Watchlist

The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet were originally released one chapter at a time as audio books. These "serial thrillers" were so successful that they've been packaged together for a print release. Jeffery Deaver came up with the ideas and wrote the first and last chapter of each novella. Other writers were invited to write one chapter each, and it's a great line-up, as you can see if you check out the names on the cover scan to the left.

This kind of round-robin has been done before, from The Floating Admiral to Naked Came the Manatee. I'm sure you could name others, but those come to mind. How well it works depends on how much the authors buy into the concept and how much they enjoy the work. In this case I think it works very well in each case.

The mcguffin in The Chopin Manuscript is -- you guessed it -- what seems to be a previously unknown original score by Chopin. Harold Middleton, a war-crimes investigator and head of a group known as the Volunteers, soon finds out that someone really wants that manuscript, someone willing to kill just about anybody, and that includes Middleton and his daughter, who happens to be pregnant. Middleton can't trust anyone, other than his daughter and the Volunteers. The big question is what will happen when the Chopin composition is performed, but I'm not going to answer it for you. As with anything that Deaver's involved in, there are lots of surprises along the way, and at the end, too.

The same is true with The Copper Bracelet, which is more of an international chase involving Middleton and the Volunteers. This time there's a bracelet involved, or a drawing of it, along with the presumed sabotage of a big architectural project. More twisting and turning, with things becoming a lot more complicated than they seemed at the beginning. Both the novellas are sort of over-the-top, so be warned about that. I mean with a villain named The Scorpion, you should know what you're in for.

I think most writers are at their best when they're working with their own characters, but sometimes it's fun to stray a little and have some fun with characters created by someone else. I've done that a lot in my own career, and I've always had a ball. Read the stories in this twofer (or listen to them) and see what you think about the writers in this case.