Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Published by Crown on June 5, 2012

One thing I’ve learned from reading Amazon book reviews is that many readers say they dislike books unless they like (or can identify with) a main character. Why, then, was Gone Girl such a huge success? The two principal characters, Nick and Amy, are despicable. They are selfish, self-absorbed, dishonest, and (at least with regard to one of those characters) totally evil. Yet readers love this book, and with good reason. Maybe Gone Girl will help readers understand that good fiction does not depend upon likable, virtuous characters.

I came late to Gone Girl. It’s likely that the basics of the plot are well-known but it shouldn’t be spoiled for those readers who haven’t opened the book (or seen the movie), so I will say little about it. Nick and Amy are married. Amy’s parents made good money writing a series of children’s books called Amazing Amy. Sales have dwindled in recent years and Amy’s parents have borrowed from her trust fund. Meanwhile, Nick and Amy both lost their New York publishing jobs. They move to Nick’s hometown in the Midwest, where Nick uses the last of their savings to open a bar with his sister Go. Financial burdens place a strain on their marriage.

And then Amy disappears. Disorder in the home suggests that she might have been kidnapped, but the police think the scene has been staged. A police investigation uncovers a series of clues that suggest Nick has done away with Amy. That’s all I’ll say about the plot.

The story is creative and original. It alternates point of view between Nick and Amy and, in so doing, causes the reader to reevaluate the two characters. Neither are people you’d want to have as neighbors, much less friends. But they are realistic characters, imbued with the kind of detail that brings them to life in a reader’s mind. At first, I disliked the two characters because one was too perfect and the other was too self-indulgent. Later I disliked them for entirely different reasons. The way Gillian Flynn transforms the reader’s perception of both characters as the story moves forward is the novel’s most impressive feature.

Flynn offers some strong insights into the nature of marital relationships, and more generally into the nature of men and women as they are and as they pretend to be. I also like the way she skewers self-righteous media stars (one is clearly a stand-in for Nancy Grace) who vilify men despite the absence of proof or a fair trial, happily destroying lives for the sake of ratings.

Flynn's prose is filled with wickedly clever sentences. This is an absorbing novel from start to twisted finish. If there are two characters in recent fiction readers might love to hate more than Amy and Nick, I don’t know who they are. Gone Girl is proof that readers don’t need to love the characters to love a work of fiction.

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The Girl in the Ice by Robert Bryndza

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published in paperback by Grand Central Publishing on April 24, 2018

The Girl in the Ice gives the reader a standard crime novel plot: intrepid investigator continues to pursue leads after being suspended for an insubordinate disagreement with the investigative choices made by her bureaucratic bosses, who avoid upsetting powerful people by focusing suspicion on an easy but innocent target. The plot also includes a human trafficking element, which is the current trendy crime novel crime. Standard plots and trendy crimes are fine if they are made fresh, and The Girl in the Ice manages to stand slightly above the pack of standard but trendy crime novels with interesting characters and a solid story.

When a fellow finds a dead woman in the ice, DCI Erika Foster is assigned to the case. Foster has recently transferred from Manchester to London, carrying with her some heavy emotional baggage. The dead woman is the daughter of a prominent politician (and a baron, no less). The politician happens to be the wealthy owner of a private defense contractor, so PR is important, as is a quick and favorable resolution of the crime. Foster’s Slovak background is considered good for PR given the similar heritage of the victim’s mother, until Slovak discovers that the victim’s mother considers herself superior to Foster based on the respective cities in which they were born.

The investigation leads to a pub where the dead woman met a man — a pub that people are afraid to discuss. One of the fearful witnesses ends up dead, but Foster’s superiors view that as a coincidence, not as evidence that a serial killer is on the loose.

Naturally, Foster disagrees with her superiors and concludes that a serial killer is, in fact, killing attractive young prostitutes. And naturally, the politician doesn’t want his dead daughter lumped together with prostitutes, which accounts for the reluctance of Foster’s superiors to pursue her theory. But even if the politician’s daughter wasn’t a prostitute, she might have had something in common with the other murder victims, so Foster ignores her superiors and her suspension and investigates the crime in her own way.

Despite my weariness with human trafficking plots, The Girl in the Ice held my interest. The focus is not so much on trafficking but on a murder investigation that branches in several directions, and the killer’s identity is nicely concealed until the big reveal. Robert Bryndza takes time to build his characters and establish atmosphere, but the pace picks up considerably as the novel enters thriller territory in its stretch run. Erica is a bit of a stereotype, but she’s likable, or at least sympathetic. The novel has obviously benefited from effective marketing by its original publisher, but I enjoyed it, even if some of the accolades it has earned are a bit suspect. The Girl in the Ice is the first in a series, and while I might not go out of my way to read the next one, I certainly won’t avoid it.

