LIVE! #48
5 March 2023
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Dan Fesperman
- Former foreign correspondant for The Baltimore Sun
- Assignments included: Germany, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East
- Author of 13 spy thrillers
- Awards include:
- 1999 The John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first novel
- 2003 The Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller
- 2006 The Hammett Prize
- Lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife Liz Bowie, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, and their two children
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Writing Winter Work
- Learned of Operation Rosenholz years after the fact
- Took advantage of classified nature to fill in the gaps
- Read Markus Wolf's memoir, The Man Without a Face and his cookbook
- - Wolf was John le Carré's inspiration for his Soviet spymaster, Karla
- Read The Main Enemy by Milt Bearden and James Risen
- Consulted fellow author Bill Rapp, who worked for CIA Berlin at that time
- Reworked some of the spy stories told to him by readers of his previous novels
- Grimm's name and foreboding forest inspired by Brothers Grimm fairy tales
- Wanted Grimm to confront his past: Magda Holbein incident
- Has used Claire in four novels; historically this is 2/4; next up The Cover Wife
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Espionage Thrillers, Suspense Thrillers, Suspense, Genre Literature & Fiction
- Genre: Realistic Historical Arch-Plot Long-Form
- Print Pages: 352; Word count: 108,005
- Reading Grade: 7th-8th; Avg. wds/sent.: 12.1
- Lexical Density: 45.74; Flesch Reading Ease: 72.46
- POV: Emil, Claire, Karola, Baucom, Dorn; Person: 3rd; Tense: Past
- Publish date: July 12, 2022
- Publisher: Knopf, Random House
- Audio book narr.: Dan Fesperman (11 hours 51 minutes)
- Recognition: Amazon's Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022, Amazon Editor's Choice, Oprah Daily's Favorite Books of 2022
