36 Yalta Boulevard by Olen Steinhauer

Remember Brano Sev? He works for the Ministry of State Security in the capital of Olen Stenhauer's unnamed Eastern European country. He's been assigned to be the new rezident in Vienna in search of a double agent code named Gravillo. But an underling there wants the job, frames Brano with a murder and sends him back to the capital where he is summarily demoted to assembling tractor gauges.

Six months later, his old boss gets him off the line and sends him to his hometown to investigate a source suspected of selling information to the highest bidder. But Brano again is blamed for a murder. But with a little help manages to get out of the basement of Yalta Blvd and crosses the border into Austria.

Once there, and under the watchful eye of Austrian authorities, is told by his former boss to wait. From here, we are witness to the drudgery of surveillance, intrigue, and guesswork about just what the hell is going on. Who is pulling his chain? Who can be trusted? And who are all these shadows following him? Gavrillo? Good question.

This is the 3rd in his five part series of post WWII espionage/police procedural novels, leaving me with just one remaining. These stories are old school espionage, which means its probably more akin to what the spy game really was at the time. No piles of dead bodies, car chases, beautiful women, automatic weapons, and blowing up everything in sight. No, sir. This is about manipulation, sources, interrogation (torture optional), assembling puzzles, threats, cover-ups, dead drops, play-counterplay. Have mercy can Steinhauer weave a complicated tale. Not for those wanting mindless entertainment. Be warned. You have to work for it.

East Coast Don

VICTIMS by Jonathan Kellerman

Victims is the latest Jonathan Kellerman work featuring his beloved central characters, psychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD lieutenant Milo Sturgis.  So familiar are these Alex and Milo based books to a Kellerman fan, they have progressed from a formula to a tradition.   A tradition that contains all the elements of a good mystery, thriller and the promise that the next will be just as entertaining.

Vita Berlin, a nasty middle aged woman living alone and on disability in LA is found disemboweled in her apartment.  While the victim’s remains are gruesome, the crime scene is neat and orderly and the wounds surgical in technique.  Lieutenant Sturgis gets the call and due to the psychopathic nature of the crime, Dr. Delaware is immediately enlisted to consult.  Shortly into their investigation a second victim is discovered.  This time a nice guy, middle aged accountant, Marlon Quigg is accosted and brutally slain while out walking his dog.  The crime scene is outside in an abandoned park but the similarities to the first crime, surgical style wounds and the neatness of the surrounding area lead our crime fighting duo to suspect the worst, a serial killer.  The horrific brutality of the murders flashes Alex’s memory back to one of his particularly unpleasant experiences during his training years.  A California state mental hospital at Ventura (V-state) where he interned decades earlier, contained a separate unit for particularly disturbed patients and practiced its own brand of therapy, no longer accepted or practiced in his trade.  When Alex inquired about the Special Care Unit as an intern he was told only ‘you don’t want to go there.’  

Now, by using his training in psychology Alex is able to maneuver in the professional community where confidentially is sacred. Only through contacting and interviewing former employees of V-state and their offspring does Alex begin to suspect the psychotic killer could have once been a patient in the Special Care Unit.  Alex interviews Dr. Bern Shacker, a Beverly Hills psychologist who has treated each of the victims.  Further investigation reveals the good doctor is an impostor and may have once worked in the V-state Specialized Care Unit…but as a guard, not a doctor.  A third brutal homicide causes LAPD to ramp up the investigation adding resources to the team.  Police surveillance of Bern Shacker proves futile as the ‘doctor’ has abandoned his Beverly Hills office.  His true identity is discovered from figure prints found in his abandon office and an urgent search ensues.  Alex surmises that Shacker is most likely an accomplice but not the perpetrator of the murders.  Delaware learns the identity of a former V-state Special Care Unit patient that fits the profile of their perpetrator.  Grant Huggler was committed as an eleven year old after he shot his mother in the head and proceeded to explore the interworking of her body.  The hospital had used unorthodox methods to treat (or mistreat) Huggler’s disturbing obsessions.  Now decades later released from state care, Huggler’s deviant behavior requires the skill set of Dr. Delaware to locate him and end his rampage of terror. 

