In the late 1860’s, when mystery novels were still relatively new, Wilkie Collins challenged his friend Charles Dickens to turn his pen in that direction. Taking up the challenge, Dickens began his first and only mystery story, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The novel was to be serialized in twelve monthly instalments by a magazine; published in Britian and shipped across the Atlantic to America. Unfortunately Dickens died halfway through the fascinating story. Oddly, it was the only time in his writing career that the writer had insisted on a contract stating that his heirs would be paid for the work should he die before it was finished.

Three years later, a young gadabout named Thomas James checked into a boarding house in Vermont, intent on avoiding anything resembling work. Shortly after, James announced to his landlady, a spiritualist, that he had been contacted by the spirit of Charles Dickens, who wished James to finish Edwin Drood. Eager to help out, the landlady offered him free room and board until the task was completed. Witnesses testified that James would go into long trances and write furiously as Dickens dictated the remainder of the novel. As word got out, James was accused of fraud and failure. However the book, attributed to ‘the spirit pen of Charles Dickens’ made an appearance in the bookstalls on Hallowe’en of 1873.

Controversy over the ‘genuine’ outcome of the story and the identity of the villain of Edwin Drood circulated among the early scholars, based on the working notes left behind by Dickens and the vignettes on the cover of the monthly instalments. The case was investigated by Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle insisted that Thomas James did not have a literary bone in his body and was incapable of creating the prose of Edwin Drood without assistance of some kind.

The title is twofold - without a cow story in the news for the last few weeks I feel uninspired AND ‘Where’s my Cow’ is the title of a children’s book in a fabulous murder mystery by Terry Pratchet called ‘Thud’. A late comer to Terry Pratchet’s work, I find his my recent books much more readable than his first which were too, um, well, vague in a way but he is definately an author worth taking to bed - if you don’t plan on getting much sleep - oh wait - I mean because you are up all night reading.

In any case, Terry Pratchet is a man who sees behind the veil of consensus reality and if you want read a real manual on magic read his children’s book - ‘The Wee Free Men.’ The BEST! All of his books contain references to ‘higher knowledge’ for those with the ‘ears to hear’ and all that esoteric stuff. The man is frickin brilliant! And now I must go look for my cow.

OMG!  They’re taking over the world!  This article stolen from the Boston Channel. I’d put in a link but I don’t know how.

After Accident Woman Finds Cow In Car

Cow Lands In Back Seat

POSTED: 7:50 am EST February 2, 2008

UPDATED: 2:42 pm EST February 2, 2008

REHOBOTH, Mass. — Holy Cow! A Seekonk woman suddenly found an unexpected passenger in her back seat while driving home with her daughter after running a simple errand. Tonya Coccia, 46, said the street was dark when she suddenly saw cows that had wandered out onto the road from a nearby farm. She swerved, but hit two of them. One was a massive Black Angus. “I only saw it for a split second before it came up it into my windshield,” Coccia said.

One of the cows had gone airborne.

“There was airbags and smoke and me and my daughter was losing it. I thought that was it, but I felt my car start shaking.”

The cow had flipped over the roof of the car, gone through the back window and landed in the back seat.

“I didn’t really want to see what was there, but I saw a black cow head in my back window. My daughter turned this way and said ‘Mom there’s a cow in the back seat!’ And we just took off,” Coccia said.

The car’s hood and roof were crushed and the windshield was smashed.

Coccia said she realized there were bound be jokes. The cow in the back seat was not seriously injured, but the second cow did not survive.

“It could have just as easily gone through the windshield and we’d be talking about very serious injuries or possibly death,” said Rehoboth police Sgt. Richard Shailor.

The cow was frightened and agitated. Firefighters and police had to tie it down so it wouldn’t move inside the car. They towed the car to the farm and let it out.

Both Coccia and her daughter Haley, 14, suffered minor injuries. Her car was a total loss.

Thanks to the Canadian / Associated Press for continuing to bring us these juicy bits of ineptness from around the world. Who said all news was serious? Unfortunately it is listed under ‘diversions’ most of the time, but media reality is subjective in any case as this quote so wittily states:

“Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. ” Ben Hecht

But back to the story …

German robber nabbed after leaving behind telltale DNA on salami chunk

Published: Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 10:26 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN - German police have charged a robbery suspect after matching his DNA to that found on a piece of salami spat out at a crime scene.

The bitten-off chunk of the telltale sausage was discovered at a building that had been broken in to in the southern city of Darmstadt in April.

Police say the 37-year-old man was taken into custody in early January after police ran his name through their computers at a highway spot-check and found he was wanted for several other crimes.

Once in custody, he was linked to the Darmstadt break-and-enter through the DNA sample on the salami and charged.

But it seems the rejected meat was not the robber’s only slip up: he has been charged with a total of 19 break-ins after other links were found.

The man, whose name was not released, remains in custody while police investigate.

Oh my gosh the cow came back. Like a bad spaghetti western, the irrepressible bovine has returned! Talk about a story that just begs to be written - actually it’s practically writing itself. What to call such a story? The Cow with No Name? Shall we call him Paddy? Something about Cows? What was that sticky white stuff? Spy Cows?

You’ll remember from our last episode - oh wait - blogs are read backwards in time so unless you’ve been following along you wouldn’t know about the cow that fell through a mini-van windshield and then we had the farmer who shot a cow accidentally mistaking it for a coyote and now this! A cowknapping! Or perhaps the cow was the mastermind and the media cleverly twisted the story around to protect the little related calves and calfettes - or maybe the cow was actually the driver and the brother of a highly placed politician. We’ll probably never know the true story but here’s what the media is saying about the lastest farm animal incident. … and I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth!

