Grades coming today

Due to the weather and other factors I’ve had to take the college up on their offer of an extended grade deadline for instructors. Grades are due by the end of the day today, Wed., and that’s when I’ll post them. Hope you’re enjoying the snow and being safe!

Dave

Finished grading!

I just read the last of your final exams and reflections. Everyone who sent one should by now have gotten a reply. My method was to read the final, send an informal reply, and then reply to the reflection and include a detailed breakdown of how your work fulfilled the course outcomes. The grade itself, covering all your work, is at the bottom of the email. I won’t be posting grades until Monday, so please write if I somehow missed yours. (It’s not possible to pass the class without emailing me a final and a reflection letter.)

It’s truly been a pleasure everyone. This class has been one of the high points of my teaching career. Please feel always feel free to get in touch for academic advice, letters of recommendation, or just to let me know how you’re doing.

I re-sent the evaluation link

Apparently no one received the link to the online evaluation for the class, so I just re-sent it from my account. And here it is, also. It’s now available until Monday of next week.

As I said in my email, I know this might look like I’m administering my own evaluation, which is strictly taboo, but that’s not really the case: after clicking on the link, you’ll log in with your student ID. It’s secure, and the results are only made available to me after I file my grades.

Looking forward to your comments, and, again, you should be hearing from me individually by the end of the week (see below).

Final work will be graded by the end of this week

Most of your finals and letters have arrived, and I wanted to let you know I’ll be getting to them on Wednesday. I’ll write you back individually by the end of the day Friday, and final grades will be posted by early next week.

I’ve been putting all your emails in a folder to read Wed., unless it’s clear from the subject line that they’re questions. So if you have a question, please make that clear in your subject line so I’ll know to answer it right away – like “HELP!” If you’ve written me with a question and haven’t heard back, please write again. Thanks!

Also, you should have gotten an email by now from Rita Shaw with a link to the online course evaluation. That would be great if you all were able to take a few minutes to fill it out.

Okay to do a story from our book for the final

I just noticed that some of you are having trouble finding a full-text story online, and I certainly didn’t intend for anyone to have to pay for one. So how about this? If you want, you can just use a story from our book that we didn’t read.

And a note on the letters — keep in mind, the purpose of the letter is to help me recognize all the good work you’ve done. Don’t be afraid to blow your own horn, don’t worry about being modest.

Comments on novel posts

Okay, I’ve just finished enjoying all your novel posts! What I decided to do was choose one example from every post to illustrate points about writing I wanted to share with you. I’ve made that into a handout, which I’ll also file in the “Class Materials” tab.

Plan for Wed. and the rest of the quarter

The finish line is in sight!

Sorry for the minor chaos last week! But everything seemed to turn out fine. Since Joy didn’t get the message about “Revised Endings” being canceled, she went ahead and put up a nice post, and it looks like most of you commented on it. If you didn’t, go ahead and do so, and I’ll count that for last week’s work.

Since no one’s contacted me about choosing an online reading for the class, I’m going to modify that part of the schedule a bit. I still want everyone to explore some new online writing, so I’m going to combine that with the final exam: you’ll all choose a story from the Google Directory of Mystery Magazines and E-zines, briefly comment on it this week, then expand that post for your final exam, making as many ties to things we’ve read and talked about as possible. You can also change your choice if someone posts a story this week that sounds more interesting than the one you found. Important: it doesn’t have to be a “good” story, or one you even like. Your final actually might be more interesting, and fun to write, if it’s a bad story!

The other priorities for the end of the quarter are to make sure you’ve read and commented on some of the class’s novel postings — let’s say at least five, one short paragraph each — and to write your final reflection letter and email it to me.

Schedule for the remainder of the quarter

Another final exam option: movie

After posting the final exam instructions in the message below, I realized there’s no reason you couldn’t do a movie instead of an online story. So feel free to do that — the same instructions apply. If you choose one you’ve already seen, I strongly encourage you to watch it again and take notes. If you want to try something new, here are some ideas, using imdb’s little-known and somewhat arbitrary “keywords” index: “detective,” “amateur detective,” “police,” “murder.” And here’s a Google search of the phrase “great mystery movies.”

