Library Limelights 185

Nelson DeMille. Radiant Angel. USA: Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, 2015.

I finally did it: defeated my original purpose of avoiding choosing a book I've already read. It didn't take long to recognize familiar situations here, from a mere three years ago! Therefore I skimmed through it this time, enjoying the flavour again, because after all it's a good thriller. John Corey is the quintessential wise-cracking good guy in the war against terror. What had stood out in my mind was his previous harrowing adventure in Yemen (The Panther) because ... Yemen. No further Corey novels have appeared since Radiant Angel as DeMille appears to have swan-songed him. Ah well, the book makes a distinguished donation to the FEC Library.

A few quotes from my earlier review; no added insight forthcoming —

▪ John Corey saved New York City from disaster in the last book and now he does it again in predictable fashion.

▪ His latest partner on watch, Tess Faraday, sticks to him like superglue.

▪ Russians or Islamic terrorists, which are is the worst threat?

▪ He's not as amusing somehow, in the ominous absence of his FBI wife Kate. And you can only prevent World War Three so many times.

▪ Yob vas means fuck you in Russian.

Ian Rankin. In a House of Lies. UK: Orion Books, 2018.

Best ever! Retired from the police force, John Rebus deliberately insinuates himself into a murder case he'd been involved with years ago ‒ when it was an unsolved missing person case. The old investigation was poorly handled; the new investigation, with his pal Siobhan Clarke on the team, is fraught with police-type politics, lies, and coverups, like who is going to be exposed as a failure, or who deserves to be. The circle of murder suspects ripples wider and wider to family, drug dealers, retired cops, film-makers, businessmen, and even kingpin crime bosses. Motive, motive, motive: why was the gay private eye killed and his body hidden so long ago? Witnesses who know the truth have had "the frighteners" put on them. No surprise that Rebus deprecates modern technology (and his lack of), preferring his longtime street experience and analytical skills.

Siobhan tracks down an anonymous phone-caller harassing her: a different murder, a different set of lies. Another familiar figure watches on the periphery: Malcolm Fox, ex-Professional Standards, now climbing the promotion ladder. All of them want the opportunity to skewer two devious cops who have the power to ruin careers. Rebus renews his acquaintance with Big Ger Cafferty. You need all your wits about you to fathom the intricacies of backstabbing plots — only Rankin could create the multiple interactive threads with such engaging characters from the population that spills into the streets of Edinburgh. This author never loses his touch. Repeat: best Rebus ever!

One-liners:

▪ "My ears aren't picking up the warm sounds of a burgeoning friendship." (82)

▪ Coiled springs, the whole lot of them, overwound mechanisms constantly on the very edge of snapping. (153)

▪ The room smelled faintly of urine - Rebus hoped it was the cat's. (227)

▪ Rebus didn't know him, but he knew the type – tailored like a shop-window mannequin and spritzed all over by an aerosol called privilege. (349)

Multi-liners:

▪ "They're out to bury us, you know. They don't want the likes of us around. We smell of old days and old ways." (19)

▪ Derek turned his head to look at his father. That makes three, Siobhan reckoned. Three little white lies. (88)

▪ Teeth bared, Meikle jabbed at the table with a finger. "This is where I need to be." (315)

Expert scrutiny:

Cafferty had several mobile phones on the go at any one time. He ditched numbers regularly, added and deleted accounts and providers. Same went for his email. The broadband in his duplex was extra-secure and checked fortnightly for attempted breaches. Even so, he preferred the old ways – face to face meetings in public places with plenty of background noise. The new technologies were fine – in many ways they had aided his various businesses – but you didn't learn about people from them, not the way you did when your eyes drilled into theirs, your senses alive to their gestures and tics. A bead of sweat; a quickening of the breathing; a nervous sniffle; the crossing and uncrossing of legs. He had never played poker but he knew he'd be good at it. His chief fear was there would always be someone better. He would end up annoyed, and needing some sort of payback. (124)

Old days:

"I doubt Police Scotland will want to make anything of it. They've got plenty wildfires they're busy fighting." 

"Seems the wrong word or look gets you accused of bullying. Wouldn't have happened in our day, John." 

