Ransom

 

Ransom by Daniel Silva is his 26^th novel about Gabriel Allon, an Israeli spy and assassin who rose to being the director of an undercover department, but he has finally, allegedly, retired from such clandestine work. Allon spends his winters in his flat on the Grand Canal in Venice with his Venecian wife, Chiara, and his two children. In retirement, during the summer months, he retires to a remote cabin in Cornwall, England. He works as a restorer of old art masterpieces, the same skill he often used during his years as a spy to disguise his true identity.

This story starts out with four women, now in their 30s, who have been friends since their college days. One of them, Alice Winnter, married to Edward Knight, a man worth billions, and she typically pays for all expenses for their annual week-long reunions in only the most extravagant places. The current gathering is on the island of Ibiza. Alice is a dazzling socialite who has millions of followers on social medial. However, before the week is over, Alice gets in a major argument with one of her girlfriends, Phoebe. Alice then disappears, and her husband is desperate to find her. The story become one of kidnapping and an outrageous ransom demand, leading to Knight’s plea to Allon to find Alice.

The plot involves the discovery that Knight is only so wealthy because of his financial support by a Russian oligarch. However, there’s an important twist regarding the kidnapping, and Alice reveals she must divorce night because of his connection to the Russians who are currently at war with the Ukraine. When the ransom demand went unpaid, at first, it is assumed that Alice has been killed. The unwinding of the mystery of Alice’s disappearance is the meat of the story, including the undoing of her husband’s source of wealth.

I’ve often thought of myself as Silva’s best fan. He produces one new book a year which I usually read in a day or two, and then impatiently wait for another year before I get to enjoy the continuing saga of his protagonist. The life and adventures of Gabriel Allon have captivated me. However, this book was not up to Silva’s usual engaging stories. It’s not a simple task to follow any  hero through 26 books as he ages out of the very work that made him so interesting. The wonderful and rich descriptions of his travels was present, just as in all of his previous novels. However, as Allon gets into the tedious details of money laundering on behalf of Putin (never named in the body of the book), we’re taken through lengthy and boring details. The plot stalled until the very end of the novel. So, this particular novel was not one that I can recommend.

Storm Damage

 Storm Damage is the second book in the Sonny Marshall Thriller series written by Terry Bacon. This is an excellent and well-written story, and I’ve already downloaded the first novel in the series, Storm Warning. Sonny Marshall is a blues musician whose band has brought him considerable success. Most of his time is spent in the Bay Area of California, and he owns a music studio in San Francisco. His back story is important because it includes his family suffering a home invasion in which his older sister was brutally raped. He was only a boy at the time and came away with intense guilt, that he had failed to save her from the trauma. He promised himself he would not allow another innocent person to suffer. Sonny began an intense study of Marshall arts. A couple years later when his younger sister was being bullied by a group of boys, he followed her home from school and when they began their harassment of her, he took them on all by himself. Sonny brought the group down and they left his sister alone after that. Author Bacon called this a “white knight complex.”

There are many references in this second book, Storm Damage, to Sonny having repeated similar events in his adult life, but I’ll have to read the first book to learn about that. In this book, The Storm Lake Blues Band has just returned to the Bay Area from a tour. They were working on a new album which was due to be released the following month. Eric, the lead guitarist, had been hitting cocaine quite heavily. He went to a drug party only to try an unknown designer drug which led to his death. At the same time, there were several similar drug-related events around the Bay Area in which people were suddenly become homicidal – behavior which was totally foreign to their day-to-day personalities. The deaths were piling up and Sonny began to use his own contacts, including law enforcement, to track down the mysterious creator of this new substance.

Meanwhile, the author let us know more about Sonny’s personal life. His girlfriend, Katrina Hastings or Kat was a detective in Sacramento, and she had a daughter, Sara, of middle school age. Kat shared some of Sonny’s savior feelings, so she was able to tolerate his rescue behaviors. Even though Sonny and Kat seemed averse to talking about their future together, the book ends with the two of them moving together in Sonny’s apartment where the very talented Sara will be able to attend a special high school.

I found myself attracted to the author’s writing, and I’ll give you a one paragraph example:

When my former girlfriend, Marily Anne Crittenden, caught COVID in 2020, I spent a       week sleeping on the couch while she recovered in our bedroom. Nobody in the world knew what to do back then. Advice from the CDC changed every other week, and the president advised people to drink bleach and shine ultraviolet light up their ass. Mac wasn’t sick enough for a hospital, but my taking care of her was like a grease monkey arranging flowers

Bacon treats the reader to a rich cast of characters including Kat, Sara, his band members, members of law enforcement, and the drug-affected victims. One subplot had to do with replacing Eric with a new guitarist, and Bacon introduced the remarkable artist Le’Andre Kimani to fill Eric’s shoes. He wrote beautifully about the emotional process of producing new music. Now, I must impatiently wait for the third book in this promised series.

Close to Death

 Close to Death is the fifth of six books in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series written by Anthony Horowitz. I’ve already reviewed the first four books, so I need not report here what has drawn me to this series which has gotten my rave comments. This book is different from the others since the two protagonists do not appear in the book until about the 30-40% mark. Rather, the author Horowitz, distinct from his semi-fictionalized writer in the novels, provides us with a lot of background about the small and elite housing area near London, Riverview Close. Close is an English term for a small and relatively insular area of homes, the word coming from the word “enclosure.”

