"Gideon’s Sword": The Verdict

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

In a note at the end of their latest Aloysius Pendergast novel, Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child promised to debut the protagonist of a new series of thrillers, Gideon Crew. In Gideon’s Sword, they make good on their promise, introducing a younger man than Special Agent Pendergast. In his twenties, Gideon is billed (on the novel’s dust jacket) as a “trickster, prodigy,” and “master thief.” After avenging the death of his father, Gideon comes to the attention of a well-heeled private organization that hires him to, well, save the world. More specifically, his mission is to steal plans for a secret doomsday weapon from a Chinese agent who may or may not be defecting from his homeland. One thing leads to another (they way one thing should do in a thriller), and, before long, Gideon is in the company of prostitutes, call girls, female CIA agents, and others as he flees a Chinese martial arts expert-cum-assassin who is known only by the name of Nodding Crane.

It’s all good fun, but I find the plot, at times, unbelievable and, at other times, hard to believe. The characterization is fairly solid, although Gideon lacks (at this point, at least) the likeability of Pendergast. The Gideon books are apparently designed to appeal to younger-than-Pendergast novel-readers, which is all well and good, which probably explains the slightly more risqué (and sometimes crude) language, the references to prostitutes and call girls, and the double entendres (a few of which fall flat). Dialogue is not one of the authors’ particular strengths (although it is not a weakness, either), and, occasionally, what is intended to sound witty sounds more contrived than clever. Here’s an example:

“Bur Dubai Hotel is rather nice,” Mindy Jackson said as they passed through customs and headed for the taxi queue. “You owe me a stiff one.”

He spread his hands, “Drink, or . . . ?”

She colored. “Drink. A stiff drink. What a mind you have” (172).

Overall, though, the 342-page novel is exciting enough, although I wouldn’t go as far in my praise for it as those who supply the back cover’s blurbs (not all of which seem to have been written specifically for this Preston and Child novel). Would I read another Gideon Crew novel? Sure.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 14 through 16)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The fourteenth chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream is the shortest so far. Its purpose is purely utilitarian: to involve someone (protagonist Pendergast, as it turns out) in conversation. The chapter’s tagline informs the reader that the scene is “Penumbra Plantation,” which is Pendergast’s home:

“Would you care for another cup of tea, sir?” (74)

Although the speaker is as-yet unidentified, the one line of dialogue, a question, posed in media res, one might suspect that he is Pendergast’s factotum, Maurice, as, indeed, it proves to be.

The opening paragraph for Chapter 15 is longer. Preceded by a tagline that identifies the setting as “Rockland, Maine,” we are in a tavern with D’Agosta, a place that appears to be much like the lieutenant himself, in three particulars, at least. There is no reason to assume that the detective is “cheap,” but, otherwise, he is much like the tavern: “honest, unassuming, working class.” However, his state of mind prevents him from identifying much with the place, and he is in no mood to share a few rounds with the tavern’s local patrons:

Under ordinary circumstances, The Salty Dog Tavern would have been just the kind of bar Vincent D’Agosta liked: honest, unassuming, working class, and cheap. But these were not ordinary conditions. He had flown or driven among four cities in as many days; he missed Laura Hayward; and he was tired, bone-tired. Maine in February was not exactly charming. The last thing he felt like doing at the moment was hoisting beers with a bunch of fishermen (77).

Of course, if “the last thing he felt like doing at the moment was hoisting beers with a bunch of fishermen ,” why, the reader must wonder, is the detective in a tavern with such patrons? This simple, seemingly throw-away comment on the omniscient narrator’s part whets the reader’s curiosity. To find the answer to this implied question, the reader will have to continue to read. Preston and Child have, once more, demonstrated their skill in manipulating the reader so well and smoothly that the reader is not likely to realize that he or she has been manipulated into continuing to read the novel.

We all enjoy time to ourselves, especially after a busy day at work, so we can easily sympathize (in “New Orleans,” as the chapter’s tagline indicates) with Desmond Tipton’s desire to enjoy his own solitude after “the visitors [have] gone and he is alone, once more, in the museum in which he works:

Desmond Tipton liked this time of day more than any other, when the doors were shut and barred, the visitors gone, and every little thing in its place. It was the quiet period, from five to eight, before the drink [sic] tourists descended on the French Quarter like the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan, infesting the bars and jazz joints, swilling Sazeracs to oblivion. He could hear them outside every night, their boozy voices, and infantile caterwauling only partly muffled by the ancient walls of the Audubon Cottage (84).

Again, the authors’ description of a place also serves to typify a character. Tipton, a museum worker (possibly the curator) is more at home among things than he is among people; in the Audubon Cottage, things are safe (“the doors are shut and barred”), “quiet,” and orderly (“every little thing [is] in its place”). The Cottage is charming, because of its serenity and peace, but it is also charming because of its art, its culture, and even its age. At home in the museum, the metaphors upon which Tipton’s thoughts are constructed tend toward the ancient, the artistic, and the cultural. He sees the revelers of the French Quarter as invading barbarians, as “the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan.” Tipton is obviously an educated and cultured man and a man who, as such, fears the “hordes” of drunken “tourists” who disturb his own peace as they swarm “the bars and jazz joints,” drinking cocktails “to oblivion,” but not before disturbing the general peace with their “boozy voices, whoops, and infantile caterwauling,” which not even the wonders of Audubon’s Cottage can keep at bay for long; the din is “only partly muffled by the ancient walls of Audubon Cottage” (84). It will be interesting to see with whom Tipton interacts--the drunken “tourists” who behave “like the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan,” a low-life who lives in the vicinity, or someone of a more sophisticated and cultured air, such as Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 11 through 13)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The eleventh chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream\ introduces the reader to the “Wisley ‘farmstead,’” somewhere in remotest Zambia. The protagonist, the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, and his investigative partner, homicide lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, are traveling, via ramshackle Land Rover, to their destination, somewhere “northwest of Victoria Falls”:

Everyone, it seemed, knew where the Wisley “farmstead” was. It lay at the end of a well-maintained dirt track on a gently sloping hill in the forests northwest of Victoria Falls. In fact--as Pendergast paused the decrepit vehicle just before the final bend in the road--D’Agosta thought he could hear the falls: a low, distant roar that was more sensation than sound (53).

The fact that the “dirt track,” despite its location, “in the forests northwest of Victoria Falls,” in deepest Zambia, is “well-maintained” suggests that the “farmstead” that it serves belongs to a man of means, for it would be difficult, indeed, to maintain even a simple “dirt track” far in the interior of the African continent, among forests as thick as those which surround Victoria Falls. Such a “dirt track,” obviously connects the “farmstead” to such greater civilization as Zambia is able to offer, suggesting that its owner has been or expects to be in residence on his “farmstead” for some time. One wonders, of course, what Wisley might be doing in such a place. The paragraph concludes with a phrase that will communicate well to anyone who has ever been in the vicinity of a powerful waterfall, which, indeed, seems, as Preston and Child observe, to be “more sensation than sound” and helps to create a sense of immediacy for the reader, placing him or her on the scene, as it were, able both to see, to hear, and to feel the environment that the authors’ omniscient narrator describes.

The opening paragraph of Chapter 12 places us back in the United States, in “Savannah, Georgia,” as the chapter’s tagline indicates. The civilized charm of the deep South contrasts sharply with the wild beauty of the African forests, a connection with which the narrator establishes with the paragraph’s last sentence:

Whitfield Square dozed placidly in the failing light of a Monday evening. Streetlights came up, throwing the palmettos and the Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs into gauzy relief. After the cauldron-like heat of Central Africa, D’Agosta found the humid Georgia air almost a relief (62).

It’s unclear as to why D’Agosta finds the cooler air “almost a relief” rather than an actual relief, but the setting’s serene, seemingly indolent tone contrasts with the “forests” and the “falls” of “Central Africa” as clearly as Georgia’s “humid” air contrasts with Zambia’s “cauldron-like heat.” Of course, the “palmettos and the Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs” also contrasts starkly with “the forests northwest of Victoria Falls” and the “distant roar” of the falls “that was more sensation than sound.” The contrast between the wilderness of Africa, in which Pendergast’s wife, Helen, was killed in a lion’s attack, and the urban environment of the postbellum South in which her murder is under investigation is as stark as villainy and goodness. This paragraph, masterfully written, contrasts not only two continents and two ways of life, but also two extremes of the moral continuum.

