Rodger’s Two Cents: Change

The more I write, the more I appreciate other writers. I’ve never been one to settle into a beach chair with a cozy mystery, but last winter I took time to buy several traditional mysteries and loved the genre. Those of you who follow my blog posts know that I thrive on thrillers, especially political or military thrillers. You probably have read one of my Gritt Family historical adventures, a series that follows one family for eight generations of American and world thrills. You also may have heard my diatribe against the current superhero genre, stories about one man or woman with superhuman skills defeating horrendous bands of bad guys without any help.

With this as a backdrop, I want to thank mystery writers. They write stories that draw a reader into the quest for solutions, even for salvation rather than just allowing the reader to follow a hero who somehow always knows how to win, usually with a big body count and overcoming injury that would bury most of us.

So this month, I will step away from the thriller writer and historical fiction community, at least for a few days to attend Bouchercon, The World Mystery Convention. I’m looking forward to learning from writing professionals who, unlike the grand settings across the world of Rodger Carlyle, move us into one city, even one neighborhood to challenge a reader to put together clues along with a protagonist, to solve the puzzle found in crime.

I’m not ready to embrace the life of a city dweller. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time in cities from Phoenix to Seattle, from New York to Miami, from Moscow to Auckland. But for a few days, I will be in Nashville with talented authors who paint primarily on that canvas. In Rodger’s Top-5 List this month, I list five authors who I will learn from in Nashville. I plan on walking away from Bouchercon with new story ideas, strategies and relationships. I hope to put them to work on the next rewrite of my upcoming Team Walker series, where much of the drama is set in one of my favorite places to visit, Mexico City. I suspect that rewrite may delay the release of the book a few weeks, but only if what I learn will make it a better story.

Rodger Recommends: Do Some Homework Of Your Own On The Border Crisis

The US southern border is constantly in the news. Illegal immigrant crossings have exceeded one million people a year for the last four years, with total crossings for that period, in the six million range. At the same time, the movement of illegal drugs across the border has skyrocketed, especially cross border shipment of fentanyl. Much has been made of the current administration's failures to secure the border, and much of the criticism is valid.

How can amateur criminal cartels possibly be orchestrating an onslaught that allows non-citizens to illegally cross our border, an onslaught over the last three years that exceeds the population of our ten smallest states? How can the same amateur criminal network move deadly drugs that kill more than 100,000 Americans each year? They can’t.

The cartels are highly sophisticated with technology advantages over the Mexican government and a willingness to use intimidation and murder to further their business ventures. Mexico’s current president reached out to the cartels in his first days in office, asking them to be more civilized, and less violent in their operations. What he didn’t do is use the power of his government to reign in illegal operations that now represent as much as seven percent of Mexico’s GNP. The current president has been able to travel throughout Mexico without the risk of assassination, but the violence he wanted to curtail is rising again, and the number of Mexican lives torn apart by illegal drugs is exploding.

Do the cartels really want to kill off their fellow citizens? Perhaps not, but are they really calling the shots anymore? The billions of dollars in illegal drugs are almost all coming from China. Chinese institutions now launder illegal drug money for the cartels. Chinese citizens, many men of military age, now make up a significant percentage of people crossing the border illegally, with no effort to halt their way to the border by Mexican authorities. Chinese weapons, including sophisticated communications technology has given the cartels a leg up over the Mexican police and military. Corrupt authorities who used to flaunt their newfound wealth in Mexico, now have help moving income from bribes and payoffs out of the country.

In my book, The Shadow Game, I examine how new technology can allow powerful non-governmental groups to literally stir up a war. In The Eel and the Angel, I look at the technology advantages of both China and the USA and how those differences can lead to miscalculations by governments. (Since that book came out, US-China relations have become even more strained.)

In my next Team Walker book, I look at the relationships between illegal groups in Mexico and those in China and the effects on both countries and the US. The conflict with Mexican authorities is heating up, while along the border American authorities are battling an opponent that is more sophisticated than most military groups. Among the questions I explore in writing the book is: IS THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT BEHIND THE PROBLEM? I encourage you to do your own homework and then compare it to the story line of the next Team Walker thriller. The subject and book are a great read and may just scare the hell out of you.

Rodger's Top 5: Authors I Will Meet This Month

Instead of ranking issues, people, places, or things, I’d like to introduce five authors who I will meet for the first time this month. All are new to me, and maybe to you.

As a writer of political, military thrillers and historical adventure, most of my professional life consists of research and discussions with readers and authors who write in these genres. Thrillerfest, held each July in New York, has been my conference of choice. It brings together authors, readers, agents and industry professionals with a passion for thrillers. The trip is long, expensive and worth every dime. However, one cost I find especially difficult is its timing. The first couple of weeks in July are premium days of our very short Alaskan summers.

