There are at least 10 important guidelines any successful liar follows:

1. Lying's Like A Muscle—use it enough to stay limber
2. Don't Over-rehearse Any One Lie—you might sound flat or too practiced
3. Don't Sweat Follow-Up Questions—that's when you close the deal
4. Tell It the Same Way to Everyone—they might compare stories
5. Don't Keep Incriminating Crib Notes—sheesh, are you nuts?!
6. Don't Seem Overly Invested—it's a red flag
7. Don't Fidget or Lose Eye Contact—it betrays guilt and anxiety
8. Reduce Conversational Stress—too much heat leads to accusations
9. Don't Get Defensive—why argue if you're being truthful?
10. When Caught Red-Handed, Accept Responsibility—forgiving you alleviates anger, setting up a better outcome next time

It all sounds reasonable, right? Yeah...but No! Because actually, the lying liars' best secrets really include just the opposite of what I've summarized here!  You could go to Jeff Wise's column from Psychology Today to read the “so-called” legit list of 10 secrets for yourself, if you trust me to send you to the right place. You do, don't you?

(No, honestly, that link will work fine. It's not a keylogging discount-Viagra credit card phishing site.)

(REALLY, IT'S NOT.)

(It isn't. I swear...probably)

Image via Killers Without Conscience

At a huge and popular Argentine street bazaar, purebred “poodles” have been sold at suspiciously low prices. Turns out, they're 100% pure ferret, plumped in girth with steroids and all fluffed up. Another woman apparently bought one as a Chihuahua. We'd like to see that styling job. Read more about it—with video from the local news coverage!—at the Daily Mail!

This makes the everyday fraud of Chilean sea bass, which is neither from Chile nor bass, pale in comparison.

Ah, the (not very) glamorous lives of private eyes! UK filmmaker Tom Betts has created two cool and tiny flicks. He stars as the toiling P.I. of “Dream Job” while Des Yankson plays shamus “In The Big Sleep.” They're each a couple of minutes long, with a great sparse look and sound. Being this brief, as in flash fiction, their charm lies in deftly implying more than they have room to say. But concerned potential viewers may put their minds at ease: no investigators' hairy kneecaps will be exploited in this pair of shorts.

So, besides reminding you of how much you love the righteous use of vibraphone, what did you think?

Hearing a lot of classical music in the parking garages or on the drug dealers’ corner lately? (Hey, how do you know what’s playing on the druggie corner?) If you wondered why—hypothetically, of course— you might be interested in the video of a presentation hosted at the Library of Congress.

Music and the Brain: Music, Criminal Behavior, and Crime Prevention has introductory remarks and real-world examples from Norman Middleton of the LoC’s Music Division. Spinning deep into the album cuts re: divergent subcultures and hypermasculinity is expert guest Dr. Jacqueline Helfgott, Chair of the Criminal Justice Department at Seattle University. From the YouTube description:

A fascinating discussion of the use of classical music by law enforcement and other cultural institutions as social control, to quell and prevent crime. Their conversation touches on how classical music is viewed in contemporary culture, how it can be a tool for discouraging criminal activity and antisocial behavior, as well as its history as a mind-altering experience.

[But how does Barry Manilow fit into all this, you ask?]

Donnybrook by Frank Bill is a rural noir novel of drugs and violence (available March 5, 2013).

The Donnybrook is a three-day bare-knuckle tournament held on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks of southern Indiana. Twenty fighters. One wire-fence ring. Fight until only one man is left standing while a rowdy festival of onlookers—drunk and high on whatever’s on offer—bet on the fighters.

 Jarhead is a desperate man who’d do just about anything to feed his children. He’s also the toughest fighter in southeastern Kentucky, and he’s convinced that his ticket to a better life is one last fight with a cash prize so big it’ll solve all his problems.

$h!+ happens. If even the punctuation-spelled version kinks your neck, take that as your guide that the novel under discussion here won’t be your cuppa.

Still reading? Okay, let me share that in Donnybrook, bona fide, filthy Shit Happens and keeps happening relentlessly, from the opening page through the finale, by which time countless skulls crack, bullets perforate limbs and organs, peddlers pimp underage flesh, dimwits are humiliated, much meth disappears into raggedy faces, nauseating sex is perpetrated between gross-ass freaks, mildew blooms, crooks betray, kindness is punished, bowels void, and blood spatters as malfeasants of every degree of dark-heartedness kill and get killed.

[Yeah, there’s actually More and Worse after the jump...]

Did you watch the new ABC crime drama Red Widow this weekend? I think the ratings weren’t great. The short ads I saw everywhere teased a Marin County housewife and mother, whose drug-smuggling beloved was in debt to a dangerous gangster, taking over for her husband after his murder. And I thought: This is way past Weeds. Who the heck would do that?!

