I know after all the drama yesterday that people are waiting on pins and needles to hear the winner declared today. So without further ado, chosen by the people, the 2011 World's Favorite Amateur Sleuth title goes to:
To wrap up the Moonlighting for Murder theme week, Tom Schreck, author of the Duffy Dombrowski series, is here to talk about his choice of a boxing social worker as amateur sleuth.
Tom himself has spent his career in various social work positions. He's volunteered on a suicide hotline, he teaches psychology courses at a local community college and writes freelance. Tom isn't a pro boxer, but he does judge pro boxing and gets in the ring to spar when he can. That's all in addition to taking care of the three hounds that live with he and his wife.
Why a boxing social worker?
I fell in love with mysteries from reading, first the Travis McGee series by John D. Macdonald and then the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker. I loved the first person narrative and I loved how cool the main characters were. They lived on 110 foot houseboats, drank exotic beers, were gourmets and had interesting genius friends.
I wanted to create a character equally as interesting but who was drawn from real life. I wanted someone without extraordinary skills who reached a breaking point when someone vulnerable was victimized.
I’ve worked in human services since 1984. Not in psychology, not in medicine—in human services. It’s where the blue-collar people wind up when they need help—usually because the legal system insisted on it. I’ve been a childcare worker with troubled ghetto kids, a teen age drug counselor, a counselor and salesman for a posh rehab and the director of an inner city clinic.
This kind of counseling isn’t the Freudian therapy Keith Ablow or Jonathan Kellerman write about. This is the therapy you get for stealing hair extensions at the dollar store after smoking too much crack. It’s real and it’s going on every day. The professionals who do it sometimes have degrees (I have a Masters) but often they have junior college educations or less. They are the heroes doing this work 40 hours a week often on lousy shifts for $23,000 a year.
Many of the clients in these clinics are unlikeable. They are dysfunctional and have little desire to change. They’re constantly scheming manipulative strategies to get their welfare check and beat the system. The clinics are driven to make sure they make their “number” so funding continues which makes the clinics complicit in the system’s dysfunction. The whole thing is a horror show.
But sometimes someone’s life gets turned around. Sometimes someone who wants to change does. Sometimes someone changes just enough to impact their spouse, their kids and the people surrounding their lives.
That is beautiful. That is the most important thing there is in life. That is what keeps human services working at a salary just above the poverty line.
Boxing is also a very central thing to my life. I’m typing this with a sore jaw and a low-level head ache from a well placed right hand that I took yesterday afternoon. My shoulders are tight and sleep will be hard to come by for the next couple of nights because of the soreness. I also judge professional boxing, getting the privilege to decide who wins world championship fights.
Ninety-nine percent of professional boxers make less than $2,000 from it. Yes, it’s professional sports and the very best make multiple millions but the vast majority do it because it’s in their blood.
Yesterday four of us got together to spar. Before it starts there’s a palpable unspoken anxiety in the gym. While it’s going on it’s truly breathtaking and when it’s over it’s the most exhilarating high I’ve ever experienced. I’d shoot it into a vein if I could.
Real life pro boxers have to work jobs. Some are educated; most aren’t so they do hourly gigs, labor and yes, human services. Those jobs don’t define them, their boxing does.
A person who’s been fighting for a long time has a presence. Other fighters can identify it but the general public will miss it. The fighters don’t play office games, get intimidated by being written up on the job or get macho when it comes to the board room. Men do that instead of fighting. Fighters see that shit as silly.
Boxers are real. Guys who really fight are a different type of animal. I’m not talking about someone who takes a boxing aerobics class or someone who learns how to hit a bag. I’m talking about someone who knows that feeling of waiting for the bell to ring knowing he’s about to get punched in the face.
Duffy Dombrowski isn’t Travis McGee or Spenser. His life has more grit and it’s uglier but it is the life that is lived on the streets of every city in this cruel country.
He often decides he’s not excepting that life and it causes him plenty of personal trouble. It also saves the lives and dignity of those who can’t do it on their own.
That’s what drives him.
He isn’t a Japanese assassin, an art appraiser or a CIA operative.
He’s a boxer and a human services worker.
That’s who he is.
Kathy from Bermudiaonion's Weblog will be taking a look at Meredith Cole's amateur sleuth, Lydia McKenzie.
