text:
Monica Dixon, Ph.D., R.D.
OPHCC Founder and board director
Monica is a health psychologist, registered dietitian, international author and national motivational speaker with over 30 years in the health promotion arena at the national, state, and local levels.
Dr. Dixon's expertise in policy and program development, coalition building and communications won her the Center for Disease Control's "Creative Leadership by Example Award" for building the first-ever statewide obesity prevention coalition here in Washington State.
She is the Founder of the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Communities Coalition and has a seat on Governor Inslee's Prevention Alliance helping set legislative health priorities for our state.
Mark Ozias
OPHCC Board President & Policy Advisor
Commissioner, Clallam County, District One – Commissioner Ozias is honored to serve as the Clallam County Commissioner representing District One, which is the east end of the county that includes Sequim.
Community health and nutrition are among his primary interests and he is pleased to be a part of the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition which is providing essential and visionary leadership in these arenas. Mark's favorite place to be when not working or cooking is on the Olympic Discovery Trail, walking the dogs and enjoying this amazing place we call home.
Rebekah Miller
OPHCC Board Secretary
Development Coordinator, Peninsula Behavioral Health – Rebekah was recruited by Peninsula Behavioral Health to establish their Development Office in 2012. Her professional background includes working at two Fortune 500 companies in California honing management, finance and corporate training skills, but she always knew that she'd be back in Washington someday.
When presented the opportunity to return to the Olympic Peninsula, she jumped at the chance and feels privileged to be in a position to serve our residents through meaningful nonprofit work. Rebekah earned a degree in English at Washington State University.
Andra Smith
OPHCC Board Treasurer
Executive Director, Sequim Food Bank  – Since 2016, Andra has been in the director position, but has been active at the Sequim Food Bank for many years, helping with food drives and fundraising as well as bookkeeping. She feels that when living in a rural and somewhat isolated area such as ours, helping each other is essential for success.
As active partners in the Peninsula Food Coalition and the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition, Andra and fellow partners are creating a unique network - working together, collaborating, and creating relationships to increasing access of fresh food and creating a healthy community.
Joseph R. Sharkey, Ph.D., M.P.H.
OPHCC Board Director & Grant and Evaluation Advisor
Professor, Department of Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences at Texas A&M School of Public Health in College Station, Texas – Dr. Sharkey received his Master of Public Health and Doctoral degrees from the Department of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health. He leads efforts to develop and implement innovative solutions to increase access and utilization of healthy foods by low-income and vulnerable children, adults, and seniors in rural and underserved areas. Dr. Sharkey also holds Affiliate and Adjunct appointments with University of Washington School of Public Health and the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at Washington State University.
His current work focuses in two geographic areas: 1) developing and implementing a father-focused, family-centered program to improve nutrition and increase physical activity among the growing Mexican American and Mexican immigrant population along the United States border with Mexico; and 2) developing and implementing a program in rural Washington State that targets adult-child pairs and integrates hands-on nutrition education with access to fresh produce from local, small scale farmers.
In addition to the OPHCC, he serves on the Advisory Council for Olympic Area Agency on Aging and the Washington State Council on Aging. Joe, his wife Wimberly, and 4-legged child Zoe make Sequim home.
Donna Pacheco
OPHCC Board Director & Marketing Liaison
Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Olympic Medical Center – Donna began her career as a typesetter and then desktop production manager at a national and regional magazine publishing company in Colorado.
In 2013, Donna and her husband sold the house, bought a travel trailer and wandered the western states before landing in Port Angeles. Now as marketing and communications coordinator at Olympic Medical Center, Donna assists with marketing efforts, event planning, press releases, internal communications, and wellness activities. She enjoys supporting the OPHCC in promoting healthy habits. At home, she and her husband love growing a variety of fresh veggies, hot peppers and juicy berries in their garden.
Patricia Lebowitz
OPHCC Board Director
Development Chair Sequim Free Clinic (DVHWC) , Vice President / Secretary Sequim Food Bank – In 2002 Patty moved to Sequim from mid-coast Maine with her husband and daughter. Her first community volunteer experience was with the Sequim VFW assisting with fundraising for the newly started Lloyd Strand Veterans Relief Fund. There she was recruited to join the Sequim Food Bank Board of Directors. In 2012, Patty joined the Board of the Dungeness Valley Health & Wellness Clinic now known as the Sequim Free Clinic.
The Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition was created from the realization that the Sequim Free Clinic and the Sequim Food Bank share some of the same clientele. Our hope is that by offering healthier choices at the food bank, we can support better health for those in need of our services. This idea has opened up the conversation to others that serve these demographics and how through partnerships and conversations we can support a healthier population.


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text:
Kirk Cousins is the answer to Jets' never-ending QB search
The football gods delivered a clear message to the Jets Tuesday night, a four-word directive that simply should not be ignored by this star-crossed franchise: GO GET KIRK COUSINS.
Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles should have done backflips up and down the halls on One Jets Drive upon hearing the news that Washington agreed in principle to trade for Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith.
The fallout: Cousins will be a free agent in March.
The Jets, who have stumbled, bumbled and fumbled matters pertaining to the sport's most important position for the better part of five decades, have the need — and ammunition — to land the clear-cut best signal caller on the market. There's no reason for Gang Green's brain trust to out-think itself.
Pay the man.
Cousins, who will turn 30 this summer and is only now entering his prime, has always made the most sense for the Jets. The time is now to finally stop plugging the most pivotal hole on the roster with short-term fixes. Cousins has at least five top-end seasons left in his right arm. He's smart, polished and ready to go from Day One.
He is the best answer to this organization's most maddening issue.
The Jets, who have stumbled, bumbled and fumbled matters pertaining to the sport's most important position for the better part of five decades, have the need – and ammunition – to land Kirk Cousins.
(Mark Tenally/AP)
Cousins would be an ideal fit for presumptive offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates, who will employ many elements of mentor Mike Shanahan's scheme. Cousins' and Bates' paths crossed during the signal caller's pre-draft visit to Chicago when Bates was the quarterbacks coach in 2012.
Shanahan, in case you forgot, discovered and drafted Cousins six years ago. A Bates-Cousins combo platter would be a solid foundation for an offense that will look very different than a year ago, when it languished in the bottom third of nearly every meaningful statistical category.
"I just think he's a good football mind," Cousins told WFAN during his series of interviews on radio row in Minnesota on Tuesday. "He's about ball and that's what matters to him. Everybody I talked to who knows him loves him. I think it was a smart hire by the Jets and I wish him well in what he does."
The Jets have the loot to lure Cousins, who is 24-24-1 with 82 touchdown passes, 36 interceptions and a 67% completion rate in three seasons as the full-time starter. Maccagnan & Co. will have about $100 million in salary-cap space to re-shape the roster. The team's preference all along has been to add a plug-and-play starter for the upcoming season.
The Jets, of course, won't be Cousins' lone suitor. The Broncos, Bills, Browns, Cardinals and Jaguars might also be in play for the prized free agent, prompting some to wonder whether Gang Green will actually break the bank this time for a free-agent QB. How much real guaranteed money will the Jets be willing to dole out?
Real talk: They don't have a choice, given the state of the franchise. The time is now.
Mike Maccagnan will have about $100 million in salary cap space to re-shape the roster.
(Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
Quality quarterbacks entering the prime of their career rarely shake free.
"There's no question in my mind that he's a special player," Shanahan told the Daily News this week. "If you don't think he's a special player, that means you don't watch him practice very often. … You can't always do it by yourself. You got to have an offense and a defense for a quarterback to be really successful … especially when you get in the playoffs. But I guarantee you he's a special guy.
"I think Kirk Cousins could be successful in any offense that he ran," Shanahan added. "Those quarterbacks are hard to find."
The Jets have a golden opportunity right in front of them.
They can't afford to screw it up.
Gary Sanchez is playing old school defense, but is the new school letting him down?
Jed Lowrie 'not close' to playing games, shining light on $20 million deal that's flopping
Brett Gardner drives in 4 runs and Yankees retake first place after 10-3 win over White Sox
The Yankee lineup is about to get supercharged
Lakers should be cautious of becoming the new Nets after monster trade
Gary Woodland denies history with U.S. Open win at Pebble Beach

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Prep: 5 minutes; Cook: 14 minutes.
Andrea's wine pick: The sweet butternut squash and tangy cheese are tailor-made for a fruit-rich, full-bodied Washington chardonnay like Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley ($13).
Cut squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and stringy flesh. Place the squash halves, cut sides down, on plastic wrap in microwave. Cook on HIGH 10 minutes or until cooked through. Scoop flesh into medium bowl, stir until smooth, and set aside.
Microwave rice according to package directions, omitting butter.
Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add shallot and optional ginger; cook 2 minutes, stirring. Add rice.
Alternately stir in squash and broth, 1/2 cup at a time; wait until each is absorbed before adding more. Remove from heat; stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Serve in bowls; garnish with cheese, if desired.


