Variance mystery

[Zoning Goddess]

I just finished a mystery, The Arraignment, by Steve Martini, in which the murder plot revolved around a variance the victim needed. Not used to seeing this stuff in novels!

 

[Cardinal]

I wonder if the author was drawing inspiration from personal experience.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another book with a planning theme, at least in the first part of the story.

 

[Mud Princess]

Was it a satire or a 'dark' mystery? It sounds like something from a Carl Hiaasen novel!

 

[seannelson]

did the developer do it?

 

[Otis]

did the developer do it?

Only after the city required him to.

 

[JNA]

along a similar vein or artery
has anyone read any of
Nevada Barr's environmental crime & murder mystery's set in various National Parks?
or
Earl Emerson's Mac Fontana mystery's with politics, arson, and murder in a small town?

 

[Zoning Goddess]

along a similar vein or artery
has anyone read any of
Nevada Barr's environmental crime & murder mystery's set in various National Parks?
or
Earl Emerson's Mac Fontana mystery's with politics, arson, and murder in a small town?

Ooh, I love Nevada Barr's books, especially the one where Anna Pigeon (the protagonist) is trapped in a cave. The author actually was (or maybe still is) a park ranger.

 

[Mud Princess]

I'm a huge Nevada Barr fan! And I think I've read some of Earl Emerson's books too.

 

[JNA]

Have either of you - ZG or MP
seen or picked up the new Nevada Barr High Country ?
it is set in Yosemite NP.

Or have been to Yosemite?

 

[Zoning Goddess]

I have High Country on the reserve list at the library, so don't know when I'll get it. It got a good review in the paper today. Anna goes undercover at Yosemite to solve some disappearances, then of course she ends up on the run.

I was at Yosemite when I was 9 and my family took a 6-week car trip around the US. I don't really remember a lot about it.

 

[Maister]

Dang! I got scooped again. Here I was already up to chapter 24 of the new novel I'm writing. I thought I had the market locked down on the zoning-administrator-as-adventurer type series....the book was going to be entitled "The Municipality" and the pages were to be filled with lots of pathos and drama written in noire style prose. Chapter 9 was called 'the variance'...here is an excerpt:
...I told her the variance application would be fifty up front. She had the fifty up front. She batted her eyes at me, but I'd been duped by too many dames to be taken in by her come on. I cut her off, "Listen sister, I don't know what kind of Boards you're used to dealing with but around here we follow Robert's Rules of Order and you gotta sell your own practical difficulties without my help." She glared back at me, "Believe me, Maister, when I get in front of the Zoning Board they're sure to find a hardship for me"........

Oh well, back to the drawing board. Maybe this should be a collaborative effort other planners might like to help with?.....

 

[donk]

Oh well, back to the drawing board. Maybe this should be a collaborative effort other planners might like to help with?.....

Here is the result from the last story we wrote as a group.

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8152&highlight=scruffy

 

[JNA]

Re-reading that great effort,
we never finished it or did we just lose interest?

 

[michaelskis]

...I told her the variance application would be fifty up front. She had the fifty up front. She batted her eyes at me, but I'd been duped by too many dames to be taken in by her come on. I cut her off, "Listen sister, I don't know what kind of Boards you're used to dealing with but around here we follow Robert's Rules of Order and you gotta sell your own practical difficulties without my help." She glared back at me, "Believe me, Maister, when I get in front of the Zoning Board they're sure to find a hardship for me"........

I think that Maister was a P.I. from the 20's and 30's in another life...

 

[Maister]

No. Just a talent for poor simile and metaphore....

 

[JNA]

Let me guess - you listen to
A Praire Home Companion on NPR for the Guy Noir skit

 

[Maister]

Yeah, I'm on Garrison's paid writing staff ;-) ....