Genesis of a short story

 

A couple of days ago I blogged about creativity, writing, and inspiration, and I included how difficult it is for me to write a short story unless I have some sudden creative inspiration. So I thought some of you might like to read this short story, which was inspired by a recipe. It features Kelly O’Connell, the realtor/renovator at the center of my Kelly O’Connell Mysteries. Kelly’s office is in Fairmount, the neighborhood adjacent to mine in Fort Worth and one brimming with authentic Craftsman houses, many of which have been preserved. Long the single mother of two, by the time this story takes place, Kelly is married to police officer Mike Shandy. Keisha who appears in the story is her office assistant.

If you don’t know the seven Kelly O’Connell books, plus a novella, you might start with Skeleton in a Dead Space. The books are all available on Amazon.

A word about the short story: My son, Colin, met his bride, Lisa, when he was managing a dive resort on Grand Cayman, and Lisa came there to do underwater photography. When Colin and Lisa first returned from the Caribbean, they lived with Lisa’s parents in Sugar Land, Texas. Lisa’s mother, Torhild, was born and raised in Norway and came to this country as a soldier’s bride at the age of seventeen. She still cooks some of the dishes she knew as a child, and Colin particularly fell in love with these hamburgers (and I might add, with John and Torhild, as did we all). Torhild calls them Norwegian meat cakes, but we’ve all come to use the term hamburger.

I cannot tell you why those hamburgers inspired a short story, but they did. And it is the only time I’ve ever incorporated the paranormal into my writing. I hope you will be charmed by Annalise Nelsen.

Please note that this is a draft version (I seem to be unable to attach the PDF) so there are some typos. Here’s the story of “The Villlage Gaarden.” If you want the recipe for kjottkaker, I think it will be the recipe of the week in Thursday’s “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog. Happy reading.

 

 

 

 

 

The Village Gaarden

 

A short story

 

By Judy Alter

 

The Fairmount Neighborhood was once peppered with storefront businesses, many with residential quarters behind them for the owners. Today most of those picturesque buildings have been demolished, but one or two remain, now renovated into charming homes.

One day, on Travis Avenue between Hawthorne and Lilac streets, I found a storefront new to me—and still open. The day showed North Central Texas winter at its worst—a freezing mix of ice and sleet, wind howling. As Mike told me that morning, “Only a fool would go out on a day like this. Stay home.” I didn’t, and now I was hungry for hot comfort food.

Blue-and-white checkered curtains hung on rods three-quarters from the top of the windows, and the words “The Village Gaarden” were stenciled in black on the window. I wondered about the misspelling and the owners. A hand-lettered sign indicated that the small café would be serving from 12:00-1:00 p.m.

Old-fashioned sleigh bells, hung on a thick leather strap and looped over the inside door handle, sang out as I entered. There were only six tables but they gleamed as if just waxed. Small vases held flowers that looked like lilies of the valley. Blue-and-white china in a variety of patterns and serving dishes rested on a plate rack around the room. Steamy warm air, heavy with the wonderful smell of beef cooking, enveloped me.

A small woman welcomed me. Short and a little wide, she had white hair pulled into a bun at the back of her neck and curls escaping around her face, softening the severity of her hairdo. Her face was anything but severe. Brushing her hands on her apron, she held out both hands in welcome, and I took them gratefully.

“I am so glad to see you,” she bubbled. “I’ve been hoping you would come. I’m Annalise Nelsen. I love to have visitors.”

There were no other customers, but how could she be expecting me? I managed to thank her and then asked, “You’re only open for an hour?”

She nodded. “It’s only me, so I only open when I feel like cooking. Today I made Norwegian hamburgers—Kjøttkaker, we call them. You would like? With mashed potatoes and green peas?”

Of course, I would like. She bustled off, while I settled myself at a table. I tested the flowers—yes, fresh, as I thought—but lilies of the valley were certainly not in season now. In fact, you couldn’t grow them in Texas. Within seconds Annalise appeared with a crockery mug full of fresh, strong black coffee.

I asked about the flowers. “Lilies of the valley aren’t in season now.”

 “I grow,” she said. “We call them liljekonwall.”

Annalise ignored the problem of the flowers, and said, “Now, your dinner. Only one minute. It is all ready,” and she was gone again, reappearing seconds later with a plate of food that looked and smelled way beyond good.

