Give Me The Daggers Foreword

My latest historical mystery/detective book has just been released. Here is the foreword to Give Me the Daggers.

   My love affair with Shakespeare began late in life. As a struggling writer I wanted to know why he was considered the greatest writer of the English language, and so I began my study. Soon I found myself gobbling up his plays like Falstaff feasting on capons and sack. I suppose I wanted to make up for all those years that I could have been reading Shakespeare, so casting off my misspent youth like young Prince Hal I delved seriously into the Bard of Avon. I quickly realized that all the praise and accolades laid at Bard’s door were well-earned. Since then I now have several of Shakespeare’s collected works as well as individual plays filling my bookshelves. My wife Susan and I drive up to Stratford, Ontario every summer to visit family and take in a couple of productions at the Shakespeare Festival.

  After reading Macbeth (three or four times) I came to realize, as did many others, that the play has the making of a murder mystery. In Shakespeare’s play we know the killers, but no one acts as a detective to investigate the killings. So I set out to write Give Me the Daggers as a Macbeth murder mystery. I chose the Thane of Lennox as the detective who seeks to learn the truth. All the familiar characters are there as well; Macbeth, Macduff, Banquo, Ross, and Lady Macbeth, along with some new characters. Fans of Macbeth will undoubtedly recognize many of the original lines that made the play so popular over the centuries, though sometimes the lines are out of order and some lines are spoken by other characters. Not all the famous lines and soliloquies are here, though. Due to the nature of the traditional detective fiction style, where the protagonist, Lennox, is in every scene, not every line in the play was used.

    William Shakespeare was commonly known to play fast and loose with history and he never let the truth get in the way of a good story (see my Afterward). He may also have had access to inaccurate history sources, for it is known that certain details in Macbeth are erroneous. Though I have used Shakespeare’s play as my source, I have also endeavoured to inject some true history in the story.

    The reader will, I trust, view Give Me the Daggers as more than a simple retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but as a detective story. I hope this will satisfy both Macbeth fans and those who have never read or seen the play (I am sure there are some out there). Perhaps this story will introduce some to Shakespeare, but let the reader beware; once you delve into the Bard, there is no turning back.

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground

and tell sad stories of the death of kings;

How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghost they have deposed;

Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;

All murder’d ...

                                    Richard II, Act III, Scene II 

Give Me The Daggers can be found on Amazon!

The Tragedy of Macbeth

G. K. Chesterton, the writer of the Father Brown stories (and many others), claimed that Macbeth is Shakespeare's greatest drama. Chesterton goes on to say:

"For the play is so very great that it covers much more than it appears to cover; it will certainly survive our age as it has survived its own;"

 "And it is the whole point about Macbeth that he does know what he is doing. It is not a tragedy of Fate but a tragedy of Freewill.”

Nowhere else in all his wonderful works did Shakespeare describe the real character of the relations of the sexes so sanely, or so satisfactorily as he describes it here.  The man and the woman are never more normal than they are in this abnormal and horrible story. 

A. C. Bradley wrote, "...we feel suspense, horror, awe; in which are latent, also, admiration and sympathy."

"The writing almost throughout leaves an impression of intense, almost feverish, activity."

"But it is an engrossing spectacle, and psychologically it is perhaps the most remarkable exhibition of the development of a character to be found in Shakespeare's tragedies."


In William Peter Bladdy's Exorcist III, Lieutenant Kinderman says, "Do you know what Macbeth is about? I'll tell you. It's a play about the numbing of the moral sense."

Shakespeare's Macbeth is indeed all these things. Me, I thought it would make a great detective story.


GIVE ME THE DAGGERS by Stephen Gaspar is available on Amazon!

Macbeth Murder Mystery

Just Released!

Give Me The Daggers

by

Stephen Gaspar

Available on Amazon!

In the year 1040 AD the Scottish king, Duncan is found brutally murdered in his bed. Certain evidence points to the king's own servants. Gowan Drummond, Thane of Lennox does not believe Duncan's  servants killed him. Drummond’s suspicions turn to Macbeth who quickly ascends the throne. His suspicions become certainty when Banquo is found murdered. In his quest for the truth, the Thane of Lennox must be cautious in his investigations, for cruel are the times, and a dangerous evil is loose in the land. Give Me The Daggers is based partly on history but mainly on William Shakespeare’s great tragedy Macbeth, but told as a detective story with some supernatural elements. Many of the familiar characters from the play are present as well as some new ones. Readers will recognize the iconic phrases that has made the play an unparalleled classic.

