Goodbye Weird, Wacky 2010

Weatherwise, and largely otherwise, the year 2010 is going out in a familiar pattern. Meaning no pattern at all. A couple of weeks ago we had snow and 7 degrees. Today it's been up almost to 70. Before the ball drops (or, in Nashville, the guitar) at midnight, storms will arrive, and the thermometer will begin its descent after daylight, ending up below freezing.

The TV folks spent most of their time this evening looking back at the wild and woolly year. Floods and tornadoes and earthquakes vied for attention with terrorists, spies who were never out in the cold but came in anyway, and, oh yes, Obamacare. Nashville had its share of water problems with a 1000-year flood in May. The other most-talked-about event was the election that considerably altered the landscape. For us in Tennessee, it brought a Republican governor, a Republican majority in the U.S. Congress (we already had two Republican senators), and a State Legislature with the largest Republican membership in history.

Personally, I'm not sure I can compete with any of the weirdness that marked the Year 2010. One of the more interesting experiences was attending the 60th anniversary reunion of my old Air National Guard unit that provided me the opportunity for a year's adventure in Korea during the war that hasn't officially ended yet. My fifth Greg McKenzie mystery, A Sporting Murder, came out from Night Shadows Press in September. I had a nice launch party, complete with cake, at Mysteries & More Bookstore in Nashville.

The weather curse caught me the following month, however, when I was invited to talk about my new book to the Nashville City Club Book Club. The threat of nasty weather kept the members at home while I had a nice dinner with the club president and his son.

I suppose the most significant event for me this year was turning 85 in November. I don't bemoan old age the way a lot of my contemporaries do, plus many of those not as long in the tooth as me. I think it's pretty cool to still be sailing along singing a song. Actually, I don't do much singing anymore. My one problem is a cough that has left my voice sounding like somebody with terminal laryngitis.

My most shocking accomplishment, maybe weird would work here, came earlier this week. In A Sporting Murder, one of the characters talks about gambling a few times with the murder victim at Harrah's casino on the Ohio River at Metropolis, IL. Greg McKenzie thinks:

"Jill and I made that trek up I-24 to the Illinois side of the river occasionally. We looked on it as a recreational thing and set a fairly modest limit for what we’d spend. Sometimes we came back winners. Most of the time we didn’t."

That was wife Sarah and my personal experience. This time we took our usual $400, realizing we might come back empty handed, but hoping otherwise. We had two free nights in the hotel and coupons for free meals. After day one, Sarah was about ready to pack it in, but I assured her I would win it all back (did I mention I'm an incurable optimist?).

The last day she suggested we play a small cluster of new Blazing 7's slots near the entrance. They were quarter progressive machines, meaning the jackpots constantly increased, though only a penny at a time, staring with a few hundred dollars. After playing a bit on my $20 bill, winning a few small rounds, watching Flaming 777's popping up above and below the payoff line, suddenly I looked and there were three of them lined up in the middle. The machine lit up with JACKPOT.

The guy who came to pay me off and reset the machine said it hadn't increased much since the last jackpot. We went and played some other slots, feeling much better though not winning a lot. Later, as we made our way back to the entrance, Sarah said, "Let's play these Blazing 7's again." Having never hit a jackpot before, I was sure my luck had been depleted. But I sat beside her at the same machine.

Before I had hardly spun the reels 10 times, up came three Blazing 777's and the JACKPOT sign flashed again. It was still paltry compared to what you'd get on a dollar machine, but to a guy whose luck had always been lousy at best, it was quite a thrill.

So I'm looking forward to 2011 with a new lease on luck. Meanwhile, I'll keep writing mysteries and plugging along as usual, weird or no.

It's Snowing for Christmas

As I write this, the clock has just passed midnight, making it officially Christmas Day, and for the first time in 17 years, snow is falling on December 25th in Nashville. As my protag Greg McKenzie pointed out in the new book, A Sporting Murder, if you're looking for a white Christmas, this isn't the place to look. But here it is!

For the first time since I can't remember when, we won't be having a big crowd for Christmas dinner. Our brood has outgrown our house. Sarah and I joined two families when we married 11 years ago, and both of them have been busily expanding. Jointly, we now have 6 children, 11 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren. Add 7 spouses to the mix and that totals 33 people, including us.

We split up for Thanksgiving, with Sarah's crowd gathering at one of her granddaughters and my crew dining here. For Christmas, my older son is staying in Pennsylvania, where he'll have his two sons and two grandchildlren for dinner. And my younger daughter stopped by Christmas eve on her way home to Oak Ridge with her four kids, for their first Christmas at home in years.

