PARTNERS IN CRIME: MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL (40:3)

 

Mystery Readers Journal: Partners in Crime (40:3) is now available as a PDF and Hardcopy. In this issue you’ll find essays, reviews, and articles for both Partners in Crime (a Surfeit of Sleuths) and Partners in Crime (Writers Who Write Together). 

If you're a PDF subscriber, you should have received download instructions. Hard copy subscription copies should be received by the end of the week. International subscribers will receive their issues within two weeks. PDF Contributor copies will go out in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this amazing issue.

***

In 2001, we had two separate issues on Partners in Crime.  

Partners in Crime I (a Surfeit of Sleuths) Volume 17:2 (2001) 

 and 

Partners in Crime II (Writers who Write Together) Volume 17:3 (2001) 

These issues are available as PDFs. The past issues complement this Partners in Crime 2024 issue (Volume 40:3). I know you’ll enjoy them all and find new books and authors to expand your reading! 

Partners in Crime
Volume 40, No. 3, Fall 2024

Buy this back issue! Available in hardcopy or as a downloadable PDF.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

• Unforgettable Duos: Fictional Partners in Crime by Ayoola Onatade

• If You’re Ever in a Jam, Here I Am by Margot Kinberg

• Morse & Lewis—The Perfect Partners in Crime by Paul Charles

• Those Loveable “Sidekicks!” Who’s Your Favorite? by Lou Armagno

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

• An Author and Her Characters Team Up by Annamaria Alfieri

• Partners Balance Crime Fighting by Saffron Amatti

• A Study in Contrasts by Paul A. Barra

• Why Two by Two? by Albert Bell

• A Partnership—Not that I Wanted One by J. F. Benedetto

• Two Voices Morph into a Third by Cordelia Biddle and Steve Zettler

• Collaborators Continue the Molly Murphy Series by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles

• Partners in Crime: The Pear Mystery Series by Robin Castle

• Partners in Magic and Murder by Ron Cook

• The Working Group by Susan Courtwright

• You Can’t Do It Alone by J. Salvatore Domino

• Double Doubles: Two Sets of Partners in Crime by Martin Edwards

• Partners Write Partners by Lee Elder

• Cronies, Chums, and Colleagues by Kate Fellowes

• The Unique Partnership in The Nest by Hal Glatzer

• When Two Are Not Enough by Bradley Harper

• The Birth of “Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski

• The Partner Sleuths in My Mysteries by Adrian Magson

• (Life) Partners in Crime by Ron Katz

• One Plus One Makes It More Fun by Tim Maleeny

• The Equalizer by Jeanne Matthews

• The Conjuror and the Copper by Tom Mead

• Why I Write with Partner Sleuths, Sort Of by Mike Orenduff

• Father/Daughter Detective Duo by Marcy McCreary

• Multiple Accomplices by Josh Pachter

• Writing Together Can Be Murder, But That’s Not All Bad by Larry and Rosemary Mild

• In It Together by Priscilla Paton

• Bop City Swing—or How I Fell in Step with a Dancing Partner by M.E. Proctor

• A Partnership with Heart—and Fur by Neil Plakcy

• Life Partners/Partners in Crime by Lev Raphael

• Detecting Partners, Writing Partners by SJ Rozan

• He Said, She Said: On Writing Devils Island by Midge Raymond & John Yunker

• Partners in Small-Town Crime: Samuel Craddock and Loretta Singletary by Terry Shames

• Finishing Each Other’s Sentences by Jennifer Slee and Jessica Slee

• Brainstorms & Nuclear Bombs: Writing with Your Spouse by Alexandra Sokoloff & Craig Robertson

• Partners in Crime—Michael and Stanley by Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip

• My Mother, My Partner by Charles Todd

• Parasols and Poisons: Gilded Age Partners in Crime by N. S. Wikarski

• Detection in the Harem by Elizabeth Zelvin

COLUMNS

• Mystery in Retrospect: Reviews by Aubrey Hamilton, Claire Hart-Palumbo, Lesa Holstine, Dru Ann Love, LJ Roberts, and Jonathan Woods

