Novels No. 62

Ruth Ware. Zero Days. Canada: Simon & Schuster, 2023.

One way to earn a living is to access highly protected corporate security systems or buildings; "penetration testers" are hired to prove any weakness in such well-guarded areas. Jacintha ("Jack") Cross and Gabe Medway are a husband-and-wife team who do exactly that. Until Gabe is murdered one night, after remotely guiding Jack through a smooth break-and-enter into an important building. Gabe was the electronic/cyber specialist operating from home; Jack is the physical boots on the ground; they communicate with sophisticated devices. Although Jack did indeed penetrate the building's systems, she's caught returning to her car—to spend hours at a police station explaining herself and her job. Eventually reaching home, she's in shock when she finds Gabe with his throat slashed, still at his computer.

Detectives Malik and Miles are in charge of the case, interrogating a dazed and disbelieving Jack. They don't understand the depth of her grief that delayed her reporting it. When called for a second interview, her sister Helena, a journalist, advises her to lawyer up. But Jack doesn't. And to her horror, the police are considering her the prime suspect. She flees, expecting to be on the run for days, assisted quickly by Helena and Gabe's best friend Cole—and trying to think: who could have killed Gabe, and why? Dark web hackers may be tracking her stealthy movements into various offices, looking for answers. An email informing her that Gabe had recently, uncharacteristically, bought a huge life insurance policy forces her to realize someone has set her up. Surely this evil plan is well beyond ex-boyfriend Jeff's revenge, even if he is a cop.

Odds of Jack finding the killer before the cops close in on her seem almost impossible. High anxiety plus an infected gash under her ribs are draining her energy (it's a wonder she's not in a coma). Author Ware sustains the exhausting pace throughout while a zero-day exploit, worth millions to criminals, infiltrates security apps for thousands of users.

Bits

▪ I couldn't take my eyes off him, off his head, lolling backwards at a sick, unnatural angle that looked so profoundly dead, there was no way I could try to deny the reality of what happened. (35)

▪ "I'm not buying the grieving-little-widow act. I'm going to talk to Rick before her solicitor gets here." (84)

▪ I could have coped—almost—with being arrested for something I hadn't done, even the idea of going to trial, but what I couldn't cope with was the idea of Gabe's killer walking around out there, free and laughing at us both. (86)

▪ I might be able to scale walls and pick locks, but figuring out who killed my husband? That was a job for the police. And they already had their suspect: me. (160)

▪ "I'm saying, what if someone killed Gabe not to punish him, but to punish YOU? And now they're set on ruining your life." (167)

▪ I was fizzing with nerves, biting the inside of my lip so hard my teeth almost met in the soft skin. (214)

▪ That had been unbelievably close. A more decisive guard would have called my bluff—or smelled a rat. (220)

▪ "You know I didn't kill Gabe. And I think I can prove it. I just need that code off his phone." (261)

▪ "I believe it's a serious unpatched vulnerability that affects one—maybe several—of the most popular security apps on the market." (315)

Denise Mina. Blood, Salt, Water. UK: Orion, 2015.

DI Alex Morrow of Police Scotland is directed to keep track of newcomers to Glasgow, Roxanna Fuentecilla and her boyfriend Robin Walker. It's part of a much bigger project to gather evidence of money laundering. Roxanna's good friends in London, Maria and Juan Arias are also being watched, he being a Colombian diplomat. But—suddenly Roxanna goes missing near Helensburgh. In that town, two thugs called Tommy and Iain are disposing of a young woman as they'd been ordered to by Wee Paul, right-hand man of local crime boss Mark Barratt. Iain thus pays off a debt to Barratt, but the debt belonged to his good friend Murray. Killing the woman has unbalanced Iain mentally; he wanders semi-coherently, especially after an arson fire kills two victims. Middle-aged Susan Grierson, a former Scout pack leader, returns to Helensburgh seeking a job with cafe owner Boyd Fraser; she acts very oddly with Iain, showing him her deceased mother's dilapidated, dusty house.

Multiple characters with their own shortsighted problems are interacting, many of them obligated to Barratt, while the upcoming Brexit vote plays in the background. Police Scotland and the Met are vying to claim the illegal loot, when recovered, that they suspect Arias is manipulating. A woman's dead body is found; it's not Roxanna. Lawyer Frank Delahunt has his fingers in the shady insurance business Roxanna bought with someone else's money. Her school-age children are hiding information. Tommy is outfoxing Iain. Susan may not be who she claims to be. Plot and subplots take turns. Plenty of angry people. Morrow is an irritable cop with limited patience; her theory that it's a master criminal enterprise is dismissed by her superiors. Her thoughts sometimes stray to her half-brother Danny, a black market entrepreneur now in prison, whose absence has Glasgow criminals in a turmoil.

Mina is always a deep read. She has a way of getting into the skin of a character – the more complex, the better. Very subtle Tartan Noir, one of her best. I'm still working on what "getting a deal" means in (Scottish) context for the various people who use the phrase.

