Mystery novel has Lincoln connection
This review appeared in the Sept. 8 edition of the Lincoln Journal Star, written by Lincoln resident John Stevens Berry.
"Play Action" by Jack Botts, Writers Showcase, 346 pages, $18.95
I picked up this delightful book knowing nothing about the author. After I had finished the book, I read a note about him.
Jack Botts is professor emeritus in journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He had a career as a journalist and professor here in Lincoln, after finishing his service in Italy during World War II.
My wife, Margaret, has advised me that he and his wife, Dorris, have become environmental experts on Nebraska meadowlarks; before that he was a copy editor at the Lincoln Journal.
I knew none of this, and I did a little research to discover that during World War II he was a radio operator with a B-17 crew in Italy. This alone should have made for a full, rich and rewarding career, but as it happens he chose to become an author at about the time most people are playing checkers and content with the contribution of youthful hard work.
One may expect that a 78-year-old man who began flying for the U.S. Army Air Force at age 18 has picked up certain lifetime skills of survival and observation. When, after a lengthy career as a journalist and a professor of journalism, he decides to become a novelist, we may assume he will do it well and with precision.
Guess what? Jack Botts has done all of that, and more, in this genuinely delightful book.
Sometimes books are classified as "good summer reading" simply because they are fun and lend themselves to our notion of pleasure and relaxation. But to refer to a book as summertime reading may belittle the book, its importance and the skill with which it was written.
The book is a thriller, no doubt about it. The prose is crisp and evocative, and the pages turn.
The hero, Rosie, is a woman contract pilot from Lincoln, Neb., who (as with so many heroes) simply finds herself right in the middle of action, danger, and big bucks. (Solving a $20 million international jewel theft is, in fact, big bucks.)
Now here is my problem: I want to talk about this book, but I do not want to give it away, because it really is a book that you should read. I'll tell you this:
Yes, there is a Russian Mafia.
Yes, there is considerable violence within the first three pages of the book.
I enjoy the speed of a certain kind of adventure story that simply could never be diagramed. You read just a few pages and you find yourself bouncing between Russia and Paris, Amsterdam and Africa, and yet with a well-written book such as this, it is all part of a fun narrative.
You never get the sense that the author is simply piling it on, because the characters do emerge and the plot does develop. We meet the hero, Rosie Cannon, in the second chapter of the book. She is a blue-eyed redhead, who is coaching basketball and refereeing at the same time. Rosie knows her basketball and establishes herself as a likeable, very competent woman who has no problem at all in referring to herself as "a creaky old broad."
And Rosie knows when to call the Lincoln Police Department.
Don't you love it? Lincoln, Nebraska as the source of action in a suspense/adventure novel. Wish I had thought of that. Well, actually I did, but I never got around to finishing the book.
Well, here they come, old friends of mine, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals from Omaha, Interstate 80 and other points of reference.
I do not mean to belabor the point: I simply loved reading such a book with a strong basis in our own venue. If I did not live in Lincoln, I still would have enjoyed this book, but to me at least it makes it more than worth going to the bookstore to pick up and read.
I have never been comfortable with the false dichotomy between "hard-boiled" and "cozy." A good book has a lot of both.
I would like to quote the final four sentences of the novel as a gem of hard-boiled prose: "This time the knife hadn't cleared his coat when a 50-centimeter police baton of flame-tempered French oak slammed into his skull behind the right ear. Henri's weapon spun from his hand. Without uttering a sound he pitched face-forward into a gutter of filthy water. The cigarette between his lips sizzled a moment and went out."
Fun book, good reading, great venue. Thanks, Jack Botts!
