TUESDAY CLUB: Death under Sail - C. P. Snow

The shipboard mystery or nautical mystery novel is just as prevalent in the Golden Age as those set on a train. Death on the Nile may very well be the quintessential detective novel set on board a ship. Freeman Wills Crofts is better known for his train mysteries but he wrote quite a few with ships and yachts including The Sea Mystery, Mystery in the Channel, The Loss of the 'Jane Vosper', and Mystery on Southampton Water (Crime on the Solent in the US). A small sampling of other titles: Hate Ship by Bruce Graeme, Singing in the Shrouds and A Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh, and Too Much of Water by Bruce Hamilton.

The American writers were just as good at setting murders on board luxury yachts, cruise ships, military craft, submarines and rowboats just as well as their British counterparts. S.S. Murder by Q. Patrick tells of a bridge party on board a yacht and one of the card players being done in. Obelists at Sea by C. Daly King is the debut detective novel featuring the erudite and long winded Dr. L. Rees Pons. John Dickson Carr's shipboard mystery The Blind Barber is more farce than detective novel, but as Carter Dickson Nine-And Death Makes Ten (aka Murder in the Submarine Zone) is rather unique in that the ship featured is a military cargo carrier that is been temporarily assigned as a passenger ship and the plot brings up all sorts of maritime laws during WW2 including how the blackout rules in England extended to ships and cruise lines. Rufus King made an entire career of writing about killers dispatching their victims at sea in titles such as Murder on the Yacht, Murder by Latitude, The Lesser Antilles Case, Murder Masks Miami and many, many more.

This may lead you to believe that I'll be writing about one of these American shipboard mysteries and I thought I was going to do so, too. That is until I uncovered my very old copy of Death under Sail (1932) and decided to finally give it its long overdue examination.

A wherry yacht and all its parts

Roger Mills, physician and yachting enthusiast, invites six friends on an excursion through the Broads, the system of rivers and lakes in Norfolk. The morning after picking up Ian Capel, the oldest guest and narrator of Death Under Sail, Roger is found shot dead still holding on to the tiller in the stern well (see plan of The Siren below). Though the murder in C. P. Snow's very first work of fiction (and first of only two detective novels) does indeed take place on a ship -- specifically a wherry yacht -- the majority of the book actually takes place on land. The yachting party is confined to a bungalow several miles down the River Bure and a short jaunt up the River Thurne in the Norfolk village of Potter Heigham. There they stew, fester and fret doing their best to endure the Puritan tirades of shrewish housekeeper Mrs. Tufts and undergoing absurd interrogations from Det.-Sgt. Aloysius Birrell who seems to have learned most of his techniques from one volume of criminology and about a dozen detective novels.

The novel at first appears to be a parody of the detective novel. Birrell comes off as a comic character from the moment of his entrance where his apparent reckless driving of a police motorboat causes a violent wake to capsize the dinghy sending three men into the river. Contrasted with Birrell, is the omniscient amateur sleuth Finbow who is a friend of Ian Capel's and who Capel calls in to help investigate the puzzling death of Roger Mills. Finbow spends much of his time observing, flattering the suspects into revealing themselves, and eavesdropping on people's private conversations like any good amateur detective of the Golden Age would do. Ethics have nothing to do with crime solving where Finbow is concerned. He also spends a lot of time expounding some of Snow's own personal beliefs which interestingly will serve as the foundation for his later mission in life as spokesman for the scientific mind. All these mini-lectures seem to be thrown in to distract the reader. But Snow has plotted the book in a devious fashion and despite the lectures that appear to be filler the book is actually very much in the fair play tradition.

