Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel by Robert Crais

I thought one of us had reported on this book already, but a blog search came up empty. I even thought I had read this one. Does that mean it is time to change authors and genres? The copyright date is 2008. This is a story about Elvis Cole pursuing a serial murder suspect even though the LAPD has already closed the case, Cole being sure they got the wrong guy. The suspect had been accused of an earlier murder in the series of seven, and Cole had been hired by the guy’s attorney to help with the investigation. He had found enough info to prove the man’s innocence, and charges against him were dropped. Now, with a new murder, the families were leaked information by the cops, and they think it was Cole who set the murderer free. Pike and Starkey are in this book, but neither has a key role. Crais does a good job with his characters and keeping the byzantine murder investigation a mystery until the end. You get to really hate the detective Crimmens, a really great asshole. I guess I just don’t get tired of the good-cop-bad-cop scenario. It is a quick and fun read. Go for it.

West Coast Don

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

This is not a book of our genre. I learned about it from one of the Amazon emails that I’ve been blitzed with during the holiday season. Nonetheless, an interesting story. The first author is the main character in the story. Malawi is a very poor country sandwiched between Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia. By reading the book, you’ll get a sense of the desperate lives of most of the population who do subsistence farming. There are a couple droughts to be survived, and the family of William eke out a continued existence, but not all of his friends do. While the authors tell of such difficulties, just the hardships of day-to-day life, William’s family cannot afford to keep him in school, something he deeply wants. Due to drought and corruption, they lose out and go broke despite his father’s best efforts. In William’s free time, when he is not helping his father with the farm, he dreams up the idea of building a windmill to generate electricity. About halfway through the book, the authors get down to describing the details of how one would go about doing that without any money and without any materials. He spends a lot of time scrounging through a junkyard to find the parts that he needs, which he eventually pulls off. He repeatedly returns to his school’s library to read physics books to learn about electricity. Once the windmill is complete, at first he just lights a light bulb, and then he extends the wires to his room so he can read at night. Not only are his immediate neighbors impressed, but people begin traveling for miles to see the “electric wind.” William figures out how to use batteries to store power and how to extend the electricity to the other rooms of the house. Better yet, he figures out how to use the electricity to pump water from their deep wells so women don’t have to walk for miles to get good water. He is eventually discovered by some reporters and then he is discovered by “TED,” an organization I’m assuming you know about. He wins a scholarship even though he has been out of school for five years, so he is that much older than his classmates. But, he was so happy to be back in school, and with his scholarship money, he could do so much more. Because of his fame, he became a world traveler and continued to bring prosperity to his village. The writing was not all that great, but it does give a clear picture of a very difficult life. It is inspiring that such a creative mind could come from such a place as Malawi. I’m glad I read this one, but it may not be your cup of tea.

West Coast Don

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen

It started with a beating outside a bar in London. Mitchell beat this guy within an inch of his life, somehow without damaging his hands. He gets sent to prison for 3 years where he develops a taste for reading crime novels. When he gets out, some friends toss him a party where he gets 2 offers: an old 'friend' offers him some work as an enforcer for a loan shark and the local reporter on the crime beat tells Mitchell about this aging actress in need of a handyman. Unable to give up the rush of crime, but looking for legitimate work, he takes both offers.

After a few runs, the crime boss, Gant, takes a shine to Mitchell and offers him a more supervisory role over a group of enforcers, but that's too far into the old life for Mitchell's taste. Lillian, the actress, lives in a London estate with her loyal butler, Jordan. Mitchell is given a trial run and passes the test. He is even offered an apartment over the garage that houses a genuine Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. Jordan is a cold taskmaster whose only loyalty is to Madame.

Back and forth, we follow Mitchell as he teeters between the exhilaration of the old life and the possibilities of his new life, not to mention a developing relationship with Aisling who, surprise surprise, is attracted to Mitchell only because of who he is when he is with her. Mitchell balances his life at the estate (where he and slightly nutty Lillian have a 'friends with benefits' kind of thing going), his relationship with Aisling, and Gant's attempt to lean on Mitchell to steal the Silver Ghost.

Mitchell has had it with Gant and the heavies sent to encourage Mitchell to steal the car. But Gant doesn't seem to be all that happy with Mitchell's attempts to lean back. When Mitchell's sister is assaulted, he decides to strike back using all the skills of his old life. Surprisingly, Jordan has a similar skill set and the two plot out how to get Mitchell out of the old life.

Along the way, Mitchell decides he wants to marry Aisling and starts the process only to learn his sister has attempted suicide, and Aisling . . . well, to go into the rest of the story would spoil a righteous, surprising, and typically dark Bruen ending. Suffice it to say, all levels of Mitchell's life is as a prisoner, first to the state for an assault (that he may or may not have actually committed-how do you beat someone so viciously with no marks to show for it?) and now in the insular world of an actress living in her past and a vision of a future, mostly created by a loyal servant, that is not ever likely to happen.

One of Mitchell's 'flaws' is that he is loyal to people from the old life. He likes this guy who sells newspapers on the street. When the old guy is mugged and then dies, Mitchell reluctantly takes care of the burial and arranges upkeep on the grave (shades of Cheapskates). When he finds the 2 kids responsible, he caps the knees of the one with a future in professional soccer with absolutely no remorse.

This is I think the fourth Bruen novel posted here. Cross, The Guards, and Once were Cops were all terrific reads and Cops scared the sh*t out of me with one of the most evil characters I've ever read - move over Hannibal Lector. Bruen's style of noir writing may take some getting used to for some, but I find his sparse, 9mm to the forehead style totally riveting.

What I find interesting is the way Bruen first tells you what the person is thinking first. Lillian gives Mitchell a BMW. She proudly asks Mitchell if he likes red. Mitchell thinks 'I hate fucking red,' but says 'my favorite.' That, and his penchant for 1 sentence paragraphs makes this a really fast read. While James Lee Burke really details the Louisiana setting, Bruen is all about dialogue. Short, sharp, and no BS. Mysteries seem to be about setting, scene, and developing the story line from the character and locale points of view or it can be about characters, dialogue, and hidden thoughts. I really liked some of Bruen's lines. Mitchell tries on a shirt 'that fits like a prayer.' If I could remember more, I'd use them.

London Boulevard will be a movie to be released in 2010 with Colin Farrell as Mitchell. Keira Knightly plays Charlotte, who I can only assume is a renamed Lillian. Should the movie be true to the book (yeah, like that'll happen), expect a hard R for violence and plenty of bumping uglies between Mitchell and Lillian/Charlotte and also him with Aisling (but I can't find her name on the movie's IMDB page - did her character get written out?)

A neat twist in this book were the continuing references to mysteries that Mitchell has read with quotes pertinent to his particular situation. If I had kept notes, I bet I could find some new authors. Maybe I should do just that before turning this back in to the library. Not to be trite and quote Ah-nold from The Terminator, but Mr Bruen, "I'll be back."

East Coast Don

Alex Cross's Trial by James Patterson and Richard Dilallo

I thought EC Don had already written about this book, but a search of the blog came up with nothing, so I’ll give you a brief review. This is one of the Alex Cross series which is co-written by James Patterson and Richard Dilallo. The last book I reported about took place in 1907, and this one takes place in 1906. Unlike Cussler’s Wrecker, this was a very good book. I felt like I was reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The plot has to do with a white man who was raised in podunk Eudora, Mississippi, has gotten a Harvard law education, and then hooked up with Teddy Roosevelt at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the Spanish-American War. The lawyer, Benjamin Corbett, ends up in D.C., and he is having his own marital troubles because he won’t give up protecting the downtrodden. That means he is not making money on his cases, and his wife wants a better life circumstance. It is then that Teddy decides to send Ben down to Eudora to look into the surge in lynchings that has been going on in the south. Risking his marriage coming to an end, Ben goes back to his home town where he has not been in six years since the death of his mother. His father is still alive and working there, but Ben and his father are estranged. Ben investigates the ongoing lynchings while encountering so many of the people he remembers from childhood. He moves in and out of the black community in the “Quarters,” and the white community in the rest of Eudora, developing very interesting characters in all places. I am rating this one at the top of my list for recommendations.

