The Mulberry Bush by Charles McCarry

Published by Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press on October 27, 2015

The early chapters of The Mulberry Bush are the story of an estranged father and son, told from the son’s perspective. The father was at one time a capable spy who angered (or embarrassed) the wrong people at Headquarters. When father and son reunite, the aftermath of their meeting gives the son a new purpose in life -- vengeance.

So begins the unnamed protagonist’s life as a spy, a career that he fashions on his own terms. Eventually he falls in love with Luz Aguilar, whose revolutionary/terrorist parents were killed by the police in Argentina. The protagonist believes that Luz can lead him to the Russians who control the Argentinians, but he also wants her help to pursue an agenda of his own.

The protagonist jets from Buenos Aires to Bogotá to Bucharest, playing the espionage game in his own way and aggravating his masters in the best tradition of spy fiction. Key characters include the protagonist’s stuffy superiors at Headquarters, a couple of Russians who may or may not want to betray their country’s secrets, a priest who once lived in Russia, and a surgeon who was close to Luz’ father and who is now Luz’ friend/protector. All of these characters have secrets that the protagonist must ferret out if he is to survive.

Many of the usual espionage plot threads are present in The Mulberry Bush. Are the apparent traitors really traitors or are they double agents? Are agents accused of being traitors because they really are or because the other side wants to destroy them with the weapon of suspicion? Is there a mole at Headquarters? Was Luz’ father working for the Russians, for Headquarters, or only for himself? The reader’s challenge is to work out what’s going on with the Russians, the Argentinians, and the Americans while getting a handle on just where the protagonist is headed.

Tension builds slowly and steadily as the story nears its climax. Charles McCarry isn’t a writer who needs to use artificial means (like the single-sentence paragraphs and two page chapters favored by many modern thriller writers) to move the story at a good pace. He writes vivid prose and creates complex, convincing, multifaceted characters. My only two complaints are that (1) the protagonist’s initial goal is clear but his plan for achieving it is ill-defined, leaving me wondering what he really hoped to achieve, and (2) the two Russians each disappear from the story in a way that left me unsatisfied. In the end, those qualms are minor. There was more than enough intrigue in The Mulberry Bush to ensure my rapt attention, and the plot twists kept me off-balance, as a spy novel should.

RECOMMENDED

Andersonville by Edward M. Erdelac

Published by Random House/Hydra on August 18, 2015

The first quarter of Andersonville is extraordinary. After that, the novel drifts into the conventions of horror fiction. Although the novel as a whole does not live up to the promise of its beginning, it remains a well-told tale.

A black man named Barclay Lourdes sneaks onto a train and assumes the identity of a captured Union soldier. Confederate soldiers take Barclay and their other prisoners to Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. It is a brutal place. Edward M. Erdelac describes the stench, disease, starvation, and cruelty that pervade the prison camp in vivid language. It is a place more suited to lice, maggots, and vermin than the prisoners who inhabit it.

The premise of Erdelac’s novel is that Andersonville (an actual prison camp during the Civil War) was intentionally made into a place of depravity so that demons would have an earthly environment in which they could thrive. Barclay, a practitioner of hoodoo and voudon, has been asked to investigate the camp by Quitman Day, whose western magic (the kind that involves pentangles) is ineffective inside the camp. The fact that Barclay and Day support opposites of the war provides a source of tension despite their childhood friendship. The fact that Barclay blames Day for his sister’s death creates more than tension.

Like many novels that rely upon magic and the supernatural to fuel the plot, I think Andersonville might have been a better book without the magic. The dramatic setting and Barclay’s multifaceted personality lend themselves to a more serious work of fiction. Still, the story is fun. It goes the way a horror fan would expect it to go. That might disappoint readers who are looking for surprises, but strong characters and fast action overcome the story’s weaknesses.

RECOMMENDED

A Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding

Published by Picador on October 6, 2015

Fate sends a baby with four ears flying into the arms of Habbib, who raises him in the Sufi lodge where Habbib sweeps floors. The dervishes view Nouri as blessed although Habbib conceals the child’s extra ears until Nouri’s seventh birthday. Nouri’s education begins at that point, guided by a Sufi master.

While he is devoted to his lessons, to the master, and to Habbib, Nouri prefers solitude until the arrival of a young fellow with golden hair named Vishpar. While Vishpar wishes to become a Sufi, Nouri isn’t quite sure about his own desires, although he knows they have something to do with Vishpar.

A Poet of the Invisible World is described as a “spiritual journey” in the tradition of Siddhartha. Unlike Siddhartha, who consciously pursued enlightenment, Nouri is carried along by events ... or perhaps by fate. In addition, Nouri’s quest is more about achieving self-awareness than spiritual enlightenment, although the two (at least in this novel) are clearly related: “the Sufi Way is the way of self-knowledge.”

The best part of the novel follows Nouri as he travels from place to place and encounters different cultures and philosophies. He experiences pleasure and horror. His journey has a physical as well as a spiritual element, given that Nouri is a young man who (like all young men and most older ones) has little control over the serpent between his legs. In various ways, the novel points out the connections that people of different backgrounds make due to the bonding power of emotions, even when they lack a common language.

