All you really need for a good nature thriller is a scary animal attack. True North supplies a satisfactory one, and throws in a scary human one as well, so nothing else is required for the reader here but a comfortable sofa and the off switch on the television remote control.
Don’t let the author’s formidable name spook you into saving her first novel for your more literary moments. True, this book is thoughtful, and will raise your consciousness about the anomalous position of Native Americans in the state of Alaska. Mainly though, it wants to alert you to the extraordinary ambiance of the place and give you a thrill along the way.
Bailey Lockhart carries baggage from a traumatic New England past when she becomes a bush pilot in the wilds of Alaska. She keeps the past at bay by buying a piece of wilderness land and burying herself in the routine of sheer survival. For six years it works, but suddenly the arrival of a naively arrogant young couple forces her out of her protected isolation and reopens her cache of hurt. What’s more, this painful episode comes at a time when the local native population has begun to splinter in its varying reactions to U.
S. government policies, and she is caught between renewed discomfort as a white outsider and her affection for the people, especially Kash, the leader of the more peaceful local political movement.
Eventually she is forced by circumstance and coincidence to come to terms with her wounded and wounding memories though not before death and a clarified love intervene.
Kafka is a certified wilderness emergency medical technician, comfortable in the wilds of both Alaska and Wisconsin, and has taught writing and literature at the University of Michigan and elsewhere. Her early brashly driven prose softens into a lover’s appreciation of a familiar country, where the human beings do not always live up to the land. As first novels so often do, this one improves before your eyes, gaining skill and grace with each succeeding page.
Alaska will always steal the show, of course, but read this one for the traditional thriller values of suspense and a good story. Popcorn is optional.
Maude McDaniel is a reviewer in Cumberland, Maryland.
All you really need for a good nature thriller is a scary animal attack. True North supplies a satisfactory one, and throws in a scary human one as well, so nothing else is required for the reader here but a comfortable sofa and the off switch on the television remote control. Don’t let the author’s […]
If you’ve read one Larry Bond novel (The Enemy Within, Red Phoenix, etc.), you’ve probably read them all. Of course, if you’ve read them all, then you’re like me, and you’ve continued to enjoy his escapist, globe-trotting thrillers and tales of semi-plausible headlong plunges toward the end of the world as we know it. Do the good guys win? I’ll give you one good guess. Are the bad guys really, really bad . . . I mean bad on a world-shaking, civilization-destroying level? Sure are. Is the technology pretty darned cool and yet at the same time frighteningly real? Yes again, and that’s the heart of Bond’s success, especially in his latest, Day of Wrath. Bond, who was an uncredited partner and consultant on Tom Clancy’s early books, knows his stuff, and his expertise shows in descriptions of everything from handguns to nuclear missiles.
The heroes of 1997’s Enemy Within, Colonel Peter Thorn and FBI Special Agent Helen Gray, return in Day of Wrath to battle yet another Middle Eastern terrorist overlord bent on destroying the decadent country of America. (One quibble: It seems sort of easy and predictable to make the villain an Arab . . . again. Surely there are bad guys elsewhere. In Bond’s favor, though: The top henchmen of key villain Prince Ibrahim are ex-East German secret policeman. It’s a new world.) The action moves from the forests of Russia to the streets of Berlin to Washington, D.
C.’s Virginia suburbs, with stops for gunplay at many places along the way. The reason for all the chasing is that Thorn and Gray are the only people who know the secret of Ibrahim’s “Operation,” a secret I won’t reveal here, but suffice to say the title of the book is appropriate. The duo is forced to take extreme measures to safeguard themselves and the secret in a typically nail-biting race to the “whew-that-was-close” climax. Along the way, the romance between Thorn and Gray that budded in the previous Bond book blooms brightly. Their between-the-gunshots romantic by-play seems a little forced sometimes, but gives a more human flavor to the out-there proceedings.
However out-there the plot gets, the kernel of truth and dangerous possibility that lies at its heart forces the reader to consider the “what-if factor.” I hope that if there’s a real Prince Ibrahim out there, we have more than just two people to stop him, but for now, the resourceful Thorn and the sturdy Gray will do nicely.
