Tag Archives: mystery

Be curious. And please argue!

Elizabeth Gagnon, podcast host of Teatime with Miss Liz, asked me recently what single word defines my character. I chose curious. I recall reviewing movie producer Brian Grazer‘s memoir, A Curious Mind, in which he claims that asking questions of influencers, such as directors and studio moguls with experience in showbiz, has been his secret to success. He goes on to claim that curiosity is the single most valuable trait that teachers should encourage in schoolchildren.

We’re now at a phase in the evolution of technology when rote memorization of names, dates, and events is no longer necessary. Decades ago, the invention of the handheld calculator eliminated one of the most annoying chores of my grade-school education – long division. Now with even the most inexpensive computer, you can make an Excel spreadsheet do calculus for you – and some apps have generation of complex curves built-in. That’s a subject I never even attempted because so many of my freshman-college classmates were failing the course. (I don’t like to fail, but when I have, I’ve learned more from the recovery than from any advice I ever got.)

What remains essential – fundamental – is curiosity.

We’re all online data drillers now. But if you don’t know what questions to ask, how can you progress? At anything?

My podcast GetPublished! Radio is on indefinite hiatus but remains a rich online archive. The late, great announcer Bill Navarro would introduce me:

And now, here’s your host Gerald Everett Jones. He has the answers because he’s already made all the mistakes himself!

That’s another thing about curiosity: It will make you skeptical about advice you hear – and presumed facts that might be little more than gossip. Curiosity will drive you to challenge opinions and check facts.

When I was in middle school, it was generally understood that studying for history exams was all about memorizing names, dates, and events. A great-uncle who was a believer in phrenology once felt the shape of my forehead and pronounced I would have a lifelong propensity for such rote learning.

But the most valuable thing I ever learned in any history class was a single sentence spoken by my seventh-grade teacher:

Remember that Russia will always covet warm-water ports.

Do you want the answer to why – in today’s news – Russia wants to guarantee its access to the Black Sea? Why Syria is their alternate route to the Mediterranean? Why building a pipeline from the oil fields surrounding the Caspian Sea – through Afghanistan – to the waters of the Indian Ocean was important enough to fight a war that destroyed the Soviet system?

Curiosity will take you there. And bear in mind that as wondrous as AI might be or become, nothing starts until you ask the robot a question.

Oh, and when you have opinions about what you discover, please argue with your comrades about it. I don’t mean argue as in provocation for a fistfight. I mean argue in the lawyers’ sense of developing a case and backing it up with evidence.

Yes, debate. That’s the skill the kids should learn after they’ve honed their curiosity and research skills. When I was in debate club in high school, we participated in competitions with clubs from other schools. The topic for the semester was set. Back then it was, “Should the United States commit to nuclear disarmament?” And our team engaged in furious (library) research.

Does it strike you that members of Congress seem to have forgotten the skills of serious debate? Wouldn’t it be sweet to hear some reasonable arguments?

The catch was, in those school debate competitions, your team wouldn’t find out which side of the question you were expected to take until right before the judges told you to begin!

“I could argue either side.” Most law-school students can claim that. And they might argue with passion, but they learn that passion shouldn’t make them deaf to their opponents’ objections.

But what about grade-school children in, say, Florida? In your town?

Preacher Evan Wycliff is a an amateur sleuth, a reluctant investigator because he has a curious mind and sympathy for unresolved personal problems. This first book in the series is free as Kindle or EPUB. The other two novels are $2.99 now.

New Interpretations of Bible Parables – Thinking About Thinking #48

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Hands folded over a bible with the text "Could famous bible parables contain hidden meanings?"

If you’re having trouble with your religious faith, studying theology will only make matters worse. In my Evan Wycliff Mysteries series, the protagonist is a Baptist minister who often has serious doubts. For my background research, I delved into some recent Biblical scholarship, where I found some remarkable reinterpretations of the old stories.

One of these latter-day sources is Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Barbara Thiering. This Australian scholar applied a traditional rabbinic pesher analysis – used primarily by Hebrew scholars to find hidden meanings in the Old Testament. Thiering maintains that the New Testament gospels are full of coded messages intended to be passed among rebellious Jews who sought to hide their controversial beliefs and doctrines from conservative sects such as the Scribes and the Pharisees.

