Rainbows for Hana: Mourning Our Cat Brought Us a Miracle by Kenneth Atchity FIVE DAY GIVEAWAY 12/12 - 12/16

When our beloved tabby flew out the window to her death, our devastation was transformed by a mysterious series of events that seemed to us like miracles.

As we landed in Los Angeles after a trip to Rome, two events occurred nearly simultaneously: my granddaughter Meggie spotted a unique and most glorious rainbow, and my wife Kayoko received a call on her cell phone from a man who found Hana on the ground, unmoving. From that moment of agony Hana reached out from across the rainbow to displace the grief in our hearts with joy. It’s a story that anyone who’s ever loved a pet will not forget.

Mother Love Interviews Dennis Walsh about Nobody Walks: Bringing My Brother's Killers to Justice

“Every once in a great while, a true crime is written that pulls at the heartstrings, while it also provides a tale of suspense that will be remembered for a good long time. This is that story.”
—Suspense Magazine

“Walsh, a criminal defense attorney for 30 years, tells the blistering true story of the 2003 murder of one of his brothers, Christopher, who was discovered in a trash barrel in a California storage locker. Despite law enforcement’s reluctance to pursue the case since the author’s father and younger brother were in prison on drug charges, Walsh shoulders the burden and delves into the nadir of the criminal underworld, quizzing thieves, skinheads, Nazi bikers, hookers, and porn queens to construct something meaningful from various lies and schemes. Good leads dead-end and seemingly ironclad confessions crumble, but the author’s resourcefulness and determination to catch his brother’s killers keep this sordid tale moving along at a quick clip. Walsh keeps his law practice operating throughout the ordeal, but still finds time to persuade reluctant witnesses to offer their testimony and cooperate with authorities; after four years of sleuthing, the trial finally begins. The hearing is a real corker, chock-full of twists and turns, and written with passion and an eye for drama. Taut and relentless, this chronicle of a former cold case puts one man’s resolve and the American idea of justice to the test.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Pulpy, engrossing account…Walsh captures the arc of his family’s involvement in an act of senseless malice, calling into question the cultural endurance of macho violence within certain subcultures and the difficulty of holding men responsible for horrific acts within the legal system’s overtaxed framework. Gritty, effective, personalized tale of the outlaw lifestyle and its consequences.”
—Kirkus Reviews

My Addiction Interviews Michael R Simpson Author of Bruises

Bruises the novel, is said to be the novel anyone should read that goes through a divorce. Read it before you near the edge of Crazyland. Michael R Simpson lays down the rules—tell-tale signs that indicate what to look out for when you’re knocking on that door —The door to Crazy land. Bruises: Divorce, Crazyland, Jui-Jitsu—the memoir’s now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. 

Michael, it’s a huge honor to host you on the M.A blog. As you might know by now, M.A strives to bring readers and writers closer together. 

As per the normal cliché at the start of most interviews, would you mind giving readers a bit more detail about yourself, your background etc?

Thank you for having me. Here is the Cliff Note version of my background:

• Born 1968 - San Luis Obispo, California;

• Dad - school principal and Mayor of Pismo Beach;

• Mother - English professor and stock broker;

• Parents divorced 1976;

• Graduated SLOHS 1986 2.6 GPA (I lied 2.5 GPA);

• Arizona State University 1986 – 1992 BSE Civil Engineering 2.5 GPA (I didn’t lie this time);

• Met girl of my dreams 1990;

• Married 1992;

• Daughter 1995;

• Licensed professional civil engineer 1997;

• Son 2000;

• MBA Arizona State University 2002-2004 3.5 GPA (swear to God!);

• Divorced the girl of my dreams 2004;

• First tour of Crazyland 2004; and

• They will have to read Bruises for the rest of the tale.

You took the leap from Engineering to writing, what made you decide to take the leap?

Warning: this is dry boring engineering dribble, the reader is advised to skip to question 3.

There actually was no leap. The cliché is that engineers do math and draft plans. But, in reality before any plans are prepared, engineers prepare reports, a lot of reports; everything from traffic impact studies, to soils reports, to environmental impact studies, grants and drainage studies.

Are you sleeping yet?

Those reports are then used by city planners, developers, and politicians to justify the project (or argue against) and those reports are used by other engineers and disciplines to complete their respective designs. A good engineer must be a good writer; they must be able to convey concepts and physical issues to other professionals and to the average concerned citizen.

What made you decide to write?

In spite of my Mom being an English professor at Cal Poly and my Dad being an elementary school principal, I hated writing in high school and in college. I spent a year trying to appease my English professors with less passive voice and more active voice. I think I got straight “C’s” in my English classes. However, I have always tried to live an adventurous life; one that is interesting; one that is worth living. And what is the point of doing something interesting if you don’t tell someone? I have always liked fact over fiction, and at the age of 45, I believed that I had amassed enough life experiences and adventures to actually have something interesting, funny, and eye-opening to say.

When did you decided to take the leap from just writing into being published?

I met this quirky, eclectic waitress at Red Lobster in 1989. We dated and then didn’t and even hitch hiked home from Mexico. We lost touch and she went on to become a TV actress and write two books. Two years ago, I read those books and sent her a note. Sometimes friends are the greatest motivators. We have been in touch ever since. She encouraged me to write a book. Her name is Lisa Cerasoli and she edited Bruises.

Bruises broaches onto the reality of break up’s, divorce and healing. It’s something I myself can’t comprehend. What exactly made you write it?

I am a bucket list kind of guy. I look out into the world and see all of the possibilities of things that can be done before I die. I pick the best, or at least what I perceive to be the best and then go do them. Writing a book was on that list. I thought about fiction—I even have a few great ideas, but as Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to the possibilities; Truth isn’t.” So, I wrote about an aspect of my life; one of those bucket list adventures that I’ve been immersed in for about a decade now. For clarity, jiu-jitsu was the bucket list item, not divorce, they just happened at about the same time.

Also, I like the idea that something exists in this world that says “Michael R. Simpson was here and this is who he was.” I mean, I’m an engineer working on hurricane Katrina recovery in New Orleans. My name and signature are on hundreds if not thousands of documents in New Orleans, but that is just my name; it tells the future world very little about me. This book conveys exactly who I am and who I was—the good, bad, funny, crude, insightful, mature, immature, all of it, the entire beautiful mess.

Every writer always gives a piece of him/herself within their story. How close to your own reality is Bruises?

Spot on.

How has the novel been received by readers thus far?

Very well, I am waiting for my Pulitzer as we speak.

 Seriously though, I really enjoy hearing about or reading that I made people laugh. And, the reviews and comments that shock me and give me a certain amount of pride are those that either compare my work to a famous writer or simply comment on the voice I used to project my tale or thoughts.