Final exam requirements scaled back

I got some feedback that the final exam requirements I posted yesterday were maybe a little more work that I’d originally said they’d be. What I originally said, in the Course Description, was that you’d post a paragraph, comment on others posts, and then email me answers to specific final-exam type questions. I’ve gotten rid of the last two things entirely, so I feel it’s reasonable to ask you to write a little more, but the requirements I posted yesterday did seem a bit stiff. So I scaled it back, and edited the message (two down, below this one) to reflect that. I’m now asking for

Forever Gone Wrong by Agnes Dee

Author

Agnes Dee has published stories in this and various other publications. She is now working with other writers from Flashes Of Speculation on an anthology called, “One Hundred Voices in the Night”. http://fs.shamuswrites.com/tag/agnes-dee/ this is all I could find on this author.

Forever Gone Wrong by Agnes Dee

Austin Camacho
Patricia Harrington
Kathleen Strasser
Tony Burton
John M. Floyd

Gary R. Hoffman
Peggy Ehrhart
Gay Kinman
Kate Thornton
Agnes Dee

http://crimeandsuspense.com/Archives/07-08/forever%20gone%20wrong.pdf

I decided to take a stroll though everyone’s link’s. I just couldn’t find anything that caught my attention. It seemed where ever I went I would have to purchase the story. I did think of doing one out of the book but nothing there was very interesting to me. I was going to do the movie but I prefer reading. So here is where my  stroll took me. There where way to many different kinds of reading and just couldn’t decide. But this little story was just up my alley.

Personal Reaction

Well my personal reaction was WHAT!  then confussion, my mind went blank and then the questions. What did I just read? Did I miss something? Did they only print part of the story in the book? Ok time to check the internet and find the story there. Well I did and its the same story. I reread it and found it had clues I did not pick up on. I am so needing a vaction.

Story

This is a brief synopsis of the story, and hope you will find it intriguing as I did.

“He thought she was attracted to the white Ferrari. Girls liked the  convertible.” “May I buy you a drink?” Graham asked. Nia pulled a flask from her purse and
sipped, then handed it to him. The flask was common. What inside it was not,”It’s Ibi. Eau de Vie,” she said by way of explanation to his astonished face.

Nia tells him that Ibi isn’t the drink its the water they make it from. “The water of life.” She looked for a sign of understanding in his eyes. “Biro. Tell him how old you are.”"I’m well over five-hundred. I know that much.”Yep. It was a scam . But still … there was something in the drink. “Fountain of Youth,huh? May I see it?”

“I’ve never met you before,” the man said to Graham. His voice was muffled. “Were you perhaps recently tricked into the fountain?”

“We never leave the fountain—you will always be here, I am afraid.” The Conquistador  slowly drifted away. “It becomes very boring here… I hope you have brought within you some good stories to tell.”

Biro picked up Graham’s shoes. “He had nice clothes. Think I might take the keys and drive down to Miami. See what he left in the hotel room.” The group started back up the pathto the farm.”You’re not taking the Ferrari,” replied Nia. “I wanted that car the minute I saw it.”

That is the ending, can you think of any authors who write like this on tv, or movies…

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS:

Forever Gone Wrong is a mystery short story. The style reminds me of Alfred Hickcock.  With Irony and quirky humour and the suspense, we are generally immersed in the life of an everyman, someone of daily life with whom we can relate.  Anges Dee built her main characters  just enough for you to identify  them. Any other characters are support and not enough to care about.  The plot is interesting and if you do not watch your reading you miss a great deal. For a short story it keeps you enticed, but the many clues it gives you is overwhelming. Remember Revised Ending, “The style is very intriguing to me. I usually don’t like to know the ending and I like clues. But Jan Burke just made this so interesting and funny in its tones that I read it twice. She will be on my list to read.” Forever had tons of clues which I did not pick up on. And my first reading of it I thought I new the ending.“She turned to the others. “I told you. I found one.”I should have known.

