The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes

It was 2014 when I Am Pilgrim, Hayes’ first thriller, was published. A beast at over 600 pages. Masterfully written . . . The length was never an issue because it was so well done. Now, 10 years later, Hayes finally has his second thriller. Be ready as it too is an even bigger beast at just under 800 pages (in paperback).

His code name is Kane. He is a rare agent for the CIA. Only a few are listed as a Denied Access Area agent. These guys go where the footing is the most treacherous, do the job by whatever means necessary, and get the hell out. Then do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Think of them as America’s version of MI6’s 00 stable of agents.

Kane's task is a high-risk exfiltration of a Pakistani asset with information critical to the west. Info about the next generation ISIS called The Army of The Pure. Kane is to get in. Meet up with the asset. Get out. The journey in is fraught with danger at every turn. The exfil fails and Kane must evade capture.

But he wants to go back. The Army of the Pure is too dangerous to just sit back and see how it evolves. Especially after stumbling across its leader, the battle-hardened ex-Spetsnaz colonel Roman Kazinsky.

There are a ton of moving parts in this complex epic thriller. From the Pakistanis, Iranians, Afghans, CIA, the CIA mission planners, pit stops across Russia and the -Stans to Siberia. Lot of balls to keep in the air. The book is effectively in two parts. The first part is about trying to get the asset out. The second part is the cat and mouse game played between Kane and Kazinsky. Both parts are expertly developed and presented by Hayes as we'd expect based on how great I Am Pilgram was . . . even though the 2^nd part of Locust kind of goes off the rails.

The ’thriller’ parts of the book are jaw droppingly good. Lots of great characters and action. Maybe even a glimpse at warfare of the future. At around the last 25% of the book, things take a turn into quasi-science fiction. Remember the movie The Final Countdown where a modern-day nuclear carrier gets transported back to the hours before Pearl Harbor? Or the Terminator movies where armies of the future send back soldiers to the past in other to change the future? That’s essentially what happens here. 

I knew ahead of time that time travel was a feature of this book. Having just finished, I asked myself if the story could be told without the time travel and I think it could be, with a little massaging. Bottom line is the spy thriller aspects of the first 3/4 of the book are downright spectacular; hey, it's Terry Hayes of I Am Pilgrim fame. The time travel aspect was, for me, distracting; read a number of other reviews after I finished this today who came to the same conclusion. Up until the 25yr jump to a grim future, Locust was the equal to I am Pilgrim. While this is a big book and you’ll need to make a serious commitment to its length, my bet is that if some producer wanted to make this into a 6-10 part streaming series, it's quite possible that the time travel direction of the story could end up being negotiable. But who am I to say.

Thanks to the good folks at Emily Bestler Books for the advance reader copy. Another winner (mostly) to add to their stable of superior thrillers.

Available February 6, 2024

East Coast Don

Perestroika

 Joao Cerqueira has written eight novels, and his most recent, due for publication on 1/24/24 in the UK and Canada, is entitled Perestroika: An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth. He has received numerous awards for his prior books. In a private correspondence to me, he wrote, “Because of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the threat of a third world war, I think this book addresses issues of critical interest in discussion on the problems of today’s world.” In my opinion, Mr. Cerqueira has achieved his goal of producing just such a historical novel. In addressing the element of war between real information and disinformation to which the world is now subjected, the author began his novel with a question that Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

 

He writes of a fictional country Slavia which is located in part of the territory of current day Slovakia and The Czech Republic. The country was under the control of the Soviet Union until it’s disintegration and was then subjected to the disorganization and criminal control that followed. Along the lines of recent European history, the author writes “this is a novel of revenge, redemption, and catharsis.” The character who became the president of the Slavia had been a criminal before and after Perestroika (greater awareness of economic markets and the ending of central planning). He used well-developed characters that were compelling, some who were in positions of authority and others who were just victims of those in power. In addition to history and politics, the novel incorporated arts, tragedy, humor, and human rights. The criminal president, Ivan Fiorov was inspired by both Putin and Trump.

 

Cerqueira’s novel is an important story, and it brings to life the suffering that is inherent with such a totalitarian state. It was often times painful to read about the tragedies and inhumanities of the times, but I thought the telling of this story was believable and authentic.

Prequel

 

Prequel, An American Fight Against Fascism, is Rachel Maddow’s latest book. She does not mention anything about the current political divisiveness that we are witnessing. She does mention the former president. However, she puts forward that this divisiveness is not new in the US, and then she proceeds to give evidence of when the democracy has been threatened before by those who believe in fascism. Most likely, it’s an aspect of American history that you’ve not heard before. Just as has been the case during the course of our country, especially since the beginning of WWI and then increasing significantly before, during, and after WWII, fascist forces have been active influencers, often behind the scenes. Those forces are present again today and are a serious threat to the continuation of American’s fragile democracy.

 

So much of this information was familiar to me, in part as the result of being a student of American history, and as the result of a book I reviewed in August 2023, Mother, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal. That fictional novel revolved around some of the same characters that Maddow’s nonfiction book identified as being the enemies of as well as the heroes who were responsible for saving the democracy during WWII and the post war era.

 

I must emphasize the importance of these themes. If you read this material, you’ll learn important details about America’s contemporary political troubles. Maddow’s book gets my strongest recommendation.

