To Honor those Who Serve

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Tomorrow is Veterans Day. My Dad was a vet, so was my father-in-law. Neither liked to talk about their wartime experiences, but from what I could gather, they were transformative. What they saw in battle left lifetime scars, despite the fact that neither had any visible injuries.

We know that is true for the young men and women who are returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers tell of the horrors they’ve seen, and the emotional scars of carrying those memories. No one is unscathed from their service. It is their courage, selfless commitment, and determination, in the face of dangers seen and unseen, that we must honor.

In the current economic crisis, the new administration will have to make some brutal budget decisions. Programs will be cut; services will be reduced. But let me add my voice to the call for honoring the debt we owe to our vets. We must invest in our VA system to fulfill our promise “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and his widow and orphan.”

Here are four critical veteran issues that demand immediate attention.

1. Allocate the necessary funds to provide the healthcare that our veterans have earned. More than 5 million vets receive healthcare from the VA — but the system is stretched beyond capacity and the wait for care is intolerable.
2. Reduce the backlog of VA disability claims. There’s more than a six month backlog of claims. Veterans shouldn’t have to wage another battle to get the benefits they’ve earned.
3. Support Advanced Funding for the VA medical budget. Currently, the VA budget is approved annually — but in 13 of the past 14 years, political bickering has delayed approval. Advanced Funding for the medical budget would mean the VA would know its funding a year in advance and could plan personnel, equipment, and services.
4. Support diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. VA must continue to improve accessibility to mental health care services for all veterans and that takes adequate funding for research and treatment.

Parades are nice; stirring speeches make us proud. But let’s make sure that our veterans receive, in a timely fashion, the benefits they’ve earned.

With love and gratitude to Captain Carol Edelman, Major Melvin Borden, and all the brave men and women who have served our country.

Evelyn David

Veteran’s Day from a Veteran Wife of a 20-yr. Navy Man

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Lousy title, I know–but it more or less sums up what I have to say.

My husband was in the Seabees for 21 years, and served on both coasts and all around the world: Cuba, Spain, Greenland, Alaska, and three tours in Vietnam during the war. (I never went with him out of the US because his tours were to short to take family.)

We lived close to Port Hueneme Seabee base for many years and were able to use the commissary, Navy exchange and base hospital which certainly helped financially. We made so little money that we could have gone on welfare. (I bet it’s the same for some of the service families today, depending upon where they live.) Most of the time (when I wasn’t having a baby) I had a part-time or full-time job so we could eat–sharing half my pay with a babysitter.

During the Vietnam War, civilians were ugly to service men. No one every thanked my husband for his service–more likely they spit on him. Things have changed–now when hubby wears his Seabee cap, people stop and thank him for his service. The wives ought to be thanked right along with the men.

We had five children, and while hubby was serving the U.S., guess who raised the kids? Guess when all the crises happened? Guess who watched the news about the war and when hubby’s base was hit, wondered if she still had a husband?

None of these separations are good for marriages. While hubby was gone, I made all the major decisions, took care of everything–when he came home he wanted to be the boss. Finally I told him he might be the Chief in the Seabees, but I was the Admiral at home.

He wanted to stay in the Seabees for 30 years, but by this time the kids were all in the teens, or nearly there, and I put my foot down. It was time for him to give up his uniform and become an active duty dad.

Because we no longer live near a base, we don’t shop or go to the doctor there. Fortunately, the government has come up with a medical plan for vets that works and we can go to any doctor of our choice.

Hubby never attends Veteran Day parades or hangs out with vets. He does like to talk about how wonderful the Seabees are and watch war movies.

Aubrey Hamilton

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Aubrey Hamilton began reading the adventures of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and Donna Parker at an early age and became enthralled with the mystery literary genre and its many subcategories. A long-time member of and occasional poster on DorothyL, she also reads manuscript submissions for Poisoned Pen Press. She lives in northern Virginia with several cats and thousands of books.

At last month’s Bouchercon in Baltimore, I attended a forum on historical mysteries. One of the authors on the panel mentioned that historical mysteries didn’t sell much before 1989. which struck me as odd. Have we only been reading historicals for 20 years?

