Plagiarism?

by Leighton Gage


In 2009, when Bouchercon was being held in Indianapolis, a gang of us went out to dinner.

The inimitable Peter Rozovsky (http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/ )

was walking next to me when we entered the restaurant.

This was the mural facing us on the wall:

“Ha!” said I. “Picasso. Les Demoiselles de Avignon.”

“Ha!” said Peter. “Matisse. La Danse.”

Peter, of course, was right.

He usually is.

Les Demoiselles de Avignon is this one:

I knew that.

I really did.

I just…misspoke.

That’s my story anyway.

And I’m sticking to it.

What’s this got to do with plagiarism?

Bear with me.

I’m getting there.

Flash forward to the first hours of New Year’s Day, 2011.

During the celebration on Copacabana Beach the symbol for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games was unveiled:

If you haven’t got time to watch the video (2 minutes and 57 seconds), cut right to the chase and look at this:

And, now, compare it with this:

It’s the logo for the Telluride Foundation, http://www.telluridefoundation.org/   a Colorado-based organization that exists to promote philanthropy.

See any similarity?

Lots of folks do.

They allege that the Telluride logo was directly lifted from the Matisse.

And take away the legs and the red dancer from the Telluride logo,  and you’ve got the Olympic logo.

Fred Gelli, of Tátil Design, the Brazilian agency that created the logo, says no. He acknowledges that there are similarities between the two, but is unwilling to go any farther than that.

His detractors say the similarity is just too great, that even the color dispersion is nearly identical.

I asked Peter Ratcliffe, a designer who’s been doing some book covers for me, what he thought. He said yes to inspiration, no to plagiarism.

And thought it was a cool idea that the Brazilians have come up with the first 3-dimensional Olympic Symbol:

And you? What do you think?

Interview with Marilyn M. Fisher, the Connie Holt Mysteries

 It's my pleasure to introduce today's guest, Marilyn M. Fisher. Marilyn is a literature professor and the author of two mysteries featuring equine insurance investigator Connie Holt. In the first, The Case of the Three Dead Horses, Connie investigates the mysterious deaths of three expensive stallions with great breeding potential. In  He Trots the Air, she unearths a plot to drug Darkling Lord, a promising young Thoroughbred. Meanwhile, in an intriguing subplot, her friend Earline has discovered what might be an original Henry Stull equine oil painting in the attic of her pre- Civil War home. Marilyn has a passion for horses that shows through on every page. Please welcome her to Murderous Musings.

Marilyn: Thanks so much, Jaden, for inviting me to be interviewed for “Murderous Musings.”

Jaden: It's a pleasure to have you, Marilyn. Why don't we start with how you got started as a fiction writer?

Marilyn: I was working in administration at a college in Virginia, an excellent job at a nice school with  nice colleagues,  but the work I had to do was bureaucratic, mentally exhausting, didn’t offer the opportunities for creativity I’d had as a professor of English. So I thought, “Now’s the time to try writing fiction.” As for the subject matter, I was riding a lot in Virginia, and one day, I read an anonymous article by a vet who had just finished operating on a horse that had been killed. The vet was angry over the fact that someone did it for the insurance money and there wasn’t a thing he or she could do about it. It seemed like a good idea to write a mystery with horse abuse as the theme behind the story. In both my novels, readers learn that horses are abused in real life more often than many people realize. In the first book, horses are killed; the second book deals with another abuse, illegal doping of racehorses. I try to bring about reader awareness through a good, gripping story with which they become engrossed (I hope). To get the facts in the story right, I research a lot; if I think the horse stuff is unclear, I go to great pains to rewrite the material so that non-horse readers will understand it.  I’m happy to do the research and learn new things myself. As a graduate student for years, I had to learn to research efficiently to get at the truth about a poem or novel or story; It’s the same now, except that I have the huge resources of the Internet to play with. 

Jaden: Both books are set in central Virginia. What made you choose that as a setting?

