Two new books with local connections

By Chet Williamson

The opening scene to N.E. "Nancy" Castle's Serial finds her protagonist, Laurie Sharpe, down-shifting her 1978 Chevy Camaro as it climbs onto the I-290 expressway from Plantation Street in Worcester. On her way home to Auburn she pops in a CD of George Winston and takes in the scenery: The stark buildings of downtown, "The old Union Station, now restored to its former glory after years of abandonment," and the S-curve by the College of the Holy Cross. Sharpe is winding down after her 10-hour day of "investigating crime and dealing with the dregs of Worcester."

Sharpe is a detective on the trail of a killer who calls himself "The Hunter." While investigating the vicious murder of a young female outside a local nightclub, she finds no leads, no evidence, no witnesses and ultimately herself as a potential victim.

Author Castle draws from her own experience in writing the book. Although currently employed in the field of biotechnology, for years she worked as a private investigator. Although she's been out of the business for nearly 20 years, given the level of detail and understanding of police work revealed in Serial, Castle obviously hasn't lost her passion for law enforcement.

"I was always interested in it," she says. "I have a very analytical mind. It was an exciting line of work while I was in it, but to be quite honest, it didn't fit my personality. My adrenal rush does not give me strength as it does some people. It just makes me nervous. So I figured police work was not for me."

Castle set the book in town because "They say ‘write what you know.' I've been here 20-some-odd years. That was comfortable, so I wrote Worcester."

Now living in Shrewsbury, Castle also lived in Auburn, the home of her heroine. "Here's my story and I'm sticking to it: I was born in San Diego. At the tender age of six I was ripped out and cast into the cold depths of Vermont. Then we moved to northern California. In 1983 I moved here and I've been here ever since."

There have been a series of murders in Worcester in recent years. Some reports call it the work of a serial killer. Castle says her book is in no way based on the victims' stories. "I was writing this long before that happened. I started it back in 2000. Of course, when I heard that news, I was like, ‘Hmmm, now's about the time to release my book.'"

Serial is Castle's first book. It was published by PublishAmerica. There will be two book signings for the murder mystery on the same day, Saturday, March 15. The first is from 9-11 a.m. at Black Diamond Coffee, Route 140 (at the intersection of Rte. 9), Shrewsbury. The second will be held from 1-3 p.m. at Tatnuck Booksellers, Rte. 9, Westboro.

Worcester author Jack O'Connell's latest is the novel The Resurrectionist. It's published by Algonquin, which has described it as "part classic noir thriller, part mind-bending fantasy." Praise for the work has already come in from The New York Times Book Review, which calls the work "wildly original," saying, "the hallucinatory trip is dazzling." Fellow authors have also chimed in. James Ellory called the book "a brilliantly tuned, mesmerizing labyrinth of a quasi-real world as only a master could draw it."

The Resurrectionist tells the story of a boy lost in a coma, a father desperate to recover his son, a doctor with a reputed history of resurrecting patients adrift in limbo, a forbidding clinic in a post-industrial city overrun by motorcycle gangs, and a comic-book world of circus freaks in search of salvation.

O'Connell, who lives in town and who has set previous novels in the fictitious town of Quinsigamond (which is based on Worcester), says the inspiration for The Resurrectionist came from local environs. "The Clinic is drawn from an old hospital in my hometown that sat on the crest of a hill about a half a mile from my home," he says. "It loomed over us, seemingly engulfed in a malignant aura, a heavy mansion full of angles and bows made out of ominous brown sandstone." Sound familiar?

The release date for The Ressurectionist is April 8. For more, see: www.algonquin.com. o