The Way it Used to Be ~ The Office of Sheriff

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Kaitlyn Dunnett

Despite the proliferation of law enforcement officers calling themselves sheriffs in fictional Maine villages like Cabot Cove and Storybrooke, sheriff is a county office. It’s also an administrative and public relations job, involving very little direct involvement with criminal investigations. The word comes originally from England, from “shire reeve,” shire being another name for county. Farmington, the county seat of Franklin County, is still referred to as the shiretown.

Franklin County sheriff's house and jail (behind woodpile) in 1915

In really olden days (like the 16th century setting of my Face Down series), sheriffs were appointed by the monarch and were in charge of delivering prisoners from gaol to the assizes. In modern day Maine, sheriff is an elected office. Every four years, candidates run in party primaries and then in the general election in each county. Those of us whose memories stretch back far enough can recall that we always used to know who the next sheriff of Franklin County would to be as soon as the winner of the Republican primary was announced. No Democrats or No-Marks (Independents) had a chance. Since deputies served “at the will and pleasure of the sheriff,” the identity of the next incumbent was rather important to all those who worked for him as deputies.

My husband’s first job in law enforcement was as a part time deputy sheriff way back in 1973.

dispatch center c.1982

His father was already a deputy. Need I say that nepotism was rampant? Deputies did two things. They went out on patrol throughout the county (on their own with no partners) and they were “turnkeys.”

When you entered the tiny sheriff’s office, you faced a desk with a deputy behind it. This desk sat less than three feet inside the door. Behind it was a set of bars to separate this public area from the cells where the prisoners were kept. At night, two deputies were usually on duty, but while one manned the desk and the phone, the other one sometimes napped on a slow night. Prisoners’ files were kept in manila file folders in metal file cabinets. In the case of at least one local family of miscreants, one large folder labeled with their surname served to hold information on all of them.

To the left of the entrance there was a sliding door that separated the jail from the kitchen at the back of the sheriff’s house. It was part of the job description for the sheriff and his family to live in this section of the building. The sheriff’s wife served as matron if there were females incarcerated in the jail and she was expected to cook for all the prisoners. There were a few times when this practice might have been accounted cruel and unusual punishment . . . but I digress.

In time the jail was enlarged. In the new arrangement, someone coming in from outside could no longer see directly into the cell block. And next to the office/dispatch center was an interrogation room with two-way glass. Very up to date!

the cruiser that lived in our driveway lo those many years ago

The “new” jail was built in 1983. It was state of the art for the time. Deputies designated as dispatchers and corrections officers (as opposed to patrol deputies) worked in three-person teams. On each shift, one of the three was (gasp!) female. A police cruiser could now drive into a sally port before unloading a prisoner. This was a big deal. So were all the automated features, controlled from a glassed-in command post.

dispatch center, "new" jail (1983)

When you entered the lobby, you talked to an officer through a speaker. Entering the secure area required a deputy to release two separate locked security doors.

Sad to say, the “new” jail is now in decline. In 2009, it was downgraded to a detention center by the state, holding prisoners for no more than seventy-two hours before transferring them out of the county to a larger facility. Where there were once seventeen corrections officers, three administrative office staff workers, and two cooks, now the entire operation is in danger of being shut down.

"detention center" 2012

As a fiction writer trying to be accurate about how law enforcement works in the state of Maine, I made a conscious decision not to use a real county as the setting for my Liss MacCrimmon mysteries. Carrabassett County is fictional and that gives me considerably more leeway. Truth be told, what I’m really portraying is Franklin County as it was three decades ago, upgraded a bit when it comes to technology. Call it poetic license.

But some things that Hollywood is careless about, I don’t change. In Maine, although many towns and cities have their own police departments, the sheriff’s office runs the county jail (if there is one) and looks after the smaller rural communities, the ones that employ, at most, a town constable. As for major crimes, Portland and Bangor handle their own homicides but the State Police are called in to take charge of murder investigations elsewhere. And the local police in my fictional village of Moosetookalook? I make them up, just as I do the rest of my characters, but they still have to operate within the law.

When it comes right down to it, that’s why my sleuth is not a police officer or a state trooper. She’s an amateur with a nose for trouble. And when the police refuse to tell her how their investigation is going (because in real life they would never involve a civilian), then of course she reacts by trying to find answers on her own.

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The Librarian’s Viewpoint

Posted on May 15, 2012 by MCWriTers

 I was particularly pleased to see that I handicapped the YA and juvenile Edgar awards pretty well. In fact, I picked both winners which was quite satisfying.