• Children’s Hour: Partners in Crime by Gay Toltl Kinman

• Unexpected Partners in Real Crime by Cathy Pickens

• Crime Seen: Assorted Ampersands by Kate Derie

• From the Editor’s Desk by Janet A. Rudolph

Embattled Truthseekers: the Persecuted Protagonist: Guest Post by Eliot Pattison

Character over plot is a mantra often heard in writing seminars, emphasizing the point that it is characters, not plot, that drive a novel‘s success. Ray Bradbury even suggested that “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by.” Engaging novels require engaging characters, but the novelist uses plot to thrust tension onto those characters, developing them by besieging them. Plot should never be considered a gimmick or mere tool. The well-done plot and its backdrop become intrinsic, vital to the metamorphosis of character that lies at the heart of the tale. A plot’s unique tension may derive from micro, intimate dilemmas or range through macro social and ideological forces, driving vastly different takeaways for the reader. Orwell’s 1984 would have been a dramatically different novel if the protagonist Winston Smith had been suffering from being spurned by a lover instead of his resistance to a soulless totalitarian state. Few tension builders are as gripping as this dynamic of a character being persecuted by ruthless, omnipotent adversaries. 

I chose persecuted protagonists for both my fictional series. In the Skull Mantra novels my main character is a disgraced Beijing investigator exiled to Tibet who finds justice for oppressed Tibetans despite being battered by authorities whose job it is to destroy the Tibetan identity. In my Bone Rattler series the lead character is a Scottish doctor exiled to the American colonies for his connections with Jacobite rebels. Burdened by a forced servitude that denies him any rights, he resists his own bondage while seeking justice for native tribesmen, slaves and other orphaned people of the colonies. The ongoing persecution of these characters steadily increases the stakes as they stalk the trails of murderers. Corrupt judges, spiteful army officers, oppressive party commissars, vengeful tribal warriors, ruthless policemen, and sadistic aristocrats ambush these characters as they seek answers that those in power conceal. Importantly, the ordeals that shape them are not simply caused by barriers to their quest. They are targeted with dire personal jeopardy, often being arrested, even tortured, and must defy government to discover the truth. Adding to the tension is the recurring possibility, sometimes a direct suggestion, that the physical and mental cruelty they endure will sap their humanity. That omnipresent threat and the self-doubt it precipitates present new layers of stress, driving both plot and character. How, the novels ask, can these bludgeoned characters preserve their courage and integrity when faced with such suffering? As Nietzsche poignantly reminded us, “whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster.” These protagonists are constantly dancing with monsters. 

A less obvious but potentially profound aspect of the persecuted protagonist novel is the platform it provides for illuminating the persecution itself. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a well-known example, exposing the horrors of the Soviet gulag system while following a tormented protagonist who has been wrongly sentenced to forced labor. Stephen King’s novel Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption reveals penal system corruption as it tracks a wrongly accused prisoner who overcomes years of adversity inflicted by the authorities to find a makeshift resolution. Readers may be driven by empathy to join the protagonist’s journey but along the way they will learn much about the forces that cause the suffering. My own Skull Mantra series casts a spotlight on the abject human rights abuses underway in western China. No one picks up such a novel in search of a human rights chronicle, but the reader absorbs bitter lessons about those abuses by walking alongside my lead character. More than once I’ve had readers tell me that although they had previously read reports on human rights conditions in Tibet, they had never really understood that oppression until they read these novels. 

Mystery fiction lends itself well to such tales, for it can take the reader inside the head of the oppressed, a perspective seldom available in traditional factual reporting since most victims are silenced by their oppressors. These are the truths that are hard to come by—and often readers don’t otherwise know the questions to ask to reach those truths. Ultimately these characters cannot be separated from their persecution—and that is the real power of these books. The novels set the hook early by describing the protagonist’s suffering then pull their readers into deeper waters, prodding them to think about the human condition in unfamiliar ways. This is what Francis Bacon meant when he told us long ago that “Truth is hard to tell. It sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.” The persecuted protagonist invites the reader to become a truthseeker. 