Falling Night

Phil Clarke is a new author and he has been working on this story, Falling Night, since 1994. It has to do with a fictional aid volunteer in a fictional African country during very disturbing internal conflict among tribes, as well as the efforts of the United Nations and various aid agencies to get in control of the conflict. Clarke certainly has the background to write such a book. He provided such efforts over a period of years in Somalia, Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, and Sudan. In my opinion, those aspects of the book were believable. In the novel, a British aid worker, Alan Swales, was dissatisfied with his life in England and with his live-in relationship. In a hasty decision he decided he could make a positive difference in the world by helping the relief effort to feed the starving population of Kugombwala. He called a relief agency and was quickly hired.

 

Clarke is a capable writer and tells an important and shocking story, although there is one important caveat. I should have been suspicious when I read the Publisher’s Note which suggested that the work of Jesus Christ was behind this story. In the first half of the book, minimal mention was made of a religious theme other than Swales had always been an avowed atheist. It was about halfway through that the character of Swales began a religious conversion, using a belief in Christianity to manage his own thoughts and feelings as the result of witnessing horrendous human trauma, as well as being the victim of such trauma himself.

 

I think this story of this war-torn country and its desperate population would stand on its own without any reference to religious principles. In fact, the reference to the protagonist’s religion beca theme the dominant part of the book’s second half. Probably this is a book that should be sold in Christian bookstores, and without editing out those parts of the story, I don’t see Falling Night being a candidate for a wider audience.

The Year of the Locust

 

I may journey around the barn a couple times while writing this review, so be patient. Terry Hayes has now written two books, the first on in 2014 was entitled I Am Pilgrim, and it was given absolutely rave reviews by MRB – a classic spy novel. I’ve been waiting impatiently for a second book, and 10 years later, I now have it, The Year of the Locust. It was worth the wait, although I will later give you one caveat. This is an exciting and well written thriller about a US spy code named Kane. He was a Denied Access Areas spy, meaning that he was called to go into areas in which he only had his own wits and skills to get by and survive – such areas included Syria, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, etc. His real name was Ridley Walker, but the author did not reveal that name until later in the novel because it had no importance to the unfolding of the story.

 

Kane had been seriously wounded in prior encounters in the Denied Access Areas, but he was a legend and was called back into duty because of his remarkable skill with languages. It was clear that he did not always stick to rules of his trade, such as when he intervened to help save the lives of a woman and two daughters when the man of the family, an Iranian traitor, was captured and literally crucified. He should have walked away to protect himself and the mission, but he simply could not do that.

 

Russia was in a race to mine rare earth elements from asteroids and other non-earth locations, elements which had become necessary for everything with a computer. Nearly all of those elements on earth were in China, so Russia had to look elsewhere – and they were being successful at it. The US was eager to stop that progress. That was the essence of the plot.

 

Hayes rounded out the plot with a number of excellent subplots including his girlfriend, an emergency room doctor in DC, his boss at the CIA, the evil forces at work for Russia and Iran, etc. The book is rich with interesting characters who must make important life choices. This is a long book, 760 pages, and I kept turning pages, only putting it down when I had to sleep. Now, the caveat. I was at the ¾ mark of the story when I ran into a problem for me, perhaps not for you. The author then unexpectedly used the device of time travel to carry the story to conclusion. I was attracted to time travel stories as early as the late 1950’s when I was reading “Boys Life” magazines. I could hardly wait for the next issue to see what would happen in those stories. Of course, I loved the “Back to the Future” movie series which used a tongue-in-cheek approach to time travel. I also loved the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon characters of Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman who told time travel stories with the Way Back Machine.

 

As a reader of spy novels, one must suspend reality testing to a certain extent, but I find I can’t go that far with time travel. As an adult, I’ve found it hard to suspend reality enough to buy into that sci-fi aspect of most modern novels. There is one exception to my hesitancy regarding time travel, and that was a novel by Seldon Edwards titled The Little Book, first published in 2008. That story took him 30 years to write, and time travel was the essence of this book based on psychoanalytic principles, as family members traveled back and forth in time, meeting different members of the family at different points of their lives. As a psychoanalyst, that story had meaning for me, although maybe not for others. I thought it was a great book – but I’m on a tangent. I warned you. (Unfortunately, some of the oldest book reviews on this blog were corrupted, so I can’t refer you to my review of Edwards’ book.)

 

I was still invested in Hayes’ story, so I continued on. Time travel happened as the result of unintended consequences of the use of new technology that was needed for Kane to sneak into the processing of the asteroid ores in a very remote area of Russia. The author was able to use this sci-fi device to bring a very satisfying conclusion to the main plot and all of the subplots. Assuming that most spy novel readers don’t have the same aversion to time travel that I have, I’ll tell you this is a great and absorbing story. Thanks to David Brown at Simon & Schuster for providing this pre-publication novel which will be available very shortly.

Code Red: A Mitch Rapp Novel by Kyle Mills

By my count, this is book #21 in the Mitch Rapp saga. Serious longevity when it comes to a book character.

Mitch is realizing that a career bouncing mostly around the Middle East and Russia ensuring the best interests of the US remain foremost in the world order is probably coming to an end. In previous books, we see Mitch settling down, sort of, with wife Claudia and daughter Anna (and most all his trusted crew) in the hunt country of western Virginia where he has built a nearly impregnable fortress of a ‘neighborhood’. Add to that a ranch in South Africa when Virginia becomes either too tiresome or dangerous.