West Coast Don

The Wrecker by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

Cussler again writes with a coauthor, this time it is Justin Scott. This book is a period piece that takes place almost exclusively in 1907. The plot takes place around building a railroad line through a particularly difficult place in the Rockies. The railroad tycoon is Osgood Hennessy. He owns the Southern Pacific Railroad, but he also wants to corner the market on all railroads in the U.S. However, he has a foil, the Wrecker, whose true identity is not revealed until near the end of the story. As clever as Hennessy is at pushing forward his plans, the Wrecker is equally clever at thwarting those moves and pushing Hennessy towards bankruptcy. There is a race against time to complete the main bridge and tunnels through the Cascade Cutoff before winter starts. Hennessy knows that if he does not get done in time, that he will never get the funding that he needs to complete the project and become the richest man in America. In what must be akin to the Pinkertons, Hennessy hires the Van Dorn Detective Agency to guard his rail and get the Wrecker, and their best detective is Isaac Bell. Bell is the main character who slowly and gradually gets closer to figuring out the identity of the Wrecker. Of course, the story includes beautiful women, politicians, and relationship intrigues. Overall, this book falls into my “airplane book” category. There were times when I thought the authors were getting lost in the details rather than pushing the plot. I learned more about railroads than I had known before. For me, it was fun to think about my grandfather who in the 1920s to 1940s, was a conductor on the Nickle Plate Railroad that ran from Dayton, Ohio, to Chicago, with my home, Fort Wayne, being the midway point of the line. His stories about encountering the Capone boys were always interesting (but I digress, again).

West Coast Don

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke

New Orleans is trying to prepare for Katrina and doing a piss poor job of it. When it hits, the city becomes an American version of Baghdad, lawless with no clue about its future. Looters, bad cops, and general lowlifes rule the streets. 4 losers from the 9th ward are boating through some nice neighborhoods and choose the wrong house. What they find hidden behind the sheetrock walls includes a ton of (counterfeit) money, some cocaine, and way more than they bargained for . . . blood diamonds.

Across the street, Otis Baylor and family are still trying to recover from their daughter's rape and some neighbors are talking vigilante-big. During the looting, the 4 loser's boat runs out of gas and sneak into Otis' garage to steal some fuel. A shot rings out. One dies, the spine of a second is shattered, and causes a sort of reawakening in Bertrand, one of the 4. BTW, these idiots not only stole from the Mob, they've also stumbled into the home of one of their rape victims.

The owner of the stolen booty is a "big sleazy" crime boss. The FBI thinks the diamonds are to help fund al Qaeda. A really weird sociopath (isn't all that redundant?) emerges and threatens our hero Detective Dave Robicheaux and his family, but the police and FBI have nothing on him. Murders pile up, attempts are made on dozens of people, and yet no one can pin anything on our friendly neighborhood psycho, Ronald Bledsoe.

A seemingly minor detail turns over a rock that Ronald used to live under. Turns out he has a connection here, but not to the underworld boss which everyone thinks. Also turns out he isn't interested in the diamonds to help fund terrorism, rather he just wants them for himself. No honor with this thief I guess.

As the various plots finally come together, Ronald and his partner in crime meet a particularly gruesome and satisfying end when trying to kidnap Robicheaux's wife and daughter.

Burke has been chronicled here on a couple occasions: Rain Gods and In The Electric Mist. Robicheaux was played in the (just average) movie version of Electric Mist by Tommy Lee Jones so that was the image I had while reading. Other reviews said this was the definitive crime story about Katrina. Now had Burke dispensed with the Faulkner-esque descriptions of New Orleans after Katrina, this nearly 500 page paperback might have been maybe 300-350 pages long. But Burke is well know for his ability to paint an image, not only visual, but also a treat for the olfactory sense. The environment of the Bayou is a critical character here (and In Electric Mist) so the reader certainly is transported to a specific time and place. The figurative heat and humidity almost make you want to shower after reading all about it. Read it for the twisted crime tale of demented psychopathic personalities or read it for what some said was the most honest portrayal of post-Katrina New Orleans. Whatever your poison, you won't be disappointed.

East Coast Don

True Compass by Ted Kennedy

This was a totally self-serving autobiography, as anyone might expect from a politician. I thought his memoirs about the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Clinton impeachment, and other such stuff was interesting, but there was too much fluff. I would not have read this had it not been a book for my wife’s book club, and she was not impressed either. So, even though you would have let this one get by you anyway, I agree that is a good move

West Coast Don

Lullaby Town by Robert Crais

Peter Alan Nelsen is the King of Adventure movies, directing blockbuster after blockbuster. But he has pangs of guilt from a college marriage and child that left his life 10-12 years ago. So he hires Elvis Cole, an LA private investigator to track them down because he really wants to meet his son.

The former wife, Karen, left LA for parts unknown, but finding people who don't want to be found is the specialty of Elvis Cole and his partner, the very creepy Joe Pike. While Karen tried to leave unnoticed, for someone like Elvis, she left a trail a mile wide. She is now in Connecticut living a safe life in a small town . . . bank VP, the PTA, library advisory committee . . . with her son Toby. Obviously, the arrival of Elvis trying to bring back her past is not welcome.

While meeting with Karen and telling her that Peter has no ulterior motives other than to meet his son, Elvis stumbles onto a mob connection to Karen. Charlie DeLuca (aka Charlie the Tuna), son of Sal, the capo del tutti capos (the big cheese of the NY mob), is laundering money through Karen and she wants out. So Elvis (and now Joe Pike) agree to get her out from under the mob.

NYC is subdivided by the major families. Charlie the Tuna has a deal going where he finds out when a competing mob's drug shipments are coming in through JFK. He gets some guys from a low rent Jamaican mob to do the heist and sell the dope with Charlie getting a cut that gets laundered through Karen's bank. Guess the families don't like scumbags messing with their business.

To get Karen out, Elvis confronts Sal about his son's dealings. But jerk that Charlie is wants revenge. He whacks his dad and heads off to Connecticut to deal with Karen, Toby, Elvis, Pike, and now Peter Alan Nelsen . . . a confrontation that sends Charlie off to swim with his tuna.

Three other Crais novels have been posted here: The 2 Minute Rule, the LA Requiem, and The Watchman. This 1992 book shows us that Elvis Cole is a bit of a smart ass (aren't most fictional PIs?). When asked his fee, he says "$4000" to which a producer says they can't pay that, so Elvis says, "Then how about $6000?" And Joe Pike is pretty weird, but good to have around when the shit hits the fan. I left out a number of subplots, especially with Peter arrives and basically says "I'm Peter Alan Nelsen. I can do anything." and attempts to reason with Charlie the Tuna. Yeah, like that was a good idea. Good mystery, in sort of a fish out of water way, with an LA PI digging around the in the business of the NY mob and in the end, gaining grudging respect from the NY capos. His new title The First Rule, due in Jan 2010, features Joe Pike. I am now #155 on the request list at the library. I'll be back for more Crais.

East Coast Don

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

The story line is a great one that starts with Harry, who has been working with an ineffective partner for too long, finally gets a new murder case to solve. It seems like an easy, slam dunk case (we have Chick Hern to thank for that expression), but then the complications sets in. Harry’s only child is a 13-yo daughter that lives in Hong Kong with her mother, who is a paid gambler for a casino in Macao. Harry’s daughter, Madeline, wants to come back to LA to live with her father, but mom won’t allow it. The opening murder happens in South Central at the Fortune Liquor Store, which is owned and run by a Chinese family, and in the course of his investigation, Harry traces their ties to the triads in Hong Kong. Quickly, it becomes necessary to following leads in Hong Kong, and that is when all hell breaks loose. His daughter is kidnapped in Hong Kong, and Harry has to find her and get her back to LA. The Hong Kong police pursue Harry back in LA, so part of the story is resolving that problem. The two main story lines about the South Central murder and his daughter’s involvement do not come together until the last couple pages, and I did not see the connection coming. Connelly is one of my favorite authors, and this book definitely keeps him on my A list.

West Coast Don

The Fallen by T. Jefferson Parker

Robbie Brownlaw is a San Diego homicide detective who was thrown out of a six story room, and he survived. However, the head injury left him with synesthesia, a condition that I had never heard of before. He sees different shapes and colors when people talk to him, depending on their emotions. For example, he sees red squares when someone is lying to him. It seemed pretty hokey to me, but T. Jefferson Parker manages to write a good story about corruption in the San Diego government. A lot of the story surrounds the “Squeaky Cleans,” which is a group of prostitutes who service the power shakers in town. As the story evolves, Parker does a good job with Brownlaw’s character development and his own relationship problems, as well as those of a couple other key players. I don’t need to tell you anymore. It was a good and fast read, and I’d recommend it.

