Jan Burke - Eighteen

Let me tell you about Jan Burke.

I remember thinking sometime during the early 1990s that the baby boom had finally hit the mystery field. Each month brought a crop of new young writers to publishers’ lists, people I’d never heard of and probably would never read. When Jan Burke’s first novel about reporter Irene Kelly, Goodnight, Irene, appeared in 1993 it caused barely a ripple on my consciousness. Even when it was nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony Awards that year I didn’t feel the need to read it. There were too many other books and too little time for them all.

My opinion began to change the following year when Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine published her small gem of a story called “Unharmed,” which promptly won that magazine’s annual Readers Award. While publishing a new Irene Kelly novel each year, Jan was also turning up with increasing frequency in magazines, anthologies and limited editions. One story, “A Fine Set of Teeth,” was unique in having an audio version read by the author with music by her husband Tim Burke. It was the first Irene Kelly short story and I found it a delightful mixture of music and mystery, with some very funny musician jokes along the way.

Though I’d seen Jan at various writers’ gatherings over the years, the first time we had a real conversation was at the 2000 Left Coast Crime gathering in Tucson. We were sharing a table in the signing room after our panels, autographing books and magazines for fans, when a member of the organizing committee came along, urging us to attend the 2001 Left Coast Crime in Anchorage the following year. The event included a plan to fly some writers in small planes to remote communities that had rarely if ever been visited by an author. Inviting someone from cold and snowy Rochester to visit cold and snowy Alaska in February was an exercise in futility and I quickly declined. However I was more than a little surprised when Jan seemed interested in the trip. It occurred to me then that she was a rare writer indeed, one interested not just in promoting her own books but in publicizing all mysteries, all reading, to those who might never have been touched by the pleasures the written word can bring.

Two months later at the Mystery Writers of America awards dinner in New York, Jan Burke won the Edgar for Bones, judged the best novel of 1999. It was the first of her novels I’d read, but certainly not the last. In February of 2001 Jan did indeed go to Alaska, and in May of that year she won the Agatha Award for her story “The Man in the Civil Suit,” published within Malice Domestic 9.

Jan has played an active role in writers’ organizations, chairing several promotional programs for Sisters in Crime and most recently serving as president of MWA’s Southern California chapter. But it is her short stories that interest us here. Those readers who know her only through the Irene Kelly novels will be surprised at the wide range of style and subject matter in these eighteen stories, two of them published here for the first time.

Certainly Irene is here, and one new story “Devotion” brings back some familiar characters from Bones. But you’ll also find unusual historical mysteries like “Miscalculation,” “An Unexpected Condition of the Heart,” “A Man of My Stature,” and “The Haunting of Carrick Hollow,” all showing remarkable degrees of research. There are stories of kidnapping and murder, stories for dog-lovers and Hitchcock-lovers, and one new story, “The Mouse,” that has no crime in it at all. You’ll even find a couple of ghost stories lurking here. One of them, “The Abbey Ghosts,” is a fine tale already included in an anthology of the year’s best mysteries.

Read them, enjoy them! Jan Burke is the real thing.

Edward D. Hoch

Rochester, New York

This collection includes my first short stories and my most recent. I haven’t been at this all that long, but I hope you’ll enjoy the mixture of tales within. Here’s a little background on the stories you will find here.

“Devotion” and “A Fine Set of Teeth” feature characters created in my novels. “Devotion” is a new story written especially for this collection, and several of its characters are from Bones.

Ben Sheridan plays a major role in “Devotion”, and as always, I enjoyed writing about him. Judging from my mail, readers like him too. Like other amputees, he is who he is-not defined by this one difference. If he helps to dispel some myths about amputees along the way, that’s thanks to the many people who helped me create him by openly talking to me about their own lives after limb loss.

The dogs are also back. In addition to what I learned about SAR dog work from dog handlers who helped me with Bones and Flight, bloodhound handler Milica Wilson of Colorado gave me information that was invaluable for this story.

“A Fine Set of Teeth” is the first Irene Kelly short story, and was first published by A.S.A.P. Publishing. My husband, Tim Burke, is a musician, and some of Irene’s experiences in this story are drawn from life. Our friends had a field day contributing the musician jokes.

In addition to “Devotion”, two other stories will be new to most of my readers. “The Mouse” is published here for the first time. It isn’t a mystery story, but it’s close to the bone. “The Loveseat” was my first published work, but until now, it has never been published in English. Although I had sold Goodnight, Irene before I wrote “The Loveseat”, the book was not published until almost a year after this story appeared in a suspense anthology in the Netherlands. Meulenhoff, which publishes my novels in Dutch, will always hold a place in my heart because my editor there recognized the story’s dark humor.

“Why Tonight?” was the first of my stories to be published in the U.S. I sold it to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine not long before Goodnight, Irene was released. I was thrilled to make it into this magazine, which I had read for many years. After several years, I still have an attachment to this story, although I’m not exactly sure why-perhaps it’s the Kansas setting.

“Unharmed” debuted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine-another magazine stacked in piles next to my bed. On the way home from work one night, Tim heard a news story on the radio. He thought I might be able to do something with it if I wrote it from a certain perspective. He had no sooner finished telling me about it, than I excused myself, ran into my office, and wrote “Unharmed” in one sitting. Tim had to finish making dinner that evening, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Many of these stories reflect my love of history. I’m especially grateful to Sharan Newman, who heard me complaining about a character-a medieval knight in my imagination who really wouldn’t leave me alone. She offered me the chance to write an historical short story. She didn’t get the story about the knight (he still pesters me from time to time), but she did give me a home for “A Man of My Stature”-it’s inspired by a true crime which took place in the U.S. in the late 19th century. I took the basic idea behind the crime and came up with a different set of problems for the narrator than the ones which led to the capture of his real-life counterpart.

Others inspired by true stories are “The Haunting of Carrick Hollow”, “Two Bits” and “Miscalculation”.

“The Haunting of Carrick Hollow” was the result of my first and (so far) only attempt to work with a writing partner. I doubt anyone else could have made it as painless as Paul Sledzik did. Paul’s a good friend who works as a forensic anthropologist, has been the Curator of Anatomical Collections at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and (among other areas of expertise) is known for his ability to recognize tuberculosis in skeletal remains. He came up with the question that became the center of this story, and wrote some of the most difficult scenes. My hope is that he’ll continue to try his hand at fiction, because I found his work on this one to be exceptional. The story is set in late nineteenth century New England.