Reviewed by James Buckley, Jr.
If you’ve read one Larry Bond novel (The Enemy Within, Red Phoenix, etc.), you’ve probably read them all. Of course, if you’ve read them all, then you’re like me, and you’ve continued to enjoy his escapist, globe-trotting thrillers and tales of semi-plausible headlong plunges toward the end of the world as we know it. Do […]
n his latest thriller, Deep Sleep, Charles Wilson returns to one of his favorite themes: murder and mayhem triggered by a foreign invasion of the mind. The author of several best-selling scientific thrillers, Wilson has a knack for crafting riveting plot lines around kernels of scientific fact. In Deep Sleep, he focuses on treatment for sleep disorders, and ventures into a mysterious world of mind games played with hypnosis, Cajun voodoo and hallucinatory drugs. Wilson has chosen the South Louisiana bayou country as the setting for this absorbing tale of local culture with a 21st century face.
The action begins when a local deputy sheriff discovers the body of a young girl raped and beaten on the grounds of the South Louisiana Sleep Disorder Institute. The macabre scene reads like something by Edgar Allan Poe an antebellum mansion shrouded in mist rising from surrounding crocodile-infested mangrove swamps and partially obscured by hanging moss. When the victim is identified as a patient, Senior Deputy Mark French locks down the institute and takes a closer look at its fantasy fulfillment program, one that recreates wealthy patients’ dreams and fantasies with enough realism that they are recalled as true experiences by those undergoing the treatment.
French soon establishes that another patient is missing and may have stolen a car. Other suspects include a grotesquely deformed boy and his hardscrabble parents eking out a primitive living on the edge of the swamp, the institute’s sinister director and several members of her staff with violent criminal records. While tracking the missing patient through the steamy swamp, the deputies come across two more sadistically murdered victims whose deaths suggest that a second psychopath may be on the loose. The pace accelerates as French closes in on at least one of the killers. The stormy night scene of the hunters racing through a lightning-laced swamp with flashlights reinforced by a helicopter’s searchlight equals Hollywood’s best. Wilson is even able to weave a thin but appealing romantic thread into the violent tapestry that makes Deep Sleep a memorable reading experience.
John Messer writes from Ludington, Michigan.
n his latest thriller, Deep Sleep, Charles Wilson returns to one of his favorite themes: murder and mayhem triggered by a foreign invasion of the mind. The author of several best-selling scientific thrillers, Wilson has a knack for crafting riveting plot lines around kernels of scientific fact. In Deep Sleep, he focuses on treatment for […]
t voyeurism if the voyeur, the watcher, has permission to watch? Television shows like Survivor reel in huge audiences by giving viewers the sense that they have a secret window to the participant’s personal, private moments. But if someone knows they are being watched, in fact, invites the viewing, perhaps the table turns, the exhibitionist holds the cards, and the mesmerized voyeur becomes victim to the exhibitionist. David Ellis uses this seductive cat and mouse game to the hilt in his tautly crafted, provocative first novel, Line of Vision.
The protagonist, Marty Kalish, is a successful investment banker who has been to law school. He knows enough about law, lawyers and police matters to make him either smart enough to get away with murder or too smart for his own good. We’re not sure which. This is because the story is told in first person and while Kalish is devilishly fascinating, he may not be the most reliable source for helping us determine his guilt or innocence. For one thing, he lies.
For another, he seems to have an inability to accept responsibility and achieve fulfilling relationships, even with close family members. (In a sense, he became an unwitting “voyeur” as a child, and a witness to a haunting secret he harbors deep inside.) And finally, he’s an outright Peeping Tom lurking outside Rachel Reindhard’s house in the cold and dark, waiting to see her in the window. “A grown man sneaking outside a married woman’s house. Pathetic. Depraved. Perverted. All of the above?” he asks himself and we are not sure of the answer, having become voyeurs ourselves watching him watch her! Deciding whether Kalish is a hero or a hedonist is part of the intrigue of this novel, and Ellis does a remarkable job of keeping us in suspense on all fronts until the final, riveting pages.
