When I read a novel, I want to be able to picture the world the writer has created. I want to see it, hear it, taste it, feel it, and breathe it. I don’t want a wonderfully unique place to seem like Anywhere USA, as interchangeable as the big box store in a retail strip mall. It may come from many years as a reporter or just being nosy, but I want the details. I want them to feel real, even if the book is fiction. I’m listening for the great quote, that unique signifier of speech that only one person would have used.

Sometimes you have to get off your bottom, away from the computer, and into the real world to hear the way people talk and experience the places you write about. If I hadn’t taken a walk in the wilderness gathering thoughts for my latest Crime of Fashion mystery, I wouldn’t have seen an animal skull that became a part of the story.


Or a designer cowboy boot show at Cry Baby Ranch in Denver, or a wall of fancy cowboy (and cowgirl) boots at FM Light & Sons in Steamboat Springs.

In my latest Crime of Fashion mystery, Death On Heels, Lacey Smithsonian travels back to Sagebrush, Colorado, the little Western town where she earned her reporters’ spurs. Coincidentally, it’s a lot like the little Colorado town where I endured my first years as a small town reporter.  I could have winged it, dredged up some recollections, made up what I didn’t know.  Still, I felt in my gut I had to go back (taking my husband with me), first to check my well-worn memories of the place, second to see how the town had changed, and third to get a feel for the place with fresh eyes and to scout new locations.

I made a great contact with the local BLM land manager—who was soon to take an assignment closer to my home base, in Washington, D.C. I was able to interview a legendary cowboy who graciously shared his thoughts on the subjects of land and cattle and modern oil and natural gas exploration. 

And while looking for an old cowboy line camp, we came upon that grinning skull and skeleton of a dead coyote, hanging like a warning on a barbed-wire fence. I wouldn’t have known it was a coyote, but my husband is a former archaeologist and he knows his skulls.

We were also followed for miles through the sagebrush in the high, dry mountain air by a curious wild horse. If we hadn’t been on foot, we  wouldn’t have seen the skull or been followed by that wild horse. If I’d simply relied on the Internet to give me fragmentary information from conflicting sources. I wouldn’t have seen the red bluffs or the highway signs shot full of bullet holes.

Every book is a journey from first page to last, each one requires different research. For every mystery, no matter how wild the plot may seem, I have researched various aspects of the story. I just hope my readers enjoy it.

• During the research for  Shot Through Velvet, I toured the last velvet factory in Virginia in its last week of operation. I interviewed the manager, learning not only about the dangerous and hands-on work required in weaving and dying velvet, but also about the workers who would soon lose their jobs.
• When I wrote Armed and Glamorous, I drew inspiration from the private investigation classes I took. But I also concentrated on the more absurd aspects of the course, like the night we flunked our vehicle surveillance exercise and were forced to take a remedial surveillance.
• I’ve used trips to Paris and New Orleans as the major locations in Raiders of the Lost Corset, discussed matters of homelessness with a local panhandler on the streets of D.C., for Grave Apparel, and studied federal clothing regulations restricting certain styles to conserve material during World War II for Designer Knockoff.

Ravel’s Bolero was playing as I entered the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Denver Art Museum, perfect for a review of over four decades—from 1958 through 2002—of designing haute couture. Like the music, the clothes seem quiet at first, then as you move through the galleries they grow more insistent, more colorful and joyful, until finally the music of the collection thrums through you and refuses to let go.

The  Denver Art Museum will be the only stop for the YSL exhibit in the United States. It opened March 25th and will run only until July 8, 2012. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days, except Fridays when it stays open until 8 p.m., and it's closed Mondays. Sorry, photos are not allowed. Although you may take a photo under the picture of YSL's ball gown with the giant pink bow outside the galleries. Like I did.


And no, I don’t know why Denver was selected over the more obvious locations. Even the Washington Post puzzled over it, saying “The Mile High City is not what most people think about when it comes to high fashion.” Exactly. (But neither is Washington, D.C., The City Fashion Forgot.) However, I am delighted to have seen it during the opening week. My friend Becky is a member of the Art Museum and she graciously arranged for our tickets several months ago. I will visit the YSL retrospective again, perhaps several times, before it folds its tent and leaves the Queen City of the Plains.

