Let’s all give a shoutout of support for all American veterans and their families today! Whatever your politics are, our veterans don’t receive nearly the support they deserve. And cheering them on in some parade isn’t enough! Too many are struggling economically, even fighting homelessness and physical handicaps as consequences from their service to our country. “I thank you for your service” doesn’t do it. We should all pressure the politicians to enact and support the veterans programs! Write them ASAP.

[Note from Steve: It’s been a while since I’ve posted some short fiction. My only excuse is that short stories and novellas are like dashes and intermediate races, and I’ve been running a few marathons by writing and publishing several novels, notably finishing the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series and three novels from the new “Inspector Steve Morgan” series. I think this one turned out rather well—you can tell me what you think by commenting or by using my contact page at this website—and it tells readers a little bit about how I prepare to write my novels as well! Enjoy.]

***

The plate number led them to a hire-car agency. The saloon had been leased by John Smythe, a name that could be an alias. Neither the abductor nor the abductee matched any records on HOLMES after their facial recognition program was applied. Either the blow-ups of the stills from the video were too grainy, or the man and woman’s faces weren’t in the police database.

All that was after they talked to the publican at the posh pub.

“He met her here,” the corpulent bloke had said. “Weren’t regulars, but upper crust like most of our guests. He bought her drinks, but they hit her fast, like. He said something about taking her home.”

The date drug? Earl had thought. That would seem to confirm an abduction. But for what purpose? Did the abductor run an escort service? Porn podcast? He didn’t look sleazy enough to be someone in the sex trade looking for new “recruits.” Ransom? No mispers cases had been reported.

Sally had also noted that the woman’s abductor, if that was what he was, acted and looked more sophisticated than the average scrote.

“I’m going to run the program again, this time examining society pages.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Earl figured that would be a waste of time but wouldn’t take Sally too long. In the local broadsheet, the society pages often became only one page, unlike in the big-city papers, London’s in particular. He got busy querying other police departments on whether they had any similar cases. Away from the big cities, getting things up on HOLMES could take a while. In particular, they could have open mispers cases still not posted.

But Sally had success. John Smythe was Mr. Daniel Clarke, the PA for the district’s MP. Was he acting alone or for his employer? Earl checked and discovered that the MP was in London at the time of the abduction, so the answer to his question was indeterminate. A trip to the MP’s local residence was required.

***

The estate was large but not gated. It was nearer Penrith than where the shooting had occurred; the posh pub was even nearer. They pulled into and around the circular drive and parked in an area where maybe carriages had parked at the end of the 1800s; but the house had probably seen many improvements since then, some in poor taste as far as Earl was concerned. He spotted some huge AC units on one side. Not a bad idea, he thought. Summers are often scorching now. Worse down south—another reason to retire in the Lake District. He supposed heating upgrades had also occurred, their effectiveness dependent on redoing a lot of insulation and caulking.

How much does it cost to run this place? Like many MPs, Sir Richard Bixby was probably out of touch with the common man and more interested in ensuring his spot among the privileged elites. But he still needed to get people’s votes every so often!

Sally must have been having similar thoughts because she said, “I believe we’re going to be visiting with the upper crust, Guv.”

“Don’t worry about it, lass. An MP puts his pants on just like I do. Let me handle the toff.”

They walked to the foreboding front door, really two large oaken ones. He leaned on the bell, hearing it echo within the mansion. A maid came to the door, not a butler.

He flashed his warrant card. “Inspector Earl Wilson and Sergeant Sally Hill from Penrith PD, madam. We would like to speak to MP Richard Bixby or Mr. Daniel Clarke, if you would be so kind.”

She frowned, took his warrant card and examined it, and returned it. She then looked disparagingly at Sally. “The master is in London doing the people’s business. I will have to see if Mr. Clarke is here. Please wait.” She slammed the door shut.

“Does she have a right to be so snooty?” Sally asked.

“She’s not comparing us to herself, lass; she just knows we aren’t in the MP’s social class. Don’t worry. Our Mr. Clarke probably doesn’t win her approval either. Servants are often snooty and also very protective of their toffs. They’re paid to be that way.”

“No wonder aristocracy’s a dying institution.”

“The aristocracy can’t die out fast enough for me. That includes that whole lot of Windsors, of course.”

Five minutes later, the door opened. This time it was an old butler. He barely glanced at the warrant card. “Follow me, officers.”

They saw a bit of the mansion’s interior as they wound through some halls, ending up at the entrance to a study. It contained one large desk and a much smaller one. Seated at the smaller, Earl recognized Daniel Clarke, the man from the video file. He stood and walked towards them. “Have Dora bring a tea service, James. We must treat our guests properly.”

“Yes sir.”

James left them alone with the PA, who gestured towards a half circle of four comfortable chairs arranged around a huge fireplace. “Please have a seat.” They did. “What brings you to Bixby Manor, officers?”

Sally placed the stills taken from the video on the small table at the center of the half-circle. “We matched your image here to one in our local broadsheet. Who’s the woman, Mr. Clarke?”

“Someone who could give the honorable Mr. Bixby a lot of negative publicity. She’s Eleanor Bixby, the MP’s wife. They’re going through a rough patch right now.”

“I see,” Earl said. “So you were sent to collect her at the pub and avoid the negative publicity?”

He shrugged. “I’m the PA for both the MP and his wife. He wasn’t here, so he had me act for him. That’s part of my job, Inspector.”

“Am I right in suspecting you used some GHB, ketamine, or rohyponol to ensure her cooperation?”

“Why would you ever suspect that? Eleanor and I are friends. She was drunk, but she came willingly.”

“Doesn’t look like she came willingly to me,” Sally said.

“You’ll have to prove that, Sergeant.” Clarke stood. “I think we’re done here.”

“You forgot the tea,” Earl said. “And we’ll need to talk to Mrs. Bixby.”

“You may assume the tea is only for me, and she’s not here either.”

“Where is she? Will she return soon? We can wait.”

“She’s also in London. When there are official galas, she usually accompanies the MP. I believe this one is sponsored by King Charles III. It’s a fund raiser for some of his pet environmental causes, so there are some political trappings to it. I’ll ring the maid who will show you out.”

“The royal brush-off,” Earl said to Sally once behind the wheel of their EV from the carpool. “I wonder if the MP treats all his constituents in such a boorish manner.”

“He’s hiding something, Guv. Eleanor Bixby seemed to be drugged and wasn’t going with him willingly.”

