Zorro, Avenger and Scamp

Zorro was the avenger of crimes against humanity. During the battle for control of California, the enemy committed crimes and took lives until Zorro saved the day.

If you’re familiar with the Antonio Bandaros version of THE MASK OF ZORRO, you know humor abounds as young protégé Zorro perfects his skills in the shadow of the master. He quickly conquers the rules of etiquette to accomplish the tasks at hand. Saving lives of peasants and winning admiration of fair maidens are the young Zorro's goals, though not necessarily in that order.

With this in mind, along with the relief of glimpsing a light at the end of an alpha-omega tunnel, I gleefully completed the A to Z Challenge, a smile firmly plastered across my face.

My alphabet-challenging story

tells of Zorro’s eagerness

to gain the attentions of countless young women.

(Hastening his fair maidens, capricious from Lenten-fast weakness, to the water’s edge, Zorro ignores the lewd events transpiring below, that mirror his fanciful youth when he too eagerly imbibed, to hallucinogenic excess)

Zorro yanks

xerophagically whimsical virgins

upon the shimmering river's quay,

passing over

naughty malfeasants lasciviously kissing jocular impenitents -

 - hilariously groggy from energetically

drinking chimerical,

brewery ale.

Yin and Yang

Every intriguing mystery story has a combination of Yin and Yang, the contrasting and harmonizing forces in Chinese thought. These forces are represented within the story by a blend of personalities, both the shaded and sunny sides; a satisfying mix of tight action and palliative sequel to keep the tension level high and the story moving forward at a well-balanced pace to retain the reader’s interest.

There is always an element of good in the worst of people and a touch of evil in the best. Just as the characteristics of Yin and Yang cannot exist without those of the other, a strong character cannot maintain a realistic presence without flaws to balance the personality. A character comprised of pure evil, on the other hand, will quickly disappear against the black shadow of night.

Together, the main characters of a story combine in various degrees to form a cohesive relationship that will carry the plotline to a satisfying conclusion.

Contrast is necessary. A whispered poem will be lost in the thunder of a hundred similarly whispered poems. Even the subtlest of contrasts can make a difference.

Can the application of the Yin and Yang concept heighten suspense in your story?

Xerophagy and Hunger Strikes

Hunger Strike victim or X-Ray?

Hunger may indicate a personal decision to refrain from eating, such as the religious practice of fasting during the season of Lent. While not recommended for children or the elderly, supervised fasting is a safe and acceptable custom. Anorexia and bulimia, not so much.

More deadly is the ritualized hunger strike. While the practice itself is not a crime, often the undertaking of a hunger strike is prompted by criminal action. Just as Buddhists protested unfair edicts in 1963 by drenching themselves with gasoline and setting themselves ablaze, people who refuse food also risk a painful death.

A notable hunger strike that ended very badly took place in Ireland’s Long Kesh Prison, during the summer of 1981. It is not my intent to assign responsibility for the deaths that occurred or to judge peers and superiors who allowed the strikes to commence or persist. You can draw your own conclusions from reading Afterlives, The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer That Changed Irish History by Richard O’Rawe.

Fasting; hunger strike; keeping fast; Lenten fast; without food; and strict fast; all fall under the heading of Xerophagy.

The axiom:

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”

doesn’t apply only to firearms.

Watson, Doctor Watson

Sidekicks, partners, bosom buddies, and dastardly duos are often found in literature and movie format. So many famous crime-fighting twosomes come to mind:

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote de la Mancha and his squire, Sancho Panza

Tarzan and the Apes (later, Jane) in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s graphic novels (weren’t the bad guys always trying to capture the chimpanzee?)

Batman and Robin; Attila and the Huns; Gene Autry and Gabby Hayes;

Genghis Khan and grandson Kublai (generations apart but both riveted on world domination)

 Rizzoli & Isles; Stephanie Plum & Lula; Simon and Simon; Hart to Hart; ah, the list goes on.

Sherlock Holmes has his ‘man Friday’ (reference to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe intentional.) Dr. Watson, the quintessential sidekick to Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, is narrator of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures. Watson does not fill the role of leg-work man like Nero Wolfe’s Archie or the “muscle” of Stephanie Plum’s Lula. When he attempts to detect, in the presence or unexpected absence of the detective, the efforts fall short with, in his own words, “indifferent success.”

Did Dr. Watson remain with Mr. Holmes all those years, even after he married, for the exhilaration of knowing the game was afoot?