Home > Blog > 2015 > September > Millions get by on $2 a day. Can Medicaid help?
Millions get by on $2 a day. Can Medicaid help?
EDITOR'S NOTE: healthinsurance.org's Curbside Consult is a periodic informal dialogue with medical and health policy experts about pressing issues of the day.
H. Luke Shaefer – co-author of the new book, "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" – and Curbside Consult host Harold Pollack discuss the book's focus on poverty in America and consider the role that Medicaid might play in offering relief.
In this edition, I'm talking with the University of Michigan's H. Luke Shaefer, co-author of the important new book, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Co-written with the distinguished sociologist Kathryn Edin, the book includes poignant interviews with many families trying to survive on virtually no cash income in America in 2015.
Edin and Shaefer document that over a million U.S. households – including about 3 million children – live in extreme poverty in which their cash incomes are less than $2 per person per day. Many of the people affected are workers – or are trying to work – within an unforgiving economy that offers meager wages and hours to those stuck at the very bottom of the blue-collar economy.
In Part 1, Shaefer and I talk about how families survive on such meager incomes. What are the accompanying costs to adults and children of doing without basic necessities, of moving from shelter to shelter, of precariously doubling-up with friends and relatives, of having to sell blood plasma, or of becoming dependent on a dubious male partner who offers one's children a couch to sleep on?
Twenty years ago, traditional cash welfare was highly flawed, but at least offered some floor for poor parents and kids with no other source of support. What happened to these programs after welfare reform? In Part 2, I ask Shaefer whether Medicaid is helping these poorest of the poor – and whether Medicaid expansion might offer hope for the poorest states. Since I write frequently for this blog about Medicaid, we've led with that segment and included a transcript of that Medicaid-specific conversation below, but for a fuller discussion of the book and its findings, be sure to watch Part 1.
This essential book is a call to action, and one hopes it will accomplish what Michael Harrington's "The Other America" achieved in the 1960s — arousing both the nation's consciousness and conscience about the plight of a growing number of invisible citizens. The rise of such absolute poverty since the passage of welfare reform belies all the categorical talk about opportunity and the American dream.
It's hard to imagine a more important or poignant subject this campaign season. It's a special pleasure to hold this conversation, since I was one of Professor Shaefer's graduate school mentors.
Harold: … $2 a Day, which is just a rocking best-seller by academic standards at the moment. It's really had a big impact and we were talking about how you've been doing briefings in Washington DC at the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities and with Senate folks and have some great excerpts planned which I won't spoil but a lot of media outlets that are showing interest in the book. Why do you think by the way it's attracted such interest?
Luke: I think that's a good question. I mean I've been interested to see what people picked up on and I think of all the articles that have gotten play perhaps the one that has come back to mean more the most was an excerpt in The Atlantic … it really focused on Jessica Compton … one of the moms who tries to donate plasma twice a week. It's the only source of income that her family has.
That seemed to have a very much a visceral impact on people I think so … so you know what we really try to do was tell a big-picture story about what's going on in the low-wage labor market and what's going on with our government programs for the poor. And a big piece of that is Medicaid, so I'm excited to talk about that. But to do it through stories and to do it through people's lives and I think to some just degree we were successful in sort of capturing people's attention and bringing some of it home, so I'm really happy about that.
Harold: But why is CHIP so important and Medicaid so important for low-income kids?
Luke: Well, we note this in our book and it was really the genesis of this paper of one of the great things we did in the 1990s was pass SCHIP in 1997 … so sort of on the heels of the '96 welfare reform. And I think going along with this trend towards trying to provide supports to low-income working families.
So we did this expansion of SCHIP and allowed states some flexibility in just providing coverage to poor and low-income kids of the income distribution and states really responded. And I think all states have SCHIP eligibility thresholds that reach 200 percent or twice the property rate … some go up to 300 and even a little bit more than that … and it really caused a shock downwards in the number of uninsured kids.
And so you might see this big financial effect of reducing what people were paying themselves and there was some methodological challenges of selection into the program and we particularly saw that kids who were in worse health tended to move from private to public and we dealt with that in using some instrumental variables that were well documented in the literature.
And we found this quite significant impact on reducing medical costs for families of a switch from private to public and I think since then that's been substantiated in some experimental results that we had out of Oregon of course.
Harold: And we'll get to Oregon in a minute but I think just to build on what you said for a moment … both the good and bad about what we found … good in terms of sick kids in particular really benefited from going on to CHIP and there was definitely more of a movement of kids with health issues into the program than there was among other kids and at one point we calculated it's worth something like $1,500 per family that was provided when you think about the two-dollar-a-day standard in your book that's a substantial amount.
Now one of the challenges that really bring out the importance of the Medicaid expansion is implicit in that paper which is as we expanded CHIP there are more and more families where adults would go without insurance and they'd be like "OK, I can get my kid on CHIP. I can't really afford insurance for myself …" and there was a lot of that in our data and there's actually a lot of that in your book … a lot of the kids that you talk about they're pretty well insured as you describe it but not at all true and for the adults.
Luke: Yep that's absolutely what we found in fact I might say that Medicaid did the best of blanket covering people … for kids and then for the adults, we would see a lot that weren't covered and we had a few experiences … which I think we're not that uncommon … where often, when a state hits a budget crunch, it's adult Medicaid services that are the first to go … so like adult dental coverage in Medicaid.
We saw examples where we had Jennifer Hernandez in Chicago … has a long work history … super hard worker. Her gums were in just awful condition. And I found it a little hard look at her I'm embarrassed to say. We … I actually had a trained social worker call around the city of Chicago just trying to find a free dental clinic that would give her free care. She has no money and there was not a … we couldn't find a place … that's not to say doesn't exist but trained social worker couldn't find it and we looked into it the adult Medicaid dental insurance had just been cut like a month before we met her and I think that's indicative … you know so you had on coverage not on coverage for the adults as well as sort of changes in what that means at least around the edges.
Harold: Now how do people in states that just didn't expand Medicaid … I mean you went down to the Mississippi Delta and actually I guess in your Tennessee work Medicaid did not expand … was it palpable that there was a real difference there for families because there was no Medicaid expansion or is that something that's a little early to see? What you see as far as the Medicaid issue goes.
Luke: Well I think we saw it so like one interesting story was Paul Heckwelder and his wife in Cleveland … they were in one of these situations where all of their kids were grown. They had like 20 people living in their two-bedroom house but she was terribly sick and had no health insurance so I think she was maybe 59, 60 … she was in this sort of gap. So all of her kids are grown she wasn't eligible and she had a stack of medical bills that was I mean I think we took a picture of it like it was this high.
And that should be solved in Ohio I mean at least there's something we can get her on now with the expansion right and we saw that in Chicago too … I think the adults were more likely but you know we were mostly with adults with kids but I think everyone we talked to in Appalachia … the parents were not covered and in the Mississippi Delta I think I mean we didn't exactly look at this but you know another problem in the Mississippi Delta was just plain access.
You know, there was a county one of the counties in the area we were in … there's no ambulance service, we were told by multiple people, so people can't even get to the hospital.
Harold: You know one of the points that that raises is that there's sort of two ways that Medicaid expansion helps … it helps the individual secure access but it also provides the financial foundation for the whole ecosystem of care and so one of the things that so many of the severely poor people that you're interviewing … even if they're in a state that has Medicaid expansion … if they're undocumented or if they have life issues they may be turning to things like the emergency department and one of the things that has been really strong since health reform is that uncompensated care costs have just plummeted in the expansion states and they haven't budged in the non-expansion states at all.
