The Orphan Scrivener: 2012

Saturday, December 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-EIGHT -- 15 DECEMBER 2012

The shortest day looms closer and a couple of weeks after that the dark gate of the year will creak open on the swirling fog of the future. If that mental image makes you think of horror films, you're in the right place since the horror that is Orphan Scrivener has, as you see, just crept out of the darkness and into your email in-box....

ERIC'S BIT or IS THE END NIGH?

I'm sure you've heard the prophecies. Books are doomed. Doomed! The end is near! Polls have shown that twenty percent of Americans never read. Half never read fiction. Young people spend two or three hours a day watching television but only seven minutes reading. And the few who still read are turning to ebooks. All of which has driven publishing companies to the verge of extinction. Things have become so bad big publishers are forming vanity presses to make money off authors rather than readers.

No readers! No publishers! We're doomed! We're all doomed!

Nonsense.

In the first place publishers do not write. No one needs publishers more than the publishers themselves. Yes, the prospect of not being able to profit off readers and writers must be irksome to the big publishing conglomerates but for the vast majority of readers and writers it makes no difference. People somehow managed to write and read for thousands of years before the publishing industry came along.

In past eras, authors, like the literate generally, tended to be well-to-do. They were people whose circumstances allowed them both an education and free time to write, often as a secondary occupation. The great essayist Montaigne was a statesman. Writers not so fortunately situated often depended on patronage. Authors making their living selling works to large numbers of readers is a relatively recent development and even today only a small minority of authors do so. (It's been said that the first American author able to make a living entirely from fiction was Washington Irving.) If the books of every author who makes a living writing were to vanish from bookstores the shelves would not look much less full. Only the bestseller displays at the front would be bare.

Classical writers did not have publishers to monetize their work for them, or even to distribute it. If you wanted to own a book in Greek or Roman times -- which is to say a scroll -- you found a copy to buy or paid a scribe to make a copy for you. And neither the bookseller nor the scribe shared their profits with the author. There weren't any copyright laws.

None of which stopped Virgil, for instance, from writing.

And how big was the contemporary readership for the Aeneid? I have no idea, but I do know that whereas Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has reportedly sold around 44 million copies, the entire population of the Roman Empire during Virgil's time is estimated as 57 million, with no more than 10% even literate, let alone an audience for epic Latin verse.

Writers have never needed vast sales and wealth for inspiration.

It wouldn't surprise me if functional literacy levels fall and fewer and fewer people have the ability or inclination to take the effort to read a work of fiction. But I have no doubt there will always be some people who want to read books. Books are language and language practically defines the human mind. It might well be hard-wired into the brain. It's the way we think. And so long as anyone wants to read people will want to write. Heck, often they're the same people.

Mary and I are fortunate to have two publishers, both matching us up with readers and sending us the occasional check. I don't think publishers are going to vanish any time soon, or that readership for books will totally crater. But if, a hundred years from now, publishers have joined the dinosaurs and readers have become an infinitesimal minority, readers and writers will still manage to find each other as they always have.

"By gum, Silva, I can just see you in a top hat, foreclosing on mortgages. On Christmas Eve with the snow coming down, and honest Jack's ship last heard of a thousand miles east and north of Hong Kong and never reported since."

Edward guffawed. "The producer knew what he was up to, Silva. I can just see you turning honest old folks out of doors. And where is Nellie ?"

"On these occasions the city has usually swallowed her up. Alone with her baby on the Embankment. Tobacco, Grey?"

My thoughts leapt back to the last time I trod the boards. My role was First Fool in Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor and the Nightingale, and from there in a natural progression, at least natural the way I think, to that peculiarly British Christmas institution, which is to say the--

Look behind you!

Swivel your head around when you read that, did you?

I didn't mean the frightful fiend that trod close behind Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, but rather stage villains who, creeping up behind and about to pounce on their victims, have their evil designs betrayed by a crescendo of shrill screams from children begging the unwary to "Look behind you!"

Yes, December is pantomime time in the old country and once again familiar tales are gracing stages up and down the land.

My favourite panto presents the story of the poor orphan Dick Whittington, who, discouraged and about to leave the capital, hears Bow bells foretelling (I would say foretolling except I have the sense they would chime in merry fashion) he would be mayor of London three times. More precisely, the traditional account has their clamour declaring "Turn again, Whittington, thrice mayor of London". So Dick turns back, remains in London, and in due course his pet cat jumpstarts his owner's fortune with its rat-catching prowess, and Dick does indeed serve three terms as mayor, just as the tintinnabulating bells had prognosticated. Though I sometimes wonder why nobody else heard the same fortune told by their brazen tongues, persistence is certainly a virtue writers should cultivate -- after all, mayor is not that far from Mayer and cats have lived with us for most of our married life.

So somewhere or other in theatre land many old favorites will be presented this very night -- Puss In Boots, Aladdin and His Magic Lamp, Snow White, Mother Goose, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk -- complete with celebrities playing major roles, lavish costumes, dancers, satirical topical songs, jokes (some over the heads of the younger fry or at last we hope so), slapstick, villains that put Sir Jasper to shame, special effects, and the all important audience participation. Not only screamed advice to the hero or heroine to look behind them but also argumentative parrying with one character or another, yelling Oh no it's not! or Oh yes it is! depending on their statements to the audience. This little bit of freedom to contradict adults must be loved by children, since where else can they indulge in it at such a volume and with social approval to boot?

Is there any other entertainment where the principal boy is always played by a comely young woman in tights and short jacket, much given to slapping her thigh to emphasize her dialogue, and the buffoonish principal dame by a man in billowing dresses made up in eye-aching clashing colours, amazing hats, enormous embonpoint, and wildly over-applied makeup?

Had the amateur productions in which Silva performed been pantomimes, by the time of the closing song, honest Jack would have reappeared possessed of a fortune earned in the Orient, saved the widow's house from foreclosure, dealt severely with the rotten old banker, shoveled a path through the snow, decorated the Christmas tree, located and married poor Nellie, adopted her baby, and run successfully for high office.

May all your endeavors in the new year end as happily!

AND FINALLY

After the holiday lights are taken down, the twilight of the year hurries us on towards the midnight ushering in 2013. Once there, we'll be as one with Coleridge (what, him again?) who saw the departing year's train, meaning the skirt and not the sort that runs on rails. Since this is Liberty Hall we shall still go ahead and announce the next station at which Orphan Scrivener will arrive is signposted February 15th, on which date the newsletter following this one will steam into subscribers' in-boxes.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, the Doom Cat interactive game written by Eric, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/ or visit M. E. Mayer's blog at http://memayer.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-SEVEN -- 15 OCTOBER 2012

Summer has departed in a huff and autumn is thinking of packing its suitcase and leaving as well. The first hard freeze of the season slid down the pike as this newsletter was composed in our usual bi-monthly scramble to hit the issue date target. Indeed, if Orphan Scrivener had wheels by now we'd have collected numerous tickets for driving to the common danger. Subscribers are therefore advised to fasten seatbelts for a bumpy ride as they read on...

MARY'S BIT or DEAD MAN RIDING

It's no secret autumn is my favourite time of year. Mean to say, I've mentioned it often enough.