So I confess, my expectations were low, though I’ve adored Goran Visnjic’s incipient evil ever since The Deep End (2001) with Tilda Swinton. However, I might’ve been more interested from the start if they’d told more about Marta Walraven, the main character played by Radha Mitchell. You can view what I think’s a more illuminating trailer below:

Aha! She’s not just an innocent carpool leader—she grew up in a Russian mob family! Now that at least makes more sense, vis-a-vis her entanglement, her inability to cut and run, and why she’d think she had any chance of surviving that world.

By the way, another interesting fact is that this new series is another international TV remake: it’s based on a Dutch show called Penoza. Here’s a short clip from that one, just because it’s interesting to see the original ages and hotness levels of the actors playing the couple and how the husband’s death unfolds. No crane shot over a bloodied driveway—simply awesome final eye rolls from the hospital bed instead. “Reanimate!” sounds so much more promising than “Clear!” Anyway, the subtitles are in Dutch, but you’ll get the gist.

Red Widow’s premiere is apparently a wild conglomeration of drama, action, and soap opera (which you can still watch at ABC.com or presumably from their app). People who’ve seen the second episode say the show picks up steam, and IMHO, later episodes are almost always improved by losing painful amounts of backstory. However, I think we may miss the departed hubby Evan Walraven (Anson Mount) who did, as many have noted, bring the epically flowing mane-age and beardwork that we appreciate so much in Sons of Anarchy.

And now I must ask...are there any new crime shows that have already fizzled for you or changed your (viewing) life? Did you check this one out, and could it earn its way into your weekly rotation?

Inspired by the reality show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, a 22-year-old woman used nail glue to bling her name onto the ankle monitor (in the U.K. called a curfew tag) she’d been assigned to wear for three months after fighting outside a nightclub. She says the security firm attaching the tag told her she could decorate it as she pleased, but when she had to get a new one after a move, there was a bunch of small-minded blah blah about the dozens of diamantes affecting the tag’s performance, and the company dimed her out to the judge. Who appointed them fashion police? The judge agreed that she’d “compromised the integrity” of the device and fined her for it. If by compromising, the court meant making life a little more fabulous for everyone crossing her path, agreed! Why won’t the h8ers in the justice system allow a girl to be dazzling?!

Via The Daily Mail.

Sometimes, less is more. But sometimes, there’s delirious pleasure in heaping more upon more. Like, for example, when you take a perfectly wonderful candy bar—a symphony itself of caramel, nougat, peanuts, and chocolate—and freeze it onto a stick, then dip the thing in batter and deep-fry it. On paper, even to a lover of sweets, the idea may read like needlessly piling virtue upon virtue, with the risk that you end up with nothing that’s distinctly anything and which tastes merely of greasy excess. But of course, when such an ambitiously layered confection works, it’s genius, and Ripper Street reminds me simultaneously of lots of different things while somehow being its own magnificently mashed-up thing.

BBC America just began airing the series which had its debut in the UK last year. It’s set in Whitechapel, London’s East End, circa 1889, and features the police of H Division, notably Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and his tough-as-nails Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn). Reid is a man of reason and dedication, dismayed at the continuing hysteria and ghoulishness on his turf caused by the Ripper’s recent crimes. He previously investigated those crimes with the now-haunted and still-possessive Chief Inspector Fred Abberline, who will reappear along with rumors of the Ripper’s resurgence.

If you’re spoiler sensitive, view the premiere before reading on.

[Thankfully, nothing’s only as it appears on Ripper Street...]

The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock marks the author’s return to steampunk with an adventure featuring Victorian gentleman and inventor Langdon St. Ives (available January 15, 2013).

It is the summer of 1883 and Professor Langdon St. Ives—brilliant but eccentric scientist and explorer—is coming to enjoy country life in Aylesford with his beloved wife and young children. However, a few miles to the north, a steam launch has been taken by pirates above Egypt Bay; the crew murdered and pitched overboard. In Aylesford itself, a grave is opened and robbed of a skull. The suspected grave robber will turn out to be the infamous Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, an old nemesis who kidnaps St. Ives’s four-year-old son, Eddie. Narbondo vanishes into the night, racing for London and unthinkably nefarious schemes with St. Ives and his factotum Hasbro in pursuit...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, James P. Blaylock wrote alternate-historical Victorian adventures including time travel and whimsical, fantastic devices, not to mention the losses, struggles, and world-saving triumphs of gentleman scientist Langdon St. Ives. If you read and adored these as so many did, you don’t need to know any more than that after decades away, Blaylock’s got a furnace stoked with new St. Ives, and this is just the first tale!

