Contributor and Voice of The Five-TwoMargot Douaihy's debut crime novel Scorched Grace hits bookstores today. Introducing chain-smoking, heavily-tatooed, queer Sister Holiday, it launches both a series and a publishing imprint, Gillian Flynn Books:
When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding community are thrust into chaos. Unsatisfied with the officials' response, sardonic and headstrong Sister Holiday becomes determined to unveil the mysterious attacker herself and return her home and sanctuary to its former peace. Her investigation leads down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets in the sticky, oppressive New Orleans heat, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way.
Sister Holiday is more faithful than most, but she's no saint. To piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must first reckon with the sins of her checkered past—and neither task will be easy. An exciting start to Margot Douaihy’s bold series for Gillian Flynn Books that breathes new life into the hardboiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
The body in the library.
The page torn. Wedding dress
never worn. Gold watch stopped
as poison pierced the blood stream.
The killer left a clue! Or is it a ruse?
The game’s afoot. Murdertainment.
Locked-room puzzler.
Tired feet on mean streets.
Following the tortured
detective into the dark bar
where she stares into depths
that never blink back.
Why do we watch?
Redemption? Destruction?
Fist busting through drywall,
the sibling who stops calling
after the last will is read.
Meanwhile, the globe rotates
so fast we don’t notice.
The cobweb survived the storm—
gothic geometry intact.
Your travel mug travelled on
the roof of the Subaru,
like an angel or friend,
after freeing your hands to dig for keys.
The cat walked home, across two states.
Ghost orchestra of cicada & moon.
Can any good mystery ever be solved?
No identity revealed, revenge delivered.
Still we search—for proof, for clues,
something, anything that says
you’ll be okay. We’ll find a way.
Throw me the keys
& let’s get the hell out of here.
Margot reads "Viewers Like You":
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Margot confesses:"‘Viewers Like You’ is an evocative phrase that precedes PBS programs like Poirot, Miss Marple, and Sherlock. I’ve always been captivated by this phrase; it spoke directly to me while acknowledging a community of viewers, and voyeurs. As a hardboiled PI writer and lifelong mystery fan, I am less interested in the grim and gruesome details of ‘the murder’ and more invested in the ways crime storytelling can reveal our strength, resilience, and innate will to survive.”
MARGOT DOUAIHY, PhD, is the author of “Scranton Lace” and “Girls Like You,” both published by Clemson University Press. Her true-crime poetry project, Bandit Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, is forthcoming with Clemson University Press. Douaihy’s work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, The Colorado Review, North American Review, The Tahoma Review, The Wisconsin Review, and The Petigru Review. She is the editor of the Northern New England Review.
Every poem I publish at The Five-Two is a favorite of mine, so in past years I've allowed readers to vote on three of my six submissions for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology.
With the COVID-19 outbreak this year and other business, I had no time to open the voting, but at yesterday's deadline, I submitted the following.
In the order they debuted during Best of the Net's July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020 eligibility period:
I.
Yep, I’m a sea witch. I tricked Ariel.
But don’t ask me to apologize.
Don’t call me a villain. I’m the last realist left.
I magicked merfolk into polyps. So what?
King Triton knew. You have to fight dirty
to get through. Flotsam & Jetsam,
my electric legs, my true brood, understood.
I might be a crime boss, at least I’m not rude.
II.
Last memory before I died: Heat.
Flames ate my chest as the spar
skewered my spine. Deadwood,
I thought it’d break like a beak
weak from a lifetime of lies. It didn’t.
Plasma gushed where my three hearts
hummed. The deeper the cavity
the harder to plug, like desire,
like the echo of my love,
buried in the sea cave
carved so low
gravity loses track.
Cartography can’t catch it.
No trap can map it.
III.
I invented underwater lipstick!
I was the first artist to store hearts in jars!
I’m the only sea witch in history
who could boil blood into stone!
I bit lightning to the bone!
Rode electricity to the node!
Ariel begged for legs! I gave her legs!
Merfolk wouldn’t know gratitude
if it slapped them in their scales!
I floated graveyards so ghost ships
could sail! I'm the last hope of hydrogen-
hydrogen-oxygen! My mother is Mad Science!
Don’t dress me in that trope! It won’t fit!
IV.
Say my name. Say my name.
In Ursula hides an urge.
I live in whatever world I want. Sea birds
scream on deck as my black hair traps jetstreams.
Thunderclap ripped birth into my body,
like surgery in reverse. Purple killed white
as I spilled myself through my tight
wedding dress.
V.
Wind blows eyes open, fire signs the scroll.
Can you blame me? I wanted to play,
they wouldn’t let me. It was my turn
to try the trident, stir the sea;
water rewound like a redacted vow.
VI.
Charybdis flung the gold rings back to ore.
Every sundial lies. Only a whirlpool
can tell time, devour hours.
Haha, precious Ariel! Counting seconds before dusk.
Days nest into weeks, months into years.
Yes, time is invisible, but the end stills pulls
her, me, all of us, like an underwater waterfall.
VII.
I died, but it was not for naught.
As the sea burned, my death fed
eye-less nits burrowed in silt.
Now I’m marooned on lunar sand
so taut & dry I can’t cry.
I miss ocean, my hammock of tide,
coral reef under feet.
I miss the tickle of gills.
Crying underwater is underrated.
I hope Ariel tattoos fins on her wrist
so she never forgets the price of fame.
VIII.
From here I watch it all spin—
Earth’s secret moons, coronet of sun.
I know now why the globe is a ball—
orbs can roll away, always stay lost.
Margot reads "Autobiography of Ursula":
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Margot confesses:"Does a criminal differ from a villain? Which one has more cultural currency for women? Watching The Little Mermaid with my niece, I wondered if isolation drove Ursula's depravity. My poem, divided into eight sections representing the witch's limbs, imagines her motivations, contours, and contradictions."
MARGOT DOUAIHY, PhD, is the author of “Scranton Lace” and “Girls Like You,” both published by Clemson University Press. Her true-crime poetry project, Bandit Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, is forthcoming with Clemson University Press. Douaihy’s work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, The Colorado Review, North American Review, The Tahoma Review, The Wisconsin Review, and The Petigru Review. She is the editor of the Northern New England Review.
