CANR
WORK TITLE: MURDER OFF THE PAGE
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.conlehane.com/
CITY: Washington
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 323
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:Columbia University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Rockland Community College, NY, former professor of English; National Education Association, Washington, DC, publications editor and writer; Writer’s Center, Bethesda, MD, teacher of fiction and mystery writing. Has also worked as a union organizer and a bartender.
WRITINGS
Contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
SIDELIGHTS
Con Lehane has held a variety of jobs, including bartending at as many as twenty-four separate bars. His background as an English professor and editor may enhance his writing, but it is his experience behind the bar that makes the setting of his first novel, Beware the Solitary Drinker, so realistic. The book took almost ten years to write, and although it received critical praise, some had trouble categorizing it: Beware the Solitary Drinker is at once a mystery, a work of literary fiction, and a crime novel. In an interview with Gwen Glazer for Gazette.net, Lehane stated: “I thought of this as a mystery novel, but not necessarily noir, and a social criticism novel, maybe a political novel. But more than anything else, I thought of it as fiction.”
Protagonist Brian McNulty is, according to Glazer, a “gruff-but-warm” bartender who respects the privacy and the space of his customers. He listens more than he asks questions. When one of his customers, a woman named Angelina, is found dead, and another customer is accused of the crime, McNulty is forced to make some major changes in his demeanor. Rather than stand back and take an objective stance in everything that is said to him, he must dig into the private lives of the people who frequent his bar as he slowly evolves into an amateur part-time detective. Although he believes the murderer is not the man the police have accused, McNulty thinks it is likely that another of his customers did kill the young woman.
It is the dead woman’s sister, Janet, who convinces McNulty that he needs to become involved in the investigation. She prompts McNulty to help her uncover information that only he could pry from the people who hang around his bar—serious drinkers with a rash of personal problems and a lot of secrets—any one of whom is a possible suspect. In the course of their search, they even uncover secrets about Angelina, as incidents from her past are discovered. The tension of the case rises when yet another customer is killed. Angelina’s sister, who becomes McNulty’s love interest, keeps McNulty inspired. In the end, they find the culprit by unearthing a link in her past that leads to the actual murderer.
Beware the Solitary Drinker is filled with eccentric characters, all of whom seem to have been enchanted by the young Angelina. Most of the characters are men who seek solitude but do not really want to be alone, and Oscar’s bar meets their needs. A writer for Kirkus Reviews described the overall atmosphere and setting as being “drenched in wistful melancholy.” The same reviewer also revealed that Lehane’s “affection for his cast of misfits” is obvious. Meanwhile, Library Journal contributor Rex E. Klett stated that “Brian’s bar-focused outlook” and the bar “family” make for “colorful reading.”
Lehane continues the Brian McNulty series with his next book, What Goes Around Comes Around. This story is set a few years after Beware the Solitary Drinker, starting when Brian stumbles across a body near the hotel where he works, only to discover the victim is a former acquaintance. His old friend and mentor, John Wolinski, talks him into searching for the killer, but his involvement soon leads to even more trouble and entanglements from the past. One Kirkus Reviews critic remarked that “the thin, digressive plot isn’t likely to encourage readers to belly-up.” A reviewer for Publishers Weekly felt that “a repetitious and slogging plot weighs down” the book, but added that Lehane “brings alive the dark, offbeat world behind the facade of luxury hotels and bars.”
The third Brian McNulty installment, Death at the Old Hotel, finds Brian working in a new job at the Savoy Hotel in New York. Although the hotel has seen better days, Brian is among a small group of workers who continue to take pride in their work in the face of lesser employees, unfair management, and ultimately an unjust firing that eventually leads to a murder. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews praised the novel, stating that “Brian … has become multi-faced and fully engaged in a world he never made, adding substance to a series that keeps getting better.” Booklist reviewer David Pitt dubbed this addition to Lehane’s series “an engaging narrative, with a good mixture of wit and drama.”
