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Latest Stuart Fabe novel injects history, mystery into series
History and mystery are at the forefront of the latest creation from local author Stuart Fabe, who has two upcoming appearances in Greencastle scheduled to promote "Evening Code," his fourth novel overall and third in a series of Clay Arnold adventures.
"Evening Code," in fact, is bursting onto the literary scene just six months after Fabe debuted "After Evening."
"I never intended to write and publish two in a year," Fabe said as he prepares for his 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Aug. 25 signing and sale at Eli's Books, 6 E. Washington St., Greencastle, and a 6:30 p.m. Author's Talk Wednesday, Aug. 29 at the Putnam County Public Library, 103 E. Poplar St., Greencastle. "That's what happens when you retire, I guess."
In the latest book, Fabe has allowed hero alter/ego Clay Arnold to shed much of his vigilante violence for a more historic page-turning treasure hunt in the vein of the "National Treasure" movies or Daniel Brown novels, the author said.
Along the way he incorporates telegraph/Morse Code inventor Samuel Morse into the plot, along with Renaissance painters, great American artists and more.
The book jacket explains that when world-famous photographer Clay Arnold purchases a rare antique camera that once belonged to Morse, "he finds the first of several Morse-coded clues that supposedly lead to a hidden trove of rare art."
The eventual odyssey leads Arnold and friends to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the Yale University Art Gallery and finally within the confines of historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in an effort to solve the mystery.
Fabe notes that it is historically accurate that Morse met Louis Daguerre on a trip to Paris in 1839, the year Daguerre invented his Daguerrotype camera, considered the first practical means of photography.
"In my story, I take a little bit of poetic license," Fabe admits, suggesting that during the Paris visit Daguerre gives Morse a camera that ultimately ends up in the collection of Arnold, an antique camera collector (not unlike Fabe himself).
In examining the camera after buying it at auction, Arnold finds a note stuffed inside with what is perceived originally as "gibberish" written on it.
Of course, the gibberish is really Morse code, and once that is translated via iPhone, Arnold and his buddies are "thunderstruck by what they read."
"If you are reading this," the note from Morse begins, speaking to them from the grave, "I am likely no longer among the living, and you have possession of the wondrous camera Monsieur Daguerre gifted me in 1839. You also hold the key to finding an amazing treasure trove. You need only visit the Gallery of the Louvre (a Morse painting, as it turns out, not one of the many galleries within the famed Paris museum) to commence your adventure."
Adhering to those details leads the intrepid group of treasure seekers "to the next museum and the next museum and the next museum" as they examine Morse's paintings for more clues, Fabe said, "with murder and intrigue -- and some tasteful intimacy -- along the way."
Fabe calls "Evening Code" the best thing he's ever written.
Perhaps that is because he's toned down the violence and rage in Arnold's life as he morphs into a 40-year-old character who still "vents his spleen" on occasion but is evolving as he becomes a husband and father.
"He's a good man," Fabe explains of his lead character, who he said is becoming "very judicious" at who "he whacks" when it becomes necessary to avenge wrongs and wrongful characters.
He's had "women all over town" ask why he had to make Arnold so violent, Fabe confided, while several male readers admit being drawn into the angry nature of the character.
"I don't know if it's appropriate to say, but it's the first time I've felt like a real novelist," Fabe added, noting that character development and plot structure are what he really likes most about his growth as a writer.
Fabe is already planning a sequel, he said, with the first 500 words already written for "Evening Son," which fast-forwards 10 years as Arnold and his now-wife Maggie have a son.
Fabe, who resides in the Putnam County countryside near Brick Chapel with partner Marla Helton, "two dogs, one cat and 11 chickens" -- as his bio at the back of the book notes -- sums his writing up quite humbly.
"I'm just doing the best I can for a simple country boy," he says.