A Backlog Story: Part 2

If you're just tuning in -- you may want to read yesterday's post first.

So the Worthington case brought attention to the Massachusetts State Lab's DNA backlog, which stood at around 1000 cases in 2005.

Now, before I go further in this story, let's take a brief look at the word backlog. Every jurisdiction comes up with its own meaning for this term, and you should be aware of some factors that influence how labs define them.

First, they differentiate between "cases" and "samples." For DNA, a single case can include dozens (or dozens and dozens) of samples to be processed, or very few samples, down to one -- depending on what kind of case it is, how much biological evidence was available, and whether the people collecting the evidence were trained (at all, or well) and if they are feeling encouraged/discouraged about their lab.

Second, labs talk about two types of backlogs: 1) Those for cases -- items to be processed from crime scenes, victims, and those taken from suspects. 2) Those for databases -- the DNA samples taken from anyone required by that state's laws to submit them. That can range from those convicted of specific violent felonies to those convicted of any felony. (Some states, including California, have plans to eventually include felony arrestees, although this will doubtless face some court challenges.) This second group is where DNA "cold hits" come from -- a DNA match in a case when there is no previously known suspect.

Third, in an effort to control backlogs, labs may limit what may be submitted to them. This seems to have been the case in Massachusetts. An Associated Press article by Theo Emery, published across the country in May, 2005 (I saw it in the Houston Chronicle on 5/8/05), said

...The [Massachusetts] state crime lab is so understaffed and underfunded it has to ration how many tests law enforcement agencies may submit...

Each month, the state's 11 district attorneys are allowed to submit only four DNA samples.

"All the DAs are ludicrously handicapped in the number of cases that they can present to the lab," said Geline Williams, executive director of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association....

Some might say (I would be one) therefore, that this 1000 case backlog was actually artifically lowered. If you are behind on what's submitted, that's one number. If you refuse to allow more than 4 samples from each county into the flow, we're missing the real number -- add in all the cases in those counties that could benefit from DNA analysis and which are not in the chosen 4 samples.

Finally, labs do not have a set criteria for what constitutes a DNA sample that is "backlogged." Some will say 30 days. Others will say 90 days. Or more. There's no universally agreed-upon definition.

But by any of these definitions, Massachusetts law enforcement agencies that use the state lab had been waiting for results in 1000 cases. For each of those cases, someone who should have been held might be committing other crimes. Someone who was trying to investigate the crime had to use more time-consuming (and perhaps less reliable) methods of investigation, victims and their families waited for answers, and in all likelihood, some people who were innocent were under suspicion or denied their freedom.

In 2005, the state DNA lab operations had 12 analysts and their equipment squeezed into an 840-square-foot space. Six to nine months was the standard turnaround for cases submitted to the lab.

The Massachusetts Legislature realized that these were undesirable conditions, and increased the funding of the lab from $6.2 million in fiscal 2005 to $16.2 million in fiscal 2007. They also created a new position in government -- Undersecretary for Forensic Sciences, part of the state's Office of Public Safety. This position was to provide oversight for improvements at the lab and the state medical examiner's office.

Keep in mind that no one gets money the day the Legislature takes a vote. But everyone seems to agree that things started to change for the better. Governor Romney sought additional money to build larger, more modern facilities, and a few months ago -- last August -- a new 12,000-square-foot addition was made to the lab. The lab itself has been in the process of being revamped.

Then on January 12, reports of an announcement from the State Police sent another kind of shock wave through Massachusetts: Robert E. Pino, a civilian administrator, was accused of delaying reports of matches in the state's CODIS system with evidence tested in eleven Massachusetts "cold case" rape cases. These delays meant the cases could not be prosecuted, because while delayed, the Massachusetts 15-year statute of limitations expired. Also, according to the Boston Globe,

...In four cases, Pino prepared reports to police saying that tests linked DNA recovered at crime scenes to suspects, when, in fact, they had not. Pino did not mail all four reports, and no one was arrested because other officials discovered Pino's mistake....

All of this is still under investigation and while Mr. Pino has been suspended, it is important to note that no charges have been filed. Also, the reported problems were not in the actual analysis of DNA. According to a story in the Boston Globe, his union, the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists, has defended him:

The union representing a suspended DNA database administrator at the State Police crime laboratory yesterday blamed any delays or DNA mismatches at the lab on a longstanding problem of understaffing and inadequate funding.

The FBI is currently auditing the lab. The state has started work on its own investigation into what went wrong, and how future problems may be prevented -- one apparent problem: "The administrator alone appeared to control the reporting of DNA test results to police and prosecutors." Other officials have expressed concern that defense attorneys will react with a flood of motions challenging convictions.

If rapists are allowed to be free, if new attacks could have been prevented, if rape victims are denied justice because a lab employee didn't do his job, and if there is no reasonable explanation why he didn't do it (such as an overwhelming workload that one person couldn't reasonably cope with), this is a grave matter and there should be consequences for those responsible. And the lab does need to remedy any problems in its system of oversight that may have allowed such problems to occur.

I don't intend to speculate on Mr. Pino's possible guilt or innocence regarding these allegations. But I do hope that Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett T. Barrios has been misquoted. According to the Globe, he said these developments were especially alarming because of the money recently given to the lab, and added:

"The public has a right to know why their dollars, apparently, have been misspent."

Say what? Misspent? You've had an understaffed lab operating out of a broom closet for a dozen years, a thousand or more cases not even being analysed, and if one man screwed up in the way some claim he has, then all the money has been misspent????

The Massachusetts District Attorneys Association has said the lab has dramatically improved overall in recent years. It would be good to know how many cases have been successfully handled by the lab, how much matters have improved. Because I imagine if you talk to the victims and families of victims of those crimes, no one will feel that the money invested in the lab has been misspent.

I think the Senator owes the other workers in the lab an apology.

A Backlog Story: Part 1

Despite what you see on TV, most crime labs are under-funded. You've probably received that message if you've been reading here for a while.

Labs aren't just a little bit short of change when it comes to buying new gadgets. A great many of this country's forensic scientists are working in tiny, inadequate spaces and using outdated equipment and technologies. Their labs can't properly store or track evidence and are having trouble paying enough to their staffs to retain them. The labs are trying to cope with overwhelming backlogs -- untested evidence piles up quickly, rates of solving crimes slow.

Why does this happen? Those who make decisions about spending tax dollars on law enforcement and criminal justice usually don't make labs a priority. There are a variety of reasons for this, some understandable, others god-awful, but the only thing that seems to make a difference in priorities is public pressure. Unfortunately, the problems of labs are a reality that most people don't seem to grasp. (This is exactly why the Crime Lab Project got underway.)

Sometimes, one case makes a difference to a lab, can help the public to see the reality.

The January 6, 2002 high profile murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington in her Cape Cod home was such a case. Although there was DNA evidence at the scene, the case went unsolved. You can see from this 2003 story by CBS that theories abounded -- as did books and stories that "fictionalized" the facts and further scandalized -- but law enforcement hoped for help from DNA:

District attorney Michael O'Keefe says recently revealed DNA evidence shows that within hours of her death, Christa Worthington had sex [with] - for now, a mystery man.

"It's DNA of an unknown male that's consistent with someone having had sexual relations with the victim," says O'Keefe. "And it's that DNA that we seek to match."

Frustrated for three years, in 2005 investigators even tried collecting -- on a voluntary (and controversial) basis -- DNA swabs from local men to look for a match. Part of the controversy stemmed from the fact that the lab was already backlogged. Before any of the hundreds of volunteered samples were tested, the match came through a sample collected in March 2004, in an earlier effort to eliminate suspects. The match was to Christopher M. McCowen, who has since been convicted of the murder.

