Treachery Times Two

Another Kind of Eden

James Lee Burke is a prolific author, having written 41 books since 1965. We’ve reviewed 12 of them, mostly in the Robicheaux series. He also has written 12 more in The Holland Novels, as well as some other fiction novels. The quality of his writing has always been wonderful, and he clearly is more literate and thoughtful that most authors in this genre. This being the 13^th novel that I’ve read by Burke, you know I love him. It was many years ago when I was looking for a new author and was browsing through the mystery/thriller section at Heathrow Airport, that a woman suggested I give Burke a try – a wonderful recommendation.

 

Another Kind of Eden is the first one I’ve read in The Holland Novels, and it is his most recent novel. The protagonist is Aaron Holland Broussard, and the next important character is Joanne McDuffy. Broussard has been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, specifically, multiple personality disorder. He’s in his mid 20’s, knows he had dissociative episodes and worries that he could do great harm to others and know nothing about it. He’s a vagabond, but obviously bright and talented. McDuffy is a beautiful woman, probably in the range of 17-19, and by the time she meets Broussard in a small western town, she has already had lots of relationships, sometimes with some highly questionable characters. Broussard falls in love with her. She’s trying to make her way as an artist, but she’s encountered an art teacher, Henri Devos, who is a sociopath. Broussard does not understand what she sees in him, but they are clearly competing with each other to win her over.

 

Burke introduces a number of characters to fill out the story. Broussard has found work on a ranch, and his ranch hands become part of the story, as does the ranch owner, Jude Lowry and his wife. It’s Lowry’s ranch competitors who are key antagonists, like Mr. Vickers and his son, Darrel, both of whom are evil and violent people. I enjoyed this novel until near the end when Burke seemed to introduce elements of mysticism. It was hard to tell because of the issue of Broussard’s multiple personality, his confusion of dreams and reality, and what may have been periods of flagrant psychosis. There was ample mayhem among the characters. This was not an uplifting story in any sense and did not end with any sort of clarity. It’s the first time I recall reading one of Burke’s novel and not having felt I could recommend it to my friends.

The Evil Men Do

 

The Wilkes Insurrection

Targeted by Stephen Hunter

[Full disclosure right up front: Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger books sit alone at the top as my favorite character series. Pretty sure I’ll like this latest installment]

Bob Lee is 74y now. Spend his days at his Idaho ranch splitting time between self-reflection in his rocking chair on his porch or fiddling around with rifles and ammunition because that’s what he does, that's what he is.

No matter how hard Bob Lee tried to shun the limelight, taking out Juba the Sniper (see 'Game of Snipers') in a sniper showdown means the press just will not leave him alone. And his notoriety with the gun has made him a bit of a cultural icon. Elected officials, unfortunately, prefer a more peaceable populace where icons should be the negotiators and law makers who think Neanderthals like Swagger need to just go away.

The elder stateswoman in the US House, Charlotte Venable, chairs the House Judicial Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. All House members, as we know, seek the limelight of the 30 second sound bite and the Sunday talk show circuit. In Swagger, she has the perfect foil to haul into her committee chambers to show the country just how wrong it is to deal with terrorists via the business end of a gun vs. other more ‘civil’ solutions. Ergo . . . Bob Lee gets subpoenaed. Let the agendas begin.

In deference to Bob Lee’s injuries from his confrontation with Juba, Rep. Venable has agreed to hold the hearings in Boise.

All that remains of the Shishani clan is Vakha and four nephews. The Shishanis are Chechen who were near eliminated when the Russians stormed that Moscow theater killing the terrorists along with about half the hostages. Vakha and his nephews fled and made it to NYC where they got by doing hard work for some Russian Mafia groups in the area. They were hired to transport a shipment of heroin bound for Mexico, but Vahka saw the shipment as a gift for them to bankroll the Shishani family as players in the US. 

A semi riding along an Idaho interstate well under the speed limit is unusual. Most truckers tend to drive 15-20mph above the limit. An Idaho state trooper pulls them over. Vahka tells the nephews to be cool. A few things about their paperwork were curious so the trooper calls for backup. The trailer doors are opened, and a hothead nephew takes out the trooper. A gun battle ensues and the Shishanis are taken in. Given that they were carrying forged governmental papers secured them a trip to an Idaho prison until formal proceedings can begin.

The Russian mafia folks are pissed that their delivery was hijacked. The Mexican cartel is also pissed that the product they’ve purchased, while not found in the truck, is still in the wind. A for-hire merc is given two tasks. First, take out the Shishanis. Second, if he can, get the lost product back. The guy goes by the name of Delta in reference to an earlier training stop in his career.