Morrow

▪ Morrow knew she was right: the Colombians weren't sidelining Fuentecilla and Walker. Roxanna had been sent here to do a job. The question was, what. (29)

▪ Fuentecilla was argumentative, she told them. She argued with everyone. It was unlikely that her domestic set-up was peaceful. (40)

▪ "He's my half-brother," Morrow said quietly. "Just my half-brother, sir." (42)

▪ Morrow knew anger well, its moods and nuances. She found that anger was usually just fear with its make-up on, so her question was this: was Robin Walker frightened because his partner was missing, or was he frightened because someone had called the police? (49)

▪ Morrow spoke slowly: "Who let them in? To the golf course. Who gave them the code to get into the grounds?" (177)

▪ Behind the couch, on its side, a zipped up sleeping bag. Bulky. Leaking. The source of the smell. (235)

Iain

▪ Susan was looking at him, desperation shining out of her. She really wanted him to come to her house. (33)

▪ He knew Iain had done something, five grand's worth of something. Murray was overwhelmed, frightened for Iain, teary and spluttering, "Iain? Man, what've ye fucking done?" (117)

▪ He stayed as the ambulances arrived, two of them, and he watched them load the black body bags, one big, one small, and he watched them leave. (161)

▪ No one would make a move until Mark Barratt got back. The town was waiting for orders. (184)

▪ Her accent sounded much more American now. Iain was in a medicated fog but even he could hear it. (213)

▪ "So, Iain Fraser's your cousin?" (259)

Novels No. 61

 

Helen Fitzgerald. Ash Mountain. UK: Orenda Books, 2020.

This! I'm still shaking my head. A unique piece of work, set in Australia, the portrait of a rural town in trouble will send your blood racing. The place called Ash Mountain is accustomed to extreme temperatures and bush fires; it's where Fran Collins returns to care for her dying father, bumping into memories of growing up. Many unhappy memories. You may not get all the local references, the colloquialisms, the town landmarks, plunged into it as you are from page one, but you will get Fran, and her dad, and the often quirky townsfolk. Parts of it are absurdly funny, like Fran carrying an iPod connected to dad ("Gramps on a Stick") so he can "accompany" her through the neighbourhood to shop and chat with his friends. Or the antics of two galloping, flirtatious ostrich pets. Parts of it are deeply harrowing—in both current story and back story—all taking place in melting heat.

Fitzgerald's style is minimal prose to great effect. At times the shift from one thought to another may seem like a quantum leap; reading between the lines becomes instinctive. We come to understand that "boarders," or The Boarder, means the unruly boys at the regional Catholic school, which brings up the connection to the convent and the connection to the church, where the priests have been less than holy. The "oval" is the town gathering place, like a wide-open park. Fran tries to avoid the man who impregnated her at thirteen, but happily visits her old crush Brian, and seeks the truth about Father Frank's furtive nocturnal movements. Occasionally the narrator is Rosie, Brian's daughter, as the scenes shift between day of the fire and prior activities. Running her dad's household, keeping her teenage daughter Vonny out of trouble, checking out son Dante's organic world, a few old friends to drink with—busy days for Fran.

But on one particular day Ash Mountain people had little warning for the scariest firestorm ever. It is scary. No time to complete the drills they've practised, or find a hiding place. Fire like a satanic roller coaster engulfs every object in its way. Fear is palpable. The noise of wind and flame is terrifying, the air full of smoke, raining with ash and fiery missiles. Fitzgerald shoots words like bullets. Is there any shelter? Where is everyone? A true gem of a small novel.

Bits

▪ Her dad was off his head on Oxies, couldn't move his moving parts, and it took more stamina than a 10k for her to get his jeans off. (17)

▪ There was no fire in here, no flames near the phone, and yet the skin on his hand was changing. (45)

▪ Sunday 10.30 mass was the big show, run by Father Alfonzo in Fran's childhood and adolescence, and by Father Frank after Father Alfonzo was arrested. (54)

▪ Sister Mary Margaret, five rows down, gave Fran a dirty look. Pervy old witch. (55)

▪ Every woman in town fancies my dad, and every single one of them, especially Vonny's mum, can fuck right off. (85)

▪ Dante and Gramps were stoned, sitting opposite each other, making very odd faces, and giggling like crazy. "Sit here, we're finger and face dancing!" Dante said. (123)

▪ Rosie had punched Boarder #3 so hard that he stumbled backwards into the pool and disappeared into the body of the deep end. (138)

▪ Fran made a decision. She would break into the convent via one of the windows in the women's toilets. (156)

▪ His ribs were sticking out in the photographs too, although she could not look at all of them. "I don't like getting my photograph taken," he had whispered to her. (170)

Lisa Jewell. The Family Remains. Large Print. USA: Thorndike Press, 2022.

Here's a splendid example of why Jewell consistently produces bestsellers. Two intermingled families lived in a Chelsea mansion while their various children were growing up in the late 1980s, after which the four children scattered. The author's cast list of the families is helpful. In the current day (2019) we have DI Samuel Owusu of the Metro London police investigating a bag of human bones washed up on the banks of the Thames. Henry of the Lamb family is clearly obsessed with locating his teenage friend Phin(eas) of the Thomsen family. Henry's sister Lucy and her children are temporarily staying with him; something scary in their mutual history makes Lucy very anxious about Henry's fixation, especially when he disappears, following a clue to Phin's whereabouts. Off she goes in pursuit with two children in tow.

So why are we party to the courtship in 2017 of one Rachel Gold, deeply in love with Michael Rimmer? She marries him. Hints at bizarre events in the pasts of all these people are tantalizing. Lucy's three children apparently have different fathers. Her older daughter Libby recently inherited—and sold—a mansion in Chelsea. The riverside bones are identified as those of Birdie Dunlop-Evers, once a musician in a pop band; she died in the early 1990s. Rachel falls out of love. Middle-aged Henry has remodelled himself to look as much as possible like he remembers Phin. Phin is a mystery, for years avoiding his sister and childhood friends. Michael has a child by a previous marriage. It's deliciously complicated.

