A Hero of France by Alan Furst

(26. - 1315.) A Hero of France by Alan Furst - In March of 1941 Mathieu, almost 40, is in a network transporting downed English pilots and air crews through France to Spain. It is dangerous. It is the start of the French Resistance. Mathieu felt he had to do something to oppose the Germans arrogantly dominating France. 

Members of the Resistance use their Resistance names when talking to each other. Through the book they have only first names.

Furst is a master of evoking the spirit of the era.

Paris, the city of lights, is now dark during the Occupation. Vehicles and buses are not running. There is a curfew. It is a silent city through the night. Birds singing can be heard through the city. Parisians can star gaze from their apartments.

In a time of constant shortages a grand present is a “big wedge of some kind of Brie” brought from a farm.

Documents dominate life in wartime. You cannot travel without the proper documents. Creating a physical disguise for an airman is straightforward. Creating credible documents requires a sympathetic member of officialdom or a skilled forger.

The Resistance needs a constant flow of money to finance escape networks.

Mathieu receives money from Max de Lyon, a Polish Jew, who is running a club. His patrons in the Occupation are the German military, colloborationists and the Parisian underworld. They have the money for clubbing.

Mathieu is aided by Chantal, an elegant woman of the upper bourgeoisie. 

Annemarie, a member of an aristocratic family, is recruited by Chantal to join the cell. She is a beautiful young woman.

It is a delicate process travelling in Occupied France with someone who cannot speak without betraying he is English. It becomes simpler to travel in Vichy (Unoccupied) France.

Mathieu encounters Klara Zeller at a restaurant. They had been young lovers. She was an ardent Communist from a well-to-do family. They meet. He ends the assignation when she tries to recruit him for the Communist cause.

Even at the beginning the Resistance is complicated by the separation of Communist and non-Communist groups.

Furst explores an issue seldom addressed in my reading involving the French Resistance. How much should they trust British intelligence? How much direction should they accept from Britain?

Mathieu has an innate suspicion of an upper class Englishman, Edouard, sent to meet with him.

Running an escape line is expensive and money is limited in France. British intelligence has lots of money.

While I would have thought the modest number of English airmen being returned to Britain by the Resistance too few to draw Nazi concern, they were very concerned. Bombing Germany had infuriated Hitler prompting all Nazi ministries to publicly intensify the hunt for British airmen in France.

Senior Inspector, Otto Broehn, of the Hamburg police is “asked” by the Foreign Ministry to work with the German military police, the Feldgendarmie:

Operating against resistance in occupied countries they were known as the Heldenklauer, hero-snatchers but that was better than working with the Gestapo.

Speaking French he is sent to France to pursue heroes.

He will be diligent unlike the French police who capture the airmen and couriers who have the misfortune to be revealed at checkpoints but make only perfunctory inquiries to identify networks.

Every organization is at greater risk from turncoats than from investigators searching for them. While Mathieu’s network began with people he knew its expansion means he must trust people he does not know well. Recruitment is necessary but the Resistance lacks resources to vet potential members especially when the approach is made by the aspiring Resistant. As the network has expanded so has the risk of a traitor.

There is great drama on a personal scale in the book. Furst has a knack for rendering characters with a hidden aspect to them. 

The constant tension in the book is excruciating. The stress of being a member of a Resistance escape line cell was unrelenting.

Furst is so talented at causing anxiety in the reader on whether the heroes will survive. He had me racing through the final pages to find out what happened.

**** 

Furst, Alan - (2002) - Kingdom of Shadows; (2004) - The Polish Officer; (2010) - Spies in the Balkans; (2012) - Dark Voyage; (2013) - Red Gold (1999); (2013) - Alan Furst's Quiet Heroes; (2014) - Mission to Paris; (2017) -Midnight in Europe

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part II)

(25. - 1314.) - On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part II) - In my last post I started my review of On Writing. This post completes the review.

Writing his first novel, Carrie, King was unhappy with the first few pages and threw them in the wastebasket. His wife, Tabby, resurrected them and encouraged him to keep writing. He realized a “writer’s original perception of a character may be as erroneous as the reader’s” and “stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea”.

