Riddle Us This!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How many of you have howled with laughter (at about age six) at the answer to the riddle: “What did one wall say to the other wall?”

And how many of you have thought this was funny: “Have you ever seen a car turn into a garage?”

And that’s why we all love mysteries and suspense…they are all riddles! Riddles are what makes them wonderful.

The wonderful Barbara Nickless has a new book coming out November 15, DARK OF NIGHT. And Reds and readers,  it is not to be missed. My blurb said, in part: "Captivating, compelling, and completely intriguing! Sherlock Holmes meets The DaVinci Code in this brilliantly written and seamlessly researched adventure….”

Irresistible, right? And today she has an irresistible blog.

Words at Play: The Fun of Literary Riddles

By Barbara Nickless

 

Let me tell you a riddle:

 

The beginning of eternity, the end of time and space,

The beginning of every end, and the end of every place.

 

If you’ve already guessed the answer, congratulations! You’re either very good at “misdirection” riddles or you’re a fan of the poet Byron, who posed this conundrum. I’ll reveal the answer at the end.

 

When I set out to create a protagonist with more brains than brawn, I knew I’d want to craft clever ways for him to outwit his adversaries. Dr. Evan Wilding (like his creator) loves puzzles: crosswords, ciphers, puzzle boxes, and cryptics. Anagrams, rebuses, acrostics, and escape rooms. And, of course, the latest word-based puzzle to become all the rage: Wordle and its newer cousin, Quordle.

Evan consults for government agencies and the Chicago Police Department, and some of the puzzles that cross his desk—be they codes written in an ancient language, cleverly crafted ciphers, or outright riddles—require him to outwit a killer to solve a heinous crime.

 

Riddles (from the Old English raedan, which means “to give minor advice”) appear in cultures around the world, and they often take the form of a test. One ancient riddle is that posed by the sphinx in the Greek play, Oedipus Rex. Any person seeking to slip past the sphinx is required to answer her riddle. Failure means a grisly fate: the sphinx devours the unfortunate person on the spot.

 

Try your own riddle-answering skills if you aren’t already familiar with the sphinx’s question:

 

“What has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?” (The answer appears at the end.)

 

The sphinx was surely the inspiration for the Monty Python crew when they placed a riddle master in their spoof of Camelot, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This cunning man guards the Bridge of Death, which spans a deep chasm. Anyone who wishes to reach the other side must correctly solve his riddles. After two knights fail to pass the test and are hurled into the abyss, their king turns the riddle back on the master.

 

Bridgekeeper: “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

King Arthur: “African or European?”

Bridgekeeper (surprised): “I … I don’t know that.”

 

The riddle master, failing to answer the question, is hurled into the crevasse.

 

Through the millennia, writers have included riddles as a test for their characters or as entertainment for their readers. The earliest riddles appeared in Sanskrit in the Rigveda, written around 1000 BC. They appear in the Bible, most notably in Psalms and Ecclesiastes. And they’re found in Old English poems, especially with the use of kennings, in which a metaphor becomes a riddle: What is a whale road? The sea. God’s beacon? The sun.

 

Shakespeare had wicked fun with riddles in such plays as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. (Why is it that riddles suit tragedies so well? That is a riddle for which I have no answer—perhaps they sometimes simply lighten the mood.)

 

Lewis Carroll included riddles in his most famous work: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One such puzzle, voiced by the Mad Hatter, went unanswered in the original edition of Alice.

 

Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Mad Hatter (several pages along in the story): “Have you guessed the riddle yet?”

Alice: “No, I give it up. What’s the answer?”

Mad Hatter: “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Alice (sighing wearily): “I think you might do something better with the time than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

 

Carroll finally caved to his unhappy readers and provided an answer to the riddle in a preface to the 1896 edition. But readers weren’t happy with what he offered. Today, different solutions are still being suggested by Carroll’s many fans.

