It all started with Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe for me - Now I'm writing the Sam-Cat Mystery Series

It all started with Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe for me; the art of loving mysteries and then mystery writing. 

It turned much darker after Hammett, Chandler & Caine.

The first mystery novel my mother let me read (got me to read - there is some controversy as to the accuracy of these facts) was Nero Wolfe. As a child, I did not sit much - too busy playing anything with a ball. However, between the obese, orchid-growing, genius detective; his townhouse; and his chef Fritz, not to mention his go-fer--body guard-detective Archie Goodwin, I was hooked. I read multiple Rex Stout mysteries until I discovered the Maltese Falcon via the movies first, and later Dashiell Hammett novels entered my field of vision. Sam Spade and then Nick and Nora held my interest when I was in high school and early during my college years. Although the married couple seemed lame, Spade was the entree of my reading meal. The Man and wife were at most an amuse-bouche . I also became acquainted with Raymond Chandler and Phillip Marlowe. He ran to the top of my reading list like Usain Bolt in a sprint.

Interesting to note that the eighth Marlow mystery was completed posthumously by Robert Parker who’s Spencer also held my interest for a while in my forties. 

With further reading I can upon the third in the hard boiled trinity, James Cain. Although I did my due diligence, I never loved The Postman Always Rings Twice or Double Indemnity. His style just lost my interest. I never read Mildred Pierce, and maybe that would have change my mind. Never even watched the movie, oh well.

Since I have retired from orthopedic surgery, and have more time to read for pleasure, Walter Mosley and Lee Childs have gotten read, but they too have passed to the wayside. I even thought about reading Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason mysteries, but I am afraid his early fifties style will put me off now. However, I have incorporated court room drama in both novels in my Sam-Cat series so far. 

Over seven years ago, I wrote a Jim Butcher-esque mystery and had several agents give it a full read, I thought, I was on my way to getting published. However, my style for that paranormal murder mystery mixed romance and humor with the murders. This apparently put off the agents, whose comments were similar, “we are not sure where on the shelf this book would be placed, mystery, humor, paranormal. Three agents had the same opinion, so maybe I should believe the writing was up to par and not the cause of their refusal to represent me. With their comments echoing in my brain, I decided to write a hard boiled mystery ala the ones I loved in college and high school. So here we are, however, I did not want to copy the old masters as if I were re-writing that era. Life and the world have changed and today's audience wants more of today's world. I may be mistaken as their is a market for historical mysteries, but they are not my stein of beer. I would find my style of mystery writing and try very hard to stay in my lane, whether the lines on the road were broken or solid where I wrote. (An activity that seems impossible for my creative mind. Maybe all those years following the rules to reach a diagnosis and treatment made me want to liberate my efforts when no one will suffer from my deviations.)

My mind returned to the type of stories I read in high school and college. I loved the hard boilers, that TNS detective who was not afraid to take one on the chin so that his client gets justice, or even paybacks. However, it seemed that during the 1930’s and 1940’s the female side of the equation - the Lillian Hellmans / Mata Huri - type of the detective were ignored as subject matter. Feminism was not even a egg waiting to be sat on, much less hatched. Woman were an after thought in most plots unless they were the iconic Eve seducing men into E-VIL.

Remember Lillian? She wrote but she also was a spy leading up to world war ii. If her memoirs are correct, and Joan McCarthy had her doubts, Lillian was a Jewish woman who spied on the Nazi for America during the 1930’s. Pretty brave, and pretty tough. We are talking, she did the same work as that which made James Bond famous (possibly, her memoirs were as fictional as Ian Fleming’s). So I asked myself, where are the Mata Hari stories about the women who spied in that time. They do not seem to exist. If they do, they are called into doubt by many of the people of that era. I wanted to up-date the plot lines and write a female protagonist, and maybe have her overcome the cultural attitudes that often still restrain females in the work place even today.

