Is Height Sexy?

I admit to finding height sexy in a man. At my tallest (I seem to be shrinking a bit with old age) I was six-foot and a half-inch. Of course, I represented myself as six-one, and I found myself attracted to men who were taller than I was. My first serious boyfriend was six-four, and so is my partner. I like that feeling of being with someone bigger than I am.

That has carried over to my characters. Kimo Kanapa’aka, the police detective hero of my Mahu Investigations series, is six-one, and his partner, fire investigator Mike Riccardi, is six-four. I think Kimo feels that being with Mike gives him a bit of personal protection, and relief from always being the one to protect others.

The same is true in the Have Body, Will Guard series. Aidan Greene is six-one, and his partner, ex-SEAL Liam McCullough, is six-four. Seeing a pattern here?

I began to question whether it’s just height that I find sexy after seeing The Hobbit. There were some seriously sexy dwarves in that movie. Kili hits the top spot on my hotness scale, followed in close order by Fili, Thorin Oakenshield, and Bombur (because he has a great smile, even though he wears a goofy hat.)

But those guys are dwarves – not tall at all. How could I find that sexy? Well, the filmmakers were pretty shrewd, aided by Tolkien’s original book. In The Lord of the Rings, Gimli the dwarf shares screen time with men, elves and all kinds of other creatures, so it’s pretty clear that he’s short. But in The Hobbit, most of the time the dwarves are alone with Bilbo and Gandalf, so it’s easy to forget that, with the exception of the wizard, they’re height-challenged.

I digress to say that I’ve had a soft spot for Kili and Fili since I read Dove by Robin Lee Graham as an impressionable teenager. In this round-the-world adventure, Graham adopts two kittens, which he names after these two dwarves. I don’t remember if he had a reason—but I glommed onto those two in particular.

I think the filmmakers were sharp in giving us some man candy on the screen. We never get to see Kili or Fili shirtless, or even skinny-dipping in some mountain glade (are you listening, Peter Jackson? There’s another movie we’re looking forward to. I’m picturing Kili and Fili romping under one of those New Zealand waterfalls, sporting some Maori-style tattoos and nothing else.) But even fully clothed, these four guys bring a real hotness factor to the movie.

Checking the Internet Movie Database, I discovered that Aidan Turner, the Irish actor who plays Kili, is actually six feet tall. British actor Richard Armitrage, who plays Thorin, is six-two. So maybe I’m not far off in my desires. And as long as they never get filmed directly next to some tall elf, I’ll continue to think they’re hella sexy dwarves!

My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada

One of the very clever bits from the Broadway show Avenue Q is a song called “My Girlfriend who Lives in Canada.” The Urban Dictionary defines this term as “a lie invented by hundreds if not thousands of geeky high school boys who can't get any dates and don't want to appear pathetic.”

In Avenue Q, the closeted character Rod pretends to have a girlfriend in Canada to cover up his homosexuality. When I heard about the fact that Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o had an imaginary girlfriend, I immediately thought of this song.

Maybe things have changed in college since I was a student—but way back then, it was pretty easy for football players to score live, human girlfriends. Yeah, a few had hometown honeys, but mostly they could just swagger into any classroom, dorm or campus hangout and girls would flock around.

So what caused this guy to settle for some phone calls, emails and text messages? Did whoever perpetrated the hoax do such a great job that Te’o was willing to forego F2F contact? Or maybe this girlfriend who lived (and died) in California was the same kind of cover Rod in Avenue Q was looking for?

Reading and Listening

One of the pieces of advice I often give my writing students is to read what they’ve written out loud. It helps them catch errors such as missing words or improper punctuation—things you just don’t see when you read off the screen or a piece of paper. If you can’t read a sentence out loud clearly, I tell them, then there’s probably something wrong with the punctuation.

I experienced this myself, in a slightly different sense, as I listened to the individual chapters of In Dog We Trust as they were being recorded for an audio book version.

I put a lot of work into that book, the first in my golden retriever series. It was my first attempt at writing an amateur sleuth, after years of using police procedures to structure the Mahu Investigations. I rewrote the beginning a half-dozen times as I struggled to figure out where the story really started, and how to work in the character’s back story.

Steve Levitan is forty-two, returning to his hometown in scenic, semi-rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his tail figuratively between his legs. His wife suffered two miscarriages, which led to their divorce and his brief incarceration for computer hacking. Released on parole, he’s lost his marriage, his home, his career, and the freedom to do whatever he wants.

The architect of Steve’s restoration is a golden retriever owned by his next-door neighbor, Caroline Kelly. The story requires Steve to meet and dislike Rochester, and then for Caroline to be murdered. The book’s opening was bumpy, jumping through nearly a year in the space of a chapter or two. It took a lot of rewriting to make the timetable work well.

Then there was the problem of Steve’s character. I based him too closely on myself, and frankly, he came off like a fuddy-duddy. He drank tea and spent too much time comparing his situation to characters in books. It took the advice of a savvy editor, the estimable Joe Pittman, to make Steve a character readers could have some fun with.

So I thought that by the time I self-published the book in e-book and paperback format, it was in great shape. Early reviews, and strong sales, justified that opinion, and I went on to write three more books in the series—The Kingdom of Dog (2011), Dog Helps Those (2012), and Friar Lake, which should be polished and published in 2013.

During the fall, I listened to the individual MP3 files uploaded by the book’s narrator. I’ve never been much of a fan of audio books. I know many people who enjoy them, but I don’t work out (I know I should) and my commute is too short to get into anything longer than a short story, though I love the Selected Shorts put out by Symphony Space.

I needed something else to do while I was listening, so I played computer mahjongg as Kelly read his way through the chapters. It took me a few chapters to get into the book, but now I understand why people like this format, and I also gained a new appreciation for my own work. It was almost like I was listening to a book I hadn't written!

