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Not Your Average Standard: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Not Your Average Standard: Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

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Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber, April 4, 2024)

This is a strange (in a good way) hybrid of alternate history (a 2023 Sidewise Award winner, in fact), syncretism, crime noir, and Christological sacrifice. Oh, and it has a little something to do with jazz, specifically that of the 1920s hot jazz era played in bars and brothels.

Let’s take these in order.  The alternate history is the invention of Cahokia, in reality a prehistoric Native American settlement around some 80 surviving earthworks today preserved as the Cahokia Mounds archeological park located directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis Missouri, as a Prohibition-era multi-ethnic capital city in a U.S. state formed by an alliance of Native American tribes. Cahokia has its own language, and although Catholic-converted Native Americans comprise the majority, there are various ethnic communities (that’s the syncretism part), including a large African American presence, and, as you might expect, tension among them.

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What I’ve Been Watching: October 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: October 2025

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Well, August was the last time I shared What I’ve Been Watching, and I know you’re always wondering what is getting my attention.

This week we’ve got three British crime shows, one American comedy cop show, and…an action movie.

RETURN TO PARADISE

I have written more than once about Death in Paradise This British cop show, set in a Caribbean island, is one of my favorites, through 117 episodes over 14 seasons. Click here to read about it.

There have been multiple cast changes, with several Detective Inspectors from Britain assigned. One, Humphrey Goodman (played by Kris Marshall), has his own spin-off, Beyond Paradise. Season three just began dropping on Britbox this week, and has been renewed for a fourth.

There’s another spin-off, set in Australia. It’s a bit different. There’s mild tie to Death in Paradise, but it’s not a sequel, like Beyond Paradise is. More on that below.

Anna Samson is DI Mackenzie Clark. She had been a police officer in her Australian hometown, when she dumped her fiance and went off to work in London. She’s under investigation there and returns home. She ends up working there again, where her ex-fiance is the ME, and his mother is her boss – before and again. So, you get the set-up.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.
– Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Will Murray makes a return to A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Last month, Strand Magazine (who I wrote DVD reviews for in a prior century) published a lost Raymond Chandler story. Which got Will to thinking…

The recent discovery of a previously unknown and unpublished short story by Raymond Chandler reminded me of a question that’s lingered in my mind for a very long time.

How did Chandler in the early years the Depression support himself and his wife writing for Black Mask and other titles when he only sold a two or three stories a year?

Black Mask was then paying only a penny or a penny and a half a word for fiction to any but their top writers. Chandler was writing stories that were roughly 12 to 18,000 words long. He received $180.00 for his first sale, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot.“ Even considering what a penny could buy in 1933, when a loaf of sliced bread cost 3 cents, Chandler wouldn’t have been able to survive solely writing for Black Mask.

It wasn’t until 1935 that he broke into Munsey’s Detective Fiction Weekly, which probably paid him two cents a word, and possibly more. A considerable raise, but still far short of what was required for subsistence living. And he only sold one story to DFW, “Noon Street Nemesis.“

Since Chandler had been a well-paid oil company executive until he lost his job in 1932, conceivably his savings carried him for some period. But according to Chandler biographer Tom Hiney, by the time he started working on “Blackmailers,“ Chandler’s savings had been all but exhausted. The story took him five months to write. Add another month or so until he received the acceptance check. So that’s $30.00 a month for six months toil, paid at the end of the six-month period. At his old executive position, Chandler’s salary had approached $10,000 a year.

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What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2025

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What I’ve Been Listening To is back for another installment. Audiobooks are omnipresent in my life now. Work, home, car, walking, bedtime: I’m constantly listening to them. Often something I’ve listened to before, which lets my mind half-focus to no ill effect. But I’m still listening.

Some recent plays – all Audible, as I need to get Hoopla set up on my ‘new’ used phone. I have listened to five different Bruce Campbell projects recently, so that’s probably another post.

MIDDLEBRIDGE MYSTERIES

I wrote about Mistletoe Murders, which is an Audible original series. It’s like a Hallmark mystery movie. Emily Lane runs a Christmas-themed store, but she has a secret past. Of course, there’s a local cop boyfriend, with a daughter named Violet.

I like the series, and they turned it into a Hallmark TV series as well, though I’ve not seen that yet. It uses different actors, which I’m not too enthused about.

Well, Violet was trying to get into college at the end of season three, and she did. So, Anna Cathcart is back and starring in Violet’s freshman year in criminal justice studies. Her professor is played by Eric McCormack (Will and Grace). I was a big fan of his show Perception and he’s good as a supporting character here.

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What I’ve Been Watching: August 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: August 2025

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“Hey!” (you say to yourself). “I wonder what Bob has been watching? It’s been since May. Well, dear reader, I can’t leave you unfocused on our Monday work day, so let’s take a look, shall we? And – Gasp! – it’s all current stuff. How about that? And this is all spoiler free.

