Mother Nature's wrath

Sybil's post about conflict struck a chord with me today. She listed the three basic types of conflict - with yourself, with another person, and with the environment. Including all three in the same story makes the story even more vivid. The more conflict and challenge, the better. The environment can be a physical challenge like a dangerous whitewater river, a steep mountain, or a dark, underground cave, but it can also be the weather. Many a classic whodunit has centred around a blizzard in a remote inn, and as a Canadian, the extremes of winter weather make it easy to imagine being blinded by the snow, losing ones way, floundering in the snowdrifts, and succumbing to the cold, not to mention power outages and blackouts.

Even a regular  mystery about interpersonal conflict can benefit from having some extra drama thrown into it by Mother Nature, and this summer is shaping up to be full of Mother Nature's wrath. Climate extremes are becoming more and more common, adding to the stress and struggles of people just trying to cope. Just today, Eastern Canada, and in particular the Toronto area, was hit with massive thunderstorms that dumped torrents of rain on the area within a very short time, with hail and tornado warnings added to the mix. Rivers and lakes overflowed their banks and flooded streets, blew the lids off sewer manholes, and caused widespread power outages. Luckily, although many people are inconvenienced and the cost of cleanup will be exorbitant, I have heard no report of fatalities.

But a mystery writer is always thinking about the possibilities. A body is discovered, a long-buried secret is dislodged. I remember an instance in England where a long, severe drought dried up some reservoirs that had flooded out villages years before, and no fewer than three famous British crime writers wrote mysteries about bodies that were exposed by the drought.  In the British crime drama I watched recently, After the Flood, a man's body is discovered in the cleanup of a serious flood, apparently drowned, but an autopsy revealed no water in his lungs. In my upcoming book, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, a house in Kyiv, Ukraine is hit by a Russian airstrike and in the rubble of the attic, a mysterious note is found that kicks off a chain of events that leads ultimately to murder.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, landslides, floods, wars... The possibilities are endless. They can all cause massive destruction and uproot people's lives, shattering their sense of security and causing them to refocus all their priorities on survival and recovery. It brings out not only the worst but also the best in people. Against that backdrop of upheaval and potential death, human experiences and emotions are heightened. it's as if even everyday life is thrown into more vivid relief. There is a reason why some of the most powerful books and films take place against the backdrop of war.

The stakes seem higher, the potential for heroism and villainy amplified. The stories beg to be told, not to exploit the suffering of those enduring it in real life, but to bear witness and to do what we writers do best; examine the social cost.

Real LIfe and Fiction--The Climate Question

 By Thomas Kies

A while back, I asked the question, will you include the pandemic in your writing?  I’m going to ask you another question, will you ever include climate change in your writing? 

I did that extensively in my fourth book Shadow Hill.  That was the one that was Edgar nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award.  

Yes, I’m bragging just a little bit.

But I did talk a lot about climate change, climate change deniers, fossil fuels, the oil industry and the subsidies they get from the federal government. Of course, I also talk about embezzlement, vandalism, and murder.  It’s a murder mystery after all.

Just last weekend, I was scheduled to do a book event and signing at our local library.  The night before, I got an email from the organizer asking me, “In light of the storm, would you like to postpone?  We can’t cancel the caterer, but we’ll let you make the call.”

What storm?

I’ve worked for newspapers and magazines nearly all my life and the result is-- I’m an unrepentant news junkie.  That includes following the weather, especially here on the coast where we get the occasional hurricane.  Plus, we live on an island, so we’re particularly sensitive to really bad weather. 

I opened my laptop and took a look.  Sure enough, there was a storm that had formed just off the South Carolina coast and was coming our way.  Only minutes before, it had grown into a tropical storm, and it was now named Ophelia. 

Where had that come from? It was a complete surprise.

However, we’ve been through tropical storms here and they’ve never been a really big deal.  Some rain, some wind, pop open a bottle of wine, and let’s have a party. 

