Novels No. 77

 

Sue Hincenbergs. The Retirement Plan. USA: HarperCollins, 2025.

After Marlene’s husband Dave dies in a freak accident, her three friends decide life without husbands will be so much better. And they happen to know a hit man who works as a barber. Pam is hesitant at first but Nancy and Shaliza persuade her they’re all in. An investment gone belly up, promoted by Pam’s husband Hank, had earlier caused all four couples to lose their savings. Living in reduced circumstances is not the women’s only quibble; the men they married have long morphed into selfish, oblivious oafs. So, a transaction with the barber will yield one million in life insurance to each— straightforward, n’est-ce pas? Well, what they don’t know is their husbands have secretly engineered a grand theft scheme, and are now in fear that Dave’s death was the result of a criminal syndicate discovering their plot. They’ve hired the same hit man, Hector, to discover and kill whoever is trying to kill them.

It doesn’t end there. What we have is a grand farce of grand larceny. Hank’s new boss is the daughter of a notorious female crime ringleader back in India. Padma is a newly-minted MBA, out to prove to mama she is capable of running a business and thus avoid the traditional arranged marriage. The eligible suitors that her mother sends are mistakenly presumed by the three remaining husbands—Hank, Larry, and Andre—to be gangster killers and they panic. Padma is no dummy, she’s already noticed a few years of suspiciously large payouts in her business; she can’t stop her mother from sending thugs to search for the stolen money, a job she’d prefer to do herself. The new head of tech security at Padma’s business, hired to replace Dave, happens to be Hector’s wife Brenda – unknown to them.

Will the wives discover that the husbands cancelled the generous life insurance policies? What will Hector do with the two contracts? Who is going to die? I’m deliberately withholding what kind of business Padma runs. The original scenario multiplies in all directions and just gets crazy funnier. It’s like a ride on a lurching, outta control, never-ending roller coaster. Author Hincenbergs hit a goldmine for combining laughter and suspense.

Bits

▪ “I’m just saying out loud what you’re thinking. We do not need our husbands.” (43)

▪ “Padma, my dear, regrettably you are not a ten. You need to be happy with a six. If you can get that. It’s a hard truth.” (115)

▪ “We’ve ordered the hit.” Nancy shook her head slowly. “I don’t know much about hitman protocol. ... I couldn’t google it. But I think once these things get going, there’s no turning back.” (139)

▪ Maybe this had been an accident. Maybe the explosion was a crazy coincidence. (147)

▪ Even if they did change their minds at that last minute, this whole thing started because they had their reasons. (155)

▪ “But then one day I was closing up, and your wives, the three of them, pulled up in their minivan, asked me to jump in, passed me a donut, and hired me to kill you.” (194)

▪ “Hector did a fucking double dip,” Pam said. (210)

▪ “But the four of them could barely plan a road trip. Remember?” (234)

▪ Nancy said, “Not only do we not owe you a hundred thousand dollars, we want our fifty-thousand-dollar deposit back.” (244)

Rachel Kushner. Creation Lake. Large Print.

Extra-cryptic openings do not endear an author to me, so this highly acclaimed work got off on the wrong foot. An American spy called Sadie has installed herself in a perfect rural spot in the French countryside for watching the activities of Le Moulin, a radical farming cooperative. Led by Pascal Balmy, they may be responsible for destructive acts against the corporate farming interests currently transforming the neglected valley. Sadie seems to be pragmatic and rather dull although her spycraft is excellent.

Sadie hacks emails from Bruno, an “old lefty,” who mentors Le Moulin members. Bruno drones on about the percentage of Neanderthal that may exist in humankind, about our cultural need for a wild bogeyman, about living free. Bruno’s ramblings are annoying regular inserts, distracting whatever mission or action Sadie is undertaking. I’m not into this intellectual exercise. DNF [Did Not Finish]

Jo Spain. The Darkest Place. UK: Quercus, 2018.

[In-house grab] Due to a previous work episode (in a prior book), DCI Tom Reynolds has been relegated to minor cases. Sent to investigate a cold case upon the finding of Dr Conrad Howe’s skeleton—on the island that housed a leading Irish insane asylum—he learns that the man had been strangled. Widow Miriam Howe in Dublin has waited forty years for a solution to the doctor’s inexplicable Christmas Eve disappearance. Reynolds, his DS Ray Lennon, and state criminal psychologist Linda McCarn inspect the burial site and the long-shuttered asylum where people had been involuntarily committed. A few of the former staff still live there in cottages, all elderly; perhaps they can provide a motive for the killing, or even a suspect. Howe’s private diary, discovered years later by his wife, describes his disquiet with many medical treatments and one unnamed doctor in particular. Altogether, not an environment appealing to every crime reader fan.

Arnie Nolan provides security for the buildings and the small island in general; his mother Kitty was the last cook for the institution. Doctors to interview are Lawrence Boylan, former chief of the medical department; Robert O’Hare who’d arrived only shortly before Howe disappeared; Andrew Collins, befriending Miriam all these years, who still keeps an island cottage. In addition to Kitty, the cops will see former head nurse Carla Crowley and chemist Edward Lane. Gossip provides a few clues as the detectives puzzle over two staff members who left on the ferry that same Christmas Eve and then seemed to vanish. Who wanted to kill Dr Howe? Or was it a conspiracy?

