Harbor Lights by James Lee Burke

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on January 23, 2024

The stories in Harbor Lights feature people who have been in prison and people who might end up in prison. Some are drifters, others are professionals. Some live in solitude, others share their life with a child. Most have experienced a significant loss. Some have given up on life, others are still trying to figure it out. They are all from the deep South although some have migrated to the West. Nearly all the protagonists try (not always successfully) to cling to their moral center. Collateral characters are often racists and white trash who never had a moral center. A few characters are ghosts.

Three stories feature Burke’s recurring character and alter-ego, Aaron Holland Broussard. “Deportees” tells a story of Aaron’s grandfather as he stands up to southern hatred of Mexicans and Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The title story is told from Aaron’s perspective as the son of a man who defied the FBI by telling the press about his sighting of a German submarine while fishing off the coast of Louisiana. In retaliation, the FBI arrested the woman with whom Aaron’s father was having an affair, accusing her of being a communist spy. The story is about the ugly truth a boy learns about his father and the far uglier truth he learns about the country in which he lives.

The melancholy that pervades the novella “Strange Cargo” is almost overpowering. Aaron may have symptoms of cancer that he refuses to let his doctor diagnose because (in the doctor’s view) Aaron believes he deserves to die. All the things he loves are in the past. Following Holland family tradition, Aaron stands up to a tobacco chewing sheriff who is known for his racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and vindictiveness. The sheriff is haunted by the ghost of a slave just as Aaron is haunted by the ghost of his daughter. Aaron also sees spirits of slave chasers and their victims. If this were a different kind of story, the supernatural might threaten to get in the way. Since the story is ultimately a contemplation of death — its many causes and its effects on others — the supernatural makes a fitting contribution. It is also an exploration of southern hypocrisy, which Aaron comes to understand as an inevitability, even in his own life. The story requires Aaron to confront his family’s past (as well as his own) and, in doing so, addresses issues that arise in Another Kind of Eden and Every Cloak Rolled in Blood.

In “The Assault,” the police take little interest in investigating a beating that a couple inflicted on a professor’s (admittedly drunken) teenage daughter. The helplessness he has felt since his wife died in a car accident for which he blames himself is amplified by the assault, contributing to his sense of failure as a husband and father. While he is fishing with a Black professor, he has an encounter with racist rednecks. The police are more interested in the professor’s response to abuse than they are in the abuse inflicted upon the professor's daughter. A series of confrontations escalate from threats to violence. This is one of Burke’s most intense stories and my favorite in the volume.

“Going Across Jordan” tells the story of two drifters who ride the rails and enjoy a special kind of freedom. The older man irritates the authorities by singing Woody Guthrie songs. While working on a ranch in Wyoming, the younger man makes a foolish decision to accept his boss’ offer to borrow his Cadillac to bring a pretty Black girl back to the ranch. The young man learns that people with power who do favors for the powerless always have an ulterior motive. He also learns something about love and about achieving justice without resorting to violence.

I did not dislike any story in the collection, although three stories I liked a bit less. “A Distant War” is a story that would be at home in the Twilight Zone. A veteran whose radiator hose breaks brings his half Vietnamese son into the wrong bar (and maybe the wrong dimension) where he meets the wrong people at the wrong time. “Big Midnight Special” is a story about fighting and country music told in the setting of a prison. A seismologist who works in the oil drilling industry sleeps with the wrong married woman before all hell breaks loose in “The Wild Side of Life.”

Every story in this collection provokes thought. A reader might easily choose any of them as a favorite. All are told in a prose style that elevates grittiness to elegance in a way that only James Lee Burke can. This collection is a must for his fans.

RECOMMENDED

Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds

Published by Orbit on January 16, 2024

Blending the genres of crime story, thriller, and science fiction, Machine Vendetta is the third novel to feature Tom Dreyfus, a prefect employed by the Panoply, enforcers of the Common Articles (something like a federal constitution) that bind the artificial habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone. Habitats make and enforce their own laws, although nearly every public policy decision is decided by ballot. The Panoply protects an overriding interest in democracy by maintaining polling computers and assuring that habitats don’t interfere with the right of their citizens to vote. In other words, you won’t hear much about stolen elections in the Glitter Band.

