Country Dark by Chris Offutt

1954

In the early 1950s in the hollers of eastern Kentucky, to escape his family, Tucker lies about his age to join the army. His skill with knife, gun, fists, and forest survival gets him a shot at an early version of special ops. Being a short teenager means many an opponent mistakenly underestimates him. Serves a tour in Korea mostly behind enemy lines surviving by his wits and backwoods-honed skills. 

And all of a sudden, it’s over. War yesterday. Peace today. He’s mustered out, stuck on a train in San Diego headed back east. An 18yo war veteran with a fistful of medals is heading back to the hills of home, but not to his family.

A trainload of over-testosteroned soldiers was no fun so he ditches the train near Cincinnati and starts to walk home, going overland instead of following the roads. Does get a ride from a traveling salesman who is prepared for problems, but Tucker relieves him of his pistol. Next sign of people he sees is a big and powerful car with an older man driving and a teenage girl passenger – a 14yo girl at that. Dressed nice and not even a Sunday. Coming or going to either a wedding or a funeral. The man tries to force himself on the girl, which doesn’t sit well with Tucker. He’s ready to put one in the man’s belly when the girl protests – he’s family. Tucker leaves the beaten man and takes the car so he can take Rhonda home.

Weather and circumstances force them to overnight in the car. Next morning, Tucker jokingly says that having spent a night with a girl means they’ll have to get married or be shunned by the hill folk. At a gas stop, the attendant admires the car and says there’s a guy nearby who might have need for a man with such a fine and powerful car.

1964

Tucker and Rhonda have been married for 10 years. Two miscarriages. Daughter Jo is the only one with full cognitive abilities. Big Billy is the oldest, hydrocephalic, and lives in a crib. Three other daughters have their own cognitive disabilities. Tucker and Rhonda have to accept that God placed these children with them for a reason, but that doesn’t protect Rhonda from depression. 

That guy who needed a driver is Beanpole, a fat bootlegger. Tucker drives liquor and ‘shine to buyers in Ohio. He’s Beanpole’s best driver. But in this business, one can’t be too careful. You learn to smoke with your left hand freeing up your right in case you have to draw down on friend or foe. 

A State social worker is making a call on Rhonda to see what she needs to help with her children. Hattie has been checking in on Rhonda for some time, but this time her supervisor, Dr. Marvin, decides to accompany her. After maybe 15 minutes, he decides that the four children need to be in a state home. Hattie disagrees. Dr. Marvin they leave to start the process as soon as possible. When Rhonda tells Tucker, the news doesn’t sit well and he takes off after them, spotting them at a roadside diner where Marvin is trying to have his way with Hattie. Tucker stopped it from happening to Rhonda and he's going to make sure Hattie is protected, too.

1965

A new man running for office is promising to crack down on bootleggers. Beanpole knows his livelihood is at risk. Offers a deal to Tucker. Take the fall and spend a few months in prison. Beanpole will take care of Rhonda and give Tucker $10K upon release. Not long after his arrival to prison, some bikers from a Dayton gang take him on. More people to underestimate a short backwoods guy. The law adds years 5 years to Tucker’s sentence. He was lucky, though, to see another son born before his incarceration. White hair, like his dad, shone brightly in the sun. Tucker names him Shiny.

1971

Tucker’s released and isn’t happy the state took his kids. Shiny is a normal boy and Jo is dealing with becoming a woman. Beanpole is trying to avoid paying Tucker the promised $10K. A hornet's nest near the house only adds another obstacle to Tucker.

Here’s the deal. When an MRB fav and member of our elite Power Rotation of authors (Charlie Stella) recommends a book, it behoove you to listen to what he says. Chris Offutt is the author of a couple books of short stories and some non-fiction books about his own upbringing in Kentucky. Has also done a few screenplays for TV (Treme, True Blood). But according to the jacket blurb, it’s been 20 years since his last book. But he's back. Pray that it won't be even one year before his next. Holy crap, this guy can write.

A sparse but eloquent story about a hard life that adheres to a simple truism: people don’t how lucky they are until bad luck comes along. There are good people and bad people. The rest are in between. How one handles the bad luck dictates if they become good people or bad people. “War and prison had taught him that sides don’t really exist, that everyone was eventually caught in the middle of something.”

Pay attention when Charlie Stella says to read a book. He’s never steered me wrong. This was perhaps his best recommendation. I don’t keep a Top 10 book list, but if I did, this one would be on it and I seriously doubt anything will come along to shoulder this one off that list.

