Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin has been writing John Rebus novels since the late 1980’s, nearly one a year.  Now with Rebus well past his prime, pushed in and pulled out of retirement only to be cast out again, Rankin delivers one more John Rebus novel.
 
Rebus loathes retirement.  He lives in a modest, dated flat where he’s always lived and drives an old beat up Saab.  He stays up late and drinks in neighborhood pubs not because of any friendships but so he doesn’t have to drive home drunk.  He continues to be a heavy smoker vowing daily to cut back but never does.  His daughter and grand-daughter live a couple hours away but he rarely sees them as he harbors the guilt of having been an absentee father.  So when one of his few friends from his days on Edinburg’s police force, DI Siobhan Clarke calls him and asks him to consult on a murder case, he eagerly accepts.

DI Clarke is investigating the murder of a senior lawyer who was beaten to death in his home.  The note left by the murderer is identical to one left at the home of Big Ger Cafferty along with a warning gun shot through his front window.  Big Ger is a semi-retired gangster who Rebus has chased his entire career.  They know each other so well, the mutual respect they have gained for one another has almost turned into friendship… almost.  Thus the reason DI Clarke requested Rebus to consult.

Meanwhile DI Malcolm Fox has some personal problems of his own.  He has romantic feelings for Siobhan but never tells her so their friendship remains platonic.  Plus, Malcolm’s father is dying and in a coma.  Even though Malcolm’s father kept him at arm’s length emotionally, Malcolm regrets never making an effort to show affection to his father.

Professionally, Fox’s former position with the police was in Complaints, the Scottish version of Internal Affairs, where he investigated other police officers.  His reputation as such created fewer friends than enemies so finding a fit for him in an investigation unit is proving problematic.  So when a covert police team from Glasgow comes to Edinburgh, Fox is assigned to the unit.  The team is surveilling Glasgow gangster, Joe Stark and his hoods as they wreak havoc with the local Edinburg gangs, in search of missing contraband.  As the body count rises, evidence suggests more crimes, even earlier ones, may all be connected.  Clarke, Rebus, and Fox find themselves all working on separate crimes but possibly all committed by the same perpetrator.

Rankin has a way of amassing the sorriest group of protagonists possible.  All failures in their personal lives but largely successful professionally.  The result is a group of workaholics, driven to work because work with all its danger and bureaucratic nonsense is a coping mechanism for failed lives and a far happier place than anything waiting at home.  This sad situation can only be described as human and yet intriguing for the reader.


Ian Rankin is currently on tour in the U.S. promoting Even Dogs in the Wild.  I hope to see him in person this week at his St Louis event.

The Travelers by Chris Pavone

Will Rhodes is an up and coming journalist in a dying business.  He works for Travelers, a travel magazine and globe trots to exotic and luxurious places to absorb the atmosphere -- food, wine, and culture -- to tempt American upscale tourists into a visit.  When traveling abroad, Will is often asked by is boss, Malcolm Sommers to deliver a personal and confidential envelop to the head of their agency branch in the foreign city.  

Will is happily married to another journalist, Chole who had also worked for Travelers but moved on to freelance work to diversify their professional financial exposure, a major concern for the newly married couple.  Will’s frequent travel quickly grows routine and tiresome and is taking a toll on his marriage when he meets a beautiful blond CIA operative, posing as a journalist.  Elle tempts Will with sex and money and ultimately recruits him as a spy against his employer.  Elle asks Will to spy on everyone he trusts in exchange for ten thousand dollars a month and a threat of blackmail.  His life will never be the same.

The more Will learns about Malcolm, his coworkers and his wife, the more confused he becomes.  Is anyone who they say they are?  Are they all working for the CIA, some rogue branch of the CIA, or some other foreign government or private entity?  Who does Elle really work for?  After a couple close calls, Will decides he can no longer live like this.  He must find out who is who and what is what, even if it kills him.

This is my third Chris Pavone novel and by far his most enjoyable.  It’s easy to empathize with the protagonist, Will Rhodes because he didn’t ask to be placed in this precarious situation.  He just happened into a spy ring… wrong place, wrong time.  Now comes the adventure for the reader and the challenge for Will, figuring out the true motives of all the people closest to him and why they picked him to be a part of it.  Pavone is getting better and better and I understand Dream Works agrees as they have acquired the film rights to The Traveler.  Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

Purity Tyler, nicknamed Pip is a recent college graduate working in a dead end sales job with no hope of ever paying off her student loans.  She was raised in poverty in a rural Northern California town by a reclusive and eccentric mother who remains Pip’s best friend.  Pip’s mother has gone to great lengths to conceal her true identity and refuses to reveal anything about Pip’s father.  Pip lives in Oakland in a commune with a group of anarchists because that’s all she can afford and meets an East German woman who convinces her to intern with The Sunlight Project in Bolivia.  The Sunlight Project is run by an East German, Andreas Wolf who hires young idealist computer geeks to search out secrets to reveal to the world and therefore, make it a better place.

 

But Wolf has some secrets of his own.  Raised in East Germany under Communist rule by parents with prestigious government jobs and no time for a child, Wolf ultimately becomes a sexual predator and then a murderer.  But he has gained celebrity and credibility as an exposer of great injustice and lives in exile in Bolivia managing The Sunlight Project.  Only one person can expose him for the poser and deviate he truly is.  Tom Aberant met Wolf in Germany at a time when Tom was trying to end his marriage to Anabel, the daughter of a wealthy American agricultural tycoon.  Anabel had renounced her family because she thought their gains ill-gotten and their values immoral.  She fervently controls Tom and squelches any professional aspirations he develops.  Tom had made this trip to Germany primarily to escape Anabel and quite by accident meets Andreas Wolf in a bar.  In a drunken state of guilt, Wolf confesses his sins to Tom and Tom takes pity and helps Wolf cover up his involvement in the murder.

 

Now twenty some years later, Tom owns an online newspaper in Denver that was started with seed money from his father-in-law.  Anabel disappeared years earlier without revealing her pregnancy to Tom.  Wolf is increasingly worried Tom could out him at any time and uses his resources to get some dirt on Tom.  He discovers Anabel’s ‘hideout’ and her daughter Pip.  He sends the East German woman, a former lover to Oakland to recruit Pip for Sunlight. Wolf thinks by brain washing Pip and sending her to Tom, he can monitor the journalist’s activities and somehow deter any attempts to expose Wolf’s secrets.  But remember, Pip doesn’t know Tom is her father and Tom doesn’t know he even has a daughter.  Exposing this truth may be Wolf’s most consequential to date.

I chose to read Purity because it appeared on several best of 2015 lists and I felt the need to venture outside my preferred genre.  The book is way too long, bloated with information about characters you don’t need to know.  Plus there is much not to like about these characters.  I almost gave up on this book several times.  Yet there is an important lesson here.  The choices we make for our lives will impact others down the line more than we can fathom.  And I did enjoy the way the author connected the dots of so many supposed unrelated characters… made for some fun ‘ah-ha’ moments.  

Over Watch by Matthew Betley

A number of years ago, this Marine squad was tasked with grabbing a CIA operative being held captive in an Al-Anbar house. Capt. Logan West wasn’t happy with the assignment. Came up too quickly. Not enough intel. Too many holes. But his commander says get with it.

The raid turns out to be a trap. The house was a torture chamber beyond anything they had seen before and what intel the CIA had was bogus and unsubstantiated. The squad was surrounded and most were slaughtered. West and his Gunny got out alive, but far from unscarred. Logan essentially quit the Marines, became a drunk and tossed out by his wife. Once Gunny John Quick was discharged, he ran for the boonies of Montana to escape his memories in a self-imposed prison in the mountains.

Logan awakens from a booze-induced blackout to what’s obviously a well trained military type standing over him in Logan’s basement. He wants an Iraqi battle flag that one of his Marines lifted from that torture house. Not interested in cooperating? Maybe the screams from your wife might change you mind.

