XXX-rated cookies for the launch party!

My dear friend Patti is making "fetish" sugar cookies for the launch party for "The Lies Have It".  These are funny as hell, but just so wrong!!!

 

Original Titles of Famous Books

Choosing a title can be very hard.  Here are some working or proposed titles for a few classics:


Old: Elinor and Marianne
New: Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen ... I definitely prefer the new title.

Old: All’s Well That Ends Well
New: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy ... It's hard to even imagine this book with any other title.

Old: Catch-18
New: Catch-22, Joseph Heller ... 18 was changed to 22 so as not to be confused with Leon Uris's Mila 18, which was released around the same time.

Old: Incident at West Egg
New: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald ... Part of me prefers the original title; it makes me curious.

Old: Tomorrow is Another Day
New: Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell ... Glad they changed this one.  The original is sappy and cliched. 

Old: Something That Happened
New: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck ... Also glad they changed this one.  The original would not have inspired me to want to read it.

Old: The Last Man in Europe
Now: 1984, George Orwell ... I like both of these.

Three real robberies & one fake robbery...

Once again, truth is stranger than fiction.  If I were to put the following in a book, readers would criticize it and roll their eyes, and publishers would tell me to re-write it.  But this really happened!!!

When I lived in Torreon, Mexico (Jan-June 2001, and then July-May 2002-2003), I experienced three real robberies and one robbery that was entirely made up.  The only robbery that the police paid any attention to was the fake one...

Robbery One
I was teaching ESL in Mexico and lived - with two other teachers - in a house owned by the school.  The house was fully furnished, a fairly nice place, in a good neighbourhood.  One day, we came home from school and discovered that our home had been robbed and ransacked.  The thieves only took things that belonged to the tenants (us teachers): jewelry, cameras, CDs, etc.  They left the TV, microwave, appliances and furniture that all belonged to the school (who owned the house).  The burglars even took our booze (except the Mezcal... even crooks won't touch that nasty stuff!)  They also rifled through the underwear/lingerie/etc. drawers of all three of us.  UGH!  Besides taking stuff and trashing the place, the creeps used our lipsticks to write on the windows (in Spanish) "Pancho Villa Rules and Controls".  I have no idea what Pancho has to do with anything (but his real name FYI was Doroteo Arango).

The police refused to make a report.

Robbery Two
I'm still mad as hell about this one... It was the classic streetside "spill" accident/pickpocketing.  I was walking along a pretty little street in Guanajuato.  A man passed me on the sidewalk and "spilled" his orange juice on me.  A very nice lady walking by  handed me some tissues to help clean up the sticky mess.  The man apologized for his clumsiness, I said not to worry about it - accidents happen.  I dried off and wiped up.  No problem.  I thanked the lady for helping me clean up.  We parted ways, and I noticed my wallet had been pilfered from my purse.  Fuckers!  I won't give details, but they got a LOT from my wallet.  Fuckers!  I am still pissed about being conned... I actually thanked my robbers!!  ARGH!

The police refused to make a report.

Robbery Three
Was at the house I lived in during my second stint in Mexico.  Again, a nice house in a nice neighbourhood.  I came home to find the place trashed and everything of value was gone: electronics, jewelery, playstation, cameras, cellphones, and on and on...

The police refused to make a report. 

The Fake One
When I returned to Mexico in July 2002, I entered first as a tourist with a 30 day visitor visa.  No problem.  I had a job lined up that would arrange my FM3 (work permit).  I was there legally and had my papers from before, but for some reason, that 30 day tourist visa was IMPORTANT!  I have no idea where it disappeared but since I couldn't find it and since it was needed to process my new work visa, the loss of it proved to be quite a problem.

The immigration lawyer for the school came up with a solution.  The lawyer, a translator and I went down to the police station and reported a robbery.  I should add here that I speak and understand Spanish, but the lawyer said to pretend I didn't.  The lawyer told the cops I had left my purse in the car while I went grocery shopping (I don't drive) and when I came back my purse - with my tourist card - was gone.  (If I had no purse, then how did I pay for the imaginary groceries???)  The lawyer went on to explain that since I was a Canadian girl, I was naive and trusting because there's no theft in Canada, so leaving my purse in the imaginary car was a normal thing to do.

No problem.  The police issued a robbery report to explain my missing purse and tourist card.  The lawyer took the robbery report to Immigration.  The folks at Immigration were satisfied with the explanation of my missing tourist card, and my work visa was issued immediately.  No problem.

Hmmm... I wonder if any bribes exchanged hands..?

Planning the launch party for "The Lies Have It"

Yikes! The launch party for "The Lies Have It" (book three in the Sasha Jackson mystery series) is only about three weeks away!

Fortunately, I've done two book launches in the last two years, so planning the third will be fairly easy.  

• I've ordered customized cocktail napkins again, as I did with the previous books.  The text will have the title and launch date beneath a lipstick kiss.
• I've still got 1000 feet of yellow crime scene tape to decorate the room.
• I've ordered "evidence" bags (both paper and plastic) for people who purchase books.
• The bags and the tape are both from Crime Scene - you can order all sorts of really cool stuff from them!
• I'll have the same three students working the event as I had last time.  They were good and they already know what to do, and I'm lucky to have them.
• This time, we'll be toasting with Goldschlager.
• Once again Iden Ford will take photographs of the party, plus SNAP photography will be there.
• My neighbour Patti will make 100 special cookies for the guests (see picture below).
• Michelle Elliott at The Pilot Tavern will handle things at her end (food, A/V equipment).
• And Moose the Florist will make dozens of customized roses to hand out to each guest.

I can't wait till November 3rd!

"The Lies Have It" - whole cover

I'm so happy to finally see what the whole thing will look like (from the outside at least!)
The files went to the printer today, so the countdown begins... 
November 3rd is the launch party!!!  More on that in another post.

Click on the image to enlarge. 

"Cosa Nostra" Cruise Lines

I rarely write personal stuff on this blog, but an interesting happening a few months ago is worth sharing. I

have no idea how I'll use the following story, but it's likely to end up in a Sasha Jackson mystery someday...

In May, I went to Italy (and France). First time for me in Italy, and I loved it! I planned the trip based on water travel - as much as possible.  I took ferries from place to place. The itinerary was basically as follows:

Nice to Bastia to Livorno to Palermo to Naples to Rome  (The only surface travel I did was a train from Naples to Rome). 

Now the ferries were something else... Nice to Bastia and Bastia to Livorno were six and four hours respectively, and the journey was a lot of fun.  In each case, the ferry had a party atmosphere, several restaurants and bars, a gift shop, arcades, slot machines, a sundeck and even a wading pool!

The ferry from Livorno to Palermo was something else though... I almost chickened out and contemplated hitchiking to Palermo instead!  As I approached the ferry, I had visions of being attacked or robbed, and worried that the floating bucket of bolts would capsize.

I knew it would be a ~20 hour journey, departing at 11 pm and arriving at 7 pm the next day.  I even had a little cabin booked (a nice cabin actually, two bunk beds and a bathroom with shower, etc). 

With the first two ferry rides, it was pretty touristy and the ships left from a touristy port in the heart of the city.  For Livorno to Palermo, though, it was an industrial/commercial port way the hell out gawd knows where.  It truly was a dark and stormy night... okay, it was dark and foggy and I wondered if the cab driver was lost.  Nope.  There's the boat...

Now, I knew ahead of time that the Livorno to Palermo ferry was essentially a cargo ferry.  But they do sell tickets to tourists and I couldn't possibly be the only dingbat tourist to hop on board...  So, I'm at this shipyard, surrounded by eighteen wheelers and bikers and thinking WTF? There were a few families doing car trips with mom, dad and two or three kids, but mainly it was long haul truckers and a few bikers (the vroom vroom kind, not cyclists), but really no other tourists like moi.