Buy the audio book at Amazon

Kringle -- not Kris, but the pastry

Kringle Blog I love to cook and bake, to read about food, and to write about it. I’m always interested in how other authors use food in their books, and often discover delicacies I want to try. That was the case with “Kringle, the single greatest pastry the world has ever created,” which I discovered through Mark Zubro’s Another Dead Republican.

Since Christmas is approaching, I was thinking about Kringle again. The first time I heard about Kringle, it was being eaten by Tom and Scott, Zubro’s heroes. “Scott handed out napkins and small slices of Kringle to Enid and me and took one for himself. It was pecan, the best kind. I swallowed it in two bites. Mom had remembered to pick up the Kringle from Racine. Count on mom to get the best pastry ever invented at a time like this.”

I was intrigued, but when I read, “As we talked I offered more Kringle around. Enid declined. Scott and I took more. You had to scarf down Kringle when you got the chance. You never knew when you might be facing your last chance at Kringle,” I thought this was a pastry I had to find out more about.

Fortunately, Cook’s Country just came out with a simplified recipe for Kringle, which in its complicated form required three days of preparation, including folding the dough over and over again. I’ve done that when making pain au chocolate, chocolate croissants, and it’s very tedious.

http://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/Pecan-Kringle/21165?Extcode=L2MN5AA00

I admit that several of my problems with this recipe came from not following the instructions. I started out using the blender instead of the food processor. Not a disaster, but it did make something else to clean up. Then I dumped all the ingredients for the dough into the processor—not realizing I was supposed to wait to add the sour cream until after the dough had become pebbly. Oops. And I put the egg I was supposed to use for a wash over the dough into the dough. Second oops.

The Kringle turned out pretty well, though. It’s not as flaky as it could have been, but it tastes good. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to get Kringle into one of my own books!

Have we already had a gay president?

A gay man has been in the White House. And not as a visitor—as president!

The news is explosive, particularly for the man who makes this revelation, Jeff Berman, a history professor at a small college in Pennsylvania. Jeff’s book, The Petitjohn Letters, investigates correspondence between James Buchanan, our 15th president, and his aide Roland Petitjohn, which indicates that the relationship between them was a sexual as well as emotional one.

The Buchanan Letters develops what happens after Jeff’s book is published. Suddenly, he’s at the focus of a firestorm of publicity. From interviews in the local paper to appearances on national TV news programs, Jeff’s in the spotlight, being grilled about his scholarship and ultimately his personal life.

At its heart, The Buchanan Letters is about a man who has built his life around a goal which he ultimately realizes to be the wrong one for him. During the book he’s used and abused, loved and hated, befriended and betrayed. Pascal Montrouge, a handsome, sexy newspaper reporter who’s clawing his way back up after a deadly slide uses Jeff’s book as a stepping stone to a new career. But does Pascal really love him?

Interspersed with copies of the letters Jeff finds, The Buchanan Letters is a timely novel with a timeless heart: one man’s search for love and meaning in his life.

Buy The Buchanan Letters now from the MLR website

Writing from the villain's point of view

Lately I'm finding I don't have the patience or interest to read crime fiction that includes or relies on the villain's point of view.

I used to enjoy books like this. James W. Hall writes great villains-- I loved the creepy bad guys he created in the early Thorn books in particular. Ditto some of James Patterson's early books.



I even tried this myself. Mahu Fire included big chunks written from the point of view of my brother/sister team of villians, in which I worked to understand their motives and humanize them. It was important work for me; I wanted to understand what made someone tick who worked so hard to take rights away from others. In a larger sense, what could cause a person to kill someone else?



When I submitted the book to my editor, it came back with a note that there wasn't enough of Kimo in it, and I had to fix that. I realized that I had short-changed Kimo in the investigation. Because I was showing so much of the action through the villains' point of view, I wasn't showing Kimo figuring things out. I ended up throwing out all the third person stuff and making Kimo do all the work.

But I didn't learn my lesson. When I wrote the first draft of Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, once again I wrote big sections from the point of view of the young man who is one of the two guys chasing after Aidan and Liam because of the information they have.



In this case I wasn't holding back information, though, I was duplicating it-- showing the same action through both parties. I thought I was adding continuity. But instead, when I submitted that first version to Loose Id, my very perceptive editor returned it with a rejection, noting that the action was very slow, and there wasn't enough emphasis on the romance.

Once again, I went back and stripped out a whole point of view. By focusing on Aidan and Liam (still in third person, mostly from Aidan's point of view, but occasionally from Liam's) the action moved more quickly, and I was able to stay focused on the romance.

Maybe these two are connected-- my inability to write convincingly and clearly from the villain's point of view, and my lack of interest in reading that way any more. Or maybe not. What do you think? Can you read that way? Write that way?

Coming Tuesday June 12 from Loose Id: Olives for the Stranger, the fourth Aidan & Liam romance adventure!

I'm participating (as my alter ego Scarlett Jacobs) in the Sizzling Summer Reads event at The Romance Reviews. Click here to see the authors and publishers who are participating in this event, which runs from July 1, to July 31, with fun, games and prizes!

Linked In for Writers

There are 119 million people on linked in—and many of them read! During the winter my friend Mike Jastrzebski and I heard public speaker and Linked In guru Jeff Zelaya give a presentation on how to maximize your efficiency on Linked In. His first recommendation was that you complete your profile.

You may already be using Linked In for your day job—but there’s no reason why you can’t add an additional current job. Assign yourself a job title—“Author” at your website. Mine reads “Neil Plakcy, author at Mahu Books” and includes a link to my website.

SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” and in this case refers to using terms that people regularly use to search on Google and other search engines. Google values Linked In, and often includes Linked In profiles in its results. So be sure to use terms that relate to your writing, like “mystery author” and “police procedural,” as they relate to you.

