The Rembrandt Affair by David Silva

While West Coast Don and I may sit somewhat opposite of each other on the political spectrum (he lives on the left coast and I'm on the east coast, so draw your own conclusion), I will no longer doubt his enthusiasm for an author. Just finished The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva and it was terrific.

An art restorer, a former classmate of Gabriel Allon, is working on a previously unknown Rembrandt when he is murdered and the only painting stolen is the Rembrandt. The art dealer who contracted the restoration contacts Gabriel to see if he might try to find and recover it. The first item of business is to establish the chain of ownership which takes Gabriel to Amsterdam and the home of a spinster teacher who has lived her life alone because of the guilt she carries from the war. A Nazi charged with raiding art from the Dutch snagged this Portrait of a Young Woman from the family in a deal. Hand over the portrait and the daughter lives, but the rest of the family is off for the camps.

This Nazi sleaze ball amasses quite a array of riches and deposits it in a Swiss bank and high tails it for Argentina (sending Gabriel to SAmerica to visit the son). The son, however, has no interest in his father's ill gotten gains and has worked hard to distance himself from his family legacy. But Gabriel also learns that the son of the Swiss banker is Saint Martin, a Swiss billionaire whose fortune was built on Jewish war booty and now puts up a front as a benefactor for numerous social causes while quietly selling machine parts for uranium enrichment to the Iranians. Greed should be his middle name. The thin ice of Martin's empire is a list of names and account numbers of Jewish victims in Holland that have been sealed in the painting.

Gabriel does his due diligence learning of Martin's affair with a British journalist named Zoe, turns her to his side and she manages to tap Martin's phone and computer. But the info is just a taste. They need the main computer in Martin's home. Zoe and one of Gabriel's team attend a big to do at Martin's home and bug his computer, but get caught.

From here, Gabriel exercises his negotiating skills (while being outnumbered 4-1 at one point) and tightens a noose around Martin's neck to do the right thing by helping save Israel, on whose backs his fortune was built, by sending sabotaged Iranian machine parts.

This book followed the Deaver book I just posted and while I struggled to keep my attention on that story, this book grabbed me at the outset and really was one of those can't put it down books. Plenty of twists and plot turns to keep one thinking, 'Now what'? First rate story telling.

While WCDon suggested starting at the beginning of Silva's work to see the development of the Allon character, I grabbed the first one I could find in the library, skipping maybe 30 years of Allon's life. No matter, I'll have no problem heading back again.

Thus . . . In West Coast Don We Trust.

East Coast Don

The Face of the Assassin by David Lindsey

This is my third Lindsey book, and this is the first one that left me somewhat disappointed. It had a complicated plot about a clandestine operation by CIA contractors and their attempts to assassinate Ghazi Baida. Baida is a Lebanese terrorist who is operating out of the triple border region in South America, the area where the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay come together. It’s a rugged jungle near the lawless towns of Ciudad Del Este in Paraguay and Foz de Iguacu in Brazil, near the spectacular Iguacu Falls that I visited last year. After starting in Ciudad Del Este, a city that Daniel Sylva wrote about in his last book, the action moved to Mexico City, and that’s where most of this book took place – and I thought that was probably the best part. On the one hand, the plot was incredibly complex and interesting, but on the other hand, it relied on a cheap old ploy of identical twin brothers who could be mistaken for each other, even by people who knew them well. Bern and Jude who grew up in different cities and who did not know of one another until after one of them was already dead. Still, if one could suspend reality for a bit, Lindsey was at least somewhat captivating with the twin device, and the last 100 pages felt like one fast and bumpy ride, as if I was in an out-of-control raft on a treacherous river, tumbling down a long cascade, violently bumping off one rock to the next. So, it was good and bad, not a total loss, by any means, but I find the identical-twin-thing to be a barely tolerable story line.

Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver

Let’s say you work for the Office of Naval Intelligence in 1936. If you can’t convince anyone in the political hierarchy that Hitler really is rearming, what do you do? You find a maverick financier to fund an assassination, not of Hitler, but of the man overseeing the military buildup.

Now, you need the shooter, so instead of a sniper, you find a mob hit man who is fluent in German, catch him in the act, and make him an offer he can’t refuse: kill this guy or get put on the fast track for the chair at Sing Sing. Tough choice.