West Coast Don

A Grave Denied by Dana Stabenow

I picked up A Grave Denied at the library for my trip to India, but didn't get around to reading it until returning home. The back cover blurb said it was based in The Park up in Alaska, so after having just read The Final Frontiersman based up in Alaska, I thought it was worth a shot. This is one part of a long series of mysteries based around a sort of lady PI up there named Kate Shugak who used to work sex crimes for the Anchorage police.

It's spring, the weather has moderated and the middle/high school kids are on a field trip up to study a local glacier. While exploring, 2 of the kids wander into a cave in the glacier and find a body with a huge shotgun hole in his chest. This starts a chain of events involving numerous characters from the small town near The Park called Niniltna. The stiff is a local handyman, Len, and Kate is asked by a suitor-wanna-be state policeman, Jim Chopin to do a little digging into guy's last known sightings. So she slowly traces out the last jobs he had done for the locals. Along the way, Kate's house gets torched in an attempt to get her off the case. The son of a Tribal boss, called Dandy (who wants to get on the police force) also goes out asking questions. Following a lead to Anchorage, Kate stumbles onto a teenager with all the signs of prior abuse. A little more digging shows that the Len was living under an alias and did a prior prison term as a sex offender. Not long after, Dandy is found dead of the same shotgun blast. Kate is sure that the girl's dad was the killer.

A back story has Kate caring for the teenage son of a deceased policeman/lover (the kid found the body). Johnny has struck up a developing friendship with Vanessa whose parents were dead and now living with some cousins old enough to be her grandparents. On a hunch, Kate goes back out to their homestead because the stiff had done some work out there and Kate was wondering if Vanessa might also have been molested.

The 'mom', Telma, is really screwed up. A passive, cookie baking nutcase. The 'dad', Virgil, worships the ground she walks on and is very protective of her. When Kate arrives, Virgil takes her down with a shovel and tries to bury her in the garden. Turns out ol' Telma had/has a serious case of post partum depression and killed all 5 babies she bore out there in the boondocks. Loyal and loving Virgil buried them all in their garden. During a job for Virgil, Len discovered the backyard cemetery and thinks he can blackmail Virgil for some money. After a few months of payments, Virgil ends the agreement with extreme prejudice and deposits Len in the glacier. Jim Chopin follows Kate to Virgil's place, finds him in the process of burying Kate and manages to subdue Virgil, finally wrapping up the case. In the end, the community all comes together and, in an Alaskan version of Extreme Homemaker, build Kate and Johnny a new house.

I thought this was pretty good. Kate is a heroine anyone could get behind. The story was well plotted with enough twists to keep me interested. I was kind of hoping for sort of an Alaskan Tony Hillerman who became famous for his weaving of Navaho culture into traditional mysteries, but sad to say, she is no Hillerman. This tale could have taken place anywhere, but would have been way more interesting with local culture being as critical to the story as the crime. While I did enjoy the story, I'm not sure at this point when I might venture back into Kate Shugak's neighborhood, but I might.

East Coast Don

Pursuit of Honor by Vince flynn

Flynn is definitely on my power rotation. Every new title the library gets has my name on the (long) request list. As a reminder, I sort of know his sister from some work with US Soccer. I read this during the week I was sick after returning from India. Probably read over half of this in the can.

The books opens days after Muslim extremists have blown up a power lunch restaurant filled with members of Congress and staffers. As a further insult, a second squad attacks the National Counter Terrorist Center killing dozens more until our hero Mitch Rapp and partner Mike Nash send the bad guys off to paradise. With nearly 200 dead, the nation is in no mood to coddle Islamic extremists. The President has given Rapp a green light to be if not judge and jury, certainly the executioner. The sharp edge of the CIA's sword has been let loose with few strings attached. The story takes place over the following week.

Rapp is on the trail of a liberal weenie lawyer inspector general of the CIA who has been giving out information that some consider to aid the enemy. Meanwhile, 3 of the cell that helped carry out the DC attack are hiding out in rural Iowa, waiting for the heat to die down. Hakim is the logical planner who knows about the US having lived here. Karim is the hotheaded soldier who wants a legacy as The Lion of al Qaeda. A dad and son walk up to their farmhouse asking for permission to hunt. Hakim says sure because he knows that's all they want, but Karim is convinced they are police and kills them both. Now they are on the run, trying to stay a step ahead of the police. Neither trusts the other and end up splitting. Hakim to Nassau to get money and hide somewhere, Karim and Ahmed to Washington to wreck more havoc.

Rapp is trying to piece together disparate clues from British and French intelligence, the FBI, local police, Caribbean banking, and more I can't recall. How he does it on probably 4-5 hrs sleep is beyond me. Meanwhile, Mike Nash is worried he is becoming just like Rapp and can't deal with it. By pure luck, Rapp runs into Hakim while following the money to Nassau. As Karim had beaten Hakim to within an inch of his life for insubordination, Hakim is easy to turn against Karim. They all go back to DC just as Karim kidnaps Nash's daughter and holds her as the central figure in one last final shot at Islamic glory. Of course, he fails with Rapp taking care of business with exxxxxxtreeeeeeme prejudice.

In this story, Flynn seems to be more focused on character and logical plot development rather than body count. It's all about trying to connect the dots . . . at a breakneck pace. If there was one thing I didn't like, it's Flynn's penchant for conservative sermonizing as when Rapp confronts the treasonous lawyer, and I'm on his side. But that doesn't get in the way of a terrific read. It all seems like a re-telling of something that really could happen. I certainly hope that the realism presented isn't a look into our near future. Flynn's books have yet to let me down, but I sure hope he isn't right.

East Coast Don

Rain Gods by James Lee Burke

Burke is the author that a woman in a bookstore at Heathrow suggested, so now I've gotten thru one of his books -- and it was a good one. East Coast Don already reported on a Burke novel – see June 2009, In the Electric Mist, which took place in Louisiana. This story, Rain Gods, takes place in South Texas where nine Thai women are being smuggled into the country to be prostitutes, but they are smugglers themselves who happen to have swallowed a bunch of balloons filled with heroin. A guy who owns an escort service and house of ill repute, Nick Dolan (married with children), decides to highjack the girls to be prostitutes, but he does not know about the heroin in their stomachs. In the process of getting the girls into the US, the ultimate bad ass psychopath, Preacher Jack Collins decides the women are complaining to much, so he kills them all with his Thompson machine gun, then buries then in shallow graves with the intent of coming back later to cut out the heroin-filled balloons. An Iraq war veteran, Pete Florez, overhears the shooting and sees what has happened. Pete is with a woman who has a nearly terminal case of rescue fantasy. Pete calls the cops, and this is where the protagonist enters, Sheriff Hackberry Holland. (How about that for an entertaining name?) So, now the girls and the heroin are gone, and lots of bad guys are upset about their losses. What is unique about this book is the long list of bad buys who have shifting alliances. The short list is Hugo Cistranos, Artie Rooney, and Joseph Sholokof, all of whom play important roles behind the scenes. After this book by Burke, I am clearly willing to try another one by him. His character development is good, and it kept me very interested.

West Coast Don

Up In Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard

Honey's Room is another recommendation by the chief Knuckmeister, Charlie Stella. His last suggestions have been winners so I had no doubt this would be fun, too.

Our tale takes place in the waning days of WWII in Detroit. Honey has married the most boring man on earth, Walter Schoen-a German ex-pat, but she walks out after a year. Dull, dull, dull. The most fun they have is when he needs to pass gas, he tells Honey "Pull my finger" and then she falls down like she's been shot. Hell, he doesn't even know she's not a natural blond cuz he only bumps uglis in the dark.

Honey goes to work in a downtown department store selling better dresses and Walter continues on as a butcher. Problem is he is a dead ringer from Himmler and thinks he is a long lost twin, so he harbors some sentiment to the German cause. So does Vera and her cross-dressing Ukrainian lover Bo. We also meet Jurgen (SS tank commander from the Afrika Korps) and Otto who are POWs recently escaped from a camp in Oklahoma who have found their way to Detroit, closely followed by Carl, a US Marshall of some notoriety.

