Bell, Book, and Scandal

don't think Sophie has ever read anything that wasn't by one of her own writers or she'd have known better.'

'Is it still on the Internet?' Jane asked.

Felicity shrugged. 'I don't know. I never looked for it. Other writers I know thought it was awful. Pretentious. A sort of conflicting quest for both characters. Lots of misspelled words. And those who read clear through it said the ending stunk. The two viewpoint characters had never even heard about each other until they met in the last chapter, and it was apparently a very boring meeting. Of course, this all might be just sour grapes. All of this gossip came from the struggling mid-list writers like me who are beating their fingers to a pulp to keep up.'

'Mid-list?' Jane said. 'But you've had a lot of bestsellers.'

Felicity laughed. 'If you claw your way onto the bottom of the one hundred and fifty books on the USA Today list, your publisher can call you a bestseller. But I have a good many readers who genuinely like the books and keep on buying them. And most of them are still in print, so I consider myself very lucky.'

'Aren't there other authors who have self-published their work, which eventually led them into real publishing?' Jane asked. 'I've heard of a few, but don't remember who they were.'

'Neither do I,' Felicity said. 'But I do recall that a few of them became really big names and made tons of money.'

Five

Over their last cup of coffee, Shelley asked Felicity about the other guest speakers. Glancing down at the brochure she'd received in the mail, she asked, 'What about this man Chester Griffith? He's a bookseller, it says.'

'That's a very modest bio. He's a lot more than a bookseller,' Felicity said. 'He's the antidote to Zac Zebra, for one thing. Zac is a macho pig who only gives good reviews to tough-guy books. On the rare occasions Zac critiques a book by a woman, he's vicious. His favorite phrase is 'powder puff mysteries.' And he claims to read ten or twelve books a day. Which is ridiculous. If you've read the book he's reviewing, you can tell that he only reads the back-cover copy and imagines what the book is about. He mixes up characters with each other and he's notorious for giving away the endings, with men and women both.'

She sighed. 'I'm sorry I'm ranting. To answer your question, Chester Griffith is an intelligent gentleman though he doesn't mince words. He

makes no bones about saying that women writers are superior at their craft. He's practically memorized all the Golden Age female mystery writers' output. He's the world's expert on Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and several less-well-known women. He's researched their lives as well. He's a good speaker.

'He also likes what he calls 'the Modern Golden Age' writers. Emma Lathem, Dorothy Simpson, Gwendolyn Butler, and Ruth Rendell's Wexford novels as well. With the exception of Christie's Miss Marple, all of these women wrote about male protagonists with a sensibility that's missing from tough-guy books.'

'I'm going to like this man,' Jane said. 'The names you've mentioned are nearly all of my favorites. I've reread many of them.'

'But Zac Zebra says all these women's male protagonists are wimps, if not downright homosexual.'

'You're kidding?' Jane asked with disgust.

'I've heard him say it to whole groups of fans, many of whom walk out on his speeches,' Felicity said.

'Why do the people who plan the conferences agree to let him take the podium?' Shelley asked.

'Most of them, I suspect, think he spices up a conference,' Felicity said. 'I myself think he's a pollutant of the usual goodwill between readers and writers.'

'What about Taylor Kensington?' Shelleyasked, again consulting her brochure. 'Should one of us go to her talk? It says she writes two different series and one of them has an historical setting.'

'Taylor Kensington is a delightful woman,' Felicity said. 'Very funny, very low-key. One of my best friends in the business. She's a trooper who has helped a lot of aspiring writers. I like her suspects, her settings, her plots, which are so well researched, but…'

'But what?' Jane asked. She'd recently read one of Kensington's novels and hadn't liked the ending.

'She writes heroines who, at the end, stupidly go out in the middle of the night all alone to investigate suspects. In every one of her books, the woman is nearly killed for being suddenly so dumb,' Felicity explained.

Jane said, 'I've only read one of her books and that's exactly what happened at the end. The character seemed so smart all the way through, and then went out to a deserted construction site at four in the morning to meet a stranger who tried to kill her. I wanted to slap her silly.'

'I'll jot her name down to avoid reading, nice as she might be,' Shelley said, scribbling a note on her brochure.

'Who is this Miss Mystery?' Jane said, still perusing the most recent mailing. 'I'd never heard of her and she's the only one without a picture.'

'Oh dear. I didn't know she was coming,' Fe-

licity said with slight alarm. 'I should have read the last bulletin they sent. She has an Internet site where she critiques women's fiction. She slaughters the work of newbies and e-pubs. She also puts her saber through the guts of the most successful, genuinely bestselling women writers. Struggling mid-list authors are her cup of tea. I should be grateful, I suppose, being among that group. But I'm not. She's a lot like Zac in that she merely skims the book and mostly misses the whole point of the work. I think it's a power thing. I've actually seen a couple of paperback originals who cite her in the blurbs.'

'Blurbs?' Shelley queried.

'You know, those 'I love So-and-So's characters. They're so vibrant.' Signed by a well-known author.'

'Blurbs. I'll have to remember that. I'm a sucker for them,' Shelley admitted. 'If someone I recognize and like to read says something nice on the cover, I'll buy the book.'

'That's the point of blurbs,' Felicity said. 'And it's usually a good guide to book shopping. Avoid the book if it's blurbed by Miss Mystery though.'

'Why isn't there a picture of her?' Shelley persisted.

'Because she comes to conferences under her own name and chums up with authors to acquire the dirt on other authors. Nobody knows who she really is.'

'That's sneaky,' Jane said. 'So why is she even listed in the brochure?'

'To warn the authors that she's around, I suppose,' Felicity replied.

After the waiter had interrupted to give them their bill, Shelley said, 'I'd guess somebody recognizes her.'

'Why?' Felicity asked.

'Because if I were to tell some stranger some deep secret of Jane's — which I'd never do, needless to say — and later saw her report it on her website, I'd remember who I'd spilled the beans to.'

Felicity stared at Shelley with astonishment. 'Of course!' She made a head-slapping motion. 'You're right. Some people must know who they blabbed to and about. But they don't dare admit

it.'

'Rest assured,' Jane said, 'neither of us is Miss Mystery.'

Felicity grinned. 'You promise?'

'Girl Scout's honor,' Jane said, raising her hand.

Their discussion was suddenly cut short when a couple came through the door of the restaurant. It was the country-western pair Jane and Shelley had seen entering the hotel. The woman looked around and shouted a sort of