AHMM, June 2010 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dell Magazines

Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

In this month's column, we delve into three debut novels making their marks in the mystery world. Two authors use old events to build new stories: Ellen Horan takes on a real-life murder that seized Manhattan's attention in the ninteenth century, and Carol McCleary bases her fictionalized sleuth on Nellie Bly, the late nineteenth-century journalist famous for her exposés. David Gordon takes on a familiar process—writing—and gives it a witty spin with a hack scribe reluctantly taking on a challenging mystery. All first-time books make for satisfying reads.

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Carol McCleary was inspired when a friend introduced her to nineteenth-century reporter, author, and adventurer Nellie Bly—so much so that she gave Bly a new voice in the alchemy of murder (Forge, $24.99). Elizabeth Jane Cochran, better known by her pen name, Nellie Bly (1864-1922), was a fascinating historical character, and her life and accomplishments gave McCleary a solid foundation on which to launch Bly's sleuthing adventures. McCleary makes excellent use of both Bly's pioneering journalistic career and her penchant for headline-grabbing stunts. The novel begins with the well-worn but effective device of the discovery of a previously unknown Bly manuscript, which allows her to tell her own story while the “editors” provide elucidation of obscure passages.

Bly's journal begins when she is twenty-five years old, already established as a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, and in Paris, where she is on the trail of a serial killer she refers to as “the German Doctor.” Bly first encountered the killer in 1885 during her famous, real-life exposé of the Blackwell's Island insane asylum for women, when she had herself committed to the asylum to get an insider's view of the barbaric conditions there.

Bly follows the killer to London in 1888, where a series of brutal murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel earns him the sobriquet “Jack the Ripper.” She comes close to him there before admitting failure. Then she learns of similar killings in Paris, and without Pulitzer's support she decides to coninue her pursuit of the killer.

It is in Paris that McCleary's story really takes wing. Paris is a thriving city of progress exemplified by the ongoing World's Fair and its astonishing new edifice, the Eiffel Tower. It is a city fermenting with radicals and anarchists intent on ridding the world of governments by any means, including assassinations. And it is a city where riches and privilege exist side by side with appalling poverty and desperation. Finally, it is a city in the grip of a plague-like disease many believe to be emanating from the antiquated sewer system.

Bly receives help—reluctant help at first—from a crusty Jules Verne. (The real-life Bly was later to undertake a journey round the world in emulation of Verne's fantasy Around the World in Eighty Days). She also receives aid from an aging Louis Pasteur who is trying feverishly to identify the bacterium responsible for the plague killing scores of Parisians.

Many other famous contemporaries make appearances here, often accompanied by amusing or informative asides.

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