Author Archives: James McCrone

Ship of Theseus

Posted on by

“When is ‘am’?” The persistence of identity and Witness Tree

The Ship of Theseus looms large as a metaphor for ideas about identity and change in my novel-in-progress, Witness Tree, a suspense-thriller about a leadership battle for (white) supremacy in a rural Oregon county that erupts into the open when newly sober, ex-con David Paterson is the sole witness to a brutal execution meant to tie off the last loose thread.

David is trying to make a fresh start in sobriety, but he carries the weight of the past with him, along with questions about how much he may (or may not) have changed during his eight years in prison. When he reports the murder to the police, as a now-solid citizen should, it’s the deputy who put him away eight years earlier who takes his testimony. The deputy makes it clear that if a body is ever found, David will be the prime suspect. “People don’t just change overnight, Paterson,” he says.

[from Wikipedia]: “In its original formulation, the ‘Ship of Theseus’ paradox concerns a debate over whether or not a ship that has had all of its components replaced one by one would remain the same ship.” For David, the notion that you can never step into the same river twice; that “Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow,” looms large.

So, as to identity–which is it? Which you is “who”? The person you are today? Five years ago? Who will you be in fifty years? And when is “am”? This week? Today? And which facet of you is “I”? I’m writing a suspense-thriller, so I don’t belabor the point or get in the way of the story, but David can’t be sure who he is, or what he wants, and he can’t know how others perceive him.

The story becomes David’s race to find out who was killed, why, and by whom, before the police can hang it all on him. As he investigates, with the help of two high school friends who still stand by him, he finds that what the murder was meant to cover up runs deeper and wider than David could have imagined. Worse, the murder and officials’ seeming complicity in it, feels eerily like the murder of his friend in prison, to which he was also a witness. In prison, the Aryan Brotherhood left him alive–and damaged–as a warning to others.

The photo of the pine tree on the hillside that you see is the Witness Tree that inspired the book. It’s near my parents’ farm, a Yamhill County, Oregon, survey marker, delineating plots of land. It’s probably 80 years old. Or more. And it is illegal to cut it down. “Witness to corner,” the badge on the tree reads. My mother, now passed on, had always liked the tree. The term witness tree had been pregnant with meaning for us, and I decided to start a short story that involved it.

I began thinking about a short story titled Witness Tree, with the premise, “someone sees something they shouldn’t.”

I thought, “okay, good.” But then looked at the bare hillside and there seemed no way to see something without also being seen…seeing it. Which kind of threw a wrench in the gears. Until the following day, when I noticed that someone had dropped one of those green porta-potties near it for the grape harvesters to use.

And so the opening scene was born. David shelters from a deluge–common at that time of year–inside a porta-potty near a witness tree late one night. There is (fictionally) a large warehouse-like structure nearby, and the murder takes place in its gravel parking lot. The assassins are backlit by the lights on the building, but David, some forty yards away, is in total darkness. They are shadows in the murky, watery night. They can’t see him, and he can’t identify them. And yet, there’s something familiar about the dead man…

Try as I might, I could not get the story to stay a short story. I wrote the first ten pages or so and thought that it read like like an opening chapter. So I kept going. It’s been an exciting, satisfying and frustrating process. Dealing as it does with addiction, it is my most personal story to date, too.

And I have written it in first-person, which is new for me. Many of the plot points and reveals, however, could not happen as I originally conceived them. I couldn’t shift POV to the bad guys as I would do in the Faithless Elector series books, and I ended up writing (and then deleting) multiple scenes.

So, the notion of whether this is anything like the book I (sort of) conceived of two years ago also embraces Theseus’s ship. What began as a short story called “Witness Tree” became a novel of the same name, in the writing of which, I ran off the rails in a number of key ways, but have worked hard to bring it back into trim focus. Not only is it my most personal work, the number of holes I’ve plugged, scenes I have had to rewrite, is breathtaking.

But it floats, and I’m hopeful it will be seaworthy soon.