I checked the index on Stop! You’re Killing Me to establish the entrance dates for some of the long-running historical series: The first of Edward Marston’s many series was published in 1988; Australian flapper Phryne Fisher solved her first case in 1989; William Monk, the Victorian police inspector, made his bow in 1990; Gillian Linscott’s books about a suffragette in England began in 1991; the first adventure of Gordianus the Finder was published in 1991; Dame Frevisse first appeared in 1992; Laura Joh Rowland’s samurai series emerged in 1993; the Pennyfoot Hotel opened its doors in 1993; Sister Fidelma debuted in 1994; Bruce Alexander immortalized Sir John Fielding in 1994, and Daisy Dalrymple joined the journalistic corps in 1994.

Only a half dozen of those I looked up were published prior to 1989: Peter Lovesey’s Victorian detective duo in 1970; Amelia Peabody in 1975; Brother Cadfael in 1977; Thomas and Charlotte Pitt in 1979; and Max Allan Collins’ Depression-era PI in 1983. Oldest by far was Judge Dee, the Chinese magistrate from the 600s, who appeared in print for the first time in 1952.

So I asked myself: what was I reading before the deluge of historical mysteries? I distinctly remember working my way through Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Erle Stanley Gardner, and the stray unread Christie. A librarian in Louisville introduced me to the classic series by Patricia Moyes, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Emma Lathen, Sara Woods, and Gervase Fen. “Merry-Go-Round”, a short story in Fen Country, is one of my all-time favorite stories even now.

I stumbled on Richard Stark’s professional thief Parker in graduate school, when I picked up a paperback of Slayground. The concept of the anti-hero was new to me and I was enthralled. Seldom do I remember how I discovered a series but that one was so utterly unlike anything else I had read that the memory has stayed with me.

I was a huge fan of Elizabeth Linington’s police procedurals. My mother first discovered the Luis Mendoza series through that Halloweenish entry, Coffin Corner, about an indigent family who took a creative approach to avoiding burial expenses and passed it on to me. I was elated to learn that Linington wrote similar procedurals under other names and I carefully acquired every title in each series, which I still have. Sadly, these books did not stand the test of time. Linington recreated the Los Angeles of the 1970s so vividly that it is hard to read past the anachronisms to the sharp plots and careful characterization.

Unlike Linington, Richard Lockridge created an almost timeless character in Merton Heimrich, a New York State police detective whose stories could have taken place any time in last half of the twentieth century. I preferred reading about Lt. Heimrich to Lockridge’s better known characters, Pam and Jerry North. The same is true of John Creasey, who wrote prolifically under many names, but I liked his Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Division the most.

Of course Sharon McCone, Kinsey Milhone, Carlotta Carlyle, and their sisters began to appear in the 1980s and my attention was diverted to them. I was delighted by Charlotte MacLeod’s gently ditzy stories with clever plots that materialized about the same time.

I suppose the real question is not what I was reading before the onslaught of historical mysteries, but what happened around 1990 to suddenly make historical mysteries so popular?

Any ideas of why 1990 is the turning point for historical mysteries?

Aubrey Hamilton

Intersecting Traditions

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My office has a Christmas or holiday luncheon in early December each year. Besides current employees, we invite retired employees and their families to attend. We eat a meal together, catch up on each other’s lives, joke, and generally have a good time.

For years we put together a pot-luck dinner at the office – cleaning, moving tables, and decorating for days. Eventually as all of us got older, the work involved outweighed the fun. We started going to restaurants for our luncheon. There are not that many to choose from in the area where our field office is located, and none that made the occasion special. We briefly went back to the pot-luck dinner.

One day we discovered, by word-of-mouth, an Amish family who prepared meals for groups. You have to make a reservation several weeks in advance and you have to have a large party. We tried it and enjoyed it so much we’ve done it every year since. Our catered meal at an Amish farm has become a tradition that everyone looks forward to.

For $13 per person, we are served “family-style” roast beef, ham, hot rolls, Tapioca pudding, home canned green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, slaw, iced tea, coffee, and two kinds of pie. It’s all you can eat and the best food I’ve ever tasted.

