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EAT THIS BOOK: The King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby

I love noir crime fiction, me

I love both reading and writing noir crime fiction. When it comes to modern day noir authorts, it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Sean Cosby’s work. 

Cosby is a superb stylist, which makes his work a joy to read. More importantly, he give readers true insight into what it means to be African American in today’s USA. He also shares some unusual knowledge because his wife is a funeral director.

His protagonist, Nathan Waymaker, in My Darkest Prayer, worked for a funeral home. But that was a mere hint of what’s portrayed in his latest and what may be his toughest book yet: King of Ashes.  You may learn more about crematoriums and the firing process than you every wanted to know!

The Carruthers’ family business is running the crematorium in the decayed town of Jefferson Run, Virginia. Many years before Mama Carruthers disappeared without a trace and ugly rumours about her demise and her husband’s hand in it persist. The eldest of the three children, Roman Carruthers, escaped to Florida where he’s now a highly successful financial manager of among other clients,  “gangsta” rap artists. His sister, Neveah, is the one who’s left behind to run the family biz while younger brother, Dante, wastes away in dissipation. 

When their father is badly injured in a car accident, Roman returns to help the family. He soon learns that Dante is mixed up with two ruthless local drug dealers – real and vicious gangsters, not rap wannabees. To save his brother, Roman tries to placate the gangsters by offering up his financial acumen and the darker benefits of the crematorium business…

Roman’s fall from grace is true noir and the deeply tragic twist at the end of the novel is unforgettable. This thriller may be too tough for readers who enjoy the lighter side of crime fiction but if you love noir, King of Ashes is a must-read.

5 STARS ∗∗∗∗∗

PEARLS OF WISDOM: Deep Philosophy in Bad Jokes?

Our grandson adores “Dad jokes”.  Here’s one of his favs: How do you weigh a dragon? Depends on its scales.

Recently I was having a one-on-one dinner with my daughter. Fixing me with a gaze steeped in the superiority of youth, she asked: “What do you think of the chicken joke?”

Me: (thinking of grandson) You mean the old chestnut, Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

Daughter: “Do you get it? I mean, really get it?”

Me: What’s to get?  It’s Captain Obvious. Chickens are stupid. They follow their beaks across the road to the other side. If you don’t see the joke, you’re as dumb as the chicken.

Daughter: (deep sigh) No, think about it: the other side.  What’s the other meaning of “The Other Side”?

Me: The hereafter?

Daughter: (convinced her mother is beyond help) Right!

Oh, so the real joke is about a suicidal chicken or a bird so brainless it’s about to become roadkill.

I’d honestly never thought about the irony inherent in “the other side”. Neither had my husband when I retold our conversation.  Was there some deep philosophical meaning behind our misunderstanding the true joke? A denial of life’s mortality? Or a deep-seated faith in the superiority of humans to the idiot chickens we regularly eat?

Probably not. The sound you now hear is the whistle of the penny dropping through the decades stretching from the Jurassic Period of my childhood till now.

On the other hand, our daughter didn’t get the joke that made our grandson laugh his butt off:

Why couldn’t the bike stand up by itself? Because it was two tired. 

a red rooster walking across a street
Idiot chicken

 

pink bicycle on brown concrete floor
The tired bike

 

 

PEARLS OF WISDOM: Straying into Cross-genre

 

My Pearl of Wisdom

I DON’T WRITE HORROR…OR DO I?

 The first inkling that I’d strayed from dark mystery into horror happened when the multi-genre conference, When Words Collide, put me on a horror fiction panel.

Horror – moi? I never watch horror movies, they’re far too intense. I hardly ever read horror fiction. Well, I have read Clive Barker’s masterpieces, but that’s about it! Somehow, somewhere my writing crossed over to the dark side.

What I learned from my fellow panelists at WWC is that the core of horror literature is fear.

So that was it! It had to be my novella, Snake Oil, the one about snakes and real estate agents,  nominated for a CWC Award in 2018. Many people have a deep-seated fear of snakes.

