Escape Clause by John Sandford

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on October 18, 2016

Escape Clause is a Virgil Flowers novel, the ninth in that series by the prolific John Sandford. The novel follows on the heels of Sandford’s last Lucas Davenport novel, Extreme Prey. Davenport, Virgil’s former boss, chats with Virgil occasionally and the novel includes some references to events that occurred in Extreme Prey, but you don’t need to read Extreme Prey to understand Escape Clause. The two novels tell independent stories. Amazon reviewers who complained that Extreme Prey was “too political” (it really isn’t) need not worry about Escape Clause, which has nothing to do with politics apart from Virgil’s encounter with an animal rights activist.

The novel opens with the theft of two tigers from the Minnesota Zoo. Yes, tigers. The thieves want the tigers for their medicinal properties. Among other health benefits reputed to derive from tiger pills, certain parts of endangered Amur tigers are believed to be more effective than Viagra. Zoo officials are worried that the tigers will be killed before they can be recovered. Virgil is therefore under a time crunch to find them.

A subplot involves Virgil’s girlfriend Frankie and her sister Sparkle, whose dissertation research about migrant workers in a pickle factory is attracting the wrong kind of attention. They both meet with rough treatment during the course of the story. Virgil’s colleague Catrin Mattson is called in to investigate (and to keep Virgil from killing the guy who beat up Frankie).

Escape Clause delivers exactly what a fan would expect from Sandford:  a lively story seasoned with humor, quirky criminals, and an abundance of local (Minnesota and Wisconsin) color. Virgil methodically works his way through potential suspects, including a drug-addicted doctor, a Chinese father and son who have little regard for each other, a couple of Armenian brothers who have an exceedingly protective family, and the animal rights activist. The reader knows who committed the tiger theft right from the start, so this is more of a police procedural than a mystery.

Like many Sandford novels, Escape Clause is more amusing than exciting, although it does have some suspenseful moments and occasional gunfire. For the most part, however, the novel is light and breezy. The ending -- well, you know before finishing the first chapter how the novel will end, but no other ending would be quite as satisfying. I imagine that most readers who have enjoyed other Sandford novels will also enjoy this one.

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Lions by Bonnie Nadzam

Published by Grove/Black Cat on July 5, 2016

A jokester put a “living ghost town” sign on the highway, pointing to Lions, a small town in eastern Colorado. The sign attracts some tourists to the local diner, but as jokes go, this one is uncomfortably close to the truth. Lions is a place where big stories are told, where legends build, but in the end, there is only the bleak reality of entropy.

John Walker is a welder in Lions. His son, Gordon, has only one friend his age, a girl named Leigh who wants nothing more than to leave. Lions is a dying town of wind and dust that can no longer support the welding business that Gordon is destined to inherit. The people who haven’t left Lions are hanging on, but the town has no future. When Gordon disappears for several days, the town residents wonder if he’s gone for good. While he’s gone, something happens in Lions -- a place where nothing ever happens.

The novel might be seen as Gordon’s coming of age story. Will he stay in Lions, consigned to a dead-end fate, or will he make his way in the world? It could also be seen as Leigh’s coming of age story, her struggle with people who are determined to hold her back. Unlike Gordon, Leigh yearns for something new and different, but nearly everyone in her life tells her that “there’s nowhere to go,” that she’ll eventually get over her belief that life can be better than it is in Lions.

But Lions is also a story of death -- not just the death of a few characters (either before or during the unfolding story), but the death of a town. Each new death seems to inspire another resident to think about leaving Lions. But a few are determined to stay, because home is where roots are planted, even if the roots are desperate for water. Or because a choice, once made, must be honored. Or because death has already claimed the living. They are dead inside. Life in Lions has killed their aspirations and joy.

In the end, Lions is a book about people who think about their lives -- their pasts and futures and where they are right now. It is not a particularly dramatic book -- although it has moments of quiet drama -- but is filled with contemplative characters and elegant prose. The ending is ambiguous, but life often keeps us guessing about what will happen next.

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In the Presence of Enemies by William J. Coughlin

First published in 1989; published digitally by Endeavour Press on July 18, 2016

In the Presence of Enemies departs from traditional legal thrillers by focusing not on a criminal lawyer but on a trusts and estates lawyer. As a general rule, wills and probate are about as boring as the law can get, but William J. Coughlin manages to combine family drama with law firm drama to tell an entertaining tale.

Jake Martin is a fifth year associate at a prestigious Detroit law firm. He will either make partner soon or be tossed out to look for new, less lucrative employment. Two other associates are vying for the coveted partnership slot.

The partners ask Jake, a trusts and estates lawyer, to join the team that will handle the probate of a rich client who just died. The firm fears that the relatives of Augustus Daren will challenge his will. Perhaps not coincidentally, the other two associates who want to make partner are also on the team.

Daren controlled a powerful Detroit bank until he had a stroke. After that, Elizabeth, his wife, called most of the shots. Claude deSalle, the bank’s president, also in the control of Daren, isn’t sorry to see him go because he wants to merge the bank with a powerful German bank, something Daren would not have allowed. Claude is shocked, however, to learn that Elizabeth has been given the right to vote all of Daren’s shares in the bank. That news is also upsetting to Daren’s two children by two previous wives.

