Library Limelights 196

Lee Child. Past Tense. USA: Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House LLP, 2018.

Jack Reacher goes ancestor hunting. On his perpetual way somewhere else, by chance he finds himself in Laconia, New Hampshire, where his father was born. Curiosity leads him through some genealogical hoops, one office to another, meeting disappointment at first. As we expect, trouble finds Reacher without his even trying, and two different sets of thugs are soon after him. No worries ... we also know he can handle, like, five attackers at once. Child's typical, terse blow-by-blow descriptions of confrontations is in full play. Meanwhile, two naive New Brunswickers with a malfunctioning car have stumbled into the worst scenario since Janet Leigh in Psycho. Some ambitious young men have created an expensive, deadly game under the guise of running a motel.

Stories from a few old-timers make Reacher even more curious about the defunct Ryantown tin mill, where his grandfather had been foreman. The stories don't exactly jibe with what he knows of his father; he's trying to visualize events of fifty years ago. Of the two Canadians, Shorty and Patty, she seems the more resourceful at trying to beat the game. In fact, Child (oddly?) transfers Reacher's analytic manner to her. Suspenseful, yes, but demanding some suspension of disbelief. Could the "game" be as thrilling (for the participants) as Child wants us to believe? Staccato sentences are great in reflecting Reacher's thoughts (and Patty's) but do get a bit wearing by the end. Nevertheless, another Reacher windfall.

One-liners:

▪ "All you need to do is apologize most sincerely and then go away and never come back." (89)

▪ Hope for the best, plan for the worst, was Reacher's motto. (124)

▪ ... then out of nowhere Shorty was behind the guy, swinging his long metal flashlight like the riot police, hitting the guy full on behind the ear, every ounce of his potato farmer bulk and muscle behind it, plus every ounce of his anger and fury and fear and humiliation. (325)

Multi-liners:

▪ It was an honest building. It could have been in Canada. (16)

▪ He was rippling with youth and excitement. He had a look in his eye. He thought he was a hell of a guy. (88)

▪ Who was she, and who was Shorty, in the grand scheme of things? What good were they to anybody? (178)

▪ "Maybe he thinks you're an agent of deep state oppression. We're dealing with an old guy with a ponytail." (197)

▪ He didn't like wires on roads. Nothing good ever came of them. Best case surveillance, worst case explosions. (274)

Tow truck arrives:

She had said it would be the shiniest truck you ever saw, purely from the guy's voice alone, and she had guessed exactly right. It was as bright as a carnival float. The red paint was waxed and polished. It had pinstripes and coachlines painted in gold. There were chrome lids and levers, all polished to a blinding shine. The guy's name was written on the side, proudly, a foot high, in a copperplate style. It was Karel, not Carol. 

"Wow," said Shorty. "This is great." 

"Sure seems to be," Patty said. 

"Finally we're out of here." (133-4)

Yet another goon:

Reacher stopped six feet away. 

He said, "Let him go." 

Just three words, but in a tone learned long ago, with whole extra paragraphs hidden in the dying vowel sound at the end of the phrase, about the inevitable and catastrophic result of attempted resistance. The big guy let the old guy go. But he wasn't quitting. No sir. He wanted Reacher to be sure about that. He made it like he wanted to free up his hands anyway. For more important purposes. He shoved the old guy aside and stepped right into Reacher's space, not more than four feet away. He was twenty-some years old, dark haired and unshaven, more than six feet and two hundred pounds, tanned and muscled by outdoor labor. 

He said, "This is none of your business." 

Reacher thought, what is this, Groundhog Day? (151-2)

Breakfast:

Reacher chose a fried egg sandwich. Ten minutes later it arrived, still hot in greasy aluminum foil. It tasted pretty good. Maybe a little rubbery. Nutritious, anyway. Protein, carbohydrate, grease. All the food groups. (192)

Facing mortality:

He aimed the gun. She saw it clearly in the headlight spill. She recognized the brand from the TV shows she watched. A Glock, she was sure. Boxy, detailed, finely wrought. The tube on the front was satin finished. A precision component. It looked like it cost a thousand dollars. She breathed out. Patricia Marie Sundstrom, twenty-five, two years of college, a sawmill worker. Briefly happy with a potato farmer she met in a bar. Happier than she ever expected to be. Happier than she knew. She wanted to see him again. Just one more time. (356)

Philip Kerr. Prussian Blue. UK: A Marian Wood Book/G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.

