It began as a marketing strategy. Otto Penzler, the renowned proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, wanted to keep his customers happy. And he wanted to keep them out of chain stores. So he began commissioning annual Christmas stories from popular crime writers and giving out free copies of these stories as thank-you gifts to the shop’s customers.
Then Mr. Penzler had an even niftier idea. (Santa! Are you listening?) He lined up some of the most famous mystery novelists around and asked them for 10-page riffs about their best-known characters. Those essays have been collected in “The Lineup,” an exciting omnibus volume that has widespread appeal and adds up to much, much more than the sum of its parts.
The mystery writers were free to attack this assignment in whatever way they chose. Some were more assiduous than others. Some just rambled; some indulged their egos; some cooked up conversations with their fictitious creations. One, Jeffery Deaver, even used his character’s obituary to create a miniature mystery plot.
But each wound up delivering memorable revelations about the mystery genre and its different incarnations. And there are many conflicting approaches represented here. That makes “The Lineup” the best book of its kind since Mr. Penzler edited a similar book, “The Great Detectives,” in 1978. Writers in that one included the creators of Dick Tracy, Matt Helm, the 87th Precinct and Nancy Drew.
Today’s star writers reflect the influence of the 1978 group. “The Great Detectives” included an essay on Lew Archer by Ross Macdonald; now crime writers are divided between those who cite Macdonald’s influence (Michael Connelly) and those who prefer John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee (Lee Child). The alphabetical juxtaposition of Mr. Child and Mr. Connelly in this lineup yields other interesting contrasts as well. Mr. Child picked the name Jack Reacher, he says, because he was deliberately trying to do something different, and “there was a miniature rash at the time of characters with cute or complex first names.” Next up: Mr. Connelly’s explanation of why he named his best-known detective Hieronymous Bosch.
Such implicit clashes appear throughout “The Lineup,” which is part of the book’s fascination. The Irish novelist John Connolly, a Ross Macdonald partisan, complains about the black-and-white morality of Agatha Christie-style puzzle mysteries and of “the more conservative elements in the genre, those who would like to see mystery fiction set in aspic somewhere between the birth of Sherlock Holmes and the last appearance of Hercule Poirot.” A fusty case in point: Colin Dexter, whose Inspector Morse books embody that tidiness and whose essay takes the form of a harrumphing Q. and A. “What emboldened you to enlist in the rather crowded ranks of the crime-writing fraternity?” he asks himself.
Few readers of “The Lineup” are likely to be familiar with the work of every writer included here. But that’s why this book holds such enjoyable surprises. David Morrell may not be a household name, but he is certainly the source of one: Rambo. Mr. Morrell, a Canadian who was trying to write obliquely about the turbulent America of the 1960s without losing his United States residency, writes fascinatingly about the genesis of a character who bore very little resemblance to his “jingoistic” film incarnation. It was not until 36 years after the publication of Mr. Morrell’s “First Blood” that a “Rambo” film, much to Mr. Morrell’s surprise, actually captured his original intent.
Although “The Lineup” is best read cover to cover, there are those who will seek out favorites first. And these essays are so true to form that they’re not apt to change your preferences. Mr. Child’s dazzling explication of exactly how he concocted Jack Reacher (“To me it was crucial that he should have a certain nobility — which is a strange thing to say about a guy who goes around busting heads as frequently and thoroughly as Jack Reacher does”) is as lucid and gratifying as his books are. Carol O’Connell’s caustic, droll view of Kathy Mallory signals her books’ appeal. But it’s worth knowing that the feline inspiration for the sociopathic yet glamorously diffident Mallory comes from James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and that it’s only 11 words long: “Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.”
Maybe Robert Crais’s fans will like what he has to say, too. It’s not short on personality. “If you’re reading this,” he writes, “you probably groove on my guys and maybe even snap up my new books as soon as they come out,” which is akin to Jonathan Kellerman’s reference to the “tens of millions of other people” interested in his work. Mr. Kellerman also thinks that you, at this moment, are reading a “tedious periodical sorely lacking in sparkling critical talent,” and candor is no small part of this collection’s great value.
Time and again these crime writers return to the same questions: Is your character like you? Where did the character’s name come from? How did you get published? The answers are always interesting (as when Faye Kellerman, who is married to Mr. Kellerman, supplies a whole lifetime’s worth of background material on her Orthodox Jewish heroine, Rina Lazarus, and does it well enough to expand her fan base in the process).
But there are just as many good questions that don’t come up: for instance, how do you churn out so many books each year? It’s notable that the superhumanly prolific James Patterson is not included here, that the collection includes Anne Perry but not Thomas Perry, and that a much admired American noir crime writer, James Crumley, does not crop up as a source of inspiration. But Clint Eastwood and “Hill Street Blues” do.
Only a few essays in “The Lineup” misfire. Ridley Pearson presents a grilling of his detective character, Lou Boldt, that is plot-heavy enough to be impenetrable. Ken Bruen free-associates a bit, using a style that works better for his books. And John Lescroart, another John D. MacDonald guy, doesn’t add much more than one of the best lines in this collection.
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