Library Limelights 282

 

Linda Fairstein. Night Watch. USA: Dutton/Penguin Group, 2012.

Grabbed to fill a gap in the waiting list (and of course then three books arrive at once), this was a lucky pick. Alexandra Cooper is a high-powered New York prosecutor visiting her boyfriend who happens to be a high-profile French restaurateur; Luc Rouget has a three-star Michelin restaurant in the south of France. Sinister events take place during his outdoor dinner party: Luc’s home and restaurant are marked with old bones and skulls, and someone drowned Lisette, a local girl, nearby. Alex has little chance to assist LeGarde, the inexperienced policeman; her boss, district attorney Battaglia, orders her home to work a case with Pat McKinney. It’s a scandalous case, preparing to prosecute Mohammed “Baby Mo” Gil-Darsin for raping hotel maid Blanca Robles. Baby Mo is a French resident, respected head of a global economic network, and likely the next president of the Ivory Coast; his wife Kali is a stunning African super-model. Naturally he has a top defence lawyer while smarmy Byron Peaser is advising Blanca.

Complications surface very fast. Blanca is less than truthful, but Peaser knows how to force the DA’s hand. Alex’s police assistants Mike and Mercer learn that a dead body in a canal has connections to drug smuggling as well as to the restaurant business. Luc is in the midst of building a new Lutèce restaurant in New York; the heavy costs forced him to acquire capital partners. After work hours, Alex and her companions dine at some of Manhattan’s finest establishments, all the while puzzling over how to handle Blanca’s trial and who could be trying to sabotage Luc’s reputation. Or has Luc been lying about his connections? The personalities are solid and the dialogue sharp. Fairstein smoothly brings many disparate elements together. The inside workings of the prosecutor’s office are absolutely fascinating, as well as the details of famous (real!) restaurants. Some of my questions didn’t get answered but it’s an engaging mystery tour. Good to know: Alex Cooper stars in a series.

One-liners

▪ “What message was Lisette sent to deliver?” (26)

▪ I was beginning to question everything Luc tried to tell me. (69)

▪ “But Luc’s father, Andre, was a good friend of Papa Mo.” (198)

▪ “I don’t want to go to a ball game with him right now, no less marry him.” (253)

▪ “The damn place isn’t even ready to open yet and Gina and Peter are at each other’s throats,” Luc said. (287)

Multi-liners

▪ “Lives in France, but he’s West African. Rich as Croesus. Son of an exiled African leader and he’s rumored to be the next president of the Ivory Coast, give or take a revolution or two in between.” (36)

▪ Rape cases were like no other kind of crime. You were asking a woman to reveal facts about the most intimate kind of trauma forced on her, when often she had never spoken of such acts to anyone outside her personal relationships. (92-3)

▪ “Blanca lives on the margins. She’ll play you for a fool if she sucks you in.” (146)

▪ “Kali knows his weakness, his Achilles’ heel, better than anyone. He’s been embarrassing her for years with all his affairs and his harassment of women, whether it’s at conferences or in his own offices.” (181-2)

▪ “Be sensible, Alex. I’m well-known in my business—and someone is obviously trying to bring me down, on two continents.” (218)

▪ “That’s either a boatload of counterfeit pocketbooks the boyfriend is selling, or enough drugs to keep the rest of Guatemala on a permanent high.” (301)

Legal twists

Pat McKinney reached out his arm to Blanca. “What’s this about? We’ve done everything possible to protect your identity and keep the wolves away from your door. You’re not appearing at any press conference, no matter who’s calling the shots.”

“Peaser’s filed his lawsuit against Gil-Darsin,” Laura said. “Fifty million dollars.”

“What?” McKinney was practically screaming. “Before we go to the Grand Jury?”

“Blanca called Peaser from my office this morning,” I said. “She told him we’d caught her in some lies. This is a stunt to hold Battaglia’s toes to the fire, to keep the pressure on him to get an indictment sooner rather than later.” (152)

Papa Mo

“Then you should know that the Gil-Darsins live in Grasse, Paul. It’s the neighboring village of Mougins,” I said, struggling to keep my eyes steadied on the DA’s face. “They’ve been customers of Luc’s restaurant—for years, Boss, for many, many years.”

I thought the look from Paul Battaglia’s eyes was going to burn through the lenses of his glasses. “Go on.”

I didn’t know where to go. “There may be no significance in all this. I wouldn’t say they were close. But Luc’s father, Andre, was a good friend of Papa Mo’s.”

Battaglia grunted. “The great dictator. The thief who took the ivory out of the Ivory Coast. Lives like a king in France but left his people penniless.” (198)

Stephanie Wrobel. This Might Hurt. Ebook download from TPL. USA: Simon &Schuster, 2022.

Two sisters who had not exactly been close while growing up with a loving single mother: Kit has gone off the radar to Wisewood, an isolated island for a six-month program that promises applicants will become fearless in order to Maximize Self. When she discovers this, older sister Natalie hurries off to rescue her, feeling guilty about always criticizing Kit and withholding a family secret. After Natalie, uninvited, is ungraciously received on the island—stern rules govern every daily moment for Wisewood “guests”―she is repulsed by their cult-ish rules, including no touching and women with shaved heads and being completely cut off from the outside world. But Kit is happy and highly esteemed by Teacher, their leader. Both sisters give their different perspectives to the narrative.

