The Thursday Club By Lee Martin Bookcraft, 1997. Hardback: 240 pages. ISBN: 1-57008-315-0 Suggested retail price: $14.95 (US)
Reviewed by: Jeff Needle

Let me first say that I really like mystery novels. I particularly enjoy police procedurals, where each step is documented and explained. And my great joy -- when I have to actually read the whole book before I figure out who did it.

The Thursday Club is a group of three women, including police officer Deb Ralston. They exercise and jog together, and really enjoy each others' company.

One morning, the group returns to the home of one of their members, to find her husband shot to death. This is only one of three deaths to occur in this house. The police are stymied. The FBI is called in when there is evidence of federal crimes.

With each step, Martin shows her adeptness at stringing us along, sending us after false leads. When the mystery is solved, the loose ends are tied together nicely. I liked this book very much, and recommend it for casual reading.

But there are some other aspects of this book that make it all the more interesting, and raise some questions.

Lee Martin is one of two pseudonyms for writer Anne Wingate. As Wingate, she's written and collaborated on seven books. As Martha G. Webb, she's written three books. The greatest number of books were written as Lee Martin, twelve mystery novels in addition to The Thursday Club.

As a fan of mystery, I've read some of Lee Martin. I had no idea she was LDS. She apparently wanted to incorporate her Mormonism into a mystery novel, as evidenced by the brief note at the front of the book:

Several years ago I began to feel that St. Martin's [her publisher] was no longer the best house for my Deb Ralston series. Recent developments have enabled me to move this latest installment to Bookcraft, as I had hoped to do. The change has given me the liberty to work with much more of what I want to develop in Deb Ralston's life. I hope that you will like the results.

Now, series books are a special genre. Character development often spans many volumes. When I pick up a book, and see it is part of a series, I'm always disappointed when it isn't the first book in the series. As hard as a good writer tries to reflect on the character's past, it rarely gives the insights one could get by having read the entire series, in order.

By moving this entry in the series to a new, and narrowly-focused publisher (Bookcraft), it is less likely that readers will be familiar with the character Deb Ralston. In this light, Martin might have added a little more about Ralston's background and family relationships. We are given brief glimpses of what came before, but maybe not enough for readers to really understand Ralston.

But let's imagine for a moment that this experiment in cross-over publishing doesn't work out. Ms. Martin is certainly accustomed to some income from her writing. I'm willing to guess that Bookcraft doesn't pay the same royalties as St. Martin's press (although this is just a guess, I have no data to back it up). One thing is certain -- an explicitly LDS novel, published by an LDS publisher, will, by definition, have a smaller circulation than a general-purpose novel.

Would it have sold if she had continued to publish with St. Martin's? Some of the book is indeed explicitly Mormon (although the first clear reference to LDS culture shows up on page 165 -- "the MTC" -- with no explanation of what the letters stand for). Had she published for the wider market, she certainly would have had to add some clarification.

The implication here is that St. Martin's wouldn't have allowed her to publish a book with an LDS connection. Yes, she says moving the novel to Bookcraft was her goal, her intention. But the implication is that St. Martin's wouldn't have allowed her to write the book they way it appears today.

But hasn't this been done before? We may argue about the accuracy of Robert Irvine's mysteries, but they were, indeed published. Explicit mentions of Mormonism, rather than dulling the story, made Irvine's books more interesting. Yes, he fed at the trough of rumor and innuendy, something Martin would not do, but the content is LDS-oriented, and the books sold.

Here, Lee Martin is taking an existing, and very popular, character, and re-casting her in a mold unfamiliar to her readers. Why wouldn't St. Martin's want to follow through?

But back to my question -- suppose Martin decides she wants to go back to St. Martin's. Enough happens in The Thursday Club, including the addition of another character to her household, to really confuse the reader.

Perhaps someone here can tell me if this has ever been done before -- transitioning a popular character from a secular series into the LDS market. I'm not aware of it.

There are only a few discontinuities in the book. One of the characters, a Moslem woman, saw her husband arrested for a crime she didn't commit. Ralston and an FBI agent pledge that they'll get him out of prison. "Dub" is the FBI agent:

"I don't know how long it will take," Dub said. "If I can reach the right people fast enough, we might have him out in a couple of weeks, but it could be as long as a couple of months. Can you live with that?"

And then, just a few days later, the man is out of jail, attending the funeral of one of the victims. How did he get out so fast? We're not told.

The Ralston character explains that she's been attending the Mormon church for four years, but was only baptized the year before. Her life is pictured as very hectic, working long hours. Her husband complains that he never sees her -- she spends more time with her captain than she does with him. And yet, when talking with the Moslem woman mentioned above, she is able to quote verbatim the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants, and can come pretty close to a lengthy, verbatim citation from somewhere, perhaps the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. How has she managed to memorize so much in so short a time, living the busy life she leads? We're not told.

I'll be interested in seeing if there's another volume in the series. (Frankly, there may already be one, I just don't know about it.) Will this experiment work? I don't know. But if Lee Martin decides to return to the secular market, filling in the gaps created by this publishing effort will be a real challenge.

... Jeff Needle/jeff.needle@general.com
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