“Agreed. But is whatever Clarke is hiding sufficient motivation for murder? That remains to be seen. We have one more person we can query.”

“Who’s that?”

“Whoever leads the MP’s security detail while he’s in London. I know a fellow who does that for the PM. He’ll surely know who’s doing it for the honorable Richard Bixby. Sometimes it’s all about who you know, Sally.”

“Indeed. And it’s more important to know who does the real work and not the lazy politicians. Why don’t you call your informant now?”

Earl looked at his watch. “No time like the present.”

***

The PM was now a member of the Labour Party, but Harry Rawlins, the head of his security detail, knew the head of Tory Bixby’s security detail. He suggested that Earl call him after hearing about the case of Declan Flaherty’s shooting.

“Sam Jenkins is a good bloke. Mention my name because he’s not likely to give you any information about Bixby otherwise. Make sure he knows you’re a copper too. He hates the media.”

Earl laughed. He’d met Harry in the Royal Navy. Both had been much younger then, eighteen-year-old lads who had no idea about what they were going to do with their lives at the time.

“Was he a navy man too?”

“Army. Some traditional Scottish regiment, if memory serves. We’re still drinking buddies even with that and working for MPs from different parties, of course. Sam went to Peel too, worked in the Met for a while, and then resigned to go into the security business. Better hours and better pay. You know the story.”

“Let me have his mobile number. I’ll give him a call.”

Earl chatted with Sam for a few minutes about their adventures at the Peel Centre, policing, and the security business. He then got serious. He first explained what had happened to Declan again. He then asked, “We have a few leads gleaned from the novelist’s own notes. One we’re considering relates to your MP.”

“That old toff getting his lily-white hands dirty, is he?”

Earl explained what they’d seen on the video. “We queried Clarke about it. He said she had too much to drink.”

“Could be. She’s a wild one, that woman. But maybe not, ‘cause I doubt a few drinks would shut her down. Eleanor’s about fifteen years younger than my boss, and there are rumors she’s having an affair with someone. That someone could be Clarke. Lots of opportunity for those two to get it on, I dare say.”

“But why would Clarke want to kill Flaherty?”

“Maybe there’s more going on, and Clarke thought Flaherty knows more than he does.”

Earl thought a moment. “Has your MP Bixby hired a PI to follow either Clarke or his wife?”

“Not that I know. Aye, Clarke might have thought your victim was a PI, but your question’s still relevant. I don’t know Clarke that well—he stays in your area for the most part—but it would seem that killing a PI is going a bit too far.”

“Mrs. Bixby is there with your MP. Do things seem normal between them? No obvious barneys between the husband and wife?”

“Old Bixby’s barneys mostly occur with other politicians, even Tories. His life is politics. He’s lost a rag with several MPs and basically slandered the PM on the floor, arguing that crime is out of control everywhere, for example.”

“Good campaign theme, I suppose. Um, maybe that’s why the missus has someone on the side. He doesn’t have the time or energy to fulfill his duties as a husband.”

“Oh, she’s important for his public persona, so he coddles her. She’s a lovely ornament he can show off at state functions. They’ll both be dressed to the nines at the King’s gala, I assure you. In fact, she and the old Queen Consort get along rather well. Whether that’s a political asset for Bixby is questionable, of course. The whole royal family is mostly irrelevant now and not so popular.”

“What’s Eleanor’s background?”

“I can send you information on both the MP and his wife, all London-oriented and not that relative to Penrith. That part’s on you. You might spot something that’s relevant to your case all the same.”

“Thanks. That might help. And, if you think of anything else, let me know. When I’m in London some time, we should throw down a few pints with Harry.”

“Sounds like a plan. Good luck on the case.”

***

Neither Sam’s information nor the local information readily available on the area’s MP and his wife were enlightening, though. While Earl went on to other items they’d noticed in Declan’s notes, Sally dug deeper into the local records.

She went to Earl’s office to bring something to his attention. She waited patiently until he got off the phone.

“Well, that kills two other leads,” he said. “We might have to return to have a chat with that publican to see if he can remember how many drinks Eleanor actually had. I’m still betting Clarke spiked them.”

“Maybe. I found something interesting. Richard and Eleanor got married only ten years ago. Her maiden name was Clarke. She’s Daniel’s cousin. I suspect she got him the PA post.”

“And, unless he’s committing incest, he’s not her lover. We need to find out if she really has one, and, if she does, who he is. Our friendly publican at The Roadside Inn might be able to answer both questions.”

“How so?”

“Daniel met her at the pub. Suppose she was a regular there and was waiting for someone else?”

“You have a devious mind. Clarke could have gone there to prevent anything embarrassing to occur for his boss. Or maybe she was already there with her lover.”

“So her cousin could have been playing the role of a PI. If we go back earlier into that video record, we might find her real lover.”

“He might have been waiting for her. The publican could tell us that. If we get any sort of description from him, we can then find him in the video record, whenever he arrived. Let’s go.”

“I was going to do lunch, Guv.”

“In our canteen?” She nodded. “Come on. I’ll wager that the pub has a much superior menu, and our business will motivate the publican to be forthcoming. My treat.”

***

The pub was busy with its early upper-crust lunch crowd, but not that busy. The publican sat at the table with them after bringing them some promising meat pies and two ales.

“Aye, that woman was here waiting quite a while. Then this one bloke shows up, and I thought he was going to have a go at her right there. Marra, there was a lot of heavy panting, hugs, and kisses. But they sat, and they ordered drinks. The bloke gets a call on his moby and dashes out, leaving her upset. Half hour later, the second bloke makes an appearance, the one who took her away. They had some angry words, and then the drinks hit her, I guess.”

“Did the second man doctor her drinks?” Earl asked.

The publican frowned and shrugged. “Wasn’t paying a lot of attention, Inspector. Nights are a lot busier. Every toff around the area loves this place. I figured the first bloke was the new boyfriend, and the second the jealous ex. But what do I know? I stay out of those things as much as possible unless someone gets rowdy.” He flexed his biceps. “Then I can even step in myself.”

“Can you describe the first bloke?”

The publican stole a chip, scrunched up his face, and pondered the question. “Saw more of him than the second, I ‘spose, but I keep the lights dim at night. Actually, come to think of it, he left via the backdoor, the exit nearest the car park. Seemed in a hurry, like. Anyways, I saw his mug clearly then.” He ran a finger from between his right eyebrow and right ear, down the cheek, and to the chin. “Old pale scar there on the side of his face. Bushy eyebrows he had, hair thinning a bit, big ears, wide eyes. Didn’t note the color.”

