Sheila York

On the Night Table: Woody Haut’s Heartbreak and Vine & Val McDermid’s The Distant Echo

Thursday morning, I stepped up smartly to Continental Airlines’ curb-side check-in at Los Angeles Airport, efficiently presented my e-ticket info and ID, then hauled my suitcase onto the scale. The bag was full of books bought and cadged during my time in LA at the Left Coast Crime convention, and I was watching the readout as it ticked toward the maximum weight limit. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the check-in attendant. So I think he had to say it twice:

“Ma’am, your reservation’s been cancelled.”

Let’s skip my stunned response. And skip most of the part where he had to tell me where to go for assistance — it sounded like he was saying “Gotta wandasix.” Turned out it was “Go to One to Six,” the numbers above the bank of Continental’s customer service desks inside.  It also turned out to be an easy choice: only one of desks 1-6 was staffed.

When I finally got to the front of the line, the attendant there told me that – as required by airline security policy — Continental had cancelled my reservation for my trip home because their records showed I never got on the March 8 flight that took me to California. “How could you not have a record of that?” I asked, I think rationally. “The gate attendant swept my boarding pass under the little thingy that reads the bar code.”

“Do you have that boarding pass?”

“Well, not on me. It’s somewhere in my luggage. I hope. I hope I didn’t accidentally throw it out.”

“What about the luggage label from the bag you checked?”

Alas, days earlier, I had also removed that flappy label they attach to your suitcase handle when you check a bag, so I had no choice but to search for the pass. I proceeded to go through my handbag and carry-on. Nothing. So there, in full view of a starting-to-fume line of waiting passengers, I got down on my hands and knees and unzipped my suitcase. Yes, you could say I aired my dirty laundry. But the boarding pass was not in the suitcase.

Now I had a choice. I could call Continental and try to convince them I’d been on the plane. Or I could pay to get my reservation reinstated — curiously, although it was “cancelled,” it was apparently available for “reinstatement.” How much? $1,235. One way. Coach.

Then I found the boarding pass. Crumpled and tucked away at the very bottom of a forgotten side pocket in my carry-on. I handed it over. Reservation instantly reinstated. Grumbling in customer line recedes. But not so much my temper, which I had magnificently managed to control. It was not improved when I was told that there were no seats available now except Middle seats. Just what I wanted: a six-hour trip crammed between two super-sized Americans.

I will say that the attendant did all she could. She even tried to call the gate to get them to give me the first window or aisle seat that opened up, but no one at the gate answered the phone. So I went on my way, carefully avoiding the eyes of the people in line behind me.

I lingered at the security checkpoint for 45 minutes — don’t get me started on why I get routinely funneled into the “People who might need extra help” line. I don’t have a stroller. I don’t have children. I don’t use a walker, a cane or a wheelchair. I don’t wear lace-up shoes to the airport, for cripes sakes. I’m beginning to think this is an ageist thing: Anyone over 50 must be incapable of figuring out how to put their belongings in a bin.

I got to the gate, and told the attendants — as soon as they took notice of me after finishing their conversation — what had happened. Oh, how I longed at that moment for just one sincere “I’m sorry.” No luck. The guy took my boarding pass — which I was highly reluctant to hand over — and said he’d see what he could do. Gee, thanks so much. Your system screws up, and I don’t even get an “I’m sorry.”

I did end up with a window seat — and no super-sizers. Instead, a pleasant Polish couple who had been in California for a wedding. I read a book. I napped. I even ate the turkey hot dog.

Our lesson for the day: Hang on to all boarding passes until you are back home again. And pack them where you can find them without exposing your undies.

But forget the problems I would have faced if I hadn’t turned up that boarding pass. Forget the hassle of having to talk Continental into believing I was actually on that March 8 flight and they screwed up. Forget the embarrassment of having to drag my seen-better-days undies out in front of strangers.

If on March 8, Continental’s boarding-pass scanner didn’t properly scan my pass, the implication is dire indeed. I checked a bag. So if the glitch occurred at the gate, Continental’s system would have shown a checked bag with no accompanying passenger. But the plane took off.

The attendant who re-instated my reservation reported the incident, but employees can only report these incidents to management, and then management is responsible for what to do about it.

