50+ Years Of Adventure On The

High Seas With Clive Cussler

In 1973, a paperback thriller was published by Pyramid Press, written by an aspiring writer from Southern California. The book opened with an antiquated World War I German Albatross biplane strafing Brady Air Force Base on the Greek island of Thásos, destroying its fleet of F-105 jet fighters. The Mediterranean Caper was the debut novel of Clive Cussler, and introduced the indomitable character of Dirk Pitt at the controls of the Catalina, along with his fictional employer, the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). As Clive’s son, Dirk Cussler, recently wrote in Crime Reads, Pyramid published just 5,000 copies of The Mediterranean Caper, which was nominated as the Best Original Paperback by the Mystery Writers of America. “I was twelve years old when the book was published, and, like the rest of my family, I was thrilled to see a book with his name on the cover. Even more exciting was the fact that Clive had named the main protagonist in the story after me! (I was less enamored with the inclusion of Pitt’s romantic interest, a woman named Teri, named for my older sister).” Clive’s subsequent novels became fixtures on the bestseller lists, a reputation marred only by two failed ventures in Hollywood: Raise the Titanic and Sahara; “For a man blessed with great creative vision, it pained Clive that his works failed to translate successfully to the big screen,” Dirk says. “But he returned to what he knew best, and that was writing adventure fiction.”

The Inverted Detective Story:

Not “Whodunnit," But “Howcatchem”

If you’re reading this, chances are you love a good mystery. The classic whodunnit formula has worked for mysteries and thrillers throughout the ages, but what happens when you already know the murderer? You get a play on the tried-and-true formula: an inverted detective story. As Emily Martin wrote in Novel Suspects last week, “Rather than a whodunnit, an inverted detective mystery is more of a “howcatchem.” The story starts with the crime and reveals who the criminal is, and from there, we unravel other details of the mystery. R. Austin Freeman claimed to be the inventor of the inverted mystery in his essay “The Art of the Detective Story,” in which he references his 1912 short story collection The Singing Bone. But while Freeman might have given the inverted detective story its name, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is a story that focuses on the psychological and sociological issues surrounding the crime and the murderer, Rodion Raskolnikov, rather than the murder itself. Then there’s Anthony Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, in which the criminal is revealed in the first sentence, which then sets up the crime.  Plus, in the 1963 book Three for Midnight, Philip Macdonald officially coined the term “howcatchem” to describe these mystery/thriller stories. Of course, we're all familiar with ABC-TV’s Columbo, in which the suspect is always known to the viewer, and the thrill comes from the rumpled lieutenant’s effort to trap him or her.

A Brief History Of The Spy

Novel Through World War II

It’s been said that Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 adventure novel Kim, which recounts the adventures of an orphan who becomes a player in the Britain’s competition with Russia in the 19th century for influence in Central Asia, was the first spy novel ever written. Eighty years prior to that, however, James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Spy, based on the exploits of Harvey Birch, an American secret agent. Both novels, still in print well over a century later, found an eager audience and—with the 1903 Robert Erskine Childers novel The Riddle of the Sands—led to a new genre of fiction and helped to define and influence the spy novel for years to come. Case in point: Joseph Conrad’s 1907 book The Secret Agent, which was inspired by the Greenwich Bomb Outrage of 1894, while the 1915 publication John Buchan’s novel The Thirty-Nine Steps helped to ramp up the genre’s growing popularity. After World War One, spy stories flourished, with The British Agent, a collection of stories written by W. Somerset Maugham, and Meet the Tiger, by Leslie Charteris, both published in 1928. Meet the Tiger introduced audiences to Simon Templar, better known as The Saint, which was later adapted into a popular television series in the 1960s. During World War II, the spy fiction genre became even more popular, with the publication of such novels as Helen MacInnes’ Above Suspicion and Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear, both of which were made into movies.

Trial Of The Century? Animals Often

Went To Court In Medieval Europe

In Europe during the Middle Ages, crime and punishment were often theatrical, with crowds gathering to witness executions and public humiliations. But what they witnessed wasn’t always a human trial, as courts often meted out justice on animals. As reported by History Facts, France kept the most extensive records of these trials, but they were also held in Switzerland, Germany, and occasionally Italy and Spain. There were two main types of medieval animal trials: secular trials, usually against one animal or a small group of animals, and religious proceedings on a group of pests, such as mice or locusts. The idea of animals on trial may seem whimsical now, but these were deadly serious affairs, with the same judges, executioners, and expenses of a human trial. A surprisingly large number of the single-animal trials were pigs that had committed violence against human children. In one 1457 case in Savigny, France, a sow was accused of killing a 5-year-old child with her own six piglets tagging along. Her owner was accused only of negligence, but the pig was sentenced to death. Because the court could not prove their involvement, the piglets were spared. As for the mass trials in ecclesiastical courts, the local bishop (or someone from his staff) would typically appoint a human proxy for the accused pests. This person would have the impossible task of telling the accused to show up for their court date. As part of the proceedings, a judge would hold one member of the species and tell it to leave. If it left, the community would give thankful prayers. If it stayed, the judge would excommunicate the pests from the church, and start organizing people to help rid them from the area.

DNA COLD CASE

Skull Found In California In 1986

Linked To Woman Missing Since 1970

Human remains found decades ago near Lake Tahoe have finally been identified as missing nurse Donna Lass. Lass was 25 years old when she was last seen on September 7, 1970, walking with a young blonde man outside her apartment, according to a local newspaper clipping posted by the sheriff’s office. The investigative leads surrounding the disappearance of Lass were exhausted and the case remained unsolved for more than 15 years until 1986, when an unidentified human skull was found off of Highway 20 near Interstate 80, close to Lake Tahoe. The skull was kept preserved at the Placer County Coroner’s Office, and recently a cold case team was established by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and the district attorney’s office to allocate “additional resources to assist in the investigation of unsolved missing persons and suspicious death cases.” The team sent the skull to the California Department of Justice for DNA testing, and forensics experts were able to match it to a member of the Lass family. “This allowed them to identify the skull as the remains of Donna Lass,” the sheriff’s office said. Lass’ cause of death remains unknown.

Coming March 19

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

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“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels

“In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6

“Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did