rlfj: Blog

Mistake - I wrote Walpole NH was in eastern NH. It's in western NH. Fixed. Sorry. Also, a couple of readers familiar with the area pointed out that a better trip would be to fly to Hartford and travel north up I-91, and not via Boston. That took a larger rewrite.

Still getting people asking if I am going to incorporate the current racism-in-police issue in the story. No, I am not rewriting the story. Remember, the story is in 2025 at this point. 2020 was back in Chapter 12, which ran through 2022. He was not an active consultant during those years but was working on his doctorate. Regardless of the reforms being pushed and promised, we will still have police forces in the future. The crazies are pushing for police forces to be dismantled, but that simply won't be happening. Defunding is a definite possibility, but that isn't crazy. The largest mental health system in the nation is the prison system, which is also the largest drug treatment system and the largest homeless shelter system. The police and the prisons are the most expensive and inefficient way to do these things. Putting more money into these types of social programs makes a considerable amount of sense. As to what Grim would do differently, as early as 2019 Grim was giving lectures at the Athens and Forsyth academies on topics like PTSD, Use of Force, and Autism/Mental Health (Chapters 8 and 9). Those are the types of things that will be much more important in the future, at all academies.

I need help on a future project - Anybody out there with experience on an Arleigh Burke destroyer? How about any American destroyer? I need some minor technical details, slang, and nomenclature. Thanks.

Anyway, Chapter 27 should be fun. Enjoy!

Several dozen readers commented on killing snakes. It seems that there is an ammunition for the Glock .40 suitable for snakes, rats, and other pests. It's called shotshell and is made by CCI in a #9 size. For those wondering why Grim didn't kill the snakes with that, there's no reason to think he would have that sort of ammunition. There are many different types of ammunition. I googled '40 S&W ammo' and discovered the following types: target, full metal jacket, jacketed hollow point, ball, shotshell, fragmenting, lead free, and round nose flat point. There are probably more. While I can't speak for all police officers, I would think it unusual for a single officer to have every single type preloaded in a magazine for emergency home use.

I learned one odd thing in this chapter. One of my readers pointed out that the San Francisco PD doesn't have detectives. They call them inspectors there. I had to do some research and an edit on that. In most other American departments that have the inspector rank, it's a much higher level, captain or above.

Some readers want Grim to donate his remains to science or a body farm when the time comes. The shot glass idea is my thought, which I trot out occasionally when I want to gross out my offspring.

A few readers wondered if the story would be different considering what is happening with the George Floyd crisis. All I can say is that the summer of 2020 occurred while Grim was working on his PhD. By the time he graduates in 2021 and goes back to being a consultant, whatever will happen will probably have sorted itself out. No matter what happens, we will still have police forces in the future.

Several typos or continuity errors in this chapter. Fixed. Sorry about that.

Several people noted that a Glock would be a lousy gun to kill a nest of snakes. Instead, Grim should have used a shotgun with buckshot. Okay, I don't know shit about guns. That being said, two points. One, Grim doesn't own a shotgun. Several times it is noted he has two handguns and an M-14 set up as a sniper rifle. Second, don't forget Grim is such a great shot he could easily have got them that way. Anyway, as he said, he wasn't ending the menace, but he had to do something. One reader pointed out that it is illegal to kill snakes in Georgia. Correct, but incomplete. It is illegal to kill non-venomous snakes in Georgia. Rattlesnakes are venomous, and we know he killed rattlesnakes because he heard the rattle.

Interesting compliment from samurai: 'Nobody does tragedy like rlfj.' Thank you, though I'm not quite sure what that says about me. In one way it's sort of like being proclaimed the best serial killer. I'll have to ask my wife what that means. I'm not sure I want to know her opinion, either.

Many commented with sadness that we don't respect our veterans more when they pass. We went through this with my father when he died. He was in the Navy during WW2. Never saw any action, did his time, and got out, but we all knew he served, and we all respected him for it. When he died we got a petty officer and a boombox playing Taps. Fortunately, my nephew, an active duty Marine, was home on compassionate leave and in uniform. He took over for the PO and did the presentation of the flag to my mother. That made it very special to us.

A year later my nephew ended up in Fallujah, and my mother would pray to my father in Heaven to watch over him. That was considered odd to the rest of us, since she was really hard-core Lutheran, and we don't believe in saints watching over us. It worked, sort of. He came home from Iraq whole in body and damaged in soul, with a serious dose of PTSD.

Anyway, enjoy!

I had a lot of readers write me about the last two chapters. One gave me a technical explanation of why double jeopardy would not apply. (Leaving aside the technical details, Georgia and the United States are considered separate sovereigns for court purposes. Many thanks, really, many thanks. I like to be accurate.) One gave me a lengthy response about how what I described in Conover County would have never been allowed by various state, federal, and bar associations. All the others fell into two categories. First was "Wow! I didn't know you lived in [fill in the blank] County! You just described my home!" The second was to toss in some details, many of which focused on drugs and corruption. I did a quick edit to reflect these concerns.

What can I say about Chapter 23? Into every life some rain must fall? Longfellow said so, but I don't think he had this in mind. Anyway, enjoy - or not.

A few people have asked what my next project is. Currently I am doing an edit on all my previous stories, checking spelling and grammar and otherwise fixing them up. I'm putting them up on Bookapy in epub, mobi, and pdf formats. It might sound trivial, but A Fresh Start, for instance, had over 180 chapters and came in both XXX and PG-13 versions. This has taken weeks!

Once I finish with GR:RSC I will begin a new story. I've got an idea for one that I partially started a few years ago, but it's going to take some time. It's probably also going to be a PG-13 story, a thriller with a completely new cast of heroes and villains, and some who might be both. I can't see it coming out until the end of the year at the earliest, and probably not until next spring.