The Kremlin Conspiracy by Joel C. Rosenberg

(opening note: Rosenberg is the author of 12 novels over 16 years about various worst-case scenarios in the Middle East. Now he turns his vivid imagination to Russia).

The Kremlin Conspiracy traces the paths of two families – American and Russian – across 30 years focusing on Marcus Ryker and Oleg Krashkin. Marcus grew up in Colorado. A typical outdoorsy adrenaline junkie. No risk to great. Lucky for him, he met Elana in the 6^th grade, dated throughout high school and college. Marcus’ goal is law enforcement in Colorado.

Oleg is the son of some privilege. Went to university and law school where he met Marina Luganov who was the daughter of a rising star in Russian politics. Oleg had become the youngest partner in Moscow’s more important law firm. By the time Oleg prepares to propose, her father Alexsandr, had risen through the FSB and has become the Prime Minister with eyes on the Presidency. Upon accepting Oleg’s request for Marina’ hand, Luganov suprises Oleg with a job offer to be on his personal staff. Being the first wedding of a Prime Minister or President since the days of the czars, the pomp and circumstance of the wedding rivaled Charles and Diana.

Then 9/11 happens.

Marcus joins the Marines and serves with distinction in Afghanistan. Returns home and marries Elana. His heroics in saving a sitting Senator gained him some unwanted notoriety and the eye of the US Secret Service. After the Marines, he joins the Colorado Springs police department, but it isn’t long before the Secret Service comes knocking. Leaving behind his home, he and a less than thrilled Elana begin their lives on the east coast. As a junior agent, he was involved in an assault on the White House and again, his willingness to run toward fire put him in front of the President. Again, more unwanted publicity. But the President elevates Marcus to his personal detail where Marcus is exposed to the tactics of the highest level of personal protection.

Oleg has stayed by Luganov’s side as a personal secretary and ultimately as chief counsel to the hugely popular President. He now sits directly beside the man determined to bring Russia back to its deserved place as the single world superpower.

(The story rushes to the current day). Luganov’s plan for Russia is atrocious. Stage military exercises along their border with Ukraine as well as Russia’s borders with Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Quietly move in massive amounts of armored and air support. NATO will pay closer attention to Ukraine assuming that Russia will not dare attack three NATO members because that would enact Article 5 – an attack on one is an attack on all.

Senator Robert Dayton of Iowa (the one Marcus saved in Afghanistan) is a vocal critic of the sitting US president as well as Russia’s actions. In an attempt to dissuade Russia’s actions, he undertakes a trip to the Baltic states. His security detail includes the experienced Agent Ryker. An unexpected opportunity for Senator Dayton to meet with Luganov puts the staffs of both in a planning meeting. During the meeting, Oleg abruptly stops the negotiations, walks over to a stunned security guard and asks, “You are Agent Ryker who saved your president.’ Gulp. Now what? “I want to shake the hand of a brave man. My name is Oleg Krashkin.” Oleg turns around and gets back to the discussions.

Luganov is the ultimate player in international politics. Playing sides against each other, lying to the world while doing the opposite behind their back. An invasion of the Baltics is planned. Luganov wants a lightening fast assault that will catch NATO unprepared. Hopes that NATO’s response will give him the opportunity to use his battlefield nukes. He relishes and looks forward to the opportunity.

Oleg sees not the reemergence of Russia. He sees a holocaust. The steps needed for the eventual meeting we readers all know must happen begin. Oleg reaches out to Marcus.

While the US and NATO seem paralyzed, Ryker, through the CIA’s chief of station in Moscow, war game out various scenarios seeing only one option. Oleg is doing the same thing on his own and comes to the same conclusion.

OK, Rosenberg’s forte has been the Middle East and a number of his books have been reviewed by the boys here at MRB. I haven’t read one in a while and I’m kicking myself for letting some fall under my radar. Many of his books were eerily prescient. Aspects of his books actually happened, usually within a year of two of publication. This is his first venture out of the Middle East, but that doesn’t mean he has lost his gift for presenting complex geopolitical interplay at a breakneck pace in a highly entertaining and readable story. I suspect this might be the beginning of a Marcus Ryder series. Coming in at just under 500 pages, Rosenberg keeps the story moving at an alarming pace while still building credible empathy for the motivations that drive both Ryker and Kraskin. How each come to their solutions may differ, but the eventual common outcome is undeniable. This one will get your heart pounding.

The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child

The 24^th edition about the wanderings of Jack Reacher has Jack getting off the bus in Nashville. Looking for some coffee to enjoy while listening to some music, he wanders into a bar. Band’s pretty good. Strikes up a conversation and learns that the bar owner has just stiffed them. In his typical low-key way, Jack convinces the owner to pay up, with a couple bonuses thrown in. The owner also agrees not to diss the band’s rep around town. Also gets a cut as the band’s new manager.

