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Burning Questions
Lost track of your favorite authors? If they're not in the Witness Protection Program, we'll try to find them. Write Burning Questions, 2143 Belcourt Ave., Nashville, TN 37212. Or e-mail us. Alas, no personal replies are possible.
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The Anglo-files: The truth is out there
Dear Burning Question:
Then I read Lindsey Davis's Falco mysteries, The Silver Pigs, Shadows in Bronze, etc. They didn't give a bio of the author, and I presumed they were by Gash, writing under a pen name. Lovejoy and Falco were very much alike, and from the descriptions of antiques the books seemed to be by the same author. The most recent Davis book, Three Hands in the Fountain, had a brief bio on the dust jacket . . . It wouldn't be the first time an author has reversed gender on a pen name. Or am I imagining the similarities?
Margaret Berg
You are imagining things. Well, not entirely; there are similarities between the two, but even though both Lindsey Davis and Jonathan Gash are mystery writers living in England, they are not one in the same. Davis has captivated readers with her novels featuring Marcus Didius Falco, a detective in ancient Rome. Falco's tenth adventure, Two for the Lions, is being published by Mysterious Press this month and has already won the first Ellis Peters/British Crime Writers Association Historical Mystery Dagger Award. Davis was born and raised in Birmingham, England. She read English at Oxford and then joined the civil service. "After 13 years I abandoned the index-linked pension and ran away to be a writer," she says. The Marcus Didius Falco series is a bestseller in England and has been translated into eight languages. Davis lives in Greenwich, England. In March, Viking books will publish Gash's latest Lovejoy mystery, A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair, in which he takes on London's antique markets for the first time. Gash is the author of 20 best-selling Lovejoy mysteries and of Different Women Dancing and Prey Dancing, in his new Dr. Clare Burtonall series. He lives in Colchester, England.
Getting Loaded
Dear Burning Questions,
"Prisbo" McColgan
This January, Lewis Nordan brings us his first work of nonfiction, Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir (Algonquin). Here Nordan, the voice of the Delta, takes us to his hometown of Itta Bena, Mississippi. It's a southern story to be sure -- with plenty of infidelities and broken hearts, and alcoholism -- but you can bet that it will be told in Nordan's unique way. Nordan is the author of seven books of fiction, including the novels Wolf Whistle and Lightning Song.
Our pick of the year Though we reviewed it in our October issue, we just can't get enough of Sena Jeter Naslund's beautiful novel, Ahab's Wife. We haven't been this excited about a book in a long time -- so excited that we've decided to do the unprecedented: interview the author after we've already reviewed the book. Please visit our Web site for our exclusive interview with the very gracious and soft-spoken Naslund, whom we recently had the pleasure of meeting at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville.
National Book Award nominees We're featuring this list to encourage readers to try a new author or two. Winners are announced after we go to press:
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