We Are Watching Eliza Bright by A.E. Osworth

Published by Grand Central Publishing on April 13, 2021

It’s early, but We Are Watching Eliza Bright might be the most inventive novel I will read this year. From its prose (“Suzanne twitches and wonders how a room without a door can smell so Strongly of anything let alone the ephemeral subtle stench of depression”) to its structure to its surprising plot, A.E. Osworth has crafted a timely American original.

The novel’s point of view might be its best feature. For the most part, the POV is collective. As the title implies, the novel is narrated by the “we” who are watching Eliza Bright. The narrators “watch” Eliza with their eyes when she is in their line of sight, by hacking her computer or phone, by tracking her online presence, by monitoring the location of devices belonging to people who have contact with her, and through crowdsourced surveillance. Some of the watchers are Eliza’s co-workers, including Leaky Joe, who feeds information to the collective that he gleans by watching Eliza from a distance with his “mad lipreading skills.” Others are members of the gaming community.

Members of the collective often draw different conclusions about the facts they are narrating, usually because they are speculating about events that occur outside of their physical or virtual presence. Sometimes the collective narrates alternative versions of things that they imagine might have happened. In one version of a visit to Eliza’s apartment by her boss, they have sex; in another, the boss doesn’t even take his coat off. Either version makes for a good story.

The “we” who read about Eliza on Reddit have a perspective that they believe to be more civilized than that of the “we” who read about her on 4chan. While the collective shares diverse opinions, we know that it is unified in its disdain for Eliza. Most of its members view her friend and co-worker Suzanne as a “social justice warrior,” the idea of social justice being particularly abhorrent to those who benefit from its absence.

The collective is dominated by males; few women remain “who have not been driven away.” The males in the collective generally view themselves as victimized by females. They believe “the world isn’t safe for normal white men anymore.” They presumably hang out on Reddit for affirmation. Suzanne belongs to a female collective counterpart, allies of Eliza who call themselves “the Sixsterhood.” They interact in person and presumably stay far away from Reddit.

The story initially centers on a relatively mild instance of sexual harassment that quickly escalates when Eliza complains about it. Eliza works for Fancy Dog Games. Her boss is Preston Waters. Preston co-created a popular game called Guilds of the Protectorate. Eliza is a gamer whose avatar is called Circuit Breaker. Eliza is not a coder but she gets promoted to a position that requires her to develop coding skills. Other (mostly male) coders resent her presence and mark her lines of code with 80085, which looks like the word boobs if you squint just right. Eliza complains to Preston, which makes the coders, led by Lewis Fleishman and Jean-Pascale Desfrappes, go ballistic. How dare she? Doesn’t she have a sense of humor? Preston, who portrays himself as woke and open and is very into deep and meaningful Conversations with employees, pretends to be concerned while he — with the utmost display of sensitivity — encourages Eliza to drop the whole thing so everyone can return their focus to helping Fancy Dog make money. Meanwhile, the coders who watch through the office windows assume that Eliza is shagging Preston because why else wouldn’t he have fired her for complaining about them?

Eliza wants Fancy Dog to change the male-centric culture that characterizes the tech industry and gaming. When she doesn’t back down as a good “team player” should — when she in fact shares her concerns with the media — the coders decide to punish her. Soon the entire word of gaming joins in the fun, which isn’t fun for Eliza. In fact, they want to instill fear in Eliza, from which they derive the equivalent of sexual pleasure that they probably can’t get in any other way. The worst of them, a sadist who calls himself The Inspectre, sets out to terrorize her. The Inspectre is much admired in the collective for having the courage to do things in the real world that others only fantasize about. More timid members of the collective content themselves with raping Circuit Breaker inside Guilds.

The novel’s form is occasionally experimental, but not drastically so. Periods are sometimes omitted from sentences. (I imagine that’s a statement about a generation that grew up writing periodless texts.)  Important words are capitalized; words in phrases are capitalized as if they are titles. Many chapters consist of text message chains.

The novel explores physical and psychological threats to women in the workplace, the use of NDAs to silence wronged employees, and the team-building style of business management that pretends to be more humanistic than traditional heirarchical companies. On a more philosophical level, We Are Watching Eliza Bright asks whether there is any longer a difference between the virtual world and the physical world. Eliza argues that online encounters, in gaming environments or other virtual settings, are just as important as encounters in meatspace. We convince ourselves that “things that happen in games and online aren’t important” when they might be just as psychologically consequential as in-person interactions. Eliza contends that it is dangerous to “fragment our society even further” by living in a virtual world without human interaction, a world that breeds incels and white nationalists in the absence of the civilizing influence of community.

