3.5
The Lineup
ByPublisher Description
A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from?
What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In
, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters — or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking.
"This book will delight any mystery lover." ―
"Who are more equipped to discourse on the origins, the motivations, the foibles, and the triumphs of their life's work than some of the best-known and most successful mystery and thriller writers on the planet?" —
"Tremendous fun—clever, wide-ranging, revealing, even surprising. Bet you can't read just one." —
"Fiery. . . . The authors take different approaches, but all offer an opportunity to see a familiar character in a new way. . . . It's also a great way to get a taste of some of the series you haven't read yet." —Maureen Corrigan,
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Lineup Reviews
3.5
“Otto Penzler's The Lineup is a fascinating look at the origin stories of more than twenty of the most popular fictional crimefighters of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some twenty-two writers (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are co-authors of the Pendergast books) were turned loose to share the inspirations that created such characters as Jack Reacher, Hieronymus Bosch, Inspector Morse, Tess Monaghan, Rambo, Spenser, and Precious Ramotswe. Some chose to give a straightforward nonfictional version of how the characters that made them famous were born, and others decided to take the short story or fictional interview approach to revealing the same.
Along the way, I learned some things about even those characters I was already familiar with, became curious about a few authors I haven't tried yet, and confirmed that a few of them are just not meant for me despite their immense popularity.
These are some of the surprises I had:
Hieronymus Bosch did not receive that name until Michael Connelly was working on the second draft of the first Bosch novel The Black Echo. Until then he was called Detective Pierce.
John Connolly's Charlie Parker is American and not Irish (Connolly is Irish) mainly because "mystery fiction has never really been part of the Irish literary tradition."
Colin Dexter made the decision to end his Inspector Morse series at only thirteen books because he himself was getting older and in poor health - and because he felt as if he were beginning to repeat himself.
Carol O'Connell's Mallory is a genuine sociopath, and as such, the character does not change over time. Take her or leave her is the author's attitude and that's why each of the novels can be read as a standalone.
I was pleased to see that the twenty-one fictional characters or teams include five of my all-time favorites: Jack Taylor, Harry Bosch, Charlie Resnick, Spenser, and John Rebus. Of the five, two are American, one Irish, one English, and one Scottish...where are the great Welsh fictional detectives/cops? Of the ones I haven't tried yet, I'm most curious about Elvis Cole and Joe Pike (Robert Crais), Alex Delaware (Jonathan Kellerman), and Lincoln Rhyme (Jeffery Deaver). On the flip side, I'm also certain now that Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, Rambo, and Precious Ramotswe are just not for me so I can check them off the list. And then there's the sleeper in the bunch, a writer so personally repellant to me that I haven't read them in over a decade and never will read them again.
As you can see, there are a lot of good reasons to read The Lineup: a chance to learn something new about an old favorite, the possibility that you will learn about a character that will become a new favorite, and the chance maybe to eliminate quickly a couple of series you've been wondering about for a long time.”
“The essays in this collection are written by well-known crime fiction and mystery authors. They tell us how they created the main character that made them famous through either informational essays or short stories that give back story on the characters' history. Some authors' contributions just fell flat for me. I believe this is just because I wasn't interested in the character and series those authors had created. Overall, however, I enjoyed reading this and found it very interesting. I mean, who doesn't want to know how their favorite character came to be, am I right?”
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