The Darkest Place is like a history of older, inhumane treatments for the mentally disturbed—not easy to read and not for the queasy. Mulling over possible suspects does not prepare the detectives for more than one shocking revelation, and even then, the convoluted events are brain-spinning. Staff or patients, who was most insane in a madhouse?

Fragments

▪ “Asylums were big business. They were huge providers of employment.” (37)

▪ “What are you saying?” Tom said. “That some of the patients here died as a result of their treatment in the asylum?” (69)

▪ “It was a Catch 22. They would respond to being locked up as you or I would but the very act of that would satisfy the accusation of madness made against them.” (75)

▪ “Conrad was a good doctor in many ways. Extremely gifted.” (110)

▪ “Conrad was an utterly brilliant doctor, by all accounts. He really had the patients’ best interests at heart but he was also forward thinking.” (163)

▪ “Howe was an uppity little chancer,” Lane said, then broke into a hacking cough, wiping the accompanying phlegm with a filthy handkerchief. (170)

▪ “Well, funny that,” Ray said. “Because we seem to have lots of hopeless lovers on this island.” (173)

▪ “Everything the people on this island have been hiding will come out.” (285)

Howe’s diary

▪ I suspect she could see I was traumatised by what I’d seen and wanted me to understand the need for the operation. (79)

▪ He is experimenting on them, like they are his animals and he a demented ringmaster. (269)

▪ I’ve told Dolores I will confront him. (270)

Novels No. 76

With the advent of a new computer plus Windows 11, I struggle with tech changes—trying to find familiar stuff; at least half my bookmarks missing. Welcome to 2025.

Simon Mason. Missing Person: Alice. UK: riverrun/Quercus, 2024.

Talib is a “finder,” a person gifted in tracing lost people; an ex-cop, he is contracted by a police force to concentrate on a specific case, in this instance, Alice Johnson age twelve who went missing nine years ago. Local cops think Vince Burns abducted/killed her, a man presently in custody for a similar crime. Burns will not confess, but enjoys playing verbal games with police. Talib rents a bed and breakfast room from Mrs Wentworth to make Sevenoaks his base. His investigation covers all the former witnesses, and then some—the divorced parents, neighbours, father’s girlfriend, school mates and staff, and a few strangers who’d seen Alice the morning she disappeared. It’s essential that he get to know, even understand, the missing person. In fact what Talib ultimately does is painstakingly reconstruct that fateful morning, and the possible clues in Alice’s life that led up to it.

Always impassive in his interviews, Talib collects conflicting opinions about Alice herself. Basically he is forming an image of a girl emotionally struggling over divorced parents who paid little attention to her, a solitary girl normally comfortable in her own skin. Even the tiniest interaction she’d had with or near another person adds to his building of her personality and thoughts. While the police are dragging a nearby lake, expecting to find her body, Talib’s search has gone so far afield they are rather dubious about him. Clearly he keeps his own emotions in check regarding his discoveries, and in particular, his quiet inner admiration of Mrs Wentworth is never manifest.

This book is not only about parent-child relationships and misunderstandings, it reflects the effect of Alice’s disappearance on all the people she came in contact with. Author Mason gives us a freshly different aspect of a police procedural on missing persons where death is so often predictable. Yet his protagonist remains a man of mystery.

How various informants viewed Alice:

▪ “Looks to me like the sort of girl who likes pretty things. Don’t you think? Make herself look good, smell nice.” (16, Burns)

▪ Mrs Johnson said that from an early age, but especially after the divorce, which Alice had found so upsetting, her daughter, by nature rather young for her age and timid by nature, had needed protecting; (39)

▪ When Alice was small, he said, she reminded him of a small fierce creature, she was headstrong and fearless ... Yes, she was an absolute wildcat, he said. (51-2, Dad)

▪ Alice’s teacher had described her as withdrawn but self-sufficient. (74)

▪ The poor girl was struggling with the separation of her parents; she needed her father’s attention. (74, Dad’s ex-girlfriend)

▪ He remembered how angry she’d looked when she talked about her father’s girlfriend, her mouth snarly and her face all scrunched up. (129, nephew of last homeowner to see her)

▪ “She bared her teeth at me. It was the weirdest fucking thing. And I tell you what. I was scared. Even though she was smaller than me.” (136, schoolmate)

▪ Small, Pauline said. Sort of undernourished-looking. (176)

▪ Whenever Beth asked her a question she didn’t want to answer, Alice just held her gaze and stared her out in silence, not aggressively but with complete self-control. (193-4)

Belinda Bauer. The Impossible Thing. USA: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025 (UK: Bantam, 2025).

One of the most fascinating, entertaining novels in some time, brilliantly executed by Bauer. Imagine a world a hundred years ago where savvy collectors were obsessed with owning eggs—rather than, say, precious artwork or jewellery. Eggs from wild birds, like the guillemots that nest on the Yorkshire cliffs over the North Sea. Prized for their colour variations and uniquely individualized patterns, the eggs are gathered by local men swinging cautiously on harnesses against the cliff faces (and angry birds). George Ambler is the most important broker for collectors, and one day he is stunned by the magnificence of an egg harvested by tiny Celie Sheppard of Metland Farm. An impossibly exquisite red colour like no other. For many years Celie provides him with rare red eggs—“the Metland Egg”—laid twice annually by the same bird that only Celie’s slender shape can reach on a dangerous overhung cliff. But strangely, no one sees these iconic eggs after Ambler presumably sells them on.

