M. K. Theodoratus, Fantasy Writer, blogs about the books she reads--mostly fantasy and mystery authors whose books catch her eye and keep her interest. Nothing so formal as a book review, just chats about what she liked. Theodoratus also mutters about her own writing progress or ... lack of it.

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Sunday, October 29, 2017

Juggling Two Myseries for the Price of One

Tossing the mysery clues on the table and scrambling them is something Carol O'Connell does like few other mystery authors. Her books are dense with characters' backstory and plot twists. Not only that she manages to juggle two crime stories with other minor foibles in Blind Sight, she keep the pace fast and furious. 

The fewest foibles belong to her hard-boiled detective, Kathy Mallory. I'm always looking for a clue that Mallory feels human emotions. O'Connell teases, but never quite delivers in the later books in the series.

Blind Sight, the twelveth Mallory book, reads like a jigsaw puzzle. Scattered viewpoints, several in each chapter, reveal a tad of information about what's going on. By the end of the fourth or fifth chapter, Carol O'Connell builds a platform that gives the reader enough information to know a lot about New York City, main and secondary characters, plus the possible villians and their crimes--all without an info-dump. Quite an achievment when you consider how complex O'Connell's Mallory books are.

I like the way the puzzle pieces bounce around as O'Connell juggles her two interrealated mysteries, giving the reader a lot of mental exercise. They land here and there with little slight of hand until you can start making guesses about what is relevant and not, what pieces tie into each other. O'Connell doesn't deal in anything so obvious as a red herring.


Interested in reading a sample? Check out these links
Amazon      Barnes & Nobel      kobo       Google Play

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Other Reading Adventures

I'm a chronic reader of the author interviews in the Sunday New York Times Book Review--even though the questions are mostly the same. The authors who don't have "nightstands" full of book always get a chuckle. Piles of books always seems more realistic. Surprisingly, seldom is a guilty pleasure mentioned. All the titles are impressive. Or, maybe, I gave up reading serious books for lent years ago.

Myself? I have two to-read piles over two feet high. [Yes, I still buy books.] The thought of a small night stand able to hold all the books of a chronic reader strikes me funny. 

There is one book bearing "nightstand" in our family. My old man uses the cedar chest he built in high school as his. My piles of books are neater, but his are scattered all over the space of four large nightstands. We won't talk about the piles in the spare bedroom, living room, the dining room, and the basement. [The cookbooks in the kitchen don't count.]

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My Writing Rut


I've always had problem coming up with a comfortable genre for my Andor books. The Far Isles Half-Elven are simple in comparison.

So what are the Andor stories besides fantasy? What genre do they belong in?

"Weird" and "different" are a couple of descriptions reviewers have used. But Google Play just gave me some comparable authors-- Kim Harrison, P. C. Cast and Diana Rowlands. My publisher finally posted to Google Play, so now There Be Demons is available on the android platform. But I was surprised at the covers of similar books that Google put my book among.

You can read a sample of There Be Demons on
Amazon      Nook      kobo       Google Play      iBook

Have been floundering in the promo pool for There Be Demons, but it's getting to the point where it's going to have to sink or swim on its own. I've decided to do NaNoWriMo--the National Novel Writing Month--where novelist all over the world try to write a complete novel [50,000 words] in one month. Me? I'm not so ambitious. I plan to write one chapter problem a day. Hoping to have a semi-draft of the 3rd book in The Demon Wars to work with by the end of the month.

On another note. If you have time and are a member of GoodReads, you could tell them you want to read There Be Demons.

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