For example, Thiering asserts that the parable of turning water into wine at the wedding feast was not to be taken literally. Traditional religious practice segregated women in worship services and used water as a sacramental beverage. Jesus and his rebels advocated including women and the infirm in all ceremonies, and their sacraments used wine. The parable therefore uses powerful symbolism to emphasize a doctrinal dispute.

The cover of Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls

And – which is more miraculous – a one-time chemistry trick or changing worship practices from ancient times to this to include women?

Thiering also thinks the story of the virgin birth contains an encrypted message. In the Essene community, a betrothed couple were made to live apart until the wedding, Mary was sent to live with pious women (who were like caregiving nuns), in the “House of the Virgins.” This suggests that Mary – and not necessarily Joseph – was descended from the house of David and a member of the sect aligned with the revolutionaries Jesus would eventually lead. The story of the virgin birth is therefore coded proof of the matrilineal legitimacy of Jesus to claim the throne of David.

As you might expect, Thiering’s conclusions have been shouted down by traditional theologians. She died in 2015, so these days she’s not around to defend herself. But you can be sure there is a generation of seminarians who have her on their reading lists.

I imagine many faithful churchgoers don’t delve much into theological scholarship. That’s what ministers are supposed to do at divinity school. Sunday-school teachers must certainly study the Bible, and a source they might routinely consult would be The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, a standard text in seminaries. Not coincidentally, that book was the inspiration for fictional Evan Wycliff’s family name.

Understand, I’m not endorsing or pushing such alternative views. I do find them intriguing, even at some times appealing. But these speculations figure strongly into the plotting of the mystery series because Evan is – as he admits – both perpetually curious and a habitual doubter.

An image of the paperback version of Preacher Raises the Dead: An Evan Wycliff Mystery

Why Is James Bond Still a Thing? #MeToo – Thinking About Thinking #44

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Here’s my book review of The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald. I believe I’ve read all of his Travis McGee books. Each has a color in the title. Trav lives on a houseboat he won in a poker game in Fort Lauderdale. He’s a salvage expert. He goes after missing boats, money, or wives. He always keeps half of whatever he finds. The baddest guys try to stop him because they covet the same things.

Travis is very much a Sixties hero with parallels to James Bond. Like Bond, McGee is a garbage collector of the vile detritus left behind by the world’s evil geniuses and idiotic criminals. And also like Bond, Trav treats women badly and assumes they like it. And as in the Bond stories, the beautiful women he loves too much end up dead, usually horribly so, at the hands of the elusive monster du jour. Revenge then adds to his justification for giving back as bad as his girlie got – or worse.

As an education in the underside of Florida real estate schemes and political corruption, MacDonald’s books are fascinating, unexpected discoveries. You also get a strong dose of macroeconomic theory anytime McGee engages his neighbor Meyer Meyer to help him understand the intricacies of bribing politicians or laundering money.

But what strikes me as I pick up this book again is the depth of the cruelty MacDonald conjures. It’s really ugly, voyeuristic, more shocking than the scummiest story In today’s news,

But if it thrills you to see powerful bad guys bite the dirt, Travis McGee is your man.

On sale paperback and Kindle March 1, 2022.

How to Write an Award-Winning Mystery – I surprise even myself!

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In writing the Evan Wycliff Mystery series, I’ve surprised myself many times over. It will therefore surprise me if readers find anything in the plots predictable. I resolved at the outset to let my subconscious self do most of the work. And after the stage was set and the characters stepped onto it, many times they told me where they wanted to go and said whatever they wanted to say. I haven’t always worked like this. Years ago, when I wrote mainly technical and business nonfiction for publishing houses, I wrote to strict outlines, and I sought approval from in-house editors if ever I chose to depart from the agreed plan.

