Library Limelights 162

Mick Herron. Real Tigers. USA: Soho Crime, 2016.

Now completed the Slough House series to date! Oh what delicious style and characters! The novel opens with the usual placid survey of the prickly denizens, then Jackson Lamb's slow horses are drawn into a byzantine plot. Catherine Standish is kidnapped and River Cartwright to the rescue, without informing his boss. The search for a hidden file deep in the bowels of Regent's Park unleashes more mayhem with an ex-army tiger team masking the true intent. Motive and purpose are ambiguous, as always. Some of it backfires, of course, resulting in many surprises and a few dead bodies. The hapless but persistent slow horses flail about as best they can, unaware their jobs are on the line.

Cunning players hide beneath layers of deception. Peter Judd, Home Secretary; Dame Ingrid Tearney, head of MI5 (the Service); Diana Taverner, Second Desk under her; not to mention appearances by the abrasive head Dog, chief of internal security. Only Lamb can figure out who is pulling the strings, to hold the ultimate blackmail card himself. Herron perfectly demonstrates the cynical arrogance of the politically powerful. As the narrative shifts from scene to scene, the author proves he is a god of suspense. More, please sir!

One-liners:

Why on earth would anyone be targeting her? (29)

"If you're about to make a pass, I'll peel your face with a spoon." (219)

Two-liners:

"Jackson Lamb's lived so long under the bridge he's half-troll himself now. But you should have met him a lifetime ago." (90)

"Jackson was never one for going round the houses. Not when he could drive a battering ram through them." (90)

"Getting shot's like falling off a log. It doesn't take practice." (257)

Pub meeting with super-nerd Ho:

" ... You want to make a mark, you want to impress people, do something. Doesn't matter what, just so long as it's not sitting at a screen crunching ... data."
If that last noun had involved bodily fluids rather than information, Marcus couldn't have put a more disgusted spin on it.
Now he stood. "I'm going. Broken bones, remember? If you take nothing else away, take that. Broken bones."
"Aren't we having another round?"
Shirley did the thing with her fingers again. "Hashtag missingthepoint."
"Stop doing that," Marcus said. He looked down at his unfinished beer, shrugged, and headed for the door.
Shirley reached across, carefully removed Ho's specs, folded them, and dropped them into Marcus's Guinness. "There," she said.
Ho opened his mouth to say something, but wisely changed his mind. (32-3)

Orders from the top:

"Slough House," Judd said. "Close it down. Today."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that. Do we own the building?"
"Yes."
"Better still. We can flog it off now the market's recovered. That'll pay for the odd decoder ring, what?"
"And the agents?"
"Have them put down."
" ... Seriously?"
"No. But it's interesting you felt the need to ask. No, just sack them. They're all retards or they wouldn't be there anyway. Hand them their cards, tell them goodbye."
"Jackson Lamb—"
"I know all about Jackson Lamb. He's supposed to know where some bodies are buried, yes? Well, newsflash, nobody spends a decade in this business without stumbling across the occasional corpse. And if he feels like kicking up a fuss, he'll find out what the Official Secrets Act's for." (131-2)

Catherine's solitude:

If she'd turned, like any good spook should have done, and headed back into Slough House the moment Sean Donovan appeared, this wouldn't be happening. One word from her to Charles Partner, and the wheels of the Service would have ground into action. That was the advantage of being close to the man at the top. When there was trust between you, a simple word got things done.
Except Charles Partner was dead, having emptied his head in a bathtub. Her boss now was Jackson Lamb, and stirring him into action required more than trust.
She had mentally discarded the water, the flapjack, the apple, the sandwich, because this was not their fight. In the struggle for control of the room, there was only herself and the bottle of wine. And for some reason this was no longer on the tray, but had managed to spirit itself across the space between them, like a spooky puppet in a horror film, and now nestled in her hand. (240)

Lee Child. The Midnight Line. USA: Random House Large Print, 2017.