Have you ever gone to an event and collected business cards? Perhaps they are from other writers who you might want to get in contact with in the future, or subject experts who express a willingness to answer questions when you have them. If you simply put those cards in your drawer, or even your contact file on your computer, you’ll quickly lose touch with them. You’ll forget about them, and they’ll forget about you.

Instead, as soon as you get home, log into Linked In. See if those people you just met are registered, and send them a friend request. Be sure to personalize it—“It was a pleasure meeting you today and I hope we can stay in touch.” Then when they update their profile or make a post, you’ll know about it. When that attorney who offered you help changes firms, you’ll know. And the same goes for you—every time you change your profile (for example, adding a new book to your publications list) that information will be sent to all your contacts. So your name will stay fresh with them. (And maybe they’ll even buy a book!)

You can sync Facebook and Twitter to Linked In, so that when you post to one of those sites, your message is automatically added to your status updates on Linked In. But be careful not to overwhelm these people, who are essentially your business contacts (for your writing business) with lots of messages primarily intended for friends and family. You can add a feed link for your blog as well.

Under the “More” tab on Linked In, you’ll find questions people have asked. You can answer those questions yourself, using your expertise. That helps your ranking on Linked In, and it’s a way to share your expertise. For example, I write murder mysteries set in Hawaii, which means I've learned a lot about the aloha state during my research. I can answer an awful lot of questions about places to go in Honolulu, about the time difference, and so on. I also write about golden retrievers so I can answer questions about grooming, training, and treats.

You can also ask questions there, either ones about writing and publishing, or other questions that come up while doing your writing research, and get answers from other members whose credentials you can verify.

Jeff suggests that you have at least three recommendations on your profile from others on linked in. Do you know people who have reviewed your books? Ask them to post those reviews on Linked In. Do you have connections who have read your books? Ask them to write a brief recommendation. The more content you have in your bio, and the more recommendations you have, the higher you will rank on Linked In searches.

Don’t be afraid to ask people to connect with you. Remember, networking is a two-way street. Those people are on Linked In because they want to network with others—perhaps to get business, perhaps to keep up with current trends, perhaps to share the information they have. If you find someone on Linked In you want to connect with, see if you have any background in common—education, past work experience, and so on. If so, you’ll be able to send that person a connection request directly.

What if you don’t, though? The next way is to look through their connections and see if you have any connections in common. Then you can send an “introduction request” to your common contact. It’s just like meeting someone at a party and being introduced by a mutual acquaintance. You are more likely to value that new person (or be valued by him or her) because of your common connection.

Finally, if you don’t have anything in common, and you don’t have any mutual acquaintances, you can see what kind of groups that person belongs to, and join one of them. Hopefully it will be a group that relates to whatever it is you’re interested in this person for. Then participate in the group for a few days, introducing yourself and beginning to interact. Then when you want to connect with your target, you have that group membership in common, and Linked In will facilitate the connection.

Let’s say you’ve built up your connections and now you want to contact them via email-- for example, to send them a notice about your new book. There is an export function—but be careful not to use it to spam people.

I have a background in video games, and let’s say I write a novel in which video games play a significant part. I could tailor a special email to my connections in the industry, writing something like, “Because we share an interest in video games and a connection through Linked In, I thought you might be interested in my new novel….”

Finally, Jeff recommended looking into Google Presentation or Slide Share. Both of those allow you to embed video content into presentations you upload to Linked In. Want to show off your great new book trailer? That’s the way. What a great channel to showcase something you're proud of!

Here’s another good article about Linked In, from Poets and Writers: Now get linking!

8 Cognitive Characteristics of Career Criminals

          Professor Thomas Fagan of Nova Southeastern University gave a fascinating presentation to our chapter of Mystery Writers of America at lunch on Saturday.

He presented eight cognitive characteristics of career criminals—eight thinking errors that direct their behavior. In general career criminals are irresponsible, impulsive, self-centered, pleasure-seeking and free of negative controlling emotions like fear and guilt. They have poor interpersonal relationships—as soon as the other person stops meeting the criminal’s needs, the criminal leaves the relationship. Their drug of choice is usually a stimulant (because they are bored and need distraction) or enough alcohol to enable them to overcome their inhibitions.

1.       Mollification: a tendency to rationalize, to deny harm to others and divert blame by questioning the motives of others. “The security guard knew his job was dangerous and he shouldn’t have drawn his gun. I wouldn’t have shot him if he hadn’t.”

2.       Cutoff:  the career criminal quickly stops evaluating the outcome of his behavior. “What the hell, I’m already here at the bank, I might as well go through with the robbery.”

3.       Entitlement: They have the right to do what they want because it’s all about them. He told a story about a criminal whose mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and who asked for a phone call to her. But instead of anything sympathetic, he asked “Where’s the check you usually send me?”

4.       Power Orientation: the tendency to only look at others and situations as the strong versus the weak. If you are perceived as weak, the criminal will seek to exploit you—even if you are trying to be helpful.

5.       Sentimentality:  They see themselves in a positive light because they feel sentimental about some things, like children and small animals. “I’m a good person because I donate to charity, or take care of a dog.” This is also why pedophiles are the lowest in the pecking order in prison, because the other inmates are sentimental about children.

6.       Super Optimism: The belief that they are invincible. They have a fantasy belief that they won’t get caught. It’s the Achilles heel of career criminals, because they operate within patterns that have worked before, even though there is always a threat that they won’t work this time.

7.       Cognitive indolence or laziness: Their thinking style takes the path of least resistance. They are lazy and easily bored, and will go outside society’s rules just to do something different. They’re always pushing the limits, and making that one step over the line. This habit begins in childhood, where they are the first to smoke, drink, do drugs or have sex. However, this need to break the rules often declines after age 40, as they settle into a routine.

8.       Discontinuity: They are easily distracted by their environment and lose sight of their objectives. Even a criminal who manages to turn his life around during or after prison is still vulnerable to falling into old patterns.