I remember reading from Snake Oil at a Noir at the Bar event south of the border. My reading went pretty well, I thought, but the following day, a macho noir writer stopped me.  You know the type: shaved head, muscular, loads of tattoos. He fixed me with a wary eye and said: “You –  you’re the lady who wrote about snakes.”

Even the scariest dude can be undone by slithering reptiles apparently.

Looking through my stories and novellas, many do pivot on fear. In my most recently published story, “The Lost Diner” (Pulp Literature, Issue 47), an older woman driver strays off the main highway and pulls in to a deserted diner. Soon she ends up fighting for her life. The owners of the diner like to disappear customers who won’t be missed.

 

Isn’t this a primordial fear we all share? The fear of an unknown place where we are on our own and defenseless.

Even my comical stories, like “Must Love Dogs – or You’re Gone”, edge into darkness. (Published in GONE, Red Dog Press.) My heroine is forced into working off her murdered ex-husband’s debt at a doggy daycare. It’s either groom dogs or die! There she discovers that her ex used their dog, Flea, to smuggle diamonds into the USA, since Flea will eat anything. The resolution is a pretty dark fight at the edge of Niagara Falls…

Perhaps the difference is this: in noir fiction, the often violent characters remain in control though a bad outcome is often assured. In horror, the characters are not in control: they are frequently isolated and must battle through to an ending that promises to be bleak.

So what to do? Why not embark on a new adventure? And so, like Bilbo, I’m quite ready for a scary dive into the realm of horror writers!

 

 

 

NEWS! NEWS! NEWS! The Mmes of Mayhem’s 7th Anthology

When friend, Donna Carrick and I co-founded the Mesdames of Mayhem in 2013, little did we realize that our 13 member group would double in size and become a national organization. Nor did we foresee that we’d have a CBC documentary made about us and publish six anthologies, all with the brand of “13”. After all, thirteen has been our lucky number!

Every year stories in our antho’s have been nominated for the CWC Award of Excellence or the Derringer. Two of our stories have won :”The Outlier”, by Catherine Astolfo in 13 Claws (never trust a man what keeps pigs) and “Hatcheck Bingo” by Therese Greenwood in The 13th Letter (never underestimate hardworking women).

And so, we’re super-delighted to announce our seventh anthology, The Power of 13, with the theme of luck, fate, karma, chance, games of chance, deadly gambles…

Publication date September, 2026. Stand by for our spectacular cover reveal!!

News! News! News! October Super Busy

Better to be busy than being a hermit and doom-scrolling!

October has been a crazy busy month with the book launches of three friends: Jon Redfern and his dark thriller, The Ogre Club; Lisa De Nikolits and her noir novel, Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon; and Lorna Poplak and her latest true crime book, On the Lam, which I also blurbed.

And lots of personal readings!

I started off with a reading at a Zoom meet-up held by the Short Mystery Fiction Society on October 8th. Then a wonderful evening as at Queer Noir at the Bar organized by friend, Hope Thompson, at the Black Eagle Pub, Toronto. I read the raunchy “karaoke strip night” passage from my thriller, Windigo Fire, one of my personal favs.

Tonight I’ll be reading from my horror short story, “Snake Oil” at Drunk Fiction, organized by Emily  A. Weedon, a Halloween special held at the Caledonian pub, Tuesday, October 28th at 6 pm.

SURREAL TRAPDOOR: Asbestos Snow

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY…NOT!!

My friend, TOpoet and I share a fascination for life’s oddities. He pointed me to this horrific product that was released to unsuspecting consumers in the late 1920s and finally discontinued around 1941. You could sprinkle this sh*t throughout your house  and on your tree for Christmas and bonus – it wouldn’t catch on fire.

For generations, asbestos, a naturally occurring fibrous mineral, was thought to be a miracle product. It stood up to weather (asbestos tiles), it had great insulating properties (pipe lagging) and it was fire-proof (coating on steel beams). Too bad this innocuous fluffy grey material kills you! 

