Lucky Stiff: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story [Paperback]

Elizabeth Sims (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

There is what you believe, and then there is the truth. For Lillian Byrd, a chance encounter with an old friend means that everything she thought she knew about her shattered childhood is about to be revealed as a lie. One summer day when she was 12 years old, her best friend, Duane, left for summer camp. Later that night, flames ripped through the Polka Dot, a bar owned and run by Lillian's parents. Three bodies were found in the ashes: those of her mother, her father and Trix Hawley, a bartender and Lillian's frequent babysitter. Or so she has always thought. But Duane's story reveals something shocking. After summer camp, his father moved him to Florida, telling Duane that his mother had left, and for a short time Trix Hawley lived with them. Now Duane's father has disappeared as well. Who was the third body in the ashes of the Polka Dot? Was the fire an accident or arson? Where is Trix now? And where are Duane's mother and father? Lillian and Duane set out to find the truth about their parents, a truth that has been hidden well by members of both their families. The author of the best--selling mysteries Holy Hell and Damn Straight has crafted another nerve-tingling thriller rich with characterization, humor and humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A flawless narrative.... A nifty little puzzle solved by a most intriguing female detective."
-Rex E. Klett, LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Far and away above the competition."
-Charlotte Cooper, RAINBOWNETWORK.COM

"The characters are biting and smart-assed and funny the way I like them."
-Sheryl LeSage, LIBERTY PRESS (Kansas)

"A solid and eerie read."
-LAVENDER MAGAZINE (Minnesota)

"This is a nerve-tingling thriller, rich with characterization and humour."
-Vancouver Public Library (Vancouver, BC, Canada)

From the Author

Q: The story line in LUCKY STIFF is deliciously complex. How did you come up with it?

A: I sowed the seeds back in book one, HOLY HELL. In that book, Lillian mentions that she's the daughter of tavern keepers, and that both of her parents died when she was 12. I put that in because I had the idea then that I wanted Lillian to investigate a crime that was very emotionally charged for her. At the time, I didn't have an exact story in mind, but I thought that investigating the deaths of her parents, an event that occurred in the distant past, could be juicy and nicely morbid. So! We catch up with Lillian at home in Detroit, and we again meet characters such as Todd the remarkable rabbit, Minerva LeBlanc the gorgeous and sexy crime writer who has come out of her coma, landlords Mr. and Mrs. McVittie, and Uncle Guff.

Lillian is being Lillian: she's broke, she's trying to string together a half-assed living. She's gotten to know Blind Lonnie, a street musician in Detroit's Greektown neighborhood, who is helping her learn jazz improvisation. And that, improvisation, becomes one of the book's themes.

One night as she's playing, backing up Lonnie, a face from the past appears. It's a childhood friend of Lillian's whom she hasn't seen in decades. They talk. This friend, Duane, is on a quest to find his mother, who disappeared a long time ago. He wants Lillian to help him. As they talk, Lillian realizes that the disappearance of Duane's mother coincided exactly with the deaths of her parents. This gets Lillian going. What really happened to her parents? They died in a fire which was ruled accidental--but was it?

Q: While Lucky Stiff could not exactly be called a police procedural, there's some fascinating forensic material in it, related to the fire. How did you figure out that stuff?

A: I just sat and thought about how a fire might accidentally start in a place like a tavern, and then I thought about how such an accident could be made to happen. I dug around on the Web and talked to staff at the Detroit Fire Department and Medical Examiner's office, and put it all together from there.

Q: You take your main character to greater depths of emotion in this book than you yet have. Would you comment on that?

A: In this book I wanted to develop Lillian further, I wanted to push her to the limit. This is a dark story. The death of her parents was a terribly significant event for the 12-year-old Lillian: it was the holocaust of her life. She thought she came to terms with it long ago and put it behind her. But it rears up, unbidden, and threatens to consume her, unless she confronts some terrible facts.