In 2016, Lehane launched a new series with Murder at the 42nd Street Library. The star of the series is Raymond Ambler, who works in the crime-fiction section of the venerable Manhattan library. Ambler turns sleuth after the shooting death of Dr. James Donnelly, a professor who is writing a biography of crime writer Nelson Yates, who deposited his papers with the library. When Harry Larkin, the head of the library’s special collections department, becomes the target of a potshot, the mystery deepens. In charge of the case is NYPD homicide detective Mike Cosgrove, who comes to his friend Ray for help. The two have a long-standing relationship, including shared histories with alcoholic wives and errant kids: Ray’s son has been convicted of a felony, while Mike’s daughter is troubled teenager. Further, Ray has lent a hand to Mike in earlier cases, and as a member of the library staff, he can provide Mike with a scorecard of possible suspects. Maximilian Wagner is Donnelly’s jealous academic rival. Kay, Donnelly’s ex-wife, now is in Max’s employ. Laura Lee McGlynn is Max’s lascivious wife and the ex-wife of Arthur Woods. Yates’s daughter Emily witnessed the death of Arthur Woods under mysterious circumstances when he was working at Hudson Highlands University, where his colleagues included Max, the Donnellys, and Yates. As Ray investigates and the motives of the player become ever more entangled, he finds his friendship with a colleague, Adele Morgan, deepening, and even as the bodies pile up, he finds that he has to strike a balance between obstructing justice and his need to protect innocent parties. Lehane’s fans will note that Brian McNulty from the author’s earlier mystery series makes a cameo appearance in this novel.
The critical response to Murder at the 42nd Street Library was mixed. Theodore Feit, writing for MBR Bookwatch, lamented that “unfortunately this series gets off to an uneven start, with a convoluted plot and cumbersome writing.” Other critics offered praise that was somewhat muted. A Publishers Weekly reviewer found the novel “enjoyable,” while a Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that the “complicated Ray … looks like a promising newcomer in the talented-amateur ranks.” Booklist reviewer Karen Keefe predicted that “the library setting, in general, and the crime-fiction special collection, in particular, will be a draw for many mystery fans.” Barbara Clark, in a review for the BookPage Web site, observed that the novel “operates on a kind of slow burn, increasing in tension—and complications—as the pages progress,” and while Clark faulted the novel for its “convoluted backstory,” she praised it for “a honey of an unexpected ending.” The most enthusiastic response came from Danielle Urban, who commented in the San Francisco Book Review that “the scenes are intense with action, drama, and danger on every page.” Urban went on to call the book a “rare and complex crime mystery” and professed to having found it “addictive.”
In his interview for Gazette.net, Lehane said that in many kinds of noir writing the overall theme is that the “little guy is defeated.” He just cannot stand up to the powers against him. They are “overwhelming, and he’s not going to make it.” However, he added: “I don’t accept that” kind of defeatism.
In 2017 Lehane published Murder in the Manuscript Room, the second novel in the “42nd Street Library Mystery” series. After former policeman Paul Higgins donates his papers to the library, Ambler’s life takes a dive. His colleague, Leila, is found murdered in his office and Higgins disappears. Then regular library patron, Gobi Tabrizi, is accused of being a murderer. With Adele’s help, Ambler aids Tabrizi, believing that an NYPD cover-up linked to the murder of a union president many years earlier is linked to this case.
In an interview in Mystery People, Lehane discussed the friction between her primary characters in the series based on how the sequel played out. Lehane stated: “Partly, things change between characters because the characters aren’t static. They’re dynamic and I don’t always know what’s going to happen with them until it happens. This might be a dumb way to write a mystery. But it’s how I write, certainly in the first draft. I have to have characters interacting with one another to move the story along. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a general idea of what the story is; more, it means I’m not sure what each character might do until they do it.” Lehane appended: “If they go too far afield, I can get them back on track when I revise. So I don’t know that the friction served a higher purpose; it was what the story called for.”
Booklist contributor Sue O’Brien observed that “plot twists and multiple points of view add to a gritty, complex tale.” A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that “Lehane provides food for thought by comparing past FBI transgressions with present-day Homeland Security activities.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews stated: “More ambitious and more muddled than the series debut, this sequel depends less on evoking a sense of its iconic nexus and more on making you look behind you.” Writing in Criminal Element, Michelle Carpenter reasoned that “all in all, Murder in the Manuscript Room was an easy to follow, good-hearted mystery novel. The depictions of winter in New York … were both accurate and relatable. The characters were distinct, and the plot was intricate. What Lehane does well is combine all of these and then top it off with homicide on 42nd Street.”