Vera is a low rent German spy and Bo has a violent past, slicing his way through a POW camp earlier in the war and with Walter has a little spy ring set up. An ObGyn and a Klansman also figure in this little circle of spies who really seem to learn very little of substance to send back to the Fatherland. This motley group circles each other as Honey weighs taking off her clothes (something she does rather frequently) for Jurgen or Carl. Meanwhile, Carl is going through Honey to find Jurgen who wants to be a professional bull rider.

But Walter has bigger ideas. He wants to assassinate FDR as a gift for der Furher's birthday. Problem is, FDR has his stroke the day before the intended strike, so Walter tries to let everybody assume he somehow did it by shrugging "you believe what you want to believe."

Anyway, Vera and Bo are worried that the FBI are closing in and hatch a plan to kill them all. First Bo takes out the bigot and the doc (the doc's wife is collateral damage). Then the rest are all "Up in Honey's Room" when Bo enters in his finest dress carrying a submachine gun in an umbrella. He taunts them a bit, makes them all strip and sit on the couch. In an earlier scene, Honey and Jurgen fiddled with a Luger that she stuffed in between the couch cushions. She moves Carl's hand to the pistol and . . .

What happened next actually surprised me a bit. It may surprise you too, or you may see it coming. It doesn't matter cuz it's all fun getting to this potential massacre scene. Needless to say, Vera is a survivor, Jurgen is suspected to be in Cleveland or with Otto (who married a nice Jewish girl-go figure), Carl goes back to Oklahoma and his Marine machine gun instructor wife . . . and Honey? When Carl tells this tale to his wife, will he leave in the part about Honey traipsing around naked in high heels?

This was too cool. Stella says that Higgins and Leonard are masters of dialogue and the 1940s rat-a-tat-tat dialogue shows us just who these characters are. The Germans are trying to learn and use American slang, sometimes not too successfully, Honey is working out who to spend her future with, Carl is trying like hell to stay faithful and Jugen just wants to be a cowboy. I was unaware of Leonard's body of work and was surprised to see he had written the books that became the movies Get Shorty (IMHO, Travolta's Chili Palmer is one of the coolest dudes on film), Hombre (Newman), Mr. Majestyk (Bronson), Valdez is Coming (Bert Lancaster), 52 Pickup (Roy Scheider), 3:10 to Yuma, etc. etc. etc. So, for a good time, I've got the feeling you can't go wrong with most any Leonard story.

East Coast Don

Mutiny by Boris Gindin and David Hagberg

The Mutiny by Boris Gindin and David Hagberg

This was a novelized non-fiction work, the story that inspired Tom Clancy to write his first novel, The Hunt for Red October. I thought EC Don had written about this, but when I searched the blog, the book did not come up. I think I got this one because it was associated with Hagberg. As much as Dan Quail was not John Kennedy, this is no Hunt for Red October. The real story involved a surface ship, not a submarine, and the intent of the guy who led the mutiny, the ship’s political officer, was not to defect. Rather, he had the harebrained idea that he could use the ship to broadcast to the Russian people. He believed that his message against the current leadership, Brezhnef, would lead to a new revolution and a return to the true values of Karl Marx. When he seized the vessel, he actually did get to deliver his message, but it was in the middle of the night. Also, the radioman was clever enough to send it as an encrypted message, so only the military people could understand what he was saying. There were some interesting interchanges in the chain of command, from the mutineers to Brezhnef. But, there was a lot of extraneous stuff, like too much info and comparisons to the events with Bligh and the H.S.S. Bounty, and too much info on the history of the Russian Navy and what was going on in the gulags. Since you won’t be reading this, I’ll tell you the ending was fast. The ship did get out of port and into the open Baltic Sea. They almost made it to Swedish waters, which was not where they wanted to go. They were attacked by the Russian air force about the same time the real captain escaped from his temporary prison, seized a gun, shot the political prisoner in the leg, and took back control of the ship. All participants, those that went along with the mutiny and those that were not were either run out of the Navy (a cushy job for officers) or demoted. The political officer was apparently killed, as in he got his 9 ounces (of lead). Clancy was pretty clever to have gone from this minor incident to the great story he wrote. This book is not worth your energy.

West Coast Don

The Defector by Daniel Silva

Daniel Silva: The Defector 11-8-09

Although each of the series of Gabriel Allon books builds on the one before it, all of the books have been stand-alones, as well. However, this one is more closely tied to the last book, Moscow Rules, and that one should be read first, as a prelude to this one. Silva gives us all the usual characters. The protagonist is Gabriel Allon, and his spy master is still Ari Shamron. Gabriel is newly married to the beautiful Chiara. Once again, the book starts in Italy where Allon is restoring a painting, and the effort must be interrupted as he is pulled back into another international problem. One of the main characters from Moscow Rules, Grigori Bulganov, is living in London. He has done from being a quiet and isolated defector to a public and outspoken critic of the Kremlin. That leads to trouble for both England and Russia. There are other bad characters, like Anton Petrov and Ivan Kharkov. When Bulganov defected to England, Kharkov’s wife and two children escaped him and Russia to live in protective custody in the U.S. But, Kharkov wants his kids back. The plot line is great, and I don’t think anyone in this genre writes better than Silva. This may be the bloodiest of the Allon series, which is saying a lot. I enjoyed it – it was one I could not put down.

WC Don

The Final Frontiersman by James Campbell

I don't know where I first came across this title, but I do have a bit of a history of reading about people living in the elements with the barest of essentials. Hey, my favorite 'western' movie is Jeremiah Johnson.

The book's subtitle is "Heimo Korth and his family, alone in Alaska's Wilderness." Our man Heimo, his Inuit-descendent wife Edna, and their 2 children, Rachel and Krin live way the hell up north in Alaska in a cabin maybe 15 x 15ft in temps that rarely get above zero except during the Alaskan summer. Their life is semi-nomadic to keep up with food and shelter. Heimo is from northern Wisconsin and grew up the eldest son of a distant and abusive father. Shortly after high school, he makes his first attempt to live in the wilderness, fails, and returns home. Soon he makes another more successful attempt and has been there since, now approaching 30 years.

The book describes the life and trials of living alone in the wilderness. The struggles of living without the barest of essentials may seem unforgiving, but for Heimo and his family, it all makes perfect sense. There are plenty of inconsistencies with their lifestyle, like his daughters out there in the middle of nothing with posters of Brittney Spears or listening to audio books and music while sawing caribou steaks off an animal's frozen limb. They are teenagers after all. Heimo doesn't totally reject modern tools to support his life in the wild as he has quite an array of weaponry, snowmobiles, and a satellite phone.

I find reading about modern day survivalists rather fascinating and liked reading about people who are able to do what people like me would never attempt, no matter how attractive living off the land sounds. What I found missing was the 'why' behind Heimo's decision to leave society and head for the far reaches of northern Alaska. The book is filled with plenty of vignettes about the daily challenges, but less about his individual character and motivations. I've read many of the books by and about Tom Brown, Jr., another naturalist who makes his home in New Jersey. Most of his books are almost entirely about personal history and motivation for his beliefs without neglecting specific events and experiences. I will admit that some of Brown's books are a little heavy on Apache mysticism, but I digress.

I think I was drawn to the book after having read The Last Season by Eric Blehm that was suggested by WC Don. But in comparing the two, I think the reader learns far more about who Randy Morgenson was than just who Heimo Korth is. Still, The Final Frontiersman is a fascinating tale of a man beating the odds carving out a meaningful life in the wilderness.

East Coast Don

p.s. Recently, I suggested the Charlie Stella check out Robert McCammon's Boy's Life, the 1991 best seller. He has posted comments on his blog, the Temporary Knucksline dated November 1, 2009.

Hothouse Orchid by Stuart Woods

This is Stuart Woods' annual contribution to the mass market pile of current fiction. He has 4 continuing characters, Stone Barrington (ex-NYPD/lawyer), Holly Barker (ex MP, ex Orchid Beach police chief, now CIA), President Will Lee, and Teddy Fey (retired CIA now making trouble eliminating politicians who don't conform to his vision of America).