Needless to say, I reported it to the TSA as soon as I got home.

I skipped the part about the undies.

Dick Francis died Sunday in the Caymans, where years ago he’d taken his English bones to warm in the sun, bones that had been broken so often in his first career as a champion steeplechase jockey. Bones so often broken that they forced him to give up riding. And find a second champion career, thriller writer.

He was one of my longtime favorite novelists, and curiously, I had spoken about him only a little over a week ago, at the Murder in the Magic City convention in Birmingham, Alabama. I was part of a panel — along with Sheila Lowe, Meredith Cole and E. Michael Terrell – that was titled Murder Gets a Hook. 

We talked about what ‘hooks’ a reader, and I shared my view that there were actually three hooks in good writing.

If you write a series, the first hook is the mix of ingredients that form your foundation — the protagonist’s occupation, the locale, mood, period, and the continuing cast of supporting characters. Second, the plot idea for each individual book. Third, the opening grab — what pulls readers into a book and makes them want to take it home.

Mr. Francis didn’t write a series, although some would argue that his heroes were often a variation on the same theme. Sid Halley appears in three novels, but Mr. Francis wrote dozens.

He excelled at the last two hooks.

He wrote intriguing plots that captivated readers who had never even seen a horse up close, let alone gone to a race, readers who weren’t British and knew nothing about bookmakers, trainers, changing rooms or club badges.

And he knew how to drop the reader immediately into a story.

His very first novel, Dead Cert, opens in the middle of a race, and no one made a race more exciting. Those descriptions would define his work. 

It was the beginning of his second novel, NERVE, that I brought with me to Birmingham to share with the panel audience. In it, he demonstrates one of his other remarkable talents: creating gripping first lines.

Art Mathews shot himself, loudly and messily, in the center of the parade ring at Dunstable races. I was standing only six feet away from him, but he did it so quickly that had it been only six inches I would not have had time to stop him.

How can you not keep reading?

It was jockey training perhaps. The keen, ingrained understanding of the importance of getting out of the gate. That above all else had to be perfect if you hoped to win. 

Dick Francis knew how to get out of the gate.

And we were privileged to be able to ride with him.

On My Night Stand: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Last night, we launched A Good Knife’s Work, with a huge party at Partners & Crime in New York City, one of the great mystery bookshops.

And it turned out to be an even bigger party than we had imagined. For reasons nobody could have foreseen.  

Our story begins on Sunday. I had made careful, extensive preparations for the launch party: for weeks, I had emailed and follow-up-emailed invites to friends, fans, coworkers. I’d hired a bartender, friend Michael Johnson. Because there would be limited space at the bookstore for drink mixing, Michael came out to the house on Sunday not only to mix up terrific batches of two iconic 1940s cocktails, the Manhattan and the Gimlet, but also to create a signature drink for me called A Good Knife’s Work, a fabulous red martini, which turned out to be the hit drink of the launch. Naturally, we had to sample his batches along the way, to make sure there was just the right ratio of rye to sweet vermouth (Manhattan) and lime juice to gin (Gimlet): we did not necessarily follow the advice of Terry Lennox in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye: “A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else.” We were zealous scientists in our pursuit of perfection. Fortunately, thanks to public transit, no driving was required.

I had also acquired some top-notch barware – gorgeous stemmed unbreakable cocktail glasses that looked like they’d materialized from the 1940s. I had baked my famous (at least among my friends) deadly delicious chocolate chip cookies, and my husband, David, prepared his equally lauded appetizer of bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almonds. When we throw a party, we throw a party.

Now, story takes a serious turn on our unsuspecting heroine.

Monday, Kiz Reeves, part owner of Partners & Crime bookstore, called to tell me – as gently as she could – that my launch was about to change, drastically. There had been a miscommunication between the bookstore and the publisher and publicity people who represented another writer, Matt Beynon Rees. Somewhere along the line, the publisher and publicity people had come to believe that February 2 had been set as the date for a signing party for Matt, but the bookstore had no record of that agreement. On Monday morning, Kiz received a call from the publisher to check that everything was ready to go and was taken by complete surprise. Nevertheless, Matt had been told weeks before by the publicity people to go ahead with his plans, and oblivious to the miscommunication, he had sent out his own invites and alerted his fans.

