What Are You Reading?

A mystery lover's favorite page-turner

When Andy Demsky had jury duty in his mid-20s, he picked up a book of Sherlock Holmes stories. “Over the course of two days of waiting to not be called, I was really taken in.” He’s been a mystery fan ever since that first fateful rendezvous with the genre.

Demsky, a Napa-based writer, runs a one-man public relations firm whose clients include Shafer Vineyards and artist Ron Burns, who’s famous for his brightly painted, semi-abstract portraits of the dogs of the rich and famous (Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers and Doc Severinsen). Demsky also writes for magazines and has three books in print: Tough Guys (1993), Dark Refuge: A Story of Cults and Their Seductive Appeal (1995), and Shafer Vineyards’ Line on Wine (2004), a collection of wine facts, figures and fun.

After attending the Mystery Writers of America Conference in New York and the Mystery Writers Workshop at Book Passage in Corte Madera, he’s hard at work on a mystery set in the Napa Valley entitled Swim, Swam, Swum. “I’m writing it with the idea of doing a series set in wine country from an insider’s point of view. Napa Valley has this backdrop of romance. I’m struck with how beautiful it is here; it’s why I stay and why millions come here. My book won’t rip off the veneer, just provide some contrast to the romantic setting.”

While Demsky favors classics like Sherlock Holmes, he enjoys P.D. James as well. “There’s this sort of depressing Englishness in her tone that appeals to a part of me. I also admire Agatha Christie because she is so deft with characterization. She delivers this fully formed person in just a few sentences.”

As to why he finds mysteries so appealing? “Mysteries use the incidence of murder to rummage around in other people’s lives. There’s a voyeuristic part of that I really like. I don’t think a mystery is necessarily about a murder—it’s much more. How does the fabric of society react or heal up when it is torn? More than ‘Oh my God, who did it and let’s chase them down the street until we catch them,’ I want books that say something to me. I want to know what people’s lives are like when they don’t want to tell you what they’re like.” Here are some of his favorites.

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Demsky describes Delicious (Atlantic Monthly Press, $23) by Mark Haskell Smith as a great who-done-it set in Hawaii about two feuding caterers. “It’s so hilarious, perverse and beautifully written. It’s definitely not a novel for the sensitive person because it’s got plenty of sex, violence and even cannibalism. Smith skillfully balances so many characters and the way he brings the story around is amazing.” This darkly comic novel swirls around the rivalry between a local catering family and a Mobbed-up newcomer from Las Vegas, battling over who gets the catering contracts for movie and TV production crews on location. Caught up in the madness are a gay TV producer overdosing on Viagra, his homely assistant who becomes an androgynous sex symbol and a hit man who takes too much Ecstasy and paddles off into the sunset.   

Murder Alfresco (Chronicle Books, $23.95) is Nadia Gordon’s third mystery and Demsky says it’s his favorite. “I’ve read all her books and her confidence level as a writer seems to rise with each book. Here, you don’t have a body—Bang!—on page one, which reveals more self-assurance as a writer. Plus, the murder investigation is more complex, creepier. The main character in Gordon’s mystery series, chef Sunny McCoskey, also travels outside Napa Valley this time around.” With help from her eclectic group of friends—cops, cooks and vintners—McCoskey sleuths around wine country’s high society and into the colorful community of houseboat dwellers in Sausalito. Gordon captures the heart of Napa’s food and wine culture, revealing a gaggle of irreverent characters along the way, and Sunny McCoskey proves to be an engaging heroine who is just fun to hang out with.

A big fan of English mysteries, Demsky touts The Murder Room (Vintage paperback, $13.95) by P.D. James. “As a writer, one of my biggest fears is being boring. P.D. James is not boring. There’s a stillness to what she does and great humanity behind what she writes. The characters haven’t been saccharined up so that you love them. And I don’t ever feel like I’ve been spoon-fed a little bit of plot so I’ll turn the page.” Set in a small, private English museum with a roomful of spectacular murder artifacts, The Murder Room puts Adam Dalgliesh, James’s formidable detective, in pursuit of a new love and an elusive murderer who has already killed twice. This is classic P.D. James, finely crafted prose that’s packed with complex suspects and victims and Dalgleish’s brilliant detective work.

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