Wrobel aptly describes Wisewood and the numerous characters in it as a self-improvement community; “As long as I fear I cannot be free” is one of their maxims. Goals and tests are set for them to conquer their fears. Kit is forthright in telling us (and a dubious Natalie) how her life has changed for the better, meeting each challenge Teacher offers her. Natalie senses something off underneath it, her paranoia proving that the danger is real. She only wants to remove Kit from the island. The sister dynamics are very complex; each lacks understanding of the other.

The story of a third woman, unnamed, is inserted to illustrate a childhood where father was always called Sir in a system of punishment and reward. His daughter found a distraction in studying Houdini and as an adult began performing her own bizarre “magic” acts, convinced she was helping her fans to lose their personal fears. Seasoned readers will figure out the obvious, but I can say I was confused for a time about the novel’s structure. No spoilers: except watch the timeline carefully. Manipulation or emotional blackmail is being practised on more than one level. The book is publicized as a thriller, but Wrobel is also preaching other lessons.

~ An off of writer ~

Natalie

▪ My sister needs rescuing more often than most people. (24)

▪ What has she told these people about me? (26)

▪ How could she think this place is the answer? (99)

▪ She has them all trained like dogs. When I get off this godforsaken island, I’m going to drag that woman through the mud until she’s buried. (307)

Kit

▪ “By coming here, I’m trying to control my life.” (134)

▪ I had eased another human being’s pain. (211)

▪ I craved her approval. Teacher telling me I was special was more important than whether it was actually true. (303-4)

Third Woman

▪ I would never, ever give up performing. (92)

▪ I no longer scared easily, having spent most of my childhood summoning the nerve to complete whatever insane exploit Sir conjured next. (109)

▪ “Yes, the dress burned all the way to the neck, like we planned.” (226)

▪ I knew how to swallow pain, to repurpose it as a source of power. (230)

▪ I could bear to surrender not one more soul to fear. (265)

Chris Pavone. Two Nights in Lisbon. USA: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2022.

Ah ... Cheers for a top-notch thriller with a tantalizing edge of espionage and politics. On a business trip to Lisbon, John Wright is kidnapped for ransom. Who, how, why, are the questions racing through the mind of his new wife Ariel Pryce. John is not a wealthy man. Her imagination goes wild inventing crazy scenarios. She appeals to the police, to the American embassy, to her ex-husband Bucky, eventually (and secretly) raising and paying the ransom money herself, all at breathless pace. Ariel succeeds in getting John released, but the Lisbon police, the CIA, and a reporter are chasing them with many questions. Interspersed is Ariel’s surprising, sometimes horrifying, backstory; how she abruptly abandoned her life of luxury. Now she just wants them to get home, away from the unknown fiends who devised the kidnapping, away from harassment, and make sure her pre-teen son George is safe.

The book has a not uncommon thread (as do many mysteries) of how well do we know our nearest and dearest, but the plotting here is perfectly structured between Ariel’s ongoing anxiety and those who at first dismiss John’s disappearance, then slowly wake to a potential American scandal of dangerous proportions. CIA agent Griffiths, Lisbon cop Santos, Wagstaff the reporter, all have mere pieces of the ultimate puzzle. Why does someone ask about John’s sister? IMO it’s the best Pavone novel yet. It moves from one mystery to another, building collective suspense at peak level. Social commentary regarding the wealthy, jet-setting society that Ariel (not her real name) once moved among is scathing—great contrast with the modest life she deliberately chose later.

After the kidnapping

▪ Maybe he has a questionable past that has finally caught up to him, or a questionable present that he’s adept at hiding. (21)

▪ “And get this,” he continues. “The wife doesn’t know about the husband’s name change. (37)

▪ Hell, she knows how it looks to her: a short, rash courtship; a couple who don’t really know each other; a disappearance that could be almost anything, or nothing. (73)

▪ From a half block away, Pete Wagstaff watches in amazement as Ariel now has what appears to be a civil conversation with the CIA man she just beat the shit out of. (112-3)

▪ “Married couples are always a team. Except when they’re enemies.” (125)

▪ “Listen, you have three options: get me the cash; or get me my husband; or lose everything.” (153)

▪ “Hello sir,” she says. “I’m sorry to inform you that we have a situation here.” (251)

▪ “We’re going to scare the shit out of her, then let her go, and see what she does with her fear.”

▪ Her tail is still with her, albeit farther back, trying to hide, and failing. Or maybe not trying at all. Maybe the CIA wants her to know that they’re right there, watching. (386)

Before the kidnapping

▪ “Oh. My. God.” One of these women was staring at Ariel. “Laurel?” (58)

▪ Elaine was convinced that the ultimate luxury was having other people do everything for you; Ariel thought it was having the freedom to do things for yourself. (137)

▪ This was why Ariel had felt so alone in the world, for so long: She couldn’t expect unconditional support even from her own mother. (138)

▪ He lowered his hand to his crotch, and stroked his erection through his linen pants. “Whaddaya think?” (275)

▪ Bucky was a messy drunk, intellectually and emotionally. (296)

▪ Ariel feigned confusion, but they both knew what she wanted: to hurt him. She wanted him to suffer; she wanted to watch him suffer. (343)