In the present day, Nick Morgan is robbed of just such a Metland Egg, found in his late father’s belongings. He and his friend Patrick are young men naive in many ways, but quick to learn about egg collectors as they hunt for the thieves. Dr Chris Connor is a curator at the Natural History Museum; Matthew Barr is a dedicated but grubby gatherer and collector; Finn Garrett is a bird conservation/protection militant. From them, Nick and Patrick hear that the legendary broker Ambler had been murdered, along with tales of famous collectors, and that possession of wild bird eggs is now illegal. And still, no one knows where the most coveted of all eggs are hiding. So many surprises to come!

The wonderful characters pull us into this amazing story and its settings, based on real events. Lively, dramatic, absorbing, with comic input from the Patrick-Nick duo, it’s no less than captivating. Bauer is a magic wordsmith!

Bits from the Past

▪ For the first time since he was four years old and Tobias had pushed him off a pony, George Ambler felt tears spring to his eyes – so moved was he by how much money he was going to make. (53)

▪ Celie was terrified of the houses on wheels that emerged screaming from a plume of grey smoke, and at first refused to get on the train because she thought it was on fire. (107)

▪ He hadn’t thought of it, but Ambler having sold the egg to royalty would explain it. The lies. The secrecy. (169)

▪ Every manner of securing the Metland Egg while also punishing Celie Sheppard and her family for their lack of respect was toyed with and honed, while all the time his sense of having been cheated and humiliated burned so fiercely that by the time they passed Sheffield he was incandescent. (247)

Bits from the Present

▪ “Jeez, Patrick. Don’t sweat the small stuff. We just go there, tell him we know he took the egg and demand he give it back.” (77)

▪ “Somebody stole that egg from the bird that laid it. Now somebody has stolen it from you. Sounds fair to me.” (95)

▪ “The RSPB is committed to halting this disgusting crime and we hope you will send a clear message to Matthew Barr, and others like him, that there is nothing scientific about stealing an egg, drilling a hole in it, and then killing the chick inside by pouring acid over it.” (91)

▪ “Old eggs are particularly sought after because, if you have data showing that the egg was collected before the 1954 ban, then it can be legally owned.” (133)

▪ “You don’t sell ‘em,” Barr snorted without looking up from his scrolling. “I’d sell my granny before my eggs!” (159)

▪ “All he cares about is eggs. It’s an obsession. He can’t help it. He’s sick. They’re all the same, these collectors.” (186)

▪ “Jeez,” said Nick, “who knew the world of eggs was so cut-throat! Just as well you got out of that car, or you could be dead in a ditch by now.” (201)

▪ “If I screw it up, we’ll both get caught!” Nick rubbed his nose nervously. “Why can’t you go in and steal the key and stall Chris?” (254)

Novels No. 75

 

Elizabeth Strout. Oh William! NYC: Random House, 2021.

This acclaimed multiple award-winning author: what is she all about? Her unforgettable characters Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton became known through several books and a television series. Do I have the "right" novel to explore her charisma? Because I just happened on it by chance, and this particular one, I'm told, was shortlisted for the Booker prize. Yes, it's a step away from my regular crime fodder, which I do occasionally, but it does contain a little family history mystery.

Lucy is looking at her relationship with husband number one, William Gerhardt. They remain good friends as they enter old age, consulting each other over the years for conversation or comfort. It's as if they take turns being unable or unwilling to describe painful feelings. Lately Lucy's beloved second husband David died and William's third wife Estelle has suddenly walked out on him. Keeping track of marriages made by William's mother Catherine and themselves, and the children thereof, is a bit of an effort at first. When William discovers that he has a heretofore unknown half-sister named Lois, it's a distraction from his current woes; of course Lucy agrees to accompany him as he plans to snoop around rural Maine where Lois lives. It's where he learns more about his German POW father, but it's really his now-deceased mom Catherine who becomes the revelation.

Lucy thoroughly engages us as she reacts to whatever life presents her with. She has felt distant, an outsider, often invisible; William has frequently been judged as remote and unresponsive. Still unable to articulate their deepest concerns to each other, they seek unconditional acceptance. Yet they resonate as flesh and blood with us, from the moments of loneliness to the yearning for safety.

Bits

▪ William felt (almost) invulnerable, is what I am saying here. (7)

▪ But the feeling I have just described did not go away, and during the little reception afterward I did not feel quite like I was really there. Everything felt a little bit far away, is what I mean, like I was removed from it. (55)

▪ He had been petrified by what he saw there in Germany. He must have been deeply haunted by his father's role in it. Unspeakably frightened. It had unmoored him. (96)

▪ He sat back down across from me, and he threw his head back and laughed one of his real—genuine—laughs that I have not heard in ages. And my panic left me. (113)

▪ When I looked back, William was still gazing at the photograph; he finally turned his face to me and said, "It's him, Lucy." Then he added in a quieter tone, "It's my father." (121)

▪ He said, "I'm afraid of being alone, Lucy." I listened but I never heard him say, "Please don't leave, because you are Lucy!" (131)

▪ And then William began to close down. I watched this happen. His face—it is odd—it is almost like his face remains but everything behind it retreats. You can see him going away, is what I mean. (199)

▪ There have been a few times—and I mean recently—when I feel the curtain of my childhood descend around me once again. A terrible enclosure, a quiet horror. (221)

▪ We crave authority. We do. No matter what anyone says, we crave that sense of authority. Of believing that in the presence of this person we are safe. (132)

Korelitz. The Sequel. Large Print. USA: Thorndike Press, 2024.