Bob Lee is facing what looks like two weeks of hearings. While the Committee of eight Representatives state up front that Bob Lee is not ‘on trial’, the progress of each day sure seems like he’s on trial and prison is the likely outcome. Representative Baker, a punk of a schmuck who sees the hearing as his ticket to the Senate, pulls some trivial point from an obscure law about the ammunition Bob Lee used to take out Juba. Saying it was experimental and un-approved by the military, Bob Lee effectively put the public in danger if a bullet was off target. ‘Wanton Endangerment’. Baker wants to send that detail to the DOJ who, given the current political winds, would likely put Bob Lee behind bars.

The hearings make for some engrossing daytime TV. Even behind bars. Vahka works up a plan. First, get them transferred to another facility. Second, during the transfer, take over the bus and crash the hearings. Third, take a bucketload of hostages and use them as their ticket home.

While Vahka has watched the hearings and respects Bob Lee’s career, a 74yo man in a wheelchair isn’t an obstacle. And fans of Bob Lee Swagger know that is the wrong assumption to make. Not to mention that Delta is lying in wait an opportunity.

Hunter presents this story as three parts. Part 1: The Set Up. Bob Lee, the Committee, the Shishani’s theft of the heroin, Delta’s assignment. Part 2: The Hearings. Part 3: The Takedown. Some of the best repartee occurs between Reps Baker and Venable with Bob Lee. Venable is a tough old battleax of a woman. Vain, foul mouth. Loves her vodka almost as much as she loves the power she wields. She thinks Baker is just another Harvard twit, but he’s useful for her purposes. The Shishais are ultraviolent with little care for human life. Delta? We don’t really know much about him (makes one wonder if he’ll show up in the next Bob Lee book, if there is one. He is, after all 74 years old).

The set-up introduces us to the players. The Hearings are an entertaining back and forth between opposites on all things gun related. The Takedown is a breathless dash over the course of about an hour before sunrise. You know that when Hunter starts inserting the time of day for each chapter that shit is about to get real.

If you’ve never read any of the novels by Stephan Hunter, listen carefully: no one (not Lee Child, not Brad Thor, not Jack Carr, etc.) can develop plot and characters and then stage a ‘takedown’ like Hunter. When I say breathless, I mean breathless. You will, like me, find yourself holding your breath. Start too late in the evening and you’ll get jerked back to reality when you realize the clock says 130am. First Hunter book I read was iSniper and have not looked back. Another stunning story from a thriller writer without peer.

Most of Hunter’s earlier books were published by Random House. I don’t know anything about the switch, but Targeted is published by one of my favorites, Emily Bestler Books. Again, boys and girls. Pay attention to those publishers. Emily Bestler Books.

Available January 18, 2022. Get your order in now. 

 And Thanks to the GREAT FOLKS at Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the advance reader copy. I audibly gasped with I opened the package containing the book.

East Coast Don

 

BTW: Hunter expertly weaves in a backstory of how the Swagger family 'began' in the Revolutionary War era and ended up in Arkansas. Quite interesting. 

Murder at Rat Alley by Mark de Castrique

PARI is the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. Sitting deep in the Pisgah National Forest SW of Asheville. Started out as a NASA site for keeping in touch with the Apollo program. After NASA, it became part of an intelligence gathering network where Russia and the US were tapping the other’s communications. With the end of the cold war, it became a research setting for astronomers. And with that come the alien nuts and conspiracy wackos. Asheville is ground zero for alien watchers (all that is true).

The hot dry summer means forest fires. And one is dangerously close to PARI. Firefighters use a bulldoze to dig in a fire line around PARI. In the process, a skeleton is dug up. When something like surfaces, law enforcement assumes the worst until proven otherwise. The Asheville ME’s first observation is murder given the gaping slash across the back of the skull.

Sam Blackman is a veteran of Afghanistan, minus his lower left leg. He partners with Nakayla Robertson in a PI business. They are lunching with a colorful bunch of locals, including a latter-day hippie/defense attorney and a few from his office. When Sam brings up the skeleton, the lawyer’s paralegal Cory goes pale, saying, ‘It’s him.’

‘Him’ would be her uncle she never met, Frank DeMille. He used to work at the PARI site in its Apollo days, but just fell off the face of the earth in 1971. DNA from her and the skeleton reveal the connection. Now they must tell her aunt and Frank’s sister up in Roanoke. Sam, Nakayla, and Cory drive up there. During the conversation, we learn that the sister’s husband, an army intelligence officer, were good friends. And that the officer died in Vietnam within a month of Frank’s disappearance.