***

Eliot Pattison’s nineteen novels include the award-winning Skull Mantra series and the Bone Rattler series, which explores the complex people and events leading to the founding of the United States. For more info, visit eliotpattison.com.

Bloody Cocktails & Deadly Wines: Halloween!

Bloody Cocktails and Deadly Wine! Perfect for your Halloween Celebration!

DEADLY WINES

Chateau Du Vampire Wines Bordeaux Style Cabernet Blend (Vampire Vineyards – Paso Robles, California): blend of cabernet sauvignon (60%) with cabernet franc (30%), and 10% malbec to finish it off.

Vampire Cabernet Sauvignon (Vampire vineyards – Paso Robles, California): Vampire Cabernet Sauvignon is sourced from several small-berry clones of this traditional Bordeaux varietal, grown in the Paso Robles region of California’s Central Coast.

Dracula Wines: Zinfandel and Syrah (originally the grapes for this wine were grown on the Transylvanian plateau, now they're made from California grapes).

Trueblood Napa Valley Syrah: This wine will "bruise your soul" with its palate crushing cherry, plum smoke and spice.

Ghost Block: 100% cabernet from Rock Cairn Vineyard in Oakville, next to Yountville's Pioneer Cemetery.

Twisted Oak 2011 River of Skulls in Calaveras County. Limited production vineyard mouvedre (red wine grape). Label has a bright red skull. English translation of calaveras is "skulls."

Ghostly White Chardonnay and Bone Dry Red Cabernet Sauvignon. Elk Creek Vineyards in Kentucky

Poizin from Armida Winery in Healdsburg is a 'wine to die for..". This Zinfandel sold in little wooden coffins

Big Red Monster  Red wine made from Syrah, Zinfandel and Petite Syrah.

Spellbound 2012 Merlot. Full Moon on the label. 

Ravenswood 2013 Besieged Red Blend. Ravens on the label.

Michael David 2012 Freakshow Cab.

Other Wines, Beers and Ales: Witches Brew, Evil (upside down and backwards label), Sinister Hand, Toad Hollow Eye of the Toad, Zeller Schwarz Katz.

Want to give the personal touch to your Halloween wines? Add ghoulish labels or rebottle in cool jars with apothecary labels from Pottery Barn (or make them yourself). For a great article, go to Spooky Halloween Bottle & Glass Labels.

BLOODY COCKTAILS

And what about an awesome cocktail? Make Nick and Nora proud! They always loved a good party. Throw in some rubber spiders or eyeballs as garnish. Want to make your own Halloween Cocktail Garnish--some eyeballs and fingers?  Click HERE.

Blood Bath
1 Part Tequila Silver
1 Part Strawberry Liqueur

Shake with ice, and strain into shot glass.

Blood Test
1 Part Tequila Reposado
1 Part Grenadine

Shake with ice and strain into shot glass

Blood Shot
1 part Iceberg Vodka
1 part peach schnapps
1 part Jagermeister
1 part cranberry juice

Chill all ingredients. Combine in shaker with ice. Strain into shot glass. shoot!

Bloody-Tini
2 oz VeeV Acai Spirit
1 oz acai juice
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
Top with fresh champagne
lime wedge for garnish

Combine VeeV, Acai juice and fresh lime with fresh ice in a cocktail shaker and shake.
Strain into chilled martini glass and top with champagne.
Serve with fresh lime wedge.

Blood and Sand
3/4 ounce Scotch
3/4 ounce cherry liqueur
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
3/4 ounce orange juice
1 thin strip orange zest

In cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the liquids. Strain into martini glass, then garnish with the strip of zest. (recipe from Bank Cafe & Bar in Napa)

Corpse Reviver
1 ounce gin
1 ounce Lillet (blanc)
1 ounce triple sec
Juice of half a lemon
5 drops of absinthe
1 thin slice orange

In cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the liquids. Strain into martini glass, then garnish with the orange slice.
(Recipe from Epic Roasthouse in San Francisco)
 