The Russian Boy

When I was fourteen, I was lucky enough to be sent on a summer study program to France. My first taste of freedom from home came when we landed in Nice, on the French Riviera, in late June of 1972. I was intoxicated by the glamourous beaches, the gorgeous landscape and the ever-present sun. Right then and there I fell in love with Nice.

I went back some years later, for the summer between my junior and senior years in college. I rented a cheap apartment a few blocks from the beach (toilet down the hall, no shower anywhere, French doors that looked out to a busy street) and sat down to write a novel. When I wasn't writing I was wandering the city on my mobilette (moped), going out into the countryside or traveling along the coast road.

I was fascinated by the huge Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Nice, on the Boulevard du Tsarevich, and to learn that there was a sizable community of Russian nobles in Nice in the years before the Russian Revolution. I kept wanting to write something set there, but it wasn't until I came up with the idea for The Russian Boy that I was able to.

It was great fun to research the period. What did they eat? What kind of underwear did the men wear? How did they celebrate the holidays?

I also had to research current-day Nice, which is a lot different from the city I remember. But as the story took shape-- a painting created in 1912 that is stolen in the current day from a restorer's studio in Paris-- I fell in love with Nice all over again-- as well as with Rowan, Taylor, Dmitri and Alexei, the four point of view characters who tell the story.

To see more about the book, and read the first chapter, go to http://www.tinyurl.com/therussianboy

Have Body, Will Guard

The Have Body, Will Guard series am began with a daydream about running away to an exotic location, meeting a handsome guy and having an adventure. In the first book in the series, Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, Aidan Greene is dumped by his boyfriend of ten years, and on a whim he takes a job teaching English as a second language in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

He meets handsome bodyguard Liam McCullough and gets roped into helped him chase a Tuareg tribe through the desert. By the end of the book, they’re in love and Aidan decides to stay with Liam and become a bodyguard himself.

Dancing with the Tide picks up a few months later, after Aidan has attended a bodyguard training course and begun learning the business of personal protection. They are asked to protect a young Arabic pop star who has received death threats after coming out of the closet.

I wrote the first book hoping to reach a mainstream audience, so I drew the curtain on sex. But after signing with Loose Id, I knew I’d have to open those bedroom doors and show how Aidan and Liam connected. For the second book, though, I started with a bang-- literally. This new book is hot by design, and it was great fun to write.

One of the stories in the Surfer Boys anthology I edited was set in Djerba, a resort island off the coast of Tunisia, and I thought that would be a fun place to take Aidan and Liam and their client.

The guys go kite-surfing off the coast in this book as a way to work off some tension. Djerba has featured in Greek mythology and in Homer’s Odyssey, and it’s a gorgeous island of palm trees and resort hotels. Aidan and Liam explore the island while protecting their client, and the villa where they’re staying provides time for sexy encounters as well.

I was inspired by a lot of the photographs I found on line, like this one, of a turreted ruin somewhere in the Tunisian desert.



I love the bright, sun-washed look of these buildings. They remind me about the strong contrast between dark and light in these hot, sunny climates. There’s always going to be some danger in a Liam and Aidan book-- someone’s trying to kill the client, and there’s a mystery man who romances the client and then moves in. The book was a lot of fun to write, and I hope readers will enjoy it too.

In the third book in the series, Teach Me Tonight, they've been hired to protect Maks Bazarov, a spoiled teenager attending an English-language institute in Bizerte, on Tunisia's north coast, and sparks really start to fly (literally!) once they're in place. Someone really wants to kidnap Maks, and will go to great lengths to do so, even trying to set the monastery where the institute is taking place on fire.

Liam faces an opponent who represents his own dark side -- a soldier of fortune who is smart, strong and ruthless. Liam needs Joey’s help -- but will his attraction to his hunky pal damage his relationship with Aidan? Will Aidan turn his back on his burgeoning career as a bodyguard to return to his first love, teaching?
In his past life, teaching in Philadelphia and living with his ex-partner, Aidan had taken courses in massage, gourmet cooking, flower arranging, and a host of other skills, most of which proved useless in Tunis. The massage lessons, however, had been invaluable.

You can find all my Loose Id books here: http://www.loose-id.com/Our-Authors/Neil-Plakcy/

The Writer Wore Socks: Notes from Left Coast Crime

Left Coast Crime is a mystery fan convention which moves around the western part of the US every year. This year's was in Santa Fe, New Mexico and it was an excellent event.

The Santa Fe airport

The La Fonda,where the conference was set, is a charming hotel but sometimes you feel like Alice down the rabbit hole trying to find your way to the rooms. I didn't get my reservation in early enough so I stayed at the Inn and Spa at Loretto, around the corner, which was quite lovely.

The La Fonda Hotel, where the convention took place

My panel on Climate & Crime was up first and we had fun.  Vicki Delany began by insisting that there is no severe weather in Canada, but eventually capitulated because she realized Canadians take in stride a lot of bad weather that the rest of us find intimidating. Victoria Heckman and I talked about Hawaii, and Lance Zarimba added some Mexican color (his book, Vacation Therapy is set there).

View from my hotel window

Inn at Loretto

The short story panel was also very interesting-- I really think that having lots of stories available in e-format will energize the form. On Friday I participated in a panel on diversity in the mystery. We had African-American, gay, Native American and First Nations protagonists represented, but I believe the point that we all write about all types of characters was an important one to remember.
Some of the panels were great, others so-so. I enjoyed hearing Craig Johnson tell stories on the Old West - New West panel. And it was interesting to hear St. Martins' editor Keith Kahla and Barbara Peters, owner of Poisoned Pen press & bookstore, with their views on the future of publishing.
The native dancers from a local pueblo were great; the boys looked like refugees from Where the Wild Things Are, and the floor of the ballroom shook with their rhythm.

