“Easter Parade” by Rex Stout

To accompany my prompt on how photography can influence our writing, I’m recommending a mystery novella in which photography plays a major role, “Easter Parade” by Rex Stout from the collection, And Four to Go.

In 1950’s New York City, Nero Wolfe, 275 lbs. of gourmet tastes and detective genius, also cultivates ten thousand orchids in rooftop greenhouses on his brownstone. When he hears that another amateur orchid grower, Millard Bynoe, has achieved a Vanda orchid with pure pink coloring, he must see it. Now. Wolfe also learns that Mr. Bynoe won’t display the orchid until he enters it into an international flower show, but his wife is wearing several blossoms as her corsage for Easter Sunday services.

When Wolfe tells his right hand man, Archie Goodwin, about this, Archie tells Wolfe to take a camera to Fifth Avenue on Sunday morning with thousands of other photographers crammed together to take photos of wealthy people leaving church services on Easter. Archie knows Wolfe will never do this because his boss dislikes shaking hands with people, much less pressing up against strangers. But Archie states:

“Instead of scowling or growling, or both, he was merely nodding thoughtfully, as if the idea of rubbing elbows, not to mention other parts of his anatomy, with his fellow beings in the Fifth Avenue Easter mob wasn’t repellent at all. Envy broadens a man.”

Wolfe asks Archie to hire someone to steal the blossoms off Mrs. Bynoe as she leaves the church. Archie contacts a petty thief he knows, Tabby. Archie also attends the Easter Parade with a camera, positioning himself outside the Bynoe’s church with hundreds of other photographers. When Mrs. Bynoe has an attack on the sidewalk after leaving the church, Tabby moves in and swipes the flowers. Mrs. Bynoe dies, and the autopsy reveals its strychnine poisoning, delivered through a needle, possibly fired from a camera that had been altered to be a weapon.

Wolfe is desperate to uncover the murderer before the depths of his orchid envy are revealed and the cops figure out who hired Tabby.

Not only is a camera suspected of being the murder weapon, the photographs Archie takes Easter morning become the key clue to solving the mystery. The novella includes four photos readers can study to see if they can spot what Wolfe notices.

I always enjoy reading mysteries set at specific holidays. “Easter Parade” is the only one I’ve found that takes place during Easter and incorporates a unique feature of how Easter was celebrated long ago. Mr. Stout wrote the story in the 1950’s, so the description of the Easter Parade is from a person of that time. I love how the novella gives readers a peek into history.

What books have you read that uses photography as a key element?

For more prompts and tips from this month’s theme of using other arts in our writing, click here.

April 24, 2025 0

Review of Books by Patrick F. McManus

To wrap up this month’s theme of fun, my last post is a review of books by Patrick F. McManus because they are pure pleasure to read. If you need a laugh, you can’t do better than turning to these humorous short stories and essays.

Patrick F. McManus’s pieces originally appeared in magazines like Outdoor Life and Field and Stream before they were collected into books. But you don’t have to know a thing about hunting, fishing, or any outdoor activities to find these stories hilarious. Below are some of my favorites from several of his books.

Real Ponies Don’t Go Oink!

“Strange Meets Matilda Jean”. Pat’s disreputable dog from his childhood, Strange, who acts like he owns the family farm, has an encounter with the new cat Pat’s sister, the Troll, adopts.

“Blood Sausage”. At twelve, Pat and his whole family have to help his stepfather Hank make blood sausage when they slaughter their pigs in the fall. Pat is revolted at the whole process, but his grandmother won’t excuse him from helping because it will hurt Hank’s feelings. Pat swears revenge on her, and his opportunity comes in an unexpected way.

“Secret Places”. In this essay, Pat writes about his love of secret places, like the a fishing spot only he knows about.

“All my life I have had secret places. I like secret places. They make me feel smug and superior, two of the really great feelings.

The Bear in the Attic

“Real Work”. Pat describes his first real job when he was a teen in rural Idaho in the late 1940’s, working for a local farmer named Gutman.

