BOOK REVIEW | BOOKS OF THE GAME

Be Sure You Have A Rock-Solid Alibi — Books Of The Game

Authors Face A Unique Challenge Writing Within A World Already Familiar To Their Fan Base

Card from the National Park Card Company. Photo: Penny Grubb

The card above arrived earlier in the week from an old friend. Inside, she had written, “I thought of you the moment I saw this in the shop.”

When we exchanged letters and emails in our younger days, we developed a bad habit. We would never mention the simplest activity without turning it into a heinous crime, with us in lead roles as arch-criminals. Digging over a flowerbed became burying a body; an innocent trip to the bank became an armed raid. No, I’m not really sure why. If there was a rationale, it has evaporated over the decades. However, we did sometimes speculate on what would happen if our shared “news” coincided with a matching crime. Our letters and emails would be damning evidence and, without solid alibis, we might find ourselves behind bars.

I thought of this while looking at a particular set of novels, and it occurred to me that the authors of those books are in a similar and even more precarious position than me and my friend. Given the things they have had to research, an inspection of their internet search histories would surely see them in custody in the…