Life changed when the paperback rights to Carrie sold for $400,000. (He received half.)

King has an addictive personality - smoking, alcohol, cocaine - until given an ultimatum by his wife. He realized that the “idea creative endeavour and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time”. Reading and writing appear to have become his dominant addictions.

He tells of the basics, learning grammar and style. 

I was more interested when he recommended a daily reading / writing program of “four to six hours, every day”. To King you cannot be a writer unless you are an avid reader. 

When young people ask me about being a lawyer I ask them if they are prepared to spend 8 hours a day reading. If they flinch or hesitate or look away I say if you do not enjoy reading all day every day it is best to find another profession.

King writes every morning, holidays included, stopping when he has written 2,000 words. He recommends writing in a room where you shut the door. He directs the writer to avoid distractions though what is a distraction is flexible. He writes while listening to “hard rock” music.

For new writers he suggests 1,000 words a day with one day off a week.

On the creative process he states:

The situation comes first. The characters - always flat and unfeatured, to begin with - come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way.

He thinks:

The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question

He highlights the importance of description which he describes as a learned skill. I have spent 51 years in a law office describing events in cases and 48 years describing sports events, principally football games. I find the amount of description needed is a matter of feel for me. If it feels right it is probably a good description.

He assesses, rather brutally, the academic industry of creative writing - lectures, workshops, seminars and classes.

The last section of the book is about his recovery and return to writing after a horrific accident in which he was struck by a van. I found the section moving.

I am not sure why he described On Writing as a short book when it is 288 pages in length.

I was struck by how often he cursed and swore as he wrote about writing. It felt discordant for the other two books I have read about writing by P.D. James and Gail Bowen had nary a swear nor a curse. I know it was not affection. I expect it reflects his everyday language.

I have never read any of King’s fiction. I have avoided reading him as I do not read horror.  I did enjoy and learn from On Writing. King is a skilled writer on writing. I will refer back to his principles and be more conscious of unnecessary words.

****

King, Steven - (2026) - On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft - Part I 

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part I)

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part I) - In showing how he became a writer King tells stories of his youth. He was imagining at 2. I have only vague memories until I was in Grade One. The episodes of his earliest years are vivid especially on getting his ear drum repeatedly pierced. I do not have any dramatic early memories. 

He recounts that at 6, he missed so much of Grade One because of illness that he was held back. While ill he did read “approximately six tons of comic books”. I was an equally avid reader at 6 but my access to comic books was limited to what I could read at the Red & White General Store in Meskanaw while my Mom was shopping for groceries. 

I think a key difference between us was that King started writing stories as a child with the encouragement of his mother who paid him a quarter for each of four stories. They were “about four magic animals who rode around in an old car, helping out little kids”. I did not create stories at 6. Even as a child King heard in his head the voices of characters.

King, as with myself, was of the last generation to start to read before television was in the home.

By the time he was 12 he submitted a science fiction story to a magazine. I was most impressed that he typed it on a Royal typewriter he was given at 11. I was well into my teens before we had a typewriter and I could never do more than hunt and peck until I was in university.

He illustrates the point that “good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere” by how his first original story on counterfeiting coupon stamps came from his mother musing about how many more stamps she needed for a lamp and showing him that her tongue was green from licking many many stamps.

He got his first of years of rejection slips for the “Happy Stamps” story but kept writing and submitting. 

I had no literary interests as a teenager but continued to read and occasionally wrote down what I had learned about countries. I was fascinated by geography. King does not talk about reading encyclopedias for fun. I loved encyclopedias.

He was a movie aficionado, especially horror movies. Living on a farm I had rare access to a movie theatre.

What was clear to me was King’s imagination as a child, teenager and adult was never at rest with regard to fictional stories. My imagination focused on geography and history, imagining places and events far from the farm.

In high school he wrote a horror story plagiarized from a movie. It was a best seller among his classmates but resulted in confiscation by the school administration and return of sales. What he remembered best was the feeling of shame when he was asked why he wanted to write such “junk” when he had talent. He says every writer has had someone make a comparable comment to them.

