Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

For those of you following the Paws & Claws saga, you'll be glad (or chagrined) to learn that Dogs of S.T.E.A.M., fifth book in the series, is available, both in print and e-book formats. Rather than tell you about the story, I wanted to share something about how the book came into being.

The first four books

Back in 2012, I wrote Paws & Claws: A Three Dog Mystery, first book in what was to become a series. At the time, however, I had no real intention of writing more about Levi, Sunny, Yoda and the Three Dog Detective Agency. It was something I had discussed often with Levi, and something I had put off for one reason or another. After writing and, ultimately, publishing it, I decided I did not want to let it end there. As I often did with short stories, I sat down and wrote a dozen or so titles which I thought might lend themselves to stories. The first book was based on true events (yes, even the spider money), but my fidelity to real events decreased with each succeeding book. The second (Flight of Raptors) was more fact than not; the third (K-9 Blues) was maybe 50/50; and the fourth (The Death & Life of an American Dog) was quite a bit more fiction than fact, though I always included real places, real dogs and cats, and illustrated the books with photographs rather than drawings. With the fifth book, which because of the title had to include steampunk, Victorian London, time travel and alternate universes, I realized I would have to reply more on fiction than actual events. After all, my dogs have never traveled into the past, journeyed into alternate dimensions or saved the British Empire...as far as I know. They don't tell me everything. Be that as it may, I still wanted to illustrate the book with photos, use real Chula Vista-area locales, and include some of the animals that fans e-mailed me, a group I call "animals of character." I had four animals of character to work into the story to greater or lesser degrees. 

The first of these was June (r), a dog nominated by artist Jason Thompson. I was taken when I saw his picture of his little hunter up a tree. The only real change I had to make was to take out the leash which kept her from running after her heart's desire. It was a fairly easy matter. With Kelsey (l-front) and Sammy (l-rear), two Shih Tzu dogs nominated by Mike and Jenny Meyers, it was a little more complicated. I had two separate photos of the dogs which I needed to combine into a single photo. Since, within the plot, one of the Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. is drawn to their home because it resembles the dog's own Victorian Age, I took the two dogs and put them into a more appropriate setting. To make it look a little more authentic, I turned it into a sepia tone (for the e-book edition only) to give it the appearance of  being a daguerreotype. All in all, I think both photos work well in their own ways. The fourth dog was a Gordon Setter named Artemus Gordon (thanks to Lester Doyle), but because his appearance became much more than a cameo, and he was present at some of the events also represented by photos, I decided to forgo the usual photo of him.

This is the first book in the series where I used locales in addition to Chula Vista. I also included scenes set in South San Diego and in Otay, an unincorporated area a little south of Chula Vista. In addition to contemporary locations, however, some of the action took place in London of 1887, one of which was the London Gasworks, where the Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. raid one of the secret lairs of the sinister and nefarious Lord Cerberus, a dog like no other on Earth. For the photo above, I combined a photo of the Gasworks with two others, a full moon and a night sky. Using a graphics program called GIMP, I filled the canals with mist, painted moonlight on some portions of the complex, and deepened some of the shadows. Lastly, I gave it a sepia cast (e-book edition) to make it seem more like an actual period photo.

Kindle Edition

Print Edition

This was the first book in the series to have two different covers, one for print and one for Kindle. The print edition uses a photo manipulated in GIMP. I inserted two dogs (the one wearing goggles was itself edited) into a public domain photo of London. I liked the photo, except it had a big boat in the background, which was not only distracting but had nothing to do with the story. I took it out. Change the composite photo to sepia tone again, and Bob's your uncle. For Kindle edition, I used the same photo, but cropped it to a vertical format using a graphics program called Irfan. For the actual composition of the crop, I have to thank the Wife, who provided aesthetic advice. Recently I discovered a design website called Canva,com, a great resource if you are working on a book cover, an album cover, a poster or even a Facebook banner and have a working budget to $0.00. I used their layout tools to size the photo, then their typography section to add author, title and series number. It addition to a lot of free stuff, it has a learning curve that is mostly flat, and even has design education segments for those who need tutelage in the subject. I recently used the site to redo the cover of the short story The Dog Who Loved Sherlock Holmes. The original cover is on the left, the re-done one on the right. I think it a big improvement.