Having done some good, he manages to cop a ride with a young insurance adjuster headed west out of Nashville. Destination is a suburb called Pleasantville. Sounds OK, so Jack tags along. Upon arrival, Jack again goes looking for some coffee. Finds a coffee shop and settles in. The customers and staff all seem to be giving this one guy a serious collective cold shoulder. Being a buttinsky, Jack learns that Rusty Rutherford is the town’s IT director and under his watch, everything has gone entirely offline. And Rusty is blamed. And he gets fired. But Pleasantville in his home and he wants to stay and clear his name.

The town is being held up by a ransomware routine that has shut the town down until a ransom is paid. The town has insurance, and the adjuster has just arrived to pay up and get life back to normal. Of course, nothing works out right. Rusty gets jumped and Reacher steps in to convince the thugs to take their issues elsewhere. Another band of punks takes a run this time at Reacher. More bad planning.

In his attempts to protect the Pleasantville data, Rusty and on old friend, ex-FBI cybercrime agent, had developed a bit of software to protect the town against such an attack. Town bean counters weren't interested. It sort of worked, but it couldn’t fully stop the ransomware attack.

Has to be more to this than just this ransomware attack. Turns out Pleasantville is the home of a former Nazi. Add in that the folks muscling Reacher and Rutherford are Russian. Russians with a connection to some of those bots that presumably messed up the most recent election. And whenever the Russians are involved, the FSB can't be far behind. Pleasantville is mixed up with some pretty heavy hitters.

The annual fall release of another Jack Reacher book is an event. Breathless fanboys line up. This year is different. Lee Child is in retirement mode and is turning a multimillion-dollar franchise to his son, Andrew Grant/Andrew Child. Both are credited with writing the book. Grant has a few mysteries published in the UK, but the initial reviews by the obsessed fanboys were not very favorable. Matter of fact, some reviews were downright nasty. I’ll admit, in the beginning I thought the writing style seemed a bit forced. But once the story took off, I couldn’t tell what was written by Dad and what was written by the son. For me, it was a clean handoff. Maybe not as smooth as the Vince Flynn to Kyle Mills move, but certainly not so obvious that I’d stop reading. Reacher wouldn’t like that. 

(if I had to make a complaint, it's with the choice of Pleasantville, TN. Such a town does exist. And it's west of Nashville. But its population is listed as 666 (potentially ominous) and that's a bit small for some of the amenities noted in the book. Primarily, Rutherford's apartment is multistory with its own doorman and underground parking. Pretty uppity for a town of 666. But that's nit picking at its finest). 

ECD

A Time for Mercy by John Grisham

Set in Clayton, Mississippi in 1990, Jake Brigance makes his third appearance in Grisham’s plethora of legal thrillers.  Jake first appeared in Grisham’s first (and I believe the best) novel, A Time to Kill.  Now five years after getting Carl Lee Hayley, a Black man, acquitted of a murder charge for killing the white supremacists who raped and murdered Hayley’s young daughter, Jake is cajoled into taking another controversial case.  He is appointed to defend Drew Gamble, a sixteen year old boy who shot and killed his mother’s boyfriend, deputy sheriff Stu Kofer.  Turns out Stu was a good deputy but a bad boyfriend.  His dark side led him to heavy drinking, physical violence against Drew’s mother, and sexual abuse of Drew’s fourteen year old sister.  During one of Stu’s drunken episodes, he nearly killed Drew’s mother before passing out on his bed.  Drew, thinking his mother was dead put the deputy’s service revolver to Stu’s head and pulled the trigger.  Clayton’s law enforcement, Stu’s family, and most of the community lined up against Drew and of course against Jake, his attorney.  So Jake is cast against the community and must fear for his reputation, his career, and the lives of his family just to do the right thing… again.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Time for Mercy just as I have most John Grisham legal thrillers from the beginning.  I’m mixed however on the movies made from Grisham’s work.  Once you see Matthew McConaughey as Jake Brigance, you can’t get that character out of your mind for the next book with the same character.  Too frustrate further, I’m currently reading Michael Connelly’s latest Lincoln Lawyer novel whose previous movies starred, that’s right Matthew McConaughey.  You see my confusion.  Is that face in my head Jake or Mickey or just some actor trying to sell me a car?

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance look.

Feet of Clay: The Power and Charisma of Gurus

Okay, I've wondered off our genre once again, so if you're looking for a thriller, this is not a book for you. Written in 1996, Feet of Clay: The Power and Charisma of Gurus is the final book by a New York psychoanalyst Anthony Storr. He reported his thoughts about a number of self-proclaimed gurus or guru-like figures, some famous, some infamous. Guru is a Sanskrit word which means "heavy." Storr notes, "When applied to people, it means someone who commands respect. He covered the period of time beginning with Jesus in the beginning of the last millenium, through the 16th century and into the very recent path with stories about Jim Jones of the People's Temple and David Karesh of the Branch Davidians. 