Bernie Gunther continues his wry, haphazard post-war journey through life, a retro tale with his 1956 self remembering his 1939 self. It's a large book, actually two stories in one. Bernie's job as a concierge at a French Riviera hotel is scuttled with the reappearance of Erich Mielke who wants him to kill the Englishwoman from the last movie sorry book. Bernie escapes his captors and heads for home, full of nostalgia for Germany. He's fighting big odds against even reaching the border, wherever that is these days. To make things worse, Friedrich Korsch, his former police assistant, is in charge of the manhunt. Ah yes, ... Korsch, taking his thoughts back to 1939 when the two were sent by General Reinhard Heydrich to Berchtesgaden to solve a murder case on Hitler's doorstep. The cooperation of Martin Bormann, head honcho of everything on the mountain, was allegedly ensured.

Kerr transports us not only into a cynic's Nazi Germany, but also the chaotic post-war period. The insertion of so many historical figures is just one of Kerr's usual coups — Bormann is the main despised Nazi here; as a side assignment, Heydrich wants evidence of Bormann's extensive corruption. Bernie hates them all, but so does a majority of townspeople, any of whom have a motive for shooting one of Bormann's lackeys. Sleepless thanks to the popular local amphetamine, Bernie's on a tight schedule to find the true killer, moving from Hitler's well-guarded Berghof and several guesthouses to around the town and beyond, always mindful of the region's old mining tunnels. He's resented or foiled by the Führer's sycophants who throw many an obstacle in his way. Two more murders further complicate Bernie's task. Meanwhile seventeen years later, Bernie experiences deja vu in the mountains of Alsace. Perfect Vergnügen yet again from Philip Kerr.

Word: myrmidon - a subordinate of a person in power, typically unscrupulous

Short-liners, 1956:

▪ "You always did have a lot of hair on your teeth." (19)

▪ Besides, running away was a much more appealing idea than poisoning some Englishwoman I'd once slept with, even if she was a bitch. (31)

▪ Like the Gestapo before them, the Stasi had been finding Germans who didn't want to be found for almost a decade. That was what they were good at, perhaps the best in the world. (34)

▪ Nobody looks at a man who's in church with his eyes closed; not the faithful at prayer, nor the nuns cleaning the place, nor the priests taking confession; even God leaves you alone in a church. (183)

▪ Profit was always going to be the ideological doorjamb on which communism stubbed its ugly toe. (319)

Short-liners, 1939:

▪ "You're not like a lot of these albino Gestapo types that Heydrich and Himmler grow on a petri dish in some fucking science lab. Which means you've got the job." (73)

▪ She wasn't anyone's idea of a madam but then her clients were rough untutored men who had no more idea of what passed for a proper house of love than the archbishop of Munich. (158)

▪ "We like everyone to be happy. That's why we have Mussolini. He at least seems to enjoy his fascism in a way you Germans don't." (163)

▪ Rudolf Hess had appeared behind his shoulder and regarded me ... The dark wave of hair on top of his square head was standing so high it looked as if it were concealing a pair of horns; either that or he'd been standing a little too close to the lightning conductor in Frankenstein's castle laboratory. (175)

▪ "Hey, I know I'm not liked up here. These fucking Bavarians are not as smart as us Prussians, Gunther." (359)

Introductions at Berghof:

"And what do you know about me?" 

"From what I've been told you're the Leader's right-hand man here in the Alps." 

"Is that it?" Borman uttered a scornful laugh. "I thought you were a detective." 

"Isn't that enough? Hitler's no ordinary leader." 

"But it's not just here, you know. No, I'm his right-hand man in the rest of Germany, too. Anyone else you've ever heard of as being a person close to the Leader—Göring, Himmler, Goebbels, Hess—believe me, they don't amount to shit when I'm around. The fact is that if any of them wants to see Hitler, they have to come through me. So when I talk, it's as if the Leader were here now, telling you what the fuck to do. Is that clear?" 

"Very clear." 

"Good." Bormann nodded at the bottle of schanpps on the table. "Would you like a drink?" 

"No, sir. Not when I'm on duty." 

