Mystery Writer Lisa Turner Visits Charlotte--

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's major literary fundraising event is scheduled tonight for its third annual appearance in the Verse & Vino, featuring presentations by award-winning writers.  Five authors are invited including one from the mystery genre--Lisa Turner.  The Library's Foundation department sponsors Verse & Vino.

Lisa Turner
(photo from author
website)

On the Foundation webpage for Verse & Vino Featured Authors, it states that Turner "raced to the top of Amazon's Kindle bestsellers list with her first Southern mystery, A Little Death in Dixie.  Her second novel, The Gone Dead Train, was a 2015 Edgar nominee and continues to explore good characters who do wicked things.  New Release: Devil Sent the Rain."

Turner's novels are a series with Homicide Detective Billy Able, set in Memphis, Tennessee where she was born.  Described as suspenseful in tone, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has all titles in its collection.  And in addition to an author webpage, Turner has followers on Facebook and Instagram.  

For this evening, the Library Foundation expects more than 1,000 guests for the author event at the Charlotte Convention Center according to its fall newsletter.

Christie's "Hercule Poirot" series revived--

Agatha Christie
(photo from Google.com)

To gain new life, an agreeable family estate may give permission for a new author to write new books about a character created by a deceased family member.  Apparently in the world of fiction, it makes no sense to permanently kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.  And that is the case for crime legend writer Agatha Christie.  Her brilliant retired detective Hercule Poirot is resurrected from the 1970's to return in print last year in The Monogram Murders.   The book is the March book club selection.

The new writer of the detective series is now Sophie Hannah and our library's online catalog features the following under Author Notes & Sketches (about her): Sophie Hannah was born in 1971 in Manchester, England. She is a bestselling, award-winning poet. Hannah went to the University of Manchester and published her first book of poems, The Hero and the Girl Next Door, at the age of 24. In 2004 she won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her psychological suspense story, The Octopus Nest. Hannah was recently chosen by Agatha Christie's estate to resurrect her beloved detective, Hercule Poirot. Her subsequent novel, The Monogram Murders, was published in 2014. (Bowker Author Biography)

Sophie Hannah
(photo from Google.com)

Now, clearly the name recognition has to go the writer that the greater public knows so Agatha Christie's name covers the new mystery book cover in the same font you'd find on the official website of Ms. Christie.  Ms. Hannah is the new work horse for series and she'll be bound to be quite busy--with her writings and about "Poirot" for the foreseeable future.   

P.D. James dies at 94--

On Thanksgiving Day it was announced that English mystery writer great P.D. James had died.  She was 94.  Her actual name (and title) was Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park.
Although I hadn't read any of her work, I seem to recall a fondness   when others talked about James' Adam Dalgliesh in book club discussions about various book characters.  Dalgliesh, identified as   a police commander and poet, is a fixture with police procedural mysteries with novels published for numerous years beginning from  1962 (Cover Her Face) and television appearances. 

  Her writing spanned to a private investigator series with Cordelia  Gray (who I did see in a TV adaptation) and most recently with a  mystery set in 1803 featuring characters from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice novel  in Death Comes to Pemberley published in 2011.  Examining her beloved writing genre in print, she wrote Talking About Detective Fiction (2009) about the history and appeal of mysteries and an autobiography, Time to be in Earnest (1999).

P,.D. James (photo from Google.com)

Dubbed the 'queen of crime' James enjoyed a rich recognition in writing circles for a long, successful career. To find any P.D. James books at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library click here, go to "advanced search."  Do an author search for "james, p.d." to find her books and books on CD.   

Book club discusses "The Snowman"

The book club's July selection was Norway's crime writer Jo Nesbø's The Snowman. It is the seventh in the series featuring Oslo police Inspector Harry Hole.  A trained expert serial killers, Hole receives a letter telling of the arrival of a "snowman" with the first season's snow and the threat of death. In closing, the letter makes mention of a deceased serial killer Hole had investigated.

Jo Nesbø
(photo from author's website)

The threat turns real as one missing woman has a snowman placed at her home with her scarf around its neck.  Later, her part of her dismembered body is bizarrely attached to the snowman and the police investigation turns to homicide and the exploration of a trail of murders which form the ritual of a killer.  A new partner, Katrine Bratt, joins Harry and he assembles a small detective team for a case which can burn him professionally if anyone missteps.