 

More recently, we have such riddle-loving authors as James Joyce, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling with her intriguing character, Tom Riddle. One of my favorite literary riddle solvers is Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo, much like my character Evan, cannot depend on sword play or strength of arms to win his battles. In The Hobbit, Bilbo uses his wits against Gollum to keep from being eaten (we’re back to the sphinx) and attain a magic ring. The story of the fate of that ring unspools across Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

Literary riddles generally lead down one of two paths: failing to solve the riddle means death—either literal or metaphorical; solving it means saving your life and winning great riches, from true love to vast kingdoms.

 

My character, Evan, is a forensic semiotician, which means that solving riddles provides the bread-and-butter of his work. A semiotician studies how we use signs and symbols within and across cultures. A forensic semiotician focuses on how these signs and symbols are used in crimes. For Evan, a killer is a riddle to be solved. The semiotic clues left at a crime scene chart a path that Evan uses to imagine himself into the killer’s mind. By examining the clues—letters, diagrams, esoteric symbols—he seeks the answer to the most difficult riddle of all: why would one human kill another? Fortunately for the side of justice, Evan can out-riddle just about everyone.

 

I’ll leave you with this final challenge from Batman Forever (written by Will Shortz, the New York Times puzzle master):

 

Tear one off and scratch my head, what once was red is black instead.

 

What are some of your favorite riddles? I’d love to hear them!

 

Answers:

 

Byron’s Riddle: The letter “E.”

The Riddle of the Sphinx: Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age.

The riddle from the Riddler in the Batman franchise: A match

HANK: Oh, how about you, Reds and readers? My very favorite riddle book is Jane Langton’s life-changing The Diamond in the Window, where the intrepid kids have to answer harder and harder riddles to solve the mystery and save their family. SO great! 

As Barbara says: what are some of your favorite riddles?

And oh,  Barbara says she is riding a camel on the other side of the world right now and will respond as quickly as she can this afternoon!

Whoo. There's a riddle, too!  Where do you think she is?

 

 

DARK OF NIGHT 

A recent murder is ancient history in a breathtaking novel about a sacred lost treasure and poisonous retribution by the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of At First Light.

What an exotic way to die in Chicago.

When esteemed historian Elizabeth Lawrence is found in her car, killed by a cobra’s bite, only a brilliant professor of semiotics, Dr. Evan Wilding, can see the signs around her strange death. As he helps homicide detective Addie Bisset decipher the scene, the puzzles left behind offer Evan chilling passage into the mind of a killer.

Evan’s investigation merges with that of an Israeli agent, who claims Elizabeth was close to acquiring an invaluable artifact. She was also drawing the attention of unsavory treasure hunters, forgers, and thieves. Was someone desperate to expose the truth of Elizabeth’s astonishing discovery?

The deeper Evan and Addie delve into the case, the darker it gets. A murderer’s archaic crimes are just the beginning. In a race where there can be only one winner, the final victim might be Evan. Available on November 15th online and at your favorite bookstore. 

 

 

Barbara Nickless is the Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of the multi-award-winning Sydney Parnell crime novels. Her new series features forensic semiotician Dr. Evan Wilding—a man whose gift for interpreting the words and symbols left behind by killers has led him to consult on some of the world’s grisliest cases. “Dr. Evan Wilding is absolutely my new favorite fictional human.” (Danielle Girard, USA Today & Amazon #1 Bestselling Author of The Ex.) Barbara lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where she loves to hike, cave, snowshoe, and drink single malt Scotch. Connect with her at www.barbaranickless.com.

Does doing nothing equal something ?

Not really Hank

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:

I was really out of it the other day, because I had a dental implant. I know, it’s miraculous, and I am thrilled, but the day after really knocked me out. I tried to work, but I just couldn’t get my brain to function, and finally just sat on the couch trying to read.

I felt really guilty about it. I thought: I should be doing something. This doesn’t hurt that much. I have too much to do. I’m going to get even more behind. I can’t just sit here.