So, I said, “Let’s do the book signing as scheduled.”  And we did.  All the while, the wind howled, and the rain came down sideways.  We still had about twenty people show up, which I considered to be a win.  

And that was before the storm actually hit land.

That night, before Ophelia actually made landfall, NOAA was saying it could potentially reach land as a Category 1 hurricane.  And we were sitting right at ground zero. 

Long story short, we lost power that night into the next day, one of our trees came down, and I regretted that I hadn’t prepared better.  

But I’d had no real warning.  None of us did.

A week later, the same thing happened further north when a storm hit New York City, Long Island, and Connecticut and dropped over eight inches of rain in a very short period of time leaving streets and subways severely flooded.  It came suddenly and without much warning. 

The reason for these sudden storms seems to be the unusually warm waters in the Atlantic as well as a great deal of water vapor in the air.  The results of climate change?  I’m going to say yes, and you can argue with me if you so wish.

Increased opportunities for wildfires, more powerful storms and hurricanes, lengthy droughts.  Will this enter your fiction? Will it become subject matter for your novels? I’m currently working on my sixth Geneva Chase novel, and it takes place on a barrier island during a hurricane.  

Yes, I mention climate change and how the warm ocean waters act to supercharge storms.  It’s not the main part of the story, but it’s a fact of our lives now.

Will it ever be part of your fiction? It’s certainly part of our reality.

Dystopian News and Focusing on Writing

 By Thomas Kies

I’m an unabashed news junkie.  My career for over thirty years was in newspapers and magazines so being a news geek just comes naturally.  I love the physical feel of a newspaper and we get our local paper delivered here twice a week (we really don’t have enough going on here for more editions than that), the News and Observer out of Raleigh every day except for Saturday, and the Sunday New York Times.  Additionally, I subscribe to the online versions of the Washington Post and my old newspaper, the Norwalk Hour. 

Put that together with all of the other free news websites available and I’m down a rabbit hole instead of writing. 

It is so darned easy to get distracted.  Just in a single Op-Ed section of a Sunday New York Times, there were pieces about how different countries were being affected by climate change, how the new covid variant was raging through the country, and how the divisive nature of our political and cultural landscape is slowly leading up to more violence and the possible end of our democracy.

If those aren’t the ingredients for a dystopian novel, I don’t know what is.  How on earth can anyone concentrate on writing a mystery with so many crazy things happening all at once?

I do a number of things to give myself direction.  I’m very lucky that I live on a barrier island here on the coast of North Carolina, so when I want to clear my head, I’ll take a ten-minute walk to the beach.  Usually, by the time I’ve gotten back home, I can sit down and hit the keyboard.

If I get stalled, I’ll bribe myself.  I’m a coffee addict so before I top off my latest cup of caffeine, I’ll force myself to write at least another couple of paragraphs. 

If I get frustrated with my progress, I’ll get up from my desk and wander around the house, thinking of dialogue.  Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don’t. But it gets the creative juices flowing.

Here’s a question.  Do all writers hear voices in their heads?

For me, starting a new book is the absolute hardest because you’re creating a new plotline, new characters, and new locations.  Everything is being made up of whole cloth. 

Right now, I’m about eighty pages into my new project and yesterday, I went back to the first few chapters to smooth out the rough edges and polish the prose. That was fun!  This afternoon I’ll do another few chapters.

Hopefully, by the time I get back to where I left off, I’ll have hit that place when the story starts to write itself.  It’s where the characters take on a life of their own and you know where the book is going.

Right now, however, I don’t even know who the bad guy is.  Bu that really is part of the fun, isn’t it?

Tidbits From the News

by Thomas Kies 

I worked for newspapers and magazines for over thirty years so I’m a news junkie, pure and simple.  A few stories jumped out at me this week.

The first one was about how the executives of six oil companies and various lobbying groups disseminated false information to the public about the how fossil fuels have had a major negative impact on climate change. 