So, Paul Schumann gets put on a boat with the Olympic Team to make his way to Berlin. He has a contact, a place to stay, meets a local ‘businessman’ who deals anyway he can, cases the hit, sets up his escape (with his landlady who he, uhmm, lands), learns that the mark is also testing the mindset of some young Aryans by having them commit murder under different situations . . . all of this while he is being doggedly tracked by a local cop because Paul’s contact killed a Stormtrooper who was following Paul. And that’s just the first 48 hours.

Is my cynicism showing? I struggled with this book. Just never could get going. The setup dragged for me. 300 pages describing about 48-72 hours. Having said that, the last 100ish pages were more of what I was expecting and that section just flew. But it wasn’t enough to redeem the first 300 pages. For me, the best parts of the book were the descriptions of everyday life in Berlin as they move towards war. I know Deaver is an author who is constantly on the best seller list, but I'm not sure I'll be back anytime soon.

East Coast Don

The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais

It’s been a while since I read Crais, and after finishing this fast and gripping read, I’m not sure how I could have stayed away for so long. A family is murdered in a house in Temecula, California. A mother, father, and 12-year-old boy are all beaten to death with a baseball bat. Once police are on the scene, they discover a 4-year-old girl who the killer probably didn’t know was in the house. Her footprints, tracked in the blood of her family, indicate she had walked around all three bodies before she went back to her room, where she was found by the police, totally mute. Its many years later that another body is discovered in an alley in Los Angeles, a man who died claiming that he was the father of Elvis Cole, the World’s Greatest Detective, at least according to local publications. Elvis never knew his father, and all he did know was what his mother fabricated, that his father had been a human cannonball in the circus. It was his adolescent intense search for his father, which was unsuccessful, that led Elvis’ to the life as a private detective. Now, he has the chance to find out who this man is and why he claimed to be his father. Could that be true? The path takes us through some very crazy people, but we also have contact with some familiar figures: Carol Starkey, formerly of the Bomb Squad, who is desperately in love with Cole; Lucy Chernier, Cole’s real love who fled the LA scene because of the danger that came from living with Cole; and of course, Joe Pike, who makes his boldest of entries, at precisely the right time. In the story, Crais takes us all over So Cal, from San Diego, to Temecula, through Los Angeles, and up to Canyon Country, north of LA. It is Crais and Cole at their best. Good book.

Shadow Men by Jonathon King

Mark Mayes is a young man eyeing the seminary. The death of a parent opens a box of old family documents including a series of letters from his great grandfather who, with his two sons, were part of a desperate lot working on the construction of the first road to cross the Everglades back in the early years of the 20th century. The conditions were deplorable with the downright evil Jefferson, a crack shot with a large bore rifle, keeping the crew from leaving the crew at night. The three never made it out and Mark has been trying all the proper channels to find out what happened to this side of the family.

Hitting closed doors, Mark goes to Bill Manchester, King's stuttering attorney to see if he can make any headway. Billy gets his now investigator, Max Freeman, to start digging. But at every turn, Max hits a wall as though someone was on his six everywhere he goes. Countless times, a bug in his phone, a tracker in his truck, keeps some faceless sleuths on his tail.

Rumor has it that Jefferson's grandson became a preacher so Billy and Max start searching various sources for a preacher named Jefferson and finally score. So Max goes to interview him in a town that has a 15yr history of a serial killer doing his best imitation of Dexter, killing bad guys and taking out the trash. Reverend Jefferson is, indeed, who they are looking for and, in an attempt to relieve some of his family's guilt, turns over a box of items including that large caliber rifle. Included in the box is an accounting of Jefferson's deeds on behalf of his employers, the first big time Florida development company, Palmco. Including a map that Max thinks are graves.

To find the graves, Max enlists Nate Brown - the 80ish WWII hero and defacto mayor of the 'glades who knows more about the Everglades than anyone. With the map, Max and Nate find the graves of Mark family. But sparks are thought to be possible when Mark travels to see Reverend Jefferson, but Mark finds that Reverend Jefferson has hanged himself in his barn. The last bit of guilt for having tried to account for his grandfather's sins by, as I said, taking out the trash.