I’ll be brief. Once again there is a murder. While there has been very little turnover of the houses in the close, one of the houses went up for sale. It was purchased by Giles Kenworthy who very quickly becomes an irritant to all of the other neighbors, and it is Giles who is murdered with a crossbow shot into his throat. Detective Hawthorne comes to the scene to solve the murder, and Horowitz is there to gather material for his next novel. The reader is provided with a great cast, any of whom had a motive to kill Kenworthy. There are artful misdirections, and there was the usual tension between the two main players.

The sixth book is entitled A Deadly Episode, and I’m in line to get it, estimated at another seven weeks although there are 47 copies in use. I’ll impatiently wait for it to become available.

Long Lost Midwife

 Long Lost Midwife by Skye Smith is a type of novel that I rarely read. This is a period piece which occurs during the early 1930’s in St. Louis, and the main themes are racism and misogyny. As a result of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state and even though more than 100 years had passed since then, St. Louis remained a totally segregated state. Former slaves had been freed, but the racial divide was intact. Although African-Americans were hired as employees by whites, any socializing between the races was forbidden. At the same time, in a convention of absolute hypocrisy like the owners of slaves before the Civil War, white men continued to seek black women as sexual partners. That sexual activity resulted in children of mixed races who were often rejected by both blacks and whites.

In St. Louis, there were separate police departments, separate churches, and separate hospitals. The disparity of wealth between most whites and blacks was significant. Although white families had transitioned from having babies at home, blacks continued to depend on midwives to deliver their new babies, and it was just such a situation that led to the main storyline.

Pamela Dorset, a young wealthy white woman was about to give birth to her first child. Although her husband, parents, and in-laws expected her to have the baby in the hospital, as the result of her own anxiety about the delivery, she wanted to have her former nanny, Miss Minnie, present at the time of her birth, and such was not allowed in the all-white hospitals. She did give birth to a healthy boy, but she seemed to have been lost in a severe postpartum depression. Her husband had no understanding of her emotional problems. She had not seen Ms. Minnie in many years, and no one would help her find Miss Minnie. Her desperation increased and her emotional status deteriorated.

It was in the midst of Pamela’s search that Miss Minnie (aka Minerva) was found in her own room with her throat slit. There seemed to be many possible killers, but most notable was Pamela’s father. It was his secret that he had been constantly seeking black women to take to bed. Miss Minnie had been one of his early mistresses. He was desperate to keep that a secret, and given his status as one of the wealthiest men in the city, he certainly had the political power to keep his secret from being discovered and tried.

Because Pamela no longer believed in segregation, and she discovered that it was her father’s love affair with Miss Minnie that led to her own birth (and that of a brother). However, she was caught between her own family’s rejection of her, and she could never gain favor with the very blacks she supported. There was also a story about a little black girl who would mysteriously appear at Pamela’s emotionally critical moments. She was never sure if the girl was real or if she was merely hallucinating the presence of this child.

The book was thought provoking, and it would seem that the multiracial society in the United States, in many ways, has made little progress regarding racisim in the last 200 years since the Missouri Compromise. The author succeeded in portraying the agony of racism and mysogeny for all parties.

The Twist of a Knife

 The fourth of six books in Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne & Horowitz series is a bit different than those that preceded it. Once again, author Horowitz lies a path full of possible suspects, and the fictionalized Horowitz was always a step behind figuring out all the clues. In The Twist of a Knife, rather than have the fictionalized author sort of take the role of Watson, like in the Sherlock Holmes series, Horowitz himself was accused of murdering the critic who harshly critiqued his most recent play. Again, the antagonist for detective Hawthorne and his reluctant bibliographer Mr. Horowitz was the buffoon, Deputy Inspector Cara Grunshaw. Grunshaw is angry that Hawthorne had made such a fool of her in a prior case, and she is determined to get even with them. She provides an apt comedy figure for the seriousness of a bloody murder. After learning about all the possible suspects, the reader is led to a remarkable closing scene in which Hawthorne solves the case. All possible suspects have been called to a room where Hawthorne leads his understanding of what happened and then reveals the killer.

Once again, I’ve been successfully entertained by Horowitz’s plot, subplots and lively characters. This is a series that deserves to be read in the order of publication, and I’ve already begun the fifth book. I think this is delightful writing and you will be so happy that you chose to dive in.

A Line to Kill

 A Line to Kill is the third book in the six-book series written by Anthony Horowitz, the series being called Hawthorne & Horowitz. Please refer to my reviews of the first two books, The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death. I’ve enjoyed Horowitz’s semi-fictionalization of himself as the unwilling biographer of ex-Detective Daniel Hawthorne. It is the real author’s intent to write something about the relationship between Hawthorne and himself, akin to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. In the novel, although it was Hawthorne who approached Horowitz to write books about him, he remains aloof from revealing details about his own life. So, the question that the fictional author constantly faces is how to write a book about a man who won’t reveal his own history and thought process. It is Hawthorne who can see and analyze clues in a manner that no one else can do. The fictional Horowitz is constantly frustrated by his inability to understand the clues and discovery process the way Hawthorne does.

In this novel, Horowitz has completed the first book in his series about Hawthorne, and they travel to a book festival on Alderney Island, which is just 12 miles off the coast of France, in the English Channel. The population of the small island is currently in an uproar over the plan to build an important relay station for underground cables. On the one hand, the plan would provide every inhabitant of the island with annual proceeds, but on the other hand, the construction process is likely to mar the scenic beauty of the island. The islanders are spit on the topic and anger abounds. The book festival is being sponsored by a wealthy man Charles le Mesurier, who would likely financially benefit from the installation which would happen on his lands. Charles is found murdered, and then his wife disappears.