At first the narrative was a bit disorienting time-wise, but diligent DI Samuel doesn't stop hunting until he knows who killed Birdie; his case unexpectedly encompasses individual connections from the long-ago household. A killer, an impersonator, a blackmailer, a psycho? No alarming details here; the "childhood house of horrors" is for the reader to imagine; Jewell knows precisely how much or little to feed us. More Lisa Jewell on my list!

Bits

▪ As it is, I am not straight, and neither am I the sort of man that other men wish to form lengthy and meaningful relationships with, so that leaves me in the worst possible position – an unlovable gay man with fading looks. (21: Henry)

▪ Was she still Rachel Gold, the ice princess, the ball-breaker, the statuesque brunette who could never find a man to meet her high ideals? Or was she now somebody completely different? (113-4)

▪ "I feel — Jesus. I feel like I don't know you, Rachel. I feel like I married a fucking stranger." (141)

▪ I am Phin's living, breathing nightmare and he hates me. (262: Henry)

▪ "And I'm sorry that I'm all you've got. You deserve better than me, Dad, you really, really do." (282:Rachel)

▪ I said: It is quite a coincidence that this unusual name was on graffiti inside a house you inherited and is also the name of your very, very good friend. (357: Samuel)

▪ Lucy nodded, her eyes wide. Rachel saw tears shimmering on their surfaces and then Lucy clutched Rachel's arm and squeezed it. Rachel looked down at Lucy's hand and blinked. (389)

▪ "When you are a parent, not being able to feed your child is just about the worst, most soul-destroying thing imaginable. And now I can feed you. I can clothe you. I can give you warm beds to sleep in—" (394: Lucy)

▪ "He's not my brother; he's my uncle." (454: Libby)

Novels No. 60 (LL378)

 

Good News: Two awesome books, one after another. That's a wrap for 2024. Cheers!

Bad News: My TPL Branch is closed "until further notice." Building problems. Stay tuned.

Taffy Brodessor-Akner. Long Island Compromise. USA: Random House Large Print, 2024.

You've never met a family like this, I say confidently. An utterly amazing book, the story defines inherited trauma in the most comprehensive, absorbing way. Uber-wealthy factory owner, Carl Fletcher of Middle Rock, Long Island, was kidnapped by unknown thugs causing his wife Ruth a desperation race to collect the ransom cash with Cousin Arthur's help. Their two confused little boys, Nathan and Bernard ("Beamer"), were dragged along in Ruth's wake, she half out of her mind with anxiety but delivering the money on time. When returned home, Carl was never the same after the agonizing week of mental torture. Ruth was then pregnant with daughter Jenny. Each member of that extended family unknowingly, obliviously, exhibits the effects of Carl's experience. How the three children in particular, as they age, handle their wealth is quite individual, each wanting to be regarded as more than a shallow trust fund bore, each failing.

The talented author conjures the tribal aspect of upper class American Jewish families; it's a parodic but huge, exuberant slice of life from an expert. Beamer is a struggling screenwriter who married a shiksa, Noelle, anathema to the unforgiving Fletcher women who uphold the unwritten rules. A long sexual scene near the beginning is black, far too graphic for me, but it serves to open up this man's psychosis. Descriptions of the idle lives of rich housewives are a hoot; descriptions of Beamer's frantic addiction to drugs – any drugs at all – are painful. Nathan is a perennially anxious hypochondriac, married to Alyssa, at times a mirror of his now zombie-like father. Jenny totally rejects living in the luxury lane and the security of gated estates, giving her money away, thus alienating family. Brodessor-Akner savages every trope about Jews in their own words, and yet—the sympathetic intimacies, the reckless excesses, the satire, the periods of harrowing suspense—she rivets your attention.

If you assiduously store details of the fatal twists around this family you will know, ultimately, who really arranged Carl's kidnapping, the terror that started it all. The family believes that after all, it emerged safely after the episode, earning recognition for survival. When the financial tables turn spectacularly, can any of them deal with it? Densely packed, this is a saga of reckoning.

Bits

▪ "I wish I were dead right now," his mother answered. "Can you imagine that you made your mother wish she were dead?" (123)

▪ His mother and grandmother, for as long as he remembered, had been a duo of huddled, conniving manipulator worrywarts whose primary job was to manage the ongoing crisis of his catatonic father, and then raise Beamer and his siblings with whatever energy they had left over, which was none. (129)

▪ Of course, their father's crying only made Nathan sob harder, which made the pews shake, which made Jenny look up to the ceiling in annoyance. (135)

▪ Marjorie had the appearance of a frayed wire, a thing in a constant, dangerous state of unravel. (138)

▪ "Beamer, do you hear me? Don't do this. Write your own thing. The thing you obviously have always needed to write." (222)

▪ Nathan Fletcher had grown from that little boy making twenty-four-hour four-point contact with his mother during his father's kidnapping into not so much a whole man but a collection of tics: a composite panic attack whose brain lived in both the unspeakable past and the terrifying future and rarely in a particular current moment unless that moment contained more fear than the past and future put together and therefore deserved his complete attention. (268-9)

▪ Next to him was a hand sanitizer dispenser, but a thing people don't think about is how dirty the actual dispensers can be if they're touched mostly by people who are seeking out hand sanitizer. (383)

▪ They continued to perpetuate the environment-destroying, climate-changing, downward-spiral-economy-sustaining, soul-crushing American ideal that the way they'd been raised was the best way to live. (477-8)

▪ "I cannot think of what is more a reaction to your family than working to unionize people. It's, like, poetic levels of irony here." (489)

▪ How she'd watch her three children flailing as they aimed to find meaning in a life where they didn't have to work for anything. She felt bad for them, because once you're born that way, even if you lose everything, the way they just had, you never feel the fire of survival in you. (547)

Dennis Lehane. Since We Fell. USA: CCC/HarperCollins, 2017.