There was a guy from Chicago who came to train at NOLA BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-jitsu of New Orleans). I was out of town, but my friends at the school told him to buy the book. I never met him and he wrote a review that compared Bruises to A Confederacy of Dunces. I mean that is some cool fucking shit. Remember, I was a “C” student.

Another person got my email address and sent me a note regarding a certain part of the book (I don’t want to spoil the part) in which he said “Tears in my eyes, that’s about as good as humor gets, my compliments. I compare it to Twain’s Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offense —arguably the best very humor ever written.”

How can I not be humbled by these kinds of comparisons?

What was your initial hope for the novel?

I had set out several times to write a book and failed. So, this time I told myself I had to write 40 pages before I let anyone in on the fact that I was writing a book. I also set the goals that, no matter how bad it was, I would finish it and that I would write every day, even if it was only one word.

My initial hope was to just finish it. My second hope was that I could create something that I would be proud of. My third hope was to make enough off of it that it paid for the time I put into it. I can say that I met the first two goals.

Jiu-jitsu does come forth as a very manly sport. It’s understandable that most people lean towards something physical in the hope that it would help them focus, remain real etc when they have to deal with pain. What sets Jiu-jitsu apart from the other sports?

To answer what sets jiu-jitsu apart, I will quote Bruises:

“Before jiu-jitsu, I would go out and run and run and run, sometimes until I puked. The psychology of the running made me feel like I was running away from the problem. But when I ran, I was still thinking about my problems. There was no escape from my own mind, and when I returned from the run, the anger and sadness were still with me. Apparently I was being chased by those fuckers. Other times, I retreated to a bar for the escape. That never worked, in case anyone’s wondering.

As soon as I found jiu-jitsu, I had found a place that was not a bar. And it wasn’t a long run till I puked. This small room with a padded floor and padded walls had become many things to me: my church, my therapist, my gym. When I rolled there was no time to think about problems. When a man is trying to choke you, there is no time for running through all of the bullshit of the day. There is only one task at hand, kill or be killed. The insanity and the desperation of the six-minute round quieted my mind. I was too tired to be angry or sad, and the endorphin buzz created after rolling, whether I was killed or not, left me feeling elated. So, after two hours of mind-quieting six-minute intervals, my mind was reset like a computer that was rebooted. I would leave the gym and all of my problems and emotions seemed to stay there, like the sweat that was left on the mat and in my gi.”

Where can readers connect with you?

I set up a website michaelrsimpson.com. I have a real job, so the website is a work in progress, but I plan on blogging there several times a month.

If they want to meet me in person, I can be found on the mats of NOLA BJJ in New Orleans several times a week and sometimes on the mats of Megaton Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in Phoenix.

And of course, they can purchase the book on Amazon.

Future plans?

1. Black belt

2. Another book

3. Scuba dive Truk lagoon where Japanese WWII ships were sunk

4. Bike across the US

5. Start flying again

6. Something big and complicated

7. Live the dream

See? I’m a total bucket list guy. 

Words of wisdom to those in pain?

Go train jiu-jitsu, it has saved many people—both men and women. Life is short and this world is a giant playground. Don’t waste too much time wallowing in sadness. If the pain is divorce, well, welcome to Crazyland, get your passport stamped and get out as quickly as possible. 

Thanks so much for sharing yourself with M.A’s loyal following. We wish you well in all your future endeavours. 

Thank you so much for having me and allowing me to discuss my book.


Reposted from My Addiction

Santa Cruz News Features Nicole Sallak-Anderson's eHuman Dawn

eHuman Dawn: A Santa Cruz author’s first scifi novel hits e-bookshelves

December 5, 2013

Nicole Sallak Anderson has always loved writing, but at 18, when she was going to college, her father wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of pursuing it as a career.

Instead, she earned a degree from Purdue University and became a software engineer – a field she loved – and worked in encryption and network security software for years.
She never gave up her dream of writing though, and now she’s found a way for her two interests to intersect.

About three years ago, she woke up with an idea for a science fiction novel after a vivid dream. She wrote down some notes and when her two sons — now ages 12 and 14 — headed back to school that fall, she started writing what would become her first published novel. At first she wasn’t necessarily intent on getting it published, but the more she wrote, the more she became determined to get it out there for others to read. A writing conference in San Rafael helped her get a better handle on how to pitch an agent and she also got herself a writing coach and an editor. After pitching numerous editors, she finally got a bite.

Her book, eHuman Dawn, is now available for purchase as an e-book, and it’s just the first in what she says is a trilogy.

Deciding to go the e-book route first appealed to Nicole because she liked the immediacy and she liked the idea of not having to wait for a book to come out in print edition first. And given the topic of her novel, the medium seemed contextually appropriate.

So what’s eHuman Dawn about? Well, to put it simply, it’s about the future possibility in a post-singularity world, says Nicole.

Here’s the blurbage from the publisher:

The Great Shift is coming…. are you ready to jump?

Fast forward to the year 2242–a world in which death, disease, war and famine have been conquered, and where everything, including humans, are devices on Neuro, a complex network operating system that is controlled via human thought. Adam Winter has lived for nearly two hundred years in an eHuman body–a man of metal, fiber optics and plastic, on a world where no one dies and no one is born. Paradise on earth–until Adam discovers that the World Government is cutting power to entire cities, and his own city is on the list! 

Trapped in a body that must recharge on the network, Adam is swept up into the underworld of an eHuman anti World Government resistance, led by Dawn, the very first eHuman created. While the Resistance wages war against those in power, Dawn reveals to Adam a shocking secret about their past that not only bonds them together, but is also the Resistance’s ticket to gaining control over Neuro and taking down the World Government once and for all. Caught between the past and the future, Adam must rise up, claim his inheritance, and face his destiny– before eHumanity is powered down, forever. 

Essentially, the story is set in a world where we no longer have humans in the way we now think of that term. Instead we have non-carbon humanoid forms, aka “eHumans,” who lack flesh and must be recharged like an electronic appliance. Memories and thoughts are produced and controlled by software and other programs provided by one overarching network.

Protagonist Adam Winter is approached by a member of the resistance, a group of eHumans who come together and determine they don’t want their thoughts, desires and wants to be controlled by this network any longer.  Winter, a journalist, becomes intricately involved with the movement and with Dawn, the first eHuman ever created and the woman who initially approaches him.
The book explores the role of emotions and sex in a world where technology is the leading power, but it isn’t a romance novel per se. The romance is there, Nicole says, but it’s balanced with discussions of science and technology and its role in our lives.

