AFTER ROGER AND SUZANNE’S CRUISE: AN UPDATE ON THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

           For those of you who have already read The Origin of Murder, here’s an update on events in the Galapagos Islands at a couple of places Suzanne and Roger visited in the book.  Life seems to be imitating art here, or maybe it’s vice-versa.  The Galapagos Tortoise whose photo adorns the cover of the novel probably started his/her life at the Darwin Research Station.  For those of you who haven’t read the book yet, you should.  It’s really very good as you can tell from the reviews on the Amazon book page*.

           The Charles Darwin Research Station is threatened with closure because the Station and Santa Cruz Island seem to be having a fight over the money coming into the gift shop of the Charles Darwin Foundation, which has supported the Station financially since shortly after World War II.  There were complaints from local shop owners that the gift shop, in Santa Cruz’s “big city” of Puerto Ayora, takes away business from them.  This past summer officials on Santa Cruz Island ordered the Foundation to shut the gift shop.  According to the Foundation, that’s a loss of something like $8,000 (US dollars) per week, or as much as $200,000 for the second half of 2014.  This Research Station is the facility that breeds Galapagos Tortoises to release back to the island chain, and is essential for ensuring survival of the population of these huge tortoises in the wild.  It's also a base for visiting scientists studying the biology and geology of the Galapagos Islands, so hosts a lot of academic scientists from all over the world as part of its mission.

            Even though the gift shop provides just 10% of the foundation’s revenue, its closure threatens the continuing existence of the facility.  Donations to the Foundation are down, salaries aren’t being paid, research projects have been slowed or shut down, and staff members are resigning.

            A substantial amount of Ecuador’s tourist income comes from the Galapagos Islands, so it is likely the Ecuadorian Government will step in and stabilize the research station’s operations.  In the meantime, there’s a lot of drama occurring these days 600 miles west of Guayaquil, in the Pacific Ocean.

*A couple of quotes from reviewers: 

(1) “A fast-paced, exciting mystery I didn't want to set aside till finished... A great continuation of the series!”

(2)  “When a luxury cruise ship full of hard-to-predict eco-tourists is confronted with a murdered passenger, survival of the fittest takes on a whole new meaning.”

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Murder-Suzanne-American-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00K4KDL3O/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399322637&sr=1-6&keywords=the+origin+of+murder

UK link:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Murder-Suzanne-American-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00K4KDL3O/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399265823&sr=1-7&keywords=origin+of+murder

“THE ORIGIN OF MURDER”---BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE NEWEST ROGER AND SUZANNE NOVEL

This entry will be posted to my blog when I submit “The Origin of Murder” to Amazon for publication.  It usually takes Amazon about 24 hours to publish a book after the author uploads it to KDP site, so wait till tomorrow before you check out the new book page.  I thought a bit of background, if not the book itself, might interest some of the readers of this blog.

In "The Origin of Murder", Roger, Suzanne, Robert, and Bruce take a vacation cruise through the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador. Of course, Suzanne finds another dead body floating in the Pacific Ocean and we're off to solve another deadly mystery.  Among the suspects are a mysterious travel agent, a bird watching couple from Germany, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon, two sisters from San Francisco, and couples from Uruguay and Australia.

PROGRESS IN THE GALAPAGOS AND OTHER STUFF

            The current Work In Progress reached a milestone.   The first draft of “The Origin of Murder” is complete, I’ve also completed the first round of edits, and a copy is currently being read by my wife with her trusty blue pen.   I like this new book, which started with rediscovering Elaine’s journal describing her impressions of what we saw when we took the cruise through the Galapagos Islands that Roger, Suzanne, and their entourage take in this current novel.   The plot evolved from the original idea (which is still the central theme of “Whydunit”), to a much more complex story as the peripheral characters began clamoring for enhanced identities and backstories.   “Whodunit” evolved with the novel.   Along the way I ended up doing a lot of research (I’d tell you about what, but that would be a spoiler) and learned a lot about [CENSORED] and [CENSORED].

THE NEWEST ROGER AND SUZANNE NOVEL

The current Work In Progress is almost completed through the first draft stage.   I don’t have a title yet.   Here’s the set-up.   Roger and Suzanne, along with Robert and Bruce, are taking a long overdue vacation tour though the Galapagos Islands.   This is another fascinating piece of South America Elaine and I have visited that I wanted to share with my readers.   On the second day of the tour, as their Zodiac raft motors towards one of the islands Suzanne finds a dead body floating in the ocean just off the beach.   And we’re into another South American mystery novel starring my favorite couple of detectives.   And there to help are Eduardo Gomez, his wife Sophia who we'll meet for the first time, and the mysterious General Vincente Aleman. 

SOUTH AMERICAN MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

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One of the things we never learned about when I went to school was the history of South America before the Spanish Conquest.  There was (and still is) a rich history, much of which we know about in some detail, culminating with the ascendency of the Incan Empire in the 15^th Century.  One of the benefits of wandering through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador is getting exposed to this rich and fascinating history of pre-Colombian South America.