Line of Vision is a legal thriller, complete with lawyer wrangling, questions of evidence and a hair-raising courtroom drama, but it is also a character study in which the mystery of Kalish the man is as spellbinding as the mystery surrounding the murder. An action-packed page-turner, this book will not only make you wonder “who is watching whom?” but force you to question the morality of looking just because there is something titillating to see. Is it sometimes wise, we must ask, to limit our own “line of vision”? Linda Stankard writes from Cookeville, Tennessee.
t voyeurism if the voyeur, the watcher, has permission to watch? Television shows like Survivor reel in huge audiences by giving viewers the sense that they have a secret window to the participant’s personal, private moments. But if someone knows they are being watched, in fact, invites the viewing, perhaps the table turns, the exhibitionist […]
Jordan Manning is a crime reporter at the top of her game, but staying there is proving increasingly exhausting. When she moved to Chicago from her home state of Texas, she hit the ground running in four-inch stiletto heels—which didn’t deter her from being first on the scene of a steady stream of crimes in the Windy City. As a Black woman, Jordan is the only woman of color at News Channel 8, and she’s the only reporter in her newsroom with journalism and forensic science degrees. Her experience and savvy serve her well, as does her empathy—a trait that isn’t always present in the highly competitive news business.
Because of Jordan’s empathy, plus her finely tuned intuition, the disturbing case of Masey James—a smart, well-liked Black teenager found dead in a park—just won’t let Jordan go. She had already been frustrated by the police’s unwillingness to declare Masey missing, and now authorities are in a rush to arrest someone instead of conducting a thorough investigation. Jordan is determined to not only ethically and comprehensively report on the case but also help solve it.
As the Wicked Watch is a compellingly realistic and timely first entry in Tamron Hall’s new mystery series starring the ambitious and fabulous Jordan, a woman not unlike her creator. Hall was an award-winning anchor on NBC and MSNBC, was the first Black woman to host “TODAY” and now hosts the Emmy-winning “Tamron Hall Show.” Her fiction takes on racism, sexism, media ethics and institutional bias, offering a fascinating inside look at the intricate ballet that is a live newscast.
Readers spend much of the story inside Jordan’s very busy head. The naturalistic narrative reveals her investigative strategies, conflicting emotions and minimonologues about everything from Chicago restaurants to her quest for a healthy personal life as she works to earn the trust of Masey’s family and neighbors, and edges ever closer to the truth about the killer she believes might strike again. It’s a dangerous pursuit, but to Jordan it’s just part of “a calling and a purpose larger than myself.” As the Wicked Watch is a promising start to a series sure to appeal to fans of badass women with mysteries to solve and something to prove.
Tamron Hall’s debut is a promising start to a series sure to appeal to fans of badass women with mysteries to solve and something to prove.
Tamron Hall has long been a household name. She’s reported on and anchored major news stories for NBC and MSNBC, she became the first Black woman to host “TODAY” in 2014 and her Emmy-winning “Tamron Hall Show” is in its third season. Now she makes her debut as an author with As the Wicked Watch, which introduces readers to Jordan Manning. A savvy and dedicated crime reporter, Jordan is determined to find justice for two young Black girls found murdered in Chicago, despite pushback from the police and ever-increasing danger as she gets closer to the truth. Hall talked to BookPage about life on the crime beat, her transition from TV to the page and why Chicago is close to her heart.
Congratulations on becoming an author! Will you introduce us to the intrepid Jordan Manning? We follow Jordan, a young woman from Texas, now in Chicago, who becomes obsessed with a case that comes in through a call to her hotline number. Jordan is a complicated and very interesting woman. She’s at a critical point in her career where a national network job is looming over her head as an option, but her ties to Chicago and the people there keep her grounded. She started out believing her path would involve forensic science. Through life and her journey, she realized being a reporter and investigating was more for her than being in a lab and analyzing information.