Victims of Vendettas

A vendetta is described as a feud between clans or families. This does not include the obvious, that vendettas end in killings.

The feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys took place in the Appalachian area of Kentucky and West Virginia. The many fights and killings of this famous American vendetta generated speculation over the years comparable to the question of Jack the Ripper’s identity.

Vendettas have caused incalculable wars. The assassination of an Austrian heir ignited World War One. Documents, dissertations, and movies list numerous cause for The American Civil War. A feud is marked by “violent attacks undertaken for revenge.” The feud described as “the war between the states” lasted for four years.

While reading about various vendettas, I recognized one common theme. There are heads on a spike, beheadings, headless horsemen, and double taps to the head. Mob bosses declare, “Heads will roll.” While those being pursued head for the hills, pursuers are told to “Head ‘em off at the pass.”

Touring an Italian town in The Godfather, Michael asks, “Where have all the men gone?” and is told, “They’re all dead from vendettas.” Those men fought and died defending their beliefs.

But what about the horse?

UCE - Undercover Employees

The movie Donnie Brasco raised the question, “At what point does the undercover cop cross the line and start becoming like them? Joseph D. Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco (portrayed by Johnny Depp), was undercover six years. When his wife accused him of becoming like the criminals he was supposed to put behind bars, he responded, “I’m not becoming like them, I am them.”

As an undercover officer in New York, Joseph D. Pistone carried out what is described as the “most audacious sting operation ever.”

Joanne Takasato, Honolulu's first undercover female police officer, worked as an undercover Narcotics officer for ten years. Her book, In Search of Truth and Honor, reveals her dangerous life on the streets, and its Introduction talks about “betrayal of relationships.”

I would view betrayal as a two-sided sword. While undercover, officers develop relationships within a crime organization knowing their betrayal of earned trust is inevitable. Meanwhile, they have to worry about possible betrayal, or lack of commitment, from those supposedly watching their backs.

As part of their cover, UCEs are required to lie to those being investigated. Later, they must convince judge and jury they’re telling the truth.

What keeps them from crossing the line?

Techniques of Forensic Science

Natural Body of Water (Pacific Ocean)

In my opinion, modern techniques of forensic science have advanced to the level of Science Fiction. For instance, gas chromatography, capable of determining blood-alcohol levels, also detects barbiturates, cocaine, heroine, and amphetamines.

Filtered Water

When a drowning victim’s body is discovered in water, forensics can establish if drowning occurred in filtered water or a natural body of water by checking for diatoms. These single-celled algae, present in all natural bodies of water, are filtered out of household water during the treatment process. A standard microscope that magnifies objects to 1500 times their actual size, can determine whether or not these diatoms are present.

A scanning electron microscope can detect GSR, those tiny particles of gunpowder that stick to the hand and leave a residue after someone fires a gun.

One of the oldest forensics techniques, dusting for prints, has proved that no two fingerprints are alike. AFIS, Automated Fingerprint Identification System, increased the effectiveness of fingerprint analysis.

Deoxyribonucleic acid testing may be the final frontier. DNA is found in blood, hair, skin, or semen. This testing method has proved the innocence of numerous people convicted of crimes on the strength of less accurate evidence.

Could forensic testing one day become the enemy?

Shadowing the Librarian for Sisters in Crime Hawaii

Crime Fiction Author, Honolulu Resident, Gail M Baugniet,

 Is a Library Staffer for a Day

Takes Part in Sisters in Crime’s

“Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day” Event

Gail eagerly awaiting ten o'clock!

                 

Honolulu—Gail Baugniet, author and member of Sisters in Crime/Hawaii and Sisters in Crime, Inc.—an international organization founded to support the professional development of women writing crime fiction—will work as a volunteer staffer at The Makiki Community Library in Honolulu on Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. as part of a “Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day” celebration.

Makiki Community Library Librarians

The event, produced by Sisters in Crime, is designed to thank librarians and booksellers for 25 years of support of the mystery genre. Sisters in Crime was established with an organizational meeting held in New York City in the spring of 1987.

 “I am very excited about spending time at The Makiki Community Library,” Baugniet said. “In helping readers find their way to the right book at the right time, librarians solve mysteries every day.”

On April 21, a select group of Sisters in Crime member authors will be volunteering in bookstores and libraries in their hometowns—from Albany, New York, to Honolulu, Hawaii, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., local time. In addition, SinC’s more than 3,000 members worldwide are gearing up to go into libraries and bookstores on that day to personally thank the booksellers and librarians they find working behind the counters and in the stacks. 