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Thieves in Malaysia stole a cow, squeezed it into the back seat of a car and drove off with it but abandoned the animal when the getaway vehicle crashed into a tree, police said Thursday.

The cow, injured in the crash, was slaughtered by villagers. The thieves managed to push the cow into the back of a mid-sized sedan Tuesday night but were spotted by villagers who gave chase, said a local police official in the northern state Kedah. He declined to be named, citing protocol.

The driver lost control during the chase and drove into a tree, injuring the cow, he said. By the time villagers got to the crash site, one person was seen running from the car but police believe more people were involved in the theft, the official said.

It was not clear how they managed to push the cow into the car or whether the animal had been sedated. A blurry photograph in the New Straits Times newspaper showed the cow’s head with closed eyes sticking out of the back seat window of the crashed car.

I don’t know why there are so many bad movies out these days when writers only have to read the headlines for inspiration. Take this dynamic duo for example: what on earth could be the back story to inspire such desperate measures on their part, much less carry a loaded gun. Surely this pair would be better off….well … writing situation comedies.

MELBOURNE, Australia - Two Australian robbers thought they were hauling away a big sack of cash from the Cuckoo Restaurant but it turned out to be bread rolls - and one of them accidentally shot the other in the buttocks during the heist.

Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, and his accomplice Donna Hayes, 36, were sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to robbing the restaurant in the southern Australian city Melbourne on April 1 last year.

During the April Fools Day holdup, Jorgensen grabbed what he believed was a bag with the Cuckoo’s daily take of about $27,000 in cash but later found it was full of bread rolls, the Victorian County Court heard.

He also fired his gun accidentally during the heist, shooting Hayes in the buttocks.

Judge Roland Williams told the robbers they were a “pair of fools,” before sentencing Hayes to eight years in prison and Jorgensen to seven.

Earlier this week, defence lawyer Greg Thomas said Jorgensen had been under the influence of drugs at the time, had made a full admission to police and was remorseful, News Ltd. newspapers reported.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

Story ideas. They’re everywhere. And this particular little nugget proves that the ‘Peter Principal’ applies to the criminal as well as the corporate world.

Police: Indiana man accidentally shoots himself during store robbery

Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 | 10:07 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KOKOMO, Ind. - Oh, shoot!

Police say a man accidentally shot himself in the groin as he was robbing a convenience store on Tuesday.

A clerk told police a man carrying a semiautomatic handgun entered the Village Pantry demanding cash and a pack of cigarettes.

The clerk put the cash in a bag and as she turned to get the cigarettes, she heard the gun discharge.

Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants.

A short time later, police found 25-year-old Derrick Kosch at a home with a gunshot wound to his right testicle and lower left leg.

The clerk wasn’t injured.

Kosch was released from the hospital Tuesday and booked into the Howard County jail on a charge of armed robbery, criminal recklessness and battery. He is being held on a $100,000 cash bail. A jail official did not know if he had retained an attorney Wednesday. 

“The mystery form is like gymnastic equipment: you can grasp hold of it and show off what you can do.”  - Mickey Friedman

The above quote is what makes mystery writing so fun! If a writer is adept then they can take the reader along on a tandem ride - like gymnastics for the technical expertise and like jumping off a mountaintop with a trained paraglider for the thrill.

Now here’s a story that sweetly illustrates the concept of the punishment suiting the crime. It was even self-inflicted!

Burglar, not Santa, found stuck up a chimney in Australia

Published: Friday, December 28, 2007 | 1:30 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SYDNEY, Australia - It wasn’t Santa Claus but a would-be burglar rescue workers found stuck up a chimney in central Australia on Friday.

Staff at the Gapview Hotel in Alice Springs heard a man groaning when they arrived for work in the hotel bar and called the fire department. The man had been stuck inside the chimney for about 10 hours with his knees jammed tightly into his chest, said local fire station officer Mark James.

“He was like a grub in a cocoon when we found him,” James said.

“He was really wedged in there.”

Firefighters and ambulance officers spent 90 minutes trying to free the man before finally removing part of the chimney with jackhammers.

“Imagine being in the tightest ball you can (make) and being in that position for 10 hours,” James said.

“He was pretty embarrassed and ashamed, so he didn’t say much when we got him out. He was obviously feeling sore and sorry for himself.”

The man’s identity was not immediately released and it was not clear if he would be charged with any offence.

Probably. Guess it doesn’t matter if you figure God, Big Brother or all your peers are watching if it prompts one to go in the right direction! We need more heros.

Worried about how he’d look on YouTube, NJ donut shop employee clobbers thief

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 | 8:26 AM ET

Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. - When a thief started taking cash from his register on the weekend, Dunkin’ Donuts employee Dustin Hoffmann fought back by clobbering the man with a ceramic mug.

But Hoffmann admits he was less worried about the stolen cash than how he might look on the video-sharing site YouTube.

“What was going through my mind at that point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head, so I just grabbed the cup and clocked the guy pretty hard,” Hoffmann told The Record of Bergen County.

The man came into the shop and ordered a pastry Sunday night, according to Elmwood Park Police Chief Donald Ingrasselino.

Once Hoffmann opened the register, the man jumped over the counter and started taking cash.

Police said Hoffmann grabbed the man’s wrists while hitting him with the mug, which is used to hold tips. Hoffmann managed to scare away the man, who made out with just $90 and left behind a baseball cap police are holding to test for DNA evidence.

No arrests have been made. Hoffman plans to post the surveillance video when he can.

“There are only a few videos like that on YouTube now, so mine’s going to be the best,” he said. “That’ll teach this guy.”