This month, I’m back with the third installment of Travis Thrasher’s Solitary series. I discovered them when I was offered a chance to review the first installment, Solitary, for the soon to vanish Canadian review site TCM-CA.com. I had never heard of the author, but was so impressed after reading the first book, I bought the rest of his adult books for the library. Travis is billed as a Christian writer, something that turns off a lot of potential readers. That, quite frankly is their loss. His writing has a grit and edginess that combines with spiritual beauty and a sense of hope/redemption. Everything I’ve read thus far has had an edge that makes it anything but sappy. Solitary hit the ground running and this third installment certainly holds the reader’s attention extremely well. I watched a podcast interview where Travis went into great detail about how the series was laid out, how his having attended four different high schools had influenced the plot and how his choices of music as a child of the ’80s continues to influence his writing
Temptation is a rocket of a book. I devoured it in about four hours, ignoring a beautiful sunny Sunday and flower gardens begging for my attention. The time wasn’t wasted. For reference purposes, I had gone to see the Hunger Games the night before and couldn’t help comparing the action in that film to the movie scrolling through my mind while I was reading this. Don’t bother reading it unless you have read Solitary and Gravestone because nothing, well almost nothing, will make sense. In Solitary, Chris Buckley fell in love with Jocelyn, beautiful, but wounded in ways she couldn’t or wouldn’t share with him. She was ritually murdered by a group of hooded men on New Year’s Eve at the end of the book, leaving Chris both angry and devastated.
Gravestone found Chris trying to figure out why she was murdered and a hell of a lot more: What was driving his mom to drink? What made the strange noises he heard beneath the cabin? Who could he trust? Why did every girl he cared about disappear? Why couldn’t others in Solitary see the overarching evil enveloping the town? Was the mysterious guy claiming to be his cousin for real? By the end of the second book, Chris still had loads of questions and very few answers. One thing was for certain, every time he started to reach out and trust someone, they were hurt or they betrayed him. Kelsey, the only normal girl Chris has met, scares him for that exact reason, forcing him to back away and leave her hurt and confused.

 Temptation begins with a quick peek from near the end of the book that sets the reader up nicely to wonder what in heck happened to get Chris to this point and place, but it’s a deceptive vignette as readers will discover. Chris is trying to stop feeling and just get by. He’s going to the first of two summer school sessions in order to catch up and be able to graduate. There are references to the Breakfast Club that will resonate with folks who grew up in that era. The other kids in this session are pretty odd and interesting; an Asian girl with big glasses who says little, a skinhead, a doper and a preppie among others. Then Lily walks in and Chris is smitten all over again. Blonde, sexy, and possibly attracted to him, she’s the perfect antidote to all the demons rumbling through his soul. Still, Chris can’t forget what happened to Jocelyn and then Poe. If he falls for another girl, will the evil forces lurking in the shadows destroy his latest chance for happiness? As the dance of romance progresses, Pastor Marsh starts coming around, teasing Chris with tidbits of information that start to clarify some of the odd happenings, but one mystery that refuses to be solved is what happened to Iris and her inn that burned near the end of Gravestone. No matter how often or how hard Chris searches, he can’t find the road leading to it.
By the end of Temptation, Chris has discovered why Pastor Marsh didn’t die when he stabbed him, he’s rekindled a relationship with the only truly good girl he’s met, he’s started to discover the parts of his family history that created all the sinister stuff smothering Solitary, NC., his mom and dad have started communicating again, Lily has confessed to things Chris certainly doesn’t want to hear and he has reached a huge turning point in his quandary about faith and evil. To say more about the plot would spoil some of the suspense and action, of which there is plenty of both. All 17 reviews on Amazon give this one 5 stars for very good reasons. It’s one scary ride and sets up what should be a fantastic toe-curling final installment due in January 2013.

