One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1)

by Craig McDonald

  “We’ll go away together, Molly. Tonight. I swear to you. We’ll go to Italy…wait for things to get quiet, and then we’ll find a place where you can be the poet you’ve dreamed of being.”

  Molly was watching him closely. “Guilt, my darling Hector. That’s guilt talking, not love. I see it in your face, and I hate it. I can’t live any more lies. Goodbye, Hector.”

  Molly struggled harder against him. She got one foot against the bridge and then the other, then kicked off away from the rail, tearing loose from Hector’s failing grasp.

  In horror, Hector watched Molly fall backward off the Pont Neuf, her arms spread wide…her eyes watching him. She fell without screaming.

  There was a terrible crack as she hit the ice spread across the river far below.

  The ice was evidently thicker than it had been the night just a week before when Natalie Champlin had gone off the bridge and through the ice.

  Molly lay on her back on the frozen river, her arms outstretched. Hector thought he might still be able to get down to her…perhaps crawl out across the ice and pull her to the shore. But there was something spreading out behind her head…something dark like blood. Then there was a cracking noise and the upper portion of Molly’s body slid into a hole in the ice. As the current caught hold of her coat and her arms, the river dragged Molly the rest of the way under the ice.

  Hector stared at the steaming hole for a long time.

  When he looked up, the snow was falling heavier…blocking out the lights at either end of the bridge. It was like the entire city had gone dark.

  Shaking, bleeding, Hector tried to get a cigarette going, but his hands were trembling too hard. He felt nauseated and afraid…empty.

  Freezing, he looked for a cab, but saw no traffic. It was like he was alone in Paris…horribly solitary…the last man in the City of Lights.

  Solo lobo.

  ***

  Hector could barely stand by the time he reached the Rue Suger.

  Victoria opened the door, then frowned at his appearance.

  Silent, she helped him off with his coat. She dipped her head better to see his face, then felt compelled to hug him. Victoria bit her lip and held up her own hands, bloody from touching his back.

  “Here,” she said, undressing him. “We need to get these clothes off you…wash these wounds.”

  Hector helped her unbutton his shirt. He kept seeing that hole in the ice…that black maw into which Molly had disappeared.

  A line from Nietzsche ambushed him: “…the abyss also gazes.”

  Wincing as she got a look at his bleeding back, Victoria said, “Please tell me this nightmare is over.”

  “It’s finished,” Hector said.

  He reached out then…took down Victoria’s long, blue-black hair. He spread it out across her shoulders…her long dark hair falling down over her breasts.

  She said, “What are you doing, Hector?”

  He smoothed her black hair. He was unsteady on his feet. His hand was trembling. “Trying to annihilate a memory.” He said, “You’ve never thought about writing, have you?”

  Victoria looked confused…and a bit alarmed. Hector could hear a thrumming in his ears. He felt light-headed…maybe from blood loss. He began to see spots. Scowling, he heard Victoria say, “Lord no, I’m no writer.”

  From far away, he heard his own voice: “So much the better.” There should be more. He struggled to shape one true sentence; came up short.

  The last of the light receded.

  In the blackness, Hector felt himself falling.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always, first and foremost, I again thank my wife, Debbie, daughters Madeleine and Yeats, and James and Betty McDonald for making this novel, like all the others, possible. Also, a nod, and a pat, to Duff.

  Much gratitude again to Svetlana Pironko and Michael O’Brien.

  A very special thank-you to Alison Janssen.

  I also salute Madeira James and team Xuni for all the great work on www.craigmcdonaldbooks.com and to Recorded Books’ Tom Stechschulte, the one true voice of Hector Lassiter and all those who people his world.

  Thanks to Melissa McClelland for providing this novel’s soundtrack in the form of her sublime album Thumbelina’s One Night Stand.

  I’m indebted to all the independent bookshops and mystery specialty stores and booksellers who have taken the Hector Lassiter series to their hearts and urged the novels on their customers, as well as librarians who’ve recommended the books to their patrons. Particular thanks to Patrick Millikin and Barbara Peters, of Poisoned Pen; David Thompson of Murder by the Book; Scott Montgomery of Book People; Sharon Kelly Roth of Books & Co.; Robin and Jamie Agnew of Aunt Agatha’s; Helen Simpson of Big Sleep Books and Toni and John Cross at Foul Play. Also to Denise Birkhoff, Pamela Coyle, Cathy Lantz and to Steven Lee.

