Archaeology and Murder,

Meet author Sarah Wisseman

Archaeological sites are composed of layers, just like geological strata. In the Middle East, where I worked on my first excavation, people chose the same sites over and over again to build on for two reasons—the availability of water, and defensibility. Thus, walled cities with protected cisterns inside rose on the same “tells” over and over again.

Unlike the layer-cake they are so often compared too, archaeological layers are messy. Instead of being neat, horizontal layers that are easy to interpret, they are disturbed by running water, animal burrowing, tree roots growing, and humans digging garbage pits and foundation trenches.

Mysteries are composed of layers, too. The top layer, or stratum, is what the reader sees and where the main story takes place. A couple of strata down is where the villain hangs out, plotting and planning away, occasionally rising to the surface like a misplaced artifact in an ancient garbage pit.

Personalities are layered as well, and it's the job of writers to reveal the layers in their characters in ways that move the story along. And everyone has a garbage pit--the family traumas from the past, the dysfunctional relationships of the present. Garbage, like compost, can provide rich beginnings for new stories.

Gradually I'm excavating my own life to unearth situations and characters that will make good mysteries. These include creepy old attic museums, digs in Israel, Italy, and Nevada, and peculiar academic characters that morph into murderers (or murderees!).

My latest book, The House of the Sphinx, has at least three layers. Lisa Donahue, archaeologist and museum curator, finally gets to visit Egypt with her physician husband, James. Their standard tour of Egypt, complete with a four-night cruise on the Nile, is the top layer. Underneath is a terrorist plot to infect Western tourists with smallpox at major archaeological sites. And below that is the complicated layer of interactions within the Arab family that aids the terrorists.

I love reading layered mysteries, especially historicals. A recent discovery is Medicus, by Ruth Downie. It’s about an irascible but loveable Roman physician working in Britannia and his slave/housekeeper Tilla who won’t obey orders. A fabulous read!


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Peg Herring's Blog Jog Day

Thanks, Pat, for hosting Peg’s Blog Crawl. Yesterday’s post, “Why Do We Say That, Part II”.

The Post - Dialogue and What It Reveals

When I taught high school, I used to get a kick out of watching certain students look at choices for their upcoming book reports. They would flip through the pages, looking for a book with lots of dialogue: fewer words, less to read, more movement. No long descriptions for them!

Dialogue indeed moves a story along. We are interested in what people have to say and how they say it. Writers convey many things as dialogue flows: personality, plot, and emotion, as well as time and place. Readers often get the messages subconsciously, without really thinking about specifics. Here are a few of the methods.

First, the words themselves. What vocabulary is appropriate for the character, the setting, the time period? With historical characters, readers want the flavor of the era, but they also want to understand what is said, so dialogue must be carefully researched. Most of the time an occasional word or phrase is enough to remind the reader of the time difference.

In any era, characters speak as their backgrounds demand. Writers ask themselves: would this character use four-syllable words, figurative language, pidgin English, expletives, baby-talk? Other description can often be minimal if the author displays his characters’ personalities by the way they express themselves.

Authors must consider word order, syntax, and level of complication of a character's language. One speaker might use as few words as possible. Another might love the sound of his or her own voice. Some people "decorate" their sentences with lots of extras: modifiers, qualifiers, even brain stutters. I once had a speech student who started every sentence with "You know--" It meant nothing, but it said something about her personality and her hope that others would agree with her statements.

Another consideration is how words are said. Does the speaker mumble? Stammer? Have an accent? Authors can add variety and depth with differences in dialogue. We must be careful, though. Taken too far, odd spellings and syntax of dialect or argot interrupt the reader's understanding.

A question writers argue among themselves is so-called “bad” words. How much of a character’s cursing is too much? The answer to that is quite personal. Some don’t mind it and contend that swearing helps a writer depict characters realistically, and it is certainly an easy way of conveying anger or lack of education or socialization. Other writers avoid offensive words whenever possible. For me, swearing quickly becomes tiresome, though I recognize that it can be used successfully by a writer with the right sense of timing and character.

