What Hank's Writing: Book Reviews?!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Do you write book reviews? As an author, I will admit, I tiptoe toward the review section of every website, knowing I might be poking a landmine, but unable to resist. And every author will tell you how important it is to have a good review, how the dashed off and spoiler-filled and mean-spirited reviews are not only knives to the heart, but ratings wrecking. 

But I have been writing a different kind of review. The fabulous Criminal Element is doing a wonderful experiment, are asking authors to review the past Edgar winners for best novel. There was a mad dash among the authors they asked to pick which books to review, and I must say that I was not among the first, so I did not get Day of the Jackal or Eye of the Needle, two faves.   And turns out,  two of the three I was assigned were books I had never read.  (I might say that I had never heard of them, actually. They won the Edgar, and they were not even in my bandwidth! Whoa. )

However! That was the beginning of a wonderful adventure.

The first book I reviewed is A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine – the pseudonym for Ruth Rendell.  It was the winner in 1987, and  difficult to judge it from the standpoint of someone reading it then, as well as someone reading it now.

As I wrote: 

"I  will admit, I fear, if I had read this book in 1986—when, after all, the best sellers of the year were Danielle Steele, Judith Krantz, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, and Stephen King—I might have given up on this book after a couple of chapters, asking out loud, is anything going to happen soon?

And had I done that, I would not have been treated to the glorious, masterful, innovative structure that Vine uses to devise this disturbing puzzle. Gradually, in her own brilliantly created order, Vine lets us in on the whole story, puzzle piece by puzzle piece, without letting us know where the puzzle pieces fit."

  

In the review, I said: 

"But if a new writer pitched this book today, the agent would toss it on the reject pile after the first several pages. Backstory backstory backstory. Family tree family tree family tree, family tree--to the point of excruciating frustration. Get to the story! The agent would cry.

Too bad for the agent. Turns out, the family is the story."  

  It was fun to imagine the discussion of the Edgar committee, you know? Why didn’t they choose P.D. James for A Taste of Death? Or  Joe Gores for Come Morning, Brian Freemantle for The Blind Run, and Roger L. Simon for The Straight Man?  What was it about this particular book that made it the most special of the special books? When I wrote near the end was:

"I wish I had been there for the final Edgar vote. “It’s fine, I guess,” someone would have said.

“I think it’s risky,” someone else might have warned.

“This one will become a classic,” said the sage one in the back. And that person was correct. "

You can read the whole thing here. 

 And now I'm working on another review which will come out in a month or so. The book--The Red Scream-- is by Mary Willis Walker,  and it won in 1995. It was a perfect book for me to read, because it's about a reporter, Molly Cates, whose true crime book is about to be published. (Lots of parallels to my TRUST ME and to my own real life.)

 Again-- reading it in 1995 would be a lot different from reading it in 2019, right? What was fresh and innovative back then isn’t, frankly, now. And though chronologically that it wasn’t so long ago, in some senses, it was. We didn’t know about #MeToo,  or cell phones, and the Internet was newish.  By the time Mary Willis Walker wrote this book, Sue Grafton was already on L. 

But then, reading, I saw what made it more than a savvy-tough-intrepid-working-woman story. I’m still drafting, but I can share an early bit:

"Here’s the clincher: only Molly herself has the opportunity to tell the truth about this crime, the crime that made her career.

But if her  true crime book is based on her own misunderstanding of the crime--if it's not true--how good a reporter is she?

If Molly diligently follows the clues that may lead to the convicted killer’s innocence, doesn’t that make her guilty?

That’s what makes the story so special--Walker’s focus on the choice devoted reporter Molly must make. Can she be true to her "stand up for the little guy" philosophy? If she does, the discovering the pivotal clues might lead to her own personal humiliation and defeat." 

  

And, parenthetically, my researching to write this review revealed another mystery: Where is Mary Willis Walker? 

She only wrote four books, that I can find, all of which were incredibly well reviewed, and awarded, and lauded, and then, she vanished!  I found an essay she had written in the New York Times about dropping the Walker from her name after getting divorced. I queried the Facebook hive mind, and no one seems to be able to come up with any more than that. How can a successful writer just vanish? Maybe just… Stop writing. But I would love to know. 

(The review won’t be published for a month or so, so make sure you find it on the fab Criminal Element!)

One more thing I’m writing, (actually have written, even better), is the introduction to another book you may not know about: The Bellamy Trial. 

American Mystery Classics asked me to write the introduction for their brand new edition of this 1927 classic, and I leapt at the chance with delight. Turns out, it is such a terrific book, (lookit that cover!) and again, right up my legal thriller alley. In fact, some say, with The Bellamy Trial, Frances Noyes Hart wrote the first legal thriller.

There is a tiny part of that introduction.

"Hart is such a clever writer, and this charming novel –which was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post --is hardly just a legal transcript. With Whartonesque overtones and trenchant social commentary, the world of the scandalous crime emerges:  silver dancing shoes, silver flasks, country clubs, cocktail parties, maids, nannies, and families with day and night nurseries. The reader understands the milieu Hart is allowing us to grasp: the attendant wealth and lack of it, the undercurrent (usually under) of class struggles, and the battle for acceptance in tightly-contained social circles. Passionate love and broken promises, parental manipulation, deceit and gaslighting—results that can only come from the lust for money and greed and control."

This book was absolutely a joy to read, and I cannot wait to share it with you. These new editions will be out in a month or so, but I have one here to give away! 

Tell me how you feel about writing reviews, reds and readers, and one lucky commenter will get an early copy.

(Oh, PS, the third book I am reviewing for Criminal Element is Citizen Vince! Love that book!)