Dale Spindel
I just finished watching season 2 of Justified, the FX television series based on Elmore Leonard's short story, "Fire in the Hole," before sitting down to write this and I've suddenly come to realize what has probably been obvious to almost everybody else - that there is a definite affinity between literary and television series. First and foremost is that each is character driven; to be successful, there must be a strongly compelling central character who is surrounded by supporting characters whose quirks and eccentricities provide additional strokes of color and interest to the story. For the series to be successful, there must also be a specific setting, be it geographic, occupational or a combination of the two. Think Minneapolis and the newsroom for Mary Richards, Sherlock Holmes and Baker Street, and Miami and vice for well, you know. ( By the way, for those of you who, like me, had only a lukewarm response to season 1 of Justified, all I can say is that season 2 was exponentially better and I can't wait to start watching season 3 which just premiered this week.)
Now that I have gotten this all figured out, I'm mystified that Janet Evanovich chose to opt for a feature film rather than go the premium cable series route for her Stephanie Plum books. A good cable series can run for six or seven years but movie sequels are rarely successful after parts 2 or 3 and very often take significant nosedives in quality after that - Rocky 5, anyone?
Which leads me to the subject of the Jersey Shore (no, it's not what you think this time), a certain beach side guest house, and a couple of ghosts. Yes, I decided to read Night of the Living Deed, the first in a series of three "Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries" written by E.J. Copperman, a writer who is not totally unfamiliar with the goings on at Dead Guy. If I am not mistaken, by naming one the main character Alison Kerby, E.J.'s intent was to pay homage to Topper, a series of three classic movies spanning the years 1937-1941 and followed, not coincidently, by a television series which originally ran from 1953-1957 but which had an extended life in reruns for several years after that. It was during Topper's non prime time rerun years that I became acquainted with the show; I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed it as a kid, even though there were so many aspects of the show that I was really too young to understand.
But back to Night of the Living Deed. Alison Kerby, the proprietor of the soon to open guesthouse in the fictional NJ shore town of Harbor Haven certainly qualifies as a sympathetic character around which to base a series. In the aftermath of her divorce from her ex-husband (usually referred to only as "The Swine"), Alison is counting on the operation of the guest house to bring financial stability - if not security - for herself and her nine year old daughter Melissa. Other characters include a couple of Alison's friends, an attractively single elementary school history teacher, a couple of obnoxious realtors and Paul and Maxie (short for Maxine), a couple of ghosts who inhabit the guest house and who enlist Alison's help in trying to find out who killed them and why. Although I have not yet read the next two books in the Haunted Guesthouse series, I can see that the door has perhaps been left open for the intriguing possibility of a human/ghost romantic attraction which has the potential to be great fun.
As a Jersey native, I do have some quibbles with E. J. regarding the affordability of even a rundown piece of beachfront property for a person in Alison's circumstances; I also found an act of extreme altruisim that comes late in the story to be almost reckless given the circumstances of the donor. Other than that, Night of the Living Deed proves that it is possible for an author to provide a fun reading experience without having to rely on either snark or double entendres of the "wink wink" variety.
Also, kudos to E.J. for this example of what I refer to as "cross writing" - that is writing from the perspecitve of the gender of which the author is not a member.
Finally, it occurs to me that Haunted Guesthouse would be a great foundation on which to base a television series - are you listening HBO?