A serendipitous random grab (although I've read other Lehane books). It's a long book, a mystery with a Grand Love Story. The first part of the story dwells on the rise and fall of Rachel Childs as an intrepid, acclaimed journalist who suffers a severe breakdown after extensive reporting from ghastly conditions during Haiti's earthquake. Over time, her PTSD with its agoraphobia, and guilt, and shame at her weakness, are nursed by Brian, an exceptionally caring man she met and married. After a childhood deprived of real affection from her mother, Rachel had searched long and hard for the father she never knew, with little success but a collection of small, painful details. Mutual love with Brian is deeply binding for both. She's on the mend when she learns that Brian's regular international business trips are a sham. It gets worse. And poof, he's gone. Can her fragile mental health handle such a betrayal?

Everything changes. But Rachel's trajectory is upwards despite moments of doubt and depression. Her best reporter instincts kick in, she's going to get to the bottom of whatever is happening, whatever she's been shielded from. The first shock comes from unsought advice about their special song: Since I Fell in Love with You. She cross-examines Brian's business partner, Caleb, but they both encounter brutality worse than the prowling rapists and killers of Haiti. Then a stunning event takes place. Its equally stunning follow-up will test the reader's scale of credibility—nonetheless it is action, excitement, murder. It's also deception, and not what she expected as Rachel becomes a person of definite interest to the police.

Can I even convey how deftly author Lehane finesses this plot? A master of psychological insight, he spins a breathtaking tale around two fascinating characters. Careful, now, not to pin a quote below that could give anything away.

Bits

▪ "If I ever tried to make contact, your mother told me, she'd tell the police that I was the man who raped her." (49)

▪ They could smell the dead three hours before they arrived. There was no infrastructure left, no aid, no government relief, no police to shoot looters because there were no police. (75)

▪ She looked at this man who was better than any she'd ever known, certainly kinder, certainly more patient, and the tears came, which only deepened her shame. (139)

▪ "Nothing's going on. Why would something be going on? It's raining like holy hell but otherwise just grabbing a drink with your partner." (180)

▪ "You thought I was living some kind of double life." (193)

▪ They could be waiting patiently on the other side of the door, exchanging glances, maybe even smirks, screwing their silencers onto their pistols, taking careful aim at the doorway, and waiting for the moment when she opened the door. (312)

▪ Rachel pocketed the gun and stood. ... And she knew she wasn't going to die to make life easier for Brian or Kessler or anyone else who assumed she was too weak for this world. (334)

▪ "He pulled the gun from my mouth and he made me look at her as the men dragged her off and he made me say the words." (369)

▪ "I'm from fucking San Pedro," Haya whispered, eyes on the doorway behind Rachel. (372)

Novels No. 59 (LL377)

 

Might as well hang this out there, even if it's something less than two books. Who knows if another post will materialize before the end of the year.

Asako Yusuki. Butter. 2017. USA: HarperCollins, tr. 2024.

More than one pundit has included Butter on a list of best mystery books of the year. You'd think that implies a strong hook to grab you from page one, whereas for the entire first chapter I felt jerked every which way, from a strange prisoner and curious hints of serial killing to the merits of friendship and acceptable solo lifestyles. I barely established this was a day in the brain of a journalist person called Rika. It's Japan, and it's quite foreign—people's names, their urban locations, what they eat, and what they wear—where they work, not so much. Ploughing ahead with misgivings, I learned that Rika wants to interview imprisoned Kajii, a woman convicted for killing three men that loved her. For Rika it would be a major scoop in the weekly magazine she works for. Kajii—a controversial media celebrity by now—famously refuses female interviewers, but Rika gains an invitation after studying Kajii's now-deleted food blog. Butter, currently in short supply, is Kajii's magic that transforms every recipe.

After three chapters, this book is not for me. Personally, I do love butter, but not page after page of it glistening wetly, melting in full milky aroma, bombing the taste buds, flavour exploding like a wave of kindness into one's bloodstream. Like that. Of course, butter is always combined with some other food such as rice which I can visualize, but try picturing osechi, nishime, hizunumasu, nanakusagayse, kuromame, kamo seiro, amazaki, kiritampo, and the like.

▪ It was a taste that could only be described as golden. A shining golden wave, with an astounding depth of flavor and a faint yet full and rounded aroma, wrapped itself around the rice and washed Rika's body far away. (33)

▪ The hot butter fused the sugar and soya sauce together, clinging to the sweet, soft, shapeless mass in her mouth, swimming around its outside as though to ascertain its contours. By the time she'd finished chewing, the roots of her teeth were trembling pleasurably. (75)

Assuming that eating butter, and/or forging an alliance with Kajii, will wreak changes in Rika, are not sufficiently interesting to me; I'm not captured either prose-wise or theme-wise. The author has connected with an appropriate, appreciative audience and so we all move on.

Jo Callaghan. In the Blink of an Eye. USA: Random House, 2023.

Another of my list arrives, yay TPL. DCS Kat Frank of Warwickshire Police returns to work after a long hiatus caring for her husband John who eventually died. Her boss CC McLeish has just the right position for her: piloting an important project to apply (and test the merits of) AI on a cold case her team will choose. Professor Okonedo, the scientist spearheading the AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detecting Entities) component called Lock, is clearly dismissive of police detective work. Kat, on the other hand, is highly suspicious of machine analysis that ignores the human factor. When she and her team—DI Rayan Hassan and DS Debbie Browne—meet Lock (who can materialize as a hologram) it's great entertainment as they review cold cases. Lock's strength is crunching data at incredible speed, saving countless hours, days, weeks(!) of police work.