   

Borrowing from the noir tradition, Nesbø's Hole is a recovering alcoholic with an uneven personal life.  His long-time girl friend broke off the relationship because of his devotion to the job and he works in a stressful and troubled environment.  Despite it all, including physical scars here and there, Hole is committed and determined to see his cases through.

One book club attendee had read Nesbø's work before.  The comments about The Snowman included the following:

• the story shows good detective work
• the detectives thought outside the box with the investigation
• noticed the people in the community are "more inward and protective," not inclined to shard feelings and also very conscious about their image
• good benefits may come from a small(er) team of investigating detectives on a case (as Harry requests and receives in the book) 
• "hard time reading it" and "kept putting it down"
• hated the "eerie, creepy, weird" elements of the story
• "dark and stupid" 
• Harry drinks a lot--common for detectives in mystery stories. 

And in a move that doesn't happen often, two different attendees read passages from the book which they liked.

The author's website notes this novel won "Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize 2007 for Best Novel of the Year and with The Norwegian Book Club Prize (Den norske leserprisen) 2007 for Best Novel of the Year."

The "Harry Hole" story is expected to receive a big screen treatment as famed Hollywood director Martin Scorsese is reportedly set to direct a movie based on The Snowman .

Author Mark de Castrique Visits Library

Local mystery writer Mark de Castrique visited my library recently for a special program in arrangement with the adult summer reading program for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  Billed the "Writing a mystery series," program,  de Castrique talked about development of his mystery series and components for effective fiction writing. 

De Castrique has two adult mystery series under his belt which are set in North Carolina. Combining the concepts that appealed to him to share in a narrative story and in locales he likes, the first series features a funeral director named Barry Clayton (Mark's father was a funeral director).  It is set in a fictional mountain town, resembling his childhood hometown.  Adding built-in personal conflicts for Barry to confront (such as self-sacrifice) along with murder investigations--a mystery series was created.  The second series features an Iraq veteran Sam Blackman set in Asheville.   

Some other points de Castrique shared included:

Mark de Castrique  (photo by blogger)

• likes to connect people and stories from the past to a present day story with interesting characters
• had worked from outlines to develop stories in earlier novels but works mostly from following the characters' stories now
• likes to include irony in stories
• when writing, he likes to pose the "what if" question
• hopes to write another Barry Clayton novel in the future
• works to be careful that too much research shared in a book doesn't turn it boring
• looks to a book editor to help shape a novel about when it should start and when it should stop
• "I'm a big believer everyone reads a different book" by the nature of experiences one brings to the story

de Castrique (photo by blogger)

De Castrique's newest book is the recently released is The 13th Target and set in Washington D.C. with a new central character former Secret Services agent Russell Mullins. De Castrique lived in the nation's capital briefly in the 70s and likes visiting the area.  He gave his first public reading of a passage from the new book which included a storyline about the Federal Reserve which interested him.

And de Castrique is careful to check facts in his writing as he shared this little story: in a pivotal scene for his newest novel, he wanted to re-examine a scene for accuracy so he took a day trip from North Carolina to Washington to settle the matter.  After arriving in the capitol, within an half hour the goal was accomplished to de Castrique's satisfaction.  Then he was free to visit family in the area--a second reward of the trip.

Book club discusses "The Janus Stone"

In April, the book club selection was the second of the "Ruth Galloway" British mystery series The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths.  Ruth is a forensic archaeologist and college educator.  She is called upon to assist the police when a child's headless skeleton is unearthed while an old mansion is razed.  Located beneath a doorway, the skeleton rested in a building that served as a Catholic orphanage years ago.  

Elly Griffiths
(googled photo)

The detective in charge of the investigation is a gruff Harry Nelson working with the horizontally challenged Ruth again for a second time.  Despite his demeanor, the two develop a bond of respect and even friendship

This case may have several possibilities as the body might be very old from the Roman-era times--related to a nearby archaeological dig--or much more recent with a story of two missing children 40 years ago.

Ruth pursues the matter with a firm determination but is hampered along the way: she is encountering credible threats to her life and she is mum about her being newly-pregnant.

Comments from the book club members included:

• bones in good preservation can offer many layers of investigation in the field of archaeology 
• the novel covers periods of British history with its archaeological digs
• although the second in the series, a recap would be helpful (and in general for series) 
• Ruth is a non-traditional lead character of a series being an over-weight person
• has the writer decided and planned well ahead for the series how to handle the implications of Ruth's unplanned pregnancy (?)
• a few read the first book of the series The Crossing Places and one read the third book of the series The House at Seas End
• good mystery book.