Of course, the real question about Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. is:

"How did you come up with such a wild story? How did you plot a tale about some canine detectives from Chula Vista getting involved with a group of steampunk dogs from Victorian London, who then battle Lord Cerberus and his herald Lilith, not only for the fate of London and the British Empire, but for the destiny of myriad timelines, including ours?"

Actually, that was the easy part. I just wrote down everything the characters did and said. Yep, easy.

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Scotland Yard's Newest Manhunter

In the realm of mystery fiction, Scotland Yard (AKA the Metropolitan Police or The Met) is a legendary crime-fighting organization based in London, England, tasked with combating criminality and all sorts of evil in Greater Metropolitan London, often sending their ace detectives to the various English counties when needed or even to foreign lands in the pursuit of justice. In the real world, New Scotland Yard very nearly lives up to its fictional reputation, being one of the most recognized and respected police "brands" of all time, perhaps even eclipsing the vaunted FBI for top spot. Founded in 1829 by an Act of Parliament, it was not long before the actions of its detectives captured the public imagination, first in fiction, then in memoirs written by retired CID (Criminal Investigation Division) detectives. As society changed, so did the portrayal of Scotland Yard manhunters in fiction, from near-superhuman sleuths to foils for private detectives like Holmes and Poirot to doggedly competent and world-weary civil servants in grimly realistic procedurals, like John Creasy's Commander George Gideon and Martha Grimes' Richard Jury. In you're interested in an in-depth book at the transition of the Scotland Yard detective in fiction, I refer you to an essay by crime novelist Andrew Taylor in BBC magazine.

Although I enjoy all forms of the English detective novel, I am always on the lookout for good police procedurals set in London. They are not as easy to find as you might expect, and are actually better represented in the medium of television than in print. PD James' Adam Dalgliesh is the choice of many looking for a more cerebral sort of investigator, known for solving crimes and writing poetry. Richard Jury is favored by those looking for a more approachable sort of detective, melancholy and moody, a modern incarnation of Austen's Mr Darcy, who is, nevertheless, as spectacularly unsuccessful in the romance department as he is successful in solving crimes. My favorite, however, is Commander George Gideon ("Gideon of Scotland Yard"), a down-to-earth copper with a prodigious memory, an ability to handle multiple cases, and a decidedly "hands on" approach to dealing with all sorts of miscreants. He began his career in 1955 and cut a swath through the underworld of London in 26 novels, five of which were written after Creasy's death in 1973. For me, Gideon was most successful in putting aside the dubious mantle of Inspector Lestrade, a detective who could rise to the reputation of the fictional Scotland Yard, near-superhuman feats of crime fighting while remaining a bloke with a badge. Recently, I came across a series of books featuring another ace of Scotland Yard who gave me the same sort of thrill as did Commander Gideon--Detective Chief Inspector Michael Gregory, the creation of writer John Rigbey.

So far, there are four books in the series. The first, The Strange Michael Folmer Affair (2007), sets DCI Gregory against a foe who is commemorating the Jack the Ripper murders by committing new murders on the exact dates and in the same places as Jack did back in 1888. In the sequel, From the Beatles to Blair (2011), a professional hit on a retired "bent" Scotland Yard detective takes DCI Gregory on an intense journey through the gangland of London from the decades of the 60s, 70s and 80s, involving colorful real-life gangsters such as the Kray Brothers and corruption in the corridors of power. In The Luciano Legacy (2012), the torture/murder of a mysterious old woman in the heart of London, followed quickly by the similar murder of a disbarred solicitor nicknamed "the Gabardine Swine," involves DCI Gregory in a mystery that began in America shortly after the end of World War II and the deportation of notorious real-life mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano. In Mr Rigbey's latest book, Professional Standards (2014), the DCI tackles robbers, corruption, Masons, and malefactors in Scotland Yard itself.

