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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 5, No. 48 |
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KELLERMAN: |
They're together in print
for the very first time
of TheColumnists.com
The big publishing stunt of the 2004 holiday season is "Double Homicide" (Warner Books, $23.95), which is the first literary collaboration by Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, two of the mystery world's very top best-selling authors.
Their new best-seller is put together like one of those old 1950s paperback "double novels" from ACE. Remember those? Flip the book over and you find a second cover, printed upside down and a second novel that begins on the last page of the book and moves toward the middle, where the other novel ends.
Stunts usually are a marketing gimmick to attract attention and sell books that might not otherwise sell so well. The rule applies here. The two novels are short enough to be called novellas. If a publisher put them out as single books, they probably wouldn't scare up much interest beyond the fans of each author. For one thing, you won't find any of the two authors regular series "detectives" in these two novels.
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new "double novel" by the Kellermans |
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But packaged together this way, "Double Homicide" is a real novelty item, even if you can't tell which parts were written by Faye and which came from Jonathan. And I'll say right up front that these are two extremely gifted mystery writers, so those who enjoy brisk, intelligent mysteries won't be disappointed.
The "front cover" story is "Double Homicide: Santa Fe," which introduces a new team of police detectives from Santa Fe, New Mexico: Darrel Two Moons, who's Native American, and his partner Steve Katz, a transplanted urban cop from the NYPD. If it sounds like a sort of Tony Hillerman reverse angle version of "Coogan's Bluff," you're not far wrong.
Katz is divorced and living in a converted outbuilding behind the Rolling Stone Marble and Gravel Yard. Two Moons is an ex-Marine, married with two daughters, who discovered the need to recognize his Indian heritage not long ago. He's still finding his way through that turn in his life.
Their murder case, which occurs in the pre-Christmas holiday period, involves the death of a controversial artist, beaten to death with a piece of sculpture from his own collection. It turns out Katz' ex-wife may have been involved with the man. It also seems Two Moons had a grudge against the dead man.
The story is a solid one, but the real value of it is the delineation of these two characters and how they fit into their semi-rural environment, a distinct departure from the Los Angeles setting for most of the Kellermans' mysteries.
The flip-over novel is "Double Homicide: Boston," which introduces yet another team of police detectives: Black single mom Dorothy Breton, a police detective, and her white male partner Michael McCain. They're plunged into an investigation of a shooting at a college basketball game. Was it the typical inner city grudge shooting or was something else involved? Their probing for the truth stirs up some startling evidence from the least likely of sources.
Like the other novella, this one also spends a good deal of time letting us look inside the personal lives of these two detectives. Dorothy knows the shooting victim's mom and her son, who played on the same team, was a witness to the shooting. Again, the case takes place during the Christmas holiday season.
In these two novellas, the Kellermans have closely examined the dynamics of partnerships between investigators. In a way, they may also be telling us something about the rewards--and the difficulties--of working together on the creation of murder mysteries. Both are tightly written and always interesting, so the "double novel" package ought to satisfy anyone who breezes through them.
But let's face it, their fans would really love to see Faye's Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus somehow cross the path of Jonathan's Dr. Alex Delaware as they jointly work on a murder case from their own unique angles. It could be done, of course, but will it? Maybe if this joint effort sells better than expected.
Though they've written separately for so many years--Faye has 17 mystery novels in her backlist, Jonathan has 21--they first got together on a mutual project a few years ago while trying to develop a TV series. That collaboration, which hasn't borne fruit yet, inspired them to try the "double novel" approach. They have a second "double novel" in the works for next year.
It's not uncommon for writers
locked into long-running series to strive for the occasional
breakaway project. This is surely one of theirs, but if it should
create a demand for more Two Moons-Katz and Breton-McCain stories,
they could have a real problem on their hands.
©2004 by Ron Miller.
The Ron Miller caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The book
cover reproduction is courtesy of Warner Books.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He's now
the media critic for "Mystery Scene," the national
mystery magazine. He lives in Blaine, WA.
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