The Perfect Victim

As an author of crime novels and mysteries will tell you, constructing the perfect crime is terrific fun. Creating a conniving villain even better. The more innocent the victim, the more anger we feel at the crime.

When the victim is the perfect victim, our anger spikes to the next level.

What is the perfect victim? For the criminal, a perfect victim is someone who:

• refuses to admit a crime has been committed. This can stem from a spectrum of reasons from fear of reprisal from the criminal, to embarrassment that they are a victim, to loyalty or a sense of responsibility to the criminal.
• is confused and doesn't know a crime has been committed 
• will not bear witness against the criminal regardless of the evidence 
• forgives the criminal...even after repeated crimes
• feels helpless and dependent upon the criminal
• is easily intimidated into silence.

and most importantly...

• has something that the criminal desperately wants, needs, and feels entitled to...money, a home, art...any number of things...up to and including something as hard to define as a family legacy.

Right about now, readers should be scratching their heads. How could a person be so weak as to let bad things happen to him or her and remain silent?

Right about now, you might be thinking I'm not talking about fiction. You'd be right. Real crimes happen to real people in real life. I'm hurting and I'm mad.

The sad answer is that the perfect victims are the elderly.

And the criminal? Again, sadly, in 60% of the cases, the criminal is a family member.

The perfect crime? Financial abuse.

No family is immune. Fame and wealth are often the bait for the criminal rather than an inoculation against it as the families of Peter Max and Stan Lee discovered. For our aging population, awareness of the crime should decrease it, but Forbes calls financial abuse of the elderly a hidden epidemic.

Financial abuse doesn't get the attention it deserves. The first reason is denial. We would never be the target nor permit a loved one to become a target. Right? Our aging parents would never dream they would fall victim to a phony charity, fake bill, or other solicitation. But when a family member places a stack of documents in front of them for their signature, any number of reasons contribute to that fate-filled signature. Misplaced trust is the most common. We deny the reality that a trusted family member could be a self-serving, self-centered ass who feels entitled to whatever they can take.

The second reason is that it's so darned personal. Families don't like to see a crime. Instead, they see siblings who don't get along or parents who had "favorites." Maybe "Poor Johnny" received a loan he never repaid. I know plenty of families where the details of the First Bank of Mom and Dad are quietly forgotten long after the debt grew cold. Forget about a paper trail or documents. Trust has a funny way of working against the people we most want to protect.

It's the victims that make my heart bleed. Their love for the criminal blinds them, and many parents place their needs below the needs of their children. The victims are the ones who worked hard and grew a tidy nest egg. They are the ones who instilled in their kids the values of honesty, generosity, and humility only to be repaid by lies, selfishness, and arrogance. 

There is much written about elder abuse and I urge you to learn and talk about it. Learn the signs. Ask questions. Get help. The criminal wins when their crimes go undiscovered, or worse...unreported.

And maybe...just maybe...a small victory would be making one victim a little less perfect.

https://www.nextavenue.org/financial-elder-abuse-boomers-parents/

From Two to Five Stars

Getting a less than stellar rating on a book is not an author's favorite thing. Neither a book nor an author can be all things to all people. If a rating is accompanied by a well-written and insightful review, we can learn from it and move on. If that "meh" feedback is on the first book of a series, chances are pretty good that the rating giver won't move on to the rest of the series.

Well, live and learn.

The Charity has received its share of five star reviews, so when a two star rating on Goodreads popped up without a corresponding review, I chalked it up to experience and didn't dwell on it. That is, I didn't give it much thought until after I compared books with the rating giver. I determined that my book wasn't her thing, and moved on.  

That was three years ago. Last month, the second book in the series, The Troubles, received a four star rating from that same person! 

And last week, the final book in the series, The Wake, received a five star rating from you-know-who.

So, thank you, Goodreads Reviewer, whoever you are. If you read this, I would love to hear why you came back to the series and why it grew on you! But you could be the shy type and don't want to talk too much. No worries. I understand.

Overall, I just want to thank you for clicking that little star button and giving me the feedback you did. So many readers don't bother to do even that!

So, if you're one of those readers who don't rate or review books, please know that authors really appreciate them.

It's summer reading time. Make an author happy with a little click! Thank you!

Living in the Digital Wild West

No sooner do I think I know what I'm doing living a virtual life in social media, than I learn a tough lesson.

You see that little badge on the right side of my blog? I'm thrilled and flattered to be listed in FeedSpots Top 50 Mystery Blogs. I share the rankings with Strand Mystery Magazine, Dru's Book Musings and Mystery Writers of America's blog. 

I guess that means I've done a lot of things right when it comes to writing and being a member of the writing community. These tools at our fingertips are incredible at amplifying our message. We reach out on various platforms, we connect, and we share. 

I'll share with you that I've also done a lot of things wrong. 