Child's terse prose is like a literary desert; always a contrast to most crime writers. Popular protagonist Jack Reacher ‒ the man with no phone, no computer, and no address ‒ is intrigued to find a West Point class ring in a South Dakota pawn shop. Relating it to his own background, he wants to know the story, return the ring to its mysterious owner. Although he seems to move almost sleepily from one clue to another, true to his nature ‒ Reacher is cool ‒ he manages to beat up eight guys before the first forty pages. Along his journey he meets a drug czar, an ex-FBI detective, a DEA agent, a small town cop, a rich woman from Chicago, and assorted derelict characters. With some new partners, he uncovers a clandestine network for oxycodone and fentanyl.

Offsetting Reacher's emotional distance is the owner of the ring; Child gives us way more than we want to know about drastic military injuries (and an indictment of VA hospitals). His attempt at a little sidekick humour is awkward but welcome. More refreshing is the feel of rugged, wide-open Wyoming. When the action accelerates, it's a clever buildup to the climax. The author sucks us in once more.

The always rational, non-judgmental Reacher wins again and moves on.

One-liners:

"This guy is like Bigfoot coming out of the forest." (39)

"There is no feeling better than tiptoeing all the way up to the gates of death." (409)

"You told Billy to shoot me," Reacher said. (512)

Two-liners:

"I'm sure all Wyoming kids have ponies. There are more ponies than kids." (215)

She had to be thirty-something. But she looked brand new. (218)

My wife would say you feel guilty about something. She reads books. (473)

Partner in crime:

Reacher said, "How do you feel about going in?"
"It's all closed up."
"We could break a window."
"Legally we have to ask ourselves if the county owns it now. Which it might, officially. Because of the unpaid taxes. Breaking into county property is a big step. You can't fight city hall."
"Maybe you smelled a suspicious smell, or thought you heard something. Like a despairing cry. The kind of thing that would justify a warrant-less search. Did you?"
"No," Bramall said.
"You're retired," Reacher said. "You don't have to stick to FBI bullshit anymore."
"What would the army approach be? Set the place on fire?" (181)

Cynicism re big pharma:

By that time in history heroin itself had negative PR. Nothing more than underworld squalor and a bunch of dead rock singers. Kind of sordid. So they made a synthetic version. A chemical copy. Like an identical twin, Noble said, looking at Mackenzie. Exactly the same, but now it had a long clean name. All bright and shiny. It could have been a toothpaste. They put it in neat white pills. What were they for? Getting high, baby. Whatever you want. Except they couldn't put that on the pack. So they said they were for pain. Everyone has pain, right?
Not really. Not at first. Pain was not yet a thing. Institutes had to be funded, and scholarships endowed. Doctors had to be persuaded. Patients had to be empowered. Which all worked in the end. Pain became a thing. Self-reported and untestable, but suddenly a symptom as valid and meaningful as any other. As a result, America was flooded with hundreds of tons of heroin, in purse-size blister packs, backed with foil. (242-3)

Fight, not flight:

Eleven thirty was just the same. Pitch dark and silent. Still OK. Still consistent, still logical, still expected. But getting close. All the well-known sayings. The crunch was coming. The money shot. The rubber was about to meet the road. For the first time in his life he paid close attention to what his body was doing. He felt stress building inside him, and he felt an automatic response, some kind of a primitive biological leftover, that converted it to focus and strength and aggression. He felt his scalp tingle, and an electric flow pass through his hands to his fingers. He felt his eyesight grow vivid. He felt himself get physically larger, and harder, and faster, and stronger. (484)

Jo Nesbø. Macbeth. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2018.

What sly mockery is this? Nesbo does a daring reconstruction of Shakespeare's play, to flummox his Harry Hole fans. Nesbo's Macbeth has few attributes in common with his popular Oslo detective. This Macbeth, rapidly working his way to the top of the police hierarchy, is dependent on a drug habit and in thrall to his beautiful Lady, owner of a posh casino. One wonders what the attraction is to this calculating, off-balance woman who, among others, manipulates him for control of the unnamed more-or-less modern town. That town seems to be little more than a cesspool of unemployment and poverty in desperate need of rehabilitation promised by various candidates for power. Through a tunnel and across a bridge is the fair, clean land of "Fife" so some, like me, will be guessing what wily allusions Nesbo might be making. Suffice to say, a more corrupt disorder can scarcely be imagined. All the expected characters are here — Duncan, Malcolm, Duff (Macduff), Banquo, Lennox, and a host of others.