The meat cakes, served with caramelized onion and gravy, were soft and tender rather than chewy like a hamburger. The flavor was pure beef. I tasted the potatoes alone first—rich with butter and whole cream. Then I dabbed a bit of gravy on them—just as good. But the peas—they looked more like a thick green pea soup, with dried peas that hadn’t completely lost their shape. There was no ham taste. Instead, these were slightly sweet and somewhere, deep down, had a butter flavor. I savored a mouthful, while Annalise stood watching me, hands on hips.

“You like?”

“I love,” I said.

“Good. I leave you to enjoy in peace.”

And although I had a thousand questions for her, she disappeared behind the curtains again. I did eat in peace, savoring each mouthful of the hearty, soul-warming food. My feet thawed, and my disposition improved. I took out my cell phone to call Mike and tell him about the wonderful place I’d found. I could imagine bringing the girls here and seeing Annalise hover affectionately over them. But my cell phone said, “No service.” I shrugged and dismissed it as due to the weather.

Annalise came back to ask about dessert. She had made rice pudding she told me, again supplying the Norwegian name—risengryn. I was beyond full but then again, no one else had come in, and I was afraid she’d be stuck with a whole lot of risen-whatever-it-was. I tried to indicate by my hands I wanted a small serving; what I got, of course, was a huge bowl that I could not finish. Rice pudding with hints of nutmeg and vanilla and liberal amounts of currants—another thing one almost never found in Texas, unless you bought them dried.

I ate as much as I could and waited tactfully for the bill. It was well past one o’clock, Annalise’s closing hour, and I didn’t want to detain her. Finally, calling her name softly, I headed toward those curtains. After all, she was elderly, and she might have gotten tired and nodded off. I didn’t want to startle her.

When I got no answer I poked my head through the curtains and found a sparkling clean kitchen—cast-iron stove, empty cast-iron skillet sitting on the top and newly oiled, blue-and-white dishes, like those in which my meal was served, draining in the dish rack. But no sign of Annalise and no answer to my calls.

I had no idea what the lunch might have cost. I left a $20 bill on the table and headed back out into the weather, but by now it didn’t seem so bad. The sleet had stopped, the sun was out, and the ice was beginning to melt. No heart for going back to the office and so full I was almost but not quite uncomfortable, I called Keisha in my office and said I wasn’t coming back, headed home, and took a nap before I got the girls from school.

At dinner that night, I picked at the hamburgers Mike had grilled. His burgers were always great, but I was still full, and I was bursting to tell my story. As my account of lunch spilled out, almost without a pause for breath, the girls sat wide-eyed and open-mouthed. When I finished, Maggie said, “Gosh, Mom, what an adventure,” and Em piped up with “I want to go there!”

Mike was not so swayed. “Wait a minute, Kelly. I’ve never heard of this place and neither had you—and we both know every inch of this neighborhood pretty well.” Of course we did—I’m a real estate agent, and Mike, now a detective, was for years the neighborhood patrol officer. “You found a place you’d never seen; it was only open for one hour; there were fresh lilies of the valley on the tables—hey, I’m from Texas. I wouldn’t know them if I saw them. No menu, one dish. Your cell phone wouldn’t work, and the owner disappeared. Are you feeling okay, sweetheart?”

“I know it sounds strange, Mike, but drive over there yourself tomorrow. You’ll see it, and you should go for lunch.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

I didn’t say any more about my adventure. Mike’s skepticism put a damper on it, and the girls were clearly puzzled.

****

Mike called before ten o’clock the next morning. “Kelly, I just drove the length of Travis Avenue, and I didn’t see any storefront buildings, let alone The Village Gaarden” His voice dropped. “I don’t know what to tell you, except, sweetheart, have you thought maybe it was a dream when you had that good nap before the girls got out of school?”

“Did you tell any of your buddies at the police station about this?” My question was hostile”

“Swear,” he said. “You tell Keisha?”

“No,” and he knew it was serious, because I tell Keisha, my office assistant, almost everything. Had I imagined that? No, I most definitely had not! How would I have known about kjøttkaker and liljekonwallL?

I muttered, “I’ll be back” and slammed out of the office. But it wasn’t on Travis Avenue.  I drove nearby streets, weaving in and out of some that were only a block or two long. I saw two abandoned store fronts but no Village Gaarden.