Thus I'm currently enjoying the annual treat of the slow wash of colour converting foliage to shades of lime, grapefruit, lemon, tangerine, and orange, a veritable citrus landscape if you will.

Lost September, ripe with sunny days and cool nights conducive to slumber, is but a glorious memory. Grey November, with its cold sheets and smell of smoke, is not yet here. But for all the season's simple pleasures -- autumn's bounty for us included sampling numerous new types of apples, of which Cripps Pink, Gala, and Fuji have become firm favourites -- for those who dislike winter, there's melancholy reminders in the bright tints of the sunset of the year that Dame Time proceeds on her inevitable journey.

Every day the black bat night flaps in earlier and departs later. Just the other morning, our bag o' rubbish was put out under the glimmer of a beautiful crescent moon riding atop the treetops in a star-spattered sky. We'd have admired it much longer if the predawn darkness hadn't been so cold.

For autumn also brings out multi-hued scarves and gloves and thicker sweaters. We know, subscribers know, we all know being as we're a knowledgeable bunch, that foul weather is coming with biting winds, numbed fingers, and coughs and colds.

Not to mention snow shovels, wet boots, and frozen pipes.

Well, except for subscribers living in a warmer climate. Even then there's a down side, for having once resided in Florida I can confirm rumours its residents have no autumn, the unfortunate devils.

Lots of citrus though. Many a garden gate had a table at which passersby could fill a brown grocery sack with grapefruit and pay only a dollar, and usually on the honour system at that.

To return to my duck a l'orange, as the French might have said but apparently prefer to talk about mutton. Doubtless subscribers will anticipate some of my favourite literary works treat of autumn. Charles Baudelaire speaks of the season's transient tenderness, a description hard to beat even with a large stick. The flaming glory of seasonal vegetation seemed almost painful to Edna St Vincent Millay, who described the brilliant colours of autumnal woods below grey skies and rising mists as all but crying with colour.

And speaking of crying, as I write the wind has risen into full cry from the north under a glowering sky about to fulfill its promise of cold rain. Generally we can expect more frequent wet weather as the month advances, soaking the countryside and bringing to mind Kipling's description of an autumn day when, under grey skies like today's, woods were rotting with rain. The familiar loamy smell of wet undergrowth is a dank miasmal odour accompanying his dead man riding to see his beloved once again.

It's a gruesomely appropriate image given just a couple of weeks hence Halloween will loom out of a darkness cluttered with drifts of dead leaves intent on clammily grabbing at the ankles of little trick-or-treaters as October itself breathes its last on its death bed to the castanet click of gnashing pumpkin teeth.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A fair bit of news this time around, so on with the motley....

MEMO REF MEM or WHO IS M. E. MAYER?

We confess M. E. Mayer is us, so stop shining that light in our eyes! Thank you. And meantime we're thrilled to announce the British edition of the revised One for Sorrow will appear at the beginning of December with a spiffy new cover from major new publisher Head of Zeus, which is publishing John's adventures under the series banner Death in Byzantium http://tinyurl.com/8v7nkuu Subscribers can view our new covers in HoZ's spring catalogue at http://headofzeus.com/sites/all/files/userfiles/files/HoZ_Spring_2013_Catalogue.pdf not to mention those of other PPP stable mates writing historical mysteries -- Jane Finnis, Priscilla Royal, and Bruce McBain.

In passing, just a reminder American subscribers possessed of one of those new-fangled Kindle gizmos can still download a free copy of the revised Onefer via http://www.amazon.com/One-Sorrow-Chamberlain-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0015ACGQ0

THE BEST MANSIO NORTH OF LONDON or JOHN'S GHOST LAUNCH

Jane Finnis, mentioned above, is about to launch the Head of Zeus edition of Shadows In The Night. Originally appearing over here as Get Out Or Die, it's set in the turbulent province of Britannia on the outer edge of the Roman Empire. Aurelia and her family run an inn near York; "the best mansio north of Londinium," as Aurelia likes to claim; the tradition of British under-statement having clearly not developed yet. Though it's fifty years since the Romans invaded Britannia, tension still simmers, especially in the north. Aurelia is a Roman, but wants to live at peace with the Britons, and both Romans and natives are welcome at her inn. Then a traveller is brutally murdered, and a crude message is left: "All Romans Will Be Killed. Get Out Or Die"... Jane will be hosting the book launch from 7 to 8.30 p.m. at Waterstones in York on November 22nd but it is available for pre-order.

But what of ghosts, you ask? Well, through the kindness of Jane and HoZ copies of the revised One For Sorrow will be in evidence on the 22nd, about a week before its official publication date. So, lovers of Roman mysteries, be there or be square.

AND SPEAKING OF GHOSTS or THE PERILS OF READING ALOUD

In honour of Halloween, the content of King's River Life online magazine will focus upon the supernatural and related manifestations for the next edition or so. As if that were not chilling enough, from the dark recesses of Casa Maywrite creeps Or Equivalent Experience to gibber at readers of KRL's October 20th edition. Strange but true: the basic idea sprang from an advertisement calling for certain qualifications or equivalent experience in connection with an event similar to that described in this yarn. Point your clickers to http://kingsriverlife.com/ on the twentieth.

A REVIEW AND INTERVIEW or MORE FROM KRL

Mary was interviewed by Diana Hockley for the September 1st issue of Kings River Life, and the result lurks below Diana's review of Ninefer at http://kingsriverlife.com/09/01/nine-for-the-devil-by-mary-reed-eric-mayer-book/ Among other topics Mary touched upon mentors, writer's bloc, and how John reunited two old friends, not to mention a thought or two on where the publishing industry is going.

A LITTLE BIRD TELLS YOU or TWEETS ARE NEAT!

Or will be once we've got the hang of it and tidied up our act. Cue the trumpet fanfare to warn, er, announce we've both just signed up for Twitter. Since the lights remained on, we take it we have not succeeded in bringing down the national grid. In stumbling through the overgrown and thorny maze of getting a handle on how Twitter works, one of the first things we learnt was there are an awful lot of twitterers named Mary Reed. But should we be surprised? At one time there were three Mary Reeds in her immediate family. Accept no substitutes. Orphan Scrivener's Mary is @marymaywrite, while Eric's nom de tweet is @groggytales Send us a line, do!

PARTNERS IN CRIME or TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

A while ago we submitted our patter after the style of Gilbert & Sullivan on, appropriately enough, collaborative enterprise in response to a call for thoughts on same. Our contribution was included in a workshop Pampered Pet mystery series author Sparkle Abbey gave at the Romance Writers of America conference in July. At present their workshop --- Sparkle is the pen name of Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter -- is not available online but we hear they plan to upload it in due course, so we'll pass along news about that as it arrives. Meantime, our Partners In Crime can be perused at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/partners-in-crime/ Our thanks to Sparkle for their interest!

LATEST PPP BLOGS or ROCK ON

On September 18th Mary, inspired by Graham Greene's classic novel of the same title, blogged about that esoteric, not to say eccentric, British confection Brighton Rock http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/brighton-rock/ and on the 18th of this month she will shake a tambourine In Praise Of Brown Paper. Interested parties should consult http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/news-and-blog/ on October 18th. If the subject of brown paper does not appeal, subscribers might care to glance over recent entries by assorted PPP authors posted on the same page.