There is a rich cast of characters, and as was the case with the first two books, the author provides very clever misdirection to the reader. There were other authors who were present for the festival, a man who Hawthorne had been accused of throwing down a flight of stairs causing him to be permanently disabled, and there were islanders who were extremely upset about the construction plan. There is wonderful misdirection provided by Horowitz. This is good stuff, and just like the first two novels, A Line to Kill gets my very favorable recommendation.

 

The Swiss Agent

 

The Swiss Agent, by Anna Pitoniak, is a true espionage/spy thriller. I haven’t read a good story like this in a long time. What’s different about the novel is that the two key figures are both women who have long careers with the CIA. The action in the book centers around the efforts by Bosnia to join NATO which is favored by the US and disfavored by Russia. It’s a story of great wealth and great bribes as both the superpowers are attempting to get Turkey to vote what is favorable to them. In the NATO charter, only one negative vote among all the NATO nations would be enough to kill the Bosnian effort. It’s clear that Turkey’s vote will go to the highest bidder, but trickery is required to get the money out of Russia at times when its funds are being blocked from transfer. Both women have struggled with being in a mostly male endeavor, with the cost to their personal lives as the result of being a spy, and with their ability to trust each other. Who is really an agent for the US and who is not? Who is playing a long game, and who is not? What do you do with a US President who is much more interested in doing what’s best for him as opposed to what might be best for his country.

This is a good and well written story. It certainly gets a strong recommendation from me.

 

The Sentence is Death

 The Sentence is Death is another NYTimes best seller. This is the second book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz six-book series. As previously described in my review of The Word is Murder, Author Anthony Horowitz fictionalizes himself as the biographer of private investigator Daniel Hawthorne. It was Hawthorne who approached Horowitz to write a book about him and his cases. Horowitz stated intent is to write in the mold of the Sherlock Holmes series in which Dr. Watson is Holmes partner who can never keep up with Holmes talent for solving crimes. Hawthorne in a Holmes-like fashion observes various details that others miss and then solves complicated crimes that baffles everyone else.

In this second novel, it’s a divorce lawyer, Richard Pryce, who has been killed, and the author presents a cast of characters who could have had a motive to kill the barrister. Once again, I listened to the audiobook format, and while the narrator, Rory Kinnear generally excels at performing the voices of so many different characters, his falsetto voice for Deputy Inspector Cara Grunshaw, is actually hysterical. Hawthorne made no secret of the fact that he thought she was an idiot, and the voice of Grunshaw fit his contempt for her.

Known as the “Blunt Razor” Pryce was famous for his absolute honesty even if it hurt the case for his own clients. In a nasty divorce case, one of his clients and the client’s wife were both hiding significant streams of income and assets from each other. Pryce had apparently discovered their lies and although the divorce matter had been settled, he seemed to be intent on reopening the matter, Both the husband and wife could have had a motive to kill him before he had made his revelations. There were other deaths like that of Gregory Taylor who apparently fell in front of a train, and the earlier death of Charles Richardson who died in a caving accident six years earlier. Pryce, Taylor, and Richardson had been college buddies.

There were multiple skillful misdirections by the author, so just like the first book and similar to the experiences of Watson and the fictionalized Horowitz, the real murderer was not revealed until the end of the book, and it was much to my surprise when author Horowitz revealed just who that was.

This second book was even more fun than the first. I’ve already started the third book, A Line to Kill, and I’ve downloaded the fourth, The Twist of a Knife. My advice, don’t you dare miss this series. It’s a delightful discovery for me.

The Rust Forest by Anders de la Motte

 

Meet Leonore (Leo) Asker. An ambitious detective in the Malmo (Sweden) PD in line for a significant promotion. Her mom is politically connected. But her father (Prepper Per) is quasi-hidden. Seems he developed an AI tool for the company he worked for and was expecting a substantial financial boost for his work. But the company decided otherwise squeezing Per out. He decided to lash out at said company and then went on the run and remains mostly hidden in and around Malmo.  

A vengeful colleague with the police has it in for Leo and attempts to derail her promotion. Gets her assigned to a do nothing unit (think Slow Horses, the acclaimed Apple TV series featuring Gary Oldman). Leo is assigned an unsolved case of murder 10y previous. A young woman was killed in the forest around Malmo. Throat slit and left to die in a old agricultural factory building. Only unusual clue was a missing ring finger. Everyone assumed is was her husband, but he's thought to be in the wind. 

This factory building sits in The Rust Forest, so named because of mineral runoff has discolored the land and water. Some hard cases live in and protect the forest. Trespassers take their lives into their own hands. Our story opens in earnest with a couple of 20somethings exploring the various buildings for their YouTube channel; UrbEx (for urban explorers). They are surprised by what might be a spirit of sorts and take off.

See, The Rust Forest is thought to be inhabited by spirits of a centuries old murder whose remains were found sometime ago. Now on display at the city museum: The Gray Maiden.  Somehow, the death of the wife at the hands of her husband and The Gray Maiden are somehow connected and it's up to Leo and her cadre of misfit cops to find out who killed the wife and what are the connections to the monied and well-heeled of Malmo that keep popping up. 

Leo's investigation runs into more blind alleys and dead ends than should be allowed by law, but keeps on digging even after being told in no uncertain terms to hand off the case to the Cold Case unit else lose her promotion. She's got to the end of the weekend to gather all her material so that Cold Case can effectively be lost in storage.