Lehane published Murder off the Page in 2019. Ambler notices a special relationship between researcher Jayne Galloway and Library Tavern bartender Brian McNulty. He also sees them together shortly after private security agent Ted Doyle is found murdered. As the police investigate and more bodies appear, Ambler believes that it is Galloway’s daughter who is posing as her dying mother.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews commented that “this heartfelt dive into a troubled woman’s past makes the victim more interesting than any of the sleuths or suspects.” A Publishers Weekly contributor suggested that readers “who love New York City and libraries will be rewarded.” The same reviewer took note of the novel’s “atmospheric setting.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2007, David Pitt, review of Death at the Old Hotel, p. 34; February 15, 2016, Karen Keefe, review of Murder at the 42nd Street Library, p. 32; October 1, 2017, Sue O’Brien, review of Murder in the Manuscript Room, p. 32.
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2002, review of Beware the Solitary Drinker, p. 1179; November 1, 2004, review of What Goes Around Comes Around, p. 1031; May 1, 2007, review of Death at the Old Hotel; February 1, 2016, review of Murder at the 42nd Street Library; September 1, 2017, review of Murder in the Manuscript Room; September 15, 2019, review of Murder off the Page.
Library Journal, October 1, 2002, Rex E. Klett, review of Beware the Solitary Drinker, p. 132.
MBR Bookwatch, May 1, 2016, Theodore Feit, review of Murder at 42nd Street Library.
Publishers Weekly, November 4, 2002, review of Beware the Solitary Drinker, p. 66; December 20, 2004, review of What Goes Around Comes Around, p. 39; February 1, 2016, review of Murder at the 42nd Street Library, p. 47; September 4, 2017, review of Murder in the Manuscript Room, p. 68; September 2, 2019, review of Murder off the Page, p. 86.
ONLINE
Big Thrill, http://www.thebigthrill.org/ (November 30, 2017), J.H. Bográn, “When Research Turns Deadly.”
BookPage, https://bookpage.com/ (April 26, 2016), Barbara Clark, review of Murder at the 42nd Street Library.
Con Lehane, http://www.conlehane.com (October 21, 2019).
Criminal Element, http://www.criminalelement.com/ (November 20, 2017), Michelle Carpenter, review of Murder in the Manuscript Room.
Gazette.net, http://www.gazette.net/ (December 9, 2002), Gwen Glazer, “Creating Outside of the Lines.”
Mystery People, https://mysterypeople.wordpress.com/ (December 8, 2017), “Unholy Connections.”
San Francisco Book Review, http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/ (January 4, 2017), Danielle Urban, review of Murder at the 42nd Street Library.
Writer’s Center, https://www.writer.org/ (October 21, 2019), author profile.
Con Lehane is a mystery writer, living in Washington, DC. Murder Off the Page, out November 19, 2019 from Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press, is the third entry in the 42nd Street Library series, featuring Raymond Ambler, curator of the 42nd Street Library’s (fictional) crime fiction collection and consulting detective (of sorts). Lehane has also published three books featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty and published stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
Over the years, he (Lehane, that is) has been a college professor, union organizer, labor journalist, and has tended bar at two-dozen or so drinking establishments. He teaches fiction writing and mystery writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Con Lehane
(Cornelius Lehane)
Con Lehane grew up in the suburbs of New York City and currently writes from just outside of Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife and two sons. Once a college professor, union organizer, and bartender, Lehane is now an editor at the National Education Association. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. Death at the Old Hotel is his third novel in the Brian McNulty mystery series.
Genres: Mystery
New Books
November 2019
(kindle)
Murder Off the Page
(42nd Street Library Mystery, book 3)
Series
Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery
1. Beware the Solitary Drinker (2002)
2. What Goes Around Comes Around (2005)
3. Death At the Old Hotel (2007)
42nd Street Library Mystery
1. Murder at the 42nd Street Library (2016)
2. Murder in the Manuscript Room (2017)
3. Murder Off the Page (2019)
Con Lehane is a mystery writer, living outside Washington, DC. Murder at the 42nd Street Library is the first in his series featuring Raymond Ambler, curator of the 42nd Street Library’s (fictional) crime fiction collection. He's also the author of the novels featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty. Over the years, he (Lehane, that is) has been a college professor, union organizer, labor journalist, and has tended bar at two-dozen or so drinking establishments. He teaches fiction writing and mystery writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Con Lehane is a mystery writer, living in Washington, DC. Murder Off the Page, out November 19, 2019 from Minotaur/St. Martin's Press, is the third entry in the 42nd Street Library series, featuring Raymond Ambler, curator of the 42nd Street Library's (fictional) crime fiction collection and consulting detective (of sorts). Lehane has also published three books featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty and published stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Over the years, he (Lehane, that is) has been a college professor, union organizer, labor journalist, and has tended bar at two-dozen or so drinking establishments. He teaches fiction writing and mystery writing at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Visit him at www.conlehane.com, on Facebook and Twitter.
Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane
November 30, 2017 by J. H. Bográn
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When Research Turns Deadly
By J. H. Bográn
Con Lehane’s MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM features a new case for his character in New York City’s 42nd Street Library. This time, a murder takes place in what may be the sanctum sanctorum of a library: a manuscript room.
Raymond Ambler is far from the typical sleuth with street smarts. He’s a thinker and an observer more than he’s an action hero. While he works in a library, Amble is in fact a curator of the library’s (fictional) crime-fiction collection. “Curators in libraries are subject-area specialists,” Lehane explains. “They don’t have to be experts in library science, which I’m not. Not that I’m an expert in crime fiction, but I know more about it than I know about library science.”
The story begins when Ambler begins to suspect that a researcher in the library—an Arab scholar studying ancient Islamic texts—might be under surveillance by some agency or other of the government. “Librarians are more committed to protecting the liberties this nation embraces than probably any other organized group—except maybe writers—including lawyers, politicians, academics, all of whom have caved in the past to ‘legitimate’ forces attempting to limit freedom of speech and inquiry in the name of protecting such things,” says Lehane.
Parnell Hall and Con Lehane
The library wasn’t his first choice for a setting. His earlier books are set in bars. “My editor—who liked how I wrote about New York—suggested I write a book set at the 42nd Street Library, the New York Public Library’s main branch that most people who aren’t New Yorkers think of as the New York Public Library, the one with the lions in front.”
As soon as the location was agreed, he started to hang out there, getting to know some of the people who worked inside, figuring out the lay of the land. The 42nd Street Library is an amazing place. It’s a research library, and tons of books and dissertations and research papers have been written using the resources of the library.
“After a while, I worked my way into a kind of sinecure. There are a few study rooms in the library that you can apply for if you’re doing extensive library research. I had a book contract, which qualified me for the Frederick Lewis Allen Room, so I spent almost a year going to the library most days, as if I worked there, and sort of by osmosis getting a sense of what it might be like to be the curator of crime fiction at the 42nd Street Library.”
It’s a staple of the mystery genre that the main murder happens early in the book. While there is a murder in the prologue of MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM, the main one giving the book’s title doesn’t occur until a few chapters into the book.
“I don’t think I made a conscious decision not to open with the murder in the library, but I guess it was a conscious decision not to move it closer to the beginning when I was revising. So I kept it where it was and hope I get away with it.”
Lehane doesn’t outline. He gets a story going in his head and follows it. He also doesn’t consciously think about rules or requirements of the mystery genre. “I’ve read and written enough mysteries to have a sense of the conventions deeply embedded in my consciousness.”
One character that stands out in this entry of the series is that of Gobi Tabrizi, the scholar under suspicion, who feels like a comment on today´s charged political environment. However, the character’s origins are somewhat different. Years ago, when the author attended college and reported sports for the college newspaper, he met an older Arab player. Despite the age difference, they became friends and this man showed Lehane another way to view the world.
Lehane at Mysterious Bookshop
“He was the first person to tell me what imperialism was. He wasn’t a political proselytizer and it wasn’t a political analysis. It was the common-sense view that the man in the street in his country had of my country. This idea—that the way Americans (including me) viewed the world and the United States wasn’t the only way the world was viewed—stayed with me.” Then he adds, “I don’t want to tell you too much more about who he turns out to be because I’d like folks to learn about him by following Raymond Ambler as he learns about him in the book.”
For the promotion of MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM, Lehane will go to conferences, like Thrillerfest and Bouchercon, and book festivals. Also he’ll visit as many bookstores as possible, especially mystery bookstores, to sign stock or do events.
The work, however, doesn’t end there, and the author is already working on the next 42nd Street Library mystery. “One of the nice things about writing a series is you know, at least in general terms, what you’ll do next,” he says.
*****
Con Lehane, the author of MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM (Minotaur November 2017), also wrote Murder at the 42nd Street Library, (Minotaur April 2016) and the Bartender Brian McNulty mystery series. A recent story appears in the Black Mask section of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His work has also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. He teaches fiction writing and mystery writing at the Bethesda Writer’s Center.
To learn more about Con, please visit his website, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter (@clehane).
