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Serial Killers: a Troublesome Trend

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  As a mystery author ( E.C. Ayres ) I am troubled by a trend in the writing and publication of mystery/suspense thrillers: serial killers have become a near requirement in today's literary fare. Personally, I yearn for the days of Agatha Chrystie, Mickie Spillane, and Sam Spade. It was all about character development, depth of relationship (bright and dark), memory and recollection, illusion and disillusionment. What happened in those novels were vivid reflections of life as it is or was truly lived (and sometimes, ended). They reflected our actual world, albeit focusing on a particular location or aspect. The keys, always, were character and suspense. And when done right, it can be unforgettable. There can be exceptions, of course, to this trend (or any trend) as always. The book that triggered my need to write this blog was this one:  As I delved into the early chapters I was instantly troubled by the opening introduction of a serial killer just getting warmed up, it seemed, wit
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A Thief for All Time

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From the book cover: The controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare is two centuries old, and the doubters were numerous: Mark Twain, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens, Sigmond Freud, Charlie Chaplin, even Orson Welles questioned the veracity of Shakespeare as author. For starters, the man had no known education. He was raised by illiterate parents in a rural farm village, where the local school only had three grades. But even that much schooling is in doubt, because there is no evidence he was ever registered there (or anywhere) as a student. He signed his wedding certificate with an 'x'. His will included no books--not even a bible--and his gravestone epitaph is superstitious and illiterate. So who was the true author? Once again, the evidence is extensive and conclusive, and points in a single direction, to a man forced to live in exile sending plays from Italy to the Globe, where Shakespere, whose three roles in the
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Book Reviews for E.C. Ayres

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The Tony Lowell Mysteries :   “(Private Investigator) Tony Lowell defies cliché. ..just when you think he’s yet another 40-something investigator Ayres surprises you.” Miami Herald on Hour of the Manatee , winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Novel award. Book One: HOUR of the MANATEE Editorial Reviews   From Publishers Weekly:   “A weary and reclusive news photographer turned PI must delve into a quarter-century-old death for answers to a recent murder in this atmospheric mystery set on Florida's Gulf Coast. A dotty old woman is shot to death in a motel just as she is asking Tony Lowell to investigate the 1966 drowning of playboy heir Henry Hartley III. All he knows is that she was institutionalized after witnessing the death, which was ruled accidental. A visit from two FBI agents and hints of political scandal goad Lowell to stay on the case, which has been assigned to conservative detective sergeant Lena Bedrosian of the Manatee
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A Moment in Time

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  Time will tell.  Or so it is said. But time is a surprising phenomenon.  One can go forward in time, or backward, or freeze in motion. Not with our physical bodies (at least not yet!) but with our minds, our imagination, and our creations. And, through the creation and history of civilization, we humans have found remarkable ways of captivating a moment in time in ways that can last, if not forever, at least as long as there is civilization to record, regard, and admire it. Even adore it. And how many ways have moments in time been captivated? Let me count the ways:  1. Through natural phenomena:  The dinosaurs' demise took place in a relative instant of time when a giant meteor smashed into where is now the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago. The wildlife of the Cretaceous Period, great and small, ceased to exist in the flash of a moment. But paleontologists today are able to determine, from the thousands--perhaps millions--of fossils preserved under mountains of dust and ash w
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Greatest Female Blues Vocals

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In no particular order:           Etta James    Damn Your Eyes    Her deep, guttural voice was made for the blues. Mamie Smith Crazy Blues She was the first to break the color barrier with this song in 1920. However, white pressure groups demanded that all of her backing musicians were white. Ma Rainey    See See Rider , with Louis Armstrong Paramount marketed her extensively, calling her the "Mother of the Blues", the "Songbird of the South", the "Gold-Neck Woman of the Blues" and the "Paramount Wildcat". Bessie Smith      St. Louis Blues No less a legend than Janis Joplin considered Bessie Smith the world's greatest blues singer. She became known as "The Empress of the Blues, so clearly, there's room for one more title. She died in a car crash. Ethel Waters     Stormy Weather Born as a result of her mother’s rape, she led a tragic life. Ethel was never shown any love by her family. She married into what would become an abusive r
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