ERIC'S BIT or A NERVOUS SQUIRREL

Every day a squirrel has been industriously burying nuts in our backyard, preparing for the winter. So much simpler than carting tinned beans home from the grocery. And cheaper.

Sometimes I envy that squirrel.

He doesn't wonder where the next dollar is coming from. He doesn't live by his wits. He has instinct to guide him. He does what needs doing without fretting about the future. Does a squirrel dread the approaching cold and snow? Does he worry about heating bills, frozen pipes, mortality, or the meaning of existence?

Of course not.

Well, I don't think so. Admittedly I can't know for sure what goes on in a squirrel's head.

Maybe he's digging an acorn hole and muttering to himself.

"Darn! Broke another claw. How the heck am I going to cling to icy branches if I lose all my claws on these ##$$&&!! rocks? Maybe I should be scouting around for an abandoned woodchuck burrow. Do I know a rabbit who needs a roomie?

"What does it matter if I won't be able to climb a tree by the time the snow falls? I'll never be able to find these stinking nuts anyway. I should've made a map. Needless to say I don't have the instinct to do that.

"Instinct! Bah! Like VCR instructions written in China.

"Even if I find these nuts they're going to be filled with worms. Ugh. How many have I buried? How many will I need, supposing half of them are inedible? Oh, wait, squirrels can't do simple arithmetic.

"Thanks instinct! Let me starve.

"I ought to be making a nest. That I have the instinct for. Yeah, just what I want to do, curl up in a bunch of sticks and dead leaves in the top of a tree in zero degree temperatures. Feasting on wormy, frozen acorns. Four months of #4@@!! acorns -- if I can find them -- and waiting for my so-called house to drop sixty feet to the frozen ground every time the wind blows.

"I'm not going to live through the winter. I know it. I'm going to starve, or freeze, or fall. That scabby black cat is going to get me.

"Oh dear! I had nightmares about that cat again last night. I can feel it watching me all the time. It's probably lurking right now. Did those ferns move? Ah, just the wind. Frigid. A winter wind.

"Hey, at least by December my lice go into hibernation. I ought to be stoic. Right.

"Marcus Aurelius, my ass. He should've tried living in a tree!"

Yes, for all I know that squirrel out there is nervous wreck. Now I feel much better.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of nervous wrecks, it seems only fair to alert subscribers the next Orphan Scrivener (acorns not included, no assembly required) will leap, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, into their in-boxes on December 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-SIX -- 15 AUGUST 2012

Nightfall has noticeably crept in since the last Orphan Scrivener crept into your in-box and already it's time for the next issue. Subscribers should feel free to imagine a tootle of trombonists blaring a certain song from The Music Man when they notice the number of this issue. However, since Richard Strauss was of the opinion we shouldn't look at people playing trombones because it just encourages them, may we suggest you take his advice, ignore the trombonists, and instead read on?

ERIC'S BIT or GONE WITH THE WHIP

One of summer's biggest treats was when my parents took me to the amusement park.

I don't know if amusement parks come so small these days, but it was big enough to thrill a nine-year old. No matter where you were, you could hear the clatter, rush and shriek of coaster and riders, the miniature train's jingling bell, the cheerful, maddening tooting and thumping of the merry-go-round's mechanical drum and organ. The air smelled of cotton candy. My sneakers crunched on gravel, sawdust, and discarded peanut shells. By the time I got home my soles were plastered with sun-heated, sticky chewing gum.

Near the park entrance, low cinder block building formed a dim, cool cave full of flashing lights and ringing bells. I never ventured into the pinball lair. The two machines at the entrance of the arcade were what interested me. One stamped the Lord's Prayer or the Gettysburg Address on a flattened penny. Behind the other contraptions' glass face a crane with a mechanical grabber hung above an enticing mountain of trinkets. I managed to snag a treasure trove: a Lilliputian pinhole camera with film, a miniature hectograph, and a trio of ceramic monkeys which puffed smoke rings from their little cigarettes even while they saw, heard, and spoke no evil.

I recall the atmosphere and anticipation more than the rides. I do remember my heart pounding as the roller coaster was ratcheted noisily up the impossibly steep incline until wooden platform and rails vanished and I looked straight up into nothing but blue sky before the bottom dropped out of the world. Then there was centrifugal terror as the whip's long, steel arms threatened to fling my car through the railings. Pressed helplessly back against the cushioned seat, I imagined a bolt coming loose, my car smashing through the flimsy railing and flying out over the passersby, over the popcorn stand to smash into the fun house. The stifling dark of the fun houses comes back to me, the abrupt turns to avoid illuminated skeletons, the far more scary touch of invisible cobwebs in the dark. Also vivid is the feeling of delight when the miniature train train chugged past the boundaries of the park proper and into a wilderness of grass and picnic tables.

Not too many years ago, I passed by the place where the amusement park had been. The wooden mountain at the start of the roller coaster remained, though sagging and probably as rickety and unsafe as I'd feared it was so many years before. Scattered humps of rotting wood were visible between the tall trees that had grown up around the rest of the coaster. One cinder block wall of the arcade still stood, covered with graffiti. There was the platform where the whip had spun, now roofless and empty. At one end of the park small, rusted tracks vanished into an overgrown field.

At the entrance a faded sign remained, promising amusements which were now ghostly memories. I was grateful that as a child I had not known it would come to this.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The ticker is somewhat shorter than usual this time around, but the big news is that the press is offering a free Kindle download of One For Sorrow at

http://www.amazon.com/One-Sorrow-Chamberlain-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0015ACGQ0

This is the revised version slated to be published in the autumn in the UK by Head of Zeus, who will issue John's first adventure in various formats including hardcover, paperback, and ebook.

We're not sure how long this offer will last, so if you're interested, it would be best to take advantage of it immediately. Just be sure to come back to read the rest of the newsletter!

MARY'S BIT or AS COOL AS A COLANDER

The current heatwave in many parts of the country has doubtless provided a bonanza in the form of increased sales of ice cream, soft drinks, and sun tan oil. Not to mention calamine lotion, that pink flaky stuff we wore during the hotter stretches of English summers, which despite that lying jade Dame Rumour's contention to the contrary came along now and then.

During those warm spells, since we lived in an industrial area with an abundance of concreted over back yards and no gardens -- the nearest greenery to be found was local cemeteries or parks and living in the city haymaking was not an option when the sun shone -- the heat was magnified something awful. It was excellent for drying the Monday wash strung across the back lane but us thin-blooded locals sometimes found it hard to cope with higher than usual temperatures.

As I have written in an earlier newsletter http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/tos52.htm#sands we sometimes went to the coast on sunny summer Sundays, but that was not always possible. The swimming baths part of the baths and wash house not far from our street were not free, and the only other body of water near us -- across Scotswood Road at the bottom of our street in fact -- was the River Tyne. Nobody with any sense set foot in it, given at the time if anyone fell in a certain nasty procedure involving the stomach was routine treatment because of the filthy state of the water.

Aside: cleaning-up efforts have progressed very well since then as I hear salmon have returned to spawn upriver. They must have long ancestral memories or perhaps enough of them got through the various connurbations along the river to keep the Tyne tribe alive.