So in my perverse manner, I decided to write a character who was a hard as nails female detective. She became Samantha (Sam) Cochran. (“Sam” ? a subconscious tribute to Mr. Hammett?) I wanted to twist the paradigm and make my detective a feminist who does not care about advancing the woman’s cause, because she is too involved advancing herself. Confident in her ability to succeed, she is a model, not a suffragette. And it seems Rex Stout wanted to influence me as well, because in my Sam-Cat novels, Sam works for a very rich lawyer who lives in a Fifth Avenue townhouse. A writer’s mind lives below the surface all the time. Innuendoes are our business. Old influences die hard, if they die at all. The court scenes that end the novels also draw on Earle Stanley Gardner. As an author, you are what you read.

Sam’s mother died during her birth and she was raised by her father a beat cop from Queens and was the youngest of three children. She has two older brothers who are both cops. Her father did not know how to raise a girl and could not be bothered learning. She was raised as his youngest son. She became a cop. The short story that I will be posting on this site in the very near future is a prelude to Identically Dead, the first novel in the Sam-Cat series. In the short story, Sam is still on the police force and solves her first case as a gold shield homicide detective. She has to manage herself with the boys, as she is the only and the first woman on the homicide squad. The male officers do not plan to make her life easy. 

An after thought; I think Sam takes some of her spirit ironically from Mary McCarthy, who would hardly be called Lillian Hellman’s friend. In fact, Nora Ephron’s play, Imaginary Friends is based on their feud, which ended with Hellman suing McCarthy for liable. And, as if written to suit dramatic fiction, the trial concluded shortly after Lillian Hellman died. Life is so complex, sometimes we cannot match its drama no matter how much we overwrite our plots.

Part two of the after thought: in my retirement, I have had time to read James Lee Burke, and his style of writing and his presentation of the story make me so envious. He is truly a Grand Master. However, I would not dare call his works hard boiled, they are literary pictures of a mystery. I strive to add a modicum of his descriptive atmospheric touch to my writing. I am sure I fail in this valiant effort. I probably should not try to mix his style into mine, because once again, I will leave myself no single place on the bookstore’s shelf. If that is so, then so be it, because I am enjoying my writing. I hope you will enjoy it too. You emulate who you admire in life, and James Lee Burke is the top of the line for me.

L.A. Preschel.

Noir Mysteries are based on: dark secrets

I initiated this draft on noir mysteries before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) changed the landscape, however, what could be more noir than a disease that spreads with little interpersonal contact needed, and is more deadly than its cousins the flu. Better yet, or worse as is the real picture, we don't even have good test to tell whether you have it or not, but we will have a test that can tell us if you did have it and have antibodies to the virus. That might be ready in a month or two. Until we know who has what, and how severely, we are in the most noir mystery ever told.
If I wrote something approximating this on paper, people would call it unbelievable.

Noir Mysteries are based on: dark secrets. If this disease is not a dark secret, I don't know what is.
Is life today in the United States an unedited noir manuscript?
Is our life {global warming, trade wars, police abusing the public and the public abusing the police, politicians lying and both sides of the congressional aisle refusing to possess an open mind to objectively study the facts. And the disease shutting down the economy while the congress is offering money to small businesses and people who aren't working so that the world can just survive.) My I could never conceive of something this dark.

Our physicians are the modern day Sam Spades or Phillip Marlows fighting darkness with weapons that are insufficient and overwhelm. I hope the ending of this novel is happier than most noirs that just seem to settle for continued existence without any significant improvement.

Noir is based on dark deep secrets, and today we have more convoluted hidden secrets in every aspect of life than ever before.

This is what I wrote late last year when I stopped because it depressed me too much. How much of it still applies to our existence.


The darker the secret, the greater the need for illumination.
There are dark secrets that our country has hidden in the depths of ...
This is not limited to fiction, but our reality every day.
Our national darkness, needs illumination, by a neutral, non-biased party.
Politics must be set aside and answers based in fact, not opinion must be found.
At this point in time, I do not believe that such a neutral person is an endangered species, rather they are extinct, and a new genetic mutation will be required to create our referee.
Human bias is universally present, a global condition, similar to Global Warming.
Our future existence depends on curing both conditions in an urgent manner.

