A MASTER BETA READER OPINES, “THERE’S A LOT OF SEX IN THIS BOOK!”

In my new thriller, Ask Not!, my main character, Hank Larson, traverses the country on a mission to absolve his brother of murder charges. Luckily, he’s an airline pilot so he can hop flights like trolley cars in San Francisco, as long as he’s in uniform. 

My sister-in-law says, “There’s something about a man in uniform.” In that way that tells you it brings out ‘har-moans’ that lie dormant except when a good chick-lit novel or steamy romance flick comes her way. 

As an author, I am blessed to have a Mastermind Group. Professionals and experts who are knowledgeable about, the various professions, ideas, and practices the characters in my novels encounter. They read my raw manuscripts for accuracy as I sketch my characters and plots outside the lines of the many lives that I have never lived but write about with authority. They reign in my estimations of those lives into a focused realism that passes muster with other readers of that ilk. You never want to alienate a plumber by using a spanner wrench on the wrong pipe joint, or a nuclear physicist by introducing the wrong isotope into an atomic cocktail. (I actually do have a nuclear physicist and a master plumber in my Mastermind Group along with a cop, a politician, a mobster (ret.), judges, psychologists, engineers, locomotive engineers, secret service agents, etc.) 

There is another group of about ten, just as precious to me who are critical readers who approach the book in general, they are known collectively as ‘Beta-Readers.’ Beta is a term brought out by the industrial release of a trial product. These intrepid souls slog through my unpolished work pointing out stumbles, knots, inconsistencies, and lots of other nasty artifacts that pollute the work of one mind writing one novel. But I never got a note like this. 

“There’s a lot of sex in this bookl.”

I don’t think so. But again, I wrote it.  However, now that he mentioned it, maybe there is a lot of guiltless, no-consequence (good or bad) casual sex in the book. See: Man in uniform. 

For example: Deep in the heart of Texas, Hank meets Carla, a bartender who is a free spirit. She has a very healthy attitude about men, life, and sex. Their brief encounter is easy, comfortable, and satisfying, surprisingly free from guilt or self-conscious emotions. For Hank, it’s the kind of experience that he’s sure would have most people picking out sofas and deciding whose rent is cheaper. Instead of going down the path of longevity and keeping a great thing like this going, Carla celebrates her freedom and her life as it is. She’s not looking for a change. Hank isn’t either, but he’s never experienced the same sentiment coming at him after such wonderful moments together.  Oh, and in the morning, he sees police uniforms hanging in her open closet. Turns out she’s a cop during the day. 

This puts him in a frame of mind that is perfect for when he meets, Chris DeMarco, another woman in uniform. They immediately… oh wait…I think I see what he meant.  

Apparently I have now created a new class of beta readers. The master-beta reader.  A new expertise that I guess could come in handy in any author’s work.

A Fortunate Encounter

This fortune cookie fortune sent me years back, to an early Thanksgiving morning when I shoehorned in a quick trip to the office before the family and the bird appeared in the dining room. My office was in the Theater District on 7th Avenue in New York. In my building was the home office of a venerated master of the Broadway stage as well as a show business guru to the stars. Many times during the work day, you would find the biggest stars, and up-and-coming ones, outside his office sitting on a hallway window banquette, waiting for their appointments. You get pretty blasé about it all after the 50th time.

Except on Thanksgiving, when you don’t expect to see anybody (but me) working. I remember that as I was walking up the stairs, Katharine Hepburn was walking down. At her advanced age, she chose the stairs over the elevator. Classic, I thought, for this American powerhouse. Now even though I was hardened to all this star power by then, I found myself awestruck. So, I put on the most syrupy voice and tone I could muster and asked, “So how are you today?”

To which the Academy Award-winning, woman’s role model, actor’s actor replied in her signature shaky, and crackly New England accent, “Any day above ground is a good day.”