Chapter 13’s opening paragraph is more utilitarian, changing the scene from Savannah, Georgia to “New Orleans” as Pendergast drives into a Louisiana parking lot:

Pendergast turned the Rolls-Royce into the private parking lot on Dauphine Street, harshly lit with sodium lamps. The attendant, a man with thick ears and heavy pouches below his eyes, lowered the gate behind them and handed Prendergast a ticket, which the agent tucked in the visor (69).

The authors’ description of the parking lot attendant keeps the paragraph interesting, individualizing a character that could easily have been bypassed or written off, so to speak, as merely “the attendant.” The references to his “thick ears” and to the “heavy pouches below his eyes” humanizes him. Such tags may also characterize Pendergast as someone who is trained to make note of the distinguishing features of not only criminal suspects but of everyone. As a well-trained and experienced FBI agent, little that goes on around him is lost to Pendergast; his mind seems to have assumed the efficiency of a surveillance camera in recording the details associated with any and all particular persons, places, and things, including even a parking lot attendant whom Pendergast is unlikely to see again for a long time to come, if ever.

The opening paragraphs to chapters 11 through 13, like those which have come before, show how adroitly and purposefully accomplished writers of the likes of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child make use of descriptive, introductory text. These authors’ style and technique are certainly worthy of study by anyone who writes or wishes to write thrillers, horror stories, or fiction of any other genre.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 7 through 10)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The seventh chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream places the reader (alongside D’Agosta and Pendergast) in New York City, as the FBI agent’s “Rolls-Royce” tears “up Park Avenue.” The homicide detective and the FBI agent are seated in the back of the vehicle, with D’Agosta “feeling awkward” because of Pendergast’s uncharacteristically emotional openness:

The Rolls-Royce tore up Park Avenue. Late-cruising cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow. D’Agosta sat in the back with Pendergast, feeling awkward, trying no to turn a curious eye toward the FBI agent. This Pendergast was impatient, unkempt, and--most remarkable--openly emotional (37).

Like most of the other of the novel’s opening paragraphs, this one sets the scene, accomplishing its purpose with economy. At the same time, the paragraph characterizes both the scene and the main character. As if employing deft strokes of an artist’s brush, the authors use phrases to paint the picture: “Rolls-Royce” and “Park Avenue” suggest wealth and luxury; “cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow” provides an image that the reader can not only visualize in his or her mind but also nearly hear; and the adjectives that appear at the end of the paragraph characterize the protagonist with the same decisive economy: “impatient, unkempt, and. . . emotional.”

Chapter 8 introduces another of the series’ recurring characters (or, for first-time readers, debuts her): Captain Laura Hayward, although she is not seen or even heard; she is introduced merely by the omniscient narrator’s mention of her: “D’Agosta stood, a little uncertainly, in the hallway of the tidy, two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward.” The reader learns that the couple has only just become a couple again, after an apparent earlier breakup, and that D’Agosta fears that his partnering with Pendergast may cost him his newly repaired relationship with the police captain:

D’Agosta stood, a little uncertainly, in the hallway of the tidy, two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward. It was technically her apartment, but recently he’d finally begun splitting the rent with her. Just getting her to concede to that had taken months. Now he fervently hoped this sudden turn of events wouldn’t undo all the hard work he’d put into repairing their relationship (42).

There is conflict here--or potential conflict: Hayward may break up with D’Agosta again. There is also the implication that Hayward was hard to win over; it was difficult for D’Agosta to gain her trust and her heart, for it “had taken months” for him to get her to “concede” to his offer to split the apartment’s rent with her--in other words, to accept him as a roommate and not just a visitor. Moreover, there is the suggestion that D’Agosta finds Hayward worth the effort that it has taken for him to win her over again: he has put a lot of “hard work into repairing their relationship.” Finally, there is also an allusion to a past event or series of events that had somehow fractured their relationship; otherwise, no “repairing” would be necessary. Once again, the authors set the scene with their chapter’s opening paragraph, and, once again, at the same time, they accomplish more--in this case, creating suspense (for new readers, at least) concerning what has happened to damage the relationship between D’Agosta and Hayward in the past and (for readers old and new) the question as to whether D’Agosta’s partnering with Pendergast will have a disastrous effect upon their present relationship, undoing “all the hard work” that D’Agosta has “put into repairing their relationship.”

Again, using carefully worded phrases to paint a picture of the New York Harbor, as Pendergast and D’Agosta, driven by the FBI agent’s chauffeur, Proctor, the authors set the scene, suggest the narrative’s progress, and introduce a “detour”:

The Rolls, Proctor again at the wheel, hummed along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge. D’Agosta watched a pair of tugboats pushing a giant barge heaped with cubed cars up the East River, leaving a frothy wake behind. It had all happened so fast, he still wasn’t quite able to wrap his head around it--they would have to make a brief, but necessary, detour (44).

Where will the detour take the characters, the reader wonders, and why? We, along for the ride, are apt to be as curious as D’Agosta, eager to learn of our destination and its purpose. With economy, Preston and Child, as usual, suggest action (we are riding along with D’Agosta and Pendergast, “along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge,” tugboats on view outside the window of the Rolls-Royce), and create suspense (concerning the nature and the reason for the “detour”) that D’Agosta and Pendergast must take--quite a feat for a paragraph of only sixty-six words!

The opening paragraph of the next chapter returns the reader to Africa, or, more specifically, as the chapter’s tagline makes clear, “Zambia.” D’Agosta (with Pendergast at the wheel, the reader learns, in the next paragraph), travels inside a rickety and ramshackle vehicle along a rutted road. We are not sure what we are doing in Zambia, when, last we knew, D’Agosta and Pendergast were in New York, about to catch the airplane that, presumably, has brought them here, to Africa, but, it seems clear, we will soon find out. Once again, the authors maintain the reader’s interest by shifting scenes:

Zambia

The smiling, gap-toothed man at the dirt airstrip had called the vehicle a Land Rover. That description, D’Agosta thought as he hung on for dear life, was more than charitable. Whatever it might have been, now it barely deserved to be called an automobile. It had no windows, no roof, no radio, and no seat belts. The hood was fixed to the grille by a tangle of baling wire. He could see the dirt road through giant rust holes in the chassis (48).

Suspenseful Conundrums

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

In reading Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s latest Pendergast novel, I knew that the protagonist, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, would not kill his wife’s murderer, despite his vow to do so, for, were he to have done such a heinous act, he would have become irredeemably unsympathetic to the reader. As an FBI agent, Pendergast, like Superman, represents “truth, justice, and the American way,” and vigilante justice, being no justice at all, has never been a part of “the American way.” That’s why, in the all-American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain has Colonel Sherburn face down the mob that has come to lynch him for shooting a drunken assailant. However, my suspicion that the protagonist would not kill his wife’s killer didn’t eliminate suspense; on the contrary, I was eager to see how the authors would avoid the agent’s fulfillment of his promise, wondering whether his doing so would be believable and satisfying. I’d say that it was, on both counts. Moreover, the resolution of this particular conflict is a study in how to maintain a character’s integrity while satisfying the need for justice that a cold-blooded murder deserves.

The authors also have gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle with regard to Pendergast’s legal ward, Constance Greene. Under arrest for allegedly tossing her infant son overboard during her crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, because the child, like his father, is “evil,” she tells a psychologist that she was born in the 1870’s. How will her apparent infanticide and her absurd claim to be nearly 150 years old be resolved? Alas, in Fever Dream, neither issue is resolved. Both are left hanging, as it were, for resolution in the next (or some other future) installment in the series. The same conundrum applies to Constance as applies to Pendergast. A likeable, if eccentric, character to this point in the series, she would lose the reader’s sympathy if either the murder of her own child or the telling of an outrageous, seemingly pointless lie is left to stand. Therefore, the same challenge to the writers exists as did with regard to Pendergast’s vow to kill his wife’s killer. There must be a resolution to Constance’s apparent infanticide and to her gross lie that is both credible (that is, logical within the context of the story) and emotionally satisfying to the reader. One suspects that Preston and Child will accomplish both requirements--they usually do--but the fun, from the reader’s point of view--lies in seeing just how they pull off the feat.