Holly Barker is on a forced vacation from the CIA. She returns home to Orchid Beach for some R&R only to stumble onto a serial rapist case. She suspects the new chief, her MP nemesis from her army days and sets out to help trap him. Lauren, another local cop was also raped by this army cad. In between clues, both Holly and Lauren meet new guys (an ER doc and a retired inventor, respectively) and hop in the sack repeatedly, eat glorious meals at sunset on the beach and drink copious amounts of wine. To make a predictable story shorter, the inventor turns out to be Teddy Fey. Teddy executes the army slug, the chief of detectives (the real rapist) finds the body and plants a suicide note to hide his crimes. Holly and Lauren set a trap for the detective and spring it successfully. Lauren and Teddy run off to who knows where and Holly and the doc move back to the CIA. Yawn.

The books by Woods are always best sellers, easy travel reading, linear plots, few twists, and a reasonable waste of time while traveling or during sleepless nights with jet lag. You can't go wrong with Woods, but they are tres lightweight and won't stay with you long. Of the main characters, Teddy Fey is probably the most interesting. The rest are just too smooth to be real.

East Coast Don

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

This is the second book recommended by our friend Charlie Stella. While Eddie Coyle was another tale of New York crime, this is far removed to the backwoods of the Ozark Mountains.

Winter is creeping up on the Ozarks. Ree Dolly is a 16yo girl thrust too early in to the role of provider and caretaker of her family. Her father, Jessup, is a backwoodsman known for his ability to cook up crystal meth. Problem is he put up his house as collateral that he would show for his next court date and things are not looking good that he will show. The local law tells Ree if her father doesn’t show that she, her two younger brothers, and her mom (who has mentally retreated inside herself and is incapable of caring for anyone) will be tossed out.

What transpires is Ree’s attempt to find her father. This far back in the hills has its own culture, laws, and morality where family matters above all and each family have its own clan based on what side of which creek between what hills someone lives. Ree endures countless rebuffs, insults, and assaults as she tries to find her father culminating in a viscous beating at the hands and feet of 3 women of a rival clan. The question is not just where is Jessup, but is he even alive and if he isn’t alive, what was behind his death and where are his remains. What begins as a tale of struggle of various clans buried far beneath the world we live morphs into a morality tale about sacrifice in the face on unyielding odds.

Mr. Stella’s books and recommendations are based on dialogue and characters. This one is a drastic change from the city dialogue drawn out by Stella, Higgins, Price, Pelecanos, et al. The mountain language is a barely distinguishable dialect and takes some time to get used to the flow that eventually becomes a character almost unto itself. Ree is one tough young woman who has grown up too early, and not by her own choosing. This is quite different from what we usually post here, but Woodrell’s depiction of a foreign life even on our own shores is a venture worth taking.

East Coast Don

Eddie's World by Charlie Stella

My next foray into the mind of Charlie Stella is Eddie’s World, his first novel dedicated to the college prof who introduced him George Higgins and Eddie Coyle.

Eddie Senta is a 40 something word processor who lives sort of on the edge of the mob underworld. His 2^nd wife, Diane, is in market research with a ticking biological clock, but Eddie doesn’t want to father another child as he isn’t all that proud of how he handled the one he has. Diane takes matters into her own hands and tries to get pregnant by her boss who has a PhD and runs marathons.

Eddie is a good guy. He has a lifelong friend, Tommy, who is in a bind and needs help. Eddie also helped a woman, Sarah, who was being attacked by a boss. He also was in the right (or wrong) place when he stops a mob hit. People owe Eddie favors.

Tommy needs money. Sarah knows her boss had money hidden away and tells Eddie to take it, as an act of revenge. So Eddie and Tommy plan to steal it and get Tommy out of hock. But Sarah has told a recent ex-con, James, about some gold also held by said boss and James then contacts some Russians about fencing the gold. The whole thing goes south when James decides he wants the money and the gold, kills Sarah, the boss, and a third guy. Eddie and Tommy try to steal the money but it’s gone, so they take what they can, a bunch of computers.

The word of the triple murder comes out and Tommy is sure the police will manage to tie he and Eddie to the murders. Poor Tommy tells the wrong wise guy that he thinks he and Eddie should turn themselves in before the police get too close.

The 2 detectives are playing dozens of scenarios in their heads, but getting closer each day. And James the ex-con is also closing in on Eddie. Everybody collides at Eddie’s home – Diane, his son, James, the Russian, NYPD, and the FBI (turns out James is in their back pocket).

The way I figure it, Eddie’s biggest problem is an serious case of the "loyalties". To Tommy, whom he has watched over since the two were young and Eddie was there when Tommy was told his dad had just died. To Sarah, whom he saved from a brutal sexual assault and has watched over her since. To Diane, despite her wishes to find someone to father a child. This is an interesting character study of a man on the fringes of the mob who clings to a code of morality, even if he is a bit of a gangster. For those of us who like crime stories, this is another winner from Mr. Stella. Out library doesn’t have any more titles by Stella and B/N has none on their shelves, so I guess I need to prowl the used book stores to find more.

East Coast Don

The President's Assasssin by Brian Haig

I thought EC Don had already written about this one, but I don't find it when I do a blog search. I'm not going into detail here, but it was a fast paced book that one could read on a flight from NYC to Chicago. Sean Drummond is the protagonist, and he has the usual CIA, FBI, NSA, etc people around him. Given the title, you can guess the plot, but it is a good one to get to the threat to the President. Of course, he has a stunning women as his partner to work out the details of the plot, and there is a great twist at the end that I did not see coming until I was far into the book. Even if it is not great literature, it is a fun read.

WC Don

The Angel’s Game: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I know that EC Don and I both read and reviewed Zafon’s earlier book, his first, “Spirit of the Wind.” If you liked Zafon’s prior work, you’ll like this. It is not the typical man-book we read, but it is an excellent murder mystery. Like his other book, this book takes place in Spain, this one being in Barcelona in the early 20^th century, ending in 1930 with an epilogue in 1945. This book is written in the first person, as if the author is writing an autobiography, and he pulls that off with style. A lot of the story is about the agony and ecstasy of being a writer which is his occupation in the book. He re-visits the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (a subtheme in “Spirit of the Wind”), but that is really a minor theme in this story. Before telling you about the story, let me quote the first paragraph that should capture any bibliophile who has also earned a money and/or honor from the effort to write, as the coastal Dons have done in their respective genres:

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on, he is doomed and his soul has a price.”

Or here’s another quote as the main character, David Martin, tells his apprentice, the 17-year-old Isabella about the task of being a writer:

“Natural talent is like an athlete’s strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the artist, is the work, the vocation, and the technique. The intelligence you are born with is just ammunition. To achieve something with it you need to transform your mind into a high-precision weapon.”

Martin gets a bit metaphysical when he tells Isabella, “All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being.”

A final passage I won’t quote, because it is too long, but it is a eulogy written for an old book seller, Senor Sempere, an important figure to Martin throughout his life. Like the rest of the book, the eulogy is written with unmistakable love, and it is no accident that Zafon chose a bookseller for this important role. There will be a time when I’m asked to give a eulogy, and I hope it will be possible to quote or paraphrase some of Zafon’s beautiful words.

The story has to do with the coming of age of a young writer, and eventually, once his skills mature, his attempts to write a book for which he has been commissioned by an elusive and mysterious man, Senor Carelli. Martin finds it a difficult chore to write a mystical work that did not spring from his own mind. Some moral and most amoral characters are woven in and out of the story as Martin goes about his effort. The language used is more flowery than most of the novels we read and write about. I thought there were times when the dialogue got a bit boggy, but not too much. I enjoyed this one – a good change of pace and it is worth your time to read this one.

WC Don

Diamondhead by Patrick Robinson

Navy SEALS are on duty in Iraq. A squad from SEAL Team 10 gets the call that a fellow squad has been attacked with a new killer missile that can penetrate tank armor and then ignites into flame, burning everyone inside alive. Upon arrival to the site, Lt Cmdr MacKenzie “Mack” Bedford eyes a group of towelheads across the river appearing ready to load up another. With the bad guys is one person who looks out of place, in a suit with a distinctive red handkerchief in his breast pocket. He is using a scope on a tripod, then 2 more missiles streak across the river detonating 2 more tanks, killing members of Mack’s squad. The bad guys now hold up their hands and walk across the bridge because surrender means staying alive, but Mack knows these guys just incinerated his friends, runs up and mows them all down. The resulting court martial exonerates Mack of murder, but he is discharged and summarily sent home to the coast of Maine.