Marilyn: Lynchburg, Virginia, where I lived, is endlessly fascinating to me. First of all, it’s a horse place, green fields full of grazing horses, only 65 miles from Charlottesville with its university community full of horse people and the two Gold Cup steeplechases in The Plains further north. While I lived there, I took riding lessons, bought and owned two horses (bred one), enjoyed riding every weekend in the country. The people I met there were friendly and warm and helpful. And of course, central Virginia is full of American history with beautifully preserved houses and sites to visit. There was always something to do and learn. I lived for a long time in Buffalo, a gritty northern city; living in Virginia came as a complete and lovely surprise. And it proved to be a wonderful place to set a murder mystery about horses.
 

  Jaden: Without giving anything away, can you tell us something about the leading characters?

Marilyn: The leading characters are as fully-fleshed out as I can make them; both my novels are character-driven. I like mysteries in which people have problems getting along in life, to say nothing of having to deal with a crime. A northerner, Connie Holt was dumped by her husband in Virginia and had to find a job to support herself. She loves the place but is very lonely; it seems to her that everyone else is married. Her boss, Cary McCutcheon, employs her as an equine insurance investigator even though many men were grumpy at first about having to work with a woman. Tony Stephens is another person who is newly transplanted to the south; his business fails, and he has to leave the state. He watches himself very carefully, full of self-analytical rages about his awkwardness around people and his lack of breeding. A very bad veterinarian is in both books, dishonest, venal, unfaithful to his wife, eaten up with the need to get money. I hope the reader will get caught up with the characters, really care about them even though some are flawed and may even be villainous.

Jaden: Sounds like you have some very complex characters. You also address some intense and sometimes controversial issues in your books. Do you aim for a particular reading audience in your novels?

Marilyn: There is a wide range of ages in the books. For instance, in He Trots the Air, one of the bravest characters is a young girl of barely eighteen, but Cary himself is in his seventies, still tough, smart, and wise. He is married to a woman in her forties. When I sell the books and people ask me about the age of the reader, I stress that they are for young adults all the way up to older adults, but definitely not for children. 

Jaden: If someone asked you why readers would enjoy your books, what would you say?

Marilyn:  They resonate with readers (or at least they tell me so) because there is a puzzle to solve, realistic characters and settings, local color, which came out of my experience living in the same setting as my characters, and a tight, suspenseful plot with exciting events. Oh, and I mustn’t forget romance and sometimes lust.

Jaden: A little spice is a beautiful thing! So, what’s next? Do you have another novel planned?

Marilyn: A third Connie Holt novel, I think. At present, I’m thinking it over, which is my usual way of writing a novel: think, think, think, and then start writing. There is nothing worse than starting a novel, getting two hundred pages into it and realizing you’ve made a huge mistake. Slow and careful, that’s me!

Jaden: Thank you for sharing with us, Marilyn. I look forward to the next installment.

Macmillan & Penguin v. Amazon and DoJ

by Carola Dunn

I thought you might be interested in the views of a small independent bookstore owner on the current lawsuit between the Department of Justice--backing Amazon--and the two publishers who have refused to settle. In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that Macmillan is my publisher--which does not mean I have the slightest idea whether they're in the right or wrong, but I do see a danger of Amazon approaching monopoly.

This is from Seattle Mystery Bookshop's blog:

DoJ settlement, Amazon: What it Means

What does the settlement of three major publishers with the Department of Justice lawsuit mean? Really - it is too soon to know. We think we know what it will mean in the near-term, but if we could predict the future we'd be gazillionaires from all the Lottery numbers we'd have chosen and wouldn't be trying to scrape out livings selling books.

In the short term, we will undoubtedly see the price of e-books tumble. Will it be a slight decrease or a free fall? In the short term, probably somewhere in between. Amazon released a statement yesterday that they were looking forward to lowering prices. Will that mean back down to $9.99 from $14.99? We shall see. Will it mean even lower? We shall see. You can track that yourself. Pick a new book on Amazon and check the price for a Kindle edition. Then look up the same book on another site and see if there is a difference. Now repeat every couple of days. (We don't set the prices of the e-books sold through our site. Google does that. Will they drop prices to match Amazon? We'll see.)

