Some Scary Reads!

In a couple of weeks the ghost and goblins will be flying so it's the perfect time for a scary read.

 In the spirit of the season, here are three of my favorite mystery series with a supernatural twist.

First on the list are the Charlie Parker novels by John Connolly. 

The latest Charlie Parker novel

Connolly's debut novel, Every Dead Thing, introduced the character of Charlie Parker. Haunted by the brutal murders of his wife and daughter, former detective Parker hunts for their killer. On the surface, this sounds like boilerplate crime fiction, but as the events of the novel play out, the reader begins to suspect that there there is a lot more going beneath the surface. By the end of the novel, this suspicion becomes a certainty. Thus, Connolly gives us our first glimpse of the honeycomb world, a shadowland that exists beneath our own.

In the 14 novels that follow, Connolly builds a rich mythology that is mysterious and compelling. In the latest book in the series A Game of Ghosts Parker continues on his dark journey.

Another series I enjoy are the AXL Pendergast novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. 

FBI Special Agent Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast first appeared as a supporting character in their first novel, Relic, and in its sequel Reliquary, before taking charge as protagonist in The Cabinet of Curiosities.

Pendergast is a man of rare ability, learning, and taste. He might come off as a snob save for his commitment to fighting evil. Unlike the supernatural world of Charlie Parker, Pendergast exists in a place neared to our own. As a consequence, fully enjoying these novels  requires a total suspension of disbelief--and I mean total!

For example, one of Pendergast's more outlandish talents is his Chongg Ran practice, which he learned from the monks of the Gsalrig Chongg monastery. Basically, this involves building a memory palace which enables Pendergast to visualize a memory or a historical event in his mind as if he were actually there. The resourceful FBI agent has used this technique for solving several mysteries.

I know it all sounds cockamamie, but I go along with the game. Chongg Ran is just a modern incarnation of the ancient Greek deus ex machina, in which the god in the machine (usually a crane) arrives to move the plot along. Bottom line, the Pendergast  novels are so much fun that I don't sweat the details--or the Chongg Ran.

Two of the creepiest AXL Pendergast novels are Cemetary Dance (zombies) and Cabinet of Curiosities (mad scientist), either of which would serve as a fine introduction to the series.

My final pick is the Bill Hodges Trilogy by America's foremost author Stephen King.

The real drive of the series is the cat-and-mouse game between retired detective Bill Hodges and mass murderer Brady Hartsfield, who's known as Mr. Mercedes after driving a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of hopeful job-seekers at a job fair.

Mr. Mercedes starts out firmly in crime fiction territory, but as the series progresses, moves into the speculative. This is driving suspense with memorable characters as well as a startling amount of sweetness.

But because this is Stephen King, there is also horror, and for my money, Brady Hartsfield is one of King's most memorable monsters, partly because he is so frighteningly human. If you haven't read this trilogy, what are you waiting for?

So if you're looking for a fright or two this Halloween, treat yourself to one of these books!

Mixing Genres--A Dangerous Game

Although I'd dreamed of writing when I was a kid growing up in Baltimore, life kept getting in the way of dreams, when it should have been the other way around. And so it was only after several careers, which included food service, English teacher and psych nurse, that I finally took the plunge and dove headfirst into fiction writing--though at first it felt more like a belly flop.

Coming from an academic background, I read lots of books on the craft of writing, most of which were unhelpful. (FYI, a decidedly helpful book is Stephen King's On Writing.) Wading through the material, one warning kept appearing, usually in all caps and with an exclamation point or two: 

DO NOT MIX GENRES!

"Thou shalt not mix genres!"

...the old professor guy.

I understood the danger. Readers like to know what they're getting into and if a book crossed too many genres--maybe a science-fiction western with a comic slant--it would fall by the wayside. And yet following this rule too strictly is self-limiting. I agree with David Byrne: 

Putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.

In other words, good writers make their own boxes. Either a book works, or it doesn't.

Last April in London, I had the opportunity to meet John Connolly at a book signing on a Friday night in London. Connolly is the author of the Charlie Parker thrillers. For those of you not familiar with the series, they're rather odd books with elements of crime fiction, myth, supernatural, with a dash of dark humor for spice.

Incredibly, these disparate elements come together to form a compelling universe of good and evil, and something in-between.

John Connolly and me at Waterstones, Piccadilly

So how does Connolly do it?

It doesn't hurt that his writer's toolbox is full. He's a gifted stylist whose prose often veers into the poetic. And he's no slouch at characterization. His characters not only bleed, but eat, fall in love, and make bad jokes. They live outside the pages.

For me, one of Connoly's  most touching characterizations was that of mechanic Willie Brew, whose story figures prominently in  The Reapers. Save for his association with Charlie Parker and his lethal friends Louis and Angel, Willie's  sixty years on earth have passed largely unnoticed. A workaday everyman, he worked at fixing cars, got married, got divorced, then worked some more. But in Connolly's hands Willie's small life becomes very large, achieving a certain dignity. When Willie's asked to put everything at risk for his friends, we know exactly what he's giving up.

I still think about Willie Brew. If he had the chance to do it all over again, would he make the same decision?

But perhaps the most compelling part of these novels is in Connolly's portrayal of evil.  Too often evil is rendered in the abstract, Have you ever noticed that evil is often sensed, rather than seen or felt? I think writers sometimes shy away from the concrete in their descriptions because they fear winding up with a cartoon devil with horns and tail that wouldn't scare a five-year-old.

What's not to like?
A London pub, a beer in one hand, and a great read in the other!

But Connolly doesn't look away from the face of evil. In his books, it is felt, seen, smelled, touched and even...well, you get the idea.

Here's hoping Charlie Parker keeps fighting the darkness for a long, long time.

So, I'd love to hear your take on genre-crossing. Have you crossed the boundaries as a writer? Or do you have any favorite reads that blur genre?