Macbeth - A Detective Story

William Shakespeare's Macbeth may be the Bard's greatest play. It has it all; unbridled ambition, suspicion, fear, love and a few dead bodies. 

It was this last one that inspired me to write Give Me The Daggers, the Macbeth play told as a detective story. 

Give Me The Daggers is now available on Amazon!

Dashiell Hammett - The Thin Man

Rereading The Thin Man (1933) I struck how unique it is compared to Dashiell Hammett's other works. The Thin Man is light and funny and looks at semi-high society New York and touches very little on the seedy side of society compared to, let's say, Red Harvest or The Glass Key. The Thin Man is known for all its references to drinking cocktails by the charming and gay (happy) couple, Nick and Nora Charles.

Nora sighed. "I wish you were sober enough to talk to." She leaned over to take a sip of my drink.

"How do you feel?"
"Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober."

Nora decided that she wanted to go home early and sober, ...

"Why don't you stay sober today?"
"We didn't come to New York to stay sober. Want to see a hockey game tonight?"

The mystery involves a missing eccentric, Clyde Wynant, whose family and lawyer want to find him. Nick Charles, a former detective, has no interest in finding him... until there is a dead body.

There is a lot of dialogue in The Thin Man and Hammett's narratives are brief and concise. He does not go in for long or detailed descriptions, or the similes and metaphors for which Raymond Chandler is known.

She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes the result was satisfactory.

He was a big curly-haired, rosy-cheeked, rather good-looking chap...

He was a plump dark youngish man of medium height, broad through the jaws, narrow between the eyes. He wore a black derby hat, a black overcoat that fitted him very snugly, a dark suit, and black shoes, all looking as if he had bought them within the past fifteen minutes. The gun, a blunt black .38-calibre automatic, lay comfortably in his hand, not pointing at anything.

In my book A Piece of Work, I used plenty of references to the time it takes place; 1959. I found Hammett did the same in The Thin Man.

Nora and I went to the opening of Honeymoon at the Little Theatre ...

He  may have been referring to The Honeymoon (1930) movie directed by and starring Eric von Stroheim, or the play Almost a Honeymoon (1930) by Walter Ellis.

The Little Theatre was built in 1921 on 240 W. 44th St.

Nora could not sleep that night. She read Chaliapin's memoirs until I began to doze...

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873-1938) was a Russian opera singer. In 1932 Chaliapin published a memoir, Man and Mask: Forty Years in the Life as a Singer. 

Nora almost mentions the  famously infamous Lindbergh kidnapping case of 1932.

I said, "but right now I'd swap you all the interviews with Mayor-elect O'Brien ever printed..."

John P. O'Brien was the 98th mayor of  New York from January 1933 to December 1933.

When we returned to the living-room, Dorothy and Quinn were dancing to Eadie Was a Lady.

Eadie Was a Lady was a very popular song from the Broadway musical Take a Chance (1932).

Though the story takes place during the Great Depression there is no mention, however, of  the Wall Street Crash of 1929, mass unemployment, breadlines and soup kitchens. Like those Busby Berkeley movies of the 1930s, Hammett wanted to take people's mind off the Depression.

Nick and Nora help keep things light and airy with a good deal of wisecracking.

She [Nora] grinned at me. "You got types?"
"Only you, darling--lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

Nora stopped drinking to ask: "Did Wynant really steal it?"
"Tch, tch, tch," I said. "This is Christmas Eve: try to think good of your fellow man."

I kissed her. "Don't you think maybe a drink would help you to sleep?"
"No, thanks."
"Maybe it would if I took one." 

"Whatever you're giving me," she said, "I hope I don't like it."
"You'll have to keep them anyway, because the man at the Aquarium said he positively wouldn't take them back....

"You like Nick a lot, don't you, Nora?" Dorothy asked.
"He's an old Greek fool, but I'm used to him."

"Tell me the truth, Nick: have I been too silly?"
I shook my head. "Just silly enough."
She laughed, said, "You're a Greek louse," ....

I have read all five novels by Dashiell Hammett and some of his short stories. The Thin Man is by far the must fun and entertaining.

A Piece of Work and other books by Stephen Gaspar are available on Amazon. Click here!

Shakespeare and Depression

I cannot say for certain if William Shakespeare ever suffered

from depression, but I am certain he understood it and he

instilled some of his characters with the disease.

In the opening scene from The Merchant of Venice, the merchant

Antonio confides to some friends:

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

Most of us who suffer from depression do not always know

why we do or where it comes. What we do know is that it

wearies us; we feel tired from it and it can also be tiresome

to the ones closest to us.