This is the 3rd Leo Asker book (after The Mountain King and The Glass Man). Both were international best sellers. Easy to see why. De la Motte is quite adept at weaving a complex tale and bring it to a rip roaring finish. Asker is bullheaded, resourceful, skilled at martial arts, firearms, and motorcycles. Every guys dream, right? It's been a while since I last read a book by a Scandinavian author. But having read this one, I'm definitely checking in with the library about The Mountain King.

Oh yes. If you recall, I'm forever saying pay attention to the publishers. That mysteries and thrillers from Emily Bestler Books have been consistent winners. Color me surprised when I noticed that this is another in the long line of Emily Bestler Books. Think I could read exclusively Emily Bestler Books and be quite happy and occupied. 

Thanks to NetGalley for the book in exchange for an honest review. 

ECD  

 

The Word is Murder

 It always amazes me when I run across yet another prolific mystery writer that I’ve never heard of. Anthony Horowitz is one such person, a British novelist and screenplay writer. He has a 14-book series about a teenage spy named Alex Rider, but that’s not the one I just finished. He has written about 50 novels in total. I saw a recommendation in the New York Times Book Review for his 6-books called the Hawthorne & Horowitz series. These are detective novels in which he writes himself into the story. It is the authors intention to create a series in which he becomes the best friend of a great detective like Sherlock Holmes and his buddy, Dr. Watson. The detective in Horotwitz's story is Daniel Hawthorne.

The first book, The Word is Murder, is available in audiobook format, so I jumped on that. The books are Narrated by Rory Kinnear, and he is an exceptional interpreter and creator of the multiple figures about whom Horowitz writes. In this story, the characters get to know each other, but they hardly achieve anything close to friendship until the very end of the novel. The story takes place around the horrible car accident in which one of two young brothers is killed, and the other is left permanently damaged, requiring lifelong care. Even though the woman, Diana Cowper, who was driving the car that struck the boys fled the scene of the accident, she was only given a sentence, the equivalent of only a slap of the wrist. It was 10 years later that Horowitz & Hawthorne enter the scene of the death of the woman who had struck the boys. She had expected to die in the immediate future. The reader meets her as she enters the funeral home owned by funeral director Robert Cornwallis where Diana announced her detailed plans for her own funeral. Meanwhile, although Hawthorne will reveal nearly nothing about himself to Horowitz, it is Hawthorne who challenges Horowitz to write a novel about his detective wizardry. 

As with all great writers, I did not see the end coming until the very end. This book is filled with rich characters and a fascinating main plot and multiple subplots. While I loved the audiobook, surely this would be a wonderful read. I’ve already downloaded the second book, The Sentence is Death.

Harvest Season

 

It has happened again, unfortunately. I read the first book in the series The Seasons of Carnage, the book having been Tourist Season. I liked that book well enough to read the second one, Harvest Season. However, I did not get very far with this audiobook. Perhaps the best part was the prologue in which the author warned the reader about the multiple kinds of trauma that would be involved in the story. Really, it was an invitation for voyerism, which of course is a part of the character of this reviewer. Clearly, the author has vast knowledge of those subjects, or at least, a great imagination. 

The story in Harvest Season has to do with the romantic relationship of two serial killers. Admittedly, I did not get very far with the story. While I did not find the two readers to be problematic, the material was just too silly and almost flap stick. There are times when I like wisecracking detectives, but somehow, this story just did not grab me. I felt nothing in common with the primary characters, and I did not care what was going to happen to them. I was only into the book a short way when I chose to abandon the effort, and I'm not interested in reading the third novel that has been promised.

Ironwood

 

Connelly is the king of thrillers and the men at MenReadingBooks have read most of his 40+ novels. Just one year ago, I read and reviewed the first book in a new series, Nightshade, which I rated very highly. The author is able to keep his stories and characters very interesting and believable.

In Ironwood, Detective Stilwell suspects that one of his new deputies on Catalina Island is a serial killer. A murder has occurred, but it happened a few years earlier, and this became a thing when the woman's bones were uncovered in a remote area of Catalina Island. It turned out that there have been a series of murders of women who were hiking alone through wilderness trails in California. Stilwell continues to get flack from his captain who works out of his office in Long Beach. When the protagonist is trying to set a trap, another one of his new deputies is murdered, and a second officer is shot in the throat but survives. It seems corruption is rampant on Catalina.

Once again, Stilwell, or "Stil" as he is called by most people he knows, has found life on Catalina as highly desirable, compared to his life on the mainland, or "overland" as the people on Catalina call it. Usually, as was initially the case with Stil, a transfer to Catalina was a punishment for having done something wrong. However, he began to realize that being sent to the island was just what he needed. His girlfriend Tasha has been promoted to acting Harbor Master, and their relationship is evolving. The story involves corruption, cartel murders, small crime, and Stil's relentless pursuit of clues in the face of a captain who is mostly focused on any publicity that would make his operation look bad. 

I consumed this story in audiobook format, and the reader was excellent. Like nearly all of Connelly's books, it gets a highly favorable review from me. You won't be disappointed.

The Keeper

 

I should start by saying I've not been attracted to Tana French's writing for many years. I have reviewed six of her books, but none lately. My reaction to her is suprising to me since she has been revered by so many readers, and she obviously has a huge following. I got this book in audioformat and I tried to listen to it twice, about two weeks apart, and I simply could not concentrate on the material. When my mind wonders to the grocery list or some item on my to-do list, it's not a good sign. I did not get far in the book, probably less than 30 pages. I found the audiobook's reader to be a bit too melodramatic, so maybe it was the reader, maybe it was the material - I suspect it was a little of both. I can't give this successful author a good review or recommendation for purchase of this novel. I decided the book would not get a third try, so I'm returning it unfinished to Libby.

