Thought You Were Dead
Non-series
Terry
Griggs
Biblioasis (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-897231-53-9 (1897231539)
ISBN-13: 978-1-897231-53-1 (9781897231531)
Publication Date: April 2009
List Price: $18.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Meet the Perfect Man ... no, no, he's not the hero of Thought You Were Dead. That would be Chellis Beith, literary researcher, slacker, reluctant detective, and a man bedevilled by every woman in his life. There's his lost love, Elaine Champion, a now happily married inventor who uses him for market research, his best friend's dotty ex-wife, Moe, his two vanished mothers, and his menacing boss, Athena Havlock, a celebrated writer who herself becomes embroiled in the dark side of fiction. The humour is wild, the language a thrill, the mystery within marvelously deft and daft. And as for the Perfect Man ... well, nothing is as it seems. Is it?
Review: Terry
Griggs pens a most unusual tale, in a most unusual manner, with Thought You Were Dead, a murder
mystery set in and about a fictional town in Ontario. Also included
every few chapters or so are illustrations by Nick Craine.
The story features Chellis Beith, whose primary job is to research
characters, locations, even methods of murder, for mystery writer
Athena Havlock, who doesn't write under her own name, reserving that
for more literate (and far less lucrative) novels. He's also slightly
obsessed with women. As Athena tells him, "[Y]our mother abandons you
as a baby, your adoptive mother dies, foolishly, unnecessarily, your
girlfriend leaves you and marries someone else, but still uses you for
test-marketing, and you are employed, dominated shall we say, by
another female -- me. Your experience of women has been nothing but
abandonment and betrayal." It is during the course of one of his
research adventures for Athena that he learns of the murder of a local
book reviewer. It doesn't really affect him one way or the other --
after all, he's only assumes the role of a private investigator when
he's trying to unearth something for his employer to use in one of her
books -- but then Athena vanishes and Chellis discovers a vast amount
of information relating to the murder in her house. He initially
attributes it to background material for a new mystery by the author,
but later thinks it may be more sinister.
Thought You Were Dead
demands quite a bit from the reader. Though not quite non-linear in
style, it often reads that way. Chapters frequently start in a
different time or place and it isn't until 2 or 3 pages pass that
what's occurring right then and there becomes apparent. Similarly, an
event may occur mid-chapter but not be explained until later. For
example, when Chellis is hit on the head by an errant golf ball, it
isn't until several rather incoherent paragraphs later that the golfer
enters the picture to explain what happened. True, it helps illustrate
the confusion in Chellis' mind at the time, but to the reader, it's
merely confusing. There are also many, possibly just a few too many,
diversions onto other topics, not necessarily unrelated to the murder
mystery plot but definitely tangential. Finally, there's a sense that
the author is having a bit of fun here. Images of Nero Wolfe and Archie
Goodwin are evoked at times, albeit in a somewhat satirical manner.
Still and all, those readers looking for an unconventional novel with a
unique sense of style, voice and place, will find Thought You Were Dead a most
satisfying choice.
Special thanks to Biblioasis for providing a copy of Thought You Were Dead for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Thought You Were Dead? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Thought You Were Dead
Biblioasis (Trade Paperback), April 2009
ISBN-10: 1-897231-53-9 (1897231539)
ISBN-13: 978-1-897231-53-1 (9781897231531)
Omnimystery keywords for Thought You Were Dead ...
Location(s) referenced: Ontario, Canada.