As I mentioned, one of the book's themes is improvisation. Lillian finds that she must cajole or trick people into giving her information. How do you do that? By making a plan and setting it in motion, but not adhering to it if circumstances change. In order to act with full effectiveness, you've got to be prepared to throw away the script--or the chord charts--and make up something on the spot. In Lucky Stiff Lillian learns to do this musically as well as personally.

She confronts the terrible facts, and finally she sees that beyond the terrible facts lies the cold reality of moral ambiguity.

Q: Some of the moral ambiguity in Lucky Stiff appears to be about vengeance.

A: Yes. As Lillian gets deeper into her investigation--which involves an eventful side trip to Las Vegas, by the way--she begins to crave vengeance. But she knows enough to try to keep a lid on it. It's seductive, yet so unhealthy. In the end she finds herself in possession of a mortal secret more dangerous than she could ever have dreamed.

Q: Blind Lonnie represents a Yoda figure, right?

A: [Laughs.] I guess so. He's like the blind mythological oracles of ancient times, who in spite of being blind--or because of it--see back and forth in time, they see certain things much more clearly than sighted people do, and they have wisdom that is denied to sighted people. Lillian comes to Blind Lonnie for insight, and he does not disappoint.

Q: Do you think readers will be pleased to see the return of Minerva LeBlanc?

A: I hope so. She's somewhat impaired by her ordeal in HOLY HELL, and Lillian must come to grips with that. You know, that's the beauty of a series: you can build on characters and events from book to book, over great spans of time.

Q: In DAMN STRAIGHT Lillian left Detroit, now she's back in the motor city. How well does the city lend itself to intrigue?

A: Detroit is fertile ground for intrigue. For instance, Greektown, where Lillian and Blind Lonnie play, is this half-thriving, half-depressed ethnic neighborhood where people used to come to dinner and watch belly dancing and Greek music in clubs. Now there's a large gambling casino right in the main block. The neighborhood's a gritty place where you can imagine unfortunate things happening. There's just this feeling in the air of vague menace, as well as despair.

Q: What is it about Detroit street life that fascinates you so?

A: I have a passion for the morbid, the lost, the messed-up, the hopeless. Why do people choose the paths they do? I'm repelled by street people, because they're often dirty and unattractive--but yet I'm intensely drawn to them too. They're much more complex than they seem, just like you and me.

Q: What do you mean?

A: I'll put it this way. Right-wingers tend to classify street people as lazy and deserving of their lowly status. And lefties tend to totally excuse street people from any accountability whatsoever. Both views are simplistic and wrong. Not all panhandlers are homeless, not all the homeless are lazy, and not every street person wants to leave the street.

Q: Todd, Lillian's rabbit, has become a character in his own right. Do you have a rabbit?

A: Readers love Todd, and I have fun with him. But no, I don't have a rabbit. One of my childhood friends had a rabbit, a very sad little beast who was locked in a small cage almost all the time, down in the dark cold basement. I thought about that rabbit when my friend and I would be playing outside in the sunshine. I really wasn't much of an animal-loving kid, but that rabbit's existence made me feel a sort of horror, and actually a repugnance for my friend and her family. That rabbit was the first thing that I remember trying not to think about.

When I decided to give Lillian a pet, I wanted to NOT give her the typical cat or dog, so I created Todd the rabbit. Todd is my ideal vision of a pet, and his and Lillian's relationship is an ideal person-pet bond. Todd complicates Lillian's life: she must feed and care for him, and make sure he's OK emotionally. And she welcomes this work, because she benefits greatly from her relationship with Todd. He's a warm, interesting companion who brings a little bit of stability to Lillian's more or less haphazard life.

Q: You do play the mandolin, don't you?

A: I do play. The mandolin is a different sort of instrument, very versatile. It's tuned the same as the violin, so you can get at practically everything in the violin and fiddle repertoires, plus you can play four-note chords. The challenge is finger strength and flexibility. You've got four courses of double strings under high tension, so they require your hands to be good and firm, but agile, too.

Q: Have you done any street busking, as you have Lillian do?

A: Yes, mostly as a test of guts. It's surprisingly terrifying to stand on a city streetcorner, open your case, tune up and begin playing. What you're saying is, "You there, passerby, should stop and listen to this good music, and throw some money into my case while you're at it. Because it's worth it!"