Of course, the US is in constant need of his skills. In the previous book (Oath of Loyalty), a drug kingpin (from Guatemala or was it Honduras?) was brought down but in doing so, Mitch had to make a deal with the devil, a Mexican cartel chief, and perhaps the world’s most powerful cartel boss, Damian Losa who directed Mitch were to find his target. Losa now has a chip in his pocket. Mitch owes him a favor. A massive favor.

A new drug has appeared. Captagon. While the drug has been around long enough to be the preferred escape in the Middle East, a new variant has popped up. While this new item still produces the expected high that young desperate Middle Eastern youth gravitate toward, it has been re-compounded to be far more addictive, packs worse withdrawal, and foremost, once one gets addicted, it also sends the user into some intense and often fatal psychoses.

Losa has obtained some samples of this new variety of Captagon so that his chemists can determine its makeup. Problem is that his people say that while this new drug can be replicated, the cost to start production from the ground up would be so high to be too expensive for all but the wealthiest users. Whomever is making it now effectively has a lock on the logistics of its production. Losa figures that if it’s too costly to make, maybe he can make a (significant) buck by opening his worldwide distribution network saving the makers that hassle. The proverbial win-win in the illicit drug business.

Losa knows that the drug begins its life in Syria, a place where traditional cartels have little if any influence. And a man like Losa knows his intelligence network is out of its league when it comes to places like Syria. What Losa needs is someone who knows the Middle East and can get in and try to negotiate a deal whereby the locals maintain production and use Losa’s distribution network.

This is where Mitch comes in. Losa decides to recruit Mitch to be his negotiator. If Mitch agrees, his debt with Losa will be fully paid. Mitch reluctantly agrees. Losa’s people set up Mitch’s legend as a weeny Canadian lawyer hired specifically for this one job. Mitch’s boss at the CIA, Irene Kennedy, isn’t happy and lets Mitch know that while she wants progress reports, he will have absolutely zero Agency assets or support.

He’s entirely on his own. His legend holds as he enters Syria and starts to work his way up the food chain to find the head dog so he can make his pitch. But being who he is, trouble has a way of finding Mitch. In most every confrontation, he successfully manages to play the milquetoast Canadian lawyer. But the closer he gets to the top, the harder it is to pretend to be meek. Mitch is still Mitch.

What he does learn is that the Syrians really aren’t behind this drug. The developers aren’t looking to become wealthy (I’m not going to tell you who. You’ll have to read the book for that detail). They want to sell the drug cheap, addict the youth of Europe and eventually the US making the west vulnerable from within resulting in a collapse of the social order leading (with any luck) to internal destruction. Waging war without firing a shot.

Rapp alerts Losa what he’s learned. While he went in knowing he was expendable, the payoff was mighty - get rid of that chip he owes to Losa. When Mitch he learns who might be pulling that trigger, he does off on his own. In short,  the last 50 pages of the book reveal Rapp’s true colors and character.

Classic Mitch Rapp. Mills delivers again. The foreword of book tells us that Kyle Mills has been carrying the freight for the Mitch Rapp saga for 10 years (after Vince Flynn's death) and it looks like this may be his last. Who’ll pick up the banner remains unknown. Given the popularity of the Mitch Rapp books, I fully suspect that the publisher (Emily Bestler Books) probably has a quality writer linedup. We’ll just have to wait until next year.

ECD

Lessons in Chemistry

 

My next audiobook was Lessons in Chemistry, a debut novel by Bonnie Garmus. I had seen the book title on the NY Times list of fiction best sellers for a while. I heard about it from two other sources, one of my wife’s book clubs and the podcast Sisters-in-Law (which has been one of my favorite sources of political and legal news for the last three years). There have been rave reviews for Lessons in Chemistry everywhere. It’s not a murder mystery although there are important deaths throughout the novel which help carry the plot along. Not to be boring, but this is another positive rare about the book.

 

The story takes place in the late 50’s and early 1960’s and it’s about the brilliant research scientist Elizabeth Zott. That was a time when women were widely regarded as having no place in the world of science. They were mistreated, their ideas were disregarded or stolen, and their research papers were almost universally denied by publishers. That plot line rung bells for me because I saw this misogyny happen to the women in my medical school class. At the orientation our freshman year, the chair of the department of OBGYN actually announced that as long as he had been the chair of the department there had never been a woman resident in his program, and as long as he was the chair, there never would be. It was the women in my class who broke that gender barrier upon graduation four years later. There was intense pain that came with this important gain in the medical science world. That is the world that Garmus wrote about. The story was so compelling that it has become a tv series on Apple TV. Today there are more women than men in the medical schools around the country. At least there is some evidence of progress in our troubled world.

 

There is a beautiful love story between Zott and a remarkable chemist, Calvin Evans, who was put up for a Nobel Prize year after year. Also, there was a wonderful subplot about a very smart stray dog who followed Elizabeth home one day, and subsequently became a part of her family.

 

Even if your main genre of choice is murder mysteries, this book deserves your attention. It may be the best book I read in 2023.

Tom Lake

 Tom Lake is the 13^th novel by Ann Patchett, an award winning novelist. The audiobook format is narrated by none other than Meryl Streep. The only other Patchett novel reviewed in this blog was The Dutch House and that audiobook was narrated by Tom Hanks. While I was knocked out by The Dutch House, Tom Lake did not move me nearly as much. Given that this is a blog mostly of action, mystery, murder, and espionage, I think this book belongs more in a women’s book club that in this blog. There were no murders in Tom Lake. (The lake named for the rich offspring of the ultra wealthy family which once owned the property surrounding the lake in Northern Michigan.)