UNHOLY CONNECTIONS: INTERVIEW WITH CON LEHANE
December 8, 2017 mysterypeoplescottLeave a comment
Con Lehane returns with his second mystery featuring crime fiction curator for the New York Public Library, Raymond Ambler. This time it is personal in many ways. A coworker has been killed and a Muslim scholar, who Ray’s possible love Adele may have feelings for, is the main suspect. Also, Raymond takes the files and letters from a former cop-turned-author that are about the decades old murder of a union boss that put a friend on death row. Everything is skillfully woven together with a very human feel and a lived-in look at New York.
MysteryPeople Scott: In Murder In the 42nd Street Library Raymond Ambler works with his co-workers as a team. With Murder In The Manuscript Room there is more friction between him and some of them. How did you end up taking that route?
Con Lehane: I never meant for the connections between Ambler and the other recurring characters, including Adele Morgan, Ambler’s fellow worker and attractive female friend, to lack tension. I didn’t know what was going to happen between Ambler and Adele after the first book. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them now after the second book. Both Adele and homicide detective Mike Cosgrove have larger roles in Murder in the Manuscript Room than they did in Murder at the 42nd Street Library. This is partly because I purposely chose a structure of alternating points of view—Ambler-Adele-Ambler-Cosgrove-Ambler-Adele and so on. Partly, things change between characters because the characters aren’t static. They’re dynamic and I don’t always know what’s going to happen with them until it happens. This might be a dumb way to write a mystery. But it’s how I write, certainly in the first draft. I have to have characters interacting with one another to move the story along. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a general idea of what the story is; more, it means I’m not sure what each character might do until they do it. If they go too far afield, I can get them back on track when I revise. So I don’t know that the friction served a higher purpose; it was what the story called for.
MPS: The book has two mysteries that play off one another. How did you deal with that challenge?
vCL: What I knew when I started the book was that Paul Higgins would be a former handler of snitches for the NYPD and a sort of amateur crime writer who wrote thrillers based on his experiences. I also knew there would be an Arab Muslim doing research in the library’s holdings of ancient Oriental manuscript collection and an undercover operative monitoring him and his research. The rest of the story—including a second mystery having to do with the murder of an African-American union leader in New York CIty’s garment trucking industry thirty years earlier—developed as I wrote the book. I can tell you where in my memory a couple of the strains of the story came from. First, I knew a guy—someone I liked a lot when I met him and still do like—who’d worked undercover in a number of capacities as an FBI agent and wrote a book about his experiences, hence Higgins. Next, years ago when I worked as a union organizer, I was offered a job working for an African-American guy, a truck driver, who created a rank-and-file union movement to try to take his union away from the gangsters who’d taken it over. (you can read something about the gangsters in the industry here if you’d like). To clarify, gangster-domination of trucking unions, including the Teamsters union, was an adjunct to gangster control of the industry the truck drivers were part of and the companies they dealt with. You hear a lot about gangster-dominated unions, not so much gangster-run companies. They went hand-in-hand. The third piece of this was an idea of undercover work and the use of informants that bothered me. An informant was usually an acquaintance, often a friend, who was caught at something and offered the choice of spying on you or going to jail himself (there are others who informed strictly for money). Undercover operatives—law enforcement who go undercover—were folks who joined your organization, or gang or whatever, and became your friend for the purpose of betraying you. This was often a dangerous thing for the operative to do and the folks you became friends with often were doing nasty things to other people. Nonetheless, the idea of making friends with someone in order to betray them always struck me as filled with moral ambiguity. The final piece was the growth of private security agencies, which have literally (and I use the term advisedly) become larger than the armies of most countries and what that means to the future. All of this is a kind of underpinning to the story that unfolded as I wrote it.
MPS: You touch on the plight of the working class in the book as in others. What makes that a theme worth returning to for you?