There is a lot of talk about the routine that develops on a ship when people travel in such a confined space like the Siren. The murderer must have been aware of who did what and where they went every morning, Finbow surmises. Ian is therefore eliminated from the start as he has only been on board the Siren for a single day and night. Not long enough for anyone else to know where he might be when Roger was shot. The rest of the detective work is done along these lines. Snow might have been influenced by the detective novels of Anthony Berkeley who was a pioneer in stressing the importance of psychological motive and human behavior in crime fiction. There is not much physical evidence to review. Rather, Finbow is more interested in why Avice is so frightened and why her crying seems to be more acting than genuine, why William remained shirtless on the morning of the murder and the importance of how he undresses, why Tonia appears to be in love with Phillip but may be masking a hidden love affair, and why Christopher needed to get out of his wet clothes so quickly after the capsizing of the dinghy. These "psychological insights" are what lead Finbow to eliminate most of the suspects eventually leading him to the identity and motive of the killer. He develops a list of five important questions that include all the suspects and each question is answered in grand detail in the final chapter. It is only then that the reader learns that everything mattered, each incident and discussion was essential to the story. It's all brilliantly done with some bravura misdirection that even the most seasoned detective fiction aficionados will not spot.

THINGS I LEARNED: Though not much is discussed about the wherry itself or the Broads I needed to satisfy my curiosity and so I looked up all sorts of photos of Norfolk locales mentioned along the rivers shown on Finbow's map. Then I visited a fascinating website with photos of families and friends on their wherry yachts and got to see just how the Norfolk towns looked at the time when Snow's novel was set and even earlier. In fact, the bulk of the photos are from the post World War I era. You can look at the same photos if you so desire by going to Broadland Memories.

MCC is mentioned in passing but I had no idea what the characters were talking about. The passage is here: "Tradition, my boy," William broke in sharply. "Like the M.C.C. and Public Schools. Doing a thing twice is good enough reason for doing it forever." Based on the linking of tradition with MCC and public schools I'm guessing William means the Marylebone Cricket Club which controlled the way both amateur and professional cricket was played for over three centuries. From the info I looked up the MCC still owns the copyright on cricket rules that were created back in the late 18th century. Apparently another group known as the ICC (International Cricket Club) is trying to wrest control from them and make a more harmonious, less rigid rule governing board for international cricket playing.

One of the many Penguin reprints

EASY TO FIND? Yes, indeed. Luckily, Death Under Sail was chosen as one of the "Top 50 Detective Novels from 1900-1950" by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Taylor. That selection allowed the book to be reprinted multiple times since its original 1932 publication. Several paperback reprints are available in the used book market in both US and UK editions. And you can still find a few copies of either the Doubleday Crime Club 1st edition (US) or the Collins Crime Club 1st edition (UK) if you're willing to shell out $75 or more. The prices for the paperback reprints, of course, are much more reasonable and there are literally hundreds of copies out there. Happy hunting!

* * *
This is my second post on travel in detective fiction which is the theme for May for the group of vintage mystery fiction fans who call themselves "The Tuesday Bloggers." Other links are here:

Throw Mama (or Anyone Else) from the Train! - Bev at My Reader's Block
Christie on Holiday - Moira at Clothes in Books
Why Set a Murder Mystery on Holiday or a Mode of Transportation? - Kate at Cross-Examining Crime
This Train Is Bound for Gory - Brad at Ah! Sweet Mystery
 Coach Tours to Crime - Helen at Your Freedom and Ours

SUMMER PHOTOS: Alien Visitation and High Trestle Trail

It's summer time and that means less blogging, more travel, more bike trail explorations, and lots of tending to the several gardens we have. I was watering the plants up on our newly stained roof top deck -- forgot to mention agonizing home improvement chores as well -- and discovered a flying visitor who had paused for a rest on the very top of a barren twig on one of our red maple trees.

I ran down to get my camera hoping the dragonfly would be there when I returned. Luckily it was. Quickly I took as many photos as I could. In my haste I forgot to adjust the autofocus to allow for a wider range and some of these images are blurry at the outer edges. Still, the zoom lens captured the eerie science fiction quality of this alien visitor.  Click to enlarge each image for all the detail.

We also recently returned from a biking trip to the High Trestle Trail just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. The trail is 25 miles long stretching between the towns of Ankeny at the southern end and Woodard at the northern end. Only the last 3.8 miles (Madrid to Woodard - total of 7.6 round trip) were planned since it was exceedingly hot and oppressively humid. We didn't want to kill ourselves biking a total of 50 miles in near 90 degree heat. The highlight of the High Trestle Trail is a 130 feet high converted trestle bridge originally used for a railroad back in 1912. The photos below will show what makes it so unique for both bicycles and pedestrians.