With snow on the ground, and in the streets, we plan to have a small dinner here with two of my kids and Sarah's grandson. We may miss all the usual hubbub, but it will be a time of relaxing and reminiscing. At our age, that's a good thing.

I'll close with my best wishes for all to have a merry and joyous Christmas, and may your best dreams come true in the New Year.

Infamy Isn't All Bad

Let me start by saying I'm reasonably pleased with the way my life has turned out. For sure there are things I would have changed, had I known what I know now, but I'm quite happy with the overall result. At this point, you're probably thinking what the devil does this have to do with infamy?

It goes back 69 years to that fateful December 7, 1941. What happened that day put me on the path that led to where I am now. It was one of those blockbuster events that cause people to recall what they were doing when they heard the news. I was riding in my dad's car, listening to the radio. It was around 1:30 p.m. when the news broke on CBS Radio (WLAC in Nashville). I don't remember if I heard the initial announcement or a follow-up. But I remember the message.

The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. You can listen to the original radio reports at the Modesto Radio Museum website.

I had just turned 16 and gotten my driver's license. I didn't get to use the car much back in those days, and even less after gas rationing started in 1942. But like every other boy in my school, I couldn't wait to get out and join the service. My older brother was drafted after finishing his first year in college. I was only 17 when I graduated but promptly enlisted in the Army Air Corps Reserve, getting called to active duty a month after my next birthday.

In his famous declaration of war speech, President Roosevelt called December 7 "a day which will live in infamy." For me, it was a day that set the course for my life. That decision to join the Army sent me on a circuitous route around the Southeast Training Command. My final assignment was at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas.

While there I worked with a fellow Aviation Cadet who had studied a year at Yale before entering the service. We were talking one day about what we'd do when the war was over (it was winding down at the time), and he said if he had it to do over he'd have studied journalism. Up to that point I had never considered writing either as a hobby or a profession. But the idea struck a chord, and I decided to find a journalism school to attend.

One thing leads to another as things develop through life. If the Japanese hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor that day, I probably wouldn't have joined the Army Air Force, wouldn't have wound up at Randolph Field, and wouldn't have been steered into a writing career. So for me, that day of infamy started things in motion to produce a life that has been uniquely satisfying.

Currently I enjoy writing mystery novels and have no plans to break off in another direction. I've had a lifelong adventure with words. I tell the full story on my website in an essay entitled "Reflections on the Writing Life - my 60-year odyssey with the written word."

Book Signings Can Be Puzzling

Awhile back, I did a book signing at a library in a small town south of Nashville where they had a large group of authors from the area. Last year at the same event, I sold enough books to make it well worth the trip. For some reason, that didn't happen this time. I didn't see a lot of signing going on anywhere around me. Not all that many people showed up. My single sale came when another author bought my latest book.

Signings are funny that way. You never know when one will knock your socks off and another will make you wish you had put on two pairs because the reception is so cold. But invariably you get to meet a number of nice people who make the experience worth experiencing.

When I'm doing a solo signing at a bookstore, my wife, Sarah, plays the role of a warm-up act at a night club. She stands at the entrance and greets people, handing out my small promo folders and telling them the author is signing  at the table "over there." Sometimes, a customer will stop and chat with her about the books. That frequently results in a sale.

She gets most of the questions from people wanting to know the location of the restrooms, where to find the magazines, and who knows what else. I get the ones who want to talk about the book they'd like to write. If somebody is actually working on a book, I'm happy to give my advice on whatever they need to know. It's usually about finding a publisher or an agent. The only problem comes when I get a talkative person who stands there forever, blocking the way for people who might want a book signed.

When Sarah takes a break, I stand at the door and greet the customers. I ask, "Do you read mysteries?" and it's appalling how many come back with, "I don't read books." Makes you want to say, "What the hell are you doing in a bookstore?" Of course, some will tell you they just came for the coffee.

It's interesting to watch people's reactions. Some appear intimidated by the appearance of an author and shy away from the table. Others zip right by as if you weren't there. I used to set up an easel near the table with a large blow-up of the cover of my latest book. However, watching people's eyes, I rarely saw anybody notice the poster.

Invariably, someone will stop at the table, take a book, turn it to the back cover, look at the photo, then up at me. "That's you," they say with a look of surprise. "You wrote this." Duh, if I didn't, why would I be sitting here?