I go to check in, and - unlike the previous two ferries with stellar customer service - this boat had stevedores named Butch and Bubba greeting the guests.  I was the: 

• first Canadian they had ever had on board
• the first female travelling solo they'd ever had
• one of the very few pedestrian travellers on the ferry

Yikes.

So that was the set up.  The staff were all right out of central casting for The Sopranos or The Godfather.  They never smiled, the bar & restaurant staff were not particularly friendly, and none of them was what you'd call well groomed.  Okay, no big deal...

What was particularly surprising was the fact that this was a TWENTY HOUR ferry ride with no stops, out in the middle of nowhere, and there was basically no place to spend money!  Think about this: A totally captive group of travellers, and really not all that much to do for most of the journey (there was no land view to speak of, really, no Internet, no cell service, one community TV in the main deck "lounge area"...)

• The gift shop never opened (it only appeared to have three items for sale anyway, two of which were stale chips).
• The "casino" - about a dozen slot machines - was only open from 10:00 am until 1:00 pm.
• The buffet restaurant (sad looking fare) was only open for lunch from 12:00 to 2:00 pm.
• The bar/cafe was open for two hours, then closed for two hours, then open for two... etc.

I wandered around the decks and looked at the water, had a smoke and pretended not to notice the clusters of truckers who were checking me out (sadly, more as a curiosity than as a hot property!) 

It was just really strange to be in such a "we don't give a fuck about you and your desires" place, especially given the situation, in which they could have turned the whole thing into a gold mine, especially the slot machines.  As a tourist I expect to be gouged, but this was the extreme opposite of that. 

It was strange, but I'd definitely do it again.

Book Promotion By the Numbers - Part Two...

Okay, so I've already talked about online book promotion.  Now, here's the lowdown on other types of book promotion:

My first book was Blood and Groom and it was published by The Dundurn Group in November 2009.  For that book, I did about 60 events in about 15 months: 

• Three TV interviews (all on Rogers Daytime, but different cities).
• Six libraries.
• About 30 store signings at Chapters/Indigo and other retailers.
• Some neat events such as "Murder in the Old Town" at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse and "Vino and Victims" at Swirl Winebar (great place!), plus a Read-A-Thon for Durham Literacy, and so on...
• A few book clubs.
• Some speaking events (Sisters in Crime, schools/writing classes, etc.)
• Several print interviews

I'm the one who thought of, planned, promoted, and executed each event.  Think of what is involved in doing each of those, for example a book signing at a store:  

1. Call or email the store and ask if they are interested in having an event with you and your books.
2. Call or email the same store a week later because they didn't get back to you to confirm the date.
3. Once the date/place are firm, tell all your friends about it.  Tweet the event, post it on Facebook, and (depending on the event) get it listed in local media "What's On" or "Happenings Around Town".
4. Call local media and ask if they would like to cover the event (community newspapers are good for this, especially SNAP).
5. Depending on the event, you may wish to send ahead some promotional materials (bookmarks, flyers, etc.)
6. Retweet the event.  Post a reminder on Facebook.
7. Call the store again to make sure they know you're coming and that they have lots of copies of your book in stock.

Now all of that may seem easy enough (?!?!) but add to that travel time to and from the event and time spent at the event itself (just about every event I ever did was at least two hours). So, if you say 2 hours for the actual event, and 2 hours for planning/promoting it, and 1 hour travel time to and from the event, you're looking at a minimum of five hours of your time for each event.  (Occasionally it's shorter, but often - usually - it's much longer).  If you take five hours time sixty events, that's 300 hours.  (Compare that to a forty hour work week... 300 hours would be 7.5 weeks at a "normal" 9-to-5 job).  Keep in mind - all of this is separate from the time it takes to actually write, revise, edit and proofread a book. 

With Dead Light District (the 2nd Sasha Jackson mystery), I have done fewer events, and I've concentrated mainly on store signings.  Part of the reason for doing fewer events with this one is that the next book is coming right on its heels. The Lies Have It will be out next month (just six months after Dead Light District), so I'll promote both of these quite a bit in the coming months. 

In any case, if you are a new or aspiring author, you'll likely be surprised at how much time you'll need to spend on book related stuff that has nothing to do with actually writing.  I've easily spent way more time promoting each book than I did writing any of them.  By far! 

Book Promotion: Crunching the Numbers

An author has to do a fair bit of work to promote his/her book(s), regardless of who the publisher is.  I knew that going in... sort of...

I'm happy to promote my books - hell, why wouldn't I be?  But I had no idea just what exactly promoting my books would entail.  Here's a few numbers:

SOCIAL MEDIA

• 245+ Blog posts since July 2009
• 6500+ Tweets since October 2009 (@JillEdmondson)
• ~2000 Tweets since May 2010 (@DeadlyLetters)
• 1060 followers @JillEdmondson, listed 70 times
• 330 followers @DeadlyLetters, listed 9 times
• 1200 "Fans" or "Likes" on Facebook page for Sasha Jackson Mysteries

That's a lot of time in front of a computer or chained to a BlackBerry!

Has it been worth it?  YES.  Is all of the above necessary?  YES.

In short, via Facebook I've gained or been introduced to a lot of readers.  I have fans in Hawaii, Texas, UK, and Amsterdam that I'd never have connected with wthout Facebook.

As for Twitter, I've gotten at least four reviews that came (even circuitously) via Twitter.  Maybe even five or six... And they were all very favourable!

As for the blog, it's helped me connect with many other authors, plus a number of readers.  I get about 3000 pageviews a month on the blog, so that`s good. 

So, okay, yeah, the effects of social mmedia book promotion are positive.  But keep in mind how much time it takes to get to those numbers:

• Each blog post takes anywhere between 10 minutes and 60 minutes to write.
• Tweets only take a few seconds to write, but 6500 of them adds up!
• Everything I put out there in cyberland gets plugged online here and there: blog posts are added to StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Gothise, Google+ and Facebook, and, of course, to Twitter (both accounts).  This takes time - even if it's only a few minutes (or even seconds!) for each thing, it adds up.
• I spend as much time "liking" or re-tweeting or mentioning other authors & their updates on Twitter et al as I do with my own updates.
• Even with RSS feeds, you still have to post or repost things hither and yon, and not every site can have an RSS feed attached to it.

So, even though I can tweet and post stuff online from the comfort of home, in my jammies, with a big mug of coffee and some cheesy music playing, it`s still a time bandit.  All together, I spend at least ten hours a week doing social media book stuff.  Often, it's more than that...

I could have written a whole other book in the time it took to promote the ones that have already been published!


 
More on book promotion - other than via social media - in the next blog post.

Hell no! You ain't reading THAT!!!

Few things bug me more than the curtailing of individual freedoms.  And I'm ornery enough to want to do something if I'm told NOT to do it.  But, no one has ever told me NOT to read this book or that book.  (Actually, that's not true... When I was 12 or 13, my uptight, hypocritical, religious zealot mother threw out my copy of "Forever" by Judy Blume.  I borrowed a friend's copy and read it anyway, so clearly that didn't work.) 

A recent case of book banning has me knotted right up.  I first heard of this from GalleyCat (via Twitter).  Mark Melvin, an inmate in an Alabama prison, has been prevented from reading a book... a nonfiction book... a book on history... a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

The book is Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon.   

It shouldn't matter WHY prison officials prevented Melvin from reading this book.  No books should be banned. Ever. End of story.  As soon as you ban this one or that one - no matter how offensive someone might find it - you end up on the slippery slope or at the thin edge of the wedge, which is  too precarious a position to contemplate.  From there, it doesn't take long to suffocate. 

(For the record, prison officials thought the book posed a "security threat.") 

I urge you to read this book.  It was one of the three best nonfiction books I read in 2010. 

Interview with Rosemary McCracken

I'm pleased today to share an interview with Rosemary McCracken.  Rosemary McCracken's debut mystery Safe Harbor is now in production at Imajin Books. Release date will be announced soon.

1.   How did you come up with the character Pat Tierney, “a 40-something widow who balances a busy financial planning practice, a hectic family life”?