View from north end closer to Woodard looking in the direction of Madrid, Iowa.
Your mystery addicted host can be seen hiding in the shadows

Opposite side of the same entrance/exit. (Me again on the right)

Many walkers -- none of whom had flashlights! -- make for a hazard for bikers.

Decades ago this was Iowa mining country.
The lights were arranged to give the illusion of traveling through a mine.

Long shot showing the illuminated portion
in relation to the entire length of the bridge.

A few people have made videos while riding the bridge at night.  The one below led to our decision to travel all the way to Iowa and ride it for ourselves.

LEFT INSIDE: Ox Yoke Inn post card, circa 1950s

We were in the Des Moines/Ames, Iowa area for Fourth of July weekend. At one of the many rest stops where Joe likes to gather brochures and flyers on intriguing restaurants that serve up regional cuisine he found a flyer for the Ox Yoke Restaurant in Amana. I said, "That place still exists?" I was a bit surprised because I have a post card advertising that eatery in my ephemera collection. We tried to get down to the home of the Ox Yoke Inn, but the bike trails kept us very busy. Next time...

The post card was left inside one of my many vintage mystery books (title long forgotten). The restaurant was started in 1940 and is now owned by an organization that owns three different OxYoke Restaurants.

More about the Ox Yoke Inn for those interested can be found at their website here.

There & Back Again

The winners of the "Challenge to the Reader" Trivia Contest will be posted later this evening. I was away from Dec 14 - Dec 17 in New York City for my big blast of a birthday bash. We saw five plays in three days including the fabulously fun Mystery of Edwin Drood, ate at three amazing restaurants, avoided Guy Fieri's Times Square tourist trap, saw a musical version of The Silence of the Lambs that was hysterical and filthy, talked with Ed Asner and got his autograph, took Paul Rudd's picture by the stage door of the Cort Theater, and tried our best to avoid the insanity of SantaCon. Go here if you are clueless about that bizarre urban holiday "festivity".  Reviews of the plays I saw will appear in "Stage Blood" posts in the coming days.

The contest was easier this year and I was hoping for an increase in participants. Just the opposite happened. I was disappointed by the very low number of entrants. This will most likely be the second and final trivia contest. More anon...

Bouchercon Cleveland - Sat, Oct 6

Writing and reporting for me requires no distractions. Last year I happily sat in my hotel room after the panels, eating expensive room service food while typing away busily on my laptop reporting all my activities. I'd spend up to three hours writing and uploading photos all on my own. This year Joe was with me. I could barely sneak in an hour's worth of writing on my blog about the convention. Every fifteen minutes or so I'd hear "Are you not done yet? We have to get going!" Aargh. So my reports are all late. You'll be reading posts about Bouchercon for the next two days.  Perhaps a good thing.  I'm still embarrassed I couldn't' get it all done on time.

"Murder Is Everywhere" was this year's panel moderated by Peter Rozovsky who blogs at Detectives Beyond Borders, devoted to international crime fiction and books set in foreign countries. Though I knew all the writers I'd not heard any of them speak before. The conversations were lively and covered all sorts of insights into the cultures of Thailand (Timothy Hallinan), Greece (Jeff Siger), Botswana (Stanley Trollip one half of "Michael Stanley"), China and Mexico (Lisa Brackmann) and most fascinating of all Iceland (Yrsa Sigurdardottir).

Two of the most memorable stories came from the women writers. Brackmann (subbing for Cara Black who had to leave due to a death in her family) told of an encounter she had with a Chinese cab driver and their discussion of the huge changes in Peking. Travelling to China these days is "a little like being strapped to the back of a jetliner" she said.  The changes are huge and keep coming with increasing frequency. The cab driver felt he had more in common with Brackmann than his own people many of whom have no memory of China from the 1970s.  And Yrsa (at left) had several riotous stories about Iceland the most insane being the desire for the marketing arm of the Icelandic government  to change the name of the country to something more inviting and enticing.  Iceland just doesn't cut it anymore. Originally intended to fool invaders into thinking it was a barren wasteland the name now tends to drive away all the refugees Iceland is trying to get to emigrate there like those in disaster plagued Pakistan. When they hear the name they are turned off. Believe it or not, the best substitute the marketing geniuses have come up with Niceland.