We eat in a simple one room building lighted by gas lamps. Hand-made quilts, jams, and food stuffs are displayed for purchase on tables near the open kitchen area. Long tables line the rest of the room. The food is prepared and served by reserved women wearing white muslin bonnets and long aprons. They welcome us with cheerful expressions and a calm manner seldom if ever found in traditional restaurants.

Each year I wonder what our hosts think of our loud, boisterous group comprised of people of many faiths. I wonder if they resent our presence; if they resent the need to feed outsiders in order to supplement their income. They’ve never indicated by word or deed that they are anything but happy to host our luncheon each year. But still, I wonder and feel a little awkward even after all these years.

Today, we’ve chosen a date for this year’s luncheon – December 2. My office manager will call a business where the Amish family receives messages (they don’t have a telephone at their home) and leave a message. In a few days we’ll get a call back, confirming the date and we’ll continue our tradition.

Maybe in some small way our tradition supports our hosts’ tradition.

Evelyn David

The Halloween Post-Mortem

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Today, out of respect to the loser and his constituents, I will assiduously avoid the topic of the election and to stick to something we can all agree on (I hope): Halloween.

We wave goodbye to another Halloween, although if you are like me, you’ve still got pounds and pounds of crappy drugstore chocolate in your houses. (Though I would wrestle you to the death for an Almond Joy.) We had a very successful Halloween around these parts: child #1 dressed as Charlie Brown and went trick or treating with a group of similarly-attired Peanuts characters; child #2 had the “best day ever” because his friend, B., despite being close to four years older than child #2, still trick or treats with him because as his mother says “it’s all about the candy for B.” At nearly 13, he doesn’t care about looking cool, or traveling with a pack of boys armed with shaving cream and silly string, or just being an all-around carouser. He wants to go house to house, charming the pants off of whomever is answering the door, and getting his fair share (or more) of candy. B. and my son know every house that gives out a full-sized candy bar, who gives out the bags of pretzels, and who will provide juice boxes to thirsty trick or treaters. They’ve got it down to a science.

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, or if you know me personally, you’ll know that I’m a little neurotic and crazily over protective. Halloween, in particular, brings out the worst in me. It brings back memories of razor blades in apples (which by the way, I’ve never encountered), roaming bands of zombies (again, never seen), and haunted houses (and…never been to one of those either). B.’s mother suggested that the boys hit the Halloween trail on their own, being as they would be in the general vicinity for most of the night. Although I knew in my heart that child #2 would be okay with B. in charge, I felt better when my husband said he’d “ride along.” And I’m glad he did, because he offered more insight into the trick or treating rituals of these two boys, which B.’s mother and I found hilarious. If only the boys brought this kind of intensity and planning to their schoolwork. The boys had a brainstorming session prior to hitting up the first house and decided on a two-pronged approach. The first approach was called the “traditional”: in the “traditional,” you walk calmly up to the door and ring the bell, plastering on your best and cutest smile. When the door is answered, you say, in unison, “trick or treat.” Charmed by your cuteness and good manners, you are handed more than your fair share of candy by the homeowner. “Bowling,” on the other hand, refers to uninhabited houses whose owners leave bowls of candy on the front porch. In “bowling,” you approach the house as quickly as possible and fill your candy bag with as much candy as you can before Jim, your chaperone, reminds you that you are not the only people trick or treating on that street.

The girls on the other hand, were more of a rag-tag bunch, wandering aimlessly through town with no plan as to where they would go, which houses they would target. Truthfully, I think they spent most of their time talking, a concept that the boys found ludicrous. There’s candy to be had! Suffice it to say that they came back a little lighter in the pillowcase than the boys who sported at least six and seven pound bags of candy, respectively. They looked at the girls’ paltry haul and decided that they needed more guidance next year so that they could maximize their intake.

We didn’t have as many children as we normally do this year, and considering that Halloween was on a Friday, I can only assume that a lot of people had indoor parties. We also have a couple of neighborhoods in town where kids congregate to trick or treat and which were overflowing with costumed ghouls, from what I’ve heard.

How many trick or treaters did you have? Did they seem to have an orchestrated plan of attack? And most importantly, what did you do with your left over candy?

Maggie Barbieri

Need Help Planning a Launch Party

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In January I’ll have a new book out–not one of my Deputy Tempe Crabtree books–this one is in my Rocky Bluff PD crime series. Not a cozy–but not really as edgy as many police procedurals. (I never use bad language or have explicit sex in any of my books.)