Nicole says she had started thinking a lot about our connections to technology and our attachment to the electronic devices we’ve come to rely on. What would happen, she wondered, if we became the devices ourselves – providing us with a sense of immortality but also subjecting us to the limitations of technology? The intersections of technology and human consciousness are something she contemplates often.

“I’ve just always had a fascination with the technology and the mind – as well as the body and feelings, and the concepts of how the body works,” she says.
She also adds something that’s largely missing from the science fiction and technology world – a female voice.

eHuman Dawn is currently available on Amazon and it it might make a great gift for your science-fiction loving and eReader-owning friends and family, hint hint.

Be sure to check out her Facebook page, blog and Twitter feeds too, where she actively writes and interacts about many of the same topics she focuses on in her novel. And don’t worry – she’s already got most of the sequel written.

Reposted From Santa Cruz News

Angie's Diary Reviews The Messiah Matrix

A matrix is defined as “ A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained.”

Within the pages of this intricate novel we learn about the origins of situations in the past the have reflected themselves in the present as the author takes us back in time to 70A.D. when Flavius Josephus the Historian decided to add 100 words that would change the course of history and the perspective on the existence of one man who was and still is crucial to the Church and Christianity, Christ. Did he really exist? Why is that so many scholars, writers never make mention to actually seeing Jesus in person.

The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity The Messiah MatrixThose investigating this issue found one physical reference in a document titled: Testimonium Flavianum added to an edition of his book: Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, where he makes mention of his existence. Antiquities 18.3.3. “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.”

According to history Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to his death. Some who became his disciples did not abandon him. Some reported that he appeared three days after he was crucified and he was the Messiah.  But, our novel begins with the murder of a Monsignor authorized we are told by the Holy Mother Church as related by his killer who seeks redemption from Father Ryan and absolution for his sins. But, no sooner does the young Priest begin speaking to him in the Confessional, this man runs out of the church and finds himself the next victim. Why was he sent? Why would the Holy Mother Church order the death of this great man and what do the final words of the killer mean?

Diving in the ancient Harbor in Israel, Emily, an archeologist and her team are diving below the surface and encounter some rough waters. Hidden below the surface in a boat that has been there for many years is a treasure that will change the course of many lives and endanger those that found it. Two of her student divers remain below the surface during this dangerous storm causing Emily to have to find out their fate. Diving, searching and finally learning the reason why their rise to the surface was delayed she decides to complete what they started. Beneath and stuck in a krater was a gold coin.

But, not just any gold coin one that was enveloped in bronze by its first owner who left it there thinking he might return for it at a later date but never did. “The Augustan Aureus: never released, was sitting in the palm of her hands.” The author vividly describes the coin: the figure portrayed is wearing a crown that appears to look like thorns. His face has a beard and the thorns look like a halo of spikes differing from the coin depicted on the cover of this book. Within the coin the creator inscribed: Chi and Rho, Greek Letters. The discussion was exciting and heated between Emily and her two students as the history behind the coin is revealed, their excitement palpable and the need to protect the coin noted. Meeting a man named Luke who Emily feels might provide more answers and perhaps funding for her team to continue their research in this field.

Father Ryan relates his meeting with our late Monsignor and the fact he too was in search of answers regarding Christ and his existence. Throughout Chapter 10 he relates what he learned about the man, the many scholars who published documents back then but never mentioned seeing Jesus in person and determining how to handle the fact that the killer, an Albanian man died in his arms and whether he should report it. The chapter relates information about Herod, the slaughter of male infants and the rumor of a royal birth. It continues with his meetings with the Monsignor, his lifestyle and wondering what he might have found in the Sibyl’s cave that got him killed.

Three separate plots: two murders, a coin that could change it all and a Priest that wants to find the connection between the death of the clergyman and the secret he might have buried with him. The Messiah Matrix will hopefully answer this question, leave readers asking more of their own and hopefully enlighten everyone about the research and the history related to Jesus and his existence.

Getting to understand Father Ryan we learn just what a threat he seems to be to the Vatican when summoned to the office of the Procurator General of the Society of Jesus and we hear his tone, his threats to Ryan and the end result in being attacked, entombed when looking at the sarcophagus of St. Paul and then bumping into Emily and finding out it is the Bishop and many attached to the Jesuits that are involved. Followed, shot at, attacked and learning the name of the bishop behind it all is not even the tip of the iceberg for these two when they team up to find out what caused someone kill Oscar Isaac their beloved Monsignor. The book is replete in history and the Monsignor found a link between Jesus and Augustus, which is explained in detail.

Next, the cameo of the Emperor Augustus with a crown and holding the royal Roman Scepter carved they think during the time Christ was depicted on the center of the holy cross. This cameo was said to mean that the emperor was the “earthly representative of the almighty power of God.” He was also hoping to find the coin that Emily recovered and he thought his research important for the “origins of Christianity,” dangerous to the church and the Vatican. Finding the coin that was so valuable and the events that followed alerted Ryan to why he had to fear Pimental the Procurator. But, there is much more as the man who cleaned the coin, translated the words for the one person she thought she could trust but not only stole it from her but intended to capitalize on it, realized that on the coin in Greek were the words: God and son of god embossed across from the name: Jasius Augustus.

As you read this novel many different viewpoints come to light regarding Jesus as the Son of God and the Roman Emperor Augustus thought to be the real Son of God according to the Monsignor’s research. If this is true and he is said to be  son of god then the Christian Savior should be considered even more a Son of God which explains the tension that mounts within this novel between the Christian church, the Jesuits and the conflict that Father Ryan and Emily face as they come in contact with those that are behind the events that almost took their lives and did take the lives of three others. The Antiquities of the Jews and the crown that was worn by Apollo and the evidence found in the cave and presented to them will give every reader pause for thought, reason to do the research into what is presented themselves and make your own final decision. The cult of Augustus was “reinstated by Constantine,” and revived in the present. In other words Augustus had “designated a dozen of his pontiffs as August ales, to spread the rubrics of his cult throughout the empire.” In reality what Emily and the Monsignor uncovered is from what is depicted on her coin: the bearded image of Augustus wearing the Crown of Thorns- standing for the golden spiked one worn by Apollo. In reality when they asses what they have found, rendered all of the information in the files found in the catacombs and more the end result is that Isaac surmised that : Jesus was Augustus and Ryan has been asked to continue on with his work called the Messiah Matrix.