And after I thought ”I can’t just sit here,” I thought: really? Why not? Why can’t I do this, do nothing, for some finite amount of time?

And it wasn’t even really nothing, you know? I was reading a book, a wonderful book, written by an author I get to interview next week and I am so excited. So it wasn’t even nothing! So why did I feel guilty?

Do you all feel guilty when you relax? Or try to relax? Or can you just–-relax? Does doing nothing equal something?

JENN McKINLAY: Surprising no one, I’m sure, I’m not very good at doing nothing. I’m so bad at doing nothing that the last time I can remember being still and doing nothing (not even reading), I was sitting on the couch in our cottage in Nova Scotia, watching my mom and my sis-in-law play Yahtzee. It lasted twenty glorious minutes and then I had to go walk the beach or pick wild raspberries or something. I wish I could do nothing more often. I truly do, but I’m just not wired that way.

RHYS BOWEN: I’m another one in the not good at doing nothing club. If we go on vacation to one of those all-inclusive resorts I can sit under an umbrella with a book for the first morning then I find myself saying to John, “So there’s a kayak trip to see dolphins and then a Spanish class…"

The closest I come to this inner peace is driving to a local cove called China Camp. I have a year’s membership so I don’t have to pay for parking. It’s a tiny beach on the San Francisco Bay and I sit staring out at the water, watching seabirds and children playing at the edge. It’s very relaxing and restoring but after an hour the little voice starts whispering “You should be getting home. You have those emails to answer. That blog to write.”

I once did a meditation class and was told to clear my mind and think of nothing. What? How can anybody clear their minds? Mine is always running a mile a minute.

HANK: Ha! Me, too, Rhys. I started thinking: how can I think about nothing? What is nothing, really? That’s kind of interesting, because nothing is something, whoa, you could think about nothing and nothingness and infinity forever. It’s fascinating. I wonder what nothing really is….

So much for thinking about nothing.

LUCY BURDETTE: Me too, terrible at sitting around. Terrible. Here’s a photo of something I wrote in grade school–see, it’s my destiny. 

HANK: Lucy, that's either hilarious or terrifying...

LUCY: I know! The question is, did the teacher have everybody writing that down over and over? Or did I make it up? Either way is frightening! Anyway, there's always a long to-do list on my desk and more in my phone notes, so it doesn’t feel right not to be working. Luckily for me I suppose, Lottie has to be walked several times a day so that’s downtime. Also, yoga class does not allow me to think or worry.

A couple weeks ago, I saw John on the couch in the middle of the day doing the crossword puzzle. “You’re just relaxing?” I asked, with maybe a hint of criticism in my voice. It’s hard to get past that!

HALLIE EPHRON: Doing the crossword puzzle is not “just relaxing” IMHOP! It’s part of my daily regimen, along with a walk. And Spelling Bee. And… ohhhh I can be so busy busy busy doing “nothing.”

What I find terrifying is that I can no longer and *really* do nothing. No cell phone, book, newspaper, computer. Just BE. Wait for birds to show up in the birdbath. Commune with the stars or clouds or whatever. I’m sure I could have done that, once upon a time.


DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don’t think I ever “do nothing” when I’m inside. There is always work, or chores, or that to-do list. Even in the bath I’ll be listening to an audio book. If I am outside and there is a view, or a sunset, or just the birds in the backyard, I can sit for a while, but it doesn’t last long. On the other hand, I spend way too much time staring out the window when I should be writing! 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I think I know why I'm the Red whose books are always so late... I love doing nothing, and practice it on the regular. I mean, I don't stare into space for long periods of time, unless I'm standing by the sink trying to remember why I walked in the kitchen. But I can spend hours reading for fun, taking meaningless strolls, looking at pretty pictures in the Internet, napping (is there anything more blissful than a Sunday nap?) playing Mah-Jong solitaire... 