The missile, known as the Diamondhead, is manufactured secretly in France and sold to Iran. The industrialist in charge, Henri Foche, is also the leading candidate for President from the ultra right wing Gaullist party. Back home in Maine, Mack’s young son is fighting a deadly disease that only a hugely expensive operation done in Switzerland might help. Add to that, a family-run shipyard in his hometown has for decades had a standing contract with France to build frigates, but Foche has pledged that all weapons for France will be made in France and will cut off all foreign contracts. That would shut down the local shipyard. The patriarch asks Mack if he knows anyone who might accept a contract to assassinate Foche. He gets some leads, but they don’t pan out. By chance, he reads a story on Foche in a magazine and recognizes him as that guy with the red handkerchief. Mack then accepts the contract himself and arranges for his son to get the needed surgery with the $2 million he will make for the job.

Now, the story shifts into serious overdrive as Mack plans out how he will get to Europe, all his disguises, obtain a sniper’s rifle, get to France, find Forche, set up for the kill, take the shot, then escape and work his way back to Maine. Absolutely riveting stuff, if you ask me. Once he gets to France, don’t be planning to do anything that can’t wait.

I stumbled across Robinson while wandering the shelves at B/N a number of years ago. While he has a number of fiction and non-fiction books out, his action thrillers are what hooked me. His stories are usually the U.S. vs. some Islamist nuts with the heavy lifting done by the Navy, especially the submarine fleet and the SEALS: Nimitz Class (bad guys manage to sink a US nuclear aircraft carrier), Kilo Class (China has ordered 9 Kilo class subs from the Russians and the US is going to make damn sure none get delivered), HMS Unseen (bad guys manage to steal a British sub and take down civilian aircraft flying over the Atlantic), and on and on. His last book, Ghost Force, was something about SEALS and a new Faulkland’s war that I was less than impressed with, so when I saw this title on the new release table at B/N, I was hesitant, but the library had it (no wait!) and I plunged in.

This really is all about Mack Bedford hunting the animal whose weapons, uniformly declared a crime against humanity by the U.N., have been killing American Special Forces right and left. Any other characters are minor players. While many of the mysteries posted here are about crackling dialogue, this one is about planning, execution and the chase. Over half the book is involved in carrying out the execution…er…assassination, of Henri Foche by Mack . . . the dialogue of the French police hunting him (and his various alter ego disguises) is almost a afterthought. Read this for the action. Here’s hoping Robinson finds a way to get Mack Bedford back with the SEALS or involved with other stealthy stories.

Born to Run by Christopher Mcdougall

This is a non-fiction work recommended by our blog ghost, my nephew, Boedeker. He is not often seen or heard from, but occasionally, his spectral presence is felt.

Mcdougall’s premise is that were are literally born to run, not sit on the couch all weekend and watch NFL games while guzzling beer. He successfully writes himself into this semi-autobiographical work, and he includes a cast of remarkable characters that do ultra marathons. He gives the history of the very secretive group of Mexican Indians of the Sierra Madres, the Tarahumara who are known as unbelievable distance runners but who typically have no interest in showing up to prove it to anyone. They reluctantly allow the presence of El Caballo Blanco (the white horse) whose identity is eventually revealed to the reader. Mcdougall (and that is how he spells his name) brings in another cast of unique characters, but this is more than a book about running. He weaves in archeological information and eventually presents a new take on evolution based on skeletal and pulmonary ideas. He gives the history of ultra marathon running and builds the information on his various characters through that, starting with the Leadville 100. Also, he writes in detail about his opinion that Nike essentially used all of us runners as suckers, touting their shoes while causing an increased number of injuries. Here’s an observation I made after my last marathon. I have never gotten into a conversation with another runner without talking about injuries in the first several minutes. Mcdougall says that every runner gets injured multiple times every year, and it is only the rare one who does not get hurt. EC Don will agree with me since we are both mostly former runners who dealt with repeated injuries until we could not do it any more. The author was the same, but he gives us hope that a return to running, even ultra marathon running is possible. As a former runner, it is most exciting for me to identify with the writer and his struggles to overcome what seemed to be a permanent case of plantar fasciitis. The book ends with the race that El Caballo Blanco has dreamt of for many years, and Mcdougall plays out this true event out with great skill. The essence of the book is the love of running, not doing it for titles or money.

Nephew, I actually starting reading this with some concern since my inability to run for the last several years has been emotionally painful, and I thought it would dredge up some old frustrations and resentments. It did not do that, whatsoever. Thank you.

WC Don

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Once again, Robert Langdon is the main character, and the plot for discovering the meaning of hidden symbols takes place in Washington, D.C., rather than Rome, like The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. The primary characters with whom Langdon interacts are a brother and sister, Peter and Katherine Solomon, who come from significant old money and political influence. The story revolves around the history of the Masonic Lodge and the fact that many of our founding fathers, including George Washington and Ben Franklin were Masons. According to Masonic beliefs, there are Ancient Mysteries that contain the knowledge of the ancients who knew all, but their knowledge was lost and forgotten by mankind or hidden by those who had kept the knowledge intact for the time when man was ready to know it. The good news about this book is that the first half was good in terms of holding my interest, and it will probably make a good movie. The bad news is that the second half of the book was uninteresting and too convoluted. Those who want to destroy the Ancient Mysteries in order to keep mankind from being enlightened do battle with Robert, Peter, Katherine, and others, including the CIA. Throughout, Brown lets it be known that some new information has been gleaned by the characters, but he holds out from delivering that information to the reader. My response was, once the information was revealed, was one of disappointment. The end of the book, for the taste of this atheist, had too much Bible and too much god. I would not have finished the book except for my OCD approach to most things. My advice – wait for the movie.

WC Don

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins

Our REAL AUTHOR friend, Charlie Stella recommended this book that he thinks is not only one of the best of its genre ever, he also thinks it could be one of the best novels ever. Now I am not literate enough to make a statement like that, but I will say that this is one seriously good story. No kidding.

Eddie Coyle is due to go back to prison, but maybe he can cut a deal by exchanging information for some leniency. The story revolves around the various low life characters and crimes that frequent Eddie’s life. Really, that’s the story and Eddie isn’t even all that present as an upfront character. But you would be wrong if that doesn’t look interesting because Mr. Higgins seems to be the source of so much of what we see in today’s crime dialogue, plotting, and story telling.

Look at the authors we have posted here; books by Charlie Stella, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, Ken Bruen, Michael Connelly, T Jefferson Parker, and more. Look at the dialogue and economy of description and I dare you to say that you can’t see elements of the Higgins style. It’s a master class that has many students. I used to think one could point back to Dashell Hammitt’s Maltese Falcon, but that was different from this. Higgins’ pacing and dialogue kept me hammered to my seat. If all those people with their head stuffed in the latest Dan Brown book (including my son…WCDon expected because you do read other writers!) would read the Higgins’ novels recommended by our friend Stella, they might see how real dialogue is written (I did a little search on Dan Brown reviews and the common complaint is mind numbing dialogue). I found out first hand just why crime novels are continually compared to Higgins. Thanks to Mr. Stella for steering us in the right direction. Now to see the DVD to see how well/bad Hollywood treated it . . . and to read the other two Stella recommended Higgins books: Digger’s Game and Cogan’s Trade.

East Coast Don

The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker

This was another book from Boedeker who seems to have a phobia about writing posts.

Parker’s cop/sleuth is Charlie Hood. (This guy chooses great names as in Hood for a cop and Laws for one of the bad guys.) Hood had a recent encounter that led him turning a rogue cop over to Internal Affairs, and as a result, he has chosen to leave the desired detective unit at the L.A. Sheriff’s Department (as opposed to LAPD), and take a transfer to the Antelope Valley, a place where he can be out of sight and out of mind by the main body of the department. Instead of being a detective, he’s back on patrol with a partner. The Renegades is a reference to a prior group of cops that had been good cops that were eventually turned by a couple bad guys, so the group was banned from further existence by the department. There are two primary bad guys in this one, an officer, Terry Laws, and a reserve officer, Coleman Draper. Draper is the one who wants to reestablish the Renegades, and he draws Laws into a deal in which they take over the delivery of substantial amounts of cash to a drug lord in Baja. To do that, they have to take the cash south of the border every Friday, but it nets each one of them about $7k for each trip. So, there is the tension between good cops trying to do bad things and bad cops trying to look okay and keep their side job going. There are tensions within each group as Hood is not always sure who he can trust and is not always ready to divulge what he knows to his superiors. You’ll have to read about the conflicts within the drug cartel and their doubts about their delivery boys. Of course, there is a beautiful DA with whom Hood interacts, and there are some other very interesting peripheral characters, some of whom float back and forth between the good and bad sides of the story. The ending was very well written – I did not see the final twists coming. This one is a good distraction – not great literature, but worth the read.