Back at the office, I sat in a slump until Keisha whirled around and demanded, “Okay. What’s the problem?” Keisha is young, African American, colorful, and the most amazing person I’ve ever met—maybe beside Mike. Among other things, there’s her sixth sense.

I told her the whole story and waited for the laughter, but it didn’t come.

“Okay,” she repeated. “We got to get to the bottom of this.  I can’t have you in this funk all the time. Worse than when you and Mike have an argument. Who’s the oldest person you know in Fairmount?”

“Mrs. Workman,” I answered without hesitation. “She’s in her nineties, and she’s lived here since she was a young bride. Still lives in the same house on Jessamine.”

“Let’s go see her.”

“You going too?”

“Yep, I am. I gotta get to the bottom of this too. Your mama’s cooking is pretty good, but I could eat some of that Norwegian stuff you’re talking about.” Keisha lived with my mom off and on when there seemed to be a reason.

I called Mrs. Workman and asked if Keisha and I could come for a visit.

“Of course, Kelly, dear. But you know I’m not going to sell my house.” No quaver marked that elderly voice. It was as strong and forthright as mine.

“Oh, I know, Mrs. Workman. I just want to ask about, uh, some neighborhood history.”

“Oh, my dear, I love to talk about that. You and your friend come right over. I’ll put the tea kettle on.”

Thelma Workman used a cane when she came to answer the front door, but her handshake was firm, and she welcomed Keisha as heartily as she did me. Clearly, she had worked quickly, for the tea tray sat on the coffee table complete with teapot, creamer and sugar, three cups, and a plate of sliced homemade banana bread.

Please, Lord, let me be like this when I’m ninety!

We chatted casually about the bad weather, the changing neighborhood, Mrs. Workman’s Persian cat. All the while, Keisha fidgeted.

“Mrs. Workman,” I began hesitantly, “do you remember a small restaurant called The Village Gaarden?”

Her eyes were bright, and she was instantly on the alert. “Over on Travis Avenue? I remember it well, because I enjoyed many good meals there. Annalise Nelsen could cook like no one else I ever met. She surely put me in the shadows.”

I also shot Keisha a look that said, “See? I didn’t make this up.”

Mrs. Workman continued. “That was years ago, though. In the ’40s, if I remember correctly. I was a young bride, and I even went there for help with cooking. She was so generous and loving—like a second mother to me. But then Annalise’s husband died, and she went back to Norway.”

“She went back to Norway?” I echoed. “What happened to her restaurant?”

“Her children sold the building, and it was demolished. Isn’t there a playground on the site now?”

I had seen a playground when I went back looking for the restaurant. I turned to Keisha, helplessly, but she didn’t laugh nor did she frown. She just reached out for my hand and held it comfortingly.

Mrs. Workman persisted. “How did you even hear about that tiny restaurant, Kelly?”

“Oh, I was examining some old maps, and it was listed on one.” I was surprised that I could lie so easily and quickly.

We chatted a bit more, thanked that lovely lady for tea and delicious banana bread, and left. In the car, Keisha sighed. “I sure wish that hadn’t been a dream, Kelly. Those Norwegian hamburgers, whatever you call them, sound wonderful.”

“They were,” I said. “I have the recipe in my purse. Annalise gave it to me. Want to copy it?”

I wasn’t telling Mike about that. Someday I’d make kjottkaker for him and claim I’d found the recipe on line, after that dream I’d had. But Annalise was real.

 

A New Book—and Some Nostalgia

Today is the publication date for my eighth Kelly O’Connell Mystery, Contract for Chaos. I published the first in that series, Skeleton in a Dead Space, in 2011, so that makes fourteen mysteries in seven years—not quite two a year, a record that makes me look back.

I have always been a mystery fan. Like so many young girls, I grew up on Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames, R.N., and whoever else. I can’t trace the progression, but as the years went by my heroes were Carolyn Hart, Susan Wittig Albert, Cleo Coyle, and all their sisters in crime. I, meanwhile, was writing about women in the American West.

My writing career came about in a strange way. Academically trained, I was taught to support, defend, footnote ad infinitum, and do everything but give in to my imagination. Fiction was over there on another shelf, written by those with more freedom and imagination than I brought to the typewriter (yes, in the early days) and then the computer.