Vampire Blood Punch
4 cups cranberry raspberry juice (or cranberry juice cocktail)
2 cups natural pineapple juice (100% juice)
2 cups raspberry-flavored seltzer water
wormy ice cubes (optional)

Mix all ingredients together, and pour into large, decorative punch bowl.
Serve punch with wormy ice cubes, if desired

Corzo Bite
1-1/2 parts Corzo Silver Tequila
1/2 parts Campari
1 part fresh blood orange juice
1/4 parts blood (aka home-made grenadine) **
2 parts Jarritos Tamarindo Soda

Build all ingredients into highball glass filled with ice. Add “blood” at the end.
Garnish: Blood orange wheel and strawberry syrup

** Home-made grenadine: Add equal parts white sugar and POM pomegranate juice together and dissolve sugar over high on stove-top

Midori Eye-Tini (from Rob Husted of Florida)
1-1⁄4 parts Midori Melon liqueur
3⁄4 parts SKYY Infusions Citrus
1⁄2 part Finest Call Agave Syrup
2 parts of Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale
2 parts Finest Call Sweet & Sour Mix
3 Orange Wedges
2 Fresh Ripped Basil Leaves
Strawberry Sundae Syrup

In shaker glass combine Midori Melon liqueur, SKYY infusions Citrus, Finest Call Agave Syrup, 3 Orange Wedges and 2 Fresh Ripped Basil Leaves.
Muddle ingredients together. Add ice and Finest Call Sweet & Sour Mix.
Shake for 10 seconds.
Add Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale and roll drink back and forth between your mixing tin and shaker glass.
Strain into a chilled martini glass drizzled with Strawberry Sundae Syrup to give an effect of a bloodshot eye.

Garnish: Chilled red seedless grape at bottom of glass (to look like an eyeball) and bruised basil leaf floated on top of cocktail for aroma.

Black Martini

The Black Martini replaces vermouth with either blackberry brandy or black raspberry liqueur.

3 1/2 oz gin or vodka
1/2 oz blackberry brandy or black raspberry liqueur
lemon twist or black olive for garnish or gold flakes

Pour the ingredients into cocktail shaker with ice.
Shake vigorously.
Strain into chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist or black olive or sprinkle in gold flakes.

Cartoon of the Day: Dogs

 REIGN!!! 

Cartoon of the Day: Medieval Tech Support

 

The Secret War of Julia Child, Or Julia Child and Me: Guest Post by Diana R. Chambers

Full disclosure: I’m not a cook. Not a Julia Child fangirl. 

I felt a certain connection to her, though—France, no doubt. The feeling we’d walked the same Paris streets, maybe shopped the same outdoor markets, marveled at the silvery light, strolled across the bridges and along the Seine. 

Then, about ten years ago, I learned that during World War Two, she’d served with America’s first espionage agency, the Office of Strategic Services—OSS. In India, Ceylon, and China. 

The Julia Child? Really? In the OSS? 

Imagine. The matronly “French Chef” with the twinkle in her eye had lived an entirely other life. Having to protect the secrets, think on her feet, determine whom she could trust. On the Asian front lines! 

My brain took flight. I’d studied and explored India for-practically-ever, with many visits to China and Southeast Asia. And my earlier novels had espionage subplots, so I was intrigued to pull back the curtains on those classified years. 

My other projects and ideas fell to the wayside. May I say, I love research. 

I began collecting an extensive range of old, often out-of-print books relating to the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of WWII—memoirs, biographies, novels, military accounts, histories of espionage and cryptography. Cultural and political analyses, including studies on imperialism and colonialism from a non-Western perspective. I would learn this conflict is known as the “Forgotten War of Asia” for good reason. As Western attention has usually focused on Europe and the Pacific, I had to dig deep and read far around my central story. I came away with a profound awareness of the suffering and sacrifices of the various peoples of Asia. The Indians postponed their hard-fought independence struggle for the global good. Without China’s ten-year resistance against the Imperial Japanese Army, the invaders might have swept across Central Asia to come to Germany’s aid. We owe them all an enormous debt. 

The other part of research for me is always boots on the ground. Travel loomed. 

