The Maine Crime Writers
Category Archives: Dick’s Posts
Because Baseball is Only 51 Days Away
No deep thinking this month–here’s a little baseball story you might enjoy . . The Nuns’ Day Hit “Seems like the shit never ends,” Burton said, refolding the Globe. “What’s that?” Elder polished the rocks glasses, the ones Burton knew … Continue reading
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Help . . .
OK, we’ve had some time to digest the fact that half the country doesn’t care about a President-elect’s sexual rapacity, his kooky economic ideas, his gibbering speech style, his racism and misogyny, and the likelihood he’s kissing up to one … Continue reading
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Surprised by Joy
On his death, Louise Penny dedicated a bench to her late husband with the inscription “Surprised by Joy,” a reference to the C. S. Lewis autobiography and a phrase she has written elsewhere about finding personal meaning in. I’ve been … Continue reading
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End of the Line
Shameless Commerce Division: Closing Time, the last Elder Darrow mystery, will publish on October 2. Please join me for the official launch at Longfellow Books in Portland at 6 PM on that evening. You can preorder copies of Closing Time … Continue reading
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True? Or Close Enough?
When I started to get deeply into the kinds of writing that forced me to learn things I didn’t already know, I thought close enough was good enough. That is, that accuracy wasn’t as important as making something believable. It … Continue reading
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Invasive Species
I was this many years old when I found out that the classic flower of Maine, the lupine, is not a native species to the state. Lupines are good for pollinators and are hugely popular as perennials because they proliferate … Continue reading
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The Passive Voice, Or Why I Quit the New York Times
Just when I think I can’t come up with another blog topic, something so egregious happens that all I’m reduced to is the typical Roy Kent response to insupportable and crazy bullshit, which amounts to standing in the middle of … Continue reading
What’s that Smell?
Walking the Maxwell Farm loop the other morning, I caught a vagrant whiff of cows on the breeze and I don’t mean cows’ breath. I had a teacher once who insisted that the shit of ungulates was not offensive, but … Continue reading
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Man in Bar Says Art is Good for You
Obligatory Self promotion—Over on my Substack, in addition to the usual free content, I am serializing another novel. As I did with The Retrievers, I’m making the first three chapters of The Righteous Brother available for free, then putting the … Continue reading
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Character is King? Or Consort?
Sitting here with a toothache eating up one side of my face and wondering why ibuprofen gives me such stellar dreams, unless it was the combination of CBD gummies and Pinot Noir I tried before giving in to the chemical … Continue reading
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