CL: This answer is related to my answer to the last question. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you’d see an unholy connection between the NYPD brass, a private security agency, and Wall Street. At the moment, their enemy is a fringe element of Islam. But the net they cast is wide enough to include anyone who gets in their way. There’s another piece to the murder of the garment truckers union leader. I hint that the reason he was killed had to do with efforts to stop a group that wanted to create a national transportation union—workers in air, rail, truck, anything that moves people or goods in one union. This would be a strong vehicle for workers demanding better wages, shorter hours, health insurance, pensions. It would have changed the power dynamics in politics dramatically. Various groups and persons were in favor of this—including the infamous Jimmy Hoffa. The power structure—Wall Street, the banks, and their elected-official supporters—were very much opposed. The subversive idea lurking in my subconscious was how far would the power structure and the law enforcement arm of the power structure go to stop it. Suffice it to say, any group that remotely threatens the current political-economic power structure is infiltrated and spied on. There’s a little twist at the end of the book that was inspired by the Whitey Bulger case in Boston where different law enforcement agencies had informers in different gangs working at cross purposes, so in the end the gangsters were handling the law enforcement agents, rather than vice-versa. Again, this is fiction. I’m not writing true crime.
MPS: What is the the biggest asset Raymond has as a sleuth?
CL: I like to think that he sees things that others don’t see, and can draw inferences from what he sees that others aren’t able to draw. I also like to believe what distinguishes Ambler is that which distinguished Georges Simenon and his Detective Chief Inspector Maigret: “My motto, to the extent that I have one, has been noted often enough, and I’ve always conformed to it. It’s the one I’ve given to old Maigret, who resembles me in some points … ‘understand and judge not.’
MPS: One of the things I enjoy about the series is that Raymond works with a group of friends. What does an ensemble cast of amateur sleuths allow you to do?
CL: I really like the idea of the ensemble. If the series continues—the Good Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise—I’m looking forward to each of the recurring characters—Adele, Mike Cosgrove, Ambler’s boss, the defrocked Jesuit, Harry Larkin, Ambler’s son, and certainly McNulty the bartender, perhaps others—having a chance to play larger or smaller roles in different books giving me a chance to develop them, add dimensions. I hadn’t thought of that when I began this series. The fact that each of them has come alive—at least for me—presents an opportunity for the series to go on and on.
MPS: Do you have any idea what is in store next for Raymond Ambler?
I know that in the next book McNulty, I’m sorry to say, is in big trouble. Big big trouble.
Con Lehane
Con Lehane has published five novels and a number of short stories. His next book, Murder Off the Page will appear in November 2019. Others in the series are Murder at the 42nd Street Library and Murder in the Manuscript Room. Recent stories are in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Teaching Style: Con’s teaching style is student-centered and participatory. He believes it’s not always easy to develop the voice and craft you need to convey the story you want to write. But it’s absolutely impossible to do it if you don’t start writing—an unwritten manuscript can’t be improved, a written one, however rudimentary, can be improved. Be prepared to do a lot of writing and not much sitting back listening. Expect nudges in the direction of some tried-and-true approaches to mystery and suspense writing, much encouragement, and some surprises at what you may come up with.
Lehane, Con MURDER OFF THE PAGE Minotaur (Adult Fiction) $26.99 11, 19 ISBN: 978-1-250-31792-6
A third case for crime fiction curator Raymond Ambler (Murder in the Manuscript Room, 2017, etc.) offers still more arguments for throwing a dragnet around Manhattan's 42nd Street Library.
At least this time the cops aren't stringing crime-scene tape around the library itself, though that's where the trouble begins. Shannon Darling, a novice researcher who's interested in the fiction of veteran mystery writer Jayne Galloway, installs herself in Special Collections long enough to draw the attention of Ambler, who's especially alert when he sees his old friend Brian McNulty, the bartender at the nearby Library Tavern, escort her off the tavern's premises after she has one or two too many. The next time McNulty and Darling are linked is when private security agent Ted Doyle is shot dead in Darling's hotel room and the bartender and the researcher go AWOL. Detective Mike Cosgrove, the NYPD Homicide cop who'd like to talk to them both, doesn't buy Ambler's weak pleas to move on because there's nothing to see here. The first of the two fugitives to turn up is Darling, killed in another hotel room in Stamford, Connecticut. By the time he gets the news, Ambler has already convinced himself that the fake researcher is Dr. Sandra Dean, the dying Jayne Galloway's real-life daughter, whose inquiries now take a deeply sinister turn. As Ambler tries to come up with a good excuse to question Sandra's husband, architect Simon Dean, Cosgrove is pursuing the long list of men Sandra marked for one-night stands in her journal. The two sleuths inevitably clash over Brian McNulty, whom Cosgrove naturally regards as the murderer and Ambler as an old friend who couldn't possibly have killed anyone, especially since he's already anchored a series of his own (Death at the Old Hotel, 2017, etc.).