Dialogue interest readers, and truthfully, it interests me as a writer, too. I like hearing what my character have to say. I like tweaking their words so that they unconsciously reveal themselves. I like choosing just the right expressions, the ones that tip readers off to who a character really is, just like real-life conversations do.

The Poser-Name a book/series where a child is the sleuth. (Let’s make it a little more difficult and eliminate Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.)

The Prizes-Weekly prizes (your choice of THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY in e- or print format) drawn from the names of those who comment on the blogs as we go. Comment once/day, but the first commenter each day gets entered twice in Saturday’s drawing!

The Pitch: THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, First in The Dead Detective Mysteries, paranormal mystery. Tori Van Camp wakes in a stateroom on a cruise ship with no memory of booking a cruise, but she does have a vivid recollection of being shot in the chest. Determined to find out what happened and why, Tori enlists the help of an odd detective named Seamus. Together they embark on an investigation like nothing she’s ever experienced. Death is all around her, and unless they act quickly, two people she cares about are prime candidates for murder. Read more about this book and the author here or buy the book here.

The Perpetrator: Peg Herring writes historical and contemporary mysteries. She loves everything about publishing, even editing (most days). Peg’s historical series, The Simon and Elizabeth Mysteries, debuted in 2010 to great reviews. The second in the series will be available in November from Five Star.




The Pathway: The next entry, “Portmanteau Words” and the answers/comments to the Poser will be up tomorrow here.

The Perpetrator: Peg Herring writes historical and contemporary mysteries. She loves everything about publishing, even editing (most days). Peg’s historical series, The Simon and Elizabeth Mysteries, debuted in 2010 to great reviews. The second in the series will be available in November from Five Star.



The Pathway: The next entry, “Portmanteau Words” and the answers/comments to the Poser will be up tomorrow on Mid List Life

DOING RESEARCH FOR MY DEPUTY TEMPE CRABTREE MYSTERIES

The Deputy Tempe Crabtree series is set in modern times in a small mountain community in the Southern Sierra. Though the community of Bear Creek is similar to the town I live in, I moved the location 1000 feet higher into the mountains. The Bear Creek Indian Reservation in the books is similar to the Tule River Indian Reservation, also nearby. Tempe is a quarter Native American and she is often called upon to help out with crimes that occur on the reservation or involve Indians.

When I first began about Tempe, I really didn’t know it was going to be a series. The first book I wrote—though not the first published—Deadly Trail is about the murder of the owner of a local Inn. One of the suspects is Nick Two John who has made a garden behind the Inn with native plants. In this book, Nick introduces Tempe to much of her Indian heritage. The Inn is similar to one in our little town. Much of the information about native plants came from an Indian couple who have a similar garden.

In the second book, Deadly Omen, a princess candidate is murdered at a Pow Wow while Tempe is working there. I got the idea for this book while attending a Pow Wow and helping the invited photographer by getting permissions and names of people she took pictures of. During the Pow Wow, I took many notes. When this book came out, one of the local Indians called to tell me that I’d gotten everything right.

Number three is Unequally Yoked (only available as an e-book) and is about a child’s disappearance. Tempe participates in mourning ceremonial and her eyes are opened to who is responsible. I learned about the ceremony in a book about the Tule River Indians written by Frank Latta.

Intervention is set in a mountain lodge during a blizzard where Tempe and her husband have gone for a romantic weekend. The other guests include several people from the movie industry and one disappears. Tempe is guided by the spirit of a Great Blue Heron—or perhaps, an angel. There is a mountain lodge near where I live and I borrowed a lot of its history for this book. (Again, much of what I used came for an interview I did for the newspaper about this particular lodge.)

In Wingbeat, an owl flies down in front of Tempe, a warning of danger ahead. While investigating the death of a long missing granddaughter she encounters a hidden marijuana farm. The location for the pot farm is a place way up in the mountains where I once interviewed someone for a newspaper article. The home was self-sufficient and so difficult to find, I thought at the time it was the perfect place for something illegal.