 

The novel mostly took place on the cherry farm of Lara and Joe Nelson, as well as their three daughters. As a high school student, Lara had performed the role of Emily in Our Town. Subsequently, she did the role again two more times, and it was the last time in a summer stock community theater in Michigan that she performed opposite an incredibly handsome man, Peter Duke, who did go on to become a television and movie star. That summer, she fell in love Duke, and she was also spotted by a Hollywood movie director who put Lara in his latest film. There were delays in the release of the movie and Lara ended up staying in Hollywood for several years during which time she did get some roles. Apparently, while being fabulous in the role of Emily, her skills as an actor were limited, and her life as an actor came to an end. She returned to her home in New Hampshire while trying to figure out what to do with her life.

 

Later, she ran into Joe Nelson who had been the director of the community theater version of Our Town, and they fell in love. Joe’s family was in the cherry business and he loved that life. Both Lara and Joe had left the theater and had no desire to return. The story took place in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and the usual number of summer workers who came to the farm to help pick cherries did not show up. The three girls returned to the family home to help with the cherry harvest, and it was then that they pried out their mother’s life story. The girls, especially the oldest named Emily, were fixated on the idea that their mom could have been a star, could have been married to Duke, and could have been a famous person.

 

The writing was beautiful and clever as Lara narrated her own experience and told the story to her daughters, filling in details for the readers, not all of which she revealed to her daughters. It’s really a wonderful story about family dynamics and the success of a very functional family. But, given the content of the story compared to the usual genre of this blog, I cannot give it a strong recommendation for anyone who is looking for an adventure book. By the way, Meryl Streep was fabulous as the narrator.

Firetrap by Otho Eskin

#3 in Eskin's Marko Zorn mystery series based in Washington DC

This has an interesting twist right from the start. A member of the Big Pharma club is bringing a new product to market. A fentanyl competitor that is far more potent. Problem is that the product has been leaked and is showing up on the streets before anyone really knows or understands it. A couple brothers run the pharma company and they are ruthless when it comes to their products and bottom line.

Marko learns of this new drug when he is contacted by a DC underworld boss who wants the drug off the street (because it kills thereby cutting into their local sales and profits on less deadly addictive drugs). 

And therein lies the twist. Marko has roughly three ‘bosses’ on his butt for different reasons. The cops (of course), the local gang street marketeers, and the Pharma boys. And a key to the whole thing might be connected to a decades-old art theft.

Now I like Eskin/Zorn so far. DC-based (stomping grounds of my youth), clever and believable characters all wrapped up in a plot that just could happen.

And its an Oceanview Publishing product, a quality source for well-prepared mysteries. Can’t beat it. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reviewer copy.

ECD

Broadcast Blues by R.G. Belsky

RG Belsky. Newsroom drama. Clare Carlson. What could possibly go wrong?

The sixth Clare Carlson book and all previous outings have been  winners that the MRB boys have enjoyed. Yeah, we're biased. 

A prize winner journalist now an NYC TV reporter and news director who is approaching her 50^th birthday and reflecting on her three previous failures in marriage. She can’t stand her boss and the TV station is up for sale. But a juicy scoop might do wonders for killing the sale. The newsroom is a constant setting for comfort and chaos. The juicy scoop she needs falls into her lap when a former star cop, Wendy Kyle (who got dumped for slugging a higher officer) and now a high-profile PI is killed. It’s NYC so you can bet that crooked cops and politicians will be at the core of the investigation. Kyle’s PI business specialized in catching husbands fooling around that helped cement her poor reputation with the NYPD; there was no shortage of higher ups who would be just fine if she was wiped from the board. Clare’s investigation chased a story with little evidence to support her theory that Kyle’s death was more than a random killing.

Belsky is a proven winner. Great story, intriguing characters, realistic dialogue, believable settings combined with a healthy bit of his trademarked humor. Tell us if you saw the conclusion of this book while reading. I didn’t. Broadcast Blues can be a stand-alone book, but it might help understand Clare if you read these in order.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance reviewer copy.

 ECD

 

Edge of the Grave by Robbie Morrison

It’s 1932. Police in Glasgow have some leniency in how they question criminals. A well-timed beating or clubbing can do wonders for recalcitrant suspects. A particularly vicious murder has occurred along the Glasgow docks. And the victim is from a wealthy local family. Detective Jimmy Dreghorn and his partner Archie McDaid head the investigation.

The investigation begins with the victim's family, then his co-workers, then his hobbies (gambling and women) and any connections with a children’s home and what the victim and others connected brought back from the trenches in France.

An interesting and captivating story of Glasgow Noir that stretches across the wide expanse of the postwar Scottish social structure. Shouldn’t take one too long to read because of its length as well as the quality of storytelling. This is Morrison’s first mention by us. I’d expect more.

Thanks for NetGalley for the advance reviewer copy.

ECD

The Phalanx Code by A.J. Tata

Book 3 in the Gen. Garrett Sinclair series. Sinclair is more Jason Bourne, who leads from the front, than he is a 3-star suit in the rear with the gear. While we all need more like him, this story line seemed a touch far-fetched.