There's a shortage of mature female characters in crime fiction – characters over the age of 40 with whom baby boomers can identify. So I married a whodunit plot to the story of a woman going through a life-altering event. In chapter one, Pat learns that her late husband fathered another woman's child; soon after that, this woman is found murdered. I made Pat a financial planner because, as a journalist, I've written extensively about personal finance and interviewed hundreds of people in the financial services industry. Pat exemplifies their best traits.

2.   “Last Date” and “Safe Harbour” – what kinds of titles do you have in mind for future Pat Tierney novels?  Will you stick with two-word titles?

I find it difficult to come up with titles because journalists do not write the headlines for their own articles. I'm about three-quarters through the first draft of the sequel to Safe Harbor and I still don't know what its title will be. Two words, probably. Something short and punchy.

3.   You’ve worked as a reporter and journalist, and have written on a variety of topics, including business.  And, you’ve heard the expression “truth is stranger than fiction.” What real life white collar crime story is TOO BIZARRE to turn into a novel?

No crime, white collar or other, is too bizarre for a novel. Pedophilia, trafficking in human body parts – nothing is sacred. A particularly sordid crime story involving a financial planner is that of Canada's own Albert Walker, the convicted murderer and embezzler who ran off with his clients' money and his own 15-year-old daughter. When the Walkers were finally found in England some years later, they were posing as a married couple with two small children. It's always been assumed that Walker fathered the kids. Pretty creepy, but I can see a writer like Kate Atkinson pulling it off with style. 

4.   I’m cheating here... this is actually a two-part question: Which is harder to write: short stories or novels?  Which is more fun to write?  (Saying that something is hard doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not fun...)

I find a short story far more difficult to write than a novel. A short story looks deceptively easy but it needs to say a lot with a few words, and has to be tweaked and tweaked and tweaked. A crime story also requires a twist, or better yet a double twist, at the end. Not easy to do. Novels suit me better, allowing me to bring in a larger cast of characters with more space to develop them. And that's what I find enjoyable: getting to know my characters.

5.   As a mystery reader, what is the one thing an author can do (with the plot or the characters or or or ...?) that would turn you off?

I don't enjoy stories that are unresolved at the end – government conspiracies that the hero will never get to the bottom of, characters who vanish at the end of the book leaving the reader wondering whether they died in the final confrontation or ran off to start new lives. I don't necessarily want happy endings – the hero can die – but I like to see order restored to the world at large.

6.   As mentioned above, you’ve done all kinds of writing (magazines, newspapers, etc.) for quite some time.  What are the challenges to you when it comes to writing fiction versus nonfiction?

Most journalists have been trained to write "hard news" – breaking news stories that require covering the 5 Ws: who, what, where, when and why. As well as "how" and, when applicable, "how much." Journalists use adjectives and description sparingly; a photo will often supply the description. This kind of background enables me to write tightly and has given me a fairly good command of grammar. The downside is that description doesn't come easily to me, nor does lyrical language. But coming up with fictional characters and situations has never been difficult. It's a joy to let these imaginary people, places and events surface after all those years of sticking to the facts!

7.   What character from fiction (not necessarily mystery fiction) would you like to bring to life for just one day and why?

I'd love to spend a day riding around with Mickey Haller, the title character of Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer, who conducts his practice out of his Lincoln Town Car. If Haller came to life looking like Matthew McConaughey, who played the role in this year's film adaptation, that would be one hell of a ride!

8.   Imagine writing an online dating profile (Google “LavaLife” or “PlentyOfFish”) for Pat Tierney.  What would her dating profile say?

Pat's profile on LavaLife would read: CLASSACT – Life is full of surprises! Age: 47. Location: Toronto, Ontario. Height: 5'7". Body type: slim and fit. Ethnic background: Irish Canadian. Religion: lapsed Catholic. Smoking habits: non-smoker. Zodiac: Pisces.

9.   Name two mystery authors who influenced you.  Elaborate on this as desired.

Ruth Rendell has influenced me for years with her wonderful, often grotesque characters and creepy settings. And Kate Atkinson is currently working in the same tradition, with an added touch of humor. There is something truly fabulous about British crime writers. It must be all that fog and mist and dampness!

10. What murder weapon/manner of death would you like to use in your next mystery?

My sequel to Safe Harbor has a character who dies when he drives into his garage and it bursts into flames.

11. (This one is a freebie... What is the question you wish I had asked you but didn’t.  Now, go ahead and ask and answer that question.) Who would you like to play Pat Tierney in the movie adaptation of Safe Harbor?

I have two fortysomething actresses in mind. Nicole Kidman. And Jodie Foster, who has her own production company!

Visit Rosemary McCracken's website at www.rosemarymccracken.com and her blog at http://rosemarymccracken.wordpress.com/ . Follow Rosemary on Twitter @RCMcCracken and at www.facebook.com/rosemarymccracken. 

Launch Parties and Booze

At my first launch party, for Blood and Groom, there was a wedding theme (albeit a rather macabreone).  Given the love and marriage backdrop, it seemed fitting that we did a champagne toast after the reading.

At the launch party for Dead Light District, we did a toast with tequila.  One of the main characters in Cazadores is one of my favourite brands.
this book is a Mexican hooker, hence the tequila.  That's good, because I actually do like tequila (no doubt influenced by having lived in Mexico) and

The third book, The Lies Have It, will be out in November, and I'm busy now planning the launch party.  Goldschlager for this launch.  Visually and in terms of the flavour and style of the drink, it fits well with the plot, which this time around centres on the fetish world and politics.
Unlike the other two books where the choice of libation was obvious, this one was a bit of a challenge.  I like the launch parties to reflect the mood and tone of the books, and that includes everything from decor to music to food and drink.  I've decided to go with

Interview with Peggy Blair, author of "The Beggar's Opera"

Today, I'm very pleased to have an interview with Peggy Blair.  Peggy's first novel, THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, will be released in February 2012.


JILL:  Give me a one sentence summary for The Beggar’s Opera (your debut novel, which will be out in approximately 129 days, give or take...)

PEGGY: Inspector Ricardo Ramirez races to find the vicious killer of a Cuban street child in a devastated country where sex tourists and the spirit world share the streets, and where even the Internet is illegal.

JILL:  What can you say about your current work-in-progress (you do have a two book deal with Penguin, after all...)

PEGGY: The second book, The King’s Indian, is out for review with my editor. I’m working on the third in the series now. It further develops a character I introduced in The King’s Indian, an Aboriginal detective named Charlie Pike, and, like The King’s Indian, splits the action between Cuba and Canada.

JILL:  Hey lady of many hats!!! You’ve been/you are a lawyer, a realtor and an author. Hmmm... I hope you stick with author, but if you have to choose a fourth career, what would it be, and why?

PEGGY:  I think it would actually be closer to a ninth or tenth career – I’m afraid to say I’ve been a bit of a gadfly. I have been a negotiator and trained negotiators internationally; have been a consultant, policy analyst, professor, mediator, and antiques dealer. I was the senior legal counsel to a non-profit medical association after working as a senior adjudicator in the Indian Residential Schools settlement process, hearing stories of sexual and physical abuse. I worked briefly as a Deputy Chief Adjudicator in the same process before deciding to go into real estate, which is one of my passions.

But my next career, if I could make a living at it, would be as a visual artist. I paint, draw, and sketch, and am just edging into commercial territory now. I think it would be one of those jobs where I didn’t feel like I was working. Writing, to me, is satisfying but work – painting is fun.

JILL:  It sounds like setting might have been the easiest part of writing for you. What was the hardest part?

PEGGY:  The Beggar’s Opera really popped out almost fully fledged. I think I wrote the entire book in about three weeks.

The hardest part was the year or so of polishing that followed the many, many times it was rejected during the querying process.

It wasn’t the querying process, by the way, that resulted in my getting representation. I finally gave up on querying (which began to feel like the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different outcome) and entered The Beggar’s Opera in some national and international competitions, including the prestigious CWA UK Debut Dagger.

