Somebody said there are only 36 plots. I don't know about that but I do know certain plots show up in mystery fiction with greater or lesser frequency. Man decides to kill wife. Criminal gets hoist by own petard. Some of these things show up in every anthology or crime magazine you pick up.
But I am more fascinated by the rarer plot, the one that you could probably fill one volume with if you put all the examples together. And one of those is what we are seeing today: An established writer and a novice writer conspire to commit a fraud on the public.
I suppose the reason this subject interests writers is obvious. In effect, it is work chatter, right? In most examples I have seen the older writer wants to hire the younger as a ghost (See Donald Westlake's The Hook, for instance) but Kevin Mims has taken a different approach in this story.
The older writer is a certified great novelist with tons of prizes and a niggling bit of self-doubt. His rival says he is over-rated because he is a life-time member of the literary establishment (studied under other top people at Ivy League schools who got him great reviews on his first book, etc.). So he wants his last novel to be published under the name of the young author, in order to get an honest judgment.
If this were a horror movie you would be yelling at the screen "Don't do it!" Unfortunately, just like the pretty girl heading down the basement of the haunted house, the young writer won't listen...
Mr. Lopresti: Thanks for the heads up. The way you present it, this is obviously a story that shouldn't be missed. Ever notice how in all the teen-age horror stories, that no matter the mayhem, there is always a pair who just have to make out? It's like being a "new" unknown in the old Star Trek series. That character is doomed. Yours truly, Toe.
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