But to get back to what I was saying, discomfort being the mother of invention, one day my younger sister and I devised a cooling method which these days would be called green.

We lived in an upstairs flat in a terraced street, and so steps led down from the back door into our back yard. If any subscribers have seen Get Carter, they've seen this type of housing in the sequence with the hearse in the back lane, except our back steps were open to the sky rather than roofed in.

Our brainwave was to hook up a hosepipe -- it's an enduring mystery why we even had one, since there was nothing to water and no buggy to wash -- to the cold tap in the kitchen. In passing let me mention that this was the only plumbing provided in the flat until we got a water heater. The traditional usual offices were represented by the loo in the back yard although in all fairness to the landlord, the Victorian vintage clothes boiling copper was still in the scullery although in our time it was only used as a meeting place for black beetles.

Well, we tied a broom to the top of the outside staircase and from the broom suspended a colander swinging from three bits of string. Then we tied the hosepipe into the colander, turned on the cold tap, et voila, a shower arrangement was created. We donned our scratchy one-piece black wool bathing suits and took turns standing under the cool water, our feet on sunwarmed concrete.

As the neighbours may well have said, by, but those bairns thought up a canny plan.

Now when Eric says he feels too hot, I'm not being rude when I tell him to stick his head under the cold tap.

A colander is optional.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of cold taps, while we dislike having to throw cold water on our subscribers' plans for October 15th, we wish to remind them that's when the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will hot-foot into their in-boxes.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Friday, June 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-FIVE -- 15 JUNE 2012

Since the Orphan Scrivener's shadow last darkened your inbox, summer has come and the first fireflies have glowed in the shadows on the lawn. Yet already the lengthening days are moving towards the summer solstice and soon the days will begin to grow shorter, if an oxymoron may be permitted grazing room in this latest newsletter.

It was Cardinal Richelieu who reportedly observed that, given six lines written by an honest man, he could find something among them to hang the writer. We leave subscribers to ponder his words while urging them to continue reading beyond this line....

MARY'S BIT or SEND FOR THE ELECTRIC CORSET!

And now for a peek behind the writing curtain.

We have written a Victorian novel of mystery-suspense with a touch of the occult, for which the plot required inventing a patent cure for evil to serve as a pet theory for a medical man.

What we settled on is fairly tame -- though in its way logical -- compared to some of the patent medicinal panaceas for that era, for hawkers of such didn't hide their bushels under a fancy-labeled box of nostrums. There's no doubt the colourful field of patent medicine produced some exotic crops. You only have to read their beautifully florid advertisements to wonder at mankind's credulity.

Not to mention the number of compounds from which these miraculous cures were, er, compounded, many of which were claimed to be to a doctor's recipe. Well, there's more than one way of doctoring, and here I'm thinking of the ingredients.

For example, take Turlington's Balsam of Life. Please. Patented in the 1700s it boasted over 20 ingredients. Among other ailments, its proprietor claimed it would not only raise the spirits and cure inward weakness but also influence disordered body parts for the better.

Strikes me Frankenstein would surely have succeeded in his aim if only he'd laid in a supply of the mixture before he began his shocking experiments.

Opium had a long partnership with this type of preparation. A 1670 work by Christopher Merrett mentions Matthew's Pills, in which the drug was mixed with white hellebore roots and oil of turpentine. He goes to say of this mixture "by giving rest and ease it may easily decoy people into the use of them, though by long taking of them, diseases become far more incurable then they are in their own Nature."

But worse than that was known to happen, for children were not only treated for colic, teething pains, and similar conditions but, alas, were also often kept asleep with the aid of a dose of Godfrey's Cordial, which also contained opium. Sometimes infants thus quietened slept on forever.

One of my favourite nostrums is Dr Salmon's Elixer Universall, the recipe for which he published in 1693, because it mentions filings from a unicorn horn. Other ingredients included "Pouder of a Lyon's heart", chameleon ashes, and a man's dried brain, not to mention the more down to earth earthworms and Egyptian onions. We might ponder whence came some of the more exotic ingredients -- assuming the statements to be true, which is doubtful -- but in any event the exotic mixture was to be taken from what he termed the change of the moon to the full. According to Dr Salmon, his Universall Elixer cured digestive and heart disorders, stopped bleeding, and strengthened the sytem, as well as other good works.

Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Did a person languish under an attack of rheumatism, fever, or ague? Haul out Bateman's Pectoral Drops, a remarkable mixture that could even cure a cold with a single dose, a task beyond medical science today. Another preparation featuring opium, the drops also contained alcohol and oil of anise. Afflicted with diseases of the chest, low spirits, dyspepsia, or trouble with your liver? Try a course of Mountain Herb Pills, which also promised to deal with any female complaints your relatives on the distaff side may have.

Speaking of the ladies, human nature being what it is, preparations such as those I've described were also hawked for beautifying women. Imagine the horror of a titled lady cursed with pimples or other skin eruptions at the start of the London season. Dr Mackenzie's Improved Harmless Arsenic Complexion Wafters -- advertised as producing a lovely complexion -- to the rescue! Once accomplished, it would be wise to keep the skin beautiful with the aid of his Arsenical Toilet Soap, which at shilling a cake or sixpence unscented was pretty expensive, no pun intended.

Should other illnesses strike, still milady need not worry too much. She'd be back in the social whirl quickly after a while spent wearing Dr Scott's Electropathic Corset. Magnetic in nature, its inventor touted it as a remedy for, among various conditions, hysteria, debility, palpitations, and nervousness -- just the sort of ailments to get the servants talking, you notice. Should milady fall victim to rheumatism or even paralysis, Dr Scott's electric hair brush could affect a cure, provided nobody else had used it. Or she might try Dr Fraunce's Female Strengthening Elixir, which promised to restore weak constitutions, for surely a lady could not be possessed of a decayed constitution, correction of which was the hair brush's other claim to fame?

It's a fascinating topic despite causing many peoples' eyes to roll - though if they thus do them a mischief, versions of 19th century eye massagers are on the market today -- but we should not be too hasty to dismiss these old remedies. Why, only the other day I heard leeches have reappeared in the medical world. I refer to health insurance companies.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The ticker this time round begins with startling news...

A NEW VENTURE or WELDON, WAMBAUGH, AND M. E. MAYER

We're thrilled to announce the refurbished edition of One For Sorrow as by M. E. Mayer will spring forth in November from the new British publisher Head of Zeus. No jokes about the circumstances of Athena's birth if you please. Fellow PPP hist-mystery authors Bruce McBain, Jane Finnis, and Priscilla Royal will also appear from HoZ and in addition to those mentioned above our other distinguished stablemates include Thomas Cook, Dashiell Hammett, and Joyce Carol Oates. Take a glance at HoZ's lavish catalogue at http://headofzeus.com/HoZ_2012.pdf

AND SPEAKING OF PPP or A FEW BLOGS MORE

Continuing her regular turn on the PPP multi-author blog stage, when the curtain went up on Mary's 18th April contribution she revealed fourteen things she learnt by reading Golden Age mysteries. For a start, would you trust a lady who dared to show her ankles? http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/fourteen-things-i-have-learnt-by-reading-golden-age-mysteries/

On 15th May Mary trod the boards again, this time to look backward -- without falling into the orchestra pit -- with a bit of nostalgic musing about the sounds of childhood. Take that, Marcel Proust and your madeleines! http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/sounds-of-childhood/

We've occasionally been asked about co-writing so for her appearance on the 18th of this month Mary will relate how we work as partners in crime. After the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, no less. The PPP blog lives over at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/news-and-blog/ so if subscribers don't fancy that particular topic, they can consult its smorgasboard of links to contributions from other PPP authors and be fairly sure of finding something of interest.

