Mystery, They Wrote

I have a friend who collects great first lines from mystery novels. I’ve never been that organized, but if I were, I’d have this first line/paragraph from Jan Burke’s book Goodnight, Irene (1993), at the top of my list:

“He loved to watch fat women dance. I guess O’Connor’s last night on the planet was a happy one because that night he had an eyeful of the full-figured…I’m not sure he really would have enjoyed being the dancer as much as he did just watching them swing and sway with amazing grace.”

Being of the, ahem, full-figured variety myself, I immediately loved O’Connor and his creator for the sheer joy and appreciation expressed in those few words.

According to Jan Burke, it was that very line that gave her the inspiration for the book. It was in the late 1980s and Burke was sitting in a smoky bar with her musician husband. Exercisemania was running rampant in west LA. The band was playing the kind of music that makes you want to join in. “A group of four or five huge women got up to dance. The smallest of them probably weighed about three hundred pounds,” said Burke during my conversation with her. They moved to the dance floor and without a backward look, proceeded to have a great time. And then, “like the classic bolt out of the blue,” came the line “He loved to watch fat women dance.” Burke turned to her husband and said “I just had a first line come to me and if I don’t make use of this, I’m gonna stop walking around saying I’m gonna write a book someday.”

A first line does not a book make, but it sure did give Jan Burke a metaphorical shove. She went home and promptly wrote the first few chapters, asking herself what kind of character would say such a thing and to whom would he say it. And so began the development of veteran reporter O’Connor, his best friend and ex-coworker, Irene Kelly, and a homicide detective named Frank Harriman. Goodnight, Irene was Burke’s first book. It found a publisher with its first submission and was nominated for both an Agatha and an Anthony.

Since that auspicious beginning, Burke has written nine more books featuring reporter Irene Kelly and detective Frank Harriman. She’s won the Edgar Award for best novel – Bones, (1999) – and a number of awards for her short stories.

Unfortunately, O’Connor, the loveable guy that spoke that famous first line, doesn’t fare so well – he gets knocked off on page two. But by that time I was totally hooked. Predictably, Irene and Frank spend that first book looking for O’Connor’s killer, but also discover the answers to a case O’Connor had been chasing for some thirty years. Subsequent books are devoted to increasingly well-plotted mysteries that become more thriller-ish somewhere around Hocus. Then, in early 2005, Bloodlines was published. And what a book! It is so incredibly complex, it’s almost impossible to summarize. There are really three stories held together by a common thread that stretches across three generations.

It opens in 1958 when veteran reporter Jack Corrigan is nearly killed. His protégé, young Conn O’Connor (yes, that O’Connor) is driven to find his attacker. Corrigan claims to have seen a bloodstained car being buried on a farm, but there was alcohol involved, so the memory is blurry and O’Connor never locates the car. In 1978, young reporter Irene Kelly covers the groundbreaking of a shopping center where a long-buried car is discovered… and in the trunk are the remains of an infant. But DNA testing was not yet available and the identity of the child remained unknown. Fast-forward twenty years – O’Connor is dead, Irene is now married to Frank Harriman, DNA testing has arrived, and cold cases are resurrected.

Bloodlines is truly a masterwork and gives Burke a chance to further explore the past that ultimately gives us the man who loved to watch fat women dance. The depth of the characters, the intricacy of the story, the subtlety of the prose and the connections between them would all be lost in the hands of a less skilled writer. This is what I love about well-written series books – over time the reader can appreciate the development of characters as well as the development of the author. Sure, there are likely to be novice mistakes in the first books, but what a joy it is to witness the author learning and improving character development, plotting, pacing. Bloodlines became an outstanding book only because Jan Burke learned as she wrote.

On a recent driving trip to Ohio, I listened to a new recording of Good Night, Irene just released by Recorded Books—that first line still grabbed me and the mystery was still an intriguing one. The next Irene Kelly, the eleventh in the series, won’t be published until fall, 2009. That’s unfortunate for me, but it’ll leave plenty of time for you to catch up on the series. I think I’m a bit envious… Perhaps Recorded Books will be releasing Sweet Dreams, Irene soon and I’ll get a chance to visit Irene Kelly all over again.

Enjoy the mystery!

Lynn Kaczmarek is the Managing Editor of the national publication, Mystery News. She lives with her husband and her books in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin

The books of Jan Burke:

Goodnight, Irene (1993), Sweet Dreams, Irene (1994), Dear Irene (1995), Remember Me, Irene (1996), Hocus (1997), Liar (1998), Bones (1999), Flight (2001), Nine (2002) – a standalone thriller, 18 (2002) – a collection of short stories, Bloodlines (2005), and Kidnapped (2006)