Gail Baugniet is working on the second novel in her Pepper Bibeau mystery series. Her first novel, FOR EVERY ACTION There Are Consequences, is available in print format at The Makiki Community Library, and is also available at Amazon.com in print and e-book format. 

While at The Makiki Community Library on April 21, Baugniet will be shadowing Librarian Wendy Maxwell as she assists library patrons and performs the daily tasks required to keep the library running smoothly.

Wendy demonstrating to Gail
the Internet card catalog system

The Makiki Community Library is located at 1527 Keeaumoku Street in Honolulu. The library is open on Wednesday from 2 to 6 pm and Saturday/Sunday from Noon to 4 pm. The Makiki Community Library phone number is 808-522-7076.

Sisters in Crime is currently celebrating its 25^th anniversary year. The organization is made up of more than 3,000 members and 48 chapters worldwide—authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians and others who love mysteries. Sisters in Crime is online at www.sistersincrime.org.

Serial Killers

The term ‘serial killer’ was coined by FBI agent and criminologist Robert K. Ressler. As a profiler, he determined that many who commit multiple murders, mainly white males in their 20’s or 30’s, had dysfunctional or absent parents. Most people have heard stories about serial killers John Wayne Gacy and The Boston Strangler.

Hailing from Wisconsin, my interest lies in the likes of Ed Gein, loosely portrayed in the movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; and Jeffrey Dahmer, notorious not only as a killer, but as a cannibal.

Jeffrey Dahmer began his gruesome journey in 1988, one century after Jack the Ripper sliced his way into the record books during the autumn of 1888. It is reported that Dahmer was young and charming like Ted Bundy. While Bundy used his charms to lure young Caucasian women, Dahmer preyed on young black men. Dahmer boiled his victims. Ed Gein used a technique most often applied to the carcass of a deer.

Ed Gein’s construction of human-skin lamp shades so dehumanized him that it was difficult to take the horror of his actions seriously. What I never understood was the taxidermy thing.

Do you think serial killers are born, or that they evolve?

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe

Rex Stout is the author of numerous mysteries, but my favorites feature his rotund, cerebral detective, Nero Wolfe. The details of Wolfe’s birth rival those of any romance novel. Rumor has it, his parents were Sherlock Holmes and the one woman who met Holmes’s match, Irene Adler. (See: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Scandal in Bohemia.)

The anecdote is supposedly substantiated by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Great O-E Theory” which compares the vowels in “Sherlock Holmes” and “Nero Wolfe”. The letters appear in the same order for both names. Fun, but hardly conclusive.

What endears me to Nero Wolfe is his love of Orchids. He raises the exotic flora on the rooftop of his abode, a brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street. Though much less active than Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe also does his detecting (or in the word of Poe, ratiocination) with his gray matter.

Wolfe adamantly refuses to leave his dwelling or change his routine to “facilitate” an investigation. Of course, he has Archie Goodwin to support his work, much as Sherlock has “my dear Watson.”

Vowels; gray matter; man Friday; addictive contact with “O” plants or derivatives - could there be more compelling evidence that the two detectives are related?

Quoth the Raven

The stories, and television reenactments, of Edgar Allan Poe’s works fascinated me as a young reader. At the time, I am sure there was much I did not understand. Recently, I reread his trilogy of murder mysteries, The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841); The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842-1843); and The Purloined Letter (1844). There were phrases, on rereading, that I still had to break down to comprehend. (...in furtherance of the impression...)

Poe’s word choices often stump me. (Thank goodness for e-dictionaries.) Raise your hands, how many other than souse chefs knew the word grisette (a common edible woodland mushroom)? How about inditer? And, for Troy’s sake, myrmidons?

Much of Poe’s style is reflected in today’s genres: traditional mystery, detective stories, thrillers, noir, horror, and science fiction. And for poets, of course, The Raven.

Though I have read and reread the mystery trilogy, I must confess that the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe that influenced me most were The Pit and the Pendulum (1842); The Tell-Tale Heart (1842); and The Premature Burial (1844).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to read The Cask of Amontillado (1846). The Introduction offers the promise of a most satisfying revenge.

PRISONS and PUBLIC ENEMIES #AWorldOfCrime

Wisconsin Reformatory

John Dillinger was named Public Enemy #1 by J. Edgar Hoover. Other public enemies on Hoover’s list were Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and Baby Face Nelson. Gunned down in fire fights, Bonnie, Clyde, and Dillinger never served prison time.