When the public realized that the sample of McCowen's DNA had been sitting untested in the state lab for almost a year before the crime was solved, a hue and cry went up that was heard across the country. The price of backlogs had been brought home: a violent criminal had been left free -- and free to possibly commit other crimes; the innocent were forced to live under a cloud of suspicion; the family, friends, and community of the victim were left without answers.

There was little mystery about the cause of the delay. The under-funded crime lab didn't have the resources to process all the evidence submitted to it. The legislature declared it was a shame (without always owning up to the fact that it was a shame partly of their own making) and an outrage and they would have no more of it -- they voted millions more dollars to the state lab.

But as events proved last week, the lab's troubles weren't over.

She Probably Has the Time to Do the Time

If you've read the post about outdoing the Grinch, you may remember Jessica Hardy, convicted of forgery and taking funds from the Make-A-Wish chapter in her part of Pennsylvania. It was quite a scheme -- she invented children, faked doctors' reports on them, and raised money on their "behalf." Then bought SuperBowl tickets, took her family to Disney World, and bought a bunch of other stuff.

Yesterday the judge in the case decided that her crimes and lack of remorse deserved three to six years in prison. For more details, read the WNEP story by Sarah Buynovsky and Andy Palumbo here.

It's not just a matter of someone being greedy in an especially reprehensible way, of course. Co-workers lost their jobs. The local chapter was closed down. Donations to Make-A-Wish were down all across the country as a result of her actions. In three years she could be out, but its probably already too late for some of the real kids who would have been granted wishes with the money she spent on herself.

Walking the walk

Yes, still working....but while I write and try to get materials ready for LCC and all kinds of things you probably don't want to be bothered reading about, check out this cool site from Google Maps -- an online pedometer.

What you can do with this is chart out a route for a walk or a run and be able to see the distance of each leg of your travel.

Tim let me know about this one. I believe his secret plan worked -- I see we'll need to go back to one of the longer routes for our walks.

Photo above courtesy of bamagirl, from morguefile.com.

Yep, I'm on a weird news kick

(Dusty, that "Yep" is for you.)

Since Britches is 0-2 in his battle against striped wildlife, if we go up to Canada to help this poor skunk get back home, we'll probably leave Britches and Cappy on this side of the border.

I'm getting some writing done these days, so the story of Britches v Polecats will have to wait.

Dang, too late to tell them about it now

Before I started working as a writer of crime fiction, I probably would have had a harder time naming friends of mine who would eagerly ask me where they could buy these.

I found the link on Mondo Chicago. Alana Waters, who took the photo, also made some beautiful cards that benefit Hurricane Katrina relief. And oh yes, it's still needed.

Jennifer Jordan Led Me Astray

from doing what I meant to be doing a few minutes ago with an entry on her blog.

So, of course, after I saw her results for the Accent Quiz on the GoToQuiz.com site, I had to take it, and ended up:

Your Result: The Midland

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

The actual accent is mongrel. I was born in Houston, Texas, to parents from Kansas. The first six-and-a-half years of my life were spent there. I retained the accent for quite a while after we moved to California. I was kidded about being "Tex" until about the fifth or sixth grade, and even now, people catch me saying all kinds of words in the Lone Star style. Then, after lots of influence from the West coast, I married this fellow from Buffalo, who teaches subjects including accent elimination, and has tried (without consistent success) to teach me the difference between "pin" and "pen."

All of this proves that I may be edging toward the 26% in this article, called to my attention by my sister Sandra, who should have been doing other things, too.

I'm not there yet, though. I did finish a chapter today. I may finish a second one before I call it a night.

Wish me luck -- I'm making my own by getting the hell off the Internet. If you heard me say that aloud, you'd tell me I should be on the radio...

Wonder if it's covered by homeowner's insurance?

Among the stories from the Associated Press today, revenge of the three pigs.

TP, where would we be without you?

If you've been reading this blog for more than a week you know that just about anything may capture my attention. Today I stumbled across an account of the history of toilet paper. Now, here's an immediate caveat: this is a report from 2001, so all the great strides that have been made in the TP world in the last five or six years are not included.

My favorite quote from the article by Buck Wolf comes from the star of a long-running series of Charmin ads:

Dick Wilson, the vaudeville veteran who portrayed Mr. Whipple on TV, later recalled his agent calling him about the project.

"My agent asked me, 'What do you think of toilet paper?' And I told him, 'I think everybody should use it.'"

Photo above, "TP Tree," courtesy of Click at morguefile.com. He says about it, "Each year, high school graduates target this well-loved elementary school teacher's yard for the ceremonial TP (toilet paper) attack."

Fingerprints and ships

There's good news and bad news, as they say.

The good news is that port security is taking another step forward along U.S. coasts, and one measure of that is increased identification requirements and background checks for those driving trucks into and out of port facilities. This hasn't come about without argument, but that's not the bad news.

The bad news is that all across the U.S., we aren't putting the resources needed into fingerprinting. The result is that thousands of criminals who could be identified by prints are not being caught, the ones who are being arrested are too often not fingerprinted, and the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and State Department do not have fingerprint systems that are interoperable.

Any background check is only as good as the database it's checked against. Think about this -- if the person driving a truck into a port committed a crime involving explosives and was not fingerprinted, the usefulness of background checks and identity checks is limited. If police departments believe they can no longer afford to collect fingerprints at crime scenes, if several incompatible systems are being used, then we're missing important information in these databases.

Photo above courtesy of Digiology, from morguefile.com

Seattle is the place to be in early February

There will be a great line-up at Left Coast Crime 2007 for anyone interested in forensic science. I talked about this in a post here a couple of weeks ago, and now I have more details.

The panels will be held at Left Coast Crime on the afternoon of Friday, February 2, in Seattle, Washington at the Renaissance Hotel, 515 Madison Street. The full convention is nearly sold out (the banquet is definitely sold out), but I think there may be a few more spaces left. Click here for more information on the full convention.

If you can't attend the entire event, LCC is offering day registrations for single days. A single day registration for Friday will give you access to all activities, panels, the book dealer's room, a reception and an auction for $75. These are for walk-in registrations, cash or check only.

Here's the line up:

12-1 PM, "CS I Don't Think So,"
Lee Lofland, Dr. Doug Lyle, Eileen Dreyer, and Jan Burke (m)
We'll be talking about crime labs in fiction and reality, the Crime Lab Project, and current events in forensic science. I'm on this panel with three of the most entertaining (and knowledgeable) people you'll find in the world of crime fiction. I'll tell you more about them soon, but in the meantime, you can read about Eileen, Lee, and Doug at their Web sites.

1-3 PM Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory Presentations.
Two sessions, one from 1-2, the next from 2-3, with breaks and time for Q&A. These are real-life forensic scientists, and we are so grateful to the WSP lab for sparing them to us to talk about their work. You'll have a chance to hear from:

• Larry D. Hebert, Manager of the WSP Crime Laboratory Division. He oversees the operation of the Patrol’s seven crime laboratories. Mr. Hebert has testified in 419 criminal trials during his 33-year career, and has expertise in controlled substances, firearms, and crime scene investigation.
• Jean C. Johnston, Manager of the the WSP's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) Program. A DNA specialist, she has worked on hundreds of forensic cases in her 28-year career, including the Green River Murders.
• James A. Tarver, Manager of the WSP Seattle Crime Laboratory. A deputy sheriff and crime scene investigator, senior criminologist, and forensic document examiner for the Fresno [California] County Sheriff’s Office for 29 years when, after retiring from that position, became employed by the Washington State Patrol (WSP).
• George E. Johnston, WSP Quality Assurance Manager. Mr. Johnston joined WSP in 1980 in the Seattle Crime Laboratory where he specialized in trace evidence examination and crime scene investigation. One of the major events in his 29-year career is the time he spent working on the Green River Murders as a crime scene investigator and in the laboratory analyzing thousands of pieces of trace evidence.

