Diversify Your Reading 2022 Challenge: Thriller

Back on January 11th [2022] I proclaimed here in Connections that I could cover the monthly themes offered by the Diversify Your Reading Facebook page with materials in the BDC and/or Local History sections. Pickings are a little slim this month but the BDC does indeed have three titles that qualify as "Thrillers." 

So what are thrillers and suspense stories? According to the NoveList Plus database: Though similar to mysteries - which tend to focus on a criminal act that has happened - thrillers and suspense stories are more about a crime that is ongoing or is coming. Mysteries allow readers to puzzle out whodunit. Thrillers and suspense stories feature how a protagonist tries to thwart or takes action against an ongoing or impending crime. Emotions get involved in thrillers: plots usually evolve quickly with lots action-packed, high pressured decisions and events. Readers are often suspended between thinking that everything will be okay for the protagonist or thrown into the depths of despair that the protagonist cannot meet his/her objective. A sense of menace tends to build to a dramatic climax. Endings are bittersweet though often have an underlying message that ultimately someday good will triumph over evil.   

Dead Low Water (2019) by lowcountry born and bred author Roger Pinckney is based on real events related to my April selection. Pinckney uses the Harbour Town lighthouse as a metaphor for what lurks beneath the surface of human relationships and politics. When the owners of the Harbour Town marina turn up missing, two cops go rogue trying to find them and uncover a vast and seething criminal conspiracy, embezzlement, smuggling and murder.   

Lowcountry Boil (2003) by Carl T. Smith also found inspiration from local events involving a notorious drug trafficking case of the early 1980s. In Smith's novel Sam Larkin and undercover federal agent face an entrenched society willing to look the other way when crime pays and a group of high-profile conspirators ready to kill to make sure it does. There are a number of titles that Sam Larkin's story but most fall outside of the BDC's collection development policy. (There are some who think that Pinckney's Reefer Moon draws inspiration from Operation Jackpot too. A non-fiction account of the drug sting by Jason Ryan is titled Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting that Launched the War on Drugs (2011). I hope to host author Ryan at least one more time before I retire.)  

Ten Days in Brazzaville (2011) by Beaufort attorney and Island News columnist Scott Graber is a legal thriller with most of the action occurring on the African continent. A 750 word letter received in his lowcountry office takes him to sub-Saharan Africa and the denouement upends Jake Timrod's  understanding of how the world really works. We also have Graber's self-published novel Malachi (2009) in the Research Room. 

Due to a permanent reduction in staff, the BDC Research Room remains open by advance appointment only. Please make the necessary arrangements at least 3 to 7 days in advance: bdc@bcgov.net; 843-255-6468.