Diversion: Vermont Fiction, from Green Writers Press

Sometimes we really do read books that aren't mysteries ... and we were very excited this year to note the growth of Vermont's Green Writers Press and the arrival of its well-received anthology CONTEMPORARY VERMONT FICTION. Many thanks to press and anthology editor Robin MacArthur for taking part in an interview about the book!

1. It's great to see your newly published collection, *Contemporary Vermont
Fiction.  *Was there a special "Aha!" moment that triggered your desire to
pull this book together?

This idea of this book had been brewing in me for many years. I began obsessively reading and writing Vermont-based fiction when I was eighteen--when I left home for college--and I haven't quit since. I think stories are an amazing way to know a place in a deeper and more complex way. As for actually publishing it; Dede and I met up last summer and within 10 minutes had decided to make this dream happen. Green Writers Press and Contemporary Vermont Fiction are a match made in heaven!

2. I see you have a number of high-profile authors here, like Howard Frank
Mosher, Annie Proulx, and Wallace Stegner -- are there any debut authors
included, or authors you think should be better known?

Miciah Bay Gault is an amazing writer and the editor of the wonderful literary journal Hunger Mountain. She doesn't have a book out yet, but her stories have been published in great places, and I have no doubt her book will find a home soon. And there are quite a few authors in the book whose work I have admired for many years, but who may not be as well known: Ellen Lesser, Laurie Alberts, Peter Gould, Suzanne Kingsbury, Bill Schubart.  In a state like Vermont you don't have to look very far to find an amazing writer whose voice deserves to be heard. 

3. What characters in *Contemporary Vermont Fiction* might appeal

especially to readers of mystery and suspense? And are there any
suspenseful stories in here?

There aren't any stories that I would specifically call mystery, but Joseph Bruchac's story is full of suspense and intrigue. It has me perched on the edge of my chair every time. 

4. How about in the publication process -- any suspenseful moments as you
brought this collection together?

Oh, plenty of them! There were so many last minute changes by authors and ourselves that we wondered whether this book would ever make it to press. But we made it, and the collection, as is, feels just right.

5. Green Writers Press has a special mission -- how does this title fit
into the mission?

I'm a big believer in the role that art can and should and needs to play in the environmental movement. Green Writers Press's mission is to "make the world a better place" and I believe that if we know places better, and have a more empathetic understanding of our neighbors' lives, we will be both more compassionate residents of our communities and more reverent caretakers of our land (and rivers, and resources etc.). So call me a dreamer, but I believe that more books about places will, yes, make the world a better place. 

6. What's ahead for you? Will there be a volume 2 collection, or do you
have some other projects you'd like to tell us about?

Who knows, there may be a volume 2 someday! For now I'm going to sit down and work on my own collection of stories set in Vermont, and enjoy spending time with my two young children. How to juggle the creative and the parenting life is the big mystery in my life...one that never fails to surprise and delight.

Thanks, Robin! This anthology is already a classic, and a treat for any bookshelf that especially features Vermont ... and any literary collection, too.

Vermont's Northeast Kingdom: Suspense Thriller from John Vibber, KINGDOM COME

The northeastern wedge of Vermont that wings away from the north-south thrust of the state is called the Northeast Kingdom -- specifically, three counties that add up to about 65,000 people and a lot of second-growth forest. The region has a gentler landscape than the rest of the state; the Green Mountains fade away here, and though the rivers brought early trade and industry (along the same byways that the Abenaki tribe and its forebears traveled), towns formed late and even today are small, where neighbors know you by name. And a neighbor may live four or five miles away.

The most rural part of this landscape, the town of Canaan, Vermont, hosts the action of John Vibber's second mystery, KINGDOM COME. The first printing of the book ran last summer, but two corrected versions knocked me off schedule for a review. So here we go: Now's a good time to consider picking up a copy for the summer-cabin bookshelf, or as a gift to your hosts where you're spending some vacation time. Though there are some rough edges (as expected for a self-published mystery), Vibber knows a good tale and spins a complex one here -- one that involves a militia, violent plots to overthrow the local peace, and casual murder by psychopaths who enlist each other in a tightening net of threat and danger.

