By
Nancy Wikarski
Our final
meeting of 2003 got off to an interesting start. We concluded several items of
chapter business standing in the parking lot because we were locked out of our
meeting location yet again. Before security arrived to let us in, we resolved
(for obvious reasons) to move to a different location in 2004 and a different
day of the month.
Henceforth, we will hold our meetings at Once Upon A Crime mystery bookstore on
the first Tuesday of each month. The bookstore is located at 604 W. 26th Street
(at Lyndale) in Minneapolis. Our next meeting will be on January 6th at 7 PM.
During 2004, we will meet every month except July and August. We WILL
meet in December but WILL NOT meet in January of 2005. This is a
departure from our current schedule.
We also
voted on the new executive board for 2004. Officers next year will be:
President
- Bobbye Johnson
Vice President - Nancy Wikarski
Secretary - Rich Thompson
Treasurer and Newsletter Coordinator - Ellen Kuhfeld
Website Maven - Charity Tahmaseb
Members
voted to retain our current method of splitting program responsibilities rather
than designate one person as Program Chair. We came up with tentative ideas for
presentations. Bear in mind that these are subject to change as the year
progresses.
January -
Coordinator / Speaker: Carl Brookins to present "A History Of Crime Fiction"
February - Coordinator: Rich Thompson. Speaker: Meth lab chemist Tom Murdock.
March - Author signing at Once Upon A Crime to be guest speaker.
April - Coordinator: Pat Dennis. Speaker: Lee Adams from Mystery Theater.
May - Coordinator: Wendy Nelson. Speaker: TBA
June - Coordinator: June Long. Speaker: Author Mary Logue
September - Coordinator: Nancy Wikarski. Speaker: TBA
October - Unassigned
November - Unassigned
December - Unassigned
We also
took a stab at naming a few books for our 2004 reading list. In January, we will
discuss Donald Harstad's Eleven Days which we didn't have time to discuss
in November. In addition, members are asked to read Elaine Viets' Shop Til
You Drop.
Other
suggested titles were: Taffy Canon's Open Season On Lawyers, Walter
Mosley's Fearless Jones, and Harlen Coben's Tell No One. These
books haven't yet been assigned a month. Please be prepared with ideas for
additional titles at our January meeting.
November's program was a fascinating look at bookbinding. Ellen Kuhfeld
demonstrated the process from start to finish. Members had contributed short
stories for inclusion and Ellen's task was to show us how that content gets
turned into a book. The steps are laborious and painstaking. Ellen described
herself as an artisan. Her role involves everything from selecting cloth for the
cover (or varnishing plywood in some cases) to creating her own machines to
punch holes in the back of pages and a book press to hold the pages together
until the cover glue dries.
In a
nutshell, the process begins with formatting text into signatures. Signatures
are folded and stitched to one another along the spine which is then glued to a
piece of cloth. The book block is next glued onto the cover which has previously
been hot-stamped with the title and author. The tasks are much more involved
than what I've described so the best way to get a feel for the operation might
be to investigate some of the resources Ellen mentioned. She recommended a book
entitled Hand Bookbinding. In addition, the Minnesota Center For The
Book Arts offers training in bookbinding as well as materials and machinery that
an amateur bookbinder might require.
Ellen made several copies
of the book for members who contributed content. She is offering additional
copies to interested members for a nominal price. This could be the beginning of
a great cottage industry.
By Rich Thompson
Despite the awkward timing, sandwiched between mystery
conferences, six Or seven of the faithful and one newcomer showed up for the
October meeting and tried to make up for lack of numbers with energy and
enthusiasm.
The topic of meeting place and time was raised again. We
are free to continue using our present meeting space for the foreseeable future,
but apparently the building staff is not willing or able to help with the
frequent problem of too few chairs. At a time when we are actively seeking to
expand our membership and attendance, asking members to bring their own chairs
to meetings was not seen as a very good idea.
