Sorry I didn't write more last night. I was zonked.
If I had written more last night I would surely have mentioned that Tim Bousquet took the time to quote liberally from the Saturday post, in which I wrote about the Halifax Examiner and his "Dead Wrong" series. I called it a saga, and I think that's a good word. Like the Norse sagas of old, "Dead Wrong" will be an ongoing, long, luxuriant piece that will finish when it's damn well ready, likely many weekly instalments from now.
I checked out the "letters" at the end of Monday's Examiner. Some guy wrote that having read this blog, he won't read it again. In fact, since Tim is charging for this content, and my blog is free, this jive turkey feels that I owe him some money. Ha. Try to collect, you jive turkey you.
Thanks for posting to this blog, again, Tim. Much appreciated, sir.
Say, I discovered a local writer in the last week or so. I think I will discuss him for a couple paragraphs.
I am not certain as to his real name, but his pseudonym is "Jas R. Petrin", and for the last 20 years, he has had stories published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine", which like EQMM, I started reading when I was 12, 40 years ago now.
In 1996, they bought their first story from him. They did him the great honour of making it their cover story. It was called "Skin Deep", and was published in the August 1996 issue. It's about a woman who runs a beauty salon that is struggling. Meanwhile, a short distance away, another woman opens up a competing salon that offers far more services than the first one can. Add a murder, fraudulent activity, a hard-of-hearing cleaning lady, and you got yourselves a 20 page story that I enjoyed a great deal.
The good news is that last year someone gave me a whole bunch of back issues of AHMM, to fill in for the many years I did not buy the magazine. Quite a few of those issues have Petrin stories in them. And there are some other issues containing Petrin stories that I do not have.
The cool thing is that many of Petrin's stories take place here in Halifax. He fictionalizes it enough so he can have fun with things. There is no "Rob Roy" tavern on Agricola Street, or anywhere else in these parts, for example. But in one story I looked at, a character is reading The Chronicle Herald. Halifax seems to be a character in some of these stories, and I want to read them.
In case you were wondering, and you aren't, here are all the stories by "Jas R. Petrin" that have appeared in AHMM so far, at least according to the online index I found:
- Skin Deep (August 1996)
- The Snawfus (June 1997)
- True Confession (May 1998)
- The Net (July 1998)
- Second Sight (March 1999)
- Missing Persons (July 1999)
- The Secret of Life (November 1999)
- The Piano (January 2001)
- Black's Point (March 2001)
- The White Penguin (July 2001)
- Death by Numbers (January 2002)
- The Cruise (July 2002)
- Fine Business (December 2002)
- Egon Roy (November 2003)
- What Happened to Beansy (March 2005)
- The Lilja Sigurdson (November 2005)
- Peewee and the Gewgaw (May 2006)
- Twenty-Five Large (September 2006)
- Easy Money (January 2007)
- A Piece of Work (May 2007)
- The Golden Rule (October 2007)
- Car Trouble (December 2007)
- Gang of Three (May 2008)
- Law and Order (July 2008)
- Nothing Is Easy (January 2009)
- Heavy Lifting (May 2009)
- In It Up to My Neck (March 2010)
- Money (May 2010)
- A New Pair of Pants (September 2011)
- Mad Dog (October 2012)
- The Greedster (May 2013)
- Under Cap Ste. Clare (October 2013)
- A Knock on the Door (April 2014)
- The Devil You Know (March, 2016)
I have about two thirds of those stories. As I read them I will let you know what I thought of them.
Think I will read one of those stories before I turn in.
You guys have a good night. See you tomorrow.
Bevboy
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