To call this a miscommunication is like calling the Nile a creek.

My launch party had now become a dual signing with a man I’d never met.

And who to boot wrote dark mysteries about a Palestinian detective.

We skip over the part where our heroine, accepting fate, says goodbye, hangs up the phone and then expresses her disappointment to her husband and friends for a while. Okay, maybe for hours on end.

Tuesday night. Our heroine arrives early.

I have to finish cutting and rehearsing the portion of the book I’m going to read. As we have two writers, each will get about half the normal time. And okay, I want to get the lay of the land, get my close friends into a posse and establish a little territory, girded now for the possibility that I could get elbowed aside by a well known author with a more powerful publisher.

Then Matt Rees walked in. Gracious, charming, warm, generous, friendly and funny. One minute, I’m feeling proprietary about the cocktails, and the next I’m inviting his publicity people to hit the bar.

But we still have the dual signing issue, about which most of the guests will be unaware. They continue to steam in. The room is filling up. Common ground. Where did our work have any common ground? Is there any link we can present to the crowd? My suggestion: Both our books had dark covers, both had killings done with knives, and Matt’s hair and my roots are the same color. Fortunately, Matt had a better – if less entertaining – connection: We had both been deeply influenced by Raymond Chandler. And had taken that influence in completely different directions.

Kiz made a welcoming speech to the guests, in which she announced that the only people connected to the scheduling snafu who were completely blameless were the authors. Big laugh. We begin.

And we work the crowd like we’ve known each other for years.

We sell out of books (and dozens more orders are placed with the bookstore). As a bonus, I discover a writer whose work I can’t wait to read. Matt’s first book, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, is next up on the night stand.

New definition of SNAFUs: Splendid Night and an Unqualified Success.

And thanks to photographer Mark Lentz for the terrific pictures. 

Matt Reads from The Fourth Assassin

I Take a Question from the Audience

Fans Line Up for the 1940s Cocktails

I Start to Read from A Good Knife's Work

On My Nightstand: Peter Mayle’s The Vintage Caper

We Love Librarians.

Next weekend, January 15-19, dozens of mystery writers will descend on Boston for the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting. If you’re a librarian and new to ALA conventions, there’s something you should know. Writers love you. They aren’t stalking you. It just feels that way when they insist on telling you – at great length – how libraries changed their young lives.

So, if you’re going to be there, I hope you’ll stop by the Sisters in Crime booth, #2022, and meet some mystery writers. We promise not to attach ourselves to your ankle.

On Sunday, the 17th, I’ll be in the booth – giving away samples of A Good Knife’s Work – from 11:15a to 12:45p. Sharing the booth during that time slot will be Vinny O’Neil, author of the Frank Cole series, whom I’ve never met. I’m looking forward to getting to know Vinny.

Yes, I know, I used “whom” back there. But librarians sometimes start off as English majors, and I want to impress.

I didn’t start off as an English major – or end up as one – but I admit to being one of those people who flinch when I see French Fry’s on the menu. Or the apostrophe going the wrong way in ’Tis the Season. It’s an apostrophe, just like the one in “don’t,” marking where something’s missing. It’s not an opening single quotation mark (‘Tis the Season). We owe the increase in the appearance of this particular error to word processing, which makes it damn hard to type an apostrophe at the beginning of a word — and consequently makes too many people think the open quote must be right — and to the decline in respect for proofreading in printed and online material. I know. I began my current day-job career as a proofreader just as the tsunami of the Internet hit. 

In my home office hangs a framed New Yorker cartoon, in which a customer seated in a restaurant is haranguing the beleaguered waiter, who is waiting for his order: “I’ll have the misspelled ‘Ceasar’ salad and the improperly hyphenated veal osso-buco.” When I first saw that cartoon, I laughed out loud. I had to have it. I bought it, and proudly hung it on the wall of my day-job office. That first day, a coworker came in, saw it, and said, “Oh, Sheila, that’s wonderful. It’s just like you.”

It’s now hanging at home.

In my defense, I have never once in my life blamed a waiter for the menu.

Quirk No. 1, however, has now been revealed. I’m a grammar junkie. 

Hope to see you in Boston.