The Dreyfus novels are set in Alastair Reynolds’ impressive Revelation Space universe. The criminals that most concern Dreyfus are two rogue Artificial Intelligences, Aurora and the Clockmaker. Aurora was once a human, although she no longer has any regard for people of flesh-and-blood. In an earlier novel, Dreyfus made a secret alliance with Aurora, giving her access to Panoply’s computer systems, so that she could wage a war against the Clockmaker. He has lived with guilt ever since.

Difficult moral choices make for compelling fiction. Dreyfus’ choice comes back to haunt him in Machine Vendetta when it seems that the balance of terror he orchestrated can no longer be maintained. When he confides his secret to another prefect, she faces a moral dilemma when deciding whether to rat him out, as duty requires.

Apart from adversarial AIs, the criminal of immediate concern is a Panoply officer who used the weapons on his ship to destroy part of a habitat, apparently seeking vengeance for the habitat’s historical mistreatment of hyperpigs — genetically altered pigs who have taken humanoid form. Racial bias in Reynolds’ future have been replaced by bias against hyperpigs, Haters gotta hate, they just need to find some justification for hating anyone who seems different. In any event, the habitat fought back and the officer died in the ensuing battle. But was the motivation for that crime something other than it appears to be?

Another Panoply officer, Ingvar Tench, is thought to have committed suicide by entering a habitat that harbors a strong anti-Panoply sentiment without taking appropriate precautions. Ingvar’s daughter Hafdis wants to join Panoply after learning of her mother’s death. Her existence comes as a surprise to Dreyfus and everyone else at Panoply. Perhaps she also is not what she appears to be.

The two strangely behaving officers are linked in a way that Dreyfus must discern to solve his bigger problem. Tench was investigating something important to the ongoing war between Aurora and the Clockmaker. Dreyfus needs to learn what she discovered to prevent one AI from gaining an advantage over the other. The story is filled with self-sacrifice as Panoply officers put duty ahead of safety to protect the Glitter Band and its democratic values.

Reynolds is always creative, but his novels balance clever imaginings of the future with stories that are fundamentally about people. They explore what it means to be a human (even if the human is a pig) and illustrate behaviors and choices that make people better humans. Themes of sacrifice and courage are common to science fiction, but few modern writers incorporate them into storylines as skillfully as Reynolds. Combined with a thoughtful yet action-filled plot, Machine Vendetta brings this series to a fitting end. It is is one of the most enjoyable novels sf fans are likely to encounter this year.

RECOMMENDED

Dead Man's Hand by Brad Taylor

Published by William Morrow on January 23, 2024

There’s a sameness to recent Pike Logan novels. It’s not uncommon for a thriller series to lose its freshness as the years pass. Pike Logan is almost a caricature of himself in Dead Man’s Hand. Fortunately, while the action scenes are nothing special, they are plentiful, so the novel will provide a quick fix for vicarious adrenalin junkies who enjoy tough guy novels.

Pike leads a team of tough guys (and his wife) on missions for a Taskforce that was set up to implement quick-strike reactions when there isn’t time to get (or the likelihood of obtaining) the congressional approval required by law. The Taskforce operates on the theory that political oversight just gets in the way of killing people who need to die quickly.

Over the course of the series, a formula has emerged. Pike is ordered to do something. He doesn’t like the order but he follows it until he doesn’t. Then Pike is ordered not to do something. Pike does it anyway because his gut tells him it’s the right thing to do, particularly if he decides that it is important to complete the mission that he didn’t want. Bad guys are killed, the world is saved, and everyone is happy until it all happens again in the next novel.

The bad guys in Dead Man’s Hand are Russians. A group of Ukrainians, unaffiliated with the Ukraine government, joins with a dissident team of Russian GRU operatives in a plot to assassinate Putin. More power to them, I say, except there’s a hitch. Putin, egomaniacal mad dictator that he is, has handed out launch codes to four trusted people with instructions to annihilate the world if he dies. This assures the mutual destruction of those who oppose Putin and everyone else in the world.

Putin is aware that rogue members of the GRU want to kill him but doesn’t know the details. Russians loyal to Putin (or so he believes) are sent to mop up the rogue Russians, which also pits them against the Ukrainians who are in league with the disloyal GRU spies.

