Want to follow mystery authors on Twitter?

Thanks to the librarian blogger at "Librarian D.O.A." you can have at a list of mystery /thriller writers who have been tweeting. Yep you can officially stalk -- I mean follow a variety of authors. Check her list here.

If you want to follow me, be it known that I had to change my alias from Frank Hardy (there already was one) to Franklin W Dixon - close enough.

Who will play the lead in The Lincoln Lawyer?

Just heard that Matthew McConaughey will be playing the role of Mickey Haller in a film adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer. The Mystery Book Club read The Lincoln Lawyer last year and it was so well received that it was decided to read The Brass Verdict later this year.

Benjamin Black's "Dark" Introduction to Quirke Series

Christine Falls was written by John Banville under the pen name of Benjamin Black and was both a Finalist for the 2007 Macavity Award for Best Novel and the 2008 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel. In the book, we are introduced to an alcoholic pathologist working during the 1950s in Dublin by name of Quirke Griffin. The multi-layered plot revolves around Griffin's family which over many years, it turns out, have quietly forced hapless young women to give up their children to an "adoption" scheme intended to be a pipeline to support the growth of the clergy in America.

The pen name "Black" accurately, in my view, conveys the dark nature of the book. There is first of all the grim/dreary tone, the dank atmosphere, created by Banville's incredibly skillful use of words. Even the name given to Quirke's step brother is Malachy, Mal for short. The second contributor is the nature of sin and evil that lies heavy across the pages and contributes to the dark feel of the book. For example, a casual reference to a 50's song by The Ink Spots, "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie," is not so casual an inclusion by the author; Quirke and his family are filled with lies. In fact, by the end of the book it is hard to be sure the whole truth about the family has been revealed.

Quirke's sister-in-law asks: "Aren't people always supposed to turn to God in desperation?" Again, this early comment proves to be prophetic of part of the motivation for the protagonists of the book. For at the end, we hear one of the protagonists say, "The only thing good about old age is that it gives you the opportunity to even up the balance. Between the bad and the good, I mean." Yet the means is misguided so that the good is drowned by the bad: "We decide!" the other protagonist declares. "It's God's work we're doing!" to which Quirke replies, "So you're the judge and jury... you're God himself."

Another contribution to what I have called "dark" is the constant sense of foreboding. It is contained in the warnings that Quirke receives from seemingly everyone as he tries to sort out the reason for the death of a young woman, Christine Falls, who appeared on the slab of his pathologists' table, and whose file is at first mysteriously altered and then stolen. The warnings are cryptic like this from a young nun: "Watch out for yourself. There are people--there are people who are not what they seem, who are more than they seem."

I find it difficult to say whether I "liked" this book. I had a little trouble following the story at first. My first impression, that the prologue occurred years before the events in chapter one were completely wrong, but I missed the clues. OK, but I feel this error was exacerbated by the author's frequently reference in the beginning to events that occurred 25 years prior. However, once passed the first few chapters, I found that I was truly drawn into it. It was the dark sense of foreboding that pulled me along, and not any special admiration for the protagonist.

Chapter One ends with a series of questions about a photograph on Quirke's mantle. Where was it? Where? And who had been behind the camera? Questions like this pulled me along, but honestly, I don't think the answer to the last question is ever answered.

I just came back from the discussion of this book with others who made up this morning's gathering of The Mystery Book Club. I took a poll to see how everyone rated the book on a scale of 1 to 100. (See rating sheet.) Here were the results: 23, 45, 50, 57, 75, 72, 82, 81, 85. My own rating came to 76. In general these tend to be low scores for the group. It was also a much wider spread of feeling, showing less consensus than normal.

I think this is one of those books where a second reading can help to bring out a lot of subtle clues, things that make the book's coherence a lot plainer. The problem is, for me, the overload of cynicism and fatalism in the book does not really invite a re-read. I guess I can tolerate the clear-cut evil of the manical villains conceived by Deaver or Territsen or Sandford because they are too over-the-top to be real, than I can tolerate the plausible evil that pervades the world of the everyday seen through the eyes of a cynic.

However, if the sense of cynicism and foreboding grips you, there is always the next in the Quirke series, The Silver Swan.

Power Play Played Well for a Thriller TSS

Joseph Finder has written a number of thrillers, with the most recent focused on corporate settings. In Power Play, a group of top executives of an aerospace company are at an secluded lodge for an off site meeting to build team playing when they find themselves under attack by hunters with a criminal intention. Of course, all is not what it seems. This is especially true of the central character whose background is gradually revealed throughout the book.

Is it a gripping read? Well, I guess so! On Saturday night I picked up at around page 70 and could *not* stop reading until I finished at about 3:30 am Sunday morning. So it sure held my interest.

But I felt that there were a few loose threads that did not get resolved as well as I would have liked. And what held my attention so well? It was more the mini-plots - the constant minor new developments that causes one to say - "oh-oh - now what?" The big picture was the weak part; that did not contribute to the gripping feel of the book. I feel that there was room for editorial comment here, a development on a theme, yet little to none was offered. The overall plot was fairly predictable; it was easy to see, in general where this was going. But probably Paranoia, another Finder book, spoiled me as that was much stronger on surprise twist and ending. So I guess I kept waiting for the twist and never got one.

I recently read and commented on Finder's The Zero Hour. I feel Power Play is a much better book. It is way more plausible and the characters largely more believable than the Zero Hour. I still like Paranoia best.

I'll be reading a Michael Palmer book next.

Mysteries, Racism, and MLK Day

Do any mysteries revolve around a theme suitable for MLK Day? I'm not sure.

Chiefs (Stuart Woods) traces a crime through 3 generations of police chiefs in a small Georgia town. One factor is the evolving race relations. By the end of the book, An African-American chief solves the series of murders that goes back some forty years.