I'm getting to like Max Freeman and his girlfriend Det. Richards, and Bill Richardson. But the guy I really like is Nate Brown. A really crusty old frog who wears the 'glades proudly on his sleeve and makes no bones about his disgust with 'progress' and desire to live in a place where right and wrong is more important than nonsense laws. Here's hoping that we see more of Nate Brown in future books. King is quite adept at shifting between Max's history back in Philly, the nightmares that plague Max, his solitude in the Everglades, and the hassles of 'civilized' south Florida. Great stuff from King.

East Coast Don

Storm Runners by T. Jefferson Parker

T. Jefferson Parker has written an excellent story that is one of the highlights of this genre. He boldly offers the basis of the plot in the first sentence of the book: “Stromsoe was in high school when he met the boy who would someday murder his wife and son.” Matt Stromsoe is the protagonist and Mike Tavarez becomes his enemy. Matt was the high school drum major who was harassed by the other high school boys, but he was defended and protected by Tavarez who went on to become El Jefe, head of a powerful Mexican crime organization. But, Stromsoe becomes a cop rather than follow Tavarez into crime. In high school, there were both in love with the same high school honey, Hallie. Initially, she chose Tavarez, but after he badly abused her, she left him for Stromsoe. Hallie and Stromsoe were married and had a child, Billy, and they led an idyllic life until Stromsoe set a plan in action to capture Tavarez. While Tavarez escaped, his girlfriend his killed. He then sought revenge against Stromsoe, but his efforts to kill Stromsoe also missed. While Stromsoe was badly injured by a bomb, he lived and it was his wife and son that were mistakenly killed. Tavarez was convicted of murder and was sent to jail forever, where he continued to run his crime organization. Stromsoe was not beyond Tavarez’s reach. That information is all backstory for the current action in this book. The title comes from the real action that centers around rainmaking, aka “moisture acceleration.” Frankie Hatfield is the San Diego weather lady, the granddaughter of Charley Hatfield who was once run out of San Diego for making too much rain for the city. She is in competition with a bad guy at the Department of Water and Power who wants water to remain a scarcity and thereby protect his own territory as the man who brings water to Southern California, not a position he wants to share with anyone. Stromsoe, back in San Diego from a two-year hiatus in which he physically and emotionally recovers from his own injuries, is called on to protect Frankie from a stalker. Of course, Frankie and Stromsoe become an item. Maybe the most unbelievable part of the book is that she is a beautiful woman who, at 38 years of age is still a virgin, until her encounters with Stromsoe. The story weaves Tavarez back into the scene since he wants to kill anyone that Stromsoe loves. This is a fast-paced story and it was hard to put down – a very good and entertaining read. Now, I have to decide what my next Parker novel will be.

The English Assassin by Daniel Silva

OK, my partner in this venture reviewed this book a while back and all 1o reviews of Silva's books are by WCDon. When I saw this book on the shelf over at my mom's health center, I decided on the spot that I'd better get on board. If one of us has read 10 books by the same author, said author is probably dang good. Why it took me so long to read a Silva book is beyond me.

The English Assassin appears to be #2 in the Gabriel Allon saga and it involves Swiss Banking, stolen Jewish treasures and artwork from WWII. A Zurich banker near death develops a conscious and contacts Israeli authorities that he has artwork to be turned over to its proper owners. But to do so would uncover a secret cabal of Swiss businessmen who want to keep the status quo in order to maintain the flow of clandestine money and valuables as it always was, with the Swiss as bankers to the world, no matter what side of right and wrong their customers sat.

Allon, the art restorer/hired gun finds the banker dead, turns around and leaves only to be caught by the Swiss Feds (and be prepared for a very unexpected twist surrounding the cop). Allon gets let go, but against the wishes of his boss, decides to find out who tried to frame him and tries to follow the money, the paintings, and (of course) the daughter of the dead banker. They traipse all over western Europe following clues leading to the Swiss cabal. Problem is that at nearly each stop, their contact ends up dead at the hands of, you guessed it, the English Assassin. The former British SAS operative is now a hit man for a Corsican Don who has been hired by the cabal to keep tabs on Allon's investigation and eliminate any threats Allon has uncovered. When the assassin closes in on Allon and the daughter in Venice, rather than carry out the kill, he simply leaves a note, showing Allon how easy it would be to get to him. Got the feeling that this guy appears in other Silva books.