Two fairly recent missing persons files are chosen: Will Robinson, ambitious young actor from a well-to-do home, and Tyrone Walters, a black teenager just starting university. Coincidentally, Kat's son Cam is the same age as these two—you are right to feel a shiver of apprehension. While Hassan and Browne pair up, Kat partners with Lock who exists in a powerful computer on her wrist during regular police procedures. Does it sound crazy? Trust me, it works; their interaction is a learning process for both, their sparring often hilarious—especially when she has to curb Lock's blunt evaluations at inappropriate times. Of course Lock's algorithms are oblivious to human emotions. But he does help determine that the same kidnapper took both the young men, besides adding a few more similar missing persons. A desperate race to save the most recent youngster crashes into one unexpected turn after another.

This exceptional novel has everything going for it—refreshing characters and plot, a hot technology issue (AI), credible medical science, and fully fraught with jolting suspense. And it is a beautifully structured first novel for Callaghan. An author to watch for!

Bits

▪ "Lock's conversational abilities are beyond anything so far achieved in AI, but it still has much to learn from real-time human interactions. It has been programmed to speak truth to power and at the moment it has no filter." (26)

▪ "Lock, I am your DCS, and I don't need to justify my decisions to you. If you don't like it, I can leave you in the car or in the cloud or wherever you exist." (50-1)

▪ "Are you saying I should have lied? My anti-corruption software prevents me from lying." (136)

▪ Kat told him how Lock's relentless focus on facts had potentially demotivated her team on their first day and how it had upset Mrs Robinson by telling her that her son was, in all probability, dead. (149)

▪ "You don't need me to tell you that the police force is institutionally racist and misogynistic." (175)

▪ "A total fucking invasion of my privacy? A stalker's diary? An illegal surveillance operation of a senior officer?" She was swearing at her boss, but she didn't care. (260)

▪ Where are you? she texted. What time will you be back? (269)

▪ Kat took a deep breath. Jesus. A bloody machine had more faith in her than her own boss and team. (292)

▪ "If anyone finds out that I or Lock have breached any of the international standards on AI, or if McLeish makes a complaint, than I could lose my professorship and even my lab." (294)

▪ "The worst thing is telling a patient they have cancer, knowing there is something that could help them but not being able to offer it." (306)

Novels No. 58 (LL376)

 

Kyle Mills. Vince Flynn, Enemy at the Gates, a Mitch Rapp novel. USA: Emily Bestler Books/ Atria, 2021.

Scrounging books is looking better and better. Change of pace to a satisfying action plot overlaid with political chicanery and global biological importance. American President Anthony Cook has just been installed after a near-disaster terrorist attack on the nation. CIA Director Irene Kennedy is one official who doesn't trust Cook; her right-hand man Mike Nash is more tactful. Brilliant scientist David Chism has gone missing after his research lab—secreted deep in Uganda's roughest country—was destroyed by lunatic Gideon Auma's fierce rebel cult. Influential "trillionaire" Nick Ward, the lab's financial supporter, expects an official American search effort, but privately he gets the best: he persuades agent extraordinaire Mitch Rapp to undertake the search, with Kennedy's implied agreement. President Cook tells no one that the American task force he quietly sends out is deliberately composed of soldiers hopelessly untrained for jungle and guerrilla conditions.

Rapp is ex-CIA, on the verge of retirement. Sprinkled references to his past show that this man has history with enormously successful espionage missions for the U.S. They don't interrupt the plot for the reader, but can encourage a look at earlier novels in the series originated by Vince Flynn and carried forward by Kyle Mills. Rapp happens to be good buds with Mike Nash and also has a loyal team on call led by Scott Coleman.

Chism is alive but Rapp keeps it secret—the rescue op presents absolutely breathtaking moments, the first of many to follow—so that Chism's crucial, life-saving research can continue. But no rest for Rapp as he and Ward work together to force Auma's secret manipulators into the open. Even Rapp's wife Claudia can deliver major resources of her own for desperate measures. The action and suspense never lag in Africa and the Middle East: ingenious schemes changing on a whim, mercenary kidnappings real or faked, elaborate coverups, power abuses. It's a cynical world, yet not without a skilled sense of humour, thoroughly hooked me. The book is not only satisfying—characters sharpened by dialogue, vividly felt locations—it also resonates in today's murky geopolitics.

Washington DC Voices

▪ Did the White House figure he was so blinded by the radiance of Anthony Cook that he wanted to get his ass shot off? (51)

▪ Ward's research into renewables was accelerating the collapse of the Middle Eastern energy industry just as Chism's research was undermining the royalty's heavy bets on the pharmaceutical industry. (120)

▪ At least Isis maintained the pretense of remaining faithful to Allah. Gideon Auma adopted any and all belief systems that suited him. (152)

▪ The existence of the Cooks' spectacularly botched rescue effort was still under wraps and neither Coleman nor Ward was the type to run his mouth unnecessarily. (186)

Chism

▪ The potential contribution to mankind was incredible, with the possibility that a single vaccine could wipe out the entire coronavirus category. (4)

▪ If Chism let himself fall into their hands, they could ransom him back to Nick Ward. And that'd be real money. (36)

▪ "They've come to save us," she said. "Mr. Ward sent them, yes? It has to be. Gideon Auma has no helicopters." (91)

Ward

▪ He was a genius in every sense of the word who had stepped back from controlling his business empire to run a massive foundation that he'd charged with nothing less ambitious than solving the problems of humanity. (19)

▪ His involvement in telecom, space exploration, energy, and artificial intelligence was critical to America's national security and economy. (142)

▪ Ward shook his head. "I can't order people dead and then pay mercenaries to make it happen." (198)

▪ "If you expect me to just sit here for the next year watching everything I've built collapse, you might want to shoot me now." (293)

Rapp

▪ And America? It was being taken over by corrupt politicians, a mainstream media bent on whipping up divisions, and an Internet full of crazies. (32)

▪ In all likelihood, they were whacked out on ajali, a locally produced narcotic that acted like a ten-foot line of PCP-laced cocaine. (114)

▪ "But Auma's a bad combination of smart and insane. And his people are happy to die for him." (128)

Alex Lake. The Choice. UK: HarperCollins, 2020.

