Print the Legend

December 14, 2009
Edgar-finalist McDonald raises a little discussed theory about Ernest Hemingway’s suicide in 1961—that the writer’s last wife, Mary, killed her husband as an act of mercy—in his provocative third Hector Lassiter mystery (after 2008’s Toros & Torsos
). Set in Sun Valley, Idaho, at a conference of “Papa” academics in 1965, the plot zeroes in on three men who have come to the conference with their own pieces of unfinished business to discuss with Mary. One is crime novelist Hector Lassiter, Hem’s old friend, who’s heard rumors of the discovery of “lost writings.” Another is Richard Paulson, a Hemingway scholar who wants to set the record straight on the suicide. Finally, there’s Donovan Creedy, an old FBI man who’s dogging the case for his own, dark reasons. McDonald creates a fast-paced drama—replete with shifting motives and personal interests on the part of all the major players—about the lore of one of America’s greatest novelists.