Later that morning was the somewhat dreaded "Bucket List" panel.  I had a chance to hear Otto Penzler whose resonant voice reminded me of announcers from the Golden Age of Radio.  Unlike most panels he also acted as participant because in his own words "I, of course, know more than anyone" about the mystery novel.  In some instances that is very true. His self-deprecating humor was very welcome for a panel that oddly tended to be a bit too serious and somber. "This is my 39th Bouchercon.  [pause] I'm very old."

I say somewhat dreaded because I expected to hear the same old books mentioned as THE books you have to read. My hope was that I would be introduced to at least a handful of books and authors that would be new to me. My prediction proved correct. I knew nearly all the books recommended and had read many of them. There were only five that were new to me and, with the exception of an obscure Victorian work, all of them were published after 1978. 

Penzler threw out a type of mystery novel and asked each panel member to talk briefly about their favorite in that category. Panel members included booksellers Don Longmuir, Harriet Logan and Jim Huang, reviewer Oline Cogdill, and MWA officer and mystery writer Larry Light. The list is below. I marked the ones I never heard of with an asterisk.

PRIVATE EYE NOVEL
Penzler  - The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
Longmuir - anything by Mickey Spillane
Cogdill - The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais
*Huang - Concourse by S.J. Rozan (confessing he was avoiding Hammet, Macdonald and Chandler)
Logan - The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler and most of Sue Grafton's work
Light - When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

TRADITIONAL MYSTERY
Penzler - The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr (talked briefly about the impossible crime novel and mentioned the famous Locked Room Lecture in the book.  I was thrilled Carr got a nod.)
*Longmuir - the works of Giles Blunt, an underrated Canadian writer in Don's opinion
Cogdill - A Place of Execution by Val McDermid (traditional?  really?)
Huang - Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell (a book he has read several times. Very witty book. I recommend all her books, too.)
Logan - Hamlet, Revenge by Michael Innes (I nearly applauded)
Light - Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout (ALWAYS mentioned in talks like this)

THRILLER (espionage, action/adventure)
Penzler - Tears of Autumn by Charles McCrary (one of the many books that plagiarist stole from last year. A JFK assassination book that apparently has parts that "are not entirely untrue." )
Longmuir - Killing Floor by Lee Child (the first Jack Reacher book)
Cogdill - Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
*Huang - Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas
Logan - Rose by Martin Cruz Smith (The most enthusiastic rhapsodic speech made about any book. She says it will appeal to a wide range of readers from those who love techothrillers to those who like feminist fiction. "It's a superior crime novel," she said, "on so many levels." She sold me on this. I'll definitely be reading it soon.)
*Light - The Shipkiller by Justin Scott (this is another one so different that I will be hunting down a copy. A nautical revenge thriller that sounds like Cornell Woolrich meets Patrick O'Brian)

A PERSONAL FAVORITE (in any subgenre)
Penzler - The Hound of the Baskervilles (only because nobody mentioned anything by Conan Doyle) but also 
Night of the Jabberwock by Frederic Brown for it's surreal and very original story
Longmuir - In the Electric Mist of the Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke
Cogdill - The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
Huang - Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (not really mystery or crime, IMO. It's more fantasy or supernatural with detective story elements. Whatever.)
*Logan - The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins. (very unusual choice and one I knew nothing about. Shame on me!)
Light - Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

No surprise that most of the books mentioned were all contemporary works. That's the way of these panels these days.  [...sigh...]  Thank God for the mention of Innes, Carr and Brown.  People really need to know of the best of the past.  I wish the Bouchercon committees would see the potentially exciting discussions that could take place if they were to allow more space for panels on vintage writers and books.

Bouchercon Cleveland - Fri., Oct 5 (part two)

As always at any Bouchercon there are few panels dedicated to mysteries of the past. The entire concept of the convention has evolved over the years to sell new books and promote the authors who wrote them. That's to be expected, but it upsets me that so little space is saved for panels to talk of the authors of the past. If a book is out of print, it can't be sold at the convention. So why bother talking about it seems to be the attitude about the older books. Each year there tends to be a Holmes panel and one other writer whose work remains in print. Last year it was Christie. This year it was Rex Stout.