During the years that Alcatraz, the federal prison known as “The Rock”, was in operation, many gangsters got to see the inside, including Public Enemies Al Capone and members of Ma Barker’s gang.

John Walsh’s Public Enemies describes how America’s Most Wanted assisted in capturing an accused terrorist who resurfaced twenty-five years later as a ‘soccer mom.’

According to Alcatraz Rules and Regulations, prisoners were entitled to “food, clothing, shelter and medical attention.” I guess they paid for everything else, one way or another.

Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison , Smith College alumna Piper Kerman’s book, tells of her incarceration at the “infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut” after she was caught delivering a suitcase of drug money.

Not only gangsters do prison time. Right now, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is learning that, along with the withholding of shoelaces, neckties and razor blades, the law also disallows hair dye.

Outlaws and Criminals

The self-evident meaning of OUTLAW is someone who acts outside the law. If one understands and lives within the confines of the law, all is well. The problem arises with sociopaths or people who live by a personal, conflicting interpretation of the law.

Acting outside of God’s law, Cain slew his brother Abel. One of the most infamous outlaws of America’s Old West, Jesse James, spent much of his life on the wrong side of the law. Were Jesse and Cain psycho/sociopaths who cared for no one else?

Cain may have fallen into that category. Jesse James loved his wife and children, however, or so the story goes. Did he interpret the law to his benefit, strongly believing that he had the right to take whatever he wanted, including lives, at the expense of others?

Baby Face Nelson’s life ended before his 26th birthday, his short life taken by the same violence he reveled in dishing out. Is J. Edgar Hoover’s portrayal of him as a killer without a conscience accurate? Or was killing an addiction for him?

Semantics aside, ‘Outlaw’ and ‘Criminal’ are not synonymous to those who applaud the charismatic antics of historical figures such as Robin Hood.

N C I C - National Crime Information Center

NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, was launched in 1967 with five files and 356,784 records. By 2009, the records numbered over 15 million records.

Today, the files include information on stolen property and persons of interest, from missing persons and identity theft victims to gang members and foreign fugitives. Also included in NCIC is a National Dental Image file that is used to identify people by dental records.

A law enforcement officer sitting in his squad car can use his MDT to search NCIC when he makes a traffic stop. The officer will check for vehicle information, whether it is reported stolen or if the owner has outstanding warrants.

Because requests submitted to NCIC are processed immediately, the officer has an idea of what to expect before approaching a situation. Depending on the data received, it gives the officer the opportunity to request backup, if necessary.

Regardless of the type of request, a positive response from NCIC is first verified for accuracy and status update, to assure the information is current. Once confirmed, the officer can take required action, such as returning a missing person, or recovering stolen property (and, as they say on television, arresting the perp’s a**.)

Murder in the Mystery Genre

Don’t expect to witness a murder in every mystery novel. A Cozy, the traditional mystery found in Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple investigations, doesn’t describe all the gory details of a hapless victim’s demise. Blood splashed onto walls occurs off-stage; the pathetic gurgling of a backstabber, in the throes of a strangling fit, cannot be heard from the porch swing of a conventional Cozy.

When an out-of-control bus loaded with Las Vegas bound revelers careens down a steep and rocky embankment, forced off the road by the jealous lover of its escaping occupant, you will not see or hear a body fly through the air and smash- land, spreading oozing brain matter over jagged rocks below.

Murder is not always a messy business. Traditional novels don’t expose readers to the graphic carnage one expects from a hardcore detective novel or a suspenseful thriller. Be sure your choice indicates Cozy status, if you don’t want to experience ear-splitting bone breaks, bomb-shattering car wrecks, jugular-slicing knife fights, or fire-melted body dumps.

Mysteries with soft-core sleuths are my novel of choice, though I’m a sucker for just about anything with a mysterious twist.

Mystery abounds within many genres. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

Line Up - Process and Effectiveness

One of my favorite television shows of the late 1950s (oops, TMI?) was a police drama set in San Francisco, The Lineup.

Police lineups offer a victim the opportunity to identify their attacker, without the suspect viewing them. For a lineup, five (or six) people of similar appearance are placed in a row, lined up side by side. All but one of the people are fillers, people who are not suspected of committing the crime in question. Photograph lineups are used in this way also. If a photo I.D. is not possible, then a physical lineup follows.