Asbestos does you in in one of three ways: asbestosis, lung cancer and worst of all, mesothelioma, a cancer of the pleura. Mesothelioma, a 100% fatal disease, is only caused by asbestos. Electron micrograph images show the hardy little microfibers spearing your cells and your DNA. It was the cause of death of Hollywood star, Steve McQueen, who was exposed to it when he worked in the shipyards during WW2. 

According to Snopes, asbestos snow was used in the 1939 classic film, “The Wizard of Oz”. Remember the scene where Dorothy and her friends are awakened from the Wicked Witch of the West’s spell in the poppy field by a snow fall? Yep, that’s asbestos snow! 

Warning: vintage decorations with “snow” dating from the 1920 to 1940s may contain asbestos. Better living through chemisty – NOT!

Be sure to check out TOpoet’s blog at TOpoet – views, reviews, music, poetry and pics

 

 

 

 

 

URBAN EXPLORER: What’s Inside the Chrysler Building?

low-angle photography of white concrete building tower
Best skyscraper in NYC!
red and blue abstract painting
Urbex!

The Chrysler building is my favorite New York sky scraper. What’s not to love about its stainless steel roof and Art Deco perfection?

And the fact that its observation deck  on the 71st floor has been closed to the public adds to its mystery. What’s inside that steel dome? A secret nightclub? The most exclusive penthouse condo in NYC?

Visitors to the Chrysler Building are actively discouraged. Ten years ago, we were able to walk into its beautiful Art Deco lobby for a look-see, but on our first visit after COVID, we were summarily chased out by the security guard! That, of course, piqued my curiosity even more. 

Beautiful lobby of the Chrysler Building

To my surprise the answers to the Chrysler Building’s mysteries popped up on the internet and we can visit inside its stainless steel roof -virtually – thanks to urban explorer, Moses Gates, author of Hidden Cities. (Eat that Book!)

Walter P. Chrysler, famed auto magnate, wanted a personal monument to himself. The building was completed on May 28, 1930, according to a design by architect, William Van Alen. Somewhat foolishly, Van Alen never signed a contract with Chrysler, who refused to pay him, accusing him of shady dealings with the building contractors. Van Alen sued and did get his money eventually but the fight ruined his reputation and he never worked as an architect again. (Sound familiar?)

Then as now there was a lot of dick-waving: to own the tallest building in the world and to make them taller with spires. The Chrysler Building’s 61 meter spire, made of special stainless steel,  was hidden inside the building and installed as a crowning touch. For about 11 months, it was the tallest in the world until the Empire State Building surpassed it.

Walter Chrysler kept his own office and apartment in the building though apparently he didn’t use either much. He like to boast that he had the highest toilet in the world.

Walter Chrysler’s potty

Interestingly, the other private apartment in the Chrysler Building belonged to a woman, photo-journalist Margaret Bourke. Despite her wealth and fame, she had to have the lease to her 61st floor apartment co-signed by Time, Inc. because she was female. Here she is astride one of the building’s gargoyles. She had a remarkable career as a war correspondent  and adventurer. (Read more about her here.)

Margaret Bourke and gargoyle

At the behest of Texaco, Chrysler installed the Cloud Club, with three exclusive dining rooms – and a speakeasy – on floors 66 to 68. The Cloud Club  lasted 40+ years until the late 1970s when it was demolished for office space.  That was much longer than the celestial-themed observation deck on the 71st floor, which was shut down in 1945.

Celestial-themed observation deck

But there was a way, you could see NYC from the top of the Chrysler Building: you could go to the dentist! From 1962 to 2012, Dr. Charles M. Weiss ran his dental practice, mostly located on the 69th floor. He was known as The Dentist in the Sky and was an innovator in dental implantology. 

The Dentist in the Sky

But what about inside that glorious stainless steel roof? Are there hidden speak-easies? Secret apartments for mistresses? Who better to ask than urban explorer, Moses Gates? Here’s the YouTube video of his visit INSIDE the stainless steel roof.

