and royal women before moving on to her other novels, which was very definitely an eclectic mix), and find myself enjoying it a lot more than I did when I was twelve–I did enjoy it, but I am certainly seeing it differently some fifty years later. As a kid, I just read Miss Mayfield as a lonely spinster who spent most of her life working in Africa in her colonial “white savior” role with her best friend, who hopes to save enough money to buy a little place she and her “best friend” could retired to; now it’s screaming lesbians at me. The book was originally published in 1960, and of course there are the queer deniers who like to think we never existed in the world before Stonewall. The phenomenon of spinsters sharing a home was just a fact of life, and the British never really inquired much further than that–the British cold politeness.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. There’s a lot to get done today and I am feeling like I will be able to make some significant progress today. Wish me luck, and I may be back later. Happy Sunday, Constant Reader!