Tag: Insiders

Last week when I posted about Robert B. Parker’s Hot Property by Mike Lupica, I quipped “Robert Germaux to demur in the comment section (or in a Guest Post if he has a lot to get off of his chest).” The novelist/essayist took me up on that with this post—he made a couple of points I intended to and brought up some things I hadn’t considered. Incidentally, I’m even more eager to read his next novel now (especially if something comes from his rethinking).

I’m more than grateful for this interaction. Bob’s been reading Spenser longer than I have been reading, and you can see Parker’s influence in his work—he’s definitely worth listening to on this front. (and he’s invited to respond like this to any of my Parker-related posts, like Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets by Christopher Farnsworth that should’ve been up last week)

Upon Further Review . . .

My immediate reaction after reading Hot Property was that I enjoyed Mike Lupica’s second attempt at a Spenser novel a bit more than I did Broken Trust, his initial entry into the series. That being said, I did have a few nits to pick. I thought the love scenes between Spenser and Susan were somewhat truncated. (I’m a retired English teacher. I’m allowed to use words like truncated.) It felt as though Lupica didn’t quite have the same grasp of that relationship as, for instance, Ace Atkins did in his ten Spensers. I also thought that some of the interactions between Spenser and Hawk bordered on the redundant, the same sort of generic back-and-forth we’ve seen before. And I would have liked a couple more (and a little longer) scenes at Henry Cimoli’s gym. Henry is somewhat of a surrogate father figure for both Spenser and Hawk, and the affection they both feel for him (coupled with good-natured insults) is always fun to observe.

As I said, all of the above falls into the nits category, certainly nothing that would keep me from reading the book or recommending it to others. However, I had a bit more of a problem with two other parts of the book, one from a strictly objective point of view, the other admittedly entirely personal. HC stole my thunder on the former in his review when he mentioned being puzzled by the apparently close (and hitherto unknown?) relationship that Rita had with both Quirk (“. . . reached over with one of his big hands to take hold of Rita’s.”) and Belson (“Rita asked me not to tell you this . . .”). When I read those passages, I immediately wondered, when did this happen? I’ve been reading Spenser novels for fifty years now, and while it’s quite possible there have been times when Rita and Quirk, or Rita and Belson, bonded a bit, if so, it escaped my notice. On a lesser note, I thought the same thing about Vinnie when he asked Spenser, “How is she?” I don’t mean he shouldn’t care about Rita, but I think “How’s Rita?” would work better there, because I don’t recall any scenes in previous Spensers between Rita and Vinnie. Okay, maybe I dived a bit too deep into nits territory there, but I could see Vinnie asking “How is she?” about Susan much more than with Rita. In Crimson Joy (one of my least favorite Spensers), Vinnie is part of the gang that Spenser assembles to provide 24/7 protection for Susan while he tracks down a serial killer, so we know there was at least somewhat of a history there.

The personal thing? Well, I’m a writer. To date, I’ve written five mysteries about a Pittsburgh PI named Jeremy Barnes and two about a Pittsburgh police detective named Daniel Hayes. Since both JB and Daniel work in Pittsburgh (not one of your bigger cities), it figures that these two guys might connect at some point, and in fact, I’ve had each one make a quick reference to the other at least once. But I’ve never even considered the possibility of some sort of “crossover chapter” involving them, mainly because I write each character from the first-person perspective. So imagine my surprise upon seeing that Lupica has at least two occasions when Spenser and Jesse Stone have fairly long conversations. And yet . . . after rereading those chapters with, I hope, a much more objective eye, I had to admit that Lupica pulled it off. It made me rethink the possibility of a JB-Daniel meeting in the Jeremy Barnes novel I’m working on at the moment. We’ll see.

Overall, there is so much to like about Hot Property. I thought the conversations between Spenser and Susan where they discussed his relationship with Rita were very good. I especially enjoyed the scene that touched on Spenser’s thoughts on mortality. Getting some backstory on Rita was also interesting, and I wasn’t expecting Cecile (one of Hawk’s former lovers) to be back in his life. Could Lupica have something in mind there for a future book?

I still think Lupica did a better job with the Sunny Randall books than he has (so far) with Spenser, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to snatch up that next Spenser as soon as it’s available. I am, and I hope there are more to follow.

You can find more information about Bob and his books at his Amazon Author Page.

I love it when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with things and someone stops by without prompting to say “hey, you want a Guest Post?” The answer, by the way, is almost always yes. That’s exactly what happened last week when Shannon Knight asked if I was interested in this. It helps when the person is someone like Shannon so I know the post will be a good one.