When I set out to write Preacher Raises the Dead, I had the notion of describing both near-death experience (NDE) and coma. In the beginning, I didn’t know who would be stricken or how those subplots would turn out. Many other plot elements were likewise uncertain right up until the words flowed into the manuscript draft, including Evan’s core religious beliefs and consequences of Luke’s schizophrenia and Melissa’s epilepsy. The reappearance of Stuart Shackleton was a complete surprise until Evan saw him again that fateful day in the courtroom. He and I should have known we weren’t done with him yet!

Evan Wycliff #1 is avaialble as an audibook from Audible and booksellers worldwide.

 

Press Release: New Mystery Novel ‘Preacher Raises the Dead’ Deals with Real End-of-Life Controversies

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LaPuerta Books and Media announces the anticipated March 1 release of Preacher Raises the Dead, the third novel in Gerald Everett Jones’s multiple-award-winning Evan Wycliff Mysteries. The first two books in the series, Preacher Finds a Corpse and Preacher Fakes a Miracle, won Gold and Silver respectively in the 2020 New York City Big Book Awards – grabbing the top two slots in the mystery category that year and besting entries from not only indies but also the Big Five publishing houses. As well, the series has won three other awards to date, including kudos from the National Association of Book Entrepreneurs, the Eric Hoffer Awards, and the Independent Press Awards.

When readers meet Evan Wycliff in the first book, he’s a lapsed divinity student from a devoutly Southern Baptist family, but he’s also fascinated by astrophysics. After forsaking both Harvard Divinity School and MIT, he returns to his farm roots in Southern Missouri. When he’s not serving as a guest preacher, he’s using his investigative skills to track down neighbors who have fallen way behind on their auto loans. Bachelor Wycliff lives in a modest trailer, and some evenings he thinks his only friend is Jack Daniels. Although he might not be an agnostic, he’s certainly a fretful believer who has serious doubts.

In these novels, Evan gets involved in criminal plots and intrigues as an amateur sleuth because sometimes he’s the only clever fellow in this small rural town who is willing to help after the authorities have given up.

In Preacher Raises the Dead, Evan reluctantly takes on the role of full-time minister and walks straight into more responsibility and trouble than he can handle. He attends to near-death experience (NDE), late-stage dementia, long-term coma, and consequences of the pandemic. His old nemesis investment banker Stuart Shackleton is back – and claims to be converted. Shackleton’s money sustains a critical-care medical breakthrough, the building of a new church, and a career boost for Evan as a celebrity evangelist. Are these thrilling transformations part of a divine plan, or has Evan sold his soul?

Author Gerald Everett Jones explains how his writing process generates plot twists and surprises: “In writing these mysteries, I’ve surprised myself many times over. It will therefore surprise me if readers find anything in the plots predictable. I resolved at the outset to let my subconscious self do most of the work. And after the stage was set and the characters stepped onto it, many times they told me where they wanted to go and said whatever they wanted to say. I haven’t always worked like this. Years ago, when I wrote mainly technical and business nonfiction for publishing houses, I wrote to strict outlines, and I sought approval from in-house editors if ever I chose to depart from the agreed plan.

“When I set out to write Preacher Raises the Dead, I had the notion of describing both near-death experience and coma. In the beginning, I didn’t know who would be stricken or how those subplots would turn out. Many other plot elements were likewise uncertain right up until the words flowed into the manuscript draft, including questions about some of Evan’s most basic religious beliefs. His philosophy of life is bound to be controversial. The very thought of a practicing minister who is too often an agnostic will raise eyebrows. But do churchpersons have occasional doubts? I don’t doubt it.”

Commenting on Jones’s talent for surprising the reader, novelist John Rachel, author of Blinders Keepers and The Man Who Loved Too Much, writes in his review ofPreacher Finds a Corpse: “This is an excellent read from such an engaging storyteller! It really sucked me in. That last page did cause a triple-take, quadruple-take, and whatever comes after, up to about eight. Jones is definitely one of my favorite authors.”

Likely questions from readers about Preacher Raises the Dead might be: “Should churches take views on the pandemic – or on political parties or candidates? Are near-death experiences physical or metaphysical? How do ‘right to die’ laws affect treatment of patients in long-term coma?” And, perhaps most telling of all: “Can an agnostic be a practicing minister?”