If a weapon in used in the commission of a crime, the victim’s attention may be drawn away from the suspect’s face and make it difficult later for the eyewitness to select the right suspect from the lineup. On the other hand, it is possible that the suspect’s use of bare hands during an attack, such as with the Boston Strangler, will draw attention to unusual features and help an eyewitness to make a positive identification.

Lineups can result in mistaken identifications, however. A number of suspects convicted of crimes on the evidence of eyewitness identification have later been exonerated for various reasons.

Knives and other WMD

Novels and newspapers recounting the commission of homicides often supply details of the offending WMD, Weapons of Murderous Deeds. Among the strangest, and most cunning of objects utilized (IMHO) are: an icicle to stab a victim - before the weapon melts; and a frozen leg of lamb to bludgeon a person, then thawed, cooked, and eaten (the leg of lamb, not the person).

Other unconventional objects employed are snow-scene paperweights; foods that trigger allergic reactions (think CSI’s shrimp on the lips); and hypodermic needles. Trophies are often obtained with the use of a knife: scalps, noses, fingers, eyelids, ears, gold teeth, and other “appendages.”

A list of tried-and-true weapons includes train tracks, toilet bowls, the Brooklyn Bridge, a speeding bus, and the computer-tied-to-a-chair bomb in the elevator shaft from Die Hard.

Yet, the most chilling of murder weapons (again, IMHO) is the knife. Imagine the blade as it slices a wrist, an inner thigh or underarm, and the soft tissue below the jawline where the carotid artery lies. The horror of this weapon is reflected in Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel killings and the senseless mutilation of Sharon Tate by members of the Manson family.

What other weapon generates such chills?

IBIS - Ballistics Identification

IBIS, Integrated Ballistics Identification System, captures a digital image of the individual marks left on a fired bullet or cartridge case and stores the information in its data base.

Because the bore of a firearm has small imperfections and the bore is harder than the bullet of a cartridge, it will always leave striations. These markings will always be the same for any bullet fired from a particular gun. IBIS compares the item being entered into the system to all previous information entered, in an attempt to identify the firearm used.

Ballistics is a science that deals with the motion of projectiles. Firearms cartridges are made up of the lead projectile called a bullet; the casing; powder; and a primer or charge. Investigators look for shell casings at any crime scene that involves a shooting so they can match the striations from the spent cartridge to the murder weapon, if it is ever found.

There are several reasons why the condition of a bullet casing will prevent a ballistics expert from making a comparison. I know this because I’ve watched so many CSI reruns, and read HONOLULU CSI.

What situations would make it impossible to run a casing through IBIS?

GANGSTERS and GOODFELLAS #MysteryInCrime

 

They proudly answered to the name of mobster, hoodlum, or wiseguy. Notorious gangsters such as Al Capone and Frank Lucas dealt in illegal commodities, convinced they hurt no one.

These men and their henchmen grew rich selling Prohibition liquor from Canada or heroin during the Vietnam War. They took over cities, Chicago or Manhattan, by bribing police, aldermen, even judges.

Often, outlaws were immortalized and ‘goodfellas’ were glamorized. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker held up gas stations and banks, killing twelve people in the process. A former Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, had to follow them across nine states before ending their reign in a Louisiana ambush. In such cases, the good guys got justice, while the goodfellas just got dead.

Frank Lucas served time for distributing narcotics, and his stash of two hundred and fifty million dollars was confiscated. Later, he helped convict three-quarters of Manhattan’s Drug Enforcement Agency.

But when a gangster from Harlem, Henry Hill, was arrested for cocaine trafficking, he ratted out the Mafia before entering the Federal Witness Protection Program where, rumor has it, he is living a life of luxury.

Is this proof that crime does not pay, but living on the government’s dime does?

Forensics aka Medical Jurisprudence

Forensic Science, aka Medical Jurisprudence and commonly called forensics, has a broad range of uses. Events in the world today dictate that forensic teams monitor certain countries for compliance with international agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and to learn if a country is developing secret nuclear weapons.

The most common use of forensic science is to investigate criminal cases involving a victim: crimes ranging from assault and robbery, to kidnapping, rape, or murder. If you watch CSI or BONES, you are familiar with the various departments within a forensics lab, including pathology, toxicology, and odontology - the study of teeth.