Did going from telling stories on TV to crafting them on the page feel like a natural transition? What was the hardest, easiest or most fun thing about embracing your inner author? The most interesting part of this journey for me was piecing together the case in my book and how it would be solved. It was inspired by two cases I covered years ago in which children were not given the justice or care they should have received, whether it was the victims or the children who were accused of a heinous crime. For me, it was a natural transition. I wanted the book to read like a newscast. I wanted it to feel urgent, with the tone and the experience of a reporter. I was able to reflect on personal experience instead of having to interview reporters and get their take on what it’s like.
You’ve had and are having quite the impressive career, complete with major TV network jobs, talk show syndication, an Emmy win and more. What made you want to add author to your resume? I’ve thought about the two cases that inspired this novel—one in Texas and one in Chicago—since the late 1990s, when I covered them. I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t know exactly what Jordan’s journey would be. In the middle of the night, it started to flood my mind. Perhaps being home more [during the COVID-19 pandemic] and needing a creative outlet in addition to the “Tamron Hall Show” was how this book was born. My experiences as a reporter on “Deadline: Crime” to reporting on the streets of Bryan, Texas, Chicago and New York City are all part of this journey.
“I wanted the book to read like a newscast.”
You’ve worked in morning television for some 25 years and must have that early riser routine down! Did that play a role in setting up your writing routine? Do you have a preferred writing spot, snack, music, etc.? Morning TV absolutely helped my routine. I wake up naturally at 4:30 a.m., and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were taping my show later in the day. Every morning I would wake up early, grab a cup of coffee and just start writing. Twenty-five years of this early morning routine definitely allowed me the space to be creative when writing.
As Tam Fam members will note, there are many similarities between you and Jordan Manning, from the cities you’ve worked in to a particularly fabulous haircut. What are some ways Jordan is different from you? Jordan is a lot more anxious than I am. Of course, I am eager to do things and I get excited. But I don’t think that I have the same level of anxiety as she does. She’s also much more noncommittal than I was when I was dating. She is very much about moving past each guy quickly. Not that that’s a bad thing, that just wasn’t my particular journey in dating.
Anyone who’s seen you on TV knows you have an eye for fashion, and Jordan’s also a snappy dresser—including her trademark stiletto heels. Do you have any fashion talismans that help you feel at home no matter where work takes you? I think for me, it’s my hoop earrings. No matter where I am, my hoop earrings ground me professionally and personally.
Chicago is the vibrant and dramatic backdrop for Jordan’s story. What about the city made you decide to choose it as the setting for As the Wicked Watch? Chicago was a transformational part of my career. It was my first major market; Chicago was the last building block before going to the national news. I also felt the dynamic of policing and community all fit into the landscape. The politics, the policing issues, the fact that the city is so segregated according to those who live there and reported on it—it was a setting that made sense for Jordan’s journey.
“No matter where I am, my hoop earrings ground me professionally and personally.”
Jordan contends with racism and sexism on a daily basis. Although she’s developed coping strategies, it still takes a major toll. What do you hope readers take away from your book in terms of what it’s like to be a woman of color in the newsroom? I hope that people take away the reality of being in a newsroom. It is ironic that many of the stories about these issues are reported by reporters who are also experiencing them. Imagine being a reporter discussing a company that’s gotten in trouble because of a discrimination case, and you are facing that same type of discrimination within your workplace. It was only recently that we started talking about these things within the news industry. That’s the challenge for female reporters and reporters of color.
Jordan has never understood why college journalism courses are lumped in with marketing and advertising courses. “The disposition my job requires is more akin to a surgeon’s or a psychiatrist’s,” she says. Will you elaborate on that a bit for us? I think what she means by that and why she compares it to being a surgeon is because it is so precise and so strategic. It is a very focused and fine line, and I think that people underestimate that. You can’t be off the cuff, you can’t go in without a plan. As a psychiatrist, you have to, for lack of a better description, get into someone’s mind. For Jordan, being on the investigative team, she has to think like a police officer, she has to think like someone who has done something nefarious, she has to think like a victim and then ask, “How did this happen?”
Your book shines a light on the differences in how criminal cases are treated by the police, the press, politicians, etc., depending on the race, gender, age and other attributes of the victims. Do you think there’s hope for improvement or change? I believe that there is hope, but if I’m honest, there are days when I think there isn’t. Whether it’s George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice or Breonna Taylor, for every example of progress, you are given the gut-punch realities of injustice. I think this book shows us both.