At Beth Fish Reads, check out the bookstore post and enter to win a copy of Carolyn Hart's newest entry in the Death on Demand series.
Hannah is talking about TV Reporters at Word Lily to go along with her coverage of Julie Kramer's Riley Spartz series. This post is so creative. Don't miss it!!
At How Mysterious! Karen is discussing Agatha Raisin's other job.
Julie Hyzy's GRACE UNDER PRESSURE gets the royal treatment at Jenn's Bookshelves.
Julie takes a look at Mary Jane Clark's TO HAVE AND TO KILL at Booking Mama.
Naomi reviews Donis Casey's CRYING BLOOD and adds another question to the contest at The Drowning Machine.
And SuziQOregon reviews Bloodroot from the China Bayles series at Whimpulsive.
Ice hockey’s goaltender may occupy the loneliest position in all of sports—which is essentially why I made Gus Carpenter, the protagonist of my novels, a goalie.
“You can never look into their eyes,” he says in his first line of narration in my debut, Starvation Lake. Gus is standing in his net, alone, facing a shooter bearing down on him in a hockey rink in the middle of the night.
On the surface, his words describe a rule goalies follow in trying to stop opponents from putting pucks behind them. At the same time, Gus alludes, however unintentionally, to his own alienation from the people around him, on the ice as well as off.
OK, you don’t usually see the words “alienation” and “hockey” in the same essay. But think about it. On the ice, Gus stays pretty much in one place—his net—while the rest of his teammates roam freely. He doesn’t actively participate in the game, but waits for it to come to him. He wears a mask. If he fails in his duty, he can count on shouldering most if not all of the blame. As he tells us in my forthcoming third book, The Skeleton Box:
You could whine and bitch about your teammates all you wanted, but they knew and, more important, you knew that it didn’t matter which defenseman coughed up the puck to an opponent, or which winger didn’t hustle to cover the point man with the big slap shot, because if the puck wound up behind you, in your net, it was your fault. Your job, your only job, was to keep the puck out, so even if it wasn’t your fault, it was, and you knew it, no matter how much you bitched at your teammates or banged your stick over the crossbar in anger.
It was you and only you.
My first novel came about after my agent asked me, “Why don’t you write me a story about these middle-aged guys who play hockey in the middle of the night?” That gave me permission to write about the sport I’ve played and loved since boyhood. I chose to make Gus a goalie despite the fact that I am not one (full disclosure: I played goaltender for one season when I was 12, and I was a sieve).
Many hockey players are loathe to admit this, but goalies are intrinsically cool. Goalies wear the niftiest equipment (their stick is a “paddle” and one of their gloves is a “waffle”) and have the weirdest superstitions (former NHL-er Gary Smith used to take cold showers between each period of games he played). They flip and flop and dive and waggle. They can be bigger heroes—and bigger goats—than anyone on the ice. Contrary to what most casual hockey fans assume, goalies are often among the best skaters on their teams.
When I was concocting Gus Carpenter, I knew too that he would be a defrocked big-city journalist (a subject for another time) forced to make a humbling retreat to his tiny hometown. It seemed fitting that he should be a goalie—a loner behind a metaphorical mask—as well as the goalie known for blowing the town’s only shot at a state championship years before.
Readers familiar with Gus know he can be frustratingly distant at times, even as he’s speaking directly to other characters and, indeed, to the readers themselves. Chastened by his past, Gus is wary, vigilant, defensive, at the same time that he misses things while “peering out at that little world through the eye holes of my goalie mask,” as he says in the first book.
Most good goalies share these character traits, but for Gus, they also define his personality and the way he approaches his job, his family, his friends, and his love relationships.
Did I intend for all of this to be so neatly packaged? Of course not. I had an inkling that it would be fun to write from the perspective of a goaltender. Then, like a goalie, I got between the posts and reacted to what happened around me as I wrote. As Gus says in that opening scene in the first book:
"By day, I was the associate editor of the Pine County Pilot, circulation 4,733, published every day but Sunday. By night I tended goal in the Midnight Hour Men’s League, surrounded by men I’d known as boys. In between I waited for something to change my life, to get me out of Starvation Lake again. That’s what goalies do. They wait."
Gus’s wait was about to end. What has happened since will eventually make up the trilogy of tales culminating with The Skeleton Box. And then?
