Eric Mayer

Myths About Mithra

ericm09@earthlink.net — Tue, 7 Feb 12 11:05:00 UT

I have not been doing much essay writing lately, but my co-author Mary has. Today, in Mythraic Myths, on Suzanne Adair's blog, Relevant History, she writes about what ancient misrepresentations about the Mithraic religion can teach us about religious misapprehensions today.

Suzanne's latest book is Regulated for Murder, an American revolution thriller.

Some Reviews

ericm09@earthlink.net — Mon, 9 Jan 12 18:55:00 UT

Waiting for reviews is always nerve wracking. Luckily, the first reviews in on Nine for the Devil are good, including a starred review from Publisher's Weekly:

"In Reed and Mayer's superior ninth mystery set in sixth-century Constantinople...the puzzle is challenging enough to keep readers searching for clues, but the triumph of the authors lies in their spot-on recreation of the political and bureaucratic climate of the times."
-- Publisher's Weekly, 1/9/2012
Read the whole review

"...a great entry that combines a strong whodunit with a puissant look at the period mostly inside the place but somewhat also through the heroes' friends and family outside too."
--Harriet Klausner
Read the whole review at Genre Go Round Reviews

"...far more complex than a whodunit...A dark chilling look at a delicate balance of politics...and the search for a killer that may not exist!"
--Alan Bishop.
Read the whole review at Criminal History

Now Mary and I can breath a sigh of relief.

Hearing the New Year In

ericm09@earthlink.net — Sun, 1 Jan 12 15:53:00 UT

On the last evening of 2011 Mary and I didn't bother staying up until midnight. Watching the ball drop in Times Square via webcam on dial-up isn't very exciting, we've learned from past experience.

I've never been one to celebrate the arrival of the new year. Let the new year prove it's welcome before I celebrate. When my brother and I were kids my dad used to stand us in front of a big ruler beside the fireplace for a photograph. Every year we could see how much we'd grown. Back then, at least I was assured of getting taller during the next 365 days.

Now, on New Years Eve I'm not so much looking forward to another year as happy to see the back of the old one. Rather than dropping a ball for 2012 I'd rather drop a Pythonesque fifty-ton weight on 2011.

At the grocery earlier in the day I waited at the checkout behind shoppers buying huge platters of snacks from the deli department and bowls full of shrimp. I bought a tin of Vienna sausages. I suggested to Mary that we wave our sausages at midnight, but we ended up going to bed instead.

While we lay there in the dark, before falling asleep, we heard scattered firecrackers and what might have been distant gun shots. So I guess we saw -- or at least heard -- the new year in after all.

Righty Tighty

ericm09@earthlink.net — Thu, 29 Dec 11 20:17:00 UT

"Righty tighty! Righty tighty!" Mary cried.

I said a word that wouldn't have been very nice, except it came out as a splutter thanks to the icy water spraying my face.

"Righty tighty!"

Mary's aware how I can't tell my left from my right, especially under pressure, particularly water pressure.

I twisted the stopcock beside the commode in the other direction -- whatever that was -- and the spritzing subsided. My soaked hair hung down over my eyeglasses and droplets fell off my beard onto the tiles. Plop. Plop. At least icicles hadn't formed yet. My beard's white enough as it is.

Just one more of my adventures in plumbing.

Mary began mopping the floor. The bottoms of her jeans were soaking up more water than the mop. At least the flood hadn't made into the kitchen very far.

When Mary calls upstairs and says, "Come down quick, I want you to look at something," it isn't usually what one might hope for. This time she showed me the rivulet running down the pipe feeding the toilet tank. It sparkled cheerily. Out in the woods it would have been scenic.

It me took only an instant to diagnose the problem. "It's leaking."

I knelt down for a closer inspection. "Floor's wet," I observed keenly.

"Can you see where it's coming from?" Mary asked.

"Yeah. From under this brass whatchamacallit. Wait, it's plastic. Seems to be loose. Let me give it a turn--"

The crack of breaking plastic was followed instantly by the hiss of spraying water and incoherent choking sounds intended to be curses.

Much righty tighty-ing later, as I wiped my face and eyeglasses and tried to stop my teeth from chattering, Mary -- trusting innocent that she is -- asked if I thought I could fix it.

"With the right tool."

"What's that?"

"A plumber."

So our friendly plumber came to call, for the second time in two weeks. The toilet proved less of a challenge than the furnace had.