EARLY REVIEWS or WAIT NINE YEARS? NEIN!

Horace was of the opinion literary works should be kept away from the public eye for at least nine years. Rash scribblers that we are, we ignored the famous Roman's advice and thus Nine For The Devil appeared the year following its completion. Since the ticker began with mention of our literary labours we shall close with a couple of reviews of the latest. Robin Burcell, award-winning author of The Bone Chamber, described Ninefer as "More complex and colorful than any Byzantine mosaic", set in "the cruel intrigue-ridden court of the Emperor Justinian, where treachery and murder linger behind every shadowed column of the imperial palace in Constantinople", while Jerrilyn Farmer, bestselling author of the Madeline Bean mysteries, said its "twisty plotting, fabulous dialogue, and aristocratic backstabbing drew me into this clever plot (Who killed an Empress who showed no signs of being murdered?) and I could not stop reading until I watched master problem-solver John dance his way out of the deadly wrath of his grieving emperor". Subscribers wishing to look over other early reviews of Ninefer should point their clickers towards http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ninerev.htm for the collection so far.

ERIC'S BIT or TYPEWRITER HEROES

Several years ago, Dave Davies of Kinks fame had up for auction on eBay one of his old guitars, a vintage 1977 Les Paul Artisan used on various tours and songs. I imagine that for a connoisseur it would be exciting to get hold of an instrument from which a genuine rock n' roll legend had wrung some notes.

A lot of rock fans can tell you that John Lennon favored a Rickenbacker 325 while Jimi Hendrix preferred a Fender Stratocaster, and even point to what guitars were used on which tracks. I can just about distinguish an acoustic from electric so why, exactly, Dave might have played a Les Paul Artisan three pickup custom walnut on the Kinks' eighties hit Come Dancing instead of, say, a banjo is beyond me.

Since writing, unlike music, is something I know a little about, I was intrigued when I ran across The Classic Typewriter Page on the web, listing typewriters used by famous authors.

http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

I suppose different makes of guitars have characteristic sounds and I can imagine how the guitar used might influence the music produced. At the very least, acoustic guitars sound different than electric ones. Different typewriters -- even electrics and portables -- all produce (or should I say produced?) exactly the same words.

Then again, pounding the typewriter keys and slapping the return lever was a physical process, like working guitar strings. Every typewriter has a different feel. Making the same words on a portable, or a manual, or an electric is a different sensation. The words sound different coming out too. The clatter of the keys, the noise made by the carriage, differ from machine to machine.

Might the make of typewriter used influence the words? Looking down the list I noticed a few authors had the same machines. For example, both Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison used an Olympia SG 3. A good machine for sf perhaps? On the other hand, E.B. White and Jack Kerouac wrote on Underwood portables. Now there's a mismatched pair for you!

Check out the machines employed by some mystery virtuosos:

Agatha Christie: Remington Portables No. 2 and No. 5
Raymond Chandler: Underwood Noiseless
Ian Fleming: Royal portables (one gold-plated)
Erle Stanley Gardner: Underwood 5
Dashiell Hammett: Royal De Luxe
Patricia Highsmith: Olympia SM3
Georges Simenon: Royal 10
Mickey Spillane: L.C. Smith Standard Super Speed

Not much in common. Except that all the typewriters represented proved capable of producing publishable work. The Smith-Corona manual portable on which I labored futilely for years was a machine shunned by all the successful authors named on the Classic Typewriter Page. Maybe that was my problem. You need the right tool for the job.

Would it have helped if I'd used the same writing instrument as a typewriter hero?

Raymond Chandler used an Underwood and I used to bring $4 Underwoods home from the thrift store all the time. Inevitably they proved more suitable for reducing a sheet of paper to shreds than writing, that is when the carriage didn't immediately jam, or fall off. Did any of those Underwoods have The Big Sleep in them, if they had still worked?

The computer keyboards I've been using since around 1990 haven't, but at least I've been able to tap out some publishable material. Although one might ask, is it my keyboard or is it Mary, my co-author?

The typewriter list notes that Bob Dylan used a Royal Safari Deluxe and Roy Orbison an Underwood TM5. Wonder if I'd be able to make music if I found one of those old typewriters? I guess if I wanted to sing I'd stick to the Underwood TM5.

AND FINALLY

Orphan Scrivener continues its glorious career of skating perilously close to behind hauled up before tbe beak on charges of presenting a probable cause of civil riot, but what is life without a bit of excitement now and then? For, as Dr Johnson observed, when a calamity occurs, the afflicted should always recall how much worse it could have been.

Subscribers may well find out how worse it could be when the next issue causes a commotion in their in-boxes on August 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Sunday, April 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-FOUR -- 15 APRIL 2012

Albert Einstein famously remarked that income tax was the hardest thing in the world to understand. This year US residents have an extra two days to get their returns submitted because, for the benefit of overseas subscribers, the 15th April deadline falls on a Sunday and Emancipation Day, observed in DC, is celebrated this year on the 16th.

However, for our subscribers at least 15th April is still notable -- some might say notorious -- in that the February Orphan Scrivener announced this issue was scheduled to show up on that very date.

Well, here it is. It's early, yes, due to suddenly having to deal with time consuming matters that would make it late if left, but after all, what else can you expect with Friday the 13th looming?

Those of iron nerve may wish to read on. Those of a nervous disposition might prefer to return to wrassling their Form 1040s to the mat as a less taxing occupation.

ERIC'S BIT or THOUGHTS FROM A BROWN STUDY

I've just enjoyed a collection of the kind of stories that aren't written any more. G.K. Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown was published back in 1911, and a good thing, because no one seems to write pure classic puzzle mysteries today.

Although Chesterton wrote philosophy, poetry, literary criticism, biography, and Christian apologetics, among other things, he's probably best known for his stories about Father Brown, the dumpy-looking but brilliant little Catholic priest.

According to Chesterton, no one has a nose for evil like a man of the cloth.

The stories in The Innocence of Father Brown are far from realistic. Each simply sets forth a mystifying crime which Father Brown solves mostly by insight and logic. The collection contains one of the most startling mysteries I have ever read -- The Secret Garden -- but a more typical tale is The Sign of the Broken Sword.

As Father Brown, and his associate, former criminal mastermind Flambeau, stroll back to their lodgings from a rural cemetery, they discuss a monument they have visited, and a mystery surrounding a battlefield death many years before. The story consists entirely of a presentation and explication of a puzzle, accompanied by descriptions of the winter landscape.

"...they plunged into the black cloister of the woodland, which ran by them in a dim tapestry of trunks, like one of the dark corridors in a dream."

