West by Carys Davies

Published by Scribner on April 24, 2018

John Cyrus Bellman leaves his daughter Bess at home in Pennsylvania so that he can take a journey, initially following the path blazed by Lewis and Clarke, with such detours as might be necessary to accomplish his objective. His wife is dead; his sister will take care of Bess, although his sister regards Bellman as a fool who will not survive the journey.

Bellman read a news article about huge mammoth bones dug up in Kentucky, and he believes such creatures, much larger than buffalo, are still roaming in the unexplored west. The article produced “a fierce beating of his heart, a prickling at the edge of his being, and there was nothing he wanted more now than to see the enormous creatures with his own two eyes.”

The consensus of opinion, shared by all but Bellman’s daughter, is that Bellman is a fool and a half-wit who will never be seen at home again. His neighbors suspect he is having a midlife crisis (although that term hasn’t yet been invented), to which most men respond by buying a new horse or a fancy hat and taking up with other women. But Bellman views the journey as the choice between staying at home with “the small and familiar” or “being out here with the large and the unknown.” The reader, having the advantage of historical hindsight, knows Bellman will not find the creatures he seeks, but the courage of the failed explorer is no different than the courage of explorers who discover something wondrous and new.

West is the story of Bellman’s journey, accompanied by a young Shawnee guide named Old Woman from a Distance. While West celebrates the spirit of the explorer, it also asks whether it is preferable to undertake a quixotic journey or to be content with the “small and familiar.” In their absence, Bellman comes to appreciate the business he built, the daughter he misses, the people he knew. It is up to the reader to admire Bellman for chasing a dream or to fault him for abandoning his responsibilities.

West is also the story of Bess, who waits at home for her father’s return, listening to her aunt complain about all the things she dislikes. Both characters face perils. Bellman’s are those of an explorer in conflict with nature; Bess’ are those of a girl who has no father to protect her from the various men who view her with predatory intent. And finally, West is the story of Old Woman from a Distance, who is on an adventure of his own, hoping in the end to have earned self-esteem as he navigates among white men who refuse to teach him their languages.

West has the feel of a stillborn legend. Bellman is just a bit larger than life, but his actions are well within the realm of possibility, and we know he will never find the creatures he pursues. Coincidence or fate plays a role in the story, but the plot does not feel contrived. Carys Davies tells the story in graceful but straightforward prose, creating a convincing historical setting without adding unnecessary detail. The story does not blink from the harsh and arbitrary realities of life, the mistaken impressions that lead to misguided judgments, but it conveys the sense that even in the face of tragedy, hope should never be abandoned.

RECOMMENDED

The Kremlin's Candidate by Jason Matthews

Published by Scribner on February 13, 2018

The Kremlin’s Candidate is the third novel in a trilogy that features a Russian spy who has agreed to provide intelligence to the CIA. The spy is a beautiful woman named Dominika who was trained as a “Sparrow” — female Russian operatives who are wise in the ways of seduction. In the first novel, Dominika targets a CIA agent named Nate Nash, only to fall in love with him when he recruits her as a double agent.

In The Kremlin’s Candidate, Nash again encounters a beautiful spy who has been trained in the art of seduction, but this one is a Nightingale, the Chinese version of a Russian Sparrow. Nate has trouble keeping his hands off beautiful spies, which has more than once caused trouble with his CIA superiors. Nash is in Hong Kong after visiting Macao to encourage the defection of a Chinese general who has embezzled state funds to cover a large gambling debt. When Nash meets the Nightingale, he wants to recruit her as a source, given her presumed access to sensitive information as the assistant manager of a hotel frequented by the rich and powerful. Nash doesn’t know that the Nightingale is a Chinese spy but she knows all about Nash. She’s been assigned not just to seduce Nash so that she can learn the name of the Chinese traitor he is recruiting, but to kill Nash for having the audacity to spy on the Chinese.

Before all of that happens, the novel follows the path of the earlier books as Dominika engages in clandestine acts, occasionally meeting with Nash for a debriefing followed by (or following) a romp in bed. Dominika has become the CIA’s best Russian source, thanks to her proximity to Putin and her possible ascension to the top ranks of the SVR. But a Russian mole in the American military is being considered for a position as the next CIA director. Even if she doesn’t get the job, the CIA has been ordered to give all of the candidates briefings that would at least indirectly reveal Dominika’s identity as a CIA source and ultimately lead to Dominika’s torture and execution.

The politics in this novel are more pronounced than in earlier entries. Jason Matthews clearly has no use for politicians who believe that oversight of the CIA is needed to keep it from breaking the law, despite the CIA's history and culture of lawless behavior. The novel's insufficiently hawkish American president (now in his fifth year) isn’t mentioned by name, but it isn’t difficult to understand who Matthews had in mind when he derided the president’s “social progressivism.” Matthews complains that his fictional president failed to take a hard line on Russia, a criticism that seems misplaced when compared to the current and all-too-real president, who touts his friendship with Putin, refuses to implement congressional sanctions against Russia, and ignores Russian interference with American elections. In any event, Matthews portrays Putin as a canny and ruthless character, an assessment with which nearly everyone but Donald Trump would agree. The novel's political tone didn't trouble me because Matthews doesn't let politics get in the way of storytelling, which is all I ultimately care about in a spy novel.