3-4 PM William Haglund, forensic anthropologist. I wrote a few things about him in an earlier post, but you can read an article about him here. An amazing man, and this is an opportunity not to be missed.

4-5 PM "Using the Law Realistically," Kate Flora, Aaron Elkins, Anne Jayne, Twist Phelan, Leslie Budewitz (m) As the LCC program page says: "If you watch too much TV, you'll believe DNA results can be gotten in hours, from arrest to trial takes a matter of days, weeks at most, cops never abuse their power, and all labs are shiny and bright (or moody and blue) and run perfectly. Okay, then there's the real world. Experts in forensic science and law talk about what it's really like." These authors are well worth listening to!

So, I hope you'll join me in Seattle!

Fun with the CLP News Y- Files

Those of you who know about my involvement in the Crime Lab Project may know that twice a week (most weeks), I produce an e-mailed newsletter, the CLP News. (It's free, and if you'd like to receive it, just send a blank e-mail to CLPNews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.)

Every now and then, I come across something especially odd, and I put it in a special section of the CLP News known as the Y-Files -- so named because real life is sometimes weirder than the X-Files.

In the past, it has featured stories on

• a determined retired fireman doing construction work, who stubbornly tackled the task of digging out a blocked chimney -- where he found a skeleton "with fake fingernails"
• a man who (on April Fool's Day, of all things) accidentally dialed 911 from the cell phone in his pants (the pants wer tight, the cell phone had a feature to dial 911 if you held down the 9), and unwittingly broadcast to a police dispatcher the plans he and a friend were making for a little B&E at a local business
• the man who set fire to his house to get his visitors to leave
• the family that kept grandma in an air-conditioned room, propped up in a chair, "watching" TV for a few years after she had died, because "that was her wish"
• the fellow who warned police (who showed up after he had fired shots toward his neighbor's house) that they shouldn't jump to conclusions about his mother's body being in his freezer.

Today, though, we had the rare felicity of two stories with a fashion theme. One was of the young man in Ohio, who with his mother's help, stole a 30-inch baby boa constrictor by wrapping the snake around his neck like the feather kind of boa, and hiding it with his jacket. You'll love to read how they were caught.

The other concerned a bomb -- fortunely discovered by the workers at a Sheboygan Falls Wisconsin laundry facility before it exploded -- apparently a customer who had other plans for it accidentally left it in his clothing.

This is the sort of thing you just can't put into books without a hell of a lot of set up.

An ME leaves as his office faces budget cuts

An Associated Press story in the 1/1/07 issue of the Springfield State Journal-Register is a tribute to Dr. Edmund Donoghue. After living in Chicago all his life and serving Cook County's Medical Examiner's Office since 1977, Dr. Donoghue decided to leave office rather than to force his office to cope with a mandated 17% budget cut.

Donoghue, a lifelong Chicagoan, is moving to Savannah, Ga., where he'll serve as a regional medical examiner for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation....

Until recently, he said, he was only contemplating retirement. But proposed budget cuts in Cook County - he oversees an office with an $8.6 million budget to process about 10,000 death certificates and perform about 4,000 autopsies annually - tipped the decision, he said.

"They say stick to your core mission, but we don't really have any elective programs," said Donoghue, who fears a proposed 17 percent cut would delay the release of bodies to funeral homes and processing of death certificates.

Toxicology tests, which now take 60 to 90 days and are crucial to criminal investigations, also might take longer if the office is not properly funded, Donoghue said....

Donoghue's dilemma is being faced by coroners and medical examiners all across the country.

The delay of a death certificate can have a huge negative financial effect (almost all financial processes after a death require a death certificate) on a family already struggling with the loss of a loved one.

The next time someone tells you that what coroners and MEs do can wait, because its all about dead people who aren't going anywhere, think of those families.

And you might also think about how many lives may have been saved over the last two decades by tamper-resistant packaging -- in 1982, Donoghue's office discovered that seven mysterious deaths were caused by a malicious person who placed Tylenol tainted with cyanide on grocery store shelves, where it was bought and taken by unsuspecting consumers.

How to Frustrate an Automated Call Answering System

Lois made a comment about my Get Human post, and it brought back a memory of one of my most ludicrous experiences with an automated call. I was trying to book a train ride from New York to Washington D.C., and when I called Amtrak, I got "Julie, Amtrak's Automated Agent." (If you want an introduction of your own, call 1-800-USARAIL.)

Feel free to offer your own views on the bizarreness of pretending the computer is a woman, or to go into a guessing game about how its name was chosen (what old girlfriend of the head of Amtrak's IT Department is feeling murderous now, whether the woman whose voice is used was really named Julie, what acronym went awry, whether it's Juli, Julie, Julee, Jewelee, Joolie...).

On this occasion, I apparently called just as the mail was delivered while an army of dogwalkers went parading past my house, or someone actually did herd cats and gathered them on my front lawn, because Britches went berserk.

As you can see from the photo above, he's a big dog. What you can't see is that he has a deep, resounding, don't-mess-with-me bark. It fills the house, and since it goes from zero to 8 billion decibels in nothing flat, routinely causes his humans to clutch at their chests.

So instead of hearing me, Amtrak Julie heard Britches.

The conversation went something like this:

AJ: What time of day do you wish to travel?

B: Rwow-rwow-rwow-rwow!

AJ: I'm sorry, I didn't understand your response. What time of day do you wish to travel? You can name a specific time, or just say "morning," "afternoon," or "evening."

B: Rwow! Rwow! Grrrrr.

AJ: I apologize. I still didn't understand your response.

This went on until I stopped laughing and hung up. I booked the train online -- my Mac doesn't respond to barking. Which is a good thing, or heaven knows what the mutts would order while I'm out of town.

What? 2007 already?

I know, I know. You're saying, what kind of blogger are you, Burke? You haven't had anything (silly or otherwise) to say in more than a week now.

Not true. I just haven't written it here on my blog.

And that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of you. I have.

It's just that at this point in my life, it seems I start almost every year by falling behind. The truth is, I'm still dealing with a whole lot of the To Do List from 2006 , and I have noticed that finishing those items hasn't done a thing to mark off items on the 2007 list.

Yesterday's major accomplishment was getting the Christmas lights off the house. They still aren't up in the attic, but at least I'm not among those folks who will be trying to decide if it's worth the effort in August.

Today, I woke up hoping to do some work on my book. Remembered that I had a conference call meeting about the CLP, and a phone interview to do, in preparation for an event in San Clemente. Then there were the e-mails unanswered from December, a receipt that needed to be faxed (someone had waited patiently for it since November), and additional arrangements to be made for the Friday forensic science panels at Left Coast Crime. Here I am at 10:59 PM, about to sign off here and do some writing.

I'm not really complaining. I like being busy, or I wouldn't be. I also like to have lazy time, and I'll confess that I had some of that today, too. A really long, hot bubble bath. Lunch with Tim. A nap. I'll be writing into the night, my natural time to do that. It's all good.

Oh heck -- I just remembered a couple of calls I forgot to make. But I don't think they'd appreciate getting them at...oh, 11:08 PM now.

Hope your New Year is Happy, and just as busy as you want it to be.



Photo above from morguefile.com, courtesy of peachyqueen.

Dustjacket art

Dust jacket art is worthy of a blog of its own, and probably, somewhere out there, someone has one up and running. Book collectors in the know learn to spot subtle differences in dust jackets that occur between editions. Some are true connoisseurs of the art itself, and shown covers of a certain era, can name the artists and illustrators of frontpieces and plates.
I love some of the dust jacket art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Frank Krieger of Newport Vintage Books has an intriguing collection of images of dust jackets on his Web site, including these for Rafael Sabatini's novels. N.C. Wyeth (who was the father of Andrew and other famous Wyeth family artists) was among the artists who brought scenes from Sabatini's adventure tales to life.