In a comment reported widely yesterday, "Reaction from Amazon was also swift. Drew Herdener, a spokesperson for the e-tailer, called the DoJ’s decisions “a big win for Kindle owners,” adding, “We look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books.”

A report on Mediabistro notes that in the first quarter of 2012, Amazon's sales of e-books rose 29% while Apple's rose just 1%. Overnight, Apple's stock had dropped 13% when we checked Friday, while B&N's dropped 6.4% Thurdsay (down 17% for the month that is not half over). We admit to not being able to tell much from these tea leaves - Amazon's stock is also down slightly.

What will it mean to publishers? In the short term, it depends on the publisher. Those who settled will be forced to pay millions back to customers in some fashion. So they'll take a financial hit in the short term, at a time when they're already reeling from the falling sales of printed books. On NPR Thursday, one analyst - James McQuivey of Forrester Research - predicted that some won't make it.

The Author's Guild website carried the full statement from someone who didn't buckle. Macmillan's CEO John Sargent is one of the guys who did not settle with the DoJ. "But the terms the DOJ demanded were too onerous. After careful consideration, we came to the conclusion that the terms could have allowed Amazon to recover the monopoly position it had been building before our switch to the agency model. We also felt the settlement the DOJ wanted to impose would have a very negative and long term impact on those who sell books for a living, from the largest chain stores to the smallest independents." Bear in mind that Macmillan is the company that Amazon attacked a few years ago by removing all of their publications from sale.

Penguin Group chairman (the other publisher who refused to settle) John Mackinson wrote this: “The second, and equally powerful, reason for our decision to place this matter in the hands of a court is that we believed then, as we do now, that the agency model is the one that offers consumers the prospect of an open and competitive market for e-books. We understood that the shift to agency would be very costly to Penguin and its shareholders in the short-term, but we reasoned that the prevention of a monopoly in the supply of e-books had to be in the best interests, not just of Penguin, but of consumers, authors and booksellers as well."

At the same time, there is a class action suit against the publishers and an on-going European investigation concerning the agency model as well. So the financial liabilities faced by the named publishers and Apple are impossible to know at this time. It would be fair to say they will be 'large'.

What will it mean to booksellers? In the short term... depends on how far the prices for e-books fall. If they fall fast and steeply, it will inevitably mean lost sales of printed books.
While everyone seems to think that this DoJ case is about competition surrounding the sale of e-books, and how collusion was engaged to raise the price of e-books, what isn't addressed is that higher prices for e-books are needed to save printed books. A $25 or $27.99 hardcover can compete with a $14.99 e-book better than it can with a $9.99 price. Drastically lowered e-book prices gut the sales of hardcovers, even trade paperbacks. If e-books continue to outsell hardcovers and massacre the sales of softcovers, printed books are seriously threatened. No one talks about that.

What you, as reader[, writer,] and consumer and resident of Earth can do for yourself is to watch for stories that report on the sales of printed books. Most likely, you'll find them around the ends of financial quarters, as well as annual reports of the past year's sales that come out at the beginning of a new year. A search on the internet should turn them up - business pages of the major news outlets, or Publisher's Weekly. Quarters go Jan - Mar, April - June, etc. Look for reports in early July that cover the present quarter. That will tell us if something is happening immediately. And that may foretell where publishing is going.

Home Defense, Part 2 -- The Shotgun

by Ben Small

Assuming you've decided a home defense gun makes sense, what gun should you choose?

I don't think anyone argues with the notion that the best home defense weapon is a shotgun, but that begs the question. What type of shotgun, what size shell, what size ammo?