It could be argued that online communities are not much different from physical communities and that people who think alike will seek each other out, in physical space or in online communities. That certainly seems to be true of white nationalists. Perhaps online life is different for nerdish guys (and I say this as someone who was once a nerdish kid), who might develop a resentment of women who dismiss them as undesirable. Perhaps their resentments are reinforced in online communications that encourage hostility to women in the workplace. Whether or not the reader is persuaded by Eliza’s argument, the story makes clear that the discussion is worth having. In any event, the story is worth reading for its literary and entertainment value apart from the book club discussions it might inspire.

RECOMMENDED

In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on April 13, 2021

Tom Klay investigates crimes against endangered species for an organization called The Sovereign. Similar in some ways to National Geographic, The Sovereign is a nonprofit institution that includes publications and a news channel focusing on nature and its threats. Among other stories, Klay investigates poachers in Kenya, where rhinos are killed for their horns. One of Klay’s sources is a friend who dies early in the novel. Klay suspects that Ras Botha, a former South African cop, is behind a poaching operation that is responsible for his friend’s death.

One of The Sovereign’s apparent supporters is Krieger, who owns Perseus Group, a security company that provides international paramilitary support to governments and private organizations. Klay doubts that Krieger cares much about endangered species, given his conflicting interest in a Chinese plan to run a railroad down the middle of Kenya. Part of the story’s drama involves the sale of The Sovereign to the media branch of the Perseus Group, much to the chagrin of The Sovereign’s president and Klay’s editor, Vance Eady. The sale may drastically change the nature of Klay’s job.

Klay’s backstory as the son of an imprisoned undertaker includes a failed relationship with a South African prosecutor named Hungry Khoza. It also includes a drunk driving accident that caused a child’s death in Jakarta and destroyed his relationship with Erin Dougherty. At a low point, thinking of himself as “a bad person who does good things to hide the truth,” Klay agreed to work under contract for the CIA.

The plot extends well beyond poaching and the ivory trade. Following the plot requires a bit of concentration and a keen memory. Scenes flash by that the reader will later need to connect with new events. People Klay trusts turn out to be untrustworthy. People Klay despises may actually be his allies. The CIA is up to its usual meddlesome tricks, sometimes forming relationships with the wrong people. Unsavory characters of note include a pedophile priest, an Admiral who betrays the American military, and someone who shoots a child to save himself from a charging buffalo.

The least satisfying part of the story concerns the area in the South China Sea that both China and the Philippines claim as their territory. Krieger makes a sales pitch to give China a technological advantage against the American Navy, which regularly cruises international waters to prevent Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The Chinese intrigue seems out of place. It advances into territory that is too familiar to thriller readers. The novel works best when it avoids conventional thriller plots and concentrates on the kind of story that other thriller writers haven't told.

Bryan Christy uses elephants as a metaphor for power and delayed vengeance (elephants, after all, never forget). The story’s African setting allows Christy to create an atmosphere that sets In the Company of Killers Apart from its competition. Klay isn’t an action hero, making him more credible than most thriller protagonists. The story nevertheless moves with deliberate speed, never bogging down despite its complexity. Christy’s prose is smooth and he doesn’t waste words.

Life changes people. Good fiction reflects that with changes in characters. Klay evolves as the story progresses. He becomes more likeable as he gains more insight into his past. If Christy is inclined to use In the Company of Killers as a springboard for a series — and why wouldn’t be? — it will likely be a series worth following.

RECOMMENDED

Turn a Blind Eye by Jeffrey Archer

Published by St. Martin's Press on April 13, 2021

William Warwick enters Turn a Blind Eye as a Detective Sergeant and leaves as a Detective Chief Inspector. That is the pattern in the Warwick novels. The young man starts from the bottom, completes an investigation with an arrest and a conviction (aided by his father, who prosecutes), and earns a promotion. His meteoric rise must be the envy of the Metropolitan Police.

