What, No Shmuley?

The fourth novel in the Shmuley Myers series is…underway. In the same way that heading into Manhattan at 8:30 on a Monday is “commuting.” I’m on deadline for a manuscript that also has Jewish connections, but is more a light fantasy/love/relationship tale. However, I’ve got a few things to share:

A Measure of Mercy is the novel’s working title. Like previous novels, the title connects a thread running through the novel. The action picks up a few months after The Property of Blood leaves off. Here’s a draft snippet from the opening scene:

I squirmed in the car’s driver seat. I was at the edge of the Austin HEB’s mostly empty parking lot, far from the entrance, but with a good view of the loading dock side of the massive building. People from my ultra-Orthodox community shopped here, and I wasn’t wearing a head covering—kerchief or wig. At least the weather was keeping people scurrying from bus or car into and out of the supermarket.

“Two to rescue,” my anonymous Upline coordinator had said. Why on a Sunday late morning, and why somewhere in the open was beyond me. Two to disappear from the Preborn Investigation Bureau’s passion to keep women enslaved to their uteri, according to the Twenty Seventh Preborn Life Amendment, which awarded citizenship from the moment the sperm hit the egg.

I patted the net bag on the seat beside me: day-old carrots and a bundle of beets. At least had the alibi done. Now I needed to remember how to make borscht like my mother made. I glanced at my windup watch: Eleven-twenty-five. Almost late.

Shmuley would be wondering by now where I’d gone, leaving all the chores to him. Ahuvi, a part of my mind wailed. My love. I tensed, my stomach muscles pulling at the scars on my abdomen and beneath. Scars from when a religious crazy—no, a psychotic mass murderer—slashed me open. I was helpless, and Shmuley, again, was my savior. The man killed himself rather than be taken, stealing the justice—and revenge—due his victims’ families.

I got out of the car, feeling naked without my hair covering. I hung an old, heavy winter coat across my right arm—the meeting signal—and closed the car door. I walked toward the bank of loading bays, shaded from the misting rain. September meant the rain was hot, with what felt like steam rising from the cracked tar pavement.

I stretched, the muscle memory of my Krav Maga training driving me to be prepared for anything. After the…after I got better, the Shtetl psychologist, a little granny, suggested learning how to fight the demons torturing my sleep. And the instructor, after hearing my story when I cried after my first lesson, promised me knife training when I got my first belt. A month later, that started. Between teaching, grading homework, and training in martial and knife fighting, I managed to soak up any time I might have had with Shmuley. Seeing the look of guilt and pity on his face. And I didn’t have the strength to hurt him more by waving off his feelings for me. Of me. Better to wall everything off. Look ahead, not remember the nightmares of the past.

A garbage dumpster blocked the three nearest loading bays, parallel to them, flush with the front of the grocery store delivery doors. Across from the dumpster, over by the property fence, was a delivery truck. No driver in sight. Good.

As I reached the shade on the far side of the dumpster, I heard a car door slam. Two women had left an old sedan near where I’d parked my car. They were dressed like me: long-sleeved shirts and long skirts. Maybe fervent Christians? They had the most to fear from being pregnant against their wishes. Not just from the Preborn Investigation Bureau—their own communities would turn on them if they even thought too loudly about terminating a pregnancy. Jethro, my partner today, had all too many stories of how that turned out. He was Saved, just like all the babies taken away from women who’d dared…I stopped that thought and rubbed my abdomen.

“Are you here for the big giveaway?” I asked when they got nearer.

“Pink galoshes,” the older of the two answered.

That was the right code, but they weren’t acting with the usual mincing fear. Not looking around to see if anyone was watching. Oy. Now they were between me and my car. Striding. People on a mission. I backed up and gave a quick glance behind me. Nobody. Hashem willing, Jethro was somewhere nearby.

The women sped up. A sound from the direction of the truck—a man was coming at me at a sprint wielding a sword—a sword!—in one hand.

More anon!

An Alternate History Becoming

The Shmuley Myers murder mystery series stars…Shmuley as the investigating detective. For crimes involving the unborn, the Preborn Investigation Bureau has jurisdiction. This might take the load off law enforcement in this reality, of the case of yet another woman, this one in Nevada, charged with “murdering”–via miscarriage. One must investigate, of course.

Next week, Americans get to decide what the path will be for true liberty for its citizens–particularly for non-whites who aren’t male. Do the right thing–even if you have to hold your nose. A stink versus enduring a four-year flood of effluence really isn’t a choice.

