AHMM, Sep 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I had listened with breathless interest so far, but I now broke in: “How about the spider?"

  "Perfectly simple!” answered Harborne. “Allow me."

  He reached down for the leather case and unstrapped it. From within he took ... a magic lantern!

  "What!” I exclaimed. “A magic lantern?"

  "With cinematograph attachment! Here, you see, is the film—not improved by having been in the river. Some kind of South American spider, is it not?—beautifully coloured and on a black ground. The plank, supported upon the window-ledge and the upturned case, did duty for a table, and as Jamieson went up the ladder, and surveyed the place from the south-east, this was directed from the window of the end house across the few intervening yards of Spindle Lane and through the laboratory window on to the north-west corner of the wall.

  "The beam from the lens would be hidden by the partition and only the weird image visible from the porter's point of view—though had he mounted further up the ladder and glanced over the wall he must have observed the ray of light across the lane. The familiar illuminated circle, usually associated with such demonstrations, was ingeniously eliminated by having a transparent photograph on an opaque ground. The Professor then retreated to the back door and hauled up his boat by the painter—which he would, of course, have attached there. He pulled upstream to return his boat and to sink his apparatus. He was probably already disguised—his fur coat would have concealed this from Jamieson."

  I stared at Harborne in very considerable amazement.

  "You are apparently surprised,” he said with a smile; “but there is really nothing very remarkable in it all. I have not bored you with all the little details that led to the conclusion, nor related how I suffered a second ducking in leaving the end house; but my solution was no more than a plausible hypothesis until a happy inspiration, born of nothing more palpable than my own imaginings, led me to search for and find the cinematograph. You are about to ask where I found it: I answer, in the deep hole above Long's boathouse where Jimmy Baker made his big catch last summer. Brayme-Skepley, being a man of very high reasoning powers, would, I argued, deposit it up and not downstream, knowing that the river would be dragged. He would furthermore put it in the hole, so that the current should not carry it below college.

  "There are, however, still one or two points that need clearing up. As to the blood, that offered no insurmountable difficulty to a physiologist; and, by Jove!” ... He suddenly plunged his hand into the case.... “This rubber ring from a soda-water bottle, ingeniously mounted upon a cane handle, accounts for the mysterious tracks. The point to which I particularly allude is the object of the Professor's disappearance."

  "I think,” I said, “that I can offer a suggestion. He found, too late to withdraw, that his famous theory had a flaw in it, and could devise no less elaborate means of hiding the fact and at the same time of so destroying his apparatus as to leave no trace whereby his great reputation could be marred."

  "That is my own idea,” agreed Harborne. “For which reason I have carefully covered such very few tracks as he left, and have decided that this handsome case, with its tell-tale inscription—J. B. S.—must be destroyed. My conclusions are not for the world, which is at perfect liberty to believe that Professor Brayme-Skepley was carried off by an unclassified aptera!"

  And so, somewhere or other, Professor Brayme-Skepley is pursuing his distinguished career under a new name, while Harborne allows the world to persist in its opinion.

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  The Mysterious Photograph

  Last Grasp

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  We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will be printed in a future issue. Reply to AHMM, Dell Magazines, 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. Please label your entry “September Contest,” and be sure your name and address are written on the story you submit. If possible, please also include your Social Security number.

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  The Story That Won

  The March contest was won by Jim Sadlemyer of Nanaimo, BC. Honorable mentions go to Heather Creamer of Canning, NS; Sharon L. Near of Puyallup, WA; Charles Schaeffer of Bethesda, MD; Rudy S. Uribe of Van Nuys, CA; Kathleen M. Cooley of Monroe, WA; Jan Streilein of Aiken, SC; James A. Knoop of Clay, MI; John Thomen of Katy, TX; and Robert Kesling of Ann Arbor, MI.

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  Penalty of Law by Jim Sadlemyer

  "The artist calls it ‘If a Crime Is Committed in the Forest and There Is No One Around, Is It Still a Crime?'” observed Agent Smith. “I don't get it."

  "The artist is telling us that a crime has been committed,” replied Agent Miller.

  "But what crime? If you ask me, he should be arrested anyway. All that fake show. Such a waste. That's a crime, isn't it?"

  "The Art Laws of 2043 forbade the imprisonment of artists with questionable tastes. However, he is telling us that a crime has been committed. He is thumbing his nose at order. It's little wonder we've received so many calls about this exhibit. Close to a crime but still not reason enough to commit him to the Policy Camps."

  Smith shuddered. “He's playing with fire then. When the Political Correctness Police are on the case, your days are numbered. If I were him, I would be hiding under that bed of his. I mean I've heard of a blanket of snow but if this passes for art, then he should be placed in cryo-sleep with all those tobacco smokers!"

  "That's an excellent idea!” Agent Miller exalted as he walked through the life-size diorama. He slid under the bed and reappeared moments later with a satisfied expression covering his face. “Have the artist and museum staff arrested. I've discovered the crime. Let's shut this place down now."

  "What did you find?"

  "The tag has been removed from the mattress!"

