Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity 2025

 The 2025 edition of the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference is in the rearview. I can’t think of a conference with a more welcoming atmosphere, or where you’ll get more bang for your buck if you’re looking to meet and talk with authors while learning about the craft. As an example, I have as many notes from the two half-days and one full day of C3 as I have from the two half-days and three full days of Bouchercon.

 Kudos go to Austin and Denise Camacho, Cynthia Lauth, and everyone connected with putting on this gem of a conference, including Susan McBride for her adept handling of the book sales. Additional shoutouts to keynote speakers Tom Straw and Jody Lynn Nye, as well as special guests Ellen Crosby and L. Marie Woods. Their speeches and interviews were entertaining and enlightening.

 What follows are the comments that stuck with me most from conference panels. If no credit is given, the comment belongs to the most recently mentioned author.

 Tom Straw: If you pitch an idea for a TV script, they may buy it for you to write, or pay you for the outline and have someone else write the script.

 John le Carré once said a book is to a screenplay as a cow is to a bouillon cube.

 When arbitrating who gets credit for a script, dialog is the last thing considered.

 Thomas A. Burns: There is a difference between factual distortion and fiction.

 Wendy Gee: Let your cops cry. (At appropriate times, of course.)

 Bryan England: Cops who speak to each other in 10 codes are more than likely part-timers or auxiliaries.

 Brian Paone: Tem codes are going away, as every jurisdiction has their own and the possibility for confusion is too great.

 Bryan England: Cops always have their own codes for dead bodies so people monitoring scanners don’t suddenly start showing up, making the investigation difficult. (Tony Knighton: Ditto for firefighters.)

 Tony Knighton: Firefighters don’t ‘pull hose;’ they ‘stretch lines.’ They didn’t ‘go to a fire;’ they ‘made a job.’’

 Philadelphia firefighters do not respond to ‘cat in tree’ calls unless called by the ASPCA. Even then, all they do is set the ladder. It’s the ASPCA who climbs the tree.

 Wendy Gee: Interference with a firefighter is a felony. Interfering with law enforcement is typically a misdemeanor.

 Tony Knighton: Fire and police departments may have no direct means of communication. He cited an example where he had to get the fire dispatcher to call 911 so a police dispatcher could direct a cop to him when the cop was standing a hundred feet away.

 Wendy Gee: The only sense not used at a scene is taste.

 Bryan England: Vapo-Rub in the nose only works a little in a smelly death scene, and even then only until you open your mouth.

 First responders are actors, not ponderers. They evaluate as they act.

 John deDakis: A good 911 operator will pick up on a situation and adjust their questioning accordingly. Example: if the threat is near to the caller, she’ll ask only yes/no questions.

 Bradley Harper: Some people who have an experience in an altered state – drugs or alcohol, for example – may remember what happened only while in a similar state.

 Glenn Parris: Alcoholics may fill gaps in their memory with fabrications.

 Bradley Harper: Medical examiners may cover the face and genitals of a corpse out of respect while doing the autopsy. There is a way to get the brain out through a relatively small incision in the back of the head if the family wants an open casket funeral.

 Glenn Parris: Even transplants between identical twins require some form of immune system repression.

 Bradley Harper: Identical twins may differ in minor ways due to how their RNA interprets their DNA.

 Louisiana coroners are elected officials who pay others for autopsies out of appropriated funds; they keep anything left over at year’s end.

 Mike McLaughlin, Glenn Parris, Bradley Harper (consensus opinion): The most realistic medical shows ever are The Pitt, ER, St. Elsewhere, M*A*S*H, and Scrubs.

 Next year’s conference will be September 18 – 20, 2026. I’ll be there and, if you read this blog at all regularly, you ought to be there yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer's Favorite Reads

 This is a longer post than usual, but I had an excellent summer of reading.

 

On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder. I bought this during 45’s administration but didn’t get around to reading it until now. Only about sixty pages long, Snyder shows the similarities of authoritarian takeovers, most of which have a disconcerting resemblance to what we’re going through now.

 

Way Down on the High Lonely, Don Winslow. Few writers have the ability to write such consistently excellent books that are each so different. This one takes us into the mountains, where what started out as the search for a missing child turns into PI Neal Carey finding himself in the middle of a war with white supremacists. All the Winslow touches are here, which means I liked it a lot.

 

A Few Days Away, Tony Knighton. This is the first of Knighton’s books I’ve read, but I’ll be back. Knighton’s Nameless Thief draws a little from Hammett’s Continental Op and a lot from Richard Stark’s Parker to create a story that is as tightly-written as the plot is explosive. A great read from start to finish.

 

Get Shorty, Elmore Leonard. I’ve read this at least half a dozen times and it still makes me laugh. Leonard’s funniest book and still my favorite, though I’ll admit several have more compelling stories. (Such as? Hombre, City Primeval, Glitz, Swag, and probably a couple of others that aren’t coming to mind right now. None are more fun.)

 

Fog City, Claire M. Johnson. A 1930 San Francisco PI leaves town, placing the agency in the hands of his young secretary. She wants to do more than keep the lights on and continues to accept cases, one of which puts her well in over her head. Johnson captures the aura of Prohibition-era San Francisco as well or better as anyone since Hammett, and Maggie Laurent is a character whose diligence and enthusiasm make her easy to root for.

 

November Road, Lou Berney. I re-read this as part of preparing to moderate a panel at Bouchercon and liked it even better the second time. Not so much an alternative history as a ‘what if’ story of what could happen when two very different people both decide to leave their old lives behind. Berney can make a grocery list fun to read, and here he has a lot more material to work with. An outstanding book that deserved the acclaim it received.