And if you look at all the major private for-profit hospitals in their financial reports, they've all emphasized this and in fact their stock all spikes whenever there was a … both Supreme Court decisions that were favorable to the Affordable Care Act … their stock spiked the moment that there was favorable news. And so if you want to pay for an ambulance … even if an individual is uninsured … for that ride if there's sort of seven other people that you can get paid for, then you can actually have an ambulance.
Luke: It's almost like an insurance pool for the providers. I mean it reduces the risk, I guess, I'm not sure how to say that.
Harold: And there's also economies of scale that make it easy for … you know if there's big fixed costs, Medicaid can help pay for those and then it's a lot easier to help that extra patient who's got an issue that's hard to get paid for and you go down to the Mississippi Delta and there's just no oxygen for that medical ecosystem. It's a really tough situation and it's a really tough situation for the local economy too because probably some of the people you interviewed could have driven that ambulance or could have done something.
Luke: Yep. Exactly. Have we seen … so we've seen reductions in uncompensated care … have we seen any changes in the cost curve, Harold? Do we think it's going to result in lowering costs overall or does it still sort of remain to be seen?
Harold: I think it remains to be seen. The remarkable thing is that it certainly has not increased costs. I mean, Medicaid is so cheap, compared to other forms of insurance. The irony is all of the political debate is about people who are really not that expensive to take care of and … on average … I mean some of the people you interviewed had really serious health problems and have to be dealt with. A lot of those people … they have pretty basic needs and overall, they're not that expensive.
So what's happened in terms of the cost curve is that the overall cost curve has been bent down in a favorable direction and there are parts of ACA that have helped with that. I think it's mostly helped in Medicare and some other parts of the system. But the Medicaid expansion has been quite economical and I think its' been … I think there have been some services that there's more intense needs for and some of it comes up in your book … a lot of people using mental and behavioral health services.
There's just a lot of mental health need among some of the new enrollees so we have to deal with that. We haven't figured out how to get some of the systems like substance abuse treatment that have existed off on their own in a silo … they have to figure out how to work with Medicaid. And some of that's very nitty gritty stuff [crosstalk] does our computer system bill Medicaid and all that kind of stuff.
So the jury is still out about the blocking and tackling of it but one thing that we do know is that the cost of it has … you know the forcecast for costs going out are actually lower than they were predicted to be in 2010 for Medicaid even taking into account that not every state's expanded and all that kind of stuff.
You also mentioned the Oregon experiment which speaks to how Medicaid helps but maybe doesn't help enough in peoples lives. I wonder if you wanted to pick up on that.
Luke: Well yeah so the Oregon Medicaid experiment was sort of a randomized trial of adults who were not eligible in Oregon off of a very long waiting list and my interpretation … and you're more expert than this … we randomized and we followed health outcomes for a couple of years and financial outcomes and mental health outcomes and the physical health outcomes, I think, were maybe a disappointment to people that there wasn't a lot of impact in things that you know some of our best people thought we should be able to impact.
The financial outcomes, I think, were pretty good … right … that we actually saw reduced out-of-pocket expenditures maybe at levels that were in the similar scale of what we found in our paper and actually there was some really positive mental health results … right … that we reduced sort of anxiety and depression. And as I've been meeting with families, I think, you know in terms of the physical health, there's just this … it seems to me like there's this compounding effect for people at the very bottom that you're talking about repeated exposure to stress and to trauma.
And I don't know if I mentioned in our last segment but I got into the literature on toxic stress and was … it was just really quite striking as I'd read the papers and then go out into the field and I'd feel like I could see the manifestations of toxic stress exactly as they sort of had been written about in the paper. And I think it just takes a long time to, I think, impact health outcomes when you're dealing with that situation and frankly I think it's probably too much to ask the health care system to do on its own … you know the problems that are really impacting the health and I know you've written on this … are really outside of the domain.
If you've got these unstable living arrangements … unstable jobs … it's very hard to keep continuity of care … right … among physicians and you know … if you're just constantly dealing with the stress of "where's my … where's the money gonna come to keep on going for another day" … you know … I'm just not sure we can sort of expect that providing health insurance to solve sort of all the health problems that people face.
And people were very happy with the coverage that they got. People get into … all the data we have are when people get onto Medicaid, they get appointments … you know, they're just as happy with their coverage as basically they would be under the kind of private insurance they're likely to get if they say "Are they as happy with Medicaid as they might be with insurance that Harold Pollock gets that cost $20,000 a year for my family?" Probably not. There's a difference there but that's not what that's not what they're going to be getting … and also some of the expectations … the Oregon experiment was pretty short and there weren't that many people with serious health problems.
So we really have no idea based … I think we learned from that experiment if you're expecting a really quick benefit on something like high blood pressure, you're probably not going to see it right away.
Luke: Yeah, it's going to take a while … and was it a pretty low take-up, Harold, in terms of the take-up group?
Harold: Yeah. It was pretty low take-up for a variety of reasons just having to do with the mechanics of running an experiment. It was beautifully done experiment that took all of that stuff into account but what that led to was it meant that you would've had to have seen a pretty dramatic effect in a pretty small number of people in order for the experiment to actually see that there's benefit.
So if we for example looked at people with diabetes … were we lowering their blood sugar level? Really, they just didn't have the ability to see that although I think that I was disappointed that we didn't see more benefit for some things like blood pressure and also things like smoking … I think this is where gets into the whole psychosocial dimension. All your folks were … a lot of your folks were smoking … and we don't see any real benefits from improving people's health behaviors and I think that that's a big … that's one area where health insurance just seems to be less powerful than we'd like it to be.
Harold: Yeah out it's kind of amazing especially since it's been a rocky road; it's been a big challenge, but I think you could argue that the past five years have been the best five years in the history of health policy if you look at … costs have really come under control to a much greater degree … The quality of healthcare has gone up a lot … More people are insured and there's been continued progress that I don't think people fully appreciate. Death rates have really been dropping consistently over like the past 20 years and it's been continuing.
If you look at age-adjusted death rates in America it's just remarkable … we just continue to … largely because cardiovascular diseases … we're doing a better job on … smoking is down … Americans are really living longer and the health system is genuinely getting better. Now it shouldn't cost $3 trillion to get the kind of outcomes we're seeing but I'm thinking, you know, if we can have another five years that looks like the last five years in terms of progress … especially if we can get a couple of states like Texas and Florida and Mississippi to come into the Medicaid expansion … we're going to have a healthier country.
And it's a little hard to see that now because we're sitting here debating Donald Trump-level of policy discourse, but it's there and I hope that … I think your book actually is going to contribute to this because it highlights the problems that we're not dealing with well at the very bottom where we really do have a lot of public health problems we could deal with.
And so congratulations on its success but also I'm rooting for your book success partly because I'm rooting for you but partly because I just think that it's highlighting these issues that we just we need to get to and that we have the capacity now with the Medicaid expansion and other tools to really go after in a better way.
Harold: Ithink this is good place to to stop this portion of the interview but I'm very gratified that you're getting the kind of attention that you're getting because I think there are a lot of those people living on $2 a day could use a little exposure and your book does that beautifully so congratulations on that.
Luke: I appreciate that … and in this interview I feel like I learned more from you then you possibly learned from me so … It's always good to talk to you.
Harold: Well, thank you. You paid me tuition so it seems like it should go that way. Great to talk to you.
Luke: All right. Take care.