Back in the spring I made a valiant attempt to organize a ready-made panel that would discuss forgotten books and suggested it to the B-con committee to include this year. It was to be about reissuing forgotten books by neglected authors -- a melding of the past and the present and it would have included some very fascinating anecdotes about what it takes to get a long out of print book back into the hands of modern readers. Suffice it to say with only two bloggers and two writers mostly known for histories and biographical accounts of writers our panel did not make the cut. There was, however, a panel called "Bucket List - The Books You Have to Read Before You Die" moderated by Otto Penzler. More on that in a later post.

I attended the Rex Stout panel called "Wolfe at the Door" even though I'm not the biggest Nero Wolfe fan so I could get a better understanding of what I seem to be missing each time I read one of those books. To date the Stout book I have enjoyed the most is Alphabet Hicks, one of the few stand alone detective novels Stout wrote, and one that has fallen into the limbo of Out-of-Printdom. It's not considered one of his best books at all though I found it to be rather innovative in my review last year.

Moderated by James Lincoln Warren the panel was made up of mystery writers Jane Cleland and Dave Zeltserman; Linda Landrigan, editor at Alfred Hitchock's Mystery Magazine; and a substitute member whose name I never caught in the swift introductions. We were spared from Warren's usual time consuming oral interpretative skills, but had to listen to him dominate the panel with his vainglorious lecturing about his past award winning novella in the Black Orchid Novella Award writing competition sponsored by the Wolfe Pack, a group that celebrates all things Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I would rather listen to panel members talk and have a moderator ask the questions. Sometimes you get a panel hog who interrupts or talks forever, but when you get a moderator who takes over and talks indulgently about himself it gets dull very fast for me.

Most of the panel was devoted to discussing why they like Stout as a writer, why Archie and Nero Wolfe have become such iconic characters for mystery and crime fiction writers, especially American writers, and of course a usual list of the best Nero Wolfe mysteries. There was a brief discussion by the stand-in panel member (for the life of me I cannot remember his name) who gave some trivia I never knew of Stout's reaction to Edward Arnold as Wolfe (disliked the choice), Lionel Stander as Archie (hate that choice) and how he vowed never to allow any Nero Wolfe books to be adapted for the screen after the botched movie versions of Fer-de-Lance (retitled Meet Nero Wolfe) and The League of Frightened Men.

The most interesting part of the panel was when I learned about the Julius Katz stories by Dave Zeltserman. I have been won over by the Zeltserman as a true original among the contemporary writers when I read The Caretaker of Lorne Field last year.  His Katz stories came about when he wanted to enter the Black Orchid Award contest the mission of which is to revive the craft of writing mystery novellas, a form that Stout seemed to have perfected. He wrote forty of them and they are among the best in the corpus (as the Wolfe Pack like to call Stout's body of work). Zelterserman's homage to Stout's detective is Julius Katz, "Boston's most brilliant, eccentric and possibly laziest detective," who is assisted by an artificial intelligence named Archie that resides in his tie clip and is the narrator of the stories.  I had heard of these before and Patrick of "At the Scene of the Crime" even reviewed the Shamus award winning novella and another short story. To hear the characters described by the author himself along with some of his own personal insights -- he described the duo, for example, as having an almost father/son relationship-- made them all the more enticing. They are available in eBook format, but of course I am not part of that revolution.  So I'm stuck hunting them down in the old EQMM magazines where they first appeared.

Still more on Bouchercon Cleveland is coming...