You might have fun with these Nancy Drew dust jackets from the 1930s and 1940s, many by Russell H. Tandy.

And there is always this site, where you can see the work of Pogany and many others, and read their biographies.

For me, though, nothing beats a little time spent in the virtual art museum of Violet Books' Web site.

How do I feel about the covers on my own books? My books have been wrapped in cover art both delightful, and...umm, not so delightful. (I'm sure readers have their own nominees for the latter category.) I'm also always fascinated to see how the art changes in the editions published in other countries. I think if you look at the International editions pages on my site, you'll see some truly striking cover art, and some that will ... be nominees.

One of the challenges of crime fiction covers, I'm sure, is to come up with images that may be disquieting but which aren't repulsive. In recent years, I've been very pleased with the cover art on my books. I'm especially happy with the work Ray Lundgren has done on the U.S. editions. He's good at capturing some essential something from each of the books for which he's created covers. He manages to do that in a way that always makes me feel drawn to the book while still conveying an intriguing amount of suspense. I can only hope he's elicited the same reaction in my readers!

Update on Scary Santa: gee, thanks honey

Oh, now I see that this goes way beyond the current crop of traumatized children. Wives are sending in photos of their husbands, young boys screeching on Santa's knee back in the 1950s. Mothers are sending in photos of their (now) adult children.

Either these families have a cruel streak or a good sense of humor. Maybe both.

Scared of Santa?

The Chicago Tribune photo pages are always a fun place to browse, but the folks at the paper really outdo themselves when it comes to St. Nick. First, there is the "Scared of Santa" extravaganza, currently standing at over 140 entries. The faces of the Santas are almost as hilarious as those of the kids. And one can just imagine gleeful parents making their future teenagers squirm by reminding them that a paper with a huge circulation featured a photo of them howling in terror on Santa's lap.

Then, there's the slide show of the July convention of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. Which all goes to show, as the Internet proves on a 24/7 basis, there is something out there for everyone.


The photo of the Victorian (and rather shifty-eyed) Santa above isn't from the ChiTrib, though -- it's a photo by Xandert (aka Dawn Turner) who kindly made it available on morguefile.com.

William Haglund at Left Coast Crime

Just realized I haven't posted anything here since Sunday! Ah, the holidays!
I'll warn you now, then, that new posts may be a bit thin between now and New Year's Day.
Little late, huh?

Which does not mean I'm out of exciting news. If you'll be at Left Coast Crime in Seattle in February, I'll see you there. One reason you haven't heard much from me lately is that -- in addition to a zillion other things I've been up to -- as part of my work for the Crime Lab Project, I'm helping LCC to coordinate some of the forensic science programming. This will take place on Friday, so plan to arrive in Seattle in time for Friday's events!

I think those of you who are interested in forensic science are in for a treat -- not only are people from the Washington State Patrol's Crime Lab going to be there, we've also got some terrific (and entertaining) authors lined up for panels, and I'm especially pleased that forensic anthropologist Dr. William Haglund has agreed to speak at the convention.

Dr. Haglund served as the Director of the International Forensic Program for the Physicians for Human Rights, and is now the senior forensic consultant to the program. His first mission on behalf of PHR was in 1993. He also worked as the Senior Forensic Investigator for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. For more than a decade, he has been at the forefront of investigations into genocide and war crimes which span the globe -- Cyprus, Guatemala, Honduras, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Somalia, and many other countries.

Prior to leaving for full-time work on international cases, he worked as the chief medical investigator the King County Medical Examiner's Office. During his 16 years there, he did extensive work on the investigation of the Green River serial killings.

Those of you who have a copy of Bones will see his name in my acknowledgments. I've been to his presentations, and promise you that this is one of those not-to-be-missed events.

Getting Human for the Holidays

You may be aware of this site already, but if not, consider this a gift for the holidays:

Have you ever called a big company, trying to do business by phone, only to
- have to press an endless number of codes?
- have to decide between preset menu choices that don't have anything to do with your reason for calling?
- never reach a human being?

If you are crazed by the difficulty in reaching a human being when you do business by phone with big companies, try going to Get Human (http://gethuman.com )before you make your next call. Paul English, the founder of Get Human, certainly struck a chord with other humans when he first started posting methods to bypass the computers on his blog. What he started has grown into an advocacy movement that has attracted millions of followers. The blog became a Web site with a good-sized database on it.

So, if you are in the U.S., and want to go directly to the database for Get Human, just click here.

That will take you to a list of many big companies, with instructions to help you quickly connect to a human being.


Photo above courtesy of Paul Middlewick, from morguefile.com.

A strong-willed woman

In today's New York Times, there's an article by Andrea Elliot, "From Head Scarf to Army Cap, Making a New Life." It's about a remarkable woman named Fadwa Hamdan, and if you are willing to go through the hoops the NYT requires of those who want to read the paper online (it's free, but the sign up is something else), I think you'll find it worthwhile.

How to Make the Grinch Seem Like He Wasn't Such a Bad Guy After All

I'm still shaking my head over a story that appeared yesterday in a Pennsylvania newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader.

"Former Boss of Charity Pleads Guilty," by David Weiss, tells about a woman who was in charge of the local chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, but who may be on her way to prison.

Before I tell you the story, let me say that this is a worthwhile charity that is consistently ranked as one of the best in terms of making good use of donors' money. This one woman's actions should not make anyone hesitate to give to them.

Jessica Hardy was the chair of the charity in her part of Pennsylvania.
Authorities say she made up the names of children she said were terminally ill. Then she forged doctors' signatures on fake medical documents for these fake children.

She then took more than $55,000 donated for these fictional kids to buy herself Super Bowl tickets, a Disney World vacation, a bass guitar for her son, and a few luxury items like a big screen TV.

Okay, I'm trying to picture someone gleefully enjoying the Super Bowl, knowing that this is how they bought their tickets....kicking back and watching the big screen... knowing all the while that real terminally ill kids were hoping and waiting for wishes to be granted.

Hard to imagine, isn't it?

The DA thinks she should do jail time. I hope he gets his wish.

Getting lost for the sheer pleasure of it

You may have noticed that there isn't a hell of a lot of writing advice on this blog.

That's not because I lack ideas about How It Should Be Done. However, I want to be careful about what I say to new writers, each of whom needs to discover his or her own way to tell a story. I see so many bad examples of advice for new writers.

The best kind of writing teachers seem to me to be the ones who foster the journey of other writers without placing them in harness. They suggest a variety of approaches, they work to motivate and inspire while still providing practical tools and exercises that help with skill-building. I don't mind when someone gives nuts and bolts advice on ways to find agents or shows others how to put a manuscript into a standard format.

But sometimes I read another writer's proclamations about what one must do within the text of a story, or how one must construct its framework, or how one must go about the process -- and frankly, I find myself wanting to laugh.

I'm talking about the folks who seem to believe they picked up their stone tablets at a nearby burning bush. This is how I do it, so you must do it this way. By the way, all three of my best friends in my mutual admiration society write this way, too. Hello, hubris!

As if the universe of creating literature could be distilled into a set of Rules that Work For Everyone. What boring places libraries would be if that was true. Thank God the proclaimers get ignored.

Would we ever think of trying to convince painters or musicians that they must do x, y, or z to create true art? I don't doubt that those artists also have the "EZ Way to Paint a Portrait" or the "EZ Way to Play the Piano" folks in their lives, but it seems to me that uninitiated writers are inundated with advice that consists of oversimplified rules that simply do not hold true for everyone.

Here's my own simple advice to you new writers, so laugh if you will: one of the hardest parts of this endeavor of writing a book is finding your own path and having the courage to stay on it, while still staying open to the possibility that there may be another, better way to get where you're going. How will you know which way is best for you? Keep writing.

