Dean of mystery writers takes us to the edge again

Dean of mystery writers takes us to the edge again
                        

A few years back I had the good fortune to attend an author talk at a branch of the Cuyahoga Public Library featuring Don Winslow. He was touring his new book, “The Force,” and Cleveland was the last stop. During the talk, one of those in attendance asked him about his writing style, why so much of his work seems gritty and raw.

Winslow then recounted a conversation he recently had with author Michael Connelly regarding the same topic. Connelly explained his writing this way: He placed a water bottle on the back of a desk and slowly began pushing the bottle toward the edge. Connelly asked of Winslow, “At what point does this get interesting?” Winslow responded, “The closer the bottle gets to the edge.”

Connelly was illustrating how he likes to write with that water bottle perched right on the edge of falling off, right where ideas are just about to tip over and then let suspense drive the story. Connelly’s latest book, “Fair Warning,” lives in that analogy.

Jack McEvoy, first introduced in Connelly’s brilliant novel, “The Poet,” and later returning in “The Scarecrow,” has aged a bit from his days as an investigative reporter on a big-city newspaper. The veteran crime reporter is now working for the real-life watchdog website called FairWarning. Gone are the days of murder investigations as his skills now go to uncovering scam artists and consumer fraud.

Early in the book, two cops show up at McEvoy’s apartment to question him about a woman whose neck was broken in a sort of whiplash fashion called Atlanto-occipital dislocation. The death looks like an accident, but the detectives are suspicious, and they consider Jack a suspect because he had a one-night stand with the woman sometime back.

With his interest piqued, Jack dives deeper into the victim’s story and discovers a number of other women who also died of Atlanto-occipital dislocation with the deaths staged to look like accidents. What links the women together is all of them signed up for a DNA site called GT23.

Jack deduces they were most likely victims of cyberstalking and convinces his skeptical editor that this indeed is a FairWarning story. In so doing, he heads back into the world of a very dangerous killer, in this case, hunting down the “Shrike,” named after the grayscale songbird known for grasping prey with its pointed beak and then vigorously shaking them with enough force to break their necks.

As Jack delves into the world of DNA testing and analytical companies, he learns DNA tests and the companies who offer them are barely regulated. Charging only $23, GT23 explains in the fine print in its contracts that the low fee is possible because the company sells data to various users. However, it does not disclose such companies sometimes resell the information. It is all supposed to be anonymous, of course, but we all know in a mystery, the things that are “supposed-to-be” are often what drive the plot.

Data buyers are not supposed to be able to identify the participants, but in Connelly’s world, therein lies the suspense: The person buying the data is not one who wants to be found as he continues his reign of terror.

Fans of Connelly’s books, and the “Bosch” television show on Amazon, know his strength as a writer often comes in the quieter moments of the work. A Bosch book or episode on Amazon is every bit about the actual work of being a detective as it is about the “surprise on every page” cliché that too often muddles up the writing. “Fair Warning” is no different, trading in detective work for journalism.

The quickly paced novel spins on its realistic look at journalism but does not glamorize reporting, rather showing good journalism is based on getting details right, even if that comes in conflict with an editor hell-bent on meeting a deadline or a fellow writer who might scoop a story.

Since the introduction of Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch in Connelly’s “The Black Echo” in 1992, Connelly has been ever expanding his literary world. Along with McEvoy and Bosch, Mickey Haller, his protagonist in his “Lincoln Lawyer” books, and Renée Ballard, his strong, intelligent female detective introduced in “The Late Show,” often cross paths. While Connelly, over an almost 30-year literary career, seamlessly blends these worlds together, there are no guest appearances in “Fair Warning,” but that does nothing to diminish this character-driven story.

Heralded as the “dean” of mystery writers, Connelly consistently delivers strong stories often pulled from actual headlines, continuing to write on the edge of that desk with the water bottle analogy. In “Fair Warning,” it is a drink well worth taking.


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