The Warwick series divides William’s story into multiple novels — three so far. After a brief stint as a beat cop, Warwick put his art history education to use in the first book, where he met his nemesis, the wealthy Miles Faulkner. In the second book, Warwick moves to drug investigations, where he again encounters Faulkner, who has expanded his criminal repertoire from art forgery to drug distribution. In this third novel, Warwick moves into a new unit, the Met’s version of internal affairs, where he investigates corrupt cops.

Faulker dies and is cremated at an early point in the story, although nobody believes he’s really dead, least of all the reader. By the novel’s end, Warwick is again promoted and transferred to the murder squad. Faulkner is still at large and engaged in more scheming with his art collection. Warwick’s wife and Faulkner’s former wife continue to pursue their unlikely friendship.

The primary plot involves a bent copper named J.R. Summers, who investigates burglaries and helps himself to part of the loot. He’s particularly successful at busting members of a London crime family while spectacularly unsuccessful at gathering evidence against a rival crime family. That discrepancy leads to the obvious suspicion that Summers is corrupt. Summers becomes involved with a detective constable who apparently doesn’t understand the concept of birth control, leading Warwick and his cohorts to hope that she will merely experience heartbreak as a girlfriend rather than a conviction as a co-conspirator.

A second plot thread involves Assem Rashidi, another drug dealer. Warwick must testify against Rashidi, resulting from Warwick’s earlier stint in the drug unit. As always, the Crown is represented by Warwick’s father, Sir Julian, who is second chaired by Warwick’s sister. Why anyone thinks that a father questioning his son is a good idea is beyond me, given the likelihood that the defense will be pointing out the conflict of interest to the jury at every opportunity. The defense barrister, Booth Watson, instead focuses on a variety of dirty tricks. The Warwicks go up against Watson again in the novel’s second trial, this one involving Summers.

The trials are the best part of Turn a Blind Eye. None of the barristers are as clever as Rumpole, but courtroom clashes are always fun. Both sides get away with questioning that would never be allowed in an American courtroom, but perhaps British judges are more tolerant of unfair tactics.

As always, Warwick — whose commitment to rectitude has earned him the name “choirboy” — is a one-dimensional character, and that dimension is dull. As proof that Warwick has a personality, Jeffery Archer has Warwick and his father reciting historical facts and quoting great works of literature. To be a Warwick is to be admired by other Warwicks. I suppose being pompous and self-satisfied is indeed a personality, but it is not one anyone would admire other than similarly pompous and self-satisfied members of the British aristocracy. How Warwick managed to conceive his twins is a mystery, since he has no discernable interest in anything as messy as sex. He likely thought it was his duty to procreate. Warwick is all about duty.

None of these novels suggest that there is any gray area between good and evil. Good people are resolutely good and only a scallywag like Watson would defend the guilty. Readers who don’t want to grapple with the complex reality of life will probably find this series refreshing. The stories are certainly pleasant and the courtroom scenes, at least, are entertaining. Others might find the Warwick novels to be a bit one dimensional, if not dull. The novel’s ending isn’t exactly a cliffhanger, but it does set up another confrontation between Warwick and Faulkner.

RECOMMENDED

Slough House by Mick Herron

Published by Soho Crime on February 9, 2021

Members of a group called the Yellow Vests are making noise about British pride, referring of course to white pride. While Slough House avoids direct mention of Brexit, Mick Herron alludes to it throughout the novel, painting its proponents as chumps and the politicians who endorse it as power hungry chump manipulators.

Peter Judd is one of the manipulators. He’s using Desmond Flint as his stalking horse. Until Judd takes ownership of him, Flint is part of an unruly mob who are trying to “own the libs.” Judd is manipulating Flint into a position of power, a position that Judd plans to control.

Judd believes he also controls Diana Taverner, who occupies the First Desk at the Secret Intelligence Service. Judd and a few other men of wealth bankrolled an off-the-books operation that Taverner directed without the knowledge of her superiors or the Prime Minister. Seeking revenge for a GRU murder of British agents, Taverner commissioned an assassination of her own on Russian soil. The private funding made it possible to do so without seeking permission that never would have been granted.

The GRU, of course, doesn’t appreciate Taverner’s retaliation, so it sends two assassins to England to perform a counterretaliation. To make that mission work, it needs to identify some agents. The GRU has acquired an archived list of agents from a wealthy young media owner named Damien Cantor, who believes that owning a news channel is “like putting a deposit down on a government.” The list is so old that some of the agents are no longer working. All of the agents happen to be assigned to Slough House, where the SIS sends spies who turn out to be useless when it doesn’t kill them instead.