The owner of Once Upon a Crime would be very happy to host
our meetings, at the present third-Tuesday time slot or any other. The store is
not normally open at that time, but they would stay open late for us. Several
people saw this as a very attractive offer, especially since OUAC is more nearly
centered in the Twin Cities metro area and would therefore be more or less
equally inconvenient to everybody. It also has the advantage of being a very
visible location. (Again, at this meeting, our guest speaker had trouble
finding the right door. Ellen has promised to bring some directional signs next
month.)
We didn't feel that we should be deciding such a basic
issue with such a small quorum, though, and the topic will be raised again at
the next meeting. We should also be prepared to discuss whether we want to keep
the same day of the week and same time slot. Members who have a strong pinion
but will not be attending the November meeting should contact Bobbye Johnson
before then.
Ways to promote greater membership and attendance were also
discussed, but nothing was decided. This will be a recurring topic, and we
should be thinking about some kind of handout--meeting fliers, bookmarks,
whatever--that we can place at local bookstores and libraries.
November is the time for nominating next year's chapter
officers. Bobbye Johnson, who has been doing an excellent job as President
Pro-tem, has agreed to stand for a regular term as President. Ellen Kuhfeld has
agreed to stay on as newsletter editor, "unless somebody else is dying to have
the job." All other positions are up for grabs. The Webmaven position, of
course, and the various committee slots, are not elected offices, so they don't
require any immediate action. Members attending the November meeting should also
come prepared to choose
at least one book for our next reading list. Eleven
Days, by Donald Harstad, will exhaust our present list. Books by SinC
authors, of course, would be preferred, but this is not an absolute requirement.
Our October book, You've Got Murder, by Donna
Andrews, got mixed reviews. For those who didn't read it, it's a fairly classic
puzzle mystery, with the unusual twist of having a sentient computer program,
named Turing Hopper, as main character and sleuth. People who are not heavily
"into" computers enjoyed the speculation about what an artificial intelligence
personality (or AIP, in the argot of the book) might be like and thought the
book was cleverly done.
Especially notable was an incident when the AIP has to find
a way to move its location to a new physical computer system to avoid being
unplugged or reprogrammed, like Hal in 2001. The detractor (that's me) thought
it was a witty premise but was agonizingly slow-paced, with little or no
development of dramatic tension. Also, the device of shifting back and forth
from first-person narrative by the computer program to third-person omniscient
for everybody else seemed a bit clumsy. Most of the members had not read it.
Our speaker for the night was Philip Minell, the Fire
Marshall of Minnetonka and a professional firefighter of 28 years. He also has
a sister who writes, but he did not elaborate on that. To the disappointment of
some, he was reluctant to talk about the specific methods of professional arson
"in a room full of writers." He did say that unless a specific city pursues a
policy of rigorous prosecution, most arsonists probably get away with it.
Minnetonka, as you might expect, does prosecute. But an arsonist who really
knows what he's doing and understands the methods of investigation can get away
with it, anyway. Fortunately, most arsonists are not that clever.
All fires are required by State law to be investigated, and
a "Cause-and-origin" report has to be filed with the State Fire Marshall.
In cases where a death was involved, the state takes over
jurisdiction for prosecution, but in all other cases, it is left to individual
municipal authority. The State also retains authority in towns that do not have
their own fire marshall. Insurance companies also do investigating, and some of
them have extensive and large forensic labs. This can be especially helpful if
a piece of evidence is very large, such as a vehicle. Most arson is committed
for profit, i.e. insurance fraud. Typically, there will be a rash of arson
cases a year or two after a general economic downturn, after businesses have had
bad times long enough for some of them to get desperate.
Bearing that out, we are right now beginning to see a sharp
increase in business and industrial fires. Fire investigation focuses first on
finding the point of origin and then, from the evidence left there, on the
cause. The point of origin will be the hottest part of the fire, and also the
longest-burning. The "flume" there will take on a cone shape, and the fire
within the cone will actually get so hot that it burns away its own soot. The
intersection of the cone with a ceiling will be a circle. With a wall, it will
be a vee. Investigators learn to look for the vees and to carefully probe for
sometimes tiny objects left nearby. Most materials are changed by fire, but
they are not destroyed. "You learn to judge the event by the transformed
object."