Preacher Raises the Dead is available for pre-order now in trade paperback from booksellers worldwide and in Kindle ebook format from Amazon. Book release is set for Tuesday, March 1, 2022.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Lu Ann Sodano
La Puerta Productions
770-356-5030

Thinking About Thinking #33 – The Girl on the Train – Does betrayal justify revenge?

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There was such a buzz about The Girl on the Train, I couldn’t help myself. Especially since, after I’d downloaded the ebook sample, that Buy Now button was burning a hole in my digital wallet.

Yes, I was engrossed. But before you rush out to the e-store, be warned.

Right off, this is a book for and about women. The two male main characters – both thirty-something husbands – are strapping hunks of man-flesh. They exude charm and flash winning smiles. And they are both abusers. Several walk-on male characters are nicer, sort of metrosexual candidates. But one has a drug habit, another is a drunk, and the third is a spineless shrink.

The wives and ex-wives are smart but vulnerable, emotional sponges thirsty for guy-sweat. They spend a lot of their emotional energy in cat-fights with each other.

Okay, here’s the gist of it. The Girl on the Train is a chilling psychological drama centered – not on a love triangle, but a pentagon – or is it a hexagon? Anyway, the permutations and combinations don’t quite include the entire neighborhood.

Main character Rachel is recently divorced from Tom, who seems like a nice guy who just couldn’t put up with her drinking habit. (She had her reasons.) He’s now married to Anna and they have a new baby. The couple live in a the same bungalow where Tom and Rachel once thought they were happy. A few doors down, Scott and Megan seem like childless lovebirds. Megan occasionally babysits for Anna.

Although it’s been a while since the breakup, Rachel can’t help spying on her old house from the commuter train she takes to work in London every day. She occasionally catches sight of Megan and Scott lounging on the porch of their cookie-cutter cottage. She doesn’t know them well, but she develops a fantasy about their perfect relationship. It’s the relationship Rachel thought she had with Tom, a love now presumably lost.

It turns out that Rachel is more than casually curious about Tom and Anna. Rachel is a stalker. She phones him at all hours, she leaves notes at the house, and she wanders the neighborhood as she stares at the front door.

One night when she’s there, neighbor Megan goes missing.

A problem is – and it’s huge – when Rachel has been drinking she’s prone to mental blackouts. There are whole chunks of time – from minutes to hours – for which she has no memory. So combined with her guilt and self-loathing over her failed marriage, Rachel begins to wonder whether she’s been bad. Maybe really, really bad?

Like, maybe, did she somehow hurt perfect-housewife Megan? And what happened to Megan, anyway? Did she run off with a lover, or will they find her body in a ditch?

That’s as far as I’ll go. No more spoilers. But I’m just priming the pump. This is a big book, and, by turns, Rachel, Anna, and Megan tell their first-person stories.

Debut novelist Paula Hawkins knows her craft. At its basis, The Girl on the Train is an ingeniously twisted  mystery. It’s a woman-jeopardy plot with multiple victims. But, be warned, there are occasional bouts of intense domestic violence.

You might wonder whether this bestseller will be a movie, and apparently it will. DreamWorks has it in pre-production with Tate Taylor (The Help) to direct. Emily Blunt has been cast in the title role of Rachel. In the book she’s described as pudgy and somewhat homely. I guess Hollywood (UK office?) thought that was a bad idea. I doubt if the svelte Ms. Blunt will be donning a fat-suit or actually putting on weight for this role. Perhaps a touch less makeup, dear? [Update: The movie has been released.]

As I say, this is a big book, and what probably won’t make it to script or screen are Rachel’s agonizing internal monologues.

But what you will see, I can predict, is every one of those wife-battering fights.

Even more titillating to movie audiences than a good wartime firefight with semiautomatic weapons is to see some sweaty guy slapping his hot babe around.

  When no one else seems to care, Evan Wycliff wants to know why his friend died. Behind the sleepy life of a farm town in Southern Missouri, century-old plots and schemes play out.   Intrigue on the white sands of the Indian Ocean. A lonely widower makes the difficult transition from passive-observer tourist to committed resident.