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Review: MURDER ON THE THIRTY FIRST FLOOR, Per Wahloo
this edition translated from Swedish into English by Sarah Death
published by Vintage Books 2011
ISBN 978-0-09955469
In an unnamed country, in an unnamed year sometime in the future, Chief Inspector Jensen of the Sixteenth Division is called in after the publishers controlling the entire country's newspapers and magazines receive a threat to blow up their building, in retaliation for a murder they are accused of committing. The building is evacuated, but the bomb fails to explode and Jensen is given seven days in which to track down the letter writer.
Jensen has never had a case he could not solve before, but as his investigation into the identity of the letter writer begins it soon becomes clear that the directors of the publishers have their own secrets, not least the identity of the 'Special Department' on the thirty first floor; the only department not permitted to be evacuated after the bomb threat.
This novel comes before THE STEEL SPRING which I reviewed recently. Again it is a dystopian novel. In the unnamed country crime rates are falling and so are birth rates, but the government has recently made it illegal to become inebriated not only in public but also at home. Every night the jails are filled with drunks, and the government makes a small fortune by fining the inebriates.
Publishing of all sorts has become a monopoly of the group that owns The Skyscraper, the 31 storey building that dominates the capital city's skyline. As a result the people are fed a bland diet of feel good material whatever their choice of reading. The Skyscraper employs over 4,000 people and these all have to be evacuated when the bomb threat arrives by post. Stopping the presses even for a short time is extremely expensive, and the managing director of the publishing group contacts the chief of police for advice and immediate action. Neither is pleased when Chief Inspector Jensen advises that they must evacuate the building as he can't guarantee safety of those inside. However there is no bomb.
Jensen is given seven days to find out who sent the threat. His life is complicated by the fact that the pain that eventually sends him out of the country for a transplant in THE STEEL SPRING is ever present, but he is a dogged investigator and eventually finds out the truth.
This is not your every day crime fiction novel and those who have no taste for political polemic or satire might like to steer clear of it.
I've also reviewed - Sjowall, Maj & Wahloo, Per:
4.7, ROSEANNA
4.7, THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE
4.5, THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED
4.5, MURDER AT THE SAVOY
4.7, THE ABOMINABLE MAN
Per Wahloo
4.1 THE STEEL SPRING
I read this for my participation in the Vintage Mystery Bingo.
Labels: 2015 Nordic challenge, book review, library book, Per Wahloo, translated, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Review: CLOSED FOR WINTER, Jorn Lier Horst
first published in 2011
translated from Norwegian into English by Ann Bruce 2013 and published by Sandstone Press
#7 in the William Wisting series, second to be translated into English
Winner of Norway's Booksellers' Prize 2012
Synopsis (publisher)
Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter but, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive. Bakkerud's cottage is ransacked by burglars and next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death.
Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new. Against his wishes, his daughter Line decides to stay in one of the summer cottages at the mouth of the fjord. Wisting's unease does not diminish when they discover several more corpses on the deserted archipelago. Meanwhile, dead birds are dropping from the sky.
There is a nice introduction to William Wisting at the beginning of this novel, giving the reader a description of the setting, and Wisting's personal history. The foreword also points out how Jorn Lier Horst draws on his own deep experience of police procedures and processes in these novels, resulting in a strong sense of these novels being grounded in reality.
CLOSED FOR WINTER brings two different types of crime together: those who want to take advantage of Norway's wealth by burglarising summer cottages now closed up for winter, and drug runners bringing cocaine into Norway and using it as a base for money laundering.
Wisting has recently returned from sick leave, a breakdown, worn down by thirty years of increasingly complex and disillusioning police work. There are times when he wonders if he has returned too soon. This seems to lead quite naturally into reflection by the author into the state of Norwegian society, and how it compares with its near neighbours.
A very satisfying read.
I've also reviewed
4.7, DREGS
Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. He has worked as a policeman in Larvik since 1995. His debut novel in 2004, Key Witness, was based on a true murder story. The William Wisting novel series has been extremely successful in his native Norway as well as Germany and the Netherlands. DREGS was his first book published in English. In 2013 the next novel in this series, The Hunting Dogs, won both the prestigious Golden Revolver, for best Norwegian crime, and The Glass Key. See more
Labels: 2015 Nordic challenge, book review, Jorn Lier Horst, library book, translated
Review: THE MONOGRAM MURDERS, Sophie Hannah
this edition published by William Morrow, Harper Collins Publishers
Synopsis (publishers)
Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. She is terrified – but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.
Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim...
I feel pretty strongly about what I have called elsewhere "coat-tails" writing. Nevertheless I was interested to see whether Sophie Hannah could capture anything like the spirit of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. I guess that is what a lot of Agatha Christie readers want to know, and I have decided to try to judge THE MONOGRAM MURDERS on its own merits, as far as I can.
The setting is February 1929 in London. According to the Hercule Poirot chronology, this is thirteen years after Poirot left Belgium and arrived in England as a refugee. In 1925 he "officially" retired, at the age of about 61. So he is really at the height of his deductive powers, has been working privately, but has not been very satisfied with the kind of work he has managed to get.
Here are the stories set around this date.
1926 MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
THE MURDER ON THE BLUE TRAIN
1929 "The Third Floor Flat"
"The Underdog"
"Wasp's Nest"
1930 BLACK COFFEE (play by Christie)
"The Second Gong" (Expanded with new ending as "Dead Man's Mirror")
"The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest" (expanded and updated as "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest" in the fifties)
The story is narrated by a young Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Edward Catchpool. He and Poirot have rooms in a London lodging house belonging to Mrs Blanche Unsworth. From the lodging house Poirot can see his own apartment house, where he normally lives, but he has spread the rumour that he has gone on vacation out of London. The narration has been completed it seems some time after the events. I found the placement of the story in the Poirot chronology interesting and that probably worked better than later in Poirot's life.
I considered several things as I read this book: had the author captured Agatha Christie's style? Did I recognise this Hercule Poirot? Did the plot hold together?
Well, there were glimpses of the original Hercule Poirot - there was his faith in his own ability to solve the case logically, and his disparagement of others like Catchpool who could not match his abilities. He played his cards very close to his chest, not wanting to share his knowledge or conclusions. But there was little description of Poirot's physical appearance, not much sense of his dapperness or fastidiousness.
The plot worked well enough but was rather more convoluted than an original Christie, resulting in a slightly longer book. There were passages that I could not envisage Christie having written. Christie had a sparer style than displayed in this novel. Some parts of the story seem almost theatrical particularly when Poirot gathers a large audience of the staff at the Bloxham hotel so that he can confront the guilty persons. During the story we hear different interpretations of what has happened, and much depends on the timing of when things happen. Red herrings abound. So it is very easy for Catchpool and the readers to become a little confused.
Worth the read? Yes, you really do want to know what actually happened and all is not revealed until the very end. But I don't want to see another: I for one don't want THE MONOGRAM MURDERS to be beginning of a string of pseudo-Christies.
While I read this for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, I have also read the following by Sophie Hannah.
Labels: 2015 British reading challenge, Agatha Christie Challenge, book review, library book, Sophie Hannah
Let's Celebrate Australia Day 2015
Today, January 26th, is Australia Day.
I thought you might like to see a list of the crime fiction by Australian authors I have read in the past 12 months.
4.3, MASTERMIND, Helen Goltz
4.7, WEB OF DECEIT, Katherine Howell
5.0, HADES, Candice Fox
4.4, DEATH OF A SWAGMAN, Arthur Upfield
3.9, HANK OF HAIR, Charlotte Jay
4.5, ARMS FOR ADONIS, Charlotte Jay
4.5, THE DYING BEACH, Angela Savage
4.5, THE DONOR, Helen Fitzgerald
4.3, THIN BLOOD, Vicki Tyley
4.7, I CAME TO SAY GOODBYE, Caroline Overington
4.7, GETTING WARMER, Alan Carter
4.4, DRIVE BY, Michael Duffy
4.8, FATAL IMPACT, Kathryn Fox
4.4, DEATH BY BEAUTY, Gabrielle Lord
4.5, BLOOD SECRET, Jaye Ford
4.8, PRESENT DARKNESS, Malla Nunn
4.9, ST KILDA BLUES - Geoffrey McGeachin
4.5, SILENT KILL, Peter Corris
4.6, ELEMENTAL, Amanda Curtin
4.6, FALLING GLASS, Adrian McKinty
5.0, LIFE OR DEATH, Michael Robotham
3.5, THE CARTOGRAPHER, Peter Twohig
4.7, THE LOST GIRLS, Wendy James
4.4, DANGEROUS LIAISON, Vicki Tyley
4.9, IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE, Adrian McKinty
4.5, QUICK, Steve Worland
4.7, ALREADY DEAD, Jaye Ford
4.5, CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?, Caroline Overington
4.5, MOTHERS WHO MURDER, Xanthe Mallett
4.3, A FATAL TIDE, Steve Sailah
4.4, COUNSEL OF CHOICE, Stuart Littlemore
4.5, ANTIDOTE TO MURDER, Felicity Young
Labels: Australia Day, Australian authors
Review: HADES, Candice Fox
first published by Bantam (Random House Australia) 2014
winner Best First Fiction, Ned Kelly Award, 2014
Synopsis (Random House Australia)
A dark, compelling and original thriller that will have you spellbound from its atmospheric opening pages to its shocking climax.
Hades Archer surrounds himself with the things others leave behind. Their trash becomes the twisted sculptures that line his junkyard. The bodies they want disposed of become his problem – for a fee.
Then one night a man arrives on his doorstep, clutching a small bundle that he wants 'lost'. And Hades makes a decision that will change everything...
Twenty years later, homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer. But there's something strange about Eden and her brother, Eric. Something he can't quite put his finger on.
At first, as they race to catch a very different kind of serial killer, his partner's sharp instincts come in handy. But soon Frank's wondering if she's as dangerous as the man they hunt. -
This is a cleverly layered novel, superbly written, that flits between the past and the present, between the serial killer case the Sydney based police are currently focussing on, and Eden Archer's story.
Eden Archer and her brother have a secondary agenda, one which Hades, their adoptive father, has trained them for all their life. Those who get in the way, those who want to know too much and to get too close, are putting their own lives on the line.
(from Random House Australia)
Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney's western suburbs composed of half-, adopted and pseudo siblings. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.
As a cynical and trouble-making teenager, her crime and gothic fiction writing was an escape from the calamity of her home life. She was constantly in trouble for reading Anne Rice in church and scaring her friends with tales from Australia's wealth of true crime writers.