When it was shortlisted, everything changed: agents started contacting me asking for my manuscript and pitching why I should consider their agency.

But I wouldn’t have the wonderful agent I have now if I hadn’t met Scottish author, Ian Rankin, in the bar at Harrogate, England, shortly after losing the Debut Dagger. As it turned out, he and his son had just been to Ottawa for Bluesfest, which gave us something to talk about. That chance discussion resulted in his referral to his publisher, through whom I met Peter Robinson, my agent and Anne McDermid, his Canadian counterpart. Couldn’t be happier.

JILL:  If you had to choose someplace outside of Canada or Cuba to set a mystery, where would you choose and why?

PEGGY:  Possibly China. Or somewhere in the Balkans. I love the idea of setting a mystery in a country that’s in transition, which was what I loved about Cuba. I set The Beggar’s Opera in 2006 because Castro had just been taken ill and no-one knew whether he’ll be back or not. Cuba may be a dictatorship and the government may tightly control information, but the outside world is being brought in all the time because of the influx of foreign tourists. Cubans are tremendously well-informed, and highly educated, which makes for an interesting pool to draw on for characters.

Eastern Europe is similar. I spent some time in Ukraine as an election observer during the Orange Revolution and was assigned to a number of small towns close to the Russian border. It was almost feudal – little thatched houses, old women bent double from decades of beet-picking. Every now and then a cart would go by with a goat sitting in the back. And yet my translator was as urban and sophisticated as you could imagine: a young woman wearing clothes that put me to shame.

It was the same in Kiev. We went over told to take our warmest parkas and toques and our biggest boots and to expect impoverished conditions and places with no heating. I got off the plane to find some of the most stylish men and women I’ve ever seen, ate in what may be best restaurant I’ve ever been in and stayed in one of the nicest hotels.

I’ve been to Serbia three times on a UN contract, training mediators in human rights. Belgrade  reminds me of Havana, with its devastated buildings leftover from the war (downtown Belgrade was bombed and not all that long ago). It may be poor, but it has some of the loveliest, most generous, people I’ve ever met. It’s the kind of place where I commented on a watch that one of my new Serbian friends was wearing only to have her arrive the next day with a little ribboned box and the watch inside as a gift for me.


I went to the southern part of Serbia, which is Islamic, twice. It produces some of the finest jewellery in the world. There were Mercedes full of Russians lined up in front of these rows of tiny gold and silver stores, all engaging in money-laundering. I’m sure I can find a plot in all of that somewhere.

JILL:  What was the best writing advice you ever received?

PEGGY:  It was probably feedback from New York agent, Donald Maass, who told me I needed to increase the microtension in my manuscript. He went so far as to re-write a few paragraphs for me, which was extremely helpful. What that means is there has to be something going on in almost each paragraph that raises a question the reader can only answer by reading on. Don has written an amazing book called Writing the Breakthrough Novel. I bought it, read it, kept re-reading it and re-wrote my manuscript completely. And that’s when it actually did break through, with the shortlist to the Debut Dagger in the UK.

JILL:  Give me three tips you’d like to share with aspiring authors.

PEGGY:

1) Read Allan Guthrie’s on-line tips on Pleonasms. There should be a link on my blog. These are unnecessary adjectives, as well as all the words we use instead of “said,” like hissed, snarled, whispered, etc. Get rid of them. You want your writing to be crisp and clean, and these are redundancies that interfere with the flow of your words.

2) Get very good external readers. These need to be people who will be brutally honest with you. Strangers are good. I had the Ottawa Gay Book Club read my manuscript – I only knew one member (the one who arranged it) and never did know the names of the others. They were great at telling me what worked and what didn’t.

3) Do not, not, not, write a book in which different characters all speak in the first person. I’ve seen this repeatedly, and it is completely jarring to put the reader inside one person’s head and then yank them out and plunk them in another’s. It’s also confusing. But more importantly, it comes off as a bit amateurish, much like using pleonasms.( I have a ton of writing tips on my blog, Getting Published, peggyblair.wordpress.com, organized by topic.)

JILL:  How much planning/background/outline do you do for your victim?

PEGGY:  I don’t do any planning for any of my characters or even for the plot. I just start writing and things develop from there. I generally have a rough idea of what the story is going, and I try to write the ending first so that I have a destination. The epilogue in The Beggar’s Opera was written first and interestingly, despite lengthy (relentless, one might say) revisions in the editing process, it was left almost untouched. But the path to get there winds all over the place. If I had outlines, I think I’d feel constrained.

JILL:  What’s your recipe for a Mojito?

PEGGY:  A handful of fresh mint, which you crush in the bottom of a glass with a spoon. Add lime juice and white rum in equal measure (e.g. a jigger, or to taste). Add a teaspoon of sugar. Lots of ice. And top with sparkling water or soda water. I usually taste it and adjust as needed.

JILL:  What are your thoughts on writing in first-person versus third-person?

PEGGY:  The Beggar’s Opera was originally written in first person. I think first person is easier to write but much harder to pull off. Either everything has to happen through that one character’s perspective, which is difficult, or you have to switch from first person to third person at times, which doesn’t always work so well.

I finally re-wrote the whole thing as third person and it worked much better. Third person also lets you see characters through other eyes, and I like that for my books because there is always one character from ‘outside.’

JILL:  What kinds of events or promotions do you have lined up for your first book?

PEGGY:  The Beggar’s Opera won’t be out until February 12, 2012 so I’m not quite sure what Penguin Canada has in mind in terms of promotions and events. There is a publicist working on that now. I do know that there will be a launch both in Ottawa and in Toronto. We’re talking about using a Cuban restaurant in each city as either the site of the launch party or to cater, and I’d like to see us have Cuban music and art as well as Cuban food on hand. Since it’s the dead of winter, I think we can do something really fun and escape to Havana for an evening. I’ll keep you posted!

JILL:  If you could bring one dead author back to life (just for an evening) who would it be and why? And, no, you can’t say, “barhopping in Havana with Hemingway”.

PEGGY:  I may bring a dead author back to life in one of my books (Inspector Ramirez is often accompanied by the ghosts of his unsolved murder victims). Hmmm. That’s a tough one. Most of the authors who have inspired me are still alive. I’d say Shakespeare but I think he’d be hard to understand, kind of like me speaking French in Quebec, where I can’t understand a word of joual. It probably would be Hemingway, but I wouldn’t bar hop with him, I’d go fishing with him and pick his brain while he was still relaxed and sober.

JILL:  Let’s end on lucky thirteen. What’s the one question you wish I’d asked you, but didn’t. Now ask and answer it.

PEGGY:  How about, who’s your favourite character? 
I’d have to say it’s Hector Apiro, who is a pathologist and surgeon, and Ramirez’s best friend but lives with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. My copy editor says he’s a mensch, which means someone that’s honourable and has integrity, the kind of person you’d like to have as a friend.

I can always feel a scene start to crackle when he and Ramirez sit in the morgue, discussing philosophy or religion or Russian literature. The highest compliment I had from an external reader is that she totally forgot about his size, even though Apiro stands on a stepladder during the autopsies he performs and there are constant references to pictures hanging below eye-level on the walls of his office, and so on. He’s probably my most interesting character, although it’s hard to choose. I’m also very fond of Maria Vasquez, the Cuban hooker with a good right hook, and of course, Ramirez, who balances on the knife edge of corruption every day.


Check out Peggy's blog: http://peggyblair.wordpress.com/about/

Fucking Pirates! Arrhh!

Harumph.


The e-book version of Dead Light District is available for sale on Amazon and Smashwords. You can buy your very own copy for $2.99.

Or, you can download a pirated electronic version for free!

Argh.

I found out about the pirated version a couple of weeks ago. As it happened, it was the same day I was meeting up with Paul Alves, mastermind behind the books books books website http://www.paulthebookguy.com/.

