Sharyn McCrumb - Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories

P.O. Box 97184

Peachtree City, GA 30269

367 Calabria Road

Passaic, New Jersey 07055

Dear Ms. Gunsel:

Thank you for your kind offer to sign my collection of eight Cass Cairncross first editions. I am speechless with joy. Also, I am shamelessly taking you up on it. A package of books should arrive shortly, along with return postage and a self-addressed sticker for you to put on the box and mail back. Please inscribe them to Monty . In case you are busy with your latest masterpiece, I want you to know that there is no hurry in doing me this favor. I know the books are safe with you. I’ve already read them, so don’t waste a minute of your writing time on this chore.

Thanks for the tip about the new Cass story in Criminal Minds . Most enjoyable. Such description! When Cass Cairncross breaks into Hepler’s room to search for the documents, and finds that he has been shot in the head while sleeping, I was afraid that the shooter would come tippytoeing out of the bathroom and get her next. This can happen. But then I tell myself: Laurie Gunsel is in charge here, and she is not going to shoot the hand that feeds her, and, sure enough, all is well. Interesting that you said Hepler’s cheek felt like warm leather to Cass’s touch, when she checked to see if he was really dead. I’ve always thought that deceased personages felt like a package of plastic-wrapped meat like you get at the deli. But your description is more elegant. I suppose Cass was too delicate to mention the smell. She couldn’t miss it. And I was a little surprised to hear that there was a spatter pattern of blood on the wall by the bed. Surely if the individual is lying down, you would put the barrel just above his ear and aim downward. Shooting your mark in the temple is messy, no question about that, but people have been known to recover. You want to take out as much of the braincase as possible with one slug so as to guarantee a clean kill. Of course, as I recall, the murderer was the blackmailed Unitarian minister, so maybe he didn’t know from forensic medicine. He probably wouldn’t know all that technical stuff. Anyway, it was a great yarn, and you fooled me completely. I especially liked the neat touch of the shooter’s having put a roll of toilet paper under Hepler’s chin and unrolling it to make a necktie-to show his opinion of the deceased. A nice bit of symbolism, which was not lost on yours truly.

Speaking of technical difficulties, your letter mentioned that you had a dilemma in your current project.-What’s this one called? I’ll put my name on the waiting list at the bookstore.-Can I be so bold as to make a suggestion about this gun and airplane problem? (I don’t want your next book delayed because the FAA has you locked away as a suspected terrorist.) You did say that the individual in question was a pro this time, I believe. (I’ll try to forget these details when I purchase the book. I want to figure it out fair and square with no advance warnings.) Probably the guy would pack his weapon in his checked luggage, dismantled and-it goes without saying-unloaded. This is a legal and therefore hassle-free mode of transport, but perhaps that lacks the necessary drama for the plot. Or maybe the guy doesn’t trust the airline to get his bags and him to the same destination-a very wise concern in my experience. So he has to have the thing in carry-on or concealed about his person.

Let me recommend that you not make the weapon a 44 Magnum, since, with all due respect to the brilliant Mr. Eastwood, this is not what a gentleman in the sanction business would use professionally. There are some very nice firearms out now that are made of space-age polymers-the 9mm. Glock is very good-that can perform adequately in the field and still not be unduly ostentatious. This piece, dismantled in carry-on baggage, should make it through airport security, as the polymer parts of the pistol will not register on the metal detector, and the metal parts can be concealed in, say, a false-bottomed can of shaving cream. Not that I am trying to write your book. I’m happy to be just reading them. (Dare I hope that this mythical hit man will be dispatched to off a “pretentious dresser with prominent ears,” who is maybe also a lawyer?)

Of course, by the time you receive this you will probably have figured out your own brilliant solution to the airport problem. I have great faith in your inventive abilities. Just don’t try sneaking a rod on your next flight for research. They have no sense of humor, these bureaucrats.

I hope all is well with you in sunny Georgia. My garden is doing well despite the dry spell, as my water bill will no doubt show at the end of the month. I’m putting in chrysanthemums to try to keep summer around for a few more weeks. And if you should find yourself in need of zucchini, seek no further. I am begging people to take it.

Again, my deepest thanks for your generosity in autographing my favorite works of literature. It was a gracious gesture. I owe you one, Ms. Gunsel.

With gratitude and best wishes,

Monty

Laurie Gunsel

Mr. Monty Vincent

367 Calabria Road

Passaic, New Jersey 07055

Dear Monty,

Signing your books was no trouble at all. Really. I still get a kick out of seeing my name on the title page. Anyhow, they’re all inscribed To Monty , as you requested, and they’re on their way back to you in New Jersey. Incidentally, I insured the package for you. My treat. Actually, I didn’t want to worry about the whereabouts of those books, considering their cumulative value. I trust the post office like you trust the airlines! I don’t mean to brag, but just for your information as an investor, that first Cass Cairncross book, Dead in the Water , is worth (they tell me) seven hundred and fifty dollars. Maybe more if it’s autographed. I don’t keep track of such things, but I thought you might like to know. In case the grandkids ever want a pony.

Thanks for your advice about the gun-and-airport caper. I can tell you’ve read a lot of crime fiction. You’re well-versed in the literary gambits! Do I detect an Ed McBain fan, or maybe John D. MacDonald?

Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of trying to smuggle a gun onto an airplane for research. I know how grim airport officials are about weapons jokes. There’s a crime writer of my acquaintance with a bizarre sense of humor, who always travels with a laptop computer, and when he went through airport security, they always make him turn on the machine to prove that it really is a working computer. So one day before he left the hotel-I’m not sure this fellow was entirely sober at the time-he programmed the computer with an automatic boot, which means that when you switch on the computer, a message automatically appears on the screen. At the airport screening gate, they made him turn on the computer as usual, and a sign on the screen said: READY… ARMING… NINETY SECONDS TO DETONATION. Needless to say he missed his flight, and if he wasn’t so rich and famous, he’d probably be playing racquetball at a celebrity prison these days, but apparently he managed to talk his way out of trouble, because he’s still turning up at conventions. (I wish I’d known how to do one of those autoboots. My ex-the-attorney used to travel with a laptop, and I’d have enjoyed getting him sent to prison. I don’t suppose I can use that computer story in a book, though, because my friend the prankster would probably see it and complain.)

I had thought of killing him again in this new book. (The Ex, I mean, not the Prankster.) This book is called Buck in the Snow (thank you for asking!), and the title comes from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a favorite poet of mine from my shady past as an English major, before I turned to crime. Buck is going to be the hit man. (I thought Vito might be too obvious. No white ties this time, either.) Or maybe I’ll make Buck a serial killer. Serial killers are very popular with readers these days.