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Mr. Peanut (Borzoi Books)
Questions for Adam Ross on Mr. Peanut
Q: Was there a particular event or idea that first gave rise to Mr. Peanut?
A: Absolutely. In 1995, my father told me the strangest, most suspicious story about my cousin, who had severe peanut allergies and was also morbidly obese. According to her husband, he arrived home to find her sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of peanuts in front of her, and upon seeing him she stuffed a handful into her mouth and then went into anaphylactic shock. Her last words to him were, "Call 911." Needless to say, I was stunned and wildly curious as to what could have happened to produce such a scenario. Almost immediately afterward I wrote, in a single sitting, three chapters that closely resemble those that now open Mr. Peanut. But then things ground to a halt. I'd written myself into an exploration of marriage I didn't understand just yet. I had enough wits about me to file those pages away and let them gestate.
Q:Mr. Peanut revolves around David Pepin, a man who might or might not have killed his wife. Her death is being investigated by two detectives, both of whose marriages we come to see intimately throughout the novel. Did you know all along that you would depict three different marriages and the ways in which they relate?
A: I like to say that Mr. Peanut is the story of three marriages that tell the story of one marriage--that is, the detectives' marriages, Sam Sheppard's and Ward Hastroll's, telling the story of David and Alice's and vice versa. Either way, like the Escher drawings that inspire the video games David designs for a living, they're supposed to interlock to form another pattern, to be dynamic in their interaction. As the novel progresses, the reader should feel a more intense oscillation between the parts and the whole.
Initially, however, I thought of the detectives merely as engines of the plot, present, as in a standard police procedural, to obtain and analyze evidence and to keep the action moving. So there was a great deal of trial and error, of leads chased down to nowhere over some thirteen years of work that grew less and less sporadic. And like the main character, Alice, the book grew and grew. Joseph Conrad talks about the problem of the swelling middle of any modern novel, something I soon experienced and then an aesthetic observation I tried to incorporate into Mr. Peanut with respect to David and Alice's marriage. So as I made my crooked way, characters I thought would be ancillary increased in importance, took on weight, demanded more space. At a point I can't recall, probably because I was a full-time journalist and then a teacher and could work on the novel only in the early mornings or during the summers, I stopped thinking of the detectives as detectives and began instead to develop them into characters who embodied both guilt and innocence with respect to their own marriages--and who in turn shed light on David and Alice's. My hope is that readers experience a series of recognitions. That they read about each marriage and say, "Yes, I've been there."
Q: Readers are going to be surprised, I think, to recognize the infamous Dr. Sam Sheppard. What is going on here? Did you know from the start that Mr. Peanut would incorporate aspects of the Sam Sheppard murder case and also draw on themes from Alfred Hitchcock's films?
A: Yes and no. I was obsessed with Hitchcock when I started the novel, but at the outset Dr. Sam Sheppard wasn't in the mix; it was Hastroll and another detective who were interrogating David. What I wanted to do initially was incorporate them as detectives who were prejudicial: Hastroll a character who sees everyone around him as guilty, the other one who sees every suspect as innocent. And I had a handle on Hastroll's conflict with his wife, Hannah, because it's tight and comic--can a couple survive when one member decides to go to bed indefinitely?--and also a great way to explore the absurdity of marriage at times, the periods of rut and impasse. And there'd be a recognition there by the reader, because the closer you get to any marriage, the more you lose your equilibrium with respect to normalcy and right and wrong. Most fundamentally, I wanted to explore the idea of whether married people are capable of change, a theme that runs through the entire novel.
I began to feel I needed a gray-area figure, one who powerfully embodied not only guilt and innocence but also marriage's mysteriousness, its impenetrability from the outside. And then one afternoon my dad and I were watching The Fugitive on television, the remake with Harrison Ford. My dad's an actor and he starts talking about the original series, how great David Janssen was as Dr. Richard Kimball, that it was based on a real case. So I started poking around on the Internet and almost immediately realized I'd hit the mother lode, because with the Sheppard case you have a murder mystery and a marriage that you can research till kingdom come but are still forced, in spite of all the evidence, to speculate about Sheppard's guilt or innocence, to make an imaginative leap, as Detective Hastroll says, into a moment of "terrible privacy"--which is what we do all the time and quite cavalierly about other people's marriages, whether through the tabloids (Tiger Woods as a recent example) or on the drive home from a dinner party.
Q: We have to ask--as this is a novel in which all the characters contemplate killing their wives, and some maybe do--what does your wife think of the book?
