What I've Been Reading

In the last couple of weeks I've finished reading two books, both mysteries, from authors who have completely differing styles. Reading one after the other, juxtaposing these novels, was an eye opening view of contrast, which has taught me a lot about how to tell a story. It's like Stephen King once wrote (and I'm paraphrasing here), "If you want to be a writer you must be a reader."

The first book was a forthcoming title from two time Edgar Award winner,

John Hart. His new book, Iron House, coming in July 2011, is a wonderful example of how detail and description give emotional body to a story. Since this story hinges on information from the past, it's amazing to watch how Hart can move the current storyline forward while inserting backstory, remembrance, or flashback into many paragraphs without ever making the reader feel as if this information is intruding on, or sidetracking you from, the main story.

I've now read three of Hart's novels, Down River, The Last Child and now, Iron House, and while he has always been able to write with this incredible touch for detail and emotion, his art just continues to improve.

The second book was one that I discovered while on a business trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was wandering thought he mystery section of a bookstore, killing some time, when I ran across The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey. The Chicago Way was published in 2007, and Harvey has written three more books in this series, including the newest title, We All Fall Down, coming in July 2011. The book intrigued me as I love to read mysteries which are set in cities that I have visited and am somewhat familiar with as I can envision the locations where the story is taking place.

The Chicago Way is a complete contrast to Iron House in that it is a hard-boiled detective novel, stripped down to tell the story in a dark and gritty way. Detail is limited to what you need to know to move the story along. Reminiscing about the past is almost non-existent unless it is absolutely necessary to the story. Unlike Iron House, the past is approached smashed-mouthed and head on, not in flowery prose subtlety inserted into paragraphs, giving you peeks at the past for tone and emotional impact. This head-on style brings its own in your face impact that is just as effective for The Chicago Way as the subtle tone was for Iron House.

Getting into Harvey's book was a shift in gears after reading Hart's "Iron House"- in fact it felt like stripping the gears when I first got started. Yet, I've really come to enjoy Harvey's style and I'm already deep into his second Michael Kelly novel, "The Fifth Floor."

Though contrasts in storytelling, Hart and Harvey give indelible lessons on how to create a story, build suspense, draw out emotion from the reader, and develop characters that you want to keep following well after the book has come to the final page.