Metal cores of electrical devices are frequent clues, as
are residues of various hydrocarbons. Incandescent light bulbs, if they are not
smashed by the hose blast, will partially melt in such a way as to actually
point to the source of heat. Sometimes the path of propagation can also be
followed back to the core. In multi-story fires, the blaze will spread upward
through windows, actually blowing out the glass on the floor of origin and
blowing it back in on the next floor up. This, of course, will alter the flume
pattern. Plastics and foams, especially in furniture, will tend to spread a fire
downward. "Plastic is oil," says Minell. "When it gets hot enough, any
plastic will become a slow-flowing flammable liquid that
will burn holes in floors and take the fire down." But always, the point of
origin will be the spot of most severe damage. The sheetrock or plaster will be
the most noticeably softened there, and interior wall framing will also be most
heavily charred. And investigators do rip apart walls, both to inspect studs
and to look for places where a wire may have shorted out. Minell also passed
around a number of objects in evidence bags, and challenged the audience to name
them. Electrical plugs and switches are rather strange-looking, deprived of
their plastic or rubber matrices, but they can still be identified. Even timing
devices from bombs have enough metal left to tell what they were. Blasting caps
are easy to spot.
Perhaps the most bizarre object was a metal tube, a couple
inches in diameter, with a rounded end and some illegible printing stenciled on
it. This turned out to be the remains of an aluminum baseball bat that had been
so close to the origin of a contents-fire that it exploded. The resulting noise
woke the sleeping owner and allowed her to escape the fire.
Other notable case-histories discussed included a
crystal-ball paperweight that had acted as a focusing lens for sunlight and
triggered an apartment fire, and some non-sterilized potting soil that had
reached combustion temperature from biotic decomposition.
One member asked about accelerant-detecting dogs, and
Minell said these were occasionally useful, but one has to beware of dogs that
are touted as multi-task sniffers. Dogs can only be trained to detect one
thing, he says, and drug dogs are no good as explosives dogs, who are no good as
cadaver dogs, and so on. The dogs that are used by the ATF are reputed to be
infallible. They are given a tough field trial after training, and if they
identify a false scent that can't be vindicated by the lab, they are sent back
to begin training all over again. A dog who fails the test a second time is out
of the program without ever entering service.
Minell was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable speaker,
despite the small audience, and we thanked him (excuse the expression,) warmly.
By
Nancy Wikarski
Despite a
summer hiatus when we might have been expected to forget where and when we were
to assemble next, the September meeting exhibited a healthy turnout. A few new
faces joined us and some of those faces even decided to become full-fledged
members of SinC. After a round of introductions, we turned to miscellaneous
business and announcements.
In the
announcements category, Rich Thompson mentioned that his short story, "The Used
Idea Salesman" will be published in an upcoming issue of Zahir Magazine.
A short
story of mine, "The Only Game In Town," will be published in an anthology called
Dime due in May 2004. My next Evangeline LeClair mystery, "Shrouded In Thought"
will be out by June 2004.
Pat
Dennis announced that the submissions for her anthology, "Who Died In Here"
exceeded her wildest expectations with some fairly well-known authors offering
to contribute stories. Her anticipated print date is December 2003.
Speaking
of short stories, there's still time for members to send stories to Ellen
Kuhfeld for inclusion in our own anthology. We'll be putting it all together
(literally) at the bookbinding program in November.
As a
final announcement, members are reminded that Once Upon A Crime is offering a
discount to SinC members when we purchase books from our reading list there.
October's title is "You've Got Murder" by Donna Andrews and November will be
"Eleven Days" by Donald Harstad.
As the
year draws to a close, our president pro tem reminded us of some critical issues
for discussion at the October meeting. Members are asked to ponder at least a
few of the following topics before next month:
·
Who do we want
to nominate for board positions next year?
·
Do we want to
remain in the same location? If so, how can we expand the seating capacity of
our meeting room? Are other rooms in the building available to us instead?