Cleverly, Vibber sets the book a few years back, instead of forward -- 1997, at the time when the approaching Millennium, the year 2000, brought global concerns that involved computer networks crashing, power grids failing, and political chaos, thanks to presumed issues with software and the change from the 1990s dates. Investigating a rogue group that seems to be operating out of a printing business just across the river in the wildest part of New Hampshire is Reilly Bostwick, familiar from Vibber's first mystery. Settled harmoniously with Adele Clayton (the couple has knitted well together, after the murder that put them at such risk in Shadow on Cant-Dog Hill, Vibber's first book), Bostwick has no intention of putting his family in danger again.

But his daughter and Adele's, Amy Bostwick and Lottie Clayton, aged 19, need summer jobs after their freshman year of college "away." When their former babysitter, Nicole, is murdered, they have no clue there's a link to the print shop where they're seeking work. And terms like "Tribulation" and "the Rapture" don't sound dangerous, even when they're part of some odd documents that the print shop issues.

"But what do these Miller Press pamphlets mean?" asked Amy. "Are they trying to make the chaos happen or trying to take advantage of it?"

"I think that there'll always be huge world problems and some people trying to profit by scaring others," said Reilly [Amy's dad]. ... "I think that Miller Press is trying to stir up fear and profit from it. I don't know if this is dangerous or just ugly."

Turns out it's both. Vibber's deft twisting of strands and the narrative's swift dodging from investigator to criminal and back again keep the action lively. And once the FBI gets involved, the risk actually rises for Lottie and Amy.

Clear some summer hours for this adventurous local read -- John Vibber's retirement career as mystery author is providing a lively local thriller with lots of connections to what could really be happening at the next cabin up the lake's shore. Available as both softcover and e-book through that big online retailer, but you'll have more fun (and get more into the spirit of local authors!) if you ask your independent bookstore to order in a copy or two. One to keep, one to share with a summer friend.

Dracula, Frankenstein, and Other Reasons to Engage the Edge of the Mysteries Field: Books by Stephen Seitz and Dave Zeltserman

There are at least two dozen authors who are on my "automatic" list: I know that I enjoy their mysteries and/or crime fiction reliably, and I mark my calendar for when the next book by one of these is coming out. When I look over the list, I realize I've become a fan of, umm, character-driven dark mysteries in which someone has to dig deep into inner resources in order to solve the crime -- or even just to survive.

But I do read outside this core quite a bit, and that includes urban spoof/caper mysteries, cooking mysteries (I check the recipes first), plenty of espionage, lots of thrillers that start on university campuses, almost anything with a strong female lead, and probably way too many books that involve threats and death. (By the way, I've discovered that when life serves up the "real thing," I stay away from the book version. Shudder.)

Thanks to some bold authors who say "Hey! Read this!," I also find some gems that don't fit into any of my usual areas. For instance, Dave Zeltserman writes some of my favorite -- although very dark! -- crime fiction, mostly set in the Boston area. But sometimes he zigzags off into horror, a genre I normally don't endure. Still, if it's by Dave Z, I get curious. So, a while back, I read and really, really enjoyed his horror parable (yep, really) The Caretaker of Lorne Field. And that led me to his newest title: MONSTER: A NOVEL OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Set firmly in 19th-century Germany, complete with religious twists, extremes of poverty and wealth, and curious rituals of friendship and courtship. MONSTER spins out from the mind and heart of Herr Friedrich Hoffmann, broken on the "wheel" as an accused murderer of his own fiancée and soon patched together in Dr. Victor Frankenstein's obscene experiment. Yes, in case you've forgotten, "Frankenstein" wasn't the inventor's monster -- it was the name of the inventor, in the old tale. In Zeltserman's adept narrative, the Monster becomes a distraught and terrified individual coming to grips with how his soul has been installed in a terrible body, and the evil perversions of his "creator" threaten to turn him into a true monstrosity. Grief at such horrors spurs him to action:

I bellowed again in rage, and stopped only when I realized that the leather strap that had been tied around my chest had broken. The slow trickle of strength that had been ever so slowly ebbing back into my body must have turned into a raging torrent over the last few days, for in my rage I broke that strap, which was something not even a wild beast could have done. I sat up with ease and tore apart the strap that bound my legs to the table as easily as a child might have torn a paper ribbon.


