The McCone Connection: Operation Raven Nevermore: Guest Post by Andrew McAleer with A Special Postscript from Marcia Muller

One day, I was walking in Afghanistan just minding my own business when I was attacked suddenly from behind. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Marcia Muller’s latest Sharon McCone novel, Circle in the Water triggering the following flashback, I think the incident would’ve remained—nevermore.

As background, let me begin by stating with particularity, that I was on a mission for Uncle Sam by myself, somewhere in country and tasked with getting some stuff and toting said stuff back safely to my detachment’s location where the aforementioned stuff would be disseminated per standard operating procedures. I don’t remember what occasioned me going it alone on this mission, but duty must’ve called. I served as a sergeant with a three-soldier detachment and although this mission had us down two men, even by myself, we’d still be about thirty-three percent strong.

Anyway, there I was plodding along when I saw two Apache helicopters bobbing along in the distant skies. Something must’ve got their knickers in twist because they tilted into a fighting stance and started discharging buckets of rounds. Now distracted from my normally superior sense of situational awareness, I foolishly allowed the enemy to sneak up on me. 

Out of nowhere I heard a quick flutter coming from behind followed by something smacking me on the back of my head. Sharp claws dug into my skin. A big blackbird had swooped down stealthily from the cloud cover and tried to make off with my official U.S. Army issue soft cap—sergeant stripes and all! What kind of barbarous devil bird it was that leapt upon me that day I cannot say with complete certainty. Nevertheless, identifying it as a member of the corvus corax family seems appropriate. The “common raven” for those not keeping up with their bird Latin.  

As a trained soldier sworn to protect Army issue headwear, I resolved not to capitulate to this raiding raven’s treachery and quickly engaged in some close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat with the eerie attacker. It had been a long year and I was looking forward to hanging up my hat, but unlike Captain Ahab, I would do so on my own terms. Hence, the battle waged on and just when I had my enemy on the run, another raven—in a swift move demonstrating a superior knowledge of Napoleonic tactics—flanked the Detachment’s left line with an enfilade of rapid clawing. A few artful hand-chops worthy of anything in Barney Fife’s wheelhouse and I soon emerged the victor over this plucky band of feathers. 

It all happened so fast and even with the fog of war still gripping me all these years later, I remember looking up and seeing the two ravens perched way up high on a naked tree limb. They remained on high-level alert counterattacking with blood curdling caws and squawks, which thanks to my extensive military language studies I was able to interpret. Quoth the ravens, “Take your departure from our patch without further delay.” With my opponents now out of effective pecking range, I was happy to oblige. No bad blood here on my end; we all fought the good battle and presumably, would live to fight another day.         

Outside the wire there can be a strange respect among enemies at times like this. My worthy opponents had legitimate reasons to ponder weak and weary. Some thirty years earlier, the Russians swooped in and deforested eighty-percent of the land. I doubt these two ravens were around to see the destruction of their ancestral homes, but bad blood tends to pass from generation to generation. My present enemies didn’t know a Russki from a Doughboy; they saw an invading hat and reacted accordingly. 

I was a short-timer when the birds got all Alfred Hitchcock on me, and I took this as good a sign it was time to pack-up my rucksack and pop smoke. Home again to a place where everyone gets along and there’s never any fighting. A place where someday you could armchair slump it on a cold, snowy New England afternoon and disappear peacefully into a good murder mystery. Like Marcia Muller’s Circle in the Water.

Then, out of nowhere, Muller’s dogged private detective Sharon McCone tells us she’s been afraid of birds ever since a blackbird once swooped down and grabbed her head. Now I’m reliving Operation Raven Nevermore all over again. But no worries, no midnight dreary—McCone got my back every step of the way.

* * *

Postscript

A Circle in the Water Insight 

from the desk of

Marcia Muller

 

McCone’s fear of birds was inspired by the actual incident she described in Circle in the Water—a bird grabbing her head on her high-school senior class picnic—only in reality, it was my head!  I’ve steered clear of the feathered creatures ever since.

— Marcia Muller

* * *

Andrew McAleer is the Derringer-nominated author of the London-based Private Detective Henry von Stray historical mystery series, created in 1937, by Edgar winner John McAleer during the Golden Age of Detection.  His books include, A Casebook of Crime and the 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists. Mr. McAleer taught classic crime fiction at Boston College and served in Afghanistan as a U.S. Army Historian before returning to public service in the criminal justice system. Instagram: Mcaleermysteries or Henryvonstray

Marcia Muller has written many novels, short stories, essays, and works of criticism. A New York Times best-selling author, she has won six Anthony Awards and a Shamus Award and is also the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award (their highest accolade). She lives in Sonoma County, California, with her husband and frequent collaborator, mystery writer Bill Pronzini. Her final novel in the long-running Sharon McCone series, Circle in the Water, was published on April 23, 2024
 