Find it. Read it. This one will stay with you. 

ECD

Wrecked by Joe Ide

Abu Ghraib was one horrible curse on the military. Guard abusing prisoners. But what the public saw was just the tip of a sick iceberg. Enlisted soldiers took the blame and the jail time while officers got, at the worst, a reprimand. An uninvolved guard, Charles, takes some clandestine pics and puts them in his personal cloud account. Call it insurance. But a home invasion gone wrong prevents Charles from cashing in. 

Captain Walczak was the head of one of the most torturous units. Back home, he now heads a mega security company. When threatened with extortion, he goes after Charles’ wife Sarah. She must know the password to that cloud account. Ten years ago, Sarah went underground and off the grid to protect herself and her daughter.

Meet Grace. She is a mid 20s artist who, during routine visits to a coffee shop, has caught the eye of Isiah Quintabe - IQ for short. IQ helps people too far down the food chain for more formal private detectives. He’s pretty well known around the Long Beach area and has garnered considerable respect. IQ tries to start up conversations, but is he is tres awkward around women.

Out of the blue, Grace hires IQ to find her mother, missing now for 10 years. He reluctantly agrees to take on the case but takes it more seriously and personally when he and Grace narrowly escape when her apartment is trashed. 

Walczak is after her. Trying to use Grace to get to Sarah. Being a government contractor, he has access to databases, manpower, and weapons. IQ has a bunch of homemade tools. Not a real fair fight. But IQ is street smart. Much smarter than Walczak or his gang of ex-Abu Ghraid guards. The chase degenerates further to some pretty severe torture, dog maulings, knives, axes, a riot at the Burning Man festival, and more torture. 

This book isn’t for the squeamish, but that horror is tempered a bit with some humorous escapades including a low rent crook who destroys the English language while trying to sound smart (after Junior stops someone trying to steal a stash of his cash, he proudly announces, “This is the aftermath of deliberating with my mentality.” Or when someone ignores Junior’s caller id, “Are you disqualified from deencryptin’ your caller ID?”).

Joe Ide made an auspicious debut with “IQ” a few years ago (favorably reviewed by MRB). I missed #2 (Righteous). This is #3. While it really is quite violent and rife with detailed descriptions of what one person with power can do to the powerless, you really do like IQ and the people who gather in his universe. Not to mention the unrealized possibility of a relationship between IQ and Grace. While only 3 books into his writing career, Ide already has a shelf full of awards for his unique and literate view of LA noir. More awards will be coming, I’m sure. Ide and IQ are both winners.

ECD

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The Rule of Law by John Lescroart

Dismas Hardy is now in his sixties and is looking to slow down his day to day activity at his San Francisco based law firm.  His pal, Wes Farrell has lost his re-election bid for DA and his friend, Gina Roake who is the former fiancée to Hardy’s now deceased partner, wants to return to the practice of law after a hiatus to write novels.  Hardy takes his two colleagues into his law firm and looks forward to less stressful managing partner duties as opposed to high drama defense lawyering. 

But that is not to be.  Hardy’s long time secretary Phyllis, known for her efficient work habits but private personal life, takes some unexplained days off.  The day she returns she is arrested in Hardy’s office for allegedly being an accessory to murder.  Phyllis apparently is a member of an underground railroad that helps undocumented immigrants acclimate into American society.  One such person she helps is accused of murdering a smuggler.  The new DA, Ron Jameson is delighted to tweak Wes Farrell, the former DA and Hardy for his association with Farrell by rushing to judgement in arresting Phyllis.

But Jameson has some skeletons in his own closet.  Hardy works with his best friend and former head of homicide, Abe Glitsky to dig around in the new DA’s past.  This proves to be more dangerous than anticipated.

The book is fast paced and interesting with lots of legal maneuvering.  The plot comes close to the plausibility line but the drama and unexpected twists keep you engaged.  Long time Lescroart fans should not miss this one.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance look.

The Fourth Courier

The Fourth Courier by Timothy Jay Smith is an espionage story and murder mystery set in 1992 Poland. We learn early in the story that the fourth courier was murdered under similar circumstances to the first three – with a severe knife wound to the face and a bullet through the heart. The author wrote, “Post-communist Poland, with its porous borders in the East and West, had quickly become a freeway for unlawful trafficking.” When the local cops were unable to make headway with their investigation, Minister Brzeski, head of the ministry in charge of law enforcement, asked for help from the FBI, and Agent Jay Porter volunteered for the assignment. The case took on added significance when it was determined that the shoes of the couriers were contaminated with radioactive material. It appeared that someone was trying to smuggle material for an atomic bomb out of Russia and through Poland.