One of the dancers

Aside from some pollen & oxygen problems (and having to wear socks every day due to the cold) I enjoyed the conference. Hanging out with writers and readers is always a great time!

Dennis Lehane's 10 Questions

Dennis Lehane gave a terrific keynote speech at Sleuthfest on Saturday, in which he listed ten questions to ask about your mystery manuscript.
1. Does your story start on page one? Stories should begin at the first action.
2. Does the main character act soon enough? Stasis early in a novel is death.
3. Does the main character have a recognizable want? A clear want leads to action, which leads to the revelation of character.
4. Does the main character have a recognizable need? A need is theme, a want is plot.
5. Do the actions of the main character seem believable and authentic?
6. Does the protagonist go on a journey which leads to an epiphany? The story is the journey-- the plot is the car you drive on the journey.
7. Do the events in the story have dramatic inevitability?
8. Is something at stake-- for example, a piece of the main character's soul?
9. Have you written the book you want to read? A book of mortal event, with big dire action that leads to big dire consequences?
10. When in doubt, just telling the f---ing story.

Key West Literary Seminar

I wrote this report up for the food website eGullet.org, but never heard back from the editor in charge of the site, so I have given up on them and decided to post here.

Now in its 29th year, the Key West Literary Seminar focuses in 2011 on “The Hungry Muse: An exploration of Food in Literature.” Many participants will be familiar to dedicated foodies, including Ruth Reichl, Judith Jones, Frank Bruni and Molly O’Neill. The seminar has been broken into two halves; the program repeats, in slightly different format, two weekends a row in Key West.

Ruth Reichl began the conference with a talk in which she attempted to explain the reasons behind the explosion in food writing over the past twenty years or so. Her thesis was that as we have become disengaged from the production and preparation of food, we seek that connection through reading about it. Throughout the seminar she was an energetic and enthusiastic participant, with masses of dark curly hair and very skinny legs.

The rain disappeared and the first reception, at the Audubon House, went off as planned, with platters of moist turkey, an elaborate cheese table, and appetizers of grilled grouper wrapped in bacon, shrimp ceviche on toast, and lamb lollipops. The occasional raindrop filtering down through the high treetops was balanced out by liberal wine pourings.

Former poet laureate Billy Collins kicked off the Friday morning session with what was billed as “A Gravy Boatload of Poems” -- his own and others. His first choice was Mark Strand’s “Eating Poetry,” which begins with an arresting image of ink running from the corners of the poet’s mouth as he devours poetry.

Other Friday programs included a panel discussion between Jason Epstein, Darra Goldstein, Molly O’Neill and Calvin Trillin on the topic of “Transubstantiation: Madeleines, Anyone?” Sadly, as with many of the panel discussions, panelists hadn’t prepared in advance, made little attempt to stick to the topic, and rambled as they pleased. Did you know, for example, that Molly O’Neill couldn’t wait to get out of her hometown of Columbus, Ohio? I know that now-- since she mentioned it at least four or five times, pretty much during every panel where she spoke. I have to say I know an awful lot about her (I’d never heard of her before) because she pretty much repeated her biography as part of every panel she participated in.

The panelists were usually charming, with the exception of the elderly Mr. Epstein, who mumbled and fumbled and sometimes seemed confused as to where he was. But he was balanced out by the charming Judith Jones, who brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every panel she participated in. She mentioned that she felt we have bought into the idea that cooking is work, forgetting the pleasure involved in preparing food. She noted that the generation after World War II wanted to be liberated from the kitchen, and that packaged foods facilitated that liberation.

She also told the “true story” behind the scene in the movie Julie and Julia where she cancelled her dinner at Julie’s. Julia Child was horrified at the language Julie used in her blog and asked Jones not to have anything to do with Julie, even though Jones had been planning to make her visit about protecting the publisher’s rights rather than validating Julie’s project.

In cookbooks, Jones looks for works that use words precisely and explain what’s being done. The joy of Julia Child, she said, was that Child taught you techniques which you could then use in preparing your own recipes. She is also interested in books that focus on the pleasure of eating.

The program organizers worked with a number of different Key West restaurants to set up special menus for seminar participants. I ended up at the Banana Café, a French restaurant which served us an awesome seven-course meal, from appetizers of lukewarm spring potato filled with a goat-cheese-crème fraiche mousse topped with ossetra caviar and a marinated cherry tomato filled with a crab remoulade all the way through fish, duck and cheese courses, finishing with a chocolate truffle served on a tiny spoon. Each course was accompanied by French wines, and a representative of the wine distributor came to our table to explain each wine and how it matched the food.

One of Saturday’s highlights was a presentation by Julia Reed entitled “Drinking and Other Southern Pursuits.” She had the audience laughing to stories of after parties at her parents’ home in Mississippi, and the food and drink served then. In a hit-or-miss program, she was a hit, while a twenty-minute reading of a recipe for a stuffed leg of lamb was a definite miss. Molly O’Neill, who followed that speaker, even asked the audience, “Anyone out there awake after that?”

Roy Blount Jr. and Calvin Trillin shared the stage for the concluding event of Saturday night, entitled “What ever happened to chicken a la king?” They spent a couple of minutes wondering about lost foods-- then went on to joke about a dozen topics, some of them actually related to food. But their delivery was worth the price of admission.

The concluding reception was held at the Custom House museum, featuring cocktails and passed hors d’oeuvres, but with a focus on desserts including key lime pie, chocolate mousse, bananas foster and bread pudding.

The most provocative panel was one of the last, late on Sunday morning. Jason Epstein, Judith Jones, Molly O’Neill and Ruth Reichl addressed the catchall topic of “Food in America.” Epstein insisted that all you needed to learn how to cook was a cookbook and a good set of Japanese knives, though he did admit that he learned everything he knew about cooking while working in restaurants. Molly O’Neill differed with him, saying that she felt the Internet could deliver an immersive experience in demonstrating cooking techniques that a book couldn’t match.