At the beginning of my blogging life, I set up this blog with a URL that referred to my first book. A rookie mistake, for sure. When I named the blog "Out of the Fog," that name and other variations were taken, so I kept the first address. Silly me. I blogged, connected, and built an audience. Hooray! Now I'm writing and querying a second series unrelated to the first, and decided to clean up my digital footprint. 

I found it was incredibly simple to rename my blog to what you see today:  https://cjhambleyblog.blogspot.com/. It was so easy, I wondered why I had waited so long! I knew I'd hit a few bumps and reached out and updated as many links as I could.

But...

In the shadows of the Internet, evil forces were at work.

My old address was quickly usurped. (I naively thought old addresses go into some kind of stasis until the world changes enough for them to be recycled...like a virtual cooling off period. I know. Dumb.) You know how followers of a blog get updates each time a new post goes up? Imagine the surprise of followers of the old address when they were notified of a new post. This time, it wasn't news on a new book or a guest post from a mystery author. This time, OH! 

This time my followers got a dose of good ole steamy porn. And badly written, too.

For all of you impacted...please accept my apologies.

As for my FeedSpot ranking, I've notified the Powers That Be and informed them of the address change. I'm hopeful they will make the change quickly. For you? Please follow me at this new address by clicking the button in the lower right column and like my Facebook page, too.

In the meantime, I may look at this obstacle as an opportunity. You know the adage, "Crime Doesn't Pay"? I've heard that readers of erotica are voracious.

Maybe I'll just change genres. I already have a jumpstart on an audience.

Promptly Late Again

Five minutes. One writing prompt. Five different responses. 

What would you write? I find I usually pull a thread of something I had heard or experienced in the week leading up to the group meeting. This week, the news was filled with Jon Stewart shaming lawmakers to take action on the 911 First Responders bill. You'll see his influence in my response.

What did we write to?

"Where did everyone go?" I shouted...

======================

From Maggie:

"Where did everyone go?" I shouted...but they were all there...kind of.

Grace sat in the back of Doug's pick up truck, parked in the usual spot between the trees in the cherry orchard.

Hot boxing was new to her and seemed weirdly intimate.  Inhale deep from the joint, then cup your hand and blow directly into your partner's mouth.  Getting high wasn't unique at these parties, but this went to a whole new level.  The effect was akin to hallucination but fairly short lived...thankfully.  

Grace peered out of the flatbed and saw her crew swirling around.  She fell back and drifted off.

===============

From Donna:

“Where did everyone go?” I shouted. But they all promised they would stay to the bitter end! “I can’t do this alone it is too scary!”

As I stood there wondering what to do next the front door creaked open and a hand came out, wrinkled and deeply veined, it wrapped itself finger by finger around the outside knob of the door. I gasped, sweat streaming down my back, “Give me my cat back! You mean old witch! She didn’t do any harm to your stupid cockatoo! Your bird attacked my sweet little kitten. Your bird is the killer!”

The hand moved opening the door wider, now I can see a skinny arm and a bush of long straggly grey hair. Whoosh, out flew a cockatoo heading …

All is good!

===============

From Cyd:

"Where'd everyone go?" I shouted, but

no one answered. Why did they leave so suddenly?

I jumped off Mariana to let her get a drink and that's when I saw it. A huge water lizard in the sand. Hissing with its wide jaws as it moved toward us.

My big beautiful doe began snorting. She grunted, jumped, spit, and made other sounds I'd never heard before. Seeing her step between me and the monster made me angry. 

If that ugly beast draws a drop of blood from my tall-leg's white coat, I will kill it. Kill it with my small hands. I was afraid before but now I would lose my life protecting hers.

I will be like my spirit animal. The tall-leg. 

=================

From Bette:

“Where did everyone go?” I shouted but… There was no one there to answer. What the heck? “Hello!” I( had been to the loo for a quick pee, and – Where did they go?

Smoke! I smell smoke. The house is on fire. I ran to the nearest slider, and tugged, but it wouldn’t open. I tugged, saw the board set there to keep out an intruder and knew to go to a different door. The front door was open and I went through it. “Hey! Where is everybody?”

Nothing. What the heck? “Hello!” I heard laughter. Where? Down by the barn. But it was dark, and there were brambles. I tripped along, slipped on a rock and fell on my butt. Guys! Where are you?

Peels of laughter. “Ah! Don’t touch it!”

==================

From Connie:

"Where did everyone go?" I shouted, but ...

no sound came out. I moved, but my fingers didn't twitch nor legs flayed. I filled my lungs to scream, but my chest didn't rise.

That's when a fear crept inside me. 

I had been at my company's fancy breakfast. The city laid out before me on an amazingly clear day. I thought I had been in the buffet line, reaching for the eggs Benedict.

I was.

I had been.

Then nothing.

"Where did everyone go?"

But I was falling. Then nothing. 