RECOMMENDED

Macbeth by Jo Nesbø

Published by Crown/Hogarth on April 10, 2018

The new police commissioner, Duncan, has vowed to sweep corruption out of the police department. Duff, the head of the Narco Unit, is on Duncan’s side. A tip encourages him to believe he can bring down the Norse Riders motorcycle gang and Sweno, its leader. He turns down help from Macbeth, who is sitting on the sideline with Banquo, Angus, and other members of the SWAT team in case Duff needs help. Also watching from the sideline is Hecate, the richest drug dealer in town and the man who tipped off the police about Sweno’s receipt of a new drug supply that the Norse Riders are about to offload from a Soviet ship.

One thing leads to another and Macbeth commits a foul deed in support of Duff, whose own deed is even more foul. Not long after that, three sisters sent by Hecate prophesy that Macbeth will be promoted to head the new Organized Crime unit. His wife, Lady, is pleased, but sees that the only path to the top for Macbeth is to kill Duncan. Lady is a cunning manipulator who owns a casino and wants Macbeth to advance so he can shut down a competing casino, but is she as cunning and manipulative as Hecate?

Duncan’s death alone will not bring Macbeth to the top; Malcolm must also go. That creates a conflict between Macbeth and loyal Banquo. Eventually Duff and Angus are also in Macbeth’s sights. No one who opposes the mad police commissioner is safe.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a relatively straightforward play about Macbeth’s descent into madness that accompanies (causes? is caused by?) his lust for power. Shakespeare purists might not like the liberties Jo Nesbø has taken, but given that the point of the Hogarth Shakespeare series is to draw upon the themes of Shakespeare’s plays to tell a modern story, I think most Shakespeare fans will be pleased with the way Nesbø has reimagined Macbeth as a modern crime story. Parallels to the play are evident. A drug called “brew” substitutes for witch’s brew. Three sisters brew the drug for Hecate while denying rumors that they add toads’ glands to the tank. Macbeth is haunted by the ghosts of his victims and sees dead men in traffic lights. Lady soaps her hands until they turn red. The city is at war, but it is a war between the police and two criminal gangs that also war with each other. Macbeth is sure that no man born of woman can kill him but . . . well, you know how that works out.

And of course, the parallels to the play are evident in the novel’s themes: ambition, manhood, corruption, guilt, betrayal, weakness, and in the end, justice. Nesbø uses Lennox to suggest that weakness is a natural reaction to threats made by those with power; cowardly submission to immoral commands may be shameful, but self-preservation is a powerful instinct, and it is difficult to judge people who submit to manipulation by more powerful forces rather than forfeiting their own (or their childrens') lives. Weakness is also a facet of Macbeth’s love of Lady, as described by Hecate: “The desire to be loved and the ability to love, which gives humans such strength, is also their Achilles’ heel. Give them the prospect of love and they move mountains; take it from them and a puff of wind will blow them over.”

The story mixes in modern themes, as well, including the excessive use of force as a law enforcement tool and manipulation of public opinion to support authoritarian action even when those in authority act lawlessly. Small moments of decency set ordinary people apart from powerful Macbeth and his corrupt followers, suggesting that decent but seemingly unimportant people have the power to change world. When a radio reporter urges listeners to “take to the streets and depose Macbeth,” the reader imagines that people might actually be able to empower themselves with collective action against despots and autocrats.

Nesbø illuminates the complexity of Macbeth’s character: villainous at times but troubled by a conscience; merciful at times, but not when mercy would stand in the way of ambition; a murderer, but as Duff points out (perhaps too charitably), reluctant to kill the innocent. He is driven more by his need to please Lady than by power for its own sake.

The Hogarth Shakespeare novels supposedly “retell” Shakespeare’s plays. The entries I’ve read have been good, but this is the only one I’ve seen that is penned by a crime novelist. Nesbø was a fitting choice to write about the murderous Macbeth. His choices are sound and his use of imagery is stunning. More importantly, Nesbø does justice to a play about justice.

RECOMMENDED

Twisted Prey by John Sandford

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on April 24, 2018

Twisted Prey would earn my recommendation just for this sentence: “Survivalists fantasize about SHTF day, when Shit Hits The Fan — Mexico invades Arizona, the gasoline runs out, all the chickens get eaten, and anybody who doesn’t have a root cellar in the backyard fully stocked with AR-15s, camouflage hats, hunting bows, and gold coins is doomed to a life of sexual slavery or death by cannibalism.” Like, totally. Fortunately, I don’t have to rely on a single sentence to recommend the latest Lucas Davenport novel, because the rest of the book is nearly as entertaining.

A senator’s SUV is sideswiped on a gravel mountain road, forcing the SUV over the edge and into a tree. The crash kills Senator Smalls’ lover. Smalls is sure that the accident was deliberate, but accident investigators tell him that there is no sign of a second vehicle’s involvement. The senator is from Minnesota, so he naturally calls Lucas Davenport for a second opinion.

Lucas is a U.S. Marshal these days, but his boss regularly lends him to politicians who need a criminal investigator because keeping politicians happy is good for the Marshal Service’s budget. Smalls believes Minnesota’s other senator, Taryn Grant, was behind the assassination attempt. He needs Lucas to prove that a crime was committed and to find out who committed it. Lucas obligingly heads to Washington and appropriately checks into the Watergate Hotel.