 

Honestly, I'm pretty sure I'm a writer because it's the laziest job I could come up with.

HANK: A. A. Milne had Pooh and Christopher Robin discuss it:

"What I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.

It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Oh!" said Pooh.”


What do you all think, Reds and readers? How good are you at doing nothing ? Do you believe in the italian saying "Dolce far Niente"? (Which means "the sweetness of doing nothing.")

Bookstores: past present and future!

 

HALLIE EPHRON: If you open my kitchen cabinet in search of a coffee mug, here’s what you’ll find, front and center.

Every time I see that mug from Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, PA, I think of Mary Alice Gorman and the wonderful bookstore she and her husband Richard Gorman made into a required pilgrimage for mystery writers. They hosted a ton of author events and local Sisters in Crime chapter meetings. And an annual event that drew scores of mystery authors on their way home from Malice Domestic and hundreds of crime fiction shoppers.

Watching Mary Alice hand sell books was like watching a virtuoso violinist. She knew just which strings to pluck. Her customers came in empty-handed and left with armloads of books.

What booksellers have a special place in your heart, and do you have any keepsakes from your visits that you treasure?

RHYS BOWEN: I have memories and memorabilia from so many bookstores. When I first started writing mysteries John had just retired and we drove coast to coast several times visiting bookstores along the way.

I have particularly fond memories of Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Mary Alice and Richard and their wonderful festivals of mystery. As a new mystery author I sat at my table at my first festival and saw a long line waiting to get books signed by me. Wow! Amazing!

I remember so many dear friends and stores that are no more. M is for Mystery in San Mateo and dear Ed Kaufman, Robin and Aunt Agatha’s, the store in Thousand Oaks plus several others around LA, Kate’s in Cambridge, Joanne Sinchuk’s Murder on the Beach in Del Ray Beach Florida. 

I have a mug from Kansas City, a little box from Orange County, and I remember the store in Denver where they made a cake to look like the book cover. What a loss these little stores are to our community–they’d hand sell newcomers like me, make us welcome, put on spreads, have a friendly cat…

Thank heavens a few favorites have managed to thrive: Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale is always a favorite, as is Murder by the Book in Houston. Most of the other stores I visit on Book Tour these days are big indies, not specialty mystery bookstores, but I miss those cozy nooks and store pets. 

HALLIE: Reminds me of the potbellied pig who hung out in the mystery bookstore in Tucson. She was a heavy-breather with a gristled snout. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’ve been to every one of those bookstores you mention, Rhys, and their loss is keenly felt. We do have fewer mystery-only bookstores around than when I debuted as an author 20 year ago.

On the plus side, there are actually more independent bookstores opening, as more and more readers come to value what good booksellers can do for your TBR pile and for the community! Over 300 have opened in the past few years, according to the New York Times, and the average bookseller is getting younger and younger - good news, because hauling those boxes from the publishers around isn’t easy.

In that vein, I’d nominate PRINT: A Bookstore, right here in Portland, ME, as my special place.

Founded just six years ago by veteran booksellers Josh Christie and Emily Russo (yep, her dad is Richard Russo,) PRINT has made a big splash in our already great indy bookstore scene. I’ve taken part in several great events with them, including interviewing Michael Koryta and taking part in a lively Sisters in Crime panel presentation. 

Josh and Emily were one of the first booksellers to pivot when everything shut down in early 2020 - we went from canceling my live appearance to streaming to several hundred viewers in a matter of ten days. I don’t have any merch from them, but I do have a stack of books… 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: The very first such a store I remember visiting, with great– well I almost said joy, but it was really more like terror–was Kate‘s Mystery Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Remember, Hallie? 

In a ramshackle Victorian house, with a crazy front lawn and all kinds of decorations on the porch, and then you would open the door to this bookstore and there were stacks and piles and overflowing tables of mystery novels in some order that no one could ever figure out, no one but Kate Mattes at least, with the entire store ringed with a all kinds of ceramic cats. 