Was Jesus a real person? From the research presented within this novel the author relates that Augustus founded Christianity. The story created by Pimental and the Bishop would change the course of history. Stating that the imperial cult of Augustus Caesar was Christianity in itself. As we hear Pimental and Emily speak and the research of the Monsignor revealed we learn what others believe to be the truth: that Jesus Christ was “ simply the imperial cult name for the deified Caesar Augustus and the Church Fathers would later spin the manufactured mythology to create a literal biblical Jesus.” When the truth as they tell it unfolds the answers reflect that a mythology emerged into religious power and housed itself with the guardians and those who related the what they thought the real version of religion. Temptations rise, lives are placed in danger as Emily and Ryan face the challenge of their lives but first they have to escape what has been planned for them by those that appear to want them to submit to their will. A final scene will make readers hold their breath as Emily and Ryan are sent head first into a boiling underground river and hope to emerge unscathed.

Characters that are quite interesting and a storyline you will have decide for yourself whether you believe or not. As you read the final chapters and hear the voices from the past of the Emperors, Virgil as he is honored and allowed to sit with the Emperor. What is truth and what did they decide to recreate and change you will have to read and hear the voices of Virgil, Augustus and those in attendance to find out. Creating a cult, which would unify the people of the empire and bring peace. A document or book that would relate the facts and events the way they had conceived them making one man the true God in the eyes of the people. When Ryan and Emily present their findings and you read the last chapter and the chart they created of the events from start to finish, you the reader will decide: Was the real Jesus the one born in a manger or was Jesus: Jesus Augustus? You decide after reading this outstanding novel whose research and an ending that will bring it all full circle.

Reposted from Angie's Diary

Watch This Great Interview With Dream Expert Gayle Delaney

Dream expert on analyzing nightmares: Dream expert Dr. Gayle Delaney talks about analyzing nightmares.

 

Available on Amazon

Story Merchant Books Launches Nicole Sallak Anderson's eHuman Dawn

eHumans join forces against the World Government in an effort to save the cities of Neuro before eHumanity is powered down.

---

The Great Shift is coming.... are you ready to jump?

Fast forward to the year 2242--a world in which death, disease, war and famine have been conquered, and where everything, including humans, are devices on Neuro, a complex network operating system that is controlled via human thought. Adam Winter has lived for nearly two hundred years in an eHuman body--a man of metal, fiber optics and plastic, on a world where no one dies and no one is born. Paradise on earth--until Adam discovers that the World Government is cutting power to entire cities, and his own city is on the list!

Trapped in a body that must recharge on the network, Adam is swept up into the underworld of an eHuman anti World Government resistance, led by Dawn, the very first eHuman created. While the Resistance wages war against those in power, Dawn reveals to Adam a shocking secret about their past that not only bonds them together, but is also the Resistance’s ticket to gaining control over Neuro and taking down the World Government once and for all. Caught between the past and the future, Adam must rise up, claim his inheritance, and face his destiny-- before eHumanity is powered down, forever.


Nicole Sallak Anderson is a Computer Science graduate from Purdue University. She developed encryption and network security software for years, which inspired both the storyline and the science behind eHuman Dawning. She currently lives with her husband and two teenaged sons on two acres in the Santa Cruz mountains of Northern California, where she indulges in a variety of homesteading hobbies, from beekeeping and raising chickens and goats, to gardening, canning, spinning, and knitting.

Guest Post: In Praise of Traditional Publishing by Dianna Dorisi Winget

It's incredible how popular self-publishing has become. So popular in fact, that the last several authors featured in my hometown of Sandpoint, Idaho, have all self-published their books. I can't help wondering why so many are choosing this route.

While I understand self-publishing may be the perfect choice for some writers, it bothers me to think they may be choosing this option simply because they feel there are no alternatives.

Maybe they've been told their chance of being traditionally published is one in a million, or that it's just too hard. So why bother? Well, I'm here to show you the other side of the equation. To assure you that being traditionally published IS an option, and to share a few of the many advantages.

Everyday, all year, agents are being found, editors are accepting manuscripts, and deals—many involving debut authors—are being made.

So what's required?

A measure of talent, the willingness to work on your craft until your writing is truly of publishable quality, and then an enormous dose of perseverance.

I'm not going to delve into the craft of writing in this post, because there's an abundance of information in print and online. However, if you're not willing to bring your work up to the highest quality possible, you shouldn't be publishing, period.

What I can tell you about is perseverance. It took eight years to find the right agent and sign a deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for my debut children's novel, A Smidgen of Sky. (Nov. 2012) So was all the work worth it? Absolutely!

The biggest benefit of being traditionally published is that the publishing house will pay YOU for your book, instead of you paying to have it published. An advance often involves several thousand dollars even if you are a debut, or first time author. Though most marketing and publicity efforts fall on the author nowadays, reputable publishing houses carry a lot of clout. They will support you in many ways.

A good editor will offer revision notes, proof read, fact check, copy edit, line edit, and do countless other things to elevate your book from good to great. He or she will also guide, direct, and champion you as one of their authors. The old adage about being overworked and underpaid surely fits most editors, and a good one is a true friend and ally not to be taken for granted.

How do you find an editor like that? Your chances go up exponentially if you have an agent to help you. But wait, you say, do I really need an agent? Not in every case. There are still some publishing houses, especially small ones, which accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nevertheless, more and more are closing their doors to all but agented submissions.

Frankly, there are so many advantages to having an agent I'm not sure why anyone would want to go it alone. Here are just a few:


1. Agents stay on top of the constantly changing publishing industry.

2. They know what individual editors like and are searching for.

3. Agents keep your manuscript out of the infamous slush pile and get it read much faster.

4. They believe in your work and "get" what you're trying to say.

5. They offer encouragement when you feel like giving up.

6. They negotiate the best contract, usually a significant improvement over the boilerplate contract offered to a writer without representation.

It's hard to describe the enormous satisfaction that comes from being able to say, "I did it. Someone considered my work good enough to pay me for it." So before automatically deciding to self-publish, at least give some serious thought to being traditionally published. And don't let anyone tell you your chances are one in a million—the odds are far better than that!




About the Author:Dianna Winget writes both fiction and non-fiction for young readers. Her debut novel, A Smidgen of Sky, revolves around ten year old Piper Lee DeLuna, a young girl struggling with the idea of her mother’s remarriage, and is loosely based on Dianna’s own experiences with the challenges of step-family life. The book was chosen as an IndieBound Fall 2012 ABC New Voices Pick. When she’s not reading or writing, Dianna enjoys working in her garden, taking long walks, and playing with her two canine buddies. She lives with her husband and daughter in the beautiful mountains of North Idaho.

Kirkus Reviews Praise for Story Merchant Client Robin Johns Grant's Debut Novel Summer's Winter

In Grant’s debut novel, a young woman’s fascination with a Hollywood star affects her life in ways she never could have imagined.