In many ways, DCI Michael Gregory is a return to the almost infallible manhunters of Scotland Yard's earliest accounts. He thirsts for justice, pursues his cases with the legendary tenacity of the British Bulldog, and does not let anything deter him from his role as an avenging angel for law and order, no matter the cost to his personal or professional life. No matter who or what gets in his way, he will see his criminal in the dock of the Old Bailey. It is his indefatigable sense of justice which endears him most to the reader who is looking for a champion who does not give up or give in, but it is this trait of his character which causes the most turmoil in his life. Over the course of the four books, his marriage goes from rocky to destroyed, as his wife decides she can no longer abide "The Job" that has come to define Gregory as a person. Likewise, his single-minded pursuit of crime and empathy for victims, as well as his complete disregard for workplace politics, has earned him many enemies among those who see crime fighting and public safety subordinate to their roles as social and political activists, primary among these being Inspector Marsh of Professional Standards Department, Scotland Yard's equivalent of Internal Affairs; fortunately for Gregory, his abilities as a detective and his unequaled record of successes has earned him friends in high places, but even the staunchest friends can become fair-weather in nature if the wind changes.

One of things that impressed me about all the books was the sense of verisimilitude, the feeling that I was encountering real Scotland Yard detectives. This is perhaps explained by the fact that John Rigbey was himself a detective in Scotland yard's CID until his retirement in 1972. In that role, he became an expert in London's gangland by direct experience, which explains the sense of authority you get when reading the second book. His acquired knowledge in organized crime and the Mafia of the 30s and 40s is very much in evidence in the third book. After a career in Scotland Yard, Rigbey stayed in the realm of criminal justice when he founded the West of England Detective Agency (later The John Rigbey Consultancy) in 1989. I think it is this mix of public and private detection experience that allows Rigbey to write authoritatively and with empathy about life on both sides of the fence.

Although there are only four novels in the series, so far, I am hopeful more will be forthcoming. As a fan of the British police procedural, I find DCI Michael Gregory a breath of fresh air. If you're interested, you can follow John Rigbey on Twitter and on Facebook. And I also encourage a visit to his website. Happy reading, and good hunting.

Update: 12 Feb 2015

I'm happy to update this particular blog entry because it means Scotland Yard's Michael Gregory is back on a case. Actually, he's on two (or three) cases, the deaths of former Detective Sergeant Sid Barton and former Detective Inspector Charlie "Artful" Barrett, killed separately and mysteriously on the same day, and yet as inextricably tied to each other as they are to the execution of a child murderer fifty years earlier. The book is Who Killed Charlie Artful and was published a few weeks ago, as I write this.

As impressed as I was by the first four books in the series, I was even more affected by this book, by the advances made by author John Rigbey in terms of plotting, characterization, dialogue, and storytelling. I was not, however, surprised by his maturation as an author, for between his last Gregory book and the present volume, he published a non-series book entitled A Week on the Island, an exercise in storytelling, character, locale and pathos, a very engaging tale of a man who, while trying to solve a mystery from his past solves the mystery of who his father was and who he himself is. If you have not already read it, I recommend it highly.

But back to the mystery at hand. One of the first things we discover in Rigbey's new novel is that Detective Chief Inspector Gregory is now Detective Superintendent Gregory. He has apparently triumphed over all the activist and bureaucratic forces within Scotland Yard that were not only trying to tear him down, but toss him out. That, of course, does not mean he is any less blunt and straightforward that he was, nor does it mean that the bureaucracy of the Metropolitan Police is any less fraught with danger than it has always been. If anything, DS Gregory is a much bigger target, a much larger giant to topple, but, as with the biggest trees in the forest they are much more dangerous to cut down. Also, Gregory is three weeks married, this time, hopefully, to a much better woman. As in the previous books, Gregory's investigative and deductive skills are brought to the fore, handling a case which would have baffled a lesser copper. In addition to the two subtle murders in the present, he must also contend with investigating (and validating) the execution of a man who murdered two children more than fifty years earlier. In doing so, Gregory finds himself at the center of a whirlwind of controversy, holding off officialdom who wants it all to go away, a venomous press corps more concerned with a criminal fifty years dead than two murdered men in the hear and now, and a company of shady solicitors who will not hesitate to pervert the course of justice to keep their secrets hidden. All make for a great story that fans of the genre should not miss.