I’d never visited Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. Here the Yanks and Brits had their clandestine bases outside the British hill station, Kandy, where Julia met Paul—short, balding, pretentious, and almost-forty, as she first judged him. Later they were posted to Kunming on the perilous front lines of southwest China where their relationship took hold amid bombs and black market intrigue. As I learned more of their moving love affair, my heart opened to them both. (Despite his own talent and healthy ego, Paul was a firm feminist who supported Julia’s dreams and successes his whole life.) 

Her Asian journey began in Bombay where her troopship docked in April 1944. The deadly explosion of a cargo ship bearing cotton, gold bullion, and TNT was Julia’s initiation to war. The horrors would continue, death and destruction, treachery and deceit. But also loyalty, friendship—and love. As I followed Julia’s path, she helped me discover her story. And mine. 

While we both grew up in southern California, Julia McWilliams was a Mayflower descendant. We were both raised on meat and potatoes, though. And we both had big dreams. Both our mothers took us to the library, where I first discovered the world. Like Julia, I grew up with Nancy Drew and, like her, moved on to mysteries and spy fiction. I would spin my world globe to the faraway places I read about. Maybe it was A Tale of Two Cities, but I was soon wandering the cobblestones of Paris...and who knows? Maybe A Little Princess sent me to the bazaars and backstreets of India. There, I began an export business that led to Hollywood costuming, then scriptwriting. 

Julia came to France later in life, but the locales in her wartime journey were also my own touchstones. Now my research took me to new sites, new adventures—narrow-gauge steam trains, an ashram’s icy, cavernous baths, Hindu and Buddhist temples dense with worshippers and art. Stirring elephant reserves. Melancholy ruins of a long-lost civilization. The veggie-based curries and dosas of southern India and Sri Lanka. I also revisited Kunming in China’s southwest Yunnan Province—terminus of the Burma Road with its lakes, birds, and lotus blossoms. We explored Lijiang, a World Heritage river town surrounded by the jagged, snowy peaks Julia flies over from India, and, downhill, Dali’s Old Town, whose mushrooms flavor the sautéed, hand-pulled noodles Julia tastes in Kunming. We took a bus up to the thunderous waterfalls marking the border between southeast China and Vietnam. It was 100% humidity, everything with a scrim of mist, dream-like. 

Julia must have experienced a similar bombardment of the senses. How had it felt, finding herself in this distant corner of the world, this crossroads of place and time, this dramatic moment in history? References to Casablanca are apt. 

I’d never heard the thunder of bombs, but we’d both known monsoons, mud, and dust, dripping humidity and frizzing hair, sweat dripping down our legs. Also naan, mangoes, spicy curries, fragrant rice, and warm beer. Spice markets, their burlap sacks bursting with color and fragrance. My sense of connection with her grew. 

I could have been that adventurous young Californian who hadn’t yet found her way when Pearl Harbor struck. I might have bid farewell to that faithful beau who didn’t make my heart go pitter-patter and hopped a train to Washington. And got a job—in the spy trade! Then itched to serve in the field. Some distant post...India! 

Like Julia, I’d bounced about through in my twenties, from LA to NY and back. I’d also spent two years in Paris, which was still in her future. But around age thirty, we were both called to India; for both of us these were formative years. Her story felt so personal! 

The Secret War of Julia Child was a novel I had to write. 

***

Diana R. Chambers was born with a book in one hand and a passport in the other. Her first explorations were in the library, plotting adventures on her world globe. She went on to study Asian art history at university, work at a Paris translation agency, and begin an export business in India. Then somehow she found herself in Hollywood writing scripts—until her characters demanded their own novels. Her latest is The Secret War of Julia Child, a People magazine Best Book of Fall 2024, Must-Read! Diana lives in Northern California and Aix-en-Provence, France, with her fellow-traveler husband, artist daughter, and cat, Marco Polo. She is still following her stories around the world. Still looking for the perfect suitcase. dianarchambers.com, Instagram @dianarc1, Twitter @DianaRChambers, Facebook DianaRChambersAuthor.