At the end of Total Empire, General Sinclair was sent to the ‘Disciplinary Barracks’ (prison) somewhat for punishment, somewhat for his own protection. After a year of enduring harsh prison life, he ends up getting sent to solitary for his role in a dining hall rumble. Gets roughed up by a guard and told to stay on the mattress for the next half hour. Given the video surveillance everywhere, Sinclair does as he’s told. Maybe 20’ later, the outside wall of his cell explodes inward by a heavily armored Humvee. One of his former Dagger team at the wheel speeds Sinclair off into the farmland surrounding Leavenworth.

Once out, he’s taken to a waiting plane to be flown into the Wyoming mountains where his benefactor awaits. Multi-billionaire tech developer name of Drewson weaves a tale of his evil competitor, another multi-billionaire Frenchman Blanc. Drewson is preparing to roll out Web 3.0 that’s supposed to be protective of its users. Blanc’s latest and greatest involves The Phalanx Code, a universal surveillance system. Each team is littered with coding/decoding geniuses and security teams better equipped than most armies.

The story follows Sinclair as he tries to take down Blanc. Much of what ensues from Sinclair’s grandfather, an Army Ranger who climbed Point-du-hoc on D-Day and helped take St. Mere Eglise. After that, the storyline sort of goes off the rails (at least in my mind. Hard core adrenaline junkie readers will probably salivate with each turn of the page). Allegiances crisscross so much it’s hard to keep straight who is/isn’t on Garrett’s team. Attacks and escapes have convenient contingencies that help Sinclair’s hunt for the truth.

At the core, thrillers need to be somewhat believable. There were simply too convenient situations to be believable that almost resulted in me putting the book down. But I trudged on mostly to see what unfolded in the next outlandish scene. Tata is a former army General so his description of battle are probably realistic, but I have a hard time believing someone like General Garrett Sinclair could actually exist. But the action, body count, and changes in the mission will appeal to an audience. Just don’t think that audience includes me.

ECD

 

The River We Remember

 The River We Remember is the third William Kent Krueger novel reviewed in this blog, all three of which have been given rave reviews. Considering that this novel is his 24^th, released in 9/2023, there’s a lot of excellentR reading ahead for us. This story takes place in fictional Jewel, Minnesota. Unlike the 19-book Cork O’Conor series, this is a standalone book. It’s a story of multigenerational dysfunction, a story of many broken people who are fighting their own demons while mostly trying to find a way to live in this complex world. It takes place mostly in the 1950s with time spent on the backstories of these troubled people. The protagonist, Sheriff Brody Dern, is a war hero although he’s terribly conflicted about his war activities. He investigates the murder of Jimmy Quinn, the biggest land owner and wealthiest man in Black Earth County. Quinn was also the most hated man in the county as the result of his great appetites for money, land, control, and sex. The first suspect according to almost anyone else in the county besides Dern was Noah Bluestone, a Native American and WWII veteran who, at the end of his 20-year military career, moved back to Jewell with a young Japanese wife. Being non-white people, Noah and his wife were both automatically seen as enemies of the local population. There were multiple subplots, and I did not see the ending coming until it happened. This book has already won numerous awards, and Krueger is a writer to be admired and for his work to be greedily consumed. Fortunately, there is a rich body of work here to be savored.

Wherever You Go There You Are

 Just a very short comment on the book by Jon Kabat-Zinn entitled Wherever You Go There You Are. If you’re not interested in meditation, then read no farther. I am quite interested in the topic and am a bit embarrassed about not having known that Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the Mindfulness movement, had written this one. Years ago, I read his first book written in 1990, Full Catastrophic Living, but I was not particularly impressed. While I continued to meditate and to read about other sources of information on the topic of which there are many, it was only in the last couple weeks that I saw mention of his second book which was written in 1994. It was mentioned in the NY Times as one of the best books available to deal with anxiety. It is actually far more than that. Wherever You Go There You Are is an incredible book that is a must read for anyone who is involved in mindfulness and meditation. Kabat-Zinn, now 79 years old, is a master.

Enough

Straying off genre again, I just finished listening to the audiobook by Cassidy Hutchinson entitled Enough. Ms. Hutchinson is the narrator for her story about her early life, ongoing family matters, education (the first in her family to attend college), her meteoric rise to power in the Trump White House, and her interactions with lawyers and the Select Committee. She had just turned 25 years of age around the time of her live testimony. If you saw her televised testimony before the January 6 House Committee, then you know most of the important stuff. The new material in her book is her backstory which is worth knowing. Personally, I was impressed with her character in the testimony that I was able to see on television, and the backstory only supports that first impression. Importantly, her early and continuing political beliefs are Republican. Originally, she was enamored with Trump’s charisma, but since her experience of the insurrection and disgust at the political expedience she observed which held sway over higher values, she became more focused on Reagan Republicanism. This current reviewer is not sure what Reagan Republicanism really means in the current age given that even Reagan could not achieve a leadership position in today’s Republican Party. Ms. Hutchinson strikes me as an honest and sincere woman.

Gambit by Rex Stout

I purchased a few vintage Nero Wolfe mysteries in hardcover recently from shopgoodwill.com, so thought I would take us back to the brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City. Nothing like an old hardcover, just a little musty, to make me realize that I'm holding an object that's older than I am.