Holly Cupala’s Don’t Breathe A Word is a story about suffocation and family preconceptions. Joy has suffered from severe asthma since early childhood. In fact, she almost died at one point. Her family has fallen into the mindset of her being the perpetual family invalid, with them hovering on the sidelines waiting for her next bad attack. When her older brother, the designated caretaker goes away to college, the family is more than happy to let suave, rich Asher, son of Joy’s dad’s employer, take over as both her boyfriend and caretaker. Unfortunately, everyone misses the growing signs of a controlling and very abusive relationship. When Asher forces Joy to do something that shocks and horrifies her, she decides to take a most desperate action, she fakes her own kidnapping and runs away to find a street kid she once saw in Seattle. Asher was verbally berating her at the time and the boy conveyed a cryptic message as he watched the event; “If you ever need me, I’ll protect you.” Joy hasn’t forgotten and plans her disappearance as carefully as someone with no street smarts can.
Her first few nights on the streets of Seattle are really scary and she loses much of her belongings and money when an older pedophile tries to attack her. When she does find Creed, the boy she’s looking for, he takes her in, introducing her to May and Santos, two other runaway teens who share the moldy, leaky and abandoned house that they call home. Joy learns many things the hard way: how awful things can be before kids do take to living on the street, what prior abuse can do to kids’ behavior in order to survive, how totally scary life with no safety net becomes when you have run out of inhalers, learning to dumpster dive for food and break into a YMCA in order to take a shower. The major mystery is why Creed and the others ran away from home and Joy has a very hard time getting that information while learning her street smarts. There are some really gritty scenes, bordering on awful in this book, but they make the reality of street life for kids as authentic as any book I’ve read. The ending will make you feel better and have a bit of hope that things will turn out as well as possible for Joy, Creed, May and Santos. The author has another book called Tell Me a secret which I have not read yet that I suspect is equally as good and would resonate with teen girls experiencing precarious living situations. That one is called Tell Me A Secret.

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How to Judge a Book Cover

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Paul Doiron

David Rotstein, the art director for Minotaur Books, recently launched a Web site devoted to a discussion of the fine art of designing book covers. It’s a pretty interesting peek behind the curtains at a process that is widely misunderstood by writers and readers alike.

People often ask me how much input I have into the covers of my books. The answer is “not much.” I can weigh in on the photograph or illustration the designer would like to use, and I can suggest that the type be bigger or smaller. But I don’t have a veto in my contract. And that arrangement is fine by me. If I wanted that level of control over every aspect of the book, I could always self-publish. But I prefer to avail myself of the expertise of a publishing house with thousands of titles in its catalogues. Authors don’t always like to hear it, but publishers are the one spending tens of thousands of dollars to design, print, and market our novels (after having already paid healthy advances, we should all hope). My name may be on the book, in other words, but their money is on the line.

Still, it’s natural that writers grouse when they feel a design fails to fully capture their stories. The essence of good marketing is delivering on a promise. That’s why most of us do judge books by their covers—in the expectation that what’s outside somehow represents what’s inside.

Here, for instance, is the design for the hardcover version of The Poacher’s Son. Minotaur wanted to market the book as a work of “literary suspense.” When they used this term, they had two audiences in mind: fans of traditional mysteries, of course, but also readers who wouldn’t normally pick up a whodunit, but would relish the father-son relationship at the book’s center. Most of the action takes place in the vanishing Maine North Woods, and so there was also a desire to capture the majesty of the setting.

When the time came for the trade paperback, Minotaur decided to switch out the design for something that emphasized the suspense. The book was going to be sold in airports to harried travelers who wanted to relax their brains for the lengths of their flights. Notice how the new design angles and fractures the font to suggest a fast-moving plot. The letters seem to hide behind the trees like a character on the run in the forest. I prefer this design to the hardcover. It’s closer to my own sense of the story—and it continues to sell well!

With the sequel came a new challenge. Minotaur wanted to brand my series so that the second book connected with the first book visually. But Trespasser was set during a different month (March) in a different place (the stormy coast). It was also more of an out-and-out thriller than The Poacher’s Son. Here is the solution David Rotstein’s team devised.The gray and orange are dramatic. They definitely leap out at you from across the bookstore.

The Trespasser paperback saw a few minor tweaks, aimed primarily at marrying the design with that of the The Poacher’s Son paperback since the two books would end up side by side on store shelves. The softcover gives you a chance to add blurbs from positive reviews, which we did.

My name also got smaller.

Not that authors care about such things.

Bad Little Falls was a combination of the title and the design clicking at the same time. We’d been debating two alternative titles (I’ll share that story in a future post) until David came up with his ominous illustration. Suddenly, the right choice seemed self-evident.

Will book buyers agree? We’ll know on August 7 when the novel arrives in stores.

Postscript: All three of my books will be coming out in the United Kingdom in 2013 from Constable & Robinson (the original publisher of Dracula, I always add). Recently, I got a look at the covers. You can see right away the totally different approach C&R has decided to go with. They have the advantage of bringing all three completed novels out together, so branding the books becomes an easier task. But it’s also a bigger gamble since choosing one design scheme for the series means it had better work, since the success of the entire enterprise is riding on the one template.