  

A Good Read in Advance of the Inauguration--

After the presidential election, you'd expect a lull in the all things political scene but recent news stories dictate otherwise. And I think you regular news readers (or radio listeners for NPR) would agree with me.

In that vein with an inauguration of a new president coming soon, I noticed this new paperback mystery which should have genuine appeal with all the fanfare of the upcoming presidential inauguration. The paperback is the second of the series featuring the most unlikeliest of heroines--a White House chef. Julie Hyzy writes about ambitious chef Ollie Paras with her new adventures in Hail to the Chef (a White House Chef Mystery). In this book, Ollie is quite busy when two strange deaths occur close to her and she feels drawn to follow her suspicions about them. The first death is of a careful electrician who is electrocuted to death and the second is of the First Lady's nephew who just hours before had worked with Ollie preparing food.

Hail to the Chef, also professes to include "recipes for a complete presidential meal" on the book cover.

Hyzy does show strong creative promise with this series. The first book is State of the Onion which my library system does not have.

Good in small doses--

I just finished reading the new Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich and after a long break between books in the series found it a good read. The Stephanie Plum novel of the New Jersey bounty hunter has a breathless quality of piling action, upon twist, upon humor throughout. I do like the funny quips and the characters grew on me. And the murder mystery itself is decent as the story picks up steam.

Truth be told though, this is only the second book of the wildly, popular series that I've read--I did start with the first of the series One for the Money, at least. I haven't read the others and that is mainly due to looking at other works and writers.

Should I have jumped forward in this series and not read a few of the others? I guess so but with the frequency of this series--the first book was published in 1994--I don't feel that I've missed that much. So how should I gauge the other "Stephanie Plum" books? Well, I hear comments from people at work when the new titles are released and "word of mouth" lets me know to pay attention to the series but beware of repeat episodes (Stephanie's mishaps that is) in a long-running series.

Book club discusses "Murder Among the OWLS"

This month the book club discussed the newest of a long-running mystery series by Bill Crider featuring Sheriff Dan Rhodes. Murder Among the OWLS: a Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery is the 14th book featuring the law enforcement chief in a small Texas county.

Fortunately, as new readers to this series--which included all gathered--we didn't feel as if we jumped in the middle of the series and had to play catch up. That's always appreciated (some incidents of previous crime cases were mentioned in passing mostly). The novel focuses on the death of an older woman, Helen Harris, in the community whose death appears accidental but the sheriff's gut feelings say otherwise. Why, for instance, did Helen's cat's show up at Dan's home when it is "strictly an indoor cat."

The longest section of our discussion covered the proper amount of police force to use when confronting a hostile situation. During two different times Rhodes is attacked with an improvised weapon (one much more deadly than the other) and the laid-back sheriff doesn't forcefully enough quickly quell the situation. That led to talk about a character flaw with Rhodes and the genuine need to overpower others. Rhodes tries peaceable methods but hesitates to use force and pays the price by getting banged up. In a more realistic setting, we couldn't imagine that could stay the case. Sadly, two mentioned how police may be confronted with deadly consequences when challenged by from defiant, angry individuals.

Another person noted in comparison a fictional female sheriff who had a different and more forceful attitude as being more suited for the position of sheriff.

All in all though, Rhodes tracks down a murder in a conclusion that puzzled one attendee just a little. He just found the reason for murder to be a little unclear and others responded with the character's motivations.

Writer Crider did provide a quick read for most in his an affable-styled writing. Clear and precise, one person noted an appreciation for repeating situations using different words and another for skipping repeatable dialogue. (Here's a pix of Crider from his blog I found on Google. He apparently writes nonstop--take a look at his website.)

Crider also provided a wonderfully, funny beginning for his book as I read the first four paragraphs about the cat "Sam" who wanders in and creates a home in Rhodes' house. Of course, he sneezes around it and his wife's reaction ("you're not really allergic to anything") is part of the dry humor in the story. Another found two anxious and needy deputies quite funny as Rhodes is surrounded at work by those easily-available, apparent busybodies.

In a quick informal poll, the book rated as a good, pleasant read and some began to read earlier books in the series.