Peter Crowther Cold Comforts Part 3

‘The Good Book’ is a more straightforward PI yarn which, again, was an

almost obscene amount of fun to write. And to balance things out, I’d like

to dedicate this to my own dad who passed on in 1972.

Marilyn Monroe was a dish. I’ve never really taken to the current vogue

of women who are so slim they’re bordering on anorexic, and so when

Carole Nelson Douglas gave me the opportunity to write a story featuring

Norma Jean, I jumped at it. This is another of those situations (pretty much

all of them are when I stop to think about it) that I accept a job and then

wonder what the heck I’m going to do. But the solution came to me without

too much difficulty—it had to cover the suspicious circumstances of

Marilyn’s death and it had to include something about JFK . . . and, with

the current popularity of conspiracy theories, the rest more or less took care

of itself. The result was ‘The Cost of Freedom.’

People always ask me why I write stories set in America when I’m

English.Well, I don’t have a good answer except to say that I love America

and, generally speaking, I love Americans. But every now and then I get a

specific request to set a story in England—‘Cat On An Old School Roof ’

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and ‘The Allotment’ are the products of two such requests. ‘School Roof ’

was written for a Cat Crimes anthology with the sub-theme of different

times, and I was asked by that loveable editorial trinity of Gorman,

Greenberg, and Segriff to do something quintessentially English. Long

an admirer of the school adventures of the likes of Billy Bunter, Tom

Merry, and even Tom Brown, I decided that that’s where I’d set my story—

an archetypal English boarding school in the dog days of the 1890s . . .

complete with an obligatory school bully and, of course, a cat.

‘The Allotment’ came about as a result of a request from author and

editorMartin Edwards to write something quintessentially North English for

an anthology project of such tales for the Crime Writers’ Association. I

accepted the challenge and set to work on something that transferred to

England the American small town darkness and meticulously researched

social detail of Stephen King, mixing in a liberal dose of Peter Lovesey’s

slowly unveiling suspense-style in the process. I created my own Calder

Valley town of Luddersedge and filled it with a potentially huge cast of

everyday bit players . . . and the result was a great success—so great that,

within a couple of weeks, the story sold in the U.S. to Ellery Queen’s Mystery

Magazine. However, Editor Janet Hutchings asked for a couple of changes

for its appearance in EQMM—changes I was happy to make and which in

no way affected a reader’s enjoyment—but it appears here in its original

form.

For many, the abuse of children is the most heinous crime imaginable . . .

even more horrific and unforgivable, in its brutal theft of innocence, than

the taking of actual life. The U.S. lawyer and author Andrew Vachss has

made this field his life work, both in the courtroom and, with the creation of

his anti-hero Burke, on the fiction bookshelves, and I thought I’d like to

have a shot myself. ‘A Time To Dance’—a truly short story (fewer than

2,000 words—a record for me! I have titles that long!)—sees Koko Tate take

on a cycle of retribution which he believes to be the only hope for a young

boy but one with which he is considerably less than comfortable. The story

originally appeared in the short-lived (and truly dire) English magazine,

Dark Asylum.

‘TheMain Event’ always goes down a storm with audiences. It’s virtually

a one-act play with but a single set, and its central premise—a most unusual

method of poisoning—is, I believe, entirely preposterous. But I’m informed

(reliably, I hope) that it works incredibly well and moves like an express

train. I’ll let you be the judge. It appeared in an anthology entitled Murder

Most Delicious and has since been reprinted four times.

Peter Crowther

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First Lady Murders was the title of an anthology of (yes, you’ve guessed it)

murder stories featuring real First Ladies. The brief, offered by Nancy

Pickard, asked only that contributors picked their First Lady and let Nancy

know—I chose Edith Bolling Wilson and decided to set the action in the

White House gardens. My one small problem was that I didn’t know too

much about theWhite House gardens (apart from the fact they were probably

bigger than mine), so I searched bookstores for reference material and

spent what seemed like hours on the web, both to no avail. In desperation,

I called the White House. Within one week, a booklet detailing the White

House’s grounds plopped through my mailbox. The story pretty much

wrote itself from then on.

When the Berlin Wall came down, I foresaw problems. At the time, I

jotted down a few notes outlining a potential story set in and around the

newly-liberated East and left it at that. A few years later, another Cat Crimes

project reared its furry head and I rescued the notes and wrote ‘Reunification.’

It was considered a little too downbeat and a little too ‘nothing much

happens’ (actually, nothing at all happens) and the editors passed on it.

Since then, it’s appeared in A Treasury of Cat Mysteries, and I confess to a

lasting fondness for it.

Which brings us to the final story in this book.

‘Cold Comforts’ was, I think, either my third or fourth Koko story.We’d

just gotten through a particularly hard winter in England, with news reports

filled with true horror stories of old people dying of hypothermia in

unheated homes and run-down tenements.My own mum was fairly poorly

even though—living in a self-contained apartment at the top of our

house—she was very warm and well looked after. Anyway, I got to thinking

about old folks—which, so long as we don’t die young, we’ll all be ourselves

one fine day—and about maybe someone taking responsibility for their

‘comfort’ into their own hands. It mixes in a large amount of poetry—

something I’ve done elsewhere from time to time, most notably in the

off-beat vampire tale ‘Too Short A Death’—and includes winter in New

York (my favorite time in that city) plus, of course, Koko Tate.

And that’s it for this time.

Anyone who knows me or who may have read my various articles and

columns or who has possibly listened to me ramble on at conventions (both

on and off the stage) will know of my great and enduring love of short

fiction. This is my sixth collection of the stuff and there’s another one

(Jewels in the Dust) due later this year . . . so if you enjoy this lot, the good

news is there’s more to come and still more being written.

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Right now—Saturday 4th of February 2012 (about 10 years and 11

months after my younger self first penned an earlier version of this Foreword)—

I’m looking out of my office, seeing a dusting of snow on the

church roof next door. I’m busy working on a zombie story for my chum,

Stephen Jones; the second book in my alien invasion trilogy, Forever Twilight;

and, when I can get back to it, my big mainstream novel (set in New York,

of course), Thanksgiving.

All sorts of adventures await me . . . as, of course, they await you, too. So

let’s stay in touch. By all means drop me a line sometime (p.crowther3@

btinternet.com) and let me know what you think of these tales. Writing is

such a lonely life that it’s always nice to know there’s someone out there,

living your stories.

Meanwhile, look after yourselves and those you care for . . . and keep on

reading!

Peter Crowther

Grosvenor House in Hornsea, England

February 2012

From an original version by Peter Crowther

Harrogate, England

March 2001