From a small town newspaper editor for whom he was writing stories on spors he learned the essence of editing:

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you re-write your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

From a university workshop group which included his wife-to-be, Tabitha who is a poet, he confirmed his “belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea-driven”.

Bright Shining as the Sun by John Farrow

(30. - 1319.) Bright Shining as the Sun by John Farrow - An articulate well-spoken career criminal confuses police. I would be equally surprised. They are few and far between in my experience.

Douglas Michael (he insists on the full names to distinguish himself) Sykes, is wounded in the thigh, in a biker bank - an apartment for counting money - with three other people dead is being charged with murder. He says he is the fourth victim. Sykes insists on talking to one man, Emile Cinq-Mars, a retired Montreal police officer recovering from a bullet wound. 

Sykes explains why he will not trust a former partner of Cinq-Mars:

“I’ve been found guilty by association in my life when that was dead wrong. I understand it: People had no way to decide so they went by association. You want me to find you worthy by association. Like the judgement of those who put me away, that could be wrong.”

Sykes requests police protection fearing he will be killed in a Montreal hospital.

Frederick “Mittens” Gregoire, another aging career criminal, is clinging to his leadership of a biker gang while serving a life sentence. It was his bank that was hit. He gives a bi-lingual order - Ghost Sykes tout de suite.

Lest “Mittens” be thought of as an unlikely nickname for a mobster, the real life bikers of Quebec have often used unexpected nicknames. A ruthless leader was Maurice “Mom” Boucher. He may have been an inspiration for Farrow. As with “Mittens”, “Mom” had sons and a daughter involved in crime, continued to direct his biker chapter from prison and survived assassination attempts in jail. 

Organized crime in Quebec has become more complex as in the rest of North America. Where Armand Gamache in Louise Penny’s Three Pines series takes on the traditional Italian mafia, the Montreal police in Bright Shining as the Sun are dealing with the Hell’s Angels. 

The challenge for the killer, “Raccoon”, contracted to ghost Sykes is the police officer outside Sykes room. Because of the direction in the order for swiftness there is little time for preparation.

Raccoon is clever and cold blooded.

The resulting police reaction is brutal. I hope that I am correct that Montreal police of the 21st Century in real life do not beat suspects in interrogation.

For the opening 100 pages Sykes is the lead character. Cinq-Mars barely appears.

He is slowly recovering in hospital from the combined effects of being shot and getting a blood infection. His mind is clear.

The unusual duo of Sykes and Cinq-Mars, both recovering from gunshot wounds in the present, met 40 years ago. Cinq-Mars gave him a break partly because of his age. Another factor was Sykes’ intellect. At 15, this teenager who grew up in a working class Montreal neighbourhood, was reading “Hemingway, Camus, Sartre, Dos Passos”.

At their current meeting Sykes, a greater realist than many criminals, explains his motivation to talk to Cinq-Mars:

We say: I can do five years standing on my head with my head in a bucket. Touch the ceiling with my toes. Entertain myself walking that way, walking on the ceiling. We say those things horsing around, figuring life out ….. But there’s a cutoff. Comes in about eight years. I’ve done the calculations. Nobody in their right mind gets into double digits …. Wherever you leave off from, 10 years later nothing exists …. That’s how the honest wretchedness in life passes you by when you pull steady time.

Sykes is facing far more than ten years.

As I noted above, an eloquent criminal is unusual. Intelligent conversation between police and criminals is equally uncommon in crime fiction. Cinq-Mars and Sykes engage in a battle of the minds. For Cinq-Mars to learn what has happened decades before and in recent days he must determine the motivations behind secrecy and honour.

Intelligent conversation between Cinq-Mars and his wife, Sandy, was less of a surprise. She understands aspects of the psyche of Cinqu-Mars better than himself.

In Sykes, Farrow has created a fascinating villain. He has  the intelligence to achieve greatness. Instead, his life was spent in the lower echelons of crime. Cinq-Mars pursues the question with Sykes that was in my mind. Why did he not use his fine mind to lead a productive life? The answer was sad and believable.

Farrow keeps the plot moving quickly. His dialogue is impressive. While written in English Farrow effectively conveys that French is the dominant language of Quebec.

