The Psalter by Galen Watson

A Vatican priest sneaks off with a manuscript of incredible age, gets run down by a guy on the FBI watch list who ends up dying in a car wreck while fleeing the cops. Father Romano, a Vatican archivist, takes possession of the scroll and sneaks off to Paris to enlist the help of an expert in ancient texts and her linguistics professor father to interpret what's in this book that got a priest killed.

In ancient days, the 'paper' was hard to come by so it was reused over and over. With careful chemical techniques, one can drill deep into its history. What he learns is that the original writing may date back to the first century - one of the original works of Christianity. And some people don't want it coming out because what it says could shake the foundations of the Church. 

In the 9th century, the Catholic church is reeling from corruption and politics. Father Johnnes, a Brit, has but one life and wants to live it by archiving as many of the old texts as possible, saving the originals as is rather than recycling the 'paper' for newer translations and interpretations. 

Got this book as a Kindle freebie. My brother-in-law told me of a subscription service called BookBub.com that complies book deals (from free to $1.99) and sends out daily alerts based on your profile. This was my first. Watson's 2012 book is told in two parts; one part current and one part from the 900s, mostly the latter. We follow Father Johannes from his early days as a dirt poor parish priest to his rise to become an unwilling Pope. The current day story is about Father Romano's search for clues about not only what's in (or under) the book as well as who wants to suppress its contents. Sort of a Da Vinci Code's Robert Langdon in a cleric's collar. If you liked Da Vinci Code, this is right up your alley. I was at best so-so for that line of Dan Brown's work so I liked this better. For free, it was a reasonable diversion while I wait for the new Olen Steinhauer book this spring. But be warned, the content of the ancient writings might not be well received by some Christians much like the story line of Da Vinci Code didn't sit well either. Or just accept that this is fiction and the product of a fertile imagination and don't take the lessons too seriously.

ECD

A Reason to Live by Matthew Iden

A Reason to Live by Matthew Iden is the first in a series of crime fiction novels featuring Marty Singer, retired DC homicide detective.  Marty didn’t want to retire.  He loved his job and it consumed his life for 30 years leaving him in his early 50’s without a wife or children or even a hobby to look forward to enjoying.  Marty has cancer and his treatment promises to sap his physicality… make him a lesser cop.  Marty can’t tolerate that so he retires planning to deal with the consequences of starting a new life if he survives the cancer.

Before his first chemo treatment, Marty is approached by a George Washington University graduate student, Amanda Lane.  Twelve years earlier when Amanda was a child, her mother was murdered by a rouge DC cop, Michael Wheeler.  Marty worked the case but Wheeler was acquitted through some apparent behind the scenes political influence.  Marty blamed himself for his role in allowing the murderer to walk. Now years later, Amanda is being stalked… she thinks by her mother’s killer.  She’s scared and doesn’t know where to turn for help so she calls Singer.  He seizes the opportunity for redemption… a reason to live.

But Marty is no longer a cop.  He doesn’t have access to the MPDC resources needed to protect Amanda let alone find the killer.  He calls on his former partner, Kransky who is still in the police department.  He engages Wheeler’s former attorney who unknown to Singer craves her own chance at redemption.  Meanwhile, Marty begins his chemo treatments and is seriously hampered from his new found quest.  So this trio of part time crusaders stumble through a scarcity of stale clues hoping to right a wrong and prevent further tragedy.

I’m excited about this new found author, Matthew Iden.  First, I like his writing.  When he describes a place it jumps out at you and makes you feel like you are there… you know exactly what he means and can picture it in your mind.  Second, I like this character, Marty Singer.  The guy has his own self-imposed sense of justice like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher or Robert B. Parker’s Spenser but with a vulnerability that makes him more human.  Third, Iden is self-published.  I read where he gives away more copies of his books than he sells… makes me feel like I stumbled onto something.  The quality of his writing is as good as any of the more prolific authors I normally read.  I have two more Marty Singer books loaded on my Kindle and hear a fourth is in the works.  It’s what we live for at MRB.