Bouchercon Cleveland - Fri., Oct 5 (part one)

I arrived a bit late to the first panel "Old Friends, New Friends" so I have no idea why Chris Grabenstein was not present. I attended this panel not because I am so much an avid fan of the series characters,  the topic of the panel, but I wanted to see and hear Jen Forbus whose blog, Jen's Book Thoughts, has done so much for the genre and its writers and readers. It was one of the first mystery blogs I read before I become completely devoted to out of print books. Also, two panel members -- Parnell Hall, Mary Jane Maffini (at left) -- are favorites of mine and I had never heard them talk about their work at previous conventions I've attended. Topics covered included eBooks helping readers obtain an author's back list more easily these days, the role of libraries and bookstores in helping talk up the series, and whether or not the writers present could actually work on two different series character books at the same time. A fun question from the audience:  "Who do you envision playing your series character in a movie or on TV?" There were the usual jokes about the Tom Cruise/Jack Reacher when Jeff Cohen said his character is 5'5" and Cruise was very welcome to play the part any day. Maffini mentioned a few Canadian actresses she was sure no one would know. I didn't recognize the name and I can't even remember it now having not had the smarts to write it down. Parnell Hall said he'd like to play Stanley Hastings himself and if not he'd take on the Puzzle Lady as well.

"Mystery & the Movies" -- Unlike last year's panel in which several writers discussed their favorite crime related movies this year's movie panel was about writer experiences with their own books being adapted to the screen. On hand to discuss the were Charlaine Harris, Robin Cook (one of the Guests of Honor), Chelsea Cain, Joseph Finder and Derek Haas, a last minute addition who is both a novelist and screenwriter, and most recently co-creator the new TV show Chicago Fire. Topics included all sorts of anecdotes about the hassles of dealing with Hollywood, the differences between writing novels and screenplays, whether the writers have ever or would ever want to adapt their own work, and -- once again drawing on the Tom Cruise/Jack Reacher business -- the importance of casting actors who match the character's physical description.

Haas had a great description of the difference between script writing and novel writing. When working on TV he'll get notes form his producers asking him to take out entire scenes or add a dog for the main character to make him more likable.  But when he gets a note from editor it's more along the lines of a polite email asking, "Do you think you could use a semi-colon here?"

I also liked Robin Cook's anecdote about learning that Michael Douglas would play a lead in the film version of his book Coma. He had just appeared on a talk show in Philadelphia with Mike Douglas and confused the two. He told the producer "Don't you think he's a bit old...and corpulent for a young doctor who has to do a lot of action scenes?"

We learned that Chelsea Cain whose series about Gretchen Lowell, a female serial killer and the police detective she once tortured then set free, is in the process of becoming a TV series for F/X.& She has absolutely no desire to write for TV or the movies. She wants to be in charge of her characters and knows that writers in Hollywood tend to be at the mercy of producers and directors. "I want to be able to control my own little universe," she told the audience. Another interesting bit form Cain was the revelation of a previous screen life for her debut novel. Heartsick apparently almost became a TV movie for another network at the hands producer Freddy DeMann. He showed her a portion of the script and she hated it. She said it was drippy and like "a deep, deep cable movie, like one of those Torey Spelling things." Then she revealed to the audience that all the dialogue was hers. They had used her exact words but when the dialogue had been removed from the book and set down on the page without her usual sardonic prose it sounded trite and lifeless.

Haas was the voice of Hollywood, so to speak, and gave a good insider's take on the way the collaborative work of TV and movies can be both good and bad. With Chicago Fire he says he finally got the kind of producer most writers dream of in Dick Wolf who respects and honors the writer's script. After giving a short speech to the cast about sticking to the script as written and restraining themselves from any kind of ad libbing, Haas said he would have actors come up to him and ask, "You have the line as 'I'm going to go home now.' Can I say 'I'm gonna go home now' ?"

There were several very funny stories from Finder and Harris as well.  Harris told a long story about how her personal assistant was refused entry to a meeting she was going to have with people of the True Blood production team. Not only refused entry to the meeting but the building! She was told her assistant could wait in the car in the parking garage. That was fixed but with a ridiculous amount of seemingly needless negotiation. Finder talked about so many things and did so eloquently and wittily, but I'll highlight his story about his cameo part in a TV movie of one of his books. He was given the role of an assistant D.A. and was told to not reveal to anyone that he was the author of the book. But after listening to an actor explain to him, a mere bit player, what the movie was all about (and Finder admits the actor knew the story and the themes very well) he couldn't hold back. So he leaned into told the actor and in a low discreet voice said, "I wrote the book."  Immediately the actor shouted out to the entire set: "Hey Morgan [Freeman]! Hey, guys!  This guy wrote the book!"

