BOOK & BLOG

September 6, 2005

Book of the Week: BAD MOVE by Linwood Barclay

BAD MOVE by Linwood Barclay will take your cares away for several hours, in the most entertaining way possible. BAD MOVE follows the misadventures of Zack Walker, a science fiction writer who moves his city family out to the suburbs in search of safety. Zack wants his family to be safe so badly that he is always trying to “teach” them to be more alert by playing tricks on them, tricks that are intended to dramatize their security slip-ups – leaving the keys in the front door, stashing backpacks on the stairs, not watching their belongings every minute while they’re shopping. Instead, Zack’s misplaced zeal just convinces his long-suffering wife and two teens that something is seriously wrong with Zack.

Of course, during BAD MOVE, Zack discovers that there’s just as much trouble in the burbs. It’s just not as visible. His neighbors are not what they seem, his local environmental activist ends up dead, and he just can’t seem to get his shower leak fixed.

For readers who are uncertain about investing in a new writer, BAD MOVE is out in paperback, and its sequel has just been published in hardback. This is a great traveling book, though (warning!) fellow passengers may look at you when you’re laughing out loud.

Blog

I spend the past long weekend at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, this year held in Chicago. Amid all the hustle and bustle of this annual rite, there was a deep underlying sadness. All of us were watching the news daily. All of us knew people in the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf area, people we are worrying about. I don’t think there was a panel where the tragedy wasn’t mentioned.

I was hurrying past another mystery writer, Jeanne Dams, in the lobby of the Sheraton. “How are you, Jeanne?” I asked, expecting the usual quick answer. She said, “Up until Katrina, I would have said I wasn’t doing well. But I have a house and food and electricity. So, I’m doing great.” That put my feelings in a nutshell.

Since my family took our German guests to New Orleans in early August, we had fallen in love with the city all over again. I wonder if our hotel is still there? It was at the corner of Bourbon and Canal.

In my small town, there are about 125 “evacuees”. In my head, I call them refugees, because that is what they are. There is no home for them to return to. What will they do? Will their children enroll in our school? How can they afford to stay in local motels much longer? The churches have fed them every night, but how long can that be sustained? These are not questions we had to answer after 9/11, and after that terrible day, we had someone to blame. I think the scope of this disaster is just beginning to seep into our consciousness.

I know all of you are willing to pray to whatever higher power you believe in, to help these people who need everything from the ground up. I know you are willing to donate what you can towards their relief. I believe deeply in the goodness and generosity of most people. I wish I could pick a date a year from now, and say, “Everything will be back the way it was, then.” But I can’t. Nothing will be the same again. We can only make it a bit more tolerable to start the long march back to a more normal state of affairs.