This is a sequel to Korelitz's earlier The Plot (see Novels No. 70) but it appears to stand alone. Even more so than the first novel—if possible—The Sequel presents a mindbending plot. Anna Williams-Bonner is the widow of novelist Jake Bonner, who committed suicide shortly after the publication of his highly successful and popular fourth novel called Crib. Rumours were that he was being anonymously harassed for plagiarism. Anna is treated like royalty on book tours to promote Crib; months later she amazes Jake's agent Matilda and editor Wendy by producing an impressive manuscript of her own. Her Afterword becomes a bestseller and Anna a heroine to all survivors of deep personal loss, one who speaks of her dearly departed husband with nothing but love and humble admiration—except everything she says in public is bullshit.

Having read The Plot could be an advantage; I can't be sure how The Sequel will affect someone who didn't. The Plot contained parts of Jake's Crib story and its origins; similarly, The Sequel contains the gist of Anna's story in Afterward. Another similarity: someone unknown is now harassing Anna, someone with knowledge of the real story of Crib's grim subject matter, despite the fact that Anna herself had destroyed all evidence of its origins. She was certain she had effectively stopped her sly brother, Evan Parker, from publishing his manuscript for a novel that dwelt on her miserable past—she must find, and stop, whoever is threatening to destroy her newly acquired prestigious life. Perhaps someone like Martin Purcell who'd intersected with Jake and Evan at Ripley College.

Oh my, yes: it's complicated and sinister and guaranteed to keep you awake. The author doesn't miss a beat in drawing out the tension to murderous points. Be afraid of this woman.

Fragments

▪ "It felt a little bit unseemly, trying to do something my husband had done so well. I mean, who did I think I was?" (48)

▪ “This is our shared journey as survivors, and we have to do our best to offer one another comfort.” (67)

▪ She did not believe for one moment that Jake would have been proud [of her]. Besides, she did not remotely care whether he'd have been proud or not. (69-70)

▪ "You met him after he wrote that book, didn't you? You can't be sure he didn't lift it off somebody else." (99-100)

▪ Evan was gone. His "work" was gone. His all-too-consequential interference in her life: finally, blessedly, irreversibly gone. (138)

▪ "Just for the record, and just because we're here, was it all your idea? Or something the two of you cooked up together?" (177)

▪ They were out there, towns or small cities she might live in comfortably, and perhaps even — if she felt like it — continue the "work" her editor was evidently hoping for. But also: be left alone. (261)

▪ Evan, Jake, Martin, men who had harmed her, threatened her, and stolen from her. (310)

Novels No. 74

 

Michael Connelly. The Waiting. Large Print. USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2024.

Hello again, Harry Bosch! Good to see you, although Detective Renée Ballard has taken over as the established cop of Connelly's LAPD series. Ballard is chief of the Open-Unsolved Unit with a team of volunteers and a good rate of solving cold cases. A keen surfer, her police ID and gun are stolen while she's riding the board; she fears losing her position if her superiors find out, so she's privately hunting the suspects who left a trail through layers of criminal activities. Above all, she must retrieve her police badge. The team finds that the DNA of a man charged with domestic violence is a match to the cold "Pillowcase Rapist" case, so investigative genetic genealogist Colleen Hatteras is working on a family tree. Then Maddie, Bosch's daughter who is now a police officer, requests placement on the OU team on her off duty time. Maddie has stumbled on a potential case of sensational proportions.

Locating Ballard's police badge leads to a dangerous terrorist conspiracy; Renée is forced to involve the FBI as well as old friend Harry. For each cold case successfully solved, the DA must officially sign off on it; that may be a problem when politics raise an ugly snag. A search for the domestic abuse perp's biological father uncovers more than one possibility for being the Pillowcase Rapist. And an old filing cabinet contains evidence of eight horrific murders related to the infamous, real-life Black Dahlia killing. Dodging protocol issues and interference from her bosses, Renée directs her team on painstaking searches and interviews while encouraging Maddie's detective instincts. Until the unexpected happens—a shocking murder on their own doorstep.

Connelly never fails, does he? With all these items in motion, it's like having three novels in one. Like a juggler, he provides a fascinating performance where no balls get dropped.

Bits

▪ "What are you saying? We might be barking up the wrong family tree?" (84)

▪ "What's it going to be, Dean? I take off the cuffs or I take you to jail? I'm running out of goodwill here." (109)

▪ She knew she would have to go in blind, and for the first time she started second-guessing her off-the-books maneuvering to get her badge and gun back. (117)

▪ "Great," Bosch said. "Now we have homeless terrorists." (142)

▪ Ballard wasn't ready for it, and the centrifugal force threw her against the back of the van with a thud. (160)

▪ "Believe me, it's not a story I would enjoy sharing. I saw the photos. I'll never forget them. Horrible." (210)

▪ "We tried to have children of our own," the judge said. "It wasn't happening." (257)

▪ Ballard saw Maddie lean her head back as she realized her mistake. "Uh, we can't show you those right now, ma'am," she said. (302)

▪ "Mallory did pass out, right? That's why she wasn't in the photo, correct?" (390)

Peter James. One of Us Is Dead. UK: Macmillan, 2024.

