Library Limelights 187

Kieran Shields. The Truth of All Things. USA: Crown Publishing Group/Random House, Inc., 2012.

An epic story of 1892 Portland, Maine, and environs ... fans of the occult(-ish) will love the detailed context here: Salem witch trials, Indian rituals, Satanic invocations, seances. Police Deputy Archie Lean and consultant Perceval Grey need all their wits about them to interpret the symbols around the killing of a young woman, Maggie. Grey ignores the racism directed at his half-Native heritage and strikes an easy companionship with Lean. More killings follow, apparently according to a preordained plan, but the mastermind behind it eludes the two pursuers in a welter of suspects and sidetracks. Volunteer librarian Helen becomes part of their research team and, eventually, a designated victim; Dr Virgil Steig provides support and pathology services.

Overall this is a mystery brilliantly played out in nineteenth-century style and locations; Portland lives and breathes in the smallest particulars. Characters galore range from the wealthy head of the local temperance association and a magician's school to an Indian fair and a prostitution ring — all providing information or incurring suspicions. The detectives plunge about the city and beyond by horse carriage and railway, sending frantic paper messages to each other. Excerpts from the Salem witch trials are included (too much, too long, for my taste) for background clues, but merely add to the obfuscation of the killer's methods and motive. The taint of black magic is all a bit overpowering, yet it's a masterpiece of sorts.

One-liners:

▪ "Wouldn't mind turning a short stroll into a long walk with her," McCutcheon said. (118)

▪ "To hope you will receive from someone, once dead, more than he or she managed to give you while alive―it defies all reason." (288)

▪ Lean's blood cooled and began to flow north again, from his gut to his brain. (311)

▪ "Parents and children are uniquely fitted in this world; they can wound each other far deeper than God should ever allow." (349)

Multi-liners:

▪ "It's just a dead whore, Virgil."

"And Macbeth is just a play about a Scotsman." (8)

▪ My God," he announced his victory to the empty room, "this is it! This is from the Black Book!" (270)

▪ "I don't like to go in there while he's out. Course, going in when he's home isn't much to grin at either." (377)

Misanthropy:

"Do you really not believe in spirits?" Lean asked. "The possibility of communicating with some eternal soul in the afterlife?" 

Grey looked at him with one eyebrow pointing up to heaven. "The overwhelming majority of people in the world are unimaginative dullards who, in their three score and ten allotted years, manage to divine no purpose for their being other than to chase money, seize what moments of physical pleasure they can, and to create new, largely non-improved versions of themselves, whom they raise with the same mindless disregard they have applied to their own lives. Tell me, please, what use would such beings have for an afterlife? Whatever would they do with an eternity?" (157)

Eugenics, anyone?

Grey selected a text from the shelf. "Then you agree with Mr. Darwin's cousin as well. Galton's ideas about the inherent deficiencies of certain peoples. Some have argued in favour of the forced sterilization of habitual drunkards, imbeciles, and the like. I've even heard the argument advanced in the case of certain races—say, American Indians." 

"The developments out west over the past fifteen years lend credence to Mr. Galton's theory on the ultimate fate of the Indian. Of course, that destiny need not apply to every individual. Take you, Mr. Grey. You obviously have been blessed to inherit the stronger traits of your white ancestry and would clearly fall within that class of Indians who are properly integrated into the civilized population." 

"How kind of you to say."(188)

Face to face:

"Madness? Consider this, Grey. If you speak ... a few words to her today"—Whitten nodded toward Helen—tomorrow she tells them to a friend, who relays them to me. Next week ... I repeat them back to you. Probably half the words are changed. Would you wager five dollars, let alone your ... eternal soul, on how well those words were kept in just one week? 

"Yet you worship a god nailed to a post nearly two thousand years ago. You follow the words of a man that were written down after his death ... by men who did not know him, in a language you cannot speak. Words passed from mouth to ear how many times? Passed through how many languages? Subject to the whims of how many men's tongues and pens? You cast yourself out onto the sea ... and cling to that wreckage: the misheard and mangled words of your crucified god, corrupted over centuries to the point where they are no more credible than barroom hearsay ... backyard gossip. And you believe those words will save your soul. I call that madness." (388)

Karin Fossum. Hellfire. 2014. UK: Harvill Secker/Penguin Random House, 2016.

Time for some Scandinavian noir, I thought. Hellfire was not exactly as expected: little action except for slow psychological drama. We observe two single mother households. Mass (Thomasine's nickname) cares for her dependent twenty-one-year-old son Eddie who has a personality disorder; their source of income is not revealed. Bonnie is at poverty level, a conscientious care worker with a son, Simon, attending nursery school. Bonnie's week is filled with hard work for often cranky elderly clients. But on a summer night Bonnie and Simon are found violently murdered in an abandoned caravan. The neighbouring farm offers little in the way of clues.

Fossum's Inspector Konrad Sejer investigates, as we learn more about those two different households in the preceding weeks. Sejer is at a loss to discover any possible motive; Bonnie was admired for her work ethic and sunny disposition by all and sundry. Yet, unlike Sejer, we know somehow the two women and their stories must be connected. The fathers of their boys are missing from their lives; Eddie increasingly wants to know where his is buried. The story works, the twists are unpredictable, and it's a satisfying read.

One-liners:

▪ "In a way, a tattoo is the same as self-harming," Snorrason said. (107)

Two-liners:

▪ He pestered her like a horsefly. Eddie, she said, let's not talk about it any more. (43)

▪ It was hard to imagine that the radiant girl in the picture had become the flinty woman out in the living room. What does life do to us? she thought.

▪ "Maybe she's ashamed of something. And shame is a powerful enemy." (163)

Eddie's anxiety:

He went back to the window and stared out at the driving snow. "Let Mum make it through the storm," he prayed to Jesus, wherever he was. "Because I'm sitting here waiting for cake. There's only the two of us. You have to look after us!" 

