7/1/2004
The current popular suspense mix is one of historical mystery and romance, and “The Paid Companion” (G. P Putnam’s Sons; $24.95) is so unusual that it finds itself in the middle of the New York Times Best Seller list this week after a very recent debut. Amanda Quick is the name of the author, who is also known as Jayne Ann Krentz, no slouch as a writer of contemporary suspense novels including the recent “Truth or Dare.”
What you have in a Regency romantic suspense novel is a battle between a spirited female and an unusual maverick male. I thought of Clark Gable as Rhett each time I saw Arthur Lancaster, the Earl of St. Merryn, who is in London for The Season and who desperately needs a woman—for purely practical reasons.
Reason: Since it is a well-known fact that an unmarried man of great fortune must be in search of a wife, the eager dowagers and countesses prepare to introduce their nubile and not-so nubile daughters and nieces to St Merryn during the season. In London for the serious matter of trying to discover who murdered his uncle, the earl hires—a fiancée. Enter Miss Elenora Lodge, whose family fortune has been dissipated and who is now forced to seek work as a paid companion. Expecting to be in the service of an ailing or lonely elderly woman, she is surprised to receive an intriguing offer from Arthurn caster, the Earl of St. Merryn to be his fiancée, thereby distracting the husband-hunters. Elenora findsherself teaming with the Earl in his other, far more dangerous, job—to catch akiller. Arthur makes a discovery: thatthe outspoken woman he’s hired as a fiancée stirs in him that bothersomeemotion called passion.
Thechemistry becomes palpable between the two in a fascinating bedroom ballet. First, the Earl becomes overwhelmed with passion. Then the lady does. Then they both do. And we enjoy this look at Regency life through the eyes of the two of them “The Paid Companion” (G.P. Putnam’S Sons; $24.95)
Another instant best seller is a Renaissance tale of intrigue written
bytwo newcomers to the field. If you enjoyed “The DaVinci Code” that’s been on the best seller list for over sixty weeks (Long enough to inspire a new “The Truth about the DaVince Code”) you will love “”The Rule of Four” (Dial Press; $24.00) written by Ivy Leaguers Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason who graduated from Princeton and Harvard and who have been writing together for years. They have put together an admirable cast, four Ivy Leaguers at Princeton who decide to try to solve the mystery of a real-life Renaissance manuscript called the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a book so complex that some men have devoted their lives to trying to solve its mysteries. The book wends its way through numerology, religion, art and history. Airtight plot, written with the charm and wit that a proper Ivy League can give one.
Is there such a thing as a biological thriller?> Robert B. Parker’s latest “Double Play” (Putnam;$24.95) has his hero (perhaps himself?) travel back to1947, the year that Jackie Robinsonwas brought up to the Dodgers by Branch Rickey. A younger version of Hawkis hired by Rickey to protect Robinson from Southern fans (and some of his own teammates!) Interesting look back at how the great Robinson was originally received.
Burglars are losing cachet! Burglary, once as ubiquitous in mystery fiction as the hard-boiled private eye, has gone out of fashion. Thanks to improved security, low unemployment and a declining market for the loot. A British Crime Survey(burglary has long been an English folk crime) reports burglary break ins are down 45% in the past decade.
Otto Penzler is putting together a group of past Edgar winners that deserve to be revisited. The first one was a Donald Westlake. The second is Adam Hall’s “The Quiller Memorandum” winner of the Edgar back in 1966 (A Tom Doherty Associates trade paperback book from Forge, $13.95, originally published by Simon & Schuster.) Quiller works for a British government so secret that if Quiller were to make a mistake he can expect to die a dirty death in a second-rate hotel and no-one would claim his body. But herein you can learn how a spy works, how messages are coded and decoded, how contacts are made. Most important, you’ll learn how to think not two steps ahead but three or four. James Bond, George Smiley, but first there was Quiller
When Gayle Lyndes wrote her first spy thriller,” Masquerade” the female editor ofthe publishing house where the book landed first accepted the book, then turn edit down on the grounds that no female writer could possibly know that much about spying. Fortunately the next editor picked up the book and Lyndes never looked back. The newest book, “The Coil”( St. Martin’sPress; is doing very well.
Liz Sansborough was once a top CIA field agent and now a university professor in Southern California specializing in the psychology of violence. She is also the daughter of the most notorious Cold War assassin—The Carnivor and all that she has built up is now being threatened by her dead father’s legacy.
Sarah Walker, Liz cousin, closest relative and physical double is kidnapped who seek to use her to force Liz back into the black game she foreswore so long ago. St. Martins; $24.95)
