WILL UNWOUND #333: “Will’s Mystery Project – Back Spin by Harlan Coben”
January 14, 2011This reading business is maddening.
Last week I randomly pick up a tattered paperback for a dime (who says the dime novel is dead) by an unknown librarian-author at a musty old thrift store and spend a delightful three hours reading a highly literate and sophisticated cozy.
This week I take the advice of my fearless golfing foursome – Harold the Chiropractor, Fred the Insurance Guy, Ray who’s in real estate, and Mark the dude who either pulled off a flawless Ponzi scheme or inherited a bunch of money (I’m betting on the later) and, well, hit a wicked slice into the cattails surrounding the lake off the 4th fairway.
Reader’s Advisory Law #1: Do not, I repeat, do not take literary advice from a bunch of golfers. One golfer, maybe. Two golfers…that’s getting dicey. Three golfers…how stupid are you, dude? Four golfers…please, please, please get out the aluminum baseball bat and swing it several times near my ankles.
Golfers are great for football picks (Harold picked the Seahawks last week), beer selections, prostate remedies, and analyzing the hitch in your backswing, but when it comes to books we’re talking a snowman each and every time (golf lingo for a quadruple bogey).
This week I wasted four hours of the remaining sand in my life’s hourglass (good grief that sentence stings when you’re 61) reading a golf murder mystery recommended by my golfing buddies. The title of the book is BackSpin, and the author is the well known Harlan Coben. Why did my foursome recommend this book? Why do you think, Sherlock? It’s about golf. Most golfers only read golf books and golf magazines.
Even the jokes golfers tell are mostly golf jokes. For instance, last week Harold sliced his drive off the 5th fairway into a thick flock of geese. It hit and temporarily dazed one. What did Fred the Insurance Guy suddenly proclaim? “Murder most fowl!” Folks, this is the oldest golf joke in the book. And I took literary advice from these guys???
“YOU DID WHAT?” proclaimed my local readers’ advisory librarian. “You took the recommendation of 4 golfers over me? Yes, I told you Harlan Coben is a great mystery writer. But not that book, for goodness sakes! That book is his absolute worst! For Coben I would have recommended The Woods , but instead you listen to a bunch of neanderthals swinging clubs! And by the way, The Woods is not about golf despite its title!”
Okay, Unwinders, under the rules of this project I am only allowed to read one title per author. But we all know that rules are meant to be broken. Just ask Harold the Chiropractor. His method of counting golf shots is, ahem, very creative. So…I am officially asking for your permission to read another book by Coben. What would you guys recommend?
By the way, why was Back Spin so bad? Poor character development, a baffling and convoluted plot line, a victim I could care less about, and cliché driven descriptions. I knew I was in the deep rough with this book when the phrase “the guy was several french fries short of a Happy Meal” popped up in chapter one.
Back Spin gets a rating of half a snowman. For the non golfers among you that’s a zero.
OK, you proved yesterday that you’re math challenged. But your foursome is made up of five guys (the four critics plus you)?
And you misquote the oldest golf joke. As I’m sure you’re aware, the punchline to that is “Hit the ball, drag Charlie. Hit the ball, drag Charlie.”
No Coben help from me, I’m afraid.
Bill, foursome, fivesome…who’s counting? At any given time it can be anywhere from a pair to a fivesome. Depends who shows up. This is the rainy season. It’s embarrassing to play with Fred because he rolls his pant legs up above his ankles, ala Joe Paterno.
For any Unwinders who are not golfers, the very stale and rancid golf joke Bill is referring to can be found on this link: http://www.goofball.com/jokes/sports/charlies_Charlies_Hole_In_One
Read TELL NO ONE.
Dunca!
My husband *loves* Tell No One. He had me read it, but I felt kind of meh about it. For some reason I don’t like Coben’s writing style.
What does “meh” mean? Still learning net lingo.
Oh, sorry, Will. It means I didn’t care much about it.
Absolutely!!!
My first Coben was Tell No One earlier this year. It’s excellent and I plan to read more of his.
Thanks, Vicki.
I’m afraid to say it now but Coban is one of my favorites and my favorite of his is CAUGHT. Haven’t read the golf one and now, of course, never will.
Thanks, Roberta.
Yes do read another Coben. Several of my friends are big fans, and they rarely love horrible books.
I’d try Caught, which was just listed on the short list for the RUSA CODES Reading List award, which is supposed to be about the best in genre fiction (don’t get me started on how I feel about this award and the selections….) but I think one was a good pick and so did my Coben loving friends.