The ending was breathtaking. It is dramatic without relying on a heavy dose of violence. It is credible. It is satisfying as well as brilliant. It blindsided me.

I regret I had not pursued the Cinq-Mars series sooner. I will be reading more of the bright French Canadian detective and his “garguantan” nose. 

****

Farrow, John (pseudonym for Trevor Ferguson) - The Storm Murders

Wings Above the Diamantina by Arthur Upfield (1936)

(17. - 1306.) Wings Above the Diamantina by Arthur Upfield (1936) - John Nettleford has managed the fifteen hundred square mile Coolibah station for 32 years. His daughter, the beautiful Elizabeth, accompanies him as they travel by car on a tour of the station. He is long widowed.

Ted Sharp, the handsome boss stockman, is managing a drive to market of 819 cattle. Eilizabeth has noticed his “swinging grace” upon a horse.

As Nettleford and Elizabeth near a waterless lake they see a crimson varnished monoplane in the middle of the lake. In the front cockpit is a young woman. No one has left the plane. There are no tracks. She cannot move or speak though she is conscious.

The plane has been stolen from Golden Dawn 174 miles away.

Nettleford contacts Sgt. Cox at Golden Dawn. Sgt. Cox and Dr. Knowles fly that evening to Coolibah station.

Dr. Knowles, 38, is a severe alcoholic who flies better drunk than sober. Known as the “flying doctor” he covers a vast territory.

Dr. Knowles thinks the young woman, who remains unidentified, was drugged. He prescribes rest. As the young woman can drink he prescribes a liquid diet.

Elizabeth commits to caring for the young woman. She is excited to have a genuine purpose in her life.

The investigation becomes complex because of what appears to be a mysterious stranger or strangers.

Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is dispatched to solve the case. He takes the case because it is a challenge not routine. His record of never failing to finalize a case will be severely tested at Coolibah.

In almost every Bonaparte book I learn something about tracking. In Wings Above the Diamantina it is that indigenous Australians make tracking them very difficult by having feathers dipped in blood that hardens upon their feet. A variation is to wear sheepskin on the feet.

Bony needs a meticulous investigation as the evildoer or evildoers are wily and dangerous. However, the paralytic young woman’s health is deteroriating and Bony cannot let the investigation proceed patiently.

Bony deplores red tape, official procedures, for getting confidential information. As with most fictional detectives, carefully established rights to prevent arbitrary and inappropriate investigations are of little consequence.

Still, despite Bony’s best efforts, the investigation takes weeks. He spends days looking for airplane tracks. Few fictional detectives, past and present, would spend days seeking out tracks.

Along the way he is caught in an Australian weather phenomenon:

A sandstorm without wind! Far westward, possibly near the eastern border of Western Australia, a storm of wind had raised sun-heated sand particles for many miles above the earth. And then in its freakishness, nature suddenly allowed the wind to drop from fifty to five miles per hour, and the heated sand particles had slowly fallen earthward to be cushioned by the earth-stored heat of the sun in so dense a mass as to appear, as Captain Loveacre said, like a fog.

There is a wonderful description of a plane from an indigenous chief. It is the emu that flies.

Tension builds as Bony closes in on the wicked and the young woman nears death. Huge spring (November) thunderstorms unleash heavy rains and cause flash floods. Neither man nor vehicle nor plane can push their way through the storms.

Bony shows an aggresive edge not present in most of the books in the series. There is a genuine thriller ending with the action perfectly attuned to the setting, characters and era.

Wings Above the Diamantina is one of the best in the series. The characters are well developed, the plot is credible and the story is unique to Australia. Upfield is not racially sensitive in the context of 2026 but he upholds Bony as a person though many white Australians of the 1930’s in the book have a hard time respecting Bony because, in the language of that era,  he is a half-caste. I am glad I read Wings Above the Diamantina after The Mountains Have a Secret. Wings Above the Diamantina re-assured me that most of the Bony books are excellent mysteries.