 

Inverse Cowgirl, Alicia Roth Weigel. I rarely feel the need to read memoirs of people less than half my age, but Weigel’s account of growing up intersex came to my attention as part of researching the current Nick Forte project. A frank and unapologetic look at what life can be like for the intersex community and the problems it brings, as well as ideas for how to avoid them in the future. A powerfully personal, yet eminently readable book that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn about this too often neglected group.

 

Money, Money, Money, Ed McBain. It’s Ed McBain. What else do you need to know? This is one of the later books, after Fat Ollie Weeks came around for comic relief. McBain wrote 57 87^th Precinct novels and they all rate at least four stars out of five. This one has drug dealers working behind an unusual front, counterfeiters, and a dead woman eaten by lions.

 

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Micheal Lewis. Lewis happened to be working on a book about Sam Bankman-Fried when the whole FTX operation went tits up, so he got a lot of inside scoop. I have the feeling the publisher wanted to get this one out while SBF was still in the news, so we’re left with no good conclusion, as the legal situations had only just begun to play out. The least satisfying of Lewis’s books I’ve read, but the world of crypto is so shady and built on such a sandy foundation not even he could get me to understand it.

 

By the Dawn's Early Light, Lawrence Block. A long story; not a novel, this is an excellent episode in the Matt Scudder oeuvre. Here he gets a casual friend out of a jam without knowing what exactly the jam is and inadvertently causes more harm. Scudder does find a way to help even the score.

 

Rain Dogs, Baron Birtcher. I’ve been watching Birtcher on panels for years and always promise myself to read one of his books. I finally got around to it and will definitely be back. Rain Dogs is a remarkably complicated story that comes together without artifice or allowing the reader to see what’s going on behind the curtain until Birtcher is ready to show him. Trigger warning: there are a couple of gruesomely violent scenes, but they are not gratuitous, as they provide insights into character and future motivations..

 

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, Bill Bryson. An entertaining and informative examination of how America has added to and changed the English language. The book covers far more than language alone, which makes for interesting lessons in both history and sociology. Bryson has a dry wit that makes the book a lot of fun to read.

Bouchercon 2025

 A busier than usual September has delayed my Bouchercon wrap-up. Do not let that lead you to think this year’s event was anything other than a success. For me, on multiple levels. (I’ll have more to say about the ‘multiple levels’ business in the coming weeks.)

 I used to break down every panel I attended. I’m not doing that this year because

·       I didn’t go to as many panels as I used to

·       I didn’t garner as much new information from the panels I did go to

This is in no way a criticism of the program. I’ve been attending conferences since 2008 and have published sixteen novels since then. I still look forward to learning ways to make my writing better and more fun for everyone, but much of what I hear now is, with notable exceptions, a variation on something I already know. That’s to be expected when one gets to be my age and has the same level of experience.

 What follows is a recap of the things that struck me as most noteworthy. I credited the speakers when I could, but there were times I’d be finishing one note and something else I wanted to record was said and I didn’t get a chance to see who said it. If your name has been omitted from a comment, please accept my apology. No slight was intended.

 BOUCHERCON NOTES 2025

 Alex Kenna: Neo-noir is an ‘endless smorgasbord of pain.’ (I will definitely use this line in a blurb someday, and told Alexx so.)

 Brian Thiem: Increased reliance on technology has lowered the Oakland homicide clearance rate from 70% to below 50% because of the investigators’ increasing reliance on the tech, and waiting for the results to come in, when they should be knocking on doors.

 Bruce Coffin: The ending of an action scene is the beginning of a sequence based on the consequences of the action.

 Carter Wilson & Bruce Coffin: The diner scene between Pacino and DeNiro in Heat has more suspense than any of the violent action.

 Mandy Miller: It’s the writer’s job to make interesting things that could be boring. (In other words, don’t let ‘this is boring’ be an excuse for improper procedure.)

 Mandy Miller: Knowing the law is less valuable than knowing the procedure.

 Sherry Lewis Wohl: Cadaver dogs can detect cremated remains.

 (Uncertain): DNA taken from a service member can only be used to identify a corpse, never to bring charges.

 

(Uncertain): Some experts will spin evidence so they’ll get hired again. Some never even look at it.

 

Katherine Ramsland: Forensic meteorology is the study of how weather affects a crime scene. (This is actually a thing.)

 Sherry Lewis Wohl: Search & rescue dogs and their handlers are volunteers.

 John deDakis: Cable doesn’t answer to the FCC, so there are no consequences for inaccuracy.

 (Uncertain): Reporters may do a lot of their long-term investigations on their own time. They’ll complete their assignments as quickly as possible so they can work on the other things.

 

Jordan Harper: Writing should be hard the way playing a sport is hard, not ‘lifting a car off of someone’ hard.

 Gary Phillips: Private eye novels are really about the PI looking for themselves. (That hit home for me, given the book I’m working on now.)

 Christa Faust: Location and character are not distinct. POV means everything.

 Kristin Perrin: Explore how a person can change a place as well as how the place can change a person.

 Thanks to everyone we met and spent time with, both old friends and new acquaintances. I don’t want to list names here because I know I’ll leave someone out. Special thanks to Lou Berney, Diana Chambers, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Claire Johnson, and Boyd Morrison for making our panel a joy to moderate. Suffice to say it was great to return to Bouchercon after five years away. We’ll miss Calgary next year, but 2027 in Washington DC is already on the schedule.