I found a book on Amazon.com called "The Plot Thickens". It has twelve short stories by contemporary writers brought together by Mary Higgins Clark for charity. Each of the writers was to write a short story containing the elements: a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak. Janet Evanovich, one of my favorite authors, wrote one of the short stories as did eleven other writers in the detective-mystery genre. It should be interesting. It's too bad that they couldn't extend the contest to writers of the past like Edgar Allen Poe, Dashiell Hammet, Mickey Spillane, Agatha Christie, or even Mark Twain.
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Speaking of Dashiell Hammet, author of "The Thin Man" and "The Maltese Falcon", it reminds me of a friend of mine who had a great-uncle named Dashiell DuShane or simply Dash DuShane. That's a great sounding name. That's the kind of name that precedes you into a room and lingers after you've left. Maybe I should write a detective story. Anyway, with just about everyone today being named Matthew or Michael, a few more Dash' s would be nice. It would even make a nice girl's name. Although she would probably get a lot of jokes about being fast, she would never be forgotten.
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That reminds me of one of my all-time favorite lines in a detective novel. I don't recall the name of the book or the author, but the phrase stays with me:
...She was a blonde. The type of blonde that would make a Bishop kick out a stained glass window.
I'm not even Catholic, but I know exactly what he meant.