Mon 26 Aug 2019
LINDA GREENLAW – Fisherman’s Bend. Jane Bunker #2. Hyperion, hardcover, 2008. St. Martin’s, paperback, April 2019.
There is some backstory left over from book one in this series, in which Jane Bunker dealt with a case of murder back in Miami, but in this followup adventure, she’s picked up stakes and is now living in Maine, which seems to be a more natural habitat for her.
She’s working full time as a marine investigator and on the side she’s nabbed a position as assistant deputy sheriff of the county she’s moved to. And once in a while the two hats seem to overlap, as it does in this book. After checking into some vandalism at the lab a pair of marine scientists are doing a oceanographic survey, she finds a empty lobster boat running in circles, the owner totally missing.
The missing man’s son had just died of a drug overdose, and drug dealers are Jane’s sworn enemies. Do you believe in coincidence? Neither does Jane.
Jane is 40ish, unattached but not unattractive, and she doesn’t back down for anyone or anything. While about 3000 miles apart from Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, the tone of the story Jane tells is very much the same. I only wish I could tell you the mystery is as good as those that Kinsey worked on, but I can’t. Too may loose ends are wrapped up very quickly at the end, as if suddenly not very important any more.
I did like the setting of coastal Maine and the presence of so any well-drawn people who live there. Authentic? Yes. I’d say so.
The Jane Bunker series —
Slipknot. June 2007
Fisherman’s Bend. July 2008
Shiver Hitch. June 2017
Bimini Twist. July 2018
August 26th, 2019 at 7:08 pm
This brings up something that I wonder about many modern mystery writers, primarily why they write mysteries when they don’t seem all that interested in actually constructing one?
I guess I’m old fashioned, but I prefer if the background, characters, and research all take a back seat to the actual mystery and resolution. It can be done, used to be done regularly, but it seems almost a lost art today when the mystery is sometimes why they decided to use the mystery form in the first place if that’s all they were going to do with it.
August 26th, 2019 at 7:16 pm
I’m with you, David. But sometimes you just don’t know whether a book and an author are going on follow through on the mystery or not. I was sailing along with this one when all of a sudden everything was wrapped up in just a few paragraphs, including two attempts on Jane’s life, which were seemingly shrugged off as not very important after all.
What made it worse in some sense is that in the book, the paperback version, the ending was followed by the first 20 pages of the next book in the series. I had no warning the end was so near!
August 27th, 2019 at 11:59 am
The question is not just why do writers write mysteries without serious mystery but why readers buy these books.
Using the mystery form gives the writer easy access to conflict even when the writer is more interested in character over plot.
It has been awhile since I paid attention to book sales but last I looked the romantic suspense story was very popular. These are character light fiction that has a dead body so the characters have something to do while they are not consumed by talk of their sex life.
There seems to be a third form of mysteries. There is the traditional where the puzzle is the thing, the Hammett/Chandler school where the crime is the focus and this group where the characters are the center of it all.
My least favorite is the traditional. I have zero interest in solving the mystery, it is the wit of the characters and a good story that can surprise me that I enjoy.
August 27th, 2019 at 4:30 pm
The older I get the more I find going the opposite way as you. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But find I like the puzzle-oriented mysteries more than any other type, the kind they don’t write much of any more. Luckily I can go to the shelves in my basement and find 100s of books from the 40s and 40s that fit the bill very well indeed.
Which is not to say that I don’t care for wit and a good story too. That’s a bonus as far as I’m concerned. Which is why I was hoping to say lots of good things about this one by Linda Greenlaw. It seemed to have both a good mystery as well as good characters, right up until the end.
August 27th, 2019 at 7:19 pm
The best writers managed to combine the actual mystery with the characterizations, and there is no real reason why it isn’t done. Ross Macdonald can’t be faulted on characterization, but managed perfectly good mystery elements. I can think of dozens of writers who did both, did it regularly, and did it better than most of the writers failing to do so today.
Some of the finest writers, not puzzlers, in the genre managed to produce character driven work with legitimate mystery plots that weren’t tossed off with television plotting which is what these writers too often give us instead of a proper balance.
August 28th, 2019 at 1:28 am
David, I haven’t read this book nor have any desire to so I am not here to defend it. Some of the best writers can be found in any form or style of fiction. However I would take Gregory Mcdonald over Ross every single time. Both are good writers even if Ross bores me personally. My favorite authors include Ross Thomas, Norbert Davis and Vince Kohler. I will never forget how much I enjoyed the character of Sally in Norbert Davis’ SALLY’S IN THE ALLEY but have no memory of the mystery.
You asked why would anyone read these type of books, my answer is some readers find them entertaining.
Life is screwy that way.