Research for Novel Three

I began Night Fall by Nelson DeMille not realizing that it played perfectly into the plot that I was using for my third novel. I’ve read one other Nelson DeMille book, The Lion’s Game. I like The Lion’s Game. I love the opening chapters where the plane lands in New York and everyone is dead. I thought that was an awesome way to start the book. As I posted in my first lines category Night Fall too started well. Sadly for both books I found the endings less than spectacular.

John Corey, the main character, who I love for his abrasive attitude, at one point said while watching a memorial service:

Empathy and sensitivity are not my strong points, but this scene of shared grief and comforting passed through my own death-hardened shell like the warm ocean breeze through a screen door.

This was a good analogy. It stopped me. But then, as I read more, I realized it wasn’t worthy of the character’s inner thoughts. This guy wouldn’t be thinking of a screen door and ocean breezes. I really liked these next few. It shows the character’s personality so well. If there was an aspect of DeMille’s writing that I would want to emulate it would be the way he allows the character to interact in a playful and false way with the reader. All of these express the “joking” attitude that Corey holds, and they all make the character much more real for the reader.

It was not yet noon, and the place was fairly empty, except for a few locals drinking what smelled like So Long tea out of bowls and chattering away in Cantonese, though the couple at the next booth was speaking Mandarin. 

I’m making this up. 

There was an exquisitely beautiful young Chinese woman waiting tables, and I watched her moving around as if she were floating on air. She floated toward me, we smiled, and she floated away to be replaced by an old crone wearing bedroom slippers. 

God, I think, plays cruel jokes on married men. I ordered coffee.

Corey is in them middle of a fight with his wife, Kate. He comes home and reports:

I got back to my apartment a little after 7 P.M., and Kate was in the kitchen wearing a tiny teddy while cooking my favorite meal of steak, real French fries, and garlic bread. My clothes, which I’d left on the living room floor, were put away, and there was a Budweiser waiting for me in an ice bucket. None of that is true, of course, except my arrival time and Kate being home. She was sitting in an armchair reading the Times.

Then there is this, Corey’s philosophy on life. It gives the reader a quick but sure peek into what makes him tick.

Life was a continuing series of compromises, disappointments, betrayals, and what-ifs. Now and then, you get it right the first time, and more rarely, you get a chance to do it over and get it right the second time. 

Was it as good as The Lion’s Game? I don’t think so. The Lion’s Game is far more original and sweeping. Even though I didn’t like the ending of The Lion’s Game, it was far better than the predictable and trite ending of Night Fall. Am I glad I read it,  . . . yep, . . . and I look forward to reading another by DeMille soon.