My Theory on Suspension of Disbelief

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

It’s simple. Get the little details right and you can stretch the big issues.

Most readers of police mysteries are pretty savvy when it comes to technicalities. Run into an active-duty or retired cop and you have a real critic on your hands.

So, on what must we focus our attention? I used the word above: Technicalities—physical and procedural technicalities. And there can be many. Here are a few possibilities to open up the thought process.

If you’re writing about an established police department, know a lot about them. When you describe an officer, be accurate. Don’t say, “The New York state trooper took off his service cap and ran a hand through his sandy hair,” when New York troopers wear wide brim Stetsons.

Find out what the badges look like in the department your story revolves around. Then you can accurately say, “[New York] Detective Sam Jenkins showed the witness his gold shield.” In San Francisco they use gold stars. LAPD have large two-tone ovals.

Many mystery fans know their firearms. If you don’t, find a technical advisor to help you. Many years ago, I read all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. A glaring mistake Fleming made remains with me today. In one story, he gave Bond a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Centennial revolver with a five inch barrel. Ian’s problem: The gun was never made with a five inch barrel.

In UP COUNTRY, Nelson DeMille’s second novel featuring Army Criminal Investigator, Paul Brenner, DeMille mentions the South Vietnamese flag being yellow, red, and green. The flag was actually yellow with four red stripes. He confused the flag colors with the Vietnamese campaign ribbon issued to all US troops serving there during the war.
He also spoke of a local beer he called Ba-Ba-Ba. Vietnam vets howled over that one. A French beer brewed in the Republic of Vietnam, 33, was called Bamiba by American GIs—a corruption of ba mui ba, Vietnamese for thirty-three, certainly not Ba-Ba-Ba, as in black sheep. Shame on Nelson’s fact checker.

I know you get the idea relative to physical technicalities. Now we have procedural standards. Here are a few examples:

Contrary to popular belief on TV and in Hollywood, crime scene investigators or evidence technicians do not assume responsibility for investigating the felony scenes they process. They assist the squad detectives—provide them with the scientific forensic information they find. It would be logistically impossible for CSIs to deal with the highly technical services available today and do the gumshoe work. It’s been decades since detectives have had to do their own photography and dust for prints much less all the other scientific work.

Regardless of what we see on most of the Law & Order reruns, cops don’t arrest felons, drop them into a district attorney’s lap, and then get sent out to establish a concrete reason to justify the arrest and seek an indictment. Good cops MUST have the proper level of proof BEFORE saying, “You’re under arrest, humpo.”

My favorite television ADA, Jack McCoy, often possessed only “Reasonable Suspicion” when he told Ed Green and Lenny Briscoe, “Pick him up.” In the real world they were often one bottle short of a six pack. The Laws of Arrest say you must have “Probable Cause to Believe” prior to snapping the cuffs on a defendant.

The same applies to search warrants. Cops can’t blithely send their comrade to a judge looking for a warrant to toss a thug’s apartment. Just as in the Laws of Arrest, we’re encumbered by that pesky US Constitution. In this case, the 4th Amendment, which states: Only upon probable cause shall a warrant be granted to search a person or premises [for the item(s) thought to be on the person or in the place to be searched.] Practically speaking, that probable cause business (sometimes called reasonable cause to believe) can put a crimp in a detective’s forward motion. But the talent needed to establish the necessary PCTB is what separates Andy Sipowitz from Barney Fife.

I look at this issue just as I looked at the things the police officers I supervised had to consider back in the 1970s. I told them, “Keep your hair cut, and your leather gear shiny. That stuff will keep the boss happy so when you do something questionable, he won’t remember you as the non-conformist with the sloppy appearance.”

If we, as writers, get the little things correct, and our readers don’t lose focus on the story while bitching about messed up technicalities, they’ll cut us some slack with the big issues that fall under the usual purview of suspension of disbelief.

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REAL COPS vs HOLLYWOOD

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

Remember the TV series History versus Hollywood that originally aired between 2001 and 2005 on the History Channel? Narrator Burt Reynolds helped you debunk many of the myths perpetuated by filmmakers. I’d like to produce a show called Real Cops versus Hollywood (and some fiction writers.)

I began my police career back on the tail end of the wild and wooly days of law enforcement. Ernesto Miranda wasn’t yet a household word among career felons and Joe Wambaugh (a real cop) had just published his first novel, THE BLUE KNIGHT.

