…readers, by and large, are clever, intelligent folks… they can also often be dismissive of shoddy WURK from an Author, regardless of how vaunted that writer’s celebrity may be… the basic mystery novel, and much of crime stories will frequently hold wee ‘pointers’ toward the eventual denouement of the plot… these are frequently contained in a ‘cluster’ of information/details rolled out as the book progresses, with further ‘clues’ developing as the narrative is unwrapped… what is not welcomed by the perceptive reader are ‘surprise’ revelations that ‘suddenly’ result in ‘solving’ the plot line… that kinda quill-scraping is to be avoided at all costs… however, I’d like to focus not so much on the ‘big’ clues technique mentioned above, but in the thinking writer’s art of ‘planting’ stuff throughout the story… fr’instance in my first Jack Calder crime thriller, THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY, one of the main characters gets hit by…