Nouri’s path repeatedly and coincidentally intersects with that of another Sufi who is something of a nemesis, and that character’s story -- his own spiritual journey -- stands as a contrast to Nouri’s. They are both “tainted vessels” but they are tainted in different ways. I never quite understood or believed that character’s deep animosity toward Nouri, which eventually becomes the source of the novel’s (limited) dramatic tension. That struck me as both a contrivance and a relatively serious flaw.

Some of the things that happen after Nouri leaves the lodge are not well explained. Why isn’t he killed by marauders? How does he end up as a servant for the Sultan’s Right Hand? The story builds upon one contrivance after another that force the plot forward, but none of it is convincing.

To an extent, the book explores spiritual teachings and hypocrisies. To an extent, the novel is about the development of a poet and the things (like love) that inspire poetry, although it is disappointing (and a cop-out) that we see so fewof Nouri's verses. To an extent, the novel is about the series of journeys, the false and fresh starts, that comprise a life. To an extent, it is about accepting oneself and accepting others, even if the others have extra ears and are attracted to members of the same sex. The world is full of judgmental people who want to poison joy, and to an extent, the novel stands as a condemnation of narrow-mindedness, including prejudices that are based on on religious teachings.

The story is pleasant. Although it lacks the depth and complexity of Siddhartha, there is a virtue in its simplicity. I think Michael Golding sometimes tells the reader too much, particularly the tallying of all the times that Nouri feels closer to God or bonded to someone as the result of sharing an experience or a private thought. At other times, Golding doesn’t tell the reader enough. Golding often writes something like “Nouri’s understanding deepened,” prompting me to ask, “How exactly?” Much of Nouri’s progress along his spiritual path he keeps to himself, which again struck me as a serious flaw.

As much as I like the book’s message and admire Golding’s elegant prose, I can only give A Poet of the Invisible World a guarded recommendation. The plot is forced, most of the characters are insubstantial, and the messages are obvious. The novel works well enough if it is read as a lengthy parable, but it is a full-blown novel, not a parable, and there should be more to it than Golding delivers.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen

First published in Denmark in 2014; published in translation by Dutton on September 8, 2015

The Hanging Girl is tied with the first Department Q novel as my favorite entry (so far) in this excellent series. The mystery is complex but credible. The story builds suspense but doesn’t skimp on character development. Humor and drama are carefully balanced. The book is long but it never moves slowly and it ends in a burst of excitement.

A police sergeant on an outlying island finally gives up on a case he could never solve, but not without asking Department Q for help. Carl wants nothing to do with it. As usual, Rose bullies him into investigating the case, an unsolved hit-and-run that left a young girl’s body hanging from the tree branches in which it was entangled.

When Carl, Rose, and Assad look into the old case and a more recent death, Carl sees nothing worth investigating and wants to go home. As is the custom in these books, Carl is outvoted by his subordinates and the subsequent investigation leads to a deepening mystery.

As that investigation progresses, alternating chapters fill us in on a story of several missing women and of rivalries for the attention of Atu, a charismatic fellow who worships the sun. Another woman, not yet missing, is at risk.

An ongoing storyline in these novels concerns an incident in which Carl and his colleague Hardy were shot. Carl blames his cowardice for the fact that Hardy was left paralyzed. That subplot is advanced a bit in The Hanging Girl, more than it has been in recent novels. Jussi Adler-Olsen seems to be setting up a significant development in that subplot in an upcoming novel.

Also advancing is the evolving mystery of Assad’s background. Assad is my favorite character in the series, an outwardly gentle and decent man (most of the time) who clearly has a violent history. Each novel teases the reader with hits of Assad’s past, but it is the Assad of the present who plays a heroic and self-sacrificing role in The Hanging Girl.

I always learn something when I read one of these novels. This one features a good bit of interesting information about the intersection of astrology, astronomy, and theology. More importantly, it features a surprising plot that continues to twist until the truth is finally revealed.

RECOMMENDED

The Book of the Lion by Thomas Perry

Published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on July 14, 2015

This is another entry in Mysterious Press’ Bibliomystery series of short stories that relate to books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts. Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Deaver, and a number of other popular crime writers have contributed to the series.

A professor who is a leading expert on Chaucer gets a call from a mysterious stranger who claims to possess the only existing manuscript of Chaucer’s Book of the Lion. The manuscript is thought to have been lost, or possibly it never existed. Is its sudden appearance a hoax? A prank? A fraud?

Rather than offering to sell the manuscript, as a con artist might, the mysterious man has another scheme in mind. Of course, the scheme involves money. With the help of a wealthy friend who has a literary bent, the professor strives to learn the truth about the manuscript.

Thomas Perry peppers the story with snippets of history from the Middle Ages. The characters and tidbits about Chaucer’s works and medieval history make the background more interesting than the plot, which is fun but leads to an unsurprising ending. Still, the fast-moving story is a worthy entry in the series.

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