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Confidence Man. Maggie Haberman, author (2022). Unlike other books about Donald J. Trump and his MAGA fascism, this one is more of a standard biography. We see the making of a sociopathic leader who led an unsuccessful coup against the US government on January 6, 2021. Unfortunately, he’s not unique because there are many others now on America’s far right and they could accomplish what he set out to do: Turn the USA into the FSA, the Fascist States of America. In fact, he might return in 2024 to lead MAGA maggots on.

Like many pundits and analysts studying the extreme right-wing of the Good Ole Piranhas, Ms. Haberman is afraid to use the words fascist and fascism. I’m not, and I challenge any intelligent person to read this book and not see the parallels with 1930s Germany and the rise of the Nazi party. Germany’s fascism wasn’t the creation of Hitler; America’s is not the creation of Trump. They’re both just examples of two charismatic and narcissistic leaders’ abilities to brainwash millions of citizens and turn them into lemmings who follow them over the cliffs into the abyss of fascism.

But this is a book review, so let’s get some technical details out of the way first. This book is badly edited—you can tell it was hastily put together. The publisher, Penguin Press, did Ms. Haberman no favors. This applies to content-editing as well as copy-editing. And I understand the intention of the front and back images on the flyleaf cover: They wanted to state in images that the biopic considers all of DJT’s life from his time as a spoiled yet tortured brat in the household of a sociopathic father (a mental illness DJT also suffers from, according to many mental health professionals, including his own niece) to the incompetent businessman and fanatical, narcissistic, and paranoid fascist. But the back pic and its sentence (see below) would have been better on the front.

With the chaos DJT has created and is still creating, it’s of course difficult to content-edit and maintain a more rational feel in a book about him. A man who can go from one topic to another in minutes and rarely seems focused was always a real challenge for anyone trying to “manage him,” as the huge turnover in his administration indicated. That chaos is also any challenge for any biographer too, so the majority of pages in this tome are roller-coaster rides, a whacka-mole reading experience.

More disconcerting for me, though, were the copy-editing errors that often interrupted my reading when I would need to stop and say “Huh?” until I figured out what was meant. I shan’t blame the author for all of these errors—she’s an accomplished journalist and probably a better writer than anyone in Penguin’s editorial staff—so I blame the latter. At the retail price of $32 as indicated on that flyleaf cover, Penguin will make a killing with this book everyone’s been waiting for, so they should have delivered a more polished product. (Unfortunately, this critique is all too applicable to traditionally published works today, especially from the Big Five publishing conglomerates that are anxious to make their money as fast as possible.)

Still, the reader has here a well documented portrayal of the man who is out to destroy American democracy. You see here no positives about Trump or his rabid MAGA maggot followers, or inept and chaotic administration, or his wild and incoherent policies—only negatives. It is indeed “…the book that Trump fears most” because it portrays the most dangerous person American government has ever known while being at the same time the most moronic one.

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[Note from Steve: It’s been a while since I’ve posted some short fiction. My only excuse is that short stories and novellas are like dashes and intermediate races, and I’ve been running a few marathons by writing and publishing several novels, notably finishing the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series and three novels from the new “Inspector Steve Morgan” series. I think this short story turned out rather well—you can tell me what you think by commenting or by using my contact page at this website—and it lets readers know a little bit about how I prepare to write my novels as well! Enjoy.]

***

There were three people left when the publican announced closing time at The Pink Hippo. Declan Flaherty decided that was okay; he needed a fag anyway. He stuffed the notes he’d made on napkins into his coat pocket, finished his second pint, and left the establishment to the old tippling couple and the plump publican, winking at the old woman.

She’d probably known he was a stranger. He wasn’t a tall man but wiry and muscular. She might even see him as a handsome bloke. Some women saw the introverted author that way, perhaps identifying him with one of his protagonists if they knew he was an author; some men were jealous when they eyed him, especially at book events. Usually the women were the ones who read his novels, mystery/thriller stories that had an eclectic mix of romance and suspense. If the men came along to his book events, they often did so reluctantly. Of course, that was a common occurrence in any cultural event in Greater London. Men were stereotypically sports addicts; women were a bit more eclectic with their entertainment choices.

He wasn’t sure that the Lake District was comparable to London in that regard, of course. Certainly The Pink Hippo pub’s setting wouldn’t be one used for a cultural event, but he liked the out-of-the-way places to have a pint or two and study the local clientele. Those notes might eventually be used in some novel. Their number had increased after he left the more posh Riverside Inn that was nearer Penrith center.

Outside he stopped at the edge of the little square and lit up. That gave his eyes time to adjust to the dim light. There were only four anemic street lamps at each corner of the small cobblestone-covered square, their light diminished even further by their dirty glass covers. Part of the charm, Flaherty thought. Peace and quiet that were hard to find in London.

He’d had the idea to set his next novel in the Lake District, part of Cumbria and a scenic and rustic area filled with vistas not found anywhere else in England. The largest town was Penrith that was much nearer the Irish Sea than where he was at. The square and its pub were more inland, in a hamlet east of the town. He supposed they called it a city. Even Penrith was smaller than nearby cities south of there—Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester among them. He knew most of them, but not Penrith nor the area around it.

He followed his usual practice: Scout out the area, get an idea about the locals, their habits, and their speech patterns, and just jot down ideas in general—he called the latter what-ifs and possible themes, and they might later be woven through and around the eventual plot. In this case, one idea was that major cities south of the area would bring crime into the area around Penrith, their gangs looking to expand their territories. Not exactly smart from the business perspective—the population was smaller—but maybe the competition would be less if they were the first to get their foot in the door.

The night wasn’t clear. He’d already had a few clear ones when the sky would be filled with stars, many more than one could see in those big cities. That night it was foggy, though; except for the quaintness of the surrounding buildings, one could imagine he was in some squalid London neighborhood—no rain but wet fog blowing all the way in from the coast just west beyond Penrith.

He’d finished half the smoke when he saw a man come out of an alleyway and walk towards him. Another tippler about to be disappointed that the pub had closed? He just managed to understand how wrong that guess was when the man pulled out a gun and started shooting.

***

“Good that you could join us,” Doc Simpson said to the arriving coppers. “You two deserved to have your slumbers disturbed too.”

Harry the SOCO glanced at Doc and then smiled and winked at the new arrivals. “Doc’s always in a great mood, isn’t he?”