·
What are the
goals of the chapter in 2004? Are the expectations of members being met?
·
Do we want to
continue the same format as in past years?
·
How can we
support our members at various author events in the area?
After
raising these issues for future consideration, we moved on to our book of the
month, "The Ferryman Will Be There" by Rosemary Aubert. The group's opinion on
this work was split between those who thought it was appealing and those who
thought the subject was depressing. The book is the third in a series about a
supreme court judge who takes a turn as a homeless man and, after a return to
near-respectability, becomes enmeshed in a case involving a runaway girl hiding
out among the homeless. Comments were made to the effect that there was too much
back story that didn't get covered in the book. The feeling was that readers
would need to begin with the first book in the series to get a better
understanding of the third.
Our
speaker for the evening was Kerri Miller, a political reporter for Channel 11
since 1996, who wrote a political mystery entitled "Dead Air." The story has to
do with a TV reporter who is assigned to cover a governor remarkably like Jesse
Ventura. When a national reporter comes to town to do a story on him, she
disappears. The main character investigates this disappearance, which leads her
down a path to another story the missing report was covering.
How Ms.
Miller made the transition from reporter to crime writer is an interesting story
in itself. She told us that prior to her career in TV news, she had gotten an
English literature degree and had been a voracious reader all her life. She
found that she wanted to associate with the writer community more than the
reporter community she was used to.
While on
assignment to cover Jesse Ventura's trip to Japan in November 1999, Ms. Miller's
bad case of insomnia gave her some productive time hatching the plot of her
first novel. She wanted to set the book in a TV newsroom but, unlike most
authors who use that setting, she wanted to make the experience authentic. She
also wanted to delve into the topic of behind-the-scenes politics in a way that
made the subject believable to readers. Her particular interest was the topic of
the technology of undercover TV--ingenious ways to film people when they don't
know they're being observed. She managed to finish three chapters of the book
while in Japan and set herself the deadline of completing the manuscript by the
end of the 2000 political season.
After her
agent explained the lengthy process of getting the book in print, Ms. Miller
decided to take on the responsibility of publishing it herself rather than lose
the political timeliness of the story by waiting.
Although
her publication date was set, she suffered a setback with a bad cover design
that required the pub date to be postponed two months. Despite a less than
auspicious start, the book has been well-received. Ms. Miller sold out the first
print run and has gone into a second printing of "Dead Air." The second book in
her series is two-thirds completed.
In true
reporter fashion, Ms. Miller turned the tables on us at the end of the program
when she started questioning us about our experiences in the writing community.
To no one's surprise, we proved to be an opinionated bunch who offered her lots
of free advice about which mystery conferences to attend. To sum up the evening
with an appropriate cliché -- a good time was had by all.
By
Nancy Wikarski
Despite
Mary Monica's best efforts to procure us a speaker for the meeting, our
presenter wasn't present, once again proving the old adage, "You can lead a
horse to water, but you can't make him show up at the meeting."
We've now
become experts at the process of talking amongst ourselves. We used the time
productively to plan future meetings. Our somewhat less tentative roster of
programs for the rest of 2003 is as follows:
September
- Kerri Miller, author of Dead Air
(coordinated by Ginny Harris)
October -
An arson investigator working for the fire department
(coordinated by Robyn Van Horn)
November
- A presentation on the bookbinding process by our own Ellen Kuhfeld
With
regard to the November presentation, we're actually going to create a book.
Needless to say, we'll require paper, binding material, and words. The words are
to be supplied by chapter members. Ellen is requesting short stories of
approximately 4,000 words (10-15 pages) to be submitted to her prior to Labor
Day. She would prefer the stories to be mailed on disk or emailed as an
attachment in Word or WordPerfect format. For those of you dying to break into
print, this is a golden opportunity. While this isn't a paying prose job, copies
of the book will be available to the chapter sometime after the November
meeting.