I remember the first burglary I worked with a veteran squad dick everyone called Mr. Ray, a guy willing to take the “new kid” under his wing.

Those were the days before CSI (Las Vegas, Miami, or New York.) Unless we had a homicide, bank robbery, or serial rapist, we did our own forensic work at the crime scene. We took photographs, dusted for prints, and other almost pre-historic things available to an investigator at the time.

Okay, back to my house burglary. It took me only ten minutes to establish that the break-in had been staged, for insurance purposes I assumed. The pry marks on the sliding glass door matched exactly to a sixteen ounce straight claw hammer hanging above the homeowner’s workbench. The dresser drawers were searched from top to bottom—something a good burglar never does. And the broken glass had been scattered too much. I called Mr. Ray aside and told him what I thought. He asked only one question. “Are you sure?” I nodded. His next move: He tossed the homeowner out a second floor bedroom window. His next statement: “Okay, kid, go ask that son-of-a-bitch if he wants to reconsider his complaint. Wild and wooly, not an investigative technique you should practice unless you want the Internal Affairs Bureau to have your desk phone on speed dial. So, what’s my point? Hell, I don’t know. I wanted to capture your attention.

But here’s a valid point regarding crime scene investigators—many of whom today are civilians. Now, read my lips. CSIs do not investigate crimes. They provide technical assistance to squad detectives who canvas neighborhoods looking for witnesses, check pawn shops, contact informants, interrogate suspects, and then (and only then) when they have reasonable cause to believe a certain someone committed a crime, they arrest the perpetrator—or poipuhtratah in Nu Yawk.

It’s just not logistically feasible for CSIs to “work” a case plus do all the horribly technical things they do at a crime scene and later at their office or lab and continue on until a case is cleared by arrest. Regardless of what TV tells us, it’s not possible.

I just mentioned reasonable cause to believe—sometimes called probable cause to believe—the standard of proof needed to make a lawful arrest or obtain a search warrant.

When I worked as a cop, I rarely watched TV police shows because the technicalities were so wrong I thought my head would explode. After I retired, that changed. For old time’s sake, I watched Law & Order. I loved NYPD Blue. And I even gave a few private eyes house room.

Let’s analyze Law & Order for a few minutes. Quite often, to build tension I suppose or to create illegitimate conflict perhaps (things people think are necessary in fiction) the boys and girls of the 27th Squad would jump the gun and arrest their suspect before they had all their ducks in a row. D/Lt. Van Buren would complain, “1 PP (#1 Police Plaza—the address of NYPD headquarters) is breathing down my neck. Go out and get a clearance.” With that admonition, Detectives Lenny Briscoe and Ed Green would break into a board meeting or doctor’s office and lock up their prime suspect—perhaps with only a reasonable suspicion—close but no cigar in laws of arrest.

Later, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy would lose a crucial piece of evidence at a pre-trial hearing or fail to get an indictment at grand jury. He’d then send one of his lovely assistant’s out on the street to backtrack and build a case the squad dicks should have tightened up prior to slapping on the cuffs.

Law & Order was a great show that ran for twenty years, but if a real detective made that many mistakes, he/she would end up walking a foot post in a very quiet neighborhood.

Hollywood also seems bent on misleading the public on the process of obtaining search warrants. When you know a suspect won’t voluntarily allow you to peek into their dwelling, vehicle, or workplace to obtain evidence or lock down the possibility that the items you seize won’t be questioned at a hearing, you should go in armed with a warrant. To get one, you don’t simply call the boss and say, “Have the day man (whoever he or she may be) get us a warrant to search……. (Where ever you want to look.)

The 4th Amendment grants an individual protection against unreasonable search and seizure. There are exceptions to the basic rule, but this isn’t a law class and to keep me from rambling on too long, let’s agree you have the time and the best way to get a good search is to have a judge approve your warrant application by agreeing that you have good reason to believe you may find material evidence in the place you wish to look.

In my experience, the detective working the case applies for the warrant because he/she can best explain the reasonable cause to believe they have established.

One thing Hollywood gets right about search warrant applications—some judges are more pro-cop than others. Every detective has their favorite judge and may use them if they want a quick signature. But you don’t build a world-class conviction rate by using warrants that can be easily contested, resulting in lost evidence after a hearing. A good police supervisor should insure that warrant applications meet the burden of proof.