Bankstown born and bred, she failed to conform to military life in a brief stint as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy at age eighteen. At twenty, she turned her hand to academia, and taught high school through two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees. Candice lectures in writing at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, while undertaking a PhD in literary censorship and terrorism.
Hades is her first novel, and won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014. Eden, its sequel, is published in December.
See another review at AustCrime.
Labels: 2015 Aussie Author challenge, 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 global reading challenge, Australian female author, book review, debut title, library book, Ned Kelly award, new to me authors 2015
Review: THE CORNISH COAST MURDER, John Bude
originally published 1935, this digital edition published 2014
foreword by Martin Edwards
Publisher: The British Library Publishing Division (February 19, 2014)
ASIN: B00IJYGJHM
I bought it
The Reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside – but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. The vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, a secretive and ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head.
The local police inspector is baffled by the complete absence of clues. Suspicion seems to fall on Tregarthan's niece, Ruth – but surely that young woman lacks the motive to shoot her uncle dead in cold blood? Luckily for Inspector Bigswell, the Reverend Dodd is on hand, and ready to put his keen understanding of the criminal mind to the test.
This novel from the golden age of British crime fiction is set against the vividly described backdrop of a fishing village on Cornwall's south coast.
Despite the fact that it was published in 1935, this is a delightful find for those who love cozies, with a brilliant foreword by Martin Edwards. Bude (a pseudonym used by Ernest Ellsmore) published over 30 detective novels, all stand alones, in just over 20 years, and this was his debut title in detective fiction.
A question that the Reverend Dodd asks himself early on is whether the methods he uses to solve the puzzles in the detective fiction would work as well if he were confronted by the real thing. And then he has the opportunity to assist Inspector Bigswell in the solving of a real life murder, and he knows he will never feel the same about crime fiction.
As I said, a delightful read.
Labels: 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 British reading challenge, book review, e-book challenge, John Bude, kindle, new to me authors, new to me authors 2015, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Review: THE STEEL SPRING, Per Wahloo
This edition published 2013 by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Originally published 1968
translated from Swedish into English by Sarah Death 2013
from my local library
Chief Inspector Jensen is a policeman in an unnamed European country where the government has criminalized being drunk, where newspapers are designed for reassurance, and where the city centers have been demolished to devote more space to gleaming new highways.
Recovering in a hospital room abroad after a liver transplant, Jensen receives a note instructing him to return home immediately, but when he reaches the airport he discovers that all flights home have been cancelled and all communication from within his homeland has ceased. One of the last messages sent requested urgent medical help from abroad. But what has happen? Has an epidemic taken hold? And why has the government fled the capital? To penetrate the silence and mystery that has fallen over the country and its people, Jensen returns only to discover the unthinkable.
This was the last novel that Per Wahloo wrote on his own. (see Fantastic Fiction) All the later ones, the last six in the ten title Martin Beck series, were written in partnership with Maj Sjowal. THE STEEL SPRING is the only one of his stand-alone novels that I have read so far, although I have some more on my radar.
Although crimes have obviously been committed, the plot is not really crime fiction, but rather is dystopian, emerging from his Marxist-based vision of where Swedish society is headed. It is heavily infused with disillusionment and scary messages. In contrast to other dystopian novels that I have read, it is not a world apocalypse that will destroy Sweden, but rather it will self-combust.
He does not name Sweden in the novel, probably to escape some sort of prosecution, but every one who read the novel at the time would know which country he was referring to. Hakan Nesser uses a similar ploy in his novels set in an unnamed Scandinavian country, although I don't think his have the political overtones of THE STEEL SPRING (and perhaps others by Per Wahloo).
Although there is at least one mystery strand, the tone of the novel is polemic and didactic, and will not suit some readers. On the other hand it reminded me of FAHRENHEIT 451 (Ray Bradbury), NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Cormac McCarthy), and Chris Womersley's THE LOW ROAD. And it is not unknown for crime fiction writers to convey social messages through their work (think about Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell and others).
Labels: 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, book review, library book, Per Wahloo, translated, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Review: WEB OF DECEIT, Katherine Howell
first published by Pan Macmillan Australia 2013
#6 in the Ella Marconi series
source: my TBR
Synopsis (Pan Macmillan Australia)
When paramedics Jane and Alex encounter a man refusing to get out of his crashed car with bystanders saying he deliberately drove into a pole, it looks like a desperate cry for help. His frantic claim that someone is out to get him adds to their thinking that he is delusional.
Later that day he is found dead under a train in what might be a suicide, but Jane is no longer so sure: she remembers the raw terror in his eyes.
Detective Ella Marconi shares Jane's doubts, which are only compounded when the case becomes increasingly tangled. The victim's boss tries to commit suicide when being questioned, a witness flees their attempt to interview her, and then to confuse matters further, a woman is beaten unconscious in front of Jane's house and Alex's daughter goes missing.
Ella is at a loss to know how all these clues add up, and feels the investigation is being held back by her budget-focused boss. Then, just when she thinks she's closing in on the right person, a shocking turn of events puts more people in danger and might just see the killer slip through her hands.
WEB OF DECEIT follows the same structure as Howell's earlier novels in the series: police investigations running in parallel with paramedics whose callout allows the reader to see another side of a victim. The result is four strong characters who are dedicated to the work that they are doing. But they all have more personal relationships on their minds as well, and I think that is what makes them seem so real. None of us operates in a vacuum. Our personal lives impinge on our work and vice versa.
Here is a well plotted novel written by an accomplished and established Australian author, the first to win two Davitt awards.
I have two novels in this series to catch up on: DESERVING DEATH published in 2014, and TELL THE TRUTH due out Feb 2015. I am looking forward to reading both of them!
5.0, FRANTIC - #1 (mini review) - 2007
4.6, THE DARKEST HOUR - #2 - 2008
4.8, COLD JUSTICE - #3 -2010
4.8, VIOLENT EXPOSURE -#4 - 2010
4.8, SILENT FEAR -#5 - 2012
Labels: 2015 A-Z Author Challenge, 2015 Aussie Author challenge, 2015 Mt TBR Challenge, Aussie female author, Authors A to Z reading challenge 2015, book review, Katherine Howell
Review: PUT ON BY CUNNING, Ruth Rendell - audio book
source: unabridged audio book from Audible.com
Narrated by: Charles Kay
Series: Inspector Wexford, Book 11
aka DEATH NOTES
Sir Manuel Camargue, yesterday one of the most celebrated musicians of his time, today floats face down in the lake near his sprawling English country house.
The consensus is accidental death -- but Inspector Wexford knows the stench of murder most foul when he smells it. Particularly in the company of two suspects -- one, the victim's fiancee, who is too young to be true, the other his daughter who may be no kin and even less kind . . .
This made excellent listening. Charles Kay does a very good job of narration and particularly allows you to savour Ruth Rendell's wonderful writing. There are little bits of particularly British humour that come over very well.
The central story focuses on trying to prove whether the young woman who claims to be Sir Manuel Carmargue's only daughter, estranged from her father for 19 years, is who she is. Following threads from what is really an unofficial investigation, Wexford takes wife Dora to Los Angeles where he attempts to mix work with pleasure, and he and his offsider Burdon take a work trip to Paris to apprehend a murderer before he strikes again.
Highly recommendable.
FROM DOON WITH DEATH
4.7, THE MONSTER IN THE BOX
4.5, A NEW LEASE OF DEATH
4.6, THE VAULT
4.6, THE BEST MAN TO DIE
4.5, A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
4.5, THE SAINT ZITA SOCIETY
4.6, THE MASTER OF THE MOOR
4.5, NO MAN'S NIGHTINGALE
Labels: 2015, 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 British reading challenge, audio book, book review, Ruth Rendell, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Plans, plans, plans
Every now and again I make plans about what I am going to read next.
As you know I participate in a number of reading challenges which are supposed to extend my reading.
Without a list, I sometimes lose my way.
If you look in the right hand column you will see this "little" list which I have selected from all I have on offer.
But they are really just the tip of the iceberg.
I also get tempted from what I see others reading and reviewing. I think maybe I am a book kleptomaniac.
from Net Galley
DEATH OF A LIAR, M.C. Beaton
EDEN, Candice Fox
ODD FELLOWS, Nicholas Shakespear
from my TBR
PAVING THE NEW ROAD, Sulari Gentil
WEB OF DECEIT, Katherine Howell
PUT ON BY CUNNING, Ruth Rendell
THEY FOUND HIM DEAD, Georgette Heyer
from my Kindle
THE CARTER OF 'LA PROVIDENCE', Georges Simenon
IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT, Charles Norris Williams
THE CORNISH COAST MURDER, John Bude
THE KIZUNA COAST, Sujata Massey
GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC, Helen Goltz
THE FOURTH REICH, Helen Goltz
from the library
HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN, Louise Penny
THE ART OF KILLING WELL, Marco Malvadi
THE BACK ROAD, Rachel Abbott
THE STEEL SPRING, Per Wahloo
THE TERRORISTS, Sjowall & Wahloo
MURDER ON THE THIRTY FIRST FLOOR, Per Wahloo
So now you can, maybe, follow what I am reading, but I can't guarantee the list will shrink - it may even disappear!
Labels: reading list
Review: MASTERMIND, Helen Goltz
source: review copy from author
this edition published by Atlas Productions 2014
#1 in the Mitchell Parker series
Synopsis (author website)
You are playing a game online; masterminding the perfect crime. Or at least you think it's a game. A seemingly normal web site inviting game players to mastermind the perfect crime is the façade for billionaire Lawrence Hackett's real-life game of Mastermind—an invitation-only competition for a select few to see who can perform the perfect heist and win an enormous bounty.
Special Agent Mitchell Parker and his team learn the magnitude of the international crime ring just in time. Washington, London, Paris … the clock is on. If you love it when a plan comes together, hold on tight, because nothing is about to go right! Available from Atlas Productions and Amazon
Contestants in Mastermind must plan and carry out the perfect crime. A prize pool of five million pounds will be divided among the Mastermind entrants who succeed. Entry is by invitation and only six entries will be selected to play. Each Mastermind act is allocated a supervisor and must take place in the month of November. Each Mastermind crime has to be unique, a crime that has never been carried out before. There have been two rounds of Mastermind in the past, and five crimes have been successful. The stakes are high, but the profits for the brains behind it are high as well.
Mitchell Parker's team from the FBI's Trans national Crimes Unit uncovers something suspicious during a routine surveillance of university activities, an extended booking of a high level science lab, and the rollercoaster ride of the novel begins there. The story is a thriller, a times a real page turner, a mix of ambitious plot lines and personal interest stories.