So this year, I switched conferences. I’ll be at Bouchercon, in Nashville in August. As the odd man out at the World Mystery Convention, instead of sitting on a panel I am looking forward to moderating an amazing discussion of mystery around academia. Here are the panelists.

Frankie Bailey
Frankie is a “crime professor” in the School of Criminal Justice University at Albany, New York. What a background for someone who writes criminal mysteries. Her Mantra, “dig deeper” would work for a political thriller/historical adventure author, and based on her success, for her as well. Like me, her purpose for writing is to entertain and to act as a catalyst for social issues. Frankie personally recommended I read her book,  A Dead Man’s Honor. I’m on it!

Nova Jacobs
Based in Los Angeles, Nova’s MFA is from the USC School of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her passion is crime fiction, with a focus on science. Her debut novel, The Last Equation Of Isaac Severy, a story set among a family of mathematicians was highly rewarded. Her second book was just released. I’m looking forward to reading her first one.

Lauren Nossett
A former professor who parlayed her academic credentials into a career as a novelist, Lauren lives in Nashville. Like myself, she has a stack of unpublished novels, all part of learning this business. She describes herself as a storyteller, and I love that. She recommended that I start reading her work with the book, The Resemblance, and I just did.

Julia Dahl
This former freelance reporter’s credits include the New York Post, and crime and justice reporting for CBSNews.com. She currently teaches journalism and advises students at NYU, teaches online courses for fiction writers and does freelance manuscript editing. Her fifth novel, I Dreamed Of Falling is due for release September 2024. I look forward to her recommended reading.

Christopher Swann
As Georgia’s author of the year and with a Ph.D. in creative writing, Swann teaches in Atlanta. His setting of choice is academia which, with his day job makes him a perfect panelist for a panel on mystery in academia. His work is highly recognized, and he is deeply entrenched among southern authors. At his recommendation, I just started reading Shadow Of The Lions.

Rodger That: The Value Of The Ability To Be Alone

I love sharing a wilderness experience with someone new. For some, especially the young or people whose idea of wild places is Central Park, it takes a little time to appreciate. Being truly alone, or with two or three others, miles away from civilization is uncomfortable for many. Looking up to find a Grizzly Bear on the same sandbar you’re having lunch on gets your attention. Watching a seal raise its head and shake a salmon apart so that it can have breakfast is not an urban experience.

My grandson caught his first salmon at three years old. It was great until he watched us filet it for dinner. Over the next few years, he has taken great pride in being an amazingly knowledgeable geek. Being an outdoors person was not on his list of needed descriptions.

That is until this year. Now thirteen years old, his father and I were able to spend a few days with him at our fly-in log cabin on Lake Iliamna in Alaska. Most of our equipment is older, the kind that you can work on without a computer. He pitched in on repairs and improvements. Bears, which used to bring the hair up on the back of his neck, now brought thoughtful discussions and smiles. Hauling water from the cistern or a spring fed stream were a delight where before it was just work.

Our time out in an open boat on a lake about the same size as the state of Rhode Island, used to be scary. On our third day out, we took him on a planned three-hour fishing trip on the lake, which stretched to almost six as we worked to find comfortable places to fish as the wind raised white caps around us. At the end, he pitched in fileting the few sockeye salmon we kept, and kept his hollow leg appetite at bay until we finally plopped a fish he caught on the grill at eleven that night. Dinner on the screened porch overlooking the river under the midnight sun was a highlight for all three of us.

Perhaps it was the constraints coming from the COVID experience, cooped up at home, learning online, isolated from friends, but he struggled over the last couple of years. When I was his age, my relief from life’s stresses was always the outdoors. There is no substitute for having friends around you. But for some, spending time alone in nature helps us sort out what is important and what is real. I’m proud and happy that my grandson seems to be discovering that same remedy to life’s challenges.

You never know whether a conversation with a young teen connects or not. But I think he got it when we discussed the ever-increasing intensity of society. The cabin is held in trust. I set that up years ago when I realized that in the future, THERE MAY BE NOTHING MORE VALUABLE IN THE WORLD, THAN THE ABILITY TO BE ALONE. 

He heard that and smiled before tipping his head back and closing his eyes for a few minutes. I think that, even with his father and I only feet away, he was ALONE AND HAPPY.

Rodger That: Loving Something To Death

There is a lot of negative commentary on the wealthy. My family knows where our next meal is coming from, but we would never be considered wealthy. 