Q: What is your favorite kind of reader?

A: I cherish intelligent, perceptive readers more closely than I cherish my identity as a writer. Without them, I have no identity. Readers bring me to life as I bring my characters to life. No joke.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555838588
• ISBN-13: 978-1555838584
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,736,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Sims is an American author and writing authority. Her novels include the Lambda Award-winning Lillian Byrd Crime Series and the Rita Farmer Mystery Series, and she has written short stories, poems, and essays for numerous publications.

As a Contributing Editor at Writer's Digest magazine she specializes in the art and craft of fiction. Through her articles, in-person workshops, and online teaching, she has helped thousands of fledgling authors find their wings.

Elizabeth holds degrees in English from Michigan State University and Wayne State University, where she won the Tompkins Award for graduate fiction. A former newspaper reporter and bookseller, she's also a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and American Mensa.

To learn more about her and to view a full list of her available works, including free excerpts and book discussion guides, visit www.elizabethsims.com.

Facebook Author Page:
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reader from Florida, November 4, 2004

By 

Carebabe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucky Stiff: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story (Paperback)

Lucky Stiff is definitely the best of the Lillian Byrd series so far. The writing really snaps as the main character Lillian Byrd narrates with wit and precision. Sims digs a bit deeper into Lillian's personality and background in this one. The story is rather dark, with Lillian investigating the long-ago deaths of her parents in a bar fire. Sims does a good job making you feel the creepiness of old autopsy reports, the uneasiness of a jaunt through the aging neighborhood where she notices old scorch marks on the trees near the building that burned, and the off-kilter rationalizations of a battered wife who finally gets even. There's a subplot involving music improvisation, and another one involving the true-crime writer Minerva LeBlanc, who comes sexily back into Lillian's life to help--and to add a distressing twist. All the characters are convincing and unusual, like Lillian's childhood friend Duane, with whom she joins forces to try to solve the mystery, and a Buddha-like street musician named Blind Lonnie. Sims also does very well developing the character of Trix, the trash-talking barmaid. And as always, Todd the rabbit is charming. Oh, I almost forgot: Lillian is into reading a pulpy mystery series starring a supersleuth named Calico Jones, and her breathless accounts of Calico's adventures are hilarious. In general the humor in this book is a little more subtle than in the prior two, and perhaps more enjoyable because of it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love the Lillian Byrd Mysteries, September 2, 2011

By 

Sadie (Ventura, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lucky Stiff (The Lillian Byrd Crime Series) (Kindle Edition)

I read all the Lillian Byrd mysteries several years ago and put the books in storage. Craving Lillian and the trouble she manages to get herself into again, I found them on Kindle. I'm reading them for a second time and enjoy them just as much as the first.

Lillian isn't a cop, a private eye, or even a mystery writer. She's a sometimes journalist who is always down on her luck and she just happens to get herself in the middle of a murder. She's so ordinary that you just gotta love her. Some of the funniest lines are about Lillian's pet rabbit, Todd, who has a lot of personality and plays games with her. In Lucky Stiff, Todd is getting old and I feel like I'm going to miss him like he's my own pet.

In Lucky Stiff, we find out what happened to Lillian's parents, who died in a fire. Only it's not that simple. And, Lillian's true love, Minerva, makes another appearance.

If you get one Lillian Byrd book, get them all because you'll want to keep reading about Lillian once you start. I wish Elizabeth Sims would write more in this series.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down, August 27, 2011

By 

L. Jones - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lucky Stiff (Lillian Byrd crime stories) (Hardcover)

I stumbled upon a book by Elizabeth Sims at a garage sale called "The Actress" and I loved it so much that I bought every Elizabeth Sims book I could find. The book "Lucky stiff" is a suspenseful, well written crime story. Mysteries are my books of choice and Elizabeth Sims does not disapoint. Every one of her novels is a great read and she is one of the best authors I have come across in a long time. After you read this book, I think you will agree with me and you will want to read another one of her books.