Yes, Mary and I exchanged furnace zone valves for Christmas. Now, for the New Year we have fixed up our commode. Since the plumber had to come out to fix the leak, we went wild and had him fit the tank with brand new fiddly bits, to use the technical term. All this on top of the beautiful shiny well pump we treated ourselves to in the spring.

At midnight, December 31st we're going to turn up the thermostat and flush the toilet.

And resolve to be less extravagant in 2012.

What a Deal!

ericm09@earthlink.net — Sat, 17 Dec 11 12:06:00 UT

Twenty-first century special government operative Derek Stillwater and Sixth century Imperial troubleshooter John the Eunuch. What a team.

Two ebooks for 99 cents! Where are you going to find a better deal than that?

Well, okay, Mark Terry's The Fallen is available on kindle for free, while Four For a Boy by Mary and me will cost you all of the 99 cents. But still....

The Fallen is a terrific thriller which I reviewed here. Four For a Boy is a prequel to our Byzantine mystery series. It tells about John's first assignment for Emperor Justinian which led to his appointment as Lord Chamberlain. An origin story! How can you resist?

You might also note that Poisoned Pen Press has lowered the prices of our other kindle books as well. We're happy to see that our publisher is experimenting. I don't think anyone is really sure exactly what the ebook market is going to look like yet. The times they are a changing.

Christmas Mysteries

ericm09@earthlink.net — Fri, 16 Dec 11 12:30:00 UT

Yes, it's once again the season for an new issue of our newsletter,The Orphan Scrivener . Check out our news online and read Mary's article about sundials and mysteries. Mary's musings are appropriate given that December 25 was originally the birthday of the sun god Mithras. As for me, rather than the mysteries of Mithras, I choose to contemplate the mysteries of Santa....

This is the time year when I wonder how in the world I could ever have believed in such an outlandish idea as Santa Claus. Even a five-year old should have had enough common sense to realize that reindeer don't fly, all the toys for all the kids in the world won't fit into one sack, and a fat man in a red suit couldn't squeeze into our fireplace let alone come down the flue, especially with a sack holding all the toys for all the kids in the world over his shoulder.

If I didn't actually remember believing in Santa, I wouldn't think it was possible.

Not that I can recapture how it felt to believe. I can no longer put myself into the state of mind where reality has not quite coalesced and magic can still co-exist with day-to-day experience. Is the child's mind not fully formed or simply not fully programmed? Whatever the reason, it seems that the very young inhabit a wilder world than adults do, a place full of mystery and wonder and possibilities their elders can no longer see.

We naturally assume that kids' perceptions are wrong, a result of their immaturity. But when you consider the universe's size, age and complexity, you have to wonder how much our tiny, ephemeral brains are filtering out.

I don't think they are filtering out Santa, of course. Where are the hoof prints on the snowy roof? The satellite photos of the North Pole workshop? How would Santa get through Homeland Security? Besides, I've played Santa. I know how the scam works. I've lied to my kids.

When exactly did I discover the awful truth? Strangely, I can't recall, nor do I have any recollection of being shocked or horrified that my parents -- who I trusted more than anyone -- had foisted off on me this dreadful embarrassing hoax. It must have just dawned on me as the golden haze of early childhood gradually dissipated to reveal the cold, hard outlines of real life.

There was a period when I pretended to believe because I figured it was expected of me. How soon did my parent's realize the jig was up? For how long did they pretend to believe that they thought I still believed when they knew I didn't? None of us wanted to disappoint each other.

Christmas is a great holiday for the suspension of disbelief.

My parents didn't just prevaricate about Santa either. They also acted as if they liked the tree ornaments I brought home from school. Enormous, lop-sided snowflakes cut from thick construction paper, encrusted with glitter and white school paste, thick as icing on a cookie. Exactly what my dad wanted on the tree he tastefully decorated with subdued blue lights.

Almost as aesthetically pleasing were the jar lids wrapped in ribbons. Sometimes we would insert a crayon drawing into the center of the lid, forming a sort of cameo. In those days everyone canned. Kids were asked to bring spare lids to school. What do they use today? Hardly anyone cans and you can get a plastic angel to top your tree for the price of a jar lid.

For that matter, what do kids make these days rather than ash trays? We were always making ashtrays, not only at Christmas. Everyone needed ashtrays when I was growing up. In the unlikely event your parents didn't smoke, their friends did. They needed a misshapen lump of hardened clay painted red and green to stub out their cigarettes.