Judge Stone

Judge Stone was co-authored by James Patterson and Viola Davis. There are at least a dozen reviews in this blog of Patterson’s prolific works, but most of those have been written by other reviewers. I tend not to seek out his books. However, because Viola Davis, an incredible actress, was his co-author and because she was reading the entire story for the audiobook, I chose to take it on. Those were good decisions.

The novel is about a 13-year-old black girl, Nova, who was raped in Alabama, and then she became pregnant. She knew her mother did not believe in abortion. At the young of age 28, her mother had already birthed four children, and Nova was the oldest who was immediately given responsibilities to help raise her siblings. Feeling caught between her own wish to abort the child and her fear of her mother’s reaction to learning she was pregnant, and when was having significant first trimester symptoms, Nova went to the school nurse who then discovered her pregnancy. At the time, Alabama had the most strict anti-abortion laws in the country. Anyone who was found to have assisted another person to get an abortion was guilty of a Class A felony, meaning a long jail term. The nurse then took her to a local doctor who knew the law, but who disagreed with denying this child an abortion.

Viola played the role of Judge Stone who then contended with the controversy when the abortion became public news.  The doctor was arrested. The DA was relentless in pursuing the doctor’s punishment. The case landed on Judge Stone's docket. She was under assault by the town people, as well as the thousands of people that descended on the small town to protest with religious fervor.

I thought this book addressed all of the social issues involved in this story with compassion. The cast of characters, those that supported Judge Stone and those who hated her, was a very rich and powerful novel. While some of the details were predictable, the ending was not what I expected. Although heartending, it was so enjoyable to hear Viola address this most important topic with depth and wisdom. This was a 5/5 read.

 

The Silver Fish

 The Silver Fish by Connor Martin is an espionage story that mostly place in West Africa, mostly in Ghana. It caught my interest based on the location. I’ve not often seen a thriller novel based in West Africa. I was in both Senegal and the Ivory Coast several decades ago, and my daughter just returned from a work project in Ghana. I remember eagerly listening to a professor who had moved to a remote area of Nigeria in the 1930’s. I hoped that this novel would live up to the spellbinding experience I felt in those lectures. Unfortunately, the quality and vitality of the story simply didn’t measure up to my expectation. The book opened in Ghana with the assassination of a Nigerian telecommunications executive, and then quickly turned to the efforts by both China and the United States to have controlling interest in Ghana’s local politics.

Primarily, this novel was based on the location of Ghana being where undersea high speed telecommunication cables came together. Thus, whatever information the United States was sending overseas would have to pass through these fiber optic cables. The Chinese were trying to tap into the cables in order to know what the U.S. was doing, and the U.S. was trying to keep them from doing so. Various spies, including double agents were involved in this effort, and large bribes were being paid to local politicians as well as operators of these systems. A journalist was trying to get information about this high profit enterprise for the story of her lifetime. 

Although I did finish the book, I never got particularly interested in the outcome for the protagonist, Danielle Moreau. While James Aidoo, a young male Ghanian was sometimes interesting, his presence had an uncertain importance as he interacted with both Chinese and American agents. So, as the book wore on, it just never led me to be excited about the material. I can’t give a favorable recommendation for this novel.

Seldom Seen Road

Seldom Seen Road by John Degen (Latitude 46 Press)

I just finished Seldom Seen Road, a new murder mystery by John Degen. This is Mr. Degen’s third novel and the first featuring Mark Roth as a widower amateur detective. 

The setting of rural Ontario north of Toronto allows Degen to use his detailed knowledge of the area to immerse the reader into Mark’s daily life. The local color, especially the diner where everyone knows your business (even if they don’t know your name), compliments the narrative. I appreciated the balance of detail and action; I rarely skipped ahead to get with the story. 

The murder of Paul Robichaud, a local environmental activist, is the hub of the wheel with excellent choices of spokes to support a complex but not too burdensome storyline. Mark Roth is assisted by his cousin Jeremy Roth who works as a constable and his daughter Stephanie, a criminologist in Thunder Bay. These characters serve as solid counterweights both in solving the murder and supporting Mark as he struggles to find his way after the unexpected death of his beloved wife. The plot has a nice proportion of lines including a uranium mine, aggressive real estate development, and an evolving marijuana trade. 

I really enjoyed reading this one. Not as much “can’t put it down” as “this was so engaging I didn’t want to”.

The Correspondent

 An off-genre book review:

This is not the sort of novel I would pick up without some outside interference. But, when I get a recommendation from my wife and one of my daughters (both of whom read more than I do), and one of my sisters, then I reluctantly stray from the narrower genre of thrillers, espionage, and murder mysteries. I seem to go far afield more often than my fellow reviewers in this blog, and I am often thrilled to have done so.

I listened to The Correspondent in what was a marvelous artistic effort to give this masterpiece a proper audio format. I replayed the last 10 minutes of the audiobook for my wife, and she commented that the literal voice given to Virginia Evans’ characters made it even better. We both look forward to the forthcoming motion picture of Jane Fonda portraying this old woman writing letters to her friends, enemies, authors McMurtry and Didion, and many other characters. I can’t think of a more fitting actor to play Sybil Van Antwerp.