For years, 21-year-old Jeanine DeValery has been in love with Danny Summer, a character from a book series, played in a series of films by movie star Jamie Newkirk. Jeanine, in her adolescent confusion, believes that God promised her that the actor—or the character he played—would change her ordinary Georgia life into something more romantic. When the author of the book series dies in a mysterious fire, Jeanine grieves but continues to believe in her destiny. Soon, her dream seems to be coming true, as Jeanine’s adored actor enters her life for real and seems to be falling for her. At the same time, she finds out about plans to restart the film series. But things aren’t as romantic and perfect as she had imagined: Jamie’s former girlfriend suspiciously dies, in the same house in which his mother apparently committed suicide two years before. Both women had similarly shaped burn marks on their skin. Jeanine soon finds out a host of strange things about the people involved in the film series, uncovering other mysterious deaths and battles over money and power. She also finds out that Jamie is keeping secrets about his family—but even after he’s arrested, Jeanine dedicates herself to proving his innocence. This complex story is told in lush, heated prose (“Heaven is as tangible as the taste of a juicy peach on a hot day, as easy and close as stepping out the school door and into another world at recess”), with a clear underpinning of Christian ethics (“Not once in the sleazy motel parking lot had [Jeanine] thought about what God wanted her to do”). Readers drawn to Christian fiction will find much to keep them turning pages. For secular readers, however, some of the story’s coincidences may be a bit difficult to believe.

A passionate, well-wrought mystery by a Christian novelist to watch.


Reposted from Kirkus Reviews

Guest Post: Working with the (former) Kennedy Secret Service

by Penny C. Sansevieri,

Some years back I had the great pleasure of working with two former Kennedy Secret Service Agents. It was quite amazing really.

In recent days I’ve been seeing Clint Hill everywhere and have been reminded of my time marketing The Kennedy Detail as well as getting to know Clint. He’s a pretty remarkable human and it was incredible to meet him, spend time with him and hear his account of history first hand.

 I ran this blog post three years ago, right after the campaign for The Kennedy Detail ended and I thought, given the 50 year anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, that it might be interesting to post it again.

few weeks ago I was lucky enough to help our clients, the authors of The Kennedy Detail, host a book signing here in San Diego. We had it at Warwick’s books, and it was fantastic. Author Jerry Blaine was accompanied by Clint Hill. He’s the guy you see jumping on the back of Kennedy’s car after the President was shot. He threw himself over JFK and Jackie as they sped to the hospital. Every time he retold that story, I felt like I was there. Hearing the gunshot, and reliving the moment that none of us will ever forget.

Clint Hill was, understandably, affected by this incident in such a way that for years, he never even spoke about it. In fact, after that infamous “60 Minutes” interview, in which he broke down, he wasn’t seen much again for 35 years – until The Kennedy Detail was released. Throughout the promotion, I wondered how this would affect him. Talking about “that day” over and over again, I couldn’t imagine how he was dealing with it.
Our San Diego event was towards the end of a fairly extensive book tour and I asked his co-author, “How’s Clint holding up…?” Clint later answered that question himself when he told the crowd, “Talking about this day over and over again has healed me in ways that time and years never could.”

Every once in a while, we are blessed to work on campaigns that remind us why we do what we do. Yes, the book was very successful and that’s great. But moreover, it touched people and it told a story. In the end, that’s what this is all about. At the Warwick’s event, a young girl walked up to Clint to tell him that she was writing a paper on the Kennedy assassination and wanted to know if she could quote him. She was 11 years old. She’d never know what the country went through on that fateful day in November, some 30-odd years before she was born. But through the stories, the book, and these brave Secret Service men, that snapshot in history can be shared again and again. In a way, they reminded us of a time when Camelot reigned and the country was still innocent. They reminded us of easier times and simpler days.

Was it ever that easy again? It’s hard to know. Maybe hindsight is 20/20, or maybe when that shot rang out, it really was the shot heard around the world. Nothing was ever the same. After a few years of a sliding economy, high unemployment, and a collapsing housing market, the country is yearning for the days of Camelot; and for a brief evening, these men told stories of working for the Kennedys. Playing touch football with John, Jr, watching out for Caroline, and revealing what a closet chain smoker Jackie was. The audience laughed, cried, and a few conspiracy theorists even shared their thoughts on “who really killed Kennedy.”

As I drove home after Warwick’s, I was reminded again why we’re in this industry: to tell stories. At the end of the day, that’s really all we can do. Help people tell stories. That’s really our job. Often we get wound up in success. What is success? Book sales? A bestseller? An interview on “Oprah?” Well, yes, it’s all those things. But in the absence of those trappings that we hope will accompany our book launches we must remember this: in the end, we are here to tell stories. And hopefully we can enlighten, entertain, help or, in Clint’s case, heal 47 years of pain. Because if we are lucky enough to touch a soul and share a smile, that’s bigger than any number a royalty check can offer.

Reposted from Author Marketing Experts, Inc.

Guest Post: Why We Still Talk About JFK

Peggy Noonan's Blog

I am on my way from Los Angeles to Dallas, where tomorrow I will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” which will come live out of the Texas Schoolbook Depository. I can’t believe I’ll be inside that place, from which, 50 years ago next week, at a corner window on the sixth floor, Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed John F. Kennedy.

One of the questions we’ll discuss: Why do we still talk about JFK?

From my show notes:

1. We talk still about JFK and his death because the biggest generation in all U.S. history, that part of the population known as the baby boomers, watched it all, live, on that new thing called TV, and it entered our heads and never left. It was the first central historical fact of our lives, so we still read about it, think about it, and watch anything having to do with it.

2. Our parents experienced it as a different kind of trauma. They had lost one of their own. He had fought in World War II, like them. He was still young, like them, and now he was brutally cut down. What a lot of them felt was captured in the famous conversation of the newspaper columnist Mary McGrory and her friend Pat Moynihan. McGrory said: Oh Pat, can you believe we’re at Jack Kennedy’s funeral? “I feel like we’ll never laugh again.” He replied: “We’ll laugh again, but we’ll never be young again.”

3. We talk about JFK’s death because for the 18 years leading up to that point—between the end of the war, as we used to say, and 1963—America knew placidity. Many problems were growing and quietly brewing, but on the surface America was placid, growing more affluent, and politically calm. And then this rupture, this shock, this violence, this new sense that anything can happen, history can be ripped from its rails, that security once won cannot necessarily be maintained. That our luck won’t necessarily hold.

4. And what followed—growing political unrest, cultural spasms, riots at political conventions, more assassinations and assassination attempts—was so different from the years preceding that we couldn’t help look back at JFK’s murder as the breakpoint, the rupture. After that, things turned difficult.