Another
request for short stories came from member Pet Dennis. She's putting together an
anthology of bathroom-themed prose entitled 'Who Died In Here?" Despite the
title, stories both humorous and serious are encouraged in the range of
500-2,500 words. According to Pat, "The stories must include a crime or death
that takes place in a bathroom (private, public, etc.) Although the idea of the
book, and the title, is meant to be humorous, this should not be considered a
joke-type book. The stories must be well-written and of high quality."
Another
golden opportunity for those of you who want to see your name in print. This one
pays upon publication. Submissions are being accepted until August 20th only.
Entries should be mailed to:
Who Died?
Penury Press
P.O. Box 23058
Richfield, MN 55423
Before leaving the topic of markets for short stories, a few website suggestions
were offered for other writer resources.
www.ralan.com provides links to a variety of writer's markets.
www.spicygreeniguana.com provides
info on the speculative fiction market.
An
announcement that, unfortunately, slipped through the cracks last month was the
resignation of Julie Merrill as president. Conflicting responsibilities have
made it difficult for her to attend meetings this year but she will continue as
our Facilities Chair. Bobbye Johnson volunteered to act as president for the
rest of the year. Our next official election for officers will occur in January,
2004. In the meantime, our collective thanks go out to both Julie and Bobbye for
their efforts.
We
briefly discussed our book for the month, "Another Scandal In Bohemia" by Carol
Nelson Douglas. This is the fourth installment in the Irene Adler series which
features the only woman smart enough to outwit Sherlock Holmes. Although the
concept of the series is intriguing, members felt the book was overwritten. "Too
many words" was one comment. Another member liked the first book in the series
but it seems that subsequent titles have failed to capture the charm of the
original.
To round out our improv
program for the evening, two members brought some work in progress to read to
the group. Rich Thompson read the first chapter from "Numbers Game" and Robyn
Van Horn read the first chapter from "Immortality Can Be Fatal." The chapter
hopes to see both those works in print very soon.
By
Nancy Wikarski
The
minutes this month are going to be unusually brief because, for the second time
this year, our chapter was speakerless. The presenter for the evening had a last
minute family emergency which left us with no one to talk to but each other.
Despite that fact, we managed to accomplish a few bits of business.
Since we
had only set the program schedule for the first half of 2003, we took the
opportunity to brainstorm about possible topics for the rest of the year. What
follows are tentative suggestions and the individual who would be responsible
for coordinating the event:
September
- Kerri Miller author of Dead Air (Ginny Harris)
October -
A member of the BCA organization (Robin)
November
- A patrol cop (Mary Monica Pulver)
Other
ideas were considered in case one of the programs already mentioned should fall
through--a limo driver, a forensic anthropologist, a tour of a women's prison, a
book reviewer, a firefighter who could discuss arson cases, and a visit from a
local author. The Minnesota Crime Wave (in whole or in part) was mentioned as a
possibility.
If all
else fails, we also have the old standby of asking author members to bring some
of their work in progress to read aloud to the group. Members are reminded that
we'll need to come up with a finalized program before we break for the summer.
Aside
from chapter business, we discussed our book of the month, The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston. The feedback on this title was unusually strong and
extremely positive. Most readers felt the author was adept at building suspense
through all the twists and turns of the plot. The book starts out low-key and
then the author ups the stakes. As one member put it, just when you think it's
over, it's not. This accomplishment is all the more notable when one considers
that Preston is a non-fiction author and The Cobra Event is his only
fictional work. Because the book deals with the subject of bio-terror it was all
the more frightening because of its timeliness.
Our book
for June will be Another Scandal in Bohemia by Carol Nelson Douglas. As
of this writing, we don't have a scheduled speaker but will continue to build
the roster for the rest of the meetings this year.
By
Nancy Wikarski
A few
items of chapter business to begin. Members are reminded that our April meeting
will come up sooner than expected. The third Tuesday of the month is April 15th
aka tax day. Solvent members are particularly requested to attend in order to
cheer the rest of us up.
Members
who are authors are asked to check the Twin Sisters website for accuracy. Please
make sure that all your published fiction is listed. If not, contact Charity
Tahmaseb with corrections.
