Crossing The Lines

 Crossing The Lines is written by one of my favorite authors, Sulari Gentil.  I have been following her series about a Australian aristocrat, Roland Sinclair, who has given up society life to paint and spend time with his friends, Milton, Clyde and the woman he loves, Edna.  They are always solving a crime though in a very low key way that sometimes almost does not seem like a mystery nove but reads more like historical fiction.

This time, Gentil takes the mystery novel art to a whole new level of intrigue.  This time Gentil is writing a mystery about Madeleine, who is a mystery author writing a novel about her character Edward but the lines become blurred as fiction and fact becomes more unclear and Edward seems to talking to Madeleine.  Madeleine falls down the rabbit hole of not being sure what is real and what is imagined.

Gentil writes this world so well.  It is fascinating to see the how the two mystery novels intersect.  Also there are so many fabulous quotes about writing in general and writing mysteries.  

Gentil writes about the writing process, "And so the story is about...?  It's an exploration of an author's relationship with her protagonist, an examination of the tenuous line between belief and reality, imagination and self, and what happens when that line is crossed."

This is like a story within a story within a story and then sometimes you wonder if Gentil is not writing about herself and Rowland, mystery series protagonist.  Does she sometimes forget he is just a character and think that he has stepped off the page and joined her at the kitchen table?