"Might have been better if it had," Rebus said ruefully, draining his cup. (139)

Old ways:

Rebus had then phoned to say he'd commenced digging. "Though half the stuff is on memory sticks ‒ whatever happened to paper, ink and cassette tape?" 

"Give us time, it'll all be kept in the Cloud, whatever that is. Good luck, John." 

"I should be thanking you ‒ when you get to my age, the brain needs a bit of a workout ..." 

It had taken four messages from her before he'd told her to stop bugging him. 

When I know, you'll know. (151-2)

Film study:

The end credits had finished and the DVD's main menu was showing on her TV screen. She was seated on the sofa next to Rebus. He had nodded off for a couple of minutes in the middle and missed absolutely nothing. She stepped over the dozing Brillo, crossed to her living room window and closed the curtains against the Edinburgh night. 

"Looks like they shot some of it in Craigmillar," Rebus said, popping open the empty DVD case. "Must have saved a fortune, not needing make-up for the demons." 

"The two male leads were the same as in Bravehearts." 

"Neither seems to have become box office gold." 

"I googled them – they're not actors any more." 

"Were they ever?" Rebus poured the last dregs of his solitary bottle of IPA into the glass. Clarke had managed two gins before switching to tonic only. The evening had been her idea – the still centre Rebus had told her to find. (285)

Leila Slimani. The Perfect Nanny. 2016. USA: Penguin/Random House, (translated) 2018.

The perfect nanny works for the perfect lawyer and the perfect family. What's not working here? ... The indifference of employer to employee's life. Louise is the nanny hired to care for the two small Massé children. Loving her little charges, she fills their days with happiness ‒ daily outings, favourite food, songs, fairy tales. In fact, she exceeds all expectations, providing a vital presence for the entire family. Busy parents Myriam and Paul, respectively a lawyer and a music producer, are thrilled with their ideal situation. They even take Louise with them on holiday to Greece; Louise wants nothing more than to be part of this family.

No one recognizes signs of breakdown because no one cares about Louise as a real person. She's a service provider, essential but anonymous. Her daughter Stéphanie is missing; she's buried in debts incurred by her late husband, Jacques; the rent on her shabby room is overdue. Louise is not one to verbalize her problems. This book is a small gem in that it's a perfect depiction of a lonely individual's growing despair and collapse until the unthinkable happens. Ultimately depressing, yes. But with lives so skillfully portrayed, this book could become a classic.

Word: Logorrhea — nice to see this again, should be used more often: verbal diarrhea

One-liners:

▪ She must have magical powers to have transformed this stifling, cramped apartment into a calm, light-filled place. (25)

▪ [Paul] "I'm well aware that this is humiliating for you, but it's not very pleasant for us either, you know." (153)

▪ Louise looks incongruous, with her eternal Peter Pan collar and her too-long skirt, like a character that has ended up in the wrong story and is doomed to roam endlessly through a foreign world. (225)

▪ [Myriam] For the first time, she tries to imagine, in a corporeal sense, everything Louise is when she is not with them. (225)

Two-liners:

▪ She closes her eyes and summons memories of Greek beaches, sunsets, dinners overlooking the sea. She invokes these memories the way mystics call upon miracles. (85)

The wonder of it:

... Louise turns this hasty sketch of an apartment into an ideal bourgeois interior. She imposes her old-fashioned manners, her taste for perfection. Myriam and Paul can't get over it. She sews the buttons back on jackets that they haven't worn for months because they're too lazy to look for a needle. She hems skirts and pairs or trousers. She mends Mila's clothes, which Myriam was about to throw out without a qualm. Louise washes the curtains yellowed by tobacco and dust. Once a week she changes the sheets. Paul tells her with a smile that she is like Mary Poppins. He isn't sure she understands the compliment. 