The reader was introduced to most of the key figures within the first few pages of the book. I thought the portrayal of Polish society and the poverty of their living conditions in 1992 was probably accurate. I’ll not give away the plot other than to say that Smith brought this plot of shifting and uncertain alliances to a satisfactory ending. There was lots of sex and violence which was all depicted in a believable manner. This is my first book by Smith although it is his fourth novel. This one gets my recommendation.

The Last Night at Tremore Beach by Mikel Santiago

Should you really pity poor Peter Harper? Award winning composer for film and TV. Has run the red carpet, wed a beauty, now with two pretty decent kids. Nice. Until he falls apart, developed a musician’s version of writer’s block, spent his hard-earned coin until his wife tossed him out. Who cares that he’s turned sullen, moody, and whiny? Sure, his agent has a gig lined up, but he needs to go hide out for a while. Get away from everything. Get the music flowing through him like the old days.

 

He finds the solitude he thinks is crucial to finding some musical inspiration in an isolated rental cabin just off the remote Tremore Beach on Ireland’s northwest coast — a place well known for fierce and dangerous weather. The closest small town has little more than a pub, post office, and a gift shop. Peter finds his solitude occasionally interrupted by neighbors Leo and Marie Kogan, a retired American couple who’ve decided that traveling the world is no longer what it’s cracked up to be, at least at their age. They sort of guide him to the goings on in and around Tremore.

As he and the natives begin to get used to each other, Peter gets invited to the periodic dinners the locals so look forward to. Worst part is the drive back home. Long dark drives in the dark when one is a little loopy aren’t fun. At least he has gotten to know the free-spirited Judie who runs the gift shop.

And the storms. When they hit, they seem to go on for days. And he quickly learns the intensity of the summer’s electrical storms. Trying to get home before a monster storm is due to hit, Peter comes across a large limb taken down by lightening. In trying to move the limb and realizes the folly. He’s near a tree, on the top of a hill, under a massive storm cloud on the verge of unloading. He manages to shove the limb off the road. Upon turning back to the car, his world explodes in an immense globe of light. At first white, then blue before he crashes to the ground to lie in an increasingly large puddle.

A party goer thinks Peter isn’t prepared for a storm like this and heads out, finding him unconscious next to his car. The hospital keeps him a couple of days and the docs are quite amazed he came through a lightning strike relatively unscathed. Life goes on.

His kids come to stay with him for an extended stay while his ex is off with her new beau. He and the kids seem to be doing OK, and they kind of like Judie. It’s just those dreams that wake Peter up that no one can’t get used to.

But it’s not just the dreams. Peter has started some serious sleepwalking that takes him well away from the rental, sometimes by bike, other times by car. His dreams are too disjointed to make much sense. The local docs don’t know anything. Judie knows a counselor in Edinburgh and Peter finally makes an appointment. The dreams are now coming into focus complete with faces, cars, locations, and  . . . weapons.

The first time, who cares. A second? Coincidence. Third? Something is seriously wrong. Peter’s dreams are giving him visions of the near future with startling accuracy and clarity. Now the dreams appear to be threatening the Kogans, Judie, and his children.

Tremore Beach is a translation of Santiago’s first novel. If I understand his Spanish language website, he is Portuguese by birth and now living in Bilbao in northern Spain. I’ve read a few books that are translations and it’s pretty easy to know. You would never know this was a translation. No issues with context, slang, or anything. 

You probably won’t like Peter Harper in the beginning, but his affliction, his kids, and Judie help him evolve into a pretty decent guy who turns out to be begrudgingly reliable when things get tense. I am grateful to the good folks at Atria Books for the advance copy. At first, the cover blurb really didn’t trip my trigger and it sat on my night stand for too long. Big mistake. A fast read that reminds one of early Stephen King (before he started writing those 800-1000 page beasts).

Don’t make the same mistake I made. Give this venture into the solitude needed for a creative type to again find his mojo a chance.

ECD

Again, Thanks, Atria. No more will I let your titles gather dust.

G-Man by Stephen Hunter

Bob Lee watches the days go by from his front porch in the Idaho mountains. Back in the wilds with his wife, dog, two new hips, and his personal nightmares from a life of the gun. He’s in the money from having sold to developers the Arkansas land that’d been in the Swagger family since the Civil War. When the land is being cleared, an old cabin foundation is dug up and along with it, an old-fashioned strongbox. The developers take it to the lawyer who brokered the deal who calls Bob Lee. The contents give Bob Lee what he now needs — a mission. The contents offer obscure clues about a grandfather he never knew. Charles, father of Earl.

Grandfather, son, grandson all cut from a mold of Duty. Men of Honor. Men of the gun. Scared of a fight, but not enough to back down, and so skilled with the gun to walk away every time. Charles was the Carroll County sheriff after serving with distinction in WWI. A man willing to pull a trigger when drawing on a crook in need of being killed. Part of the posse the infamous Frank Hamer assembled to take down Bonnie and Clyde.

1934. April. Little Bohemia, Wisconsin. A shootout at a hunting lodge leaves 4 or 5 agents dead and not a single bad guy touched.

1934 July. A recruiter for a fledgling division within the Department of Justice offers him a job to teach their lawyer-agents how to survive and win in a gunfight. Come to Chicago. Ground zero for post-depression gangsters.

1934. Summer. Bank robbers are idolized like film stars. Capone went away with a whimper on a tax charge. Bonnie and Clyde dead in an avalanche of bullets. The newest stars roll off the tongue like honey. Dillinger. Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the craziest of the bunch, Lester Gillis.

Charles teaches the lawyers about the gun. About gunfighting. But these guys are government. Work the streets. Cultivate informants. Squeeze informants for more. Meet. Plan. Execute. A plan is hatched to get Dillinger. After the movie, Dillinger does something unexpected. Plan is now shot. Charles grabs the two closest agents and schemes on the spot, taking out Dillinger with nary a civilian casualty.

One by one, gangsters fall from Charles’ skill and ability to improvise. And gangsters are getting nervous. That tall guy in the suit, fedora, and dead eyes. Nearly put one in Lester’s forehead from nearly 100 yards with a damn .45 Colt.

1934. November. Lester Gillis is clever and pissed. He’s figured out who in the Italian mob is a rat to the Division. But his plan almost gets him killed when he pulls up to a safe house near Lake Geneva only to surprise Charles on the porch. The car chase is on as Lester heads back to Chicago. Two Feds try to block his return (and fail in a Barrington gunfight ). Thinking he’s beat the feds, the now injured Lester (with wife Helen and best friend JP) heads to a Wilmette hideout. But Charles knows where he’s headed. In the darkness, Charles runs them off the road. JP wants no part of the fight but Lester is fueled by rage to avenge the deaths of his friends, Johnny, Pretty Boy, and the rest. He and Charles face down in the 1934 version of an old west gunfight, only this fight is being contested using Thompson submachine guns. As good as Lester is, and that means really good, he was no match for a man of the gun. Charles gut shot Lester and allowed him to die in the arms of his wife. With every cop within 100 miles bearing down on the scene, Charles tells Helen to tell the cops that Lester was shot in the Barrington gunfight and finally died here. She was never to mention Charles’ presence or involvement or he'd hunt her down. Same with JP. Charles then tells a reporter friend the same story. That Sam Cowley put 6 slugs into Lester in Barrington. The papers then printed in stunning detail the last hours of Baby Face Nelson.

Charles refused offers by the Division to move up to Washington, maddening his boss who expunged the historical records of one Charles F. Swagger ever having anything to do with the Division of what the Division would become. Charles went back to Arkansas to his wife and his sons Earl and the simple Bobby Lee.

Lest you think this review is one big spoiler alert, you’d be dead wrong. Hunter keeps the reader on a string by telling two tales. One about Charles, obviously. The other is about Bob Lee’s mission to learn as much as he could about his grandfather. What was it about him that made son Earl what he became (CMH winner, Arkansas State Police hero, flawed father to Bob Lee) and then how Bob Lee became Bob Lee. Not to mention what in the world does that strongbox hold and how does it lead Bob Lee on his modern day mission? Dozens of secondary Chicago plots roll underneath the hunt for all those Public Enemies. So it really doesn’t matter that the reader knows the gangsters will fall (hey, everyone knew the Titanic sunk, but that didn't stop the ticket sales). It’s what leads up to each confrontation that slams you firmly in your seat.

Bottom line? No one weaves a tighter story than Hunter. Bob Lee is my hero. Has been since I first read iSniper. Absolutely can’t go wrong with Stephen Hunter. One of my Top 5 authors. A permanent fixture in my power rotation.

Apologies for being under the radar for so long. No explanation. Reading? Yes. Reviewing? Not so much. Just have to get back in the habit. There are a few big time winners that deserve attention and I’ll get at it. Promise.

East Coast Don

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