The Nikki Dolson’s Card Shark Molly’s Last Hand is the second story in Back Roads Bobby and His Friends, Colin Conway’s last edition to the 509 Crime Anthology. Molly is picking up a month’s worth of cash in one night by working as a dealer in a very private, pop-up poker game. The crowd is rough but the pot is big and Molly has plans for her share of the take. She is working the crowd as she makes the flop: a pair of eights and an ace. More money is thrown on the table. Molly flips the next card, another ace. The deadman’s hand, she realizes. And that’s went everything goes to hell.
Card Shark Molly’s Last Hand is one of those stories that slaps you in the face if you get so cocky as to assume where it is going. Nikki does a great job of dragging you through a litany of emotions – pride, fear, anger, anguish, more anger – all in twenty-one pages. It is a strong example of short story writing, made more potent by being in the hard crime genre. A 5-star review. Read this one if you are a fan of stories that keep you on the edge of your seat.
The Escape of Jimmy the Saint by Frank Zafiro is the first story in Colin Conway’s BACK ROAD BOBBY AND HIS FRIENDS, a 509 Crime Anthology. Jimmy “the Saint” Sauntiago loves his 1969 Chevelle, loves to drives, loves his girlfriend…well, maybe not the last one so much. She’s pressuring him to give up his first two loves and settle down. Jimmy’s life is driving and outsmarting, outmaneuvering, and plain old out driving Deputy Shiple. That man HATES Jimmy. Then Jimmy learns Handbrake Hardy Frye, the driving legend, is making his exodus from this world (the anthology’s tie that binds). Instead of delivering his current package to his customer, Jimmy decides to take it to Handbrake, a gift befitting a legend.
This short story has all the hallmarks of a Frank Zafiro tale. The hero isn’t quite good, the story isn’t quite simple, and the ending has you reading it twice. Like all Frank’s stories, this one is for readers who prefer the gray, where life isn’t all roses and sunshine, but it’s not so bleak that there isn’t hope. Go in with an open mind, ’cause you aren’t going to guess where this one is going.
Colin Conway has just released the newest anthology of his 509 universe, Back Road Bobby and his Friends. I am thrilled to have written a story for this collection titled Giddy Up Done Gone. My story is about something everyone wants but noone can buy: respect. Giddy Up is eighteen and grew up in her grandparents loving home. With her grandsparents now deceased, her family had very modest expectations for her life. In a family of mechanics and car junkies, being female kept her out of the pits. I suppose this is a coming-of-age story, but it didn’t feel like it when I was writing. It has the hallmarks of a TG Wolff story-strong characters, humor, and a healthy dose of rule breaking. Check out all the wide and varying stories in this newest edition to the 509 universe.
Yesterday, I was working on a Det. Jesus De La Cruz short story for our podcast and came across an unexpected lesson is American folklore. Cruz and his now fiancée Aurora Williams (missed it? Check out Razing Stakes for the story) were visiting the American Eagle habitat at the Cleveland Metroparks zoo. I had Cruz comment to Aurora about Benjamin Franklin wanting the turkey to be the national bird, rather than the eagle. Pretending to be a good, little writer, I did a quick google and found out the story was totally
WRONG
Below are the site I explored. Here’s the story in a nutshell: Franklin and his peers were invited to submit concepts for the back of the national emblem. Franklin submitted Moses parting the Red Sea without a bird of any variety in sight. There was some consideration of the ideas but the topic was tabled. When it was picked back up, Franklin was not part of the discussion. A design was developed that featured the eagle in a pose similar to what we see on our printed bills. Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter in 1784 in which he said the eagle in the design looked more like a turkey. He then went on to talk about the unfavorable traits of the eagle and how the traits of the turkey were more inline with American values. Fast forward to November 1962, the cover of the New Yorker Magazine featured a cover with a turkey in place of the eagle and, voila, folklore was born. And there you have it!
English is a hard language. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been speaking it for a few decades. It doesn’t matter that I’ve published books using tens of thousands of words in the language. What has me musing on this?