Alfred Hitchcock
II
Born	Alfred Joseph Hitchcock August 13, 1899(1899-08-13) Leytonstone, London
Died	April 29, 1980 (aged 80) Bel Air, Los Angeles
Other name(s)	Hitch The Master of Suspense
Years active	1921–1976
Spouse(s)	Alma Reville (1926-1980)
[show]

Revised Ending, Bride, and Forever are always asking you to look deeper “Kitty in prolonged, relentless pain was a tempting picture, but she concluded that having Ms. Craig dead before the salads were served was preferable: attention-getting though agonizing death throes are, it might put a bit of a damper on the evening’s festivities.” page 202.   Deeper doesn’t mean over reading into clues but answering the question it asked at the beginning of the story. The thing is did you find the question you need to answer or did you find the side question that isn’t quite as important. I love wired writers and I love story’s like the Chee Witch but it was not like the ones I’ve been reading.

In conclusion this was not my favorite story, but it does fulfill my need for clues and making me think.  For some reason I seem to search and find the odd stories. Never anything easy or common.  I have always enjoyed authors like Hickcock or King. But just once it would have been nice if i could read something that I could write easier about. But then that would not be my type of story.

Scoop, Rosie Crooks

The Story

The movie Scoop is a mystery,  comedy, and detective fiction. It is darkly funny with supernatural elements.  The story is about a journalism student (Scarlett Johansson) who gets the potential scoop of a lifetime from the ghost of a dead reporter (Ian McShane); he claims to know the identity of the Tarot card killer (a serial killer). This sets Scarlett’s character after a wealthy man (Hugh Jackman) with the help of a bumbling magician (Woody Allen).  Is Hugh the killer? Will she fall in love with the subject of her investigation? Will she survive this investigation?….

I watched this movie several years ago and recently picked it up at the library.  I then placed it on a table and forgot about it, and remembered it again when this assignment came up (I really should clean that table).

I found the story to be funny and light.  It is not a heavy drama like Match Point (the first Woody Allen film that Johansson starred in) and not a very complicated story.  Joahansson is naive and earnest, Allen is quirky, and Jackman is handsome and deferential. I would classify this as a fantasy in that it involves supernatural elements. The opening scene are the mourners at Joe Strombels funeral; then we cut to a dark boat with a cowled figure standing at the bow holding a scythe.  Joe is sitting in the boat on his way to the afterlife, and he starts a conversation with a young woman who turns out to be the former secretary to Peter Lyman.  She thinks she was poisoned and that Peter is the Tarot Card Killer.  Joe can’t pass up this final scoop so he jumps off the boar and turns up in a magic box with Sondra Pransky.  At one point he has again shown up and death comes to reclaim him again swallowing him up in the black cloak.

The mystery genre would be amateur sleuth as neither Sondra or Sid are professionals. Perhaps the investigative journalist should have it’s own sub genre?  It is set in contemporary England, but has the feel of an older story.  It could just as easily been set the 1950’s and had more of an Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers style to them.  Especially Sayers, Lord Peter Whimsey is slightly comedic like Woody Allens characters.

The Writer

Woody Allen

The story was written by Woody Allen who’s films have spanned decades. He often acts in his films whether the central character, see the Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Annie Hall, etc., or a supporting role as in this film. He often plays Jewish characters or works in Jewish themes

” I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but when I got older I converted to narcisism.”

Allen often uses the same actors in a series of films;  Scarlett Johansson previously starred in Match Point, and followed  Scoop with: Cassandra’s Dream and Vicky, Christina, Barcelona; all Woody Allen films.

The Characters

Sondra Pransky/Jade Spence (Scarlett Johansson): An American Journalism student on vacation in England.

Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman): The son of  Lord Lyman, wealthy. His assistant recently died after she began to suspect Peter was the Tarot Card Killer

Sid Waterman/Mr. Spence (Woody Allen): A magician whose stage show Sondra attends.  He gets caught up in the mystery when the ghost of Joe Strombel appears in his disaperating box.

Joe Strombel (Ian McShane): A journalist who receives the scoop of a lifetime, after he is dead.

Literary Merit

This movie was not generally acclaimed; some reviewers say it was not credible and the lines uttered were not funny.  I actually found them quite funny, because of the dry delivery:

“Sid Waterman: I was in the lounge, I heard you drowning, I finished my tea and scones and came immediately!”