A goalie can never be sure of what’s coming next.
"The silhouettes of the bare trees etched skeletons on the linen sky."
"A woman who'd been racing toward the gates of hell for most of her life had arrived a bit quicker than we'd all expected."
"In the dressing room, in the hockey shop, in the tavern, the goalie is one of the boys. On the ice he is stranded, lost inside his bloated pads, hiding his face behind a mask. When he gives up a goal his teammates figure he should have stopped, he is alone, circling his crease, dousing himself from his water bottle, wishing he had another chance at the shot he was sure he had with the toe of his skate until it hit someone's elbow and deflected just inside the post."
Position Wanted
Must be able to make own hours and not be tied down. Applicant can interact well with a wide variety of people and occasionally be the fly on the wall.
Will relocate – preferably to a city or town with a small or ineffectual (but charming and perhaps single) police force.
Contact : Paula Holliday
Most amateur sleuths need to have a job. Unless you’re writing about an English lord (see Peter Wimsey) or a kindly little old lady (you know who) you’ll most likely want your protagonist to be gainfully employed – preferably in a job that offers the above conditions.
As much as I enjoy gardening, the real reason Paula Holliday is a gardener is that it's a seasonal business which give her plenty of time to solve crimes. She can also reasonably come into contact with people from different socio-economic backgrounds, from the day laborers she hires at the local donut shop to the suburbanites - who aren’t always what they seem - and the bluebloods who hire her to care for their estates. As a gardener she can poke around homes and properties without arousing suspicions because all too often the people who provide basic services – nannies, waiters, housekeepers, hair stylists, etc. are treated as invisible. People will say or do things in front of them that they might not in front of other more “important” people. Is it eavesdropping if you're being ignored? This invisibility exposes her to characters with all sorts of motives for mischief and mayhem, the most common being greed, lust and revenge, all of which exist just as much in the suburbs as they do on the mean streets of the big cities. All Paula needs is a prop – a pitchfork or a pair of loppers – to fit right in. And in a pinch either of those garden tools can turn into a lethal weapon.
It's often said that one's villain needs MOM to commit a crime - means, opportunity and motive. I think an amateur sleuth needs MOM too. In this job, Paula Holliday has the means and the opportunity to solve the crime. But what’s her motive? That’s the hardest question to answer and one that writers of police procedurals, legal thrillers etc. never have to address. What’s a gardener or a golf pro, a tea shop owner or a television reporter doing solving crimes? Apart from the obvious answer that there would be no book if she didn't (and that would be terrible…) it’s generally that someone she knows is involved or accused. Or she is. Or she accidentally knows something the bad guys don’t want her to reveal. Or the cops don’t think there’s been a crime but our amateur sleuth knows better. Or maybe it’s just that writers know readers love them.
HANK? Or CHARLIE?
By Hank Phillippi Ryan
Okay. Quiz for you. How much is the main character’s job reflected in the author’s job? Think you can tell fact from fiction?
Here are five adventures. Which ones are about the fictional Charlotte McNally? And which ones actually happened to her author, Hank Phillippi Ryan? (And hey, why not—let’s give away DRIVE TIME to three lucky commenters!)
Hank? Or Charlie?
My feet are freezing. My hands are freezing. In one ungloved hand I am holding a cell phone. In the other, a tiny camera. I’m waiting in the parking lot for convicted drunk drivers to come out of the courthouse after having their licenses suspended .
Inside the courthouse, a producer and two interns. As soon as someone is convicted, they’ll text me the description. My photographer and I will follow them to the parking lot—and see if they will drive away. Remember they just had their licenses suspended. Here comes one now!
I’m watching. Watching. Watching. Will he recognize me? Notice me? I pull my hood up over my hair and briefly turn my back. I sneak a look. He reaches into his pocket. And he pulls out—car keys. Gotcha, buster.
Hank? Or Charlotte McNally?
I’m curled up in the back of an unmarked SUV. My laptop, wireless enabled, is humming beside me. My producer is on his cell phone, in the vast parking lot of a used car emporium. She’s pretending to shop for a car. (If I go undercover, I’ll be recognized.) My producer is looking through the cars’ windshields, reading me the VIN numbers from the dashboards. We’re focusing on cars that we know have been recalled. Once I get the VINs, I call auto dealers to find out whether the recalls have been repaired—or whether the used car sales people are selling cars that are dangerous. Then, proof in hand, we’ll move in for the confrontation.