Helen Goltz is a new-to-me Australian author although she now has two books in this series published, and another one due out soon. I thought there were signs that MASTERMIND is a debut title, a few wavery plot lines, and some questions that at the end I had no answer to, but in general it is a good read.
Goltz also is the author of a number of other titles. See her website for more details.
Labels: 2015 Aussie Author challenge, 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, Australian author, Australian female author, book review, debut title, Helen Goltz, new to me authors, new to me authors 2015
Review: GAME FOR FIVE, Marco Malvaldi
first published 2007, this edition published 2014
translated from Italian into English by Howard Curtis
#1 in the BAR LUME series
At the Bar Lume, in a small coastal resort near Livorno, between shots of espresso and hands of cards, four old-timers and Massimo, the barman, wile away the time chatting, arguing, and theorizing about the murder of a young woman in their town.
The girl's body was found in a dumpster bin on the edge of town. The victim's now notoriously licentious lifestyle has everyone thinking that her death had something to do with the world of drug trafficking and dangerous sex that she inhabited. The prime suspects in the case are two of the girl's nightlife associates. But out of love of gossip and just to pass the time, the group of old friends at the Bar Lume begin to pull the case to pieces, forcing the Barman Massimo into the role of amateur sleuth.
Here is a victory for pensioners! The four old-timers analyze the crime and the suspects, contextualizing both, and in the process put a comic spin on their often narrow-minded neighbors. From this "investigation," in Malvadi's lively and colorful prose, emerges a fascinating picture of life in a small town that, for all its faults, stubbornly resists the devastation of mindless global tourism.
This is an entertaining and relatively brief read. The plot is carefully layered, plenty of red herrings, and a suspect who doesn't emerge until almost the end. Most of the theorising comes from Massimo whose observations are detailed enough to give him indications of things that are not quite right.
Labels: book review, debut title, library book, Marco Malvaldi, new to me authors, new to me authors 2015, translated
Review: THIN AIR, Ann Cleeves - audio book
source: Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com (I bought it)
Narrated by: Kenny Blyth
Length: 10 hrs
Series: Shetland Island, Book 6
original published 2014
A group of old university friends travel to Unst to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge.
Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to investigate.
Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen a ghost. Her interest in a ghost had seemed unhealthy to her friends. But Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor's death than they first thought.
As you'll see from the list below, I love catching up with the Shetland series. There's plenty of mystery in THIN AIR, as well as human interest as Jimmy Perez tries to re-establish his life as a detective in the islands. We learn too a little more about Jimmy's personal life.
In addition, with its island setting THIN AIR is really a variant of locked room mystery, with limited access to the island, and also a limited number of murder suspects: one of the members of the wedding party, or a local resident? And for what motive? Ann Cleeves does a good job with tantalising red herrings.
When a second person is murdered the investigators are convinced there must be a connection between the two murders but who of the incomers knew the second victim or had a reason to kill him? And why would a resident kill both? And is there a connection with "Peerie Lizzie", the little girl from the "big house" drowned decades before by the incoming tide? Jimmy Perez is coming around to the idea that that might have been a murder too, although the nanny was always blamed for neglect, and seemed to take the blame when she committed suicide.
In the long run, the final solution was something that I did not forsee at all.
Kenny Blyth does an excellent job of the narration, enhancing the setting by using a Scottish accent.
mini-review RAVEN BLACK - Shetland #1
WHITE NIGHTS - Shetland#2
RED BONES - Shetland #3
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING - Shetland#4
5.0, DEAD WATER - Shetland#5
4.3, MURDER IN PARADISE - Palmer-Jones series #3
TELLING TALES (Vera Stanhope) #2
4.8, SILENT VOICES, (Vera Stanhope) #4
5.0, THE GLASS ROOM (Vera Stanhope) #5
4.9, HARBOUR STREET, Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope) #6
4.5, BURIAL OF GHOSTS - stand-alone
The Shetland Series (as listed on Fantastic Fiction)
1. Raven Black (2006)
2. White Nights (2008)
3. Red Bones (2007)
4. Blue Lightning (2010)
5. Dead Water (2013)
6. Thin Air (2014)
Labels: 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 British reading challenge, 2015 global reading challenge, Ann Cleeves, audio book, book review
Review: THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY, Georges Simenon
first published in French 1938
this edition published by Penguin as a Red Classic 2006
translated by Stuart Gilbert with revisions by David Watson
#7 from Simenon
Of Simenon's many novels, certain titles stand out as classics. This terrifying reconstruction of a madman's mind is one of them.
Known in the little Dutch town of Groningen as a respectable family man, Kees Popinga is the managing clerk of a reputed shipping firm. But when the company collapses under dubious circumstances just before Christmas, taking all his money with it, something snaps in Popinga's mind. From the shell of this model citizen emerges a calculating paranoiac, capable of random acts of violence - even murder. The fugitive Popinga makes his way to Paris, playing a bizarre game of cat and mouse with the police - determined to force a hostile world to recognize his newfound criminal genius ...
In The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By, Simenon created a compelling portrait of a man pushed too far, vividly reconstructing the effect on a mind in the spiralling grip of madness.
THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY is one of Simenon's "psychological novels". At first Kees Popinga seems absolutely normal but something snaps when he finds out that his boss is going to fake suicide and that the company he works for is going under, taking his life savings with it. It now seems that he has worked all his life for nothing and he feels released to explore his "other self". There have been signs of mental inbalance that have emerged before, but they have been kept tightly reined in by other people's expectations, and Popinga's own concepts of right and wrong.
Now the inhibitions have gone and he deserts his family and takes himself to Amsterdam to visit a woman of ill-repute, Pamela, who dies as a result of his visit. From there Popinga goes to Paris where he becomes involved in a car heist and is constantly preoccupied with reports about himself in the newspapers.
This is not a Maigret novel although the policeman in charge of looking for Popinga is Superintendent Lucas who of course in the Maigret novels is Maigret's lieutenant. Popinga wants newspaper readers to have an accurate version of his achievements and so he writes to newspaper editors and then to Lucas himself to correct details that he thinks have been inaccurately reported. He is insulted when a French professor of psychiatry says he is paranoic, although he is not quite sure what that means.
As the plot progresses Popinga becomes increasingly detached from normality, not really understanding the hole he is digging for himself.
About the film:
The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1952) is a crime drama film, released in the United Kingdom with an all-European cast, including Claude Rains in the lead role. Rains plays the role of Kees Popinga, who is infatuated with Michele Rozier (Märta Torén). The film was released in the United States in 1953 under the title The Paris Express. It was directed by Harold French and based on the novel by Georges Simenon.
4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD
4.5, MAIGRET & THE HEADLESS CORPSE
4.3, PIETR THE LATVIAN
THE LATE MONSIEUR GALLET
4.4, THE RULES OF THE GAME
Labels: 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 global reading challenge, book review, Georges Simenon, library book, translated, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Review: THE GOLDEN CLAW, Sax Rohmer
first book in the Gaston Max series
source/format: Amazon, Kindle
Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge @ Past Offences
An illusive Chinese mastermind and his henchman have already killed one socialite and they hold a mysterious sway over many of London's elite. What is the secret of their power? Follow the trail with Sax Rohmer's famous detectives Gaston Max and Inspector Dunbar as they chase the international gang of hoodlums and their leader, the evil Dr. King.
This novel has an antiquarian almost "penny dreadful" feel about it. Gaston Max is a renowned French detective who has come to London on the trail of a Chinese syndicate who are setting up opium dens around the world. They have snared would be socialites and people who have acquired the opium habit while on diplomatic service in China. The French Surete has established that a considerable sum of money has come into the Paris opium den through a bank cheque drawn on the account of Henry Leroux, in whose London flat a woman has died.
Max is a master of disguise. He sets up a honey trap to ensnare Mr King by posing as an opium addict who wishes to use the services of the London den. In some ways Max is a forerunner of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. He basically works alone, playing his cards very close to his chest until he is very sure of his deductions, and he relies very heavily on logic.
On the other hand the author can be seen to be in the mould of Conan Doyle with very detailed descriptions of both characters and settings. The language is a little dated, at times using vocabulary many readers would recognize as obsolete.
I was particularly interested in the timing of this plot, set before World War One, which attributes corruption in high places to the Asiatic influences, a little ironic as it was the British who intentionally introduced opium to China through trade in the 1840s.
I've read this for the Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge @ Past Offences for the year 1915.
It is also a book for the 2015 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge.
About the author (1883-1959)
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu. Born in Birmingham he had an entirely working class education and early career before beginning to write. His first published work was in 1903, the short story The Mysterious Mummy for Pearson's Weekly. He made his early living writing comedy sketches for music hall performers and short stories and serials for magazines.
See more at Fantastic Fiction
Labels: 2015 British reading challenge, Authors A to Z reading challenge 2015, book review, Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge, e-book challenge, kindle, new to me authors 2015, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge
Review: ENTRY ISLAND, Peter May
this edition published by Quercus 2014
Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times raved: "Peter May is a writer I'd follow to the ends of the earth." Now Peter May takes us to a small island off the coast of Quebec with an emotionally charged new thriller, Entry Island.
When Detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at Montreal's St. Hubert airfield, he does so without looking back. For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead represents an opportunity to escape the bitter blend of loneliness and regret that has come to characterize his life in the city.
Traveling as part of an eight-officer investigation team, Sime's destination lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Only two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of around 130 inhabitants--the wealthiest of which has just been discovered murdered in his home.
The investigation itself appears little more than a formality. The evidence points to a crime of passion: the victim's wife the vengeful culprit. But for Sime the investigation is turned on its head when he comes face to face with the prime suspect, and is convinced that he knows her - even though they have never met.