QUIRKY EXPERIENCES IN SOUTH AMERICA, V: THE COMPLICATIONS OF FLYING TO AND FROM MONTEVIDEO IN 1982

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To celebrate the 31^st anniversary of the first time I lived in Montevideo, I present Episode V of this installment of the series to you.  It’s hard to forget that trip in both directions, an epic trip to the other side of the world.

You need to understand the rules of travel for me that first time as a Fulbright awardee.  The costs of my travel were reimbursed by the U.S. State Department, the agency responsible for administering the Fulbright Program.   The rules were simple:  Coach class only, lowest price ticket available, and you had to fly on a U.S. Flag carrier.   In 1982 South America, that meant Pan American.  And Pan American had already fallen on hard times by then, so that meant no-frills travel on a decaying and disillusioned airline soon to go into bankruptcy and give up its routes.  In older planes that were slow and uncomfortable.  And for those of you who remember the comedian Jonathan Winters, and his persona of “Granny Frickert,” the stewardesses were also older and decaying.  Varig or a couple of the European airlines with the right routes would have been nice, but that wasn’t allowed. 

A Historical Discovery

Where does the next new book idea come from?  In this case I can give us a very simple and precise answer.  After a lot of years it was time to paint the inside of our house again. That in turn was an excuse (necessity?) to reorganize messy desks and closets and peek into various cracks and crevices. Even (shudder!) to throw away a lot of old junk. But we unearthed a few lost treasures, too. One of them was Elaine's journal from our trip to Quito, Guayaquil, and The Galápagos Islands several years ago. This little bit of hidden treasure ensures that somewhere on the to-do list is a visit to the Galápagos Islands and a body or two for Roger and Suzanne to discover among the Booby Birds and the tortoises. I've also been meaning to re-read Darwin's classic treatise, "Origin of Species", so it might be an excuse to sprinkle a bit of biology into a novel. We'll see.

We met a few very interesting people on that trip. I assume that Roger and Suzanne will meet their fictional doppelgangers in this book to be (book in utero?). These characters should include the two sisters from San Francisco and the mysterious handsome Ecuadorian dude, Raul, who was trying so hard to pick them up (in the face of little or no resistance to the idea).  Raul had his big secret in real life.  Should that secret also transfer to his fictional doppelganger?  I strongly suspect that it will.  One of the low spots of that trip was the taxi drivers' strike in Quito where they closed down travel in the city by setting huge bonfires consisting of burning old tires on the main boulevards.   I don't know if I'll try to work that experience into the story.  One of the high spots of our trip was sitting next to an Ecuadorian Air Force General on the flight from Guayaquil to Baltra and learning about what the Air Force of a modern South American country just to the south of Colombia does.  I'm sure the general will make a guest appearance in the book.  He'll probably get a good sized chunk of the Baltra chapter to himself.

We talked about new technology and writing blog entries more or less spontaneously in an earlier post.  Here's a great example of it.  I have a 1.5 hour train ride and my iPad.  As I sit here now on the Amtrak train traveling from Davis to Oakland, CA for a meeting, I've been thinking about this book, for which I just started writing some scenes. To my right, through the train window, is a beautiful view of the north end of San Francisco Bay.  Next stop is Martinez if you know the route.  Or even if you don't.  My thoughts are on this book in utero. Will this be a romantic getaway just for Roger and Suzanne or should Robert and Bruce be invited along for the trip? Should Eduardo Gomez fly over from Paraguay to meet them or will he be superfluous this time? How about Vincent Romero, Roger's new partner in his detective agency? Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Going To The Dogs

At Elaine's (my wife's) urging, I'm trying to bring her hobby of dog breeding, which we've discussed here before in some of my earlier posts, into Roger and Suzanne's fictional world of mysteries and whodunits.  There are two noteworthy efforts to tell you about thus far:

(1) For Roger and Suzanne Trivia buffs we can pose the following questions and the source of the answers.  What was Roger Bowman's first case as a P.I.?  What very unusual fee was he paid?  Who was his most unusual client ever?  The answers are in a new 2,000-word short story, "The Dog with No Name", available free on Erika Szabo's blog at http://www.erikamszabo.com.  Go on over and take a look.  Enjoy the story.  It's a little bit different than my usual style.

(2) Currently under construction is a new book, tentatively entitled "The Deadly Dogshow".  I can promise that no dogs will be killed or injured to advance the plot, but can't make any such promises with regards to the human characters.  In fact I can almost certainly promise that one or more humans will be killed in this story.  Suzanne and Roger have bought a dog (Juliet, a German Shorthaired Pointer, of course).  Bruce, among his many other talents, turns out to be a skilled dog trainer and handler so will be a featured player in all doggie subplots from here on.  Robert is getting old enough to help Bruce train the dog, so will also get more toner than he used to in these stories.  For the old-timers here:  remember when that used to be ink? 

There are also bit and pieces of several other short stories and one or two novels being worked on.  Current plans for the next South American book will take our characters to The Galapagos Islands to mix biology and murder in one of the most special places in the world, located off the coast of Ecuador.  They will also get a chance to visit Alaska to investigate a homicidal bear.

Now, if I can only find the time to write all of these stories........