BALLARD

Michael Connelly writes the Bosch books, which spawned a terrific, gritty, seven season streaming series. HIGHLY recommended watch. Bosch an LAPD homicide detective, underwent a career change, which is the subject of the succeeding series, Bosch: Legacy. That lasted three seasons. All of this stuff has been taken from the novels. In the final episode of Legacy, an LAPD detective named Renee Ballard (also from a Connelly book series) plays a central part. And that’s because she’s the star of her own new series on Prime.

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What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

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I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. I frequently drift off to sleep with a fifteen minute timer on. The BBC radio plays of the two Dirk Gently novels are regular late night listens. So is the terrific Marx Brothers homage, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. It was originally done by the Marxes themselves. BBC radio made a new version in 1990 and I frigging LOVE it.

Since I often have an audiobook on while I’m doing other things, I re-listen to things; or listen to books I’ve already read. It works great for me. I get some through my library app, but I mostly use Audible.

Here are some recent listens.

LEE GOLDBERG’S EVE RONIN

In the most recent What I’ve Been Listening To, I talked about Goldberg’s ‘buddy cop’ series featuring Sharpe & Walker. They are arson investigators in LA, and book one was pretty good. I just got the audiobook for number two, and I’m thrilled it crosses over with Lee’s Eve Ronin series. Even more thrilled that Nicol Zanzarella is doing Eve again – she’s terrific!!

The books are part of Kindle Unlimited, and number six is coming out later this year. I re-listened to all five in less than a week. Eve and her partner Duncan are a terrific buddy cop pair. Eve rose to fame when she was off duty and subdued a drunken action movie star who was smacking around his girlfriend in a parking lot. The video went viral on the Net and she parlayed it into a big promotion.

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What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

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Wow. It’s been over half a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I’ve already forgotten some of the stuff I watched since then! But let’s tackle a few more recent favorites. And what I’m re-watching, as usual.

COUNTY LINE

From 2017 through 2022, there were three TV movies (is that still ‘a thing’) in this series. I did not recognize the main actor away. He reminded me of Dan Dierdorf, but I had to look him up on IMDB. It was good ol’ Tom (Luke Duke) Wopat!

He’s Alden Rockwell, a sheriff/former sheriff in some Georgia country town. The city is split down the middle between two counties. So, you’ve got Alden, and the sheriff of the other county, involved in the same case. In the first one, Alden’s best friend (and sheriff) is shot, so he tries to solve the crime – and there’s a bigger thing going.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Murray – Who was N.V. Romero?

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Murray – Who was N.V. Romero?

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Will Murray has graced this column multiple times, and he has delved into a mystery or two. He’s got another one today, looking into a Pulp byline from the nineteen thirties that has gnawed away at him. And by golly, Will finally had enough! Read on…

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For literally decades, I’ve been intrigued and baffled by the cryptic byline N. V. Romero, which was emblazoned on the front cover of the March, 1937 Star Detective Magazine.

I don’t remember where or when I picked up that old Red Circle pulp magazine. Probably at a collector’s convention somewhere in the 1970s or 80s. It grabbed my attention because the cover-featured lead novel bore the intriguing title,
“The X-Man.”

That’s a coinage I did not think existed prior to Marvel Comics releasing X-Men #1 in 1963. So I grabbed it. I probably paid about five bucks. It was in reasonably good condition. And it was published by Martin Goodman, who later launched Marvel Comics.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

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What flummery is this? I have not written about Nero Wolfe since last Summer? There has not been a 3 Good Reasons in four years? What kind of mystery blogger is this Bryne fellow? Most unsatisfactory. So…

Welcome to another installment of 3 Good Reasons. With a goal of eventually tackling every tale of the Corpus, I’ll give three reasons why the particular story at hand is the best Nero Wolfe of them all. Since I’m writing over seventy ‘Best Story’ essays, the point isn’t actually to pick one – just to point out some of what is good in every adventure featuring Wolfe and Archie. And I’ll toss in one reason it’s not the best story. Now – These essays will contain SPOILERS. You have been warned!

The Story

Today’s story is “Black Orchids,” it’s the first of two in a collection of the same name. Lewis Hewitt has three unique black orchids on display at the annual NYC Flower Show. Wolfe’s envy rivals his desire for Millard Bynoe’s flamingo-colored Vanda in “Easter Parade.”

Wolfe orders Archie to scout the enclosed-in-a-case black orchids, over multiple days. It’s not surprising that Archie is smitten by Anne Tracy; a young woman working in a display at the show. Naturally, he finds a murdered body, which is right out in plain sight. Wolfe spends part of this story ‘in the wild,’ as his covetousness leads him to the show.

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’24? in 42′ with…Bob Byrne????

’24? in 42′ with…Bob Byrne????

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Jason Waltz kicked off season two of his 24? in 42 podcast interviews with your very own Monday morning columnist. The prior installment was with Malazan’s Ian C. Esslemont, so I’m in pretty good company here.

It should not surprise you that I was all over the place, covering Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Columbo, books on writing and screenwriting, Encyclopedia Brown, the Civil War, Tolkien, The Constitutional Convention of 1787, Lawrence Block, Steven Hockensmith, Norbert Davis, and much more.

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