Learning from the Masters: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

In Chapter 47 of their latest novel, Fever Dream, authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child shed light upon their technique for creating mysterious and engaging thrillers.

To NYPD’s Captain Laura Hayward, a stand-in, at this point in the story, for the reader, who may be as mystified as to the protagonist’s actions as Hayward herself, the investigation that her boyfriend, homicide detective Lieutenant Vincent (“Vinnie”) D’Agosta, and his friend, the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, are conducting concerning the murder, twelve years ago, of Pendergast’s wife, Helen, seems to be “a typical Pendergast investigation, all hunches and blind alleys and conflicting evidence, strung together by highly questionable police work” (235).

However, from the author’s perspective (and from Hayward’s as well, once Pendergast explains his and D’Agosta’s findings to date), “the bizarre story” has “an internal logic,” for Preston and Child, of course, have plotted the story in full, in advance of their writing a single word of it. However, because they withhold relevant information from the reader, supplying key material in a piecemeal fashion, the authors deny both D’Agosta, Pendergast, and the reader the very context that the writers have had from the beginning. As a result, “the bizarre story” they tell, through Pendergast, has “an internal logic” to them, but not to the reader (or, initially, to the investigators or to Hayward, before she is clued in).

Of course, eventually, Preston and Child must allow their protagonist, with the help of D’Agosta, to figure out at least something of what is going on--in other words, to causally connect the pieces of evidence and the clues that the investigators discover--and, to gain Hayward’s confidence when he needs her to take over D’Agosta’s role as his assistant, following the lieutenant’s being gravely wounded, Pendergast shares his theory concerning the significance of the evidence:

. . . Pendergast explained his late wife’s obsession with Audubon; how they had traced her interest in the Carolina Parakeet, the Black Frame, the lost parrot, and the strange fate of the Doane family. He read her passages from the Doane girl’s diary: a chilling descent into madness. He described their encounter with Blast, another seeker of the Black Frame, himself recently murdered--as had been Helen Pendergast’s former employer at Doctors With Wings, Morris Blackletter. And finally, he explained the series of deductions and discoveries that led to the unearthing of the Black Frame itself (235).

In Fever Dream, the authors also suggest an analogy (not an especially original one, but one which is, nevertheless, illuminating) concerning their narrative technique. Due to his association with Pendergast, D’Agosta has learned, “long ago. . . to never get caught without two things: a gun and a flashlight” (138). As if the investigators were in a darkened room throughout their investigation, most of the contents of the room (the facts and clues of the investigation) are unseen (unknown, overlooked, or not understood). Therefore, facts, clues, and other pertinent information are brought to light (discovered or recognized as relevant) only a little at a time, as the flashlight’s beam (perception, comprehension, analysis, and evaluation) exposes them--and, when it does expose them, these pieces of evidence are usually not in any apparent logical or systematic order. As a result, both to the investigators and the reader at the moment that the evidence is gleaned), it may well seem that the investigators are, indeed, pursuing “hunches,” following “blind alleys,” and collecting “conflicting evidence” blindly and haphazardly. It is only after they have gathered the evidence, determined its significance, and interpreted its meaning that D’Agosta and Prendergast (mostly Pendergast) can develop a theory that fully illuminates their findings so that their work (or their “bizarre story”) begins to have “an internal logic.”

In his discussion with Hayward at his estate, following D’Agosta’s grave injury, Pendergast, in fact, models his method, deducing the meaning (and thereby providing the explanation for) “the central mystery of the case, the birds,” linking Audubon’s illness (the cause of his genius as a painter) to Helen’s discovery of the same link between Audubon’s genius and his sickness:

“And all she wanted with the painting was confirmation for this theory?” [Hayward asks Pendergast].

Pendergast nodded. “That painting is the link between Audubon’s early, indifferent work and his later brilliance. It’s proof of the transition he underwent. But that doesn’t quite get to the central mystery in this case: the birds.”

Hayward frowned. “The birds?”

“The Carolina Parakeets. The Doane parrot.”

Hayward herself had been puzzling over the connection to Audubon’s illness, to no avail. “And?”

Pendergast sipped his coffee. “I believe we’re dealing with a strain of avian flu.”

“Avian flu? You mean, bird flu?”

“That, I believe, is the disease that laid Audubon low, that nearly killed him, and that was responsible for his creative flowering. His symptoms--high fever, headache, delirium, cough--are all consistent with flu. A flu he no doubt caught dissecting a Carolina Parakeet” (236).

Nor is Pendergast through with demonstrating his powers of deduction, for he next links the birds to the Doane family’s artistic brilliance and the madness to which they later succumbed, citing significant “similarities” between the family’s behavior and Audubon’s own conduct:

“But all that still doesn’t explain how those parakeets [the Carolina Parakeet specimens Helen stole from the Audubon collection] are linked to the Doane family” [Hayward declares to Pendergast].

“It’s quite simple” [Pendergast explains]. The Doanes were sickened by the same disease that struck Audubon.”

“What makes you say that?”

“There are simply too many similarities, Captain, for anything else to make sense. The sudden flowering of creative brilliance. Followed by mental dissolution. Too many similarities--and Helen knew it. That’s why she went to get the bird from them [the Doanes]” (237).

He is also certain that Helen had known the same cause-and-effect relationship between the birds and the flowering genius (and madness) of both Audubon and the Doane family, which is why she visited the museum housing specimens of birds personally preserved by Audubon and why she visited the Doane family, stealing both museum specimens and the parrot that the Doane family had found and adopted as a pet. Helen had meant, Pendergast contends, to “extract from them [the birds] a live sample” of the avian virus, both to “keep it from spreading” and “to test it. . . to confirm her suspicions” that the virus was what had caused the artist’s and family members’ artistic genius and subsequent madness. Helen’s knowledge is attested to, Pendergast says, by the precautions she had taken to avoid infecting herself with the virus:

“. . . She wore leather gloves, and she stuffed the bird and its cage into a garbage bag. Why? Initially, I assumed the bag was simply for concealment. But it was to keep herself and her car from contamination” [Pendergast tells Hayward].

“And the leather gloves?’

“Worn no doubt to conceal a pair of medical gloves beneath. Helen was trying to remove a viral vector from the human population. No doubt the bird, cage, and bag were all incinerated--after she’d taken the necessary samples, of course” (237-38).

Preston and Child do not merely have characters discuss past investigative findings. The authors also use dialogue between their characters to present rhetorical questions pertaining to as-yet-undiscovered aspects and implications of the investigation, as in this exchange between Pendergast and Hayward, wherein the reader is advised, as it were, of three other, related questions implicit in the case:

“Isn’t there another question you’re forgetting?” Hayward asked.

Pendergast looked at her.

“You say Helen stole the parrots Audubon studied--the ones that supposedly sickened him. Helen also visited the Doane family and stole their parrot--because, as you also say, she knew it was infected. By inference, Helen is the common thread that binds the two events. So aren’t you curious what role she might have had in the sequencing and inoculation?” (238)

Masters of their craft, Preston and Child show how, in skilled hands, authors can provide data without context, piece together a theory that, using deductive and inductive reasoning to analyze causes and effects and to infer implications concerning the significance and meaning of such evidence, explains criminal undertakings and their perpetrators’ motives and goals while, at the same time, keeping unresolved questions that are important to the developing case before the reader’s mind. Whether an aspiring author writes horror fiction or thrillers, he or she can learn a good deal from the example of such masterful storytellers.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 4 through 6)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The fourth chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream does not begin with a tagline that identifies the action’s location, for the action continues in the setting that was identified in the previous chapter’s tagline, that of “The Fever Trees.” The chapter’s opening paragraph opens in media res, or in the middle of things, with the protagonist’s regaining consciousness:

The world came back into focus. Pendergast was in one of the rondevaals. The distant throb of a chopper sounded through the thatch roof, rapidly increasing in volume (22).

