One of the most common pieces of advice that fledgling writers are given is to always “write what you know.”
If you were Ed Lynskey and your curriculum vitae included 18 years working on the development and production of Stinger missiles that would certainly provide you with some interesting ideas.
In Lynskey’s newest book, The Blue Cheer, instead of finding the rest and tranquility he seeks in the mountains of West Virginia, what P.I. Frank Johnson finds is a Stinger exploding over his backyard. Johnson’s investigation into where the missile came from leads him to a murderous racist cult.
The Publishers Weekly review promises that Lynskey’s style “will remind many of such masters of hard-boiled prose as Loren Estleman.”
I have long been a fan of mysteries set in the Appalachian region. The local color is well developed in this book. While I have found so many of the others to have an underlying melancholy, I found here a pervasive darkness.
If you are a fan of the noir mystery, you might want to fall into step with Johnson, beginning with the Dirt-Brown Derby, an earlier Johnson mystery set among the Virginia horsey set.
Not the horsey set, however, of Rita Mae Brown’s cozy Crozet folk, by any means.