  Muchas gracias, also, to Corey Wilde, Naomi Johnson, Jen Forbus, John Kenyon, Keith Rawson, Jedidiah Ayres, Doug Moe, Rod Wiethop, Vince Keenan, Peter Dragovich and to “Day” in Texas…also to Ruth and Jon Jordan.

  A salute also to artist Kevin D. Singles whom, at this writing, is hard at work on the Head Games graphic novel (an illustrated spin on the Edgar- and Anthony awards-nominated first Hector Lassiter novel), forthcoming from First Second.

  Lastly, and too-belatedly, my sincere and deep acknowledgement to Ernest Miller Hemingway, who inspired me to “go far out beyond where a writer should go.”

  This novel concludes what is, in a sense, the Hemingway trilogy within the eight-book Hector Lassiter cycle.

  Vaya con dios, Papa.

  Reader Discussion Questions

  1.One True Sentence touches upon the tension between so-called literary and genre fiction. Do you draw similar lines between the perceived quality or importance of a work of fiction and whether or not it may happen to fall into a genre category?

  2.The novel opens with several characters gathered in a bar—men who become eventual antagonists of Hector Lassiter’s in years (and novels to come). What do you think it was about the City of Lights that served as a lure for so many twenty-something Americans in the 1920s?

  3.Is there a similar artistic rallying place or spot you can think of that might serve as a kind of Paris in the 1920s equivalent in our time? Could that place perhaps reside in cyber space now?

  4.Brinke Devlin says she writes books under a man’s name because audiences would not accept her subject matter if they knew it came from a female writer. She also does that to help her sales. Many authors now choose gender-neutral bylines for similar reasons in today’s book market. Do you have a preference between male and female authors in your own reading or book-buying choices? If so, what drives that?

  5.Brinke is the person who ultimately pushes Hector Lassiter in the direction of writing crime novels. Prior to meeting her, Hector was struggling to write “literary” fiction. Do you think Brinke’s nudge toward genre fiction was a blessing or a curse for Hector?

  6.Given the way in which Brinke uses her life as grist for a fiction, do you think she also influenced the same eventual tendency on Hector’s part, or do you think all writers, in the end, draw from their lives in that way?

  7.While many Lassiter novels use real historic figures as characters—evidenced by the many authors and poets who populate this particular novel—the Lassiter books also base some “fictional” characters on real people, or even other fictional characters. Who do you think inspired or served as models for Brinke Devlin, Estelle Quartermain and Aristide Simon?

  8.On the subject of historical characters, if you’ve read Toros & Torsos or Print the Legend, how does the character of Hemingway strike you in One True Sentence in contrast to his portrayal in those other books?

  9.Gertrude Stein was indeed an actual mystery fan and wrote her own piece of mystery fiction at one point. Given her rather famous (and snide) views of genre or “low fiction,” what do you make of that fact?

  10.One True Sentence of course i
ntroduced Brinke Devlin, the woman who, in essence, made Hector into “Hector Lassiter.” She is also the only female character to appear in the single direct sequel in the Lassiter series (Forever’s Just Pretend). What are your expectations for Brinke in that novel?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Craig McDonald is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hector Lassiter series has been published to international acclaim in numerous languages. McDonald’s debut novel was nominated for Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe awards in the U.S. and the 2011 Sélection du prix polar Saint-Maur en Poche in France.

  The Lassiter series has been enthusiastically endorsed by a who’s who of crime fiction authors including: Michael Connelly, Laura Lippmann, Daniel Woodrell, James Crumley, James Sallis, Diana Gabaldon, and Ken Bruen, among many others.

  Hector Lassiter also centers short stories that appear in three crime fiction anthologies, Deadly Bride & 19 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, (Carroll & Graf) and Danger City II (Contemporary Press).

  Craig McDonald is also the author of two highly praised non-fiction volumes on the subject of mystery and crime fiction writing, Art in the Blood and Rogue Males, nominated for the Macavity Award.

  To learn more about Craig, visit www.craigmcdonaldbooks.com and www.betimesbooks.com

  Follow Craig McDonald on Twitter @HECTORLASSITER and on FaceBook:

  www.facebook.com/craigmcdonaldnovelist