When you think about how the right cover can make or break a good book, it makes me glad all I have to do is write!

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Kaitlyn Dunnett Interviews Steve Steinbock

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Kaitlyn Dunnett

Please welcome a special guest to MaineCrimeWriters.com. Steve Steinbock is a mystery writer and reviewer who lives in Yarmouth, Maine. Currently he writes a regular review column, “The Jury Box,” for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and is working on a mystery series featuring a young rabbi living in a Maine college town. He regularly attends the mystery fan conventions Malice Domestic and Bouchercon, which is where I usually run into him. I think we’ve only met once when we were both in Maine, and that was at the Portland Jetport.

Kaitlyn: When we first met, at the Seattle Bouchercon in 1994, I had written a couple of mysteries for young people but was really there as a fan. Where were you in your mystery career?

Steve: At that time I was a fan and a budding scholar. I had aspirations to write mystery fiction, but I was really there because I loved the genre and wanted to know more about it. I grew up in Seattle and still had family there, so it gave me a good excuse. That Bouchercon in 1994 was my first mystery-fan experience ever.

Kaitlyn: Since you’re originally from Seattle, how did you end up in Maine?

Steve: I’d been making my way counter-clockwise around the country. After college (in Seattle) I went to grad school and worked for a couple years in California. Then a job offer took me to Norfolk, Virginia, where I met my wife. She was originally from New England. We had no desire to be in Greater Boston, but Maine was the best of all worlds.

Kaitlyn: Since 1994, you’ve written reviews for at least two significant mystery journals. Before Ellery Queen, you were review editor for The Strand Magazine. How did you get into that end of the business?

Steve: As I said, I saw myself as a budding mystery-scholar. I had been reading a lot within the genre, and a lot of classical criticism about the genre. One night I was having dinner with a friend who, at the time, was the restaurant critic for the Portland Press Herald. We were talking about literature, and I mentioned how much I’d love to review books. One thing led to another, and I found myself doing mystery and horror reviews for the Maine Sunday Telegram. I did that for several years, and at the same time began working with AudioFile Magazine (reviewing audiobooks and doing interviews and feature stories) and The Armchair Detective (which folded two issues after I began writing for it; I swear it wasn’t my fault). Since that time I’ve written for most of the mystery magazines: Crime Time (in the UK), Mystery Scene, Mystery Reader’s Journal, etc. I’ve been very lucky as far as my writing gigs have gone.

I had been friends with Professor Douglas Greene (a mutual friend with Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson). He introduced me to some great writers. I became friends with the editorial crew at Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. When the film “Secret Window” (based on a short novel by Stephen King involving Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine) was being released, Ellery Queen hired me to do a series of articles and interviews with Stephen King, director David Koepp, and several of the actors. About a year later, Columbia University was celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ellery Queen, and I wrote a couple of articles and spoke at the centenary symposium at Columbia.

When book critic Jon Breen decided to step down after thirty-five years with the magazine, I got a call.

Kaitlyn: You’re published in non-mystery nonfiction and in short mystery fiction, but you review primarily mystery novels. When you sat down to write your first mystery, did you find it helpful to have read so many works of fiction with a critical eye or did knowing all the pitfalls just make it that much harder?

Steve: Yes. All of the above. I knew what made a good mystery work. I knew the nitty-gritty of plotting. But throughout the process I found myself comparing my writing to that of the authors whose work I admire. I have to say that my background was more of a blessing than it was a curse, but then again, my novel is still in the shopping stage, and my only published fiction is a story in Ellery Queen.

Kaitlyn: Can you talk a bit about how you approach a novel you’re going to review?

Steve: Every book is a promise. Whenever a reader picks up a novel, they expect it to be good, whether it’s a thriller, a psychological suspense novel, a noir private eye novel, or a mystery about food or cats. I approach each book on its own merit. I’d much rather read a well-written cozy about a crime-solving pastry chef with a talking cat than a half-hearted international thriller. What I look for is whether the book kept its promise to the reader.

Kaitlyn: With the rise of the ebook and ereaders, do you see the ARCs now sent to reviewers being replaced with electronic copies? Or is this already happening?

Steve: When I began reviewing, I got a thrill every time the UPS man drove up to deliver a batch of review books. I love books, and love adding books to my library. Publishers would send finished books as well as ARCs (“advanced readers copies,” also known as “bound galleys”), and sometimes even unbound manuscripts. I love them all. But after almost twenty years, my house is only so big. “Electronic ARCs” take less shelf-space, and make my job as a reviewer easier. It’s been a slow change, but bit by bit publishers are getting on board and sending me links to electronic editions rather than physical copies. As a book lover and antique book collector, I still love physical books. But as a critic, I appreciate being able to read ARCs on my eReader.