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  Busman's Holiday

  The Twin Cities boast twin bookstores collectively known as the Uncles. Uncle Hugo's, a science fiction store, opened first, in 1974. It was followed in 1980 by Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore, and the two now share a building on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. Uncle Edgar's will mark its 25th anniversary in December.

  The stores were both opened by Don Blyly, who says that in his first year of law school, he decided he needed a “fun hobby.” Jeff Hatfield has served as buyer and manager for Uncle Edgar's since shortly after it opened. “Both Uncles carry new, used, and remaindered books,” notes Blyly, who adds, “As the prices of new books have gone up, the percentage of our business that comes from used books has increased."

  In such wide-open spaces of the Upper Midwest, the stores draw loyal customers from a large region. “It's common for people from small towns to make a trip to Minneapolis once or twice a year to buy things they can't find in their local stores,” says Blyly. “Frequently that includes a trip to the Uncles to stock up on books."

  The stores also tend to schedule author events on weekends to accommodate customers who must drive long distances to meet an author. And they keep in touch with their far-flung customer base through a quarterly newsletter, now eighteen years old, that has grown to a distribution of some 10,000 copies.

  Despite the upcoming 25th anniversary, the store has been forced to put plans to celebrate that milestone on hold, as the neighborhood has been disrupted by construction for several months. The work has both rerouted public transportation and blocked off on-street parking, so Blyly and Hatfield have opted to wait and see if the city will keep to its completion schedule before they prepare for any sort of celebration.

  The construction notwithstanding, however, the Uncles will maintain another tradition that's a favorite of customers: their annual, week-long used book sale in September.

  When asked for some mysteries written by local authors or that capture the spirit of Minnesota, Blyly and Hatfield frequently recommend Thir
d Person Singular by K. J. Erickson, Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger, Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon by Larry Millett, Rules of Prey by John Sandford, and Monkeewrench by P. J. Tracy.

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  Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore

  www.UncleEdgar.com

  2864 Chicago Avenue South

  Minneapolis, MN 55407

  612-824-9984

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  Booked & Printed

  Reviews by Robert C. Hahn

  Contemporary thrillers offer deeply ambiguous worlds where the “good” guys are often as bad as the “bad” guys, and the hero is well-advised to trust no one at all. Since 9/11, moreover, the specter of terrorism has loomed ever larger for both readers and writers of thrillers. Three new books—by Barbara Parker, Francine Mathews, and Alexa Hunt—make effective use of these tropes of ambiguity and threat: in dark worlds of terrorism both international and domestic, and corruption both political and corporate, their agents must thread their careful way through layers of deception laced with landmines.

  That's certainly true when Alexa Hunt unravels the conspirators who aptly and amply prove Lord Acton's axiom that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” in her novel Corrupts Absolutely (Forge, $24.95). If it weren't for the fact that Hunt specifically states that her book was conceived in 1998 and completed long before 9/11, readers would be likely to assume it was predicated on those attacks.

  Hunt's near-future scenario finds the United States under brutal attack by squads of highly efficient Colombian drug-cartel hit squads penetrating American defenses and striking at federal officials of the judiciary and drug-enforcement agencies with plenty of collateral damage to civilians. As the attacks worsen, the U.S. government rules out a surgical strike against the cartel, which now has nuclear weapons of its own and promises to use them. Instead, a Martial Law Act that makes the current Patriot Act seem positively benign is signed into law, and a new super agency is created. The BISC (Bureau of Illegal Substance Control), headed by a secret tribunal whose identities are known only to the president, is authorized to act without regard to law or normal rules. As their critics charge, the BISC is in reality a secret police force that has, in its zeal to preempt more terrorist attacks, assassinated a number of FBI agents investigating the BISC.

  Hunt establishes all this in a series of chilling news flashes as a prelude to introducing her lead characters: ex-FBI agent turned Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elliott Delgado and BISC agent Leah Berglund. Delgado is brought back into the fold by his former boss and mentor Cal Putnam, who wants him to investigate illegal activities by BISC. Leah Berglund, a highly trained assassin, is assigned the task of investigating, then terminating, Delgado.

  Hunt isn't content to make this a cat-and-mouse chase by her two heroes; she spreads a net that catches political and military conspiracies, cartel operatives, and plenty of wild cards in a high-stakes game that could ultimately lead to nuclear destruction. With Delgado finding more and more evidence that BISC is seriously out of control and Berglund picking up clues that suggest her employers are less noble than she believed, the two find common interest and form an uneasy alliance.

  Not only does Hunt provide enough twists to keep the identities of the lead conspirators in question throughout, but Delgado and Berglund each bring formidable allies to their cause. The resultant chases, firefights, and escapes keep the pages flipping rapidly as the action moves from steaming deserts to Maine cliffs to the Capitol itself. This top-notch thriller should have the special effects experts salivating at the chance to translate Hunt's thrilling action scenes onto celluloid.

  Francine Mathews follows her well-received espionage thriller The Cutout (2001) with Blown (Bantam, $24), with CIA agent Caroline Carmichael about to resign after the failure to destroy the terrorist group “30 April.” The supposedly defunct group is claiming responsibility for a deadly ricin attack in the United States and threatening worse attacks to come.