This is a first for me, this author I mean, although I see dozens of books to his credit. Superintendent Roy Grace is a busy man heading Major Crimes, guiding his friend DI Glenn Branson on an unusual case—Barnie Wallace's suspicious death from eating toxic wild mushrooms. Supermarket cameras clearly reveal that the victim's package of mushrooms was switched in the checkout line. But the perpetrator effectively concealed his ID. Who would want to kill inoffensive Barnie Wallace, a loser by most accounts, but lately a budding gourmet chef? This case, plus two more story threads, are all going to come together as readers know from experience. At Barnie's funeral, friend James Taylor believes he sees another old friend in attendance—Rufus Rorke; but James delivered the eulogy at Rufus' own funeral two years before! James, Barnie, and Rufus had been tight youthful chums, losing track of each in later years. On a different track, the police have 98% confirmed that the intentional mushroom switcher had been Rufus, a person of interest well before his disappearance off a yacht two years ago.

James is intrigued enough to follow up his sighting with questions to various people, including Barnie's ex-wife Debbie Martin. Besides their curiosity about Rufus, unaware of the police interest in him, James and Debbie find a mutual attraction. We also meet Paul Anthony, a shady businessman, who convinces his tech-savvy girlfriend Shannon to take orders for making 3-D printed guns. It seems that Paul is the dark web's go-to guy for hire if you fancy a fatal accident for someone you dislike. Thus the narrative shifts among the various participants. Finding Rufus and/or proving he's not dead becomes imperative. The easy camaraderie among police officers is notable, so far from the contentious/nasty rivalry among colleagues in many detective novels. However, inserting a physical fight between Grace and an old enemy seems completely gratuitous. No doubt the author is signaling a loose end to faithful readers of the series.

A very exacting police procedural, with an ingenious, sociopathic villain. A villain whose methods may require a tiny amount of disbelief suspension at times. But Roy Grace is an admirably sensitive, thoughtful cop on a desperate race to save a life.

Fragments

▪ "If he was a trained chef, how on earth did he not realize these were deadly? Was he a total idiot?" (44)

▪ How had Barnie tracked him down after his quite magnificent and convincing funeral? (64)

▪ They would be bound together in conspiracy to murder ‒ whether she liked it or not. It would be an end to that tiny bit of love, commitment, affection ‒ whatever ‒ that she always seemed to hold back. (177)

▪ "In the absence of any other suspects, right now our best hope is a dead man." (112)

▪ He walked across the floor, holding a perfectly made macchiato, handing it to the woman he had contemplated killing three years ago, before realizing she was more useful alive. (185)

▪ He'd been almost sorry to have despatched Barnie. He wouldn't feel any emotion at all if he had to kill goody-two-shoes Taylor. (210)

▪ "Now I'm starting to feel real uncomfortable. I didn't get paid enough to deal with all this stuff. So I called your Fiona and she said to phone you." (296)

▪ Taylor looked at Debbie and the look she gave him back totally melted him. I could fall in love with you, he thought. (326)

▪ "I've not actually committed any provable offence, Paul," she said. (347)

Novels No. 73

 

Deon Meyer. Thirteen Hours. 2010. Vintage Canada Edition, 2011.

(Another in-house grab) The streets of Capetown are a whole 'nother venue! This novel, this author, are revelations. Inspector Benny Greissler spends as much time fighting bureaucracy as he does crime. Elevated to supervising new detectives, Benny's involved with the early morning murder of a young American backpacker, Erin Russel—a case for Inspector Vusi Ndareni. The scary young killers, unknown to the cops yet, are not finished, chasing her friend Rachel. A second case crops up that morning with Inspector Fransman Dekker in charge: music record executive Adam Barnard found shot to death beside his drunk, oblivious wife Alexa. The two being minor celebrities attracts an unruly media crowd; Dekker and Benny also face Barnard's hostile business partner who accuses one of their clients. How many people are lying about Barnard's death? But the missing foreign tourist ranks highest for attention and it takes agonizingly long to organize a proper search.

The book could have been subtitled Who's in Charge Here? Quarrelling police departments, dithering bosses, reluctant colleagues, snarled traffic, and a power blackout waste more time for implementing actions. At this point I will say that South Africa is a different world, at least in police perspective; social discrimination still affects attitudes to varied skin colours and tribal differences. The liberal use of Afrikaans terminology (except fokkol which apparently means exactly as it sounds) is unfamiliar. While terrified Rachel hides and runs, runs and hides, Inspector Mdali Kaleni is appointed to assist Vusi—she the object of workforce bullying and obesity shaming.

Why were the two girls targeted? Under all the chaotic activity and numerous threads is a literary structure geared to the most intense suspense you can imagine. We live with the detectives and their frustrations on all levels. The recording industry is turned inside out. Character insights and social commentary are smoothly integrated. Even Benny's pathetic domestic life is not ignored. The race to beat the killers to Rachel is heart pounding. It's a very, very busy thirteen hours alternating between two cases and four hectic cops; truly an outstanding work of the genre.