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”

The Autofac

Posted on by

Robots Are About to Outnumber Humans At Amazon Warehouses: “They’re one step closer to that realization of the full integration of robotics,” Futurism reports, perhaps bringing us one step closer to the Autofac of Philip K. Dick’s fevered nightmares. In which “nuclear war survivors in a small community struggle to make contact with an automated factory that has consumed most of their natural resources.”

I first encountered the story in the limited series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. The bots, like AI, are not conscious, yet they have a purpose. In the story, the Autofac is so automated that it’s (re)producing the robots who work there.

The bots only want what’s best for humanity, and their only mission is to sell and deliver… everything. Even though there’s almost no one left to buy.

Originally published in 1955, the tale is sad and unnerving. In the television program, the survivors gain access to the Autofac in the only way accessible to them–by faking a complaint form.

Spoiler: it doesn’t work.

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”

Without law, there is only power

Posted on by

“Without law, there is only power,” is the tagline for the second book in the Faithless Elector series, Dark Network.

The books have been prescient about where we find ourselves today, attacks on the Electoral College, attacks on voting; naked power grabs by people from outside the parties who are nevertheless parasitic upon them (and who, like parasites, take over and destroy their hosts). There is a prison murder made to look like suicide, false flag attacks–and all written years before such events took center stage.

But I have to admit to a little naivety.

As the tagline above suggests, I had stupidly believed that the law might be a check on power. I had no inkling that the Dept. of Justice and the courts could be neutered (or weaponized) to the extent that we’re seeing today. The courts may indeed turn out to be a bulwark against the worst excesses of the current Trump administration, but I am not optimistic.

If I were writing Dark Network today I might use the tagline “when power is the law, there is no justice.”

Laws are not self-enforcing. We learned today, that DOJ lawyers are “being forced to choose between the president’s agenda and their ethical obligations as attorneys” (NYT, see link above).

With a supine congress, content to cede power to the presidency, there is little chance the administration will follow rulings that are contrary to its will. When the Supreme Court continues to abdicate its prerogatives, too, it’s unlikely that the administration will be compelled to do anything or uphold anything it doesn’t want to.

Voting is the crux of all three novels in the Faithless Elector series. It’s what the conspirators try to undermine and nullify. So, while I may have missed some of the viciousness and vindictiveness of the current administration in my novel, their real-world undermining of voting rights remains salient.

My alter-ego, and protagonist in all three books, FBI Agent Imogen Trager, is driven by her rage to oppose those who would take away or mitigate the right to vote. To do so, she has to navigate compromised and outright corrupt colleagues, a shadow paramilitary group and more to unmask who is pulling the strings and bring him to justice.

The “law” that Imogen fights desperately to preserve is that of the people to determine their own destiny. And in the real world, it’s also under daily threat.

Democracy Docket is fighting anti-voting legislation across the country, and it will be voting that brings some semblance of order and justice to the nation. “We are not powerless, and we must not act like we are,” writes Marc Elias.

I might add that they wouldn’t fight so hard to take away your vote if it wasn’t so important…and worrisome to them.

The Imogen Trager #FaithlessElector Thrillers at a glance:

trilogy-draft

Faithless Elector – Everyone thinks the election is over, but six weeks is a long time in politics. An idealistic, young researcher stumbles onto a plot to steal the presidency, with deadly consequences.

Dark Network – Without law, there’s only power. FBI Agent Imogen Trager is alone and in grave danger from a conspiracy she failed to destroy. She’ll have to fight against time, a sinister network, and even her own colleagues to defeat it.

Emergency Powers – No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. The investigation that was FBI Agent Imogen Trager’s undoing may be the key to stopping a brutal, false flag terrorist attack meant to tighten a puppet president’s grip on power.

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:
Mastodon: @JMcCrone
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”

Et In Arcadia Ego

Posted on by

(“Even in Arcadia, there am I”)

There was a place, at NE 40th Street and University Way in Seattle’s University District, where even recently, some 40 years on, I could locate and remember a former, younger self, one now slowly fading. That intersection was quite literally a crossroad for me–between the Last Exit on Brooklyn, the College Inn Pub and Arnold’s. And the University of Washington.