The authors again prove their adroitness at marrying action to emotion and, indeed, action to a specific character’s own current dilemma or perceptions. The helicopter’s “throb” mirrors the throbbing that, readers might suspect, Pendergast himself feels after having just been mauled by a huge and vicious lion. In addition, the fact that the sound of the aircraft’s engine “rapidly” increases “in volume” suggests that it is arriving, not departing, and again makes readers share the protagonist’s perspective: Pendergast hears the approaching “chopper,” as do the novel’s readers. It is as if the aircraft is coming for them as much as for him.

The scene shifts in Chapter 5, as its tagline informs readers, from Africa to “St. Charles Parish, Louisiana.” The paragraph’s allusion to luxury automobiles, to a palatial “plantation house,” and to the estate’s being listed “on the National Register of Historic Places” indicates that whoever is traveling in such an automobile to such a destination probably him- or herself (himself, as it turns out, for the next paragraph makes the character’s identity--protagonist “A. X. L. Pendergast”--clear)a man or woman of means and status:

The Rolls-Royce Grey Ghost crept around the circular drive, the crisp crunch of gravel under the tires muffled in places by patches of crabgrass. The motorcar was followed by a late-model Mercedes, in silver. Both vehicles came to a stop before a Greek revival plantation house, framed by ancient black oaks draped in fingers of Spanish moss. A small bronze plaque screwed into the façade announced that the mansion was known as Penumbra; that it had been built in 1821 by the Pendergast family; and that it was on the National Register of Historic Places (24).

Chapter 6 transports the reader, its tagline declares, to “New York City,” introducing a recurring character, Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, who is busy investigating a murder scene. For readers for whom Fever Dream is the first of the Pendergast series of novels, D’Agosta will appear to be a new character; those who have read other novels in the series will recognize him as a friend and sometimes-ally of Pendergast. The paragraph is matter-of-fact in style, depicting the crime scene with the dispassionate and objective manner of a motion picture camera. Employing, as the rest of the novel does, an omniscient narrator, the paragraph’s impartial reporting of the scene indicates D’Agosta’s own professionally detached observation of the scene. Here, readers will think, is a man who is used to investigating murders.

Four AM, Saturday, Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta pushed through the crowd, ducked under a crime-scene tape, and walked over to where the body lay sprawled across the sidewalk outside one of the countless identical Indian restaurants on East 6th Street. A large pool of blood had collected beneath it, reflecting the red and purple neon light in the restaurant’s grimy window with surreal splendor (32).

(Readers may--or may not--learn more about this seemingly casually referenced death; the authors sometimes include a future incident that bears upon or is in some way related to such a seemingly random event as this murder of an as-yet anonymous individual; other times, such an incident as the one described in this opening paragraph is a stand-alone occurrence, unrelated to future narrative events. By sometimes connecting such an incident to another, future event and sometimes not making such an association, Preston and Child keep their readers guessing.) In either case, the investigation of a murder scene is an interesting way to introduce a character and a good way to suggest his expertise as an investigator.

Once again, the authors show their substantial talent for making a single paragraph perform several functions--in the cases of the three cited in this post, identifying readers’ perspective with that of the novel’s protagonist and characterizing characters by associating them each with a particular type of setting.

"Fever Dream": Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 1 through 3)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s latest novel, Fever Dream, like most of their books, changes scenes with regularity. This time, the action moves among locations in Africa, Louisiana, New York, Georgia, Maine, the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, and Mississippi. Eve when the action does manage to settle down for a moment, in one state, the story tends to move among lesser locations, such as towns, swamps, and plantations.

Because the action shifts among a variety of scenes, the opening paragraphs of the book’s chapters are largely devoted to the task of setting the scenes. Douglas and Preston accomplish this goal with economy, making each chapter interesting in itself, despite its similar mission with most of its brethren, by employing a variety of rhetorical and poetic devices.

The chapters in which a new or recurring scene occurs begins with a tagline, announcing the location, which is followed by the opening chapter. The first chapter is labeled “Musalangu, Zambia,” which is followed with this description of the place:

The setting sun blazed through the African bush like a forest fire, hot yellow in the sweltering evening that gathered over the bush camp. The hills along the upper Makwele Stream rose in the east like blunt green teeth, framed against the sky (1).

The authors employ two similes, “sun. . . like a forest fire” and “hills. . . like teeth,” which add interest to what might have been an otherwise rather mundane description, and the second figure of speech suggests danger and, more specifically, a bestial danger, which the beginning of the story soon delivers in the death of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast’s wife Helen, who is killed and devoured by a rogue lion.

Chapter 2 begins with the tagline, “Kingazu Camp, Luangwa River,” and involves the readers in the story’s action, as Pendergast and Helen drive to the camp mentioned in the chapter’s tagline. The writers’ description puts their readers inside the vehicle in which the characters make their way to their destination; the readers can all but feel every bump and jolt of the rough ride:

The Land Rover banged and lurched along the Banta Road, a bad track in a country legendary for them. Pendergast turned the wheel violently left and right to avoid the yawning potholes, some almost as deep as the bashed-up Rover. The windows were wide open--the air-conditioner was broken--and the interior of the car was awash in dust blown in by the occasional vehicle passing in the other direction (6).

Involving the readers in the action creates a sense of immediacy, a sense of you-are-here, which gives them a stake in the characters’ mission. Thanks to Preston and Child’s use of this technique, their readers are literally along for the ride. This opening chapter also employs a personification; the potholes in the road are “yawning,” which may recall the simile, in the previous chapter’s opening paragraph, in which “hills” were likened to “blunt green teeth.” The authors seem, again, to remind their readers, albeit rather subtly, that there is a dangerous predator not far ahead--a “yawning” mouth full of “blunt green teeth,” the “green” of which could symbolize the African veldt--or a denizen therein.,

The opening paragraph to chapter 3 (which is labeled “The Fever Trees”) sets up a stark contrast between nature, as represented by the African veldt, and civilization, as represented by Kingazu Camp. The jungle is quiet, seemingly “subdued,” and its stillness contrasts with the busyness of the camp’s residents as they go about their daily business. The relative quiet of the seemingly somnolent jungle, however, appears deceiving, somewhat like the calm that precedes a storm, because the authors include the phrase “false dawn,” suggesting that the daybreak which illuminates the dark continent is somehow deceitful or fraudulent. In short, it would be a mistake, perhaps, to let down one’s guard. Even when the jungle appears to be at rest, it is a dangerous place:

The night had been silent. Even the local prides that often tattooed the darkness with their roars were lying low, and the usual chatter of night animals seemed subdued. The sound of the river was a faint gurgle and shush that belied the massive flow, perfuming the air with the smell of water. Only with the false dawn came the first noises of what passed for civilization: hot water being poured into shower-drums in preparation for morning ablutions (13).

The suggestion of deceitfulness or fraud that the phrase “false dawn” creates is echoed, and reinforced, by other phrases. “The river was a faint. . . shush,” readers are told--and they are likely to think the noun “shush” strange in this context; normally, one does not think of a river as making a “shushing” sound such as librarians sometimes make to quiet noisy young patrons. Moreover, like the “subdued” jungle animals, the river seems to be in a conspiracy with the dawn to suppress some secret; the sounds that it makes--”a faint gurgle and shush”--themselves are deceitful, as it were, for they are “belied” by the river’s “massive flow.”

Finally, the opening paragraph to this chapter suggests that nature, as represented by the jungle, which is full of mighty forces--”lions, “night animals,” and a “river” of “massive flow”--is characterized as powerful, perhaps predatory, whereas civilization is portrayed as paltry and weak. One of the few improvement that the camp has been able to the offerings of nature is meager, indeed: The water from the river has been heated so that “hot water” may be “poured into shower-drums in preparation for morning ablutions.” Humans, who often fancy themselves to be the masters of nature, are here characterized as being something more like its parasites--or potential prey.

Dear Reader, Meet Gideon Crew; Gideon, Dear Reader

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

There are 80 chapters (405 pages) to Douglas Lincoln and Preston Child’s latest novel, Fever Dream, which will set you back $26.99 (retail hardback), if you decide to buy it. (I checked out a copy from my local library.) I have read only 15 chapters 83) pages so far, but find it, as I do most of this duo’s fiction, a page-turner. The synopsis of the plot provided by the book’s flyleaf does a good job of uniting the action in a succinct fashion, linking past to present and present to future:

Yesterday, Special Agent Pendergast still mourned the loss of his beloved wife, Helen, who died in a tragic accident in Africa twelve years ago.