A Glamorous Day in the Life of This Writer: Guest post by Marcia Muller

Marcia Muller grew up in a house full of books and self-published three copies of her first novel at age twelve. Fast forward to the early 1970s, having moved to California, Muller found herself unemployable and began experimenting with mystery novels, because they were what she liked to read. After three manuscripts and five years of rejection, EDWIN OF THE IRON SHOES, the first novel featuring San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone, was published by David McKay Company, who then cancelled their mystery list. Four more years passed before St. Martin's Press accepted the second McCone novel, ASK THE CARDS A QUESTION. In the ensuing thirty-some years, Muller has authored over 35 novels--three of them in collaboration with husband Bill Pronzini--seven short-story collections, and numerous nonfiction articles. Together she and Pronzini have edited a dozen anthologies and a nonfiction book on the mystery genre. In 2005 Muller was named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America, the organization’s highest award. Pronzini was named Grand Master in 2008, making them the only living couple to share the award (the other being Margaret Millar and Ross Macdonald). The Mulzinis, as friends call them, live in Sonoma County, California, in yet another house full of books. Someone Always Knows (Grand Central Publishing) is her 31st Sharon McCone mystery.

MARCIA MULLER:
A GLAMOROUS DAY IN THE LIFE OF THIS WRITER

I am awakened too early—much too early—by the dulcet sounds of the cat throwing up. It’s her signal that we should rise and feed her, but give better food than the last time. I decide to malinger, feign sleep. My husband, writer Bill Pronzini, gets up, tends to the cat, makes coffee, and fetches the newspapers. He enters the bedroom, sets coffee on my nightstand, puts his lips to my ear, and whispers, “I know what you’re doing.” I sigh and flop over onto my back. Another day has begun.

There’s been a sprinkle of rain the night before and both papers—the San Francisco Chronicle and Santa Rosa Press Democrat—are a little soggy, in spite of their plastic wrappings. We both plow through them quickly. I start to do the Sudoko puzzle, my daily guilty pleasure, but the page it too damp to write on. I grumble and check my laptop.

Lands End and L.L. Bean really love me.

Delete, delete.

I noodle with my next book a while, but then the phone rings. Another family crisis. (I won’t share these with you; you’ve probably experienced them, or will shortly.) I resolve it, and then Bill calls from below my loft/office, “I finished the book! Let’s go celebrate!”

I’m happy for him, I really am, but I’m sure wishing that this albatross (as I’ve begun to think of my book) were done.

Lunch is Mexican, served outside under a canopy of trees. The breeze stirs their leaves, making the day seem cooler. Ceviche, enchiladas, a Margarita.

Once home, I fall asleep in my big chair. (And drool.)

I miss both reruns of “The X Files”.

Feeling groggy from too much afternoon sleep (to say nothing of tequila) I go up the spiral staircase to my office. I imagine that my computer is glaring at me, but I notice that my plants need water. I go downstairs for the watering can, reminding myself that if it wasn’t for these stairs I’d probably weigh 800 pounds by now. The plants happy, I settle down to write.

The first of the political calls comes half an hour later. Then the telemarketers join in. I screen all my calls—I’d probably screen one from my long-deceased father—but the intrusion is there nevertheless. I soldier on until nine o’clock.

There’s a great aroma coming from the kitchen below. What…? Oh, yes—Bill’s signature dish—garlic bread.

Later that evening, I find Bill has taped the X Files episodes I’ve missed. We watch them. Then we go to bed (the interim of this is none of your business) and sleep well. But in the middle of the night, as so many writers do, I awake and mentally write this explanation.

A professional writer’s life is not easy, no matter how high you climb on the best seller lists. For one thing, you work for yourself, and that self is the most demanding boss you’ve ever had. I don’t know about non fiction writers, but those of us who deal in fiction are never left alone by our characters. They haunt you, they tell you what to do. There are times when I feel my detective, Sharon McCone, is sitting on my shoulder, saying, “No, not that. Do this.”

Usually she’s right. But I’m waiting for the day I’ll prove her wrong.

***
Someone Always Knows (2016): 

Fully established in their new shared offices and finally settled into their home after losing their previous house in a fire, private investigator Sharon McCone and her business partner husband Hy are starting to feel comfortable. That calm is shattered when Hy's former colleague Gage Renshaw - a shady troublemaker who they had presumed dead - reappears, and it's unclear what he wants from his prosperous former associate.

Meanwhile, Sharon has a new client with a desire to rid a derelict house he's just bought in the city's notorious Western Addition neighborhood from intruders, drug users, and thugs. However, the abandoned house holds its share of secrets, and soon Sharon is contending with more than a simple eyesore as she searches for the individual who is obsessed with destroying her life...