Lucas’ investigation leads him to a business that deals with military procurement contracts and to a number of shady characters connected directly or indirectly to that business and less provably to Grant. When a target of the investigation is murdered, Lucas has to deal with the victim’s brother (a lieutenant colonel) and lover (a CIA assassin), both of whom have been led to believe that the target was killed by Lucas.

As that story gets rolling, Lucas is distracted when his wife Weather gets into a car accident — or was it? His Marshal friends Bob and Rae join the investigation as Lucas tries to get to the bottom of the assassination attempt and a series of killings that are apparently related. He even finds himself working with the FBI, which gives John Sandford a chance to make fun of humorless, career-minded FBI agents. While the FBI is an natural target for Sandford’s humor, he also pokes fun at DHS, whose agents, for the sake of job security, pretend every crime they investigate is an act of terrorism.

Sandford often works a political environment into his stories, but he’s evenhanded about making both Republicans and Democrats the bad guys. (In this novel, a Democrat is the villain.) None of it is mean-spirited, but Sandford does have a clear-eyed view of the nation’s political environment. At one point, Lucas laments the impossibility of reading anything on the internet (including comments left on a website that gives home construction tips) that doesn’t quickly descend into caustic name calling by people on both the right and the left. “I mean, why?” he asks. “Is there a difference between a right-wing and a left-wing two-by-four?” That’s another sentence that makes the novel worth reading.

Politics aside, Lucas is more humane than most thriller characters. He’s a tough guy, but unlike most protagonists in tough guy novels, he doesn’t feel the need to let the world know how tough he is or how much he loves his guns. He’s secure, he’s self-deprecating, and he thinks of villains as people; he has no use for ideologues who dispense death casually.

The plot holds together plausibly, a rarity in modern thrillers. The ending might be predictable but it’s satisfying. In fact, the entire novel is satisfying as another example of Sandford’s reliable ability to tell a fast-moving story about down-to-Earth characters who are competent without being full of themselves.

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Greeks Bearing Gifts by Philip Kerr

Published by Marian Wood Books/Putnam on April 3, 2018

Having returned to Germany at the end of Prussian Blue, Bernie Gunther is now Christof Ganz, a hospital mortuary attendant. He washes the dead, a fitting job for a man whose life has spent his life surrounded by death. A second job as a pallbearer suits him just as well. But being near Munich, it’s only a matter of time before a cop recognizes him as an ex-cop.

The cop spends his off-duty hours working as a private detective. The founder of the All-German People’s Party (GVP) has hired the cop to determine whether the GVP’s new donor is still a Nazi. The cop is planning a double-cross and threatens to expose Gunther if Gunther doesn’t help him carry out his plan.

By the time that story concludes, Gunther has a new job as an insurance adjuster. His boss send him to Athens, where a claim has been made for a ship that was lost in a fire at sea. The ill-tempered German owner of the ship is a bit mysterious, in part because he carries a gun wherever he goes, in part because he’s refusing to make a claim for artifacts he recovered on a dive that he says were lost when the ship sank.

One murder later, Gunther finds himself chasing a Nazi war criminal named Alois Brunner who has adopted a new identity and whose connection to the ship owner is not immediately clear. Gunther also needs the help of a German scapegoat who is sitting in a Greek prison, the only German the Greeks have been able to find who might have some connection to the Nazi occupation, so they want to throw the book at him. Gunther hopes the man can lead him to a bigger fish and thus appease the Greek authorities he’s helping so they don’t hang him for the murder, notwithstanding their knowledge that he didn’t commit it. Gunther also needs to help a Mossad agent from Israel or face the prospect of catching a bullet in the back.

Greeks Bearing Gifts features the moral conundrums that make Bernie Gunther novels so worthwhile. Is it morally acceptable to betray a casual friend if the friend enriched himself at the expense of Holocaust victims? Is it morally acceptable to enrich yourself at the expense of Holocaust victims who are going to die anyway? Is it morally acceptable to withhold information about marital status from a woman who is interested in you if you fear that the woman plans to shoot you after she seduces you? Bernie is far from perfect, but his life is instructive as he struggles toward morally sound answers to those questions and others.

The plot of Greek Bearing Gifts has elements of a whodunit and a police procedural, but it isn’t either of those. Bernie manages to puzzle out all the connections between the sunken ship and the dead bodies, but as is usually the case, the real puzzle is not whether Bernie will get the girl (although he has a chance to get one), but whether he will still be alive at the end of the story. The plot ultimately turns on complex international relations after World War II, but the story works because of the morally complex life of Bernie Gunther.

It seems like each new Gunther novel shifts the direction of Gunther’s life, and this one is no exception. I’m not sure I will like the new direction Gunther is taking (I would hate to see him freed from the moral quandaries that define him), but we’ll see. While not as suspenseful as some Gunther novels, Greeks Bearing Gifts pushes all the morally ambiguous buttons that fans of the series have come to expect.

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