It’s curious that good writers often are drawn to the Mystery format to tell their stories, while great writers can just tell great stories, no-holds-barred. I suppose the structure is reassuring and can be written backwards or forwards with twists and tangents from premeditated outlines or divinely inspired stream of consciousness. It is no surprise that Bryan Gruley employs this structure to tell his latest scintillating story of murder and mystery, sprinkled with hockey and high jinx. I put down several books of literature to read this Mystery story and could not put it down. Ther-in lies the rub.
I have read all Gruley’s novels and
short stories and know him to be a fine writer and stand-up guy, if not a
sensitive new age family man of the 1970’s.
He hides that well with his gruff, beat-reporter and crude hockey room
persona. We all write what we know and
it is apparent that he loves the fun and diversion of this genre after being an
award-winning journalist for years.
He sometimes distracts us from our
manly fixations by writing from the point of view of women. Jack Nicolson famously said that this is done
by ‘writing as a man and then removing any semblance of reason or logic’. But that is just a movie punch line since Jack’s
favorite writer, Jim Harrison, excelled at this craft. Tana French can also write the opposite sex
merely by including episodes of burping, scratching and fraternal inebriation.
Brian also employs hockey references
and metaphors to make his point, humorously at first but effectively in the
end. It is a tool he is committed to and
he makes it work. Like the ‘prosecutor sizing
up the defense, like a forward going to the corner deciding whether to hit or
out skate his opponent’. It is as
Springsteen often dismisses his own profound or sensitive comments when saying
something like ‘God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of’.
Gruley’s characters are attractive
and likable, to a point, and human in the end.
Attorney Devyn is a swarmy babe and a hockey stud with needs and desires
like the rest of us. Ex-cop Willie
Hooper has a pirate eye patch and a dilapidated minivan but checks himself into
jail for a few days of R&R. Bryan writes
about real people with real dialogue, motivations and insecurities, because he knows
people. Things are tied up in a nice bow
by the end, leaving enough ragged edges for a sequel or two. We never find out how deep the river actually
is, but sense things often aren’t as they appear or as we wish they would be.
I will spare you the details but in
summary; Gruley’s story is about revenge and redemption, community and team, nice
small towns and big bad cities, family, fraternity and friendship. Bryan shines with his experience in
journalism and the process, police work and its limitations, court proceedings
and their distance from truth, justice and the American way. It’s all part of the cloak and dagger muse to
tell his own story of hockey obsession, journalistic excellence, self-doubt,
and finally; the acceptance of self with what we really are and really want.
Good stories go viral and great ones become
universal. My only hope is that this
unique Gruley Hockey Mystery genre catches on to the masses and becomes part of
our culture like so few varieties do. Bryan
can then keep pumping these stories out, make piles of money and ride off into
the sunset, secure in the fact that he had something to say and someone who
wanted to read it.
