cene
LITERARY S By Ryan G. Van Cleave
The Second Letter by Robert Lane
(Mason Alley Publishing, softcover, 324 pages, $14.95).
Robert Lane’s debut novel features a wisecracking sleuth named Jack Travis who gets embroiled in the mystery behind a decades-old, unopened letter that’s somehow related to a CIA agent’s death in 1961. It’s fifty years later, and now Travis is asked by an ex-Army colonel to retrieve a stolen Cold War letter. How can he refuse? The colonel helped out his clever, fearless girlfriend, Kathleen, back when her deceased husband ran with the mob, and those criminals had become suspicious of her knowledge of their activities. She needed a new identity fast and the colonel saved her. Set in West Florida, this book has some local flavor and appeal, yet that’s not all. A Tampa strip-club owner. The CIA. The IRS. Smuggling. Trafficking. Dirty politics. The Second Letter book has a lot going on — including a sizable cast of characters — but Lane never loses control of this high-stakes, fast-paced Florida crime caper. Fans of Michael Connelly, Ace Atkins, and Dennis Lehane will likely find Lane’s book satisfying in how it hits on all the right notes of a truly suspenseful story. And don’t worry — the fate of everyone who ever touched the letter will indeed be revealed along with all the other secrets you’re teased with throughout the text. If Lane’s dynamic style of writing works for you, don’t worry about getting more from this debut author. He’s already hard at work on two new books. Scheduled for a fall release is a new Jake Travis book entitled Cooler Than Blood where Travis is tasked with finding a missing girl but his search puts him in a battle to protect Kathleen from her past. After that is another Travis book where an assassin disguises himself as a church cardinal. For more information on Robert Lane or The Second Letter, please visit www.robertlanebooks.com
Odd Remains by Ginna Wilkerson (Eleusinian Press, softcover, 84 pages, $14.95).
A professor during my graduate school years at Florida State University once said, “Poetry is not big box office,” and he’s right. But that’s part of the beauty of poetry — with so little money in it, it’s one of the purest art forms there is. And that appreciation of beauty without sensationalism or consumerism is at the heart of this, Wilkerson’s first collection of poetry. Odd Remains is an apt title for this book — the poems here indeed uncover the “odd” that “remains” when the veneer of the everyday is stripped away. There is beauty here, though it’s steeped in yearning and absence that somehow suggests a deep, rich past. Here’s a poem in its entirety that illustrates that phenomenon.
Lilies in the Window She breathes the indigo night air from a shadowy corner, angled to see — without being seen.
scenesarasota.com
May 2014
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