response 15 of 104:

Jun 26 03:41 UTC 2001

Nope.  Unlike everyone guessed so far, the author is a woman. 
Continuing to travel backward in literary time:

   "You have not answered my question, sir," I bit off.
   He ignored my fury.  Worse than that, he seemed unaware of it.
He looked merely bored, as if he wished I might go away.
   "What am I doing here, do you mean?"
   "Exactly."
   "I am watching bees," he said flatly, and turned back to his
contemplation of the hillside.
  Nothing in the man's manner showed a madness to correspond with his
words.  Nonetheless I kept an wary eye on hom as I thrust my book into
my coat pocket and dropped to the ground--a safe distance away from
him--and studied the movement in the flowers before me.
   There were indeed bees, industriously working at stuffing pollen
into those leg sacs of theirs, moving from flower to flower.  I watched,
and was just thinking that there was nothing particularly noteworthy
about these bees when my eyes were caught by the arrival of a peculiarly
marked specimen.  It seemed an ordinary honeybee but had a small red
spot on its back.  How odd--perhaps what he had been watching?  I
glanced at Eccentric, who was now staring intently off into space, and
then looked more closely at the bees, interested in spite of myself.  I
quickly concluded that the spot was no natural phenomenon, but rather
paint, for there was another bee, its spot slightly lopsided, and
another, and then another odd things: a bee with a blue spot as well. 
As I watched, two red spots flew off in a northwesterly direction.  I
carefully observed the blue-and-red spot as it filled its pouches and
saw it take off toward the northeast.
  I thought for a minute, got up, and walked to the top of the hill,
scattering ewes and lambs, and when I looked down at the village [...].
  "I'd say the blue spots are the better bet, if you're trying for
another hive," I told him.  "The ones you've only marked with red are
probably from Mr. Warner's orchard.  The blue spots are farther away,
but they're almost sure to be wild ones."  I dug the book from my
pocket, and when I looked up to wish him a good day he was looking at
me, and the expression on his face took all words from my lips--no mean
accomplishment.  He was, as the writers say but people seldom actually
are, openmouthed.  He looked a bit like a fish, in fact, gaping at me as
if I were growing another head.  He slowly stood up, his mouth shutting
as he rose, but still staring.
  "*What* did you say?"
  "I beg your pardon, are you hard of hearing?"  I raised my voice
somewhat and spoke slowly.  "I said, if you want a new have you'll have
to follow the blue spots, because the reds are sure to be Tom Warner's."
  "I am not hard of hearing, although I am short of credulity.  How do
you come to know of my interests?"
  "I should have thought it obvious," I said impatiently, though even at
that age I was aware tht such things were not obvious to the majority of
people.  "I see paint on your pocket handkerchief, and traces on your
fingers where you wiped it away.  The only reason to mark bees that I
can think of is to enable one to follow them to their hive.  You are
either interested in gathering honey or in the bees themselves, and it
is not the time of year to harvest honey.  Three months ago we had an
unusual cold spell that killed many hives.  Therefore I assume that you
are tracking these in order to replenish your stock."
  The face that looked down at me was no longer fishlike.  In fact, it
resembled amazingly a captive eagle I had once seen, perched in aloof
splendour looking down the ridge of its nose at this lessor creature,
cold disdain staring out from his hooded grey eyes.
  "My God," he said in a voice of mock wonder, "it can think."

response 17 of 104:

Jun 26 05:21 UTC 2001

I hope it's not that vampire woman, Anne Rice.

response 19 of 104:

Jun 26 14:58 UTC 2001

Hmm, when someone gets it right I'll be interested in looking this book 
up, sounds like fun.

response 21 of 104:

Jun 26 18:43 UTC 2001

Carole Nelson Douglas.

response 23 of 104:

Jun 27 01:03 UTC 2001

There is, of course a Doyle story that describes at length events
that occurred in America, albeit not in Minnesota.

response 25 of 104:

Jun 27 05:17 UTC 2001

Its A Study in Scarlet. It doesn't describe any events Holmes or Watson
were involved in in America - but I didn't say it did. 

response 27 of 104:

Jun 27 05:41 UTC 2001

Nope. The Sign only visits India, Andaman Islands, and England. 

response 29 of 104:

Jun 27 12:56 UTC 2001

_The_Valley_of_Fear_ also has much of its action in the US.

response 31 of 104:

Jul 1 07:10 UTC 2001

The thing about Manhattan is that everything is here, all mixed together,
that's what I love about it.  Ugly things and beautiful things you didn't even
think could exist.  It's loud and dirty, our apartment is teeny and you have to
walk up eight flights to get to it but we have a fireplace with carved angels,
a leopard-print chaise lounge, Maxfield Parrish prints of nymphs in classical
sunset gardens, pink-damask drapes and silk roses in platform shoes from the
40's and 70's that Izzy has collected.  Izzy grows real roses in pots on the
fire escape.  She loves flowers and is always teaching me the names of
different ones.  She especially likes the ones with really ugly names. 
Anastasia grows oregano, dill, parsley and basil on the fire escape.  She uses
them in her special inter-international recipes.  Anastasia believes you should
never be afraid to mix cultures.  She makes a Japanese-Italianish miso-pesto
sauce for pasta and a bright-pink tandoori tofu stir-fry.  I can tell what
she's making just by sniffing the air.  Sometimes when Anastasia doesn't feel
like cooking, she and Izzy and I go to our favorite restaurants.  We have
golden curried-vegetable samosas and yogurt-cucumber salad under trees filled
with fireflies in the courtyard of our favorite Indian restaurant.  We have
fettuccine at an Italian place where the Mafia guys used to shoot each other
while they were sucking up pasta.  We like the pink and green rice chips and
the rose petals in the salad with the peanut dressing and the ginger tofu at
our Thai place.  There is a Middle Eastern restaurant we go to where you can
get minty tabbouleh and yummy mushy hummus in pita bread for really cheap, and
a funny Russian restaurant with bright murals of animals in people clothes
dancing around cottages in the countryside.  We eat borscht there, and drink
tea from a silver samovar.

response 33 of 104:

Jul 3 02:15 UTC 2001

Oh dear.  I'm not quite sure how I managed to do that.

Would it help to repost #31?  If so, I will.

response 35 of 104:

Jul 6 02:46 UTC 2001

Haven't got a guess to offer, but sounds pretty recent.

response 37 of 104:

Jul 6 08:19 UTC 2001

(As soon as we find out what this is from, I think I'm going to find and read
it! :)  

response 39 of 104:

Jul 10 04:40 UTC 2001

I knocked and waited.  I knocked again.  My heart was imitating my fist. 
 What if my father answered the door?  After a while I heard footsteps 
and the sound of a peephole opening.  A tall white-haired man, with a 
huge white moustache that curled up at the ends, opened the door.

"Hello," he boomed Swissly.

"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for somebody."

"Who are you looking for?"  He twirled the end of his moustache around 
his finger and glowered at me.

"Irving Rose," I said.

The man's blue eyes looked like they were doing a jig and the rest of 
his body seemed like it would follow any second.  His cheeks turned 
pinker.  "You know Irving Rose!  The genius!  I haven't seen him in 
years."

"He used to live here?"  I asked.

"Yes he did.  In this very apartment.  I moved in when he left."

"Who are you?"  I asked.

"The landlord, Uncle Hansel," the man said.  He bowed so low that I was 
afraid his moustache would tickle me.  Instead all that happened was I 
got a little dizzy from his cologne.  Then he put out his big hand and I 
shook it.  I tried to see behind him, into the apartment where my father 
used to live.

"Could I come in?"  I asked.

"Didn't anyone tell you that children shouldn't go into the apartments 
of strange men!"  Uncle Hansel scolded.

"You're not strange," I reassured him, still trying to see.

"Well, all right, but we'll leave the door wide open and you must run 
out if you feel in the least uncomfortable, dear," Uncle Hansel 
insisted.

I followed him to a small, dim room that smelled of rye bread and 
strawberry jam.  It was filled with wooden furniture carved and painted 
with hearts and flowers.  There were jars of roses, ferns in birdcages, 
a collection of mechanical windup toys and as many cuckoo clocks as 
could fit on the walls.  As I looked at them, they all started chiming, 
and a flock of wooden cuckoos scooted in and out.  I wondered if that 
drove Uncle Hansel crazy, but he seemed to be enjoying it.  He smiled 
proudly at the birds and twirled his moustache.

"Would you like something to eat?"  Uncle Hansel asked.  "Although, come 
to think of it, little girls aren't supposed to accept food from 
strangers."

"You knew my father, though," I said.  I was hungry, and I had a pretty 
good sense of smell -- I bet there really would be rye bread and jam.

"Your father!"  Uncle Hansel exclaimed.  "Why of course!  The genius!  
You look just like him!"

"So could I maybe have a snack?" I asked.

"Of course.  Come with me."