Explore. You may end up lost, or you may make fascinating, unexpected discoveries. Personally, I will take being lost (revision allows this to be a relative term, after all) over treading only on the well-worn, previously mapped grid, but you may find the grid is the best way to get where you want to go. Whatever works -- just start stepping.

'S all good....

Photo above, " Stream on the trail of Swift Camp Creek area" by Don Corbin, used with his kind permission, from morguefile.com.

Blog recommendation of the day

If you've read my short story "Call It Macaroni" in Murder Most Crafty, you probably have a sense of how skilled I am in the sewing and crafts departments.

On a scale of zero to one-hundred-and-seventeen, that would be 0.01. (For example, I can sew a button back on, but no guarantee that the button and buttonhole will match up again.)

Which is undoubtedly one of the reasons I adore Threadbared. If you need a laugh, Mary Watkins and Kimbrely Wrenn will...okay, have you in stitches. I'm warning you, do not have liquids in your mouth when you go to this site, or you'll end up having to use up one of your hand-crocheted screen cleaners.

Do not fail to view this one.

I'd write more about this blog, but I've just read the Ho Ho No entry. I'm going to go to work on the ovenmitt candleholders now.

Julie Smith is teaching writing

I've just learned that while I was touring, my friend Julie Smith started a new kind of distance-learning writing course. It's called Writers Track, and it combines an online course with a set of conference calls that allow students to have personal contact with the instructor.

Julie has been writing for 25 years and is an Edgar-winning author. In fact, when she won the award for best novel in 1991, she broke a long dry spell for American women writers -- no American woman had won the Edgar for Best Novel since 1956. She's a novelist, short story writer, and former reporter -- her journalism career includes long stints on the New Orleans Times-Picayune and San Francisco Chronicle. At the Chronicle, she was the first woman to work in the newsroom since World War II.

So groundbreaking is a kind of habit with Julie, and I'm betting that her courses will be a refreshing change from the run-of-the-mill writing class. She's also someone who works conscientiously and has genuine concern for others, so that will be to your benefit.

No one course will work for everyone, but if you're an aspiring novelist, you may want to take a look to see if this sounds like one that would work for you.

Gar's Web site

The link for Gar's name in the last post was to an interview. Here's a link to the actual site:

www.garanthonyhaywood.com

The man can write, so if you haven't read his books yet, consider this to be one the best tips you received this month. Even if the month is only a few days old.

I'll never forget old what's-her-name...

Okay, back to the titles stories....

Three Kind of Lies
Remember Me, Irene

I had a new editor about halfway into the process of revising Dear Irene,. For a time, I believed I had talked her into dropping the name Irene from the titles. Don't get me wrong -- I like Irene's name. It's great for her, the character. But as a title, linked with imperatives....well, I believe it was Gar Anthony Haywood (aka Ray Shannon) who predicted that one day I'd write a book entitled Go to the Refrigerator and Get Me a Beer, Irene.

There was also a series about Irene Adler, "the woman" to those familiar with Sherlock Holmes, written by Carole Nelson Douglas. Carole's publisher wanted the name "Irene" in all of her titles too. You can imagine the confusion this caused our readers. For starters, her Irene Adler books take place about 100 years earlier than the Irene Kelly series.

So I was excited that my new editor was listening to ideas for new titles, and I had picked out what I still consider one of my best working titles for the fourth book in the series. New editor, new contract, everything was looking good for the fourth book to be Three Kinds of Lies. Then a single bookseller talked my editor out of it. (Yes, I know who you are, and I, um, can't thank you enough.)

Ironically, when I ask longtime fans to name the books with Irene in the title, they can rattle off the first three, then they stall out on number four. The title Remember Me, Irene is apparently difficult to remember. They'll recall the book and what it's about, but not the title.
C'est ma vie.

Where did the title I wanted originate? In another century.
Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister in the mid-19th century, said these famous words:

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Those of you who have read Remember Me, Irene will know about the connection of statistics to the story.

I didn't get my way on the title, but I did get the best cover I'd had up until then. And the new editor began to patiently teach me a few things I really needed to learn at that point. Which is why, I think, that Hocus marks a change in the series.

World Aids Day

I've lost several friends to AIDS.

I hope you'll never have to write that same sentence.

But I also hope that even if you don't know anyone who is HIV positive, you'll contribute to the fight against AIDS, that you'll become informed about this deadly but preventable disease, and that you'll take prevention measures seriously.

More Background

This is all going to take longer than I thought it would, but what the heck...

Fall From Olympus aka Dear Irene,

Greek mythology is part of the plot for Dear Irene,. I had unsuccessfully lobbied to keep Irene's name out of the title for the second book, but I had started this manuscript before Goodnight, Irene was published, so I didn't foresee the title struggle. By the time I actually turned it in, I didn't use this title on the manuscript my then-editor received.

Under Deep Sky
Hocus

Thinking of this working title brings a fond memory to mind.

The amateur astronomers' phrase "deep sky object" appealed to me when I came across it while doing research for Hocus. The idea of the sky having depth kept my mind occupied for a time.

So where did I hear about deep sky objects?

Let me tell you about the Szals.

I met Regina Szal at a library fundraiser. She won an auction item I offered -- to have a character in one of my books named after the highest bidder. The next book was Hocus, although I wasn't calling it that yet. Regina invited me to visit her to talk about the character.

She's a delightful woman, a generous, kind, and vivacious person. Saying all the good things I could say about Regina would take a long time. It was so easy to talk to her. To my good fortune, she was also an experienced speech therapist. I had been researching selective mutism (then called elective mutism) for the book, and this was a subject she knew well.

She arranged for me to come to the house in the evening to talk to her about her character, because it would also allow me to view the sky through a telescope in their home. Her husband, Greg Szal, is an amateur astronomer, and he used the term "deep sky object" when talking to me about Messier objects.

Messier objects could take up a whole post. Another day...

Anyway, above you'll see a photograph of one of the Messier objects I saw that night through Greg Szal's telescope, the Sombrero Galaxy, aka M104. According to NASA, it is "the equivalent of 800 billion suns." The photo above was taken by the Hubble space telescope.* You can learn more about this big galaxy and the photo here.

Those of you who have read Hocus may recall that at one point in the book, Irene visits a couple in Bakersfield — the Szals — who help her unravel more of the mystery surrounding those who have taken Frank hostage. I liked the real life Szals as much — or more — than she liked the fictional ones. (And, after posting this, I will make a note to call these folks, who honored me with their friendship.)


Alas, as enamored as I became with the phrase "under deep sky," it didn't have much to do with the rest of the book, while the word "hocus," not to be confused with the incantation "hocus-pocus," has two meanings, both of which fit the plot perfectly.




*Note re the photo, from the Hubble site: The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image.

Title "quiz" answers

Not really a quiz per se, but here are the final titles for the working title list I posted last week:

1. Fall From Olympus
Dear Irene,
2. Under Deep Sky
Hocus
3. Harm
Bones
4. Three Kind of Lies
Remember Me, Irene
5. Season of the Witch
Sweet Dreams, Irene
6. Imperfect
Kidnapped
7. O'Connor's Tale
Bloodlines


I just remembered that Harm was a title suggested for a time by an editor who left Simon & Schuster before the book was published, so I didn't come up with that one.

As Elizabeth Foxwell noted last week, it isn't hard to figure out where the title for #7 came from.

The others? Today has become a little jammed up, but tomorrow I'll post more about those.

Listen in -- and watch, too

If you're online at 9 PM Pacific Time (GMT-8) tonight (11/26), you might want to wander over to the livestream for the bands playing at BB King's Live -- that is, if you aren't actually going down to BB King's at the Universal City Walk. One of the bands my husband, Tim Burke, is in will be playing there tonight -- the band is Downtight, and they'll be on right after Lisa Tucker, who was an American Idol finalist.