Kellerman wrote Victims for his fans.  The book is much more about the mystery and the crime than about the lives of the characters that appear in the Delaware mysteries. Very little energy was dispensed in character development…no touchy feely…just the facts mam.  This makes for a very intense and fast paced read...just the way I like them.  In fact, this style and genre are at the core of what this blog is all about…thoroughly enjoyable for men reading books.

Below Zero by C.J Box

As a recent addition to the MRB power rotation, we have a bunch of titles by C.J. Box to catch up on. My latest long haul trip was made tolerable with Below Zero.

Joe Pickett gets the job done, but sometimes at the expense of his supervisors good nature. Good thing he has the Governor on his side or his career as a Wyoming Game Warden might've ended a long time ago. Our boy Joe has been banished hours away from his former assignment to what fellow game wardens view as the last stop before being shown the door.

He's out hunting down what's been termed The Mad Archer, a nut using a bow on various critters, domesticated and wild. While he's made good progress, he still can't catch this guy in the act. But a clue leads to a tip leads to a canyon and a pickup in a narrow arroyo with tires that match his castings and a cab full of incriminating archery items.

During booking, his wife, still living back in Saddlestring, texts Joe to call NOW. Their oldest daughter has received a text from April Keeley.

(Guessing from an earlier book) April Keeley was the Pickett's foster daughter before the state is its wisdom, ordered her back with her birth mother. April's mother was part of a cult called the Sovereigns, one of those survivalist groups that dot the Montana-Wyoming-Idaho mountains. In a standoff eerily like Ruby Ridge, the FBI screws up (again), the cabin with a bunch of Sovereigns goes up in flames, dozens escape on snowmobiles, and 3 body bags are filled, one of which contained a child. The guilt of that day years ago continues to plague Joe's family.

But now, April has made contact with Sheridan Pickett. The texts describe an older man and son heading from Chicago to Wyoming. The old guy saved her from a Chicago brothel and sees her as a rebirth of his own now dead daughter. The son runs one of those carbon credit websites for those feeling guilty about global warming to send money to reduce their carbon footprint. And the son doesn't like the dad.

See, the dad is a Chicago mobster and represents everything that save the planet types resent. But the dad is dying of cancer and trying to make amends with his son. To do so, they cut a path across the upper midwest killing people whose carbon footprint continues to expand. The title refers not to a temperature, but to achieving the global warming fanatics nirvana of a negative carbon footprint.

Joe takes time off work and tries to put the pieces together about whether this really is April or someone pretending to be April is sending the texts to Sheridan. The FBI in Wyoming (no great friends of Joe) joins the hunt because there are hints of domestic terrorism plus this mobster has been on the FBI's list for years; the head of the state office is having a wet dream about solving this and getting sent to DC and far away from the Cheyenne backwater outpost.

Since being alerted to Box, his work quickly climbed to power rotation status. I think all three of us would say that each story has been a winner. Every book has been a solid story about a real black/white, right/wrong standup guy who also has a penchant for destroying state property. I think I can honestly say that if you like your mysteries spiced up a bit by its locale (rural Wyoming) you can pick up any title by Box and not be disappointed.

East Coast Don

Kill Shot by Vince Flynn

In American Assassin, Flynn had returned to Mitch Rapp's training and first assignment. Kill Shot picks up were Assassin left off.

After Rapp had saved his training instructor, Stan Hurley's bacon during Rapp's first assignment, you'd think Hurley would have finally accepted Irene Kennedy's star find. But Hurley still thinks Rapp is a loose cannon. Over Rapp's first year, he has performed beyond anyone's expectations. Kennedy, her boss Stansfield, Rapp, and Hurley had drawn up a list of the terrorist command structure that Rapp was eliminating one by one. Hurley tries to impress on Rapp to be invisible so the bad guys don't know he is coming. Rapp could care less if the target knows his name is up. Let them live in the kind of terror their innocent victims experience. Hurley also doesn't like that Rapp is working alone, given far more leash by Kennedy and Stansfield than any other operative gets.

The Libyan oil minister is in Paris. He is a respected minister and diplomat with a side interest in laundering money for various terrorist organizations; his name is next up on the list. An easy target for Rapp. Predictable, visible, and available for assassination most anywhere he travels. But this time, the hit is on friendly soil - Paris, France. And this opens up mega problems for the US government, if something goes wrong.

