Scarpetta and the Challenge of Series Books

I read two of Patricia Cornwell's books featuring Kay Scarpetta, forensic pathologist, but it was quite a few years ago. The first in the series was written in 1990! Time flies when our heads are buried in mysteries! I digress already.

Why did I stop reading the series; why did it take so long to return? I'm not sure exactly, but my best memory is that the second book that I read (I don't know which book title this was) contained the re-appearance of the "bad guy" from the previous book I had read. That bugged me. When the book is finished, I want the mystery to be solved, and the killer to have been "finished." Perhaps that is unfair, because I have maintained an interest in other series where that has happened. But still, how many series can a person read where you begin to lose track of what happens in which series?

No matter which Hardy Boy book you read in which order, you are not going to be confused by the series because the main characters are always the same. Frank and Joe remain more or less perpetual high school juniors and seniors through over 50 summer and winter vacations. In the Perry Mason series by Erle Stanley Gardner, no matter which book you read in the 80 book series, nothing has happened in the personal life of Perry, Della, or Paul to make you wish you had read 32 other books first. And so on.

Nowadays, this is not the case. The main character gets married in one book, divorced in the next book, raped in the next book, and provides legal aid to her rapist in the tenth book while trying to help the grown child of her former husband's second marriage alluded to briefly in the fifth book. Try reading that series out of order. Who wants to read the Harry Potter series in backwards order? (Confession, I have not read even one of the books.)

The way that authors approach the development of their central characters is spread along a continuum of "No Change" (like Frank and Joe or Perry and Della) on the one extreme and the "Every Book is a New Chapter" (like Harry Potter and pals) on the other extreme. I'm fine with the middle of the continuum. V I Warshawski (in the series by Sara Paretsky) and Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton) do make some life changes over the course of the series, but not enough to confuse the reader who might join the series in the middle.

Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series is (for me) annoyingly not in the middle of that continuum, but veers toward the "Many Changes" end of the line. Cornwell's 2008 novel was given to me by a good mystery reader pal and I decided to give it a go.

The plot and characters were great! No problem -- enjoyable. The author played fair with the ending, letting you in on the clues ever so gradually.

But the book was annoying! So much reference to events of the past. I wouldn't be surprised if the total of all such paragraphs might equal 20% of the 500 page book. Since Scarpetta's past (15 books in all) is referred to at length, and since I had not read those books (not all of them, and none recently) it was hard to make sense of all the allusions. These references included previous cases, previous jobs in her career, previous locales in which she had lived, people close to her in previous books who are no longer living, and on and on. I suggest that a huge amount of that material could be deleted -- yep, edited right out of the book. That way, previous readers in the series can pick right up and new readers are not left feeling like the out duck out at the class reunion. Knowledge of every preceding event is NOT necessary to understanding the present case. So why burden me and confuse me.

There you have it. My own take.

Happy reading!

Tell No One - Great Film based on Coben's Book

Our Mystery Book Club had a great discussion in the end of October concerning Harlan Coben's book, Hold Tight.

During the discussion I mentioned the film that came out in USA theaters in July based on his 2002 novel, Tell No One. I read the book several years back. It was a strong, well written, gripping thriller. The story centers on Dr. David Beck, a New York pediatrician whose wife was murdered eight years before. Now there is an email that purports to come from her and it ends with, "Tell no one."

I saw the movie last July when it came out - the only movie I saw in 2008. I have to say that it captured the mood, the characters, and the plot of the book extremely well. What makes the film adaptation of Tell No One so amazing is that it was produced in France, it is in the French language, and the setting is changed to France. There is a minor plot change to make the story believable in a French setting. Other than that, it is accurate to the book.

The film will be out in DVD format on March 9, 2009.

See the film trailer by clicking here.

To me, the fact that the film was so well done is nothing short of amazing. It is way beyond the norm of mystery books rewritten for the silver screen. Among the many terrible mystery book adaptations for film was "V. I Warshawski" - particularly annoying to me because I love Paretsky's character.

Yeah - Still reading mystery books

I realize I have not been posting and I am truly repentant - well, sorry anyway. But I have been reading plenty of mysteries, nevertheless. Of course each month I have read our book club (MBC) selection. You can see my score (out of 100) listed. Here is what I have been reading:

December 2008
->Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only (MBC Selection - My Score = 88 The book club members average score was decidedly lower than mine.)
->John Sandford, Dark of the Moon


November, 2008
->John C. Mortimer, Rumpole & the Penge Bungalow Murders (MBC Selection - My Score = 45 The book club members score was decidedly higher than mine)

October, 2008
->Harlan Coben, Hold Tight (MBC Selection - My Score = 95)
->Harlan Coben, The Inncoent, Deal Breaker
->David Morrell, Extreme Denial, Testament NOTE: I gotta read more of Morrell's books.