My favorite “ologist” is the forensic anthropologist, who is trained to determine height, weight, sex, and ethnic group of a deceased person - from body parts. The anthropologist can read marks on bones that indicate past injuries and diseases suffered by the individual. Investigators can identify a body by comparing the forensic anthropologist’s findings to old X-rays and medical history of a missing person.

It is fascinating to watch as the forensic expert takes a skull, adds markers to specific surfaces, and slowly builds a complete and identifiable face.

What’s your favorite "ology?

Examiner's Office

The medical examiner is responsible for determining cause of death. In the case of a violent death, the evidence is examined to rule out or confirm an accident, suicide, or murder.

In the 12^th century, the primary duty of the English coroner was to record criminal matters in his county, information used to collect fines and dues owed to the king. By 1887, British law stated that the chief duty of a coroner was to determine the cause of a sudden or violent death, the only surviving function of a coroner. Now, the roles of medical examiner and coroner are combined to simplify the process or to ease financial burden.

Specific elements determine the examination process, such as whether the case involves a gunshot or knife wound, asphyxiation, or poisoning. When a murderer arranges a scene to give the appearance of a suicide, evidence - possibly a fingerprint, might uncover the ruse. If someone tampers with a suicide scene to suggest the victim’s death is the result of a homicide, however, the deception could go undetected -unless Horatio is on the scene.

Can you suggest one reason someone might alter a scene to make a suicide appear to be murder?

Detective Stories

A detective story begins with a crime and ends with a solution. In the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, the gray cells do much of the deducing. In today’s fast-paced world, exploits in the story's middle encourage a sequel, making tension equally important to the puzzle.

Though not a true example, as no crime is involved, a 16tth century novel, The Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Sarendip illustrates the elements of detection. Three princes are asked to explain how they know a certain, unseen camel is blind in one eye, lame, and missing a tooth. They deduce the blindness is obvious because the camel eats grass from only one side of the track, even though the grass is thicker on the other; uneven hoof prints in the dust indicate a dragging leg and reveal the camel’s lameness; and lumps of partly chewed food left in the animal's path suggest a missing tooth. (You can substitute an elephant and several blind men.)

Edgar Allan Poe introduced the detective story. Decades later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventures created a full-blown interest in detective novels.

Rex Stout and Erle Stanley Gardner were my first. Do you have a favorite?

Chan - Chang in Honolulu

Charlie Chan is a fictional character based on an actual Honolulu Police Department detective. Chang Apana, known by this localized version of his Chinese name Chang Ah Ping, was born on the Island of O’ahu in 1871. He spoke fluent Hawaiian but never learned to read. As a paniolo, Hawaiian cowboy, he regularly carried a bullwhip. Later he joined the police force as its only Chinese member.

Detective Chang patrolled areas of Chinatown, working on opium-smuggling and gambling cases. He also helped find people with leprosy who were then transported to the colony on Molokai. One story has the detective rounding up forty gamblers and marching them to the police station, with only his bullwhip for backup.

The author of the Charlie Chan detective novels, Earl Derr Biggers, changed the racial stereotype of Chinese characters to less resemble villains like Fu Manchu. His first novel, The House Without A Key, is set in Honolulu. The restaurant of the same name, in the Halekulani Hotel on Waikiki Beach, faces the Pacific Ocean with a beautiful view of the volcanic landmark, Diamond Head.

Don’t you find it interesting that Mr. Biggers based his rotund, mild-mannered sleuth on the bullwhip-wielding, sinewy HPD detective?

Burglaries Bungled by the Law

Humorous stories abound about bungling burglars. Some guy attempts to rob a bank without a mask, the word E A S T S I D E tattooed on his upper lip. Probably should tattoo D U M B-A * * across his forehead. 

The Law managed to bungle a few cases over the decades, also. It’s bad enough when the loss amounts to millions, but then someone writes a book or makes a movie about it. What ever happened to D.B. Cooper? 

Many train robberies have never been solved. Included on England’s list is The Great Train Robbery of 1855. And again in 1963 when fifteen guys remembered to don their masks before they stopped the train in Buckinghamshire and got away with 2.5 million pounds in used bank notes.

Jimmy “The Gent” Burke masterminded New York’s Lufthansa Air Terminal robbery in 1978, making off with untraceable currency amounting to six million dollars. Someone probably lost their job over that.

Worse, in 1990, two police officers responded to a disturbance at the Boston Museum. On admittance, they cuffed the security guards and left with Degas and Rembrandt paintings worth 300 million dollars.

Which 1990 movie title renamed mobsters "decent chaps"?