Thinking About Grammar

I’m working on copy edits for MAHU BLOOD, and a couple of things keep coming up that are challenging some of my own ideas.

The first concerns mixing past and present tense. As an English teacher, I try to hammer into my students the need to stay in one tense, usually the past tense, in their writing. I try to do that myself. But my copy editors don’t seem to agree.

I understand their point of view. If something is still true, regardless of the time of the book, they think it should be in present tense. A lot of times that comes up in my definition of Hawaiian words. For example, as the first person narrator, I might write “I knew that ohana meant family.”

The copy editor changes that to “I knew that ohana means family.”

That just sounds wrong—mixing past and present in one sentence. Easy fix; remove the words “I knew that.” New sentence reads “Ohana means family.” But it’s still a present-tense sentence in the middle of a book written primarily in the past tense.

Rather than argue, I usually just go along with the copy editor’s changes. But every time it do, it rings a little bell in the back of my head.

My hero, Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, has an undergraduate degree in English. I gave him that background deliberately, so that his voice would be articulate and sound educated. He can drop in an occasional reference to English literature-- in MAHU BLOOD he sees an older woman surrounded by knitting, and calls her Madame Defarge. His partner, Ray Donne, is a Philly cop who has a college degree, though not in English. He asks Kimo how he knows the woman and Kimo says, “It’s a long story. Called A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.” Ray just shakes his head and says, “English major.”

So Kimo knows his grammar, but I don’t expect him to be pedantic. Will he always use “whom” properly? Will he say, “I spoke to this guy who I was able to get hold of?” Or would he say “Whom I was able to get hold of?”

He’d certainly say “A guy like me,” rather than “A guy like I am.” But where do you draw the line?

This is why English teachers (and writers) go prematurely gray.

FBI Citizen’s Academy Week 6 - Lie Detector

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

The last part of week 6’s session was on the lie detector. The first thing the agent addressed was that you could not do a demonstration of the lie detector, because there are no consequences to the questions asked, so the physical reactions aren’t there.

There are three parts to the lie detector, or three parts to the screen at least. At the top is the record of the leads on fingers, which collect sweat. This has a stable base line, then a squirt when there is a reaction to a question.

There are two belts made of tubes which circle the chest and measure breathing. The lines for these look like hills when there is a change.

Finally there is a blood pressure cuff.

The examiner looks at three things: consistency, time line, and significance.

Is the subject’s response consistent? The same questions will be asked several times, in a random sequence. If the subject responds the same way to the question no matter when it is given, there is significance to the response.

What is the time line of the response? Does it come at an appropriate time with regard to the asking of the question? (Often the response will come a little before person actually speaks, because the person is anticipating lying, and that causes the physical response.)

Is the response significant? Is there enough of a change in the subject’s response to merit calling it a physical reaction?

If you volunteer to take a lie detector test, for example in applying for a job, and you test positive for a crime, they will prosecute you. In one case, an applicant for a job with the Border Patrol admitted to child porn during the exam and was arrested.

Who doesn’t test well?

• People who are not focused-- for example due to drugs and/or alcohol. If you aren’t paying attention to the questions, your body won’t react to them.
• People who can’t pay attention-- for example, those with ADD-- for the same reason.
• If there is an outside issue that is more important to the subject. For example, if a suspect is being interviewed about a house break-in but actually committed a murder, he won’t react to questions about the break-in because they are less important than the murder.

There are also a couple of medications that mess with results. And of course he wouldn’t tell us which ones!

The most important part of the lie detector exam, he said, is the interview with the subject and the ability to establish a rapport. If the suspect does test positive for the crime, he will then initiate a “direct, positive confrontation.” He won’t ask if the subject did it-- he will move forward saying that he did.

Then he turns to RPM: rationalization, projection, and minimization.

He will rationalize what the subject did. Anyone would have done that thing, for example. Of course, you take a guy who needs money, and you present him with the opportunity to steal something. That’s rationalization.

Then he projects the blame onto someone else. It was really the victim’s fault, for having all that expensive stuff and not having good security.

Finally he will minimize the seriousness of the crime. At least you didn’t kill anyone, right? All you did was steal some stuff. It’s just stuff. And now you need to own up to it so you can move forward.

This encourages the suspect to admit guilt.

He doesn’t discuss the legal penalties when minimizing-- that’s not his job and he can’t make those kind of statements. And he never tapes these interviews, because he wouldn’t want a jury to hear an FBI agent saying some of these things, because out of context they would sound inappropriate.

I feel like I understand the lie detector process a lot better now, and I’d feel comfortable putting at least part of this into a book. I’m already having a police character discuss the RPM because I think it’s fascinating and a good way to get a fictional criminal to confess.

FBI Citizen’s Academy Week 6 - Violent Crime

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

The evening began with some information about FBI hiring. Last year they hired 914 special agents and 550 analysts, with a total hiring of 1988, including all support personnel. Despite the economy and cutbacks they are planning to hire something close to that number this year.

New jobs are posted at fbi.gov on Tuesdays. Sadly, you can’t be older than 37 to start the special agent training program. That lets me out.

They also have an honors internship program for college students, who must have a 3.0 GPA and be enrolled full-time in college. The program runs from May-August in both headquarters and certain field offices, and gives students an overview of what the FBI does.

This week was the one I think is going to be most relevant to the writing of crime novels, because the agent who spoke to us was from the violent crime squad, which encompasses most of the kind of crimes we write about.

We began with a discussion of crime on the high seas, for which the FBI has sole jurisdiction. The most prevalent crimes are assault and sexual assault (primarily on cruise ships) though also investigate murder, suicide, and high-end theft cases.

They have an emergency response team (ERT), mostly comprised of former law enforcement personnel, that go out to investigate the crimes on board, usually once the ship has docked.