Those you never see enough of are the ones who charge up to the table, grab a book and say, "I want this one. Will you sign it for me?"  Occasionally, at a signing like the Kentucky Book Fair, where I have all my backlist available, a reader will look them over and say, "I want one of each. I can start with the first and go right through them."

On the few occasions where sales have been almost non-existent, I found the person who invited me more distressed than I was. I've been around long enough to know these things happen. But the store manager will apologize profusely. I had one small independent owner who was almost in tears. Heck, everybody has a bad night once in awhile. You move on to the next one and hope for the best.

What They're Saying about A Sporting Murder

Here are a couple of reviews about the fifth book in my Greg McKenzie mystery series:

In the week before Christmas rumors have surfaced that something is amiss with a proposed deal to bring a National Basketball Association franchise to Nashville. Local P. I. Greg McKenzie, with his wife and partner, Jill, are hired to investigate by a group of hockey fans opposed to the NBA’s coming, fearing loss of the hockey team’s fan base. An informant promises information on the deal that will “blow your mind,” but turns up shot in the face instead. Is his murder the result of being in the wrong part of town or connected to the case? Greg and Jill determine to find out.

But this will be no ordinary Christmas week. Besides the murder and Greg’s finding the body, an old case rears it head in the person of a former Air Force lieutenant whom Greg had helped convict of drug-dealing back in his days as an OSI investigator. He’s out of prison, and still carrying a grudge. As the book moves along at a fast pace, the McKenzies are hard-pressed to unravel the events and dangers into which they are thrust. Are they connected to the NBA deal or to Greg’s old enemy? We are kept guessing until the disparate threads all come together on Christmas Day in a rousing and satisfying climax.

Readers of Mr. Campbell’s previous books will be pleased to be back in his Nashville with Greg and Jill McKenzie. His writing is clean and spare, giving us enough sense of place and character to feel as if we’ve settled in with friends, and then in turn ratcheting up the tension and suspense. Greg McKenzie is not a hard-boiled private investigator, but he’s tough and smart, well aware of the qualities Jill brings to the partnership. The way the case plays out against the backdrop of their lives gives them a genuineness that makes the reader feel these would be good folks to spend an afternoon with - or to have along in a gun fight. Once again, Campbell has hit the mark.

Copyright ©2010 Larry W. Chavis in The GenReview


Christmas, the NBA, Hockey, a mysterious informant and add murder. Mix well, with a cunning P.I. and his not so shrinking Violet of a partner wife and you have a not so cozy mystery. The past comes calling to bake the mix into a read to tingle the toes of all the fans Chester D. Campbell. New readers may find the landscape a bit bare so reading the previous books is suggested. A Sporting Murder kept this reviewer focused right to the spine jarring end. Read at your own peril. You might find it hard to get anything else done.

David Brown, Military Writers Society of America Reviewer

Writing About Faraway Places

I was more brave in my early days of novel writing when it came to the subject of setting. In my more recent published mysteries, I've stuck mostly with locales that I visited personally. Sometimes I brushed up my recollection with trips to the Internet or maps or books, but I described places as I had seen them with my own eyes.

My first post-Cold War thriller, which remains unpublished, though not because of its settings, began in Vienna. At the time (1990) I had never visited the Austrian capital, but I read lots of descriptions and stories about its role as a hotbed of espionage activity. It fit the bill for the ambiance I needed in my story. The scene took place in a restaurant. I didn't identify its location, so I would have no problem with the geography.

A little later in the book, I sent the protagonist to Israel for a rendezvous in the old port city of Jaffa. I read several travel guides and structured the area as best I could figure it. I dodged a bullet on that one. When I visited the area eight years later, I discovered it was quite different from what I had imagined.

I placed another scene on Cyprus. For this one I used a deserted area on the cost in the Turkish section of the island. I had no qualms about this one. Then one of the main characters journeyed to Hong Kong, a place I had spent a few days in about three years earlier. I felt comfortable in my descriptions there.

The final chapters took place in Toronto, another city I had visited a few years earlier. All in all I was rather pleased at my coverage of faraway places, some of which I had never seen. But others have done an even more credible job. Martin Cruz Smith in Gorky Park and Joseph Finder's The Moscow Club, written in he early eighties, both read as if the writers had an inside look at Soviet Russia.

In the River of No Return Wilderness

Writer pal Pat Browning, a fellow blogger on Murderous Musings, wrote a week ago about places you can only get to by air. It brought to mind a memorable venture I took in the early 1980's to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The destination was Harrah's Lodge in the heart of the River of No Return Wilderness, a 2.3 million acre area 100 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho.