I have always enjoyed the Easy Rawlins character created by Walter Moseley. There are many things that come together to make the Moseley books a great series: plot, characterization, great dialog. But it's hard to find a lot of books that provide insight into the challenges of urban African Americans in the Civil Rights era (1945-1970ish) as you get from following the life of Rawlins and his friends.

Like many, I never read John Ball's In the Heat of the Night (1965) but remember the movie. The book one an Edgar for first mystery, and was strong on theme of racial tension.

A ten year old article describes "a crowded list of black protagonists who solve crimes in detective stories and novels penned by African-American writers." I am not familiar with these books. This should be a good start into some new and different writers.

As usual, the "Stop You're Killing Me" site is great for lists: For example all of the African-American sleuths featured in mystery fiction.

I found an interesting study of both positive and negative stereotyping in mysteries of the 1940s and earlier.

I do not believe that every black author necessarily will result in a book with insights into the issues of racism and civil rights in our society; however I'm not well read enough to say for sure. In looking up various books, I found one for my "must read" list: A Rage in Harlem, (1957) by Chester Himes. You can get the idea from Amazon readers and others.

The Zero Hour Quite Predictable

Imagine - a terrorist will set off a bomb in New York City, disrupting banking communications around the world. Imagine - the hero is single Mom and Boston based FBI agent who is put in charge of a task force to find the terrorist and stop him before the bomb goes off. The thing is, it is easy to imagine mainly because the plot line is so familiar. It just seemed all too predictable. I'm not sure whether the The Zero Hour (Joseph Finder, 1996) failed - or whether I'm starting to fail to appreciate such stories.

Here are some of the things that bothered me. The terrorist is a former member of the South Africa's spy agency. He was so successful that he was given the designation "zero" -- remind you of "007" at all? Anyway, at the start of the book, he cleverly escapes from a South African prison, killing two people with his bare hands. Very cold. Yet somehow the tension is not there. He is just not believable. Telling me that he is known in the trade as the Prince of Darkness doesn't build the character, it makes a joke of the character. Tension evolves in a thriller like this when the reader is brought to a state of sustained belief, even if the plot is incredible. But that does not happen with this character. Baumann, the real name of the terrorist, is master of everything. He seems to be able to be in more than one place at a time as the plot evolves from Washington DC to New York City. He seems to know many details about American culture, specific places in Washington and New York, and yet there seems no basis for his ability to know these things. He is portrayed as a convincing actor, able to take on accents and personae at whim. He can actually cause Sarah Cronin -the Terrorist Task Force leader- to let down her guard and believe that he is a benign architect. No - it's way too much. Either that or Finder cannot make me believe it.

In the midst of great personal stress, Sarah is relieved when a stranger saves her son from nasty hoodlums in NY Central Park. For several chapters, Finder has this architect insinuate himself into the life of Sarah and her son. There was absolutely not the slightest surprise when the reader is told that the nice guy is actually the Prince of Darkness. Come on! So predictable.

Then there is the whole idea that Sarah would receive the kind of career treatment granted to her by the FBI in the book. The FBI seems way too accommodating to her personal requirement to live in Boston, since her divorce decree required her to live near her ex-husband. Then, she is suddenly brought to Washington and made Task Force leader! Just, not believable.

Finally, Finder goes out of his way to introduce and then explain high tech stuff. But it just gets in the way. Do mystery readers really need to get so much information about the well-known fingerprint classification system? Does anyone not know what a local area network (LAN) is? Well Finder takes a few paragraphs to explain the way the computer network is set up in the Task Force office in New York. But it has no bearing on the story, the characters, or really even the setting.

I read it all the way (but I rarely give up on a book). But it was largely a forgettable story. The Zero Hour by Joseph Finder is not at all up to the quality of some of Finder's more recent books, such as Paranoia. Maybe Finder is stronger with these more recent stories because they are largely new ground - there are not so many "corporate thrillers" as international bomb and terrorist stories. But it's really more than that. I was much more completely drawn into the characters in Paranoia. And the ending of Paranoia is anything BUT predictable.

Michael Palmer's New Book

Michael Palmer is one of my favorite authors - not only can he deliver an awesome medical thriller plot, but he does so with concern and often a bit of a message.

He announced today that his newest book, The Second Opinion, is out in mid-February. A conspiracy surrounds the hit and run accident that puts Dr Thea Sperelakis' father into a coma. But beyond the tension and plot, there is the character of Thea. She has Asperger syndrome, which gives her an obsession with details, a near-encyclopedic memory, and a rather charming awkwardness in social settings. The novel is not merely a thriller but also an exploration of its central character’s unique gifts and her determination to communicate with her comatose father despite overwhelming odds. I am looking forward to reading this one!

He will launch his new book at a fundraiser for the Asperger’s Association of New England. Palmer writes: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 from 7-9:30 we will be having a party to celebrate the book and to raise money to benefit the Aspergers Association of New England (AANE). Venue will be the utterly funky Scout House; 74 Walden Street, Concord, MA. Admission of $20 will go entirely to AANE, as well as a portion of all booksales. There will be music, piles of pastries and some great guests including New York Times best selling authors Tess Gerritsen, Joe Finder, and Mark Vonnegut, who will be signing their books. Featured speaker will be John Elder Robison, author of the best selling Asperger memoir, LOOK ME IN THE EYE.

To Reserve a spot or just make a donation to AANE, send a check to: Asperger’s Association of New England; 85 Main Street; Suite 101; Watertown, MA 02472-4409. You are welcome to come even if you haven't reserved a spot, but reservations will be admitted first, and if the Scout House fills up, you will have to wait until there is room. So register early!