Writers Reading at the Copras Cove Library

This past Friday evening I read from A Day at the Zoo alongside three other authors. I went last, as I wasn’t sure what the crowd was like–or what I really wanted to read. It went excellently, the barometer for which was selling three sets of the books and giving another set to the library for others to enjoy.

The readers showed up with lots of goodies, so we had a sweets break between each author.

WWA

Writing in the 4th novel has been dragging slowly lately. Writing With Arthritis is fun (for some perverse values of the word). In the meantime, the upcoming US elections will again act as a referendum on women’s ability to have agency over their lives.

Judges > Science

The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has taken it upon itself to decide whether a drug is dangerous for human use.

The Thalidomide tragedy in the early 1960s might be history for most Americans, but I had a schoolmate, Amy (full disclosure: with whom I had a crush), who had two fingers and a thumb on one hand. She had it hard, and, in 1st grade, not a lot of mercy and understanding was to be found among the kids. But it didn’t keep her back. Despite Benevolent Drug Companies, the Food and Drug Administration pulled the drug from shelves after reports of birth defects. (Okay, because of a female scientist who wouldn’t shut up). Scientists looked at data made a data-based decision, and issued rules based on same.

To have a flock of eminently unqualified, black-robed, here-for-life judges make decisions about what drugs are or aren’t safe for women is, in a word, bananas. Would you want a bookkeeper to decide which drug to use in what dosage for a heart condition? Maybe ask an embalmer what a good recipe for a roast might be?

I don’t think SCOTUS will get involved in this specious, religiously-slanted issue. To rule to limit mifepristone would open the way for RFK Jr. to lobby for vaccines to be removed from pharmacies and for a certain ex-chief executive to get bleach put into HMO formularies.

Unintended consequences of laws, the foundation of the Shmuley Myers series, rolls out the red carpet for insane ideas brought to their ad absurdum ends. Georgia’s current IVF issue is a small example of it. Getting mifepristone banned would simply make more “sinners,” not more murderers. For some religions’ definition of “sinner.”

Even Wiseasses Can Figure This Out

George Carlin was making the unintended consequences argument about “personhood” decades before his joke turned toxic for Americans.

In other news, book #4 in the Shmuley Myers series should be out at the end of 2024.

Yes, Alabama. Still and Again. I’m Looking at you, Louisiana.

H/T to Legal Eagle!

The court decision calling IVF embryos “people” merely built on the already legalized notion that embryos have personhood. Devin Stone‘s latest video shows the wheels of injustice grind mindlessly in random directions.

I want all future decisions regarding pregnancy, abortion, or reproduction to be ruled on only by people who understand reproduction. Phrases like “extrauterine children…in…a cryogenic nursery.” They’re just trying to catch up with Louisiana, who’ve already hopped down the rabbit hole.

The macabre world of Shmuley Myers and the Preborn Investigation Bureau was a reductio ad absurdum snark. “Don’t people understand the consequences of such a thing?” (Hint: no.) So, we’re faced with (yet) another clash of church vs. state, where one religion’s radical zealots attempt to influence the State (of everyone else).

Read A Day at the Zoo to understand the now-actually-possible (-dare-I-say-probable?) implications of unintended (intended?) consequences.

Why the “Citizenship at Birth” Amendedment in the Shmuley Myers Series is Better than the Status Quo

Currently, my lovely state of Texas ranks amazingly low in child insurance and high in infant and maternal deaths. The current “pro-life” trend apparently starts and stops only with citizens with the means to pay for care. What happens to non-citizens, or those unable to pay for medical services, is not relevant.

In this series’ universe, since every pregnancy means a live citizen, and every non-live-birth a murder investigation, women would be required to have prenatal care. On a high-school nurse’s office, in The Property of Blood, there’s a poster:

1.  Thou shalt place your citizen’s needs above your own.
2.  Thou shalt keep your citizen safe.
3.  Thou shalt shelter your citizen well.
4.  Thou shalt not poison your citizen.
5.  Thou shalt keep your citizen’s home clean.
6.  Thou shalt prepare a safe place for your citizen.
7.  Thou shalt obey your doctors.
8.  Thou shalt keep yourself healthy for your citizen.
9.  Thou shalt feed your citizen as an honored guest.
10. Thou shalt treat your citizen as you would want to be treated.

It’s sad when a dystopian speculative fiction series devoted to unintended consequences is beat by the realities of 2024. The decimation of funds for those most at risk is a blazing proof that it’s not about the women, it’s about propping up the existing (white, moneyed) system.