The Next President by Joseph Flynn

You've been trained as a sniper and sent to Vietnam. You were good, but a shady branch of the Army, ostensibly to investigate 'shrinkage' of materials grabbed you. The unit was actually about shrinking the number of enemy leaders. Also managed to 'shrink' a US Army officer who was aiding and abetting the enemy. That one was off the books on your own dime. Did your tours, came home, got married, went into the clothing biz with your wife and relocated from southern Illinois to California. Had a son. Did pretty well and made a fistful of money. Then divorced. Your son decides he wants to go to college back in Illinois and enrolls in SIU-Carbondale, way down there closer to KY than anyplace else. 

By most definitions, living large in SoCal.

Sure there was that little flap after 'Nam with a KY loser whose family the Cade's have been feuding with for dang near 100 years. He pissed you off, but the creep died in a car-deer wreck on a back county road. That seemed like a good time to make that move to SoCal.

It's now 2004. The first legitimate black presidential candidate is preparing for an outdoor speech on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. He takes the stage, bends over to hug a baby, and a bullet zips over his head. The shot was taken from well over a half mile away so the trigger was pulled ahead of his bending over. Lucky. No traces of who or where the shot came from are found.

A new KY thug is dead. Supposedly blew himself up when the IED he was making exploded. Said IED was set to be payback for a guy who wouldn't pay protection. Evan Cade is the prime suspect. See his girlfriend was the daughter of the guy who failed to pay up and everyone figures Evan was just standing up for his girlfriend's father.

Evan Cade, son of JD Cade, businessman with a past that few know about. And still a damn good shot.

JD and Evan are stuck. A quiet Treasury Department program has framed Evan in order to blackmail JD into killing the favored candidate. Kill Franklin Delano Rawley or your son will in all likelihood be found tortured and dead, in all appearances at the hands of their sworn KY enemies, but we all know whose hand would strike the fatal blows.

After the Chicago miss, JD follows Rawley to the LA swing of stops and with a couple careful (and pricey) donations to the Rawley campaign, manages to get close to the staff and the candidate. All the while he is trying to figure out how to kill Rawley, who is pulling the strings, and what can be done to get himself out of this mess, save his son, and avoid the assassination.

OK, now let's see if I have all this straight -
mountain boy turned Army sniper during Vietnam: check
still a great shot even into his 60s: check
very clever in manipulating people and circumstances without firing a shot: check
has a child whose very safety depends on his every move: check
author/character: Stephen Hunter/Bob Lee Swagger: nope

While the backstory of JD Cade bears a striking similarity to Hunter's Swagger, old Bob Lee labored outside of prime time politics while JD is smack in the middle and doing his best to survive and save his son. My first foray into the world according to Flynn was the very readable Tall Man in Ray Bans, recently reviewed here. I liked it enough to check out another title from the library. As good as Hunter and his Bob Lee books? Nope. Good enough to want to look at more titles? You bet. It does not appear that Flynn has developed the Cade character into a series (pity), but he does have a series of political thrillers about the husband of the first woman President, which I will be exploring in the near future. Not ready for a place in the power rotation, but just might be a player 'to be named later' depending on the comings and goings of the first husband.

ECD

Lie in the Dark by Dan Fesperman

Ever wondered just what a homicide detective would do during a time of war? Heck, most all autopsy reports would list the cause of death as 'war' unless a victim was a certain someone with some leverage in government. Wouldn't look good for a fledgling government to have its own secret police conduct the investigation of the death of the head of said secret police, especially when the U.N. is breathing down everyone's neck.

That's what Inspector Vlado Petric faces in Sarajevo during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. They've not been too busy because the Interior Ministry, home of the Secret Police, has been handling most everything. When its head is killed at close range, not by the usual route - a sniper, the new head thinks it best for an independent investigation in required and calls in Vlado and his partner, Damir to do a quick, quiet, but thorough investigation . . . and by the way, here are the names of 4 reliable informants who should be able to help.