Sybil much preferred to communicate through writing letters and not relying on email or talking on the telephone, although she did so when it seemed like the only way to reach out. Sybil said that as she wrote by hand, she took time to carefully think out each sentence so that she was writing exactly what she meant to say. Her writing was not always kind and loving. Rather, she could be abrupt and mean if she felt it was appropriate. This woman was adopted at the age of 14 months, and her parents were good in their roles. She was married and divorced, had two boys and one girl, lost one of the boys in a accident that occupies much of the book, had a distinguished career as a law clerk for a judge, made mistakes, and struggled with true intimacy, especially with her daughter Fiona. As the story progressed, Sybil struggled with the horror of the gradual loss of her vision and the deterioration of her other physical abilities.

The whole story was told through the letters and this led to multiple subplots, all of which the author brought to fitting conclusions. This is probably the most erudite book I’ve ever read. There was only a limited use of a narrator. The depth of all of the characters is something I don’t experience in my usual genre. In short, this book gets an A+, a 5/5 rating, and my strongest recommendation. I don’t believe I’ve ever specifically suggested that one listen to a book rather than read it, but I am doing so with The Correspondent. Maggi-Meg Reed was the narrator, and she was marvelous, and there were more than 12 other specific actors who played all of the rich cast of characters with whom Sybil corresponded. I’ve never seen such a successful effort to portray a novel in audiobook format. Grab this one and your life will be richer for the experience.

God's Country by William Kent Krueger

Cork O'Connor is busy loving life in Aurora. Gratefully retired from decades as a police officer, mostly as the Sheriff of Tamarack County, MN way the hell up in the North Country. Second wife (1st killed in an earlier book), sons and daughters (direct and in-law), couple of grandsons, close lifelong friends. Still runs a hamburger stand on the nearby vacationland lake (in northern MN, lakes are everywhere). He's what used to be called a 'half-breed,' half Irish (father) and half Ojibwe (mother). That term has gone out of style.

Aurora is part of the gateway to to the massive Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Several thousands acres of trails, lakes, portages, rivers, forest on the border with Canada. Solitude with a capital S. The state birds are mosquitoes and black flies. Cork and the 'menfolk' are all going on a canoe outing. Taking the grandsons on their first camping trip in the Boundary Waters. 

In prep, they stop in to check in with this local guide. Good thing to do when heading into the wilderness. The wife says her husband was just hired by a couple guys to head into the area for a few days. She was curious about these two characters. They were dressed like they'd just left LLBean. Not their usual clients. Cork said he'd keep and eye out for the party of 4 (a 2nd guide aide joined them), but given the size of the Park, it's doubtful.

Off goes the O'Connor party. They paddle a route infrequently used by visitors, reaching their first campsite. Exploring the campsite area, they come across evidence something untoward may happened, recently. They set off the next day and paddle to the next campsite. From the water, Cork sees smoke from a campfire. Through his binoculars, he sees his friend tied to a tree. Fearing the worst, Cork convinces the rest of his party to head back as protection for the boys. Cork presses on alone because that is what a sheriff, current or retired, would do. He pulls in and quickly learns that the 2nd guide has been killed and his friend has been badly beaten. 

These two goons want to be taken to a rock formation known to the locals as The Devil's Ass. They have a rough map that isn't detailed enough to find the rock formation. Unable to convince their guides, one guide is shot and Cork's friend beaten to give up the information. Cork mostly just ambles in and talks these two losers into letting the injured guide paddle (mostly float) back in exchange for Cork taking them to the rock formation.

Now Cork has no intention of taking them where they want. He just wants to keep them out in the open on the water for a few days until a search party finds them. They guys want to find something hidden in the rocks and then hightail it for Canada. Over the next 3-4 days, Cork has to keep these two fools calm, hopefully not see any other park visitors, and still find a way to subdue them for arrest (or worse).

As you might guess, things have a way of spiraling down allowing Cork lots of time for self reflection about his inner wolf leanings as he considers his options. Has to be careful. The two guys, one in particular, are stone killers.

This is Krueger's 22nd O'Connor book. I've read a bunch, maybe a dozen or so. Honestly, Krueger has never failed to disappoint. We've watched O'Connor's life as a cop, both the good and the bad, spelled out in smooth lyrical prose. Krueger's writing appears effortless. This story is told as though O'Connor is relating the tale over a campfire. The reader is a comfortable friend who is mesmerized by a close friend's history. Very readable. I'd definitely put this at the top of my Cork O'Connor experiences. Have to love it because it's primarily three main characters trying to survive the wilderness and each other. 

Krueger's also written some standalone books. One of which, Ordinary Grace, won the Edgar Award for best fiction novel of 2014 (Fiction's version of Best Picture). That book was astonishing (reviewed by the MRB boys) and remains one of my top 5 reads . . . ever.  You can't go wrong with Krueger. Solid, reliable, highly skilled, expertly plotted and presented. A storyteller's storyteller. You'd be wise to put this on your 'to-be-read' shelf.  And add him to your personal list of must-read authors. 

 But . . . 

It's not available until 18 August 2026. It's too bad you can't get to this sooner.  Don't forget. Make a note on your August calendar. Trust me. You can take my opinion to the bank.

Thanks to the good folks at NetGalley and Atria Books for the advance reviewer copy.  