Inside the YSL galleries, the melody of the clothes continues, with personal notes: Saint Laurent’s favorite colors were black and pink. When he was a teenager, he cut out paper dolls from newspapers and designed clothing for them, his talent in evidence in the wonderful paper doll photos included in one of the videos. When he was required to join the French armed services, he was out in three weeks, suffering from depression. Obviously his calling was not to be a soldier. (They should have let him design their uniforms!)

It is almost impossible to believe that Saint Laurent was a shy man, because his collections speak volumes. They express so many moods and beliefs: He wanted to give women more physical freedom through a relaxed fit; witness his signature pantsuit—a radical direction from the 1960s. He gave his women exotic silhouettes, after he fell in love with Morocco. While some of his apparel entered popular culture via ready-to-wear and imitators, such as inexpensive pantsuits for women, other items are breathtaking works of art, including two jackets designed in homage to Vincent Van Gogh: one completely beaded in the Dutch artist's sunflowers, the other in irises. Then there is the whimsical and wacky mini-skirted wedding dress of white tulle, with outsized appliqué white cotton pique doves, which was worn by model Carla Bruni before she became First Lady of France.

The early fashions from YSL's own studio seem muted. The style is clean but boxy. They make the leggy, elongated mannequins look normal, so you can imagine how large they would make a normal-sized woman appear! But the collections evolve into far more interesting styles that have shape and color and fit. There are side trips into Saint Laurent’s work area, his sketches, and a personal testimonial by Catherine Deneuve. The exhibit features the simple black dress with the white collar she wore in Belle de Jour. There are also clips from a couple of Deneuve’s movies in which the characters are all commenting on their clothes. You have to love the French.

As you move through the exhibit, you realize how carefully it has been crafted. His early themes replay again and again, but with a twist, with more confidence, with more imagination. He visits new ideas, so lovely, so varied, and yet familiar. According to the exhibit, Saint Laurent hated to travel, except to Morocco, where he owned a villa. But he travels extensively in his imagination, resulting in collections inspired by Africa, Russia, Spain, Japan, China, and India. The decorated Russian coats are especially wondrous, and the beaded bolero outfit inspired by Spain, elegant and wearable. 

By the time you wander your way through to the exhibit’s finale, you will be enchanted by the exquisite draped chiffon gowns and the walls covered with thousands of fabric samples in rainbows of colors. Then on to the stunning black walls featuring YSL’s tuxedos, his signature style, all black with the occasional navy dress or pantsuit. It appears as an army of well dressed but somber and slightly frightening mannequins. Their somberness is relieved by the colorful trim, the occasional white rose or gardenia, the  snowy white lapels. After the severity of the tuxedos, the collection makes a turn, to a treasure of sumptuous jewel tones. Twenty-nine ball gowns march gaily up and down red steps, as if attending a gala, each stunning as a piece, and as a whole, they take your breath away.

But for you, Cinderella, it’s time to leave the ball. You cannot possibly view another exhibit. You want to savor the moment in quiet reflection. It is time to sit down, collect your thoughts, and enjoy a cup of coffee, while a swirl of impressions surround you. And for those who swear they don’t like fashion, don’t care about style, it’s foolish, it’s elitist, and who choose not to see this marvelous retrospective of the life of one of the greatest designers of our time: You're missing a trip through Wonderland.

If you've ever wanted to know the truth about the Fashion Bites that I include in my Crime of Fashion mysteries, head over to The Stiletto Gang today where I am guest blogging. You'll find out the skinny on how they got there in the first place, and why they are still there.

It was a fun post once I got started and inspired by a little rhyme.   Check it out at The Stiletto Gang. And let me know what you think about them.

Behind the scenes of an undercover vice operation in Denver: That’s the subject of the speaker at the February meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America later this week. I’m looking forward to it, in part because some years ago I got a glimpse of the other face of vice in the Mile High City from one of the active participants in the sex trade. I’m curious to compare the two versions.

At the time, I lived in a studio apartment in an L-shaped, concrete block apartment building called "The Laguna," which was painted a lurid shade of lavender. Apparently the lavender Laguna was considered a pretty classy place when it opened in the 1960s. But not by the time I lived there. On the other hand, it had extraordinarily cheap rent and a swimming pool. It was a perfect starter apartment. While looking for a permanent job, I wrote plays and hung out by the pool with the other underemployed tenants. Lolling by the pool, by the way, is terrific for a writer’s creativity: Swim a few laps, write a few lines. Listen to moody Phil Collins albums and watch the sun set. Grab a cold beer. Rinse and repeat. What a great summer!