My parents put it out in the middle of the coffee table, hideous as it was, neither round nor oval, higher on one side than the other, not quite flat on the bottom. There were two large indentations in the rim, where cigarettes could sit, and so you could distinguish it from a candy dish. The workmanship was not the best. It looked like something made by a cow.

But my parents pretended it was a work of art.

Who knows, maybe they were blinded by the holiday season. Maybe they believed the ornaments and ashtray were beautiful like I believed in Santa.

I did have some scientific basis for my gullibility. I wasn't completely stupid. Santa brought me science books, after all. Christmas Eve I set a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the coffee table and sure enough, on Christmas morning, the edibles had vanished, except for a few tell tale crumbs. Certain proof that Santa had visited.

That and the fresh cigarette butt in the ashtray.

A Couple of Things....

ericm09@earthlink.net — Wed, 23 Nov 11 20:39:00 UT

Here at Casa Maywrite there's been a whole lotta writin' goin' on. But you wouldn't know it from this poor journal.

I always find it difficult to find something interesting to say without making something up. Our fiction is a lot more exciting than our lives.

But I only sporadically feel the urge to say anything about the writing process and I think it is dangerous to talk too much about work in progress. Once you let the cat out of the bag, while you're still working on it...well, it can get away from you.

However, there are a couple things I can mention. For one, over at her monthly blog for Poisoned Pen Press, Mary writes about a fascinating murder mystery she found in the form of an 1890 newspaper obituary.

Late in the l890s neighbours realised animals on the farm next door were neglected. Investigating, they went around the back of the house and saw a ladder next to the window of the second floor bedroom wherein slept the farm owner. The dwelling had been ransacked and the farmer was found murdered in his room, having been strangled, shot, and his head battered.
Continue reading The Ladder at the Window.

Then there's the equally mysterious case of Mark Terry's e-books, THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK and THE SERPENT'S KISS. Whereas they have been selling ten or twenty copies a month, during November THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK has sold 97 and THE SERPENT'S KISS has sold somewhere in the 80s. Mark wants to see if he can push e-book sales of THE DEVIL'S PITCHFORK up to 200 copies by the end of the month. Only $2.99. I've read two of the Derek Stillwater books and can recommend them highly.

I wouldn't mind being convinced that e-books can actually sell in significant numbers except in freakish instances.

The Rats or Mice or Voles or Squirrels in the Walls

ericm09@earthlink.net — Thu, 20 Oct 11 10:59:00 UT

There's nothing worse than being awakened in the middle of the night by rodents rampaging in the walls or the ceiling.

Well, okay, being awakened by smoke and flames as the house burned would be somewhat worse. And, yeah, it would be much worse if zombies were breaking down the doors or a meteor slammed through the roof. Although in the latter case there would probably not be time for vexation prior to vaporization.

But nevertheless, you don't want to have vermin crashing around a couple inches from your head when you're trying to sleep, and Mary and I get a lot of that out here in the country. Mostly it's mice, or voles, or squirrels (or perhaps small fairies with lead boots). Its remarkable how much noise tiny creatures can generate.

The racket squirrels make is one of the great mysteries of nature. For a few months, between marriages, I was living on my own, with just my with my cat, and several hundred Percheron-sized squirrels. Or so it seemed.

The noises they made in the walls all night long were unbelievable. If they weren't galloping, they were dropping bowling balls from the second floor to the first and on the way down the bowling balls were ricocheting from stud to stud. Or maybe it wasn't bowling balls. Where would Percheron-sized squirrels find bowling balls? Maybe they'd removed their horseshoes and were tossing for ringers. The cat would race around, staring bug-eyed at the walls. I would sit in bed, bug-eyed from lack of sleep. It was enough to drive you squirrely.

How did they make such a commotion? A squirrel weighs almost nothing -- unlike a bowling ball or a horseshoe. Nor are squirrels particularly hard. If I were to take hold of a squirrel...wait, the squirrel would need to be drugged because they have sharp teeth...if I were to take hold of a drugged squirrel, and then flung it against the wall with all my might -- which would really have been satisfying by 4 am -- I don't think it would sound like a bowling ball or horseshoe crashing into the wall. (This is only a mental experiment, more's the pity....) I imagine there would be a sort of soft, squishy thud and then blessed, blessed silence.