Each of the informants say essentially the same thing - the vic got involved in smuggling (meat, cigarettes, gasoline, alcohol, take your pick), pissed someone off when he wanted a bigger cut and got whacked for his insolence.

Too neat, too tidy, too rehearsed. Vlado believes the profits from smuggling those items, valuable though they were, just wasn't enough to lure in the former Secret Police head. Vlado thinks that either the goods were far more valuable or that the victim was doing some investigation on his own, not telling anyone because no one inside the government could be trusted. Some dogged police work doesn't determine which is the case, but does reveal the product is indeed far, far more valuable and profitable that meat, cigs, gas, or booze . . . and far, far more dangerous than the odd sniper on a hillside.

This is the 5th Fesperman title reviewed here at MRB . . . and to find that tidbit out, I also find that West Coast Don reviewed this 2000 copyright book in August 2012 . . . don't even know our own product, but i did find different cover art. No matter. I've read 5 books by Fesperman, but still won't put him in my power rotation. He presents the sense of loss and futility of the Sarajevo residents trying to exist while a war goes on around them that is trying to fix affronts to the various heritages that began hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. Heck, we Americans think that the Hatfields and McCoys carried on for a long time. Their little squabble was a back yard spitting match compared to the Croats vs. the Serbs. Despite the constant shelling, snipers, and land mines, the locals manage to scratch out a meager and depressing existence while waiting for the day of a truce. It's this despair that Fesperman paints in dreary grays and blacks under the clouds of dirt and scrum of life that at best provides only intermittent running water and weak instant coffee.

Echoing WCD's summary - you bet, this is a dreary story, and he gave up on it. I wasn't enthralled, but I did want to find out how Fesperman brought it all home. I'll keep looking into Fesperman. Hey, I know what I'm getting myself in for. And I find his stories set in war-torn Bosnia kind of interesting.

East Coast Don

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

I’ve been captivated by the writing of Louise Penny and her characters, but I’ve been reading her books out of sequence, and I missed the third novel in her series about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. The Cruelest Month filled in the necessary back story that is helpful in terms of reading the later books. There have been frequent references to the trouble that the Chief Inspector caused his employer, the Surete du Quebec, and as a result, the troubles that came to him. It was the Arnot case, when Gamache brought down the powerful and corrupt Superintendent of the Surete, Pierre Arnot. Arnot’s reach from prison back into the Surete that he had once run was still powerful. The Arnot matter is fully explained in this book. Penny presented a fascinating story regarding the agents of Arnot (if you could figure out who they were) while coupling that with a new and bizarre murder mystery in Three Pines, the magical village just outside of Montreal. Gamache’s family is assaulted by misinformation given to the press by someone who has inside information about the Chief Inspector, and when his children get villainous publicity because of him, it nearly kills Gamache. In this book, regarding both the attacks on Gamache and the murder of Madeleine Favreau, Penny writes skillfully about the destructive pathology of jealousy. My captivation by Penny continues. I will read the rest of the books in sequence, as I advise you to do. Start with Still Live. This is excellent fiction writing.

The above review was written 9 years ago, and now I've listened to this book in audiobook form. My opinions about the quality of the work is unchanged. In the original review, I should have emphasized the theme of what it's like to be second best whether that is in a specific competition, whether it is losing a loved one to someone else, whether is being less popular than another, or whether it's being less talented or successful. Penny takes on that them from multiple perspectives and gives examples of the extreme ways we humans react to such things. What a treat it has been to experience this book a second time.

Still Foolin' 'Em by Billy Crystal

I'm normally not one to read celebrity autobiographies because they tend to be a bit narcissistic or part of some therapy. While reading this, I tried to remember the last one of these I had read and I think it was from Tim Allen (whose 'Men Are Pigs' Showtime special still ranks as perhaps the funniest standup routine I'd ever seen - worth tracking down, guys).