And so also they plunge into the dark mystery of a man long dead and seek to find the truth buried by history. I found it a wonderful mixture.

There is nothing at stake except the satisfaction of a solution. Those involved in the mystery are long gone. The only challenges faced by the protagonists are intellectual. The two walkers are not attacked or threatened in any way. There is no suspense or fear for their, or anyone else's, safety. The dramatic events took place in the past. The whole tale unfolds at a walking pace, to match the only action.

Who today would write such a story? Who would publish it? Where could you find anyone advising aspiring authors to write like that?

No, these days, within a paragraph Father Brown would need to whip his .45 caliber Webley-Mars Automatic Pistol from under his robes and some hulking brute would find himself on the bloody end of bullets exiting a flashing muzzle at a velocity of 380 meters per second. The hell with those quaint little homilies Father Brown used to give. Lead is mightier than the Word. And as for Flambeau, far from being reformed, he'd remain a crazed criminal, but given to mayhem, who occasionally takes time out to assist the good father for some tangled psychological reasons.

Yes, yes, I know what you're saying already.

A Catholic priest in the early nineteen hundreds would never have packed a Webley-Mars. He probably would have used an FN Browning M1900 single action, semi-automatic pistol produced in Belgium, the gun Theodore Roosevelt allegedly kept in his desk drawer.

Then again, I suppose we could try for the cozy market and give him a hobby rather than a firearm. Something novel. Like making tin soldiers or Turkish Delight.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A shortish length of ticker tape today, but hopefully of interest. Read on!

A MOST WELCOME SURPRISE or YET MORE GLORY FOR JOHN

In the last newsletter we mentioned Nine For The Devil was awarded a starred review by Publishers Weekly http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59058-994-6 This time around we're happy to announce John's latest adventure is travels trailing yet more clouds of glory, being as it was Pierce's Pick in his March 5th blog over at the Rap Sheet. Our thanks to Jeff Kingston Pierce for a most welcome surprise, details of which can be perused at http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2012/03/pierces-picks-nine-for-devil.html

A HOT TOPIC or THE DEVIL'S NINE QUESTIONS

Mary posted some thoughts on March 26th on Maggie Bishop's Dames of Dialogue blog. The topic was The Devil's Nine Questions, concerning riddle songs after the fashion of Scarborough Fair and how the various addressees beat the nasty fellow off with intelligent replies to seemingly impossible questions. http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/the-devils-nine-questions-by-mary-reed/

Visit http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com for the skinny, and stop by often for other guest posts ranging from what Maggie describes as fun travel and animal articles to food, history, shoes, and author interviews.

A REAL LIFE VILLAIN or THE GHASTLY GOURD

Jenny Milchman is a suspense writer whose debut novel, COVER OF SNOW, was recently sold to Ballantine after eleven years trying to break into print. The book is to be published in February 2013 and her short fiction will soon appear in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Adirondack Mysteries II. Jenny's Suspense Your Disbelief blog welcomes readers, writers, and authors to discuss the ever-present need for story -- and the ever-changing publishing industry. Mary's contribution talks about a vicious historical figure called the Gourd -- though not to his face -- who plays a large part in Four For A Boy, the prequel to John's adventures, and reveals the villain's ultimate fate as recorded by that court gossip Procopius. Point your clickers to http://www.jennymilchman.com/blog/ on April 18th for more!

A SPECIAL OFFER CONTINUES or EBOOKS FOR 99 CENTS!

Poisoned Pen Press has released a new batch of 99 cent ebooks, the majority of them the first in assorted series. Fans of historical mysteries will doubtless be interested -- no, we insist -- to hear titles currently on sale include Aileen Baron's Torch of Tangier, The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommrsbach, Margit Liesche's Lipstick and Lies, A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer, and Charlotte Hinger's Deadly Descent.

If you don't care for historical mysteries there are a number of other PPP authors whose works in various sub-genres may be sampled at this very reasonable price. To see what's available take a look around http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/discover-mystery/

While you're over at Poisoned Pen's website, consider a glance at the blog du jour, You may be unfortunate if you arrive on the 18th as that's Mary's day, but with the blog's rotation of authors and an occasional guest post subscribers are bound to find something of interest sooner or later. Unless of course you'd like to read Mary's revelations entitled Fourteen Things I Have Learnt By Reading Golden Age Mysteries, which goes live on 18th March. It's no mystery where the blog resides. Just pop over to http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/blog/ and you're there.

MARY'S BIT or AN EYEWATERING EPIC

There's a saying in Yorkshire, particularly popular to those in the plumbing profession, that where there's muck there's brass.

Plumbers of course also carry out cleaner work such as, oh, repairs to hydronic heating systems and it is in this connection, no pun intended, that we have contributed a fair amount to our local plumber's IRA yet again. Enough brass, indeed, to provide raw material for at least a trombone for a colliery's brass band.

Truth, they say, lies at the bottom of a well. To be truthful, we prefer not to dwell on the two days last year without water on tap when our well conked out, though certainly it was an impressive reference for the quality of the manufacturer's work to learn via its coded label the dead pump was thirty years old. As those who have been without easy access to potable water will agree, henceforth let us never scorn Adam's ale!

Since then a trickle of other water-related problems have made life at Casa Maywrite interesting in the sense of the proverbial Chinese curse.

To set the scene, readers should picture a boiler that would not have been out of place in the Titanic engine room. Cube shaped with pipes going in and out like the worms in the children's rhyme about worms and pinochle, not to mention various locations on it are ornamented with dials and knobs and levers, all part and parcel of its profound mysteries.

In this particular and literal water go-round we started off with the upstairs heating loop kicking in every time the downstairs loop came on, even though no heat was being called for upstairs. Diagnosis: the upstairs zone valve was jammed open and under the immutable laws of the universe hot water rises.

So the plumber came to call. On his first visit he arrived with the wrong sized parts due to a mix-up at the shop, but the second time all was in order for replacing both valves, a good plan seeing as he was here anyhow and it would save yet another trip should the second valve turn up its toes. The job involved sawing out copper pipe as well as setting valves in. Eric put on his apprentice plumber's hat and held a large coffee tubby to catch occasional solder drips. There was much hammering and colourful language of a comical nature rather than your really ripe, raw stuff, but after a couple of hours the job was done.

About a week later, the loo's feed line suddenly parted company at the joint and water sprayed the bathroom. Talk about pressure! Were it in a hosepipe we could have power-washed siding, quenched a small fire, or dispersed a riot. We turned the line off -- fortunately without breaking the stopcock gizmo -- and until the plumber arrived next day used the fabulously useful for all manner of purposes large coffee tubbie to flush the loo.

All this unwelcome excitement pointed up the prescience of the plumber's observation during the earlier proceedings that at the rate we were going the entire plumbing system will eventually be replaced bit by bit. Malfunctioning plumbing is a trial to be sure but as Flanders & Swann were wont to sing It All Makes Work For The Working Man To Do.

So as we are sure subscribers will understand after the past couple of months don't think us ungrateful but it's just, you know, we'd prefer it if you didn't offer us water biscuits with the cheese board selection.