When I told Paul that I was a bit fahrklempt about my book being pirated, his reaction surprised the hell out of me. He said it was a good thing, a mark of success in a way.

As Paul put it, people aren’t pirating “Coping with Liver Spots” by Edna Schwartz or “Adventures in the Frozen Food Aisle” by Egbert Knobsplot.

Paul has a point.

However, as I’ve looked further into the pirate thing, I've gotten angrier.

Given the very nature of piracy, it’s hard to get accurate figures, but it appears that “Dead Light District” has been pirated about 40x more than it’s been purchased. That hurts. Forty times more!

It’s frustrating for me to look at the stats (pageviews, sample chapters, blogposts, etc.) and see how much activity there is around Dead Light District, and then to reconcile that with low sales. For example, on one site (and obviously I won’t say which one) there were just under 100 views in one day of the sample chapters of Dead Light District.

But there was not one single sale.

(I should mention that there have been several good reviews of the book.)

Granted, some people may have read the sample chapter and decided they were not interested in the book. That’s fine – we all have different tastes in reading. But you’d think that out of 100 there would be a small percentage, maybe 1% to 5% who wanted to keep reading and would buy the book. That’s all; just a handful of people might purchase a legal copy. If that were the case, I’d be delighted.

What seems to be happening instead though, is after reading the preview, people are downloading the whole book for free from a pirate website.  Fuck fuck fuck!

It appears that the pirated version was available within about two months of the authorized versions being available.

I have no way of knowing who made the book available to the pirate sites (and it seems that there is more than one site where the book can be downloaded for free).

I can’t do a damn thing about it. Digging through the “about us” and “contact us” sections of pirate sites eventually leads you to a post office box in Idaho. Besides, the sites are full of all sorts of disclaimers, “we are not responsible for content...”

I suppose, if I really put time and effort into it, I could maybe get XYZ pirate site to remove my book, but it would just turn up a day later somewhere else.

I recognize that piracy is inevitable, and I guess in a weird way it is a mark of success. I know I just have to suck it up. However, I wish the piracy downloads were on par with, or lower than the number of paid for downloads... not 40x more pirates!  (Keep in mind, this is the approximate number for only one pirate site - gawd knows how many times its been downloaded from other pirate sites...)

Since I apparently have to live with piracy, I wish the playing field were a little more even. Ideally, the pirates could give the creators a head start, say six months, before making pirated versions available. At least then the artist has a fair shot. I’m just saying...

Sample from "The Lies Have It" - part 6

Sixth and final part of the excerpt from The Lies Have It - coming this November!


Sunday, 7:51 pm


“You know we have a dress code, right?” Shane asked when I walked through the back door into the kitchen of Pastiche. He shook his head at my scruffy sartorial choices. Shane was standing over a hot stove stirring a curry coconut broth for the mussel dish featured on tonight’s prix fixe menu.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly class up the joint, do I? I can eat in the kitchen.” I said.

“Pass me a bowl.” Shane pulled a tureen out of the refrigerator, and ladled out a serving of the soup du jour. He had his back to me and busied himself for a moment adding this and that to the dish.

I ate standing up, leaning against one of the prep tables. Not the most elegant way to eat soup, but gift horses and choosy beggars – and I eat at Shane’s place for free. A bit of cool soup dribbled onto my shirt. I left it there; I thought the stain might lend me some unkempt credibility with the street kids I was planning to canvass after dinner.

“Damn, this is good. Sweet and spicy? I can taste lemongrass.”

“Yeah. Chilled Spicy Thai Watermelon soup with Crabmeat. There’s lemongrass, cilantro, Serrano chilli, and ginger. You like it?”

Shane knew he didn’t have to ask. The fact that I was practically inhaling the bowl showed how much I liked it, but Shane is a chef and he loves to hear feedback on his latest creations. “A mouthful of heaven,” I said.

“This week, except on Thursday when we’re having the Nealson party, the restaurant’s doing a theme on Asian-inspired dishes. With a twist, of course. You can try some mussels if you want.”

“Bring ’em on.” We chatted while I ate and Shane cooked and fretted, and occasionally barked at the kitchen staff. Frankie, the line cook, told Shane to take a flying leap, to which Shane said something about hell freezing over. It was all good-natured. A salty, weathered army vet, Frankie – probably more so than anyone else on staff – keeps Shane from completely losing his mind on busy nights.

“You know, Sasha, the Asian menu theme reminds me of my friend Percy.”

“Do I know him?”

“Probably not. A good guy. We worked together years ago at that Italian place in Woodbridge?”

“I remember the place. That’s where I got food poisoning.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that wasn’t my fault?”

“I lost five pounds in less than a week.”

“It saved you the trouble of going to the gym, didn’t it?”

“Yeah right. Anyhow, what about Percy?”

“He opened a pan-Pacific restaurant called Monsoon a few months ago. He’s pretty sure someone on staff is ripping him off.”

“Theft in a restaurant? No, you must be kidding.” I was well aware of how often restaurateurs got robbed blind by their employees. “Give him my number and I’ll see what I can do.”



Sunday, 9:12 pm

After dinner at Shane’s place, I made the rounds of the blocks near the Eaton Centre. A crazed old gummer, wearing a white terry cloth robe and misshapen top hat, and holding a crucifix made out of tinfoil, was standing on a crate while warning passers-by about the pending day of reckoning. I wondered if the aluminum wrap interfered with the telepathic messages being sent to him from homicidal zombies in New Jersey. I flashed him a peace sign as I passed. He curtsied and then spat at me. I fleetingly contemplated the symbolism of the moment, but came up empty.

A gaggle of kids in faded jeans were playing hacky-sack in Dundas Square. They hardly stopped playing long enough to look at Macy’s photo. I talked to anyone and everyone who looked to be in Macy’s age group, but scored exactly zero. My feet were getting sore from all the walking. The pool halls and coffee shops I popped into didn’t net me so much as a nibble, but there was no reason to expect that they would have. It was safe to assume that Macy didn’t have a lot of cash, so she wasn’t likely to be anyplace that cost money.

A few of the punks hanging out in front of the Evergreen Centre for Youth were borderline helpful.

“I know for sure I seen her around here a coupla days ago,” said a guy in a hoodie. He passed the photo to the freckle-faced girl standing next to him.

“Yeah, for sure, it was yesterday,” she said. The girl looked about fifteen years old, and about six months pregnant.

“She asked about places to hang out, you know, the scene.”

“I’m flattered you think I’m hip enough to know the scene, but I haven’t got a clue what you mean.” There is nothing more humbling than vocalizing one’s unhipness. If I were going to spend much more time talking to the under-twenty crowd, I’d have to bone up on current slang. An Urban Dictionary tutorial might be in order.

“She asked about scoring some Clarity,” said Preggers.

“Clarity?” it was anything but clear to me.

“You know, Adam, the Love Drug, E.”

Ah yes, E. Ecstasy, the latest drug to capture the attention of teenaged morons. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine – short form: MDMA, which explains the street name “Adam.” I’m unsure what would explain the nickname “Clarity,” but I sensed I’d have to actually try the drug to understand, and I’m just not that dedicated to my job.

“And where might she find that?” I asked.

“Where can’t you find it is a better question,” said Hoodie. He had me there.

“Well, if you see her, give me a call,” I said as I dug in my purse for one of my business cards. Preggers pocketed my number. “When are you due?” I asked her.

“He’s s’posed to pop out on December twenty-fifth. He’s gonna be a boy.”

“I’m very happy for you,” I said. Actually, I wasn’t. Call me old fashioned, but I think there should be a checklist before people are allowed to reproduce. Finishing high school would be the first parental criterion. A fixed address would be number two. “Have you chosen a name yet?”

“I’m gonna name him Noel, like, you know, for Christmas?”

“That’s a good choice,” I said.

“Yeah, you think so? I think so too, but what if he doesn’t come exactly on Christmas Day? Would Noel still be a good name?”

“Well, if he comes out on December twenty-sixth, you could think about calling him Rocky.”