Gambit has all the attributes of a Nero Wolfe story: Archie Goodwin, his confidential assistant is our narrator and protagonist, multiple parties attempt to hire Mr. Wolfe, the contentious relationship with the police, and of course great food prepared by Fritz. (I always wanted a Fritz)

The plot is a classic "almost closed door" murder, one of a chess prodigy Paul Jerin who is poisoned during a blindfolded chess match (against several opponents). Matthew Blount, who brought Jerin the poisoned hot chocolate is accused of murder, and his daughter hires Wolfe to find the actual killer. 

I love these types of cerebral mysteries. Wolfe gathers information through Goodwin's activities, and advises Archie, "Use your intuition guided by experience". The cast of suspects have hidden agendas, long simmering rivalries, and motives to harm each other as much as Jerin. The writing is elegant; Stout has an innate ability to pull the reader into the story through character development more than action. Written in 1954, Gambit is the 22nd (!) Nero Wolfe story and yet the
setting and plot seemed refreshing. 

If you haven't read Rex Stout, give his most famous creation Nero Wolfe a try. On a side note, a Rex Stout novel called Seed on the Wind will be published for the first time in more than 90 years in December. I'll give it a read and let you know by Christmas. 

Happy Thanksgiving,

Curtis

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by sportswriter Joe Posnanski provides exactly what the title suggests. Posnasnski wrote about the 50 moments in baseball that were most meaningful to him while admitting that other readers would disagree with the events he chose and the order in which he placed them. He also recognized that such debates among baseball fans of the best or worst moments was part of the game, and he loved those moments, too. Actually, he did a lot more than just those 50 baseball moments such as “the catch” by Willie Mays in 1954, the breaking of the color barrier by Jackie Robinson in 1947, and the 715^th homerun by Henry Aaron in 1974. He wrote about whacky moments for fans, umpires, and players. There were the five greatest catches, five remarkable pitching performances, the most memorable moments for all 30 baseball franchises – really, he wrote about 108 such moments.

 

As Posnanski’s countdown came to an end, his number one baseball moment was when Aaron hit #715 to break Babe Ruth’s sacred record. Like all the other moments, he filled in the background of the event so that it was understandable for the game in which it was played, what it was like for the fans, what it meant to the players, both the victors and the losers, and how it fit into American society.

 

After a breathtaking description of all of those factors about #715, Posnanski finished the book with a wonderful story about a 17-year-old female fan of the Seattle Mariners, Iris Skinner, also known as “Ichiro Girl.” In 2010 in a game against the Yankees, Ichiro reached into the stands in an attempt to catch a foul ball, and he accidentally struck Ms. Skinner in the face with his forearm. She was not injured and Ichiro quickly made sure she was okay before returning to his right field position. Ms. Skinner then went crazy, she was so out-of-her-mind excited that she had actually been touched by Ichiro. She looked like the happiest person in the world. The video of the event went viral. Then 12 years later, the Mariners invited her back to throw out the first pitch, but they did not tell her Ichiro would be there to make the catch. After going out on the field, the announcer surprised her by introducing Ichiro, and she went nearly as crazy the second time. Iris and Ichiro had their photo taken together, he signed a ball for her, and it was as heartwarming a moment just as much as the original video had captured.

 

Yes, that’s why we love baseball and if you’re a fan, you’ll love this book whether you agree with Posnanski’s order of moments. If you’re not a fan and you pick this up, maybe you’ll understand more about why people care so much about this game. Thanks to Joe Posnanski for this book. I enjoyed every moment.

Odyssey's End

 

This is a hell of a way to learn about an award-winning author, Matt Coyle, who writes his mysteries in the same neighborhood where I’ve been living for the last 45 years. It’s not the first of his 10-book series. Rather, the last one, Odyssey’s End, his 10^th book about Rick Cahill, an ex-cop whose current marriage is falling apart as the result of his dangerous dedication to his work as a private investigator and the onset of his progressive neurocognitive disorder, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). Instead of being able to read the first book and move forward through the series to understand his character development, I’ve begun at the end. Actually, I’m indebted to Oceanview Publishing for alerting me to the presence of this author. It may be going through the back door, but now I know I’ve got 9 books to enjoy, which I’ll read in the intended order, and come back around to the end where I started. This book could easily serve as a stand-alone novel, and the info on Coyle’s website suggests that all of the books in the series could be stand-alone works. It’s just not the way I usually go about learning an author’s body of work.

 

In this novel, his wife Leah has moved out of their La Jolla home, and she has taken their 20-month-old daughter Krista to Santa Barbara so she could live there with her parents, at least on a temporary basis. Leah’s parents were not fans of Rick and the risks that he took. He admitted that he had led a life of violence and he had lots of grotesque scars for such activities. Rick and Leah agreed to a 50% custody arrangement, but that meant repeatedly doing the 4 ½ hour drive (at least) from La Jolla to Santa Barbara. Leah was tired of the bad men with whom Rick worked and the danger it caused to Rick, herself, and now their precious girl. It was killing Rick to be away from his daughter. He also did not want to endanger Leah and Krista any more, and given the promise of advancing symptoms of cognitive problems, he agonized over the idea of quitting his job, moving to Santa Barbara, and leaving the town where he grew up. This story was about two bad guys who were enemies of one another and both were trying to force Rick to work for them to recover a vast fortune of ill-gotten gains. Rick also realized that a key figure in their efforts was another woman who would likely be killed if he did not protect her.

