Prisoners of Geography

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall is a very well-written primer in geopolitics. In simple language, Marshall explained the geographic details of every major landmass in the world and then why those details either were exceptionally favorable, like the U.S.A. in North America or not favorable, such as Africa. I thought his explanations of troubles in the Middle East were particularly pithy. If the subject interests you at all, this is a great read. Thanks to my sister Pam who sent me her copy.

29 Seconds by TM Logan

Sarah Heywood has the same dilemma all newly minted liberal arts PhDs have. Jobs are hard to come by. So your opening gig is as an overworked temporary instructor at a University. The main goal of every other similar person is to get promoted to the tenure track. So you accept every assignment be it academic, administrative, or professional service. All in the hope of getting on the good side of the boss. The Department Chair.

Alan Hawthorne is the golden boy of Queen Anne’s University. Respected by faculty, administration, and professional peers. Well published. Well connected. Has secured grants in the millions. Tall, blond, imposing baritone, handsome, rich, and stunning teeth, too. Even hosts a TV show on BBC.

And he’s a pig.

Arrogant. Condescending. A world-class letch. People who’ve known him since his days as a university student say he hasn’t changed a bit. Women who haven’t fallen for him are pursued until they finally succumb, by will or by force. Sarah is his latest target.

Sarah’s life hasn’t quite gone the way she’d hoped. As a student, she fell for the quintessential struggling actor, got pregnant young, and delivered her second child a couple weeks after defending her doctoral thesis. The actor has struggled and recently ran off to Bristol to chase artistic opportunities as well as an equally struggling actress. Good think her Father is around to help referee 8yo Grace and 5yo Harry.

After being delayed by the latest in a string of propositions by Hawthorne, Sarah has to rush to pick up the kids. Taking a traffic detour, she happens on what appears to be a grandpa walking his granddaughter. Until another car blocks the sidewalk and attempts to take the little girl. Sarah become enraged and rams the car and its driver, but the child disappears. A day or two later, Sarah herself is abducted and taken to a shadowy businessman. Guy by the name of Grosvenor.

Turns out the little girl was Grosvenor’s daughter and Sarah had indeed prevented an attempted abduction. Grosvenor wants to reward Sarah for her bravery, but she refuses. At a last resort, he plays his trump card. “Give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear.” No one will know. It's what he's good at. Stunned, Sarah says she has no such name. Grosvenor tells her the offer is good for 72 hours. Gives her a throw-away cell phone with a single number programed in. All she has to do is open the phone and hit the 'Send' key.

In the next 72 hours, Sarah struggles with the offer and just what it might mean or entail. Then Hawthorne hits on her . . . again. This time he makes insinuations and implications of the consequences to come her way if she doesn’t bed him. Soon. And often. At his pleasure. At his command.

And the implication becomes reality. Budget cuts mean each department will have to make personnel decisions. Not only will she not be promoted to a permanent contract, she will probably be let go. And if let go, Hawthorne can make sure every university with an opening will know to steer clear of Sarah Heywood.

Livid beyond words, Sarah goes back and forth about whether to accept Grosvenor’s offer. The Faustian corner of her mind makes the call to this devil on the Thames. And when Hawthorne’s behavior starts to become out of character and he then does indeed disappear, Sarah’s guilt meter redlines. She now has to figure out how to live with herself, deal with the police and colleagues/friends, and whether what she’s done will actually affect her job, career, family, and the future.

But that’s far from the entirety of the book. The last third of the book is every bit as tense and shocking as was Fatal Attraction. This 2018 book is listed as a mystery/thriller, but I’d put it in the psycho-suspense bucket. 

Trust me on this one. Pick up this book knowing these two things: 

1. First, Logan pulls no punches in the politics and practices of the sexual power play. I am positive there are many examples that might ring too true and cause chills to anyone who might’ve experienced, or known of, similar situations. Hawthorne is pig. A disgusting despicable pig. That you’ll hate him is a testament to Logan’s skill. Just be warned. 
2. Second, don’t expect to read a couple chapters here and there. YOU WILL BE HOOKED QUICKLY. A one to two sitting read. The story and its twists are wonderfully presented by Logan. Just don’t forget to breathe every now and then. 

Oh, and how does the book's title fit in? That phone call to Grosvenor lasted . . . you guessed it . . . 29 seconds. 

ECD

We Were Killers Once by Becky Masterman

For you true crime aficionados out there. Do these names ring a bell?

The Clutter family, Perry Smith, Richard Eugene Hickock.