Here are links to my reviews of all the books on GoodReads:

The Strange Michael Folmer Affair

From the Beatles to Blair

The Luciano Legacy

Professional Standards

Who Killed Charlie Artful

Update: 4 July 2015

I admit I am a bit late in updating this entry about John Rigbey's writing, but I had given thought to starting a new blog entry about his latest book (since it is not in the same series), then got distracted by other projects. In the end, I decided to keep all his books together, as Rigbey is a wonderfully talented writer and a taste of one book will lead you to want to read them all.

With A Week on the Island, Rigbey ventures into the field of literature while still providing a legal-based mystery steeped in history and full of local color. The island of the title is the Isle of Wight, which during the course of the story almost becomes a character in itself. Years ago, during the Second World War, Jerry Ramsey was a lad on the island, his father a solicitor. The Isle of Wight was his home till his class-conscious mother sent him away to boarding school. Years later, he is a retired school teacher, living a solitary but satisfactory life in a village near England's New Forest. His seemingly idyllic life is upset when he receives a letter from the law firm on Wight at which his father worked till his retirement in the late Forties. The advent of a legacy from a man he never heard of might not have been enough to pull Ramsey back to the Isle of Wight, back to the world of a father he never understood, but then he starts to wonder if his present life is as satisfying and fulfilling as he has convinced himself. In the end, he decides that a week on the island might be a pleasant diversion from what is actually a rather boring and uneventful life. His stated goal is to solve the mystery of the unexpected legacy, but since it came to him, as it turns out, because he is his father's son, he might have no choice but to find out more about the emotionally distant father who was always an enigma to him, a man whom he never drew close to. He has convinced himself he is there only for the legacy, but he realizes in the back of his mind that it will also be a long delayed homecoming. As with any homecoming, there is the familiar and the strange, not to mention the strangely familiar. Though the book is tightly plotted, the real attraction for the discerning reader is the deep characterization, the rediscovery of forgotten (or denied) relationships, and the pleasure of vicariously spending a week on an island that you will want to visit before ever you close the book.

Here is a link to my review on GoodReads, from which you can also go to Amazon and other retailers:  A Week on the Island

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England's Glory

"I started with a matchbox label that read Bryant & May -- England's Glory. That gave me their names, their nationality, and something vague and appealing, the sense of an institution with roots in London's sooty past. I decided that London would be the third character, not the tourist city of guidebooks but the city of invisible societies, hidden parks and drunken theatricals, the people and places I show my friends when the visit. By making my detectives old, I could simultaneously show them as experienced adults and immature children."

-- Christopher Fowler

I am tremendously attracted to any novel set in London, but especially mysteries, but what first caught my eye when I saw Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler a few years ago was the contradiction of the title. Because both my children were high school thespians (one was leaving school as the other entered, so I had eight years of it) and the Kidette is still associated with theater as a playwright, I know lots of theater terms (including "stage slap," but that is another story). I know that full house is every producer's goal, with SRO, and that dark house means there's no performance and the theater's empty. So, a full dark house...no performance to SRO?

Because I so often come across great mystery series after they have been around awhile (and then have to play hunt-and-seek) I was gratified to start with the first book in the series shortly after it was published in 2003. Here we are introduced to the Peculiar Crimes Unit, an agency started during WW2 to deal with crimes that might cause civil unrest or panic among the population. Leading it then, and now, are Arthur Bryant, London's most senior detective, and John May, who is not much less senior. Bryant and May are a study in contrasts, May being dapper and highly organized, and Bryant being anything but; May embraces technology while Bryant makes a Luddite look like a techno-geek; May employs the latest criminology and police techniques, while Bryant trusts intuition and has been known to call in a dowser or a white witch as a consultant from time to time. For some reason (can't figure out why) I'm more partial to Bryant, who has been known to say such things as "No, I don't have to be rude, but it does help to pass the time," and "I'm going to stuff my brain with information till the day I die, and take it with me." And die is what he does in this first book. Sort of.