 

In short, this is a great plot filled with compelling characters. It gets a 5-star rating from me.  I’ve already obtained book one, Yesterday’s Echo.

Nothing But The Bones by Brian Panowich

1989. McFalls County GA. Young Nelson McKenna and a couple friends are exploring a creek on Bull Mountain. Nelson is fodder for the local bullies because he is ‘different’. He has cognitive issues, a curiously constructed face, and his deformed left hand is more akin to a club. His mom died when he was very young, and his father used Nelson mostly as a punching bag for his own inadequacies. A couple jerks come upon Nelson and start messing with him. Pushing becomes shoving becomes hitting and Nelson hits the ground . . . where he starts to lose it. He comes up swinging. Swinging so hard one boy hits the ground (and maybe a rock). Nelson pummels the boy. As this happens on Bull Mountain and nothing happens on the Mountain that Gareth Burroughs doesn’t know about, he cleans up the mess and talks to Nelson about what kind of man he may become, given what’s happened. Two kinds of people in the world: those that are hammers and those that are nails. Gareth brings Nelson into the family and brings him up to be another enforcer in Gareth’s businesses – the birth of Nails McKenna.

1996. Nails has grown up. Considerably. He’s big. Bigger than Jack Reacher big. And he’s an effective enforcer for Gareth. But deep down, he’s not wired to enforce. He is wired to protect. And that’s what gets him in far too deep for what he is capable of understanding or solving

He, like many of the deadbeats on Bull Mountain, enjoys spending some time at The Chute, the local bar/club/meth house. But the owner, Freddie, knows Nails isn’t there for the ambience. He comes in for a couple cold pints of apple juice. The music is loud, and the dancing is fierce. Nails eyes a girl roughly his age dancing her ass off. Looks like she’s with a few other guys who’ve ascended the mountain to party. Nails spots them all go into the men’s room, but thinks the girl really isn’t a willing participant. He follows them into the can where one of the trio of guys confronts him and blocks his path to a closed stall behind which are 3 sets of feet, and one set doesn’t seem to be having any fun. He levels the punk in his path, busts open the stall door and picks up the girl and heads back into the bar so he can get her out. One of the punks takes issue with Nails, whips out a knife, draws first blood from Nails  whose lethal left-hand club puts the guy down. For good. In front of a bar full of witnesses.

Nails and the girl, who calls herself Dallas Georgia, now become odd couple fugitives. Gareth gives Nails some money and a phone number in Jacksonville, FL. Tells them to get to Florida, call the number, and do whatever the guy on the other end says to do. The guy is a fixer. He will fix what’s happened and make it all go away.

Their road to Jacksonville is littered with tangential issues - related to the bar, to the victim, the fixer, Dallas’ parents, motel clerks, a kindly old gas station owner and others. And notably, Gareth’s son Clayton (before he became sheriff of McFalls County).

One of the kids with Nelson that fateful day by the creek was Amy who’d become one of his only real friends. She convinces Clayton that it’s in Nelson’s best interest if he tracks him down, brings him back up the mountain and turns himself in. That bar full of witnesses all know, and will testify, that Nails was just defending himself . . . mostly. Clayton agrees and sets out to find Nelson/Nails.

Upon finding Nails, everyone on God’s green earth that are looking for Nails descend on Clayton and Nails where Panowich delivers one thing he is well known for . . . a bloodbath.

This is Panowich’s 4^th book based on Bull Mountain, and we’ve reviewed them all. Panowich is firmly entrenched in my Power Rotation. Bull Mountain was his first novel, and it blew me away as did books #2 and 3. Add #4 to that list even though it’s a bit different; more character driven about 2 unlikely fugitive/kids, both sort of on the run from failed family lives, who are running away from something that really wasn’t of their own making. Guess that makes them victims of both their past and their present. Yes, drugs and mayhem ensue, but the developing love story between Nails and Dallas is the driving force of the story. Not to mention:

1.     Panowich give us a peak into some of the issues that drive wedges into the Burroughs clan seen in books 2 and 3 and . . .

2.     A twist that I never saw coming. Maybe you will. But I didn't.

And I am truly sorry to say this: It’s not available April 16, 2024. But thanks to NetGalley for making an advance reviewer copy available. Trust me folks. This one is worth the wait. 

 

ECD

Holly

At MRB, we’ve reviewed a few Stephen King novels, but we’ve not shown much interest in this prolific author. I have not liked the books in which he strays into the occult world, but his most recent release, Holly, does not do that. This is a straightforward serial murder mystery with great characters mixed in with some bizarre, crazy college professors. There are several simultaneous family dramas all of which are believably presented. I listened to this one in audiobook format, and it was delightfully done. The plot is very well created which will keep you guessing until the very end. I did not want to put Holly down and I rate that as a 5/5.

Weapons Grade, a Tom Clancy novel by Don Bentley

 It has been more than four years since I’ve read a Tom Clancy novel, and that one was written by Mike Maden and I thought Line of Sight was a pretty decent story. I picked up this one, Weapons Grade by Don Bentley because I couldn’t find another book that was available on Libby in audiobook format. It’s a story about the discovery that I ran had a secret uranium enrichment process going in tunnels far below the surface of the land. Once again, it was a Jack Jr. novel with his dad, the President of the U.S. The book started out like a Lee Child novel with the protagonist just stumbling into someone else who clearly needed his help. I kept waiting for the book to grab me as I walked about listening and giving my dog some exercise. It’s unusual for me to give up on a story when I’m two-thirds of the way into it, but that’s what happened here. I found myself put off by the over-the-top ultimate machismo characters, and the plot just did not seem real enough to get me to suspend reality testing as is often required with any good international intrigue. I was just uninterested in where this story was headed, so I quit. Weapons Grade does not get a solid recommendation from me. Now, I’m tempted not to pick up another Tom Clancy novel for at least another 10 years.