No? Let me add one more name: Truman Capote. Bet you know now.

Those were the primary subjects of Capote’s In Cold Blood. But this isn’t a retelling or some new twist to what remains one of the most visible slaughters of our time. Buried within Capote’s book and the various archives of the crime is one little remembered detail. When Smith and Hickock were driving the 400 miles across Kansas to the Clutter home, they picked up a 14yo boy and his ill grandfather who were hitchhiking to Colorado. It’s this little bit of karma that Masterman jumps on.

The boy is one Jeremiah Beaufort. A very troubled boy. when he was about 10 years old, he an his annoying little brother were messing around with their dad’s shotgun. You can guess what happens. Said it was an accident but he got sent to juve detention for a couple years. When he got out, his parents told him to get lost. Ended up with his grandfather and the eventual cross-country trip. They’d been gathering bottles for the deposit to buy food. Jeremiah sees some glittering in a field. Smith/Hickock pull over and let the kid out. Takes his very ill grandfather by the arm, walks toward their treasure, sits his grandfather down, and leaves him there.

Smith/Hickock are spooked, but not enough to dump the kid. So the kid is now perp #3 and participates in the robbery and killing of the Clutter family. Now all three are on the run. To Mexico. To California. To Florida. To Miami. To Sarasota. To Tampa. On the drive to Vegas, Jeremiah takes off. While in Vegas, the FBI finally catch up with Smith/Hickock.

They are, of course, charged with the Clutter murders, but also a family named Walker from Sarasota because the M.O. was the same and they were in Sarasota at the same time. But they didn’t do it. And the Walker case was never solved.

So much for history. It’s now 55 years later. Beaufort had been caught up in the three strikes and you are out for a series of drug trafficking crimes in Florida. But his sentence was commuted, and he was released. He has been panicked for quite some time. In all the hubbub about the Clutter case (multiple revisions of confessions), apparently Hickock requested a priest to hear (and read) his confession prior to his execution. In it, he straightened out a number of misconceptions, including the truth behind the Walker killings. If that written confession gets out, Beaufort will be facing execution.

The priest who heard the confession is dying from cancer. Upon his death, a sealed envelope was to be delivered to a protégé of the priest, Carlo, now a retired philosophy professor living in Tucson.

Through his own doggedness, Beaufort tracks down Carlo and plots how to find out if he does indeed have the forgotten confession. But he runs into a buzz saw of an opponent: Carlo’s wife is Brigit Quinn, retired FBI (and her own ghosts and demons). Being a suspicious sort, she notices a number of things about Beaufort that simply don’t add up. Now two are looking for the same thing, and while Quinn is a whole lot better at the looking part, Beaufort is a whole lot better at the stealing-hostage taking-killing part.

I have to admit. About a third of the way into this book, I was ready to put it down and just move on. Not only does Masterman jump back and forth between Beaufort and Quinn, but also across time for Beaufort from his days in prison to his intersection with Smith/Hickok to his history as a child and his search for the hidden confession. Got to the point where it was hard to keep straight who and when. For me, I would’ve liked each chapter to have had a heading (who) and a date (when).

But I struggled on. The 2^nd half had less bouncing around and the story became (mostly) linear (helpful for my aged brain) and much much more exciting. The last third, as both close in on Hickock’s confession, downright flew in overdrive as Masterman brought all the loose ends together to a breathless end. This is the 4^th in her Brigit Quinn series. I think I might be trying to find #1, Rage Against the Dying. Here's hoping the library has a copy.

ECD

Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich

Right after posting my review of Like Lions, I was rewarded when I found the county library had Bull Mountain on the shelves. So, I’m back in the mountains of North Georgia to get all the backstory details missed. A multigenerational yarn embodied in one word:

Family

It all began win Johnson Burroughs, the first of the clan to settle high up on Bull Mountain and gave birth an emerging criminal empire that began with making and selling moonshine. Son Thomas expanded into weed and was the benevolent overlord of the mountain. Sons Cooper and his half-brother Riley were less relatives and more Cain and Abel. 

But it was Cooper’s son Gareth who took things to a new level adding meth to their inventory. More efficient. Lots more money per unit of space. And he was good at it. His charisma drew more and more local men eager for the money and the respect of the locals. Half the state police in the area were in his pocket allowing him to run product with impunity. 

Had three kids. Buckley, Halford, and Clayton. The latter was eager to shed his family’s rep and ran for sheriff, mostly at the suggestion of girlfriend, and later wife, Kate. Off the mountain, most folks assumed Clayton was still in the business, now specializing in protection. Not a good assumption. Especially about a man trying like hell to stay out of a bottle that “smells like oak, vanilla, and bad decisions.”