That struck me hard, because that’s the basic plot of my last book. Shadow Hill.  In my mystery, a major oil company has commissioned their own “scientists” to write a paper on how climate change is part of the natural rhythm of the earth and that burning fossil fuels has a minimum, if any, effect. The company is hoping to stave off a bill moving through Congress that would cut their obscene subsidies and give the money and tax breaks to renewable energy efforts.

Last Thursday, the executives stuck to their scripts while testifying in front of a House committee, not quite admitting that they had delivered fraudulent information for years but claiming that they were all moving in the right direction with clean energy. 

According to the New York Times: Mr. Woods, the C.E.O. of Exxon Mobil, faced questions about company statements over the years that cast doubt on whether fossil fuels were the main driver of climate change. He said the positions were “entirely consistent” with the scientific consensus of the time.

He also said that a 1997 statement by Lee Raymond, then Exxon’s chief executive, that “currently, the scientific evidence is inconclusive” about the role of human activity in warming was “consistent with the science.” Two years earlier, the United Nations’ top climate science body had reached a consensus that global warming is occurring, and that the burning of fossil fuels was a significant cause.

Mr. Woods also said that Exxon Mobil now recognizes climate change, yet “there are no easy answers,” to solving it.

A second story I thought was interesting was from my old newspaper covering Norwalk, Connecticut.  It was about how Netflix is filming a movie based on Stephen King’s story called Mr. Harrigan’s Phone. The filmmakers are using various locations around the city as well as the neighboring town, Westport.

The plot of the story is that a young man, employed by an older man, buys his employer a cellphone.  When the man dies, the phone is buried with him, but the conversations continue…via that cellphone.  Yikes.

I’m glad they’ve picked Norwalk for their movie location.  I’ve based my Geneva Chase novels in a fictional town called Sheffield, but in my mind’s eye, looks an awful lot like Norwalk. I always loved that town.  Rich in diversity, South Norwalk, or SoNo, has a wonderful vibe and fabulous restaurants.  It's also a great place to stage crime novels.

The last story I’ll tell you about is how one of the most popular Carmen Mola, one of the most popular crime writers in Spain, won the coveted Premio Planeta literary prize and the million euros that go with it.  The protagonist of Mola’s mysteries is a female detective by the name of Elena Blanco.

The surprise was when Mola was supposed to go onstage to collect her million euros, three men appeared instead.  As it turned out, all three of them had collaborated on the Elena Blanco books. 

When my wife saw this, she smiled and said, “See, it takes three men to write as a woman.”

I’m still not sure how to take that.  My protagonist is Geneva Chase, a female reporter.

I don't have any collaborators.  

Is There a Place For Social Commentary in Our Novels?

How much social commentary should a writer put into their work? Should they put any in at all?

I think we all know how polarized our country is right now. Say the wrong thing in your novel and you’re liable to lose fifty percent of your readers. For that reason, I stay the heck away from politics.

Mostly.

These days, the strangest things set up a political firestorm. Masks, vaccines, mandates. Instead of following the science, we follow the rhetoric.

In my fourth book, Shadow Hill, I touch upon LBGTQ bias, school shootings, and climate change.

One of my characters, fifteen-year-old Caroline Bell, writes a column for her high school newspaper that centers on school shootings. Without pontificating about gun rights or gun control, she very simply talks about how many children have died in horrific, senseless mass murder events. And how, with semi-automatic weapons easily at people’s disposal, how fast it can happen and how bad the body count can be.

Caroline goes on to interview her teachers and fellow students about how they feel as they practice lockdown drills. The queasy stomachs, the nightmares, the headaches are the resulting trauma of having to train for a possible mass murder event.

When I talk about climate change in the novel, I talk about the science of the greenhouse gas effect, primarily as a result of burning fossil fuels. I also talk about insane amounts of subsidies the United States Government gives to oil and gas companies. I also mention how much money the fossil fuel industry spends on lobbying against climate change policies.