The plot thus parallels current themes in British politics, from rising nationalism and Brexit to media influence and image as a substitute for substance. The plot begins with the murder of former Slough House agents. The killings coincide with a training exercise that irritates Jackson Lamb almost as much as the murders. Lamb is the curator of Slough House and perhaps the most unlikely spy master in the history of spy fiction. Lamb despises his agents (or at least that’s his claim) but he is solidly behind them, following the code of protecting his joes at all cost. When it becomes clear that his joes are being targeted, Jackson doesn’t let Taverner get in the way of doing what he believes should be done. The slow horses at Slough House might not be the best that Britain has to offer, but under Jackson’ guidance, they’re always good enough.

No other series in spy fiction infuses the intrigue of espionage with humor as effectively as the Slough House books. The supporting cast is quirky — Roderick Ho unrealistically regards himself as James Bond; Shirley Dander regularly gets drunk and sleeps around, River Cartwright never quite lives up to the standard set by his legendary grandfather — but they are endearing in their own ways. Rarely does a book go by in which a slow horse doesn’t die and it’s always a bit sad when that happens.

Much of the humor comes from Herron’s keen observation of the world: “When they went on about sixty being the new forty, they forgot to add that that made thirty-something the new twelve.” Herron alternates between dry wit and fart jokes, always achieving a perfect balance of humor and drama. His stories make clear that the world’s evil is not confined to places like Russia and China but is equally embodied in the lust for power that threatens all democracies. Every book in this series is a winner; Slough House is no exception.

RECOMMENDED

House Standoff by Mike Lawson

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on April 6, 2021

In an earlier Joe DeMarco novel, DeMarco had a fling with Shannon Doyle, who abandoned her earlier life to write a novel. DeMarco thought their relationship might turn into more than a fling, but Shannon was chasing her dream and the dream led her to the west coast. DeMarco works as a fixer for a congressman and has no idea what he would do if he left that job. Besides, he’s happy to have a job that lets him spend more time golfing than working. Leaving D.C. isn’t in his immediate future. That’s good news for DeMarco fans.

At the beginning of House Standoff, DeMarco reads in the newspaper that Shannon was murdered in Wyoming. He pulls some strings with Wyoming’s congressman and learns that the local Sheriff’s deputy investigating the death believes that Shannon was murdered by a random trucker who entered her motel room and stole her laptop. DeMarco regards that theory as unlikely. He travels to Wyoming to pursue an investigation of his own, or at least to make a nuisance of himself until the deputy tries harder to solve the crime.

House Standoff is a good book for whodunit fans. DeMarco develops several suspects who might have wanted Shannon dead. Shannon had been gossiping with locals to develop a sense of atmosphere for her new book. She learned about an affair that would be troublesome if it were exposed. A jealous wife suspects Shannon of having an affair with her husband. And Shannon knew the secret of a woman who lives across the street from the motel, a woman who claims to have witnessed a female entering Shannon’s room shortly before she was murdered.

Another plot thread involves a wealthy and influential rancher who is at war with the BLM because he shares the common belief that, as a member of the public, all public land belongs to him. He doesn’t believe he should be required to pay grazing fees when his cattle are on public land. Not long after the rancher and a BLM agent were in a standoff, the BLM agent was shot in the back. DeMarco uses his unconventional approach to problem solving to gather evidence against the killer. (That part of the story, Mike Lawson reveals in an afterword, was inspired by an actual armed standoff in Wyoming. The prevalence of libertarian characters who believe that problems are best solved with guns was probably inspired by Wyoming’s existence.)

The whodunit reads like a classic mystery. Lawson develops the suspects in a fair amount of depth, revealing their potential motives while giving the reader reason to question whether they are likely to have committed a murder. The solution is surprising, all the more so because for all of the nosing around that DeMarco does, he has little to do with solving the crime.

Most of the characters, including an FBI agent, view DeMarco as ruining lives by meddling in people’s secrets. DeMarco doesn’t have much sympathy for the lives he might have ruined, although he does try to mitigate the damage. I like DeMarco because he’s shady but fundamentally decent. The same could be said of most of the murder suspects, although they fall on various points along the continuum between purity and corruption.

Lawson has hit his stride with the recent DeMarco novels. House Standoff is the latest in his series of beach reads that have a deceptive amount of depth.

RECOMMENDED