At this house the nocturnal critters don't generally bowl and play horseshoes. They chitter, or scratch, or stampede, or roll marbles around from one end of the place to the other. From the sound of it. What is that? We do have oak trees nearby but have you ever tried rolling an acorn for six hours in a row? And acorns are not heavy enough to account for the noise. Or are they heavy in the vicinity of rodents? Are rodents surrounded by small gravity wells that makes them and everything around them heavier? Or do they control gravity? I know I wouldn't jump from the top of one tree to another or scamper along power lines unless I could control gravity. The fact I've never seen a squirrel dead from a fall suggests that they must be able to turn on the anti-gravity when they miss their footing.

But at any rate, if they are rolling acorns I want to ask, why? What are you doing, playing marbles? You're vermin for cripes sake. Stop playing with your food and eat it!

Then there is the most mysterious noise of all. A sound that's weird enough to make your blood run cold, even apart from the fact that you know its going to continue incessantly until dawn. A ratcheting, clicking, whirring, like the scary noise made by one of those thimble and string rattlers kids used to hold against window panes on Halloween. What is it? Are the beasties gnawing on the joists, or window sills, or acorns (having finished their game of marbles) or the electric or phone lines? Are they scratching themselves? Verminous vermin that they are. Or are they merely shaking with laughter at keeping the humans awake?

Three Essays

ericm09@earthlink.net — Tue, 18 Oct 11 11:06:00 UT

Like our backyard groundhog, I have been in hibernation. I guess he's hibernating. We haven't seen him for weeks and in Pennsylvania groundhogs crawl into their burrows and pull the dirt up over themselves long before winter arrives. They also get up earlier then you'd expect. We've seen a groundhog rambling around in the snow in February. But enough about groundhogs.

While I have not been writing essays, Mary has, so I will point you to some of her efforts. She has a monthly piece on the excellent Poisoned Pen Press Blog. This month she tells the thrilling tale of how we removed an old washing machine from our house. Trust me, it was an adventure.

Changing A Washer The Hard Way

Last month on the PPP Blog she made a little list about annoying things that people post to lists. I wasn't the co-author here, I guess Gilbert and Sullivan helped out.

Pestiferous Posters

Finally, our newest Orphan Scrivener, Mary writes about deadly fireplace furniture.

Yes, there's an essay by me in the newsletter but readers of this blog will recognize it. I told you I've been hibernating.

August/September Reading

ericm09@earthlink.net — Sat, 1 Oct 11 13:39:00 UT

This time a list of what I've read in the past two months. My August reading was negligible. Seems like the more I write the less I read and vice versa. Some of the publication dates are kind of approximate.

Vengeance is Mine -- Mickey Spillane (1950)
I think people underrate Mickey Spillane's writing simply because his detective Mike Hammer is brilliantly depicted as being totally politically incorrect. Spillane could sure write a great, non-stop, atmospheric noir detective story. I enjoyed the slam bang ride, even if I did see the twist at the end coming. And let's face it, however unpleasant some aspects of Hammer's personality might be, the scum he takes revenge on is far worse. Maybe Spillane was onto something -- the evil people in this world only pay attention to the Mike Hammers. I'd like to see anyone start yapping to Mike Hammer about bipartisan compromise. Hammer would grin, but it wouldn't be a nice grin.

Soft Touch -- John D. MacDonald (1953)
One of MacDonald's leanly written early crime novels. It's about a crime caper gone wrong, but it's also about a frustrated middle-class man trapped in a bad marriage and a job he detests, themes often treated in literary novels. The difference in a crime novel like this is that the frustrated protagonist tries to escape by getting involved in a doomed criminal scheme rather than sitting around brooding in purple prose, or having a pointless affair.

A Man Without a Country -- Kurt Vonnegut (2005)
The last book published during Vonnegut's life, I think, this is brief collection of scintillating essays. Actually, the writing is in a relaxed conversational style and it is easy to imagine Vonnegut talking as you read. (Like the published lectures of William James some of which I read recently) The man seemed to have figured out exactly what is going on in the world, unfortunately, but at least he can laugh about it, even though ruefully.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain (1884)
I finally read this because Kurt Vonnegut kept mentioning Mark Twain, maybe because Vonnegut was Twain's twentieth century counterpart. Maybe because Twain was harped on as a classic American author in school I have neglected his writing. A bad oversight. Huckleberry Finn is one of the best books I've ever read (Especially if you discount the weird last few chapters after Tom Sawyer shows up). It's a joyful book even as it catalogs every variety of human foolishness, viciousness, mendacity, greed and racism. Makes me want to go out and buy a raft and float down the river.