This heartfelt dive into a troubled woman's past makes the victim more interesting than any of the sleuths or suspects.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lehane, Con: MURDER OFF THE PAGE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2019. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A599964492/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=da74421b. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A599964492
Murder Off the Page: A 42nd Street Library Mystery
Con Lehane. Minotaur, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-31792-6
Lehane's complicated third 42nd Street Library mystery (after 2017's Murder in the Manuscript Room) opens with Raymond Ambler, curator of the Manhattan library's crime fiction collection, helping Shannon Darling research the personal papers of mystery writer Jayne Galloway. Shannon seems like a sad and vulnerable woman, so Ray is taken aback when she disappears with Ray's bartender and sometime actor friend, Brian McNulty (the star of Lehane's other series), after a man is found dead in her hotel room. When Shannon is murdered, Brian becomes the prime suspect in both deaths. Determined to help clear Brian, Ray and his fellow librarian and secret love Adele Morgan discover that Shannon was actually Sandra Dean, mother to a six-year-old daughter and wife of a wealthy and influential man. Ray's worries and personal problems muddle the plot rather than add depth to the story, though the atmospheric setting compensates in part. Those who love New York City and libraries will be rewarded. Agent: Alice Martell. Martell Agency. (Nov.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Murder Off the Page: A 42nd Street Library Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 2 Sept. 2019, p. 86+. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A599443564/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fedd6d48. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A599443564
Murder in the Manuscript Room. By Con Lehane. Nov. 2017. 320p. Minotaur, $25.99 (9781250069993); e-book, $12.99 (9781466879898).
Librarian Raymond Ambler has nothing but trouble after Paul Higgins, a former policeman, donates his papers to the New York Public Library. A library colleague, Leila, is found murdered in Raymond's office, Higgins disappears, and a library patron, Gobi Tabrizi, is accused of the murder. Raymond and his friend Adele feel Tabrizi is being railroaded, and they try to help him. Raymond believes Leila's murder is connected with the long-ago murder of a union president and the ensuing cover-up, and he pursues that line of inquiry, while his friend, NYPD homicide detective Mike Cosgrove, is frozen out of the investigation by the feds. Complicating matters, Raymond is involved in a custody battle for his grandson with the boy's wealthy grandmother, and he must deal with his growing romantic feelings for Adele, who is quite a bit younger. Plot twists and multiple points of view add to a gritty, complex tale that weaves details of library work and references to crime novels throughout the story.--Sue O'Brien
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
O'Brien, Sue. "Murder in the Manuscript Room." Booklist, 1 Oct. 2017, p. 32. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A510653774/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=716b612a. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A510653774
Murder in the Manuscript Room: A 42nd Street Library Mystery
Con Lehane. Minotaur, $25.99 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-250-06999-3
Early in Lehane's intricate sequel to 2016's Murder at the 42nd Street Library, crime fiction librarian Ray Ambler meets writer and former undercover cop Paul Higgins, who's donating his papers to the NYPL. If Higgins has information related to the murder of union leader Richard Wright in Brooklyn in the 1980s, he's not telling Ray. Ray has an interest because a good friend of his has been imprisoned for years for killing Wright, but now claims he's innocent. Meanwhile, the discovery of the body of library research assistant Leila Stone in Ray's office leads to the arrest of Middle Eastern scholar Gobi Tabrizi, whose research Leila secretly examined. Ray and his fellow librarian and prospective girlfriend, Adele Morgan, believe that officials are casting Gobi as a convenient culprit. Ray's homicide detective friend, Mike Cosgrove, is later puzzled by high-level interference in the Leila investigation and heads off in pursuit of Higgins, who has disappeared. Lehane provides food for thought by comparing past FBI transgressions with present-day Homeland Security activities. Agent: Alice Martell, MartellAgency. (Nov.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Murder in the Manuscript Room: A 42nd Street Library Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 4 Sept. 2017, p. 68. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A505468065/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=3ed1e739. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A505468065
Lehane, Con MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM Minotaur (Adult Fiction) $25.99 11, 21 ISBN: 978-1-250-06999-3
The manuscript room of Manhattan's 42nd Street library is only one of the danger zones when the library's crime fiction curator once again finds the stories he deals with professionally bleeding over into his private life.Raymond Ambler thinks his biggest headaches are curating an upcoming event celebrating 150 years of New York mystery and continuing to battle wealthy Lisa Young for custody of Johnny, the grandson they share to the exclusion of any other mutual ties. More acute problems arrive on the heels of what should be good news: novelist Paul Higgins' offer to donate his papers to the 42nd Street branch. Since Higgins served for more than 30 years on the NYPD Intelligence unit before retiring to write thrillers, the cache of material is potentially red-hot, and it's no surprise when Higgins makes an embargo of some especially sensitive material a condition of the donation. The first surprise comes when Higgins changes his mind and hands the files over to Ambler (Murder at the 42nd Street Library, 2016) after snatching him from outside his favorite bar and driving him to a secluded spot; the second is when Leila Stone, a research assistant in the Manuscripts and Archives Division, is found dead in Ambler's office, the mystery reading room. After telling Ambler that he foolishly revealed the news of the donation to somebody he shouldn't have but refusing to tell him who, Higgins goes AWOL, leaving Ambler stuck in the middle between Higgins' shadowy former associates, a suspected terrorist whom Ambler's co-worker and friend Adele Morgan has taken under her wing, freelance security chief Brad Campbell and his minions, the Department of Homeland Security, and whoever killed Leila and is perfectly willing to kill again. More ambitious and more muddled than the series debut, this sequel depends less on evoking a sense of its iconic nexus and more on making you look behind you when you're not asking the leads, "You thought about looking for a less dangerous job than being a librarian?"