NOTHING
Here’s the scenario. I asked a co-worker if a project was a bonded project (def: a type of surety bond used in construction projects to protect against an adverse event that causes disruptions or financial loss.) He looked in the digital folder folder and said “Nothing is there.” And I said, “Which is different from saying ‘there is nothing.'” His statement was simply that the file was empty. The document could have existed and been misfiled or never filed, or didn’t exist because it wasn’t needed. Looking back, checking the file could have only proved if the project was bonded (because the paper would have been in the file) but could not prove that it was not a bonded project (unless we uploaded page that said “no bond needed”, which we don’t do).
Moral of the story….there’s a lot of something even in nothing.
This month is perfect for a mystery writer working to get back in her groove of releasing a newsletter with the full moon. Really, what other day is more fitting for a Wolff??
According to one of my favorite lunar websites, The Farmer’s Almanac, the moon will peak around midnight on Sunday May 15 – Monday May 16. This is going to be a special full moon because the positioning of the earth, moon, and sun will be aligned to give the moon a reddist tint, hence the term Blood Moon. The full moon also coincides will a full lunar eclipse.
It’s a common school of thought that the full moon draws out the crazy in us humans. Turns out, that is an old wives tale. Studies undertaken to draw a correlation between the moon and behavior including crimes and injuries came up empty. This was consistent across the studies. The only study that did find the full moon made a difference. Healthline.com reported on a National Institute of Health 2018 study that found that patients with Bipolar Disorder were sensitive to changes in the mood, which correlated to a change from depressive to manic states. This was a small study, like 18 people, but is interesting for the findings.
Mark your calendars to May’s Full Flower Moon! It’s going to be worth losing sleep over.
I met the most charming lady on a recent trip to Sutton’s Deli in Angola, Indiana. She stood tall and proud, a smirk of whimsey on her sculpted lips. I wish I looked that good standing on a square. From the mind and hands of master sculptor Greg Mendez. Check out his portfolio, many commission a dancer of your own. https://www.gregmendezsculpture.com/
This October provided a gorgeous setting for a beautiful full moon. I was staring at the clouds instead of writing my newsletter. This month we explore the goddess of the hunt, the science behind the color of autumn, and go down the rabbit hole on fingerprints.
Image Credit: Aubrey Gemignani/NASA
Space.com curated a collection of specular photos of this month’s moon, including the featured image by Aubrey Gemignani. The Hunter’s moon takes my mind to the Greek goddess Artemis. The goddess of the hunt, moon, and chastity, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto. Zeus’s wife, Hera, not at all pleased with her husband’s infidelity (again!) went after Leto because, well, her husband was Zeus. Hera took her revenge by forbidding Leto from giving birth anywhere on solid earth. And so Leto gave birth to Artemis while she balanced on an olive branch! Hera railed at being outsmarted. Hera’s daughter, Eileithyia (no idea how you say it), was the goddess of childbirth. (Here I thought the goddess of childbirth was Epidural). Hera forbade Eileithyia from helping Leto birth her son, Apollo. Artemis, at nine days old, helped deliver her twin brother. Talk about being gifted and talented. Spectacular!
The third casefile for Cleveland homicide detective Jesus De La Cruz is set to release in February 2022. That gives you plenty of time to catch up with Cruz, Yablonski, and Aurora before starting their next adventure.
#1 A serial killer is targeting drug dealers. Cruz puts his neck on the line to create the break and stop a killer some are cheering on.
#3 An up-and-coming accountant is killed in a hit and run. Cruz searches his past, present, and future for a ice cold killer
From Down & Out Books. February 2022
Down the Rabbit Hole: Finger Prints
This month, I’ve been working on the adaptation for M2D4 Season 3Episode 7. This story The Red Thumb Mark, by R. Austin Freeman was published in 1907. A story of fiction, it was written at a dynamic time of science and discovery, documenting progress in action. This is first case for the British medical investigator Dr. John Thorndyke was working for the defense on what appears to be an open-and-shut case. A business man locks diamonds in his safe with a receipt. In the morning, the diamonds are gone and on the receipt is a red thumbprint. Which made me curious about fingerprints…and down the rabbit hole we go…
One of my favorite things about living in the Great Lakes region is that each month has a different feel. October is a most comfortable month, a beautiful month, thanks to the colorful theatrical display put on by the leaves. But, what makes the leaves change color?