This fat minister likes his French prostitutes and Rapp as spent a couple weeks establishing the guy's patterns. On the chosen night, Rapp rappels down to the hotel's 2nd floor balcony, opens the balcony door on which he had previously disengaged the lock, sneaks in, puts two silenced shots into the minister's forehead as he slept.

An unsuspected noise in the hallway alerts Rapp who dives behind the bed just as the room explodes in automatic gunfire. Five vs. Rapp is an unfair fight. Rapp kills four, is wounded himself, and the 5th escapes the slaughter only to kill 3 other innocents on his way out.

Something went wrong, obviously. Someone knew he was coming and set a trap. And now the chase is on. The CIA is trying to get Rapp to come in, but with only 4 people knowing 'the list', someone must be the source of the leak. The group that arranged the hit on Rapp want to find him and finish the job. The Paris police have one dead foreign minister, one dead whore, 4 dead unknowns, and 3 dead innocents. To say that the domestic and foreign press are in a feeding frenzy would be an understatement. The French version of the CIA, the DGSE, is lingering around the police because an international figure is dead on French soil. And Rapp is having to stay ahead of all these competing interests.

Flynn is a favorite on mine. I've been reading his work from the very start with Term Limits. Each is a terrific tale and once the Mitch Rapp character was introduced, Flynn became the new Chosen One for outstanding spy thrillers. With Kill Shot, he maintains his place at the top of the pyramid of action-based thrillers. His work differs from more 'traditional' espionage work like early LeCarre, or my current fav, Olen Steinhauer. But make no mistake. Flynn is ground zero for what we at MRB like - action packed, fast paced, testosterone laced CIA against the bad guys. Your wife will either hate you for picking it up (puts the 'honey do' list on hold) or love you for reading it (keep you out of her hair for a couple days).

East Coast Don

The Shadow Patrol

Just released last month, this is the 6th book in the John Wells series, all of which have been favorably reviewed in the blog. Berenson knows how to spin a story, how to have his characters evolve from one book to the next, and how to keep the reader in suspense. Berenson is one of my main authors, and while he presents John Wells as a tough and morally inflexible figure, seemingly a caricature of the protagonists in our blog, he just does it so well. The book mostly takes place in Afghanistan and the story starts with the suicide bombing that took out a critical CIA station, killing seven people and thereby crippling the effort for several years. (Do you remember when that really happened.) In the vacuum left behind, unexpected things were happening with the military efforts, strikes were being made when the targets were not there. It became clear that there was a mole in the CIA who was tipping off key Afghanis about how to avoid the next droid strike, when to escape from the next stealth attack, etc. John Wells was brought into find out what he could. It seems the heroin trade was somehow involved and some soldiers were making big money by participating in it, but they were tied to and directed by someone that was high up in the CIA chain of authority. This was a fast read for me, one I could not put down, and I did not see the twist coming that brought the story to a resolution. At the same time, although it was fiction, I thought the book brought me to a better understanding of the war effort. Berenson’s writing is strong, and the dialogue is excellent. If you haven’t read Berenson, start with the first book in the series, “The Faithful Spy,” and work your way forward. You have a lot to look forward to.

We Hold These Truths

NO. That’s what you need to know. I’ve sacrificed myself for you, so you don’t have to read this trash. I got one-fourth of the way into this one before I deleted it from my Kindle. This was an eKindle book, and I bought into Amazon’s advertising for this one. At least it only cost $2.99. I’m not sure where this story was going, but it started out with a redneck-style reliving of the 9/11 disaster, with good ol’ boys watching television and chanting their desired response: “just nuke ‘em.” To further alienate this pinko liberal who thinks Bill Clinton was a right-wing nutcase, the author described an atheist’s sudden and inexplicable conversion to Christianity. But, the best (worst, most comical) part of the novel was the dialogue. The author has Pastor McCullen equating the Islamic religion with the devil, and he spoke of the day America would get even, “On that day, that pre-appointed day, he’ll kick Satan’s mangy rear end clear on down into the bowels of hell.” That’s right, kick Satan’s butt. Another example of the too-cutesy dialogue was when the leftist newspaper publisher Hank Simmons was stopped and ticketed by Township Constable Any Fitzu for going 39 in a 35 mph zone. Skip Coryell, the author, wrote that the Constable “glared down at Hank with all the compassion and understanding of a battle-hardened nun.” What the hell does that mean? That was enough for me. It was only after I quit that I noticed the subtitle, "Reaffirming Faith in God, Family, and Country!" Maybe, if I had seen that line, it would have been enough to steer me away from this book.