STOP PRESS

A couple of days after I scribbled the foregoing high winds blew in and blew down a pine tree next door by the garden wall. Most of its trunk is lying in our neighbour's garden with a few branches poking snouts in our direction, but by great good fortune it fell parallel to and between the houses. If it had fallen forward it would have crushed our buggy, if in our direction we'd have little roof remaining if not worse, and if it had tilted the other way the neighbour's cars and/or house would have been damaged. But as a wise man once said to me, all ifs are followed by buts, and in this case it's ... but it didn't.

So in the recent past we've weathered difficulties connected with air and water. Provided we don't have an earthquake or conflagration we shall happily not complete a hand composed of the classical elements. However, as I write the entire state is under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are ripe for fires to start and spread rapidly.

And the ubiquitous they reckon rural life is peaceful!

AND FINALLY

Philip James Bailey once observed that, like clouds, curses pass away. So indeed does this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener, but bear in mind the next will fly in to cloud subscribers' brows on June 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, the Doom Cat interactive game written by Eric, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/ and/or visit the Poisoned Pen Press author blog at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/blog/

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SEVENTY-THREE -- 15 FEBRUARY 2012

Belated new year greetings from Casa Maywrite, a frequent contributor to the plumber's retirement account since the last newsletter. Elizabeth Oakes Smith claimed when water greets the sight every heart is gladder, but we beg to differ when it's gushing all over the floor. In that case, the Scottish definition of greeting would be more appropriate, as subscribers may discover as they read on...

MARY'S BIT or BAGGING THE ROYALS

We were eating pasta the other day and I found myself wondering whether the queen ever eats spaghetti at civic functions.

Her majesty, now celebrating the 60th year of her reign, must have eaten many strange delicacies at official banquets in far flung corners of the empire, though somehow I don't see the councillors of a Lancashire town offering her fried black pudding after she has graciously declared their new fiddly widget factory open.

Even if spaghetti was on the menu at a state banquet I am sure the queen would handle it with aplomb, as she does all public occasions.

Before television, most Britons only saw members of the royal family in weekly newsreels run before the main feature at the local cinema, with lesser numbers able to say they had seen them in person.

My royal bag is fairly small. I've seen the royal couple only once and the queen mother twice. I would have been able to add Princess Margaret, who opened the new building to which the grammar school I attended moved, but my family left the area just weeks before she arrived for the formal ceremony.

I must confess that my glimpse of the queen was merely momentary because she was sitting on the far side of the car from where my class stood along the kerb, and in addition I had to peer around a stout policeman to gawk. Then too her figure was partially blocked by a smiling Prince Philip, but I did see the queen's white-gloved hand waving and caught a quick look at her profile.

It was different when the queen mother made an official visit to Newcastle. The event included the performance of a choir made up of a number of students from every school in the city. I was one of them, for in those days I did not need a bucket to carry a tune. We were stationed behind the row of chairs at the front of the stage of a theatre filled with other children and teachers.

Enter the queen mother in matching hat, coat, and frock, escorted by nervous looking councillors and the mayor, draped with his resplendent gold chain of office.

We gaped at her. What a tiny woman! Surely, I thought as she took her seat, she's only an inch or so above five feet.

Events got under way when at a certain signal involving a hanky everyone in the gallery held up a large coloured piece of cardboard that together presented the appearance of an enormous Union Jack.

The queen mother smiled in appreciation, and then the choir launched into its repertoire of Tyneside songs, including the spritely Bobby Shafto, who went to sea leaving his pregnant girlfriend who sings of his marrying her on his return, the dirge-like Waters of Tyne, in which a weeping woman laments she cannot get across the river to meet her love, and the jolly Keel Row, in which a girl boasts about her beloved, describing his blue bonnet and the dimple in his chin, and revealing he works as a keelman, one who mans a boat carrying coal to colliers down river for further distribution to London and other places.

Many years were to pass before I saw the queen mother again. It was as she toured a large agricultural exhibition in Hertfordshire, and thereby hangs a tale.

A bunch of us had got up a display devoted to science fiction and then realised we'd have to fetch an item that had been overlooked. I seem to recall it was a duplicator. Two or three of us went to get it in a friend's ancient Armstrong-Siddely, so elderly it had running boards.

As we returned to the exhibition we managed to get on the main road just before it was closed to traffic to accommodate the royal cortege.

It happened this car bore a certain resemblance to the black, low-slung vehicles in which royalty is wont to be transported and as we bowled along we were greeted with cheers and flag waving which petered as people realised they had mistaken the car as that carrying a certain high personnage.

We gave a wave or two just for fun. Well, we were young and foolish then....

Early in the afternoon a whisper reached us that the queen mother was about to arrive to inspect the various exhibits in the marquee in which we lurked, and right on the heels of the sibilant warning in she came, with the usual escort of mayor, officials, and a lady in waiting burdened with the traditional bouquets.

Her majesty carried -- you will never guess -- a tennis ball. Why was she carrying it? We can only speculate. Obviously it had been given to her during her walkabout. We noticed she was gently squeezing it as she walked.

We had a much closer view this time since she passed by just a couple of feet away and we were favoured with the royal smile.

Even the ardent anti-royalists among my companions fell to her charm.

Temporarily at least.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

Like teeth in cold weather, the ticker is chattering away today. Here's the skinny....

FIRST PRINT REVIEW or NINE(FER) PIN BOWLING

What's the connection, you ask? Well, when we saw the first print review of Nine For The Devil you could have bowled us over with a nine pin. Publishers Weekly gave Ninefer a starred review http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59058-994-6 declaring that the novel's "puzzle is challenging enough to keep readers searching for clues, but the triumph of the authors lies in their spot-on recreation of the political and bureaucratic climate of the times."

A SNEAK PEEK or HOW IT BEGINS

Ninefer appears next month, and with impeccable timing Chris Redding will be running an extract from it in her Excerpt Tuesday spot on March 14th. This feature offers a chance for authors -- most of whom write suspense, mystery, or romantic suspense -- to showcase a piece of their writing on her blog. See http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com on that date to sample the start of John's latest adventure.

ANCIENT TITTLE TATTLE or MYTHS ABOUT MITHRAISM

Suzanne Adair is the author of a series of novels set in the southern theatre of the Revolutionary War. One feature on her blog is "Relevant History", guest essays on the relevance of historical events to modern times. Mary's contribution on February 7th http://suzanneadair.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/mythraic-myths.html concerned ancient writings critical of Mithraism, John's religion. And speaking of Suzanne, subscribers will be interested to hear her third book, CAMP FOLLOWER, will be free for today only in Kindle ebook form. Download it from http://www.amazon.com/Camp-Follower-ebook/dp/B00318DBKE

BACHELORS BEWARE or WOULDN'T IT BE GLOVERLY?

Mary will be Ivy Truitt's guest on the Manic Readers guest blog, writing about the old custom whereby women were permitted to propose marriage on Leap Year Day. Her essay will appear on the appropriate date, February 29th. Since it's a fortnight hence her post is not yet live, but readers may like check in at http://bit.ly/X6jXO on that date, where no doubt all will be revealed.