This is your first Jordan Manning mystery. Do you already have another one in the works? (No pressure!) Is there anything else you want to share in terms of what’s coming up next for you? I’m already four chapters into the next part of her journey. It takes her a little outside of Chicago, and we’re already starting to see more reckless behavior from her to show how committed she truly is to solving cases. Is she willing to put her own livelihood and safety on the line?
Is there anyone more qualified to write a mystery starring a crime reporter than journalist and TV host Tamron Hall?
Calcutta, 1923: Then, as now, the state of Muslim-Hindu relations evoked an image of a short-fused powder keg, awaiting only the striking of a convenient match. The murder of a prominent Hindu theologian provides said spark, setting the stage for Abir Mukherjee’s fifth novel, The Shadows of Men. Police Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee are tasked with unraveling the circumstances of the homicide before holy war breaks out in the streets and alleyways of West Bengal’s most populous city, Calcutta. Things take a complicated turn almost immediately, as Banerjee finds himself framed for the aforementioned murder and thus removed from the state of play, at least in any official capacity. But he and Wyndham have never been what you’d call sticklers for the rules, and this time will prove to be no exception. Their investigation, at times in tandem but more often in parallel, will carry them to Bombay, which is unfamiliar turf to both of them. There they will discover that there is more afoot than just age-old cultural and religious enmity, and that certain third parties may harbor a keen—albeit covert—interest in fanning the flames of mutual intolerance. The narrative is first-person throughout, switching from Wyndham’s perspective to Banerjee’s in alternating chapters, an unusual and clever approach that keeps readers dead center in the melee, while at the same time poised on the edges of their seats.
All Her Little Secrets
Wanda M. Morris’ debut novel, All Her Little Secrets, is a multilayered, atmospheric thriller with subplot atop subplot. In a 200-odd-word review, I can barely scratch the surface. The main characters are Atlanta corporate attorney Ellice Littlejohn, a Black woman who is the lead counsel for a thriving transport company; her brother Sam, a ne’er-do-well who skates very close to the edge of legality, and sometimes over the edge; her auntie Vera, once a ball of fire, now laid low by advancing episodes of dementia; and CEO Nate Ashe, a Southern gentleman who might be looking out for Ellice’s interests but who also might be a corrupt businessman attuned to the optics of displaying a minority woman in a position of power. Then there is a murder, and another, and it becomes next to impossible for Ellice to determine who is in her corner. Examinations of racism, sexism, ageism and classism (and probably other -isms I have forgotten about) abound, making All Her Little Secrets a very timely read, in addition to being one heck of a debut.
Psycho by the Sea
A handful of pages into Lynne Truss’ hilarious new installment in her Constable Twitten series, Psycho by the Sea, I found myself imagining it as a BBC TV series with an eccentric “Fawlty Towers” sort of vibe, perhaps with a screenplay penned by Graham Greene. The characters are delightfully overblown, the storyline whimsical (well, if a cop killer who boils his victims’ severed heads fits your notion of whimsy).The novel is set in 1957 in the English seaside town of Brighton, which is not the sort of place that jumps to mind as crime central. Still, a number of locals make a good living pushing the boundaries of the law, including Mrs. Groynes, the lady who makes the tea at the Brighton police station. Privy as she is to the daily departmental goings-on, she ensures that the constables will be conveniently far from wherever her crimes are set to take place. When the severed-head-boiling killer escapes from the psychiatric detention facility he has called home for several years, perhaps aided in that getaway by a staff psychotherapist, all manner of ghoulish things begin to take place in the otherwise somnolent resort. While Psycho by the Sea is not the most suspenseful story on offer this month, it is easily the funniest, the quirkiest and the most entertaining read of the bunch.