Character and plot development in this series have been strong, and the work that went into the first two books pays dividends in this one. The plot takes a couple of unexpected turns before arriving at a surprising but credible ending. The novel includes enough action to keep the story racing forward without becoming a mindless action novel. Tension arrives in waves and then peaks in the penultimate chapter. Fans of spy novel tradecraft will be happy with the series, and readers who want to admire heroes will enjoy the droll wit and fierce resolve of Americans (and the Russian Dominika) who are unwavering in their belief that free nations treat their people decently and that the fight against authoritarians is always worth waging.

RECOMMENDED

The Cutting Edge by Jeffery Deaver

Published by Grand Central Publishing on April 10, 2018

The Cutting Edge begins with a robbery and murder at the office of a Manhattan diamond cutter. The robbery is interrupted by the diamond cutter’s young assistant, Vimal Lahori, who barely avoids being murdered itself. The killing is the kind of crime that the city doesn’t want to publicize, for fear that it will bring more crime to the rundown part of Midtown that diamond merchants populate. In the hope of getting a quick resolution, the police turn to Lincoln Rhyme.

Rhyme and Amelia Sachs soon discover that the murder is linked to other diamond-related killings that seem bizarrely  motivated. The case becomes even stranger when the presumptive killer is seen lurking about a geothermal drilling site. Rare New York earthquakes are attributed to the drilling, but Rhyme and his team wonder whether the geothermal company is being falsely blamed by environmental protestors, or by a competing fossil fuel company, or perhaps by someone else.

The actual motivation for the murder (and for several that follow) is a bit of a stretch, but I forgive Jeffery Deaver because the plot is original and clever. While the nuts-and-bolts of the forensic work undertaken by Rhyme’s team becomes a bit tedious (how many times do we need to be told that crime scene analysts need to “walk the grid”?), the detailed discussions of diamonds and earthquakes and geothermal drilling are interesting. An extended explanation of cryptic crosswords suggests that Deaver is a fan, but it comes across as filler.

Character development is always a strength in a Deaver novel, and while nothing much is added to the lives of the Rhyme or his supporting cast, the characters who are unique to this novel, including Vimal and a couple of bad guys, are rich in texture.

In a subplot, Rhyme crosses to the “dark side” (or so his colleagues believe) by working for a Mexican drug lord to investigate a claim that the feds fabricated evidence against him. Rhyme enlists the help of Ron Pulaski to uncover the truth, putting both Pulaski and Rhyme at risk of prison sentences when vengeful federal prosecutors decide that Rhyme and Pulaski should be arrested for obstructing justice and a litany of other federal crimes. In fact, they seem to think that working for a defendant is itself a crime, an attitude that is entirely consistent with that of many (but not all) career prosecutors who believe they have a monopoly on the truth. Unfortunately, by the time the subplot is completed, Rhyme still hasn’t recognized the prosecutors as the sleazebags they prove themselves to be (because their view of whether Rhyme and Pulaski broke the law depends on which side he’s helping, not on the facts). The subplot, it seems to me, is a major disappointment.

A much better subplot involves Vimal’s relationship with his parents and his desire to live his own life, not the life his father has chosen for him. The subplot is predictable, but Deaver handles it well. While not everything about The Cutting Edge appealed to me, that’s often the case with Lincoln Rhyme novels. I keep reading them because Deaver does so things well that I can easily overlook their faults.

RECOMMENDED

The Terminal List by Jack Carr

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on March 6, 2018

If you’re a fan of gun porn, where shootings of human beings are described with religious reverence and guns, scopes, and ammunition are treated as sacred objects, you might like The Terminal List. Of course, you’ll have to endure the protagonist’s complaints about California’s “crazy gun laws” that restrict your right to drive around with a box of weapons in the back of your pickup truck. The protagonist is so devoted to his guns that he hates walking around the Naval Special Warfare Command without one and has convinced himself that “the enemy” will attack the naval base because personnel aren’t allowed to carry handguns when they visit their superiors. Paranoid much?

James Reece has a bug up his bum. When he was still a Lieutenant Commander and Navy SEAL, his team was ambushed in Afghanistan, giving Jack Carr a chance to write a clichéd “my war buddy died in my arms” scene. After the mission goes tits up, he’s investigated for subversive activities, including an email he wrote that advocated an illegal assassination scheme. To Reece, thinking outside the box is a sign of good soldiering, even if that means thinking about illegal assassination schemes, but the Secretary of Defense has ordered a cover-up of the ambush and can’t have Reece being treated as a hero. Plus, Reece has a brain tumor, as did two of his men, a coincidence that can’t really be a coincidence. Another of his men committed suicide, but Reece believes he was murdered because the guy would have used his favorite gun if he wanted to off himself. All of this sets up a truly bizarre conspiracy plot that wouldn’t be credible even if it made sense.

