Whodunit?

audrey is on face book & has read 'the sandburg connection'

the big literary news is that i  am now on facebook.

the big literary question is what in the world does that mean.

everyone has told me that i have to be on facebook in order to sell my books. i do have one new book on the market now (Turning Leaves: an anthology of prose and poetry) and one due out in a few months (eloquent tattoo) plus a hand full of old titles that can probably be bought and sold someplace. i simply do not see the connection between facebook and sales. the 40 people who immediately signed up as friends (thank you all v. much) have no intention of running out and buying a dozen books apiece. i wouldn't expect them to. someone help me out here. please.

and please go to audrey lavin on facebook and friend me.

 

and i'll go back to the business of reviewing books. this time around it is mark de castrique's The Sandburg Connection (Sam Blackman Mysteries), a sam blackman mystery. private investigator sam blackman teams up with his partner and lover nakayla robertson in their third mystery. i have not read the other two, but am certain that the sandburg connection stands alone.

castrique grew up in the ashville, north carolina area, where the story takes place. he obviously knows the locale and is fond of it. he and his later egos, blackman and anderson, follow history professor janice wainwright up a local mountain. because of her bad back, she is suing a local medico for malpractice. he is considering counter-suing if she shows signs that the back doesn't really hurt. that is where the mountain climb comes in. ah, ha!

just out of sight of the sleuths, something happens to janice. when they catch up with her, they hear her dying words 'the sandburg verses.' in search of the meaning behind those cryptic words, the reader is led to a local theater; sandburg's house, connemara; the civil war; and more.

as an old chicagoan i am mighty fond of sandburg, even though the story goes that before every photograph, he had to go to a room with a mirror in order to rough up his hair. also, i like the wry humor in the story, as exemplified in the give and take in the snappy conversation between the detective partners. but it just doesn't grab me. it is well researched and i wish mark de c. the wish i wish for myself that our regional works gain a large audience beyond our regions, north carolina and ohio.

de castrique seems well on the way to doing this. the book is available in hard back, paper back, large print and audiobook.

it is published by poison pen press and is 288 pages.

 

happy post thanksgiving to all.

whodunit? rhys bowen's latest- 'naughty in nice'

l.s.l. in new jersey writes as a first step to help sales for the third of my eloquent series- 'Mary Beth needs her own email address!' is that true? if i obtain an e-dress for mary beth, who in the world would use it? her fictional boyfriends already send her fictional e-mails. some answers needed here.

 

good news on two new literary fronts: the massillon museum now carries Turning Leaves: an anthology of prose and poetry in its gift shop, a shop that is already a show place for an interesting assortment of gifts you won't find in other stores.

 

on the reading front, the good news is that rhys bowen's Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery) is in store and libraries. the newest in  bowen's royal spyness mystery stories, Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery) isn't very (naughty, that is), so don't get your hopes up. but darcy remains the main squeeze of lady victoria georgiana charlotte, eugenie, daughter of the second duke of glen garry and rannoch, thirty-fourth in line to the throne of england. not that georgie would ever use such an expression as 'main squeeze' or that anyone would in the 1930s when the story takes place. bowen does include the slang of the day, though. for example georgie isn't sure if she's having her leg pulled or not.

 

although the story is extremely light-hearted, hints of future world problems are cleverly inserted as throw-away parts of conversations in the same casual way they were  heard and received by many in that era.

 

i also think that ms. bowen does an  excellent job of describing scenes as georgie sees them. georgie is disappointed to see that the famed beaches of nice and the riviera are all stones. fifteen years later, i was too!