It’s difficult juggling two series. No Sanctuary will be published by a small independent press, of course. I want to give this book as much promotion time as my other series. I always have some kind of launch party–but not quite sure what to do for this one.

It’s about two ministers, and two churches and of course murder. A church might be a logical place, but I don’t think my son-in-law who is the pastor of the church I go to, would go along with the idea. I might broach it just to see. By the way, the churches in the book have no realtionship whatsoever to our little church.

I’ve had launches outside our local coffee shop (too cold in January), the local Inn, a recreation center (long gone), a gift shop (gone), used book store (gone), antique store, my house, art gallery (gone). Nothing lasts long in our little town–people start businesses who don’t know anything about running businesses.

Of course I’ll do all the usual Internet promotion, but I always like to give my neighbors and fans a chance to purchase my book first.

Any bright ideas about this? Feel free to post them in the comments.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Finding Gold among the Dross

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I had a wonderful time last week visiting the Pequannock library. Rose Garwood, the librarian, and her staff, had decorated the room for Halloween – a perfect setting for my talk: How to Commit Murder – A Mystery Writer Offers Some Clues. There was a terrific turnout, delicious refreshments, and a lively discussion.

Knowing the vagaries of the New Jersey Turnpike at rush hour, I arrived at the library about an hour early. It gave me time to wander throught the mystery section. I squealed with delight, earning astonished looks from other patrons, when I discovered a copy of Rest You Merry, the first book by Charlotte MacLeod, in her delightful Peter Shandy series. I think this was the first mystery that I ever read that included humor as part of the storyline. Dame Agatha and Arthur Conan Doyle always presented a first-rate whodunnit, but as might be expected, humor was not their strong suit.

In contrast, I was laughing hysterically when I finished the first chapter of Rest You Merry, perfectly envisioning the scene she’d drawn. There was the sweet curmudgeon, Professor Peter Shandy, exacting delightful revenge against his neighbors who insisted he decorate his home for the holidays. So before stealing away in the middle of the night, he pays for an over-the-top Christmas decoration extravaganza, including flashing lights and a taped recording of I Don’t Care Who You Are Fatty, Get Those Reindeer Off My Roof. Too bad – or maybe too good for us readers – but when poor Professor Shandy slinks home, he discovers a dead body in his over-decorated house.

I enjoyed skimming the mystery, but found myself intrigued by the introduction that Charlotte MacLeod had penned for this edition, published by the legendary Otto Penzler fifteen years after the book’s original debut. She described how she originally created the first chapter as a short story which she submitted to Yankee magazine “and waited for my check. What I got was my story, by return post, with a stiffish rejection. Yankee was not amused.”

I had one of those aha moments. Charlotte MacLeod, who at the time of her death had published 30 novels and won countless awards, understood exactly what happens when you send off what you think is prose that would make Willy Shakespeare weep – and get back a rejection that hints that you might instead consider a job in the great outdoors, herding sheep or something.

Ms. Macleod, who died in 2005, is described, in the Wikepedia entry, “as a ‘true lady’and often seen with hat and white gloves.” She had her own rituals for the creative process: She “began writing at 6 a.m., continued through the morning, then used the afternoon for rewrites. She only started new books on Sundays and during writing would stay dressed in a bathrobe to avoid the temptation of leaving the house for an errand.” I too often stay dressed in my bathrobe, but alas, mine is a result of slovenly habits.

In any case, ten years after that original rejection, Ms. MacLeod decided that the short story would make a wonderful first chapter…and Rest You Merry was born.

It made me think that it was time to go through the virtual drawers of my computer and pull out some of those early rejects. I’m not sure I’ll find gold like Ms. MacLeod, but who knows?

Evelyn David

The Ghost of Elizabeth I

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D.S. Dollman has had a life-long fascination with ghosts, poltergeists, shadow people, and other mysterious beings. She blames her obsessions on the cheap burritos she ate as a kid while watching vampire movies in the dark. Dollman received her BA and MFA degrees in creative writing from Colorado State University. She was a member of the English Department faculty at Colorado State University teaching classes in creative writing, composition and literature, and instructor of a variety of writing classes at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colorado. D.S. Dollman lives in Texas, home of the real headless horseman, where the bugs are the size of small children and the natives say, “Hey, if you don’t like the weather here, wait a minute. It will change!”