Frank also had a girlfriend. A local mountain girl who worked at PARI site when it was with NASA. Her family wasn’t happy. Not one bit. Didn’t like that an outsider had taken up with her. And that’s not all. Given the location of the find and what it was used for when Frank disappeared makes for jurisdictional nightmare with local, county, state, and feds trying to work in an uneasy alliance. The cops are focused on the family. But Max and Nakayla do what every good PI should do. Follow the evidence no matter where it goes.

And it goes all over the place. Charlotte, Raleigh, Army chief warrant officers, Vietnam records, Putin (really?), alien abduction theorists, mountain family musicians, local bars and alleys, and (something I’d never heard of) the National Centers for Environmental Information (THE place for weather information. Their data storage facility is measured in the petrabytes – that’s a lot).

Wow. That’s a lot for a small book (6x9 inches, 252 pages) and yet the story doesn’t seem forced or cluttered. I read that the author has 40 years of production experience in theater and Hollywood. Obviously, that experience works because de Cristique is a very good storyteller.

I was at the local library picking up an interlibrary loan item and took a few minutes to stroll through the racks. Lots of options, but nothing that couldn’t wait. Noticed a new section promoting NC authors. Now I’m a sucker for NC authors so I glanced at some titles. Saw several books by de Castrique. Mysteries. That’s good. PI stories. Even better. All based in Asheville. SOLD! Asheville is one of my favorite places in the US. Then I see that this story spends a lot of time at PARI, the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, which is off a winding mountain road near Rosman/Brevard/Balsom Grove, NC, maybe a half hour from Asheville. All places I’ve been when camping and hiking while on the prowl for waterfalls. Familiar terrain. I checked it out.

I really liked this book. The setting was a delight. Easily identifiable characters. A smart and complex plot. And just enough ‘wink-wink’ dialogue to make it all more realistic. De Castrique was a chance find that will give me plenty of options when I find myself between books and looking for something comfortable. With around 20 novels to his credit, I don’t think I’ll be lacking for options.

Next time I’m camping in Pisgah, a side trip to PARI will be a must.

Head Shot by Otho Eskin

Even if you’re a DC homicide cop, getting shot at in your front yard is out of the ordinary. And that’s just chapter 1, page 1. Next day, you and your partner are called to a DC theater where the leading lady goes offstage after her last line and gets shot. Oh, forgot to mention that Detective Marko Zorn used to date the deceased actress back when he was a new-ish NYPD uniform cop and she was a starving artist.

But that’s just a sidelight. For some reason, the State Department has requested Zorn by name to be a part of the security detail for the visiting Prime Minister from Montenegro. Apparently, the request came from the visiting delegation. It’s not as though the Feds don’t have enough people to provide security, but SecState insists, much to Zorn’s chagrin.

The new Prime Minister of Montenegro is a liberal opposition leader who came up through a student protest movement back in the day. She was elected to their version of the House. A coup brought down a neofascist government, but not before the outgoing head of state orchestrated some racial cleansing. The primary ruler and brother fled to Chicago away from the mob bent on revenge.

Zorn has a side gig. He’s on-call for a fixer of sorts. A recent assignment was to find the brothers in Chicago. Just find them. That’s it. But as Zorn learns the atrocities committed, he lets it slip when and where the former dictator would be transiting from shelter to car. A crowd of ex-pats who had lost family arrives, surrounds the prick and beats him to death.

Right before Zorn meets with SecState, his fixer calls him again. Wants to hire him to provide some security to the current PM. Now he’s serving two masters. And he wants to find whoever killed his former paramour.

Two more people connected with the theater killing end up dead. A code clerk at the Montenegro embassy also ends up dead. It’s obvious that somehow, the two circumstances are connected because the MO of each murder is the same. And Zorn’s fixer tells him that one of the world’s most expensive assassins has been hired to kill the PM and Zorn before the end of her state visit. Juggling has become Zorn's middle name what with the two cases, 5 or so victims, local/national/international politics, his 3 bosses, local and foreign security. And this guy doesn't like to carry a weapon.

Eskin’s initial Marko Zorn was Reflecting Pool, a DC-based mystery that I liked a great deal. Zorn gets it done, legally or otherwise. Zorn knows DC and the political scene and Eskin keeps this plot moving with his foot slammed to the accelerator. The story takes place over the week that the Prime Minister is in DC – that’s a lot to squeeze into a week, but Eskin handles the packed calendar like a seasoned pro. Guessing we haven’t seen the last of Marko Zorn. With Zorn around, DC is in safe hands.