Cats everywhere. It was nutty and wacky, and Kate never got a computer or a cash register, she would just write out a sales slips by hand and make change from an envelope in a drawer, if I remember. Buying a book from her was incredible, absolutely everyone in mystery world came to Kate’s, but I also remember how long it took to buy a book! The paperwork was so complicated!

She told lots of stories about when she opened the store, most memorably, Robert B. Parker helping her build the bookshelves. Her Christmas parties were famous, everyone came. She’s long gone, (not too long, I guess), but still such a presence in mystery world. (And talk about a gift from her–she hooked me up with RBP, who gave me a wonderful blurb for Drive Time, on his personal stationery, which I have framed in my office.

And of course the incredible Aunt Agatha‘s in Ann Arbor Michigan. Where Robin Agnew, queen of the universe, knew every single mystery novel and every single mystery author, and talk about a virtuoso, could match every reader with the perfect book. 

When their store closed, after 25 years, Robin sent me a framed note from Mary Higgins Clark note that she’d sent as congratulations. I look at that every day.

Two more? Continuing the standing ovation for the indomitable and brilliant Barbara Peters at Poisoned Pen, what would we do without her and her amazing team? And I point you to Page 158 Books in Wake Forest North Carolina, where the Dave and Sue Lucey have taken care of me gorgeously since the beginning of the pandemic. I cannot wait to go visit in person.

JENN McKINLAY: Since I live in the same neighborhood as the Poisoned Pen Bookstore, it’s small wonder that I have a longstanding relationship with Barbara Peters, the owner, and her employees - Patrick, PK, Susan, Tracy, and John - to name just a few. 

Barbara and her crew aren’t just booksellers to me. They’re friends and mentors and their shop is a sanctuary when the writing gets hard and I need to get out of the house and visit with book people. 

Also, Barbara and her husband Rob have taken to Tik Tok, which impresses to no end and is forcing me to raise my game. LOL. 

Another favorite is Murder by the Book in Houston. My friend Dean James (Miranda James) worked there the first time I signed in Houston and it’s become a favorite stop of mine ever since. And I can’t forget Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego. I love this quirky little shop and the staff who work there are the nicest booksellers in the biz.

And here’s some happy news from the NYT: “But there has also been a sharp and sustained rise in new bookshops, and more than 200 additional stores are preparing to open in the next year or two, Ms. Hill said.”

Read more here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/books/bookstores-diversity-pandemic.html

YAY!!!

LUCY BURDETTE: Can you believe I’ve never been to either Poisoned Pen or Murder by the Book? Maybe this year… I adore indie bookstores and I feel so lucky to have them in both my hometowns.

RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison CT has been an amazing supporter, starting with my very first book launch when SIX STROKES UNDER came out in 2002! I love having book parties there–I always bring cake. And I’ve spent a truckload of $$ buying books in that gorgeous space. 

In Key West, we have two wonderful but very different indie bookstores. 

Suzanne Orchard runs Keywest Island Bookshop, a little shop on Fleming St with tons of local, used, and some new books. She handsells the Key West mysteries like nobody’s business. 

Books and Books on Eaton Street was founded by George Cooper and Judy Blume. It’s a gorgeous little store with a great collection and sometimes the bookseller is Judy herself!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm not much of a keepsake keeper, but if I were, I'd have mugs from Murder By the Book in Houston, and from The Poisoned Pen. I've been to many wonderful bookstores, but these two began as, and remain, my favorites. I've never missed a book launch signing at either store, and they were so kind and supportive when I was a newbie author and not sure of the ropes. Barbara Peters at the Pen is a force of nature in the mystery world!

HALLIE: Bookstores are the glue that connects authors to readers, and we've all been privileged to be invited into their worlds. 

What are the bookstores that have connected you with the writers of the books you love?