Carr sets Reece up as a devoted husband and father with an adoring wife and a young daughter who worships him. Of course, the police find his family dead just as he arrives home from war. They were murdered by four guys with machineguns because that’s supposed to make the murders look like a gang killing. Seriously? Because gangbangers invade houses in nice neighborhoods and kill everyone inside with machineguns? In what fantasy world would the police believe that? The real intent was to kill Reece, but he wasn’t home and the hired killers were apparently too stupid to notice his absence before launching their killing spree.

No longer in the military, Reece is after revenge. I just read in a better novel that “revenge is the core of evil.” Reece has not reached that level of evolution. He believes he was spared so that he can carry out the divine purpose of killing people. Nor is Reece as introspective as Mack Bolan of the Executioner series that started the “highly trained soldier commences a personal war of vengeance after his family is killed” genre. Reece doesn’t think about much of anything that doesn’t involve his beloved guns.

Killing and torture seem to be Reece’s only skills, and while he’s insufferably proud of his superiority to other males, his one-dimensional alpha nature makes Reece a dull boy. But he loves his mama, so I guess readers are supposed to love Reece. The guy is so full of himself that he’s difficult to stomach, and his simple-minded view of the world does not make him an appealing character. Nor does his willingness to kill innocent women (Mexican hookers, of course) if they might wake up and “compromise his mission,” which at that point involves murdering a home’s occupants. Reece’s attempt to position himself as a protector of American values is repugnant. Psychopathic vigilante killers are far removed from American values.

Carr leaves most of his political commentary to secondary characters, like a reporter who was harassed by the government because she “exposed” Benghazi and his spy friend who thinks Snowden did “incalculable damage” to national security by leaking secrets (even the NSA doesn’t believe that), although Reece does manage to condemn the “liberal political leanings” of an Admiral who only holds his position because of a “far-left Democratic president.” Has the U.S. ever had one of those? The words “Deep State” don’t appear in the novel, but they lurk just beneath the surface.

Radicalized American Muslims are among the novel’s cartoon villains (one of them, of course, is a cab driver, because no stereotypes is left unwritten in The Terminal List). Other villains include “bad hombres from Mexico” who live in a Tijuana “shithole.” They aren’t necessary to the plot, but they’re red meat for Carr’s target audience.

Carr’s prose isn’t the worst I’ve encountered, but his dialog is stilted and his style is uninspired: “It was time for Reece to do what he did best. It was time to start killing.”  Carr reserves his most eloquent writing to describe the hand-loaded ammunition that Reece’s father gave him as a birthday present. If there is anything at all to like about The Terminal List, I couldn’t find it, although people who have never read a thriller before might appreciate the glossary at the end.

Atria has published some wonderful books, but they really scraped the bottom for this one. Still, Guns & Ammo and the Washington Times gave it good reviews, so I guess there's a market for simple-minded gun porn.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Caribbean Rim by Randy Wayne White

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 13, 2018

Doc Ford novels are always a fun way to pass time. The tropical settings open the door to light-hearted plots (the kind that invite the reader to have a tropical drink and smoke a joint after reading a chapter), but unlike modern thrillers that often take themselves too seriously, the plots are rarely implausible.

Archeologist Leonard Nickleby and his former student, Lydia Johnson, have a plan to make a bunch of money. Leonard stole a log book from a treasure hunter. Lydia has some inside information about the treasure that she’s kept hidden from Leonard. Now Doc Ford is trying to track them down in the Bahamas — not a difficult task after Leonard becomes a local legend by (as he tells it) saving two kids from a shark attack. The question is whether Doc will find Leonard and Lydia before a “crazy-ass killer” who seems to be chasing them.

Doc’s stoner friend Tomlinson, always good for comic relief, plays a leading role in the novel — he probably gets more print time than Doc, who is offstage for much of the novel — dispensing philosophy and trading Bible quotations with a local preacher and fellow Mason in the Bahamas. A more nefarious role is played by a former Hollywood producer (blacklisted after a sex scandal) who may or may not be holding a woman captive, but in any event is up to no good on an isolated island that local authorities are trying to ignore.

Sharks seem to have learned new behaviors near the islands. Since Doc is a marine biologist when he isn’t doing favors for clandestine government agencies, studying the sharks gives Doc something to do — in addition to chasing Leonard. Along the way he encounters the usual assortment of offbeat characters who populate a Doc Ford novel. Randy Wayne Smith also uses Doc and some local characters to teach the reader about Caribbean history and marine biology. Doc even manages to deal with a life-changing event in his usual laid-back style. Caribbean Rim isn’t Smith’s best work, but it is a good beach read in a series that delivers consistent entertainment.

RECOMMENDED