They also investigate cargo theft; the biggest hub for ocean-borne cargo theft is here in Miami, because the cargo is exported through the Port of Miami. In the past they have found stolen cargo including truckloads of wheelchairs, portable toilets, electronics, cell phones, TVs, and even rubber duckies.

The investigation of art theft also comes under the jurisdiction of the violent crime squad. “If it has been stolen, it comes through Miami,” the agent said-- not that the art was stolen here, but it passes through here on its way to the eventual buyer. The intrastate nature of the theft is what brings it under the FBI’s jurisdiction.

There is an art theft registry-- a database of stolen art that helps agents figure out if a piece of art has been stolen. These agents get a lotof detailed training on detecting fraud in art work. I think this is a really interesting area and might like to investigate this more and perhaps write something.

I do have an agent character in mind-- he appears in my forthcoming M/M romance Mi Amor, set on South Beach, and due out from Loose Id in early 2011. There’s a minor character in that book, a red-headed special agent named Angus Green, and something about him intrigues me. I’ve been very happy that the opportunity to attend the FBI Academy came up now, as I’m thinking about how Angus can spin off into his own book, or his own series.

Art theft is definitely a possibility, as is jewelry theft, which is another area the violent crime squad is involved with. Primarily this is crime against jewelry distributors; there is a big trade show in October and many distributors are targeted. The FBI has a task force that works with local departments on these crimes.

The violent crime squad also works on bank robberies, fugitive apprehensions, armored car robberies, and kidnappings/extortions-- though these are rare. There have been numerous armored car robberies in South Florida lately, and bank robberies are common. The criminals know that bank employees are trained to give up the money without a fight, so they are easy targets. But the statistics we were shown indicate that there’s relatively little money stolen in each case-- sometimes only a few thousand dollars. Maybe it’s low risk, but certainly low reward as well.

As an American citizen, if you go to certain countries (Mexico and Haiti among them) you are a target for kidnapping. The FBI gets involved in these cases. They work a lot of email extortion crimes-- sometimes the victim is kidnapped and then released, but threatened with additional violence if he doesn’t cooperate and pay.

They also have one squad which focuses on crimes against children, including the Innocent Images Squad, which looks at child porn.

Most crimes, the agent indicated, are solved by the evidence and forensics. He mentioned a device called a Shot-Spotter, which can detect where a bullet was shot from using triangulation. He also mentioned the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes, or NCAVC. This group provides behavioral-based support in investigations-- what I guess we would call profiling.

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 5

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

Last week, I got some extra information from one of my fellow students at the FBI academy. I wanted to know exactly which guns we shot the week before in our trip to the Dade County police firing range.

We shot the Glock 22, with 40 caliber ammunition.

The long-barrel gun was an H &K MP5, 10 millimeter, with a long barrel. It can be used in semi-automatic or full automatic mode, though we only shot in semi-automatic.

The shotgun was a Remington 12 gauge with a 14” barrel. The shorter barrel is important because it’s easier to conceal and to carry in and out of vehicles.

Week 5 was about counter-terrorism and legal issues.

Miami is one of the top 5 offices in the country size-wise, and the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in this office has 38 participating agencies and 159 full time personnel including FBI agents, analysts, and personnel on loan from partner agencies.

The FBI’s number one priority is protection of the US from terrorist attack, and the JTTF encompasses nine counter-terrorism squads called T1 – T9. T1 focuses on Al Qaeda, T3 on Hezbollah, T4 on threat response, and T5 on extra-territorial kidnappings & other events.

The state & local officers who work with the FBI on the JTTF get the same top secret clearance as Bureau agents, and get full access to the FBI facility and all databases. They also carry cases just like the Federal agents.

The FBI defines international terrorism as criminal violations intended to intimidate, coerce or influence.

Domestic terrorism comes from many places. The right wing, such as white supremacist groups; the left wing, such as Marxist or Leninists; and those groups focused on a single issue, such as eco-terrorists, anti-abortion activitsts, and animal rights activists.

After a break we discussed the legal issues the FBI faces, focusing on the 1st and 4th amendments. The FBI can’t target someone who is exercising his 1st amendment rights, such as freedom of speech. And the 4th amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, requires the FBI to justify their case when getting search warrants.

An interesting term that arose was “curtilage,” which the agent defined as the area immediately around your property. This means that an outdoor area can be legally coupled with the property it surrounds, even though it’s not part of the structure. This is important when it comes to what you need a search warrant for. If an agent sees something in the yard, it may fall within the curtilage. Trash in a a bag next to the house, for example, would still be within the curtilage and the agent would need a warrant to search it.

Trash in a bag at the street, however, is outside the curtilage and can be seen as having been abandoned. Therefore the agent doesn’t need a warrant to search it. This is an interesting term and one I would like to explore further. I checked Wikipedia and curtilage has other uses, including with the definition of burglary.

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 2

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 2

These are my notes from the second week of the FBI Citizen's Academy. As always, these are my interpretations and should not be construed to represent any policies of the FBI.

A Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) spoke to us about computer intelligence—the FBI’s number 2 priority – protecting the national security of the US. The goal is to ensure that no outsiders get materials developed here.

Theirs is a regional counterintelligence effort; there are 9 such around the country.  There are six regional offices participating, in Tampa; Jacksonville; Miami; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Jackson, MS; and Mobile, AL. They also liaise with business and educational partners.

What it costs to get the information determines its priority. They want people who have placement and access to the information that they need.

There are two kinds of intelligence officers from foreign countries—legal officers and illegal officers. The legal ones are clearly attached to the offices of a foreign government, working in an embassy and supporting the clandestine activities of the illegal officers, who have no ostensible connection either to the foreign government’s offices, or often to the foreign country itself. He gave an example that Cuban illegal officers created fake identities based on the dead children of Mexican migrant workers. These children were born in the US of foreign parents who often were illegals or returned to their home countries.