That I have much ado to know

myself is true to those who know that the way we act and

feel sometimes is not our true selves.

Antonio’s friends try to diagnose his problem, but the merchant

denies he is sad because of business or love.

Salarino simply sums up Antonio’s problem:

Then let us say you are sad,

Because you are not merry

In Scene II Portia reflects Antonio’s mood.

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of

this great world.

Nerissa tells Portia she has no right to be sad since her

good fortune outweighs any misery. I am sure this is the

advice some people give their friends suffering from

depression. But for those suffering from depression it is

not simply a matter of counting our blessings when all

we can do is focus on our problems.

In Hamlet, the melancholy Dane confides in his two school friends:

I have of late--but

wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all

custom of exercises;

Depression is of course the opposite of mirth or happiness,

and when we are depressed we are prone not to take care

of ourselves because we simply do not care about our wellbeing.

Hamlet sees things in a negative light.

... this goodly frame, the

earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most

excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave

o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted

with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to

me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

This negative attitude naturally leads Hamlet to

contemplate suicide.

To be, or not to be…

In Macbeth the new king’s depression is brought on

by his sinful acts. Macbeth echoes the sentiments

the depressed often feel:

...I am sick at heart...

...I have lived long enough…

At one point Macbeth asks a doctor if he cannot

cure this disease.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

The doctor replies:

Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

This is only partially correct. The oness for our depression is

mainly on us. The Catch 22 is that the depressed person may

not have the wherewithal to minister themselves.

When Macbeth says:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

-- it signifies that the depressed mind sees life as meaningless

or as a cruel joke.

In Act 3, scene 4, Macbeth reflects on the uselessness

of trying to recover from his state:

… I am in blood

Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er:

Many often feel that is just as easy (or difficult) to stay in our

depression than to try to get out of it, and so some do not try.

World Mental Health Day is October 10. Here is a link for

World Health Organization.

https://www.who.int/mental_health/world-mental-health-day/2018/en/

In Canada Mental Health Awareness Week is October 6-12

In Canada, Mental Health Week is May 6-12. Here is the link

to the Canadian Mental Health Assoication.

https://mentalhealthweek.ca/

In the United States, Mental Health Month has been held in

May since 1949. This is the link for Mental Health America

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may

Stephen Gaspar’s books can be found on Amazon

Raymond Chandler & A Piece of Work

While writing my latest novel, A Piece of Work, one of the writers from who I sought inspiration was Raymond Chandler. For me Chandler is one of the great  detective/fiction authors of the hard boiled and noir style. Chandler is famous for his detective Philip Marlowe who appeared in seven novels.

I love Marlowe's commentaries on people and things, especially the ones that were tinged with derision.

“She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tire, rim and all.” 

“There was a sad fellow over on a bar stool talking to the bartender, who was polishing a glass and listening with that plastic smile people wear when they are trying not to scream.” 

“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” 

These somewhat cynical comments suited my drug-addicted protagonist Lee Linville. Chandler inspired me to write lines like:

"The dark-haired woman who sat behind the dirty glass was young, but looked all washed out. Her makeup, that should have enhanced her looks, only made her look grotesque. Her face was pale and looked like a slice of stale bread."

"On his head sat a grey Porkpie hat with a pale blue band. From the corner of his mouth hung a smouldering Robert Burns cigar. He looked like a respectable bum.

"She looked at Lee with tired eyes that said her life had not turned out the way she'd hoped. Hell, who's life ever does?"

In The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler wrote of his detective:  "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this type of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. . . .  He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."

Where as Chandler's Marlowe is the archetype detective; tough, brave and honest. Marlowe is brutally honest about American society in the 1940s and 50s. 

“Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail order city"

“Americans will eat anything if it is toasted and held together with a couple of toothpicks and has lettuce sticking out of the sides, preferably a little wilted.” 


My anti-hero Lee Linville is not tough or brave or even that honest. Lee is deep into drugs and depression due to his past. In 1959 Lee is living in New York City and is contemptuous of modern society. 

"Linville watched Fullerton walk away and out of the diner. The lawyer joined the teaming masses on the street and blended into them, becoming one with them. One big mass like some giant organism that pulsated and moved along, picking some up and dropping some off, like any living thing that took in food and shitted it out. The thought of it made Lee sick."

"Traffic on the street was heavier now. Street lights told people when to stop and when to move. Pedestrians choked the street and traffic choked the pedestrians. Soon it would be unbearable: the crowds, the noise, the deadpan expressions, the soulless eyes that took in nothing and gave nothing back. Lee knew that look. It was the look of a junkie."

 Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon