Echo Burning by Lee Child

Echo Burning is number five in Lee Child’s popular Jack Reacher series.  In this book, Echo, Texas is a sparely populated town and county south of Pecos.  Pecos serves as the governmental administrative center for several counties in West Texas including Echo.

Reacher is hitchhiking in the smothering hot sun in West Texas when a young Hispanic woman in a Cadillac picks him up.  Carmen Greer tells Reacher she is a victim of spousal abuse and is looking for someone to protect her… even if it means killing her husband.  Sloop Greer, Carmen’s husband owns a ranch in Echo, Texas along with his very white mother and brother.  Sloop was convicted of income tax fraud two years earlier and is about to be released from prison.  Carmen is terrified for herself and for her six year old daughter, Ellie. Reacher listens to her story through his MP detective filters and though he questions some of her story, it is 110 degrees outside and the Caddy is air conditioned.  He accompanies Carmen to the Greer ranch and hires on as a wrangler without committing anything to Carmen.  Meanwhile, Sloop’s lawyer and childhood pal is murdered by professional killers.  The first day at the ranch, Reacher teaches Carmen to shoot a pistol, discovers the ranch is under surveillance, and runs off the other two hired hands.

The following day, Sloop is brought home from prison by his other childhood pal and now DA, Hack Walker.  Sloop calls the state police and tells them Reacher is trespassing.  Two Texas Rangers arrive and as they are transporting Reacher to Pecos are called back to the Greer Ranch.  Sloop has been shot in the head… twice… execution style and Carmen is arrested and taken to the Pecos jail.  Carmen has no money of her own so Reacher arranges for a pro bono lawyer named Alice Aaron to represent Carmen.  Ellie is supposedly picked up by Social Services except upon double checking, the agency has no record of Ellie Greer.  Carmen then refuses legal representation and agrees to life in prison.  Reacher smells a rat and decides he must hunt down the professional kill team, the kidnappers and whoever hired them… after all, this is what he knows.

I discovered Lee Child only about five years ago and have read mostly his recent Jack Reacher books.  He quickly established himself into my power rotation.  In many ways, the books in this series are much the same… invincible, righteous hero saves the damsel in distress.  But I never tire of this magnanimous persona that is Jack Reacher… simplistic in creature comforts, physically massive and well trained in hand to hand combat, empathetic to and protective of the defenseless, and fearless and tenacious against any foe.  He is the epitome of the genre we love at MRB.

And ok, the elephant in the room, Tom Cruise just doesn’t fulfill the Jack Reacher aura… it’s like he’s wearing a suit three sizes too big complete with clown shoes.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Recommended to me by my wife, The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins is a murder mystery, a story about the remarkable intertwining of psychopathologies. Tom and Rachel were married, but their marriage fell apart when she couldn’t get pregnant. Rachel became depressed, and descended into blackout alcoholism. Tom started an affair with Anna who quickly became pregnant, and he moved Rachel out of the house so he could move Anna in. Their row house, on the outskirts of London, was next to the same railroad tracks that Rachel used to commute to her job everyday, and then she continued commuting after she was fired for drunkenness on the job, just so she could look at her home where she was once happy. She kept having fantasies about the lives of one of the couples in another of the row houses, just a few doors down from where she had lived with Tom, and she could see into their house as the train came to a stop there everyday. She thought of them as Jess and Jason, and Rachel imagined that they had a perfect love for one another. But they were really Megan and Scott, and they too had their troubles. Megan suddenly disappeared, and so the mystery began.

It took me a little while to figure out who the characters were and to understand where the author was going with this story. The story was about the three women, Rachel, Anna, and Megan, but also the spouses, Tom and Scott. None of these people were emotionally healthy and Megan had a particularly dark past. Hawkins writes with remarkable skill about the life of a blackout drunk who is struggling to deal with her disease and to distinguish reality from her own fantasies. Within about 75 pages, I was well in the grip of the story. It definitely gets my recommendation.

Line of Vision by David Ellis

David Ellis won the 2002 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author for Line of Vision.  His lead character, Marty Kalish is a young real estate developer who hates his mother.  As a child he discovered his mother was unfaithful to his father but kept this knowledge to himself.  Now both his parents are gone and his divorced sister and her two kids are his only family.  This has left him cynical about the world and distrustful of most people, particularly women.

Marty works extremely hard for a real estate development firm and is on the fast track to a partnership.  He does some charity work only as a resume builder and most of his extracurricular activities involve guy pals.  Then he becomes involved with Rachel, the wife of the doctor who heads the charity where Marty volunteers.  Rachel tells Marty that her husband abuses her and she is in fear of her life.  Marty catches the doctor in the act, kills him, and hides the body.  A couple days later an anonymous caller tells Marty that he witnessed the murder. The police interview Marty only because he worked at the charity with the deceased.  Marty ends up confessing and is arrested.  He hires a high powered defense attorney and while waiting for trial, also hires a PI to find the anonymous caller.

At the trial, most of the evidence is circumstantial but means, motive and opportunity all stack up against Marty.  Then Rachel takes the stand and paints a picture even more damning for him.  Doesn’t seem like there is much Marty can do to save himself from life in prison or even execution… or is there?

David Ellis writes a very convincing tale in Line of Vision.  He is clearly no stranger to the courtroom.  Formerly a prosecutor, Ellis was recently appointed a justice in the Illinois Appellate Court.  While much of the legal process can be mundane, Ellis builds suspense and inserts enough twists and turns to hold the reader’s interest.  His lead character, Marty Kalish is hard to like initially but as events unfold, you find yourself rooting for him.  Nice work for a first time writer.

Breach of Power by Chuck Barrett

In the waning days of WWII, an American major who processes the remains of soldiers for burial in the US is being chased down a mountain, falls into a snow crevice, and dies. In his hands, a journal. 

Current day. Ashley Regan and Sam Connors are hiking the mountains on the Germany-Austria border; an annual event commemorating their first trip together. Ashley is in the lead and spots a cave, wanders deep inside and uncovers the corpse. Yes, she should tell the cops, but the body is clutching a book. Obviously important to the individual. First, grab the journal. Then tell the authorities. 

It's in German, so a friend translates. The information sets Ashley on a trail of cemeteries digging up caskets of servicemen so mutilated by war that an open casket funeral was not possible. 

Jake Pendelton and his partner Francesca Catanzaro work one of those ubiquitous 'government contractors'. They are called for a private audience with President Rudd. America's first woman president who is riding high in the polls, a shoo-in for a 2nd term, and set to host a summit that should stabilize a wounded worldwide economy. She has a few problems she needs handled quietly and quickly by someone who would guarantee discretion- Jack and Francesca. President Rudd has evidence that one of the most senior Senators is a child predator. Someone is trying to blackmail her. And graves of black soldiers are being desecrated; she needs to know if this is a hate crime and solved before the press gets hold of the story.

And why does the Chief of Staff have an assassin on speed dial? The investigation jumps from Arlington to Charleston to the Pensacola area, and Butler, TN. Graves are dug up, caskets opened, but the remains are undisturbed.

Barrett explores what should the President do if clues about her ancestry become public when she didn't even know about the details until this investigation concludes. Thought the premise was interesting, the plot was entertaining and the Pendelton character was believable. So, while I liked it, don't expect any awards to come its way. As West Coast Don says, this would be a good airplane read. Or on a cruise. Or a long car ride.

ECD

Mine by Robert McCammon

Early 1970’s. Symbionese Liberation Army. Weather Underground. Storm Front. Domestic terror groups are at war against ‘the man’. Bombs, murder, arson are their tools in an attempt to keep up the movement. The eight core members of the Storm Front are cornered in a NJ apartment building. The resulting firefight leaves four dead and numerous cops and FBI either dead or on medical disability. Lord Jack, Mary Terror (pregnant with Jack’s child), DeDe, and John escape and go to ground in separate directions. “Nobody cared much about the Movement anymore. It was a dry and dusty thing, like the air in the graves or Hendrix and Joplin and God.” Her God - Jim Morrison.

Late 80’s. Mary Terrell has been a fugitive, living mostly in squalor doing menial jobs. “The clock of the Age of Aquarius had turned, hippies and yippies had become preppies and yuppies. The Chicago 7 were old men. The Black Panthers’ had turned gray. The Grateful Dead were the darlings of MTV.” Mary’s working in a Burger King near Atlanta. She still mourns the death of the Storm Front and the movement . . . and her lost child. Years of drugs and no doubt some PTSD have taken their toll on Mary. She lives a fantasy in her shabby apartment with a doll. Make that dolls. When the baby cries on, Mary tips over the edge of sanity to teach her child a lesson, usually with fire, a knife, or the burner on the stove. She has a closet full of mutilated dolls.

On a foray for supplies, her paranoia forces her to duck behind a copy of Rolling Stone magazine (now just another tool of 'the mindfuck state'). She sees a personal ad calling for true believers to meet at the weeping lady on February 18 at 2pm. That was Lord Jack’s name for the Statue of Liberty. He’s calling on the remaining Strom Front to meet, to take up the fight again.

But the last time she saw Lord Jack, she was carrying his baby. He’ll want to know. Mary’s diseased mind works out a plan. Find the right hospital, case it out, dress like a nurse who is really “a six-foot time bomb ticking steadily toward explosion” and steal a newborn, a baby she “’can call mine,’ to give to Jack for them to raise and resurrect a new Storm Front.

The baby she steals belongs to Laura Clayborne. Affluent, nice house, cars, clothers, job. Even gets to review books for the Atlanta Constitution, like her current task, Burn This Book, by a hippie who has stayed loyal to his beliefs. Laura really has everything she needs, except a faithful husband who’s been in an affair for the last 4 months of her pregnancy. Screw Doug. She has her baby, David. that she ‘can call mine.’  But just like that, this big nurse snatches David.

The police, FBI, and national media are all over the kidnapping. They track back to Mary’s apartment and find the tortured dolls, and 3 dead bodies. National news. Mary Terror has resurfaced and the entire country is seeing Mary Terror’s face everywhere, including by one of the FBI agents she thought she’d killed back at the firefight.  Over the next week, she works her way to Jersey, to the Statue of Liberty.

What she finds in not Lord Jack. DeDe and John show up. And for different reasons.

Laura remembers the author of Burn This Book mentioned having met one of the surviving Storm Front, DeDe. So she and her stitches hauls up to Chattanooga to find out where DeDe might be. From these 3 directions – Mary/DeDe/John, Laura, and the disfigured FBI agent – all converge at DeDe’s small home outside Ann Arbor.

Jack’s alive. Living in northern California, near the old safe house where the Storm Front was born so long ago. Mary and the baby, Drummer, are tracked by Laura and DeDe (who wants to help save the baby, the hell with Mary, she’s nuts), and the FBI agent. Less a chase and more a journey to get to a known destination hopefully before Mary arrives.

I read this 1990 copyright a couple years after it was just published. I had picked up McCammon’s ‘Gone South’ on a lark and was intrigued. The library had ‘Mine’, so I picked it up. Couldn’t have been any more different from Gone South. A wacked out 60’s radical, a kidnapping, a silver spoon girl, and a cross-country chase. And throw in a high body count. A few months ago, the Kindle store had this for free (kudos to being on McCammon’s mailing list via his website) so I jumped at it.

While I remembered the gist of the story, I had forgotten just how far gone Mary Terror was. Or the single-minded obsession of Laura. Or Mary’s viciousness when her mind flipped.

In the late 90’s, director/writer Frank Darabont (screenplay and director for Shawshank, and The Green Mile) wrote a screenplay for Mine, but to date, no studio has picked it up. Which is crazy because we get hammered about the lack of leading roles for women. Ok, so it’s violent. But this is a book with women in all lead and supporting roles. What more do they want? I don’t get it.

I wouldn’t call this book of redemption ‘entertaining’ because of its dark subject matter. But, like all of McCammon’s books, it is highly readable and grabs you by the throat daring you to put it down. McCammon doesn't sit at the top of my power rotation for nothing. 

So, the Storm Front is dead. Today, it lives on as the pre and post game radio show for the Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL. What has life come to? 

ECD

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler along with Dashiell Hammett, are considered the fathers of the literary genre known as hardboiled detective fiction.  Dubbed hardboiled because like the hard-boiled egg, the protagonist is tougher than most and is therefore wary and distrustful of the world and everyone in it.  The lead character is typically a private detective who confronts violence on a routine basis, has a moral code unique to himself, and is cynical about criminals, law enforcement, the establishment, and just life in general.  He sees the bad in those society deems as good, and the good in those who are behaving badly.  The story is told by the protagonist and therefore from his viewpoint and in his tough-guy street vernacular of the time.  The Long Goodbye was written in 1953 and features Chandler’s favorite fictional hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe.

The story opens outside a club in LA in the fall of 1949.  Marlowe meets a drunk with a scared face named Terry Lennox who is struggling to get into his silver Rolls Royce.  Terry’s beautiful wife shoves him aside and drives off.  Marlowe takes Lennox home to sober him up and a friendship of sorts ensues.  Late one night Lennox appears unannounced at Marlowe’s home and says he is in trouble and needs a ride to the Tijuana airport.  To protect his PI license, Marlowe asks Lennox for no details and accommodates his friend.  Upon returning home, Marlowe learns Lennox’s wife was found dead in her guest house and the police arrest him for aiding a fugitive.  Three days later, Lennox is reported dead from a suicide in Otatoclan, Mexico and because his wife was the daughter of wealthy publishing magnate, Harlan Potter, the investigation ends quickly and quietly and Marlowe is released.  A letter arrives at Marlowe’s office with a note from Lennox and a ‘portrait of Madison,’ a five thousand dollar bill enclosed.  But Lennox’s suicide doesn’t feel right to Marlowe.

Then Marlowe takes a case to find the missing Roger Wade, a best-selling fiction writer with a drinking problem.  Marlowe finds Wade at a make shift detox facility but refuses offers from both Wade and his wife, Eileen to move in to their estate and watch Wade full time.  Nonetheless, Marlowe is called on more than once when Wade’s drinking gets out of hand.

Meanwhile, Marlowe keeps sniffing around into his friend Lennox’s death even after repeated warnings to leave it alone.  He learns that Lennox was a British war hero by the name of Paul Marston and was at one time married to the now Eileen Wade.  Now Marlowe is in deep.  His code tells him to continue chasing the truth behind his friend’s death regardless of who ends up embarrassed or even dead in the process.

The Long Goodbye was one of only six novels written by Raymond Chandler yet he paved the way for many writers who followed him.  Chandler was the topic of the late Robert B. Parker’s master’s thesis in 1971 and Parker’s Spenser character was born from the shadow of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe.  Much of modern day fiction in books, movies and television was inspired by this great pioneer, Raymond Chandler.  

The Midnight Hour by R. G. Belsky

The Midnight Hour is Belky’s sequel to The Kennedy Connection, a book that I reviewed very favorably in 8/14. He has the same protagonist, Gil Malloy, a reporter for the New York Daily News. In this story, another reporter, Dani Keegan, was murdered, and that became big news, in part because Keegan was the daughter of Jack Keegan, a legendary Manhattan D.A. Why would Dani have gone to a construction project in a sketchy area of town?

But, Malloy was on bad terms with his editor, having been nearly fired for his past shenanigans, so he had not seen any plum assignments for a long time, and he was not getting to write the lead stories about Keegan. Malloy was given some background work that other reporters might need for their stories, but it was there that he discovered a possible link between the murder and the story Dani was covering at the time of her death. Suddenly, Malloy had the front page headlines that he craved.

This is a novella length story into which Belsky wove a complex plot about a murder that occurred three decades earlier, followed by serial killings of families around the U.S. I was surprised by the ending – did not see it coming even though I was looking for the final twist. Malloy is a compelling and flawed character that the author makes believable. His constant proposals to his ex-wife, as well as his often flippant demeanor, provided a good comedy offset to the gruesome deaths which were being described. Belsky surrounds Malloy with a good cast of characters. I like this work and I hope there is a next Malloy installment.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time With The Sons of North Korea's Elite

Born and raised in Seoul, Suki Kim began traveling to North Korea in 2002, and she wrote articles that appeared in important publications in the U.S. Then by disguising her identity as a missionary teacher, she landed a job as a teacher of North Korea’s elite children during 2011. Had her real identity been discovered, she could easily have disappeared into one of the country’s infamous gulags. She taught English at PUST (Pyongyang University of Science and Technology), but everything she taught or said to the children was closely watched by the students, the minders, the administrators, and her fellow teachers, most of whom where true Christian missionaries. This was a short and easy read, but Kim’s writing left a powerful impression.

Having reviewed several fiction and nonfiction books which are about or take place in the country, I admit to having a certain morbid fascination with North Korea, and Kim has captured a slice of life there which I had not fully appreciated. After several generations of growing up with fear of the realm and specifically fear/love for “Dear Leader,” and when information about their country and the world at large is so carefully controlled, it should be no wonder that the best students have little  usable knowledge. Furthermore, like experiments on “learned helplessness” in behaviorism, the students have a dramatically stunted curiosity about their lives, their country, and the world. All knowledge gets distorted through the lens of “Dear Leader,” who is now Kim Jong-un. Given that these children about whom Suki Kim writes are the best and the brightest in the country, it is hard to see how there is any hope of this regime being brought into the modern world without more tragedy being heaped on their already miserable lives. If the reunification of Germany was difficult, an attempt at reunification of the Koreas surely would be catastrophic over the course of several generations. Kim’s writing helps one understand the impact of such total propaganda on a society, and of course, it makes one reflect upon the information that we in the Western world are exposed to and the effect it has on our thinking about the world around us. The author may have cured my wish to travel to North Korea – it would be just so utterly depressing to do so.

Betrayal by John Lescroart

A simple pleasure is when you stumble across a book written by an author in your power rotation that you have previously overlooked… such is the case for me with John Lescroart’s Betrayal, the 12th in his Dismas Hardy/ Abe Glisky series.

Hardy is asked by a judge to clean up the caseload of an attorney, Charlie Bowen who has recently disappeared.  Most of the work is routine but one case involves the appeal of Evan Scholler, a local police officer and National Guard reservist convicted of killing Ron Nolan, an ex-Navy SEAL and private contractor employee.

 

Scholler and Nolan first meet each other in Iraq.  Nolan has been discharged from the Navy and is working for Allstrong Security, a company that works for the U.S. government to protect building contractors as Iraq’s infrastructure is being rebuilt. Scholler’s unit is assigned to protect Allstrong’s personnel from Iraqi insurgents.  At this time in Iraq, a private company like Allstrong stands to make millions of dollars in government contracts for little effort.  But Allstrong’s tactics are many times not legitimate.  Ron Nolan, for example, seems to specialize in solving Allstrong’s problems by using his Navy SEAL training to intimidate or eliminate anyone in their path, whether in Iraq or in the U.S.

 

But Evan is unaware of this about Nolan and they become pals and drinking buddies while off duty in Iraq.  Scholler confides in Nolan that his ex-girlfriend, Tara is not answering his letters.  The couple broke up over differences in opinion of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Evan’s sense of duty, but he still wants to stay in contact with her.  Nolan who is headed back the San Francisco on Allstrong business (wet work) agrees to check in on Tara and hand deliver Evan’s latest letter.  Nolan delivers the letter but uses the opportunity to begin a romantic relationship of his own with Tara.  Upon returning to Iraq, Nolan causes an incident which nearly wipes out Scholler’s unit and leaves Evan with a serious head injury.  Tara by now has lost contact with Evan and knows about him only from the lies Nolan is feeding her.