Practical Magic -- Alice Hoffman (1996)
I'm not sure whether this should be described as American magic realism or a cross between Ann Tyler and Bewitched. The lives of two sisters are deeply affected by growing up under the care of two witchy aunts. The aunts really do cast spells but it is made pretty clear that the strongest and most dangerous magic is that old black magic between the sexes. Highly entertaining mixture of reality and fantasy.

Drive -- James Sallis (2008)
This very modern treatment of an old noir theme starts off with the driver for a robbery gone wrong in a hotel room with three dead bodies and pursued by the minions of a shadowy crime boss who wants him dead. The nonlinear narrative flashes back and forth between the present and several past storylines. Like Thomas Perry's Butcher's Boy, Driver -- as the protagonist is called -- turns out to be a sort of invincible killing machine. A compelling book, yet more notable for its style than any original substance. Then again, I suppose most books are variations on a theme.

Black Friday -- David Goodis (1954)
A man on the run in the snow covered streets of Philadelphia finds shelter, of a sort, with a gang of professional thieves. To stay alive, the fugitive, Hart, needs to negotiate an interpersonal minefield of three thugs, two women, and their psychopathic mastermind of a leader About as noir as it gets..

A Time to Murder and Create -- Lawrence Block (1976)
PI Matt Scudder seeks to avenge the death of a New York City blackmailer. His problem is to discover which of blackmailer's victims resorted to murder. Scudder does a lot of drinking and a lot of thinking about the morality of the situation he's in. He doesn't shoot anyone. The book might not sound as exciting as many high concept, non-stop action thrillers but it has more depth and I found it more satisfying.

Cage of Night -- Ed Gorman (1996)
On his blog Gorman explains that this book came out from a small publisher because no major publisher would touch it. They didn't like that it was unclassifiable. Is it mystery or horror/fantasy? I guess the fact that its a terrific, chilling tale counted for nothing. Is the violence plaguing a small town due to an alien in an abandoned well, or merely to the psychopaths who only seem to be possessed? The young protagonist falls for a girl who is obsessed with the well. Bad move.

The End of the Affair -- Graham Greene (1951)
After reading Graham Greene's breathtaking writing I can barely work up the courage to try and compose a sentence. This story of a doomed love affair set in London during the Second World War begins, and mostly takes place, after the affair has ended and it is largely about belief and religion and man's rather tortured relationship to God, if in fact there is a God. If you are not familiar with the book you will probably be surprised at how it unreels and where it goes.

Wheel of Misfortune

ericm09@earthlink.net — Mon, 26 Sep 11 14:21:00 UT

It's only within the past few years that I finally bought a mouse with a scroll wheel. Laugh if you will, but for me that's a big technological advance. I still don't have a cell phone, let alone an iPod. Admittedly, I only bought the mouse with the weird button in the middle because WalMart no longer had the old style I was used to.

Shortly after I got the newfangled mouse I was cleaning up a very long document for a legal book getting it ready to send off. This represented weeks of mind numbing labor. As I scanned down the document, all of a sudden it began to get smaller and smaller and impossibly smaller, like something out of that old sf classic "He Who Shrank".

For a second I freaked out. (Those of us who date back to sixties can do that) Oh my God! What have I done?!! Where's my work?? Bummer, man! Luckily it took only an instant for me to realize that my amazing new scroll wheel did tricks I had never guessed.

This is pretty typical of how I keep up with advances in computers. Accidental trial and total panic.

I'm still a little leery of using the function, though. Can it just keep shrinking stuff, until it passes into a microcosmic universe? (The miniscule denizens of the next universe down might be flabbergasted by insurance laws) Or might it shrink the pixels into an electronic singularity which into which my computer will disappear with a loud pop! I'm no computer geek. Who knows what all these keys and buttons and wheels really can do? Not me.

Derek vs. Diana

ericm09@earthlink.net — Sun, 25 Sep 11 10:26:00 UT

I've been keeping an eye on 62-year old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad's attempt to swim the 103 miles from Cuba to the United States. As I write this she's still going despite attacks by poisonous jellyfish. When I used to run I found it difficult to cover 10 kilometers during a road race with painful mosquito bites. Having some tiny experience of trying to increase my own stamina I find endurance feats like Nyad's astounding.

As it happens Derek Stillwater, Mark Terry's government operative, is crossing the Florida Straits in a kayak. He's been going since August 17 [DIRE STRAITS ] in a novella Mark has been serializing on his blog. It's great stuff. I guarantee if you read the first episode you'll be drawn in. Derek's stakes are a little higher, frankly, than Diana's, being survival following a mission to Cuba.