WC Don

The Hunted by Brian Haig

Brian Haig has a running series of legal mysteries set in the Army that follow Army smart aleck lawyer Sean Drummond, but this is not the latest in the Drummond series.

It’s the early 1990’s. The Soviet Union is teetering on the verge of collapse. Alex Kornevitch is a college student with an entrepreneurial spirit and a really sharp eye for making money . . . a whole shit load of money. He gets run out of college by the government because his capitalistic tendencies run counter to the old ways. Problem is that this golden boy is now the face of the new Russia and a target of the Russian Mafiya. To protect himself, he hires a former honcho from the KGB to be head of his security team. Probably his one bad decision.

Some communist holdovers work out a plan to discredit Alex and his wife, steal all his money and companies, kidnap and torture them before finally killing them as an example to others of his ilk; and just guess who is behind the plan . . . his head of security. But Alex is not only smart; he is a very quick thinker and manages to bluff his way to a position where he and his wife can escape, but where to? The old KGB network reach extends all over Europe and Asia. There’s always the USA.

Once in the US, Alex picks up where he left off, scoring big and leaving a bit of a trail that the KGB bad guys eventually find, but Alex manages to hide behind US legalities. In the meantime, the FBI director meets with Kremlin higher ups about placing a few more agents in Moscow to track the Mafiya in the US at its source in Russia. He is surprised to learn that the Russians are more than eager to allow this intrusion on their soil and suggests the FBI put an even larger force than the Director asks for with one catch – give us Alex Kornevitch.

The Director, through the immigration service, manages to put (notice I didn’t say ‘arrest’) Alex in prison on a technicality. But Alex is quite bright, managing to survive and even thrive no matter how deep a prison hellhole he is placed. In the end, we can’t wait to see Alex’s day in court and the eventual comeuppance to the FBI Director and the folks who attempted to bring Alex down.

Just because this isn’t a Sean Drummond novel doesn’t mean it’s to be skipped. I guess this could be called a political mystery-thriller. In the end, this is first-rate legal fiction easily on a par with John Grisham or Scott Turow, at least in my mind. The story is fast paced and the plotting is both ingenious and believable, partly because this is a fictionalized account of a real circumstance.

East Coast Don

Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

This book officially starts my five months of a planned focus on Russian reading, in one form or another, both fiction and nonfiction, all aiming toward a visit there in July. Can’t wait.

For me, this is a re-read. The first time was 3 ½ years ago, in the early months of the blog, and then, I wrote little about the actual plot. At the start of this story, Gabriel Allon, the Israeli assassin has finally married his long-time lover and fellow agent, Chiara. They are on their honeymoon in Umbria, Italy, sequestered in a private estate where he is restoring another painting. When old time spymaster Ari Shamron learns about a plot involving the newly rich and powerful from Russia, the source of his information is a Russian reporter who will only tell all of what he knows to Allon. All it requires from Allon is a quick trip to the Vatican where a meeting has been arranged – just a momentary diversion from his honeymoon and the painting, but of course it does not turn out that way. Instead, in the middle of the Basilica of St. Peter, the reporter dies in Allon’s hands before he can reveal any information. Allon is enraged and, despite causing significant distress to Chiara, he abandons the honeymoon to pursue this matter. The Israeli’s learn through another back channel that the Russian tycoon and arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, is planning to sell missiles to Al Qaeda. Maybe the sale has already gone through. The back channel is Kharkov’s wife who accidentally discovered her husband’s evil intent and found herself unable to live with the notion that she allowed it to occur. Of course, by betraying her brutal husband who has no real interest than profit and expanding his own empire, she puts her own life at risk. Silva paints a most horrible portrait of President Putin and the FSB, the security force that replaced the old KGB. The plot unfolds from there, and that’s all you need to know.

As usual, Silva’s character development is superb, and the plot is entirely believable – it does not require any suspension of belief to think this story could actually take place. It’s not impossible to put this book down and get a good night’s sleep, but it isn’t easy to do so. In this international spy thriller genre, Silva stands alone as the best contemporary author at his craft.

Re-read and re-posted on 2/9/13

the Kill Artist by Daniel Silva

You know that I think Daniel Silva is the best, so I’ll make this short since you know I think it is worth reading. Gabriel Allon, the art restorer, has been out of the intelligence operative game for a while, but he gets pulled back in to deal with a Palestinian zealot. It just so happens the guy played an important, very dark part part in Allon’s early life in the trade. There is great and believable international intrigue. Enough said, don’t pass it up.

WC Don

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

You all know I get some book suggestions from Entertainment Weekly. A couple weeks ago, EW presented their preview of fall movies. Turns out that John Krasinski (Jim of The Office) had obtained the rights to ‘Brief Interviews…’ with his first real paycheck for The Office and the movie opens later in September. So, I thought I’d check it out.

This is a series of essays on all kinds of odd topics. Like 4-5 pages describing a noted poet lounging by the pool (or was it the beach?) . . . it was maybe 10 long compound sentences that seemed to never end. Then there was the story of a young boy waiting in line for his first attempt at the high board at the neighborhood pool. Of course, there was the story of the young wife worried that her sexual techniques (or lack thereof) were somehow doing harm to her husband’s thingy. Or the boy getting his soup bowl haircut. The title states ‘interviews,’ but the actual interviews are few and the reader only sees the responses, never the questions. And the interviews are transcribed out of order, mostly about the interviewee’s relationship with women.

Apparently, Wallace is a bit of a cult figure who battled severe depression throughout much of his adult life. He actually taught at Illinois State University while I was on faculty there, but the English and PE departments were literally and figuratively on opposite sides Main St. During a period of trying to revise his medication in 2008 while he was teaching in California, he took his life.

The jacket liner uses the work ‘hilarious’, but I didn’t see the humor. I guess you had to work at it and all I want when I read most things is to be engaged and entertained. You can’t discount the creative genius in keeping a reader’s attention when a sentence can run beyond an entire page. Given his personal history, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the stories had some autographical basis, but I could be wrong. I guess there is a lot of truth in the desperation of the men being interviewed.

Sometimes I like to read a book that has been made into a movie to see how Hollywood (usually) manages to screw it up. It’s the rare movie that’s as good as the book and ever rarer with it’s better. I read the book Schindler’s List was based on and the real genius was the screenwriter because the book, while important, had little of the story development and depth of presentation of the movie. To read the book then see the movie would have one walking out of the flick saying, “how in the heck did they get this movie from that book?” The movie was far better. Same with the book the movie Jeremiah Johnson was based on. I will probably go see this movie just to see how in the world Krasinski (he’s the screenwriter) manages to make this watch able. Guessing it will be very talk-y, more like a play put on film. As an exploration into the mind of men, I think WCD might be better equipped for this one than I.

East Coast Don

Cheapskates by Charlie Stella

Today’s foray into the mind of Charlie Stella is his 2005 release, Cheapskates. After his reply (2 times!) to this blog, I had to get another story to confirm that his mind really is as pleasantly twisted as I thought after reading Charlie Opera. Again, we need to meet the characters and maybe you’ll get the idea of the storyline from this description. Or maybe not, and if you don’t, it’s my fault, not Stella’s.

The good guys:

Peter Rizzo-being released from Fishkill Penitentiary after serving 2 years for assault. He broke the jaw of a guy his wife was seeing. Was this an act of jealousy or did his wife set him up? His lawyer said he could get Rizzo off, but Peter wants to do the right thing and serve his time. He says his ex-wife beat him out of $50K in the ensuing divorce and he wants it back, with interest (he’s not greedy. He’ll accept bank rate). While in jail, he meets . . .