5. Why, after all the historians’ revelations and the stories of the past 30 years—the women, the drug use, the Kennedy White House’s own farfetched efforts to do away with Fidel Castro, the fantastical nature of the Bay of Pigs, the failure of JFK to anticipate and answer the crude communist clichés of Kruschev at Vienna, etc., etc.—why do we continue to hold this special place for JFK? Because in the months and years after his death we fell in love with him as he was presented to us by those who knew and cared about him. Youth, beauty, charm, high intentions, wit, a certain fatalism and, deep down, a certain modesty. “Camelot.” But Camelot isn’t JFK. Camelot is the way we remember America before JFK died. Camelot is the America that existed, for one brief shining moment, before Lee Harvey Oswald began to shoot. a placid-seeming, even predictable place that we have not seen since.

6. We live in now. We live in this world. Right now I can hardly believe it that I am in seat 6B of American Airlines flight 2442, LAX to Dallas-Fort Worth, a few hundred miles east of Los Angeles, mountains and desert stretching below—and I am typing on an iPad, and will press a button, and my editor in New York in just a few seconds will read this and post it on The Wall Street Journal website and you will read it. It still takes my breath away. This is “the age of miracles and wonders.” Some child born now will look back on these days as Camelot. 

Reposted from The Wall Street Journal

Cuba News Reviews George J. Fowler's My Cuba Libre: Bring Fidel Castro to Justice

Verse in Arabic Review

ENCOUNTER WITH A MASTER STORYTELLER

By Kenneth Atchity "Messiah Fan"
   

This review is from: Verse in Arabic (Paperback)
 

It's been a few years since I was as delighted with a book--I think it was SHADOW OF THE WIND--that I couldn't put down. So masterful is Rasine's narrative that she guides you through the dauntingly undramatic occasion of an interview as though it were riveting drama because the mystery and intrigue are manufactured by sheer brilliance of style and sensitivity as though you were reading the best of Jorge Luis Borges. "A story should never end the conversation it starts," as she herself puts it in the afterword. By not providing an explanation for the metaphor that shapes the story she insinuates it deep into our consciousness so that we walk away as haunted by the story as she was haunted by the inciting incident that gave rise to it. I truly can't wait to read more from this provocative author whose poetically authoritative voice is worthy of the highest echelons of literature. Bravo!

Michael Avallone's The Fat Death, An Ed Noon Mystery New Story Merchant eBook

For David Prill Avallone
who is full of life

The Cast of Characters

…. according to their wearing apparel

ED NOON          Brooks Brothers

ALBERTA CARSTAIRS          Gloria, Inc.

HUGO ORLANDO          A. Sulka

JOHN FREELING          Browning King

MELISSA MERCER          Ohrbach’s

THE SLIM SAVIOUR          A Bespoke Tailor

CAPTAIN MONKS          S. Klein

DONNA MARIE TORRONE          Dior

SANDERSON, JAMES T.          Howard Clothes

R. ROBERT ROBERTS          Savile Row

MAX FINE          Simon Ackerman

CLARA          Henry Rosenfeld

…. and some of them wind up in shrouds

Prologue to Murder

When The Fat Death hit New York, lots of things had already happened to grip the public’s interest. Johnson had finally got tough about civil rights down South, a rapist killer had gone berserk in one ten-block section of Manhattan and a Convair airliner out of La Guardia had ploughed up a residential street in Queens. So it took plenty for The Fat Death to catch on, hold on and keep on holding. It wasn’t easy. But The Fat Death was handled by experts.

The first indication that a giant was walking among us was the leaflet invasion. One shining fall day, the skies over Manhattan rained a million leaflets. No one knows who was the first person to see the message on the square, orange streamers. But after that first one, all of New York that was out walking or leaning out of windows got the message.

It was pure Barnum hokum. Grandstand technique applied to mass saturation. Madison Avenue with wings on. And it worked. God, how it worked. Like babies cried for milk, like tigers need taming, the obese and the overweight of the city, cried for the pie in the sky.

Nobody saw the plane that dropped the leaflets. The Air Patrol had been caught napping. The Civil Defence, worrying about atomic attacks, couldn’t do a damn thing about one small plane unloading a ton of propaganda for a smart operator. Or operators:

BEWARE THE FAT DEATH

DON’T EAT YOURSELF INTO THE GRAVEYARD

WATCH FOR THE SLIM SAVIOUR

Nothing happened for a whole week. The leaflet air-raid was a four-day sensation. The wire services and network news organisations tried to track the thing down. Walter Cronkite said, “This is how it was …” and Douglas Edwards tried to level the monster with humour. But no one came forth; nobody made their purpose known. There was no follow-up to BEWARE THE FAT DEATH. No Slim Saviour came forth to capitalise on the cutest publicity stunt in decades. It was as if Heaven had opened up to deliver a message to the Earth and then forgot about it. But in all the houses on the island of Manhattan, stretching into the home-from-work kitchens of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Outer Suburbia, the message was repeated. As a joke, as a curiosity, as a come-on for some secret movie about to open with a big campaign to invoke the public interest.

I found a leaflet on the windowsill at my office on West 46th. Fluttered safe between the sash and the top of the air conditioner. But I would have heard about it one way or another. Everybody knew about The Fat Death in New York that week.

Somewhere in the middle of all the commotion, I received a telephone call from a Miss Carstairs of Gloria, Inc., one of the most fashionable dress houses in town. No matter how interesting and bizarre The Fat Death business was, I still earn my coffee and cake as a confidential investigator.

Private Eyes according to Television. Private Detectives according to truth.

Still, as I took a cab downtown that bright October morning, The Fat Death was something to think about.

Like the scared dames in those rich old mansions always say — had I but known.

Still, there’s no sense in kidding myself. Being the kind of restless clown I am, I suppose I would have gone anyway.

I always was a sucker for a mystery.

The Fashion in Flim-Flam

“You may go right in, Mr. Noon. Miss Carstairs will see you now.”

The unreal receptionist behind the glass-topped desk at Gloria, Inc. looked like a movie star. Her smile was porcelain perfection, her beehive a topless tower, her eyes artfully tilted with mascara. In spite of her million dollar front, she was a flunky. The type turned out on finishing school and charm school assembly lines. Nothing she had was what she had been born with.

I twirled my borsalino hat, smiled and moved through the golden door her lacquered fingernails indicated. Gloria, Inc. had a lot of golden doors. High, wide and beautiful. The word handsome just didn’t fit a Broadway layout aimed directly at rich miladies clawing to wear the latest in dress fashions.