My wife gave this to me as a present because she knows I like Billy Crystal. Always thought his takes on the Cosell-Ali sparing was among the best impersonations out there and he definitely was in the top three of all-time Oscar hosts (w/ Bob Hope and Johnny Carson). This was an easy and entertaining romp through Crystal's history.

Yes, successful entertainers lead more interesting lives than most of us, rubbing elbows with and becoming 'close friends' with the likes of Ali, Cosell, Mickey Mantle, Joe Torre, Sophia Loren, Loren Michaels, Johnny Carson, Jack Palance, Robin Williams, yadda, yadda, yadda and for many readers, such goings on might be laborious, I mean, how many people (entertainers or otherwise) could manage to sign a 1-day contract with the Yankees and get to face down a MLB pitcher at 60? But Crystal weaves enough one-liners and quips to make it all bearable. Especially when he talks about some of his more famous outings like When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers, his secret crush on Sophia Loren, and, of course, The Oscars.

Robin Williams says it best in his cover blurb: "A Hollywood autobiography with one wife, no rehab, a loving family, and loyal friends."  Read this book as Crystal's musings on turning 65 and most all men of a certain age will find plenty to identify with when it comes to marriage, children, grandchildren, retirement, and (yes, even) death. Actually seems like he'd make a pretty good neighbor, tax bracket notwithstanding.

Not our usual fare, but not an unworthy undertaking either.

ECD

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman

Killer is just more of the same we’ve grown to expect from Jonathan Kellerman.  Just another of his psychological thrillers featuring Dr. Alex Delaware and Lt Milo Sturgis and their intellectual sleuthing that now spans four decades… never stale and always entertaining.

Dr. Delaware has developed a reputation within the LA law enforcement community for psychological assessments that are competent, straight forward, and accurate and therefore, rarely contested. The courts call on him frequently for the more challenging child related cases which he gladly accepts as his schedule allows.  In his latest case, Connie Sykes the dominating, over baring, successful business owner sues her free spirited, rocker, poverty stricken younger sister, Cherie Sykes for custody of her baby Rambla, born out of wedlock.  Dr. Delaware does his assessment and pronounces Cherie a fit mother with insufficient reason to alter baby Rambla’s guardianship.  Connie reacts angrily to the judge’s decision and blames Dr. Delaware for the outcome.  Alex then learns from a grateful former patient, turned gangster that a hit contract has been issued for Alex’s life… Connie’s anger turned to action.

Enter LAPD Lt. Milo Sturgis, longtime pal and coworker.  Milo attempts the direct face to face approach with Connie but finds her stabbed and strangled to death in the foyer of her home.  Meanwhile, sister Cherie has vacated her apartment, baby Rambla in tow and is nowhere to be found.  Rocker friend and suspected father of baby Rambla then shows up dead… shot in the head.  Unconvinced Cherie is capable of such violence, Alex expands the investigation and studies the behavior of everyone involved in the custody battle.  Talking to the judge, her support team, the lawyers, and Cherie’s know associates, Alex observes very subtle behaviors that lead him to places police procedure would overlook.

So Kellerman proves once again why he is in my power rotation.  Not a lot of character development because as followers of the series we know what we need to know about Alex and Milo… solid, professional, nonjudgmental, compassionate… just a touch of egotism from where they sit on moral high ground.  So in each annual episode we need ‘Just the facts, Mam’ and we get them in fast paced, efficient writing… continually wondering what the next page holds… knowing it will all end too quickly… now we wait another year.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this one.

Tall Man in Ray-Bans by Joseph Flynn

A couple kids playing in a dry lake bed outside of Austin, TX unearth a skeleton. Some early clues point toward the corpse being a long time fugitive Randy Bear Heart. Randy disappeared years ago after robbing a few banks, killing a couple bank guards, and a reservation cops. This means that multiple agencies are called in.

