Saralee Says
Sisters are notorious for disagreeing. I should know since I am one of four girls. Kelly and Kristy Montee are two sisters who agree enough to write as one author. How do two sisters who live in two different states manage to write as one author? They use the Internet.
Their pseudonym is P.J. Parrish and they have authored Dead of Winter, Dark of the Moon, Paint it Black and Thicker than Water. Louis Kincaid is the protagonist in this series of mystery books. He is in his late twenties, his mother is African-American, his father is white and at one time Kincaid was a member of the police force.
As the story of Island of Bones (Pinnacle) unfolds, we find Kincaid living in Florida and a series of events unfold including finding a human skull, tailing a town librarian and solving a murder mystery. Kincaid is asked to work with Mel Landeta, a former Miami detective who has just moved to the area under suspicious circumstances. Their partnership is anything but peaceful and the interaction between Kincaid and Landeta is almost as interesting as the mystery they finally solve.
What do you think about the author setting the time for the Kincaid series in the 1980s instead of the present? Is it harder for Kincaid to solve his crimes without the technology of DNA? Did you become impatient with Kincaid's reflection on his behavior as he remembered how he acted when his college girlfriend told him she was pregnant with his child? Were you sympathetic or not with Kincaid's actions towards her? Was this most recent effort by Parrish your favorite in the Kincaid series or did you prefer one of the author's earlier books?
Larry's Language
At a recent author book signing, I asked a friend if she had found any new mystery writers to read and she immediately told me to try Paint It Black by P. J. Parrish. I was so impressed when I read that book that I found all the other books in print by the sister writing duo. Then that same friend called me and said half of P.J. Parrish was coming to Davis-Kidd to speak about their newest novel, Island of Bones, and she would loan me her copy.
Island of Bones has a very unique setting among the islands in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. Some of these islands are almost uninhabited and rarely explored since their discovery by early settlers and therein lies the mystery as a skull washes ashore in front of Kincaid's cottage and a murdered woman is found nearby on a beach with no identification except for a strange ring carved out of bone on her finger. Despite his lack of any official police capacity, Kincaid starts investigating. Then he is hired by a local school principal whose father's desk drawer contained a 1953 newspaper article about the disappearance of a young girl. The principal wants her father investigated by Kincaid.
Of course, these investigations eventually merge and focus on the same suspect, a librarian named Frank Woods.
The main question for our book club is whether Woods is a good or bad guy in what turns out to be a series of disappearances by young teenage girls on the Florida coast.
P.J. Parrish will be speaking to the Nashville Sisters in Crime meeting on Tuesday, February 17 at Davis-Kidd. Sisters in Crime are readers who support mysteries written by women.
Join us for our next bookclub discussion which will feature some of our favorite African American authors.