One scorching hot day, a new resident came to the pool and introduced herself. She raised the eyebrows of the women, and the temperatures of the men. Her name was Carol.

She was a cotton candy blonde with fake fingernails, fake eyelashes, and a body that was not designed by nature. Incongruously, she had a spray of tomboyish freckles across her pale nose. Her favorite swimsuit was either leopard or tiger print, I forget, and was probably fashioned by Frederick’s of Hollywood. She accessorized it with gold chains. I was from the serious-laps-in-a-serious-tank-suit school of swimming, and I wondered how on earth was she going to swim with those false eyelashes? Turns out, Carol didn’t swim, she splashed. Just enough to cool off. Her leopard-skin bikini was not made for swimming, it was made for lounging.

In the course of our first conversation, I mentioned I was a writer. She mentioned that someone was writing a book about her. I could feel my eyes pop open and I thought, Really? So I asked, “What’s your story?"

“I was a call girl for twelve years,” she said.

“That is interesting,” I said, now at full attention. “Tell me more!"

Carol the Call Girl (as I now thought of her) said she was going to testify in a trial, against a man who had assaulted her. “It wasn’t the rape that bothered me,” she said. “It was the butcher knife.” She used her hands to measure out more than a foot. “About this long. That knife bothered me.” It was the event that made her leave the Life.

When I met her, Carol was about 36 years old. She’d been out of the Life for about ten years. She had married a vice cop (!) and she said that happened more often than you’d think. “You know how it is,” she told me, “with people who work together.” But they were separated now, and she had moved into our lavender building with a new guy. His name was Gene. He was good looking, in a sleazy sort of way. And he was sleazy, he hit on every woman who crossed his path. He supposedly had the improbable job of driving luxury automobiles to and from their owners all over the country. Yeah, I didn’t believe it either. At any rate, Sleazy Gene was gone most of the time and Carol was left on her own, to swim (or splash) and chat with the neighbors.

Carol turned out to be a pretty sweet person, with tender feelings. She could get lonely. We had dinner a few times. We talked a lot. She grew up in a difficult home, her parents had no love for her, so she left at 14. She met a pimp and began selling sex. However, she was adamant that she was always a call girl and never a “common prostitute.” She made a lot of money.

The saddest thing she ever said to me was, “I loved my johns, and they loved me.” That’s how she saw it. She had been like a child trying to see some ray of light in a difficult situation. No matter how hardened she might have been, Carol had an air of naivete about her. Maybe it was an act, beautifully played.

As the summer wore on, I grew restless. It seemed more and more to me that the people who lived in the Laguna never seemed to go anywhere. They just drank beer by the pool and watched the sun go down. I feared I would get stuck in some kind of lavender time warp there and never leave.

Carol grew restless too. Gene left her alone far too much. Several times I noticed her leaving the apartment alone and coming home alone, counting a wad of money. I never asked her about it. We were friends, not a reporter and a source. (But now I wish I had.)

Eventually I found a real job and a better apartment. Carol dumped Sleazy Gene, and we left the Laguna at about the same time. I lost track of her. But I’m grateful to Carol the Call Girl for giving me a real face for women who are often disrespected and dismissed. I liked her and I hope she’s happy.

I don’t know whether the trial she mentioned ever happened. Or if that book about her life as a call girl was ever written. But I’ll always remember some of the things she told me. That is, I think I remember all the details, but as we know, the memory is a terrible liar. And time moved more slowly that summer at the lavender Laguna.        

Postcript. I recently drove past the apartment building that once was the Laguna. The name has been changed and it’s been repainted. Not much lasts forever. Not even a time warp. But vice? That lives on and on.

• “Couldn’t you add a cat? Mystery readers love cats!”  Don’t think so. I’m allergic to them in Real Life, so I can’t conduct the proper research.
• “Have you considered a crime fighting parrot?” Please, I’m trying to write. Although in comic terms, the parrot is intriguing. Polly, want a clue? Wait, don’t distract me!
• “This is too gritty/dark/light/comic for your readers.” Really? How do you know? Are my readers so delicate, so Victorian they can’t take a touch of gritty realism? Will they faint if Lacey Smithsonian finds herself between a murderer and a hard place or investigates a skin-crawling, heartbreaking crime? Do they never laugh through the tears in Real Life? I suspect my readers are made of sterner (and deeper) stuff than formulaic mysteries. And I hope I am too. And even though my books are comic, they are not fluffy. They have subtext. They have life.