“Yes, it is.” I agreed. Then I abruptly turned around and ran down the steps ahead of her. I ran to the Corner Deli on 54th and grabbed a red rose. I threw down a five. (Four dollars more than it cost, but I was in a hurry) and I ran back to my building. Just as I did, I saw the Great Kate getting into the back of a black Town Car as it rolled away.

I had a momentary impulse to run and catch her at the light, but that would have been too creepy. So, I handed the rose to the first woman I saw on 7th Avenue and said, “Happy Thanksgiving. Have a good day.” and added in my head, …an above-ground day!”

Although Turkey doesn’t come with a fortune cookie, I wish everyone good fortune this Thanksgiving.

Where were you 60 years ago today?

The day President Kennedy was assassinated. The day when many say America lost its innocence. The day Camelot and the New Frontier vanished along with the promise of new, youthful energy replacing the old stogey establishment generation. “The Torch has been passed to a new generation…” Kennedy proclaimed. He was against those things that held us back from being a more perfect union. His agenda was in part, no intervention in regional wars, like Vietnam. No invasion of countries we didn’t agree with, like Cuba. No racial segregation in our society, like in Alabama. No coddling of wealthy industries like oil and military contractors for political support. No mob control of culture and vice.  

He stood for much. He was cut down for most of it. Anyone who was above the age of 8 remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I was in 4th grade. I remember the hollow feeling – a chill. Many teachers, who understood the gravity of the moment, were seen with moist eyes as we were let out of school early. We all shook with nerves as we waited for the dreadful Air Raid sirens to start wailing out their warning of instant, immolated death. A flash of light that would leave all of us as shadows of ash to mark where we died. It was the Cold War. The threat of nuclear annihilation was ever present as we routinely “ducked and covered” under our school desk, facing away from the windows, as if that made any difference to a supersonic nuclear fireball disintegrating everything in its path with the heat of a thousand suns. Kennedy was out to stop all that… ’til he was stopped. 

For nearly 40 years I have shared the national “Assassination Fascination” that grips America. Today is the birthday of the founding of that cottage industry of conspiracy theorists and their hundreds of books, movies, TV shows, and articles all trying to make sense of the senseless killing of a man trying to be sensible about our world and America’s place in it. 

My new thriller, Ask Not, is in many ways an homage to the national obsession with those 6 seconds in Dallas – six seconds whose devastating effects have lasted 60 years. My hero must sift through the world of conspiracy and fact to try to avenge his brother’s death – a brother who was deep into the assassination craziness.  

Recently, during a coast-to-coast radio interview, I was asked where I was when the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza on that day. Here is a short video of my response. 

Happy Television Day

Yesterday was National Television Day. Today is the 60th anniversary of the JFK’s assassination. In many ways, JFK was the first TV president. Right from the start, the televised Nixon-Kennedy debate was a landmark television event. How do we know this? The majority of the people who heard the debate on the radio held that Nixon won hands down. However, TV viewers of the debate overwhelmingly chose the young man from Massachusetts over the former Vice President and veteran politician. Is there some psychological or culturally significant indicator for this? Well, yes and no. Here’s what made the difference, makeup. Yes, it was makeup that maxed out Kennedy’s appeal, the power of this Max Factor was demonstrated when Richard Nixon, a man of the 1940s and 50s, knew that only women wore makeup. Therefore, he politely demurred the powder puff of the makeup person.

Kennedy who had had a constant stable of Hollywood starlets in his orbit and his famous actor, brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, knew all about cosmetology and its power in movies…and now, TV. Here’s the science behind this Max Factor. TV camera tubes of the day were a scientific extension of an X-ray tube, although more benign, early Iconoscope and vidicon television camera tubes x-ray a scant part of a millimeter deep under the skin. Even a clean-shaven face to the naked eye will appear as a 5’oclock shadow under this x-ray effect of the early tubes. Revealing the hair follicles just under any clean-shaven skin. Kennedy opted for the basic makeup (called Block, for a very good reason) while Nixon went full commando with a naked and exposed face. On TV Kennedy looked well-groomed and sharp, while just as clean-shaven Nixon appeared like a bum who didn’t shave. More people watched television than radio and the rest is history.