Today, he discovers she was murdered.

Tomorrow, he will learn her most guarded secrets, leaving him to wonder: Who was the woman I married? And, above all. . . Who murdered her?

In earlier novels, the authors have provided dibs and dabs of their novels’ protagonist back story, building up the eccentric agent’s character so that he becomes both understandable and sympathetic. Other recurring characters are, perhaps, more loveable, but Pendergast, certainly, is most memorable. In this novel, he is humanized still further as he seeks to discover the truth behind his late wife’s murder.

At the end of the story, when Fever Dream is over, Preston and Child surprise their readers with the announcement of their creation of a new detective of sorts, who will appear, they say, “in an exciting new series.” The “investigator,” Gideon Crew, the authors assure their readers, debuts in Gideon’s Sword, which is due to hit the bookstores (and, hopefully, the library shelves) “in the winter of 2011.” However, he will not replace Pendergast: The authors make it clear that they “will continue to write novels featuring the world’s most enigmatic FBI agent with the same frequency as before.”

Preston and Child claim that they “can’t give. . . any information about this novel except its title,” but mean, of course, that they won’t divulge any further information. Chillers and Thrillers will, however, courtesy of this synopsis of the novel’s plot by David Pitt of Book List:

Gideon Crew, the hero of Preston and Child’s new novel, has a complicated backstory. As a boy, he watched as his father, who had taken a man hostage, was shot down by a sniper. Less than a decade later, he learned from his mother that his father had been used by the U.S. government as a scapegoat for a failed intelligence project. After dispatching the man responsible for his father’s murder, Gideon is offered a job with a private contractor that does hush-hush work for the government. Gideon’s mission: to intercept a Chinese scientist and relieve him of the plans for a top-secret weapon. The mission doesn’t go as drawn, however, and Gideon is left with a mysterious string of numbers. Now, working mostly alone, he must determine what the numbers mean. This novel (which is apparently the first installment in a new series) isn’t as elegantly written or constructed as the authors’ popular Special Agent Pendergast novels, but it does—once you get past the backstory—hold the reader’s interest, and Gideon is undeniably a big-shouldered character, capable of supporting a series.

I, for one, look forward to meeting Mr. Crew--and to continuing my acquaintance with Special Agent Pendergast. Now that you've been properly introduced to Gideon, maybe you'll look forward to meeting him, too.

Cameo Characters Can Do More Than Advance Plots; They Can Be Compelling in Themselves

One of the more interesting (and creepiest) scenes I’ve read recently in a horror-suspense novel occurs in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s novel Cemetery Dance, which features a cult of zombies who live in New York City’s Inwood Hill Park.

The scene of which I write doesn’t take place on the island or even in New York City, however; it occurs in a restaurant, while the character eats his breakfast. A creature of habit, the diner has been coming to the same eatery for some time, always ordering the same breakfast, which he routinely eats while he reads the morning newspaper.

Something in one of the newspaper’s headlines or stories and other perceptions he experiences convinces him that God wants him to board the next bus to New York City, where, once he arrives, a divine plan will be made known to him. His intuition that he has been called as a servant of God is confirmed when he finds that all the money he has left to his name, which he carries in his wallet and pocket, is the exact amount of the one-way fare to his destination.

Needless to say, he serves a further narrative purpose once he arrives in the city, advancing the plot as his dubious service to the Lord edges the plot toward its climax. Otherwise, he is of no importance to the story; he is a cameo character.

Preston and Child, like other successful writers of horror and other genres, demonstrate in this scene the effectiveness of introducing not just any character but a compelling character to support or advance their plots, even when this character him- or herself is otherwise of minor importance in the greater scheme of things. Such a technique costs only a little thought and work, but it pays dividends, making one’s writing intriguing rather than merely perfunctory.

The Adaptation of the Gothic

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

South cloister of Gloucester Cathedral, looking eastwards.  By William Avery.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Images of the Gothic no longer haunt us, perhaps, as they did earlier generations. Americans, in particular, do not identify much with aristocratic living or, for that matter, peasantry. Most Americans live in apartments or single-family dwellings. Their houses, although often spacious, are seldom the size of castles, and Americans are more likely to be haunted by natural, as opposed to supernatural, events. War, sickness, broken relationships, the deaths of loved ones, upward mobility, taxes, and the heartbreak of psoriasis are apt to frighten Americans more than things that go bump in the night.

Writers like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and James Rollins have survived the decline of fantastic literature in general and of horror fiction in particular by adapting the Gothic in various ways. King and Little bring it to contemporary small-town or rural America, substituting mansions, hotels, universities, and resorts for castles and middle-class neighbors for the peasantry. The nobility is pretty much gone from the picture altogether, with the exception of such stand-ins as occasional politicians, celebrities, and business tycoons. Koontz’s fiction adapts the fantastic and the horrific to modern life, too, but, in doing so, makes both the fantastic and the horrific merely elements of a more inclusive, “cross-genre” body of fiction that includes elements of such other genres as romance, science fiction, adventure, thrillers, and mystery. He even includes, more often than not, a dog of a purer and nobler character than any of his protagonists is likely to develop.

Simmons’ Summer of Night, a slow starter, is a rewarding read similar to King’s It, and other of his early novels tread ground that is likewise familiar to Gothic and contemporary readers alike as well: vampires (Carrion Comfort), ghosts (A Winter‘s Haunting), and even an irate volcano goddess (Fires of Eden). His more recent work, when it has dealt with horror rather than with science fiction, has reworked Gothic themes (Drood) or historical events (The Terror). McCammon’s novels often deal with sociological (The Sting) or psychological (Mine!) themes, especially as they relate to growing up (Boy’s Life). Preston and Child introduce elements of the police procedural and the thriller into their uncanny fiction by having the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast solve unusual, X-Files-type crimes that often take the reader into such exotic locales as museums, subway and sewer systems, cruise ships, Buddhist monasteries, and dream worlds, at the same time acquainting fans with specialized and esoteric knowledge about ancient artifacts, engineering marvels, the maritime trade, the finer points of Zen, and astral projection. Rollins brings special forces personnel into stories set in Amazon jungles, subterranean worlds, and other places similar to those of his literary mentors, the Doc Savage authors, Edgar Rice Burroughs, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne.

The Gothic elements, although transformed, persist not so much in imagery as in mood and tone. Darkness. Shadows. Monstrous faces appearing out of the gloom. Fog. Images of decadence and death. Hints of a stranger, deeper cosmos beyond the familiar, everyday world. Portals to nowhere--and everywhere. Wraiths and apparitions that may be merely imaginary. Intimations of immortality. Mysterious ruins. Beautiful, but deadly, women. Hideous, half-seen shapes. The falling of divine judgment, like lightning, at the stroke of midnight. Time out of joint and space deformed. The themes and images may be interpreted to fit the prejudices and needs of the day, but they remain eternally Gothic, even when they are disguised.

.

Quick Tip: Irony and Its Uses in Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Since O. Henry (and before), writers have surprised readers by ending stories with surprises, or twists. Twisting one’s tale often results from the use of irony--dramatic, verbal, or situational. However, irony can also be used to create humor, to sensationalize moments or incidents, and to generate and heighten suspense.

Narrative suspense results from dramatic irony. In dramatic irony, the reader knows more than one or more of the characters involved in a scene. For example, the monster might wait in ambush, at the intersection of tunnels just ahead; the reader knows this, but the character or characters traveling through the tunnel do not.

Verbal irony is often used in humor. The narrator or a character in the story says the opposite of what he or she means. Example: Seeing a dark sky, feeling a heaviness in the air, and seeing and feeling the effects of rising winds, a character might say, “What mild weather we’re having today!” In horror fiction, verbal irony can sensationalize; for example, a character might say, “Vampires aren’t nearly as scary as I thought they’d be--they’re way more terrifying!” Verbal irony, as it is used, for example, in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, can also foreshadow future incidents or situations.