-- Samatha Cochran private investigator. 12 December 2019

I like my mystery like a Rubik's Cube

I like my mystery like a Rubik's cube

                                                     


For those of you who missed the decade between 1975 and 1985, the Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle and toy. Ernő Rubik invented in 1974. He was an Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture. Originally its name was "the Magic Cube." Multiple squares in different colors line each side and move independently of each other. Rows can be moved as a unit in the north-south direction or the east-west direction. By twisting and spinning the rows, using differing axes, you can create a cube that has only a single color of squares on each side. They have invented computer algorithms to figure out the solving process. Of course, that is cheating the same way, reading the last chapter of a mystery instead of starting at the beginning of the book and reading straight through to the end is.

As in my favorite mysteries, the solution should be hard to reach, but it should in retrospect be logical and almost obvious when all the facts are considered from the right point of view - via the retrospectoscope. Every pertinent fact must ring true. They must fit like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Red herrings viewed from the book's conclusion should have been discountable, but somehow are not dismissed immediately by the reader. The process of solving must be not so hard as to discourage the reader from trying, and yet, not so easy so that the reader needs no effort to reach the right conclusion. Certainly, the final answer of whodunnit, should not be so obvious as to make the story unable to hold the reader's interest, but at the finish, the reasoning and logic must stand out like a single color on each side of the Rubik's Cube.

I love colorful characters. I love wonderful setting that bring me into the picture to stand next to the detective, but most of all, I want to struggle to figure out who killed the victim, so that I have a feeling of accomplishment when I reach the conclusion. I want lots of pieces that I must move around and align just right so that I can conclude who dunnit.

If I accuse the wrong character of being the murderer, that is better than if I know who the killer is before the middle of the book. Those type of manuscripts fit into the genre of suspense, where we know who is the bad guy, but we don't know if he will be caught. I'm a mystery fan, not suspense.

Think about it. Suspense by nature is more about the procedural part of crime apprehension, and mysteries were more about the mental aspects - deducing from facts, and using logic to reach the conclusion. Often they have physical apprehension, but just knowing who the killer is represents the goal in murder mysteries.

In a good mystery, like the Rubik's cube, all the facts are on the table before the end of the book, and we, the readers, have the opportunity to succeed, but it takes perseverance and brain power to reach the goal of who, how and why - to align all the colors on their side.

-- L.A. Preschel



The art work for this essay was taken from non-copyright Rubix Cube Clip Art.

NOIR AT THE BAR

Last Night At The Shade Bar - 241 Sullivan Street.

Noir at the Bar is a group of writers of the noir genre who get together for readings every few months. It is held at the Shade Bar on the corner of West Third Street & Sullivan Street in Greenwich village. It is a short walk from the A train, which my character Sam Cochran takes home to Pops in Queens, therefore our transport via subway to the bar was well known to me. Sunday, December 8th was pre-Hanukkah, and the middle of the pre-Chrismas shopping season, so the subway was full of characters at 5 p.m. I love riding the subway, because I can populate my novels with its inhabitants. Of course, it is just my imagination as to their personalities, but the people start the wheels turning. Similar to a farmer harvesting crops. The subways grow character like weeds in your organic vegetable garden.

The bar itself is about fifty feet by thirty feet, with two walls facing the street - I did say it was on a corner - large windows allow viewing of the passing parade of pedestrians. However, even with the street light fully on, the room is darker than a vampire's lair at midnight. The wattage used to illuminate the joint, can't run more than a nickel a night on the electric bill. Or maybe they have four squirrels running on wheels to generate the power. The brown time ceiling made of molded press pattern squares is a left over from when speak-easies existed. The walls are unfinished wood and each has at least one mirror on it. The plain wood tables rock when you lean on them and the kitchen is behind a red curtain, which I did not try to peek behind. In a place like this, never look where they cook the food you eat. What you don't know probably won't kill you, but what you do know, will steal away your appetite. That is my general rule, and I have no idea if it applies to Shade bar, however, the people next to me were having enchilada like food and it looked good. You never know.