After months in rehab and numerous operations, Evan returns home and is reinstated on the police force.  Meanwhile, Nolan is transferred to Allstrong’s state side office and his relationship with Tara continues.  But when Tara realizes what a liar Nolan is, she breaks off their relationship and starts seeing Evan again.  Then an innocent Iraqi couple is murdered in San Francisco and Evan suspects Nolan is responsible but has no proof.  He breaks into Nolan’s condo and finds the evidence he needs to implicate Nolan.  Unable to use the illegally attained goods, Evan reports his suspicions about Nolan to the FBI.  Upon questioning, Nolan manages to point suspicion for the murders toward Scholler.  Evan, in a drunken stupor, goes to Nolan’s condo to confront him and a fight ensues.  Evan remembers nothing from that point until three days later when Nolan is found beaten and shot to death.  Ultimately, Evan is sentenced to life in prison for Nolan’s murder.  Now three years after Evan is incarcerated, it is up to Hardy and Glisky to unearth the truth about Evan Scholler and Ron Nolan and what could be as many as eight unsolved murders.

Only about a third of Lescroart’s Betrayal is devoted to his favorite protagonists, Dismas Hardy and Abe Glisky.  That leaves two thirds of the book for the author to show off his story telling skills… and show off he does.  From the most treacherous war torn streets of Iraq to the intensity of the courtrooms in the San Francisco Bay area, Lescroart leads us through an alluring tale of love, war, murder, betrayal, revenge and justice… a very satisfying read.

The Third Target by Joel Rosenberg

Rosenberg’s early novels were a touch frightening because they tended to precede actual events by a year or two. Let’s hope he’s wrong this time.

 

NY Times middle east reporter JB Collins has a good rep in the region and counts as friends, and as occasional sources, intelligence chiefs and rulers of Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and the US President. A comprehensive peace deal is in the works between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by the King of Jordan.

ISIS has run amok in Syria and has taken control of much of northern Iraq. The head of ISIS is a sociopathic Jordanian Abu Khalif and his cousin/commandant Jamal Ramzy. Collins has been trying for a year to get an interview with Ramzy and maybe even Khalif himself, currently a resident of Abu Ghraib, courtesy of the Iraqis. When Ramzy finally agrees, Collins has to hoof it overground deep into Syria and what he learns knocks him off his feet. ISIS captured a warehouse in Syria where the Syrian government was hiding sarin gas that they hid from UN inspectors. And ISIS got a lot of it. Including delivery tools.

The US President wants Collins to sit on the story until after the peace treaty is signed but Collins isn’t happy because he thinks the President is minimizing the ISIS threat. So Collins intensifies his efforts to get access to the imprisoned Khalif. The interview is chilling. Khalif says ISIS has attacked and is in the process of defeating its first two objectives: Syria and Iraq. Next up is the third target, but he won’t say what it is. Could be the US, Israel, or maybe the signing ceremony for the treaty. The big question is whether Khalif will pull the trigger on the sarin gas or attack using more conventional weaponry.

Good story and it ends with a none-too-subtle cliffhanger that his next book will pick up right where page 423 ended. I do have my issues with Rosenberg. First, it took me about 100 pages to get into the book and was dangerously close to returning it to the library, but kept plugging away and glad I did. Once it got going, the story flew at a breakneck pace. Second, I grew tired of the internal dialogues of questions and what ifs that Rosenberg had Collins playing in his head. Lastly, Rosenberg makes no secret of his Christian faith and interjects it frequently into the narrative. Problem is, for me at least, when he starts expressing his faith, it doesn’t seem to be an essential part of the story – just sort of there.

All in all (and the first 100 pages aside), Rosenberg delivers a terrific thriller based in the Middle East. When you get to the last half of the book, you’ll quickly see why I hope Rosenberg’s crystal ball has it wrong.

ECD