Steampunk is typically high-action, richly written historical fantasy with a moral core that honors, in style and theme, the then-contemporary tales of authors-turned-futurists like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Steampunk celebrates science, reason, and exploration, but especially, the kind of exploration requiring cleverness and rock-ribbed courage from explorers. What nature and degree of villain, you ask, does it take to threaten such gutsy and intrepid adventurers? Now that’s a fascinating question!

[Steel your resolve and advance!]

Are you as revved as we are about the return of Justified tonight?! Season 4 starts tonight on FX, and we are warming up for the action with a prep class at the incredible Nick Searcy’s Acting School. Thanks to the interweebs, aspiring actors no longer have to bum gas money for a movement class at a condemned Jack in the Box. The actor who manifests Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Art Mullen will transmit everything you really need to know. Watch and learn, ye n00bs who are not yet national acting treasures. And everyone else, stay tuned for a hatless cameo that’s divine and a dance number that’s indescribable.

As if that weren’t enough—after all this world’s leeches have tried to steal from him—International Film & TV Star Nick Searcy is giving until it hurts. More five-minute doses of insight will help aspiring actors manage “Down Time,” the dreaded “Family Time,” and “Workout Time.” But you knew that.

Lose a few pounds, quit nail-biting, clean a closet...*yawn* No wonder people quit these kind of New Year’s resolutions. They’re not just predictable, they’re BORING!

Forget that noise, because the kind of resolution with the lasting power to stir the blood and fire the mind is one other people have toiled years failing to accomplish, breaking their puny brain pans in the process. A hidden code, say, something of the magnitude to serve as proving ground for Sherlocks and Moriartys alike. Fortunately, Robert Beckhusen and Noah Shachtman at Wired’s Danger Room have 7 distinct and yet-unbroken codes to foster your self-improvement:

• The Voynich Manuscript (15th-16th century)
• The Beale Ciphers, a possible key to buried treasure (1885)
• Dorabella (1897)
• Taman Shud, found in a dead man’s pocket (1948)
• The Zodiac Killer Cipher (1969)
• Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters (1990)
• McCormick, also found in the pocket of a murdered man (1999)

Look at them all, read up, pick one, and get cracking! Report your success by February, or certainly by bikini season.

I have not found the original source of this genius mash-up, though I first saw it here. If it’s your creation, please let me know, so we may supply adequate kudos and clappy-hands. Is anyone else suddenly parched and intensely jealous of Greg Lestrade?

If you’re not conversant with the lore of Elvis Presley, first, my deepest sympathies. Second, you may not realize he was always fascinated with law enforcement. During his life, he was made an honorary officer by many police departments, and an absolutely enormous collection of his badges and guns and patches is on display at Graceland. But perhaps the most notable of these is the badge he received after showing up at the White House to meet Nixon in late December, 1970.

Elvis wrote a six-page letter to Nixon and made a spur-of-the-moment visit to the White House in pursuit of a post as a Federal Agent-at-Large, a non-existent position, but one from which he thought he could be influential. Despite the King’s later medical history, this situation wasn’t really a case of the fox wanting to be in charge of the henhouse, you cynics. It was most likely the result of an Elvis-in-crisis being earnestly convinced by some groovy young folks in California that he bore some responsibility for the contemporary drug culture. He wanted to be a representative for uprightness instead. To be that probably didn’t require a badge, but he wanted one anyway. He liked ’em. The E.P. of T.C.B. first hit up a Senator and then the BNDD’s Director before leapfrogging them to ask the president himself, delivering a handwritten entreaty to the White House steps at 6:30am. Not strange at all.

That Presley actually got the badge from the president reflects Nixon’s attempt at political outreach to younger Americans, a group that didn’t favor him much. The odd juxtaposition of the two different men and their goals was so compelling that in 1997 Showtime aired Elvis Meets Nixon, a mockumentary. Below is just a teaser clip, but the entire movie’s available online as well. So that happened, and thank you very much.

Image and more background at PI Mall.

Conceptual art meets killing machine! Via the Daily Mail:

An engineer has come up with macabre rollercoaster concept where passengers are thrilled and then “killed.”

The chilling Euthanasia Coaster is a theoretical machine engineered to “humanely, with elegance and euphoria, take the life of a human being.”

 

“It is designed to subject the rider to a series of unique experiences from euphoria to thrill and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness.”

The surreal structure is the brainchild of Lithuanian engineer Julijonas Urbonas. He said: “Thanks to the marriage of the advanced cross-disciplinary research in space medicine, mechanical engineering, material technologies and, of course, gravity, the fatal journey is made pleasing, elegant and meaningful.”