Kennedy went on to be a very effective practitioner of television. He made many Oval Office Addresses on national crises and social issues that literally brought the here-to-fore, behind-closed-doors machinations of the government. Further increasing his muscular political tone. Even Jaqueline Kennedy masterfully took America on a White House tour and by doing so, immortalized and protected her décor choices and adornment of the mansion ensuring First Ladies in the future would think twice before they changed anything “Jackie” because that’s the way America saw the White House.

Finally, Kennedy’s Assassination and Funeral was named by TV Guide as, America’s Three Day Vigil. So glued to our sets were we that we all witnessed the murder of his assassin, Oswald in the basement of the Dallas jail.

A dozen years later, a much more gruesome milestone was achieved by Kennedy on television, as the film of his gruesome and bloody murder was broadcast to an unsuspecting public on March 6th, 1976, by Geraldo Rivera on his late-night show, Good Night America.

Kennedy was truly the first TV president and, in many ways, JFK and TV changed the world for good and bad.

Read about my latest novel, ASK NOT!, a JFK murder mystery thriller here.

60 Years in the Making…

and now it’s here at Amazon!

It’s a great read, a smart thriller and also a quick refresher course on JFK’s assassination and the controversy that has followed to this day. – Anonymous

In 1993, 8 out of 10 Americans didn’t believe the official account of the Kennedy assassination, namely that it was carried out solely by Lee Harvey Oswald, that only 3 shots were fired and there was no conspiracy, 80%! 

One of the other 20% is airline pilot, Hank Larson. He never thought about it and couldn’t care less. That is until a family tragedy catapulted him into a living nightmare. Soon conspiracy theorists, researchers, wingnuts, and shady operatives will threaten his life and the life of the innocent woman who just wanted to help him. 

Does he unwittingly hold the key to solving the biggest crime of all time? Or will he be just another suspicious death in what some say are over 200 witnesses and dissenters who have met an untimely demise? 

Hank Larson is thrown into the deep end of a history-changing event, 30 years after it shocked the world. Now, he must think fast and act faster lest he himself becomes…history.

The Hero I Took to Vote Yesterday

Every Election Day, I bring the name of someone who fought to preserve our freedom with me as I vote. I say their name and then thank them for preserving our liberties, among which is the right to vote. The cornerstone of our democracy.  

This election day the hero I brought to vote with me was Robert Crater von Egloffstein.  His daughter, Elyse Migliaccio, tells me that he was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 33 and assigned to the T/O (Texas/ Oklahoma infantry- K Company.) K Co hit the beach at Normandy on D-day plus 5 and he and his unit fought valiantly through the hedgerows -Malmedy- St Vith – the Arden’s and finally onto liberate a concentration camp.  Pops, as they called him, was a poor shot but he carried a French schoolbag filled with hand grenades. He had a great arm and could throw far more accurately than shoot. Lastly, for his actions at Malmedy, after the massacre, he was awarded the bronze star. God Bless him and all who served and those who gave their last full measure of devotion to maintain our freedom. 

This video explains my “Take a Hero to Vote” ritual. Maybe you can take one next year!

JFK and the Secret Service Agent’s Secret!

With the upcoming release of my new, JFK thriller, Ask Not! and the new revelations all over the media that retired Secret Service Agent, Paul Landis found the “magic bullet” in the back seat of the limo and placed it on a hospital stretcher, I am constantly asked to comment. 