A friend gave me her mother’s memoir, and I was fascinated but I didn’t know what to do with it except annotate, criticize, dissect, and rob it of every bit of life it had. By serendipity I read some children’s books--Dust of the Earth and Where the Red Fern Grows come to mind—and it dawned on me I could turn that memoir into a children’s book. It wasn’t quite as easy as I’d thought, but one day (1978) I had a novel, After Pa Was Shot, published by a prominent New York publishing house. I envisioned movie contracts and great wealth.

What followed instead was a career low on the mid-list, writing about women of the19th Century American West—Elizabeth Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, Lucille Mulhall (first Wild West roping queen), even Etta Place of the Hole in the Wall Gang, Cissie Palmer of Chicago’s Palmer House. I wrote non-fiction for school libraries and almost anything else I could get an assignment for. But, always, the mystery shelf called to me.

I didn’t know enough about the genre to realize there was a term for the mysteries I liked—cozies. No blood and guts, little if any nail-biting suspense, no sex or profanity. Usually a female amateur sleuth, a bit of romance, a bit of danger, and a happy ening—Nancy Drew all grown up. Joining Sisters in Crime was an education in a whole new writing world, and I ate it up, learning everything I could, reaching out to people, networking. Newly retired, I had a whole new career—and I loved it.

I’m realistic these days. Gone are dreams of even specials for the small screen. But I like the few dedicated readers I have, and it makes me happy they enjoy my stories. No, I don’t expect people to read my work a hundred years from now (a criterion I learned in graduate school), but I’m living—and writing--in the here and now. I hope you’ll keep reading. And I’m proud to offer you Contract for Chaos.

Launch Day for a New Book

Oh, happy day! Kelly O’Connell is back. Well, sort of. Keisha tells the story in my new novella, The Color of Fear. You can find it as an ebook on a wide variety of digital platforms—Kindle, Kobo, B&N, Sony, Apple and others. In print, it’s available from Amazon.

The Color of Fear marks my return to mystery fiction and the Kelly O’Connell series after an absence of more than a year. Some of you know that two major, traumatic events kept me from my computer: complicated hip surgery, which followed several months of undiagnosed but excruciating pain, and the move from my three-bedroom house to a 600 square-foot cottage. Surgery in January took away the pain, and I am feeling strong and healthy, but I can’t yet walk without a walker and am not allowed to drive a car. I remain highly optimistic that those things get a little closer every day.

The move to the cottage was my choice and remains my delight. I love my little hideaway and am almost perfectly comfortable with everything I need—living area, office, fancy bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen area. Only the kitchen leaves me wanting more. Because of zoning restrictions, I have neither stove nor oven, but I am learning to make do with an amazing magnetic hot plate—and the oven in the main house where my daughter and her husband and son now live.

As I told the doctor recently, I’m writing, I’m cooking, and I’m wearing make-up again. All sure signs of recovery. The Color of Fear is the first thing I’ve written from start to finish since the surgery, except for blogs.

The Color of Fear also marks a return for Kelly O’Connell, who took a year or more out to have a baby—Cynthia Grace Shandy. Keisha kept the real estate office running, so it’s only fitting that this time Keisha narrates the short tale wherein Kelly and her family live under the threat of infant Gracie’s kidnapping. The story serves as a reprise of many of the previous novels in the series, as Keisha, in her search for the kidnapper, recalls Kelly’s earlier adventures.

Keisha remains outspoken and independent and her voice is clear and strong as she balances her need to protect Kelly and her family with her love for new husband, José Thornberry. Some but not all of Kelly’s friends and foes from previous stories appear here, along with such new characters as Clyde, the guard dog, and Cowboy, the homeless guy with a soft heart.

I hope you’ll all welcome Kelly and her clan back into your hearts.

Next on my agenda? A sequel to The Perfect Coed. First draft is written, and I’m about to begin editing, aiming for publication in September.

To those of you who are my readers, thanks for sticking with me for my year out, probably one of the most difficult years of my life. I’m so glad to be back with you.