In The Water Room (2004) we have an elderly lady found drowned in her home, her lungs full of river water, very much in the realm of the classic locked room mystery. Whereas the first book gave us hints and flashes of London's secret and hidden history, here it hits us full in he face, as we learn of layers of London history, ancient evils and rivers that flow through caverns measureless to man. Reading Fowler's book, you get the feeling that he imparting actual history to you, but the trouble is deciding what is fact and what is fiction. In his blog, Christopher Fowler has written that it's actually the more obscure and extraordinary aspects of his stories that are either real or only lightly fictionalized. When I read a book from the series, I find it quite handy to keep a copy of William Kent's An Encyclopaedia of London within consulting distance, and it doesn't hurt to have also read John O'London's London Stories.

The River Fleet--a "lost" river

Initially, the PCU does its business from offices above the Mornington Crescent tube station, a real place, then is forced to relocate to a disreputable warehouse on The Caledonian Road, another very real place. By making use of London's actual psychogeography, he achieves his stated goal or making London the third character of the triptych. Quite often, the two detectives find themselves standing on Waterloo Bridge, discussing cases as they look over the city to which they have devoted most of their lives.

The View from Waterloo

If you have not already discovered the pleasure of the Bryant & May series, you should give it a try before the list gets too long and before any go out of print. They series consists of...

• Full Dark House (2003)
• The Water Room (2004)
• Seventy-Seven Clocks (2005)
• Ten Second Staircase (2006)
• White Corridor (2007)
• The Victoria Vanishes (2008)
• Bryant & May on the Loose (2009)
• Off the Rails (2010)
• The Memory of Blood (2011)
• Bryant & May and the Invisible Code (2012)

In addition, there is a short story, Bryant & May's Mystery Tour (2011), which is part of the Storycuts program and available to US readers in a Kindle edition. Currently, Fowler is working on The Bleeding Heart, which should be out in 2013, and which I will certainly be looking for.

A bit of an addendum to this post and a bonus for Bryant & May fans. Christopher Fowler wrote a very short Christmas story featuring the two elderly detectives of the PCU. Please enjoy.

Never Lost in London...as long as Queen Victoria reigns (or maybe Eddie)

It's all Gary Lovisi's fault...or so I tell myself.

Gary Lovisi is the publisher of Gryphon Books of Brooklyn, N.Y., avid collector of paperback books, and Sherlock Holmes expert. When it comes to paperback collecting, he wrote the book...no, really, he did write the book: the Antique Traders Collectible Paperback Price Guide. And when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, his knowledge is inexhaustible. And the books published by his own small press house are worth collecting themselves. If you have never visited his website, please do yourself a favor:

http://www.gryphonbooks.com/

But back to Gary Lovisi's culpability. After Gryphon Books published Sherlock Holmes: Adventure of the Ancient Gods, Gary suggested that, were I to write a sequel, he'd be interested in "first refusal." A sequel was far from my mind, but Gary had planted the seed, and eventually I wrote Sherlock Holmes and the Terror Out of Time and Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time. So, am I blaming Gary Lovisi for those books? No, not at all; I blame him for my fondness ("addiction" is such an ugly word) for London guidebooks.

Before ever I write a single line, I delve deep into a region's lore and history. Nothing unique about that. Many writers' yarns could be used as walkabout guides. Personally, I love stories with a strong sense of place. Sir Arthur's own tales document London with the accuracy of a camera; one of my favorite books pairs quotes from his stories with period photos. Other writers who have married fiction and geography include Raymond Chandler, HP Lovecraft, Steven Saylor and William Faulkner. I also read books about time periods, but I favor books from from those periods, particularly guidebooks.