Traditional fare here in the psychological suspense vein. Matt Westbrook's car is stolen one evening outside a convenience store; his three young children were in it. As the bewildered man tries to explain to his wife Annabelle at home, the bizarre truth is gradually texted to him: your children will be returned if you deliver your wife as ransom! Instructions forbid police contact or the kids will never be seen again. Talk about anxiety—after hours of heartrending concerns, including input from Annabelle's brother Mike, Matt's sister Tessa, and a trusted ex-cop, all sworn to secrecy, Annabelle realizes her only real option is to give herself up. When the exchange is made, with children safely returned, it's time for distraught Matt to call the police; DI Wynne and DS Dudek take the case. But Matt has lost the getaway trail they were desperately attempting to follow.

No spoiler, but we meet the kidnapper mid-way. The Westbrooks, a happy couple totally committed to each other, had scoured their pasts trying to guess who would plan this, and why. Friends and acquaintances from university days right up to the present are introduced in scenes from the past; the police begin personal interviews. Only one person seemed off—Matt's long-ago ex-girlfriend Lindsey had had an unhealthy obsession for him, tried to trap him into marriage. But Lindsey has a decent alibi. More disturbing for the detectives are the numbers of anonymous fans who admire Annabelle as a mystery novelist; any one of them could be a potential maniac kidnapper.

My initial reaction to the short chapters—sometimes choppy, often emotionally repetitive—was impatience (admit it, I like fewer narrators), but the style from one character to another serves very well to ratchet the tension once the intended hostage is taken. A quibble, why not? ... Lack of medical attention seems drastically out of place, but we're dealing with an irrational weirdo, right? Otherwise, well done.

Past

▪ "Is that what's going on here? You're breaking up with me for some university slag." (65)

▪ "You're pathetic. I can't believe you're going to be the father of my child." (94)

▪ "So go home and do what you need to do. And when the dust settles we'll see where we are." (96)

▪ "Nothing could keep us apart, Matt. Nothing." (138)

Present

▪ "Do you think it's possible to follow me with a drone?" Annabelle said. (163)

▪ "So he comes to the pub," Dudek said. "To switch vehicles." (256)

▪ For Matt, everything was suspended, but out there people were getting into car accidents and having babies and living and dying as they always did. (287)

▪ She tried to push past him and he grabbed her by the elbow and twisted. The pain bloomed through her shoulder and she screamed. (310)

▪ "Why my DNA, if I may ask?" If there had been hesitation or concern, it was gone. (386)

Psycho

▪ Once you have earned somebody's trust it is the easiest thing in the world to abuse it. (19)

▪ To pull this off required preparation and time. And a vastly superior nerve and intelligence. Let's not forget that. (36)

▪ Her children are a burden; pretending to love them is a chore. Only I know that, which is why I am doing this for her. (148)

▪ She will have to change her appearance. I have a plan for that, though. It will be hard and painful, but she will accept it. (327)

▪ It will take time for her to realize what she has been missing. In a way, it is like deprogramming someone from a cult, but I have time. (350)

Novels No. 57 (LL375)

 

Philip Margolin. A Reasonable Doubt. USA: Minotaur, 2020.

I had hopes this one would be brightly challenging, but the characters were bouncing all over the map. Oregon defense lawyer Robin Lockwood takes the insistent Robert Chesterfield as a client: a magician entertainer who wants a patent for a new, as yet unperformed, illusion he invented. Not Robin's field of expertise, but her retired partner Regina Barrister recalls having represented him before—on murder charges! Chesterfield was never indicted and now is deep in gambling debts to Las Vegas crime boss Augustine Montenegro, unbeknownst to his rich wife Claire who keeps an iron grip on her purse-strings. But Claire is openly having an affair with David Turner, a rival magician. Although Regina has early-onset dementia her long-term memory serves to take Robin back to the 1990s.

Whose story is it, anyway? Is it "Bobby" Chesterfield's? Under suspicion for two poisonings, then a convenient fall off a cliff for his then-wife Lily Dowd, the man either charms or alienates people everywhere he goes. Is Robin the protagonist, keeping Chesterfield out of prison? Maybe it's deputy attorney-general Peter Ragland's story, his career once torpedoed by Regina, reclaiming his reputation by finally nailing Chesterfield in a new murder allegation. When "Lord Chesterfield" gives his premier performance of the illusion he calls "Chamber of Death," most people who detest him are in the audience, shocked to see it backfire. Several detectives, lawyers and judges, the magician's assistants, theatrical agents, the Westmont Country Club's manager, debt enforcer thugs, a cheated investor, heirs to mother's fortune, angry rivals—so many stakeholders around one spectacular murder that reveals a series of mysterious deaths.

Ultimately Robin agrees to defend someone for Chesterfield's impossible murder. Whoever owns this story, challenging it was, indeed! The tension winds in tight twists, abruptly changing direction at times, chock full of suspects and motives. Prose and writing style not remarkable, but certainly worth the brain workout.

