It seems unlikely I’ll finish another book before this Sunday—if I do it will probably be Stefanie Pintoff‘s second Simon Ziele mystery, A Curtain Falls. I read the first in the series, In The Shadow of Gotham, not too long ago and enjoyed it. It’s a period mystery, set in 1905, and features a progressive police detective from New York—Ziele—who teams up with an amateur criminologist, Alistair Sinclair, who is attempting to construct a science of criminal behavior. Ms. Pintoff avoids many pitfalls by keeping the level of expertise firmly locked in 1905 and Sinclair makes as many if not more wrong conclusions as right, but it was an entertaining piece of work and the evocation of 1905 New York was excellent. …
Category: Mystery
The Wrong One
So…I’m again rewriting the historical mystery. Thought I was done with this draft and had only to await the edits from my most excellent agent, but alas, I have this impish ethical streak that won’t let me just slide…
Basically, I came up with a minor, almost throwaway, solution to a tiny plot problem as part of the whole revamp and happily sent the novel forth. But then that solution began to grow in my imagination, like a tumor, until I realized that I had a much bigger problem arising from the solution. Not to worry! It would form the basis for the next book in the series!…
Bouchercon 2011
So I have now attended a Bouchercon.
I’ve attended so many SF conventions that they’ve become, if not normal, at least comfortable.  I pretty much know what to expect. Bouchercon, while in many ways similar to an SF convention, is different enough that I felt like a newbie and a bit like an outsider. I don’t know the players, I don’t know all the rules, and I didn’t know what to expect.
There were no costumes, no gamers, no room parties (at least not open room parties), no art show, and an absence of what I like to think of secondary and tertiary effluvia in the dealers room—that is, tables of jewelry and fake weapons and action figures and the like. …
New Directions
I’m attending Bouchercon this week, here in St. Louis. In the last few years I’ve been drifting toward crime fiction, partly in an attempt to cultivate new fields with a view toward getting my rather stagnant career moving, partly because I’ve always written something like it.
The Robot Mysteries were, as advertised, mysteries of a sort. Crime was happening in them, investigators investigated, macabre stuff occurred. There was a bit of it in Metal of Night and a couple of major thefts (and murders) were integral to Peace & Memory. Certain Remains was a mystery, even with noir elements, and the one, poor orphaned Terminator novel I wrote, Hour of the Wolf, was very noirish in tone.…
Just Getting Up In The Morning
Really, I’ve been up since 5:20 already. We have company coming into town, so most of the day so far has been taken up with cleaning the house and arranging the guest room—which is at all other times my office.
But I sometimes feel that just being able to get up in the morning and do anything constructive is a minor miracle. Oh, nothing significant about that thought. Usually it’s a matter of choosing among several options and then deciding whether I have either the imagination or the energy to tackle any of them. I often have a period of enervation after completing a novel and the older I get the more intense they seem to be.…
Playing Around
I’m trying another new theme. One of these days I may build something all my own…or, at least, watch while someone who knows how to do it builds something for me at my direction.
But I like this one, I think I’ll leave it alone for a while. It’s more in tune with what I like to think myself all about—broad vistas, cosmic scenery, special effects. Well, maybe not so much special effects, but, you know, skiffy.
From what I have seen so far, I’m very much liking the new WordPress. Of course, that means I’m distracted. This is not the sort of writing I need to be doing just now.…