As one who researches historical fiction novels, I’ve concluded that by and large people of great wealth do a lot for society, more than government would do if they stripped away that wealth through taxation. They fund arts and culture, libraries, medical research, education, and endow non-profit organizations that make this country a better place. The funds they provide are not eroded by the endless bureaucracy that government red tape demands.

There is one place that I could challenge the use of great wealth is in conspicuous consumption. It amazes me that some can invest literally tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in yachts and other “prizes” that they seldom use. But even in that case, the construction and staffing of such trophies creates jobs.

In Alaska, there is one example of the use of wealth that is damaging. Wealthy sportsmen love to come to Alaska to fish. They come and find trophy trout that, in other areas of the country, seem amazing. Years ago, several friends who lived in Georgia used to come to Alaska as my guests. They would get off the plane marveling that one or another had joined the “teen” club fishing at home. That meant that they had landed a trout that was thirteen inches or longer. In Alaska we generally don’t even take a picture of a fish unless it is twice that size. Which gets me to my beef with wealthy sportsmen.

Over and over, I’ve seen them marvel at our fishery and after a couple of years decide that they should be able to “write-off” their trips. They buy the lodges that they love and then, manage them as they would a growing business. If the lodge was built for eight guests, expanding to twelve allowed a return on the investment. The problem is that to make them pay, the number of tourist fishermen doubled and then doubled again. The result has been incredible overfishing. Even catch and release fishing kills as many as five percent of all fish hooked, so it didn’t take long for the additional fishing pressure to begin destroying the very resource that the wealthy love. 

Alaska is a cold, beautiful, difficult place where living things struggle to survive and grow slowly. Overfishing first hits the spawning fish populations, then the slightly smaller fish that would be spawners in a few years. In the case of the river I love best, the Illiamna, the fishery went from world class to a disaster in less than a decade as new owners took over lodges and increased the pressure. I’ve worked with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, encouraging them to close the river to all fishing to allow it to revive. But my efforts are bogged down in the bureaucracy.

Today, my effort to pursue ADF&G’s closure of the Iliamna River seems irrelevant. The fishery has collapsed to the point where neither Alaska citizens nor the lodges are even fishing it, or any other rivers in what once was, the Alaska Trophy Fish Area. It has been loved to death. 

Rodger Recommends: Re-Embrace The Values That Launched This Nation

I was away doing the endless annual maintenance that a decades old log cabin in the wilderness demands. I missed the recent Presidential debate. I hadn’t been back in town an hour when the radio in my truck informed me that the debate had been combative and revealing. The next day, I took the time to view it and came away saddened. It wasn’t the bravado of one candidate or the frailness of the other. The messages from each seemed to originate in different universes.

The political divide in the USA appears almost as great as it was in the mid 1800s which led to The Civil War. But today we are not battling over something as obscene or pervasive as slavery. There have always been areas in our society and culture that divide us. In most cases they revolve around some perceiving inequity or injustice where others see problems that have been with us a long time but are improving. 

Those who see improvement believe that the economy and society are the engines of that improvement. Those who only see problems believe that the economy and society are the causes of the problems. In a world of smartphones, and laptops, many have come to expect instant gratification. I come down on the side of progress.

The inequity and injustice today are crumbs compared to just a few decades ago. No person in America is owned by others. The grinding poverty of the 1930s and 40s has been replaced by arguments over the inequity of the quality of housing and the diet of people. That isn’t to say that there aren’t problems, there are. But today, many of society’s crises are driven by a collapse in personal responsibility and a belief that somehow the government must fix everything. A democracy is poorly designed to fix major societal ills. Unlike autocratic government models, a democracy cannot dictate and then enforce solutions. What it can do is provide data and exposure.

My recommendation is that we re-embrace the values that launched this nation. That we recognize that success is progress, and that perfection is a moving target. It might also serve us to accept that we have different views and that is a good thing. As the son of a struggling single mom, I can and have embraced the push for more equity in pay between men and women. But to some today, embracing more traditional women’s values, women whose focus is directed at home and family is not a bad thing. Making scholarships available to those in need is a good thing. The US has been working to overcome the use of race as a factor for employment or educational opportunities for more than a century. It is a lot better today. It will be better tomorrow if we don’t succumb to the mistaken belief that the economy and society are the cause. They offer us the tools to continue progress.

In my new book, Tempest North, the story takes the reader through early 1800’s Spanish, Russian, Native American, North American, and revolutionary cultures and economies. Perhaps you will marvel as I do, that as we mixed all that together, we survived at all. It worked because the earlier struggles just to provide food, clothing and shelter were largely common and we learned to work together. Most of our divide today is a function of becoming a wealthy society. Let’s embrace that. Wealth forces us to discuss the difference between equity and equality. We are a society based on equity. 