“Uh, maybe…” she said.

I admit the Boxing Day reference is rather oblique.

“Here,” I said, passing her twenty bucks. “Grab a bite. You’re eating for two.”

Part 5 - excerpt from "The Lies Have It"

Next excerpt from The Lies Have It (picks up where the last one left off...)

Sunday, 4:29 pm


Back at Dad’s house, I started digging through my closet. No one could ever accuse me of looking like a suburban middle class parent, but I didn’t exactly blend in with the chip-on-their-shoulder teen set either. I knew no one would talk to me if I looked like a square, so I dug through some of the clothes from my rocker chick band days. A faded and frayed, ratty old pair of black jeans - held together by little more than a hope and a prayer - looked anti-establishment enough for the job. A ragged Ramones T-shirt and no bra seemed to fit the bill, complemented by a battered old pair of Doc Martens boots that were out of style enough to be retro. I swapped my blue leather purse for a tan canvas US Army Surplus bag with a Union Jack patch sewn onto it, and mussed my hair a bit. I washed off my usually subtle make-up and then smudged a lot of black eyeliner around my eyes and headed downtown to pretend to be a cool older chick who belonged on the scene. Sort of.

I got off the 505 streetcar just south of the Toronto Coach Terminal. A handful of ragamuffins in dirty clothes with safety pins poking through every facial orifice were panhandling a block from the bus station. They had a scrawny, mangy husky with them. The dog look marginally cleaner than the five teens, but that’s only because he could lick himself. Clearly these losers were too apathetic to shower even once a week.

“It’s not much, but I’ll give you ten bucks if you answer a couple of questions for me.”

A punk dude with dirty blond hair answered, “Ten bucks each?”

“Hell, no. How about twenty for the group? You can get Rover there some dog biscuits. He looks hungry.”

“Whadup?”

“Anyone seen this girl? Name’s Macy. She’s sixteen, came here about a month ago. From Peterborough.” I passed around the few snapshots Mom and Pop had given me.

“I seen her around the Eaton Centre coupla times,” Dirty Blond said.

“Know where I can find her?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Does she have a usual hangout? A usual crowd?”

“Dunno,” they mumbled in unison.

“I think I seen her hanging with a bunch of cutters,” said a girl with torn fishnet stockings and lime green streaks in her platinum hair. “They usually chill somewhere around Kensington Market,”

“Thanks a bunch.” I handed the girl two tens and started walking towards the market.

“Word.”



Describing Kensington Market is a pretty tall order. First of all, it’s not a market per se, but a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, loosely bordered by Spadina to the east, Bellevue to the west, College Street to the north and Dundas to the south. Yeah, the druggies and the skinheads hang out here, but to leave the description at that would do the neighbourhood a disservice. It’s like the area has a split personality and alternate versions of itself appear throughout the day. Buskers, panhandlers and artists are generally here around the clock. Ditto a few neighbourhood drunks. However, the area has some super-cool funky shopping, especially when it comes to vintage clothing and army surplus. The presence of these stores is no doubt a response to the presence of aging hippies and artists. The street life in Kensington has changed little over the years. The same few buskers are always on the same old corners, strumming acoustic guitars and hoping the open guitar case would fill with people’s spare change. As for the disaffected Gen-X layabouts, well, they’re interchangeable with new teens from one year to the next. They all have the exact same ways of being non-conformist, anti-establishment rebels.

The first teens I talked to were sitting on the steps of a vacant storefront. A guy and a girl, both about seventeen, each appeared malnourished and dirty. The guy had a newish looking tattoo around his neck. It was supposed to be barbed wire or thorns or something, but the amateur job looked more like a string of the letter “C” in Old English font. The tattoo itself was puffy and red, and I’d wager that within a day or two, buddy would be in need of penicillin for the pus about to ooze out of his newly inked neck.

“Hey, wassup?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Yo,” answered Ink.

“Know many of the people who hang here?”

“Why ya asking?” He sort of thrust his chin out when he answered. His twiglike girlfriend stared blankly at me.

“I’m looking for my little sister. Her name’s Macy.” I passed them the photo. “Seen her around?”

“Maybe,” Ink said. The Twig just shook her head. Twiggy had a bunch on short scars on the inside of her forearms. It was plain to see she was into self-mutilation. Each scar was about an inch wide, and they ran perpendicular to her veins, up and down the length of her arms, from wrist to elbow. God, I hoped Macy wasn’t into self-inflicted pain, although the kids by the bus station had alluded to Macy hanging out with a bunch of cutters. This didn’t bode well.

“You see, our mom was in a car wreck. She might die any day now. Macy’s been on a tear for a couple weeks. She doesn’t even know about the accident.”

“Mighta seen her a while ago, but I dunno. The last few days was a blur.” His girlfriend giggled a bit.

“If you see her, gimme a call.” I gave them a piece of paper with my cell number on it. I had no illusions they’d see Macy, nor did I think they’d put my number in a safe place where they wouldn’t lose it, but this is my job. It just takes one person out of a string of dead-ends to help me crack a case. Maybe Ink and Twiggy would be the ones. And maybe leprechauns are real. After I gave them my cell number, I thought fleetingly about Ian and his BlackBerry. I thought it was odd that he hadn’t yet returned my call. I made a mental note to try calling him again later.

One great thing about Kensington is the food. Over the years, Kensington market has been populated by various groups of New Canadians: Eastern Europeans at the turn of the century, Portuguese in the 1950s, Jamaicans in the seventies, and more recently Latinos from Central and South America. You can get wonderful empanadas and gorditas on one block, on another you can stock up on goat roti, around the corner you can find an unending selection of cheeses that’ll knock your socks off, and there are a number of Asian grocers with a wide array of unidentifiable legumes, fungi, and dried shellfish. The neighbourhood smells wonderful and repugnant all at once. This is the Kensington Market suburbanites visit on a casual, lazy Saturday, or where tourists – consulting dog-eared copies of Lonely Planet travel guides – come to take in a heady dose of multiculturalism.


Kensington Market is also an edgy urban enclave, long popular with counterculture groups, from Rastas to punk rockers to artists. I’ve had my share of hanging in Kensington Market over the years, but it was usually related to something from my band days. Some of my first gigs when I was playing the Toronto music scene were at Graffiti’s, a bar that paid so very little that any starving new garage band who wanted to play there could. As I poked in and out of storefronts and taverns, I recognized more than a few nameless faces, pickled barflies who never seem to leave their usual barstools. I recognized a white-haired Irish man who had once been one of the best Flamenco guitar players in Canada. For the last decade or so, ever since he lost his wife to lung cancer, he’s been trying to slowly kill himself with copious amounts of whiskey and his own three-pack-a-day nicotine habit. The woman a few stools over from him reportedly had once been a wildly popular call girl. She now seemed threadbare all over, from her clothes to her hair to her teeth. But if you checked her out with half-closed eyes, and let your imagination fill in a few blanks, you could see that she had once been very pretty. The word on the street was that she was now on welfare and was HIV positive.

A young girl with black stringy hair was walking just ahead of me. I knew the odds were slim, but I picked up my pace to catch up with her.

“Hey Macy,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Huh?” The girl jumped a bit.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Thought you were someone else.” The girl’s face was rather cherubic, despite the blood-red lipstick and slashes of black eyeliner. Anyone with naturally chubby cheeks would never be convincing as a Goth. “From behind, you resembled the person I’m trying to find.” I shoved Macy’s picture in front o her.

“That doesn’t look like me.”

“I know, I said from behind. Same height, same hair. Any chance you’ve seen her?”

“Nope.” And with that, Cherub walked away.