Haunted by this certainty his insomnia becomes punctuated by dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away. Dreams in which the widow plays a leading role. Sime's conviction becomes an obsession. And in spite of mounting evidence of her guilt he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must fulfill, and the personal destiny that awaits him.
There is a fascinating touch of the paranormal as Sime McKenzie brings to life, in his dreams, stories that his grandmother told him that had been recorded in his great-great-great-great grandfather's diaries. There is a lot of Scottish history, particularly that related to the Highland clearances, the potato famine in the Hebrides and Ireland, and Canadian migration history, told as background to the main investigation. Sime's link to the past is a signet ring with a distinctive crest.
It is a challenging read as the reader has to be alert to the change of voice from Sime's modern voice and the voice of his ancestor nearly one hundred and fifty years before. The author has not used any of the conventions like italics to indicate the second voice, but the clues to the voice come from the setting.
ENTRY ISLAND is a variant on the "locked room" mystery as the main access to the island is by ferry and dependant on the weather, and it is possible to use a private boat. The residents of the island choose to speak English which is why Sime is chosen to be part of the investigation, despite the fact that it is being led by his French-speaking ex-wife, and the rest of the team are all French speakers. To some extent this makes his fellow investigators, largely not English speakers, likely to see Kirsty Cowell as "weird" and to regard her as guilty of her husband's murder, while Sime is more prone to see her as innocent. Kirsty owns a pendant with a family crest that matches Sime's ring, and he has an uncanny feeling that he has met her before.
One thing I like about Peter May's books is the depth of research evident in the stories. ENTRY ISLAND is a particularly interesting read because of the way it slips so easily between time frames and cultures.
It is going to be hard for any novel I read this year to top this one.
VIRTUALLY DEAD
4.7, THE BLACKHOUSE
5.0, THE LEWIS MAN
4.5, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
Labels: 2015 A-Z Author Challenge, 2015 British reading challenge, 2015 global reading challenge, 2015 Historical Fiction Reading challenge, book review, library book
New to me authors October to December 2014
I did really well with new-to-me authors in this quarter.
I brought my 2014 total to 42, with an additional 18.
As you can see many of them were quite acceptable reading, and a number of them were Vintage reads.
4.6, CURTAIN CALL, Anthony Quinn
3.7, HOTEL BRASIL, Frei Betto
4.5, HAPPINESS IS EASY, Edney Silvestre
4.7, THE SOUND OF THINGS FALLING, Juan Gabriel Vasquez
3.6, MURDER ON THE SECOND TEE, Ian Simpson
4.1, THE CROSSWORD MURDER, Nero Blanc
4.4, AFTER THE SILENCE, Jake Woodhouse
4.7, THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH - Richard Flanagan
2.5, MOSCOW BOUND, Adrian Churchward
4.4, STAR FALL, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
4.5, THE ENGLISH LADY MURDERERS' SOCIETY, Jim Williams
4.5, THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, Sara Blaedel
4.4, NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH, James Hadley Chase
4.0, MURDER UNDERGROUND, Mavis Doriel Hay
4.4, A TIME TO KILL, John Grisham
Don't forget to see what authors others have discovered.
Labels: new to me authors, new to me authors 2014
Updates, Record Keeping, and Challenges
I spent most of the morning of New Year's Day sorting out the directions of my reading for 2015.
I try to give my book selection some purpose by participating in a number of reading challenges which ensure that I include some diversity. Because of what I naturally choose to read, you could argue that some are not challenges, but I would argue that they do give me a wider appreciation of what is currently being published, but also what has been published in the past, and in languages other than English.
If you've come across a reading challenge that you think I should consider by all means recommend it in a comment. I allow overlapping in my challenges so a book could be recorded in a number of places.
Some of the challenges are external to this blog while others are hosted here or on a blog that I manage.
In practical terms I do allow some challenges to overlap, that is, most books will appear in more than one challenge.
In addition many of the challenges are simply continuations of challenges I took on last year, and are a reflection of my reading interests..
2015 The reading challenges I've joined
Outdo yourself reading challenge 2015: aiming for 145, currently: 1 (137 in 2014)
Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Completed in 2014
2015 Global Reading Challenge currently 1/21
USA Fiction Challenge So far 19/51
2015 Aussie Author reading challenge aiming for 20. Currently 0
2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge aiming for 20. Currently 0
British Books Challenge 2015 hosted by Fluttering Butterflies currently 1
Vintage Mystery BINGO 2015: Silver & Gold Edition currently 0
2015 Ebook Reading Challenge currently 0
New to me authors - a personal challenge currently 1
Not crime fiction - a personal challenge currently 0
Nordic reading challenge - a personal challenge unless I find an "official" one, currently 0
New Zealand reading challenge - again a personal challenge unless I can find someone hosting an "official" one. currently 0
Translated crime fiction - a personal challenge that will overlap with many of the other reading challenges that I have undertaken. currently 0
Snagged at the Library currently: 1
2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge currently: 1
Looking for some reading challenge ideas yourself? Check A Novel Challenge.
A visual summary
2015 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge hosted by The Book Vixen
In 2014 I read 137 books.
Aiming for 145.
So far this year: 1
This challenge has its own record page at 2015 Reviews.
How to join the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge
This is one that I host.
I completed the challenge in 2014 and so here this year I'll record blog posts related to Agatha Christie, probably mainly related to short stories.
2015 Global Reading Challenge: 1/21
I have committed myself to reading 21 titles, all crime fiction, 3 titles each from 7 "continents".
My 7th continent - historical crime fiction.
Blog site: 2015 Global Reading Challenge
Australasia/Oceania (my modification) - An extra hurdle for Australasia - at least one from New Zealand.
I can count separate Australian states
4.8, ONLY THE INNOCENT, Rachel Abbott - England
North America -
South America -
7th Continent: Historical -
USA Fiction Challenge ongoing
This is one I'm hosting on its own site. I'm keeping my own records on a page on my blog.
So here I will just keep a summary of the number of states covered, as well as a list of US crime fiction I've read in 2015.
Total so far 19/51
Books read 2015: 0
Golden Vintage - books written before 1960
- no bingos claimed yet
Silver Vintage: books written 1960 - 1989
Vintage Mystery BINGO 2015: Silver & Gold Edition
This is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block.
* All books must be from the mystery category (crime fiction, detective fiction, espionage, etc.). The mystery/crime must be the primary feature of the book--ghost stories, paranormal, romance, humor, etc are all welcome as ingredients, but must not be the primary category under which these books would be labeled at the library or bookstore.
You keep your records on bingo cards.
See my special page for this challenge
British Books Challenge 2015
- mine will be crime fiction
British Books Challenge 2015 hosted by Fluttering Butterflies
The aim is to read at least 12 books by British authors. This is really not much of a challenge for me as I read so much British crime fiction, so the challenge is really just a way of keeping my records.
Currently: 1/12
4.8, ONLY THE INNOCENT, Rachel Abbott
The Aussie Author Challenge 2015 is being hosted at Booklover Book Reviews
I'm aiming initially at Kangaroo (12 titles) but the reality is that I will read many more than that.
- Read and review 12 titles written by Australian Authors of which at least 4 of those authors are female, at least 4 of those authors are male, and at least 4 of those authors are new to you;
- At least 6 fiction and at least 2 non-fiction, and at least 3 titles first published in 2014 or 2015.
Currently: 0.
2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge
I will be aiming to read about 20 titles, all crime fiction. They will also count for the Aussie Author Challenge (above)
Currently : 0
2015 Ebook Reading Challenge
Here is another that is probably not much of a challenge for me as I read so much on my Kindle.
1. Bits – 5 ebooks
2. Bytes – 10 ebooks
3. Megabytes – 25 ebooks
4. Gigabytes – 50 ebooks
5. Terabytes – 75 ebooks
6. Empty the Cloud – 100 ebooks
Currently: 0
This is a personal challenge. I intend to read as many new-to-me authors as I can.
Not crime fiction
Another personal challenge: a reminder to myself that I need occasionally to read outside the crime fiction genre. I find this very hard to do.
Nordic Reading challenge
Another personal challenge: a reminder to myself that I want to keep an eye on Nordic/Scandinavian crime fiction and to keep records of my reading.
New Zealand authors
New Zealand Reading challenge
Another personal challenge: a reminder to myself that I want to keep an eye on New Zealand crime fiction and to keep records of my reading.
Translated crime fiction
This will overlap with a number of the other challenges and is really just a record of translated titles that I've read this year.
It is really is a bit of a variant of the Crime Fiction Alphabet challenge that I have run for the last few years (and I may well do that again some time in 2015)
I will count only crime fiction books for this challenge which is being hosted by Samantha Lin
You list authors A-Z according to surname.
My "official" record page is here.
Snagged at the Library
probably not much of a challenge for me because I am a consistent "supporter" of my local library, but it will help me keep a nice record of my borrowed books.
nn mm
Labels: 2015 reading challenges
What I read in December 2014
Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2014
Considering the fact that December is such a busy month, I was very pleased with the amount of reading I did.
I was trying hard to finish off a couple of memes, and many of the books were read on my Kindle.
4.3, THE SHADOW WOMAN, Ake Edwardson - translated
4.3, CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, Peter Robinson - Canadian author
4.5, ANTIDOTE TO MURDER, Felicity Young - Australian author
4.5, THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, Sara Blaedel - translated (Danish)
4.4, NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH, James Hadley Chase - British author, US setting
4.4, THE RULES OF THE GAME, Georges Simenon - translated but set in USA
4.5, ENIGMA OF CHINA, Qiu Xiaolong - set in modern Shanghai
4.8, A FEARSOME DOUBT, Charles Todd - audio book, set in 1919
4.0, MURDER UNDERGROUND, Mavis Doriel Hay - Vintage crime, written in 1934
4.4, THE FLIGHT OF THE FALCON, Daphne du Maurier - vintage crime, written 1965
4.4, A TIME TO KILL, John Grisham - vintage crime, written in 1989
My Pick of the Month was A FEARSOME DOUBT by Charles Todd
See what others have listed as their pick of the month.
Labels: crime fiction pick of the month 2014, pick of the month 2014
Meme: New-to-me Authors October to December 2014
It's easy to join this meme.
Just write a post about the best new-to-you crime fiction authors (or all) you've read in the period of October to December 2014, put a link to this meme in your post, and even use the logo if you like.
The books don't necessarily need to be newly published.
After writing your post, then come back to this post and add your link to Mr Linky below. (if Mr Linky does not appear - leave your URL in a comment and I will add to Mr Linky when it comes back up, or I'll add the link to the post)
Visit the links posted by other participants in the meme to discover even more books to read.
This meme will run again at the end of March 2015
Review: MURDER ON THE THIRTY FIRST FLOOR, Per Wahl...
Review: PUT ON BY CUNNING, Ruth Rendell - audio bo...
Review: THE MAN WHO WATCHED THE TRAINS GO BY, Geor...
Crime Fiction Pick of the Month December 2014
Review: ONLY THE INNOCENT, Rachel Abbott
Top crime fiction reads for 2014 - a meme
Stats for 2014


