Bloodhounds and red herrings
RED HERRING, n., exp. Without even trying to, in my head I had made up a whole little fake history for this expression. “Probably there was some groundbreaking important murder mystery with a literal red herring in it,” I said to myself, “and it was misdirection, and that’s why we refer to things that seem like clues but aren’t as ‘red herrings.’”
This sounds plausible, but much like if we were all characters in a murder mystery, nobody should trust me. None of that is true.
Anyway, the dictionary gives us better leads to follow. First of all, a herring is a fish, and when people said “red,” they were referring to smoked herring, as opposed to fresh herring, which is white. Smoked herring has a strong smell, and supposedly from the 1680s onward, there was an idea that fugitives used it so bloodhounds couldn’t detect them or track them by scent.
A black-and-white illustration of a bloodhound tracking a scent in a snowy forest, leading hunters to their prey. Sourced from DepositPhotos.
Is that true? I found a couple of sources disagreeing. Some people assert that smoked herring could be used in training a bloodhound—you drag the fish across whatever scent trail the dog is following to try to confuse it—but the fugitive thing remains a big question. The dictionary is not a good source for what happened, just what people talked about. Probably actual seventeenth-century fugitives were too busy evading the law to write down their Top 10 Tips and Tricks, so we will never get to know if anybody really covered their tracks with red herring essence, but if you are writing a historical novel set in this moment, please take this idea and run with it. Then email me about your book.
The red herring becomes a metaphor for a diversion in the 19th century, when a radical journalist named William Cobbett uses it repeatedly in criticizing the rest of the press for following false leads and losing track of important matters.
Eventually the usage becomes specific to murder mysteries, and that’s how we get to me misleading myself into thinking this expression must originate with a murder mystery, which is itself a red herring.
Back on the right track, here’s what I’ve been reading in small-r romance:
Sweethand (bi m/het f, both cis, contemporary) by N.G. Peltier. This romance between a baker and a music producer is set in Trinidad and Tobago and I enjoyed all the cultural details about food and music and society. Two lovable main characters to root for, some great enemies-to-lovers chemistry, a large entertaining cast of supporting characters, and a rich, beautiful setting—what more could you want? Content warnings: past infidelity, difficult relationship with a parent, some bodyshaming from family members, a tiny bit of biphobia, sex.
The Bride Test (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Helen Hoang. Hot and funny and compelling and super emotional. I almost never tear up while reading bleak moments in romance novels, but this one got me. It’s about an autistic Vietnamese-American man whose mother arranges a potential marriage for him with a young Vietnamese woman by bringing her to stay in the US for several months. He’s grieving—has been suppressing his grief for years—and won’t let anybody get close to him, and she is the perfect determined ray-of-sunshine weirdo to slip through his defenses. Gorgeous. Content warnings: grief, ableism, sex.
Role Model (m/m, both cis and gay, contemporary) by Rachel Reid. This was charming and I was immediately absorbed in it and if my favorite parts were appearances by a supporting character from a previous book in the series, don’t take that the wrong way. I just really, really love Ilya Rozanov. Anyway, it’s nice to imagine a world where a hockey player who stands up for rape survivors gets recognition for his efforts while his rapist former teammate gets real consequences. Content warnings: discussion of rape and rape culture, homophobia, emotional abuse from a parent, sex.
And in things that are neither Romance nor romance, I listened to the audiobook of Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, a novella in her sci-fi series The Murderbot Diaries, which was delightful. “Someone who is not human tries very hard to figure humans out” is a premise I love, and Murderbot is a very funny, endearing, exasperated narrator.
I also read the middle-grade graphic novel Snapdragon by Kat Leyh, which is about bones and witchcraft and being your gloriously weird self. It’s lovely. It also has a Black trans girl character and several other queer characters, in case you happen to be seeking kids’ books with that kind of representation.
I did indeed finish a draft of my manuscript in the past two weeks. Every time I get to the end of a draft, it’s a huge relief—just to know that endings are, in fact, possible. Not only for other people, but also for me!
Even with that accomplishment, I still have too much else going on, so this newsletter will be slightly less frequent over the next few months (?). I will aim for every other Sunday. See you then!