Kaitlyn: When you aren’t reading mystery novels, what do you read and why?

Steve: I review upwards of a hundred books a year. That’s a lot of reading. Whenever I’m caught up,  I reward myself by reading a classic detective novel, usually by some obscure writer from before I was born.

Ironically, since I began reviewing for Ellery Queen, in spite of the increase in the number of new novels I read each month, I’ve found myself reading more non-fiction than ever before. I love linguistics, and am now reading The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker and Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher. Ironically, these two books take opposite views of the role of language in thought. I also read a good amount about religious history and philosophy.

Kaitlyn: What are you working on now?

Steve: Other than this interview? I’m planning my next Ellery Queen column, as well as beginning the long process of trying to sell my novel to agents and starting on a second novel. I’m also editing a collection of non-mystery short stories by the prolific mystery short story writer Edward Hoch. I am teaching a class on Kabbalah, and I have a great idea for another non-fiction book I’d like to write.

Kaitlyn: And finally, one of our favorite interview questions here at Maine Crime Writers: What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview? And, of course, go on to answer it.

Steve: What’s on your bookshelf?

Let me see. Currently reading Brownies and Broomsticks by Bailey Cates (Cricket McRae). It’s a mystery about a pair of café/bakery owners who happen to have spells up their sleeves. Total fluff, but I’m smiling all the way through. (When a book reviewer doesn’t start skimming pages, it’s a really good sign). Then there’s Driven by James Sallis, November Hunt by Jess Lourey, Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris. Pulse by John Lutz, Broken Harbor by Tana French, and Bagpipes, Brides, and Homicides by . . . wait a minute, is that you? Kaitlyn Dunnett!

As I said several questions ago, I like to read oldies whenever a window opens up. The last one I treated myself to was Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight by R. Austin Freeman, a wonderful book by a contemporary of Christie who is sadly forgotten today. Freeman is a favorite of mine. Waiting in the wings right now are League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout, The Scarab Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine, and some Christie. My all time favorite mystery by a no-longer-living American author is Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown.

Kaitlyn, thank you for inviting me to chat with you. I do hope we run into each other somewhere soon, without having to go to the airport!

Kaitlyn: And thank you for sharing your insights and experiences. And for the unsolicited plug for Bagpipes, Brides, and Homicides (in stores in August).

 

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In London, on the Beach

Posted on May 12, 2012 by MCWriTers

Greetings friends. Gerry Boyle here after a week away from Maine. I spent a few days in London–South Kensington, Mayfair, even some time in the Old Bailey, that venerable court where so many murderers have met their fate.

And every once in a while, I looked up to take in the view in the photo below.

Okay,  I wasn’t actually in London. I was on a beach on Florida’s east coast, just south of St. Augustine. We spent some time there with friends, and the four of us swam, biked, ate good food, went for long walks. And read books. A lot.

Mine was A Certain Justice by P.D. James. It’s a classic whodunit, set in London’s legal world, with barristers, solicitors (I had to look up the difference), a killing in “Chambers,” and a fine portrayal of a sociopathic murderer. The writing was precise and graceful, the plot unwrapped with that elegant confidence that marks James’s books. This was an Adam Dalgliesh mystery, though it was interesting to me as a mystery writer that the inspector didn’t appear until Chapter 12. (I’d never try that delayed entrance with Jack McMorrow or Brandon Blake).

But the other thing that I found fascinating about my engrossing visit to London–and the reason you’re reading this here– was the phenomenon of beach books, and the way we can lose ourselves in a book when the rest of life’s distractions and obligations are removed.

There were no televisions, laptops, iPads, or iPhones on the beach. No talk about work or the to-do list for coming days. Our distractions were sparkling green ocean, the rumble of the surf, and passing squadrons of gliding pelicans, whose shadows flickered across the page—momentary interruptions from our enjoyment of the work of Ms. James, Carl Hiassen and Clive Cussler, among others.

For me, this was a welcome and needed reminder of the power of the written word. Sometimes it seems books are getting lost in the din, and I find myself worrying that books have lost their power to hold readers and transport them to other worlds.

I came home tanned, refreshed, and optimistic. I just hope people remember that “beach reading” can happen anywhere. Just shut off the stuff and let the book take you away.

 

 

 

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