The news that The College Inn Pub will close after 50 years has hit me hard. I have read that you die by degrees; that is, you’re not really gone until the last person who remembers your face dies. But I think parts of us disappear even while we’re living.

The “I” in the translation above is meant to be death itself, present everywhere, even in the happiest places. Which that corner certainly was. It also leapt out at me because Arnold’s Video Arcade, scene and locus of much misspent youth, was diagonally across the street.

This post isn’t meant to be a cranky whinge about how great things used to be and how soulless and rotten they are now. Change is a constant, you can’t put lightning in a bottle, and lots of other cliches that for all their threadbare, hackneyed-ness nevertheless articulate a truth. It’s that when things that are (or were) a part of you disappear, it feels like losing yourself, or like reaching out in the dark to touch a wall you know should be there. But it’s not. People, places and things locate you, give you context, guidance, maybe even comfort.

The Pub anchored the northeast corner of NE 40th Street and University Way in Seattle’s University District, an area just west of the University of Washington campus that was a focal point for the lives of me and my friends from 1979 until about 1994, by which time I had moved to another part of the city, first Belltown, then Beacon Hill and then the Rainier Valley.

Diagonally across the intersection from the Pub stood Arnold’s, a video arcade. Just around the corner, on Brooklyn Ave., was The Last Exit on Brooklyn, Seattle’s second oldest coffee house, and one of the oldest in the country. It stood right next door to the Ethnic Cultural Theatre. Arnold’s is long gone, The Exit moved to a new a location and then closed 20+ years ago, and now the College Inn Pub is up for sale and will probably be closed.

I started working at The Exit as a dishwasher when I was 15 years old in 1979. Later, when my high-school friends and I would stop in at Arnold’s to play Asteroids, or Defender or Ms. Pac-Man, we’d often steal through the alley into the back of The Exit, where we would hang out. And if it was a weekend night, we’d look for someone to buy us beer. I would also take dates there. Not only was it an interesting, funky place, but it was cheap, and I was known.

I think I was the youngest employee Irv Ciskey, the owner, had ever hired. I had gone to his other restaurant, Lake Union Pizza, to apply for a job when we moved to Seattle, and he had sent me to The Exit. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Irv had called the manager there and told him to hire me. It did seem like an easy interview even at the time.

Even before I was old enough to go inside, the College Inn Pub loomed large in my thoughts. My freshman year at the University, I was in the Terry-Lander dormitory, and even though it was generally simpler to take the Campus Parkway exit from the building to get to my classes, I would often leave via the back exit, and NE 40th–terra firma. I’d head to The Exit for a quick espresso, then mount the stairs to leave via the back way out, into the alley that also ran behind Arnold’s and onto the street.

Later, I would work at the Pub as a “beertender”–my work life as a grad student split between it and the University Bar & Grill about six blocks up the street.

Even after we had moved east, returning on visits to that corner, I could see myself there. It was unique in that it represented not just a snapshot of my life, but a series of lives–adolescence, undergraduate, graduate, young father–were enacted there. Not like flipping through an album of static pictures or one brief moment, but like viewing a film covering the ages of 15 to 36, how I changed (if, indeed, I’ve every really grown up!), how my friends grew, how the city changed, even as the corner remained largely unchanged whenever I returned. Fortunately, I’m still close with those friends, even if we don’t see one another regularly.

I lived in the midwest (Wisconsin and Iowa) for about 12 years, in Seattle for 21; and I have now lived away from Seattle for longer than I was there (25 years). My wife says I’m a midwesterner at heart, but a good deal of my life and heart is at 40th and University.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back in Seattle next, though I hope it will be soon. If you see some sad and bitter old man standing in the intersection staring disconsolately, or pointing out what used to be, he’s not lamenting a Seattle that is no more, but mourning the loss of a bit of the sense of himself.

Maybe I should be grateful that I have such a place–a “better to have loved and lost…” kind of thing. Maybe I will be grateful one day.

# # #

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:

Mastodon: @JMcCrone
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”