Gareth died in a suspicious fire. Buck ended up with a couple hundred bullets in him.  Halford takes over. And Hal is nothing if not a psychopath. Those who wrong Hal end up dead and buried on a hillside littered with unmarked graves. “You can’t sneak up on the man who has spent is life in the woods sneaking up on things. They’ve tried it before. People died and nothing changed.”

Gareth was in need of guns to protect the mountain and settled into a deal with a Jacksonville biker gang that was profitable for both sides for upwards of 40 years. The gun deals caught the attention of the ATF. Special Agent Simon Holly temps Clayton with a deal that will save the family and their mountain . . . if Clayton can get Hal to rat out the bikers.

And now the plot really gets thick. In a story about family, I bet you can guess how that’ll turn out. Will there be blood? Count on it. Will it be whom you expect, and by whom you expect? Doubt it.

I’ve seen Panowich’s work called heartland noir, country noir, redneck noir, mountain noir. I wouldn’t know. Labels seem pretty meaningless to me. What I do know is that this. His debut novel is one terrific story. Shakespearean in scope, Puzo’ian in its familial loyalty across generations, Coben’esque in its penchant for twists. Twists that in hindsight, were there all the time for the reader clever enough to read the tea leaves. 

I’ve read a number of debut winners, but after much thought, I can’t recall a debut duo that pointed a Mossberg at my throat like Bull Mountain and Like Lions, daring me not to like climb aboard. Anyone who calls themselves fans of mystery/thrillers and haven’t read Panowich simply aren’t paying attention.

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Carrying Independence

Carrying Independence is a work of historical fiction at its finest. I’m particularly attracted to American history, especially the Colonial Era. Author Karen A. Chase has created just such a story. As a good historian, Ms. Chase learned that not all signers of the Declaration of Independence had actually been present when Thomas Jefferson gave his Declaration to the Continental Congress, so then how did all the signatures get there? So, the meat of the story is about Nathaniel Marten accepting the task of carrying the original document to six men, sometimes through enemy lines, to secure the signatures that would officially bind the 13 colonies together against the rule of King George III. In the course of the story, Nathaniel has his own personal crisis since he was not yet committed to the American Cause – he was more interested in just having an adventure which took him away from his dreaded day-to-day life.

But, there was so much more to Chase’s novel. Nathaniel was one of three men who had grown up together but who came from very different backgrounds. Nathaniel was the son of a gunsmith who learned the craft from his father who had learned it from Nathaniel’s grandfather. So he was a from a working class family. Arthur Bowman was from an upper crust family with strong ties to the King. And Kalawi was a Shawnee Indian from the Wolf clan, a group that sought peace. This revolutionary war would have very different impacts on these young men and their families, a war which tested the men’s boyhood pledges to one another.

The story also centered on the double dealings of people who were trying to profit from the war, including Nathaniel’s brother. In the course of this novel, not only did Chase present fictional conversations among Nathaniel, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others, she also brought the impact of the war on women in a way that I’ve not often seen. Although the women were not called into battle, they suffered enormous losses and had to make heroic adjustments to life they had never dreamed of.

Finally, given the news of our current day political mess in the US, in contrast to the underhanded dealings of spies and selfish efforts for personal profits, it was so refreshing to read of the personal sacrifices and high principals that were behind this necessary American Revolution. In the end, the book is inspirational in terms of seeing the bigger picture of what American life can mean if the rights of all people are taken into consideration and proper compromises can be made. Ms. Chase’s book gets my highest possible recommendation.

Please note that this is a pre-publication review. This novel will got on pre-sale on April 11, 2019, and it is scheduled for release on June 11, 2019.

Face Off by David Hagberg

Hagberg’s alpha male Kirk McGarvey is vacationing with his main squeeze 'Pete' Boylan in Paris. The French don’t like him all that much cuz every time he visits, bodies just seem to pile up. They are lunching at the Jules Verne Restaurant on the first level of the Eiffel Tower.

Situational awareness is the mantra of a field agent, even when planning a proposal. An unlikely couple seated near a stairway. Far too young delivery boys. A casual challenge. Hugely fat suicide vests. Delivery bins filled to the brim with C-4. McGarvey and Boylan shift from romantics to spoilers. The bombers are taken out, but the unlikely couple walk away.