Rodger’s Two Cents: Am I Relieved, Or Just Pissed?

I find it interesting when your doctor has his nurse call and ask you to come in immediately for an appointment. This is especially true when you have just undergone several tests of your heart and circulatory system. When you ask why, you are then told that there is a stenosis problem. I immediately close the book I’m working on and look up the term, stenosis.

Stenosis is generally a problem with a malfunctioning heart valve. Most often it isn’t something that sends you running to the emergency room, but it can cause a host of medical problems, such as stroke, heart attack, fainting or dizzy spells. It can kill you and the cure is open heart surgery with a valve replacement. 

So, you go. In the exam room the deadly serious nurse takes your pulse and blood pressure, and then reviews your entire medical history, lifestyle, and medications. She solemnly asks you to wait for the doctor, like you worried over this appointment for days and you were about to bolt out of there. 

Then the doctor walks in, all smiles. “Hi, remember that procedure I did for you a couple of years ago? The one where I put a stent into your leg because of a clogged artery?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how is that working out? 

“Great, I’m hiking a couple of miles a day and have full use of the leg.”

“I never got around to scheduling the follow up visit we talked about, the one right after the procedure. So, after looking at those tests you took, I wanted to follow up on the earlier surgery.”

“What about the tests?”

“Nothing there to worry about.”

“What about stenosis?”

“Probably a poor choice in terms of the appointment call. Anyway, I’m happy the procedure is working out so well. Come back in a year or so and we can talk again.”

Anyway, I find it interesting. Am I relieved, or just pissed? I’ll take relieved.

Rodger's Top 5: Authors Who Have Influenced My Writing On Conflict

As my followers know, I write in two genres: historical adventure fiction and adventure thrillers. In my stories, the reader will also find a third plot string: romance. In the Gritt Series the stories follow one family over eight generations. Early on, even I could figure out that to follow multiple generations of one family there would have to be a little dalliance leading to something more lasting. In the Team Walker series, the stories revolve around a young Navy engineer and his mentor, a retired spook; both men have allowed the demands of their careers to stifle a personal life. Both feel the loss and for the first time in their lives have attracted like-minded partners. Great, if they can find the balance to make it work. In all these stories, one question emerges: Who saves the day? I like stories where even the hero may need saving. Which gets me to my top 5 for July. I read and reread five authors who have influenced my writing on conflict.

Alistair MacLean, who’s books like Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone emphasize how difficult it is to perform as a team when faced with nearly impossible odds.

Ken Follett, with books like Eye of the Needle, reflect how passion in times of war can warp into obsession, twisting even adversaries into lovers and then into enemies.

Ernest Hemingway, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, describes how all danger is shared, and often even the protagonist cannot save themselves.

Tom Clancy, in The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising elevates the geeky analyst into the role of reluctant hero. 

Stephen Coonts, in Flight of the Intruder, explores the pain of loss that military people feel, especially when that loss seems pointless; with a special emphasis on how timid politicians, making cautious decisions turn men and women into cannon fodder.

In each of these novels, passion in times of crisis changes the characters, and ordinary people are pushed by extraordinary circumstances, into almost impossible deeds. I’ve learned from all of them.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love the superheroes of Lee Child, David Baldacci, and Dean Koontz. It’s just that the real heroes I’ve known over the years were ordinary people who did the unimaginable against all odds. Part of what drove them was protecting those they love and a desire to return to them. Few achieved victory on their own. 

Rodger’s Experience: “My Favorite Pain In The A**”

I have a fan who, once referred herself to me as, “my favorite pain in the a**.” While I never thought of her that way, I do acknowledge that as one of my targeted advance copy readers, she was brutally frank, and almost always right, whether correcting text as a copy editor, or offering precise feedback and advice on story content or characters. She’s helped me be a better writer and to present better books. 

I was quite surprised when she turned down the opportunity to show me the way on Tempest North, coming out in mid-July. So, I reached out to her and received a return email that shook me and reminded me of how fragile life can be. Elaine begged off reading Tempest North because her eyesight was deteriorating. She had lost most of the use of one eye and was trying to save the other through medical help and resting her good eye as much as possible.

As a writer, but even more as a voracious reader, I struggle to accept the pain of physically losing the ability to explore people, history, politics, passion, events, and the world, exploration only possible in books. As a cancer survivor who barely avoided losing a leg and getting a pacemaker after stepping on a stingray while snorkeling in Mexico, I’ve had my share of challenges. I’ve had to curtail some things and work around problems from my body failures. But eyesight would be a game changer. It is for Elaine, and her loss is also mine.