Hank? Or Charlotte McNally?
It’s freezing cold (why is it always cold? Oh, it’s Boston) it’s just after dark. Were sitting in the front seat of a news car, eyes glued to the side door of a hospital. Inside that hospital a nurse (oh, how funny, named Charlotte) is off shift in about 20 minutes. She’s had her license revoked for numerous charges of drunk driving. We know that cinnamon-red Mustang in the parking lot is hers.
There she is!
She emerges into the cold evening. Will she drive her car? She does! We pause while she makes the turn, slowly creep in behind her, and follow her down the windy street toward her home town. Shooting video the whole way. In the center of town, she stops. Pulls over to the curb. Goes in for pizza! When she comes out with the steaming pie, we’re there with a camera, waiting. “Why are you driving with a revoked license?” we ask. “#%^&$^*(&#*(& you!,” she screams! She throws the pizza into the front seat, and zooms away. “That was perfect! Did you get it all?” I ask. The photographer pauses. “Ummmm….” he says.
Hank? Or Charlotte McNally?
The living room floor is covered with—paper. Thousands of copies of what state officials call “discrepancy reports.” Each one is the record of a 911 call—an emergency—where dispatchers sent the responders (police, fire, ambulance) to the wrong address. The state fought us for almost a year, saying these records were “not public” and “unavailable.” We were also told “trust us,” there “weren’t many” discrepancies. We battled up to the Secretary of State’s office, which finally ordered the records be turned over.
The records arrived in two huge cardboard packing boxes. Chaotic, in no order, a mess. Now, I’m sorting them. Town by town. And turns out--there are thousands and thousands of them! Thousands and thousands of times, someone called for emergency help, and the dispatchers sent them to the wrong address. I have so many paper cuts from handling these documents, my hands are actually bleeding.
Hank? Or Charlotte McNally?
One more. A notorious (and creepy) child molester is going up for sentencing. What will happen in the courtroom? He’s known for outbursts and crazy behavior. Problem is, the courtroom is in Vermont, up in the Northeast Kingdom. Way too far to drive. “Take the chopper,” the assignment desk guy tells me. “You and Brian.” Photographer Brian and I hop into the chopper, it’s a beautiful warm sunny day, we’ll get here in, I don’t know, an hour.
We slap on our headphones. We fly. I’m looking at the scenery, thinking how cool this is, what a great job I have, they’re actually paying me for this! I look up at the pilot. He’s asleep.
Hank? Or Charlie?
And remember…a signed DRIVE TIME to three lucky commenters!
As part of the fun this week, we have a contest centered around the amateur sleuths jobs and/or hobbies. Each of the bloggers participating has submitted a "Positions Wanted" ad. Your job is to figure out which amateur sleuth is being described. So as you read the bloggers posts this week, you can find the answers. Complete the form by midnight (Eastern) on Friday. All the entries with the most correct answers will be entered in a book prize pack drawing.
The contest is open to all. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments or drop me an email. Happy hunting and good luck!
Here they are, the four sleuths you've voted into Round 5. Voting this round will run until midnight (Eastern) on Saturday. The final round will take place during our Moonlighting for Murder Amateur Sleuth theme week. I hope you'll join us for a celebration of amateur sleuths next week. And now...ready...set....vote!
This week we will have two rounds of the tourney, so voting times will be shorter. Get your votes in early to be counted.
This is the Elite Eight round and the competition is tough. Three of the four pairings are girls against the boys. Who will be victorious this round? Your favorite sleuths will need your support. Ready...Set...VOTE.
Ellie Foreman 61%
Goldy Schultz 39%
James Qwilleran 21%
Nancy Drew 79%
Lord Peter Wimsey 59%
Stephanie Plum 41%
The Hardy Boys 42%
Jane Marple 58%
Carter Ross 52%
Amanda Pepper 48%
Benni Harper 37%
Flavia de Luce 63%
Lisbeth Salander 61%
Annie Darling 39%
Brett Kavanaugh 49%
Amlingmeyer Brothers 51%
© Blogger templates 'Neuronic' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