The initial plan to kill Putin is a bit vague. At its inception, it might involve a remote-operated machine gun or drones. The weapons will likely be acquired from Israel. The connection to Israel allows Pike to bring Shoshana into the story. Shoshana is a crazy ex-Mossad agent who has worked with Pike and Jennifer in the past. Everyone is afraid of Shoshana, in part because she is likely to kill people if she doesn’t like the color of their aura.

The story is just what a series fan will expect, in part because the fan will have read it over and over. Pike’s team chases Russians and Ukrainians, not quite knowing who the bad guys are. Pike’s team defends itself against Russians and Ukrainians who shoot at them until they figure out who the good guys are. More shootouts ensue until they save the world. Along the way, Pike argues with everyone and does what he wants, although he occasionally admits that he might be wrong and revises “what he wants” accordingly.

Like many tough guys, Pike is always angry. Like many tough guys, Pike’s first instinct is to punch the person who happens to be triggering his anger. Like many tough guys, Pike doesn’t like to be told what to do, which makes one wonder why Pike joined the military before abandoning military life for Taskforce life. Pike wants to do “what’s right,” provided he is the determiner of right and wrong. In that regard, the only interesting aspect of Dead Man’s Hand is the conflict between Pike’s desire to help Ukraine defend itself from Putin and his desire not to allow the Ukrainians and rogue Russians to start a nuclear war.

Pike is aggravated throughout the novel because he’s reasonably been told that his masters want to know what’s happening and he should refrain from killing anyone until the repercussions of his actions can be understood. He can’t deal with the mission because he’s not allowed to be an action hero. Okay, that’s not anything that Brad Taylor says, but that’s what I read into Pike’s oft-stated grumbles about bureaucrats who haven’t ever killed anyone.

Pike has become a tedious character who is defined by his anger and arrogance more than any other characteristic. Back when Pike was developing a relationship with Jennifer, her ability to calm him (her feminine willingness to see other perspectives balancing his rage-fueled masculine need to dominate) was cheesy but at least worked as a means of character development. Now it’s just another cliché in a series that no longer has the power to surprise.

Still, Taylor always writes fast-moving action scenes. The story is predictable and the novel loses its energy before it reaches an underwhelming climax, but I’m recommending it to readers who enjoy tough guy action for its own sake. If you’ve read some Pike Logan novels (I’m a fan of the early ones) and are looking for something different than those you’ve already read, this one isn’t for you.

RECOMMENDED

King in Limbo Omnibus vol. 1 by Ai Tanaka

Published by Kodansha Comics on January 16, 2024

This omnibus edition collects the first two issues of a six issue “thriller manga” series. To me, manga means comic book drawings of teens with really big eyes. I must be wrong, since every comic book that comes out of Japan is labeled manga even if the characters have beady eyes and are in their twenties. If marketing materials can be believed, The King of Limbo is hugely popular among Japanese manga fans, despite the absence of teens with big eyes. Since it was originally published in Japanese, readers will need to read the panels on each page from right to left. At least the book doesn’t require readers to read from back to front.

In 2086, Adam Garfield was on a mission for the US Navy when a bomb exploded, causing him to lose a leg. He’s been reassigned to work as a companion to a diver. The job involves diving into people’s minds as they sleep and removing chunks of their memories. Adam’s partner will be Rune, more famously known as the King, the diver who ended the sleeping disease pandemic. The King can speak to the infected as they sleep and isolate the infected memory so he can destroy it.

A new strain of the infection is spreading and only the King can defeat it. Except the King doesn’t want the job until some puzzling drama unfolds involving his wife and an eight-year-old girl.

During the dive, the King and Adam go to a place the King calls Limbo. Limbo holds the memories of the infected person. The people in Limbo are surreal. Some are violent. It seems strange that memories can attack Adam, but they do. Somehow the memories take Adam back into the war he was fighting when he lost his leg. I can’t make much sense of anything that happens in Limbo.

Back in the real world, Adam and the King speculate about the cause of the new pandemic. By the second issue, the King and Adam are playing detective. They stumble into theories about how the new virus might be spreading but they’re still working on why. Someone or something with nefarious intent seems to be controlling it. People who view COVID-19 as a conspiracy theory will probably love King in Limbo.