It’s a dizzying climb with a spectacular forbidden view of NYC, but the inside is underwhelmingly functional, with concrete beams, ladders and steel walkways. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SURREAL TRAPDOOR: Who was Mo Hayder?

Mo Hayder, the author

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 25 years ago, I picked up, Birdman, a new crime fiction book that was getting a lot of buzz: I would soon regret it. Sadly Birdman is one of those few books that despite excellent writing and a gripping narrative I simply found too intense to finish. It’s not every day when frank torture porn and SM hit the main stream, but when they do so successfully, it can mean mega sales and mega bucks. (Think 50 Shades of Grey…)

Birdman, the debut novel of author, Mo Hayder, was described by its publisher, Transworld, as one of the most powerful and violent books they had ever come across. (I can’t disagree.) Released in December 1999, it became an international bestseller. Hayder went on to write another 10 novels, many of them bestsellers and many nominated for the prestigious CWA Dagger awards. Her seventh book, Gone, won the Edgar Award in 2012. As of 2021, her novels have sold more than 6.5 million copies.

So who was Mo Hayder? What lay at the heart of her dark, violent fantasies?

Hayder was born Clare Damaris Bastin on January 2, 1962 to John Bastin, an astrophysicist (!) and Susan Hollins, a teacher. She was blessed / cursed with knock-out good looks and left home for the big city of London before age 16. By 1982, at age 20, she’d won the Miss Nude Beauty Pageant and been a “Page 3” topless model in the notorious British tabloid, The Sun.

She turned to acting under the stage name, Candy Davis and became – you’ll never guess – secretary Miss Belfridge in the longstanding British sitcom, Are You Being Served?, which ran from 1972 to 1985.

Candy Davis and Nicholas Smith, the bumbling manager

One of the running jokes of the show was that “young” Mr. Grace, the elderly owner of Grace Brothers department store, always had a gorgeous secretary and/or nurse who was the near-death of him. By today’s standards, that humor seems sexist and crass, but at the time, audiences enjoyed it. 

Hayder joined the show in 1983. By then the actor who played “young” Mr. Grace had retired so she became inept manager, Rumbold’s assistant instead. She remained a regular cast member  until the show ended in 1985. Here’s a clip of her performances from YouTube.

It seems Hayder’s acting career never materialized after that. She married briefly in 1985 then at age 25, in 1987, she moved to Tokyo, Japan. There she appears to have had an adventurous, perhaps a risky, life, working as a waitress at a nightclub and as amateur filmmaker. What happened in that span of 14 years until she emerged as one of crime fiction’s darkest authors in 1999? That, too, will remain a mystery. 

In 2021, Mo Hayder died  young at age 59 of Lou Gerig’s disease.

 

EAT THIS BOOK: Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford

EAT THIS BOOK!

Last fall, we made a sentimental journey to Stowe, Vermont, which included a visit to one of my favorite bookshops, Bear Pond Books, the second largest indie bookstore in the state. Bear Pond showcases local authors, intelligent kids books and works about adventuring and nature. That’s where I grabbed my holiday read: Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford. 

I’m fascinated by stories of mysterious disappearances, especially people who vanish in the wilderness. (See my previous blogs, The Riddle of Julian Sands and The Cold Vanish.) Andrea Lankford, author of Trail of the Lost, worked for 12 years as a park ranger with the USA’s National Park Service, leading search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful – and dangerous – places. Her bestselling book shines light on the unsung heroes of search-and rescue: the many volunteers who end up devoting their lives, often over many years, to locate people who walked into nature and were never seen or heard from again.

Lankford investigates the cases of three young men who went missing while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches 2650 miles from California to the Canadian border. It’s the west coast twin of the Appalachian Trail, celebrated by Bill Bryson in his hilarious book, A Walk in the Woods, which captures perfectly the utter misery of hiking. The Pacific Crest Trail is perhaps the more remote and more dangerous of the two.