And how long was this supposed to go unnoticed?

"Suspected Forgery In Death Penalty Case Documents," a November 18th report on CBS5 in San Francisco, tells of a search carried out by the State Attorney General's Office. The warrant allowed them to look through the apartment of a defense investigator, Kathleen Culhane, who has been working on behalf of a death row inmate, Michael Morales.

Last February, prosecutors in San Joaquin County alleged that she had submitted fabricated documents, declarations asking for clemency for Morales, that supposedly came from five jurors — all five deny they signed the statements. This ultimately lead to 23 documents being investigated as questionable in four death row cases.

No charges have been filed or arrests made.

For more on this, see "State widens probe of investigator accused of faking legal statements" in the 11/17/06 issue of the San Jose Mercury News.

Shopping for the kiddies?

Why not help them set up their own tattoo parlor?

This one is pain-free, so no need to have the kids get plastered before getting inked.

Be sure to read the customer comments if you visit the site.

(Thanks to Timbrely for sending this one to me, under the subject line "tats for tots")

Can You Guess the Titles?

Every now and then, someone asks me why I changed my mind about putting Irene's name in the title of my books. The short answer is, I never planned to put her name on more than one title -- Goodnight, Irene. My publisher eventually agreed with me that putting her name in every title was not for the best.

That is not to say that I am good at coming up with titles. I'm horrible at it! I am so glad I never had to name children. I'm quite grateful that Simon & Schuster has talked me out some of my seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time titles. In fact, Goodnight, Irene is one of the few books I've written that kept the same title from the day I started writing it.

When some of you who met me on tour asked about this matter of, I said I was going to list some of my working titles, so that you could try to guess what final titles replaced them. Some were "placeholder" titles that I knew I'd never use, others -- let's just say I was talked out of them. Here you go!

1. Fall From Olympus
2. Under Deep Sky
3. Harm
4. Three Kind of Lies
5. Season of the Witch
6. Imperfect
7. O'Connor's Tale

Why I Keep Bugging You About the Crime Lab Project

Blake was ten years old when he was brutally murdered in July.
His stepmother, Chynna, was also killed. She was 26.
They lived in a suburb in Indiana.
The police found lots of evidence.
It hasn't been tested.
The state police lab is backlogged by over 2600 cases -- the wait for processing evidence averages nine months.

You can read more about them and the wait for evidence here.

You can make a difference. We can help labs so that families don't have to wait.

Guest editorial

If you pick up the latest issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, you will find a guest editorial I wrote -- about the Crime Lab Project.

It will give you an overview of the CLP's work. It includes examples of problems labs are having, taken from recent news stories.

The publishers of AHMM also made a generous donation to the CLP.

You missed it -- thank goodness

Yesterday my neighbors were treated to a fabulous rendition of "Mad Woman Dancing." This took place on my front lawn. The steps are:

1) get into truck
2) leap wildly out of truck
3) run crazily in circles while bent over and flipping at hair with hands. Make weird sound of distress, something akin to the Warner Bros cartoon characters' "nyah-nyah!" noise -- the one they make when they realize something big is about to chase them.

I forgot to mention the key prop and my inspiration -- a jumbo buzzing bee flew into my hair and got tangled up in the vicinity of my right eye just as I got into the truck. We both survived the experience. I may switch shampoos.

If you want to see a much cooler dance than the one I performed, check out this link, sent to me by Timbrely. The people performing the dance are deaf.

Thanks, veterans!

It's Veteran's Day here in the U.S.

Thank you, to those who served in the past and those who are serving now, and to your family members. For those of you in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world, here's to your safe return home.

If you know someone in the service who would like a book, please contact me through my Web site. Others who are doing this too -- a few days ago, while I was in New York, I stopped by Mysterious Bookshop, and Otto Penzler told me that he and his wife have been giving books to local veterans' hospitals. I hope my readers will consider doing the same -- donating books to their own nearby veterans' hospitals -- or will consider other "ways to help" those who have served or who are in the service now.

Sleep

The girl slept on, motionless, in that curled-up looseness achieved by some women and all cats.
— from "I'll Be Waiting," by Raymond Chandler,
first published in The Saturday Evening Post, October 14, 1939

In the anticipation of the publication of a new book, I always forget how exhausting book tours are.

The list of signings on the schedule page of my Web site never tells the whole story.
On the schedule, it will say "Store X at 7 PM." It doesn't talk about a day that often begins at 4 or 5 AM and ends at 11 PM. Ends that early if one can get to sleep in strange places that have sounds, temperatures, lighting and bedding that are not even like those in the last place one slept, and are missing key elements found at home (one's husband sleeping at one's side, the sound one's oldest dog makes when he snores, the sound one's younger dog makes when he runs in his dreams, etc.).

I'm not complaining -- as I said earlier, I enjoy meeting readers and booksellers. And I met some fascinating folks this time around.

But all my fantasies about blogging regularly with from the road went the way of most of my sleep. Sorry not to have been in touch more often.

I have a lot of thank you notes to write, paperwork to complete, and lots of other things to catch up on, but the first thing I'll be catching up on is sleep.

Oh -- among the thanks -- thanks to Donna Andrews for asking a question that tweaked some memories of favorite Chandler stories, including the one I quote above.


Photo credit: "Cat Nap" by mindexpansi0n on Morguefile.com

A Voting Story

A few weeks ago, I realized that the book tour for Kidnapped might interfere with my plans to vote in the November 7, 2006 elections.

I knew I'd be traveling on election day and had planned to vote by absentee ballot. Then I realized that I wouldn't be home when the absentee ballot arrived, so that Tim would have to Fed Ex it to me, and I'd then have to come up with time on the tour to vote and send it back. Anyone who has dealt with overnight shipments to hotels knows how imperfect that system can be -- you can easily wait a second day while the package works its way through the hotel's shipping and receiving department. By then, I'd be off to another state.

My friend Margery Nelson works to keep me informed on a number of issues, and as a result of what she's sent to me about electronic voting machines, I mistrust them. But in this case, it seemed to me that my only choice was to vote electronically before election day. I went to the county library, documents in hand, not sure what to expect but willing to give this a try.

The staff outnumbered the voters by about 7 to 1, but this was only about the second or third day of early voting. I had brought my sample ballot with my voter identification information on it, my drivers license, etc. I signed in. A gentleman took me over to a video machine and asked me to be seated. I watched the video on how to vote with the machines while other staff busied themselves preparing my Voter Access Card. (The ballot choices on the video demonstration did provide some laughs, although I was dismayed that the imaginary voter selected Tom Jones over Orville Wright, Amelia Earhart, and Neil Armstrong for "Commissioner of Transportation." Other candidates in other races indicated that the folks who put this demo together are readers -- how else does Lillian Hellman end up on the ticket?)

I received my card. I touched the screen. I voted.

Or so I thought.

On the tour, mentioned how easy it was, and I joked that my vote had probably already been electronically discarded. When calls from candidates came in on few the days when I was home, I could smugly say that I had already voted.

That's what I believed.

In my hotel room on election night, I saw the Hacking Democracy special on HBO. (It will be on several other times in November and December -- you can see the schedule here.) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Diebold asked HBO to pull the documentary, which Diebold says is inaccurate. However, at least in the story in the P-I, Diebold didn't counter some of the most unnerving accusations.

When I returned home the day after elections, Tim said, "I forgot to tell you what happened when I tried to vote."

"Tried?"

"Yes. They said I had already voted. They recorded your touchscreen vote as mine. So they would only allow me to cast a provisional ballot."

Despite the fact that I don't look like your average Timothy, that I had documents with the name Jan Burke on them, and signed in as Jan Burke, I voted as Timothy.

This would seem to be human error on the part of the pollworkers, rather than a problem of the machine, but one wonders exactly what went wrong with this process -- and what else could go wrong.

