Love, Death, Geography And Postage

Okay, So I Lied -
There's no love here.  Don't hate me for being deceitful, you need a bit of conceptual contrast in a title to get the old poetic resonance going, as well as tempt the passers-by to come visit.  Which other, coarser and cruder people who are less sophisticated than what I am, would call "clickbait".
     Anyway, let us now turn to the geography part of that title.  Okay, there is the South Canadian state of Maryland, and if Art can shot shovelling coal -

There the little beggar is!

     (It's for the turbines in The Mansion's power room, he's not supposed to eat it)
     There you go, Maryland, a state you've probably heard exactly nothing about.  Big in the field of biotechnology, by the way, and with one of the highest standards of living in the whole country.  There you go, two factoids about Maryland that you didn't know five minutes ago.  It's also, notably, on the east coast.  Keep that in mind.     Then we have the state of California, which I bet you've heard lots about.  Art?  Less shovel more picture!

Honkingly big in comparison

     Art, your lips are black.  Have you been sneaking coal?
     There you are, very plainly on the west coast.  East coast, west coast and with the whole enormous distance of South Canada between them.
     Yes yes yes, we'll get to the "Death" bit in a minute.  PATIENCE!
     Let us now turn to Abebooks, that site which silently empties your pockets on a regular basis*, and an evidentiary shot of prices.  Art?

One of my lunchtime diversions

     Those are prices for the original first editions published back in 1927, £63 and £58 respectively, which is more than I'm willing to pay (£40 is about my top limit).  The really interesting thing is the price of postage, which is a little hard to read:  £21 for the first book, £61 for the second.  Okay, that's rip-off pricing immediately since I know what size and weight the book is, and £10 would be adequate.  Heck, I've ordered a hardback from South Canada and it's only £8 postage.
     The next interesting thing is that the postage for the book from California is about a third of that for the book from Maryland - west and east coasts, remember?  
     I see this a lot with postage for books from South Canada, where the vendors are charging ridiculously excessive prices, varying wildly for the very same edition.
     Bah!

Conrad.  Cross.**

     Hello motley, would you like a nice cup of fresh pois - TEA!  Tea, I meant to say tea.  Damn, kicking the habit of years takes a bit of practice.  I hope my appeal against that injunction (unjustly imposed by that august body the World Motley Council) gets heard soon, all this being nice is sapping my Evil glands.

Smoking Hot
You know Your Modest Artisan, ever one to complain about the compilers of Cryptic Crosswords and Codewords.  Come on now, isn't it refreshing to hear an old man whining about "INELUCTABLE SYZYGIES" as a solution, rather than some bright young thing braying about "Love Island" or the bafoons present on a chat show?
     That was a rhetorical question and the answer was only ever going to be "Yes".
     "Smokes that are dear in France and also turns up a point (8)".
     I'll leave you to stew over that one for a while.  You're not going to get it.  It took even me ages.

You, the reader

"Dark"
This is a German television series, dubbed into appalling South Canadian, which just doesn't sound correct - Queen's English as she is spoken would be a much better improvement, as would every television programme - and it is, indeed, dark.  Also - does it really rain that much in the land of the Teutons?  I feel all at home watching it welly down.  Most of it has taken place at night, and everyone is mysterious and gloomy.  Plus, it rains a lot.  They make a lot of the phrase "thirty-three years ago ", so it's about time-travel (at a guess).

A typical jolly, light-hearted moment from the series

     Did I mention that it rains a lot?

Okay, I Shall End The Torment -
That crossword answer you didn't get was CHEROOTS, which I shall dissect for you.  Humour me on this, a crossword geek doesn't get to do this very often.  

     Smokes that are dear in France and also turns up a point (8)

Okay, "Smokes" refers to the whole word, "Dear in France" is "Cher" as in "Mon cher", rather than in the sense of being expensive.  "Also turns up" is "Too" except as it's turned up, or reversed, so it comes out as "oot" and "as a point" refers to a point of the compass, which in this case can only be "S".   Art?

Note the Kentucky bit

     It's a bit rich to use this as a clue and answer - who on earth smokes cheroots nowadays?  They might have been big in the days of Mark Twain and up to Damon Runyon, but not now, and not in Perfidious Albion.
     Another Bah!

     - o corks, all the lights were flickering in "Dark" and the police detective went outside and there were scads of birds dropped dead out of the sky and who's this coming out of the cave?  And I was right about the <Mister Hand intervenes to stop a whole lot of spoilers being blurted across teh interwebz>

Finally -
Darling Daughter is coming to visit later this afternoon, along with Quiet Tom, who has had to get rid of the beard as it prevents a good fit when donning a gas-mask.  He works in a chemical lab, I hasten to add, and is not planning to attack the Ruffians with nerve gas or phosgene***.
     Oh.  An insight has struck me.  All may be revealed later, or not, as it would be rude to ignore DD in order to create BOOJUM!
     Okay, nature calls, and then - walkies for Edna!

DD and Edna

*  Or is that just me?
**  That is, crosser than normal
***  Wellllllllll - he hasn't admitted as much, which is not quite the same thing.