Suspense often relies upon situational irony, which occurs when one situation causes readers to expect a particular outcome, but a later situation either resolves the earlier one in an unexpected way or takes the plot in a new, unanticipated direction. Example: A scientist may be confident that he has the technological means by which to neutralize or destroy a monster, but, when he tries to do so, the technology either has no effect or an unintended effect that actually makes matters worse.

Which type of irony is used in each of these scenes?

1. Montressor wishes Fortunato a long life as Montressor leads Fortunato to his death, and, when Fortunato assures Montressor, “I will not die of a cough,” Montressor [who kills his victim by sealing Fortunato inside a wall] agrees, replying, “True--true.”)

Answer: Verbal (It happens in in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.”)

2. Revenants suspected of being zombies turn out to be lobotomized.

Answer: Situational (It happens in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Cemetery Dance.)

3. Kendra thinks Buffy Summers is a vampire because Kendra sees Buffy kissing a vampire (Angel); Kendra doesn’t know that Buffy is a fellow vampire slayer who has fallen in love with Angel, whose soul was restored to him in a Gypsy curse.

Answer: Dramatic (It happens in an episode of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

Learning from the Masters: The Art of the Publicity Ploy

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes it seems that some novels (and movies) are like Douglas MacArthur’s old soldiers; they “never die, they just fade away” (eventually). Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have published a “lost” chapter of their first novel Relic on their official website, with the caveat that the chapter really isn’t lost, and never was; it was “just asleep,” which is to say replaced by a substitute. In it, the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast interviews Margo Green, a museum employee who “knows a lot more about what's really going on than she realizes” about the murders Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Pendergast are investigating.

The authors find their characterization of Prendergast and their planting of a red herring concerning the criminal past of New York Times reporter Bill Smithback awkward and unnecessary, respectively, and include the “lost” chapter, presumably, to show their readers that they are not perfect, that writing is a process, and that the resurrection of a discarded chapter can seem, at least, to offer something that, although not new or original, is still somehow worthwhile to a website. However, one gets the impression that the point of publishing the piece is more promotional than pedagogical.

Robert R. McCammon seems to take the opposite approach to generating publicity for his works, refusing to allow his first four novels to ever again see the light of day because of their inferiority to the rest of his oeuvre. Gee, a writer who is that concerned with the quality of his writing must be a writer, indeed! we’re apparently to think. I mean, here is a guy who’s willing to put his art above mere profit. One doesn’t encounter such integrity very often, in or out of the publishing world. The problem with such reasoning is that several of his other early novels are little, if any, better. Usher’s Passing (1984), The Wolf’s Hour (1989), and Mine (1990), for example, are certainly not among the best of which McCammon is capable, although they are still in print. Still, as a publicity ploy, his refusal to allow the republication of Baal (1978), Bethany’s Sin 1980), The Night Boat 1980), and They Thirst (1981) has surely earned him attention and even some respect. (Of course, these volumes may well be published again,. posthumously, earning his estate the money they are not now making for the author himself.)

Quick Tip: Offer Readers More Than a Story

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the pleasures of reading is experiencing (or, at least, being introduced to) new sights. Reading is travel by armchair. This is so even when one’s reading doesn’t happen to involve travel books. Stephen King takes his readers inside not only the geography of small towns, but also into their psychology and sociology. He helps his fans see not only what it is like to live in a small town but also what is means to live in such a community.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child show their readers what it is like and what it means to work for a big city museum, for a big city police department, for a big city newspaper; they also, quite frequently, show their readers what it is like and what it means just to live in and get around in a big city, whether by foot, in a taxicab, on the subway, or by bus. In their novels that are set in New York City, they always refer to landmarks, streets, and other physical locations. Some are known to many; others only to locals or the well traveled. For instance, in Cemetery Dance, the authors allude to Inwood Hill Park. Native New Yorkers are no doubt familiar with this park, but I had to look it up, first to see if such a place really exists (it does, as do many of the places to which Preston and Child allude) and, second, to see where it is. As it turns out, Inwood Hill Park is in northern Manhattan, along the Hudson River, west of Broadway and south of Knightsbridge Road. The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation describes the park as “a living piece of old New York”:

Evidence of its prehistoric roots exists as dramatic caves, valleys, and ridges left as the result of shifting glaciers. Evidence of its uninhabited state afterward remains as its forest and salt marsh (the last natural one in Manhattan), and evidence of its use by Native Americans in the 17th century continues to be discovered. Much has occurred on the land that now composes Inwood Hill Park since the arrival of European colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries, but luckily, most of the park was largely untouched by the wars and development that took place.

The park continues to honor and cultivate its environment. In 2002, the Urban Park Rangers launched a five-year bald eagle release project in the park, in hopes of re-introducing the bird species to New York City. In the summer of 2007, the park's Dyckman Marina was added to New York State's Hudson River Greenway Water Trail, a project aimed at reacquainting city dwellers with natural bodies of water and encouraging citizen stewardship.

Similarly, a hiking trail and the Hudson River Bike Trail offer visitors chances to appreciate large stretches of the park's natural beauty in an environmentally friendly manner.

Also importantly, the park manages to present modern conveniences like athletic fields, playgrounds, dog runs, and a barbecue area, in harmony with its natural assets. The Park stands as a functional, beautiful space, waiting to be appreciated and used.

Inwood Hill Park contains the last natural forest and salt marsh in Manhattan. It is unclear how the park received its present name. Before becoming parkland in 1916, it was known during the Colonial and post-Revolutionary War period as Cock or Cox Hill. The name could be a variant of the Native American name for the area, Shorakapok, meaning either “the wading place,” “the edge of the river,” or “the place between the ridges.”

Human activity has been present in Inwood Hill Park from prehistoric times. Through the 17th century, Native Americans known as the Lenape (Delawares) inhabited the area. There is evidence of a main encampment along the eastern edge of the park. The Lenape relied on both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers as sources for food. Artifacts and the remains of old campfires were found in Inwood’s rock shelters, suggesting their use for shelter and temporary living quarters.

In 1954 the Peter Minuit Post of the American Legion dedicated a plaque at the southwest corner of the ballfield (at 214th Street) to mark the location of a historic tree and a legendary real estate transaction. A living link with the local Indians who resided in the area, a magnificent tulip tree stood and grew on that site for 280 years until its death in 1938. The marker also honors Peter Minuit’s reputed purchase of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626. The celebrated sale has also been linked to sites in Lower Manhattan.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, colonists from Europe settled and farmed here. During the Revolutionary War, American forces built a five-sided earthwork fort (known as Fort Cock or Fort Cox) in the northwestern corner of the park. It fell to British and Hessian troops in November 1776 and was held until the war ended in 1783. After the Revolutionary War, families returned to the area to resume farming.

In the 1800s much of present-day Inwood Hill Park contained country homes and philanthropic institutions. There was a charity house for women, and a free public library (later the Dyckman Institute) was formed. The Straus family (who owned Macy’s) enjoyed a country estate in Inwood; its foundation is still present. Isidor and Ida Straus lost their lives on the S.S. Titanic’s maiden voyage. When the Department of Parks bought land for the park in 1916, the salt marsh was saved and landscaped; a portion of the marsh was later landfilled. The buildings on the property were demolished. During the Depression the City employed WPA workers to build many of the roads and trails of Inwood Hill Park.

In 1992 Council Member Stanley E. Michels introduced legislation, which was enacted, to name the natural areas of Inwood Hill Park “Shorakapok” in honor of the Lenape who once resided here. In 1995 the Inwood Hill Park Urban Ecology Center was opened. It provides information to the public about the natural and cultural history of this beautiful park. Today the Urban Park Rangers work with school children on restoration projects to improve the health and appearance of the park. Complementing the work of the Rangers is that of dozens of Inwood “Vols” (Volunteers), who assist with park restoration and beautification (“Inwood Hill Park”).

Many of these features of the park are described in Cemetery Dance, both to develop eerie descriptions of atmosphere and to serve the demands of the novel’s plot. In Cemetery Dance, it is very believable as the possible refuge for voodoo priests, devotees of obeah, and zombies that Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast investigate.

