King Maybe by Timothy Hallinan

Published by Soho Crime on April 12, 2016

Junior Bender has a rogue’s gallery of friends. As usual, some of them want to kill him. Jake Whelan, in particular, is upset that the Klee he purchased from Junior turned out to be forged. Junior stole the Klee in good faith, but he has to put Whelan on hold while he steals a rare stamp from a persuasive debt collector named Slugger. Junior is stealing the stamp for friend Stinky (actually, they’re only friends when Stinky isn’t trying to have Junior killed), but the theft adds Slugger to the list of people who would like to have Junior terminated.

The latest entry in Timothy Hallinan’s series of Junior Bender novels has a Hollywood theme. Part of the plot involves a movie that Whelan wants to produce. Jeremy Granger, a/k/a King Maybe, holds an exclusive option on the movie and is treating it in a way that displeases Whelan. To get back in Whelan’s good graces, Junior must perform a task that brings him into contact with Granger. That creates a mess from which Junior can only extricate himself by doing a task for Granger. The tangled web Junior weaves puts him into some tight spots, but nobody said that being a professional burglar would be easy.

In addition to Stinky, other familiar characters appear, including Junior’s daughter, who figures into a subplot involving a nasty girl from high school and two fourteen-year-old female cybercriminals Junior met in an earlier novel. Junior’s new girlfriend, Ronnie Bigelow, has a mysterious background and she’s good at banter, which makes her a perfect addition to the series. Ting Ting and his assassin girlfriend also make an appearance. Did I mention that Junior knows a lot of criminals?

The plot threads resolve in clever ways. While the novel is light, there is a darkness in Junior that drives the novel’s ending. In that respect, King Maybe isn’t quite as light as some other novels in the series. Junior proves himself (again) to have a moral center and a sense of justice. Those characteristics drive him to commit acts that might not be considered just or moral in a perfect world, but Junior’s world is far from perfect.

Junior’s flirtation with darkness notwithstanding, Hallinan’s Junior Bender novels are lighter than his excellent Poke Rafferty novels. But even in his light novels, Hallinan finds a way to pinch my heart. The pinch in King Maybe came when a makeshift funeral took place near the novel’s end. When so many writers concoct overwrought scenes to contrive a reader’s emotional response, I appreciate Hallinan’s ability to write understated scenes that provoke honest emotions by depicting ordinary people who, while in many ways odd, experience the same mixture of sorrow, grief, anger, anxiety, and joy that are familiar to ordinary people everywhere.

Hallinan’s writing style is always sharp, leaving the impression that his prose is effortless when I imagine he labors over every sentence to make sure that each will engage the reader. Creative prose, an entertaining plot, and a satisfying blend of humor and drama make King Maybe another winner for Hallinan fans -- and for all fands of strong crime fiction.

RECOMMENDED

Deep Blue by Randy Wayne White

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 15, 2016

Deep Blue is a satisfying action novel. Deep Blue doesn’t provoke deep thought but it gives the reader a chance to hang out with some of the fun, offbeat characters who live in or around the marina where Doc Ford makes his home. The character (other than Doc) who plays the strongest role in the novel is kooky Tomlinson, a high-functioning burnout who believes in his ability to practice “remote viewing” and never met a mind-altering substance he didn’t like.

Doc Ford begins the novel on a mission that doesn’t go quite as he planned. When he returns to the marina, he’s plagued by a couple of high-tech drones. With the help of a dog that might be even more mindless than Tomlinson, Ford captures the drones and tries to keep their owner from recovering them. The drone owner turns out to be a wealthy technology master whose father has a history with Tomlinson.

The characters (especially the dog) are amusing. Most of them are more focused on the month-long marina Christmas party than the threat that they eventually encounter. Ford, the most sober of the bunch, flies around causing and resolving trouble, leading to some reasonably innovative action scenes. I particularly enjoyed the ones that take place underwater.

The novel moves briskly without short-changing the interaction of characters or the creation of atmosphere. At two or three points, Randy Wayne White plants chapter-ending cliffhangers that are supposed to produce “Oh No!” responses, but the eventual outcome is predictable. Probably series fans wouldn’t want it to be any other way. In short, this is a breezy, entertaining novel that delivers what fans of the series expect but not much more.

RECOMMENDED

A Hero of France by Alan Furst

Published by Random House on May 31, 2016

A Hero of France is not as meaty as Alan Furst’s best works, but at least he didn’t pad the story as do so many best-selling authors. The hero to whom the title refers is Mathieu. He is in the French resistance, working to return British flyers to England after they parachute from crashing bombers.

The first two-thirds of the novel introduces a few British aviators who are spirited out of France with Mathieu’s help. I formed no attachment to any of those characters because they didn’t stay around long enough to warm my heart. Other people who assist Mathieu’s operation of the escape line make occasional appearances, but none of them are given great substance. A British official tries to pressure Mathieu to expand his efforts by engaging in espionage, but the Brit plays such a limited role that it is difficult to view him as villainous or to care about him one way or another.

That leaves Mathieu, the novel’s constant, but we know more about what Mathieu does than who he is. Mathieu’s motivation is obvious -- he doesn’t like Germans, at least not after they’ve taken control of his country, and he doesn’t like collaborators, including the French government -- but all of that is fairly superficial. It isn’t the sort of character development that readers have come to expect from Alan Furst.