I've seen Silva and Allon compared to Fleming and James Bond. Last time I read an Ian Fleming book I was in high school and Sean Connery was shagging Ursula Undress . . . er . . . Andress, so I am not the best person to verify such a claim. What I can say is that Allon is a very intriguing character and if other Silva books are this classy and well paced, I can understand my partner's high praise. More Allon books are in my future. I am guessing it is a safe bet to pick any random Silva book and be thoroughly entertained.

East Coast Don

A Visible Darkness by Jonathon King

This is part II of the Max Freeman saga that began with King's Edgar Award winner for best new mystery, Blue Edge of Midnight

You will remember that Max is a former Philly beat cop who ran away to the Everglades after killing a 12yo in the midst of committing an armed robbery.

Three main players here: Frank McCane is an insurance investigator who used to be THE go-to guard for contraband in a Georgia prison. Eddie Baines is a mostly mentally incompetent small time crook in an NFL lineman's body with a taste for hookers and heroin. Dr. Harold Marshak was the prison psychiatrist who treated Eddie.

Old, mostly black, women, some of whom were among the first black entrepreneurs of South Florida, are dying. Well, they were dying anyway, but some think they are dying off a bit too quickly.

The common link is each had just sold their life insurance policy as a viatical (I had to look it up, so I linked Wikipedia) where the holder gets cash (below the policy's maturity amount) and the investors collect the full amount once the holder dies. The longer the holder lives, the longer the investors have to wait to cash out. And these ladies are dying awfully soon after selling the policy. Freeman's lawyer buddy Billy is getting no love from Miami PD about the deaths (that all seem to look to be due to natural causes) and thinks maybe Max might be a good choice to do a little digging.

And dig he does. Slowly, he learns about the women and enlists the help of a group of locals who protect the off-limits area; a drug-free zone consisting mostly of these older women and turn out to be valuable assets in his crawling though the Miami underbelly.

To make a short (but very interesting) story brief, Max (and an equally scarred female Miami PD Detective from book #1) put the pieces together to learn that a group of investors get McCane to look over insurance policies to find who might be receptive to a viatical. Once the deal is sealed, McCane tells the doc who then pays Eddie to send the holder off to the next life through suffocation. Eddie then uses his cash for drugs and maybe a hooker.

Short description of a short, and a very clever book. I was trying to think of who King reminded me of. Then I looked on his website and saw some comparisons with James Lee Burke . . . yeah, that's a good comparison. Call it swamp noir. But it can't really be noir, cuz according to MRB friend Charlie Stella's 10 rules of noir, it fails on two fronts. Rule #4 says that the femme fatale needs to be a nasty broad. She isn't. Actually, she's kind of cool. Also, rule #8 doesn't occur; too bad.

In coming books, it looks like Max becomes a Miami PI. Should be a fun series. Maybe rule #8 might surface after all. I'm hopeful.

East Coast Don

The Devil's Teardrop by Jeffery Deaver

I’ve entirely plagiarized the following review from Deaver’s website, and I did so because I was disappointed in the book and did want to spend any time putting together a synopsis. This was an “airplane book,” something that carries a decent plot and is somewhat entertaining, but is also easy to put down and walk away from. While I’m a fan of Deaver’s, his characters in this book were rather wooden, and the whole thing was too formulaic. Given that the hero of this book, Parker Kincaid, is a document reviewer and handwriting expert, it is fitting that the title of the book comes from his name for a certain style for dotting an “i.” That’s enough effort on my part. Now, the stolen review: “It's New Year's Eve, December 31, 1999, and Washington, D.C., is under siege. Early in the day, a grisly machine gun attack in the Dupont Circle Metro station leaves dozens dead and the city crippled with fear. A note delivered to the mayor's office pins the massacre on the Digger, a robotlike assassin programmed to wreak havoc on the capital every four hours — until midnight. Only a ransom of $20 million delivered to the Digger's accomplice — and mastermind — will end the death and terror. But the Digger becomes a far more sinister threat when his accomplice is killed in a freak accident while en route to the money drop. With the ransom note as the single scrap of evidence, Special Agent Margaret Lukas calls upon Parker Kincaid, a retired FBI agent and the top forensic document examiner in the country. Somehow, by midnight, they must find the Digger — before he finds them. The Devil's Teardrop was made into a TV movie airing on the Lifetime network in August 2010. It stars Natasha Henstridge, Tom Everett Scott, and Rena Sofer.”