Of course, DI Earl Wilson and DS Sally Hill knew that was an instance of Harry’s habitual and sarcastic irony. Yet two hours before dawn was a time when most people in that Lake District’s hamlet where the shooting had occurred would indeed be sleeping—an ungodly hour, Earl thought.

He was a police veteran who had started out as a patrol constable in London, a “bobby” or “top” as they were called, the latter for the helmet—and then bounced around after being promoted from PC to DC and finally DI, finally ending up in the Lake District, where he suspected he would retire someday because he loved hiking and fishing.

He was a big bear of a man, an oversized version of that American telly detective, Columbo, complete with old car and dirty raincoat, but he didn’t smoke cigars and didn’t drink much. In fact, for his age, he was in good shape. A criminal might outrun him, but they’d be hard-pressed to outfight him. He had once broken one’s jaw, but he’d gone to the hospital later to apologize to the hand-cuffed scrote for doing that.

Sally was from the other coast and loathed southern England. Her birthplace was Morpeth, a regional capital not far from Newcastle-on-Tyne, so she felt right at home in Penrith that might be considered a left-coast town in comparison to Morpeth, without any political meanings intended—the area on the border with Scotland was a conservative one.

Twenty years younger than her Guv, she was coming into her own as Earl’s partner in policing. She was fleet of foot and good enough at martial arts to compensate for her small size, as many a criminal had discovered. She also could turn on the charm, though, if she felt inclined or needed to do so in an interview or interrogation.

Ignoring Doc Simpson, who was indeed always of sour disposition at best, Earl said to Harry, “Mind if we look around?”

“No, as long as you stay outside my five-meter circle around Doc here, but tread carefully.”

Earl jerked a thumb at the nearest of the two vans, an ambulance parked next to the SOCO’s van. “Do we have witnesses?” He was referring to a man and woman sitting at the back and swinging their legs back and forth as they drank tea.

Earl knew there’d been two ambulances. The first on the scene had rushed the shooting victim to the hospital with both blues and twos, surely a rude awakening for light sleepers in the hamlet as it sped along on its way to the nearest NHS facility.

“They found the victim. Fortunately.” Doc was packing up. Having no dead body to play with, the pathologist had only been collecting blood samples. There were plenty within that five-meter circle, so it was also where the victim had fallen.

“Go have a chinwag with them,” Earl told Sally. “I’m going to have that walk-around.”

Doc would eventually post reports about wounds and the possible ID of the weapon that had caused them on HOLMES, the national police database, the latter helped along by any bullets dug out of the victim at the hospital. Harry would add his contribution there as well. The rest of the investigation would be up to Sally and Earl.

As he walked around the small square, he decided there was no good hiding place within it. No trees or walls to hide behind and no benches to sit on and pretend to be reading a paper, although that would be an absurd cover considering the dim light. A chemist’s shop wasn’t yet open and was on one side opposite the pub; it probably offered only a small variety of medicines, its business mostly limited to non-prescription over-the-counter items. Except for its sign, its facade looked like the rest of the buildings that contained cheap flats. The square was some distance from High Street and not in a safe part of town, but Earl knew the pub was popular with the locals. In summer months, swarming tourists might even find it, much to the locals’ disgust.

Four alleyways entered the square perpendicular to each side; they originated in surrounding streets. Earl checked out each one. In the third, he found the hideaway he’d searched for, a place where someone had waited to ambush the victim. The remains of a half dozen or more fags had been scattered around at one spot just inside the dark alley. He eyed the pub and confirmed that from where Doc was crouched the spot in the alleyway was invisible. The fags’ butts would provide DNA evidence, which wouldn’t do them much good in the investigation unless they had something on record to match…like a suspect’s swab!

By the time he walked back to the crime scene, Doc had left with the second ambulance and the couple had disappeared. Harry looked ready to scarper as well.

“You’ll want to check that alley over there,” he said to Harry, pointing to it. “I’m sure that’s where the shooter waited for his victim to come out of the pub.”

“Will do.”

Earl approached Sally, who was entering data into her mobile with a stylus. “Any joy from that couple?” She shook her head in the negative. “Let’s go then. Not much more we can do here. This was a pre-meditated attack. Maybe the victim, if he’s survived, can tell us the why or even the who. We’ll stop by the hospital on the way back to the station.”

***

“He might be a bit groggy, but he was talking to me,” the NHS ER doctor said. “Be brief, Inspector.”

Earl nodded. Sally and he walked to the patient’s room; Earl peeked in. “No surprise. The bloke’s watching BBC One. Looks comfy.” He entered; Sally followed. “DI Earl Wilson here, Mr. Flaherty. Feel up to answering some questions?”

Declan smiled. “I was wondering when rozzers would appear. Come in, Inspector.” He used the remote to turn off the telly. “I’ll just need a few sips of water for my dry mouth before I’m interrogated by you.”

Earl wondered how the victim could look so good after surgery where three bullets had been removed. He had them in an evidence bag already. They now knew he was an author, not a famous one but popular enough. His stubble and wild black hair was sprinkled with some gray, and his intelligent blue eyes had lost none of their clarity from the pain killers. Stretched out on the hospital bed, Earl could see that he wasn’t a tall man; he was muscular, though, and a bit pale now. Who wouldn’t be? Not in bad shape considering, with a smile that Sally couldn’t resist returning.

“Not an interrogation, Mr. Flaherty,” she said. “We just need to hear what you know about the shooting to help us go out and find the shooter.”

Declan eyed her. “The proverbial silent partner speaks, and a winsome and lovely lass she is. A much better sight for my tired eyes than you are, Inspector.”

“DS Sally Hill, my sergeant,” groused Earl. He pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat; she followed his lead on the other side and took out her mobile and stylus to take notes.

Is she showing leg to the Irishman? he asked himself. The brogue had been obvious from the start. Earl sorted the author’s water. “Now, Mr. Flaherty, if you would be so kind to go over the events of last night and this morning for us? Start by explaining how you, an obvious visitor to our area, came to choose that particular pub.”

The writer’s answers to his questions were short, clear, and precise. Earl could tell he was a skilled observer. He supposed many writers had to be like that to make their plots and characters come alive. Declan’s trip to the pub, the second of the night, had been suggested by the woman who owned and ran the boarding house where he’d been staying. He wanted to experience some local color. He got it! In his own red blood! On second thought, that wasn’t local: They needed more information about the man’s background.