But first, as we say in publishing, a little backstory, President John F. Kennedy was shot at 12:30 p.m. CST as his motorcade weaved its way through Dallas, Texas. At 12:36 the limo with the mortally wounded 35thpresident screeched to a stop at Parkland Hospital’s Emergency entrance. At first, Mrs. Kennedy would not let go of her husband. Her personal Secret Service Agents, Clint Hill, and Paul Landis tried to coax her to release him. They soon realized she was holding his head together and her own sense of propriety had her hiding his ghastly wound from the public. Clint caught on and removed his jacket and covered the president’s head with it and she relented to letting her husband go. Landis’ eye was caught by something shiny in the back seat. He now testifies that “two bright brass bullet fragments” glistened back at him. He collected Mrs. Kennedy’s hat, bag, and lighter. Then noticed an intact bullet resting on the rear deck of the limo. He pocketed the bullet and proceeded into the trauma room where he says he placed the bullet on the president’s stretcher.

Maybe not so MAGICAL after all

Well, that bullet would go on to launch the greatest unsolved mystery in history. It would be renamed the “Magic Bullet” and be identified (Commission Exhibit #399) in the Warren Commission’s Official Report on the Assassination as having made 7 of the 8 wounds Kennedy and Texas Governor Connelly, who was riding in the jump seat right in front of the president, suffered. Ostensibly from the three shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the 6th-floor window of the Texas Scholl book depository.  

The big news hullabaloo about all this is that if Landis is telling the truth, then that bullet found at the back of the limo didn’t “magically” create the 7 entrance and exit wounds of Kennedy and Connelly only then to fall out of Connelly’s thigh onto the hospital stretcher.  Through the tortured math of forensics, it points to a second shooter to account for the total of 8 wounds, the third and last shot making only wound number 8, clearly hitting the president in his head. A second shooter is a most tantalizing prospect since for the past 60 years the official cause of the president’s death was maintained as a lone gunman, 3 shots and no conspiracy. 

Ah, but wait!  Lost in this hoopla of “blockbuster revelations” is a small fact that I have never heard in my 30 years of investigating this subject. My deep dive into Dallas began as I was researching and writing a screenplay in 1993, and now for my soon-to-be-released novel, Ask Not! in November. And if history is any predictor, it should become the hub of a whole new branch of conspiracy theories. In his testimony, Landis offhandedly mentions seeing “two bright brass bullet fragments” on the back seat. He goes into great detail about one of them, he described it as the size of the end of his pinky and mushroomed. He never described the other fragment. BINGO. New conspiracy fodder for the next 60 years! 

Nowhere in any official accounts, including the extensive Warren Commission Report, is there any mention of bullet fragments being found in the backseat of the limo. In fact, the Warren Report specifically states that 5 bullet fragments were found in the car, 4 in and around the front seat, and one under the jump seat that Nellie Connelly, the governor’s wife, was sitting in. To the best of my knowledge and amongst the many researchers and conspiracy theorists I have spoken with in the intervening 3 decades has any mention, documentation, or photos of bullet fragments in the back seat ever come up!*

*(However, there are thousands of alternate theories about the Kennedy assassination that range from plausible to science fiction, so I am sure someone will probably refute that, i.e. “The emperor of the moon, who was opposed to Kennedy’s moon-shot program, admitted to placing those fragments. That was before America’s collective consciousness of moon people was erased during the Ed Sullivan Show with the same device that Tommy Lee Jones and Wil Smith used in the movie Men in Black.” Believe it!)

Back to physical reality and the possible sanity of Landis’ claim. A bullet mushrooms when it slams into something hard, like bone, metal, or stone. It would also ricochet, winding up somewhere other than where it was aimed.   Is this the fragment that made the hole in the limo’s windshield or the dent in the chrome trim above the window, then miraculously shot into the back seat without hitting the president or his wife? Or is this the bullet that ricocheted off the chrome and into the president’s throat coming out his back and falling onto the seat? Without the bullet fragment in evidence, we will never know! And hence, buckle your seat belts for the next 60 years of conspiracy theories!  

In the meantime, you might enjoy my latest work, Ask Not!, which pits all the conspiracy theories against a valiant effort to right a wrong that ensnares Hank Larson, my main character into a dark and deadly world of conspirators, nuts, and operatives. Unbeknownst to him, he comes into possession of the proof of what really happened in Dealey Plaza that day, and they will kill him and anyone else who touches it.