CRIME WRITER
by Dime Sheppard
A crime novelist’s fictional creations enter the real world in Sheppard’s metafictional debut novel.
New Yorker Evie Howland is in the middle of drafting the 16th book in her series of novels about New York City Detectives Carolyn Harding and Jay Ryan, and she’s feeling a bit stuck. She’s out of story ideas, and her characters are the impatient sort; if Evie doesn’t keep the plot moving along, they step out of the novel and into her apartment to make snarky comments about her wardrobe, her diet, and her writing clichés. (Only Evie can see them, though.) Her writing difficulties may be due to her engagement to charming billionaire Daniel Bradley and the pressures that come along with it—society parties, magazine profiles, and the judgment of her extremely wealthy soon-to-be in-laws. In addition, Daniel isn’t particularly supportive of her writing career. Still, she’s been able to keep her fiction and real life separate—until an article appears in the local newspaper about a murdered woman with the same name as one of her characters, killed in exactly the way Evie planned to kill her. In order to keep her darkest creations from haunting the real-life streets of New York City, Evie will need to overcome her blockage and write for her life—literally. Over the course of this novel, Sheppard writes with verve, whether she’s offering samples of Evie’s pulpy fiction or narrating as Evie herself, taking in her strange metafictional life: “The interior of Jay’s car is just as big, black and sexy as the outside. Unfortunately it’s also cold, since two of the side windows have been gunned in and there are bullet holes along one side.” The overall premise is a bit familiar, but Sheppard executes it inventively, revealing a deep knowledge of detective-novel conventions and a keen understanding of human behavior to boot. The book is engaging through all its twists and turns, and readers will be happy to learn that a sequel is in the works.
An often gripping postmodern crime novel that highlights the creative process.