In the meantime, apparently my electronic vote and Tim's provisional ballot are held in limbo.

No more early touchscreen voting for me.

C'est bon Atlanta

Hi there. Did you think I fell off the planet? No, just still on tour. I had a great time at the Texas Festival of Books, and in Birmingham, although my plane was late getting in to the Magic City. I hope to write more about those places in the near future.

I am now in Atlanta, about to leave for Jacksonville, FL tomorrow morning.

Last night I spoke at the Georgia Center for the Book. I hope any of you who are writers have a chance to do the same. My thanks to the readers who came out on Halloween!

If you're in the Atlanta area, head on over to DeKalb and check out the GBC. It's one of the most active Centers for the Book in the country.

And don't forget to take advantage of the "Louvre in Atlanta" exhibitions at the High Museum. This is a fabulous program that will extend over the next three years -- the Louvre has partnered with the Atlanta museum to exhibit works here that you'd usually have to go to France to see -- or which are in its collections but have never before been exhibited anywhere. I had a wonderful afternoon there, and hope to see each of the three sets of exhibits that will be here between now and 2009. Art lovers, book a flight to Atlanta.

Continuing saga

One of these days maybe I'll go ahead and post the entry about my car that I started a few days ago, but for now I'll just let you know that between the tour, real life, the CLP, and writing, I have been short on time for blogging.

Life, as a friend of mine used to say, is what happens to you while you're making other plans.

Do want to say that I am really enjoying meeting folks (and seeing long-time supporters!) at the signings. Thank you all for your support, you've made Kidnapped a bestseller.

And now to pack and do laundry before the Texas trip begins.....

Yikes! Important Schedule Changes

Just back home from Arizona, and I do have more to tell you about the past week, but for now -- important changes to tell you about!

Oline Cogdill of the Sun-Sentinel verified information about a signing and saw that my Web site was wrong. Here's the correct info:

Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL
(305) 442-4408

Thanks for that catch, Oline!


And just added:

Tuesday, October 24 7 PM
Vroman's
695 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena CA 91101
(626) 449-5320

If I do say so myself: brilliant idea #897

From my list of beauty and fashion ideas for the not-quite-put-together woman of today --

A new lipstick color: dried toothpaste.

Our staff is working on a sexier name for it.

Note to self -- may need two shades: white and light blue.

Denver 33, Kidnapped 34

33 wouldn't be bad for a Broncos score, but it's the forecast for the temperature (just above zero for you who use Celsius) of the place when I'm there in a few days. The big coat is out -- neither Texas nor California prepared me to withstand anything below 55 without referring to it as "freezing."

34 is Kidnapped's number on today's New York Times bestseller list -- and that is thanks to you! I can't express how much I appreciate the support of my readers!

As for being unplugged, I didn't mean to fall off the face of the earth...and I didn't. Honestly! I've been having trouble with posting but I'm hoping that's worked out now. The biggest obstacle, though, has been a time shortage. I had signings in Thousand Oaks and Westwood yesterday, fun events at Mysteries to Die For and the Mystery Bookstore. (Tom and Sue, thank you for the wine!)

Nothing like seeing Don Winslow on your way in and Mike Connelly on your way out -- and lots of terrific fans and booksellers in each store. Thanks for coming by.

I'm packing for the next round -- and look at what's listed here, you'll probably understand why posting here may be a bit sporadic over the next few days. I hope to see some of you in these places:

Monday, October 16, Noon
Seattle, WA
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
http://www.seattlemystery.com
117 Cherry St
Seattle, WA
(206) 587-5737

Monday, October 16, 7:00 PM
Lake Forest, WA
Third Place Books
http://www.thirdplacebooks.com
17171 Bothell Way, NE
Lake Forest, WA
(206) 366-3333

Tuesday, October 17, (TBA- stock signing)
Portland, OR
Annie Bloom's Books
http://www.annieblooms.com
7834 SW Capitol Hwy
Portland, OR 97219
(503) 246-0053

Tuesday, October 17, 7:00 PM
Beaverton, OR
Borders
2605 SW Cedar Hills Blvd (at SW Walker Rd)
Beaverton, OR 97005
(503) 644-6164

Wednesday, October 18, 7:30 PM
Denver, CO
Tattered Cover Book Store
http://www.tatteredcover.com
Colfax Avenue
2526 E. Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 322-7727

Thursday, October 19, 5:00 PM
Denver, CO
Murder by the Book
http://www.murderbythebook.com
1574 South Pearl St.
Denver, CO 80210
(800) 300-2595 toll free
(303) 871-9401 in Colorado

Thursday, October 19, 7:30 PM
Boulder, CO
High Crimes Mystery Bookstore
http://www.highcrimesbooks.com
946 Pearl St, Boulder, CO
(303) 443-8346
800-356-5586 (orders only, please)
highcrimes@earthlink.net

Friday, October 20, 7:00 PM
Scottsdale, AZ
Poisoned Pen
http://www.poisonedpen.com
4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101
(1 block south of Indian School Rd on Goldwater Blvd.)
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(888) 560-9919 toll free
(480) 947-2974

Saturday, October 21, 11:30 AM
Scottsdale, AZ
Benefit Luncheon for the National Alliance on Mental Illness - Arizona
(books sold by Poisoned Pen)
Jan Burke, David Morrell, and F. Paul Wilson
Kierland Westin Resort
6902 E Greenway Parkway
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
Tickets: $85; Seated with an Author, $125
(800) 626-5022 toll free
(602) 244-8166

"Snowman" photo above by Scott Liddell from morguefile.com.

24-hours unplugged -- for the most part

A few years ago, on a book tour, I traveled to 19 cities in 21 days with nothing more than carry-on luggage. (Key to this pre-9/11 trip was a set of colorful silk blouses, black almost everything else, and praying that certain hotel dry cleaning services would actually return my clothing before I had to check out.) It wasn't uncommon to travel that way on a book tour then -- I remember one escort being unable to hide her irritation when I traveled with checked baggage the next year.

Why was she irritated? Because many times on a tour, you hit the ground running -- the plane lands at an airport that may bear a certain city's name, but is actually in an area remote from the downtown buildings where your first interviews will be held. So the escort is seeing the margin between your arrival at the airport and the next place you must be rapidly diminishing.

Since 9/11, timing for certain aspects of tours have had to be adapted to changes in air travel, but even before that, my publisher was planning tours that allowed an author a breather now and then.

Yesterday I didn't have a thing scheduled. And baby, did I take advantage of that. I had about six zillion items on my to do list, and didn't touch more than one or two of them. I just unplugged for the day. I'm thinking it was a good idea.

Now I'm going see what Tarzan is up to (although the previous adventure, when he somehow survived being guided underwater while unconscious, will be hard to beat), then go back to work on the manuscript in progress.

I do want to take a quick moment before I do that to say how much I love the photos of Jane M. Sawyer, aka "Cohdra" on Morguefile.com. She took the one above of the unplugged plug. It seems that she's often captured just what I'm looking for to illustrate this blog or my site. As you can see from photo credits on my Web site, two of the four photos currently shown near the title on this page and the site are hers. (The middle photos are Mary Thorton's photo of raindrops and Annika's of the tree and clouds.)

When you see that desert road, it may remind you, as it did me, of a scene in Kidnapped. Finding photos of deserts is not all that hard. But not all deserts are alike, as you learn if you spend any time in them. I'm glad Jane Sawyer captured this view of something I had been seeing in a combination of imagination and memory.

Quick notes

I've had two good signing events here in So Cal this week.