The writer explained why he was visiting the area, how he went about plotting his novels, and his background: Born in Cork, resident of Dublin then London, and he even told them who his agent and publisher were. He also had no idea who had targeted him.

“Interesting bloke,” Earl observed to Sally upon returning to their carpool vehicle parked in the hospital’s car park. His own motor was on its last legs, so he often “borrowed” one of the station’s little EVs that didn’t have much range but could outrace the older and heavier patrol vehicles, especially with blues and twos clearing the way. “I’ll let you interview that boarding house lady. Maybe one of her guests had some angry words with Mr. Flaherty? The Irish diaspora is still sometimes unpopular with locals. I’m going to make some calls, one to Flaherty’s publishing house and the other to his agent. It’s also possible Flaherty made someone angry in London who has followed him here. Either one might be able to tell me that.”

She smiled. “A literary critic? I don’t think the boarding house lady, publisher, or agent will offer any leads.”

“No stone unturned, I always say. Obviously someone targeted Declan Flaherty. They waited in that alleyway until he exited the pub and then shot him. It’s our job to find out who and why.”

***

The lady who ran the boarding house was also Irish but a longtime resident of the area, a widow named Mrs. O’Hara. She’d lived in the Lake District long enough that her Irish brogue was sprinkled with Cumbrian dialect. Sally had lived long enough in the area that she had no trouble understanding her.

“Mr. Flaherty writes novels, Sergeant. I have a few of them here, and he signed them for me. Imagine! ‘Twas wonderful to meet a real writer, like. Hard to believe someone shot the poor man. Are you married, Sergeant Hill?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Um, I’d go after him in a heartbeat if I were your age. ‘Course, my Mike were a handsome feller too. Dinna write. Could barely make it through our Penrith broadsheet. You ‘owt to chat’im up, lass. He’s not married either.”

Sally didn’t blush. People said lots of things in interviews, many of them inappropriate. A copper had to get used to it. “I’m really here to ask you how he got along with your other guests. Were there any barneys at your dinner table?”

“I offer breakfast and dinner, Sergeant. Right now I only have two other boarders, a missus and a feller. She’s Bonnie Ellison and has been with me for donkey’s years. She’s a nurse at the hospital. Randall Bradley’s a traveling salesman that’s with me every third week. ‘Course during tourist season, I’m full up. Twitchers, hikers, fishermen, and so forth, attracted to our great outdoors.”

“Did Mr. Flaherty have any barneys with Ms. Ellison or Mr. Bradley?”

“Not one, Luv. We all got along famously. One big happy family, like. Every dinner was a party among friends. They’re early enough so everyone can enjoy the nightlife afterwards if they’re keen on that.”

“Did you and Mr. Flaherty get along?”

“Famously. It was like having George Moore living under the same roof. And ‘twas a brilliant conversationalist too, he was.”

She knew Mr. Moore was a Irish novelist from the twentieth century’s early years. Perhaps Mrs. O’Hara was well read? “I understand that you recommended that pub to Mr. Flaherty. Any particular reason?”

“Aye. ‘Twas Mike’s favorite. I used to go with him sometimes. Back then we’d play cards or do darts. I had no idea it’s become that dangerous now, Sergeant.”

“He wasn’t shot in the pub, Mrs. O’Hara. And you couldn’t have known that someone wanted to kill him.”

“Aye, but I’ll think twice ‘bout recommending The Pink Hippo now.”

***

The publisher’s office in London put Earl through to the acquisition editor, a woman named Sally Field; she’d guided all of Flaherty’s novels from manuscripts to published books. She was aghast about what had occurred.

“I always told Declan to be careful. He had this thing about scouting around for local color. He’d often ride along with detectives at times, which wasn’t all that bad, but he’d also interview some unsavory characters too. I don’t know that any of them would want to shoot him, though. He always said that in his novels he changed names to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. He wrote fiction, after all.”

“Was he successful doing it?”

“Quite good, I dare say. He isn’t going to win any Nobel or Booker Prize, Inspector, but his books sell. They’re mystery novels, crime novels to be precise, with lots of suspense and thrills, even a bit of romance. In this business, few successes often lead to more successes, even though it’s a competitive field.”

“What about his competition? Any jealous authors out there? Or someone who thinks that he stole their ideas?”

“Because he researched his stories so much, no one would dare claim plagiarism. Most authors skip the research, just using the local knowledge they already possess. I suppose there are a lot of jealous authors, but why would that lead them to shoot him? That just doesn’t happen, Inspector Wilson.”

Flaherty’s agent who lived near the university city of Oxford was even less help. An Irish ex-pat as well, Flaherty was Sean Harris’s only novelist. He handled authors of children’s books and academic authors, mostly university professors. The two had known each other at Trinity College in Dublin. Sean couldn’t believe his friend had been shot either.

“You’ll never meet a nicer person, Inspector. He’s a bit introverted, so I think his publisher takes advantage of him sometimes. He’s also a true storyteller. My work with him now basically just involves helping him to get a manuscript ready. I only give them a cursory editing because his manuscripts are clean and the publisher has its own editing staff. The turnaround with them is a bit speedier now because his fan base is always querying about when the next novel will be released.”

“I guess he makes a good living?”

“Good but not great. For him, for me, and for his publisher. Everybody wins a bit when an author is successful.”

***

Read the rest of this entry »

As I announced in a tweet (I don’t know how much longer I’ll be on Twitter because Elon Musk seems intent on ruining it!), I’m finishing a short story for my “Friday Fiction” series on my blog (see this Friday’s post). I use short fiction to take a few breathers, a cooling down if you will, after running the marathon of completing a novel (in this case, the first three “Inspector Steve Morgan” novels that may or may not end as a trilogy). Of course, short fiction is like running a few sprints or mid-distance races in comparison to a novelistic marathon. (The real NYC Marathon will take place soon. I was never able to run a real one, but I can still admire all those runners stamina!)

Once I’m done with that short story and posted it, what comes next? I’ve been debating three possible new novels. I had intentions of morphing More than Human: The Mensa Contagion into three novels, adding to the first and second parts of that sci-fi novel. There’s also still the question about what becomes of the combined Human-Mensan expedition to a nearby star (nearby in cosmic terms, of course).

I couldn’t call on A. B. Carolan to help on that, though, an avid fan of sci-fi himself. He’s still working on the second and third books of “The Denisovan Trilogy” to add to Origins. Unlike the Mensan book, there’s two novels there that need to be written to finish that story about galactic empires and their political battles. The first book took place on Earth. I can understand A. B.’s indecision about the next two with all the politics already going on here on Earth! He expressed that when he appeared in Intolerance, Book Seven of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. (It’s available as a free PDF download—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page here at this site.)