 

as a fellow writer i am jealous that rhys bowen gets away with not having the murder happen until page 171. no matter what i write, the story is returned to me to move the murder up to the first ten pages. this might be necessary for hard boiled detective novels, for the nordics noirs i've been writing about so much lately, but as a reader, i like to feel the atmosphere and the build up to the murders. furthermore, i think women do write differently than men do. we approach the tale by telling the story, not by leaping into action. for me, this is not 'wrong,' but rather 'different' and, in the case of Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery), adds to the appeal

 

this is getting away a bit from talking about naughty in nice which i heartily recommend as a light, engaging, and intelligent continuation of georgie and her royal spyness mysteries. the only problem i find is with georgie's maid. it's hard to have two (georgie and her maid) charmingly clumsy women front and center in a story. get her a beau, rhys, and get rid of her.

 

the novel is published by berkley prime crime and is 328 delightful pages with some real history and coco chanel thrown in for good measure.

 

 

audreylavin.com      http://bit.ly/flTthc

whodunits? black swan and the sauvignon secret +soon new 'eloquent' murder mystery

 

three notes of interest: 

 

1.  Novelist Fights the Tide by Opening a Bookstore, article in today's new york times By Julie Bosman Nashville's reading faithful have found a savior in Ann Patchett, the best-selling author, whose Parnassus Books will open Wednesday.

2. here's a flash fiction contest that runs from November 14 through December 16.  An entry must contain the line "but those aren't your shoes."  For complete submission guidelines, go to http://columbuscoop.org/writing_contests/

 

3. my own good news is that the third novel in my eloquent series, eloquent tattoo, is now in the hands of the publisher, anaphora press, where it will be edited and ready for the book stores by the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012.

 

meanwhile, i finished reading two more murder mysteries this week, two novels that are written for a special reader, who is not necessarily me.

 

chris knopf's Black Swan (A Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery) brings up a recurring problem for writers of mysteries. if you, the author, want to play fair with your audiences, you have to give them clues. the problem is when is enough, enough? by page 25 when the person who turns out to be the murderer is introduced, i knew who it was (carefully hiding gender here). i also saw through the code writing immediately, and i'm the kind of reader who goes with the flow. i don't try to figure out mysteries. i enjoy the unfolding.

 

another problem for me with black swan is that it is too much a man's mystery. i'm not sure why. it's about sailing and the computer business. it is all unraveled by sam acquillo, who i've read about before and enjoyed more, and his compliant girlfriend amanda. by far the most interesting and most fully realized character is his dog, eddie. i think i've enjoyed the other acquillo books more because they all take place in the hamptons. this one is on the ship he is delivering and block island.

 

if i'm counting right, this is knopf's sixth mystery, his fourth sam acquillo hamptons novel. it is published by the permanent press and is 304 pages.

 

the second recently read novel to be discussed today combines two of my favorite topics--wine and murder. not long ago i gave The Viognier Vendetta: A Wine Country Mystery (Wine Country Mysteries) a thumbs up. it is an earlier mystery in the wine country mystery series by ellen crosby. this newer tale, The Sauvignon Secret: A Wine Country Mystery (Wine Country Mysteries), is the sixth in the series. it also stars lucie montgomery who owns a vineyard and her ex? beau quinn santori, who is the former manager of that vineyard.

 

the action moves from northern virginia to the california wine country as lucie tries to solve one or two murders of members of a secret society, at he same time solving the problems of her love life. not a complex novel, no lingering after taste, certainly no explosion in the mouth or light hints of berries and peppers. you might enjoy it.

 

it is published by scribner and is 256 pages.

 

audreylavin.com         http://bit.ly/flTthc

adler-olsen and more nordic-noir whodunits

 

as many of you know, november is national novel writing month. i haven't tried it myself, but i have a few writer-friends who have and loved doing it. you might, too. contact nanowrimo to learn more about this annual internet-based writing contest. this is a great time to put your pen to the paper or fingers to the keys and try to complete a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. by now, it is way under thirty days! but you can do it. children too. please let me know if you try and especially if you win any of the awards or favorable mentions.