Then...

I wasn't moving. I had become nothing. I had become one.

Everything had become me and I had become them.

Not them.

One.

I was one.

Memories blended in a timeless way I had never known.

But I remembered one standing Twin Tower as I fell.

Inspirations or Triggers?

This image made me smile before it made me cry.

I spent a rainy afternoon haunting antique stores near my coastal Massachusetts home. Yard sales and forsythia dotted the roads. Young folks were loading up on the stuff old folks were getting rid of. I mused about the generational transfer of wealth and mentally listed the items in my garage waiting for my kids to hurry up and furnish their apartments already.

I was already in a nostalgic frame of mind when I spied this picture. It's simple enough. Just a black ink print on now yellowed paper. In the corner, it's signed, "Townsend 71," and I took that to mean some gent named Townsend created this image in 1971.

I lived for ski weeks at Stratton Mountain
and Otis Ridge.

Memories of weekends at my family's ski chalet in Vermont came flooding back. The chalet already had a life filled with memories before my family purchased it. Skiing in Vermont in the 60's and 70's had a certain vibe to it. Kinda cool. Kinda kitsch. Kinda insider-y. Kinda counter-cultural. The chalet came furnished with all sorts of keen and groovy stuff that was just keen and groovy enough that our family did little more to it than bring fresh sheets and towels. 

My mom and dad were never happier than when we gathered there. The little girl in that painting was me, gripping ski poles that were too long and hand-me-downs, leather already cracked and stressed, but usable. I learned to ski on our weekends in Vermont and know I looked exactly like that picture -- coat flapping, ponytail askew -- as I concentrated on my stem chrisities. When we grew up and lives took root elsewhere, the little brown house became the site of family gatherings and reunions. 

I didn't realize that those memories were like clay in a kiln, being baked into unyielding shapes. I was one kiln. My siblings others. Somewhere inside, a fissure happened, invisible to the naked eye, but lurking in the baked clay so that when the memories were pinged, the vibration was not resonant and pure, but marred by a tinny sound. 

I was at the chalet when I learned my father died. His passing exposed the fractures in my family's fabric. Once the site of family joy, the Vermont house is now the locus of strife. My mom and dad had wishes that all the generations would gather there for years to come.

The picture brought me back to a time when that could have been...to a time of shared dreams and goals, and love. 

My smile dissolved and vision became blurry. I thought I was holding up pretty well and adapting to a new dynamic. People grow and change. Sometimes we grow together. Other times apart. It's just a part of life.

The little girl skiing with such concentration was met at the end of the day with a hot cocoa loaded with marshmallows. She thought of her day as every kid thinks of their day -- that it would be like that forever. 

Life changed. I almost bought that picture. It would have looked great at the chalet, hanging above the long, too-cool black pleather couch that we all loved to hate and was so much like the one in the shop. The couch is long gone and my garage is already full of things waiting for a future. 

I wondered about the artifacts that were inspirations to some, triggers to others.

So, I left it there. 

And moved on.

A Colorful Way to do Writing Prompts

Some writing prompts are more fun than others.

Cyd's recent trip to a museum gift shop turned up this amazing find of Paint Chip Poetry. You know those crazy names of colors found on your hardware store paint chip strips? Well, somebody who had a bit too much time on their hands decided to cut the strips into single color swatches and arrange them into poems. 

The kits comes with hundreds of color chips and a deck of random titles for poems.  It also comes with very clear instructions of picking chips and a title and arranging them into original works of word art. Of course, we quickly ignored the instructions and came up with our own way of creating a fun writing prompt.

What we did was place the chip cards face down and take twelve of them. Then we chose one title card that we all had to write from as a prompt. We gave ourselves ten minutes to use as many chip colors as we could in our flash fiction pieces and received an extra pat on the back if we could all twelve.

So, here we go! I've underlined the color chip names and title prompt.

Maggie:
(Kudos to Maggie for trying her hand at writing a Deka - a ten syllable poem with the first stanza of two syllables, the next with three and the final stanza with five syllables.)

Deka:

New Leaf

Green as Spring

Next comes summer fun

Far, far away

Mist swirled in the shadows.  The damp floor board of the dingy creeped against the weight of the three bodies and rolling waves.  If they survived, life would be a blank canvas.  Starting afresh as the new leaf of Spring's first bud.

Bria, head in hands on the boats gunnel, peered into the graphite sea.  She glanced a Jack.  A feeling of love washed over her like a whale song - bonding, loving and understood only by them.  Bundled in his arms lay Cheesepuff, their 3 month old son.  No proper name yet.  They had decided to wait on a name until they reached the bone colored shore their dreams had been filled with since long ago and far, far away. 

============

Donna (with an extra pat on the back for using all twelve!):

Far far away, a blackhole looms beneath the sea, the color of obsidian. Fish the color of quick silver dart over the darkness as if it were no more than a puddle. Above the sea the sky glows like the faded denim of a favorite pair of blue jeans! 

