The Expediter by David Hagberg

David Hagberg is one of my power rotation authors, when it comes out, I get it...political thrillers surrounding his main characters Kirk McGarvey, former shooter and now retired ex-Director of the CIA with a penchant for Voltaire, and his computer whiz buddy, Otto.

Very deep into the night, 2 assassins dressed as North Korean police, step out of the darkness so they are seen on security cameras, kill a high ranking Chinese diplomat, his driver and 2 security guards as he was leaving for a clandestine meeting with the North Korea's Kim Jong Il to discuss nuclear disarmament. The assassins make it onto their departure plane only to have one, the husband of this married killer-for-hire pair, arrested and taken into custody. Obviously, the Chinese think the North Koreans are behind the murder and both armies go on alert with the very real threat of a nuclear confrontation that could lead the world to the brink of world war III.

A North Korean internal security director investigating the crime realizes that North Korea is being set up and must find a way to prove their innocence to China and the world. Problem is, who can he turn to? No one will believe him. In the shadowy world of black ops and spies, Kirk McGarvey has a reputation as a ruthless killer, a cunning strategist, and most importantly, as a man of integrity. Problem is Kirk is retired and teaching Voltaire at a small Florida college. Our intrepid cop smuggles himself out of NKorea and into the US, then walks right up to McGarvey's front door asking for help. McGarvey thinks this guy's hutzpah is proof enough that he might actually be telling the truth and sets out to find out who is behind the killing.

The answer must lie in who has the most to gain (or lose) by a China-NKorea war. Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is the US. The captured assassin, under the influence of brain frying drugs, reveals his contact, a Russian known only as Alexander. This former KGB and Russian mafia honcho is a middleman who hires assassins for unknown 3rd parties; he is an Expediter. The chase is now on to find the wife/killer who got away, sneak in and out of NKorea to question the husband before he becomes a vegetable, find Alexander in order to find out who hired him. Needless to say, there is much hopping back and forth between the US and the far east, borrowing navy assets to get in and out of Japan (which if the Japanese knew about would not be happy campers), shoot outs galore, serious body count, and an ending that leaves open a sequel to continue the search for the real power broker unseen in this book (that may sound like a spoiler, but it really isn't, you can see it coming a mile away).

McGarvey isn't an alpha male, he isn't even an Alpha Male. McGarvey is THE ALPHA MALE. He is one seriously bad dude with an attitude and the inability to stay retired and out of the game. He makes all the right decisions, shoots straight, and is a ruthless killer without remorse. to have a bad guy by his throat and put a bullet in his forehead is nothing for McGarvey....just the guy you'd want as a neighbor. Nothing I read this week will have me moving Hagberg off my power rotation. I just have to wait a year or two to see who is pulling the strings..Hagberg continues his string of novels that move along at a most rapid pace, even if a certain suspension of reality is necessary. I'm not complaining.

Hagberg has another novel due out later in June, although not a Kirk McGarvey story. It's called Burned. I'm number 14 on the queue.

Cross by Ken Bruen

Jack Taylor is a mess. Thrown out of The Guard, struggling against smoking and drinking, hating the gentrification of downtown Galway, his closest friend in the Guard, Ridge, has to have a breast biopsy. His one ray of hope is Cody, 13yo-ish boy who has taken a shine to him. A little girl Jack was watching over accidently falls to her death sending the father deep into the bottle and the mother dead set on revenge. From a rooftop, she takes a shot at Cody and puts him into a serious coma sending Jack further into the depths of self-loathing. Her version of an eye for an eye. It's bad enough he is 50 and walks with a limp, but now he needs a hearing aid. A guy he put away for drug dealing is released and now watches over Jack because while the guy was in prison, Jack saved his sister from something unrevealed in this book. There is a lot of back story about Jack.

A college prof wants jack to find out why dogs are being stolen near the campus and he give the 'case' to a burnout Guard, a younger version of himself, and that case goes wrong on too many fronts; more failure, typical of Taylor. Ridge tells him that a teenage boy has been crucified in a junkyard. And now speculators are offering obscene amounts of money for city center apartments that Jack sees as a stake to get him to the US. Next, the crucified boy's sister is found burned to death in her car. Cody dies and Cody's dad refuses to allow Jack to attend the funeral.

There is a saying in Ireland (and maybe everywhere else) that the law is administered in the courtroom, but justice is administered on the streets. And Jack administers justice. But others seem to be beating him to the punch or he works over the wrong person. Sometimes Lady Justice is blind and the wrong people pay for another's injustice, not all of it Jack's fault.

