The Dangerous Edge of Things by Tina Whittle
The Dangerous Edge of Things by Tina Whittle
My mystery book club selected Tina Whittles “The Dangerous Edge of Things” (“Edge”) as its book to read for June. My question was, why? A friend of mine answered that question with a new phrase, Mommy Porn.
There’s nothing new in Edge that cannot be found in a hundred other books of this type. The amateur detective heroine has to solve a murder. Ms. Whittle’s protagonist is Tai Randolph who, as one of the members of the book club stated, is the Kinsey Millhone of Atlanta. Change her name, put her in San Marcos, California instead of Sherman’s prize and you have the same character.
In my book, “The RTT Killer”, soon to be changed to “Killer, Killer, who’s the Killer? The RTT Killer.” the narrator shares how she has had a discussion with The RTT’s detective, Katelyn Selma Blair” that when men write books the male pro-tag is his alter ego. He’s always tough, a lady’s man, drives the nicest cars, successful, yada, yada, yada.
Books that are centered around the theme of Mommy Porn have a hunk of a guy, sometimes two, for the heroine to develop a relationship with over the course of the series run. Ms. Detective often has a gay, or two, friends to show how liberal she is. Also, let’s not forget the best gal-pal who is often divorced. The gal-pal being the heroine’s what-if. See what would have happened to our heroine if she had married “that guy” from her past. She’d be the divorced gal-pal now to some other heroine.
At the California Crime Writers Convention one of the speakers shared that he has friends that don’t watch TV. All they do is read. But as he says, what are they reading? They’re reading porn. It might be Mommy Porn, it might be super cool male detective porn, it might be dribble like “Lipstick Jungle.”
The moral of the story is just because someone tells you that all they do is read is no reason to be impressed. They might be reading porn.
Steven Tyler
www.onelittlelie.com
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