Whither Historical Weather

ericm09@earthlink.net — Thu, 22 Sep 11 23:27:00 UT

It seems like it hasn't stopped raining here since last spring. Coming into September we were far above the historic precipitation average for the year and then the remnants of Hurricane Irene drenched us with three inches or so and Tropical Storm Lee drowned us with over nine inches. And it is still raining, even as I type.

By contrast, during the period between June 12 and June 21, 1941 in the southwest part of Shropshire in the UK there was no precipitation at all, according to the Met Office. That was a relief because Mary and I have spent a lot of time writing there, working on a new book. I know....you don't usually go to the UK -- even in your imagination -- to avoid rain.

The lack of rain back then does pose a challenge to me since I am from the dark and stormy night school. As far as I'm concerned, nothing says drama like a good frog strangler. (As Mary calls it) I have to be careful or I find my fictional clouds opening up every time trouble looms. With this book I'll have to try and create atmosphere more subtly rather than simply pouring it on.

Mary and I decided that since weather records were available for the era we might as well be accurate. But is it really necessary to take historical accuracy in fiction to such lengths? Does the historical backdrop against which the fictional characters act out their imaginary story need to take account of every passing shower or lack thereof?

Certainly the writer of non-historicals, of novels set in the present, more or less, gets to make up suitable weather. How many houses in which a murder was committed, or is about to committed if a lurking maniac has his way, have found themselves isolated by snowstorms?

Or so I believed, as I read David Goodis' Black Friday, a contemporary, at the time, crime novel published in 1954. It starts out with a man on the run in the snow covered streets of Philadelphia finding shelter, of a sort, with a gang of professional thieves.

You'll notice the snow. On the day of the big burglary at book's end it is also snowing and so cold the getaway car nearly refuses to start.

Nothing remarkable there but since I had weather accuracy in mind I immediately noticed when the protagonist read a newspaper headline about a British airliner crashing in the Meditteranean. Googling quickly revealed to me that such a crash had indeed occurred on January 11, 1954. Having put an exact date to the narrative, my next impulse was to check the weather. Yes, it had indeed snowed in Philadelphia on the day the book began and it snowed again and was bitter cold the day of the burglary. Exactly as depicted.

I was startled, to say the least. Are authors really that picky about the weather in contemporary books? Or, I wondered hopefully, had Goodis perhaps begun the book during the January snow and having committed himself that far, decided to maintain the accuracy? Or had he pulled a Georges Simenon and written the whole short novel during a few days-- the same days on which it took place -- and simply used the weather ouside his window?

Such were my thoughts when I began reading A Time to Murder and Create, a 1976 mystery by Lawrence Block. Aside from a mention that it was spring, the action wasn't dated. Until PI Matt Scudder sits in a bar, drinking and watching the Knicks lose the fourth game of an NBA playoff series to the Celtics. The next day he survives a knife attack mostly because it has been raining. Uh oh.

I couldn't resist, even though I didn't really want to know. It wasn't hard to discover that the Knicks had been eliminated from the playoffs by the Celtics on April 24, 1974. It was with a sense of dread that I looked to see what the weather had been like April 25, 1974 in New York City, when Scudder's assailant slipped on the wet pavement, his knife missing its mark. I always knew good writers like to get their facts correct but is there no limit? Would I have to abandon forever my penchant for tossing in dark and stormy skies to meet my atmospheric needs?

I clicked to the right historical weather chart and looked down the rows of statistics. Precipitation...

Zero!

And it hadn't rained on April 24th, or the 26th either. Despite what the book said, it had been dry all week.

And all I could say was thank goodness! And thank you Lawrence Block!

Mithras

ericm09@earthlink.net — Thu, 15 Sep 11 12:10:00 UT

Our detective John is, as many of you know, a Mithran despite working for the emperor of an officially Christian empire. Being a secret pagan puts him a bit of an awkward, although hardly unique, position.

For example, following the Nika riots in 532 the patrician Phocas was temporarily appointed by Justinian to head the powerful Praetorian Prefecture despite having been charged, but cleared, of paganism a few years before. The fact he had been cleared did not, apparently, allay suspicions because around 545 he was charged again and committed suicide rather than submit to execution.

During the sixth century it was sometimes difficult to discern where a learned man's laudable fascination with pagan antiquity left off and heretical pagan worship began.

John's particular form of paganism, Mithraism, was a soldier's religion and bore some ethical similarities to Christianity. Mary has written an essay about the Mithras religion for Jessica Williams' Novel Reaction blog.