” Sid Waterman: Geez, if I ever catch that Joe Strombel, I’ll kill him.”  (of course Joe is already dead so this would have been redundant).

“Sid Waterman: We need to put our heads together.
Sondra Pransky: If we put OUR heads together, it would make a hollow sound.”

“Peter Lyman: What’s wrong? Are you crying?
Sondra Pransky: No, I’m too tough to cry. My nasal passages do get congested when I’m sad, though.”

I really enjoyed this story, however it is a light story.  It helps to not expect a lot out of it.  It reminds me of Nine Lives To Live (pg 173), Revised Endings  (pg 199) both stories are funny, quick and feature amateur sleuths.

The main weakness in the film is that as Sondra’s attraction and romance with Peter progresses she and the film loose sight of the reason for the investigation.  There are murders happening; a serial killer is on the loose and Peter might be that killer.  This point is argued by Sondra and Sid but she blithely goes on with her romance and ignores the possibilities.  Sid ends up having to continue the investigation  himself, even when Sondra finds out Peter lied to her about being out of town she still doesn’t really want him to be guilty.  The movie ends up feeling like a story about a serial killer without the deaths.

‘Darryl O’Monkey’s Leprechaun’ by Craig Coley

The Author:

It was hard trying to find out who Craig Coley was and what he did. I ended going up to several different sites but found a blog who referenced him and two other stories that I know he wrote, which is where I found this picture. From that website, which is NoMas-nyc.com, I found out that Craig Coley is a journalist and editor who worked in both Brooklyn and Tacoma. He is as of now in Japan heading the NoMas office there. He has also written several different pieces that are published in several places on the web. One is an essay about his adventure of riding the New York City subway and stopping at all the stops in one weekend called, ‘38 Hours to Canarsie’ which can be found on the website ‘thesubwaychronicles.com‘. He also has a website that is a ‘Choose-your-own-adventure’ with a cross dressing George Bush as the main character, which is located at ‘ georginabush.com‘. I tried to find a web site about Craig Coley that had a bio about him, but was unable to locate one. I pieced this together by visiting other sites.

My Reaction:

Initially I had a hard time finding a story. At first I couldn’t find a site that would let me read a story with out paying for a subscription first; then all I found were very crude stories that said so many swear words I felt like I had to wash my mouth out with soap. Then I found this story on the ‘OverMyDeadBody.com’ link on the Google Directory, and it was a full story, so I print it out and it became the story I would use for my final.

Though this story was not my favorite it was easy to read and made me laugh a few times. The author added the right amount of humor weaved in the story that it kept me reading. This story didn’t make me want to go out and try to find something else the author had written or even the desire to read any more of the author’s work but it had enough substance for reading it once.

The Story:

The story started out with a college campus security guard walking into ‘Darryl O’Monkey’s Leprechaun’, which is an irish pub in the small college town of Granlick. The man’s name is Greg McRuffin and he has been summoned to this bar by the bartender Bud Gudd.

The leprechaun that hangs above the door is annualy taken on St. Patrick’s Day and brought on a road trip, getting it’s picture taken in several different places that it’s kidnappers deemed okay, has been returned, as is usual for the prank, on April Fool’s Day. But this time the pictures of the leprechaun are different: the kidnappers had drowned him in mud, taken a picture with him in a tiolet, and one where it shows him being dragged behind a car. The one that interest Greg McRuffin is where the leprechaun is standing on the pedestal in the lobby of the college’s administration building where the bust of the college founder, Bulfred Granlick, had been stolen last weekend.

So Greg goes on the investigation looking for the kids who stole the leprechaun. His investigation leads him to two sucspects; Tom Cruise and Blintz Danderbent, both students at the college. With the help of Chief Carl Goyle, who dusted for fingerprints on the pictures and on the leprechaun, they find that it had been Blintz Danderbent’s car that had been pictured dragging the poor leprechaun down the road. Danderbent confesses to stealing the leprechaun because he felt that the bartender, Bud, had insulted him and that he was racist. Though Danderbent confesses to stealing the leprechaun, he denies taking the bust of Bulfred Granlick.