Due to the death of my publisher, I had to find another publishing company. The next in the series is Calling the Dead. Tempe calls back the dead to find out the truth about a suicide. I learned about this through a book about Indian ceremonies and it fit right into what I was writing.

Next came Judgment Fire. In this one, while investigating the murder of a battered wife, Tempe learns why she didn’t embrace her Indian heritage. Under the guidance of a shaman, she does a star ceremony which opens her eyes to much of what is going on.

Kindred Spirits came about while I was visiting in Crescent City, California and met a Tolowa woman. We became instant friends and she told me all about the Tolowa people who were nearly wiped out when the white settlers came to the area. I knew I had to write a book with her in it. She had such a dynamic personality, she became two important characters. Tempe goes to Crescent City to learn more about a murder victim found after a wild fire in the mountains above Bear Creek. During her stay she learns about the Tolowa’s encounters with Big Foot.

While doing research about Big Foot on the Internet for the earlier book, I came across a webpage that tells about a creature called the Hairy Man who roams in the mountains near the Tule River Reservation. I was fortunate to go on a field trip with the local college’s anthropology class to a rock shelter with pictographs of the Hairy Man and his family. While there, I knew Tempe would have an encounter with the Hairy Man and Dispel the Mist is the book where it happens.

The latest, Invisible Path, also has its roots in my visit to the rock shelter. A short distance from there, at the end of the paved reservation road, there is rehabilitation center for Indians with drug and alcohol abuse problems. I decided the next book should have something to do with the rehab center and some of the young men on the reservation.

The book that will come out this fall is title Bears With Us and the ideas began when my police office grandson began telling about his encounters with bears while he was on the job. At the same time, we had a few bear visitations in our little town. I asked him lots and lots of questions and got plenty of great answers.

I am quick to let people know that I am writing fiction. Though I borrow a lot from the Tule River Reservation and the Indians who live there, the stories and the characters come from my imagination. Despite that, I often run into Indians who say, “Oh, you’re the woman who writes about us.”

Though I’m not a Native American myself, I have a great-granddaughter who is ¼ Tule River Indian and a daughter-in-law whose father is a full-blooded Yaqui. In fact, she looks a lot like I envision Tempe.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll run out of ideas for this series, but so far that hasn’t been a problem.

Bio: 1Marilyn Meredith is the author of nearly thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Invisible Path from Mundania Press. Native American Tempe is the resident deputy of the town of Bear Creek, which has a great resemblance to Springville. Invisible Path is the 9^th in this series and can be purchased in the usual places and is also available on Kindle. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel is Angel Lost, the third from Oak Tree Press.

Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Internet chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com

Breaking Horses to Harness

A fascinating look at what is involved in breaking horses to harness and the sort of things they need to be exposed to. Obviously not all of these training experiences would be applicable before the internal combustion engine was created, but there would still be a lot a horse would have to learn to tolerate without panicking. The dangers or cart horses is clearly illustrated by the death of six-year-old Lena Russo in New York's Lower East Side in 1922 when a cart horse bolted and plowed into the family.

Before eBay there was Sears, Roebuck

Before there was an Internet, even before telephones and electricity were common in American homes, buying household good could be done from the comfort of your living room. Americans have always loved convenience. The first drive-through restaurant, the first automatic car wash, the first assembly line were all American inventions designed to make like easier and more convenient. Before the nineteenth century rolled out you could buy anything from groceries to houses through the mail, have it guaranteed and on credit. A Sears, Roebuck home ordered through the mail would go for a little more than a $1,000.00 and would be shipped by rail to anywhere in the US. Some of the Sears’ houses still stand, surely a testament to their quality. How many homes built today will be standing in 2120?

Browsing through an 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue is a fascinating glimpse into the past. Into a past where there was no FDA or USDA to set rules on the safety of items sold, even the ones meant to be taken internally. You could buy tinctures of arsenic, belladona, digitalis and of course laudanum, a liquid heroin mixture. Turpentine was sold for internal use. Many of these concoctions were sold as cure-alls for ailments we haven’t even heard of today.