A couple of other references in their novel, to Victor Turner’s The Forest of Symbols and Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life, were also obscure, although I have heard of Durkheim. An Internet check, sure enough, turned up links to both volumes. One site even features online excerpts of Elementary Forms. In The Forest of Symbols, Turner investigates the function of ritual; in Elementary Forms, Durkheim takes on such topics as “the origin of the sacred,” “totemism,” “effervescence,” “the theory of religious forces,” and “the ambiguity of the sacred,” among others, some of which seems to inform the theories that Pendergast explores, if not embraces, in the novel as he investigates revenants, voodoo, obeah, and the mystical in general.

King’s depiction of small towns and of small town life, like Preston’s and Child’s depictions of their fictitious museum, real places in new York City and elsewhere, and their references to actual scholarly works of interest to their own narrative topics, enhances readers’ experience, offering something more than the stories themselves, which keeps readers satisfied and coming back for more.

Cemetery Dance, The First 10 Chapters and the Epilogue: A Study of Technique

By Gary L. Pullman

The use of situational irony; the introduction of new or recurring characters; the planting of clues; the descriptions of violent encounters which could be injurious or fatal to sympathetic characters; the teasing of readers by the raising of questions, large or small (especially those which concern motive or cause), which are then answered incorrectly or partially, either immediately or in the future; the creation of ambiguous situations which themselves give rise to questions in readers’ minds which are also then answered incorrectly or partially, either immediately or in the future; the inclusion of unusual or bizarre incidents, characters, settings, or objects; the piecemeal revelation of character; and the allusion to bizarre beliefs and rituals, especially with the suggestion that they may be true and real, are all ways by which to generate the suspense by which readers’ interest in a story is created or maintained.

These elements are often about significant incidents, but even small matters can, and do, sustain suspense (at least for a short time) and, therefore, readers’ interest in the story. Those which are more significant than others might be mentioned more than once, often in dialogue between different characters.

Short, tightly written chapters, comprised of only one or two scenes, in which composed, if not serene, action alternates with fast-paced, sometimes violent, action (and usually a change of setting and characters), also keeps readers reading. Most of the chapters of Cemetery Dance are five or six pages long, but there are 85 chapters and an epilogue, or 435 pages, total.

Writers and readers alike complain about the difficulty of bringing a narrative to an appropriate and satisfying end--one which doesn’t make readers feel as though the writer has cheated them with a convenient, tacked-on, but emotionally unsatisfying and philosophically unrealistic, conclusion. Cemetery Dance’s epilogue shows an effective way of concluding a story of combined genres, which might be called the horror-mystery-thriller.

Note: Bold black font indicates incidents which create or maintain suspense; bold red font explains how these incidents accomplish this purpose.

Chapter 1 (pages 1-7)

Who: Bill Smithback, his wife Nora Kelly, and Colin Fearing
What: Fearing kills Smithback after Nora leaves on an errand; Fearing also attempts to attack Nora
When: Smithback’s and Nora’s first anniversary
Where: Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment in New York City
How: Knife
Why: Unknown at this time
Twist: None

Contrast is used to effect situational irony [readers’ expectations are overturned] as New York Times reporter Bill Smithback, a character who has appeared in several previous novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, anticipates, on his first anniversary, an intimate evening with his wife, Nora an archaeologist with New York City Museum of Natural History who has just received the news that her expedition to the “Southwest” to analyze “the spread of the Kachina Cult” has been approved [is this cult somehow important to the story, and, if so, how and why?]; instead of the intimacy that Smithback anticipates, he is brutally killed by a knife-wielding assassin identified by eyewitnesses and surveillance video as his neighbor, “out-of-work British actor” Colin Fearing. In addition, Smithback’s fight for his life [will he survive?] helps to maintain readers’ interest, as does Fearing’s attempted attack upon Nora [will she be injured or killed?] as she returns home from having run an errand. The motive for the murder, which is not known [what is the motive?] at this time, also maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does Smithback’s reminder to Nora to be careful as she embarks upon her errand, especially since they have been receiving “weird little packages” [what is in the packages, who has been sending them, and why?].

Chapter 2 (pages 8-13)

Who: Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast
What: D’Agosta and Pendergast investigate the crime scene
When: Morning of Smithback’s murder
Where: Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment in New York City
How: Knife used in murder; crime-scene analysis performed; Pendergast performs own tests
Why: Murder is thought to have followed an attempted rape gone wrong
Twist: Pendergast eliminates suspect

The introduction of two other recurring characters, Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast [for new readers, who are they; for regular readers, what are they up to this time around?], maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does the discovery of clues at the crime scene [which, if any, are important to the case, and why?], the identification of the suspected motive for the crime [is this the true motive?], hints that the murder is not “open and shut,” [why not?], as D’Agosta believes it to be, the disclosure that “a star witness” awaits interrogation [what will the interview disclose about the case?], and the situational irony that results from the twist ending to the chapter, wherein Pendergast informs D’Agosta that the suspect is dead [readers’ expectations are overturned].

Chapter 3 (pages 14-18)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Special Agent Pendergast, “star witness” Enrico Mosquea (doorman), and Pendergast’s driver, Proctor
What: With D’Agosta present, Pendergast interviews Mosquea
When: The morning following Smithback’s murder
Where: The lobby of Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment building; the interior of Pendergast’s 1959 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith
How: Interview; surveillance tape
Why: Pendergast questions a witness and views a surveillance tape for clues
Twist: Pendergast observes that it is curious that Fearing, just after he has committed a murder, would look into a camera he knows to be present

With D’Agosta present, Pendergast interviews Mosquea [what will the interview disclose about the case?], who swears, most adamantly, that the killer is Fearing, maintaining his belief even after Pendergast tells the doorman that Fearing has been dead for 10 days; in Pendergast’s car, D’Agosta and Pendergast review the surveillance tape [what will the tape disclose about the case?], showing Fearing entering and exiting Smithback’s apartment building, bloody upon egress, and Pendergast thinks it curious that Fearing, just after he has committed a murder, would look into a camera that he knows to be in the lobby [why does Fearing do so?]. The authors provide three possible explanations for the killer’s resemblance to the dead actor [which, if any, is correct?]: Fearing has a twin, there are two men named Colin Fearing in New York City, or the medical examiner’s office has “made a terrible mistake” in misidentifying Fearing as the dead man.

Chapter 4 (pages 19-23)

Who: Caitlyn Kidd, obituary writer Larry Bassington, “a bald, heavyset man” and Heidi, the latter two of whom were Smithback’s neighbors
What: Caitlyn responds to a police scanner’s report concerning Smithback’s murder
When: Morning following Smithback’s murder
Where: Interior of Caitlyn’s car, as she eats breakfast and monitors her police scanner; exterior of Smithback’s apartment building
How: Monitoring of police scanner; driving of personal automobile
Why: Caitlyn seeks her next news scoop
Twist: None

The introduction of another recurring character, West Sider reporter Caitlyn Kidd [for new readers, who are they; for regular readers, what are they up to this time around?], maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does Caitlyn’s scanning of the police monitor in her car [will she hear an important lead?], and her interviewing of witnesses outside Smithback’s apartment building [will she learn anything significant about the murder?]. A minor incident--the possibility of her getting a ticket for illegal parking (next to a fire extinguisher) also maintains readers’ interest (she does get a ticket).

Chapter 5 (pages 24-27)

Who: Nora, a bloody man, three nurses
What: Nora dreams that a bloody man is attacking her
When: The night after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s hospital room
How: Dream
Why: Dream, perhaps resulting from trauma
Twist: None

Nora awakens from a drug-induced sleep, alone in her hospital room, the privacy curtain drawn around her bed, but, when she hears moans from the bed beside her own and sees a “silhouette” through the curtain, she assumes another patient has been admitted who needs help [is this person another patient; Smithback, who has somehow survived; the killer, come to murder her; or someone else who is sinister?]; then, the other person seems bent upon attacking her [is she actually being attacked or does she only believe she is being attacked and, if she is being attached, why?], and she jabs the call button. A trio of nurses arrive, one giving her an injection, another righting the intravenous stand Nora has knocked over, and all of them helping her back into bed, assuring her that she has had a nightmare [are they telling her the truth, are they mistaken, or are they part of a conspiracy?], which is not uncommon “after a concussion” and showing her that the other bed in the room is not only empty but well made [was the while thing a dream or was it real, and if it truly happened, why is the adjacent bed still made?].