Rachel

▪ She wanted to rest, she wanted to catch her breath and try to control her terror. (12)

▪ Far off, just where the road curled over the flank of the mountain, stood two of them. Small, watchful figures, one with a cell phone to his ear. (32)

▪ She must get down to where there were people; she had to get help. Somewhere someone must be prepared to listen and to help. (57)

▪ Then one of them began to turn. The one who had started it all. The one who had bent over Erin with the knife. (81)

▪ "Daddy, you have to help me. They want to kill me too." (112)

▪ One eye was swollen shut, the other would not focus, her vision was blurred. Four people were holding her down. (285)

Bits

▪ "Mrs. Barnard," said Dekker stiffly and formally, "I get the impression that your husband's death hasn't upset you very much." (54)

▪ "He can't curb his bloody ambition and if I try to cover for him they say it's because he's a fucking hotnot just like me, and I only look after my own people, where the fuck are you, anyway?" (85)

▪ "I have been a policeman for over twenty-five years, Fransman, and I'm telling you now, they will always treat you like a dog, the people, the press, the bosses, politicians, regardless of whether you are black, white or brown." (175)

▪ "Benny, you're my safety net, my supervisor. Just keep an eye, check the crime scene management, don't let them miss suspects." (176)

▪ "They're looking for something, Vusi, the fuckers are looking for something the girls have. That's why Rachel is still alive." (309)

▪ Vusi's hand dropped to his service pistol, took hold of it and pulled it out. He lifted his left hand to open the door and saw how it was shaking, realised his heart was beating wildly and his breathing was shallow, almost panicky. (340)

William Boyd. Gabriel's Moon. NY: First Grove Atlantic, 2024.

Gabriel Dax: English travel writer/journalist, insomniac. In the 1960s after a visit to Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabriel's interview with new leader Patrice Lumumba excites newspaper interest, but Lumumba is kidnapped by rebels, and the article was never published. Gabriel notices that his London flat was disturbed while he was away. Odd events begin that he doesn't fully understand: an MI6 agent called Faith Green asks him to perform a small favour for them in Spain; a chance flirtation there with Nancy-Jo Berndlinger almost lands him in jail; someone is following him; when Nancy-Jo comes to London, she's soon found dead of a drug overdose. Later during his second, similar trip to Spain he spontaneously risks a dangerous act with his contact Caldwell, unknown to Faith. By now the world is sure that Lumumba was assassinated.

Even though Gabriel doesn't want to know the ultimate purposes of Faith's requests, he feels he's being constantly watched. Overtures are made demanding his notes and tapes of that DRC interview, where Lumumba named several people who wanted to kill him. Gabriel ignores them, working on his latest book and paying several visits to shrink Dr Katerina Haas, in hope of curing his insomnia; he knows the tragic fire that destroyed his childhood home and killed his mother is at the root of it. So it becomes a mission to investigate what was known about the circumstances at the time—when he was a traumatized six-year-old. Does his brother Sefton know something he doesn't? And as his obsession with Faith increases, he wonders if anything in his life really happens by chance.

Gabriel's Moon is not a thriller in any breathless sense. It's a subtle playbook of recruitment and commitment of Cold War spies, how one man's relatively mild existence becomes complicit in international events never knowing exactly what purpose lies beyond his small part. Author Boyd neatly dovetails with Congo uprisings and the Cuban missile crisis.

Words:

anamnesis = personal medical history; ability to recall past occurrences

vermiculated = worm-eaten

refulgent = luminous, shining

Fragments

▪ Some days in life are simply like this, he told himself, strange auguries of the world's ambivalence. (17)

▪ "And not everyone thinks he's, you know, the great, coming man that you portrayed. The Congo's messy. Very. Lots of vested interests, lots of flashpoints." (25)

▪ "I go to sleep and then I dream of fire, fires burning. I wake. I can't get back to sleep." (39)

▪ "Discover the memories you don't know you have. This knowledge will eradicate your mind disorder and your insomnia will be gone." (54)

▪ "Queneau told me that these names," he continued, "lead directly to the door of former President Eisenhower." (109)

▪ He was like a man in an ever-widening, ever-vermiculated labyrinth, he decided, but one with no exit. He was becoming increasingly worried as he became increasingly implicated. (139)

▪ "OUR USELESS SECRET SERVICE! TOP SPY FLEES TO MOSCOW!" [newspaper headlines](154)

▪ As he thought further about the choice he'd made in Cádiz, he saw it as the one recourse he'd had available to him to establish his own individuality, his independence as a thinking, functioning human being. (155)

▪ "I never know what's going on," Bennet said. "And I don't want to know. I just follow instructions." (195)

Novels No. 72

 

Jo Nesbo. Blood Ties. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024.

Possibly Nesbo has written the most dynamic novel, ever, of corruption galore. Corrupt individuals, yet human. Roy Opgard narrates his journey approaching middle age; he and his brother Carl have always been inextricably close. Through wheeling and dealing, constructing an impressive mansion, and plans to expand his hotel, Carl considers himself the most important man in a Norwegian town called Os. Roy intends to build an amusement park with the world's biggest roller-coaster. Much business goes on here, enough to make my head swim over loans and mortgages and shareholders and percentages. Blackmail is often the leverage for clinching many financial deals, sometimes a double-cross included. By his own count, Roy has killed seven people without detection, although the circumstances vary. Sheriff Kurt Olsen is working hard on his suspicions of several car crashes in the mountains.

Despite the nefarious activity, Roy's position as narrator makes him a sympathetic figure. So too thinks the hotel's new marketing manager Natalie, to Roy's great pleasure. Or did he ever get over his first love, Shannon, the brilliant architect once married to Carl? Natalie has her own guilty needs. Domestic abuse is a trigger for Roy's anger ‒ it started his whole sorry sequence ‒ so often employed to protect Carl; Roy's character is adroitly nuanced as he begins to weigh his responsibilities, constantly questioning his choices. A full cast of characters pushes one event after another in swift succession while the town gossips chorus relentlessly on whose finger is in whose pie. Typical Nesbo: kinda wild but totally compelling in a train wreck kind of way.