Jack looks in to the dead kid's family and there is a 3rd sibling, thought to be living in London. A little digging turns up that this older brother was a suspect in a hit and run killing of a mother. He checks out this lady's family and finds a daughter who is evil personified and Jack thinks he's found the killer. Now her evil and Taylor's personal demons circle each other in a deadly dance that ends, for the girl, her dad, her brother, and the accused killer of her mom, in entirely unexpected ways.

Ken Bruen explores the consequences of people's actions in a way that is hard to describe. The punishment Jack inflicts on himself drives him further and further to depths not normally seen in the books I read. But Bruen has a way of drawing the reader in. This rather short novel (280 pages) spends over 100 pages slowly bringing us into the nightmare that Taylor resides. Small events are meaningful to Jack; a chance meeting with a priest, an argument with a street mime, Cody's mom, dead of night visits to a cemetery during horizontal rain. The crucifixion doesn't become a main story line about halfway through the book. And the turns it takes, right up to the last 2 pages, are twisted enough to raise one's brow in both a quizzical and a frightening response.

Ken Bruen...this guy is good. look at his photo on the book jacket....he looks like he might have lived some of J ack's life...but it sure looks like he loves his Ireland.

East Coast Don

Loitering with Intent by Stuart Woods

For me Stuart Woods writes basic, unspectacular mystery stories. He has 30 novels in print that use 3 main characters spread out over maybe 20-25 books: President Will Lee, FBI agent Holly Barker, and Stone Barrington.

Loitering is an easy summer read based in a tourist destination. Barrington is a trained lawyer who became a cop before being retired early due to disability. He now works for a big law firm doing things that need to be done. This one looks easy. This old guy wants to sell his company and needs to get his son's signature on the contract for the sale to go through. This trust fund baby now lives the vagabond life on his boat around Key West. Barrington takes his old partner along for a vacation. After a few days (they aren't looking all that hard. Barrington meets up with an MD who's a native of Sweden and gets laid so often he can barely walk) they find the guy, but no go on the signature. From here we learn the father has institutionalized his father (who developed the business) and may have killed his own brother. A hit man is hired over and over and over again, the kid's girlfriend is more bodyguard (guarding her investment...this son stands to gain a substantial sum). It has all the trappings of a typical Woods novel. Well heeled characters set in locations most readers will never experience, spicy short term meaningless relationships, mistaken identities, someone getting caught, a double cross, someone getting away all the while eating on the veranda sipping champagne. Even though Barrington is fictional, some guys just seem to have all the luck.

WC Don calls books like this airport books - things to read while traveling - and this would fit that mold. I dont' know how many books by Woods I have read. Maybe a dozen? I dont' know. They dont' explore the deep recesses of the deranged mind or comment on some critical social injustice. They are just relaxing books that are easy to get into, easy to read, and easy to develop a sort of kinship with any one of his three main characters. Woods' legion of fans will come back to their favorite story telling uncle wanting to sit down and be gladly entertained. On this front, Woods consistently delivers just what his fans want. Sometimes I compare his stories to Murder She Wrote for guys.

My wife goes in for a total knee replacement Monday, so i don't know if that means I will get more, the same, or less reading time over the coming weeks. Keep me posted on what looks good. I may need something for a good escape!

East Coast Don

The Way Home by George Pelecanos

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a Pelecanos fan on a number of levels. he writes of Washington DC where I grew up, he writes some of the most literate crime fiction today getting compared to Robert Price and Michael Connelly, but stays a bit under the radar of most folks. I've read them all and would find it hard to have much bad to say about any of his work.

Thomas Flynn and wife Amanda have carved out a decent, if unspectacular life with a carpet installation business in NW Washington. A daughter, Kate died at 2 days and their son Chris seemed to get involved with the wrong kind and his history of petty crime and run-ins with the DC court system gets him sentenced to a couple years in the juvenile jail. As the only white kid in his unit, he has to stand up for himself for respect. Once released, he flounders a bit before getting on as a carpet installer on one of his dad's crews where he partners with one of his juve friends, Ben. They work hard, get girlfriends, apartments, and try to keep the fire that burns inside to a slow simmer. They are installing carpet for a snooty lady flipping houses and find under the floorboards, an old gym bag full of money. Chris gets Ben to put it back, but in a weak moment, Ben tells another juve alum, Lawrence, about the find and the money disappears. Not long after, the owners of the money want it back and now Ben, Chris, and Lawrence are drawn back into a life they tried so hard to leave behind. Each day for them is like a day in a 12 step program: Today, I will not be who I once was.