Somewhere Inside

I thought my obsession with North Korea was over, but on her last day there, after touring the DMZ, my daughter Jenna recommended this book. The book’s subtitle is “One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home.” The girls are of Chinese heritage, but are Americans. This is a totally nonfiction work about an event that occurred only two years ago, from March to August in 2010. Laura Ling, the younger of the two sisters, a journalist and correspondent, was trying to do a documentary on people who were escaping from North Vietnam into China. Essentially, this is a timely follow-up to “Nothing to Envy,” which was the best book I read in 2011, also a nonfiction work about people who escaped from the most isolated country on our planet. Laura and another woman, Euna Lee, her coproducer and translator, as well as a cameraman and a guide, we all on the China side of the Tumen River, the border between North Korea and China. Surprisingly, the border is relatively unguarded. The crew hoped to get pictures of and an interview with someone who was newly escaping across the river. Of course, in March, it is bitterly cold in that part of the world, so the river was mostly frozen over. Laura made the fateful decision to follow her guide across the river, just for a moment, just so they could set foot in the country and then hurry back. But, their presence was immediately detected by the North Koreans who chased them back across the river into China, beat them, and hauled them back into their country. That began 140 days of captivity, and the Ling women (Lisa continues to have a distinguished career as a news correspondent) wrote their story just as the subtitle suggests. Can you imagine? They had to call on none other than Bill Clinton to fly to Korea to get them out since Kim Sung Il would accept no other envoy. This is a very well, can’t-put-it-down book which I read in less than a 24-hour period. There was real life terror, real life-threatening events, all cast in the light of trying to figure out what “Dearest Leader” wanted in order to release the women. This book is, to use an intentional pun, captivating.

Raylan by Elmore Leonard

This latest effort by one of those very few authors who is close to the mountaintop would be hard to find inadequate. It has a number of things going for it - Elmore Leonard, Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder, and other colorful folks from back in the hills of Harlan County, Kentucky.

I am an unapologetic fan of Justified, the TV show on FX based on the Raylan Givens character. Being so familiar with the character(s), it's neat to read a book and see in come to life on my mind's eye as I read. This is very typical Leonard with is razor sharp dialogue and that little wink to let you know something else might be lurking.

I actually thought this looked a bit like 3 plot lines for the TV show that he lengthened and revised a bit so they'd be somewhat connected.

Plot line 1: Dewey and Coover (who else) help their dad in the family business - growing and distributing marijuana. A potential windfall of money crosses their path and they join up with a transplant nurse at the University of Kentucky Medical Center to harvest kidneys, then extort the former owner to buy them back at an exorbitant price. Good money in body parts, until Raylan gets on the trail of the nurse who promptly tries steal Raylan's. Bad idea.

Plot line 2: The main coal mining company has shifted from deep to surface mining and the waste has poisoned everything around it. When one old coot confronts the lady lawyer/company spokesperson about the death of his pond, she tries to get Boyd Crowder (on her payroll now) to shoot him. He balks, so she takes care of business herself and now she and Raylan are dancing around each other as he tries to make a case against her.

Plot line 3: Jackie Nevada is a 3.something student at Butler up in Indianapolis. She also is a vicious and successful poker player, but one night she drops $20K. Next thing you know, banks in Indiana are getting robbed by 3 women. Local law thinks she's desparate and crossed the line. She's decided to head on to Las Vegas for some poker tournament, but gets sidetracked in Kentucky by a high stakes game. So while Raylan is on this case, the bank robbing team is falling apart. What's a Marshall to do? You can bet one of the things is Ms. Nevada.

While I'd never be so presumptuous to say what others are saying, that Leonard cashed in on this book because of the success of the TV show. Count me out of that. Sure, it's maybe 3 novellas, but Givens is one helluva a character and his one line replies are both direct and funny. Great stuff.

I'd love to get a t-shirt from FX: "I've shot people I like more for less". But no one would want to be seen with me.