The actual bar seats about ten people and takes a right turn to run parallel to the short wall of the room. Behind the patrons seated at the short leg of the bar is one of the two windows. The long leg of the bar runs about fifteen feet, and behind it is a glass lit four-tiered set of shelves with assorted whiskeys. Some of the bottles glow because of the lighting from underneath the shelving is transmitted by their contents. They look like glow-worms in the darkened room. Think Fernando's hideaway and if you are old enough to remember that song, you are in my age group. The corner of the bar has several taps, but none of them sprout stouts or any dark beer, so they are worthless to me. Would not even make the bar tender, who sports two nasal piercing, waste the energy to push a handle to receive a glass of the amber stuff that passes for beer. (My wife compared her to Gilda Radner cause of her two pig-tail hair style.) Guinness in a bottle? Not worth the effort to pull the cap, I can wait to get home for some real bottled dark brew or even some Port. Life has taught me patience. I'll wait the three to four hours to get home before I would ruin my taste buds on the watery bubbles that pass for IPA beer. My beer is as twilight in a cave.

Hey if I'm at a noir author's reading, where's the dark stuff?

The room gradually filled with people - authors, friends, acquaintances, and rabble. I fit into the last category, but having brought my wife, thereby I was upgraded to respectable. We took the last two seats at a table. Timing is everything in life, and we hit the schedule just right.

As the readings were about to start, they darkened the bar. How? Maybe two of the four squirrels on the treadmill stopped running. The little bar was packed with people standing in the aisle. It was so packed that the bar tender could not traverse the ten feet from the bar to my table to ask for the fifth time if I wanted a drink. No stout, no drink. That is my firm policy. The stranger sitting across from me was drinking water with lemon. He asked for a refill and said, "put it on my tab." So I am not sure the bar was doing that well, even with the crowd, but on Sunday without television (no football games), maybe this was better than being empty.

As I said, the room was so tightly packed, I was looking for the label to see if we were sardines in oil or tuna packed in water. It turned out we were neither as exotic as sardines, nor as tedious as tuna. We were just a group of friends/compatriots, newly found or long time known, here to enjoy a spectrum of authors reading their noir and bizarre works.

What I learned from the reading. When a noir writer is too lazy to actually show or tell what his character is thinking he uses a four letter word, which is so non-descript as to let the reader construct/imagine the mood/emotion/action of the character. Don't show, and don't tell, just write some "excrement" on the paper and it'll do. I'm no expert but ... what the hell?

I wanted to announce that they have published a thesaurus, which could provide you with a smorgasbord of words that could approximate quite accurately the meaning and attitude the author wanted to engender in his character. However, my ideas are surely not as substantial as an award winning writer having his or her character say the same four-letter word for the twelfths time in under three pages. That is good writing - remove tongue from cheek and smile in faux flattery.

Do they think this draws in the reader and involves them? No. Does it create character? Maybe, if it is used once or twice. However, repetition makes the "shock" value vanish and the word itself becomes boring. (All good writers try to vary their words, even if they have the same meaning. It is consistent tone for our characters that we strive for, not a limited vocabulary, unless that is the character's best attribute.) By the fifth time the character describes someone, something or some event with this word, it makes the character inarticulate and the writing a cliche and repetitive. How brave of an author to use a word that six year-old children use on the playground to diss one-another. How creative.

Several wonderful writers read and several writers about whom I wonder also read. Slander and liable laws will not allow me to enumerate further. However, I did learn by listening.

I learned that selecting the right word and making your scene and prose accessible without being trite, commonplace and redundant always stands out in the crowd. That is a lesson I relearn every time I hear, or read a great writer. One writer accomplished that supremely and won my award for best writing of the night. The prestigious Sam Cochran award for writing excellence. The winner will go unrecorded and the two million dollars in Monopoly money will go unawarded.

The best writers make the common unique and the unique accessibly common. How wonderful for their readers. To live such a spectacular life with the ease of reading a flowing story.
Thanks Noir at the Bar for allowing me to learn that fact for the ?infinite-th? time.

