1576. Only the Dead by Jack Carr

Prologue: It's the mid 1980s. Walt Stowe is a member of Congress from New England. The party is grooming him for a run at the White House right up until he and his wife are targeted by a sniper. Walt dies. His wife survives and moves into a life of quiet contemplation on Martha's Vineyard. 

Current day picks up where The Devil's Hand ended . . . shortly after President Christensen has been assassinated by an IED with a framed James Reece in a Colorado SuperMax prison. 

He's been in there for three months. Solitary confinement. One or two meals/day. No light. No window. Nothing. Out of the blue, he's released. Friends in the intel community work the system for his release. But for what? Apparently, his father Tom (cold war spook) had been digging into connections of a whole bunch of weird goings on right up until he was killed in Russia. He'd left a cache of documents somewhere for James (make that 'just Reece') to find. Once he found the documents, just how all those were connected and the path to a shady clan of powerful people worldwide (The Collective) with a devastating plan set to go that will change the world into the proverbial 'new world order' with, of course, this Collective in charge, because they know best.

Carr takes us on a long (>500 pages!) journey from that Supermax across the US, into DC, New England and destinations across Europe. The plan is ingenious. The US is tied up (indirectly, of course) in Ukraine. Russia wants some of its former territories back under Moscow's control that should be an easy grap. Iran and Israel still hate each other and China is desperate for Taiwan. The Collective's plan is as complex as it is surreal. Get Iran and Israel into a war. The US will of course side with Israel and cut back its support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, with the US distracted and unable to wage a war on two or three fronts, China will swoop in and snatch Taiwan. When the dust settles, Russia and China will be left standing, but The Collective will actually be in charge. 

Having said all that may seem like a spoiler. It's not. The real genius in Carr's book is in how Reece and his small group of friends/spies track down and put together all the plans uncovered by Reece's father. Then, is it possible to stop The Collective now or even in the future. Be prepared. To protect his family and friends, and the US at large, Reece is prepared to go nuclear on anyone in his way. Reece cuts a path through hired guns, Russian Mafia, the shady Russian Wagner Group, and far more (kinda wish someone would take on this book and deliver a body count). Reece uses every weapon at his disposal, particularly his tomahawk. Hollywood would need to tone down the bloodshed for this one. Political thriller as a slasher flick. 

Carr's short career (this is his 6th book) has skyrocketed him to the top of the espionage thriller genre. Not to be missed. One wonders how Carr will top his most recent book. So far, he's managed to do just that. 

BTW. 1. Carr's first book, The Terminal List is now an Amazon Prime series with Chris Pratt taking on the role of Reece. 2. if you like this sort of book, tune in to his podcast called Danger Close with Jack Carr. You have a lot to catch up on.

East Coast Don

1575. The Collector by Daniel Silva

The Collector is Daniel Silva’s 26^th book in the Gabriel Allon series. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that I’m an unapologetic rabid fan for this author who is the master of the international espionage thriller genre. Yes, he’s done it again.

 

In this latest novel, Allon has retired as head of “the office.” He had begun working as an art restorer while living in Venice with his wife and two children. His art restoration company was owned and run by his wife, Chiari. (Did you know there’s a Hotel Chiari on the Grand Canal in Venice.) He was pulled into dazzling international intrigue as a result of the theft of a famous painting in a private estate in Almalfi, which he is asked to investigate.

 

He ends up encountering Anna Rolf, the world renowned pianist and his former lover. Interestingly, Silva used Rolf to highlight Chiari’s jealousy of her husband’s prior relationship with her. As always, Silva is a great travel writer and this story takes Allon to parts of Europe that he has not been in before. I need not give you more plot details except to write that Silva continues to be the master of this genre.

 

 

 

 

Above, I’ve added one of my own photos from my trip to Northern Italy in May 2023. The photo from a bridge in Venice is taken from the same spot as the cover photo for this book. My wife and I did stroll through the Jewish part of Venice which has been repeatedly described by Silva, and we stopped to chat with a group of friendly and accommodating yeshiva students. It is a wonderful place.