“The Bear in the Attic”. During WWII, on the homefront, when Pat is ten, his older cousin is drafted. His aunt is so upset that when her husband finds an abandoned baby bear at the lumber mill, she takes the cub in. Which is fine, since he’s a cub. But Pooky doesn’t stay a cub.

Never Sniff a Gift Fish

“The Bush Pilots”. Pat’s best friend when he was a kid was Crazy Eddie Muldoon, who had a genius for creating trouble. In this story, Pat and Eddie decide to build a bush plane and launch it from the top of the Muldoon’s barn.

“Never Sniff a Gift Fish”. On a fishing trip with his friends Retch and Al, Pat is driven nearly insane as Al invents learned sayings about the outdoor life in the style of Benjamin Franklin quotes.

The Grasshopper Trap

“Mean Tents”. Pat relates his bad experiences with tents.

“The Swamp”. As a teen, Pat gets lost with his friend Birdy and old backwoodsmen Rancid Crabtree on a homemade raft in a local swamp.

There was a stillness in the air, broken only by the sounds of water burbling against the raft, the splashes of our poles, and a strange, eerie moaning.

“For cripes sake, Birdy!” I said. “Would you stop your dang eerie moaning? It’s getting on my nerves!”

“The Grasshopper Trap”. Pat and Crazy Eddie enlist the aid of Rancid to build a trap to catch grasshoppers for fishing bait. It doesn’t go as they planned.

And for the writer …

Mr. McManus also taught writing at Eastern Washington State College. So it seems natural he would write a book on how to write humorous stories. Click here for my review of The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writing of Humor.

For a complete list of Mr. McManus’s books, click here.

Which authors do you read if you need a laugh?

January 30, 2025 0

Book Review of Smoking Flax by Jennifer Hallmark

To open this month’s theme of all things young adult, or YA, fiction, I have a book review of Smoking Flax by Jennifer Hallmark, which released this past January.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Almost nineteen-year-old Read Anderson wants to belong in a world where he hasn’t always fit. Three days after graduation, he decides to ride a bus back to Louisiana and deals with the events of his thirteenth summer once and for all. Back then, he’d stood up to his abusive Pa, protecting Momma and his sister, taking control of his life. But who was the faded image of the child he saw that day? Aunt Lula predicted his life would shift and change. Something about space-time-continum and the fourth dimesion. He tucks her words in his heart. If he survives the shift, this could be his chance to start over. But the ghost child haunts his dreams. Even though six years have passed, does he want to confront the lies he’s always believed?

My Review

Jennifer Hallmark does the two things that almost always keeps me reading: she builds sympathy for her main character, and she lets me live the setting.

Reed is trapped in a very tough situation. The plot deals with racism and child abuse, and a rape from the past is mentioned. None of these are written in explicit ways.

I love how Jennifer makes you feel like you are living in the 70’s. It isn’t heavy-handed but written very much like how a book written in that decade would refer to current events and customs, so her descriptions are very natural. I also liked how she describes a southern summer. I could feel the heat. And if you want to know why I put Star Wars toys in my photo, you’ll have to read the book.

The ending surprised me and was very dramatic, which is fits very well with all the serious problems that have coursed through the story.

If you like speculative fiction mixed with history and realism, pick this one up.

For another recommendation of a YA book, click here.

To read guest blogs by author Jennifer Hallmark, click here.

August 1, 2024 0

Stories by Andrew Klavan

Here’s another one of my most popular posts, stories by Andrew Klavan. It’s especially fitting since one of his stories that I love is a Christmas crime story. Mr. Klavan writes for adults as well as teens, and my husband has been listening to and enjoying the Cameron Winter series.

If We Survive is told from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Will who, with two other teenagers, a college student, and their pastor, is on a mission trip in a South American country. Right before they are scheduled to leave, a communist coup takes place. In the small village where they were staying, the rebels target them because they are Americans. Their only hope of escape is the ex-Marine who is their pilot.

I like If We Survive for several reasons. It’s one of the few YA Christian fiction novels I have found that has a realistic setting – no fantasy or science fiction elements. It also has a male protagonist. If a YA novel has a contemporary setting, it is usually a romance told from a girl’s point of view. The action sequences held my attention and are very appealing for a teen audience.