I was free.

But what is the true nature of this reborn Friedrich Hoffman? May he assert the compassion of his former self? Or must the evil of his re-creator stain him and turn him into perversions that mock his best efforts?

Zeltserman kept me turning pages, aching for resolution.

MONSTER came out this spring through the audacity and continued courage of The Overlook Press, which continues to prove there are still publishers who value diversity and outrageous creativity. The press even presents P.G. Wodehouse books. Diverse!

Another such press, which I only discovered through agreeing to read its newest book, is MX Publishing. This firm is based in the United Kingdom and specializes in "NLP, Sherlock Holmes, Property, and Children's books." Turns out that NLP is neuro linguistic programming. I don't think it's connected in any way with the line of Sherlock Holmes books -- but I can't be sure.

At any rate, MX Publishing boasts "a large stable of the best modern Holmes writers with traditional stories and short fiction through to fantasy and other unusual adaptations." And its newest is SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA by Vermont author Stephen Seitz. If that title makes you shake with uncertainty or despair, you're not alone. I wasn't sure I wanted to open this one ... Dracula has never been a passion of mine. Vampires are great in Charlaine Harris's "True Blood" series, but the original Vlad the Impaler? Hmm.

Well, the first chapter hooked me. Who can resist prying into how Dr. Watson's relationship with Sherlock Holmes stressed his marriage -- when the take is spun at least 90 percent convincingly in that voice so familiar from A. Conan Doyle's classic detective fiction? And for the sake of more Watson-and-Holmes intrigue, I was willing to admit that Mina Murray -- the protagonist of the Dracula novel -- could actually have brought to Holmes the case of her vanished fiancé, Jonathan Harker.

Seitz stays closer to Conan Doyle's "no spiritualist solutions" than the Holmes creator ultimately did, for Dr. John Watson tracks Holmes's insistence that the "vampire" effects must be explained scientifically. It's a great twist, and the team's journey to the hazards of Dracula's castle is well told, a great tale in classic form. Did it match 100 percent with an original Holmes story? Well, not quite. But it's so close that I could brush aside the occasional dissonance and revel instead in the adventure and solving the puzzles provided.

October 2, 1890

It is a bitter, dark day for justice.

We took photographs of the poor girl's desecration. Holmes measured every square inch of the tomb and collected several samples. We had Van Helsing in our very palms, and Lestrade despatched constables to bring him in.

Yet we have been frustrated again.

Oh yes, for those who are Holmes afficionados: Seitz has a brand new take on what actually happened at the Reichenbach Falls.

So, that's a pair of quirky new novels to try out, if you're in the mood for something very different. Let us know which parts you enjoy most -- or whether one book or the other is creepy enough to keep you checking the door and pulling out the garlic and such. It's all in good fun, I think.

Vermont Quintessential: F. D. Reeve, NATHANIEL PURPLE

Ready for a charming Vermont novella, with just enough darkness and suspense to keep you reading? It's not crime fiction -- but F. D. Reeve's new book NATHANIEL PURPLE is a good read nonetheless, and likely to get multiple readings, too, because it's so satisfying.

If you're in northern Vermont, catch the chance to meet this Bennington-area novelist and prodigious poet and award winner at the St. Johnsbury (VT) Athenaeum at 7 pm on Wednesday April 11. It will be a great way to celebrate National Library Week.

**
What's that? Where are the mystery reviews? I promise, there are half a dozen on the way. Watch this space tomorrow morning.