As an older, inner-city neighbourhood - established back in the days when Toronto had a population in the low thousands - Kensington Market remains rather small and claustrophobic. I guess, back in those horse-and-buggy days of yesteryear, no one had planned ahead to make Kensington vehicle friendly. Finding a parking spot around here is a bitch, but then, only an idiot would choose to drive here. The narrow, one way streets are hellish for drivers to navigate, but with the crowds and congestion, cars can rarely move at much more than fifteen or twenty kilometres an hour, so pedestrians are fearless about zigzagging across the street mid-block. It could even be argued that cyclists pose a greater danger to walkers than cars do, given that many bikers ignore stop signs, or ride the wrong way on Kensington’s one-way streets. I narrowly escaped being plastered to the road by a stoned slacker on a pimped-out BMX.

“Whoaaa, sorry lady,” he intoned in a sleepy voice, as I jumped back from the curb.

I walked to the next block and waited for the light to change, but I needn’t have bothered. There was absolutely no vehicular traffic in Kensington Market today. One of the cool things about Kensington is that on the last Sunday of every month – in other words, today – the neighboured is a car-free zone. Pedestrian Sundays in the Market are wonderfully busy and laid-back. I traipsed around a while longer, and talked with another dozen teens or so. I got a lot of shrugs, was told to fuck off twice, and one guy asked me if I wanted to do a few hits with him. He failed to specify hits of what, and I was afraid to ask.

All in a day’s work. I was tired and hungry, so I decided my brother would love to treat me to dinner.

Excerpt from "The Lies Have It" - Part #4

This picks up where the previous excerpt left off...


Sunday, 2:05 pm


“We’ve been wandering all over the city looking for her,” Mrs. Edquist said.

“And you’re certain she’s in Toronto?” I asked.

Mrs. Edquist, in a basic pair of navy gabardine slacks and a rather ugly white and blue polka dot blouse with batwing sleeves, was sitting on the edge of a neatly made bed in a standard room at the Best Western Hotel downtown. Her hair was neatly combed and a few grey roots were poking through. Her husband, a seemingly affable, middle aged man with a bit of a paunch, was pacing back and forth in front of the window, and I was in the beige vinyl club chair beside the bolted-down television. Mrs. Edquist was calm and businesslike right now, but her red-rimmed eyes told me she’d cried more than a few tears of worry over her daughter this morning.

“Her friends all said she was coming here. Macy always talks about getting out of Peterborough and coming to the big city. She says small towns stifle her.”

Macy is the sixteen-year-old angst-ridden, angry Goth offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Small Town Middle Class. Peterborough, about an hour and a half from Toronto, began as a farming town, then became a factory town of sorts, and now was mainly a university town. Mom and Pop both had administration jobs at Trent University, she in the Registrar’s Office and he in Alumni Affairs. The daughter in the photo looked like she would prefer hanging out in dodgy back alleys with a bunch of skinheads rather than trying to decide on her eventual major. Her dyed black hair was shaved about an inch above both ears. She had on way too much black eyeliner, and seemed to be sneering at the camera.

“Well, Mrs. Edquist, a lot of runaways end up here. Has Macy taken off from home before?”

“Please, call me Phyllis.”

“And call me Harold. Or Harry if you prefer. She’s taken off four or five times in as many months,” Mr. Edquist said. “But she always comes back in a couple of days. This time it’s different. She’s been gone almost a month.”

“We had to come here to look for her. We couldn’t just stay home and wait for the phone to ring.” Mom’s voice cracked a bit.

“The Toronto cops were no help?” I already knew the answer. There was little the police could do since, at sixteen, Macy was no longer a child.

“No. We tried, and they were sympathetic, but impotent. We’ve put up posters all over downtown. We’ve canvassed the streets where we’ve seen kids hanging out. None of them could help us,” said Phyllis.

Pierced and tattooed teens hanging around the usual inner-city haunts wouldn’t be inclined to speak to such examples of Suburban White Bread under any circumstances. Rebellious youths would stay mum out of spite just because the Edquists had “Conformist Parental Units” written all over them.

“Where have you been looking?” I asked.

Mr. Edquist rattled off a list of neighbourhoods and intersections. Parkdale, the Eaton Centre, Yorkville, College Street.

“And when have you been doing this?” I asked.

“Since the week after she left.”

“No, I mean, what time of day?”

“We hit the streets right after breakfast, and keep going, off and on all day, until suppertime, maybe five thirty or six.”

“That’s your mistake. The goths and punx and emos and phreaks don’t even start to come to life until noon. I’ll begin looking in the late afternoon and go until two or three in the morning.”

“Thank you so much for helping us. Harold and I can’t take any more time off work. We’ve used up all of our vacation days. We’re not exactly poor, but we can’t afford to take unpaid time off work. We still have a mortgage.”

I was reluctant to bring up the subject of my fees.

“Today’s our last day in Toronto, we’re going to check out soon, and drive home. We both have to be back at work tomorrow.”

“I’ll give it a whirl, but only for a couple of days. I don’t want to waste my time or your money.”

I gave them the contract I had tucked into my purse. The bleeding heart in me wanted to help these folks. Sympathy prompted me to shave about twenty percent from my usual rates. They gave me all the info they could on Macy Edquist, plus a few more photos. We shook hands, and I bid them farewell, already feeling guilty that I would be profiting from their pain and worry.

Such is life. I’ve got to make a living. I can bartend at fetish parties only so often.

Excerpt from "The Lies Have It" part 3

This continues where the previous blogpost left off...


Sunday, 11:15 am


“Can I get a large orange juice, please, and a coffee?” I said to the waiter as I took my seat at a sunny patio table. Toronto was currently experiencing a welcome blast of, ahem, Aboriginal Peoples’ summer, and patios all around the ’hood were jammed. Today’s brunch was at Kilgour’s, near Bloor and Bathurst, one of the Annex’s hidden gems, and home of the best eggs Benedict anyone could ever ask for.

Jessica and Lindsey had gotten here before me and were already on their second cups of coffee. No doubt Jessica needed the caffeine as much as I did.

“Sorry I’m late. I slept through the alarm.”

“I could hardly drag my ass out of bed this morning. That was quite a night,” Jessica stifled a yawn as she spoke. “At least I’ll be able to sleep on the plane tonight.”

“So, tell me all about the fetish group,” Lindsey said.

“I have no idea where to begin,” I said.

“I can sort of get my head around the dominant and submissive part of it, but the role-playing stuff I just don’t get,” Jessica said.

“Like the ancient cowboy?” I said.

“Exactly. This grey-haired old dude, he had to be at least 168, was all tricked out like a wrangler from the Old West,” Jessica said. “And this chick – she was probably in her early thirties and pretty good looking – well, she was letting him bronco bust her or something. Giddy-up.” We both snickered

Lindsey gave us a look of utter disbelief.

“You should have seen them, Lindsey,” I said. “The girl was down on her hands and knees, and the old guy was whipping her ass like there was no tomorrow.”

Our waiter, who happened to be delivering our meals at this exact moment, gave me a quizzical look, then asked if anyone needed ketchup. We all said no, and he walked away, no doubt wondering about the rest of our conversation.

“Wow. I hope you earned good tips. Tell me at least the money made it worth your while.”

“Meh. They tipped okay, but they weren’t exactly big drinkers. I probably made more money for less hassle back at the slut mines.” If nothing else, the phone sex job had paid well, and had given me a unique insight into human nature.

“All this talk about kinky sex makes me want to become a born-again virgin,” Lindsey said.

“It was surreal,” Jessica said. “But enough about that. What’s happening in your world, Lindsey? Any appointments today?” Lindsey, who is a real estate agent, usually has to devote most Saturday and Sunday afternoons to open houses and viewings of resale homes priced well above market rates. Such is the Toronto real estate racket.

My purse started ringing.

“Hello,” I said, fumbling to grab the phone before the call went into voicemail.

“Hi, is Ian there?”

“Sorry, wrong number.” I clicked off. A moment later, the phone rang again, and the same guy asked again for Ian. “Sorry, it’s still the wrong number,” I said and hung up. I took a closer look at the BlackBerry and realized toot sweet that it wasn’t mine.

“Ooops,” I said. “I think this is Ian’s phone. I must have picked it up last night by mistake.”