Shotgun gauges vary inversely to number progression. So the larger the gauge number, the smaller the bore. Doc Holliday carried a 10 gauge at the OK Corral, a cannon rarely seen today. For a guy as skinny as the sickly Doc, his shoulder must have been numb for days. A 12 gauge has a smaller bore diameter than a 10 gauge, and 16, 20, 28 and the .410 gauges have respective still smaller bores. The most popular shotgun gauge today remains the 12, however, anything larger than a .410 will provide ample home defense protection. While the Taurus Judge has made the .410 shell -- a round once believed to be mostly obsolete -- popular,  the .410 is generally not recommended for home defense. It's just not accurate beyond ten feet.

Choose your shotgun gauge by considering your size and age, not to mention level of comfort. The older you are, the less tolerant your shoulder will be. Any gauge other than a .410 is adequate for home defense. And choose the size of shells you're going to use bearing in mind the same considerations. Many shotguns these days will accommodate three different size shells, usually 2 1/2", 3" and 3 1/2". The latter two are often called "Magnum" and "Super Magnum" respectively. Trust me: You don't need a large shell to be effective for home defense. Stick with the smallest shell available for your shotgun's chamber.

Shotguns vary by type of feed, too. Some are single shot, some double barrel, some over-under, some semi-automatic, and my all time favorite, the pump. I highly recommend a pump shotgun for home defense. I don't think anyone doesn't understand what's behind that ominous click-clack. Pump that hummer, and you may not have to shoot.

Shotguns come in pistol-grips too, but I don't recommend one unless your name is Arnold and you were once governor of California. Anyone with osteo or rheumatoid arthritis certainly doesn't want to shoot one. I cringe even at the thought of it, but then again, such guns are usually pump actions, so the click-clack may make firing unnecessary. I've got one --  no, Ben's not a pseudonym and I've never run for office -- but I've never fired it. One ugly-scary looking beast. 

Ouch! Doesn't that look painful? Grip it tight or recoil may be a bop on the bean.

But let's assume you've determined your gauge and type of shotgun. What size ammo to use?

A slug is essentially just what you imagine: One big plug of steel or lead, usually fifty caliber. That's a lot of whammy, and will be the most painful to shoot at whatever gauge you've chosen. While slugs are good for deer or elk hunting, I don't recommend them for home defense. Besides, the only thing you're likely to hit may be your neighbor two houses over.

Before choosing your size of ammo, you need to understand why a shotgun is the best weapon for home defense: You don't need good aim. Flinch away. Because shotgun barrels -- except the Taurus Judge-style pistol -- aren't rifled, the pellets inside won't spin. So instead of a true and accurate spiral, like from a rifle or pistol barrel, the lead or steel pellets inside the shell spread. The spread will pattern outward. You can adjust the pattern spread by insertion of a muzzle-choke to squeeze your lead or steel shot any way you want, horizontal, vertical or any combination in between; but you don't need a choke. Expect about a two foot diameter spread twenty feet away without one.

Shot shells vary by size and number of BBs inside, again inversely to number progression. In other words, the larger shot shell number, the smaller the BBs and the more in number. See the following size scale:

The low number shot shells (OOO, OO, O, 1-4) are usually called "buckshot" or "buck". Consider that these are essentially 9mm bullets, which will penetrate bad guys, your walls and maybe your neighbor's, too. Again, while such rounds are good for killing deer or humans, I don't usually recommend them for home defense, unless loaded as a last resort after having already fired rounds of bird shot (shot shells 7-9). Some might disagree about using bird shot for home defense, but if the click-clack doesn't scare an intruder away, a body penetrated with up to seventy or more BBs from bird shot surely will. And close up, bird shot will devastate. Even with the Castle Doctrine -- now being considered in Florida in connection with the Trayvon Martin shooting -- your goal should be protection, not intent to kill. So for my home defense, I load my shotgun with bird shot first, buckshot last. Six rounds of escalating fire power.

The only downside to choosing a shotgun for home defense -- other than the owie-factor, of course -- is where will you keep it? Do you have children, for instance? Do you need to keep your shells separate from the gun? Do you have a safe to accommodate it? Can you access your gun and ammo, load and rack your slide in time?