Walk away with Pete Boylan, that is. This sets McGarvey off and will not rest until he frees Pete, whom he was set to propose to, and make the culprits behind this most audacious act pay. Who could even think that bringing down the Eiffel Tower would work in anyone's favor?

McGarvey tracks Pete’s captors to a small chapel where he lays waste to about a half dozen hired thugs. Then follows her wounded body to Istanbul, offering himself as trade bait. All while taking out another bunch of militants. His offer  is accepted. Now his captors offer him to the Russians to buy their favor. Who wouldn’t want the former DCI?

Not Russia. Nothing good can come from keeping or killing him. Putin wants to see him and, of all things, wants McGarvey’s help.

You see, this attack on the Eiffel Tower was planned as a distraction because it looks like the Russians have lost a suitcase nuke. The problem is, no one really knows who is behind the theft or the attack on the Tower, but more and more clues lead to either a couple Americans (with a political motive) or the Saudis (with a geopolitical motive).

Either way, bad guys (and girls) will be going down. Not all by McGarvey’s hand.

I wonder if anyone has tried to add up the body counts in the McGarvey series?

I’ve been out of Kirk McGarvey’s orbit for a while. Think I’ve missed 4-6 books. In the interim, his romance with CIA interrogator ‘Pete’ Boylan has really heated up. He was the DCI of the CIA for a couple years (I knew he got that position, just didn’t know how well he did it, and hated it). He’s had something to do with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. And for goodness sake, he’s got a prosthetic leg from a below the knee amputation. When did all this happen?

In the espionage thriller field, you have McGarvey, Scot Harvath (Brad Thor), Mitch Rapp (Vince Flynn), and a few others. All are worthy bearers of the torch for good ol’ USA. But I’ve found that I missed McGarvey. Will I go back to pick up where I’ve left off? Maybe not all, but I thought the Wikileaks thing sounded intriguing.Great thing about his books is that they are a very fast read. Very fast.

ECD

Tear It Down by Nick Petrie

Peter Ash is an Iraqi war veteran trying to acclimate back into civilian life but his PTSD symptoms and his addiction to adrenaline rush keep getting in his way.  He lives in rural Washington state with June, his girlfriend and has completely remodeled her property but his restlessness continues to grow.  Then a photographer friend of June’s calls for help.  Wanda Wyatt is a photographer and war correspondent who is Black and gay and lives in Memphis. She has recently purchased a rundown century old home in a ghetto neighborhood and has been receiving some personal threats… someone wants her out.  June asks Peter to help Wanda so off he goes in his 1968 restored Chevy pickup truck filled with tools and some weapons.  By the time Peter arrives the verbal threats have escalated to violence.  An old stolen dump truck has been driven through Wanda’s front picture window, destroying the entire front of her house.  Gangster violence is prominent in Wanda’s neighborhood but this action seems uncharacteristic of that world.

Meanwhile, a group of teenage boys looking to break away from gang control, rob a jewelry store in a nearby mall.  Only Eli escapes unharmed but he carjacks Peter’s vintage pickup truck to get away.  Peter somehow feels a bond with the kid and starts an investigation to help both Eli and Wanda from the terror and injustice that is raining down on them.  But can Peter survive intercity gangsters, redneck white supremacists, police empathy, and his uncooperative victims and actually make a difference?

I am impressed by my first Nick Petrie novel.  His protagonist is bold enough to be effective and flawed enough to be likeable… kind of a Jack Reacher with a conscience.  The author takes on a boat load of social issues and while he doesn’t solve them for all of society, the attitude of the protagonist makes you examine your own prejudices.  That’s a worthwhile achievement.

Line of Sight (Tom Clancy)

Written in the style of Tom Clancy, Mike Maden has written a Jack Ryan, Jr. novel. Jack Senior is now the President and is well aware of the clandestine missions on which is son is sent. However, it is his mother, the ophthalmologic surgeon, who has unknowingly sent Jack on the dangerous part of this mission. Posing as a financial analyst, Ryan was sent to Bosnia, but then his mother asked him to look up a girl she had operated on years before – had saved the sight of this little girl who had been caught up in the factional disputes in the Bosnia. She had exchanged letters with the girl for a while, but then contact was lost. What Ryan found was a staggeringly beautiful woman who had fully recovered from her wartime injuries. On the surface, she was running a relief organization for refugees near Sarajevo, but she had deep ties to the old blood feuds, which led to Jack being caught in the middle.

I listened to this one on tape, looking for respite from the current political drama/trauma in the U.S. And it served my purposes. If you like Clancy, you’ll like Maden.