Mysteries to Die For Season 3 is in full swing! This season is titled Enter the Detective. Each of the 11 episodes features the first case of a detective who went on to an illustrious career. Some you know by a single word: Holmes, Poirot, Chan. Others may be new to you but were cutting edge and set the standard for our modern day detectives.
New to podcasts? An easy way to start is through my website. Click PODCAST
New York Detective Ebenezer Gryce is called in to solve the murder of Horatio Leavenworth. Alone in the room, all doors are locked, it’s a clear case of murder.
Dropped October 22
A man is found dead in an empty room. He wasn’t shot. He wasn’t stabbed. He wasn’t strangled. This is a case for the one and only Sherlock Holmes.
Dropping November 5
In the posh home at Lenton Croft, visiting ladies are losing their jewels. When Scotland Yard is stymied, the calls goes out the expert Martin Hewitt.
Dropping November 19
Support comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. Down & Out Books and imprint All Due Respect support my books and podcast. Help me support them back. I am very proud to recommended these new releases to your reading pile, smart phone, or Kindle. It doesn’t matter how you read…just read!
Sonny Cantone’s having a really bad day. Wait until he sees the next 24 hours… From Greg F. Gifune, author of DANGEROUS BOYS and THE BLEEDING SEASON, comes VELVET ELVIS. Set in one hot and crazy night, and populated with hard drinking, pot smoking ex-cons, shady strippers, aging mobsters, crooked cops and sociopathic drug lords, VELVET ELVIS is one man’s dark and sometimes darkly comic descent into madness and mayhem.
Buy, download, and read Greg F. Gifune’s VELVET ELVIS. From publisher Down & Out Books.
ALL THE GOOD IN EVIL tells the story of Amos Swain and his attempt for redemption. The more he tries, the more enemies he creates. As an enemy maelstrom circles around him, a betrayal he’d never imagined drags him deeper into chaos until the only redemption he can find is a little good in evil.
Buy, download, and read Joe Ricker and his awesomely titled ALL THE GOOD IN EVIL. From publisher Down & Out Books.
The first case for the British medical investigator Dr. John Thorndyke was working for the defense on what appears to be an open-and-shut case. A business man locks diamonds in his safe with a receipt. In the morning, the diamonds are gone and on the receipt is a red thumbprint. This story The Red Thumb Mark, by R. Austin Freeman was published in 1907. A story of fiction, it was written at a dynamic time of science and discovery, documenting progress in action.
Various articles reference the fact that ancient cultures recognized the difference in fingerprints but it wasn’t until the 1800s that the modern era of fingerprinting began. Britannica.com and The Fingerprint Sourcebook were two of my favorite sources. Hermann Welcker, Henry Faulds, and William James Herschel were the leaders in describing fingerprints. Sir Francis Galton built on their work, suggesting the first system for classifying fingerprints based on the common elements. His work, in turn, was used by Sir Edward R. Henry and Juan Vucetick to develop classification systems. Henry’s approach was adopted by Scotland Yard in the early 1900s and was widespread across English-speaking countries. Vucetick, from Argentina, published his system in the same time frame, which was widely adopted across Spanish-speaking countries. How complicated are fingerprints? The biometric company Touch N Go has one of the easiest to understand presentation of the common fingerprint patterns with pictures.
In the story The Red Thumb Mark, Thorndyke is faced with evidence that seems incontrovertible. He theorizes the print does belong to the suspect, but the print itself is a forgery, a fake. Funny enough, the method described in a story written in 1905 isn’t all that different from the one I found on the website WikiHow.
TG Wolff 