The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson

Throughout the Longmire series have been snippets indicating that Walt and his grandfather Lloyd had a bit of a contentious relationship. While Walt learned a deep appreciation for chess from Lloyd, there were plenty of instances where communication between the two could’ve been better. This story is, in parts, some backstory into the Walt-Lloyd relationship and how that relationship contributed to what Walt has become today.

A non-too rare situation in the Bighorn mountains is when a tourist with little or no experience in the elements gets in too deep and needs help to get back out. Walt is getting some quality time with his granddaughter when Vic informs him that a Minnesota woman has wandered so far back in the mountains that her car becomes snowbound and needs help. Walt and Dog head up into the mountains tracing the woman’s trail.

While off the road and getting deeper into the mountains, he comes across an outcropping that seems quite familiar. Dog is nosing around the rocks and manages to dig up what looks like a rifle strap. When looking at where Dog was digging, Walt finds a rifle hidden amongst the rocks.

The familiar ledge and the rifle bring back a story his father told him about Lloyd from the late 1940s. Lloyd led a group out on an elk hunting trek. Tragedy strikes when one of the men, a Wyoming state government accountant, is accidentally shot. The investigation stalled because no one had a rifle that matched the killing bullet. Looks like Dog has found the rifle.

Walt finds the missing woman and she’s a bit of a mess and no matter what Walt does to help her out, she just manages to dig herself deeper. She missed the memo that when one finds themselves in a hole, the first thing to do it to stop digging. Add to that this cold case from 70 years ago. While he goes back and forth between various entities in the state government, he’s wondering if Lloyd was the one that pulled the trigger.

The backstory scenes help strengthen the story by showing that despite the damaged relationship with Lloyd, Walt is a lot more like Lloyd than he realized or admit. This story is more character driven than so many other mysteries. Walt with daughter Cady and granddaughter Lola; Walt and Vic (get ready), Walt and Henry, Walt and this lost lady, Walt and former sheriff Lucian Connelly (for me, any Longmire book with lots of Lucian is going to be a hit), Walt and the voice of his conscious (Ruby, his dispatcher). The characters and how they relate is what makes the Longmire series so special. Johnson expertly weaves the characters and the parallel mysteries set in the wilds of Wyoming.

Not to mention, Walt doesn’t get the shit beat out of him (as he did in the two previous outings).

Craig Johnson does annual promotional book tours. I’d tried twice to go see him, but stuff just got in the way (like a hurricane a couple of years ago) but this time I made it. First time I’d gone to an author tour. Johnson is a polished speaker who is in touch with his audience. Glad I went. I'll go again . . . assuming no hurricane.

 

 

Broadcast Blues

Admittedly, I have eclectic reading tastes that often take me away from the blog’s main them of murder mysteries, espionage stories, adventure novels, and thrillers. Recently, I've read a couple historical novels such as The American Daughters and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. There’s the 1930’s Nobel Prize winning work of Sinclair Lewis with Babbitt, a recent Pulitzer Prize winning novel for fiction (Trust by Hernan Diaz), an autobiography from Prince Henry (Spare), nonfiction histories of 5,000 years of Chinese history (From Yao to Mao), another history about the zeppelin era (His Majesty’s Airship), and a Pulitzer Prize winning biography about Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus. 

Of course, I’ve never abandoned mystery novels. However, when I’ve been away from our primary theme for very long, it always feels so good to come back to a good murder mystery, especially when it involves an ongoing saga of a protagonist I’ve come to enjoy. It was like coming home after being away too long and sitting down in my favorite chair and reading for my own joy. That was exactly my situation when I learned that R. G. Belsky was about to publish a new novel, Broadcast Blues, the sixth in a series about Clare Carlson, a television reporter and news director in NYC. She is a most compelling character. Now approaching her 50^th birthday, being a three-time divorce who is between relationships, dealing with a boss she hates, and facing the possible sale of her tv station, Carlson is desperate to have a new tawdry sensational story to chase down. The consistent thing about Clare is that there is always chaos happening around her in the Channel 10 newsroom. This story dives into NYC politics and crooked cops. Primarily, the story surrounds the murder of Wendy Kyle, who had been fired from her job in the NYPD, who had a very mixed police history of being praised for her good work and being severely reprimanded for overstepping her proper boundaries. She went on to become a notorious private investigator who specialized in catching wealthy husbands in the act of infidelity. She continued to be an irritant to the NYPD, so there were lots of people who would have been happy to see her dead. However, Clare seemed to be chasing a case for which there was no supporting evidence other than her intuition and need for a new story.

 

I could not put this one down. Belsky hits a nice balance between some good humor in the dialogue and real danger to his characters in the plot. I did not see the resolution of the main plot and subplots until the story got tied together at the end – didn’t see it coming. While Broadcast Blues could be a stand-alone novel, it’s my preference to read about Clare Carlson’s adventures in the order that the novels were published. This novel gets my strongest recommendation.