Mystery authors team up on Internet audio book
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mystery fans leave plenty of evidence of their obsession including sagging bookshelves with works by their favourite authors, but that may soon change.
Audible.com, an audio bookshop on the Internet and Apple's iTunes music store, are selling "The Chopin Manuscript," a mystery novel made without paper, ink, binding or glue.
And unlike other thrillers, it is written by 15 authors, including Jeffery Deaver who penned "The Twelfth Card", Lee Child who wrote "Bad Luck and Trouble" and David Hewson the author of "A Season for the Dead", and narrated by actor Alfred Molina.
Conceived by Deaver in December 2006, "The Chopin Manuscript" is the tale of a former British war-crimes investigator and musicologist who comes across a rare manuscript by 19th century composer Frederic Chopin that was buried by the Nazis during World War II. Murder and mayhem naturally ensue.
Deaver, who composed the first chapter, said that composing and coordinating an audio novel required using "more sonic" words.
"What I really wanted to concentrate on were the crisp description, the realistic dialogue," he said. "For me it was great fun to be able to do that...to really cut to the chase. I wanted to make it as vivid as I could."
Once he passed the novel on, it took its own shape until the end when he had to smooth out one or two details and resolve all the plot twists.
"It was a challenging task, I will say that," Deaver said in an interview. "In the end, I did a big chart, a huge graph up on my wall." Continued...
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