September, 2008
->Steve Martini, Undue Influence (MBC Selection - My Score = 93)
->Steve Martini, Shadow of Power [I'm a big Paul Madriani character fan but this book was the weakest in the series in my view], Compelling Evidence, (first in the series and good)


August, 2008
->Ed McBain, Fiddlers (MBC Selection - My Score = 64), Fat Ollie's Book.
->Jeffrey Deaver, The Cold Moon

July, 2008
->Richard North Patterson, Degree of Guilt (MBC Selection - My Score = 87.5)
->Elmore Leonard, Killshot

Hard

Yesterday I mentioned reading The Hard Way by Lee Child. On the same overseas trip I also read Hard Truth by Nevada Barr. It was just a coincidence. Or was it?? I also brought in my suitcase Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich. What would Freud say!?! [I didn't read the Evanovich book because, it turns out, I had read it before. No, I didn't have my list with me on my rush trip to the library, see my Oct 13 post.]

Hard Truth stars Anna Pigeon in her 13th adventure as a park ranger and sleuth. I enjoyed the story and characters, but occasionally the writing was annoying. There were paragraphs when it was hard to determine who was doing or saying what. Admittedly, when there are more than two characters in a scene, this is a difficult challenge for a writer; yet one that must be overcome to keep the reading smooth. Also, Barr uses a vocabulary that exceeds that of any other modern mystery writer I've read. I wish I had written down a few of these "big" words while reading through because I can't remember them now and I don't feel like reading the book again to look for them. I just remember how distracting and unnecessary it felt at the time.

The story takes place at Rocky Mountain National Park. I have visited there some years back, so it was fun reading from that point of view.

The book actually has two leading characters, and alternates point of view between Anna and Heath Jarrod, a wheelchair-bound woman who was recently paralyzed in a climbing accident. Barr does a marvelous and convincing job with Heath; actually, Heath could easily be a great character for a second series of books.

The plot had some well done red herrings. Is it the rigid cult leader? The cult youth leader? The park ranger who has lied about her ties to the charismatic youth leader? The last 100 pages was a continuous build-up in suspense.

I still like V I Warshawski as my all time favorite female sleuth, along with Carlotta Carlyle. Of course there's Nina Reilly- I'm a sucker for the legal thriller. As for Anna Pigeon? She's.... ok, maybe even more than ok. But maybe not exactly my cup of tea. I might read another, but...

...it might be just the thing for another visit to a National Park. My wife and I and some best friends recently visited here. Does it make you think of a good story line?

The Book Version or the Movie Version

What do you like best, the movie version of a mystery/thriller or the book version?

I was thinking of the movie versions of books by my favorite authors. Here's some examples:

I love the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Moseley. When Moseley finishes a paragraph you can feel the sub-culture of 1950s LA - I am there! The history is live! So when Devil in a Blue Dress was made into a movie with one of my favorite actors (Denzel Washington), I put it into my VCR with huge anticipation. What a let down! It just couldn't capture it. I wish I could put better words on "it." Is "it" - ambience? flavor? aroma? emotion? stress? I just don't know how Moseley does it but it wasn't in the film. More importantly, I couldn't follow the plot as done on film... and supposedly I already knew it! Nope, the book is better.

I also love Vic Warshawsky, the tough feminist-minded insurance investigator created by Sara Paretsky. I enjoy the realism in the book and the lead character is very believable. The plots are well developed. Extremely fun reads. Then a movie was made with the title "VI Warshawski- Detective in High Heels." My overall impression from the book is that Vic is not exactly a high heels kind of gal-- so right off, you know something is amiss. Then the script plays more like a comic mystery - I assure you that is not the case in the books. The movie was not based on one specific book. As someone on Paretsky's forum states: It "kind of cobbles together some of the stories. It stars Kathleen Turner. It's an ok movie, but doesn't really do justice to Sara's books - a single book made into a movie would be good!" How true.

I could go on, but generally the book is the real deal. Extreme Measures might be an exception. This was a great movie and a great book IMHO.

Here's something I wonder about: Which is more to the point-- ?
(1)People who read a book they like, will spend money to see the movie.OR
(2)People who see a movie they like, will go out and buy the book.