A: Sometimes she wants to kill me, too. Honestly, she was really moved by it and hung tough waiting for me to finish it. In a lot of ways it's the Escher-obverse of our own marriage. I mentioned how long we've been together, but I'll give you a more personal example. During our eleventh year of marriage, we did go to Hawaii like David and Alice do in the book. But we had a glorious two weeks on Kauai and Oahu and it was there that we found out we were going to have our first child and this marked a wonderful new chapter in our marriage, whereas David and Alice's trip is horrifically tragic and marks the beginning of the end of theirs.
Q: What is next for you?
A: Next up I have two completely different novel ideas tugging at me--one realistic, the other fabular--and each will require a good bit of research, so in the meantime I might add a few stories to my short story collection, Ladies & Gentleman. Career-wise, it's nice to have two bullets in the chamber. If I just sat around the house after finishing Mr. Peanut, I think my wife would kill me.
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Pray for Silence: A Thriller (Kate Burkholder)
New York Times bestselling author Linda Castillo delivers an electrifying thriller in which Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must confront a dark evil to solve the mysterious murders of an entire Amish family.
The Plank family moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the small Amish community of Painters Mill less than a year ago and seemed the model of the Plain Lifeuntil on a cold October night, the entire family of seven was found slaughtered on their farm. Police Chief Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the Englishand each otherbut this crime is horribly out of the ordinary.
State agent John Tomasetti arrives on the scene to assist. He and Kate worked together on a previous case during which they began a volatile relationship. They soon realize the disturbing details of this case will test their emotional limits and force them to face demons from their own troubled pastsand for Kate, a personal connection that is particularly hard to bear.
When she discovers a diary that belonged to one of the teenaged daughters, Kate is shocked to learn the girl kept some very dark secrets and may have been living a lurid double life. Who is the charismatic stranger who stole the young Amish girl's heart? Could the brothera man with a violent past, rejected and shunned by his family and the Amish community, have come to seek out revenge? As Kate's outrage grows so does her resolve to find the killer and bring him to justiceeven if it means putting herself in the line of fire.
Topping her own bestselling debut, Linda Castillo once again immerses us in the world of the Amish with a chilling story that is both a fast-paced thriller and intriguing psychological puzzle.
Sworn to Silence (Kate Burkholder)
A killer is preying on sacred ground....
In the sleepy rural town of Painters Mill, Ohio, the Amish and English" residents have lived side by side for two centuries. But sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community. In the aftermath of the violence, the town was left with a sense of fragility, a loss of innocence. Kate Burkholder, a young Amish girl, survived the terror of the Slaughterhouse Killer but came away from its brutality with the realization that she no longer belonged with the Amish.
Now, a wealth of experience later, Kate has been asked to return to Painters Mill as Chief of Police. Her Amish roots and big city law enforcement background make her the perfect candidate. She's certain she's come to terms with her pastuntil the first body is discovered in a snowy field. Kate vows to stop the killer before he strikes again. But to do so, she must betray both her family and her Amish pastand expose a dark secret that could destroy her.
Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller
When a lonely old man is found dead in his Reykjavík flat, the only clues are a cryptic note left by the killer and a photograph of a young girl's grave. Inspector Erlendur discovers that many years ago the victim was accused, but not convicted, of an unsolved crime, a rape. Did the old man's past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur reopens this very cold case, he follows a trail of unusual forensic evidence, uncovering secrets that are much larger than the murder of one old man.
An international sensation, the Inspector Erlendur series has sold more than two million copies worldwide.
Sea Change (Jesse Stone)
After the body of a divorced Florida heiress washes ashore in Paradise, Jesse Stone discovers her kinky secrets-and a sordid past that casts suspicion on everyone she knew, from friends to family. Unfortunately no one is talking, so it's up to Stone to speak for the dead...
