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Oct. 27th, 2008
Two Mystery Authors Gone
Oct. 27th, 2008 05:40 pmThe news that Tony Hillerman has died has been sweeping through my flist, and well it should: his groundbreaking Chee and Leaphorn mysteries were always good value for your reading time. (You may or may not know that when this white guy first tried to flog a mystery book set on a reservation in the late 60s, one publisher told him that they'd consider it if he "got rid of all that Indian stuff." He didn't, someone finally gambled on The Blessing Way, and he never had to look back.)
He's a loss. But 18 books over 30+ years is a pretty good corpus for a writer to leave behind him. (Coincidentally, I have just recently picked up quite a few of those titles from The Book Thing. Seeding those around for new readers to find will be a pleasure.)
But I didn't know him. Never met him, never talked to him.
However, today I learn from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chickwriter that Elaine Flinn has has suddenly died, and that is a terrible blow, because I *did* know her at a remove, and at only 4 books, she is gone far too early.
Flinn was a friend of the woman who runs Reviewing the Evidence, and thus was *not* one of the writers that Barbara could call dibs on. I was first to raise my hand to review Dealing in Murder, and from then on, she was one of the authors that I rushed to get books from - not only because I enjoyed reading them, but because she was also one of the few authors to react to the reviews and write back to me. I regret now that I didn't take the opportunity to talk to her longer, but I didn't want to end up in the "can't review due to personal attachment" bin.
Deadly Appraisal, Tagged for Murder, Deadly Collection, and the unfortunately weak Deadly Vintage are all that's left.
She wrote cozies that weren't cute, and that's quite the challenge. When quirky neurosis takes the place of most character development these days, her Molly Doyle had some serious and realistic challenges. Running an antiques business. (Although technically a theme cozy, Flinn never hammered the theme into the ground; she had a light touch with exposition, and it was all *accurate*.) Raising a niece who had been literally dumped on her doorstep. (And the emotional fallout from not only the girl's abandonment issues but the on-again-off-again attention of her birth mother were not glossed over.)
But the thing that impressed me the most was the handling of religion. I'm an atheist. Molly (and presumably Elaine) was Catholic. But Molly was described as praying without ever coming across as twee, evangelical, or holier-than-thou. It was just the way she was, and while she interpreted events through her worldview, there were no miracles or deus ex machina in the plots.
I loved that. In a world where Left Behind is mistaken for holy writ, I really loved that one character out of many could be presented as "this is what I think" without any attempt to convert the reader. And frankly, I loved her well-executed plots, because the world is also full of crappy cozies.
I was so looking forward to the next book.
And now there's never going to be one.
He's a loss. But 18 books over 30+ years is a pretty good corpus for a writer to leave behind him. (Coincidentally, I have just recently picked up quite a few of those titles from The Book Thing. Seeding those around for new readers to find will be a pleasure.)
But I didn't know him. Never met him, never talked to him.
However, today I learn from
chickwriter that Elaine Flinn has has suddenly died, and that is a terrible blow, because I *did* know her at a remove, and at only 4 books, she is gone far too early.Flinn was a friend of the woman who runs Reviewing the Evidence, and thus was *not* one of the writers that Barbara could call dibs on. I was first to raise my hand to review Dealing in Murder, and from then on, she was one of the authors that I rushed to get books from - not only because I enjoyed reading them, but because she was also one of the few authors to react to the reviews and write back to me. I regret now that I didn't take the opportunity to talk to her longer, but I didn't want to end up in the "can't review due to personal attachment" bin.
Deadly Appraisal, Tagged for Murder, Deadly Collection, and the unfortunately weak Deadly Vintage are all that's left.
She wrote cozies that weren't cute, and that's quite the challenge. When quirky neurosis takes the place of most character development these days, her Molly Doyle had some serious and realistic challenges. Running an antiques business. (Although technically a theme cozy, Flinn never hammered the theme into the ground; she had a light touch with exposition, and it was all *accurate*.) Raising a niece who had been literally dumped on her doorstep. (And the emotional fallout from not only the girl's abandonment issues but the on-again-off-again attention of her birth mother were not glossed over.)
But the thing that impressed me the most was the handling of religion. I'm an atheist. Molly (and presumably Elaine) was Catholic. But Molly was described as praying without ever coming across as twee, evangelical, or holier-than-thou. It was just the way she was, and while she interpreted events through her worldview, there were no miracles or deus ex machina in the plots.
I loved that. In a world where Left Behind is mistaken for holy writ, I really loved that one character out of many could be presented as "this is what I think" without any attempt to convert the reader. And frankly, I loved her well-executed plots, because the world is also full of crappy cozies.
I was so looking forward to the next book.
And now there's never going to be one.