Our
reading list for the year has one correction. The May title is The Cobra Event
by Richard Preston (not Richard Foster).
Our book
for this month's meeting, The Ladies #1 Detective Agency stimulated a
surprisingly lively discussion. The story follows the adventures of Precious
Ramotswe who uses her inheritance to open the first detective agency in Bostwana
run by a woman. Some readers were charmed by the lyrical descriptions of
Botswana and by the colorful characters, past and present, that Precious
encounters. Others felt that the book isn't really a mystery novel but falls
into the category of literary fiction. The lack of suspense or personal jeopardy
for the main character made many of the episodes seem uneventful. The emphasis
on Botswana caused another reader to comment that the book seemed like a passive
travelog. One member disliked the narrative tone which was described as
"childlike simplicity." People either loved or hated the book with no middle
ground. Considering our usual lukewarm reaction to most of the titles we read
that, in itself, is noteworthy.
Our
speaker for the evening was Michael Dahl who, among other things, writes a
mystery series for juvenile readers. His detective is a boy named Finnegan Zwake
whose whole family is fascinated with dead things. When his archaeologist
parents mysteriously disappear during one of their expeditions, he goes to live
with his uncle, a mystery author. The fourth book in the series, The Viking
Claw, was an Anthony and Agatha nominee.
Mr. Dahl
is a Minnesota author who came from a reading family. Agatha Christie's And
Then There were None made a lasting impression on him as a boy
because of its clever plot. It inspired him to try writing a mystery himself. At
the time he wrote the first book in his series he was a bored bank employee. He
was fortunate enough to find an agent who wanted to focus on juvenile fiction.
His agent was able to get him an offer from a small press but Mr. Dahl decided
to wait for a better deal. Not long afterward Simon & Schuster picked up his
series. The first book he wrote was actually the third in the series since he
had to go back and provide a context for Finnegan. The series is intended for
middle readers (5th grade to 16 years old).
Aside
from being a prolific writer, Mrs. Dahl is also a quick one. He estimates that
the timeframe from research to completed first draft of a book takes him about
four months. Much of his research involves investigating different locations
since each book has a distinct locale. Because of the politics of publishing,
the Finnegan Zwake series may soon be coming to a close. A new board of
directors at Simon & Schuster asked him for a new series though Mr. Dahl says he
isn't sure he's ready to end Finnegan's adventures just yet. He may shop the
series around to find another publisher.
Even if
Finnegan should meet an untimely end, the author has a variety of other projects
to keep him occupied. He is the in-house writer and editor for Capstone Press
which specializes in non-fiction children's books. He has written books for
Capstone to teach the alphabet and counting as well as a children's joke book.
Another series, Scooter Spies, was intended for younger readers (4th grade and
below). Surprisingly, non-fiction writing pays better than fiction. It has taken
the author five years to begin getting royalties on the Finnegan Zwake series.
Mr. Dahl
had a few insights to offer about writing for children. He said an author has to
read juvenile literature to get a feel for it. The difference between writing
for a child or an adult is that everything is new to a younger reader. There is
no frame of reference. Rather than talking down to children, Mr. Dahl believes
the quality has to be just as good as adult writing. An author also has to
respect the intelligence of his younger audience because kids are quick to pick
up on a preachy tone in a book. In other words, if you're going to send a
message in your books, bury it under entertaining material.
Having
worked for small presses and big houses, Mr. Dahl believes the difference is
that New York publishers are more likely to let an author alone. They don't
offer as much interference as a smaller house.
Members
interested in learning more about Mr. Dahl or ordering his books might want to
check his website: www.finneganzwake.com
By
Nancy Wikarski
Our
meeting began with a final piece of business left over from 2002. We picked our
2003 reading list. Most of the titles listed below will be available at Once
Upon A Crime.