He went out to see Shiba in the kitchen, pulled her tail hard again, and then laughed when she shot up and ran into the living room, where she scooted under the sofa and collapsed, panting. 

"Stupid dog," he said, and laughed again. "You don't fight back. Haven't you got any teeth?" (7-8)

Targeted:

"He's left no fingerprints," Sejer said. "So we have to assume he was wearing gloves. Which is why it's strange that he left the knife behind. That's quite something to forget. So it's chaotic. Planned, but still a little chaotic. This didn't happen in the heat of the moment, this was intentional." (73?)

Little boy questions:

Kaja had tried to explain that dead people weren't there any more. They weren't sleeping, they weren't dreaming, they couldn't see, they didn't breathe, and they would never wake up again. She said that death was another country and that anyone who was alive could only imagine it. 

"The coffin is very beautiful," Bonnie explained. "It's got silk and velvet inside, and the person is all dressed up for their final journey." 

"Where are they going?" Simon wanted to know. 

"To eternity," Bonnie replied. 

"Where's that?" 

"We don't know. But I think it's very beautiful there. I think it's a bit like a big garden full of flowers. And you get to meet all the other people who are dead." 

"But how do they know how to get there?" 

"Oh, they just know," Bonnie said. "But when we're alive, we don't know. It's like a special surprise for all of us, don't you think?" 

Simon was happy with that. But after he had gone to bed that evening, Bonnie sat up thinking about her own death, which of course she knew nothing about. (179-80)

Nelson DeMille. The Cuban Affair. USA: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Key West charter boat captain Daniel MacCormick ‒ always known as Mac ‒ agrees to participate in liberating a huge stash of money hidden in Cuba at the time of Batista's downfall. Ostensibly it will be returned to its former rightful owners, by the anti-Castro group in Miami that planned it all. The "Cuban Thaw" is underway, not universally applauded in some circles. Mac is attracted by the generous reward money and the beautiful and earnest Cuban American, Sara; their legitimate entry into Cuba is arranged with a Yale university tour group. Their success and safety in the country depend on a network provided by organizers Eduardo and Carlos. Find the cave with the money and escape in Mac's own boat. Sounds kinda foolhardy and clichéd so far, right?

For one thing, it's a lot more complicated than that. For another, it's a rather nice, selective tourist guide to Havana. With a budding romance between a committed idealist and a cynical ex-soldier. Yet we know this won't go well. Mac's first mate, Jack, is part of the team; so is Felipe, Sara's boyfriend. But they have good reason to believe the police are suspicious of them; Havana is full of informants, increasing their paranoia. Mac and Jack are too distrustful to believe in the mission as divine justice – no political correctness whatsoever on their part – especially when Mac learns money is not the only thing they are stealing. Shades of John D McDonald and Travis McGee aside, Mac is not quite as endearingly outrageous as DeMille's John Corey, but it's an all-American adventure thriller.

One-liners:

▪ The alcohol rule for the crew is twelve hours between bottle and throttle, but Jack says you're just not supposed to drink within twelve feet of the helm. (32)

▪ It was Eduardo's turn and he said, "I, too, live in Miami and my life's work is the destruction of the Communist regime in my homeland." (38)

▪ Antonio, as I always suspected, was a Commie for convenience, an opportunistic chivato, an enthusiastic scammer, and a full-time amoral pig. (251)

▪ What I knew for sure was that Jack Colby would not leave Cuba without me. (371)

Multi-liners:

▪ "Conversation in Cuba has to be clever. That's all they have." (98)

▪ "Cuba is a very promiscuous society, and casual sex is rampant. The Cubans say that sex is the only thing that Castro hasn't rationed." (142)

▪ "And why did he quote those Hemingway lines to you? 'The Cubans double-cross each other. They sell each other out.'" (164)

▪ Staying ahead of the police in a police state was an intellectual challenge. And a bit of twisted fun. (270)

▪ Survival is a strong instinct, surrender is not an option, and all combat is justifiable homicide. But you pay a price. (421)

In the mind's eye:

There were two kinds of history: the kind you read about, and the kind you lived through—or were actually part of. For Jack, the Cuban Revolution was a childhood memory. For Sara, it was family history, and part of who she was. For Eduardo, it was a boyhood trauma and an obsession. And for me, it was irrelevant. Until today. (61)

God disposes:

As we got off the bus, Sara said, "Religion will save Cuba." 

"Right. Look what it did for Afghanistan." 

"Don't be a cynic. I never asked―what religion are you?" 

"You've been sleeping with a Presbyterian. But when I'm getting shot at, I pray to everyone." 

"Would you consider converting to Catholicism?" 

Were we talking about a wedding or Last Rites? 

"Mac?" 

"Yes, I'd consider that." She took my hand and squeezed it. (222)  

Mantra: 

She put her hand on my shoulder. "When you are blessed, and when your cause is just, God is with you, and you are strong." 

I nodded. And I recalled something handwritten on a piece of paper that had made the rounds among the troops: Fate whispered to the warrior, 'You cannot withstand the coming storm.' And the warrior whispered back, 'I am the storm.'

"We're going home. Jack and Felipe are going home. And the warriors are going home."(305)

Bottom line:

"The police could be waiting for us at the other end." 

"There's not much we can do about it now." 

"Right." U-turns were not an option. 

I could see a jetliner making its slow approach into the island airport, and as it got lower I saw the Air Canada maple leaf logo on its tail. And this brought home the fact that for the rest of the world, Cuba was just a holiday destination. For us, it was a legacy of the Cold War, a place where Americans were loved or hated, depending on who you ran into. (326)