For instance, you could purchase Peruvian Wine of Coca, It was “urgently recommended” for such ailments as cures for anemia, impurity, impoverishment of the Blood, Consumption, weakness of the lungs, asthma, Nervous debility, loss of appetite, Malarial Complaints, Biliousness, Stomach Disorder, Dyspepsia, Languor and fatigue, Obesity, Loss of Forces and Weakness caused by excess and similar Diseases of the same nature. It was especially recommended for persons in delicate health and convalescents.

Or try Dr. Rose’s French Arsenic Complexion Wafers. Sarsaparilla would cure scrofula tuberculoses. ‘Female pills’ containing one or more abortifacients that carried the warning that they must be taken carefully for female troubles. Many of these compounds were concocted by Sears, Roebuck themselves and came with money back guarantees. The ingredients were never listed in either the catalogue or on the products themselves. No way of knowing what dosage you were getting or ever exactly what was in each potion. It was truly buyer beware in those days.




On a lighter side, you could buy an Electric Washer made of the best Virginia white cedar for $3.50. An Acme Hay Tedder could be had for $21.00. For $19.95 you could purchase the 1897 Encyclopedia Britannica. A Columbus A Grade Canopy Top Park Wagon Surrey went for $79.00 or $76.63 if you sent cash.

Sears, Roebuck offered discounts for cash and encouraged club purchases where several people would send in order together for more discounts. Sears, Roebuck also introduced monthly payments for their pricier objects. To give an idea of what the prices mean, a dollar in 1897 had a consumer price index of $26.70 or a GDP Deflator value of $23.60.

These catalogues are a wonderful glimpse into a different world long gone.

Richard Sears illustrated the cover of his 1894 catalog declaring it the "Book of Bargains: A Money Saver for Everyone," and the "Cheapest Supply House on Earth," claiming that "Our trade reaches around the World." Sears also knew the importance of keeping customers, boldly stating that "We Can’t Afford to Lose a Customer."

Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Cost of Prohibition

PROHIBITION

“The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever rent.”

Evangelist Billy Sunday, 1920

Acceptance of Prohibition was mixed from the beginning. Some states openly opposed it right off the start, claiming it encroached on State’s rights, others simply because it would cost too much to enforce.

In the end, 18 states appropriated money to enforce Prohibition. Indiana, Vermont, New York put enforcement in place but repealed it in 1923. Maryland never enacted any laws. Connecticut and Rhode Island never ratified Prohibition. In contrast rural South and West support for prohibition was strong.

Prohibition was one of the most significant social reforms of the early twentieth century—it showed the ambivalence of Progressivism in the way it blended moral reform and the search for efficiency through what they thought was a rational business-dominated organization of society. An alcohol-free society would have better employees, less social problems caused by alcohol, and less welfare problems.

The prohibition movement was a part of the huge cultural split in 1920s America that also involved the separate issues of the Ku Klux Klan and the campaign against evolution, as seen in the Scopes trial (1925). Cosmopolitan Americans and intellectuals looked down on rural and small town people who supported prohibition and those who were anti-evolution. A cultural divide divided American society in a way not too dissimilar to that over issues such as abortion and other Christian right crusades of the 1990s and after. It's possible the roots of the current cultural divisions can be traced from these 1920s sources, of which the dispute over prohibition was an important part.

Prohibition was going to reduce crime and corruption, improve health, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden of prisons and poorhouses.

Seized alcohol was often distributed to law enforcement. Occasionally a public show of destroying a few barrels of whiskey would be made in front of reporters and newsreel cameramen. But most of it ended up on someone’s table or speakeasy. Awareness of this only increased the growing contempt average people had for both the law and the people put in charge of enforcing it.

Between 1500 and 2500 federal field agents – mostly untrained – and 1500 office personnel were put on the job of fighting law breakers. In 1920 the Coast Guard had 26 inshore boats, converted tug boats and 29 cruising cutters. The boats were old and the Coast Guard was held in low esteem. It wasn't until the last years of Prohibition that money was funneled to stopping the flood of illegal booze.