  Caroline is devastated when she learns that her husband, agent Eric Carmichael, whom she believed had died almost three years earlier in an explosion caused by 30 April, is actually alive. His “death” had masked his infiltration of the terrorist group and was known only to one person. When Eric is arrested as a 30 April agent and trapped in Germany, Caroline finds herself torn between duty to her country and to her husband.

  Meanwhile, other attacks are happening in the States, and Caroline becomes both target and hunter as she faces treacherous and deadly enemies. Mathews adeptly taps into the psyche of disaffected Americans known as “True Citizens"—followers of William Pierce's The Turner Diaries and the ilk that produced Timothy McVeigh. Given the example of the Oklahoma City bombing, Mathews's scenario doesn't lack for credibility.

  Mathews was an intelligence analyst for the CIA before she became a writer, and her writing carries a certain authority as she depicts field agents, rogues, and villains matching wits and skills in ruthless contests.

  The terrorist threats in Barbara Parker's newest thriller Suspicion of Rage (Dutton, $24.95) are murkier and more problematic than those of Mathews or Hunt in that they are potential rather than actual.

  Parker's series characters, Miami attorneys Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana, are newly wed and bound for Cuba—a chance for Gail to see her husband's homeland and to meet her new sister-in-law Marta and her husband, Cuban General Ramiro Vega, as well as Anthony's father. The couple plans to take along Gail's mother and twelve-year-old daughter and Anthony's teenaged son and daughter.

  Quintana has made numerous trips to Cuba over the years. He has been able to do so because he has been scrupulously apolitical in spite of his friendship with noted Cuban dissidents José Leiva and Yolanda Cabrera.

  But on the eve of the family's departure, CIA agents approach Quintana to press him into sounding out his brother-in-law about defecting. According to them, Vega's life is in danger if he doesn't leave.

  Then in Cuba things become extremely complicated as Quintana's careful diplomacy is not only tested by the conflicting demands of American and Cuban agents, but he and his family are threatened as well by a fledgling resistance group of young Cubans. Even if Quintana manages to steer a neutral course during their visit, it may be the last trip he is allowed.

  Parker convincingly portrays a Cuba impoverished but still proud, beautiful but also deadly and riven by corruption. Getting into Cuba was easy and legal, but Quintana has to exercise all his considerable skills to get all of his family out of Cuba safely as he struggles to keep his children from becoming pawns in a deadly game of intrigue that involves an assassination plan and missing materiel.

  Parker's fans will relish this detailed look at Cuba and old Havana in particular. Espionage and thriller fans will appreciate her ability to create fiendishly clever twists to heighten the pressure and even more clever resolutions to keep the action rolling to its satisfying conclusion.

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  Reel Crime

  Column by Steve Hockensmith

  Critics often complain that many of today's films feel like they were written by committee, and a glance at the opening credits for the typical Hollywood movie would seem to prove they're right. Between the credits for the producers and the director a long list of names usually appears that looks something like this:

  Screenplay by

  Joe Blow & John Doe

  and

  John Q. Citizen & Jane Q. Citizen

  From a story by

  I. M. Noone

  and

  Sue D. Nymm

  Based on characters created by

  Alan Smithee

  But at least two films this summer won't give viewers eyestrain when the screenwriting credits appear. Both movies—the creepy adventure/comedy The Brothers Grimm (opening July 29) and the neo-Southern Gothic chiller The Skeleton Key (opening just two weeks later)—will feature the same, simple credit:

  Written by

  Ehren K
ruger

  Such an honor isn't new to Kruger. Though ten of his screenplays have been produced over the last seven years, the busy thirty-two-year-old writer has rarely had to share the limelight with the usual horde of collaborators and script doctors.

  And solo writing credits aren't the only things his films have in common. After making a splash with the twisty, twisted terrorism thriller Arlington Road in 1999, Kruger quickly became Tinsel-town's go-to guy for projects calling for hefty doses of deception, desperation, and death.

  "Whether you find something I've written on the thriller shelf or the mystery shelf or the horror shelf in the video store, there's a common link in everything I do—an element of suspense,” says Kruger, whose other credits include Scream 3, the caper flick/twist-a-thon Reindeer Games, the sci-fi chiller Impostor, and The Ring and its recently released sequel, The Ring Two. “I've tried writing just about every genre there is, but thrillers are what I've enjoyed more than anything else. I just really love crafting suspense."

  For Kruger, cooking up thrills and chills isn't just a craft—it's been a lifelong passion. Not that he's always aspired to be Hollywood's top writer of spine-tingling suspense. Once upon a time, he dreamed of scaring people in a much more visceral way.

  "When I was a kid, what I really wanted to do was design roller coasters,” says Kruger, who grew up just outside Washington, D.C., in suburban Alexandria, Virginia. “That's what I had on the walls of my room. Not movie posters—maps of amusement parks. I took architecture and engineering courses in high school, but at a certain point I decided all that was far too scientific for me."