★ Silverview
When John le Carré passed away in December 2020, he left a gift behind for his readers: Silverview, one last novel from the master of espionage. The story goes that le Carré began work on the book nearly a decade ago, but it was held for publication as the author “tinkered” with it (a sly nod to his 1974 book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?). The tinkering paid off. Silverview is one of his best works, an intricate cat-and-mouse tale in which just who is the feline and who is the rodent is up in the air until the final pages. When bookshop owner Julian Lawndsley meets Edward Avon, he is virtually bowled over by the larger-than-life demeanor of the elderly white-haired gentleman. Together they hatch a plan to expand Julian’s bookstore. Meanwhile, British intelligence has launched an investigation into a long-ago incident in Edward’s life, one that suggests he may still be in the spy game. If this is true, it’s anybody’s guess who his employer might be, for it is certainly not the home team. Not that the home team could even remotely be considered the good guys, mind you. But I suppose treason is treason, irrespective of the morality of the players. Perhaps even more world-weary in tone than the le Carré books that preceded it, Silverview will make readers look askance at the sort of things their countries do on the world stage.
The Shadows of Men Calcutta, 1923: Then, as now, the state of Muslim-Hindu relations evoked an image of a short-fused powder keg, awaiting only the striking of a convenient match. The murder of a prominent Hindu theologian provides said spark, setting the stage for Abir Mukherjee’s fifth novel, The Shadows of Men. Police Captain Sam […]
Patricia Cornwell is back with familiar friends and at her absolute best as a novelist. Though Cornwell has tried other literary pursuits, nothing succeeds like Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the cast of characters around her who make mystery reading pure pleasure.
Dr. Scarpetta is growing older as is everyone and her sometime lover, Benton Wesley, is grayer. Her niece Lucy has changed jobs after leaving the FBI and now works for the ATF. Her familiar sidekick, Peter Marino, is beefier, smokes heavily and sometimes ruffles Scarpetta’s feathers. Generally, they mirror the human condition.
For the uninitiated, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is the chief medical examiner for the commonwealth of Virginia. She is also a consultant to the FBI, often called in on cases that are extraordinarily baffling. This time she has a real puzzler. A fire burns down the house and horse barn of a prominent and wealthy man while he is away, destroying some very fine horses. There is also a dead blonde in the bathroom of the main house. With an onslaught of mysterious fires and deaths, Dr. Scarpetta is increasingly bewildered but keeps her cool, even in the midst of a very personal tragedy. Evidently, an audacious and cunning killer is on the loose, but finding and unmasking him sets this mystery apart from the ordinary. Cornwell’s mastery of suspense is notable, and Point of Origin is certainly no exception.
This is a superb choice for anyone’s summer reading but the odds are that some will find it difficult to put down while the day turns to night, and night to early morning. This is, as the saying goes, a page-turner that will keep the reader utterly enthralled, wondering what will happen next.
Reviewed by Lloyd Armour.
Patricia Cornwell is back with familiar friends and at her absolute best as a novelist. Though Cornwell has tried other literary pursuits, nothing succeeds like Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the cast of characters around her who make mystery reading pure pleasure. Dr. Scarpetta is growing older as is everyone and her sometime lover, Benton Wesley, […]
Reading a novel by Sharyn McCrumb is like listening to the movements of a symphony: separate themes are introduced, explored, and expounded upon, until they come together in a melodic whole. The insistent note McCrumb sounds in The Ballad of Frankie Silver is the story of a young woman who killed her husband, and the justice that awaited her in the town of Morganton, North Carolina, in 1833. It is a true history that relies on the novelist’s art to make the theme of poor defendant versus upper middle class society resonate for our times.
Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, recuperating from a gunshot wound, has been invited to attend the execution of a man whom he arrested for two gruesome murders in the 1970s. To pass the time until the state electrocutes convict Fate Harkryder, the sheriff delves into the case file of Frankie Silver, a 19th-century woman tried and hanged for killing her husband with an ax. The connections he draws between the two defendants lead Arrowood to question his judgment about the Harkryder case. By the time Arrowood discovers further evidence that may exonerate Harkryder, it is almost too late to plead for the prisoner’s life.
