Plotting According to History

This is the fifth post on The Crosses. The sixth will be posted in a couple of days, detailing many of the literary easter eggs that appear throughout the novel, including an explanation of the desert cardinal photo I’ve posted previously in connection with the novel. Receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you haven’t followed the Kickstarter, please consider doing so at the link below. It ends this week, so take advantage now to get the signed edition and other rewards that include:

• Paperback, PDF, and Hardcover Editions
• Signed paperbacks and hardcovers for USA fans
• BSI Bundle that pairs The Crosses with Kim Krisco’s novel, Irregular Lives: The Untold Story of Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.

Plotting According to History

The Crosses is an historical mystery, requiring attention to the smallest of historical details, including use of electricity, proliferation of automobiles, changing methods of communication, state of medicine, social evolution, forensic methodology, language use, and idiomatic expressions no longer in use, to name only a few. The novel opens with the discovery of three local tribal councilors, shot to death, no one around except the young girl who finds them. The tribal council building is remotely located near the Rio Grande, southeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico. After the initial investigation by the county’s deputy, Orren Stokes, the inquiry stagnates due to the lack of witnesses and physical clues.

The technological aspects of the period heavily influenced the plot, but the most influential factors were racial and cultural. Bessie de la Paz, newspaper publisher and former Pinkerton agent, has been assisting Stokes in the investigation as best she can. Although her father had been a tribal member, her mother’s white. The tribe scorns her because she is mixed-race, which makes her investigative attempts even more challenging. Frustrated, she writes in request of advice to the former Baker Street Irregular, Ben Irwin, who has become a renowned detective, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Sherlock Holmes.

Dr. John Watson notifies her that he has forwarded her letter to Irwin, already in the U.S. on another matter involving a former BSI leader now engaged in international crime. With plans to travel to the Southwest regarding the former BSI leader, Irwin arrives in Las Cruces to offer whatever assistance he can. Amid accusations of racial prejudice in the murders and the failure to solve them, the investigating trio uncovers new clues while Ben and Bess grow emotionally close as Bess confronts the biggest challenge of her life.

Although the story’s native tribe is fictional, elements are based on area tribal life in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Racism of the time affected every aspect of life, especially when events crossed cultural lines. The potential for racial conflict escalates when tribal councillors, who’ve been at odds with the area’s white farmers, are murdered. While the investigation must deal with racial prejudice against indigenous and black Americans, the investigators nevertheless focus on solving the crime, no matter where it leads.

Bonnie and I intended The Crosses to honor the Holmes tradition, but we wanted to take it beyond Holmes and the typical British setting by featuring a character directly influenced by the celebrated detective, a character who brings Holmes’s methods to America. Above all, we wanted to write an entertaining story of intrigue and humanity, one that readers will enjoy.

The final post will explore the literary easter eggs scattered through novel. Blog entries appear on https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com, https://csfuqua.com/blog, Goodreads, and Facebook. Thank you much for reading. The Crosses is available from Amazon, B&N, other booksellers, and directly from the publisher, MX Publishing.

Review of Edward Gillow’s The Clockmaker’s Bequest

 

As Holmes and Watson languish in boredom, a telegram arrives from solicitor Phineas Larcombe, requesting Holmes’s immediate assistance. Renowned clockmaker Ezekiel Brand has died suspiciously after leaving his estate to whichever of his three apprentices can solve a riddle hidden in his final masterpiece clock.

Holmes examines the clock, which is housed in a secure vault. Since it’s light-sensitive and chimes a unique sequence of notes in darkness, Holmes deduces it’s designed to reveal a message under specific conditions rather than through physical tampering.

When one apprentice dies and another expresses fear for his own life, suspicion falls on Larcombe who may have reason to keep the clock’s secret undiscovered. In the event all apprentices die, Larcombe would become the clockmaker’s beneficiary, but Holmes suspects deeper motives driving events.

As Holmes and Watson continue to investigate, a letter arrives, warning them to abandon the investigation altogether. Instead, the duo attempt to prevent yet another murder by setting a trap for the murderer, spreading the rumor that Holmes has solved the clock’s secret, setting up the climax that unveils the murderer as well as the mastermind who set events in motion.

Author Edward Gillow perfectly captures the voice, mood, and pace of the original Holmes tales with this satisfying mystery worthy of the Baker Street detective’s expertise. The Clockmaker’s Bequest is available in hardback, paperback, digital, and audio formats from Amazon.com, other retailers, and directly from MX Publishing.