ECD 

Misclellaneous Comment

 This is just a separate note about audiobook formats. I have begun to listen to more audiobooks, so of the books I reviewed in the last two years, about half were read by me, and the other half are ones that I've listened to. I've found more and more readers of the novels who I could not tolerate. It has caused me to abandoned some novels. I thought some readers were just overly dramatic. Some just had voices that I found annoying. In other cases, the pace of the reading was too fast or too slow. I plan to continue listening since it fits nicely into my lifestyle of doing a lot of dog walking, but I'm more aware of how much a bad reader can hurt my enjoyment of a story. Also, I think there have been a few excellent story readers who have kept me in a novel that I probably would not have enjoyed. I will try to carefully identify those books that I've listened to and make a comment about the reader's impact on the story.

Her Last Breath

 Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams was recommended highly in the NY Times Book Review section, and it was a dynamite thriller. I had a personal connection to the plot which surrounded the activity of caving or spelunking. There was an intense chase scene deep underground in some technically difficult areas of a large cave. The personal connection for me was my own caving experience. I was in college in southern Indiana when six guys from my fraternity announced they were going to one of the famous caves in our area and I accepted their invitation to go. It was not the only time in my life I had been in a cave, but this was not a well-organized outing. The caves were known to claim a couple lives each year when an unexpected rain trapped and drowned some explorers. Three of the six guys had been in the cave before and one said he was an expert in the circle trip that led from one room to the next before returning to the entrance. It turned out he was not an expert and got us lost. Rather than it being a mild stroll through the cave, it turned out to be an ordeal. It didn’t help when several guys lit up some joints, some of whom were under the influence before we started. It was a good gag when three guys jumped into a hole and turned out their lights just to scare us rookies. But, as we searched how to move from one room to the next, I ended up second in line, crawling between tight boulders at a 30 degree tilt downhill. After about 30 feet, by sticking a flashlight through a narrow opening, we could see the next room. I could hear the guys behind me arguing that they were not going to enter the tunnel. But then the guys who had yet to enter the downhill section saw our light, and literally just walked around a boulder and into the next room. Meanwhile, I was left in a precarious situation. By exhaling all my air , turning my head sideways, and squeezing through boulders, I was able to get to that next room. I was okay at the moment but it was later that I realized I had been in a potentially lethal position. It still scares me today when I reflect on the poor judgment that led to the dangerous event.

In the novel, two young women, Tess and Allie went caving together. Allie was the expert and had been pushing Tess to come along just to get her out of her rather boring existence. As they were about to enter the cave, they encountered a single caver who was much too friendly. Allie insulted him and told him to get lost, but then he followed them into the cave. There was an intrigue between Tess and Allie who had lived together during high school. Allie described the abuse that she had suffered from her own parents, so Tess’ parents allowed Allie to move into their home. Back in the cave, the unwanted guy shows up and shoots Tess. Allie runs away, but she repeatedly encounters scary situations. As she tried to escape the guy, she kept going deeper and deeper into the cave. When she finally escaped and told her harrowing story to the police, one senior woman detective thought the whole scene did not make sense the way Tess reported this event.

There are several unexpected twists and turns at the end of the novel which I did not see coming, and kept me attached to the story. This book gets my strong recommendation. It’s going to be a while before I can get away from the nail-biting cave action.

Deadly Tides

 Deadly Tides, by Raemi A. Ray, is the fifth book in the series entitled Martha’s Vineyard Murders. I’ve written very favorable reviews of the first four books: Chain of Pearls, the Wraith’s Return, Widow’s Walk, and Final Exit. The protagonist in all five books is Kyra Gibson, a London lawyer who has left on indefinite leave in order to live on Martha’s Vineyard. Over the first four books, we’ve been introduced by a cast of very interesting characters who once again take key roles in the current story. Kyra has been in a relationship with Detective Tarek Collins who was shot and badly injured in the last book. Since then, he’s been rehabbing. He has moved into Kyra’s house where he is getting frustrated and depressed over the length of time it is taking him to get well. He continues to be on leave from his security work with a private firm. It’s dangerous work and he definitely has mixed feelings about Kyra having received an offer to work there, a job that interests her, but she has not yet made a decision about it.

The plot is about some corruption that is happening on the island and the very rough characters that have arrived to put some muscle behind their activities. While we’ve learned much about other characters who are in Kyra’s life, Tarek has kept secrets about his own family’s dark past. It is especially his father who had abandoned Takek and his mother many years before, and who is connected to some organized crime by an Irish group.

To cut to my criticism, I did not find this book up to the same standard as the early four novels. It’s my sense that the writers of thrillers and murder mysteries must walk a fine line between normal activities and actions that are beyond the norm, beyond the realm of average lives. It what is not normal that makes books interesting, but if the content is too far from normal, then a book just becomes silly and unbelievable. When the action got going in this novel, Kyra had been kidnapped, and Takek was being pulled into the action although his security company had not yet released him to go back to the field. Finally, Chase, who more of a playboy than anything, is the son of a wealthy senator, and is allowed to be involved in the dangerous aspects of getting Kyra back and fighting with the Irish mob. Meanwhile, Kyra shoots off her mouth with the mob, which only increased the likelihood of her being killed. It was just too much out-of-the-norm activity to be believable.

Damascus Station by David McCloskey

Sam Joseph is a veteran CIA operative, sort of between assignments. He is stationed in Paris to be kind of available if needed to cover a conference where a number of high ranked Syrian officials are in attendance. The CIA is concerned because the Assad regime is getting out of hand with it's heavy-handed tactics at keeping the populace and political challengers in line. In particular, one of the heads of the Security Office may be behind the abduction, interrogation, torture and ultimate murder of Val, an American operative working in Syria.  Sam is joined by the BANDITOS, three Christian Syrians that have been contracted by the CIA primarily as sets of local eyes and ears who can move amongst the locals without attraction attention. I liked the BANDITOS.