****

Upfield, Arthur - (2011) - Cake in the Hat Box; (2011) - The Widows of Broome (2011) - "U" is for Arthur Upfield; (2011) - The Bushman Who Came Back; (2012) - The Will of the Tribe; (2012) - The Battling Prophet; (2012) - "U" is for Arthur W. Upfield; (2013) - The Bone is Pointed; (2013) - Q & A with Stan Jones on Nathan Active and Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte - Part I and Part II; (2013) - "U" is for Death of a Swagman (1945); (2015) - Death of a Lake; (2015) - The Clue of the New Shoe (1952) and Split Point Lighthouse; (2026) - Sinister Stones; (2026) - The Mountains Have a Secret (1948)

RCMP Sgt. Windflower - A Dream Weaver

In this post I write about the spirituality of RCMP Sgt. Windsor Windflower, the sleuth in Mike Martin’s 17 book series, follows Cree traditions in his life. In Too Close for Comfort and A Change in Plans his heritage guides his spiritual life. I sent a copy of my review of Too Close for Comfort and this post to Mike. He kindly replied. His response is at the end of this post.

Early most mornings he conducts a personal smudging ceremony wafting the scented smoke over himself. When the smudging is completed he prays. The combination of smudging and praying renew him in spirit and body. There is not much prayer in contemporary crime fiction.

Other mornings he lights a ceremonial pipe and, in the smoke curling around him, he has visions.

I am not fond of the paranormal in mysteries but Windflower is an extraordinary dreamer. 

His Auntie Marie and his Uncle Frank, both deceased, were “master dream weavers”:

His people, the northern Cree, weren’t all dream interpreters. That seemed to be a particular trait of his mother’s family. But they all somewhat believed that they could connect with their ancestors through the dream world.

Windflower is following in their steps as a dream weaver. The spirits of deceased family and friends come in his dreams to talk to him. 

They are likely to wear the suit of an animal. Dr. Sanjay, a long time friend, appears as a giant northern hare.

Windflower’s cat, Molly, comes and speaks to him in a dream. She says she can read his mind. 

During another dream Windflower speaks to a spirit who is the deceased brother of a character. The spirit warns Windflower of danger to the spirit’s living brother.

What do you do about a warning of non-specific danger?

How do you take care when you do not know the source of the danger?

His daughter Stella is starting to have dreams she remembers. She wants to believe in dreams. Her interpretations are literal. Windflower says to her sometimes dreams are “messages that we have to learn from”.

I am far from a dream weaver. I rarely recall dreams. When I do they are fragmented and often confusing.

Windflower’s wife and young daughters do not follow his spiritual ways. They go to an unnamed church on Sundays. Windflower does not join them.

The family is not in conflict over their different spiritual paths.

I appreciate Windflower, his wife and children being spiritual people. 

Windflower reminds me of another fictional indigenous RCMP officer. Inspector Matteesie Kitolgitak, in a pair of novels by Scott Young from the late 1980’s, is very familiar with the “old ways” having been a member of the last generation of Inuit to grow up living off the land.

His 90 year old mother, Bessie Apakaq, is “a toothless old Inuit woman with a tattooed face and only one eye”. She still has a nomadic spirit travelling from family group to family group in the Arctic as far north as Victoria Island north of mainland Canada.

In the second book, The Shaman’s Knife, Matteesie consults a shaman with knowledge of traditional spirituality.

Of the contemporary sleuths who embrace spirituality some are sleuths who are members of religious orders.

Father Anselm is a Gilbertine monk in the series written by William Brodrick. He is a deeply spiritual and a thoughtful man of prayer.

Sister Holiday is a nun of the Sisters of the Sublime Blood in the series by Grace Douaihy. While often profane and prone to impulse she is committed to her order and a woman who values prayer.

Joanne Kilbourn and her family in the long running series by Gail Bowen are staunch Anglicans. They participate in the services at the Anglican cathedral in Regina.

Glory Beverly Broussard in Glory Daze by Daniele Arceneaux is a dedicated Catholic woman who believes in prayer. In my review of the book I said:

Glory is a woman who speaks her mind including talking directly to God. A staunch member of St. Agnes parish she frankly states what is on her mind to the Lord. At least in the book it is a one way conversation.