Miss Carstairs’ office seduced me. Colour without real names; hues and shades which would take seventeen kinds of paint to produce, invited a visitor to sit down and dream orgies. A square, low, golden desk looked lonesome on a wasteland of parquet flooring. There were purplish drapes on the sheer glass windows overlooking Broadway and 39th.

There was also a woman behind the desk. A golden woman to match the decor. She didn’t get up when I walked in.

“Thank you for being prompt. I appreciate punctuality.”

I nodded, waiting for her to ask me to sit down. I was looking while I waited. What the receptionist was copying from Hollywood blueprints, Miss Carstairs had by natural design. They had broken the mould to make her.

“Oh, do sit down. The butterfly is comfortable.”

The butterfly was. I hung on to my hat and crossed my legs. You always do in butterfly chairs.

“Miss Carstairs,” I said. “I hope you haven’t been misled by my business card.”

Violet eyes frowned beneath a smooth forehead capped by a waterfall of gleaming honey. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, I handle all sorts of private investigations but you intimated on the telephone this morning that the work had something to do with Gloria, Inc. It’s only fair to tell you, skip tracing is out of my line.”

A complexion that didn’t come out of a bottle dimpled faintly.

“Good Lord, what an idea. Are you aware of how exclusive our patrons are?” Her eyes narrowed. “You had no qualms about the fee I mentioned.”

I shrugged. “Who would? Five hundred dollars for one day’s work is not alfalfa, hay or peanuts. But I’m ready to hear your offer.”

She sat back in her chair. Miss Carstairs’ face was something out of the four-colour advertising section of the Sunday Times. But it was really her nose that got me. It was ruler straight with the barest pinch of reality in the nostrils. The one touch of irregularity in all her perfection that made her surpassingly female. Like Gene Tierney’s buck teeth.

“I see.” She sounded annoyed.

“Do you? Fine. So please tell me what an outfit like this needs a private detective for?”

She sighed. I lost interest in her nose and concentrated on the swell graduating from the base of her throat. She was a great argument for open neck dresses.

“Mr. Noon, are you familiar with the fashion business at all? Perhaps if you understood the amount of money and scheming that go into a dress line you would appreciate the pitfalls and dangers that come with the operation.”

“I’m willing to learn,” I suggested. I liked the way her voice caressed my short name.

Her smile was so faint I almost missed it.

“All right. We have such occupational hazards. Something’s come up that warrants a man like you.”

“I have heard somewhere in my travels, Miss Carstairs, how you folks have to protect your designs from falling into the competition’s hands —” I let it trail off, wanting her to spell it out.

“Exactly.” She sounded a little relieved I wasn’t an immigrant. “Then you will know what I mean when I say that next week, the fifteenth to be precise, Gloria is presenting its Winter Line.”

“Where?”

“In our showroom. There will be buyers from all over the country on hand to make selections.”

“So?”

“We feel we have something that may revolutionise the field. The programme has cost a fortune but we may inaugurate a trend in women’s wear that will sweep the nation. So our experts tell us.”

“So?”

She controlled her annoyance with my talky answers by toying with a long golden ballpoint pen between her slender figures. But the nice nostrils fumed and the golden flesh of her bosom rose slightly.

“We keep our designs in a bank vault. They have to be protected at all costs. A leak of the material would ruin Gloria. Do we understand each other on that score?”

“We do. Go on.”

She nodded briskly. “Only two people have access to that vault. Myself and Hugo Orlando. Orlando is the designer. His designs can just not be seen by anyone until the Show. You have already indicated you understand that much at least. Surprise, novelty and the newness and daring of revolutionary design is all the advantage one wants. Anyone. Therefore, if the designs were stolen and duplicated by another company, it could ruin us —”

I took out my cigarettes. “Stop stalling, Miss Carstairs.”

“I beg your pardon?” shot out of her again. Her voice was no less exquisite than the rest of her. Bright, shining and polished.

“You’re a chooser not a beggar, Miss Carstairs. Will you please get to the point? You’ve been trying to be polite since I walked in here but it isn’t necessary. Say what you want to say.”

Sudden rage made her beauty vulnerable. Her red mouth showed some white teeth. “What do you mean by that?”

I smiled and showed her my teeth. “Have the designs been stolen?”

“Of course not.”

“You have your own Security People? Special Guards and stuff like that?”

“Yes, but —”

“And the show is next week and the designs are in the vault and only you and this Orlando have the key?”

“This is ridiculous,” she snapped. “Now what are you driving at, Mr. Noon?”

“The simple truth, Miss Carstairs. Why don’t you just tell me that you want to check on Orlando — have him followed or something — and stop beating around the designs? Don’t be embarrassed. You’d be surprised how many business people have their colleagues-investigated.”

“Really!” That was the last shot out of her. She dropped the golden ball point pen on the desk and pyramided her tapering fingers. Her eyebrows arched.

“Was I that obvious?” she asked in a low voice. “I don’t mean to be disloyal to Hugo but —”

I blew a small smoke ring. “Why don’t you just tell me what he’s been up to that has you imagining all sorts of terrible things?”

She smiled wanly. “Are you always so direct, Mr. Noon? That technique would get you nowhere in this business. You have to learn how to lead up to your point.”

“Forget about me. What about Hugo?”

“Talking to you has made me feel slightly foolish. It may mean nothing at all but this show means so much to Gloria, Inc.”

“Just tell me what you suspect, huh?”

She sighed. “Yesterday I went to Cartier’s to price a ring. While I was waiting for a cab on Fifth Avenue to come back here, I spied Hugo on the other side of the street. He was with someone I had rather not have seen him with.”

“The competition?”

“Exactly. John Freeling of Freeling’s. They’re our biggest competitor. It may have been merely social. It’s a free country, of course, and Hugo may talk to whomever he likes but seeing him with Freeling a mere five days before the Show upset me. It’s like — well —”

“Macy’s telling Gimbels?”

That made her laugh. A low, polite chuckle. “Quite. I may be being foolish, as I say but I owe it to Gloria to cover every possibility of trouble. You understand?”

“Perfectly. What do you want me to do?”

“Check on Hugo.” Now that she had committed herself, she was as briskly efficient as though she were ordering sample swatches. “Between now and the Show. Or until you prove something I could confront him with. I haven’t the nerve to tell him I saw him with John Freeling.”

“Why not?”

She shuddered. “You don’t know these passionate Latins. He’s as gentle as a baby or as violent as a thunderstorm. Moody, talented, perverse. I just couldn’t. Not without proof of some kind.”

I walked over to her desk to put out my cigarette. I stared down the front of her dress. Everything about Miss Carstairs was real. “Young guy?”