Even as a rational reader, I enjoyed the story so far. Adam and the King are working through personal issues that give their characters some weight and the tension between them adds to the drama.

Panels are drawn as if they come in and out of focus. I guess that’s sort of interesting.  The art is detailed in some panels and in others it seems more like an incomplete sketch. Maybe there’s a purpose to that. Rune has the shaggy hair that is characteristic of manga characters. Adam is more a caricature of an American soldier. The art doesn’t strike me as anything special but manga fans can feel free to correct me.

RECOMMENDED

Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino

Published by Scribner on January 23, 2024

Last Acts is built on dark humor. Some of the humor derives from unlikely sources. Drug addition isn’t funny. Neither are school shootings. Everyone survives the shooting in Last Acts (the headlines speak of Mass Survival rather than Mass Murder) because the gun was too big for the shooter to handle. He fell down sobbing without managing to kill anyone.

Sobbing is a common experience in Last Acts. So many events in life promote tears. Look at the same events from a different perspective, however, and they might promote laughter. Drug addiction isn’t funny but people in rehab might be. School shootings aren’t funny but a survivor who forms a support group for victims of Mass Survival might give readers a reason to laugh. Marketing isn’t funny but, well, sure it is. How perspective influences attitude is an important theme of Last Acts.

The transition from loser to winner is another of the novel’s themes. It’s a transition that should make people happy, but are winners always happy? They might have been happier when they were losers. Change is the only constant. A loser who becomes a winner will probably become a loser again. But whether the person is really a loser is, again, a matter of perspective. A character named Felicia illustrates the point: “She was happy with her life, more or less. Sometimes the wind hit her and she felt certain she would sob. But more frequent were the days when she walked around smiling, confident that she would never die.”

The novel’s most important characters are Rizzo and his son Nick. Rizzo’s first name is David but he’s known to all as Rizzo. Rizzo has a gun shop in a strip mall that was developed by Buford Bellum, a serial entrepreneur who is at heart a con artist. Rizzo had a history of being fired from sales jobs until he believed Buford’s pitch that buying into the “business park” would guarantee his success. Instead, Rizzo has crushing debt, a store full of guns, and few customers willing to venture into the lonely mall to buy them.

The possibility of an afterlife is the only thing that mitigates Rizzo’s fear of death. When Nick dies from a drug overdose and is brought back to life, Rizzo’s hopes are dashed by Nick’s report that he experienced nothing after he died. Rizzo is terrified by the thought that his miserable life is all he will ever have.

Nick is a heroin addict. He needs drug treatment but, when Rizzo takes him to the most affordable treatment center, his credit cards are declined. Unsurprisingly, the center refuses Rizzo’s request to “just keep him for a for a few days” while Rizzo tries to find the money.

Nick goes to work in Rizzo’s failing gun shop, hoping to prove to his father than he is done screwing up his life. He tries to make a commercial for his father’s store, promoting sales by promising to donate some of their revenues to drug addiction treatment. Nick’s ad libs (“at Rizzo’s Firearms, we are shooting addiction dead”) cause multiple reshoots, but the commercial they eventually produce goes viral, bringing success and more opportunities to screw up. Life is a series of ups and downs. Nick and Rizzo both make the transition from loser to winner before they fall again.

Rizzo’s downfall occurs when he is held responsible (unjustly in the collective view of his gun-happy customers) for the failed school shooting. Nick’s production of the commercial for his father’s store seems to give birth to a career as a marketing consultant until he teams up with Buford Bellum. Neither father nor son can get ahead for long.

Nick and Rizzo love each other, albeit grudgingly. They would like to trust each other, but trust must be earned and neither parent nor child is capable of exercising sound judgment. Their comical mishaps promote guilty laughter (it isn’t nice, after all, to laugh at another’s misfortune). The story develops poignancy from the willingness of father and son to maintain a relationship despite their inevitable disappointment with each other. They can work through their issues because they know they’ll always have each other.

In the tradition of modern (or postmodern or whatever they are these days) novels, Last Acts ends abruptly, in the middle of an important development. That will annoy some readers. I’ve almost gotten used to it. Maybe Alexander Sammartino will write a sequel that explains the next chapters of his characters’ lives. He probably won’t, but I hope he does.

RECOMMENDED