One story with many authors

You've gotta love a book with the words "a serial thriller" in the subtitle. Such a fun pun.

"The Chopin Manuscript" was named Audiobook of the Year in May by the Audio Publishers Association. Written by Jeffrey Deaver and a team of best-selling international thriller writers, it had created some buzz in the audiobooks industry when it came out last fall as a download-only title, with new chapters available each week over the seven-week publication schedule.

It's not just the novelty of both its writing and "publishing" that netted it the top prize from the APA.

Deaver wrote the first chapter, then handed it off to David Hewson, who passed it to James Grady and so forth, through S.J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, John Ramsey Miller, David Corbett, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Jim Fusilli, Peter Spiegelman, Ralph Pezzullo, Lisa Scottoline, P.J. Parrish and Lee Child. The manuscript then came back to Deaver to write the closing chapters.

The story itself is exciting. Harry Middleton, a former war crimes investigator, carries a previously unknown musical score by Chopin back to the United States from Poland, unaware that the manuscript holds a code that endangers the lives of thousands of people.

The plot races between Poland, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and even Italy and Africa as each succeeding author takes his or her chapter and characters in new directions.

The whole thing could easily have turned into hash, and the fact that it doesn't is testament to the skills of each writer and of their editor, Jim Fusilli. Each writer has chosen not simply to advance the plot (although each chapter ends with a cliffhanger, as befits a serialized novel), but also to develop subplots and characters neatly. Middleton's daughter and son-in-law get fair treatment, and the young niece of a Polish piano tuner gets plenty of ink.

Middleton's nemesis, called Faust, is one wily character as well.

The download available now through audible.com has a couple of interesting bonus features attached to it, including an interview with Deaver, Child and Hewson on how the writing process worked, and two short stories that resulted from an International Thriller Writers competition in which writers were invited to use the first paragraph of "The Chopin Manuscript" as the starting point of a short story. "It's Forked" by Colin Cotterill and "Crescendo" by G. Miki Hayden show another side to thriller writing.

An Earful of Words appears on the first and third Sundays of each month. Call 361-4930 or e-mail susan.rife@heraldtribune.com.