Dark Passages: Writers Lost & Found

My newest column for the Los Angeles Times takes a close look at HAILEY'S WAR by Jodi Compton, her first book in several years. Only a small number of people read her earlier books, but I was one them and thought she had great talent. As such I'm very glad to see her back publishing books again, and this new book more than lives up to earlier promise. Here's how the piece opens:

The comeback: Publishing as a whole is affected by this particular scourge, but genre fiction in particular suffers from this plight in the most obvious way. It's when a writer appears, sometimes with considerable fanfare, with a new series, garnering an audience with each successive volume. The problem is, if the audience isn't big enough, or the money paid out to said writer doesn't produce expected sales, the publisher may cancel the series after just two or three books (or, in truly worst-case scenarios, after just one). Another company may pick up the slack for a variable advance, or the writer strikes out with new territory, often under a pen name. Or in many instances, the writer simply disappears, his or her career over.

Lately, a handful of writers have sidestepped the "whatever happened to…?" parlor game by publishing new books years after they were last heard from, book-wise....

Jodi Compton, however, may be the most stubborn of the "lost and found writers." She has a new publisher, and a new series but has kept her real name and the same authorial voice, more or less. Her first series, cut short after two books, featured Minnesota police detective Sarah Pribek, whose ability to keep up with her male peers, inscrutable personality and complicated relationship with her husband (and fellow cop) Michael made her seem prickly, but all the more winning. If Compton's plotting in "The 37th Hour" (2005) and "Sympathy Between Humans" (2006) faltered in places, her treatments of setting and characterization more than compensated.

But inscrutable heroines are more in vogue, thanks to a wonderful little fictional phenom named Lisbeth Salander. Something tells me that if Hailey Cain, the 23-year-old protagonist of Compton's new novel "Hailey's War" (Shaye Areheart: 286 pp., $22.99) and Salander ever met, they'd circle around, size each other up and accept some grudging mutual respect that might, with a lot of time, develop into mutual loyalty. Woe to those who think Hailey is some knockoff; as Compton makes clear very early on, she is a creature very much of her own making, singing a metaphorical tune few, if any, can hear...

Read on for the rest.

Comments

[Maxine]

I read both those earlier books and enjoyed them a lot. Personally, I'd prefer to read a third in the Sarah series than this new book, which sounds as if it is aimed at a different sort of readership. But, as you say, well done to the author for continuing to be published in these difficult times.

[kathy d.]

Sounds good. I liked Compton's first two books and her main character very much, have been looking for more by her. I agree I'd rather read more about Sarah Pribek but will try this one out.

[Naomi Hirahara]

Great to hear about Jodi's new series! And I'm glad that she kept her name.

[Thriller Lover]

Thrilled to hear about Jodi Compton's comeback. I loved her Pribek novels, and I was distressed to see her suffer from the dreaded "two books and gone" disease. Compton is one of those invisible authors with virtually no on-line presence; it's nice to see she has a website the second time around.

Now if Joshua Spanogle can get his third novel published, I'll be a happy man.

[Jordan Retro 10]

Whatever we do, we should think twice, then things will be better than past. As the proverb says: all things are difficult before they are easy.