Despite his hangover, West overcomes his opponent and heads for his wife’s house where 3 or 4 guys are doing their best to get her to call Logan for the information, but years of marriage to a Marine Force Recon officer taught a little toughness and she manages to off a couple just before Logan gets there to finish the job. A call to the FBI brings in a whole bunch of help.

That flag. What’s its importance and to whom? Maybe it’s that souvenir Gunny Quick brought back from the torture house. Well, the bad guys thought of that, too. And about a half dozen guys are working their way to the Gunny’s house unaware that being retired doesn’t mean the old skills are forgotten, and manages to keep one of the mercs alive.

The FBI, West, and Quick put their heads together and interrogate their captive. What the hell? They were hired by a security boss for a Mexican cartel. But what good is an Iragi flag to a cartel, where did they find all these mercs, and how does this relate to that failed mission in Al-Anbar?

Betley, a former Marine officer, takes the reader on a spectacular chase from Maryland to Montana to Texas and back to Iraq trying to find out the flag’s secrets, what those secrets are leading to, and where and when will whatever happen? The threat is that thousands may die forever changing the world.

The good folks are Atria Books (a Simon & Schuster imprint) sent this preprint with a note that Betley was signed by Emily Bestler who also brought Vince Flynn and Brad Thor to wide distribution. If she says this guy could be the next big thing in thrillers, who am I to argue? Pace and authenticity are the calling cards here and Betley has both in spades. No doubt the beginning of a series of Logan West books.

To quote Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park: “Hold onto your butts.”

Available March 1, 2016

East Coast Don

Silenced by Kristina Ohlsson

A few months after Stockholm’s Criminal Investigation Division solved the case that exposed some pretty raw emotions, the group is in a lull. Not much is being asked of them. A couple cops are dispatched to an apartment after long time friends arriving for dinner find more than what was expected. Jakob Ahlbin, a local vicar and his wife are found in their bedroom, apparent victims of a murder-suicide. Jakob has a history of depression and seemed despondent and learning that one of his daughters has died of a drug overdose. Shortly afterwards, a middle eastern immigrant with no identification and no reports of being missing, is found dead from a hit and run.

            Friends say no way Jakob could’ve done this, but others aren’t so sure. No one has a clue about the John Doe. And the other Anlbin daughter is missing, sort of marooned in Thailand with no clothes, no hotel, no money, no passport, and unable to get a ticket home. The local cops think she’s involved with drug running and the Swedish Consulate is no help.

So much for boredom. Division leader Alex Recht, his partner Pedr Rydh, and civilian researcher Fredrika Bergman all think this shouldn’t be much. A murder-suicide and a hit-and-run. Check the reports, visit the scenes, study the photos, write the report.

The main question, as always, is the why. Yes, Jakob was depressed, but he was also involved with helping and harboring illegals in Sweden. And there’s still no identification of the Joe Doe. The unit learns of a 2^nd home owned by the Ahlbin’s. Their search shows that one daughter stops appearing in any family photos. Like she split and never returned.

And if work hadn’t become a bit of a circus, each member of the unit has, to put it bluntly, issues. Alex and his wife have grown increasingly distant with each other. Pedr Rydh has separated from his wife and IAD is on his case about some pretty crude comments directed at a hot newbie on the force. Fredrika is pregnant by her lover of nearly 10yrs and 20yrs her senior. Each has to try and keep their personal lives from interfering with the investigations.

Ohlsson weaves the continuing development of the backstories of the unit with the current investigations. What starts out as a murder-suicide turns sideways into an immigration question that is further complicated by whatever it was that happened 15 years ago at the Ahlbin’s vacation home. Multiple stories that shouldn’t intersect may just well tear the unit apart that, in the wink of an eye, becomes all the more twisted at a soul bearing confrontation. 

This makes it 3 for 3 for me by Ohlsson. All three have been intricately designed and expertly presented - everything that the lover of mysteries desires. Something about those Scandinavian mystery writers has struck a cord with the American audience. They have the gift. 

Three down, one to go.