Greg takes another look at the pictures and sees that the picture of the leprechaunstanding on the pedistal was taken after all of the pther pictures, but that it wasn’t anymore skuffed up than it had been before. This leads Greg to believe that some one was framing Blintz. After looking at the finger prints, they find that Bud’s fingerprints were the only ones on the picture of the leprechaun in the administration building. Bud confesses to framing Blintz because he had thrown a fit and called him a racist; he also admits to stealing the bust of Bulfred Granlick and throwing it in the lake. Chief Goyle calls his men and schedule for them to dive the lake for the bust tomarrow morning but doesn’t let them know it was Bud who had done it. Then they all have a drink and that’s the end.

Stylistic Ananlysis:

This story was written in first person, but one thing that I didn’t like about this story was that the author didn’t introduce who “I” was until I halfway through the story. I feel that the author should of introduced his main character much earlier in the story; which by the way is Greg McRuffin. You finaly learn what his name is when a police officer calls him by name to the Chief. It felt almost like the author forgot to give him a name so they just slipped it in at the last minute.

Something different about this mystery was that it involved absolutely no murder or death of any kind. To be honost this story was kind of boring. The only crime was a stolen leprechaun and a bust of Bulfred Granlick, and the author didn’t make it have any real twists or turns. I think that it would have been more interesting if there had been a bigger crime, or if the crime had been more complex. I was hoping for some grand twist at the end of the story, like in “Witness for the Prosecution”, but there was none. I guess that there just aren’t that many writers like Agatha Christie.

One thing that this story does have is humor. It is weaved through out the story and makes you laugh a few times. One of my favorite lines is when Greg McRuffin walks into the bar and he is descibing it: “The light from the amber bulbs falls like dust and then dies on the black wood and crimson upholstery. Not that this is an authentic place; the guy who owns Monkey’s is about as Irish as an Eskimo.” This made me laugh and is one thing that the author does well.

When I had finished this I found that it reminded me of the story ‘Under Suspicion’. In that story poilice officer Frank Dell gives his partner an alibi in the death of his daughter, essentialy letting him go home free. In this story, though it was no serious crime, Chief Goyle had let Bud off the hook for breaking and entering. In both of these stories the police officers let the criminals go, which brings up corruption in the police and how far loyality can go before it becomes a defect of character.

This story also reminded me of “And Pray Nobody Sees You” because in both stories the guilty party brings the attention of the police, or someone acting as the police, to their dealings. In “And Pray Nobody Sees You” Purdy comes to P.I. Aaron Gunner to find his car and even though he had been car jacked he was guilty because he lied and had hidden drugs in his car, making him as guilty as the boy who shot him. And in this story that I just read Bud, who had stolen the bust and framed Blintz, brought it to the attention of Greg McRuffin.

In conclution, I didn’t really like this story at all. The writing was dull and it lacked any thing to really capture the mind. To me a great mystery story is where the author makes you want to find out the mystery for yourself, that stimulates the mind with clues and hints. This story did nothing but give you a way to spend ten minutes of your life. I wouldn’t read this story again, or even recommend it to anyone to read. But if you want to here is the link: http://www.overmydeadbody.com/fiction.htm

A little off topic; Rosie C.

I have followed up some of the novel posts, specifically The Thin Man by Kevin and Busman’s Honeymoon by Hannah.

I watched the movie The Thin Man, it was quite funny especially the part where everyone is drinking copiously but hardly being affected by the alcohol. The end of the film is a dinner party where all of the suspects are invited to come; Nick Charles then proceeds to explain different motives and ultimately unmasks the killer. I will have to read the book next to see how closely the film kept to the story. Kevin you made me want to read this story and see the movie, thank you.

Hannah, I have read Busman’s Honeymoon; and found it very enjoyable. Poor Lord Peter, he can’t get away from murder even on his honeymoon. The length of the story surprised me; it kept going even after the murderer was caught. Sayers explored what Peter goes through after the completion of a case; the bad dreams and his desire to apologize to the murder who he was instrumental in catching. Much of it must come from his “shell shock” which is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. The story really does center on the relationship between Harriet and Peter including her dealing with her husbands “post mystery” anxieties.

The serious aspects do not outweigh the humor. One scene in particular sticks in my mind; Peter and Harriet believing themselves to be alone in the house are having an intimate conversation when they are interrupted by the presence of a neighbor. Lord Peter exclaims aloud and rushes out of the room calling for his manservant, saying that he knew he would make a fool of himself.