See more photos, specs, and reviewsRoses Are Red (Alex Cross Novels)
Roses Are Red, James Patterson's sixth Alex Cross thriller, openswith the District of Columbia detective attempting to mend his nearly unraveledfamily. The year-long kidnapping of one's intended (1999's Pop Goes the Weasel) will dothat to a relationship. Christine, the kidnappee, is amenable with onereasonable condition: that her family's horizon remain uncluttered by homicidalmaniacs. How unfortunate, then, that the joyous christening of their newborn sonis rudely interrupted by the FBI bearing news of several heinous murdersrequiring the attention of detective (and doctor of psychology) Cross."Three-year-old boy, the father, a nanny," Kyle said one more timebefore he left the party. He was about to go through the door in the sun porchwhen he turned to me and said, "You're the right person for this. They murdereda family, Alex."As soon as Kyle was gone, I went looking for Christine. My heart sank. She hadtaken Alex and left without saying good-bye, without a single word.Which leaves Cross free to hunt the Mastermind, the barbarous brains behind awidening series of bank robberies in which employees or their family members areheld hostage and, when instructions aren't followed to the finest iota,slaughtered. Given the cases' glaring and unfathomable inhumanity, Cross's long- time DCPD partner (the wonderful giant, John Sampson) gives way to the warm,attractive, and fiercely intelligent FBI Agent Betsey Cavalierre.The longer and harder Cross and Cavalierre remain on his trail, the bolder andmore brutal--and shiveringly close to home--the Mastermind's strikes become.And, thanks mostly to lightning-short paragraphs and a point of view thatrappels from the first-person Cross to the third-person Mastermind, the taleprogresses at hot-trot speed to a bona fide doozy of a denouement. It'll be overbefore you know it, so sit back, hold your breath, and enjoy the show. And staytuned for the next one. --Michael Hudson
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Evidence: An Alex Delaware Novel
In a half-built mansion in Los Angeles, a watchman stumbles onto the bodies of a young couple-murdered and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is shocked at the sight: a twisted crime that only Milo and psychologist Alex Delaware can hope to solve. While the female victim's identity remains in question, her companion is ID'd as eco-friendly architect Desmond Backer, notorious for his power to seduce women. The deeper Milo and Alex dig for clues, the longer the list of suspects grows. But when the investigation veers suddenly in a startling direction, it's the investigators who may wind up on the wrong end of a cornered predator's final fury.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsThe Terrorist: A Thriller
The War on Terror has serious consequences, even for Louis Morgon, even in his small, not quite forgotten French village. When he learns that a misguided CIA campaign has led to the arrest and extreme rendition of Zaharia, who has been like a son to him, Louis is determined to find a real terrorist to exchange for the boy. His body may be failing, but his mind is still nimble. It better be. He has to play a double game navigating the dangerous no-man's land between the CIA and Al Qaeda, turning up old scorpions who, like Louis, would rather be left alone.
His quest takes him to Algiers, Cairo, the slums of Paris and finally New Jersey. He makes some sinister enemies. But he also assembles an unlikely collection of friends and allies, including a bona fide al Qaeda terrorist, some gang-bangers in Newark, and a dog named Buster. And he even finds love along the way.
Night Passage
The author of two dozen Spenser novels as well as numerous other works of fiction, Robert B. Parker is no stranger to either critical or popular acclaim. With his hallmark sharp wit and taut action, Parker has created in the Spenser series the standard against which all contemporary detective novels are measured, and a character considered the paragon of private eyes. In Night Passage, Parker sets the bar even higher, with the introduction of Jesse Stone, a hero cut from different cloth.After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, the thirty-five-year-old Stone's future looks bleak. So he's shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can't help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can't refuse.Once on board, Jesse doesn't have to look for trouble in Paradise: it comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption--replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust; even he and the woman he's seeing are like ships that pass in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero--or the deadest of dupes.As the flagship volume in a new series featuring a complex and engaging sleuth, Night Passage is cause for celebration.Fans often feel uneasy when the creator of a popular character ventures into new turf, and sometimes their trepidation is justified. But readers of Robert B. Parker's immensely popular Spenser series can breathe a sigh of relief: while Night Passage doesn't feature Spenser, his usual gang of associates, or a Boston setting, it's vintage Parker--fast, witty, suspenseful, and engaging. Told in short, crisp chapters, it's the story of Jesse Stone, a 34-year-old ex-cop who just lost his L.A. policeman's job and his marriage due to a drinking problem. The book opens as Stone leaves California for his new job as chief of police in the picturesque town of Paradise, Massachusetts. But Paradise isn't as placid as it seems--in fact, it's a festering mass of petty corruption, right-wing militia, sexual scandal, and bad guys who favor strong-arm tactics. Night Passage boasts a delicious, classic setup: the lone lawman, new in town, must make his stand to clean the place up. Stone has been picked for the job because the town fathers figured he'd be weak and malleable; as he gradually pulls himself together, it turns out they have a surprise in store. Stone's qualities may remind you of Spenser's--he's taciturn, fearless, good-looking, and compassionate--and in the end the plot's pleasing complexities get resolved a bit simply. But Robert B. Parker is in fine form in Night Passage, with his smart-aleck wit under control and his prose at its economical best. Spenser fans and Parker neophytes alike will find plenty to enjoy here. And the setting is, after all, not far from Boston--dare we hope for a Spenser-Stone meeting in future books?
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