The Idea People by Mike Lubow
What's It About?
An anxious ad agency whiz abruptly quits his job to write a book with his former mentor, only to become an unlikely detective as he is reluctantly drawn into the case of his mentor’s missing daughter.“Isn’t mystery fiction simply a form of pop culture? Like advertising, the simple truth is that it’s simply not the truth.”
Oh, what a confluence of weirdness in the wilderness and the mind of a former advertising creative director thrust into unraveling a mystery in Mike Lubow’s debut novel, The Idea People.
I guess many of us have dreamed of doing exactly what ad man Ben Franklin Green did, orchestrating an impromptu escape from the corporate rat race — but perhaps not with all the wit and curiosity that Lubow describes.
Thrust From Corporate Life into Unreal Adventure
Ben is in the middle of a presentation for which is he only moderately prepared. He suddenly turns it over to one of his associates, who is stunned and equally unprepared. Ben strolls to the back of the room, leans against a panel to listen to his colleague, and the panel falls back, along with a tumbling Ben underneath it.
He picks himself up and exits one of the doors in the back of the room, presumably to reenter the presentation in the front. Instead, he leaves the building, boards a plane to L.A. and is never seen again by his ad team.
Ben turns up at the luxurious home of one of his former ad mentors, Cole, and his wife Lara, kicking around an idea for a coffee table book entitled Unreal! Advertising versus Reality. Once again, the simple truth that it’s simply not the truth.
But something happens — doesn’t it always.
Their daughter, Abby, living in the mountains of Colorado and working on a wildlife project to raise endangered hawks, is feared kidnapped, and a ransom is sought. Being in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time, Ben jumps in on plans to collaborate with a private investigator, Van, to save Abby if it isn’t too late.
“Ben was struck once again with the unreal feel of the thing,” writes Lubow. “It was as though he’d dropped out of his semi-normal ad life into a B-movie with faded Hollywood motels, troubled rich people, one wearing the requisite tiny bikini, a freckly starlet trading rolls on the couch for roles on TV, a wisecracking private eye and now a clandestine briefing in the wilderness.”
Thought-Provoking, Entertaining & Thrilling Mystery
Theories and strategies abound, and all the while Ben equates his thinking to the thinking he would use to solve a client’s branding challenges and mount an effective ad program.
The author interweaves Ben’s reflections of past campaigns to get into his head, understand how he uses his experience in this new capacity, and how his skill set is the perfect complement to that of the traditional gumshoe Van. Even the chalkboards used to list the possibilities for finding Abby resemble the ad agency style of brainstorming ideas to uncover the best solutions.
Mike Lubow has combined the mind he used to navigate the ad business along with the heart he has for the mountains and the wilderness. And in so doing, he has written a thought-provoking, entertaining and thrilling mystery of the outdoors, the corporate indoors, seedy characters, the rich and wise, and a lot of people and places in between. And while he’s at it, throw in some technology and ornithology along the way. For any reader looking for a fast-paced fun ride, it would be a good idea to consider The Idea People.
About Mike Lubow:
Veteran writer and creative director of New York and Chicago ad agencies, Mike Lubow has authored feature articles and the weekly column “Got a Minute” for The Chicago Tribune. His short stories have appeared in magazines around the world, including Playboy, Barcelona Review, Carve, Amarillo Bay Literary Magazine, Blue Moon Review, Etchings of Melbourne Australia, Bravado (Tauranga, N.Z.), and many others. Mike’s stories have been anthologized into many books, and he is the creator and author of the online nature journal Two-Fisted Birdwatcher. Husband, father and grandfather, he divides his time between his hometown of Chicago with frequent sojourns to Miami and Los Angeles. His heart, however, resides in the rugged pine forests, granite peaks and secret canyons of the Rocky Mountains.