This edition had a full-sized fold-out map of all London in the back.

I told myself I was tracking down various editions of Baedekers, Muirhead's, ABC Rail Guides and many others just so I could accurately trace my way through London and provide readers with a memorable and accurate visit to Baghdad on the Thames. Of course, after about a dozen acquisitions through EBay, estate sales and various booksellers, here and abroad, that excuse began to wear thin, even to me.

When a passing cab picked up India Jack Neville near the East India Docks it was equally important to me that all the streets and buildings were correct as it was that poor India Jack not get rooked by the driver. However, since the British tar did not live long enough to pay a fare, the amount was actually something of a moot point. Still, knowing how much it would cost for a hansom cab ride from Charing Cross to the Zoological Gardens, for example, is a nice thing to know. Like it might come in handy some day. Well, it might! All right, maybe not, but still nice to know.


Guidebooks of London from the Victorian and Edwardian eras are not really that difficult to find, nor need they be expensive. A great many came to me via the EBay auction site, which used to function like a global car boot sale or a million garage sales; unfortunately, the once-friendly site has been overrun by corporate entities, grifters and swindlers from the Far East. ABE Books was another good source, but, caution is always advised when buying a book online, even if a photo is supplied, and sellers found themselves peppered with queries. My favorite method of purchase was in person, and it really is surprising how often antique guidebooks show up at estate sales and charity shops. Regardless of how I came across them, I still had more books (Victorian, Edwardian, the VI Georgian and the II Elizabethan) than I could ever justify with any number of books and stories I could write set in London.

This was the cultural/economic heart of London; another book I have, The London of Oscar Wilde, discounts
entirely London's East End, averring there was no need for a gentleman to ever set foot there.

It's a little difficult to see in this scan, but some 19th Century London tourist annotated the map in pencil.

Despite its small size, the Zoological Gardens was a marvel of its time;
when an antiques dealer is killed nearby in the unpublished The Quest of the Copper Scrolls Scotland
Yard conveniently blames it on an escaped lion...that somehow found its way back in.

The previous owner of this copy of The Streets of London decided
to keep his book updated through tipped-in articles from and
letters to the London Times.
I love used books!

Augustus Hare's two-volume opus is strictly not a "guidebook",  but it one of my favorites; It is just
what the title claims...street by street...step by step...house by house...profusely illustrated.

One interesting thing about guidebooks of the past was they were often rife with advertisements. While most of the ads concerned hotels in London (none in the East End, of course) and in popular spots along the many rail lines, others were for charitable associations, house agents and purveyors of "personal" products. Here are a few examples:

"Temperance Hotel" -- Don't expect it to have a bar, American or otherwise.

Mystery writer Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890, and it continued to play a part in her life
and fiction; when she and husband Max Mallowan bought a home there they would have used house agents
such as those who advertised in the various guidebooks of the times.

Rowland's Kalydor might protect and promote soft, delicate skin, but a little arsenic
will give the cultured lady of society that peaches-and-cream complexion so appealing to dukes and earls.
(Hint: Don't go overboard with the arsenic)

So, you see, I would not have any of these dozens of books had Gary Lovisi not asked for "first refusal" of books I had no intention of writing. Acquiring so many was just an outgrowth of my desire to provide readers with literary excursions that were as accurate as possible, a sense of verisimilitude that they could "take to the bank," so to speak; I'm sure I was just trying to follow the guidance of the great Isaac Asimov, who once said: "No one reads a story for scientific facts, but certainly no one reads it for errors." And I think the stories I wrote were the better for the cultural immersion of their author.

Croatian edition:  Coils of Time

German edition: Coils of Time

The new incarnation of "The Coils of
Time"...plus a few friends

On the other hand, while I might be able to pass off responsibility to another for my collection of London  guidebooks, street histories and books about the lore of London, it is, I admit, difficult to explain my affinity for Victorian novels, especially those of the sub-genre known as London shop girl stories...will the poor lass discover the truth about her inheritance...will she marry the duke who does not realize her lowly status in society...will she find happiness? I just have to know.