Another pet peeve of mine involves how Hollywood police supervisors never prep their cops before post-shooting press conferences. Invariably, some nitwit reporter will ask, “Did you shoot to kill or shoot to wound?”

If you want to add a tidbit of reality to your book or story, there is only one way for your sharp cop to respond. “I shot to prevent or terminate (strike out the time frame which does not apply) the suspect’s illegal conduct.

As cops, we’re not gunslingers who don’t care if we bring’em back dead or alive and we’re not trained to shoot the gun out of a bad guy’s hand. Leave that to the heroes of those old B western movies. Police officers are trained to shoot for the largest target they can acquire—generally the criminal’s torso. Even with annual weapons qualification, many officers are not extremely good with a handgun much less distinguished experts. So, in the heat of a gunfight, all cops should make things as simple as possible and aim at the big picture.

But prior to taking that shot—using deadly physical force—the cop has to meet certain criteria. Hollywood sometimes fails to grasp this. I used to teach the law of justification in the use of force and I’d need lots more space to cover it adequately. If you plan on centering your fiction on a police shooting and you want to get the technicalities correct, some serious research is necessary to help you maintain credibility as a writer. Very basically, police officers may not use deadly physical force to prevent or terminate crimes against property. You can’t whack a kid to keep him from stealing hubcaps. If you, acting as a PO, reasonably believe it’s necessary to prevent or terminate crimes against a person, things like murder, a certain form of manslaughter, robbery (that means forcible stealing,) forcible sex crimes (rape or sodomy) or assaults that may result in serious physical injury, you may use deadly physical force—which is not limited to shooting. This is a complicated topic where generally cops have more latitude than civilians.

When I began writing fiction, I wanted cops, ex-cops, and serious fans of a police procedural to say, “This guy has gotten the details right.” No one writes without, at sometime, tacitly asking his reader for a little suspension of disbelief. But if you get those all important technicalities correct you can, with good conscience, stretch a fan’s S.O.D at an important time and in the interest of a good story.

If you’re writing about a sharp cop, have him or her get the little things right. They can make mistakes to build tension and cause your readers to grit their teeth, but don’t let them put a bloody blouse in a sealed plastic bag unless you want them to botch up an investigation.

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What’s In a Name?

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

A simple and common question, but the correct answer can make your story or novel jump from forgettable to memorable.

I named my protagonist, Sam Jenkins, after my maternal grandfather. But beyond the familial connection, I thought it sounded right for an ex-New York detective who retired and found himself a job as police chief in a small Tennessee town. Jenkins is a good working-class Scottish or Welsh family name and Sam conjures up thoughts of the famous gumshoe, Sam Spade.

Sound is important in writing. Everything verbal needs rhythm. I always read my stories aloud. If they don’t flow and sound good, I change the text or dialogue—something like a songwriter. You need a smooth transition from sentence to sentence, not bumps. The sound of a name is just as important. Call your heroine Betty Boop not Sally Valli.

Image is also important. What or who do you envision when you hear a name? Who would call the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club Casper Milquetoast?

Everything I write takes place in rural Appalachia. The Smoky Mountain region has its own crop of unique family and given names. So, I couldn’t get away with naming a lifelong resident of Prospect Anton Jablonowski. Billy Don Loveday works better.

Everyone’s stories take place somewhere and that somewhere has its own colloquial names. When I lived in New York, I knew people like Vito Cavettelli, Rosie Gemmelli, Stanley Kapusta, et al. They won’t work in Tennessee or even during my character’s occasional forays into southern Kentucky.

Here’s how I find memorable names for my characters:
My wife and I travel a lot. After we settle into a motel room, mix a cocktail, and turn on a rerun of NCIS, one of us grabs a telephone book and looks for typically regional names. We make two columns—one for first names and one for surnames. When I need something for an important character, I mix and match by sound and what fits the personality.

Other options:
Steal names from billboards or occasionally highway exit signs. In Georgia, I used two towns to make one character—Varnell Watkins. Political campaign posters are great sources, too. When I needed a handle for a totally repulsive-looking and despicable antagonist to be featured in an upcoming novel, two candidates unwittingly donated their names. Someone running for office in a neighboring county had the family name Bone. A real keeper. Another candidate was called Telford Something. Voila, Telford Bone surfaced and became a character I hope no one forgets.