Some of the people he wrote about were ones I had not heard of such as Gurdijieff and Rajneesh. I had heard of Rudolf Steiner, but I knew little about him. Storr also took on studies of Ignatius of Loyola, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud.

Narcissism was one feature that was common to all of these gurus although the narcissism was much more pathologic in some than in others. This book provided a very interesting comparison of these figures. In order to bring a sense of order to their self-perceived chaotic lives, people have been willing to submit themselves to such gurus as a means of abandoning responsibilities for their own lives. This is a well written review of such leaders.

Next To Last Stand by Craig Johnson

The 16^th Walt Longmire Mystery. Got to be doing something right to get this far. I’ve read them all and will continue . . . Yeah, I’m biased.

Charlie Lee Stillwater was a old friend of Walt’s. Lived at the nearby Wyoming’s Soldiers and Sailors Home. The administrator calls Walt with the bad news that Charlie passed away. Heart attack most likely. With no nearby kin, Walt is called in to go through Charlie’s effects. Within all the junk that clutters our lives are two items of note. One is a scrap of an old painting. The other is an old shoe box, make that a big boot box, stuffed to overflowing with non-sequential, hand-wrapped $100 bills. The bank counts it up - $1 million. Word is that Charlie’s only surviving relative is an LA-based grandson (a mostly part-time studio guitarist) who is entitled to all of Charlie’s remaining belongings – minus what Uncle Sam will want in taxes.

Being the skeptic that he is, Walt wonders if the painting scrap and the money are related. And if so, maybe Charlie didn’t die of natural causes. Off he goes on a convoluted trail learning about art, how it’s prepared, displayed, valued, and sold through legal and less than legal means.

A museum conservator is queried about the scrap and, after some challenging investigation, says that the scrap is indeed old and that it bears a remarkable resemblance to a long lost painting called Custer’s Last Fight.

 

The late-1880s Cassily Adams painting is somewhat notorious. A huge canvas that was acquired by Adolphus Busch (the beer magnate) who duplicated hundreds of thousands of prints that were given to bars throughout the country as a promotional gimmick. The original was lost in a 1946 fire, but the best copy still hangs at Anheuser Busch corporate offices. The scrap that Charlie had was part of a practice canvas the artist used in prep for the actual painting. The scrap was essentially worthless, but the conservator causally mentions that the original, were it still intact, might be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million.

What was once a curiosity now becomes the focus on Walt’s investigation. Could Charlie actually have the original painting, who might be a potential buyer, and who could broker such a deal?

Along the way we cross paths with the Count (an art broker), the wavers (4 wheelchair-bound residents of the Home who sit by the highway and wave to travelers), a former KGB thug, the aforementioned grandson, the head of Wyoming’s SBI, Cheyenne tribal elder Lonnie Littlefeather, a tribal police officer Lola Long and her little brother Barrett (whom she lobbies Walt to hire), plus the usual cast: Vic, Henry Standing Bear, Ruby, and Cady from a distance.

This chapter in Walt’s life is less like his other cases in that the intensity of investigation is well down the list. It certainly is more light-hearted with a number of side stories that do not detract from the main issue, like Vic’s plans to replace her beaten down truck, or Walt having to attend a cowboy formal event (tux shirt/jacket/tie/cuff links/studs) over jeans, boots, and the requisite hat, or the level of performance that one with some mechanical know-how can raise a motorized wheelchair.

So, enjoy this leisurely stroll through Absaroka County while learning more details about Custer’s demise than you ever knew. My fav is the name of the battle. Each side has their own name (like the North called it the Battle of Antietam and the South called it the Battle of Sharpsburg). The ‘whites’ refer to it as Custer’s Last Stand. The natives call it The Battle of the Greasy Grass.

ECD

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I don't think the third Harry Potter book needs much of a review. Thousands of people have already done this. As I continue to read this series in order to catch up with my 7-yr-old grandson who is already into book 5, I'm enjoying the fantasy. My only surprise was how many twists and turns occurred in Rowling's plot given that this is generally considered a fantasy work for younger readers. Meanwhile, the ultimate good guys are really good and the ultimate bad guys are really bad - which is not a surprise. 
 