I was at Book Carnival in Orange this weekend. In late 1992, a few months before Goodnight, Irene was published, Ed Thomas called me up and spoke kindly of the book, and invited me to sign there. So in 1993, when my book was out, my first signing was held at the Book Carnival. I signed boxloads of books and was misled into thinking this signing business was going to be a snap. Little did I realize that I was experiencing lEd Thomas Powerlat work. You see, Ed's customers listen to his recommendations. With good reason -- for example, two years before I stepped into his store, he told them that a young guy by the name of Connelly was going to win an Edgar for Best First Novel for Black Echo.

So by now I think of Ed and his wife, Pat, as family. Signing at Book Carnival gives me a chance to see old friends and meet new ones. I was also very pleasantly surprised by a visit by some close friends who traveled quite a distance to be there, including Bob (the Retail Doctor).

This evening I was at the Barnes & Noble in Encino. Kris and Jeannie were fab hosts, and I also had a good time talking with readers I met for the first time tonight. Two friends I met when I ran the Dublin marathon in 1999 were also there — I appreciate the effort! Those of you who live in the San Fernando Valley are lucky to have this store in your neighborhood!

Anger management

If there were fewer idiots on this planet, how would the rest of us know that we have tempers?

Today's episode:

I write a check at a local warehouse store. Because I have given into impulse and put far more than the dog biscuits I came in for into my cart (so who's the real idiot in this story?) the check requires the approval of a supervisor.

She looks at the check and says, "Would you write the word 'dollars' here?"

For a second, I want to ask her if she's afraid I'm trying to pay in simoleons or ToonTown jellybeans.

Then I realize that she means that on the line where the amount is spelled out, she wants me to write 'dollars' between the words and the fraction. I point out that the word 'dollars' is already printed on the check. "See? XXX and xx/100 Dollars."

"Oh," she says, pondering this wonder. I think we're done.

No, she insists I write the word 'dollars' after the XXX amount. "It's just a thing I have," she tells me.

WTF? I know what the 'thing' she has is. It's the pettiness of someone with less than one dollar's worth of power, but determined on exercising it to the full. She has improved, apparently, on the way we all write out negotiable instruments. And she has a clipboard. And a supervisor's vest. All bow down.

I look back at the people patiently -- so far -- waiting behind me in line. For their sake, I give in, and hand it back.

"Oh, now I need you to initial where you added the word 'dollars,'" she says, handing it back to me.

I have a nearly irresistible urge to tear the effing check in half and walkout, leaving her to restock my purchases. I don't do it. I initial the check and grit my teeth.

But I don't think I'll be back at this store any time soon.

That would be to risk losing my temper, and I'm saving my next tantrum for a better occasion.

Probably Election Day.

Photo above, "Mad As A Hornet," by P. Winberg from Morguefile.com. Photo © P. Winberg.

Glimpses

Okay, here's a confession: I love touring.

Yes, it's hard to be away from home -- I miss Tim and the dogs more than I can say.
Yes, it is exhausting.
Yes, some aspects of it are so repetitive, it does feel like "déjà vu all over again."
No, I don't love it as much as I love writing.
And no, it's not the extended vacation or giant ego-boost some think it will be. (I don't know anyone who has been on much of a tour who has failed to have either a moment of utter humiliation or an encounter with someone who has no social graces whatsoever.)

All of that said, the greatest parts of a tour come in glimpses, brief moments of connection and wonder. Seeing friends, readers, favorite booksellers, all for a few moments at a time. Short interviews with knowledgeable reporters. The view of a different landscape from a car window, rainfall when I've lived with dry weather too long at home, the taste of something savory at an eatery I've never visited before.

I'm not the first writer to say this, but essentially, a writer writes half the book. The other half is provided by the reader, when whatever what the writer has created interacts with the reader's imagination, experiences, prejudices, tolerances. When we meet in bookstores, I'm always happy when a reader buys a book, but the real joy is hearing your thoughts, learning how your half of the books are experienced.

The days in San Francisco were hectic. I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before I flew up there, and the moment after I gathered my luggage, my escort, Naomi Epel began the day's work — I was on my way to sign stock at lovely independent stores like Diesel in Oakland, and at a couple of large chain stores where — contrary to the stereotype — I found staffers who cared about books. I got to the hotel where the ASCLD meeting was being held just in time for lunch with folks who were on the afternoon panel on advocacy.

As soon as the panel was over, I hurried back to my room, set down my materials from the meeting and gathered up what I'd need for the evening. Naomi picked me up, and off we went again for more stock signing. It was raining — although I had walked through a light drizzle at Bouchercon, it had been awhile since I had been out in real rain. It was good.

We made our way to San Mateo, and M is for Mystery. I love this store, and it was great to see Ed Kaufman and friends there.

I got back in time for a late dinner. Early the next morning, I was on another ASCLD panel. I'll just say that I am honored to be working with these crime lab directors. Their dedication leaves me in awe.

I won't give you all the details of the rest of the day, which was managed with the help of Catherine, another fine escort, except to say that visits to three excellent independent bookstores — Book Passage, Bay Book & Tobacco, and Capitola Book Café were among the highlights of my day. It was Fleet Week, and seeing the Blue Angels fly over the San Francisco Bay on the way to Book Passage was another.

I was a little early, on the other hand, for the Pumpkin Festival in Half Moon Bay, but the straw castle was already built on the Arata Farm. On a drive along the stunningly beautiful coast between Half Moon Bay and Capitola, here and there I saw a field of pumpkins, a swath of bright orange on green, something like what you can see in the photo above. (Although Kevin Connor's photo was not, as far as I know, taken at one of these farms.)

We took the recommendation of Jeff at Bay Book & Tobacco and turned inland a bit, past marshland and into Pescadero. We stopped at Duarte's Tavern, where the food was superb — the pumpkin pie there was the best I have ever eaten. I do mean ever.

We made the drive back to an Francisco after the evening event at Capitola Book Café, and after packing, I got about three hours of sleep before meeting Susan, the next driver, downstairs at 4:30 AM. Back to the airport, back to Southern California, back to Tim and Cappy and Britches.

And sleep. Which I plan to indulge in again as soon as I send off this post. But I will fall asleep thinking of rows of pumpkins, kind hosts, a story a reporter told me, and glimpses I caught of friends along the way.



Photo above by Kevin Connors, from Morguefile.com.

What happened?

I said I'd post more that evening. A crazy thing to say.
I forgot to look at my schedule. I had something going on the next day from 8 AM until midnight, and had to be packed up and ready for my ride to the airport by 4:30 AM.
Today, I caught up on sleep. But I do have lots to tell you!

In the meantime, I will not make promises about when I'll post -- I'll just try to get back here more often.

More places to meet:

Saturday, October 7, 1:00 PM
Book Carnival
348 S Tustin Ave
Orange, CA
714/538-3210

Tuesday, October 10, 7:30 PM
Barnes & Noble
16461 Ventura Blvd (at Havenhurst)
Encino, CA 91436
(818) 380-1636

A quick note

I had a lovely time at M is for Mystery last night!

I will be writing more about that event later today -- at the moment, I'm about to rush downstairs to take on the day's tour activites....

Mysterious Galaxy and beyond

(For some odd reason, this didn't end up on the blog on Tuesday...sigh....)


Many thanks to all of you who turned up at Mysterious Galaxy tonight! I'm especially indebted to Greg Thompson, Director of Forensic Services for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, who was interviewed with me at KPBS and spoke to the crowd at MG about the local lab and its work and new programs.

If you didn't get my latest newsletter, sent yesterday, be sure to sign up for the next one by clicking here and submitting the form.

Now I'm packing for San Francisco and the American Society of Crime Lab Directors meeting. You can see me at these places:


Wednesday, October 4, 7:00 PM
M is for Mystery
86 East Third Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94401
(650) 401-8077
(888) 405-8077 (toll free outside the Bay Area)

Thursday, October 5, 1:00 PM
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909

Thursday October 5, 7:30 PM
Capitola Book Café
1475 41st Avenue
Capitola, CA 95010
831-462-4415