Her eyes looked surprised. “Why, yes. They all are now you know. Dior turned them out in droves after the war. St. Laurents, Le Maine, Beauchamp — Hugo can’t be more than twenty-nine.”

“How does he feel about you or more importantly, how do you feel about him?”

Miss Carstairs stood up behind the desk. What her face and neckline had promised, the rest of her delivered. Her hips tapered smartly and sexually in a powder-blue chiffon something or other.

“I’m sure these questions are necessary though I’m not quite sure why. But I asked you to come here so I’ll put up with your bluntness. Hugo Orlando eats women alive. All weights, all shapes, all sizes. He’s God’s gift to women. Black wavy hair, perfect teeth and a body like an Olympic athlete. Fortunately, we are merely business associates. I like him but he is not my cup of tea. Nor did I make the mistake of falling in love with him. A woman would go crazy with jealousy if she really cared for him. Understood?”

“Understood.” We were checking each other back like invoices. I looked into the violet eyes. “You’ll have to point him out to me and I’ll take it from there —”

The golden door behind me suddenly clicked open. I turned easily. Miss Carstairs lost some of her executive stability. I could see she wasn’t going to have to finger Hugo Orlando for me. He came as advertised. He was standing in the doorway with loads of charm spilling from a pure Roman face, replete with bronze, dimples and dreamy eyes. With a slight bow of door-wide shoulders encased in Ivy League-Continental charcoal grey, he began a Pinza-loaded apology.

“Oh. I am so sorry. I did not know. Forgive me. Alberta, I come back later —”

“Come in, Hugo. Come in. We’re all through here. Mr. Noon, meet our Mr. Orlando. Hugo, Mr. Noon is with Sloane-Regis. Guests of our Show next week —”

She handled the lie so easily, Hugo Orlando and I briefly nodded to each other in passing. Our eyes met, found nothing, and Hugo Orlando swept by me in to the office. I said a meaningless good-bye to Miss Carstairs, promised to keep in touch and closed the door behind me. I had two fast impressions before I cleared out.

Hugo Orlando was very worried about something. His hands were anchored into the pistol pockets of his grey trousers, throwing back the tails of his form-fitting jacket. Also, Miss Carstairs — forgive me, Alberta — was the jealous type.

I walked past the unreal receptionist at the desk and found another golden door leading out. I had to plan my campaign for Hugo Orlando, kicking myself for not grabbing a retainer from Miss Alberta Carstairs first crack out of the box.

There was a coffee shop on the ground floor of 1407 Broadway. I took a booth, ordered lunch, and mulled over some notions. I had a couple but they could wait until I fed the inner man.

The outer man was the one who was going to have to act like a detective for the next couple of days.

Nothing unusual happened in the coffee shop except that it was my day for meeting new people. I had just finished my last coffee and was reaching for my cigarettes when I felt a sudden weight against my shoe. The next thing I knew was a stream of Italian invective close to my ear. The dame who had nearly stumbled across my ankle foolishly poked into the aisle was fuming attractively above me. She must have been in a hurry. I’m sure she had lots more to tell me. In a flashing glance, I saw an amazingly shapely, pint-sized female with startling dark eyes and a bust right out of Vesuvius. A butch haircut flounced angrily at me before its owner flounced off, disappearing behind me towards the booths at the rear. I never did have time to see what she was wearing, let alone apologise.

“Bestia!” she hissed, the frost of the word settling over my defenceless head before she was gone. A powerful aroma of exotic perfumes went with the chill, charging my nostrils with tingling memories.

She was gone before I could even make a snappy comeback. All men are animals but they don’t like to be called one. Not to their faces, at any rate.

I forgot all about her and got on with my thinking about Miss Carstairs and the new assignment.

Dear Miss Alberta Carstairs. Even though the price was right, she very easily brought out the beast in me. Something about those pinched nostrils and that icy reserve.

But all of this, of course, was before The Fat Death threw a shroud over my private affairs.

Does She or Doesn’t She

After lunch, which was uninspiring, I phoned Gloria, Inc. from a phone booth in the coffee shop. I was connected with the brittle voice of the unreal receptionist.

She sounded even phonier, courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell. But she got Miss Carstairs on the wire for me.

“Mr. Noon? I’m glad you called back —”

“So am I,” I admitted. “Look. I forgot to get my retainer from you. By the way, I take it Rudolph Valentino left again?”

“Oh — Hugo? Yes. He’s in the Showroom.”

“Good. I’ll tell you where to mail the cheque. And while you’re taking notes, you might give me his home address. And yours. I think I shouldn’t come to the office again. I can scout around the rest of the afternoon and see you tonight.”

She thought about that for a second. “Yes. I agree. Now that Hugo has seen you. Go ahead. I have my datebook before me.”

I pictured that unforgettable face and those long fingers curled around the golden ball point pen. We talked no longer than was necessary. She found out where I slept and I learned that she called Sutton Place home. Hugo Orlando was bivouacked on West End in the Eighties. It figured. I was dealing with fancy clients.

“How about eight o’clock, Miss Carstairs? I ought to have some poop by then.”

“Eight will be fine. Till then, Mr. Noon.”

Something about the way she sounded her “n’s” set a bell off in my head when she hung up. Fine. Noon. Fine — When it came to me it was a logical sequence of thought. Fine. Max Fine. Good old Max with his Ready-to Wear business just a few short blocks away. Max, with his stubby finger on the very pulse of the Garment Industry, could tell me all I might want to know about Gloria, Inc. Max could get information for me wholesale. The more I thought about it the better the notion seemed. Why go tracking down Hugo Orlando in a hurry without some other parts of the picture in focus?

Max Fine was in at two o’clock. I found him sandwiched between two mountainous piles of swatch books, his spectacles sitting on his furrowed forehead. He’d been located on East 36th for as long as I’d known him. He was fat then and he was fatter now. And just as busy. When you had a conversation with Max Fine, it was as if you had opened a window in the Tower of Babel. He must have been born talking. Not even two marriages and seven children had interrupted the zest and zeal that operated Max Fine, Sportswear.

“My friend the detective,” he bellowed in his horse-trading voice when his secretary, a plump blonde named Shelly, ushered me into his inner office.

“Sit down, Eddie baby. Shelly, get the port. This is a drinker. And keep me off the telephone, you hear? Or nobody gets paid around here. Go on, go on. Go, go, go.”

That was Max. His handshake across the swatch book pile was crushing. I made room for myself in a chair and made small small talk to clear away the debris of the eighteen months since I’d seen him. Shelly giggled, disappeared, came back with a bottle and two glasses and disappeared again.

---

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