I really enjoyed these stories.

My Wild Rose

Today is my birthday! I am 30 years old, today is also the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day. The repealment of prohibition that is; this is appropriate as I work in a liquor store. I am including a picture of my first tattoo; I got it to celebrate my birthday.

I have really enjoyed the interaction with everyone in the class; nice job to everyone.

Rosie

Starlight by Sandra Seamans

THE AUTHOR:

I had a hard time digging up information for Sandra Seamans, the author of the short story, Starlight, I choose to research for my final. Thankfully, I eventually stumbled upon a couple sites. J From her blog (she just created it in October of 2008), I learned that Seamans is a wife, mother, grandmother, and writer, “but not always in that order,” she mentions. In addition to writing, Seaman also enjoys reading, baking, photography, and cloud gazing from her home in northeast Pennsylvania. She has many movies on her “favorites list”, including a couple of my favorites, While You Were Sleeping and all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I liked what Seaman wrote in the “Favorite Books” section of her blog profile, “Way too many to mention as I’m always looking for my next favorite book.” I think we can all identify with that statement one way or another!

Seaman’s short stories have appeared on websites such Crime and Suspense, A Cruel World (doesn’t work?), Flashing in the Gutters (now deleted) and The Thrilling Detective, which is where I found the story, Starlight.

MY REACTION:

I was in the middle of assignment for a different class when I choose this short story. I literally clicked on the Google Directory link, found a website with some short stories on it, clicked on a title that sounded interesting, and printed off the story. No sense in being picky, eh? Thankfully, I really enjoyed reading, Starlight! Seamans sense of humor found its way into the pages of this story and caused me to laugh a couple of times. I’m my opinion, laughter from the reader is a good indicator that a story is well written – at least for entertainment purposes.

Below is a quote from the section that caused me to laugh the hardest (I also included a jail cartoon I found just for laughs).

“In 1988 the old man took exception to his son getting married. He started raising objections at the ceremony, screaming the bride wasn’t who she claimed to be. The bride punched him right in the breadbasket, knocked the wind right out of him so he couldn’t talk until the minister finished the ceremony. He pressed charges and she spent the first night of her honeymoon in a jail cell. Junior went on an all day toot, popped a shot at his old man, and then snoozed the night away in an adjoining cell. Helluva way to spend your honeymoon.”

THE STORY:

I figured Starlight was going to be on the rougher side as far as language content after reading the first sentence, “The footwear passing my street level window usually consists of work boots, sneakers, or black rubber shit-kickers” (see image on the right). I was right; this story has a few swear words/phrases scattered throughout its content as well as some sexual references and crass statements. Now to the story itself…

Miss Banks is a detective in the small farm town, Carson. One particular day, an older, yet handsome, gentleman by the name of Mr. Hugo Durant comes to visit her; he does not have an appointment and his attire is a bit unusual. Skeptical this man was just some “weirdo” sent over from the sheriff’s office as a practical joke, she hesitantly asks Mr. Durant to take a seat. After doing so, Mr. Durant expresses an urgent need for Miss Banks to find his dancing partner, and love of his life, Miss Cinnamon Spice. He’s afraid his son might be involved in her disappearance, possibly to the point of murder; whatever the case, he just needs to find her soon! He and Miss Spice are supposed to participate in a ballroom competition at The Starlight Inn that very night and after words, he is going to propose to her.

Miss Banks asks him a few more questions before she decides to take the case. The first thing she does is swing by the Emporium donut shop on her way to visit the sheriff, knowing donuts are his favorite. She visits with Frank Murdock, the one and only sheriff in town, and learns that Cinnamon Spice was arrested for soliciting back in ’83. At the time, Miss Spice was just over 18 and worked as a pole dancer/stripper at The Gentleman’s Club; however, she skipped town before her hearing was scheduled to take place and no one had heard from her since.