That’s 2 votes for “Caught.” Thanks, Jessica.
The have been many golf mysteries written. Three I have read are:
Bernhardt, William. The Final Round. A mystery set at Augusta National.
Elkins, Charlotte and Aaron. A Wicked Slice. This is one of a series featuring a golfer named Lee Ofsted. Reviewers gave Nasty Breaks high marks.
Bentley, E. C. The Sweet Shot. This is actually a story in the classic collection Trent Intervenes. It is truly memorable and worth the effort to find and read.
A recent golf mystery that got good reviews, but which I haven’t read is Where It Lies, by K. J. Egan.
Thanks, Wayne. Golfers are an eternally optimistic group. Every golfer I know is always eager to tee it up anew, even after a particularly atrocious round.
Will and Wayne,
I haven’t read Coban but loved other Trent stories from E.C. Bentley (Trent’s Last Case) and enjoyed some of the Elkins books (about a forensic anthropologist, not golf). Can definitely recommend those two authors (do you count Elkins as two?).
Elkins has been one of my favorite mystery authors ever since his first, Fellowship of Fear, which was outstanding. His second, The Dark Place, was also top notch. Three other good titles in the series are Curses, Make No Bones, and Twenty Blue Devils. He has written the Lee Ofsted golf mysteries in partnership with his wife, Charlotte.
E. C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case is considered one of the classic mystery novels. I read Trent Intervenes at least 25 years ago, and have remembered The Sweet Shot ever since.
Thanks, Alice. Your advice has always been quite good.
I haven’t read all of Coben’s books, but take your librarian’s advice. Woods is a good read.
That’s 2 votes for Woods. Thanks, Margaret.
Will,
Maybe it’s been noted elsewhere, but Monday is a significant anniversary, is it not?
I’ve been following you on this blog almost from that beginning and having known you a bit in the past have determined that you are a doggone force of nature. I say that with great admiration. I’ve mentioned several times that I think you should pursue a radio talk show. I remain convinced of that. (I don’t know from “agentry”!) Perhaps another suggestion for a show title can spur consolidation: “Have Book, Will Talk”….huh?…Whaddya think?
Concerning your golf buddies uttering “Murder Most Fowl”. Sometimes certain situations demand the utterance of a well-worn cliche. Somebody’s gotta say it!
And “meh”? It’s not internet lingo. Sounded yiddish to me, So I looked it up. Wouldn’t you know, It’s Simpsonian. And it means what you might expect it to mean if it WERE yiddish – indifference.
Bill…not sure I follow. Moday is MLK day. By the way, thanks for the nice compliments. You’ve been a good friend. Hail to Summit School.
Wasn’t your inaugural blog January 17, 2010?
Bill, thanks. It never would have dawned on me. One year, I forgot my wedding anniversary…never again! A blog anniversary…meh.
Meh?! Meh, you say?! This is big, Jerry,.. big!
Hey, one of the great rules of library customer service is to be flexible and make exceptions to the rules as applicable and necessary — so I vote that you read the other Coban book!
Linda, thanks for being the first Unwinder to give me permission to bend (librarians never “break”) the rules. You make me proud to be part of the library tribe.
Will, as reader, recordkeeper, and reviewer of Will’s Mystery Project, you are both the person at the front desk and the director. So of course you can make a judicious and justified exception to the rules.
But I would have thought a golf mystery would at least have had a nice clubby atmosphere. (OK, I’m going back into hiding now.)
A lofty comment. You’ll hook us all with that kind of response. Actually, they mirror my game: they’re a slice of life.
Ouch, guys, ouch.
Thanks very much for this post, Will. You see, right before Christmas I was looking for something not too heavy, but absorbing, to read on my Christmas trip. I saw “Caught” sitting on the top of a bookcase at my small local branch library. I took it on a whim, started reading it that night, and, well, finished it before I even left for the trip. (Which, of course, necessitated another trip to the library. Thank goodness it’s only 1.5 blocks from my house.) I had Coben at the top of my list the next time I need escapist fiction, and, thanks to you, I now know which book to avoid.
BTW, thanks to the Unwinder who mentioned Ms. Zukas mysteries recently. I just read one, and it was a lot of fun. Helma Zukas is a librarian-sleuth. There are very few of these mysteries in our library system, and I can’t figure out why. A librarian as the detective and all sorts of librarian in-jokes, such as Dewey Decimal vs. other classification systems. What’s not to like?
Susan…thanks for reminding me about Zukas. Now we have 3 votes for Caught.