Thinking About Thinking #30 – Back to Blood – In a melting pot, what melts, exactly?

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In his novel Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe savages urban American morality, or lack thereof, by focusing on the melting pot of Miami.

In this city there are more recent immigrants than anywhere else. The races cohabit and wheel and deal, but they mix hardly at all. As one of his characters quips, Everybody hates everybody.

Wolfe’s main character here is Nestor Camacho, a roguish cop of Cuban ancestry who, like so many of his neighbors in Hialeah, barely speaks a word of Spanish. In many ways, Camacho is a hero, often in spite of himself. His good heart and fierce sense of duty carry him into dangerous situations, intrigues, and trouble with his superiors. The driving force of a subplot about a colossal art forgery is preppie newspaperman John Smith, who is also a rogue, and also prone to find all kinds of trouble, much of it newsworthy. And most of the truths he uncovers are inconvenient both for his media bosses and for the mob-style rulers of the social order.

This book shows a lot of skin, as they say. Situations are weird or gross, or both. Wolfe reveals himself to be a dirty old man with a massive vocabulary who will titillate you until you have way too much information. We are self-seeking animals, he seems to say, and most of our decisions and actions are motivated by our most basic desires.

Tom Wolfe’s literary predecessor could well be the nineteenth-century French satirist Honoré de Balzac, who was so alike in his low opinion of human nature and exploitation of its foibles. At heart, Wolfe is a curmudgeonly moralist. Society, he seems to be saying, still needs cops and journalists, who can occasionally be heroes, if they dare to break the rules.

  When no one else seems to care, Evan Wycliff wants to know why his friend died. Behind the sleepy life of a farm town in Southern Missouri, century-old plots and schemes play out.   Intrigue on the white sands of the Indian Ocean. A lonely widower makes the difficult transition from passive-observer tourist to committed resident.

Thinking About Thinking #21 – A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn – Can a rabbi be a good detective?

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Here’s my book review of A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn, a Rabbi Ben mystery by Marvin J. Wolf.

Author Marvin J. Wolf

If you’ve followed these reviews, you know I talked about Abandoned in Hell, a Vietnam war memoir coauthored by Marvin Wolf. That review has had more hits than any of mine so far, both in text on the Splash Magazineswebsite and in the GetPublished! Radio podcasts. I believe that’s because Marv is a masterful storyteller who has a knack for finding compelling subjects. (I call him by his first name because, I proudly confess, he’s a colleague and a friend.)

You may come to think of Rabbi Ben, the protagonist of Marv’s mystery series, the same way. Here is the kind of righteous, empowered avenger you’d want as a friend if you ever found yourself the target of unscrupulous thugs in a dark alley in the boroughs of New York.

Rabbi Ben Maimon made his literary debut in For Whom the Shofar Blows (originally titled The Tattooed Rabbi). Ben’s mission in this second thriller is to track down a missing ancient manuscript, the Aleppo Codex, the oldest known Hebrew copy of the Tanakh, which contains all twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. If you think a quest for some crusty, old parchment would be a scholarly snore, you’ve been living in a cave and never heard of Dan Brown or never seen Tom Hanks’ portrayals of the obsessive Dr. Robert Langdon. And, like Langdon, Ben has a talent for finding obscure facts, beautiful women who offer their passionate assistance and support, and more physical threats than your average street-wise operative could handle.

As to the physical threats, you’d think a man of God would rarely if ever need to resort to violence. But, as in ancient times, these days not only books but also places of worship are being destroyed by zealots who want to rewrite history. And, as the global underground economy grows ever larger, there are thieves and cutthroats who don’t hesitate to kill for religious artifacts because one side or the other is willing to pay for them with suitcases full of cash.

So, as is the deceptively mild-mannered Mr. Wolf, Rabbi Ben is accomplished in the martial arts. If your heart beats faster when a good thriller is peppered with against-the-odds altercations, some bloody, you will not be disappointed.

Another close colleague of mine, the sci-fi cult author Thomas Page, recently reminded me that Ian Flemingbelieved readers lust after pointless detail. That’s why fans of his James Bond thrillers know a Walther PPK from a Smith & Wesson .45 and why if you drive an Aston Martin you will thank your mechanic for tuning up the turbocharger when you need to make a fast getaway.