Windflower, Father Anselm, Sister Holiday, Joanne, Glory and myself all appreciate the rituals of faith. They enhance spiritual life.

Windflower’s individual spirituality supports him. I find going to Mass to worship and praying with others adds greatly to my spiritual life. As with Windflower I find prayer in my personal life calms and sustains me.

****

Mike Martin's reply -

Thank you so much for your review and comments about A Change in Plans. Your observations about Sgt. Windflower are interesting and I appreciate that you go a little deeper below the surface to consider not only the actions but the intentions and meaning behind them. Windflower has been a lot of fun to write about, to see how he faces different and sometimes difficult challenges. I also try and capture as much of what I believe to be a small town policeman's life, and not just his crime solving. 

The real fun of that is imagining what he would like to eat and then try and create that. I always suggest that readers try some of the things out for themselves. Surely, AI or Google can help you make a blueberry buckle.

Thank you, Bill for continuing to support Canadian crime fiction and the authors who are toiling to bring that to life and to our Canadian marketplace. 

****

Martin, Mike - (2024) - Too Close for Comfort; (2026) - A Change in Plans

A Change in Plans by Mike Martin

(27. - 1316.) A Change in Plans by Mike Martin - Sgt. Winston Windflower is Acting Inspector for the region of Newfoundland around Grand Bank where he lives. He returns for his 17th adventure.

As often happens to managers he is spending most of his time on administrative matters. Staffing is a perpetual issue. Additional time is spent dealing with residents of Grand Bank who are struggling with life. Mike Winger, partially paralyzed and volatile, needs his attention frequently.

Windflower reminds me of several RCMP sergeants we have had in Melfort over the years. They were easy going men outside the office and drama inside the detachment seemed minimal. All were married and had children. They participated in community activities. They were fully part of Melfort. More recent sergeants have been less involved. I believe a partial reason is that they have often been moved before they had much time in our city. Still I think they have chosen to be less involved with Melfort than earlier sergeants. I think their lives and our community would be better if they were more involved.

Drug trafficking is a plague everywhere. Traffickers are clever using expectations that a major drug operation would not involve rural Canada.

Winger’s arrest, questioning and bail hearing are breathtakingly informal to a lawyer. I have never known an RCMP sergeant nor any other rank to ignore a court order for release for any reason. 

Life is going well at home for Windflower with his wife (Sheila), daughters (Stella and Amelia Louise) and dog (Lady). There is the relaxed comfortableness of a happy home.

As always, while Windflower reflects on the obsession of others with food, he is deeply focused on eating well. 

I enjoy Martin describing dishes that, if not unique to Newfoundland, are certainly staples on the island. My favourite in A Change of Plans was blueberry buckle:

A blueberry buckle was an old-fashioned single-layer blueberry cake. It has a dense batter but a tender crumb and a kind of streusel topping …. The buckle name came from how the cake bakes. As it rises, the blueberries and streusel weigh it down. That causes the top layer to buckle and gives it an indented look.

Windflower is often the cook for his family. I am going to have to get some smoked paprika. It seems to go with every meat.

The drug case gets more complicated when a chronic local offender, Greg Morrissey, has the back of his head bashed in.

As with Too Close for Comfort, outlaw bikers are involved.

Criminal connections reach out from Newfoundland across Canada and extend outside our nation.  

The drug dealers, while growing more sophisticated in their drug dealing operations, fail to recognize that disciplining straying low level members needs a measured touch. A beating can provide a message, a murder will draw close police attention that can damage, if not destroy, all levels of the network.

Unlike much crime fiction the RCMP officers of Newfoundland work well together under Windflower’s directions.

As the pace picks up there is a kidnapping. I struggled with its credibility. I will not discuss the reasons as I think they would be spoilers.

Windflower’s indigenous heritage values animal allies. Moose are important to Windflower providing “a symbol of endurance, survival and strength”.

My next post will explore another aspect of his heritage.

Windflower encounters a mama moose who “ambled” onto the highway followed shortly after by a moose calf. Fortunately, he has time to stop. Moose are a major road hazard in central and northern Saskatchewan. 500 - 600 are hit by vehicles every year. I have hit a deer and last week collided with a moose at night on a highway.