To avoid badgering A. B. and to take a breather from sleuthing, British-style (the Brookstone and Morgan series), I’m going to try to control my ire against Black Opal Books (publisher of The Last Humans) and Amazon (for confusing the first book with its sequel, The Last Humans: A New Dawn) by finishing the trilogy with a novel tentatively titled Moscow Menace. Here, as hinted at the end of the second novel, Penny Castro, the principal protagonist in the first two novels, and her husband Alex will have starring roles once again.

The plot for Moscow Menace is about Russia, of course. Don’t worry. Vladimir Putin is long dead, having succumbed to the same virus bioengineered by the PNRK and unleashed on the US’s west coast only to see it become worldwide and kill billions, even most of its originators. (All that predated Covid-19, although it’s still in question whether the latter virus was bioengineered by the Chinese. At any rate, it certainly made The Last Humans more believable and a warning that no one heeded, among them the Chinese.) Penny and a few others are among the survivors, all a fluke of genetics. (The mRNA vaccines help explain why genetics is important here. And we’ll be studying the consequences of that, i.e. the vaccine side effects, for a long time.)

The post-apocalyptic world of Penny Castro is still one where human beings must struggle to survive, but like in the second novel, this third novel adds the debris from world politics to the trials and tribulations of the survivors. I’ll keep readers posted on my progress. In the meantime, if you haven’t read the first two novels, you have some catching up to do!

***

Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment will be considered spam. Solicitations from web promoters are always considered to be spam!)

Four sci-fi novels. Mentioned above are More than Human: The Mensa Contagion, The Last Humans, The Last Humans: A New Dawn, and A. B. Carolan’s Origins. All are available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon, except for the last). They’ll make fine holiday gifts for all the sci-fi addicts among your family and friends. (See the “Books & Short Stories” web page for descriptions.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

[Announcement from Steve: If you’re looking for me on Facebook, for my author’s page in particular, you will no longer find me there: I have ended my long-term participation in that social media site! Zuckerberg and his minions have changed it so much and gone to the dark side that it’s now a complete waste of my time. (I could no longer post to my own author’s page, for example! And I have to put up with too many fascists whom Zuckerberg and friends are all too willing to help, including the Russians in 2016.) My readers can follow me here in this blog—hey, it’s social media too!—and on Twitter, although I might end my affiliation with Twitter too if Musk ruins it like Zuckerberg has done with Facebook. Meta be damned! Amazon (Bezos), Facebook (Zuckerberg), and Twitter (Musk) are no longer an author’s friends. Moreover, their outreach to readers has always been highly questionable. I can no longer recommend any of them to authors. Stick with your blog or, if you must, use Goodreads. (Amazon has ruined that too, of course.) Now…back to my post.]

As I explain in the end notes of my new novel Fear the Asian Evil, I’ve long believed that Xi’s China is a more dangerous adversary for the US than Putin’s Russia, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. I gave Vladimir Putin his due as a villain in Legacy of Evil, so it was time to make Xi Jinping the villain in this third book of the “Inspector Steve Morgan” series. Putin has had made many mistakes and miscalculations; Xi’s major one so far was the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that threatens the Chinese economy. I suppose that’s just because Xi unleashed Covid upon the world.

In the novel, I deal with Xi indirectly by focusing on the MSS (China’s evil Ministry of State Security), specifically on its agents and spies whose goal is to disrupt western democracies and steal their ideas and inventions. (Any autocratic system kills individual creativity. The FPA in America should carefully consider that truism—that’s the Fascist Party of America, once known as the Republican Party.) How are these Chinese operatives financed? I examine one possible way in my novel, one that could be hard to thwart for any security agencies in the UK, US, or any other democratic country. There could be other ways not portrayed in my novel, of course, but what I do portray shows that China presents a clear and present danger for freedom, human rights, creatives’ hard work, and world peace.

It’s interesting that President Biden and others are echoing my concerns about China. The Ukrainians are slapping Russia around—let’s cheer them on!—but we’ve not forgotten and can’t afford to forget about that Red Dragon. It’s time that the US and all western democracies confront all the bad actors in the world, including Iran, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia…and China!

My new novel is another mystery/thriller featuring the Bristol PD DI Steve Morgan. It might be called a political thriller with enough romance and suspense added to make a spicy stew. Its themes should be topics of discussion around everyone’s dinner table just like the themes in all the Morgan books. If you want fluff, read a cozy mystery, not these novels. I don’t ever expect all readers to agree with me (my characters express a variety of opinions, many not my own), but if I can start intelligent discussions among you, this book and the other Morgan novels are successes!

Watch for Fear the Asian Evil—coming soon!

***

Fear the Asian Evil, Book Three in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” series, will be available this November at all of Draft2Digital’s affiliated retailers (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Overdrive, Scribd, etc.), but not on Amazon. Here’s a summary:

Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan’s next case at Bristol PD involves the attempted murder of a journalist who happens to be the sister-in-law of one of his sergeants. Its prelude, though, involves a fishing trip made during a vacation when Steve and his girlfriend’ father find a dead Chinese spy afloat in the North Sea. That leads to frictions with MI5 that distract from solving what should be the routine case of the woman’s attempted murder. The hunt for spies and ordinary policework clash until they come together where mutual cooperation finally wins the day.

While you can read this novel independently from all my others, if you missed The Klimt Connection (where Morgan makes his debut), Celtic Chronicles (which leaves some things unresolved for the first Morgan book), or Legacy of Evil and Cult of Evil (#1 and #2 in Morgan’s series), you might want to check them out too. (Hint for Santa’s helpers: A gift of the entire “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy will please any avid reader of mystery/thriller novels among your family and friends.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Stephen King and Dean Koontz have made a good living writing horror stories. (The second’s tales are better than the first’s.) Other authors less so. (Maybe not so good a living but still some quality stories in that genre?) All their stories are probably better categorized to be a subgenre of fantasy and not sci-fi.

Mystery and thriller stories do a better job of capturing the actual horror of real life, though. What could be more horrible than a school shooting? Or Putin’s war in Ukraine? Or 9/11? Moreover, fiction dealing with horrible events can provide useful warnings for us precisely because those events could occur in real life!

