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Tracking Time (April Woo Suspense Novels)

It's a foggy early September evening when Dr. Maslow Atkins, a psychoanalytic candidate and student, is assaulted and disappears in Central Park. The only people who know what happened to him are Pee Wee, an inebriated homeless man hoping for a handout; Brandy and David, two wealthy private school kids who roam the Internet and Central Park; and Allegra, Maslow's disturbed young patient who's obsessed with him.
Investigating outside her jurisdiction of Midtown North and without authority in the sacred confines of the Central Park Precinct, NYPD Detective Sergeant April Woo prompts a media frenzy and the rage of the whole department with a K-9 search that yields nothing. Nothing, that is, except the keen interest of Brandy and David, who think they can tease the cops, bluff the tracking dog, and get away with murder.
April's gut instinct still tells her that Maslow is alive, and she won't stop until she finds him. Working against the clock and demons of her own, she and psychoanalyst Dr. Jason Frank become embroiled in a surprising and lethal tangle of family secrets and adolescent rage. Nobody escapes unscathed, for no family's story is as innocent as it seems.

The appealing Chinese American NYPD detective April Woo is back in this popular series. Psychiatrist Jason Frank has asked for her help in finding Maslow Atkins, a training analyst who's gone missing after a therapy session with his patient Allegra Caldera, a highly disturbed young woman. Maslow was last seen setting off for an evening run through Central Park, so April calls in a canine tracking unit. The dog's discovery of the body of a homeless man who was the only known witness to Maslow's abduction causes a rift between April and her boyfriend Mike Sanchez, the homicide cop who abruptly pulls rank to take over the case. But April stays on Maslow's trail anyway, and soon finds that although Allegra seems to be the logical suspect, two out-of-control teenagers from affluent families may also be involved in the kidnapping and murder. When Allegra turns out to be connected to Maslow in ways neither he nor Jason Frank suspected, the plot takes another fascinating turn.
What makes author Leslie Glass's police procedural series unique (Stealing Time, Judging Time, Loving Time) is the cross-cultural relationship between April and Sanchez, a romance doomed to failure, according to Skinny Dragon, April's endlessly fascinating mother. It took several books in the Time series for April to fall into Mike's well-muscled arms, and if Skinny Dragon has her way, there'll be plenty more before she dances at their wedding. --Jane Adams

Update: There have been a number of questions that have come up as a result of this series so I'll try to answer them here.

How do you get these? - Ummm... I sit in the sun for hours being harassed by bugs and getting all sweaty. The whole point to this sitting time is to let things settle down and watch what the bugs are doing. The males of some species will fly around certain bits of airspace patrolling for food, females, and intruding males. When they get into this mode, they will often adopt a location to hover and inspect their domain and then slowly work a grid pattern through it from that starting point. If you sit and become part of the environment at the right distance, you will be able to figure out their pattern and anticipate where to level your gaze. Then, it's just a matter of being patient and waiting for them to be where they should be.

Key to this strategy is using manual focus 'cuz these bugs will set an AF system into spasms trying to lock onto them. AF also locks the shutter release until it is satisfied that it has locked on correctly. With manual focus you'll get a lot of crappy pics but you'll also get quite a few that are good. Also, if you have a stabilizer system, use the mode that accounts for panning. On Canon lenses, this is mode 2. This will allow you to track the bugs better when the are cruising slowly. Finally, never waste your time trying to photograph a bug that's zooming by - it just eats up card space with bad images and pictures of the background with no bug in it.

Please tell me they were hovering and not patrolling. - Sorry, the image above and the middle one in the comments section were moving. But, I will admit, at they were patrolling a small area at very low speed. I had set up my focus and watched that particular bug pass through a spot at least a hundred times at about walking speed so I would wait for him to pass through and then I would fire off 15 snaps without adjusting focus hoping that I would get him in frame and sharp on at least one of them. That worked at an acceptable level producing 2 good images out of the 60 I took that way. To be sure, though, this only worked with this species because they stayed in a small area and were very deliberate and slow with their movements.

How many memory cards did you fill? - Actually, I only took about 175 images to produce these pictures. That's about 2/3 of an 8Gig card. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I was getting very warm sitting in the direct sun and gnats were getting stuck to my skin and making me really uncomfortable. Otherwise, I would've filled two cards just on these guys. I really thought that I would get home and end up with only one usable image but I actually got these and few more that I didn't post. I think that having practiced so much and failed with my XTi and 300mm made it much easier with to do with the resolution and features afforded by my 7D. Ultimately, I think it's just a matter deciding that you want something bad enough to be willing to burn the amount of time it takes to get it. Oh yeah, and a lot of luck as well.

Final Note - Getting dragonflies in general is very similar to the process one must adopt to fishing. The real work is in understanding your target and observing its behavior in a specific situation. Some like to perch while others prefer to fly. Some have a favorite perch or patch or airspace while others roam. They all behave differently when they have their minds on procreating and that can produce excellent opportunities. The snap of the shutter is the last part of this process, albeit the reason that you're watching these bugs to begin with, and needs to be what happens after the observation is complete.

2010 List
Green Darner - Anax junius
Eastern Pondhawk - Erythemis simplicicollis
Blue Dasher - Pachydiplax longipennis
Calico Pennant - Celithemis elisa
12-spotted Skimmer - Libellula pulchella
Widow Skimmer - Libellula luctuosa
Carolina Saddlebags - Tramea carolina
Common Whitetail - Libellula lydia
Slender Baskettail - Epitheca costalis

We thought we were due a holiday and, having never been to the Algarve, me and Elena decided that a birthday weekend in Portugal for ?10 per person each way was too good a bargain to pass up. Return flights of THREE AND A HALF HOURS for both of us for ?40! Who would say no!

WE arrived in Faro at about noon on Saturday, a time that we Brits are used to seeing high streets buzzing with shoppers and diners and the place was like a Ghost town. After getting off the bus in the centre of town we were pretty convinced we'd alighted a few stops too early as there was no life to be seen at all.

They obviously do things differently in Portugal.

After a while of looking for people we decided to make our second wall of the trip and here it is.

By the end of the trip we came home totally relaxed. If you're thinking of a trip to the south of Portugal in the off season, it's cheap but there really is very little to do, so make sure you bring some postcards to make REAL walls like what we done!

Thanks to Cross Ryu, Dumpsterdiver and the others who accompanied us there in spirit!

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