Bits

▪ "I've had similar complaints about lewd language and unwanted sexual advances from the female staff and the wives of club members." (25)

▪ "I'm afraid I can't discuss Mrs. Randall's case, except to tell you that she was poisoned." (55)

▪ Ragland flashed Quinlan a patronizing smile. "Leave proving the case to me, Morris. I've got the law degree." (62)

▪ "I'm not surprised that someone tried to murder Moser. He is thoroughly unlikeable and he treated me with a total lack of respect." (66)

▪ Iris turned on her brother. "Grow some balls, Andrew. Lord Robert is a gold-digging leech, and I'm not going to let him get away with this." (98)

▪ "What I want is revenge. The old-fashioned, biblical eye for an eye. I want the world's greatest escape artist trying to escape from a prison cell." (156-7)

▪ "When I am locked in this coffin, my assistants will send this horde of death dealers down the chute and onto my body. According to the literature, I should be dead within minutes." (171)

▪ "Jeff," Robin asked, "did you send Regina and Stanley chocolates?" (227)

Ram Murali. Death in the Air. USA: HarperCollins, 2024.

A TPL arrival! We are going to a spa. Not just any old beauty hideaway, this is Samsara, an Ayurvedic health spa in India's Himalaya foothills. Coming from London, Rohan Krishna ("Ro") and his friend Joss decide to treat themselves to a luxe but disciplined atmosphere. Ro is recovering from a bad work experience with a manager who booted him from the European project he'd created; apparently a new friend Alex is arranging some sort of retribution. Chris Forrester is there at the spa with wife Catherine—he's a famous movie star collaborating on a film with Joss—among other acquaintances like wheel-chair-bound Amit and the alluring Amrita. All guests are part of a wealthy, international social circuit. While meeting staff members and guests, the sole sour note is Mitchell Charney, the Visible Light visiting lecturer (dubbed the Visible Blight or VB by our friends) who causes inexplicable chills in Ro. Before coming to Samsara, Ro had been given a spiritual reading that showed he would receive an unexpected mission.

Hotel owner, Mrs Banerjee, takes a liking to Ro and asks him, as a lawyer, to represent her interests in the police investigation of Amrita's sudden, violent death. The friend Ro had just met, Lala, discovered the body; Ro had already heard how unhappy Lala was with her politician husband Sanjay, pledging confidentiality. To that point, the narrative often seems a bit jerky, perhaps to reflect the flitting, brand-name lifestyle of the idle rich. Inspector Singh arrives, and interviewing the various witnesses becomes very compelling. Catherine involves herself with the questioning, but she has a different agenda. More bodies fall by the wayside. Hidden connections and blackmail among these people of breeding still doesn't solve the murderer puzzle.

Unlike many thrillers, this novel has no predictable format. In fact its characterization and style are unusual, the suspense is terrific, and the whole thing is a bracing intellectual stretch. It's tantalizing and it's fun. You will want to go back and read the first section again. Bonus—samples of the holistic environment, plus musings from a fresh perspective on money, racism, colonization, belonging, all with a touch of karma.

Ro

▪ "Turns out she was sabotaging me internally the whole time. Spreading all kinds of lies about me to her bosses." (12)

▪ "I think you're literally the weirdest person I've ever met." (37)

▪ "Mr Krishna, you are in grave need of rest. Particularly mental rest." (75)

▪ Catherine was right. This Charney person gave him the ick. (88)

▪ It was funny how similar everyone looked from behind in their identical kurta pajama, Ro mused, watching Lala walk away. How much easier it was to commit a crime in a place where most people looked like one another. (166)

▪ "Why on earth is this guy here? And I'm sorry, but why do you have a white person teaching Indian people how to meditate?" (171)

▪ Sanjay paused. "You're actually very strange, you know. It's not exactly a compliment." (210)

Bits

▪ "Because you have a history of digestive problems, such as heartburn, we must clean your digestive tract to remove any mucus or plaque." (90)

▪ "State asked Amrita if she could find proof of a certain party's involvement in the financing of international terrorism. And she did." (138)

▪ "There seems to be a global class of pretty dubious rich people who spend their lives going from spa to spa." (150)

▪ Mahesh smiled at him. "People are easily fooled. They believe what their eyes tell them and don't listen to their other senses." (228)

▪ "Amrita told me she stayed at the Taj sometimes. Just to show the terrorists they couldn't win." (274)

▪ Catherine really had put the B in subtle. (336)

Novels No. 56 (LL374)

 

Neil Lancaster. Dead Man's Grave. 2021. UK: HQ/HarperCollins, 2022.

Scrounging the in-house library again, it's a return to a more traditional police procedural. DS Max Craigie is teamed up with DC Janie Calder when Scotland's biggest crime family calls on them to locate a missing person. Their head, Tam "Peeler" Hardie, went off to the Highlands in vague pursuit of family history; son Tam Jr hates the need for police assistance. In rather short order, the elderly man's body is found in a graveyard; an unstable local man, Willie Leitch, confesses to killing him. DI Sally Smith—in whose jurisdiction it happened—is pressured to declare the case closed. The perpetrator, deemed too schizoid for questioning or a trial, has been firmly incarcerated in a mental asylum. Max is not happy—the Hardies are in his area—because he knows that Tam Jr and his brothers will wreak some retributive havoc.