McCrumb’s subtle storyline passes back and forth in time, as Arrowood reads of Frankie Silver’s miserable destiny in the writings of a clerk of the court that convicted her in 1832. Unlike most modern mysteries, the plot does not rely on a pool of suspects to lead the reader with clues. Instead, the building suspense is driven by Arrowood’s initial curiosity and gradual obsession with Frankie’s case, an obsession we follow as the novel slips between the centuries. Without a hint of preachiness, McCrumb leads us to consider the terrible toll of domestic violence, the assumptions rich and poor make about one another, and the barbaric anachronism of the death penalty. It is to her credit that these solemn issues never get in the way of a good story.
Reading a novel by Sharyn McCrumb is like listening to the movements of a symphony: separate themes are introduced, explored, and expounded upon, until they come together in a melodic whole. The insistent note McCrumb sounds in The Ballad of Frankie Silver is the story of a young woman who killed her husband, and the […]
In every city with a major military presence, a district can be found which serves the libidinal cravings of the personnel stationed there. The closer the proximity to the enemy, the broader the range of services offered. In Itaewon, the pleasure quarter of Seoul, Korea, arrangements can be made to satisfy the most jaded and unusual of tastes for the price of a package of American cigarettes or a bottle of Scotch. Still, staggering quantities of dollars and “won” are exchanged for products and services of a decidedly x-rated nature. The authorities, both local and military, tend to look the other way, as long as things don’t get too out of hand. It is the job of CID officers George Sueno and Ernie Bascom to make sure that things don’t get too out of hand. They carry a badge. (Okay, two badges . . . ) Buddha’s Money is the third outing for Martin Limon’s rough and tumble anti-heroes. The first, Jade Lady Burning, involved the criminal antics of a high-ranking officer; the second, Slicky Boys, found Sueno and Bascom deeply involved with an underground organization of thieves. This time, somewhat older and marginally wiser, the two are in a race against time to find an ancient jade skull which purportedly is inscribed with a map to the lost riches of Kublai Khan. Normally, this sort of venture would be outside their purview, except that the daughter of a retired Army man has been kidnapped and held for a particular ransom the jade skull. The kidnappers believe that the girl’s father, now a quasi-legitimate dealer in Asian antiquities, is the go-between in a deal to smuggle the skull out of the country, and give him a deadline after which his daughter will be killed. The only problem is he doesn’t have the skull. He turns to Sueno and Bascom in desperation.
The heroes are well-drawn, multi-dimensional characters. Sueno, the narrator, is an East LA orphan, for whom the Army is the only parent he has ever known, while Bascom, the contrapuntal brawling palooka, is happiest when he has a beer in one hand and a woman (or women!) in the other. This time, however, the major female attraction, the sensuous Lady Ahn, seems to be interested in Sueno . . . or is she? After all, she wants the jade skull as well. So, for that matter, does the nefarious Mongol monk, Ragyapa, who will stop at nothing in resurrecting his Evil Empire. Let’s not forget Choi So-lan, the bald little Buddhist nun, who has every intention of setting herself afire in the town square if the skull is not returned to her sect. And just where does Herbalist So, the enigmatic head of the notorious slicky boys, fit in? Buddha’s Money, of all the Bascom and Sueno novels, has the most far-fetched premise, with a latter-day Raiders of the Lost Ark feel. Still, the action is nonstop, the dialogue is crisp, and the mood is edgy and tense from beginning to end.
Reviewed by Bruce Tierney.
In every city with a major military presence, a district can be found which serves the libidinal cravings of the personnel stationed there. The closer the proximity to the enemy, the broader the range of services offered. In Itaewon, the pleasure quarter of Seoul, Korea, arrangements can be made to satisfy the most jaded and […]
Nelson DeMille hit a home run with readers in 1990, when he released the mob novel The Gold Coast. Starring an attorney, John Sutter, whose life – and marriage – changes forever when a Mafia don moves into the house next door, the novel was an unusual blend of action and midlife crisis story. On October 28, DeMille continues the story of wry, capable everyman Sutter with The Gate House. Ten years after the events of The Gold Coast, John and his ex – wife, Susan, have both returned to that same Long Island enclave. Their former neighbor is long gone, but his son has unfinished business with both Sutters – and there just might be some unfinished business between the exes, too. The Gate House promises trademark DeMille suspense and excitement.