This is such an honor for me, a ghost story writer, to guest blog at the Stiletto Gang on Halloween, the 3000 year old Celtic celebration honoring the end of harvest and the first days of winter. Later this evening, as the skies grow dark and cold, and the veil that separates the living from the dead grows thin, the spirits of the dead will once again walk among us. There was a day when the thought of ghosts made me nervous. There are some characters in history that should not be allowed to walk this earth again. The ghost of Jack the Ripper creeping through the shadows of my kitchen doesn’t appeal to me, but I guess you can’t choose your ghosts any more than you can choose your family.

If I could choose a ghost to haunt my haunts, I would choose the ghost of Elizabeth I of England. I first read a biography of Elizabeth I when I was ten years old, and I was mesmerized. The thought of a woman prospering, excelling, and conquering a man’s world appealed to me, an abused child, in ways that I could never put into words. “I will never be, by violence, constrained to do anything,” Elizabeth once said. It wasn’t her successful reign as Queen of England as much as her stubborn resistance to gender-based oppression that attracted me, even as a child.

Elizabeth I was born in 1533, the second daughter of the infamous King Henry VIII. Her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded three years later. Anne was Henry’s second wife, and when she failed to provide him with a male heir, he reacted in a manner that was to become his trademark response, exposing Elizabeth at a very young age to the undeniable truth of her times—it was, indeed, a man’s world.

Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England in 1558 when she was twenty-five years old. It was a time of great mystery and intrigue when enemies were poisoned and queens lost their heads. Elizabeth’s remarkable life was fraught with moments of intense fear that she could not outwardly show as it would have weakened her image and placed her in danger. I sometimes wonder if it saddened her to know she could never have a “normal” love relationship with a man. I wonder if it was, as some have speculated, a fear of a power struggle that kept her from making a marital commitment. “I may not be a lion, but I am a lion’s cub and I have a lion’s heart,” Elizabeth once said. She certainly was capable of feeling love, but perhaps she reserved her love for her people and never really longed for marriage as much as one might think.

Elizabeth I ruled over England for forty-four years, a surprisingly long reign. And it seems as if her familiarity with the daily routine of a ruler has kept her bound to Windsor Castle, the official home of British royalty. According to witnesses, Elizabeth’s spirit, dressed in black, still walks the halls, and occasionally the walls, of the castle. Elizabeth’s ghost has also been spotted at the Tower of London where she was imprisoned by her older, half-sister, Mary. Elizabeth spent many long, painful days in the tower staring out the windows, waiting for the soldiers to lead her to her death.

If I could speak with the ghost of Elizabeth, I would ask her where she found her strength. What was its source–ambition, fear, a love of power, or something deeper, spiritual, and personal? Perhaps it was faith in her self, in her belief that she was destined for something better. In this day and age when we rely on drugs, alcohol and doctors to give us strength and make our world seem brighter, I think we all could use a little faith like Queen Elizabeth’s.

D.S. Dollman
http://www.dsdollman.com/

The 2012 Amazing Political Race

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Political campaigns are too long and we don’t get any real details about what the candidates propose to do until the last few months – if then. Let’s do it differently next time. Each party gets four players. Plus there are “invitation only” slots (determined by an internet poll).

Instead of campaign speeches and rallies – I propose we require the candidates for the highest offices in the land to run…literally “run” a race and more. May the best man or woman win. (Point values would be assigned to each event – winner 5 points, runner up 4, and so on. Points would be cumulative.)


The first month – Endurance
1. Run a 100 yard dash or a 10K marathon – candidates’ choice.
2. The next week we’d move on to bowling or golf.
3. Basketball or tennis next.
4. Balance beam or parallel bars.

The second month – Talent
1. Sing the national anthem in a football stadium.
2. Perform the Rumba and Jitterbug with a professional dancer.
3. Play a medley of Billy Joel songs on the piano, flute, or guitar – candidates’ choice.
4. Whistle the theme from the Sound of Music.