ECD

Last Words by Michael Koryta

Markus Novak is a private detective for Innocence, Inc., a Florida based company that uses modern forensic technology to evaluate the guilt or innocence of convicts.  His wife, Lauren also worked for this do-gooder organization when she was murdered.  Markus becomes obsessed with solving her murder and takes actions inconsistent with the ethics of his employer.  His boss sends him to Southern Indiana on the pretense of evaluating a possible new case but more realistically to get him out of Florida to gain a fresh perspective.

Small town Garrison, Indiana was known to tourists for Trapdoor Cavern.  But the cave was closed to the public when a teenage girl, Sarah Martin was lost and died in the cavern nearly ten years earlier.  Ridley Barnes was the local spelunker who found her body and retrieved it from the cave.  But Ridley is a strange bird. An eccentric recluse, he feels more comfortable alone in the dark, in tight quarters underground, than he does on the surface in everyday society.  Further, he personifies the cave and thinks it has powers and can talk to him.  When he refuses to discuss how he found Sarah’s body, he quickly becomes the leading suspect for her death.  But it isn’t that Ridley just won’t talk about finding Sarah, he can’t remember how or where he found her.  Without evidence, local officials can’t charge Ridley and he just becomes more of a societal outcast.  After years of psychological misery, he tries hypnosis to help him remember but with limited success.  He decides to contact Innocence, Inc. hoping a fresh investigative look will resolve events surrounding Sarah’s death.  At this point, he just wants to know the truth whether it implicates him or not.

So, Markus Novak arrives in Garrison to evaluate the case.  But apparently there are those who don’t want the truth about Sarah to be known.  Markus is lied to, kidnapped, beaten, drugged and left for dead inside Trapdoor Cavern.  Yet after Markus is rescued, the sheriff does not believe his story and now his reputation is on the line in Indiana as well as in Florida.  Now he has no choice but to personally take the case.  Finding the truth about Sarah’s death is the only way to save himself.

I’ve read a couple Michael Koryta books and this is the first time (that I know of) he writes about his resident state, Indiana.  In fact, the location of the fictional Trapdoor Cavern as he describes it, can’t be more than an hour from his home in Bloomington.  As for Last Words, I had some trouble liking the protagonist, Markus Novak.  True he had some events in his life that incite sympathy but I thought he acted more out of necessity instead of nobility… perhaps a little too self-serving for my brand of hero.  Nonetheless, the author leaves the door open for a sequel.  I’ll probably read it when nothing else looks appealing. 

Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

We at MRB have read most of Ken Bruen’s books, and we’ve raved about them. Bust, which is actually the first novel in a trilogy, is the first Bruen book I’ve read in which he used a co-author, Jason Starr. While Bruen’s other books, mostly about his protagonist Jack Taylor, were dark crime novels, they still had a positive human quality, good wining out over evil. Taylor is an erudite character whose struggles with life seemed to be something I could often identify with. Bruen’s character development has always been the best. However, I’m less than enamored with his effort in this book. I’m disappointed, and Bust does not get my recommendation and I have no interest in reading the rest of the trilogy. Unlike his other books, Bruen’s conclusion is that crime does pay. It’s a most unsatisfactory story with an unhappy conclusion.

This is a story of a sorry group of psychopaths/sociopaths. Max Fisher was a successful businessman who had fallen out of love with his wife, Deidre, and into hate for her. She never stopped complaining and finding fault in him. For Max, who didn’t even tip waiters, the idea of a divorce was far too expensive an option. He managed his feelings with booze and hookers until his new hot Irish 20-year-old secretary, Angela Petrakos, with whom he was also sleeping, suggested that he kill Deidre and marry her instead. Max thought that was a great idea. They hired her lover (something Max didn’t know about), the sickest guy in this lot, “Popeye,” to do the deed. But Popeye not only killed Deidre, but also Deidre’s niece, a college student who just happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. While the cops were suspicious of Max, he could not tolerate being away from Angela, so he disguised himself and snuck into a hotel with her where they satisfied his lust. But, as luck would have it, Bobby Rosa caught a picture of the two of them together and used it to blackmail max. Bad idea. More deaths occur, and in the end, the cops can’t pin the murders on Max or Angela, and they are the only ones to survive this mess.