text:
Q: Drawing a Diamond with User Input (not double of the user input) So I've been trying to draw a Diamond shape in Java and I've got the top part of the diamond done but the bottom part is not printing as I want it to. Instead of decreasing towards the end, it stays the same or it increases as it go down.

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Q1_Diamond{
    public static void main(String[] args){
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.print("How many lines? ");
        int lines = sc.nextInt();

        // Top half of Diamond
        for(int i = 0; i < lines/2; i++){
            for(int j = 0; j < (lines-1)-i; j++){
                System.out.print(" ");
            }

            for(int j = 0; j < i; j++){
                System.out.print("*");
            }

            for(int j = 0; j < i+1; j++){
                System.out.print("*");
            }
            System.out.println();
        }

        // Bottom half of Diamond
        // Even number of lines
        if(lines % 2 == 0){
            for(int k = 0; k < (lines/2); k++){

                for(int j = 0; j < (lines/2)+k; j++){
                    System.out.print(" ");
                }

                for(int j = 0; j < (lines/3 - 0.5f); j++){
                    System.out.print("*");
                }

                for(int j = 0; j < lines/2+1; j++){
                    System.out.print("*");
                }
                System.out.println();
            }
        }

        // Odd number of lines
        else{
            not done yet...
        }
    }
}

A: Remove the if condition (i.e. if(lines % 2 == 0)) for the lower half and simply repeat the same code as the upper half with the following loop declaration:
for (int i = lines % 2 == 0 ? lines / 2 - 1 : lines / 2; i >= 0; i--)

Complete code:
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.print("How many lines? ");
        int lines = sc.nextInt();

        // Top half of Diamond
        for (int i = 0; i < lines / 2; i++) {
            for (int j = 0; j < (lines - 1) - i; j++) {
                System.out.print(" ");
            }

            for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
                System.out.print("*");
            }

            for (int j = 0; j < i + 1; j++) {
                System.out.print("*");
            }
            System.out.println();
        }
        // Bottom half of Diamond
        for (int i = lines % 2 == 0 ? lines / 2 - 1 : lines / 2; i >= 0; i--)  {
            for (int j = 0; j < (lines - 1) - i; j++) {
                System.out.print(" ");
            }

            for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
                System.out.print("*");
            }

            for (int j = 0; j < i + 1; j++) {
                System.out.print("*");
            }
            System.out.println();
        }
    }
}

A sample run:
How many lines? 10
         *
        ***
       *****
      *******
     *********
     *********
      *******
       *****
        ***
         *

Another sample run:
How many lines? 11
          *
         ***
        *****
       *******
      *********
     ***********
      *********
       *******
        *****
         ***
          *

[Update]
You can extract the common code into a method e.g. printLine as shown below:
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.print("How many lines? ");
        int lines = sc.nextInt();

        // Top half of Diamond
        for (int i = 0; i < lines / 2; i++) {
            printLine(lines, i);
        }
        // Bottom half of Diamond
        for (int i = lines % 2 == 0 ? lines / 2 - 1 : lines / 2; i >= 0; i--) {
            printLine(lines, i);
        }
    }

    static void printLine(int lines, int i) {
        for (int j = 0; j < (lines - 1) - i; j++) {
            System.out.print(" ");
        }

        for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
            System.out.print("*");
        }

        for (int j = 0; j < i + 1; j++) {
            System.out.print("*");
        }
        System.out.println();
    }
}

A: Another way to tackle this is to determine expressions for the number of spaces and asterisks in each line of the star. Obviously this will need to be in terms of the number of lines (n) and the line we're on.
If we number lines from i = 0 to n-1 we get
nAsterisks = 1 + 2 * min(i, n-i-1)

and
nSpaces = (n+1)/2 - 1 - min(i, n-i-1)

With these we can write some compact Java:
static void printStar(int n)
{
    for(int i=0, k=0; i<n; i++, k=Math.min(i, n-i-1))
    {
        for(int j=0; j<(n+1)/2-1-k; j++) System.out.print(" ");
        for(int j=0; j<1+2*k; j++) System.out.print("*");
        System.out.println();
    }
}

For printStar(8) we get:
   *
  ***
 *****
*******
*******
 *****
  ***
   *

and printStar(9) gives
    *
   ***
  *****
 *******
*********
 *******
  *****
   ***
    *

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When I first met Brian Massey, I had just attended a presentation he gave about his success with The Conversion Scientist Blog. I learned a lot during the presentation and was impressed by the analytics he shared about the blog's readership and subscribers.
Pageviews on guest post "7 Best Practices Using Exit Intent Popovers, Popups". Guest posts can have a lasting impact on growth of traffic to your blog.
I knew as soon as the presentation was over: I wanted to write a guest post for this guy. Luckily, I got a chance to chat with Brian afterwards and I offered to send him a post for his blog. Sure enough, about a week later, I got an email from Brian asking if I'd like to send him the article we had discussed.
If only this was the way guest blogging always worked.
Far too often, I associate the term "guest blogging" with spammy emails and crappy content. This is despite the fact that Google has been penalizing sites that use guest blogging solely for SEO for over a year now. I also tend to associate guest blogging with the infuriating assumption that good content can be acquired for free. [pullquote]Let me be clear: good content is not free.[/pullquote] It may not cost you money per se, but you had better be prepared to offer something of value in exchange for good work.
As both a writer and a manager of several different blogs, I've had experience on both sides of the guest blogging scenario: contributing guest posts and seeking out guest contributors. Here are some Dos and Don'ts I've discovered about finding guest contributors for your blog.
Don't: Be vague or beat around the bush.
Repeats the same vague message of the original email no matter how many times you respond with a direct question, leaving you with no choice but to ignore them entirely.
On the flip side, I once received a vague email from someone requesting to contribute a guest post to a site that I manage. When I asked for details, they responded that if I didn't like their content, could I please just hide a backlink in my site for them? Um, no.
Do: Be clear and direct about what you want and what you are willing to give in return.
If all you're offering is attribution and space for a short author bio, that's fine. In several cases, that has been a good enough reason for me to contribute a guest post to a site. It all depends on the author's goals and priorities. Just don't expect it to work with everyone.
Do: Be willing to offer original content in exchange.
If you're contacting a blogger, chances are they have a responsibility to create content for their own site on a regular basis. If that's the case, they probably don't have much time to write a shiny new post for your blog, no matter how much they want 30 minutes of your audience's precious, undivided attention. That might not be an issue if you offer to provide content in exchange. Guest posting on each other's sites is a great, symbiotic way to expand your audience and add variety and a new perspective to each other's blogs.
Do: Tell them about your readership.
Before I sent my first guest post to Brian, I already knew that his blog had a significant number of readers and subscribers. Nobody had to convince me that guest posting on the Conversion Scientist Blog was a good idea. I was excited for the opportunity because it was a way to get my name in front of people, and by doing so, start building readership for the blog I had just launched.
Just remember that everyone can get their work "out there" online. When you're convincing a writer to contribute content, give them the data that will make it worth their time. If you're still building a following, tell them about your target audience. Some up-and-coming bloggers may actually care more about your niche than your current numbers anyway.
Don't: Expect guest posts from established writers.
Do: Nurture relationships with bloggers and experts in your field.
This is a golden rule of guest blogging (and of any sort of influencer outreach). As you work on building content and readership for your blog, reach out in person or online to people whose work you admire. A common way to do this is by commenting on their posts. Don't just do this as a spammy ploy to get backlinks to your site (bots are doing that enough as it is). Leave thoughtful comments that show interest and engagement and continue a dialogue. Once it seems appropriate, invite them to check out your site and go from there.
In building your network, you may have established a relationship with a subject matter expert who doesn't have time to contribute a guest post. If this is the case, ask them if they'd be willing to do a phone or email interview. It could mean the difference between 15 minutes of their time and several hours.
Do: Let people help on their own terms.
Many writers have a strict editorial calendar to follow. Don't add to the burden. Instead, offer them as much flexibility as you can. That being said, if you have certain guidelines and requirements for the content on your site, don't be shy about sharing that. It's not worth compromising the quality of your site just to for the sake of featuring guest content.
Don't: Expect free content to be good.
There are a handful of guest blogger networks such as My Blog Guest, which have survived the scourge of Google Panda. In a few rare cases, I have connected with some talented writers on these networks. But, like I said, this is very rare. The vast majority of the time, I receive guest post submissions from these sites that at best, are off topic, and at worst, not even written by a human.
The person is trying to jumpstart a freelance writing career and is looking for exposure.
They have started their own blog or are managing a company blog and are looking to grow readership.
They are passionate about a topic and just want an opportunity to talk about it (yes, this actually happens).
They do SEO marketing for a company and are looking for ways to get backlinks to their site (a.k.a. guest blogging "just for SEO").
Just as the reasons for wanting to guest blog are all across the board, so is the quality of the content you will receive. Moral of the story: don't rely too heavily on guest content, particularly if it is acquired from guest blogging networks and out-of-the-blue emails.
While Google has been trying its darndest to squelch the practice of guest blogging "just for SEO," the practice still tends to dwell in some shady territory. [pullquote]Cut through the noise and the spammy emails by building relationships with bloggers whose content you love.[/pullquote] Remember to be choosy about the content you post, no matter the source. (If you use your blog for brand building or lead generation, nothing destroys your credibility more than a high volume of bad content.) If you play your cards right, guest posts can be a great component of a high quality, high value blog.
Colleen Ahern is a copyrighter at Page Agency, an independent marketing and advertising agency in Dallas, Texas. You can read more of her thoughts on the Page Agency Blog. Follow her on twitter @ColleenAhern.
You should always keep the content quality in mind, both when writing a guest post or an article on your company blog. According to the professional online essay writers, the staircase guest blogging strategy is for those who have valuable insights to share with the world, not for blatantly building backlinks.


Unofficial results from the municipal election are now available. Official results are expected in the day or so.
The current Board members will continue in their roles until Tuesday, November 30, 2010. The inaugural meeting of the new Board is scheduled for Monday, December 6, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.