Chris Sylvia. 28, was an unemployed artist living in California. After suffering a few emotional setbacks, he decided to do a 2-week hike  on the PCT to find himself. Since it was February,  he headed south toward the Mexican border. Only four days in, he phoned his best friend, Min, to pick him up, but he never showed. Worried, Min reported him missing. Sometime later, his hiking gear showed up at a gear exchange facility along the trail. The hikers who turned it in found the gear lying on the trail… 

On the other hand, Kris Fowler, 34, was an experienced woodsman. He’d already completed 2000 miles of the PCT and was making for White Pass and the end of the trail at the Canadian border when he vanished without a trace. The October weather was cold and dreary and at higher altitudes there was always the threat of snow…

David O’Sullivan, 25, was an Irish citizen out for adventure and determined to complete the full PCT. He started his trek from Campo, near the Mexican border. Though it was April, hikers reported icy spots in the higher, steeper regions that could lead to serious accidents. David vanished near Mile 179 …

Trail of the Lost: Highly recommended. Five stars! A poignant portrayal of hiking, its euphoric highs, the sacrifice and heroism of participants and volunteers and the dark dangers inherent in nature and the occasional human.

SURREAL TRAPDOOR: THE DAY THE SUN WENT OUT

When my husband, Ed and I learned that a total eclipse would pass near Toronto on April 8th, we got excited. After all, we’re Trekkies and space nerds. The next total eclipse near Toronto won’t take place until 2106, so if we didn’t see this one, it was now or never.

Toronto would only view a partial eclipse. I’d witnessed one once before in the 1990s. A business friend and I broke away from our lunch near Yonge and Bloor and rushed out for a look, allowing ourselves only 1 or 2 second glimpses so we wouldn’t burn out our retinas. At the max of the shadow, all went still. Traffic stopped. The only sound was birdsong: very cool.

Back then Ed made a pinhole camera for our daughter for them to watch the moon cross the sun. Now, 30 years later, he made another and ordered safe viewing glasses from Amazon that resembled retro cardboard 3-D movie glasses. Fingers crossed they worked!

Dorky but it works!

To see the full eclipse meant a drive to Hamilton or Niagara Falls. News reports said The Falls were expecting 100,000+ people so we opted for Hamilton. Somewhere on Hamilton Mountain surely we’d find a spot.

Getting there proved to be a challenge. Sadly the news reports weren’t wrong. Highway 407, the toll road, looked as clogged as Highway 401 at rush hour. Time was running out and we were beginning to lose hope when Ed remembered that the path of the total eclipse passed through Burlington.

We turned off the 407 and raced down to Burlington and Lake Ontario. Not too much traffic, thank God. We parked on a residential street and made the long walk down to the lakeshore, armed with our safety glasses and trusty pinhole camera. Bolstered with refreshments from Tim Hortons, we found a spot in Spencer Smith Park right next to the lake near a large hotel called appropriately enough, The Waterfront Hotel.

How Canadian!

Spectators were in a festive mood.  Hotel staff were giving their outdoor cafe patrons eclipse glasses. They continued to hand out glasses to the nearby crowd  – even to drivers who’d slowed down and parked to view the spectacle.

The beginning

Then we waited – and waited.  It started slowly with a tiny edge of dark crescent. Overall daylight stayed bright.  Yet incrementally over the next 20 minutes, the light dimmed to the level of a cloudy day.

“Maybe this is as good as it gets,” my husband mused. Indeed during the partial eclipse many years ago the noon day light dimmed to early twilight.

Then it happened: the moon moved over the sun and we saw the corona. A few seconds later, the light went out. Exactly that: midnight! All the night lights of the city came on: the streetlights, the restaurant and store signs. The sun was gone – snuffed out.

The corona
The Brant St. Pier in Burlington, Canada at night (Stock photo, my camera didn’t work.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it got cold. All I could think of were those retro science documentaries we’d seen as children: all life comes from the sun….No kidding. How long would it take for the earth to cool down to the Absolute Zero of outer space?

The light comes back.

Then the moon moved away and the light came back. Spectators cheered and applauded. For a short time, a warm camaraderie shared by tiny denizens on Earth.