The early stages of the novel foreshadow trouble for Mathieu and his small band of conspirators. A member of the German military police named Breum spends the last third of the novel trying to catch everyone associated with escape-lines. Breum, who wants to save himself from the consequences of an unfavorable performance review, is probably the most carefully developed character in the novel.

My difficulty investing in the episodic plot and bland characters was enhanced by the detached voice in which the story is written. The narrative is interesting but it lacks passion and drama. On the other hand, the background and setting of A Hero of France are up to Furst’s typical standard of excellence. The story wraps up neatly, but perhaps too neatly. There are no surprises. I enjoyed the story, such as it is, but this is one of Furst’s weaker novels.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Published by Orbit on June 10, 2014

There's been a worldwide infection. You're thinking zombie, right? Got it in one. The Girl with All the Gifts gives more attention than most zombie novels to the nature of the infection that creates a zombie plague, although why zombie infections always produce shambling has yet to be convincingly explained. Still.

A young girl named Melanie lives in a cell in a locked facility. She only leaves it after her jailers have strapped her to a wheelchair. They take her to a classroom with she and others like her learn random facts that are no longer relevant. All she knows of the real world is that a devastated place called London is not far away and a place called Beacon, on the sea and surrounded by moats and minefields, is safe from hungries. Other cities are as empty as London. Burn patrols do their best to keep her region free from hungries. Hungries shamble and eat people ... a zombie by any other name ....

Some of the hungries, particularly Melanie and her friends, are "high functioning." Meaning they are really really really smart zombies. They seem like normal kids until they start salivating at the scent of human flesh, but it that any reason to dissect them? Opinions differ.

Dr. Caroline Caldwell thinks of Melanie as a test subject. Sergeant Parks thinks of Melanie as a dangerous monster. Melanie's teacher, Helen Justineau thinks of her as a sweet little girl. Melanie isn't quite sure what to think of herself but she loves Miss Justineau.

Although The Girl with all the Gifts follows the standard run-and-fight-and-try-not-to-be-eaten plot of zombie fiction, it is a more interesting story than most. M.R. Carey creates clever images and scenarios that are a step above typical zombie fiction. The writing is surprisingly strong. In constructing a science-based zombie novel that has some literary value, The Girl with all the Gifts is like Parasite, although The Girl is a better book.

The hook that truly differentiates The Girl With All the Gifts from other zombie fiction is that Melanie is a likable, sympathetic zombie. Yes, she enjoys an occasional munch on human flesh, but only if the humans are bad, not like Helen Justineau, whom she really really does not want to eat even though she might be tasty. The reader is meant to cheer for Melanie and Justineau and even for a couple of soldiers, although not so much for Dr. Caldwell, who likes to dissect zombie children, especially if they are whizzes at math.

Carey walked a delicate line between writing a "feel good" story and a scary one. Melanie and Justineau couldn't be nicer, which means they aren't particularly realistic (not that a zombie novel is all that realistic). The darker characters at least benefit from greater complexity. In any event, the novel races to an ending that, if not surprising given its inevitably, is more satisfying than the climax of a typical zombie novel.

RECOMMENDED

Isaac Asimov's I Robot: To Preserve by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Published by Penguin/ Roc on February 2, 2016

Isaac Asimov made me care about robots. In Isaac Asimov’s I Robot: To Preserve, Mickey Zucher Reichert didn’t make me care about anything. Particularly not robots. The only robot to play a central role spends most of his time standing (or being rolled around) in the background, contributing nothing to the plot.

The plot, by the way, involves an accusation that Nate (the robot N8-C) murdered someone. That suspicion derives from the fact that he’s found holding a bloody pry bar and standing next to the bloody body of a dead researcher. Nate confesses (sort of) which persuades an overzealous police detective to arrest Lawrence Robertson, Nate’s creator/programmer, for murder. That this happens without questioning Nate more completely is a bit eye-rolling, as is the notion that Robertson could be arrested in the absence of even slight evidence that he programmed Nate to kill the researcher. Those are lapses of logic that Asimov would never have made.

Of course, every Asimov fan knows that it is impossible for a robot to deliberately harm humans, but the plot depends on an arrest that sends the current incarnation of Susan Calvin on an obvious mission -- to find the real killer. Enlisting the help of a hunky ex-Marine who saves her in a shootout, Susan (granddaughter of the original) goes about the business of solving the murder.

Susan’s speeches fill in background for readers who may have missed Reichert’s previous two robot novels in this series. That background is essential to understanding the plot, but given the filling-in, this book can probably be read as a stand-alone.

Susan actually has two hunks in her life, the other being homicide detective Jake Carson. One or both may or may not be on Susan’s side. Most of the plot surrounds Susan’s interaction with one or both of the hunks, and occasionally (although infrequently) Nate.

The hunks provide the excuse to add a love triangle subplot that is even clunkier than one that Asimov might have penned. Certainly, Asimov would not have written the scenes that read like outtakes from a trashy romance novel, complete with Susan swooning over a bare-chested man’s “tousled hair.” Has a trashy romance novel ever been written that didn’t use the phrase “tousled hair”?

There is a lot more touchy-feelyness and a lot less intellect in this book than a reader would find in any of Asimov’s robot stories. More to the point, there is a lot less emphasis on robots, which sort of misses the point of a robot novel. For that reason, the story, while mildly interesting, doesn’t come close to being as absorbing as an Asimov robot story. There are certainly many science fiction novels far worse than this one, but as a continuation of a seminal sf series, the novel is a disappointment.

NOT RECOMMENDED