March: #1
Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
April:
Times Witness by Michael Malone
May: The
Cobra Event by Richard Foster
June:
Another Scandal In Bohemia by Carol Nelson Douglas
September: Ferryman Be There by Rosemary Aubert
October:
You've Got Murder by Donna Andrews
November:
(Code 61 - title may change) by Donald Harstad
Members:
please note that we will no longer be meeting in December because the third
Tuesday is a little too close to the holidays. Going forward, our regular
meeting months will be January through June and September through November.
We've
also made a change to programming. We're switching our May and June programs
because of a schedule conflict for one of the speakers. Next month's speaker
will be Michael Dahl, an author who writes young adult fiction.
Our book
for February was Mary Jane Maffini's The Icing On The Corpse. The book is
the second in her series featuring a victim's advocate as its sleuth. Maffini's
character was described by readers as an older, wiser Stephanie Plum. Members
liked the writing style of the book though there was a split vote on whether the
detective's dysfunctional family was entertaining or merely annoying. Some
members felt that the book was weak on plot but strong on characterization.
Others commented that Maffini shows craftsmanship in her writing by pulling all
the loose ends together despite the surface scatter.
Our
speaker for the evening was Donus Roberts, a book collector who happens to be
the father of SinC member Robyn Van Horn. Mr. Roberts' love of books began
early. His mother was an elementary school teacher who understood the value of
the written word. Her son attended a rural schoolhouse which taught students at
all grade levels. Because Mr. Roberts was such a precocious student, his teacher
was at a loss to plan a curriculum for him so he was allowed to read--all day,
every day. By eighth grade he estimates he was reading 6 to 7 hours a day. This
was quite an achievement at a time when there were no local bookstores and he
had to buy books through the Bantam catalog.
His love
of reading eventually led Mr. Roberts to an academic career as a high school
English teacher--a job from which he is now retired. He began collecting more
by accident than design after attending estate sales where he bought boxes of
books. He eventually found a mentor who taught him something about first
editions and book values. He has focused in recent years on the
mystery/suspense/crime genre because the price of collectibles is still within
the reach of the average person's income.
A new
addition to his home was required in order for Mr. Roberts to house his
ever-growing collection. He now owns approximately 13,400 books. 6,500 are first
editions. 7,000 are hardcover. Slightly more than half of them are in the
mystery field. About 2,500 are signed. Only about 1,000 books in his collection
are currently for sale.
Mr.
Roberts finds his books through a variety of sources. New and used bookstores,
the internet and the chains all play a role. Because he lives in South Dakota,
Mr. Roberts' favorite local haunts are the bookstores in Fargo where he claims
he has found an unusual number of first editions for a very reasonable price.
There are
a few guidelines to remember when setting out to collect. In the words of the
collector himself:
1)
Condition is the first priority.
2) There
is some method to identify the first publication run from later ones, the more
valuable from the less valuable.
3) The
original number in the print run will always relate to value.
4) The
fame of the author usually is a significant factor.
5) The
author's signature is important, although its importance will vary.
When
sorting through a pile of books, the collector needs to know the codes employed
by the various publishing houses to determine if a book is a first edition,
first printing. Codes used by turn of the century books are sometimes hard to
define. For any collectible book, the physical condition of the work is more
important than an inscription by the author.
Gauging
the future value of a book is sometimes difficult unless one knows the size of
the initial print run. This information is frequently unavailable to the public.
Although the economy has hit collectors as it has most citizens, there are still
individuals out there buying collectible books. There has been a particular
upsurge in the acquisition of children's books and young adult fiction.
Obviously
one becomes a book collector because one loves books. The monetary return of
selling a book rarely equals the new purchases that are always waiting to be
made. As Mr. Roberts himself states: This hobby is a vast $ pit; ddr spends as
much as he can afford--way too much according to his better half!"
The
writers among us are extremely grateful for that.