Then the Great Depression took place. Unemployment soared. People began recalling the days that the government used to get huge amounts of money through taxes on liquor. Now the government was spending money trying to enforce unenforceable laws while all the money spent on buying alcohol by the people was going into the pockets of gangsters.

Progressives often supported prohibitions and saw it as improving society by controlling moral behavior through laws. They sincerely believe they can save us from ourselves.

In 1919, a year before Prohibition went into effect, Cleveland had 1,200 legal bars. By 1923, the city had an estimated 3,000 illegal speakeasies, along with 10,000 stills. An estimated 30,000 city residents sold liquor during Prohibition, and another 100,000 made home brew or bathtub gin for themselves and friends. In New York it ranged from 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasies.

The fact that cirrhosis was substantially lower on average during Prohibition than before or after might suggest that Prohibition played a substantial role in reducing cirrhosis, but further examination suggests this conclusion is premature. First, there have been substantial fluctuations in cirrhosis outside the Prohibition period, indicating that other factors are important determinants and must be accounted for in analyzing whether Prohibition caused the low level of cirrhosis during Prohibition. Second, there is no obvious jump in cirrhosis upon repeal. This fact does not prove that Prohibition had no effect, since the lags between consumption and cirrhosis mean the effect of increased consumption might not have shown up immediately. Nevertheless, the behavior of cirrhosis after repeal fails to suggest a large positive effect of Prohibition. Third, cirrhosis began declining from its pre-1920 peak by as early as 1908, and it had already attained its lowest level over the sample in 1920, the year in which constitutional Federal Prohibition took effect.

Between 1916 and 1928, the price of whiskey in most places rose by an average of 520 percent.

Token raids on speakeasies by federal agents usually encouraged colorful newspaper stories rather than respect for federal law. In fact, after 1925, more and more citizens seemed to resent the cynicism with which the federal government (whose Founding Fathers had left murders, lynchings, adulteries, and other moral transgressions to the disciplines of the state legislatures) was so inconsistently pursuing an intrusive interest in whatever it was they might be tempted to drink.

Rebellion in Iron River

Iron River is a small town in northern Michigan on the edge of the vast Ottawa forest. The region, rich in iron, was home to populations of Poles, Austrians, Italians, Hungarians and other immigrant Europeans. In late February of 1920 it was briefly the focus of America in a farcical display of just how toothless the newly passed law was. The rebellion garnered headlines in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.

The country had been given a year to prepare for the event. The rich stockpiled cases of liquor and wine, including President Harding who had $1800 dollars worth of liquor purchased before January 16th and stockpiled in his living quarters. Harding regularly served alcohol to his dinner guests all through his term.

Headlines proclaimed WHISKEY REBELLION and ARMED FORCE TO DESCEND ON MINING COUNTY. The ‘armed’ invasion consisted of fewer than two dozen federal Prohibition agents led by Leo J. Grove. The raid came about after the local constabulary had seized several barrels of wine from the basement of a grocery store owned by the Scalcuccis brothers and subsequently been forced by the District Attorney Martin S. McDonough to return them to the brothers, claiming the liquor had been seized without a warrant. Informed of this, Grove and his invading army descended on Iron River where he again seized the wine. McDonough ruled the seizure was illegal since at least one of the brothers lived above the grocery and it was legal for people to keep liquor in their residence. McDonough then arrested Grove for transporting liquor.

Released soon after, Grove returned to Chicago and reported the events to Major A.V. Dalrymple, chief Prohibition officer for the mid-western states. Dalrymple declared Iron County was in open revolt and he would put them down and “go up and clean hell of that district or quit trying to enforce this law.”
With 16 men, along with an army of reporters, photographers and newsreel cameramen, he descended on Iron River. By this time the town residents, men, women and children had removed every cask and bottle and hidden them in the surrounding forest and mine shafts.

Dalrymple was able to seize a few barrels of wine which he destroyed with a sledge hammer for the newsmen. Sixteen hours later, on the 25th, he hastily left for Washington on urgent business. The villagers retrieved their hidden booty and Iron River went back to business as usual. Thus did the first salvo in the new war on alcohol end.