The Further Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Volume III, by Caiden Cooper Myles

The Further Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Volume III, by Caiden Cooper Myles, features six new adventures and is a welcomed addition to the Holmes canon. Precisely capturing the original Holmes stories’ narrative voice and style, Myles delivers tales that not only further explore Holmes’s deductive prowess, but also celebrate his cherished relationship with John Watson.

Having finagled Holmes’s blessings to publish accounts previously forbidden, Watson recounts a half-dozen clever mysteries that include the disappearance of an Aztec statue, a mystical circle, the murder of a form
er criminal, a murdered politician, a gambler found garroted and naked in his study, and a nemesis worthy of Moriarty comparison, providing the intrigue and deductive challenges readers have come to expect Holmes and Watson to face.

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, not all in this collection end neatly with the perpetrator suffering consequences for crimes committed. Holmes and Watson, to their frustration, must wait for future opportunities to serve justice even as an innocent in the meantime pays the price.

Myles has compiled a satisfying collection of tales, generously augmented with Victorian style illustrations by Marie-Charlotte Feret, that celebrate and honor Conan Doyle’s enduring legacy of “the world’s greatest detective.” The Further Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Volume III is available in hardback, paperback, digital, and audio formats from Amazon.com, other retailers, and directly from MX Publishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fatherhood Explores Parenting from Dad’s Perspective

Any way you look at it, parenting is rife with challenges and joys. Fatherhood ~ Poems of Parenthood, the latest book by author/musician C.S. Fuqua, published by UK-based Stairwell Books, explores the facets of parenting from a father’s perspective in 90 poems written over a 30-year period.

In 1991, Fuqua became an “at-home dad” charged with the day-to-day care of a newborn daughter. He and his spouse Bonnie were what the media then called a new breed of parents, those who chose not to settle into traditional roles of woman-as-homemaker, man-as-breadwinner. While his wife pursued a career in public service, Fuqua established himself as a freelance writer. 

In the lean, early years of marriage, the couple had dismissed the idea of becoming parents, Fuqua said, “because we weren’t ready for parenthood—not monetarily, not intellectually, not emotionally.” By age thirty-five and their thirteenth wedding anniversary, “We’d become financially stable and decided it was time.” 

Beginning with two miscarriages, the couple found themselves on an emotional rollercoaster like they’d never experienced before, one that only intensified with the birth of their daughter. “But something magical happened,” Fuqua said. “With most of my time now devoted to her, our daughter became my primary creative muse, and I began to devote much of my writing to the exploration of parenthood—the daily experiences, insecurities, failures, successes.” 

Fuqua spent most days caring for the couple’s daughter, playing with her, taking her on exploratory walks, conversing with and reading to her as though she understood every word, involving her in social development situations, and sharing all duties with his spouse in the evenings, on weekends, and her days off—all about which he wrote in poetry, in fiction, and in journal-style letters to their daughter that he continues to write today.

In 2007, Uncial Press published a collection of 38 of Fuqua’s parenting-related poems entitled The Swing ~ Poems of Parenthood, which won the Best Poetry Collection EPIC Award for 2008 and remained in print for the next fourteen years. In 2021, Fuqua decided to expand the collection with poems he’d written since its publication, more than doubling the number of The Swing’s original poems, all of which are included in Fatherhood. 

Fatherhood chronicles 30 years of parenting experiences, from pregnancy to the child’s adulthood—the joy, sorrow, insecurity, confidence, anxiety, calm, irrationality, fear, pride, confusion, clarity, mourning, celebration, hope, and so much more—“all due,” Fuqua said, “to one extraordinary young woman who’s astounded her mom and me from day one with her intellect, humanity, and grace.”

Fatherhood ~ Poems on Parenthood is available through most bookstores and directly from Stairwell Books at https://www.stairwellbooks.co.uk/product/fatherhood/.

Fuqua has been writing professionally since 1979. His published books include White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems, Walking after Midnight ~ Collected Stories, Big Daddy’s Fast-Past Gadget (SF novel), Hush, Puppy! A Southern Fried Tale (children’s book), and Native American Flute ~ A Comprehensive Guide, among others. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in hundreds of national and international publications as diverse as Rattle, The Pearl, Cemetery Dance, The Christian Science Monitor, Main Street Rag, and Year’s Best Horror Stories. Learn more about his writing and music at http://csfuqua.com.