Even in my sci-fi stories, I prefer mystery and thrills, not unbelievable horror. You won’t find an ET like the one in the movie Alien, but you will find some scheming and murderous ones. I prefer mystery and thrills in my reading, and I prefer to create them in my writing to creating some fantastic story featuring impossible events.

My new novel Cult of Evil has enough horror that it should still creep out a lot of readers, though, especially because such horror could actually occur in real life. The story takes place in the Bristol conurbation of England (Britain’s west coast), but it could easily occur in any port city anywhere. The novel also differs a bit from my other mystery/thriller novels, the first novel in the series included, because it’s more a police procedural featuring Inspector Steve Morgan, also the principal character in Legacy of Evil and making his debut as a secondary character in The Klimt Connection. In contrast to crime stories set in America (Detective Bosch in LAPD and my own Detective Castilblanco in NYPD, for example), the police procedures are English ones, but there’s a lot of surprising commonality between LAPD and NYPD versus Bristol PD. Morgan himself has things in common with the two mentioned American detectives (a military background, for example), but there are also quite a few differences.

Cults, of course, are very real, from L. Ron Hubbard’s crazy scientologists, Quakers, and Seventh Day Adventists, to David Koresh’s and Charles Manson’s fanatical groups and those QAnon believers that plague American democracy. From these examples, one sees cults can be good or bad. Of course, Morgan has to deal with an evil one.

I hope you find the horror in Cult of Evil subservient to the mystery and thrills. I also hope you find it more interesting than what’s contained in a King or Koontz novel. Let me know if you do.

***

Now available! Cult of Evil, Book Two in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” series, was published October 17 and will be available at all of Draft2Digital’s affiliated retailers (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Overdrive, Scribd, etc.), but not on Amazon. Here’s a summary:

Steve Morgan, a former Scotland Yard Inspector and now one at Bristol PD, has another murder case to solve. A young woman appears to have been tortured as part of some cult’s evil rite and then hung lifeless from a Victorian folly. Is the cult leader the scam artist who took over the woman’s properties and other valuable assets? And to make matters even worse for Morgan, a deadly assassin is hunting him.

While you can read this novel independently from my others, if you missed The Klimt Connection (where Morgan makes his debut), Celtic Chronicles (which leaves some things unresolved for the first Morgan book), or Legacy of Evil (#1 in the series), you might want to check them out too.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Crystal Blue Murder. Saralyn Richard, author (2022). This third novel in the “Detective Parrott” series (Murder in the One Percent and Palette for Love and Murder were the first two) builds on the previous ones but can stand alone. I’ve been waiting for it for some time, and I was not disappointed. It’s an excellent mystery, crime story, and police procedural with thriller elements that’s better than the first two novels, and that says a lot because those first two set the bar rather high.

There’s enough background that the reader easily becomes familiar with Detective Parrott and his wife Tonya. He’s the plain-clothes detective in a three-man police department in a region of rural Pennsylvania not far from Philadelphia. The region has a lot of people with old wealth, yet murders still occur. In this case, an eighty-year-old woman’s bank barn remade into a million-dollar residence explodes as if it was a meth lab. A body is found among the rubble, but it turns out the man had died before the explosion.

From thereon, Parrott’s case becomes complicated with enough twists and turns to satisfy any mystery lover. I shall not give away anymore of the plot; I’ll only state that it’s a good one that kept me flipping the “pages” on my Kindle.

I only have one nit to pick: I could have used a cast of characters, not so much for the police officers but for the many other intriguing and well-developed characters.

Highly recommended for your reading pleasure!

Project Hail Mary. Andy Weir, author (2021). Better than that potato-growing story, The Martian, and much better than Artemis, which belies the prospects we have in the new NASA moon landing program, this novel still has many negatives.

First, it’s tedious. The parts occurring on Earth are okay and in many ways more interesting than the struggle for survival orbiting a planet in the Tau Ceti system where the reader suffers through too many details about the MC’s struggle to communicate and cooperate with an ET from a planet in the 40 Eridani system.

Second, I was continuously reminded of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, another detailed tale more dedicated to undersea flora and fauna—classic, plodding sci-fi that’s far too short on plot (again, except for the flashbacks to the Hail Mary project’s beginnings on Earth).

So, what’s the project? A strange ET organism is eating Earth’s sun! And the MC and his ET sidekick must try to save their home planets. Fred Hoyle portrayed this much better in The Black Cloud and did it all on Earth!

Not recommended, but Mr. Weir should still receive kudos for trying to make this all scientifically plausible (he fails) and running the Iron Man race to finish the novel.

“DI Ruth Hunter” series. Simon McCleave, author. My binge-reading of entire series of British-style mysteries (which has led to several more of my own) continued with this series of novels. They are a bit darker and grittier than average (even more so than my “Inspector Morgan” mysteries, my work in progress—see below) and worlds apart from fluffy cozies! Too much attention is given to the MC’s search for her lesbian lover and her sergeant’s battles with alcoholism, but if you skip over those continuing side stories, you’ll find some intriguing plots that will entertain you for many hours. (Side stories are useful to flesh out the principal characters’ backgrounds, of course, but the author overdoes it here.)

The worst of the series is the one where the inspector and her sergeant are tasked with babysitting an ISIS-radicalized terrorist. While the novels could be described as mystery/thriller fiction in general, this novel is more thriller than mystery and doesn’t seem too believable. The author seems out of his comfort zone here in his writing.

Better than average with flashes of really good storytelling, I can recommend this series to anyone who loves the genre.

***

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“Inspector Steve Morgan” mysteries. Inspired by a character introduced in The Klimt Connection, #8 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, I plotted and wrote the first three novels (there might be more) as a set in order to ensure a high degree of consistency. I’ve published only #1, Legacy of Evil. I’m considering options for the next two, Cult of Evil and Fear the Asian Evil. Obviously evil is the common theme. In #1, it originates in Russia; in #2, it comes from a con man who creates a cult (think of Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Charles Manson); and in #3, it originates is China. Thus local evil around Bristol, England is caught in a sandwich between two international evils from Russia and China, respectively. Try #1 and watch for #2 and #3.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Some readers visit this author’s blog (https://stevenmmoore.com), others my political one (http://pubproressive.com), and some do both. I thank you all.

You’ve probably come to expect posts here on Wednesdays and Fridays and at the other blog on Thursdays. For various personal reasons, I can’t guarantee that I’ll keep to that schedule in the future. I haven’t run out of topics to write about for either blog, but those reasons mean the posts might be random deliveries in the future.