Oh and P.S. I also met an old friend, Wallace Stroby, there. He did not read, but I already know he knows how to write. Picking up any of his novels will take you on a great Jersey journey.

Live long and prosper - L.A. Preschel for Sam Cochran P.I.

The Greater the Strength of the Villain

The Greater the Strength of the Villain  - the more determined the hero must be.

The greater the talents of the literary villain, the more the hero can demonstrate his abilities.
The harder the task of defeating the hero's adversary, the more impressive the effort by the protagonist.

As writers we must think of the villain as the sounding board our protagonist resonates against. The bigger and harder the task to play the villain, (like the large bass drum of the Ohio State marching band), the greater the talents of the protagonist in playing against that villain. The louder the noise and the greater the commotion.

Strength of the villain should never be a deterrent to the continued attempt to overcome his evil.
People of good faith and strong hearts are needed to supply the balance against evil.

-- L.A. Preschel

"This is true in fiction, but by reading fiction, we can learn how to apply our efforts in real life.
I am ready to stand up and over come the devil no matter the cost to me, no matter his power or position in society. Evil must be fought to its defeat."

Samantha Cochran - 28th November 2019

Thanksgiving gave me opportunity to read James Lee Burke

Thanksgiving gave me opportunity to read a James Lee Burke mystery Pegasus Descending. I had a bus ride to my family's party, and my kindle was loaded with electricity both from the plug in my wall at home and from his writing on the page.

I give thanks for his story-telling ability. I can sail away to places I have never visited before, and experience them with all my senses. How wonderful is writing like that? In fact, for over half the bus ride, I was in Florida while riding on the New Jersey Turnpike. I lived the story with his detective Dave Robicheaux. One of the reasons I write the Samantha Cochran manuscipts in first person is James Lee Burke. He taught me how effective that person is to create a multi-sensory scene.
However, that is where the comparison in our writing styles diverges as his beautiful lengthy descriptions of every setting are not present in my writing. I write with more urgency. Probably the difference between the writing of an intense New Yorker versus the slow pace of the laid-back south and mid-west populace.
If you have not had the chance to read Mr. Burke, you should start within the minute, because it beats the hell out of almost everything else you can do legally wherever you live.
I may have written this before somewhere a blog or a tweet or on my Facebook page, but every time I pick up one of his novels, no matter which of his detectives is the protagonist, I leave New Jersey and travel to Louisiana, or Texas or Idaho or wherever his book takes place. Cheapest vacation you can ever buy. And one of the safest, no driving to a resort, no flying to a destination, and no travel delays that make your connections disconnected.
Oh, and if you were wondering if Alafair Burke, who writes mysteries as well, is related to him, her credentials as a former DA in the great Northwest does not require genetic compatibility with Mr. Burke. She has earned her ranking as a mystery writer on her own. She is quite prolific. However, she is his daughter and neither of the two will disclaim that fact. He has stated, she was writing mysteries before he ever penned one Dave Robicheaux manuscript.

I leave with this final thought, James Lee Burke is such a talented writer that he has won an Edgar (the award given by Mystery Writers of America for the best mystery novel of the year) for two of his detectives.

Now stop reading this post and go download or buy one of his books.

Here is a link for the order and complete listing of Mr. James Lee Burke's works

Or as an alternative, buy one of Alafair's
Here are the books of Alafair Burke in order.

One last thing, if you think you are too snooty and proper to read mysteries, because they are not literate enough or they do not present the level of academia that your taste requires, before I give you the you are one number sign with my middle finger, remember, Robert B. Parker taught college level English, as did Mr. Burke. His daughter's teaching credentials are listed at the link above. Things sometimes are not what they seem; oh wait, isn't that what most mysteries are based on. So if mysteries are the pablum of the masses, their author-chefs can still cook the hell out of them.


Enjoy. Read and live.
--- L.A. Preschel

Political Life goes on

I have published a political rant on my Facebook page.
So if you dare, go visit this link.

I will be back soon with more about noir mysteries and Samantha Cochran.

Thanks for the look and see today.

L.A. Preschel