Death Mythology IN SPACE!

Insiders is a big space opera adventure with plants, but I couldn’t resist pulling death mythology into it. I’ve got excuses! I’d completed all this research for Grave Cold, which I wrote prior to Insiders, including developing some completely unrelated story lines and then discarding them. I’d especially dug deep into the oracles, or sybils, of Greece, so I had this story thread I wanted to build on. Meanwhile, my agent was pitching Wish Givers to editors, and the editors kept asking for more, particularly more religion and more politics. Repeatedly, I rewrote Wish Givers to align with different editors’ visions (adding another POV character, redoing everything as YA, etc.). As I started Insiders, I was full of confidence. I had two books in my agent’s hands, so I could try some new things, and if editors wanted more, more, more, I could write that!

Insiders begins on Kerberos Station, where a highly contagious, world-killing virus is actively spreading. (Another note, I wrote this prior to SARS-CoV-2. I considered not publishing Insiders at all simply because the plot contained a virus, even though the symptoms do not align with COVID-19.) Kerberos is the Greek three-headed dog who guards the Underworld, keeping the dead inside and the living out. I liked the idea of referencing Kerberos for many reasons. On one level, Insiders deals thematically with the notion of being inside, and on Kerberos Station, we start with an insular group of pipe crawlers, who live within the pipes of the station. Leaving these pipes is difficult on many levels for young Sachi, and linking her life-and-death choice with evading Hades’ Underworld guardian appealed to me.

Imperatrix Persephone, an antagonist in the story, leads the intergalactic, powerful Elysium Empire. I chose Greek Persephone, in part, due to an entire back story that I may yet write into a novel related to the ancient Greek oracles. More simply and directly, Persephone is a death goddess who I thought most readers would recognize. The Elysium Empire links with the Eleusinian Mysteries, secret rites connected with the cult of Persephone and her mother, Demeter. The mysteries are fascinating in part because of the strict secrecy held regarding what they involved. To this day, we do not know what the mysteries shared. Nevertheless, scholars believe that the mysteries revealed what happens after death. I realize references to the Eleusinian Mysteries would likely only be noticed by readers with an interest in history, myth, or both. Personally, I quite enjoy making connections between the distant past and the far future. Again, Insiders is a space opera with, for example, a carefully crafted scene allowing for the realistic fiery explosion of a spaceship in space. (Yes! Fire in the void!) Readers do not need to understand and sift through various mythological references to enjoy the story. Pew, pew, pew!

In Insiders, Imperatrix Persephone enjoys special powers due to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which involve a certain “beetle” entering her body and living symbiotically with her. The imperatrix conducts others into the mysteries by bestowing beetles upon them. These beetles crawl in through the nasal cavity. Then their hosts’ human bodies become capable of surviving extreme environments that cause death in other creatures. In other words, the Mysteries and the beetles offer a sort of immortality to those who obtain them. I thought it was fun to suggest an alien connection between the Eleusinian Mysteries of the ancient past that would allow them to continue into the far distant future.

On account of humans inducted into the Eleusinian Mysteries being able to survive deadly environments, the Elysium Empire presides over a series of death worlds. I casually termed them as death worlds due to their environments being antithetical to life. Each world is named after an Underworld from Earth culture with a designated ruler entitled with the name of the coordinating death god. Therefore, we meet Sammael ruling over the planet Sheol and Izanami reigning in Yomi. Izanami’s ship is the Jeweled Spear, in reference to the Japanese creation myth in which Izanami uses the spear to create land. In Insiders, the Elysium Empire is full of mythological I-spy moments for readers who enjoy myth. Links connecting the past with the future ground stories in a world we recognize. These connections also help reveal how our cultural understanding of the world partially shapes how we see the universe and beyond.

At its heart, Insiders is a book about coming together. Humanity faces obstacles of all kinds. Many are of our own creation. Some we could have never predicted. As individuals, it’s easy to focus on our very personal difficulties. The human mind isn’t capable of stepping back and encompassing all the injuries or injustices of the entire planet. However, we don’t need to do that. We do, however, need to step away from an us-and-them dichotomy that divides everyone into insiders and outsiders. With grit and creativity, we can acknowledge that we’re all in this together and aim our hearts and minds towards solutions.

Find a copy of Insiders.

Shannon Knight is a science fiction, fantasy, and horror author living in the Pacific Northwest. Mythology ties into most of her stories. Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.shannonknight.net/. Her page about Insiders is here.

That good-lookin’ cover image is the work of Isabeau Backhaus, incidentally. Go check out her portfolio, you’ll be glad you did.