"I'll decide if you're on duty, Commissar. I haven't yet made up my mind if you're the real deal or not. Until then, have a drink." (68-9)

To sum up:

I grinned. "Some beautiful scenery, a dead body, a lot of lies, and a dumbhead of a cop. You know, all we need is a pretty girl and a fat man and I think it's safe to say that we have all the ingredients for a Mack Sennett comedy. That's why I'm here in Obersalzberg, I guess. Because the Almighty enjoys a damn good laugh. Believe me, I should know. They say there's a grace in this world and forgiveness, only I don't see it, because my own fucked-up, falling-over, full-of-shit life has been keeping my dear Father in heaven amused since January 1933. To be honest, I'm beginning to hope he chokes on it."(108)

Survival and self-loathing:

What was the point of truth in a world dominated by cruelty and the arbitrary exercise of power? What had become of me now that I was so reduced? ... Perhaps nothing in life is more unpleasant to a man than to take the road that leads to himself. Perhaps I would only be free of these monstrous people on the day I went to hell. That's the trouble with being an eyewitness to history; sometimes history is like an avalanche that sweeps you down off the face of the mountain and into the oblivion of some hidden black crevasse. (359-60)

Fiona Barton. The Widow. Toronto: Penguin, 2016.

Jean Taylor is her name, this widow. Her husband Glen just died in a traffic accident; Jean is a cipher at first, dazed and mute. But we are taken back into the months before it happened, via the POV of detective Sparkes, reporter Kate Waters, Dawn ‒ mother of Bella, a missing child ‒ and Jean herself. Only Jean's sections are related in first-person style. Four years earlier Glen did jail time, awaiting trial for child kidnapping; he was acquitted and Bella was never found. The narrative switches back and forth and as the story proceeds one must pay attention to the timing. Jean's public demeanour, passive and childlike, smacks of abused wife but her private thoughts hint at something darker. Did she or did she not know of Glen's secret activities? She makes allowances and excuses for him in her own mind.

Jean inspires curiosity more than sympathy; her apparent naivete is creepy. Her marriage has "departments" with hers being well-defined: kitchen, bedroom, and shopping. They lack children of their own. Glen conceals his job failures from her with bombast; both exhibit denial on more than one level. He is computer savvy (she is not); his evenings online, by himself, are what she refers to as "his nonsense." After his acquittal, the determined Sparkes and Waters continue, hounding internet child porn sites for a connection between Glen and Bella. Glen launches a libel case against a major newspaper. Among other things, this is a cautionary tale of how the media can ruin lives, innocent or guilty. A well-crafted first novel ‒ expect more from Barton.

One-liners:

▪ It felt so safe being loved by Glen. (8)

▪ I'm a passenger, not the driver, I want to tell him. (140)

▪ The cameramen had appeared and were capturing every second, circling the trio to get the best shots while the reporters barked questions, separating Jean Taylor from her husband and leaving her stranded like a stray sheep. (214)

▪ "Why did you leave your little girl alone so someone could take her?" (214)

Multi-liners:

▪ "Have you got her under contract yet?" Terry asked. "Get her under contract, and then we can take our time getting the full works." (15)

▪ Anyway, he used to say to me, "Nobody's business but ours, Jeannie." That's why it was so hard when our business became everyone else's. (36)

▪ It wasn't my fault, but they blamed me. For being the wife. (124)

▪ "The press makes it all up. You know they do," he said, holding my hand. (159)

Sparkes makes a house call:

"Police? What is this about?" Taylor asked. 

"I would like to talk to you about the case of a missing child I'm investigating. It's about the disappearance of Bella Elliott," he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. The color drained from Glen Taylor's face, and he stepped back as if recoiling from a punch. 

Taylor's wife came out of the kitchen and was wiping her hands on a tea towel when the words "Bella Elliott" were spoken. A nice, decent-looking woman, Sparkes thought. She gasped and her hands flew up to her face. Strange how people react. That gesture, to cover your face, must be hardwired into people. Is it shame? Or an unwillingness to look at something? he wondered, waiting to be shown through to the sitting room. 

Odd really, he thought. He hasn't looked at his wife once the whole time. Poor woman. She looks like she's going to collapse. (82)

His parents:

How're you doing, George?" I asked as I passed him a tea. 

"I'd be a damned sight better if this idiot hadn't got himself involved with the police. Thanks, Jean. We've had the press knocking and on the phone morning, noon and night. We've had to take the phone off the hook to get some peace. Your sister's the same, Glen. It's a bloody nightmare." 

Glen said nothing. Perhaps everything had been said before I came in.But I couldn't let it go. I said, "It's a nightmare for Glen, too, George. For all of us. He's done nothing and he's lost his job. It isn't fair." 

Mary and George left soon afterward. 

"Good riddance," Glen said afterward, but I was never sure if he meant it. It was his mum and dad, after all. (113-4)

Her parents:

"Everything's going to be fine, Mum. It'll all get sorted out. It's a horrible mistake. Glen has told them where he was and what he was doing, and the police will put it right." 

She looked at me hard, like she was testing me. "Are you sure, Jean?" I was. 

After that, they didn't visit. I used to go and see them. (114-5)