Hip, hip, hooray! A new book launched today

Desperate for Death, the sixth Kelly O'Connell Mystery, launched today as an e-book, with print to follow. It's a tangled tale of arson, stalking, a missing young girl, two men using the same name, a surprise inheritance, and, as usual, Kelly in danger--only this time she has a very special reason to survive. And she knows she must protect her daughters. Still all the pieces in the puzzle don't fit together, no matter how hard she tries. It might be the most complicated of Kelly's adventures yet, but in some ways it's the wackiest too. I had a lot of fun writing it.
I'm laughing at myself tonight. All my writing life, I've wanted to write mysteries. But for many years, I thought someone else wrote those--they were over there on another shelf. I wrote about the American West, primarily the experiences of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I was a western author and have received some nice recognition for my work in that field. But, always, on the side, I was reading mysteries--mostly cozies, mostly contemporary. I'm not as schooled in the Agatha Christie canon or other of the British greats as I should be and sometimes I feel like an interloper. I also don't follow a lot of the advice given in various blogs and online classes and the like. I mostly just bumble my way through, writing as it comes to me. The one piece of advice I always keep in mind came from Elmer Kelton, the late great Texas novelist, who always advised authors to "listen to your characters--they'll tell you where your story is going." I'll never reach Elmer's status, but that's advice I try to follow.
When I first joined Sisters in Crime, and the sub-group Guppies (Going to be Published), I was amazed at the new and knowledgeable world I had fallen into. Although my apprenticeship was shorter than some, I still regret the wasted time--querying about 20 agents to no avail, leaving the manuscript with one publisher for a year while they kept saying they were close to a decision (a big no-no I've since learned--give them a deadline), signing a year's contract with an agent who went from enthusiastic to indifferent (another no-no--don't tie your work up). By good fortune I hooked up with Turquoise Morning Press and publisher Kim Jacobs who has been very good to me. I'm sorry that this is our last book together, because she is taking the press in another direction and will no longer be publishing mysteries. But she will always have my gratitude. I'm not sure what's coming next but I did self-publish a stand-alone, The Perfect Coed, and I have a sequel about half-finished; I've finished a draft of the third in my Blue Plate Café Mysteries, and I just sent a Chicago historical to an editor. So yes, there will be more Judy Alter books.
Why am I laughing? Because six years ago I told myself if I could just get one mystery in print, I'd be happy. I now have six in the Kelly O'Connell series, two in the Blue Plate Café series, the one stand-alone. I've done all right in six years, and I plan to keep on doing it. Changes in the publishing world, as well as retirement, have made all this possible, but that's another story.
Thanks to all of you who have supported my books and, I hope, enjoyed them.

A banner day--and some uncertainty

My newest mystery, The Perfect Coed, is live on Amazon today--actually it was live a couple of days ago. The ebook was supposed to be delayed until October 1, but it doesn't look to me like it was. This is a huge deal to me, a book that is my first leap into indie publishing, one that I've labored over for several years, and one I really hope readers like. It's different from the Kelly O'Connell and Blue Plate Café mysteries--a little darker, a little more complicated, a little less cozy.
But when and whether to announce has been a dilemma. I was uncertain of the timing in putting a book on Amazon, so, compulsive that I am, I planned ahead--had it edited and formatted last spring and early summer. Started a listing on Amazon for it, but sat on the proof for a long time because I'd advertised an October 15 pub date. Then that seemed silly, and I approved the proof. It was up almost instantly. So in an industry where the dreaded scourge is a late book, mine is a month and a half early.
Another thing about indie publishing: there's no fanfare about launching, unless you create it. So if you see this cover over and over, I'm sorry. I just want everyone who might be interested to know it's out there. I'll be posting excerpts and snippets of reviews--all good so far.
This is probably the first mystery I ever wrote (if you don't count Nancy Drew knock-offs years ago)--though it's been through countless versions. I wrote it ten to twelve years ago and placed it with an agent who got disinterested replies at best. In retrospect, she was the wrong agent. She wanted me to write romance, which I didn't feel any affinity for, and her main area of expertise was textbooks. Eventually either I took it back or she gave it back--anyway we both gave up.
I joined Sisters in Crime and Guppies and learned more than I can ever tell about the world of writing and publishing mysteries. And I published seven--five in the Kelly O'Connell series, with one more to come, and two in the Blue Plate Café series. But every so often I went back and rewrote The Perfect Coed, and I followed my instincts. I thought it was good; I ignored my mentor's advice to take out two of my favorite characters, who have since been praised in one review. I kept at it. Perseverance, they tell me, is the key to publishing.
I am eternally grateful to Turquoise Morning Press for getting me into the world of mysteries, but when they announced they would henceforth only publish romance, it solved a dilemma for me. I didn't want to go with another small press--I'd learned some lessons there--and I surely didn't want to compete for a slot in the competitive world of New York houses. I don't need that kind of pressure to produce in retirement. Sure, I like my books to make money but I also like to enjoy my life and don't want to feel driven. So indie publishing was my answer. And after considering all the pros and cons and opinions, I chose to go exclusively with Amazon--at least at first.
So there it is folks--my big project is out there for you to judge if you want to. If you're in Fort
Worth, watch for a launch party at the Old Neighborhood Grill sometimes soon. Believe me, I'll give plenty of notice--and maybe come up with some giveaways and prizes and fun things.
Happy reading!

