Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Author centers mystery on unheroic Gen. Grant
By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The thing about writing historical novels, Cincinnati writer Jeffrey Marks is saying, is that they can burst your bubble. His
popped while he was writing The Ambush of My Name, a murder mystery set in 1865 and starring General Ulysses S. Grant, fresh back from the Civil War.
“I grew up in Georgetown (Ohio), just like Grant, and all my life I heard about this great man, this favorite son. Then, I get into the research and I find he was a lousy president. It was a shock, all the scandal and negative history surrounding him.”
That didn't stop Mr. Marks from including warts and all in Ambush. We meet a man who never met a bottle of booze he didn't like. We meet a man terrified of his wife (“Julia stomping around in a huff, slamming drawers and tapping war drums with dainty shoes. No use rushing into this battle. His midsection knotted ... ”). We meet a man pushed into public office by his wife's relentless ambition.
All of it folded into a tasty little mystery that begins when Gen. Grant arrives in Georgetown and finds a body in the hotel room he has just checked into.
Someone trying to discredit him? A warning? Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe the John Wilkes Booth gang, still on the loose, has targeted him? Then again, those Southern sympathizers can get nasty.
Mr. Marks keeps all theories going, even casting suspicion onto Miss Wethington, the sweet lady who taught Grant in elementary school. He juggles suspects as expertly as a circus performer, right up to the last chapter.
“After all the research, I feel it's as accurate as it can be, but Georgetown history is sparse. Very few surviving maps, next to no information of famous town names.
“In a way, that's kind of nice, because it gives me breathing room to invent what I need to advance the plot. I like that.”
Silver Dagger, a Tennessee publishing house specializing in Southern and Southern-influenced mysteries, must have liked it, too. Mr. Marks has been signed to do three more books starring Gen. Grant.
Before he begins those, let's ask a few questions ...
If General Grant read this book, I think he'd ...
Laugh. He wouldn't understand what all the fuss is about him in terms of why someone would set a mystery series around him.
The hardest part of birthing a mystery ...
Is always the middle — I'm always grounded at the beginning and end but halfway through, I get self doubts.
Murder most foul is fun because ...
I get to kill off everyone I don't like and not go to jail.
I'll give up killing people in books when ...
Oh, probably not 'til they pry the pen from my cold, dead fingers.
If my dog could talk, I'd be terrified he'd tell people ...
You want the printable answer? Or the truth? How about the printable one? I'd be afraid he'd tell people how long I procrastinate.
Signings
Author centers mystery on unheroic Gen. Grant