Fragments

▪ In my own mind, in my own head, I'm a hick, nothing but a fucking peasant. A dyslexic and socially dysfunctional loner with no more education and no more refinement than I've been able to pick up for myself in a remote mountain village. (10)

▪ Rita smiled. "Do you want to own more of Os than your brother? Is that it?" (33)

▪ "Just a shame for you that the statute of limitations was repealed. It means I'm going to be after you both till the day you die." (44)

▪ Because when you realize that what you do, and what you are, are without value, then perhaps you're better off putting a bullet through your forehead. (84)

▪ "That loan is for the amusement park, Carl. You must understand that I can't use it to get you out of a mess." (113)

▪ "That's what I recognized in your father. The shame. It weighed on him. Like a backpack filled with rocks." (119)

▪ "Either you nip out that bullet or I'll take a pair of tweezers at home, heat them up with a lighter and do it myself." (241)

▪ "Some family trees spread sickness. They should've been cut down a long time ago." (263)

▪ "You steal my hotel and you've got the cheek to claim you're doing me a favor." (295)

▪ "I know how you feel," said Carl. "But this makes us even and we can make a fresh start. Team Opgard. What d'you say?" (301)

Claire Cameron. How to Survive a Bear Attack. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2025.

Words to describe this memoir almost fail me. First, it's from the talented author of bestselling The Last Neanderthal (loved it) and previous novels. Secondly, Claire is the daughter of a longtime friend of mine. Thirdly, the story has to tell itself: a rare but fatal experience for some island campers and a personal journey to solve the mystery. Algonquin Park, a determined cancer survivor, and a crime investigation. I'm not enamoured of bears, nor probably are most people, but bear is half this story. Cameron's knowledge of the natural environment is boundless. Being active outdoors—camp counsellor, guiding, adventuring—was instrumental in healing the wound of her father's premature death. The dad who told her Old English stories of Beowulf and kenning words.

Surely Cameron herself rivals the special knowledge of bears by the experts she quotes. Off and on, it seems, for years she puzzled on the atypical behaviour of a black bear that killed two campers. Her investigation took on full shape after her diagnosis of the same cancer ‒ a genetic mutation ‒ that killed her father. Being outdoors, being anywhere in UV rays, was to be avoided now as much as possible. She gets her answers as to why this was a rare bear attack and in doing so, learned to be alive.

Fragments

▪ I still missed my dad. My grief could be sharp, but the wilderness held so many ways to divert my attention. (21)

▪ He mostly scavenged and foraged, but he craved protein because it added bulk to his muscles like nothing else could. He always had an eye out for meat. (38)

▪ All these tools mean the bear can detect human food or our bodies from up to twenty miles away. (87)

▪ I'd been preparing to fight a bear when the thing that would most likely kill me—my own DNA—had been lurking in a place much closer. (123)

▪ If a cache of meat is large enough, bears have been observed guarding it for five days or longer. (148)

▪ I was tough and could weather hard things. What I couldn't face was the 50 percent chance that I had passed the mutation on to my sons. (187)

▪ I'd been so caught up in dying that I'd forgotten something more important. I needed to focus on being alive. (189)

▪ The attack happened because the bear made a decision—he had taken risks that paid off in the past. (253)

Emma C. Wells. This Girl's a Killer. USA: Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, 2024.

Here's a busy, confident, outspoken pharmaceutical sales rep called Cordelia Black. Her chosen family is her best friend Diane and Diane's child Samantha. Behind the scenes, Cordelia is skimming off a few drugs here and there, referring to her real "work" and her "work studio." Her work is killing bad men and selling the corpses to a bodysnatcher for parts. So far she's getting away with it. I believe it's all meant to be taken lightly as satire. Cordelia's not really likeable, being glib and smart-ass with no redeeming qualities. In two early scenes with men she's not met before, she deliberately provokes and antagonizes them.

I stopped around page 70, that's enough. I've read my share of psycho stories where by and large they've been well-researched and the disorders comprehensible. But here, the protagonist is at odds with the author's contrived breeziness. Cordelia takes gleeful self-satisfaction in threatening and torturing human beings, justifying her pleasure in it by assuring herself it's for the greater good: ridding the world of sadistic, predatory men. We are not told of the equally(?) depraved acts they committed, for which she condemns them; it's already overkill. For me the entire atmosphere is poisoned by pretending there's something humorous about the concept and the character.

Novels No. 71

 

Antoine Laurain. French Windows (Dangereusement douce) 2023. UK: Gallic Books, 2024.

This novel is way beyond Psychology 101. It was not exactly what I expected although yes, it contains a mystery, as do the characters therein. Dr Faber is a psychoanalyst, a shrink as he calls himself. He treats the standard variety of disorders on the conventional couch. Until Nathalie lies down on it. A photographer by profession, she has hit a block, has lost her desire or ability with the camera. Because the last photograph she took was of a murder—the main mystery. Without having further details, the doctor gives her an exercise: write what she knows about people on the five-floor apartment building opposite her own, a building she often trained her camera on in the past. Before each session with Faber, Nathalie delivers her assignments. Each written essay is in first person narrative.

We don't know how this kind of therapy will help improve or manage Nathalie's problem. We are told about Alice the YouTube influencer, Alban the cartoonist, Vince the songwriter, Marc the financier who recently moved away, and a nameless heavily-addicted smoker; all of them were or are making positive changes in their lives. We also don't know how Nathalie knows so much about them—Faber suspects she is inventing most of it. Will she prove him wrong? How this plays out in the paternal doctor-patient relationship is another mystery.