And so an ancient feud has been reactivated, and Tam Sr will be avenged by the deaths of everyone in the Leitch family. When innkeeper Duncan Ferguson dies in a drastic car crash, Max learns he's Willie's cousin. But Police Scotland are not buying a connection; not gonna stir up the Hardie pot. Max is officially sidelined from investigations not his to begin with. Does that stop him? Two surviving cousins are at risk with only Max and Janie racing to outwit the bad guys. Even worse, the reluctance of their superiors to confront the evidence indicates corruption somewhere in the ranks. Regular police work involves access to or use of all kinds of technical equipment; it's even more difficult and time-consuming when the criminals have penetrated their systems. Max needs to keep tight control of the rage his PTSD can produce.

A bit of a slow starter, but plenty of suspense builds up. Of course it's fiction, but to imagine the extent of police corruption is in itself shocking. And yet, and yet—recall the similar echoes in Ian Rankin's Rebus series. Law enforcement nerds will love this one, especially if they understand the not always explained Scottish (and some general) police acronym terminology. Examples: CSI, SIO, PolSA, CSM, MIT, FLO, GBH, MDK, RF & GSM, PIRC, GMP.

Good Guys

▪ "They're properly bad people, so don't let them know anything about you and never drop your guard." (13)

▪ "He's probably the biggest gangster in Scotland, and this is going to be very high-profile. The dead body of a gangster, hidden in a centuries-old grave, will be on the front cover of every newspaper." (47)

▪ "If I show you a video clip can you see if you can lip-read what the people are saying?" (114)

▪ "He thinks you're a loose cannon, and he's considering suspending you for breach of confidentiality, computer misuse and perverting the course of justice. He's giving me shit about my lack of supervision of you, and he's on his way down here right bloody now." (146)

▪ "The homicide command, it would appear, is riven with corruption, at many levels, and it seems this extends to senior officer level." (273)

▪ "I know Slattery and I don't like the bastard one little bit, the snidey wee radge." (274)

Bad Guys

▪ "You need to find my father, or we'll be forced to use our own resources and methods to do so, which may cause unforeseen collateral difficulties for law-enforcement agencies. Do we understand each other?" (20)

▪ "It's unfortunate for you, Joe, that you're going to be the evidence that the Hardies are not only alive and well, but they're bloody worse than ever." (97)

▪ "Well watch Craigie carefully. Last thing we need is a rogue cop on our backs. Make sure you've something on the bastard." (170)

▪ The newcomer looked at Janie and said, "One move from you, bitch, and I'll shoot both of you." (187)

▪ "You aren't my only route into the police, trust me. You're just the person I avail myself of most often." (199)

▪ "I want you to tighten up on that bastard. Get his phone intercepted. He's the key to this. We get his phone, we find out where the others are." (236)

Yiftach Reicher Atir. The English Teacher. 2013. USA: Penguin Books, tr. 2016.

Still scrounging for my next read (ya hear me, TPL?). And sometimes a hidden wonder is found. Written by a former Mossad agent, the book details the making of an undercover agent. Not just any skilled agent performing missions for the Israeli government, but the very risky job of living in the enemy's country. Forget current politics; this review is not a polemic. The Mossad is/was renowned for its effective intelligence gathering and well-run secret operations.

Rachel was placed, and remained for four years, in "the Arab capital city" (read Beirut? Damascus?). During which time she undertook dangerous missions within and without that country. All the while teaching English at a language school, as so many travelling youngsters do, seemingly a straightforward Canadian. Rachel's case officer, Ehud, had supervised her extensive physical and mental training. So much responsibility is heaped on these agents who lead double lives, whose identities must not overlap. She became highly successful at missions she'd been given, still in her twenties. But that's been behind her for fifteen years when she disappears after her father's funeral and Mossad departments are going nuts trying to find her. Ehud, now retired, recounts much of her secret life to "Joe," an old field-agent friend of his—in the hope of uncovering an elusive clue to her whereabouts. He wonders if he missed something important in her true character, or in her useful relationship to Rashid, an Arab businessman.

Difficult to absorb all the facets of being embedded in a disguise, being prepared for spontaneous decisions in the field, subduing fear, facing eventual (and sudden) evacuation, abandoning attachments, and attempting to resume a "normal" life.

Bits

▪ He's just come to rescue the commanders of the past from the mess that they caused when they enabled Rachel to live her own life and paid no attention to what their operative had been doing after leaving the service. (17)

▪ "In the Arab country she would be alone and we would know of her only from her reports." (40)

▪ "I was an experienced professional, and I knew I was preparing her for her first time, her baptism of fire, solo, and she needed to be treated like a war machine." (47)

▪ "Think of her loneliness, Joe, loneliness in the middle of a crowd. The loneliness of someone leading a double life, hiding her objectives and her motives and the things most important to her. Think of the longing for warmth, love, someone to listen to you, to want you." (116)

▪ "I don't know when this happened, but from the first day she slept with him she knew she wasn't prepared to give him up, and that was the day she started lying to us too." (134)

▪ "We believe our operatives. We have to trust them even when we know they aren't telling us the whole truth." (187)

▪ He didn't think Ehud was lying, or deliberately withholding vital information. (195)

▪ "We are looking for her to make sure she doesn't divulge the secrets she knows. He is looking for her because he loves her." (197)

Hindsight

"There's some thing intoxicating in our work; suddenly it's permissable to lie, you can put on an act, and everything is sanctioned by the state. The operative is licensed to commit crimes. He steals, sometimes he even kills, and instead of going to prison he gets a commendation. ...

In hindsight, I realize she was really just a child and we let her play some very dangerous games. We did something that wasn't right, Joe, we didn't succeed in rehabilitating her after she came back from there, and something in her life was fucked up. This is what we need to clarify." (33)