Dredging up faint Grade Eight Shakespeare studies, I'd lost the details (but memorized passages are still intact!) Thus I won't even try to compare/contrast the people and events with the original play. We know it can't end well, right? Lust for personal power among the main players — the mayor, the chief (police) commissioner, the druglord Hecate (boss of the witches' brew) and layers of their underlings — is constantly masked by claims of for the good of the people and what's best for the town. Basically, everyone conspires to kill everyone else, not without considerable self-justification before or after the fact. Each one among them betrays someone else. That means a staggering body count, of course. Paranoia, deception, treachery, madness, corruption, infidelity, insomnia: not exactly a romping read! Dialogue is awkward at times, a mixture of contemporary and the archaic, perhaps intended to reflect Shakespearean tones? The size and scope of Nesbo's project is awesome but did he dare a little too ambitiously? Harry, you are missed.

One-liners:

Why did her words persist, why did his thoughts whirl around in his head like bats? (93)

"Give me an armed biker gang coming toward me rather than this serpent we've slashed at but haven't killed." (171)

So alone in the darkness of her mind, the darkness she had told him about but where she couldn't take him. (261)

Two-liners:

"I can see you're weighed down by guilt and a bad conscience. You're not an evil, cunning person." (168)

No, she wasn't a problem, she was the alpha and omega, his birth, life and death. His reason for being. (186)

He was a new man. Once again he was perfectly medicated. (270)

Dependency:

"Do you really believe this?"
"No," said Macbeth. He was standing close to the mirror now, his nose touching the glass, which had misted up. I don't believe it. I know it. I can see. I can see the two of them. Banquo and Fleance. I have to forestall them, but how?" Suddenly he turned to her. "How? You, my only one, you have to help me. You have to help us." 

Lady crossed her arms. However warped Macbeth's reasoning sounded, there was some sense in it. He might be right. And if he wasn't, Banquo was still a fellow conspirator and a potential witness and blabber. The fewer there were of them, the better. And what real use did they have for Banquo and Fleance? None. She sighed. As Jack would say, If you've got less than twelve in blackjack you ask for another card. Because you can't lose. (156)

One plan of many:

" ... Now you know what I know, that can't be changed, and now your head's on the block with mine. I apologize for not giving you a choice, but what else could I do? Our moment of truth has come, Lennox."
"Indeed. If what you say is correct and Macbeth is the monster you believe, a wounding shot is not enough—that would make him doubly dangerous. He must be felled with a single, decisive shot."
"Yes, but how?"
"With cunning and caution, Duff. I'll have to give this some thought, and I'm no genius, so it will take time. Let's meet again. Not here where the walls have ears." (203)

Bonus, the Druglord's minion:

What was it about Hecate that always made him feel like a dithering teenager? It was more than the display of real power; there was something else, something that terrified Bonus but he couldn't quite put his finger on. It wasn't what he could see in Hecate's eyes, it was more what he couldn't see. It was the blood-curdling certainty of a nothingness. Wasteland and numbingly cold nights. (276-7)

Macbeth ruminates on death:

A short echo of the last, semi-articulated word and you're forgotten. Forgotten, forgotten, not even the biggest statue can change that. The person you were, the person you really were, disappears faster than concentric rings in water. And what was the point of this short, interrupted guest appearance? Of playing along as best you can, seizing the pleasures and happiness life has to offer while it lasts? Or leaving a mark, changing the direction of things, making the world a slightly better place before you yourself have to leave it? Or perhaps the point is to reproduce, to put more suitable small creatures on the earth in the hope that humans will at some point become the demigods they imagine they are? Or is there simply no meaning? Perhaps we're just detached sentences in an eternal chaotic babble in which everyone talks and no one listens, and our worst premonition finally turns out to be correct: you are alone. All alone. (353-4)