David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "unsolved-murder-case"
Annie's Bones
ANNIE'S BONES is about a 38-year-old missing person's case (presumably murdered) whose bones are discovered when a heavy equipment operator digs them up at the site of a future supermarket.
All of his life, since his brief love-affair with Annie Lineberger, Grayson Melvin has been the principal suspect. He was a budding journalist until Annie's father put pressure on the publisher to fire him, and he wound up spending a lot of time as a bartender and later teaching writing at Community College, a job he loses when Annie's bones are discovered.
I am a devoted mystery fan. As such I know there are certain rules authors are supposed to follow. You can't spring a killer on the reader without planting him or her earlier in the novel. Howard Owen doesn't do that. I had my guy all picked out. That's the fun of reading a mystery. You pick the least likely suspect, one who is a little bit off or who does something slightly incriminating.
We know Grayson Melvin didn't do it. He's too damn nice. He still carries Annie's picture in his billfold. At 67, Grayson has a live-in girlfriend who believes he's innocent and is willing to mortgage her house to get him out on bail. If she was real, I'd marry her. He also has this friend, Willy Black, who's still a journalist, who tries to give him some decent press. Willy even finds him a Johnny Cochran type lawyer to go to bat for him, against the Linebergers and the North Carolina DA who is sure Grayson is guilty.
About the best thing author, Howard Owen, does is show the importance of one itsy bitsy clue, like the traffic ticket in the Son of Sam case. Grayson follows that clue to the source. In a way it belonged to Annie, and we want to know how it got to a pawn shop, where a woman who loves a mystery found it and told Grayson about it.
Annie and Grayson were an unusual couple. She was beautiful; he looked like an “uncool Buddy Holly”. She was experienced in affairs of the heart; he wasn't. As it turns out she loved him anyway. So then, why did she dump him? It's one of the answers you should be looking forward to when you read this book. You should be able to knock it off in a couple of days; it's only 264 pages long with rather bold type.
All of his life, since his brief love-affair with Annie Lineberger, Grayson Melvin has been the principal suspect. He was a budding journalist until Annie's father put pressure on the publisher to fire him, and he wound up spending a lot of time as a bartender and later teaching writing at Community College, a job he loses when Annie's bones are discovered.
I am a devoted mystery fan. As such I know there are certain rules authors are supposed to follow. You can't spring a killer on the reader without planting him or her earlier in the novel. Howard Owen doesn't do that. I had my guy all picked out. That's the fun of reading a mystery. You pick the least likely suspect, one who is a little bit off or who does something slightly incriminating.
We know Grayson Melvin didn't do it. He's too damn nice. He still carries Annie's picture in his billfold. At 67, Grayson has a live-in girlfriend who believes he's innocent and is willing to mortgage her house to get him out on bail. If she was real, I'd marry her. He also has this friend, Willy Black, who's still a journalist, who tries to give him some decent press. Willy even finds him a Johnny Cochran type lawyer to go to bat for him, against the Linebergers and the North Carolina DA who is sure Grayson is guilty.
About the best thing author, Howard Owen, does is show the importance of one itsy bitsy clue, like the traffic ticket in the Son of Sam case. Grayson follows that clue to the source. In a way it belonged to Annie, and we want to know how it got to a pawn shop, where a woman who loves a mystery found it and told Grayson about it.
Annie and Grayson were an unusual couple. She was beautiful; he looked like an “uncool Buddy Holly”. She was experienced in affairs of the heart; he wasn't. As it turns out she loved him anyway. So then, why did she dump him? It's one of the answers you should be looking forward to when you read this book. You should be able to knock it off in a couple of days; it's only 264 pages long with rather bold type.