Pelecanos explores the small details and decisions that affect the lives of the DC that lives beneath the more visible government. Past stories have focused more on the crime and retaliation, but this one is more of a journey into the just-under-middle-class social structure and less on the violence (don't worry, that's there, too). He slowly unveils his characters as real people with real everyday problems and the small circumstances that can change one's life. We see Thomas wrestle with his failures as a father with Chris. We see Amanda trying to keep the family unit together by being a gentle mediator. We see Chris, trying to do the right thing, waiver and wrestle with a code from juve that when one of yours is wronged, you don't look for help-you handle it yourself. We see sacrifice, standing up for buddies, redemption and reconciliation on a number of levels. In some ways, this story is a little like the prodigal son (that says more about the father and less about the more visible son). While the old "found lost money" may seem like a trite plot point, Pelecanos makes it real and we feel the exhilaration and temptation at the found treasure, the remorse when they realize it will just lead to trouble, and even when the money is left, the anger that comes from attempts to right wrongs inflicted on friends. In the end, based on the title, you can guess the last couple pages, but that is about all you could guess. I would have titled it "Signal 13". You'll have to read this story to find out why. While it's not up to his best (e.g. "Hard Revolution", "The Lost Gardener"), and his easy way of drawing the reader into the characters might seem pedestrian to some readers, Pelecanos is still on top of his game and loyal fans, like me, will not be disappointed.

East Coast Don

p.s. I goofed on the Star Trek review. Karl Urban (McCoy) did appear in The Bourne Supremacy, but not the character I thought. He was the Russian security guy who chased Bourne all over Moscow in a high speed car chase and ended up getting crushed in that accident in the tunnel.

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

In Stephen King I trust.

Each May in Entertainment Weekly magazine, King gives 10 suggestions for summer reading. From this I was referred to Ken Bruen and Robert Goddard, those 2 UK mystery writers I have recently gushed over. From Kings’ list this time, I chose The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer.

Milo Weaver is a burnt out CIA operative now living in Brooklyn and working as a mid level manager for the super secret pinnacle of the immediate response pyramid of the CIA called the Bureau of Tourism. The agents, Tourists, are ordered around various regions of the world to be the sharp end of the CIA’s sword and Milo was legendary. But one bad incident in Venice sends him to NYC and out of the field. From there he’s been tracking an assassin, code named Tiger, and actually catches up to him in, of all places, Tennessee. The post-interrogation suicide of Tiger sets the CIA and Homeland Security at each other’s throats. Circumstances force Milo back underground backtracking clues given by Tiger. This opens up a complex array of intrigue, betrayal, manipulation, secrecy, lies, deception and any other trite description of espionage. Who is controlling whom? Is it a rogue administrator or the general culture within the CIA? What of Milo’s current family and his own obscure parentage? Is he rogue, a patriot, a double agent, or a sacrificial lamb? And just how can a few seemingly unconnected assassinations by a skilled killer cause ripples of political, energy, and social upheaval in Germany, Italy, Sudan, and China including the brink of interagency warring between the CIA and Homeland Security?

This is my first Steinhauer book and is the first of a planned trilogy of Milo Weaver books. When I looked him up on the Internet (http://www.olensteinhauer.com/bio.html), I see he is an American expat who has lived most of his young adult life in Europe, currently in Hungary. His forte is convoluted and layered espionage; not the high rolling, freewheeling books with high body counts, exotic weaponry, and barely plausible plots. He has a series of cold war novels, set as 1/decade of that era that I will be sure to start in on and soon. I read the occasional review and more than once saw that the complexity of plot and layers of betrayal and deception rival that of early LeCarre, extremely high praise indeed. If there is another current author putting together such intricate plots and characters of depth and honor, I want to know who it is. This guy is writing absolutely top-drawer, first-rate espionage that, for unknown reasons, rests somewhat under the radar of popular fiction readers obsessed with Grisham, Brown, et al.

I also learned that The Tourist has been optioned off to Hollywood with George Clooney set to play Milo, due out in 2010. I don’t know how well this will translate to the screen because of its complexity, but with that kind of star power, I am sure it will draw well.