Some of the CIA folks in Paris think it wise to put the squeeze on Assad, et al. They need someone on the inside. They carefully identify those in attendance, look into their background, and narrow down the field as possible candidates to go undercover for information about those responsible for Val's death. Back and forth go the discussions until one is singled out. Miriam Haddab. Born into a military family, works in the Palace, but doesn't appear to be enamored with the Assad regime. 

Once singled out (and OK'd by Langley), Miriam is now on the CIA's radar. Joe will make the recruitment pitch (multiple pitch's it turns out). As the job is mostly snatching some papers, Miriam reluctantly agrees.

Next task: teach her the skills needed. She is already skilled in Krav Maga so combat skills take a back seat to the more routine, and critically important, surveillance detection route; how to determine if one is being followed and how to lose a tail (and the skills needed for dead drops, brush passes, etc.). Sam takes Miriam on numerous days of practice to sharpen her skills in various locales as they inch their way to Damascus.

Arriving in Damascus, Miriam is introduced to the Chief of Station, a hard nose, profane, no nonsense experienced woman named Proctor who is noted for never going out without a knife and keeps a Mossberg combat shotgun close by. She has just two rules: get the information, protect the source. All else is negotiable.

So far, it's kind of straight forward. ID a recruit, sell them on the plan, teach, now go active. Once in Damascus, life gets far more complex what with car bombs, daily mortar fire, multiple factions at odds with each other and Assad/cronies and their own search for a mole. 

At at this point, I'll leave it to you. The fits and starts, the feints, treachery and betrayals, the lies and questionable truths, all get muddled up as plans start, stop, shift, get betrayed, resurrected, not to mention the bureaucracy between Damascus and Langley once the decision is made to take out a Syrian General that has to be approved in real time from half a world away. 

 McCloskey is a former CIA analyst so get ready for gritty details about the inner workings of the CIA in both Langley and in the field. You'll know way more about how the CIA does what it does. If you ask me, I'm kinda surprised the CIA office that has to sign off on such stories approved this. Sure seemed filled with skills and devices that I would have thought the CIA might just as well like to keep quiet. 

As with all novels, there are jacket blurbs with laudatory praise for the author and the quality of presentation. This one also has such praise. What stands out is that the stellar reviews come from former CIA Directors: General David Patraeus and Leon Panetta with Patraeus going as far as to say " . . . the best spy novel I have ever read." One of the recent books I read said that McCloskey was the best spy novelist writing today. I'd never heard of him until then. Damascus Station is his first book (published in 2021) and it was a finalist for the International Thriller Writer's first book award. He has four more books out that you can bet I'll be reading before too long. 

In short: this was terrific. Expertly plotted and told. A spy readers dream. 

ECD                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Talisman, A Time Travel Mystery

 Tom Catalano has provided us with another novel, Talisman, a Time Travel Mystery. I’ve been a fan of time travel stories since the age of nine when I discovered a series of time travel short stories in Boys’ Life, the magazine of Boy Scouts. I remember getting each monthly publication and loving those stories. I was always disappointed when it did not contain another time travel adventure. I rated the time travel story entitled The Little Book by Selden Edwards as being the best book I read in 2012. Catalano has a different take on time travel in his novel Talisman, and it was delightful, but you’ll have to read it to see how it’s different. I will give a way one unique feature to the story, and that was that time travel could only be backward, never forward. One definition of talisman is that it’s a good luck charm that magically wards off evil spirits, but sometimes, it seems to draw evil spirits to the owner.

Professor Henri Rutherford was an esteemed archeology professor at the University of Chicago, and he took a group of his students to the island of Antigua in the Caribbean for a summer field work experience. He was renowned for making discoveries on such excursions, so his students (John, Taylor, Harrison, Louis, and Hannah) were all thrilled to be with him for a couple of months of field research. John Shaw was the professor’s first year research assistants and a 4.0 student, Hannah Miller was a good student and a beautiful woman who happened to be the daughter of the university president, and Taylor was the book’s antagonist, especially to John. Unlike prior excursions, the group had failed to come up with a significant archeological discovery until the very last day, and then they did not have time to fully investigate it due to the need to get back to school for the fall term.

Away from the other student's digs, it was John and Professor Rutherford who found a skeleton buried at the bottom of a small cavern, and while they told the others about this discovery, Rutherford demanded that he keep secret what the skeleton had been holding in its hand, a heavy gold hockey puck-shaped item. It had undecipherable bumps and other markings. Rather than announce the discovery as was proper for any such archeological findings, Rutherford demanded that John keep this a secret. John knew that was improper, but he chose to honor his esteemed professor’s wish. Rutherford rationalized that he needed time to study and contemplate the device. Really, his initial plan was to sell the device on the black market for great profit, but then he simply could never part from the object. The first night that the golden puck was in his possession, he discovered that the puck caused him to experience what he called “time shifting.” He knew that John would not be able to keep the secret for long, so he chose to murder him on the island. However, Rutherford was befuddled when John did not stay murdered. It turned out to be an event that he kept reliving. It was recurring time shifting that was the essence of this novel.

The professor kept the talisman secret until he could no longer bear the burden of having it, and after insisting that John take it from him with a warning never to use it for time travel, Rutherford committed suicide. Because time travel was always backward, Rutherford and John found that time stood still, for them as they relived various events over and over. Life became entirely predictable, and there was no unknown future to be experienced. This was a good mystery and satisfied my appetite for a new time travel story. I think you’ll enjoy this unique take on time travel.