Remember the basics. Guys like Luke Skywalker don’t live in Brattleboro, Vermont. Hoppalong Cassidy is probably from Wyoming or thereabouts. Chip Cooper might be found cruising Sunset Strip, while Jamal Willie Walker is bopping down Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. Larry Finklestein works as a podiatrist in Roslyn on Long Island.

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THOUGHTS ON LIBRARIES

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

No one can argue this fact. Economic times are tough. An average family with 2.4 children struggles to purchase food, clothing, and other necessities. A new novel costs $26.95. Fifty-page-long children’s books might carry a price of $18.95. Not everyone can afford new books. Everyone should read . . . or be afforded the opportunity to read—especially children. Catch 22?

Being familiar with the novel of the same name isn’t necessary. Everyone knows the concept. What can happen to an adult when they don’t exercise their brain by reading? What in a child’s mind gets stifled when they don’t read? Is there an over-the-counter remedy for those problems?

It’s called the public library, and it’s the cheapest medication for a lazy mind the world can offer.

Need a vacation and can’t afford one? Try the library. Bernard Cornwell transports you back to Saxon England. Rudyard Kipling sends you to India in the colonial days of the British Raj. James Michener can get you free passage on a schooner sailing for Tahiti. And that only cracks the surface of possibilities.

I like libraries.

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A Yanks Opinion of The Emerald Isle

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

We had been to Scotland and England thirteen times when I decided living another year without seeing Ireland might be impossible.

I don’t like organized tours. In fact, I don’t like anything organized unless I make the rules. So, booking a trip and sharing a coach with a bunch of sixty-year-old Americans looking for their Celtic roots was out of the question. When we travel, I drive and it doesn’t matter on which side of the road I do it.

After landing at Shannon Airport and picking up a rental car, we left Limerick and headed toward Cork. An organization I belonged to (for reasons that will soon become obvious, it shall remain nameless and be spared unspeakable embarrassment) offered accommodations at a price that attracted the Scottish side of me. They described their place as, “A Quaint and lovely townhouse nestled back in a private mews.” Photos in the brochure they sent made the duplex apartment look like one of the more desirable properties in the country. But when we walked in, I assumed the pictures in the brochure had been taken in 1925, not 2005. I had seen more appealing tenement flophouses. We left, of course.

Our next stop was the closest national police station where I found the duty detective sergeant and threw myself at his mercy. Local cops always have connections and he led us to a B&B operated by a retired policeman’s wife. The old guesthouse was glorious and breakfast the next morning was our first introduction to good Irish food.

For years now I’ve been saying I have never been to a country where we found better meals. No, Wayne doesn’t eat junk food, especially while traveling. I tell New Yorkers to forget the misconception that Irish cuisine is limited to corned beef and cabbage. During a time when English pub grub was strictly fried fish and mushy peas, Irish chefs were attending schools, learning how to best prepare locally obtained seafood and veggies.

So, Cork was a success. We toured the Jameson distillery and learned lots about Irish whiskey. A short trip down to Kinsale gave us a good look at the south coast. And of course, I needed to see Blarney Castle, but refused to kiss the stone because of what that helpful Sergeant told me naughty teenagers do after hours.

Our next stop was a farmhouse B&B just outside Killarney. A week in the southwest corner of the country took us again through beautiful coastal villages like Bantry, Kenmare, and Derrymore, And of course more seafood. Then to the famous jaunting carts of the Killarney National Park, the Dingle Peninsula, and my introduction to Smithwick’s Ale.

From Killarney, we drove north through Tralee and Ennis, to the Cliffs of Maher, to Limerick and Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, then into Galway—just in time for the annual oyster festival.
Driving in Ireland is fun—especially for an aging sports car fan. It’s different than Great Britain and the reason becomes apparent as you’re twisting your way over the countless country lanes that connect all those picturesque villages. The Romans never conquered Ireland and never introduced straight roads. Of course there are modern roadways, but nothing like the US Interstate highways or British M roads where speed is the object and there’s little opportunity to enjoy the ride and get your share of banging the gearbox.

Two thousand photos later, we sat on a plane flying back to the US.
Next time: The northwest and north, and after that Dublin and th

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