Will is written in a way teens can relate to, but I wish the supporting characters were more distinct. I do like the change Nikki goes through. The other female character seems to good to be true, but Will is describing her and he has a crush on her.

To learn more, check out If We Survive on Goodreads.

I was introduced to Mr. Klavan in the short story collection Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop. You can also find it in The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler. The title of Mr. Klavan’s story “The Killer Christian” caught my attention. Then I read the first paragraph:

“A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything – not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of them time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he put his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.”

With an opening like that, I had to read more. I won’t tell you any more about the story but if you like to read Christmas stories at Christmas, save this one as a present for yourself. The ending, in keeping with Christian beliefs, is great and always moves me. It’s one of my favorite Christmas stories.

December 21, 2023 0

Mysteries That Influenced My Writing

Since I began my blog, I’ve written about the mysteries that influenced my writing. Although I’m still on the hunt for good mysteries, I find the ones I discovered in my teens and twenties have had the most impact and not just because I was more impressionable when I first discovered them. When I reread my favorites, I still learn techniques I can use in my storytelling.

My First Mysteries

In the seventies, my mystery education started with Scooby Doo and continued with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, and the Three Investigators. In seventh grade, I read my first adult book, which was a mystery written in 1975 by Dorothy Gilman, entitled A Nun in the Closet. Balancing mystery and humor, the novel relates the investigation of Sister John and Sister Hyacinth into a mysterious bequest to their abbey.

It had to be shortly after that that I plowed my way through every Agatha Christie story I could get my hands on. Now I reread her books first, for fun, and second, to learn plotting techniques. That was always Mrs. Christie’s strength. Although her detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple have achieved immortality, in many books, her other characters aren’t as well-developed. Death on the Nile and A Holiday for Murder are my favorite novels because the rest of the characters are more complicated and more human, and therefore, more interesting.

At seventeen, I discovered Sherlock Holmes and there was no stopping me. I read all 60 of Sir Arthur’s stories and have read a huge amount of pastiches written by contemporary authors. The lesson I learned: my detective must be a character people want to spend time with. For more about my love for the Sherlock Holmes canon, click here.

When I was in college, I took a class called “Detective Film and Fiction.” (When you’re an English major, you can take classes like that and earn credit). I was assigned to read Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout and couldn’t get enough of the world Mr. Stout created for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Although Nero Wolfe is the detective, it was Archie’s unique voice that hooked me. The lesson I learned: the Watson character can be as interesting and more relatable than the detective character. For more on Archie Goodwin, click here.

Mysteries in Middle Age

I was twenty-one when I tried a collection of Father Brown short stories and didn’t like them at all. They weren’t fair-play mysteries. In some cases, they didn’t seem like mysteries at all. Fast forward twenty years. I tried them again, and they lit up my mind like few stories ever have. I realized that Mr. Chesterton wasn’t trying to write realistic fiction, although his stories highlight realities of life.

His favorite device is paradox, like in the short story, “The Strange Crime of John Boulnois.” When Sir Claude Champion is found stabbed to death, the police assume the killer is John Boulnois because Sir Claude was pursuing his wife. But Mrs. Boulnois insists her husband is innocent. He was never jealous of Sir Claude, a childhood friend, although Sir Claude was wealthy, aristocratic, accomplished, and celebrated. Father Brown understands and quotes from the book of Esther. “And Haman began to tell them … of all the things wherein the king had honored him; and he said: ‘All these things profit me nothing while I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the gate.”

I learned that if I can make a character, clue, or plot point appear one way but then reveal that it indicates the exact opposite, it surprises the reader and gives that part of my story greater weight.

Around this same point in my life, I dove into the mysteries featuring the detective Uncle Abner. These short stories, set in West Virginia before the Civil War, have some of the best descriptions of settings I’ve read. I feel like I’ve entered the world that existed in the Appalachian mountains more than 150 years ago. For more on the Uncle Abner mysteries, click here. I learned not to overlook my setting. Settings can perform certain literary tasks, like setting the mood, much more easily than character or plot.

Now it’s your turn. What stories have influenced your writing? Or what stories have stayed with your through the years?

October 7, 2021 1

Category: Favorite authors