Mystery of a Shrinking Violet

On a favorite mystery list, someone asked, in relation to a discussion of The Da Vinci Code: What limits believability for you in a story?

For me the line isn’t drawn so much at facts as consistency. The author needs to follow the rules he’s set up for his story. I also have a tough time with author cheating, not providing the information that’s needed, trying to trick the reader by holding something back. If I sense the author is holding out on me, I’ll stop reading.

Facts that I know to be different from how they’re presented do bother me. I suppose it’s a matter of degree that determines whether they ruin the story’s believability for me. I recall reading a book by a well known mystery author in which she got some details about an illness wrong. I’m not a medical professional, but I nevertheless knew she was wrong. Still I was able to read through it and enjoy the story. If it had been a more obvious error or had affected the story or its outcome in an unbelievable way, I doubt I would’ve been so forgiving.

We all make mistakes. I’m probably most unforgiving of my own (more…)

Robert Langdon is an American teacher and writer, an expert in symbolism and art. While visiting France to speak before The American University of Paris, he’s wakened in his hotel room late at night and summoned to the Louvre Museum by the French Judicial Police. The museum’s esteemed curator, Jacques Saunière, has been murdered in the Grand Gallery, where many of the Louvre’s masterpieces reside, particularly the Mona Lisa. (more…)

Diana Killian’s High Rhymes and Misdemeanors transports you to the Lake District of England, in the footsteps of the Romantic poets. Grace Hollister is there on vacation from her teaching position (more…)

The total number of books I read in 2001 is disappointingly small, since I have little free time these days. However, it’s rich in good reading. (more…)

Novels are mini-vacations, they take us on guided tours of new places (more…)

Here’s a journalist/author I’ve enjoyed reading. His name is Gerry Boyle, and I understand he is or was a columnist for the Maine Sentinel: (more…)

Before I Say Goodbye, by Mary Higgins Clark, started out slow for me, mainly because I don’t consider politicians all that intriguing. However, I kept reading and I’m glad I did. (more…)

He Shall Thunder In The Sky is the second of Elizabeth Peters’ books that I’ve read. (more…)

In Canis, by Robert E. Armstrong, the head of Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation & Care is Dr. Duncan MacDonell, a man of compassion, intelligence and common sense who’s already doing what anyone will recognize as a difficult, depressing, and thankless job. Then street people begin to turn up dead (more…)

Doubleday, October 2000
ISBN: 0-385-48610-3, Hardcover

Fremont Jones, suspicious that her ailing father is being neglected by his wife (more…)

Kensington Books, December 2000
ISBN: 1-57566-622-7, Hardcover

Marla Shore has been helping her cousin Cynthia organize Taste of the World, a benefit for Ocean Guard. The chefs Marla has recruited are being frightened out of participating (more…)