Next post I'll wrap up Friday's events with the third panel I attended on Nero Wolfe (many notes taken at that one), my first visit to the book room and my talks with two of the dealers there.

Bouchercon Cleveland - an intro

Well, I'm here. It's been a rough kind of stay for me here in Cleveland. I've been trying to balance multiple activities while I'm here at the Bouchercon convention. Apart from hunting for friends and acquaintances at the convention, attending the panels and visiting the book room, I have been trying to coordinate a few delayed celebrations for my partner and I and a visit with my brother who lives a little over 30 miles south of Cleveland. I'm hoping to get it all squeezed into the two and half days we have here.

Turns out I missed all of Thursday. The original plan was to leave Wednesday night and drive nearly all the way, stop in some motel in Indiana and then drive the rest of the way and get there by mid- afternoon. However, I vetoed that idea because I was exhausted on Wednesday and it was raining in Chicago. Night driving in the rain is taboo in my book. Too many bad experiences in my past and I like my life so I avoid any possibility for unsafe driving when there's bad weather. We left Thursday at 7 AM (Central) and arrived a little after 3 PM (eastern time). By the time we were settled in our hotel (we're staying in a more affordable place only a 10 minute walk away) I had missed all of Thursday's events. Friday was my first day at the convention while it was the second day for everyone else.

We were in time for the big shindig at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But I don't do crowds very well. I also have a great impatience when waiting in long lines. Nearly every single registered attendee -- about 1600 people -- was waiting on the longest line I've seen in my life outside of the opening day at Disney World back in 1972. Since Joe was not registered and security was supposedly very high for this event I went alone. I thought I might be able to get him in but all attendees were told in an email IDs would be checked against a list of registered participants if an attendee "forgot" his or her lanyard with the registration ID card. I waited all of ten minutes before I noticed that people were being admitted through a single revolving door into the museum. From where I was standing it looked like it was going to be about 45 minutes before I ever got in. Add to this long wait the thought of dealing with all the people inside and I was already in a less than pleasant mood. So I left and blew my chance to see the museum for free.

Instead, we went to the Horseshoe Casino conveniently located immediately next door to the Renaissance Marriott where the convention is being held. Last visit to a casino was back in the early summer when we took a wonderful trip to Reno and Lake Tahoe. We won close to $75 between us that time. In our brief visit to the Horseshoe I picked up $17 and change on a slot machine in matter of minutes and later Joe won $96 with only 98 cents left on a machine. Definitely more fun than waiting on a long line to get into a museum that houses old records and guitars. I'll take free money over cocktail snacks and a cash bar any day.

I'll get to my day's worth of activities on Friday in my next post. I'm a bit tipsy from all our drinking and celebrating for my job promotion from my "real job."  Last week I got a 10% raise which utterly floored me. When not writing for the blog, or selling books, I work during the day for a not-for profit hospital that has been notoriously tight with salaries (especially mine) for years. This raise was LONG overdue and the celebration, also delayed, was a heckuva lot of fun.

More tomorrow. I promise to talk about the convention next time.

Another Road Trip, Another Book Haul

The lovely mess of Choctaw Books
(rare book room through the archway at left)

Just returned last night from the annual road trip to the south. This year, at my insistence, we traveled to Florida via Mississippi and Alabama, two states I had yet to set foot in. I figured there had to be a few interesting old bookstores in Mississippi with its rich Civil War history and being the home state of several literary giants (Faulkner and Welty come immediately to mind). Well, the book hunting there was pretty darn sad for most of the time. It was only at the very last stop where everything brightened. A shop I was thinking would be mostly nonfiction based on its decidedly Native American name of Choctaw Books held a jackpot of vintage mysteries.

For those who live in the area I highly recommend Choctaw Books located at 926 North Street in Jackson, MS. The place is a chaotic mess - just the way I like used bookstores. Often you need to literally dig through some of the piles. But thankfully there was a room devoted solely to mystery books where everything was shelved alphabetically. I had little need of a shovel in there.

Below are the books I found there as well as a few choice titles picked up in Florida.