The Cubans would research in California and Texas to find birth and death records of these children. They would create whole identities for their illegal officers around these records, and thus the agent would have no connection to Cuba at all—records would show he was born in the US of Mexican parents.

It’s hard to find these agents, because they don’t have any ostensible connection to Cuba and don’t associate with other Cubans. They keep their “escape documents” somewhere other than their house—passports, tickets etc. intended for only a one-time use, to escape if their identity is compromised.

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the FBI to collect information these illegal agents. The FBI may enter a suspect’s residence and copy his computer disks, for example. Then they use the information on those disks to track other agents, both legal and illegal.

The Cuban government often sends high-frequency radio messages to its agents after midnight. By discovering the frequency, the FBI can listen in on these messages and decrypt them.

The Cuban Intelligence Service is one of the top 5 intelligence services in the world, and 85% of their activity is directed toward us.  They collect information and then either use it themselves or broker it to other hostile countries for their own political advantage. The FBI has discovered Cuban agents at Boca Chica Naval Air Station, at Southcom, and in other sensitive positions.

“Intelligence is like cabbage at the grocery story—it’s only good for a few days.” This means that intelligence must be gathered continuously to be worthwhile. The FBI will be reluctant to take an intelligence case to trial because they would have to reveal everything they have and how they got it—and that would tip off the illegal agents to the FBI’s intelligence gathering methods.

My first night at the FBI Citizen's Academy

FBI Citizen’s Academy Session 1

On Thursday October 7, I began the 8-week FBI Citizen’s Academy. These are my notes from the first session. Caution: This is my own impression of what I learned, and does not in any way represent official ideas or positions of the FBI.

The Miami office covers Ft. Pierce to the Keys, as well as the Caribbean, South America and Mexico. It’s one of 56 field offices and over 400 satellite offices, along with many legats (legal attaches) at foreign embassies.

They handle domestic intelligence gathering and law enforcement of over 300 different violation classifications.

Their office is ground zero for health care fraud, close to $100 billion annually. No other region comes close; South Florida is responsible for more health care fraud than the rest of the country combined. There are a number of contributing reasons, including the large number of Medicare recipients and, unofficially, the presence of a large Cuban community. Allegedly 98% of those involved in health care fraud are Cubans, and there have been reports of money gained fraudulently going back to the island.

Operation Severed Artery investigated 11 infusion therapy clinics, who were paid $80 million in fraudulent claims. Three brothers set up these clinics providing fake treatments, and billing Medicare.

Terrorism is the FBI’s #1 threat; in South Florida that involves researching those who raise funds for terrorist organizations, and who use criminal activities to fund them.

There are six ASACs in the office—assistant special agents in charge. They handle corporate and securities fraud, bank and mortgage fraud, cyber crimes, crimes against children, and public corruption. There are two ASACs dedicated to health care fraud. They are also responsible for regional agencies in Ft. Pierce and Palm Beach.

We heard a presentation by an intelligence analyst—not an agent, and he doesn’t carry a gun. He researches statistics and gave a presentation on real estate fraud. He began by explaining that there are two types of real estate fraud, both involving lies or misrepresentations:

·         Fraud for housing – where someone uses fraudulent information to obtain a house where he or she lives

·         Fraud for profit—purchasing a house using fraudulent information, then flipping it

There are high returns in this area, with a low risk of being caught. Banks have been lax in their loan approvals because they knew they were just going to sell the loan forward.

One of the research tools is the SAR, suspicious activity report, provided by banks. The bank indicates on the SAR that the suspicious activity may revolve around real estate fraud. Florida is #1 in the highest amount of fraudulent loans.

He also discussed three other types of real estate fraud:

·         Foreclosure rescue/loan modification scams, where someone promises to help a homeowner out of a mortgage but ends up defrauding & taking the money.

·         Builder bailouts—where a builder trying to reduce an inventory of unsold property offers off-the-books incentives to buyers, such as making a year’s worth of mortgage payments, or adding a car or other property to the deal. These additional incentives are never disclosed to the mortage lender.

·         Mortgage Ponzi schemes—someone collects money to be invested in mortgages but never does, and uses the cash from new customers to pay returns to the first ones.

There are several emerging threats:

·         Reverse mortgage loans (HECM) – appraising a house at a higher value but not disclosing that to the elderly subject. Then the scammer takes the difference between the appraised value and the reverse mortgage.

·         Insurance fraud – Distressed homeowners destroying their homes in order to cash in on insurance.

·         Deed forgery – filing a false mortgage satisfaction, then selling the property as if it was unencumbered, or taking a new mortgage.

·         Property flopping – A real estate broker finds a buyer for distressed property. Then he convinces the bank to sell the property to a straw buyer for less than the eventual buyer is willing to pay. Then he flips the property to the eventual buyer at the higher price.

We have a perfect storm of conditions leading to mortgage fraud:

·         Unemployment rising

·         Property values dropping

·         High rate of foreclosure

They have a number of initiatives to fight these problems:

·         Undercover operations

·         A mortgage fraud task force in Miami & Palm Beach

·         Suspicious Activity Reports

·         Mortgage fraud intelligence initiatives, where they recruit agents, brokers etc. to provide intel.

Operation Stolen Dreams netted 125 criminals, 485 arrests, $2-3 billion in estimated losses. $10 million was seized, along with $196 million in property.

 

Getting Books

One of the coolest parts of writing a book is that day when you first get the copy of the finished book.

About two weeks ago, I got some covers-- just flat sheets of paper with the front and back covers. That was really neat, because I got to see the back of the book for the first time.

Then last week, the first copies showed up in my mailbox. The page proofs I looked at didn't have the dedication or acknowledgements, so that was the first thing I turned to. Fortunately it was all good.

I'm still at that honeymoon stage when I haven't found anything wrong yet-- haven't discovered any typos, misprints, etc. Ah, but honeymoons always end!