Miss Banks wants to know what Murdock has on Mr. Durant and his son, Junior. The sheriff replies with a story concerning the son’s marriage a few years back (see quote mention earlier on); the identity of this wife remains a mystery since Mr. Durant hasn’t spoken about the incident since it happened. The sheriff finishes by telling Miss Banks that Mr. Durant had a wife but she had died almost 6 months ago so his guess what that his man had some memory problems due to his old age.

Curious as to what caused Mr. Durant to freak out at his son’s wedding, Miss Banks decides to go visit Junior and his mysterious wife. She arrives at the apartment house they own and receives less than a warm welcome. After talking for a few minutes, Miss Banks pressures Junior’s wife into admitting she was the old, Miss Cinnamon Spice although she now goes by the name Candice Spencer.

So what happened all those years ago? Well, Miss Spice and Mr. Durant had fallen in love and planned to get married, but at the last second he had chickened out and couldn’t leave his wife and son. After she got arrested for solicitation, Miss Spice blackmailed Mr. Durant into paying her bail so she could get out of town. She then sought revenge by turning around and marrying Junior, Mr. Durant’s son, whom she didn’t even love. That explains Mr. Durant’s reaction at the wedding. So for all those years, Miss Spice had been married to a man she didn’t love and laughing because she knew that Mr. Durant was still in love with her – a bitter sweet circumstance in my opinion.

At the end of the story, Miss Banks decides to keep what she has learned to herself 1) because she felt that the punishment Miss Spice had brought upon herself was much worse than anything the court could come up with and 2) she didn’t see the purpose in trying to set the record straight with a man who’s mind lived in a fantasy world. The story ended with a beautiful sentence that portrayed Miss Bank’s heart, “The man wanted to keep dancing, and I wouldn’t be the one to stop the music.”

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS:

Starlight is a short mystery story with a thread of romance woven between the pages. Unlike most modern mysteries, the presence of blood or death is absent from the plot. Instead, Seamans focuses on solving what had become a “cold case”. This story was written for entertainment purposes only and doesn’t really enhance the knowledge of the reader. Although, some of the vocabulary I wasn’t familiar with. I had never heard of the words “shit-kickers”, “voluptuous” or “niggling” so I looked them up. Starlight was written in the year 2008, and the story itself takes place sometime in the 21^st century. This is evident, at least to me, by the style and structure of the story. There was one section that I can picture some of my guy friends back in high school cracking a joke like this (Cinnamon Spice is speaking):

“Then he raises such a ruckus at the ceremony that me and Junior had to spend our wedding night in jail. Hell, we’ve been tossing around the idea of heading to the jail tonight. It’s our anniversary.”

This story was written in a first person style, which I liked, but Seamans didn’t introduce who “I” was soon enough in the story in my opinion. I read through the first 4 paragraphs before finally learning the identity of the person whose perspective this story was written from, which in case you were wondering, is Miss Banks. It was when Mr. Durant came into her office, “He swept his hat off and made a deep bow. ‘How do you do, Miss Banks.’” In contrast, remember the introduction to the story The Parker Shotgun? In the first paragraph the main character is introduced in full, “My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator, licensed, bonded, insured; white, female, age thirty-two, unmarried, and physically fit.” I loved having a visual of the main character as I begin to dive into the story.

There is a sentence in the second to last paragraph of this story that reminded me of a couple other stories we have read this term. The sentence was, “I considered going back to the Sheriff’s office and telling Frank the whole ugly story, let him serve his old bench warrant, but I couldn’t.” Does that trigger any memories for you as well? Remember at the end of Deborah’s Judgment, Deborah decides to keep what she had learned to herself? Also, in the story And Pray Nobody Sees You Aaron chose to go about creating his own version of justice instead of going to the police. I think both those stories created some great conversation about justice, morals, and responsibility. I personally think there is a fine line, but it’s not a black and white issue. In Starlight, I believe what Miss Banks did, by leaving things the way they had been, didn’t hurt anyone and if she had turned Miss Spice in, nothing much would have been gained.

In conclusion, I consider Starlight to be a great story, but definitely not my favorite. The plot was good, but I felt it lacked some vim and vigor. Just as a warning, I personally liked the tone and writing style but if someone were a fan of old-fashioned writing, this story might come across as little brass. Don’t take my word for it though; I hope you take the time to check this short story out for yourself! Enjoy!