To the quotes from Shakespeare Windflower exchanges with his superior are added quotes from the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Praying for a fellow officer Windflower is reminded of Tagore’s beautiful aphorism:

‘Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.’

I loved Windflower’s interactions with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. I was less excited about the mystery. Placing a significant part of the book outside Newfoundland did not work well for me. I would like to read what happens next in Sgt. Windflower’s life, personally and professionally.

****

Martin, Mike - (2024) - Too Close for Comfort

Email exchange with Elizabeth Heider on Children of the Savage City

While reading Children of the Savage City by Elizabeth Heider I thought about a couple of aspects of the book and wrote to Elizabeth. I appreciate her candid response. Our exchange is below.

****

Dear Elizabeth:

I enjoyed reading Children of the Savage City and a copy of the review I will be publishing in a few days is at the end of this email.

I thought about the Amanda Knox case while reading the book.

Monica Lissom and Kami Washington in your book and Knox were attractive young American women charged with murder in Italy. 

It is always convenient for police and the public to think of an outsider, preferably someone from another country, as the killer. In the Knox case, both Knox and the actual killer were not Italian. 

Knox, unlike Monica and Kami, had no defence counsel beside her when she was aggressively questioned over four days.

I thought if Knox had a liaison unit like Phoenix Seven assisting her defence counsel she would not have been caught up in the Byzantine Italian criminal justice system and, if there had been a trial, would have been found not guilty.

Was the Knox case at least a partial inspiration for Children of the Savage City?

Reading about Knox’s trial I thought she should never have been convicted. I considered the evidence against her weak, especially when the real killer was convicted. It took an appeal for Knox to be freed. As ultimately found by the appellate judges, the authorities charging her had tunnel vision ignoring and/or contorting the evidence that showed Knox was innocent. 

Do you have any thoughts on that case?

There was an aspect of the Children of the Savage City that troubled me.

I regretted the number of bodies. I neither think a noir thriller nor a noir mystery needs double digit bodies to be effective but I have come to believe it has become expected of American published thrillers.

I believe that you and S.A. Cosby are two of the most talented and skilled crime fiction writers of the 2020’s.

I struggle with the many bodies in his books and now with the body count in Children of the Savage City.

After reading King of Ashes and posting my review I added a second post on the meaning of life in thriller noir fiction. A link is below. That post explores some of my regrets over a high body count.

I am confident each of you can create abundant drama without double digit bodies and hope your publishers are not encouraging you to have lots of bodies.

I would be glad if your next book has fewer bodies. 

I appreciated your response to my review and email on May the Wolf Die. If you are able to reply to this email and willing to share your response I will post it when I post this email on my blog in about a week.

All the best.

Bill

****

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your letter. You're right, I didn't catch it earlier - although I suspect this had more to do with the hectic book tour than a mistaken address. Thank you also for the generous review of Children of the Savage City. It means a lot that you read my books so closely and ask such sharp questions.

On Amanda Knox: I don't think I deliberately set out to write her case into the book, but I do remember being struck by it at the time, and I suspect it was somewhere in my mind as Monica and Kami's story took shape. What stayed with me (and what you put your finger on so well) is how quickly an outsider becomes the convenient suspect, how an unfamiliar system can sometimes swallow a person, and how few protections exist once cognitive biases take hold. 

On the body count... that's something I genuinely wrestle with in my writing. I agree with you that this has become somewhat expected of the genre. But I'm less interested in writing towards a particular expectation. Rather, I want to serve the story - never the spectacle. I believe that fiction is one of the best ways we have to tell the truth. It is the primary reason I write - and I think it's my job as an author. If I deliberately misrepresent the world (e.g. if I glorify violence or shy away from it), I do a disservice to the truth. 

Thank you again for the care you put into these reviews, Bill. Please do post this, and I'll look out for your next piece on meaning in noir fiction.

Warmly,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Heider

****

Heider, Elizabeth - (2025) - May the Wolf Die and A Letter Exchange with Elizabeth Heider; (2026) - Children of a Savage City