The third month – General Knowledge
1. Jeopardy
2. Trivial Pursuit
3. Do You Know More Than An Average Third Grader?
4. I also propose a few “must pass” multiple choice history, geography, and basic science tests.

The fourth month – Writing, Reading Comprehension, and Truth Telling
1. The candidates must sit quietly in a room, with no handlers, read and then write a 3000 word essay on the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights (extra points for good spelling). Maximum time allowed – twelve hours. Copies of the completed essays would be published for all to review.
2. One live “debate” with hundreds of questions will be conducted. Each candidate will be sequestered in a separate “cone of silence.” Each would be asked the same question, they would respond to that question. If they don’t answer a question, they would be eliminated from the contest immediately by the sounding of a loud gong. If they answer the question, they are returned to their cone. This process would continue until no candidate was left on stage. (Note – points are assigned based on correctness, creativeness, and amusing delivery.)

Points are totaled. Top three get to tour the nation for two weeks, giving speeches, running ads, and slinging mud. Then we vote.

Evelyn David

Control Freak: A Life

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Control Freak

My husband went to Cape Cod last week with his class of seventh graders for a week of whale watching, nature hikes, and science exploration. Me? I was home with the kids, who ate Elio’s pizza every night while I had a bowl of cereal and a glass of chardonnay. There’s a certain freedom in not having to cook a meal every night—not that Jim expects that—and by being able to put your pajamas at six thirty, just in time to see what our presidential nominees have said about each other that goes beyond, “nanny-nanny-poopoo”. (The answer? Not much.) Or what their running mates and constituents have said or done to help either candidate effectively lose the race. Say what you want about either candidate, but it ain’t easy being them.

Anyway, after two days of nighttime cereal and pajama wearing, I got bored. And when I get bored, things can take a seriously dramatic turn around here. And by dramatic turn, I mean furniture gets moved around. All of it. At once. By me. I don’t let anything like a lack of upper-body strength or the absence of professional movers stand in the way of moving any furniture, be it a wing chair or a heavy sideboard. When I decide I want something moved, by golly, it will be moved.

So I moved a bench from the hallway into the living room (looks great), a chair to a nice corner of the room and away from the television (perfect for reading), rearranged a few odd pieces, and voila—new living room. I was very happy with the way things turned out.

Jim called that night to see how things were going.

Me: Now, if you were me, you would probably have a complete melt down when I tell you this, but because you’re you, I’m hoping you don’t.

Jim (steeling himself on the other end of the phone line): What’s going on?

Me (inhaling deeply): I rearranged the living room.

Jim (exhaling loudly): That’s it?

Me: Yep.

Jim: Well, that’s better than what I thought you were going to say.

See, the thing is, Jim’s not a control freak. But I am. And if he had called me and said that he had rearranged the furniture in my absence, that news would have ruined my trip. I would fret the whole way home, an inner monologue playing out in my twisted brain: where did he put the couch? What about my mirror? Where will the three framed pictures of France go? And will they look good there? God, I bet the whole thing got screwed up! I hate change of any kind but that still doesn’t account for the iron fist that I impose on everything. Once, he had supervised a fence being installed in the back yard while I was a national sales meeting for my company. I kept him on the phone for at least forty-five minutes, hectoring him as he described exactly what the fence guy had done. Years later, I have no idea what it was that seemed so important at the time about the placement of the fence, but back then? It was about as important as one thing can get, and I’ve been through some pretty important life events.

What is it that makes some of us cling to things that really don’t make a difference? What makes us control freaks? I think it is a way to place order on a chaotic life—when I was working full-time out of the house, traveling the equivalent of three months a year, and was away from my family for far longer than I wanted to be, it was my way of imposing order on things or making it seem like I was involved or in control. I was definitely involved, but definitely not in control, which made me way to control things even more.

Things do not go more smoothly because I’m a control freak, and while I know that intuitively, it doesn’t change the fact that I have to have my hand in every single thing that happens in the house. And I also know the breath of fresh air that wafts into a room when I relinquish control of something. So why does the control freak persist?

Dedicated Stiletto readers: who out there is a control freak? Who’s a recovering control freak? And what advice do you have for this work in progress?

Maggie Barbieri