East Coast Don

What It Was by George Pelecanos

Current day: Derek Strange and Nick Stefanos are lounging in Leo's Bar, high up on Georgia Ave; 2 longtime friends and experience storytellers. Song comes up on the 'box that reminds both of 1972. To some that was the year of Nixon. To Derek, it was the year Red went off. Red? Went by Red Fury - it's a long story. We got all afternoon (words of comfort to we readers).

June 1972: Robert Lee Jones has clawed his way up from street muggings. Now he wants it all. Light skin, tall with reddish hair, rust colored bells, 3" stacks, print poly shirt opened to show his concrete abs. His girl is Coco, equally tall with a look like she's trying for afro of the year. She runs a whorehouse on 14th, drives a red over white Plymouth Fury with gangster whitewalls and a 4 barrel. Fonzo Jefferson runs with Red. Both guys are going to make this summer the summer of Red.

First victim is Bobby Odom, a weasel drug tester for a local dealer. Red wants the dealer's name, gets it, blows Bobby away, steals a ring, 2 tickets to the Roberta Flack-Donny Hathaway show at the Carter Baron, then casually drives away in the Fury.

Hot chick walks into Strange Investigations asking Derek to track down her ring, stolen from now dead Bobby Odom. It's a fake but it has sentimental value, she says. Derek's former partner with Metro PD, Det. Frank 'Hound Dog' Vaughan draws the Odom murder putting them back on the same case, sort of.

Red finds the dealer, shoots him in an alley, steals his stash and his cash. Problem is that this particular dealer is tight with the NY mob. And when no money is coming their way, two thugs are sent down to DC, perhaps their least favorite city.

Red and Fonzo are not done. More vics to kill, reputation to stake. Derek and Hound Dog are a few steps behind, plodding along, 1 clue at a time - from whores, transvestites, barkeeps, tips in NW, Malcolm X Park, Upshur, the Booker T theater. Derek takes his girl to the Carter Baron Amphitheater, sees Red and Coco. Calls Hound Dog and starts to track them. So do the two hitters from NYC and all converge at the same time for the eventual shootout.

Authors write about what they know. Pelecanos is a DC native and all 18 of his books are based there, dating from post WWII to current day. He was a writer/producer for HBOs The Wire and now for Treme. A few years ago, my wife found one of his books in the bargain bin, saw it had two pluses that made it perfect for me: DC setting (my homet0wn), and crime. What sets Pelecanos apart from the rest is he exposes what most of us are glad we never see. His stories are sparse and direct, about characters so real that the stories almost read like a true crime story. I absolutely love his use of DC as an integral character and his attention to period detail that most readers can identify with - there were dang few details that were foreign to me. There is no Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp, Joe Pike in his books. You feel that Derek could be the guy sitting in the four top next to you in the corner diner . . . I've never felt that about Reacher or Pike. He even has a Spotify playlist highlighting the tunes he mentions in the book. 'Like' him on FaceBook and get access to short video tours of DC showing the settings he uses in his books. Get used to the melody of the street dialogue (guessing that's the hardest thing for most people), and you are following Strange and Hound Dog around, eavesdropping on their shoulder for the best seat in the house. His previous offering, The Cut, was terrific. So is this one, keeping Pelecanos firmly entrenched in my power rotation.

Learned one other fact about Pelecanos that makes him a bit of a compadre . . . already knew he lives in Silver Spring, MD where I grew up . . . just found out we graduated from the same high school.

For me, this makes two straight winners (this and The Five). Got a feeling I'm in for a three-peat as I'm into Elmore Leonard's "Raylan" featuring the TV's best show (Justified) and lead character (Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens). Life is good.

East Coast Don

Dead Politician Society: A Clare Vengel Undercover Novel

This is Robin Spano’s second book and the second of the Clare Vengel series. Clare is a 24 year-old very green police officer who is having a go at being an undercover cop. Politicians are being murdered on a college campus and the Society for Political Utopia (SPU) is taking credit. Clare is sent to infiltrate the society, and the chief suspect is Professor Matthew Easton, a man who is well known for sleeping with his students. That’s all you need to know. This book is a dog – don’t read it. I’m surprised I got halfway through. I kept waiting for something to happen, but at the halfway point, I gave up waiting and closed the book. The characters were occasionally interesting, but the dialogue was never even adequate. I’m assuming this will be the first and last Spano book for the blog.