Chapter 6 (pages 28-32)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Nora Kelly
What: D’Agosta interviews Nora about Fearing’s murder of Smithback
When: The morning after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s hospital room
How: Interview
Why: To elicit information that can help to find and convict Fearing
Twist: None

During D’Agosta’s interview, Nora supplies a list of suspects [will one or more of them turn out to have been Smithback’s killer?] in her husband’s death by telling the detective of several enemies who may have wanted to kill Smithback, including Lucas Kline, who “runs a software development company” and was exposed by her husband as someone who sexually harasses his female employees; Kline (and others) sent Smithback “threatening letters”; she also tells D’Agosta about the “strange packages” she and Smithback received, filled with dolls, animal bones, moss, and sequins” [who sent the packages, why, and why do they contain such bizarre objects?]. She asks why Fearing would have armed himself with only a knife, rather than with a gun [D‘Agosta admits that this is a “good question,” as readers are likewise apt to do], asks why Fearing neither disguised himself nor avoided witnesses and the lobby’s surveillance camera [this echoes Pendergast’s comment about Fearing’s looking into the camera, again implying that the killer’s doing so was intentional and making readers wonder what the killer’s motive for doing so might be], and asks whether she can return to her apartment after her release later in the afternoon (she can).

Chapter 7 (pages 33-35)

Who: Special Agent Pendergast, Miss Kyoko Ishimura (Pendergast’s deaf mute housekeeper)
What: A tea party inside Pendergast’s apartment teahouse
When: Unidentified, except as after Smithback’s death
Where: Pendergast’s apartment
How: N/A
Why: Pendergast bids farewell to Smithback
Twist: None

Pendergast enters the furthest extension of his Dakota’s apartment on West 72nd and Central Part West Streets, where he has a teahouse beyond a garden; therein, he drinks tea, remembering the times he’s had with Smithback and the deeds they’ve accomplished together, bidding farewell to the murdered reporter, using a foreign tongue (waga tomo yusurakani) to do so. [This chapter’s interest for readers is in the curious nature of Pendergast’s abode and his unusual behavior in drinking tea in memory of his deceased friend. It is also a lull, as it were, before the dramatic storm to come. This chapter also suggests that Smithback really is dead; Pendergast is too good a detective to be fooled into supposing Smithback dead when he is not.]

Chapter 8 (pages 36-42)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Special Agent Pendergast, security guard, secretary, Dr. Wayne Heffler (assistant medical examiner)
What: D’Agosta and Pendergast interview the assistant medical examiner, who autopsied Fearing
When: Noon (of the day following Smithback’s death?)
Where: New York City’s medical examiner’s office
How: Interview
Why: To request that an autopsy on Smithback’s body and DNA tests be expedited
Twist: None

With Pendergast in tow, D’Agosta interviews Dr. Heffler, the assistant medical examiner who autopsied Fearing; they learn that Fearing’s sister, Carmela Fearing, identified the body, Fearing having committed suicide (his body was discovered in the Harlem River). They learn that Fearing’s identity was also collaborated by his birth mark, which was described on his birth certificate, and the tattoo parlor that had tattooed Fearing lately, but Pendergast’s questions disclose the facts that there is no record of Carmela’s proof of her identity, that no one witnessed Fearing’s suicide, and that no “forensic examination” of the suicide note was performed “to ascertain” that the note “was indeed in Colin Fearing’s handwriting.” When Heffler denies D’Agosta’s requests to expedite the autopsy on Smithback’s body and tests on the DNA in the blood obtained from the crime scene and Smithback’s hair samples and on the blood of Fearing’s mother “for comparison,” Pendergast threatens the assistant medical examiner by threatening to expose the legal, but disturbing, practice of his office’s selling of organs harvested from the city’s indigent dead to support its work. There remains only one matter to which to attend: collecting the DNA of Fearing’s mother, which could take months to do using lawful procedures. To this end, Pendergast informs D’Agosta, they will “be paying a visit to one Gladys Fearing,” who, although she is institutionalized as mentally incompetent, Pendergast believes will “prove surprisingly eloquent.” [This chapter’s interest to readers lies in its setting up the possibility that Fearing is not dead, after all, and in the revelation that Pendergast is both innovative and unwilling to be bound by petty bureaucratic procedures or by petty bureaucrats. Pendergast’s reference to a future visit with Fearing’s mother also foreshadows this event, thereby creating suspense as to the visit’s nature and outcome.]

Chapter 9 (pages 43-46)

Who: Nora Kelly, anthropology curator Primus Hornsby
What: Hornsby, implying that Smithback may have been killed by a zombie, explains how Nora should bury her husband’s body, lest Smithback now be one of the living dead himself
When: 2:00 PM, two days after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s office in the New York City Museum of Natural History
How: Dialogue concerning special chemicals and rituals by which to bury the dead
Why: To prevent the return of the dead as a zombie
Twist: None

Having gone straight from the hospital to work, instead of home, Nora takes refuge in her laboratory from her well-meaning colleagues. She logs onto her computer and catalogues specimens of potsherds, trying to forget her memory of the stark nightmare she’d had of the attacker in her hospital room. Primus Hornsby, the anthropology curator, visits her, showing her the latest West Sider headline: “TIMES REPORTER KILLED BY ZOMBIE?” Hornsby, implying that Smithback may have been killed by a zombie, explains how she should bury him, in case Smithback, too, is now one of the living dead: embalmed with Formalazen, mixed with rat poison, instead of formaldehyde, with his mouth sewn shut, and facedown, with a “long knife in one hand,” as they do in Dessalines, Haiti, where Hornsby did his fieldwork. [This chapter’s reference to bizarre beliefs and rituals and its implication that Smithback may be a zombie who was himself killed by another zombie intrigues readers.]

Chapter 10 (pages 47-52)

Who: Detective D’Agosta and Special Agent Pendergast, Mrs. Gladys Fearing, Jo-Ann (desk clerk at Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility)
What: The detective and the FBI agent obtain a DNA sample from Fearing’s mentally incompetent mother
When: Shortly (perhaps two days) after Smithback’s murder
Where: Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility, Kerhonkson, New York
How: Pendergast’s automobile; interview
Why: To obtain a DNA sample
Twist: None

After interviewing the desk clerk, Jo-Ann, about how often Gladys Fearing’s son (Colin) and daughter (Carmela) visit their mentally incompetent mother at Kerhonkson, New York’s Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility (Colin seldom, and most recently eight months ago; Carmela, never) and extracting from Jo-Ann a promise to notify him if anyone visits the patient, Pendergast, asking Gladys about her first teddy bear, gets her to cry and to blow her nose into a tissue that he offers her, thereby obtaining her DNA (in the mucus). [This chapter shows, once again, how unconventional and resourceful Pendergast is and how adept he is at manipulating others, and advances the plot by overcoming an obstacle that would set the narrative back by weeks or months. Readers enjoy seeing character traits revealed and may wonder whether Pendergast’s encouragement of Jo-Ann to stay in touch with him may result in future revelations which are helpful to the case and, if so, what and why.]

Epilogue (pages 433-435)

Who: Nora Kelly
What: Nora disposes of her cremated husband’s ashes
When: a “day in early April”
Where: Lake Powell, Arizona
How: Powerboat
Why: Nora bids adieu to her late husband
Twist: None

To explore the offer of becoming the curator of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute in New Mexico, Nora stays with her brother Skip, revisiting places she’d been with Smithback during their first encounter with one another, including a channel of water near a waterfall beyond Lake Powell, Arizona’s Serpentine Canyon, where she’d begun to fall in love with Smithback. Here, she shakes the ashes of her cremated husband into the water, wishing him “good-bye.” [The epilogue brings an appropriate closure both to the story and to Nora’s grief, bringing about a sense of completion to the narrative. For readers, it is also a way to allow them to bid farewell to a friend, as it were, whom they have either gotten to know for the first time in reading this novel or have known and liked for many years as returning readers of the Pendergast series.]

If, in reading how Preston and Child advance the plot of Cemetery Dance and create and maintain their readers’ interest in continuing to read their novel, you would like to know the outcome of the action, these writers have done a good job in generating and continuing your suspense.