Review - The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives

 

Otto Penzler's The Lineup is a fascinating look at the origin stories of more than twenty of the most popular fictional crimefighters of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some twenty-two writers (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are co-authors of the Pendergast books) were turned loose to share the inspirations that created such characters as Jack Reacher, Hieronymus Bosch, Inspector Morse, Tess Monaghan, Rambo, Spenser, and Precious Ramotswe. Some chose to give a straightforward nonfictional version of how the characters that made them famous were born, and others decided to take the short story or fictional interview approach to revealing the same. 

Along the way, I learned some things about even those characters I was already familiar with, became curious about a few authors I haven't tried yet, and confirmed that a few of them are just not meant for me despite their immense popularity. 

These are some of the surprises I had:

• Hieronymus Bosch did not receive that name until Michael Connelly was working on the second draft of the first Bosch novel The Black Echo. Until then he was called Detective Pierce.
• John Connolly's Charlie Parker is American and not Irish (Connolly is Irish) mainly because "mystery fiction has never really been part of the Irish literary tradition."
• Colin Dexter made the decision to end his Inspector Morse series at only thirteen books because he himself was getting older and in poor health - and because he felt as if he were beginning to repeat himself.
  
• Carol O'Connell's Mallory is a genuine sociopath, and as such, the character does not change over time. Take her or leave her is the author's attitude and that's why each of the novels can be read as a standalone. 

I was pleased to see that the twenty-one fictional characters or teams include five of my all-time favorites: Jack Taylor, Harry Bosch, Charlie Resnick, Spenser, and John Rebus. Of the five, two are American, one Irish, one English, and one Scottish...where are the great Welsh fictional detectives/cops? Of the ones I haven't tried yet, I'm most curious about Elvis Cole and Joe Pike (Robert Crais), Alex Delaware (Jonathan Kellerman), and Lincoln Rhyme (Jeffery Deaver). On the flip side, I'm also certain now that Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, Rambo, and Precious Ramotswe are just not for me so I can check them off the list. And then there's the sleeper in the bunch, a writer so personally repellant to me that I haven't read them in over a decade and never will read them again. 

As you can see, there are a lot of good reasons to read The Lineup: a chance to learn something new about an old favorite, the possibility that you will learn about a character that will become a new favorite, and the chance maybe to eliminate quickly a couple of series you've been wondering about for a long time.

A solid four stars of five to this excellent compilation by Otto Penzler.