Our exchange of thoughts reminded me of how important it is to offer books in as many ways as possible. A couple of months ago, we agreed to participate in Amazon’s experiment to offer the books of Rodger Carlyle in audio format. We considered publishing audiobooks for the last couple of years, but the cost seemed exorbitant and would dramatically drive up the cost to my readers. But the Amazon Audible books are AI generated.

Many writers fear that AI replaces the author, and as a thriller writer who studies technology as part of most stories, there is a risk. But using AI to convert my own writing to audio at a cost that allows me to offer audio books for less than print is a positive. It’s not perfect, for example if you write about a Boeing 747, AI translates that as Boeing seven hundred forty-seven. It needs work and we need to devote more time to clean up, but it is a great tool and even the small blemishes do little to diminish the story, (about the same as a minor punctuation or grammatical error in a print book).

But most importantly, there are those who prefer audio; some for convenience, some because of learning processes and others because their ears open a world that is blurred by their eyes. MY FRIEND Elaine indicates that she retains better when reading than listening. But I am elated that I can at least offer the chance to open the world in my books to her. It will be a workaround, but one that only months ago I could never offer. My hope is that her eyesight recovers, but Elaine, until then, we will work to make our audiobooks the best they can be.

Rodger That: Visiting America’s Most Isolated School

As an author, one of my passions is encouraging young people to read, but even more fun is helping them develop a love of writing. Many larger schools offer classes in creative writing, but smaller schools do not. In some schools, Language Arts or English classes are sometimes complimented by visits from local or regional writers. But what about isolated rural schools? I believe that in these schools a writer can make the greatest impact.

Imagine my joy to be asked to present a writing workshop at the most isolated school in America. Carmen and I were invited to Diomede School on Little Diomede Island. (That’s the place that Sarah Palin was referring to when she said, ‘I can see Russia from my backyard.’)

The trip alone will work its way into a book someday: Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, then a helicopter flight for another hour and a half over the frozen ocean. You land on a tiny helipad. Just over a mile to the west is The International Dateline and one mile further is Russia’s Big Diomede Island. With winds at fifty miles an hour and temperatures below zero, the pilot can’t even shut down the engine while unloading passengers and freight. It’s only a hundred yards to the school, but that hike is over massive snow drifts and along icy walkways, and it’s damned cold. The help of two young high school men hauling our gear including books, and leading the way made the trek to the school enjoyable. 

Inside the classroom sat nine reserved, nervous Iñupiat youth. For the first hour, just getting them to say something was a challenge. But a couple of warm up exercises led by Carmen and an extraordinary local teacher finally broke the ice. We discussed the process of writing, and most importantly, rewriting, since the students’ first feedback revolved around a lack of confidence in their writing, and they felt strongly uncomfortable sharing their work. I loved the smiles when I shared how poor my first drafts are, and how, even after two or three rewrites, it was the feedback of beta readers that turned a draft book into a novel.

Our rural remote Alaska kids grow up in an environment that most Americans cannot imagine. Their home island is just a big rock sitting in the middle of the Bering Straits. On clear days, they wake up to the sun rising tomorrow in Russia, two miles away. Much of their life centers on a subsistence lifestyle, gathering and preserving a dozen different plants that grow in the four months that the island is snow free. They fish, through the ice in winter and in open boats in summer. Outside their front door, whales and walruses migrate. Seals provide red meat for meals. They hunt birds in the summer, after gathering wild bird eggs in the spring. One of the primary winter foods is king crab, caught through holes in the ice; a meal that they actually grow tired of.

Back in the classroom we finally got around to writing. Like almost everywhere, local life is taken for granted, boring. But for you reading this in Seattle, Cincinnati, or New York, the sport of racing up a 45 degree ice strewn slope on the mountain behind the village for fun, or wandering the frozen sea in front of the school is an adventure. Raising the alarm when a polar bear wanders into the village is exciting. The students began to write about those things, and the more they wrote, the more fun we were having. By the time we left, the kids were reading their work to each other and to us. The teacher had them keeping journals to inspire their writing inspiration.

One young lady in particular stood out. At the end of the first day, she handed me a three page note on why writing was so hard. Words can hurt. It’s a difficult life here. Everyone knows every other person’s business. I edited her work that evening. Reduced to two pages it was really revealing; great stuff. She was proud and should have been, and Carmen and I felt rewarded. 

At the end of the trip, we were invited back. We’re looking forward to it.