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lehane, Con: MURDER IN THE MANUSCRIPT ROOM." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A502192334/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=22b9744d. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192334
Review: Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane
By Michelle Carpenter
November 20, 2017
Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane is the second book in the 42nd Street Library mystery series—a smart, compelling mystery in which the characters themselves are at least as interesting as the striking sleuthing (available November 21, 2017).
Take a visual tour of Murder in the Manuscript Room with GIFnotes!
Mystery and secrecy wind their way back through the stacks of the New York City 42nd Street Library, intertwining a murder of the past with the present in Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane. This marks the second installment in the author’s new crime series following the relentless sleuth and librarian, Raymond Ambler.
The comfortable notion of a library as a safe haven is shifted as a room of crime novels becomes the scene of the crime itself. When there is a murder at the library, Ambler becomes intricately involved, not only as a suspect but as a self-appointed freelance investigator as well.
Painting a portrait of the New York streets, law enforcement, and cultural paradigms, Lehane entraps an unlikely group of characters in the search for a murderer. The connection—romantic and otherwise—of two of these characters, Ambler and Adele, is consistent throughout the novel and makes itself as much of a suspense as the crime at hand.
Lehane establishes this connection between the two characters as brief moments, glances, and touches—however, it is not something that is ever outright explained to the reader. The characters fumble through jump-start, stalling conversations with each other throughout the book in an effort to define what the chemistry between them is.
“He’d like it if he saw more of you. We both would.”
Adele stopped as she wrapped a plate of leftovers for him to take home. “I’m busy, Raymond. I’m behind at work. I don’ have as much time as I used to.” She didn’t mention Gobi. But he might as well be sitting on the table in front of them. She came closer. “Johnny’s your responsibility, legally and in every way, not mine, so it’s hard for me sometimes.” Her voice wavered. “At one time, you led me to believe—.” She abruptly turned from him and went to the small living room to sit with Johnny for a few minutes before he left.
The relationship, or lack thereof, between Ambler and Adele is one of the threads that holds the novel together as they work together to find the murderer but also find out what they mean to each other.
Despite leaning into the romantic edge of this, there is another facet that caught my attention. The worlds of crime and literature are weaved together seamlessly throughout the book—from the depictions of the stoic NYC library archives to the literary references, Ambler reveals himself as a Librarian-Sherlock amalgam. The references are subtle and may almost go unnoticed. This is most notably seen in the reference to Brown Penny by William Yeats:
Pretty much since they’d known each other, she’d thought of herself as in the driver’s seat in terms of what went on between them. Now, it was his doing that they were searching through files that were not only restricted by the person who donated them, but had been impounded by the police. “Looped in the loops of her hair,” he said to himself.
While this pulled on my literary heartstrings, these references developed the main character as more than an amateur detective. Lehane also comes full circle in this sense, tying Ambler to both the library and the investigation.
All in all, Murder in the Manuscript Room was an easy to follow, good-hearted mystery novel. The depictions of winter in New York—with freezing, snow-coated streets and warm, welcoming neighborhood bars—were both accurate and relatable. The characters were distinct, and the plot was intricate. What Lehane does well is combine all of these and then top it off with homicide on 42nd Street.