Built by casino-operator Bill Harrah, the facility hosted many Hollywood stars and at least one president, Jimmy Carter. It has been rebuilt and improved in recent years under new ownership and is now called Middle Fork Lodge. I won a five-day stay at Harrah's while attending the American Society of Association Executives convention in Phoenix the previous fall.

My wife and I flew into Boise, which back then seemed like a quaint town in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. We were met by a representative of the Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau, which sponsored the prize, and got a tour of the city. Several spots provided reminders of Idaho's most famous product, the potato. The following morning, we returned to the airport and boarded a small plane for the one-hour flight into the Rockies. The only way to reach the lodge was by air, water, or horseback. If you look at the area on a road map, it appears as a vast vacant spot bisected by a green line representing the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. There are no roads in the wilderness area.

Getting there was one of the most exciting parts. After flying over mile after mile of the rugged landscape dotted with pine, spruce, and fir, we spotted the winding river below and what the pilot assured us was a landing strip beside it. And that it was, a strip of land. An 8,813-foot mountain jutted up across the river. Not far away on the other side was a 9,722-foot peak. I guess it helped that the Indian Creek Landing Strip lay 4,662 feet above sea level. That only left about 4,000 feet to maneuver our way to the ground. The pilot began to let down in a corkscrew pattern between the mountains. It was breath-taking to watch.

Finally on the ground at the dirt strip, we hauled our bags over to the water's edge, where a large rubber raft awaited us. The plane also carried supplies for the lodge, which were loaded into the raft with us. A couple of other passengers were along for the ride, and after all were secured with life jackets, our "crew" shoved off into the current. Oh, yes, I didn't mention that the Middle Fork is considered America's premier whitewater experience, with more than eighty rapids rated up to Class IV.

We had brought jackets for the cool nights, but with the sun bearing down, it got a bit warm during the trip. The view was awesome, though. The area has been protected since Teddy Roosevelt's days, and the 107-mile stream is America's most pristine. With the soothing sound of the cold, clear water rushing past banks populated by occasional aspen and towering pines, we soaked up the untainted landscape little changed since the time the Shoshone Indians roamed the area. Rising high above the banks that varied from clumps of pine to piles of boulders were soaring crags of granite.

Soon the sound of the water shifted into a roar, and we bounced through our first taste of the rapids. We hit only one spot where the raft tossed about quite a bit, but it was an exciting ride. After a couple of hours, though not too many miles, in which the river dropped more than 250 feet, we reached he landing spot for Harrah's Lodge.

The main building stood back from the river, a large, two-story log structure with long porches on both levels. Scattered up the grassy landscape to the right were a few small log cabins. We occupied one that had a bedroom and bath, comfortable though not roomy. The lodge featured a large room with sofas and chairs and a massive stone fireplace. Leading off of it was the dining room and kitchen. Meals were served family style, and we were encouraged to raid the kitchen whenever we wanted a snack. The cook probably got his start feeding cowboys from a chuck wagon as the meals were sumptuous.

A swinging bridge gave access to the other side of the Middle Fork, and we did a bit of hiking along a trail that followed the riverbank. They had horses we could have ridden, but we passed that up. One of the highlights was gathering around a campfire at night, listing to a veteran guide tell stories about the area. The tale I remember best (I recorded it on my mini-tape recorder, which crashed several years ago), was the story of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe that lived in Oregon and Idaho. He told of the Nez Perce's "trail of tears" after refusing to go to a reservation.

Chief Joseph led them on a wandering 1,100-mile journey through Idaho and Montana, hoping to reach Canada. They fought the U.S. Army all the way and were trapped forty miles from the border. The once-large tribe had dwindled to only 431 warriors. On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph gave his famous surrender speech which concluded with, "My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." You'll find all of his brief speech here.

We enjoyed the sunny days, relaxed on the porch as we watched and listened to the Middle Fork splashing along its banks. We spotted animals like elk and big horn sheep wandering about. The refurbished lodge features satellite internet connection, but when we were there it had no link to the outside world except a radio used to communicate with Harrah's offices in Boise. All supplies were shipped in, and all garbage was shipped out. It was illegal to leave anything behind that you brought in.

After those few idyllic days, we boarded a larger plane, a DeHavilland, I believe, at the Thomas Creek Airstrip across the river and headed for home. Thanks to Pat Browning for reminding me of that journey. I used the location in the third novel I wrote back in the early nineties. It's one I plan to revise and try again at publication.