 

do you ever feel that you don't have to talk? that the books and articles you read carry on a conversation for you? i was reading the latest internet market and economic news on TheStreet wondering why more murder mysteries aren't written about financial advisors and economists being murdered. some would make perfect victims. we're talking fiction here! later that day i was reading the arts section of the financial times from 5 march. at least it was 2011. there i found a review of, not a murder mystery it's true, but almost as good, a satire about the financial crisis. the book is aptly titled Other People's Money: A Novel by justin cartwright. i haven't read it, so can't recommend the novel, but the critic lucy kellaway does. it seemed as if TheStreet and the financial times were talking with each other.

 

i was pretty critical of jo nesbit's The Snowman in my last column. i would like to add that i did learn something, a great deal when i followed through, about the connection between raynaud's disease or syndrome and sclaroderma. i had not realized that the syndrome could also be a symptom.

 

speaking of which, i've read another nordic noir murder mystery, which i really enjoyed. i speak of The Keeper of Lost Causes by jussi adler-olsen. 'lost causes' translates to 'cold cases.' the novel brings up another medical question: can someone be kept in solitary confinement for five years without going mad or else simply wasting away? the book could have been just as effective and the bad guy just as psychotic if our heroine had been kept in solitary for perhaps two years, a more believable time table. anyway, why quibble? this is fiction. i enjoyed it and recommend it to other readers of danish murder mysteries. again, we have a deeply flawed detective, chief detective carl morck. his side-kick , an outsider in a different way, is an arab named assad. assad brings to the book the charm that carl lacks, though i sort of like carl, too. the two eccentrics search for the five year missing, presumed dead, legislator merete lynggaard and uncover a horrific revenge plot being enacted against her.

 

the translator is lisa hartford. this is the first in the series about department q that has been translated. i look forward to the others. the novel is 395 pages and is published by dutton.

 

audreylavin.com                http://bit.ly/flTthc

jo nesbo's 'the snowman,' a bloody whodunit

 

greetings readers, writers, and curious passers-by on the internet.

 

a number of you have written to ask if falling leaves is available at second april in canton. the answer as of a week ago tonight is yes she said yes yes. please go in and buy a copy or two.

 

as to my opinion of jo nesbo's The Snowman, which i have just finished reading, the fault dear reader is in myself, at least partially. i am unfamiliar with nordic names. though i have no trouble telling masculine from feminine in karin fossum's inspector sejur novels or in mankell's kurt wallender mysteries or in steig larsson's trilogy and certainly not in arnaldur indridason's, which are icelandic and always suffixed with someone's son or someone's dottir (carl carlsson, ingrid rakelsdottir), i do, however, have a difficult time recognizing the gender of nesbit's characters.

 

of course, almost everyone murdered is a woman, so that helps to solve the problem as there are a great many people (i think they are all mothers) murdered as gruesomely as possible. one gets the feeling that nesbit is not all that fond of women.

 

in my previous blog, i mentioned one woman i liked as far as i had read in the novel. she is  detective harry hole's side kick, smart, pretty, witty, strong, and also with the oslo police force. it turns out that she is also nuts. well, to put it in better language, she needs a great deal of psychiatric help. i got that one wrong. i also had the devious bloodthirsty murderer wrong. for some unknown reason there is a carpenter in the detective's apartment, someone he doesn't know, who is looking for mold. i wouldn't leave my house open to some unknown guy who comes in and out saying he is looking for mold, especially if i were a person on a number of people's kill list!! 

the whole concept of the current popularity of scandinavian novels is an interesting one to play with. one web site that i can't find now asks, Why Scandinavia, and why now? With a global economy winding down and a global climate heating up, why are we drawn to thrillers set in places known for starkness, darkness and lengthy surnames featuring double consonants? i think that the words of the question answer it: starkness, darkness, lengthy surnames that are definitely foreign. and, i add, a strong sense of place, a place most of us are not familiar with. also, most of the scandinavian writers, not nesbo, are strong on social commentary. let's change that to social criticism.

i have just mentioned a few authors in today's column. if interested, you can find more on the internet.

The Snowman was translated from the norwegian by don bartlett. it is published by alfred a. knopf and is 383 pages.