“Shit happens. I’m sure he’ll call the bar looking for it,” Jessica said.

“I bet he’s got some juicy stuff on it,” I said, flipping through the menu. “Maybe some kinky photos….”

“You’re not really going to poke your nose in his business, are you?” Lindsey said.

“Of course not. I’m just saying I could, if I wanted to. That’s all.”

“About the last thing I want to see after last night is pictures of kinky sex,” Jessica said. “Anyhow, Lindsey, what have you got on this afternoon? Want to tag along while I do some impulse shopping?”

“My afternoon has unexpectedly opened up,” Lindsey said. “I kept today free from clients because I was supposed to go to some rah-rah-rah political group hug at around four, but it’s been cancelled.”

“You mean the community BBQ or picnic or whatever with Mr. Plastic Fantastic wannabe mayor and his Barbie Doll wife?” I asked.

I was only half listening to Jess and Linds. My thumb was poking through the text messages and callers list on Ian’s phone. I wanted to get his BlackBerry back to him as soon as I could. I know how lost I’d be without mine. I scrolled through the directory to see if he had a home number or a work number stored in his contact list.

“I know these political events are pretty lame, but they’re good for networking. There’s always a chance I’ll get a listing out of it,” Lindsey said. “Besides, Shane’s an ardent supporter of Tim Nealson.”

“I know.” My brother had never before shown even a slight interest in politics, but that was before he started working for himself. Now, as a small business owner, he was becoming something of an activist, at least at the municipal level.

“Why’s it cancelled? The election’s only three weeks away. You’d think Nealson and whatsherface would be out there glad-handing everyone and taking pictures with cute little babies,” Jessica said.

“Gwendolyn. The missus is Gwendolyn. She was in a car accident this morning,” Lindsey said.

“Uh-oh.”

“I don’t think it was very serious. All I heard on the radio was that she’d been in a fender-bender and was taken to hospital.”

“Yikes. Not exactly what the Nealsons needs to deal with right now,” Jessica said.

“Sometimes I think she campaigns harder than he does. She gets her name into every news release and every sound bite. If Tim Nealson gets elected mayor, I have a feeling his wife will be the one who’s really running City Hall,” I said.

“It may not be such a slam dunk. Cooperman and the Italian Stallion are gaining in the polls,” Lindsey said.

“And the right-wing blowhard has a loyal following.”

“Anyhow, I’ll have a chance to do my bit to support Nealson later this week,” Lindsey said.

“Oh yeah, he’s doing that dinner at Shane’s place,” I said.

Shane’s place is a wonderful restaurant called Pastiche. It’s a five-star fine dining room with five-star service offering five-star cuisine at five-star prices. Luckily, I usually eat here for free.

“I’m kind of surprised to see this side of Shane. He’s normally so passive, but Nealson’s positions on small business and taxes have won him over. Shane’s really excited about the shindig at Pastiche,” Lindsey said, more to Jessica than to me.

“What night is it again?” I asked.

“This Thursday. It’s being arranged by some group called the Egg Business Improvement Association,” Lindsey said.

“It’s not egg, you idiot. It’s E.G.G., which stands for Elm, Gould, and Gerrard streets,” Jessica said.

“Whatever,” Lindsey retorted pithily.

“I totally get why Shane supports Tim Nealson, but honestly, none of the candidates in this campaign really bowls me over. I don’t think any one of them is cut out to be mayor,” I said.

“I hate to sound like a bimbo, but can we get off this topic?” Jessica said. “It’s a bit heavy for me right now. Keep in mind, less than twelve hours ago, I was watching people in leather and Saran Wrap paddle each other. I’m still suffering from the aftershocks.”

“I think I’m permanently scarred from last night, too. I can’t get rid of the images,” I said, flipping again through Ian’s phone.

“For crying out loud Sasha, that’s not a toy. Why don’t you just call back the wrong number? Maybe whoever that was has another number for Mr. Spank Me.”

“There are times I don’t feel I deserve to call myself a sleuth.” I hit recall. The wrong number dude was a guy named Andy.

“There seems to be a mix up, and I somehow ended up with Ian’s phone,” I said. “You’re the last guy who called this number, so I thought maybe you could help me track down Ian.”

“He has a land line,” Andy said. “Why don’t you call him at home? His number is –”

“Just a sec, let me find something to write with.” I dug through my purse. Wallet, a hairbrush, some tampons, two tubes of lipstick, a ring of keys – some legal, others not – gum wrappers, my iPod, a broken pencil, a golf ball – not sure from whence that came – a few hair scrunchies, a green marker, and my own cell phone, way down at the bottom of my bag. “Okay. Fire away.” I scribbled the number in Kelly green felt-tip on a paper napkin. When I hung up, I immediately called Ian’s home number and left a message for him to call me.

“So are you all packed for your trip, Jessica?” Lindsey asked.

Jessica was booked on an overnight flight to London Heathrow for a family reunion planned around her great grandma’s hundredth birthday.

“Pretty much. Just a couple last-minute things. I have to make a pit-stop on my way home, and then I’m all set.”

“Since I’m free, I can drive you to the airport, if you like,” Lindsey offered.

“Thanks, but no need. I’m carpooling with my cousin Zack and my aunt and uncle.”

“What did you decide to get Great Granny for her birthday?” I asked. “It’s gotta be pretty hard to shop for someone’s hundredth birthday.”

“I got her a pair of argyle socks.”

“Tell me you didn’t…” I said.

Long before Jessica was a twinkle in her daddy’s eye, Jessica’s great grandmother had both legs severed just below the knee after an unfortunate incident involving railroad tracks and too many glasses of dry sherry. The old bird never bothered with prosthetics and has spent the last forty-plus years in a wheelchair.

“You’re positively deranged. GG’s going to write you out of her will.”

“The old broad still has an off-the-wall sense of humour. Zack is giving her a pair of tap dancing shoes,” Jessica said.

“What in the hell is she going to do with any of it?”

“She’ll use the socks as mittens, and the tap shoes will probably become a doorstopper or bookends.”

My jaw dropped as the waiter came by to clear our plates, and to offer coffee refills or dessert.

“I’ll pass. It would be extravagant to have dessert after Eggs Benedict,” I said, in a rare instance of self-restraint.

“Before I forget, here’s the key to my apartment and the key to my mailbox,” Jessica said.

I tucked them into my wallet.

“Thanks again for offering to cat-sit and apartment-sit for me,” she said. Jessica’s big fat lazy Himalayan cat Bella was like a baby to her. I’m kind of neutral on cats, but this twenty-pound ball of grey and white fur, with a face that looked like a ping pong paddle, was okay. Low maintenance and occasionally affectionate. “And help yourself to whatever you want. Mi casa su casa.”

“No sweat. I’ll enjoy the peace and quiet,” I said.

“Hey, I resent that,” Lindsey said.

Lindsey is my brother Shane’s girlfriend – actually, they’re engaged now. Even though Shane and I are both in our early thirties, we both still live at home with our resignedly indulgent and frequently befuddled dad Jack. Lindsey stays at our place two or three nights a week, so the Jackson abode is often pretty busy. Moments of solitude are cherished for their rarity.

“Well, if you weren’t allergic to cats, you could apartment-sit and use the place as a love nest,” I replied.

“Bella doesn’t eat much. Just measure out a scoop of cat food every day and make sure the water bowl is full.”

“I think I can manage.”

“And the litter box is in the bathroom”

“I know,” I said.

“Yeah, but you’ve got to change it as often as you can. It starts to stink really quickly. The ventilation in the bathroom is terrible.”

“No worries,” I said.

“So what time do you have to meet your new client?” Lindsey asked me.

“In about half an hour. We should get the check.”

A Mr. and Mrs. Edquist had left me a message on my office number yesterday morning, but I wasn’t able to schedule a meeting with them until this afternoon.

“Do you know what kind of a case it is?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah. A teenage girl who ran away from home. It promises to be frustrating. Runaways always are.”