That’s his opinion, of course. The design is currently only an artistic statement based upon a previous statement by a coaster company’s president: The ultimate roller coaster is built when you send out twenty-four people and they all come back dead.

If I were seeking suicide, I’m not sure I’d want to speed myself into the great beyond with oppressive g-force. Think I’d prefer a cozy, woozy drift-off. You?

An unusual online job posting was reposted at Regretsy. For $30/hour (negotiable), it’s worth checking out:

...I’m looking for somebody to sit in my room at night and watch over me as I sleep. Recently I have had a lot of trouble sleeping and I think it would be comforting if I knew somebody was there.

I’d also like it if you were to wear a small owl costume as you do so. I have always found great comfort in the idea that owls are the natural lookouts of our world and so it would really help. I’d be prepared to pay you up to $40 if you were to wear the costume and maybe $35 if you don’t want to wear the costume but will stick a feather or two to your forehead...

I will provide you one muesli bar if you get hungry but no dinner breaks. I’d prefer if you didn’t face me when you ate the bar as I would find that very offputting even if i’m [sic] already asleep. You can of course use my bathroom. But only two hours after I fall asleep to ensure that I won’t suddenly wake up to find the room empty...

You know what happens when the room’s empty? The owl’s gone to get the chainsaw.

Amazing images from Italian horror flick via Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies

We went to the Evil Dead panel at New York Comic Con, and it was transcendant! Bruce Campbell, that’s all you need to know. Not enough? He’s the star and producer of the franchise, as well as producer of the remake, though many TV crime fans know him best as Sam Axe from Burn Notice.

Also present to dazzle were new star Jane Levy and the remake’s director, Fede Alvarez, who was Skyped and offered the film’s helm by original director-writer-producer Sam Raimi himself. The shebang was moderated by Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly.

The original Evil Dead, also called “Book of the Dead” for obvious reasons if you’ve seen the movie, premiered in 1981. After becoming a cult classic, it was followed by Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992). Explaining the strategy for the remake, and over vocal protests, Bruce Campbell opined that he and Raimi just weren’t sure what fans really craved was a middle-aged dude hero, no matter how awesome. “Maybe it’s just too late to strap on that chainsaw one more time.”

[Hear for yourself—it’s never too late to Bruce like a boss!]

Watch this and up your classy quotient! The Librarians’ Breakfast during Bouchercon was sponsored by Mystery Writers of America—thanks, and sorry I bogarted the coffee! It was hosted by the inspirational Mary Higgins Clark, crime writing’s acme of loveliness and graciousness. (How does she do it?! I admit I suspect a crabby-faced, unkempt portrait in an attic somewhere.)

Fortunately, I was seated next to the always-ginchy Tracy Kiely, who took pity on my inelegant state. And here she is, demonstrating how easily anyone’s drab napkin can artistically become a plucked chicken!

It’s that time of year again. The leaves are turning. The wind has just a little bit more bite. And our favorite sheriff is back and fighting zombies in The Walking Dead. This past weekend, New York Comic Con was the scene for all kinds of interesting activities. As you may have heard, Criminal Element was there! We even managed to snag spots at the hour-long panel dedicated to all things Walking Dead.

NOTE: All of our panel pix are slightly awful, as we were too far back with not enough zoom, and the lighting was challenging. But, hey, we were there!

The panel opened with the first few minutes of the season premiere, showing our favorite survivors working, without even needing to speak, as a well-oiled machine in a raid on a house. It was as intense as it was awesome, which you would know if you watched the premiere. (You did, didn’t you? Go, Carl, go!) The prop guys on set warned Andrew Lincoln before filming that there were more zombie kills in this season’s premiere than in all of season 1!

ChrisM is the ultimate TWD fanboy at CrimeHQ. Clare2e isn’t as deep into the franchise, though a horror and zombie fan, natch! So, you’ll get two perspectives (for the price of one, even!) on the hints and implications that will cast shadows across all of season 3.

[Straight from the Walker’s Mouth…]

Reportedly, West Virginia State Police Officer “Bubba” Caldwell said, “never seen nuthin’ like it. The guy was naked, had BUNNY ears on and was running down the road screaming at the top of his lungs, “Vote Commander Bunny 2012” and “I love Commander Bunny, he’s my hero.”

The self-proclaimed Rodent Revolution platform reads: Commander Bunny For PRESIDENT of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada. North America needs a “HARE” transplant!!!

It is possible, given the sketchy nature of this photo on close inspection, that Commander Bunny’s police blotter story is apocryphal. (Also bunnies are lagomorphs, not rodents, and the commander’s a shortwave radio “pirate.”) But let’s not let that ruin a unique and fascinating campaign, huh?