As a member of the Friends of the Library I'm kept updated on events. Last tuesday was the annual Friends of the Library meeting and the guest author/speaker was Fran Rizer. Ms. Rizer is the author of the Callie Parrish mysteries. She was a wonderful speaker who had us all in stitches by the time she was done telling us about Callie and her adventures. After the meeting I did purchase some of her books and had her autograph them for me. Now, I am a big mystery buff so was looking forward to meeting a new character and getting involved in some new adventures. I have to admit I was disappointed in the first book. Oh, it was written well enough, but I guessed the murderer at the characters first introduction into the story. Ms. Rizer, at that point, had not learned the art of deception in character development. I am now reading the second book and am hoping she has learned to fool the reader a little better by her second attempt. The books are fun to read, I will give her that, so I am not totally disappointed in her writing. I just like to be fooled for awhile about who the villain is in the story. And if you are ever looking for an entertaining speaker you might call on Fran Rizer. Oh, and she looks nothing like the picture on her books or her web page! Imagine my surprise when the little white haired lady sitting up front turned out to be Ms. Rizer! On her books she has brown hair and is quite young and on her website she has Blonde hair and is still a much younger version than the one who spoke at the FOTL meeting. Hmmmm...maybe she does know more about the art of deception than I thought.
3/15/09 Update: Well, I read the second book (the one pictured above) and it was even easier to find the murderer, if that were even possible! This poor writer has no idea on how to use red herrings, misdirection, or subtle plot turns or hints regarding the bad guy. She does try one red herring but the explanation for it at the end of the story is so out there that it doesn't even make sense. And when at the end of a book it has to be explained then you know something was missing in the story line. Also, I find it humorous that her sleuth never does any sleuthing. Just asks simple ordinary questions and people fall all over themselves confessing to her. Sorry. This is just really bad writing in my opinion. But, remember this is just my opinion. I am sure there are many out there who love this easy to figure out style, but for myself, I prefer to have to use a bit of the gray matter in my head to figure things out as the story progresses. Knowing before the book is even 1/3 of the way through is just no fun.
1 comment:
This is funny because I was going to post a very similar post about Mary Jane Clark's books. I got one from my book club called "It only takes a moment" and yes, it only took a moment to figure out the murderer. I kept waiting for it to turn out to be someone else. But it didn't. Like you, I like some misdirection and attempts to fool you.
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