BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: MYSTERIES & MYSTERY WRITERS

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO OPEN A MYSTERY 
NOVEL?

Writers of mysteries who struggle to find the
best way to open their books will find two great
ideas in the opening  two paragraphs of Gideon 
Defoe’s inspired and very funny novel The Pirates! 
In an adventure with the Romantics or Prometheus 
versus a Terrible Fungus (2012):

     “The  most exciting way to start an adventure,” 
said the albino pirate “would be to open in the 
sinister lair of the International Crime League, 
eavesdropping as they plotted their most audacious 
crime yet –the theft of the Queen’s brain!”
        “That’s ridiculous,” said the pirate with gout. 
“The most exciting way to start an adventure would be 
to wake up inside a room, next to a dead boy, two pieces 
of coal, and an unexplained carrot – but there’s apparently
no way in or out of the room!:
     
**
THE FINEST FORM OF LITERATURE

There is no finer form of fiction than the mystery.
 It has structure, a story line and a sense of place 
and pace. It is the one genre where the reader and 
the writer are pitted against each other. Readers 
don’t want to guess the ending, but they don’t want 
to be so baffled that annoys them. Reading mysteries 
is a way for people to deal with the crime they see 
in their newspapers, or television or in their daily 
lives, in a safe impersonal way.”

Sue Grafton in Writer’s Digest, January1991
**

"CONSTABULARY NOTES FROM ALL OVER

(from the Vincenne, Indiana Sun-Commercial)

John Laue, 410 Ramsey Road, told police Monday the
Fort Sackville Real Estate warehouse on State Street
was broken into Saturday night. A jar of pickles
 was opened.’

The New Yorker (May 18, 1987)
**
THE CRIME AGAINST MARK TWAIN'S BOOK

“Huckleberry Finn was published first in England 
at least in part because a horrified printer discovered 
after thousands of copies of the book had been run 
off that someone had made an indecent addition to a 
picture of one of the male characters. The offending 
page had to be cut out by hand and replaced in all 
the bound copies. The 5,000 copies for Great Britain
were ready for distribution on the original target date, December 1884, while the 30,000 copies for the United 
States were not available until February 1885. A $500 
reward was offered by the publisher for the culprit – 
thought to be a disgruntled employee. But he was never 
found.”

Edward Ziegler. "Huckleberry Finn at 100" in 
Reader’s Digest (February 1985)

**
WAS JAMES BOND BASED UPON A REAL PERSON?

“ Some readers believe that Ian Fleming based 
James Bond character on a Yugoslavian man who 
worked as a British agent infiltrating the Nazi 
Secret Service – Dusko Popov (see Popov’s book 
Spy/Counter Spy—1934). Popov writes: “I’m told 
that Ian Fleming said he based his character 
James Bond to some degree on me and my experiences. 
As for me, I rather doubt that a Bond in the flesh 
would have survived more than forty-eight hours as
 an espionage agent. Fleming and I did rub shoulders
 in Lisbon and a few days before I took the clipper
 for the States he did follow me about.”

Philip Ward.A Dictionary of Common Fallacies (Boston:
The Atlantic Press, 1978)

**
TWO PUNNING MYSTERY NOVEL TITLES


1.	Charles A. Goodrum. A Dewey Decimated (1973)
2.	Charles A. Goodrum. The Best Cellar (1983)

**

ON THE NAMES OF CHARACTERS FOUND IN THE POPULAR
BOARD GAME CLUE

“In international versions of Clue, the colorful cast 
can look quite different from what we’re used to in 
the U.S. version. Professor Plum was originally called 
Dr. Orange in Spain. Mr.Green goes by Chef Lettuce in 
Chile. Mrs. Peacock is Mrs. Purple in Brazil and Mrs. 
Periwinkle in France, and in Switzerland, she’s Captain 
Blue, a man.”

Emily Goodman. “Boredom-Busting Facts About Board Games” in Reader’s Digest (Large Print)  (December 2021 + January 2022)

**
ON RESPECTING ONE'S PROFESSION

“A burglar who respects his art always takes his
Time before taking anything else.”

O’Henry in  Make the Whole World Kind (1911)

**
ON GEORGES SIMENON’S WORKING HABITS

“…he still maintains the working habits of a 
one man assembly line. Up at 6:30 A.M. , with
a pot of coffee at his side, he types a 20 page
chapter in 2 l/2 hours, complete a twelve 
chapter novel (common in France) in twelve
days. (His translation pace: three to six months).
Explains Simenon in halting English “I write
Fast because I have not zee brains to write 
Slow.”

Time (July 9, 1951) 

**


A FOR EFFORT

In Downey, California, a prowler ignored the
money in the local high school safe, took only
the 120 filled out report cards.

Miscellany Time (July 9 1951)

CAUTION

In Johnny Eager,
Robert Taylor tells Lana Turner:
“There ‘re lot of women in this town,’
And  I picked the most dangerous one.”

What’s that got to do with me,
You might ask. O.K.
Look at this way.
There are a lot of poems in this world,

& you picked the most dangerous one.


Louis Phillips