I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but... this is what keeps coming into my head.

Amen

Behind us is the peach orchard, and the breeze blowing through it brings the smell of new growth. No peaches yet, it’s too early, but the promise of them.

To the right, oak trees stand twisted, sturdy, leaving dappled light scattered on the ground.

Down the hill below our feet there’s a pond, and if you watch closely, you can see small silver fish jump toward the sunlight, snapping insects from the air.

We look down, at artificial turf over a gaping black hole under a smooth brown box, and we wait for the officiate to say the final amen.

Susan, it's morning and I'm still jetlagged, but a question or two.

First off, that "nary" threw me. For some reason, I associate that as purely Americanese; was it brought to the US as a term by Irish immigrants, or something? Because I can't recall ever hearing anyone in the UK use it, ever.

Second thing, strictly a me thing, but on the description, this:

dressed in dazzling fur-trimmed blues that marked them as British dragoons

OK, you know your bugbear about the misuse of "free rrein"? I have a bugbear, about redundancies. Do we need to be told that they're dressed in the dazzling fur-trimmed blues? They surely aren't out riding naked, so we know they're dressed. It's like saying someone has a smile on their face; where on earth else would the smile be? IOW, the "dressed in" in that context is redundant, and becomes filler. It reads, to me, like the author inserting description, instead of painting a scene. I'd go for terser, rather than filler: The mounted patrol, in the dazzling fur-trimmed blues that marked them as British dragoons...

Third question: why are they surprised? (I am not in love with that "utterly" in there, BTW - it sounds like a drawing-room word, not a battlefield word, in that context, and it made me blink a bit.) If they're a scouting patrol, wouldn't they assume there were French in the area somewhere, or at least be aware of the likelihood?

Not sure if any of that's clear. I am thumpy-headed headache jetlag woman this morning. Forgive if rambling.

I'm a little embarrassed...this wasn't supposed to be a ficlet, but I guess a group of people looking down means one thing to me, anymore. Bear with me.
“So, what do you think?”

“Don’t know. Suicide?”

The detectives smile grimly. The victim would have to be Plastic Man to do that to himself, given that his back has a moonroof now.

“Yeah. I’m sure he shot himself in his own back.” The woman detective said. Fun was fun but she had a streak going. She’s even been afraid to wear a different shirt to work and she’s gone back to touching her crucifix again. Luck was funny. Not that she needed any. But just in case.

Her partner doesn’t want to let the joke go. “Hey, it could happen. He could be the Human Pretzel. You know...one of those guys...”

“Contortionist.” Kay thought Munch came up with that pretty fast, even for an intellectual. She twists her mouth at him.

‘Where do you get this crap from, huh?” These guys give her such headaches. If she was at K-Mart all she’d have to do was pretend some baby was cute, maybe look at an engagement ring.

“ Would you believe vast and wide-ranging experience?”

“Depends.”

“Really? What have you heard?”

“Hey, you guys...the only stiff thing I wanna think of right now is Mr. Bodine here.”

“He’s talking to you.” Kay admonished. “I don’t get...stiff. God, I’m stupid. That sounded stupid."

“After this is over, you guys should just fuck and get it over with. But I gotta tell you, Howie, you can do better.”

“Pot. Kettle. Black.” Munch thought he heard Kay mumble.

“What?”

“Nothing. Let’s flip this puppy.”

Also, Jesse, if/when I ever finish, I'd trust you to beta me cause we like the same kinds of mysteries and stuff.

erika, you know what I want, and want desperately?

I want you to craft your own detective/s. I want your take on them. I want you to write them, hardboiled and tender and tough and snarky and just the way you're writing the H:LOTS detectives, but I want them to be yours.

Because you do it so very very well, damn it. And you can't publish or get paid using these guys. And anyway, I want to see where your characters go, how they eat and sleep and kill and catch and hump and all the rest of it.

Write me a detective, your detective. Me want now.

I'm crafting as fast as I can, as it happens. Thanks for the vote of confidence.(Still cursing the universe for not making me a twenty-year-old television prodigy, but I think maybe that would not be a kind of writing you could get till life beats up on you anyway.) In which case, I'm qualified now.

Aw, thanks erika. I love to read your stuff! I just don't know that I could give anything constructive, not being a fiction writer.

It's true that writers give other writers different sorts of advice, but I'm going to need a reader to gauge my suspense, tell me if I give the ending away too fast...junk like that. But that might be a year from now.

I'm crafting as fast as I can, as it happens.

Right here for anything needed, bebe.

erika, I would be more than happy to provide feedback on any original fiction you care to write.

Deb, insent with comments.