I hope you’ll look for these posts even though they become somewhat erratic. I know that for many I’m competing against TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to mention only a few of the most active social media sites. (I use mostly the latter two.) I suppose social media, including podcasts, have evolved to the point where email and blogs, my main media for outreach, have become old-fashioned just as I’ve become older. But if you visit this blog, you’re probably a reader, writer, or someone interested in writing and publishing,  so maybe my regular deliveries of blog posts will be missed. If so, I apologize…and hope you still stop by from time to time to read the most recent ones.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I didn’t watch the Emmys—those types of incestuous, popularity contests don’t interest me in the least—but I remember someone saying this during the recap on the news. Some uneducated presenter was commenting about how good it was to have good TV to watch. I don’t want to waste my time here picking a battle with him and other zombies mesmerized by audiovisual pyrotechnics—you might hear such sentiments at the Oscars too—but I insist on praising the entertainment and educational value of reading a good book over any TV show or movie and asking even that presenter to consider that alternative.

First, TV shows and movies are formulaic and boring in general. Viewers can’t seem to realize what they’re missing…or they don’t care that the boob tube and the silver screen turns them into zombies. That’s their choice and their loss. Any avid reader can attest that books win over TV shows and movies hands down for the reasons mentioned. And those negatives apply to streaming video as well, which is the worst thing to happen to movies since they were invented (long after books, I might add).

Second, a good novel can entertain and educate a lot longer and more profoundly than any movie or TV show. Let’s consider a typical half- or full-hour show or even a two-hour movie. That half bour reduces to twenty minutes and that full hour reduces to forty. In that amount of time, a director can’t begin to tell a meaningful story, and a viewer doesn’t have the time to digest it even if the director could manage this miracle. A reader can read at his own pace, savoring the nuances of the story; putting it aside to ponder its lessons for a bit; or underline pithy prose sections as they go (even on a Kindle!).

Third, characters in TV shows and movies are often stereotypes and lack the complexity that real human beings have. What’s more, readers can interpret the characters in books, becoming them as they read, whereas with TV shows and movies, viewers are force-fed the actors portrayals of the characters (mostly dictated by a director, of course, because actors aren’t really that smart).

Fourth, there’s no Pulitzer, Nobel, or Booker prizes for a TV show or movie, and, as I said above, the judges of quality for the latter aren’t nearly as qualified and too involved in that media’s narcissism! Plays might be an exception, but dramas, like the novel, are first and foremost literature, not visual arts, and exist in a weird twilight zone between literature and visual arts at the best. In any case, no one should ever compare those prizes, even for drama, with those for commercial media, Emmys and Oscars.

Is this article only the rant of an erudite fiction writer? No, it’s more a suggestion to that idiot at the Emmys to try some quality entertainment, not fluff. In other words, he should read a good book!

***

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The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. This special 99-cent sale at Smashwords is better than my previous ones! And today is the last day! This ebook bundle contains three novels: Survivors of the Chaos, Sing a Zamba Galactica, and Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! You start your mind-blowing journey on a future Earth run by international mega-corporations and policed by their mercenaries, but a clever director of the interplanetary space agency refurbishes three long-haul space rigs and uses them to send colonists off to nearby stars. Those colonies become the salvation for humanity as human beings team up with good ETs to battle bad ones…and a collective super-intelligence that’s a bit ambivalent as a villain. But the worst enemy, a human, is yet to come; if this is my Foundation trilogy, he’s my Mule. Spanning thousands of years of future near-Earth history, these adventures in space and time will give you hours of sci-fi mysteries and thrills.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

No, this post isn’t about a racy pumpkin who’s become a spy! But you might be able to guess that the quotation marks indicate something unusual. If you do, you’re correct. This post is about English slang…or should I say American slang because I write British-style mysteries?

I’ve touched on dialects and slang in various posts here over the years and in my little course “Writing Fiction” (see the list of free PDF download on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page). Are slang words dialect? Not really, but they can be part of dialect. English dialect is what’s used by a Cockney or a Texan, and Brits might think American English is a dialect of British English (and vice versa), but slang words can be taken from dialects and used in the principal language, or created and used singly, and not vice versa. I’m no linguist (okay, maybe every author is an amateur one, and I’m an author), but both slang words and dialects must drive professional editors nuts. First, how can they know if an author is using either one correctly? Second, how can readers wade through a novel filled with slang words and dialects they don’t completely understand?

The two items in the title are labeled as new slang and are now found in Merriam-Webster this September. “MacGyver” is a verb: To MacGyver something is to use common materials at hand to make something useful. Its origin is found in the first TV show of that name, which was much better than the second ever was with a better actor playing the main role, although people might only remember Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate. I’m not quite sure about the origins of “pumpkin spice”—I’d hate to think that it comes from that ubiquitous coffeeshop slop sold along with other horrible concoctions at Starbucks.

The Brits have their own slang, of course, and, like American slang, it’s often regional. I include some of it in the list I started in the short fiction collection Sleuthing, British-Style and have carried over to the later novels of the “Esther Brookstone” series and those in the “Steve Morgan” stories. These lists are more for Americans who are unfamiliar with British slang words and dialect (like me!).

But that’s all beside the point, isn’t it? Editors will still have those two worries indicated above, and authors should too. One only has to listen to Brits or Yanks to know the living language employed by them always has local variations and nuances. Using the latter adds some pumpkin spice to the dialogue in an author’s prose. Abusing them, though, might reduce the number of readers who can enjoy reading that prose.

As in most things associated with the art of creative writing, the Goldilocks Principle tells us what to do as authors: MacGyver your dialogue with snippets of slang and dialect but just enough to add pumpkin spice to the mix—not too little, not too much, but just enough.

***

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The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. This special 99-cent sale at Smashwords is better than my previous ones! And it ends Sept. 30. This ebook bundle contains three novels: Survivors of the Chaos, Sing a Zamba Galactica, and Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! You start your mind-blowing journey on a future Earth run by international mega-corporations and policed by their mercenaries, but a clever director of the interplanetary space agency refurbishes three long-haul space rigs and uses them to send colonists off to nearby stars. Those colonies become the salvation for humanity as human beings team up with good ETs to battle bad ones…and a collective super-intelligence that’s a bit ambivalent as a villain. But the worst enemy, a human, is yet to come; if this is my Foundation trilogy, he’s my Mule. Spanning thousands of years of future near-Earth history, these adventures in space and time will give you hours of sci-fi mysteries and thrills.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!