Austin PD has first dibs, but the FBI as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs also get called in; turf wars are on the horizon. BIA Special Agent John Tall Wolf has, how to say this, a unique way of conducting an investigation and is entirely unimpressed with the courtesies normally showed the FBI. When he was recruited, he had his own requirements, primarily independence and not being sent to a reservation. His boss wanted to know if he also wanted a license to take scalps, to wit, "That'd be a good start."

Tall Wolf has to dig back into Bear Heart's history and find out how and why he managed to disappear.  He traces Bear Heart from a North Dakota reservation to Canada, to Texas, California, and Banff uncovering a bizarre set of circumstances surrounding girlfriends, wives, a son, songwriter, and a comely Mountie (even BIA detectives are allowed a little fun).

My brother-in-law suggested this book and by good luck and timing, it was on sale for the Kindle. Having just finished that beast of a book, the 700-page I am Pilgrim, Tall Man was a veritable short story by comparison. I have missed the mysteries of the late, great Tony Hillerman and his Navaho cops Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, looking for someone to fill that void. One of the primary draws of the Hillerman books was the way he would weave Navaho culture and mysticism into the stories. Flynn makes no bone about Tall Wolf being Apache, but here Tall Wolf seems to live comfortably a bit more inside the White world of government agencies, and for that I'm disappointed. But that doesn't mean I'll quit here. This is the first of two (so far) Tall Wolf books and I will definitely be finding the next.  Highly entertaining.

East Coast Don

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

A third of the way through, I gave up on The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, despite its 4/5 rating on Amazon. The book was recommended to me with enthusiasm by a dear friend, a woman who does not delve often into our usual crime genre, and my wife had already downloaded it for one of her book groups. It’s a story about loss. A boy’s narcissistic father left him and his mother without warning, and then the mother and son are the victims of a new terrorist attack in New York. The son survives, but his mother does not. The book was about pain, agony, and survival, and I was simply not drawn to continue with the characters in that process. In the course of my work as a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, I experience life with real people as they struggle with loss and pain, and search for the best survival, adaptation, and growth that is possible. I tend to read for escape, and while being well written, this novel certainly does not invite escape.

The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly

Mickey Haller, aka the Lincoln Lawyer has earned his reputation as a sleazy, scumbag lawyer.  He represents the guilty… preferably the guilty that has the cash to pay him for his legal services.  He represents drug dealers, prostitutes, and murderers and has done it so often he knows all the legal loopholes and courtroom tricks to placate his culpable, sometimes unworthy clients. His office is the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car and his associate, office manager (also his second ex-wife) and private investigator work from home.  They hold staff meetings in abandon office buildings of foreclosure clients.  A recent case gone wrong has cost Haller his chance to be LA County Prosecutor, his relationship with his first wife and daughter, and his self-respect.  His deceased father, also a courtroom lawyer, frequently referred to jurors as the ‘Gods of guilt.’  Mickey has expanded the concept to mean all the wrath that has befallen him as a result of his poor judgment in life up until now.  His life, personal and professional, is in a shambles and he is burdened with guilt because he knows only he is responsible.  Yet he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Then one day, Mickey is asked by Andre La Cosse, a cyber pimp who manages websites for call girls, to represent him on a murder charge.  The victim, Gloria Dayton is a former client of Mickey’s and had actually recommended Mickey to Andre sometime before her death.  Years earlier Mickey had attempted to rescue the now deceased client from her world of prostitution and is distressed to learn that Gloria had returned to a life of crime… yet another God of guilt.  Haller rationalizes away all thoughts of conflict of interest when he learns Andre can pay in gold bullion.

As Haller and his legal team prepare to defend the presumed guilty La Cosse, they discover he may actually be innocent.  To prove that innocence Mickey must enlist help from a cartel thug and a disbarred lawyer both currently in prison.  Haller uses all his well-practiced courtroom antics to get his ‘other-guy-did-it’ theory accepted into the trial.  The theory threatens to expose a corrupt DEA agent and a shady investigator for the District Attorney.  As more is revealed about this law enforcement team’s wrong doing, Mickey’s life hangs in balance.  He hopes his gallant rescue of this innocent man will gain him the respect of his teenage daughter who currently thinks him a low life villain for his chosen profession.  He hopes too to gain back his own self-respect… but at what cost?  The gold bullion has long ago run out and he has placed his life and the lives of his employees in danger.