In the distance glaciers rise and fall melting into Spring. The purple mountain majesties sing their hallelujahs like a choir in St. John’s Cathedral!

Further inland the open meadows march and grasses wave as the inch worm wakes up and crawls to his breakfast of crunchy leaves scattered about the garden nursery floor. There he will meet the apple of his eye, a tasty dish of the first sprigs of green, the beginning shoots of red gladiolas, green hosta la vistas, and blue hydrangea. 

=============

Cyd:

Far, Far Away
Feroz was careful to stay upwind and silent.

Usually he stayed far, far away from the herd. He’d already suffered from the wrath of Palomar, still bore a few scars. None worse than the scars in his gut from two years spent seething.

Standing in the oaks on the rise above the corral, he used the dappled sunlight to keep hidden while he watched Palomar's offspring. The light would soon drop into a sunset and this was his last chance step closer. The seedlings were young and supple and only made a whisper when he brushed by them.

Although he drew near to the filly—they called her Koko--now was not the time to fight. Feroz didn’t fear Palomar. The colt feared little, not coyotes, black widow spiders, lightening, bear caves.

He feared only one thing: losing the fight for revenge. Feroz would be patient and wise before the time to be brave.

Stealing Koko would be the best revenge, and he would seek it or die.

=========

Connie (with an extra pat on the back for using all twelve!):

It was before the Harvest that the Monsoons hit. The Great Plains--that once stretched out far, far away and as far as the eye could see--were nothing but Mud. Gone were the Key Lime green fields that spring each spring like a Fountain of Youth.

I yearned for the cloistered days of my childhood. I pined for the simplicity of the joy found in hugging my Black Cat or bobbing my Rubber Ducky in the pool during my sister's religious Lap Swims in the community pool. I didn't know where to start to fix the devastation. I was shattered.

The rains did more than wash away the red clay that always reminded me of my grandmother's Antique Rose coverlet. I want to go back to those days.

But the past was closer to me than I knew. The rains had flooded critters from their homes. Rats and Rattlesnakes slithered and scurried.

My ankle burned. A bite. Two small holes.

Faces of ancestors danced around me. I thought I was home. I was wrong.

I was going home.

Forget Me Not.

In Praise of Public Libraries

The New York Review of Books recently published an article by Sue Halpern with the same title and it got me thinking. My relationship with libraries has changed a bit now that I'm an author, but the core of that relationship is the same.

My earliest library memory is walking through canyons of books. The library in my rural New York town was grand by small town standards of the day--which isn't saying a whole lot except we had a distinguished-looking brick building with one big room filled with towering shelves. My mom showed me the one corner in the library feral children like myself could safely stay. The children's corner had a wooden box of worn toys and one narrow three-tiered book case. The large print and colorful colors on the covers told me this is my place, a place I could belong.

The library was located right across the street from the post office. Normally, this wouldn't be important except that my mom was a chatter. Any errand she dragged us three kids on would become a marathon of chat. We could either wait quietly at her side, or bake in our wood-paneled station wagon during a time when such a thing was "good for kids." As the youngest, I was held on the shortest leash, but once I earned her trust that I would look both ways each time I crossed the street, a trip to the post office was no longer the excruciating slog it had become.

I could go the the library!

I remember being reprimanded more than once to keep my voice down and not to run through the stacks. The library was a place I could go. I was welcome.

Years later, fate would have it that I met my husband in a library. Years after that, he and I would bring our three children to our local library. When we first arrived in town, the library was housed in a squat, century-old building off of the main street. Half of the large basement area was dedicated to children's books, puzzles, games, movies, music and even puppets. Passes to Boston museums and attractions were there for the asking. We both held full-time jobs and reconnected with our children at the end of the day through a bed-time ritual that included reading one chapter of Harry Potter and one book chosen, and hopefully agreed upon, by the kids. My husband became a library trustee. I frequented the book club.

Our habit was go to the library each month and fill a wooden milk crate with books. When the town built a ravishing new library, we were the last patrons to the old site and crammed as many books as we could into the crate. The library would be closed for a month as it moved from the old location to the new. During that month, we missed the cozy building and the spontaneous pizza night outings where the kids would chose movies while I urged them to hurry before the pepperoni and sausage pies got cold.

We were the first family through the doors of the new library and marveled at its size and beauty. 

Some old-timers grumbled at the expense of such a "frivolous" thing as a public library. A controversy erupted over displaying stuffed birds. New folks wanted changing displays of local artists and regional history. Old folks wanted familiarity and continuity. 

With its new looks came new ways to reach out to the community. Children and seniors have a place there. Yoga, lectures, movies, concerts, painting classes and so much more happens because a plucky little library in a small New England town became the heart of its community.