With that setup, the plot follows the Machiavellian moves of bankers and lawyers, and of Darren’s widow and children, as they fight for control of the bank. Jake is a bit innocent and naïve compared to nearly everyone else in the book, but he finds himself fighting against a hidden enemy (a circumstance that gives the novel its title).

The “hidden enemy” is perhaps too obvious. Few readers will have difficulty guessing why so many roadblocks are placed in Jake’s way as he fights for his client. The novel’s eventual outcome might also be criticized for its predictability. Yet those weaknesses are easily overcome by the novel’s strengths. The plot is credible and engaging. Characters are realistic and the lawyers on both sides of the case are easy to like. The trial scenes are full of the “inside baseball” discussions of strategies and tactics that make legal thrillers fun to read. Fans of the genre are likely to be pleased that this 1989 novel is now available in a digital format.

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Best. State. Ever. by Dave Barry

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on September 6, 2016

Dave Barry set about rehabilitating (or destroying, if that’s even possible) the image of Florida, which is perceived (in Barry's words) as “being a subtropical festival of stupid.” To make his point, Barry chronicles a number of events (some of which actually happened) in which Floridians did things that were stupid, or at least weird. Those events have made Florida “the Joke State,” the state everyone loves to mock. Barry took on this project because Florida’s critics live in states that are equally mockable, a fact he proves by defining the shortcomings of a good number of states, particularly Illinois and New York.

To extoll the good things about Florida, Barry drove around and wrote about the things he found, most of which are pretty stupid, although (as Barry sees it) in a good way. After introductory chapters that I thought were hilarious, the bulk of the book rates only as amusing on the Dave Barry laugh-o-meter.

Highlights of the book include: a politically correct tribute to Miami’s smoking hot women (not that, as an evolved male who does not objectify women, he would ever notice them); a critique of senior line dancers at The Villages, a retirement community that celebrates its lack of diversity; an incursion into LIV, an outrageously expensive Miami nightclub; and bar-hopping in Key West, a city that is renowned for its Jimmy Buffet clones and naked people who should leave their clothes on.

Extended discussions of sketchy tourist attractions (skunk apes, the Weeki Wachi underwater theater, concrete dinosaurs, Spongeorama, Gatorland, and the spiritualist community of Cassadaga) are less funny, if only because so much time is devoted to narrating things that Barry saw, rather than mocking them. Or perhaps he’s just too nice, and too genuinely appreciative of kitsch, to give ripoff roadside attractions the skewering they have earned. Still, he does mock the Cassadaga spiritualists, making that one of the better parts of the book. I also enjoyed his celebration of manliness during a visit to Lock & Load, where visitors get to shoot machineguns, an activity that has sensibly been declared illegal in nearly every other non-military context.

This isn’t as funny as vintage Dave Barry, but it’s still funny. It’s even funnier if you’ve traveled in Florida and can attest to the wisdom of Barry’s observations.

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An Obvious Fact by Craig Johnson

Published by Viking on September 13, 2016

Walt Longmire hardly ever stays home any more. This time he’s (mostly) in Hulett, Wyoming. His friend Henry Standing Bear is participating in a motorcycle rally — challenging himself in a hill climb competition — when he’s not quoting Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile, Longmire is looking into a motorcycle accident (the young rider is in a coma) that may not have been an accident.

Bear is challenged in another way when his ex-lover Lola (after whom he named a motorcycle) prevails upon him to help investigate the accident. Eventually Longmire’s undersheriff, Vic Moretti, shows up, having returned from the (so far) fruitless investigation of her brother’s death (an event that occurred in Dry Bones which, like all the Longmire novels, is worth reading before starting on this one).

Longmire makes it all the way to page 113 before he says “Boy howdy,” but quite a lot takes place before he says it. And quite a lot more follows in this eventful novel. Craig Johnson doesn’t fill pages with meaningless action scenes (a pivotal bar fight, for instance, takes place off stage, leaving Longmire to describe the aftermath) but the pace is never slow and the story is never dull. The primary plot involves Longmire’s effort to understand why the motorcyclist was run off the road (and who did it), but a number of entertaining subplots branch off from that story.

Potential villains include a D-list celebrity who once starred in a reality TV show about motorcycle repair, a couple of inept vehicle thieves who continually cross Longmire’s path, an entire motorcycle gang, and Lola. As always, Johnson gives supporting characters (not just the regulars) enough personality to make them seem real.

The trademark dry wit and trivia expertise that Johnson bestows on Longmire always keeps the story light, although this one is lighter than most. For instance, Johnson pokes gentle fun at the enormous waste of tax dollars involved whenever the federal government gives local police departments things (like mine-resistant military vehicles) that they don’t need.

An Obvious Fact serves up a nice helping of what series fans have come to expect -- easy entertainment with familiar characters and a spry plot. It does little to delve into the dark events of the last novel, but I imagine Johnson will explore that plot thread in the next book or two. I would consider An Obvious Fact to be an average novel in the series, but boy howdy, that makes it pretty darn good.

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