Connelly has mastered the legal thriller genre with the Mickey Haller character just as he mastered police procedurals with Harry Bosch.  He has a way of taking the damaged and down trodden in society and revealing their humanity… the reader can’t help but like them.  Connelly has a knack for making them real.  For example, he incorporates into his story that the movie Lincoln Lawyer was made about Mickey Haller, his fictional character.  As a result the trend of lawyering from the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car has caught on.  A side street at the LA County courthouse is filled with Town Cars parked there waiting for the owners to return from an appearance in court… fact or fiction?  Real or unreal?  He makes you wonder...  very clever way to create the illusion that Mickey Haller is a real person… nicely done.

The Blackhouse by Peter May

The Blackhouse by Peter May is an excellent crime story takes place on the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly island of the Outer Hebrides archipelago in Scotland. Detective Sergeant Finlay “Fin” Macleod of the Edinburgh Police Department grew up in the village of Crobost on the island, but he left at the age of 18 and had not been back in 18 years. When he was 18, like so many other boys his age, he just wanted off the island. His family was dead, so he had no one to return for, and he definitely had memories of his early life that he wanted to avoid. When he flunked out of college in Glasgow, he wound up on the police force in Edinburgh and being smarter than most cops, worked his way up to be a detective. Soon after investigating a gruesome and widely publicized murder in Edinburgh, Fin’s wife and 8-year-old son were run over by hit-and-run driver which killed the boy, and badly damaged their marriage since Fin blamed her the death of their son.

After a month of mourning for Fin, there was a second nearly identical murder in Crobost and the victim was one of Fin’s childhood tormentors, a brute of a man, Angel Macritchie. Because Fin spoke the Gaelic lingo of the islands and since he knew the locals and their customs, Fin’s boss gave him a choice to get back to work on the new murder or leave the force. Fin chose to go home and face his haunting memories, as well as take the opportunity to get some time away from his wife.

This story is an artful one which interwove the crime investigation and Fin’s complicated back story. The character development, especially of the protagonist, was masterful. The novel also gave more than a glimpse into the life in Scotland, especially the islands, where the people were viewed as being unsophisticated hicks by the city folks. Given that the weather is nearly always awful, nearly every paragraph in the book seemed to make reference to the weather. I thought that accurately reflected what life is like in Scotland where the weather is a constant issue and is always a part of every conversation.

This is the first book of The Lewis Trilogy, and I’ll definitely read the next one, The Lewis Man, at least I will if it finds its way to Kindle or if I can find it in an old book shop. This is the first novel in the blog for Peter May, and he was suggested to me by my lifelong friend Linda, but I was looking for his series called “The China Thrillers.” Linda lived in China for eight years and knew of his work when she was there. When I could not find those on Kindle, I checked out his only available novel, The Blackhouse and was not disappointed. Perhaps I was drawn to this because, in my travels, I got to know a cop from one of the northern Scottish islands, and he was a most interesting character. I’ll keep Peter May on my list of worthy authors. Thanks Linda.

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes was a 5-star read for me. This is the kind of book that we at Men Reading Books wait for – an international crime/terrorist fiction story with great writing, great characters, and a binding and believable plot line. Hayes wrote numerous screenplays, but this is his first novel, and it’s a remarkable effort. How do a domestic murder and a jihadist plot to bring unbelievable terror to the entire population of the U.S. tie together? The reader does not learn the identity of the protagonist until well into the book, as the author successfully teases that information along. He repeatedly made the most clever use of foreshadowing that I’ve ever seen. This is a book that is in the same rank as the works by Daniel Silva and Frederick Forsythe. I couldn’t give it a higher compliment. The good news is that it’s a great book. The bad news is that you’ll have to wait until late May for it’s release by Atria Books.