I do not recommend flashlights attached to shotguns because the bad guy will see you first and your ambient night vision will be ruined. But others may disagree, and it's so tacti-cool to have one. If you just have to have one, get a bright one that strobes. As least both you and the bad guy will be blinded, and if you move as you stobe the bad guy may find drawing a bead problematic.

Click-clack, I'll be back. In Home Defense, Part 3, I'll discuss home defense pistol options.

E-Book Piracy

by Susan Santangelo Greetings from beautiful Cape Cod, where spring has officially arrived at last. I should be in a good mood. But I'm not. Why? Because I found out on Friday that the e-book version of my first two Baby Boomer mysteries, Retirement Can be Murder and Moving Can Be Murder, have been pirated on two separate Internet sites. In addition to sending each site an e-mail ordering them to take the books off immediately and threatening legal action, which I did, is there anything else that can be done? Has this happened to any of you, and if so, what did you do about it?

What Excites You in Mysteries?

What Excites You in Mysteries?

by June Shaw


Do you get excited when you read a certain line in a mystery? It might be a line or a line that you determine will be quotes for a long time? (Shaken not stirred)

I've found many lines in Janet Evanovitch books, especially her early ones, that made me laugh out loud and then read to my partner. (We all recall where Stephanie Plum lost her virginity.)

I get excited by haunting scenes, scenes that will stay with me for a long time (And Then There Were None.)

Unique characters who I care about remain with me and make me want to return to them again in other books. I also love being pulled into a setting that comes alive.

What excites you in a mystery!

SHE DID IT TO ME AGAIN

by Earl Staggs

Years ago, I read the debut novel of a female writer (forensic thriller) and was disappointed to the point of anger. The book was not badly written, the characters were interesting, and the story rolled along rather well. Evidence was collected, clues were followed, and suspects were investigated. Finally, near the end, the killer was revealed, and that’s what set me off.

Turned out the killer was not one of the suspects or anyone who had even been mentioned before. There were no clues pointing to him. The killer’s identity was – literally – phoned in. The protagonist received a phone call from another district advising the man had been caught and had confessed. Case closed. I felt I’d been cheated.

Part of my enjoyment in reading a mystery novel is following the clues, sorting through the evidence, and trying to figure out whodunnit. I’m not always right, but I still like to feel I’m in the game. When an author pulls a rabbit out of a hat at the end, a surprise ending not even Sherlock Holmes could have anticipated, I’m not a happy camper.

To her credit, I suppose, this particular author created a main character who continued in a long line of novels for at least two decades. If there was a Mystery Hall of Fame, both the author and the character would be inducted, for sure.

That would not, however, move me to forgive her for the disappointment I felt after reading her first book.

And just last week, it happened again. I settled onto my sofa, the TV was on, a movie had just started, and I watched it. Near the end, the killer was revealed. Once again, a rabbit out of a hat. No clues pointed to him. There was no way I or anyone else could have figured out whodunnit. I snatched up the TV guide and read the blurb about the movie. Sure enough, the movie was based on a novel by my old friend. The same author who cheated me years before.

Obviously, not a lot of mystery fans feel the same way I do. This author has sold gazillions of books over the years. Apparently, gazillions of readers are satisfied as long as they can relate to the characters and care about their personal problems and relationships. That’s fine if you’re a fan of soap operas. I consider myself a mystery fan and feel I deserve a shot at solving the crime. The author owes me the courtesy of playing fair, of placing clues which will lead me to the right solution. If I don’t get it right, I’m okay as long as I can go back and pick up on what I missed and the protagonist did not. If I’m reading a mystery book or watching a mystery movie, I want more than who loves whom, who sleeps with whom, and who cheats on whom. I’m more interested in who killed whom.

I promise you this author will not do it to me again. I won’t pick up another of her books and I’ll check any movie I watch to see if it’s based on her books. That’ll teach her.

Yes, indeedy. You’ll be sorry you cheated this mystery fan, Ms Cornwell.