Nelson DeMille hit a home run with readers in 1990, when he released the mob novel The Gold Coast. Starring an attorney, John Sutter, whose life – and marriage – changes forever when a Mafia don moves into the house next door, the novel was an unusual blend of action and midlife crisis story. On […]
Katherine Neville thrilled audiences in 1988 with The Eight, an intense debut novel that drew comparisons to Umberto Eco and became a major bestseller. The book interlaced the stories of two women – Cat Velis, a computer expert in 1972, and Mireille de Remy, a nun – in – training in 1790 – with the legend of a chess set that, when all the pieces are reunited, gives the user unlimited power. Neville has since published two other novels, but never returned to the characters from The Eight. On October 14, fans can read The Fire, a sequel starring Cat’s daughter Alexandra. When her mother goes missing, Alexandra realizes that someone is again in pursuit of the famous chess set. Her search for Cat takes her around the world, and uncovers more details about the chess set’s intriguing history.
Katherine Neville thrilled audiences in 1988 with The Eight, an intense debut novel that drew comparisons to Umberto Eco and became a major bestseller. The book interlaced the stories of two women – Cat Velis, a computer expert in 1972, and Mireille de Remy, a nun – in – training in 1790 – with the […]
Charlie Bradshaw is no Magnum, PI. Magnum is youngish, fit, trim, handsome. Charlie Bradshaw is middle-aged, balding, paunchy. Magnum drives a Ferrari; Charlie drives an aging, somewhat-the-worse-for-wear Mazda. Magnum lives in Honolulu; Charlie lives in Saratoga, a small town in upstate New York. Magnum gets his pick of Hawaii’s bodacious babes; Charlie has only recently moved in with a single mother of two teenage girls.
Charlie used to be a cop, but he had the uncanny knack for opening his mouth at the wrong time, to the wrong people. The chief of police would like nothing better than to yank Charlie’s private investigator license; there has been no love lost between them for years. Charlie’s relatives are all wealthy conservative business-types, pillars of the community; they all look down their noses at Charlie. Required by custom to give him the time of day, they will give him precious little else. So Charlie skates through his life on the thinnest of ice, eking out a living with security work, the occasional investigation, and odd jobs for the criminal element connected with the horseracing for which Saratoga is famous.
Charlie’s best friend is retiree Victor (” . . . call me Vic”) Plotz, a cheerful old codger with an eye for a scam and an easy buck. Vic gets recruited by an old mobster to retrieve a suitcase from Montreal. Upon delivery, the mobster will pay Vic two thousand dollars. If this sounds too good to be true, well, it is. Vic can’t help but tear apart the suitcase to find out just what kind of trouble he may be inviting. In the false bottom of the case he finds money lots of it. Concerned for his continued well-being, Vic calls Charlie. Charlie removes a hundred dollar bill from one of the stacks and checks it out while Vic delivers the balance. The hundred turns out to be counterfeit, and worse yet, the mobster discovers it missing. Hijinks ensue.
Written from the point of view of Vic Plotz, Dobyns’s latest has a different feel from the Charlie Bradshaw novels that precede it: a bit more tongue-in-cheek, the characterizations a little more broadly drawn. Unlike the previous Saratoga novels, in Saratoga Strongbox the central character is Vic, rather than Charlie. (This sort of thing is not without precedent in Dobyns’s work; he is no stranger to unusual perspective. In his excellent Aftershocks and Near Escapes he wrote from the point of view of a six-year-old Chilean girl caught in a massive earthquake in the early 1960s.) It makes for an interesting shift, revisiting the “same old story with a different twist.” Reviewed by Bruce Tierney.
Charlie Bradshaw is no Magnum, PI. Magnum is youngish, fit, trim, handsome. Charlie Bradshaw is middle-aged, balding, paunchy. Magnum drives a Ferrari; Charlie drives an aging, somewhat-the-worse-for-wear Mazda. Magnum lives in Honolulu; Charlie lives in Saratoga, a small town in upstate New York. Magnum gets his pick of Hawaii’s bodacious babes; Charlie has only recently […]
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