But a murder did/does occur and Nathalie has evidence. Even though we learn little about this woman, here's an author who is a master of cerebral style, spinning an intimate, beguiling tale that subtly touches on our social constructs.

Faber

▪ In truth, analysis is quite boring. (25)

▪ "Do you see your camera as a barrier between you and the world, a form of protection?" (26)

▪ "You're projecting yourself through these identities. With some talent, indeed. But you are there, in each of these lives." (101)

▪ "What am I to understand from the story of the man who chooses to live with his female cat, rather than with his wife and child?" (101)

▪ For a moment, I felt like a publisher in discussion with a first-time author. At least, I imagine this is the sort of conversation they might have. We need to resume our respective roles: therapist and patient. (124)

▪ Sitting there in my daughter's old room, what I felt was not romantic love. I wished that Nathalia could have been my daughter. (128)

From the Stories

▪ A truly loving partner does not sulk ‒ check my video on women who sulk! (34)

▪ "Your friend is... is North African?" he said, speaking very slowly, in a toneless voice, as if he was announcing the imminent arrival of an asteroid that would blast us all back to the age of the dinosaurs. (39)

▪ I'll kill the fat guy and release my thinner self. I'll murder the man who's poisoned my life for as long as I can remember. (70)

▪ I had become a kind of living cliché of success in today's consumer society. (111)

▪ We don't need a new metaverse, we're there already ‒ everything takes place in front of a screen. (112)

▪ To me, the loss of my pleasure in smoking felt as if a whole section of my personality had come crashing down, never to be rebuilt. (149)

Denise Mina. The End of the Wasp Season. Toronto: McArthur & Company, 2011.

From a Tartan Noir icon, another deliciously rich crime novel from the past. Mina's DS Alex Morrow is in a small series (see also Novels No. 62 this year), a cop pregnant with twins at this time. Working the case of Sarah Errol, a young woman who was severely beaten to death in her deceased mother's home, Alex and her team are startled to find hundreds of thousands of euros hidden in Sarah's kitchen. Their boss Bannerman takes charge, underscoring the rancour among their police politics. Alex runs into an old friend in that neighbourhood. She hasn't seen Kay Murray for years, now a cleaner for nearby wealthy homeowners and who had cared for Sarah's mother in a long illness. A parallel story follows teen schoolboy Thomas who is just informed that his father, Lars Anderson, committed suicide by hanging at their sprawling estate. Lars' extensive business interests had collapsed, infuriating investors, and the Andersons are losing everything they owned.

In an unorthodox plot move, the author lets us know who killed Sarah, but the suspense builds on why. As Alex collects information about her, the woman's travels indicated suspicious activities and surprising relationships; she was making money for her mother's expensive care. Alex herself avoids any reference to her own family, especially her criminal brother Danny, while Bannerman expects to nail the Murray family for murder. Thomas makes discoveries as he wanders through a fog: his mother Moira apologizes, his sister Ella is psychotic, and his father's second family is not far away. The contrast between unloved children and beloved children is heartbreaking, often with tragic conclusions.

Mina has an unerring pen for the gritty social order in Glasgow and its struggling characters—no filters. Many threads woven here, thick with humanity at its worst or best. IMO this book is one of her most brilliant.

Alex

▪ Danny broke jaws and slammed car doors on hands. Danny stabbed a man in the face with a bottle. Danny did those things when he felt he was owed or when he wanted something. (21)

▪ Bannerman's rudeness had made it a point of pride among the men to hide their lights, as if being good at their job was helping Bannerman be a prick. (34)

▪ Five-hundred-euro notes usually meant money laundering, usually meant drugs. (35)

▪ Stay angry, stay detached. Everyone was worried about her doing the job because she was pregnant. She could feel herself fading in the eyes of the big bosses, becoming an invisible factor, dying in their eyes. (39)

▪ "My job is extra hard today because I have to try and manipulate you into giving a toss." She looked at them. "That's annoying." (170)

▪ He was taking a theological approach to it, treading very carefully, he was tiptoeing around a big fat bloody lie and was willing to be charged with murder rather than give it up. (339-40)

Kay

▪ Kay always arrived half an hour early, thirty minutes that she insisted she didn't get paid for, just to listen to Margery moan and weep because she was lonely and so much had gone wrong and she couldn't talk to her clubhouse ladies because none of them ever admitted to having troubles. (77)

▪ "Me and Mrs. Errol ..." she moved the food around her plate. "best friend I ever had." (211)

▪ "I'm not scared because I've done anything. I'm scared because I don't trust you. Any of ye." (226)

▪ Kay wanted to get out of here. She had never asked Danny for anything and it was a mistake to come here now. (271)

Thomas

▪ Moira. Distant, stupid, no-longer-pretty mother. She'd be fainting away every half hour, unable to cope with the loss of a man who'd been phoning his mistresses from the breakfast table for years. (82)

▪ He couldn't blame Squeak but took it on himself, as if Squeak was a part of him that he had allowed to grow and fester unchecked. (83)

▪ They were eating there so that people could see him squander two-hundred-quid meals on an awkward teenager and a soppy kid. His father wasn't special, he was just rich. (84)

▪ He couldn't imagine Lars with this woman: she didn't look formal enough, or old enough. She looked like Sarah Erroll, except very tall and pretty. (243)

▪ "I'm sorry, Ella, I thought you were faking." And then he didn't say anything after that. (311-2)