The Rumpus Reviews Daniel Pyne's A Hole in the Ground Owned By a Liar

Our client Daniel Pyne, the screenwriter behind the Manchurian Candidate remake and a writer on Alcatraz with J.J. Abrams, brought that same cinematic instinct to his second novel, A Hole in the Ground Owned By a Liar, which just earned a thoughtful review from The Rumpus.

The reviewer credits Pyne's visual eye for the way the book renders its Colorado mining country setting, a place Pyne grew up around, right down to the ghost towns and the gold mine at the center of the story, one that the protagonist Lee buys from an anonymous seller on eBay. The review singles out the tension between Lee and his brother Grant, a recently released ex-con, as the real engine of the book, more so than the mystery that builds around the mine itself. Where the novel is strongest, according to the review, is in that sibling dynamic and in Pyne's read on a modern life with no real off switch, one where work and home have folded into each other completely.

A layered review like this is part of building an author's platform beyond a single book, especially for a writer like Pyne who is known first for the screen and is now building a name in fiction as well. You can read the full review on The Rumpus for the complete piece.

It is a rare thing for a screenwriter's first attempts at fiction to land this kind of considered, thoughtful critique instead of being read as a side project.