At night, in the comfort of their clean sheets, the couple laugh, incredulous at their new life. They feel as if they have found a rare pearl, as if they've been blessed. Of course, Louise's wages are a burden on the family budget, but Paul no longer complains about that. In a few weeks, Louise's presence has become indispensable. (25-6)

In her own space:

For the first time, she thinks about old age. About her body, which has started to malfunction; about the movements that make her ache deep in her bones. About her growing medical expenses. And then the fear of growing old and sick, bedridden. terminal, in this apartment with its dirty windows. It has become an obsession. She hates this place. She can't stop thinking about the smell of damp coming from the shower cubicle. She can taste it in her mouth. All the joints, all the cracks are filled with a greenish mold, and no matter how furiously she scrubs at them, they grow back during the night, thicker than ever. (162)

Anthony Horowitz. The Word is Murder. 2017. Large Print. USA: HarperLuxe, 2018.

The author makes himself a major character in a murder investigation, having agreed to write a book ‒ the book we are reading ‒ about the expert investigator, enigmatic ex-cop Daniel Hawthorne. Together they interview family and friends of the suddenly deceased Diana Cowper, looking for motive and opportunity. Hawthorne has to solve the case ahead of the official police led by DI Meadows in order for the book to be written. Not that he's very cooperative; he doesn't like sharing his thoughts or himself, the very things writer Tony needs to know. So while Tony pieces together his own amateur theories about a killer, he also feels forced to investigate the investigator. The two men bicker often, revealing glimpses of Hawthorne's true nature.

A tragic, shameful incident in Diana's past seems to be the key to her murder, but why did she die the same day she made her funeral arrangements? Her well-known actor son Damian is clueless. Sticking to Hawthorne like glue, Tony trails along to her funeral that turns into a circus. At first, the contrived conceit seems to slow the action — we hear a lot about the author's real-life worries over agents, publishers, various scripts, whether this book idea has legs, and so on. Its cleverness reasserts itself as Tony debates with himself how to handle Hawthorne in writing. The ultimate surprise is a perfect facetious wordplay on a very modern predilection. Well done, "Tony"!

One-liners:

▪ I had no doubt that success had made him a very different man from the one she had met at drama school. (167)

▪ Looked at more closely, the coffin had a strange and unfortunate resemblance to an enormous picnic basket, the lid fastened with two leather straps. (193)

▪ It was as if he was addicted to crime and couldn't wait to begin his next interrogation. (279)

Two-liners:

▪ Hawthorne would have dialled 999 while I was lying on the floor. I suppose it was nice of him to notice me at all. (236)

▪ It was a quotation from Harold Macmillan, who had once been asked what politicians should fear. His answer was: "Events, dear boy, events." (278)

▪ If Meadows suddenly announced the identity of the killer, it would be a complete disaster. There would be no book! (300)

▪ "When you're an actor, unemployment is like cancer. The longer you have it, the less chance there is of finding a cure." (414)

The Hawthorne stance:

Outside, in the street, he turned on me. 

"Do me a favour, mate. Never ask questions when you're with me. Never ask anything. All right?" 

"You just expect me to sit there and say nothing?" 

"That's right." 

"I'm not stupid," I said. "I may be able to help." 

"Well, you're wrong on at least one of those counts. But the point is, you're not here to help. You said this was a detective story. I'm the detective. It's as simple as that." (89-90)

The bereaved son from away:

He had opened the door for us using an intercom and he was talking on his mobile as he waved us in. "Yeah, yeah. Look. I'll get back to you. I have people here. Look after yourself, babe. I'll see you."He rang off. 

"Sorry about that. I only got back yesterday and, as you can imagine, it's a bit crazy around here." He had just enough of a transatlantic accent to be annoying. I remembered what Hawthorne told me about money problems, girlfriends, drugs, and I decided at once that I believed him. Everything about Damian Cowper made my hackles rise. (158)

Consulting the wife:

"I don't know anything about him," I said, miserably. "He used to be married and he has an eleven-year-old son. He may have pushed someone down a flight of stairs at Scotland Yard. He doesn't like gay people ... I don't know why." 

"Is he gay?" 

"No. He hates talking about himself. He won't let me come close." 

"Then how can you write about him?" 

"If he solves the case ..." 

"Some cases can take years to solve. Are you going to follow him around London for the rest of your life?" She had ordered veal escalope. She sliced into it as if it had caused her offence. "You're going to have to change names," she added. "You can't just barge into people's houses and put them in a book." She glared at me. "You'd better change my name! I don't want to be in it." (275-6)