Cover reveal--drum roll, please

How do you like it? I think it's smashing. Many thanks to Kim Jacobs, publisher of Turquoise Morning Press, who designed it. She tells me she's noticed mysteries are going big and bold in their covers. Here's the blurb that will be on the back of the book--and, yes, in spite of the dragon image, this is another Kelly O'Connell Mystery set in Fairmount, where there are no dragons except on Ms. Lorna's silk dressing gowns. At one point or another, almost everyone in the book is pretending to be something they aren't--hence the title. But I'll let you figure out the deceptions for yourself. Could be that a dragon in the historic Fairmount Historical District is part of the deception itself.

A woman desperately seeking her biological mother, a televangelist determined to thwart that search, a hired hit man, and in the midst of it all, a reclusive diva who wears Chinese silk gowns and collects antique Chinese porcelain. Kelly has gotten herself involved in a dangerous emotional tangle this time, and Mike doesn’t tell her to back off, even when events take them from Fort Worth to San Antonio.

I hope you feel, as I do, that it's fun to be back in Kelly's world with her loyal and sometimes wacky extended family, her husband Mike who is devoted but loses patience with her, and her two growing daughters. As a reviewer said of another Kelly book, "You could meet these people in the grocery store."

And more praise for the last Kelly book, Danger Comes Home: "Author Judy Alter brings a colorful cast of characters alive scene after scene. Alter's love of cooking and infatuation with old Craftsman homes permeates the story like a dash of just the right spice in your favorite dish.
Deception in Strange Places will be available as an e-book July 31, with print to follow. Don't worry--I'll be reminding you.

 

Cover reveal

If you're on Facebook you probably saw this yesterday but I want to make sure everyone sees the cover for my October release, The Perfect Coed. This will be my first self-published novel, and I'm both excited and nervous. This is not in the Kelly O'Connell or Blue Plate series but a new stand-alone. Who knows? The editor who worked on it said to me, "Oh, I hope there will be more about these people." So there may be. But for now, here it is:

You'll notice the perfect coed has a bit of an edge to her, and that fits the story perfectly. A little bit of history--this is the first mystery I ever wrote. It's based on stories I heard not about coeds but about doctor's wives, when I was one of the latter. Believe me, I never was part of such shenanigans and, as far as I know, neither were any of the wives I knew. But the story stuck in my mind and grew.
When I first wrote it, an agent tried to market it to no avail. She wanted me to write romance, so I'm not sure how diligent her efforts were. But believe me, though there is a relationship in this, it's no romance.
Since then I've rewritten, revised, rewritten again. And now I'm ready, with trembling heart, to offer it to the world--next October. It will be published simultaneously in trade paperback and e-book, and I'm hoping enough of you who have read my other mystery series will want to try it. It's a bit darker and edgier than my other mysteries.
I'm also marketing way ahead of time soliciting advance reviews, hoping to get some attention amidst the great pond of new mysteries that are published every month.
Many thanks to those who helped me with this one: Mary Dulle and Lourdes Venard, who edited; Lynn Stanzione who did the smashing cover; and Jenn Zacek, who formatted it. After that I'm on my own, with a wing and a prayer.
Meantime, don't miss the fifth Kelly O'Connell Mystery, Deception in Strange Places, due as an e-book July 31, with print to follow. As soon as I have the cover, I'll post it. And I'm hard at work at the sixth in the series.