THE HEMINGWAY THIEF

The theft of an original Hemingway manuscript leads to the possible discovery of the author's famous lost briefcase full of stories in this south-of-the-border caper.

Henry “Coop” Cooper is an American writer making a tidy living off a series of novels about a Scottish vampire detective. Like many a hack before him, he's planning the novel that will finally bring him serious literary credibility. At the Mexican backwater where he's taken refuge, Coop and the ramshackle resort's equally ramshackle owner, Grady Doyle, hear the tale of a thief who has purloined an original manuscript of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and, with it, what he believes to be clues to the location of a legendary cache of lost Hemingway writings. Their chief adversary is a ruthless rare-book collector out for blood as well as the goods. The bloodthirstiness of collectors is not a bad inspiration for a thriller, and the general tone of sarcasm and dissolution, along with characters who seem to be wisecrackers more than tough guys, are some of the elements you might want in a shaggy dog tale of pursuit. But, at least in terms of its tone, this novel is written with a confidence it hasn't earned. The plot construction is shaky and often confusing, the characters ready with a quip but not particularly engaging in themselves.

Some thrillers have and some have not. This is one of the latter.