Reese Waters-former NYC bus driver also doing about 2 years for car theft. When a friend pleads for Reese to drive a car somewhere, the car turns out to be stolen and the police are watching it, catching Reese in the act and was found guilty of trying to help out a friend steal cars (some friend). While in jail, Reese saves the local Nation of Islam big gun and in doing so, Peter gets his stomach sliced open. Reese and Peter become cellmates, friends, and the Nation of Islam owes Reese a big favor. Peter wants Reese to talk to his ex about the money.

Vincent Coleman-bus driver friend of Reese from back in the day.

The 2 get released and Peter ends up being killed by a professional hit man that very day. A low life guy tries to take out Reese by shooting through a door and misses because Reese bent over to pick up a St. Jude medal given to him by . . .

Laney, a friend of Reese’s mom sort of being set up to meet and get to know Reese.

But Reese and Peter just want to do what's right. With Peter dead and Peter’s family not wanting to pay for a burial or cremation (at least until Reese comes up with some $$ to release the body), Reese takes it on himself to get the money to get his friend buried from Peter's ex.

Belzinger, Greene and DeNafria-The first 2 are detectives tracking Reese trying to figure out just what in the world is going on. The latter is on the organized crime task force, currently on leave, but helping out his ex, Belzinger.

The bad guys:

Janice Barrett-Peter’s witch of an ex. She’s an exec of some sort, planned the confrontation that lead to Peter arrest knowing how he’d react, cheats him out of money, runs around with mob guys, tries to get Reese off his high horse about a burial. She is daughter and sister to . . .

Michael and Alex Barrett-in construction and in bed with the mob to occasionally launder money.

Jimmy Valentine, aka Jimmy Wigs-consigliere to the Vignieri family and soon to be hauled in by the organized crime taskforce. Janet’s current fling, possible financier to a new business, with a flair for wearing wigs. His dialogue read to me like he was always talking with his mouth full.

Johnny Mauro-low level hood, 2-time loser, carried out the failed hit on Reese.

Tommy Burns-a pro, carried out the successful hit on Peter with a penchant for distributing pre-paid cell phones and currently driving for some car service.

All Reese wants to do is the right thing and bury his friend. But he has no money, his mom dies a day or two after his release, Laney is trying to steer him away from all the potential problems, and Peter’s ex, Janice, wants nothing to do with Reese’s request. She had Peter killed, wants Reese to disappear, keep the money, and open her own agency. But to do all this, she needs Jimmy Wigs, and other assorted mob types, to shut this whole thing down. But Reese works out a plan (with an assist from the local Nation of Islam chapter), Jimmy Wigs works out a plan, muscle from the Nation has a plan, but just when the plans are about to collide, Janice goes ballistic and starts shooting, Coleman drives a bus over the Nation thug, Jimmy implicates Janice in Peter’s death, daddy Barrett and Mauro both end up dead, Reese ends up with the money keeping only what’s needed for the burial giving the rest to Laney to divvy up amongst some churches.

Got that? Two good guys caught up in things beyond their control. Another wonderfully twisted plot from Charlie Stella. And in the book, he manages a reference to one of his other books, Jimmy Bench-Press, which I HAVE to get now. Mr. Stella and graduated from an engaging diversion into a convoluted world of innocents and the mob and jumped right up into my power rotation that includes Robert McCammon, Brad Thor, Lee Child, Brian Haig, George Pelacanos, David Hagberg, and Ken Bruen. I wonder why such inventive plotting and interesting characters flies below the radar of current readers of modern crime?

And Tommy Burns was last seen driving south through Georgia, still hawking pre-paid cell phones.

East Coast Don

The Motive by John Lescroart

This is a book I did not finish. I got 100 pages in and it just did not capture my attention for further reading. The first chapter was great as it described a huge arson in a San Francisco Victorian home, a block of Fillmore where Jessica lived for four years. But, the book was downhill from there. The characters were too stereotypic, and there were too many details in the attempt at character development. I was reading it at the beach in a So Cal heat wave, taking swims in the water and catching a few small waves for body surfing. With the air temp in the 90s and the water in the mid 70s, you would have thought that atmosphere was condusive to enjoying about anything. I'm throwing this one away. Where did I get that recommendation? I guess I can't blame EC Don since I could not find it in the blog.

West Coast Don

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre

Olen Steinhauer has been compared with John Le Carre, so when an opening in my reading occurred, I decided to choose Le Carre’s most recent book and put the Steinhauer book I have on hold. I’ve read a couple Le Carre books some time back (Russia House; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), but it’s been so long I couldn’t tell you anything about them. This is set in Hamburg with 3 main players and a whole pile of international security people trying to outmaneuver each other.

Issa is a 20-something Chechen Muslim on the run from a life of neglect and imprisonment. He stows away on a boat to Sweden, hops another to Copenhagen, and then pays a trucker to smuggle him to Hamburg. Apparently, his deceased father, a former Russian Army commander, had managed to collect a sizeable fortune from a life of theft, pillaging, embezzlement, bribery and more. This fortune was placed in a private bank in Hamburg and Issa wants to claim it.

Issa gets to Hamburg and obtains the aid of a legal aid group that specializes in helping immigrants to represent him in his desire to gain citizenship in Germany, access the money, and secure his future. Annabelle is the liberal, backpack carrying, bike riding, do-gooder who takes up his case.

Tommy Brue, a 60yo Scot, is the son of the bank’s founder (where Issa’s father deposited his money) and now the owner of the bank. The bank is on the verge of failure, he first marriage collapsed, is estranged from a now pregnant daughter who lives in California, and his current wife is having an affair and about to jump ship to her lover. A man struggling with his failures has been placed in the epicenter of a multimillion dollar/terrorism case.

Annabelle, as Issa’s lawyer, seeks out Brue to start the process to access the money. Much of what goes on early in the book is trying to confirm that Issa is who he says he is, that his history is as he has stated, and that he is indeed entitled to the money. Not to mention that Tommy is getting attracted to Annabella, Issa wants Annabelle to convert to Islam, and Annabelle is caught in the middle of conflicting emotions over her legal obligations and her fear for Issa’s future.

But, in a post 9/11 world, especially in Hamburg where a number of the 9/11 terrorists planned their attack, any Muslim who manages to enter the country comes under scrutiny. Maybe 3-4 different layers of German security take an interest in Issa. Not to mention that UK security is interested in why a UK citizen is so tied to such a sizable amount of ill-gotten Muslim money ($12.5 million) soon to change hands. Russia has a passing interest is what just might be their money. And the US is lingering in the background as passive observers (yeah, right)

Issa is a devout Muslim and knows the money is dirty according to the Islamic Law. All he wants to do it give the money away to charities that will help Chechen Muslims who were victimized by the Russians and have another charity hold a small sum to finance his goal of medical school. To do so, he wishes to meet a Dr. Abdullah who lives in Hamburg and has a long and visible history of raising money for Muslim charities.

In a very complex meeting of all the security agencies interested in Issa, each group states their case for just how dirty this Dr. Abdullah is. He may be 95% legitimate, but it’s that 5% that everyone is interested in and there are a number of tales about just how money designated for honest Muslim charities gets diverted to support various jihads. Tommy and Annabelle are recruited (as if they had any choice) to put Issa and Abdullah together, select the charities, then set actions into play to trace the money. One level of German security wants to use this knowledge to leverage Abdullah to work for the Germans. Others want to track Issa as they are convinced his history is manufactured and he is some sort of a sleeper. Still others want to put Dr. Abdullah away and send Issa back to Russia.

This all concludes literally in the last 2 pages with an outcome that favors not Tommy, Annabelle, Issa, or Dr. Abdullah. An outcome engineered by the US without any agreement with the other agencies. They just do it, leaving everyone else, figuratively speaking, holding their arms out in a “what the hell just happened?” posture.

If you’ve never read Le Carre, this is espionage at it’s finest. Very talk-y with minimal ‘action’ of the Vince Flynn or Tom Clancy style of thriller. No body count here, just lots of detail. Who is telling the truth and who is lying; who is manipulating whom, what of a multitude of outcomes is likely to happen (and the one that happened isn’t what I thought was going to occur)?

Is the end satisfying? If you like a story to be tied up nice and neat in a bow, then maybe not. But if the end just might be what really goes on the world of espionage, then absolutely.