Salvation Station

Salvation Station is Kathryn Schleich's first novel, a clever story about a female psychopath who targets pastors who have recently lost their wives due to accident or illness. She then swoops into the scene. As a bright and beautiful woman who is apparently only interested in the welfare of the church, she is able to essentially take over the finances of Christian churches, suggesting that she can help them improve their fame and their collections, only for the goal of doing Christ's work. However, it then becomes her task to embezzle those church funds and then disappear with the loot before she gets caught. The author hit hard the naivete of the church members and their willingness to give money for Christ for their church. If the circumstances suggest to her that she would be better off to murder someone to protect her identity, she is willing to do that. Under an earlier identity, when her minister husband decided that it was his calling to do missionary work in Africa, they seemed to have left Lincoln, Nebraska together, along with their two children. It was when the new minister moved into the parsonage, that his dog dug up a human bone in the flower garden. This woman's husband was buried there along with their two children, but she was nowhere to be found. Captain Linda Turner could not let go of this case and she spent the next several years trying to solve that heinous crime.

The evil one was an expert in changing her identity, changing her appearance, and using homemade poisons to kill her pursuers. I don't think the writing in this novel was particularly good, but the plot is a good one. Female psychopaths are rare.  The author created a good and sympathetic new husband-pastor. 

The Last Thing that Burns by Will Dean

[In 2010, one of THE books to be read was Room by Emma Donoghue. That richly acclaimed novel was made into a 2015 movie that won Brie Larsen the Academy Award for Best Actress. If you were blown away by that book . . . buckle up.]

It’s a tale we’ve heard all too often. Far East immigrants pay exorbitant amounts of money for transit to the west on the promise of jobs. Their hazardous transport in a shipping container drops this group in England where brokers sell the survivors to the highest bidder. Work is promised that is used to pay the buyer back (years of work) and once the debt is paid, the immigrants are then on their own. Those are the lucky ones.

Thanh Dao and her younger sister, Kim-Ly, arrive from Vietnam. Each gets sold to different men. Thanh is bought by Lenn who lives in the Fensland, a low-lying region on the east coast in the south-central England. The Fens used to be a boggy region that was drained by man to support farming. Today, it is crisscrossed by a series of dikes containment pools.

Lenn is a brutal, controlling, abusive farmer who lives alone on a farm that his parents built. We learn little about the father, but it’s obvious that Lenn holds his late mother, Jane, in high regard. Most everything in this tiny farmhouse has a connection to his mom – fry pans, the Rayburn wood stove, towels, aprons, clothing, underwear, recipes, daily menus. Practially everything Thanh does touches another reminder of his Mum.Lenn requires that Thanh (who he renamed as Jane as an homage to his late mother) do everything exactly as his Mum did. Any departure is punishable.

 

Seven years Thanh/Jane has been crushed under Lenn’s thumb. Doors, TV, outbuildings, and gates are locked. He has the entire house wired for video that he reviews each night. When he sees that she does something wrong, he burns one of her few possessions. Punishment that pushes her deeper into the hole he has dug for her.

 

Her existence, outside of being Lenn’s slave, is a paperback book, Of Mice and Men, letters from Kim-Ly, and dreams of either killing Lenn or escaping. Two years ago, she made an attempted escape. Lenn’s punishment was to take bolt cutters to an ankle and crushed the bones. Now her foot is a useless and painful appendage to her leg. She is forced to hobble and has to sit to scoot down steps. Pain is controlled by pieces of a horse tranquilizer easily obtained by farmers. Once all of her possessions have been burned, Lenn then threatens Kim-Ly’s existence.

 

A new neighbor drives up. Cynthia wants to rent a corner of the property for her horse. Jane says to come back later to ask her husband.

 

Lenn and Thanh/Jane sleep together, except for that time of the month. On the occasional weekend, she has to lie passively while he penetrates her. After seven years, she becomes pregnant. Lenn won’t take her to a doctor, even for the delivery. His Mum bore him in that house. Jane can do it, too. His Mum’s towels become diapers. Buying formula and baby food would alert the folks in the store. When the baby gets sick as newborns will do, he refuses to seek medical care. Baby feel cool? Stand by the Rayburn. Feel feverish? Run a cool bath. That's what his Mum would've done.

 

It is this claustrophobic existence of life and abuse in a forgotten corner of England that Will Dean tells from Thanh’s point of view. Go into this book forewarned. This is extremely hard to stomach. The surveillance, the despair, the monotony, the threat of further abuse and pain. The effect of human trafficking on one individual is a story that is hard to tell, hard to read, and even harder to put down. Tension, threats, physical and emotional pain, the unsettling drudgery of Thanh’s existence will leave you enraged and breathless. This brutal, personal tale was one of the hardest hardest books that I may have ever read (I didn’t read Room). A story of pain and survival that I almost guarantee will stay with you long after you close the book. Dean has constructed a narrative that is so tense, your own personal peace will be penetrated.

 

And another word: regular readers of my reviews may recall that, in my opinion, books published by Emily Bestler Books (an imprint of Atria Books and Simon and Schuster) are consistently brilliant. How she finds authors with this kind of talent is beyond me. Many thanks for the advance review copy was sent to me by Atria’s publicist.

 

Due to be published April 2021. Mark your calendar.