THE SCRIBBLERS SPEAK or RHYMES AND REJECTIONS

Anne K. Albert, author of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL, book one of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries series, will host an interview with us on March 15th. Among topics discussed will be our variant of an old fortune-telling rhyme, various lines of which provide our titles, rejection slips, and thoughts on favourite characters. While the interview is not yet live, point your clickers to http://muriel-reeves-mysteries.blogspot.com on March 15th and all will be revealed.

NEWS FROM PPP or THE FIRST ANNUAL DISCOVER MYSTERY AWARD

The press has announced its first annual Discover Mystery Award, a first book contest for unpublished writers trying to break into the mystery genre. Enter your mystery manuscript of 60,000-90,000 words in an effort to win a $1000 prize, the Discover Mystery title, and a publishing contract from Poisoned Pen Press. The deadline is April 30th 2012 and full details can be viewed at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/contest

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! or A TEMPTING OFFER INCREASED

PPP has expanded its 99 cent novel download offer to 23 titles in several sub-genres and eras. Authors involved are Deborah Turrell Atkinson, Judy Clemens, Mark de Castrique, Stevn Havill, J. M. Hayes, Michael Norman, Ann Parker, Twist Phelan, Justin Scott, Jane Tesh, Les Standiford, Michael Bowen, Jane Finnis, Donis Casey, Vicki Delany, Mary Anna Evans, Beverle Graves Myers, Sandra Parshall, Frederick Ramsay, Priscilla Royal, Jon Talton, Betty Webb, and the residents of Casa Maywrite. Point your clickers to http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/discover-mystery/ to see what's available.

ERIC'S BIT or THEY DRIVE YOU UP THE WALL

There's nothing worse than being awakened in the middle of the night by rodents rampaging in the walls or the ceiling.

Well, okay, being awakened by smoke and flames as the house burned would be somewhat worse. And, yeah, it would be much worse if zombies were breaking down the doors or a meteor slammed through the roof. Although in the latter case there would probably not be time for vexation prior to vaporization.

But nevertheless, you don't want to have vermin crashing around a couple inches from your head when you're trying to sleep, and Mary and I get that now and then out here in the country. Mostly it's mice, or voles, or squirrels (or perhaps small fairies with lead boots). It's remarkable how much noise tiny creatures can generate.

The racket squirrels make is one of the great mysteries of nature. For a few months, between marriages, I was living on my own, with just my cat, and several hundred Percheron-sized squirrels. Or so it seemed. The noises they made in the walls all night long were unbelievable. If they weren't galloping, they were dropping bowling balls from the second floor to the first and on the way down the bowling balls were ricocheting from stud to stud. Or maybe it wasn't bowling balls. Where would Percheron-sized squirrels find bowling balls? Maybe they'd removed their horseshoes and were tossing for ringers. The cat would race around, staring bug-eyed at the walls. I would sit in bed, bug-eyed from lack of sleep. It was enough to drive you squirrely.

How did they make such a commotion? A squirrel weighs almost nothing -- unlike a bowling ball or a horseshoe. Nor are squirrels particularly hard. If I were to take hold of a squirrel...wait, the squirrel would need to be drugged because they have sharp teeth...if I were to take hold of a drugged squirrel, and then flung it against the wall with all my might -- which would really have been satisfying by 4 am -- I don't think it would sound like a bowling ball or horseshoe crashing into the wall. (This is only a mental experiment, more's the pity....) I imagine there would be a sort of soft, squishy thud and then blessed, blessed silence.

At this house the nocturnal critters don't generally bowl and play horseshoes. They chatter, or scratch, or stampede, or roll marbles around from one end of the place to the other. From the sound of it. What is that? We do have oak trees nearby but have you ever tried rolling an acorn for six hours in a row? And acorns are not heavy enough to account for the noise. Or are they heavy in the vicinity of rodents? Are rodents surrounded by small gravity wells that makes them and everything around them heavier? Or do they control gravity? I know I wouldn't jump from the top of one tree to another or scamper along power lines unless I could control gravity. The fact I've never seen a squirrel dead from a fall suggests that they must be able to turn on the anti-gravity when they miss their footing.

But at any rate, if they are rolling acorns I want to ask, why? What are you doing, playing marbles? You're vermin for cripes sake. Stop playing with your food and eat it!

Then there is the most mysterious noise of all. A sound that's weird enough to make your blood run cold, even apart from the fact that you know its going to continue incessantly until dawn. A ratcheting, clicking, whirring, like the scary noise made by one of those thimble and string rattlers kids used to hold against window panes on Halloween. What is it? Are the beasties gnawing on the joists, or window sills, or acorns (having finished their game of marbles) or the electric or phone lines? Are they scratching themselves? Verminous vermin that they are. Or are they merely shaking with laughter at keeping the humans awake?

AND FINALLY

Honore de Balzac reckoned the worst misfortunes we imagine never happen and most of our miseries lie in anticipation of disaster. Speaking of which, Samuel Johnson's advice after a calamity is to ponder how much worse it could have been, particularly useful counsel as we remind subscribers the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will arrive on April 15th. After all, we might be issuing them monthly!

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, the Doom Cat interactive game written by Eric, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/ and/or visit the Poisoned Pen Press blog at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/blog/

Saturday, December 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

DESPERATE MEN REMEMBERED or INFLAMMATORY RAMBLINGS

SUSPECTED OF WRITING MYSTERIES or GRILLED LIKE KIPPERS

BY GUM, SOMETHING DIFFERENT! or NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH

A STRANGE SITE or ROMAN AMONG THE RUINS

AND FINALLY

Monday, October 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

MEMO REF MEM or WHO IS M. E. MAYER?

THE BEST MANSIO NORTH OF LONDON or JOHN'S GHOST LAUNCH

AND SPEAKING OF GHOSTS or THE PERILS OF READING ALOUD

A REVIEW AND INTERVIEW or MORE FROM KRL

A LITTLE BIRD TELLS YOU or TWEETS ARE NEAT!

PARTNERS IN CRIME or TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

LATEST PPP BLOGS or ROCK ON

AND FINALLY

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

AND FINALLY

Friday, June 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A NEW VENTURE or WELDON, WAMBAUGH, AND M. E. MAYER

AND SPEAKING OF PPP or A FEW BLOGS MORE

EARLY REVIEWS or WAIT NINE YEARS? NEIN!

ERIC'S BIT or TYPEWRITER HEROES

AND FINALLY

Sunday, April 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A MOST WELCOME SURPRISE or YET MORE GLORY FOR JOHN

A HOT TOPIC or THE DEVIL'S NINE QUESTIONS

A REAL LIFE VILLAIN or THE GHASTLY GOURD

A SPECIAL OFFER CONTINUES or EBOOKS FOR 99 CENTS!

STOP PRESS

AND FINALLY

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

FIRST PRINT REVIEW or NINE(FER) PIN BOWLING

A SNEAK PEEK or HOW IT BEGINS

ANCIENT TITTLE TATTLE or MYTHS ABOUT MITHRAISM

BACHELORS BEWARE or WOULDN'T IT BE GLOVERLY?

THE SCRIBBLERS SPEAK or RHYMES AND REJECTIONS

NEWS FROM PPP or THE FIRST ANNUAL DISCOVER MYSTERY AWARD

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! or A TEMPTING OFFER INCREASED

AND FINALLY