West Coast Don

The Ex by Alafair Burke #1574

The Ex by Alafair Burke, received a nomination for the Edgar Award. It was also an Amazon editor’s pick. In her distant past when she was in college, then in law school, and later a beginning attorney, Olivia Randall was engaged to Jack Harris. But she was prone to having affairs, the evidence of which Jack tended to ignore until she really wiped his face in the evidence. Their relationship abruptly ended, and Jack went into an emotional tailspin that led him to a long psychiatric hospitalization. But, he soon found a new love with Molly who did marry Jack in what seemed to be a pretty ideal relationship. Jack’s marriage to Molly ended when she was murdered in a mass shooting by a teenage boy. Meanwhile, Olivia’s career surged forward and she became one of the best criminal defense attorneys in New York City. 

Olivia had no contact with Jack for two decades until she was urgently contacted by Jack’s 15-year-old daughter who pled with her to take her father’s case. Jack had been arrested for the murder of three people. She reluctantly agreed and from the beginning, it seemed that Jack had to be innocent, that the idea of him murdering people was beyond belief. However, as she got to know Jack better in the course of preparing his defense, she discovered a dark side to his personality that she had not previously known. Still, she felt confident about being able to successfully defend him, at least until she learned why the prosecutor was so certain that he had the stronger case.

 

This is a good story with an excellent plot and good character development. I listened to this book in audiobook format, and my only complaint was with the woman who did the reading. She was not sufficiently able to distinguish one character from another with her voice. And, there was a slurry quality to her reading, as if many of the characters were drunk. I think this story, at least with this book, is probably a better read than a listen. I’m ready for more Burke, but with a different reader if I happen to use the audiobook format.

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith #1573

 

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery writer who produced a 10-book series about Arkady Renko, the chief homicide investigator in Moscow. This novel was the first of the series, and the first three of those books were written prior to the fall of the Soviet empire. The book was an international sensation and was initially banned from Russia until after the collapse of the empire.

 

The book opened with three murders that took place in Gorky Park, the victims all having been mutilated to make their identification more difficult. It is a complex story involving various Russian police forces and the FBI, international business transactions, and the complexities of trying to solve a crime in a dictatorial county. The plot involved a nearly constant shifting of alliances among the principal characters, and nearly constant lying of the characters to each other. Arkady was a great character who like so many other detective protagonists, had his own human faults and weaknesses with which to contend.

 

Historically, this is an important novel in the development of international crime and espionage novels, and I think I’ve been neglectful not to have read and reviewed it before now. On the other hand, I have such a pile of promising books on my nightstand, I’m not motivated to dive into the next nine novels in this series at this time.

1572. All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

 I'm not going to bore anyone with a review of a book that's already been reviewed here on MRB. My partner in crime, West Coast Don, posted a highly complementary review a couple weeks ago. It was the first book by Cosby he had read and I'm betting he's working on finding his earlier titles (all reviewed here by me).

My local public library highlighted what they called 'Grit Lit' books (their play on the Chick Lit genre). Cosby's Razorblade Tears  (a NYT bestseller) was in that list. I've referred to such books as any number of 'noir' titles - redneck noir, country noir, hillbilly noir, but I like Grit Lit.

So add SA Cosby to a list of OUTSTANDING Grit Lit authors I've read that includes Brian Panowich, JD Rhoades, Joe Landsdale, Donald Ray Pollock and some others I can't recall right now. All of those guys are top shelf authors worthy of your time and attention. Cosby, however, has a way of presenting his southern VA stories in an almost elegant way while still keeping the down-dark-dirty-nasty style, this of a serial killer, that sets him apart from other authors. 

He's now the newest member of MRB's world famous power rotation. Not to be missed. 

Seriously. 

SA Cosby is not to be missed. Trust us.

 

East Coast Don

 

1571. Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour by Mike Lupica

 

Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour, written by Mike Lupica, is an airplane book. If you haven’t seen my prior references to this term, I’ll define that for you. An airplane book is a novel that you probably bought at the last second before getting on a transcontinental flight. You were hoping that it would entertain you for the length of time you were in the air. It is not great literature, and in fact, is a quite forgettable story. If you happened to fall asleep and did not have time to finish it by the time you were landing, and then you accidentally left it in the seat pocket, you would not be curious enough about the characters in the book or the ending of the plot and subplots, you probably would actually never think about it again. This is just such a book.