Readers of A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn whose scavenger minds likewise lust for detail will learn so much here about Jewish arcana that you might feel as though you’ve successfully completed a college-level course in religious studies.

And you won’t want to wait for the next Rabbi Ben mystery.

In Clifford’s Spiral a stroke survivor tries to piece together the fragments of his memories. Was he the victim or the perpetrator? 2020 IPA Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction.

Thinking About Thinking #3: The Forgery of Venus – Is art forgery a victimless crime?

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Thinking About Thinking #3

Is art forgery a victimless crime? The owners of paintings valued in the millions of dollars are either high-net-worth individuals or or cathedrals or museums. And, yes, international mobsters and oligarchs have been rumored to use them as mediums of exchange in drug deals and money-laundering schemes. Some would argue that a truly masterful forgery, aside from being a fraud, actually preserves cultural history and works that might otherwise be lost or deteriorated. That is – for the museum patron or the visitor to an aristocratic household – what’s the difference in the thrill of seeing it?

What do you think?

Here’s my book review of The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber. Thanks to Judy Wisdomkeeper’s comment on Goodreads for recommending this book.

Gruber’s writing style has a voice, and right away that puts him at the top of my list. Besides the plotting, which goes back and forth in time in ways I’ve never experienced in a book, The Forgery of Venus fascinates in two other ways – its meticulous description of painting technique and its depiction of mental illness. Peter Carey’s Theft, which I also enjoyed, also has these two elements. The neurological issues are reminiscent of another masterpiece novel, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I reviewed in Thinking About Thinking #2.

The protagonist of this novel is Chaz Wilmont, an accomplished fine arts painter. He’s a brilliant technician but insecure about his creativity. His insecurity is rooted in the emotional abuse he received from his father, who was also a famous painter and intensely jealous of his son.

Wilmont is also pretty much a failure in his personal relationships. He’s divorced two wives, and he’s not a particularly attentive father to his children. Then a bizarre thing happens. Chaz volunteers as a patient in a pharmaceutical research study. He’s given a psychoactive drug that induces hallucinations. But in Chaz the effect is unique and disturbing. He seems to bi-locate physically as well as mentally into another person’s body at another time in history. He finds himself living in Madrid in the 1650s. Having assumed the identity of Diego Velazquez, one of the most supremely gifted painters who ever lived, in this past life Chaz learns all Velazquez’s techniques, one brushstroke at a time.

Back in the present day, international criminals discover Wilmot’s talent and blackmail him into forging a Velazquez painting that has been missing for centuries.

I find two things remarkable about this book: First, perhaps because Gruber is married to a painter, his descriptions of painterly techniques are vivid and detailed. Second is the theme of altered mental states. As Chaz shuttles back and forth between the centuries, he begins to wonder, What is reality? What is personal identity? How can you be so sure you are the person you think you are? And what difference would it make if your favorite painting by an old master just a masterful forgery? 

Gruber also hints, as other writers of art-history novels have, that many great painters of yesteryear made a living forging the works of their predecessors as they studied and then copied their techniques. A painting the experts think is a Titian could be from Rembrandt’s workshop of apprentices, for example.

My mystery-thriller about art history, which centers on a scandal rather than a forgery, is Bonfire of the Vanderbilts.

A hundred-year-old secret locked is in a painting. The painting’s owner, Los Angeles Museum of Art, refuses to admit I got it right. But, hey, it’s fiction, the art historians say. Why should anyone take it seriously? What, according to my decades-long research into this painting that obsessed me so, did Cornelius Vanderbilt II not want you to know? Hint: Vanderbilt and his reputed mentor, banker J. P. Morgan, were rivals in the Episcopal Church hierarchy, each claiming to be more righteous than the other.

Goodreads Giveaway – 100 Review Copies of Preacher Finds a Corpse

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Preacher Finds a Corpse by Gerald Everett Jones

Preacher Finds a Corpse

by Gerald Everett Jones

Giveaway ends May 08, 2019.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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