Have I lost any readers over it? I don’t think so. I’ve had neighbors on both sides of the political spectrum tell me how much they enjoyed the book. One of them even mentioned a character I introduced who was a United States Senator. The congressman in the book is sexist, hypocritical, and an opportunistic liar.

One of the hats I wear here on the coast of North Carolina is that I serve as the president of a non-profit organization called the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast. BAPAC represents 43,000 businesses from Maine to Florida and 500,000 commercial fishing families. Our primary goal is to oppose the offshore drilling for oil and gas. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is fresh in our minds even though it happened eleven years ago.

I’ve been to Washington DC three times and testified in front of a US House committee stating our position and why. There are presently a number of bills moving through the House that would permanently ban offshore drilling off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Do I I know of any politicians as bad as the one I describe in the book? No comment.

I just finished reading a wonderful mystery by my good friend Warren Easley entitled No Witness. He spends a great deal of time in his novel talking about how immigration laws affect the Hispanic community and the distrust that they create. It too is kind of a political book but without being preachy. Will he lose any readers over it? I hope not.

So, back to my original question. How much social commentary should you put into your book? Heck, I lost a reader because I once took a shot at Fox news.

I guess it’s all about how passionate you are.

Art Imitating Life?

 My newest book, SHADOW HILL, due to be released in August has the following descriptive blurb: 

“Just days before Morris Cutter, a retired powerful oil executive, is scheduled to give a pseudo-scientific report to Congress that will delay crucial action on climate change for decades, he and his wife are found shot to death in their Greenwich, Connecticut, home. The police call it murder-suicide. The couple's son refuses to accept the official conclusion and hires Geneva Chase, crime reporter turned private detective, to prove otherwise.

“Genie soon learns that there are suspects everywhere, including within the deceased's immediate family. Morris Cutter's own daughter hadn't spoken with him in years, and his nephew is a climate activist with a radical organization. But Cutter's former company has a vested interest in keeping a low profile until it is able to present its mock-science on Capitol Hill. Genie is bribed, then threatened, to wrap up her investigation before the scheduled hearing date and to concur with the police findings.

“When the lead scientist of the study goes missing, followed by Cutter's daughter, Genie begins to piece together what actually may have happened to Morris and Julia Cutter, putting herself in harm's way as she races to find the truth.”

In addition to being the president of our county's chamber of commerce, I'm also the president of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast (BAPAC) representing over 42,000 businesses from Maine to Florida.

On Thursday of last week, I was invited to testify in front of a Congressional Subcommittee and Mineral Resources at a hearing called, “Protecting Coastal Communities and Ocean Resources from Offshore Drilling.” I was there to support a bill called the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act that, if passed, will permanently ban offshore oil drilling off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.  

Similar bills are moving through the House of Representatives protecting the Pacific Coast and the western coast of Florida. 

In SHADOW HILL I write about how some lawmakers know the truth about climate change and how dangerous it is but are still hellbent to support burning fossil fuels.  I suspected that was true, but after seeing the performance of some of the members of the House of Representatives, now I’m certain.

It’s ironic when one of the witnesses offering testimony against the bills that will ban additional offshore oil drilling, said that in the state of Louisiana, the percentage of revenue they get from oil helps to build levees and mitigation efforts to protect against powerful hurricanes and sea level rise.  The irony of that is if we weren’t burning fossil fuels like we’ve been doing, we wouldn’t have more and more powerful hurricanes or rising sea levels.

This week, we saw the shutdown of the Colonial pipeline from a cyber ransomware attack.  Here in North Carolina, there were long lines at the pumps for the better part of a week.  One of the members of the committee in their opening statement said, “See?  See what happens when we cut off the supply of gas and oil?”

I wanted to point out that this was not a lack of supply.  This was a lack of security being in place to safeguard the smooth flow of supply.

Enough about oil and how art imitates life. 

The mask mandate has been removed here in our state for those who have been vaccinated.  I’ve missed seeing peoples’ faces and their smiles. I’ve missed shaking hands and the hugs.  

