Michael H. Rubin's Blog: "The Cottoncrest Curse" on Los Angeles TV Show, page 2

11 Mysteries to Read in October

Want the top 11 mysteries to read in October? Deep South Magazine just published a list, including John Grisham's latest book and my new thriller, "The Cottoncrest Curse."

Metifs, Meameloucs, and Railway Cars

So, what's a Metif? A Meamelouc? And what does any of this have to do with Railway Cars? Or legal thrillers? Or historical fiction?

Here's a link to an article with all the answers: "Reading the Past":

History as Compelling as Any Novel

Great novels create fictional worlds that draw us in so completely that we don’t want to put the book down. We tell ourselves, as we get to the end of a chapter, “Well, I’ll just read a few more pages to find out what happens next,” and then we find that hours have elapsed as we become swept away in the plot. Yet, many people think of history books as anything but page-turners, but this needn’t be the case.

Two examples of history books as compelling as any novel are Howard Blum’s “Dark Invasion, 1915, Germany’s Secret War and The Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America,” and Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.”

“The Dark Invasion” tells the story of a New York police inspector charged with finding and stopping terrorists armed with bombs and biological weapons in the time leading up to WWI. Meticulously researched and all true, yet as riveting as novels by John LeCarré, David Baldacci, and James Patterson.

“A Distant Mirror” pulls us into the 14th Century. Focusing on an elegant and ruthless French nobleman born in 1340, it deals with medieval daily life, politics and wars, and the impacts of both the Church and the Great Plague. You won’t want to put it down.

So, if you think history is dull and boring, if you think only novels can be page turners, and if you think that there’s no book that could keep you up all night reading about either the 14th Century or a true story set around WWI, then you haven’t read “A Distant Mirror” or “Dark Invasion.” Get them both and enjoy!

What do Huck, Scout, and David have in common?

“Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “David Copperfield” are all great books and all view the adult world through the eyes of a juvenile. In each of them Mark Twain, Harper Lee, and Charles Dickens accomplish a remarkable feat - - the reader often knows more about what is happening than the narrator does at the moment of an encounter, although in each book the narrator eventually discovers the true character and motives of those with whom he or she deal. Only truly great writers can keep a story moving along and the reader engrossed while simultaneously creating a multi-dimensional novel, one in which the narrator’s voice and the writer’s observations remain with us long after we have completed reading the book.

Is "The Count of Monte Cristo" the first legal thriller?

Alexander Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” is a book that few of us have bothered to re-read since high school(that is, if we ever actually read the whole book then). Yet, its a book that lovers of legal thrillers should read, because this swashbuckling tale is in many ways the first legal thriller. After all, two key plot points involve legal issues. The first is the false imprisonment of the Edmond Dantès, who becomes the Count. The second relates to the law of financing.

The Count gets his revenge through letters of credit, a device used in the 17th-19th centuries in the days before credit cards and bank accounts. Letters of credit allowed people to travel from county to country without carry huge sums of cash or jewelry or gold. Today, letters of credit are used in international trade (many imports and exports involve letters of credit), and law students throughout the country slog through the course on Chapter 5 of the Uniform Commercial Code on letters of credit.

But you don’t have to have gone to law school to understand or enjoy “The Count of Monte Cristo.” It’s a page-turning book that worth rereading (or reading the first time all the way through).

The Count of Monte Cristo