By
Nancy Wikarski
Appropriately enough, our last meeting of the year wrapped up most of the loose
ends of business left hanging over from November. The proposed slate of
candidates for board positions was approved unanimously by the membership. To
recap, officers will be:
President - Julie Merrill
VP & Secretary - Nancy
Wikarski
Treasurer & Newsletter
Coordinator - Ellen Kuhfeld
Webmaven - Charity Tahmaseb
Outreach Committee: Bobbye
Johnson, Kathy Erickson, Diane Klechefski
Programming: the entire
chapter
One
change was made to our tentative program for next year. In June, our speaker
will be Barbara O'Connell, a forensic anthropologist. Rich Thompson will
coordinate the program that month.
An
additional change was made to our standing meeting date. Members please note
that we will meet on the THIRD Tuesday of each month instead of the first. Our
location will remain the same as will a starting time of 7 pm. Our next meeting
will be February 18th.
We
weren't able to compile a reading list for next year and will complete that task
at the next meeting. Members who have a current copy of Sisters In Crime Books
In Print are asked to bring it along next time for reference purposes. Our book
for February will be Mary Jane Maffini’s The Icing On The Corpse.
Turning
from next year's books to this year's, a few people found time to read Julie
Kaewert's Unsolicited which features a London book publisher as a
sleuth. In this book, the publisher has to figure out who is trying to kill his
bestselling author without getting himself killed in the process. Members
especially liked the book for its dual US-English setting. They also made
favorable comments about the likeable characters. Other books in the series were
said to be equally entertaining.
Our
speaker for the evening was Janice Tweedy, who worked for the Minnesota Bureau
of Criminal Apprehension as a forensic document examiner and supervisor before
retiring in 2000. She now conducts a private practice in the same field.
Ms.
Tweedy emphasized the difference between grapho-analysis and forensic document
examination (FDE). The latter is "science for the courts" and does not involve
analyzing handwriting to determine character.
FDE
studies handwriting to find unconscious habits a writer has picked up in letter
formation such as slant, proportion of upper case to lower case, terminal
strokes, connecting and initial strokes, how i's are dotted, how t's are
crossed, whether the text falls on the baseline, if letters are retraced, and
where pen stops occur.
An
examiner would need an identical sample of letters and words in order to find
the same variables for comparison. A variation in the paper weight and type of
pen can also make a difference.
In
looking at a potential forgery, the document examiner searches for features such
as a slight tremor in the lettering, pen stops in the middle of words, and
changes in pen weight. If tracing or an autopen have been used in a forgery, an
analyst would look for pressure changes or an increase in the size of letters.
Sometimes
a typewriter ribbon or carbon are examined in forgery cases. Paper fiber
impressions left on a carbon can provide distinct evidence of the type of paper
used.
Another
handy gismo in FDE is the electrostatic detection device that can measure
pressure through multiple sheets of paper. This is useful if something
incriminating was written on the top sheet of a notepad and then the evidence
was destroyed. Subsequent sheets will still bear the imprint of the original
message.
Some
enterprising individuals attempt to alter the labels on file folders. A video
spectral comparison uses different light sources to display changes in ink even
though the lettering may appear identical to the naked eye.
The rise
of technology provided a new form of forgery when it became possible to take a
copy of an original signature and superimpose it on a fake letter via
photocopier. A hint to potential forgers: make sure the font of the original
letter and the font of your fake text match. Otherwise you might get caught.
Everyone
is familiar with the items that are common targets for forgery such as
prescriptions, checks, passports, legal documents, currency, lottery tickets,
suicide notes, and signatures on sports memorabilia. Ms. Tweedy, over the course
of her career, has examined them all. She has also spent time reconstructing
damaged documents that have been shredded or burned.
One of
the largest "documents" she ever examined was a DC10 aircraft. She was
attempting to identify the culprit who sprayed graffiti over the plane.
Another
unusual document was a Ford Truck glove compartment. The serial number had been
excised from the vehicle but Ms. Tweedy was able to display it by using video
spectral comparison. The serial number fluoresced when exposed to a light
source.
Today's
forgers are predominantly occupied with laundering stolen checks and cutting and
pasting signatures on documents using photocopiers. A final word to the wise.
When writing checks, always use gel pens or black ballpoints. They are the most
resistant to laundering.