I know we’re not out of the woods yet, but boy it feels good. 

How Much of an Escape

Last year in Albany, New York, we had days when there was nothing to do – nothing one could have been expected to do – but stay inside and look out. Last year, we stocked up on cocoa, made huge pots of soup, and anticipated our TV or movie-watching binges, and the books we would read when even adults had "snow days". This year, we have so little snow that I'm embarrassed to mention it when I talk to my relatives in Virginia.

Snow seen through screened window
this morning.

Harry's bored reaction to weather
in Albany this February.

Believe me, I complained along with almost everyone else in the Northeast when we had major snowstorms in mind-boggling succession last year. When I was reduced to tunneling a narrow path from front door to steps out onto the street, I would have been happy to see all the snow disappear. But this year, this lack of snow is spooking me. I know it has gone some place else, but that doesn't make me feel better. This is February in upstate New York. We should have snow – measurable, boots required, weather alert, go-home-before-it-starts snow. I should be complaining about the hard, icy chunks shoved across my driveway by the snowplow clearing my street.

I shouldn't be thinking about my Hannah McCabe books because it hasn't snowed. McCabe, a homicide detective, inhabits an Albany in the near future. I set The Red Queen Dies in 2019 with temperatures in the 90s in late October. A few months later, in What the Fly Saw, a massive January blizzard is headed up the East Coast toward Albany. The murderer strikes during this storm. The weather in McCabe's world is erratic and troubling. Now, the weather in my world is, too.

The thing about writing is that sometimes what one writes as fiction becomes reality. Or, at least close enough to reality to be reason for concern. My two McCabe police procedurals take place as a presidential election is looming. McCabe's father is a retired journalist/newspaper editor. They have several occasion to discuss the candidacy of a third party candidate named Howard Miller who is appealing to people's fears because his campaign begins to intrude into their lives.

Yes, freakish weather has happened in the past. Yes, politicians have often used fear- and anger-laden messages to ride into office. But having spent some time thinking about the future, it feels as if it is coming faster than I expected. My fiction may soon reflect reality.

Not that my fictional world is a dystopia nightmare. I'm not writing science fiction. But I thought by moving a few years ahead and creating an alternate universe Albany, I would be setting my stories in a world that was different from our own.

The lack of February snow in Albany and the 2016 presidential race have gotten me thinking about what I do as a writer. Or, I should say, thinking more deeply about what I do. I am at that point when I need to update my bio, take new author photos, and do some work on my website. I also should have a look at my neglected Facebook page. I know I should send out a newsletter, do the blogs I was going to do on my website about my research, and send out related tweets. I've been thinking about how to present a consistent image as a writer – not just because I read a book about how this is a useful marketing strategy. I have reached a point in my career when having a clear perception of who I am as writer will make my choices easier. I have a list of writing projects that I would love to do – ideas for books and short stories with my current protagonists, a proposal out there for a new series, a historical thriller in progress. And, of course, there is my nonfiction book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. And a couple of other nonfiction books ideas that I've thought of while writing that one. I have enough potential projects to keep me busy for years. So the question of what to do next – decided in part by discussions with my agent and my editor.

Actually, the larger question is how to write. What do I want to put out there in the world? Do I want my books and short stories to be an escape for readers? Of course, I do. That is why I began reading as a child and one of the reasons I love curling up with a book as an adult. I went through a period as a teenager when I gobbled up romance novels. I still enjoy a good romance. I belong to Romance Writers of America. In my Lizzie Stuart series, there is an overarching love story. But the few times I've thought of writing a romance, the plot morphed into a hybrid romance/mystery. I'm a criminal justice professor. That is reflected in what I write.

I provide escape and entertainment. But I also need – want – to deal with social issues. I provide historical context. My books offer fictional springboards for discussions. That's what I do best.

But if I could write books with happy endings, I might be less concerned when there is so little snow this Albany winter and a presidential campaign season that would make Howard Miller smile.