The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley

Published by Grove Press on September 15, 2020

Walter Mosley is known for crime fiction that has the depth, complexity, and prose style of literary novels. The protagonist in the story “Haunted” submitted 1,000 stories to literary journals. Each was rejected because of its “genre” themes. Perhaps Mosley wrote that story as a reminder that fiction of literary quality can still engage themes that are common to genre fiction. Mosley’s fans (and fans of other extraordinary writers of genre fiction) understand that a literary work does not cease to be literary because its characters are not upper middle-class New Yorkers who spend their time regretting failed marriages while doing little to interest readers who are not upper middle-class New Yorkers in failed marriages.

Notwithstanding Mosley’s excellence as a writer of crime fiction, most of the stories in this collection do not fit within a genre. These are stories of life. The protagonists are educated black men of varying ages. Some work for banks or insurance companies. Others are professors. They are awkward for many reasons. The younger ones are uncertain of how they might fit into the world. The older ones don’t know how to talk to women or bosses. Some are insecure. One feels “sure that any woman who showed any interest in me were the ones who had given up, deciding that they’d never get the kind of man they’d really wanted.” When a woman does seem to take an interest in that character, she turns out to be a thief.

Many of the men have been betrayed by women in various ways, although the long-married salesman in “The Letter” is getting over the end of his third affair. Some of the men are going through a crisis, wondering about their relationships or the purpose of their lives. They often question themselves, wonder about the choices they made. Sometimes they question their faith in humanity.

Some of the men struggle with their place in a society that holds them apart. They are burdened by the complexity of life, incapable of glib or superficial responses to social or workplace situations. A man who feels “stuck” has two therapists and lies to them both.

The men are often philosophers, some drawing on the classics and others on the street to inform a perspective on purpose and meaning. Some of the men decide it is time to make a break from the past and to begin a new life. One protagonist, pondering the concept of equilibrium and balance, renounces everything material and, like a Buddhist monk, becomes a beggar during an interval in his search for identity. Another quits his job, walking away from a retirement package, and invites a woman he barely knows to join him as he travels to Italy. Yet another resists a promotion because he wonders whether the position will have a corrupting influence on his life.

Only a couple of stories in this collection might be a comfortable fit within genre fiction. “The Sin of Dreams” involves a murder trial, but it flirts with a common science fiction theme by imaging the transfer of data from a brain to digital storage.  The story asks whether a human soul exists independently of memories and explores the ramifications of replacing natural with synthetic bodies. The writer in “Haunted” dies angry and unpublished. He returns as a ghost to pay for his “small-minded, selfish ways.” It takes years of death to learn how to let go of the anger that consumed him in life.

Mosley’s stories dig into the heart of life. They are heartwarming and heartbreaking. Some of the protagonists have suffered a run of hard luck. Some have fathers who are killers or brawlers. Some of the men might have responded to adversity with alcohol or silence. They might lose hope for a while, but in the end, they might find a reserve of strength that helps them carry on.

Each story in this collection is thought-provoking and each reflects the intelligence and compassion that is emblematic of Mosley’s fiction. Mosley drills a deep hole into the interior of his characters to find the humanity that we have so much trouble discovering within ourselves. Decency is a common theme in the stories. Even when they disappoint themselves, characters generally behave decently because that’s how they are wired. Most of the men refuse to be anything less than caring or understanding when the chips are down, no matter how indecently they are treated by others. These awkward black men are, on the whole, models for all men as they confront the awkwardness of living.

RECOMMENDED

The Vigilant Spy by Jeffrey Layton

Published by Kensington on May 11, 2020

The Vigilant Spy is the fourth in a series of novels featuring Yuri Kirov, a Russian intelligence asset who defected and joined the western world of private enterprise. He gives the CIA an assist from time to time as the price of freedom. The Vigilant Spy fills in enough details of Yuri’s past that it can be read as a standalone.

The story begins with Uyghur dissidents who believe they are retrieving an underwater surveillance device. To their misfortune, they are are actually setting off a small nuclear device near a Chinese naval base. The operation doesn’t go exactly as planned, but the Russians who conceived it have made the Chinese blame the resulting EMT damage on the United States. The Russian operation is in retribution for China’s earlier antagonism toward Russia, in which China also attempted to deflect blame to the United States for its mischief.

Yuri Kirov was a Russian intelligence operative who is using his knowledge of submarines and underwater drones to win defense contracts for the Alaskan business he founded. The CIA and DOD decide his specialized knowledge will come in handy when it learns of a new Chinese weapon, an underwater drone that moves like a snake, wraps itself around targets, and explodes.

Kirov, a CIA agent, and some SEALs try to break into a Chinese military base to steal plans for the device, a Mission Impossible adventure that, to Jeffrey Lawton’s credit, the heroes must abandon in favor of a slightly more realistic objective. Before the novel ends, Kirov will engage in a daring escape from China with a hostage in tow, while the submarine that supports his mission plays tag with Chinese and Russian vessels in the South China sea.

Lawton writes action scenes that are brimming with tension and sets them up with the kind of groundwork that allows a reader to suspend disbelief. Lawton makes the relatively outlandish plot seems barely plausible, in part because the story never pushes past the outer boundary of credibility. The machinations of China, Russia, and the United States all have an aura of realism. The political intrigue adds a layer of interest to the fast-moving story.

Kirov is presented as a guy who would like to put politics behind him and move forward with his new western family. Characterization isn’t deep but it’s sufficient for an action novel. The fact that Kirov is a Russian spy-turned-defector makes him more interesting than the typical super-patriot thriller hero. The Vigilant Spy isn’t a top shelf spy novel, but it is an entertaining action-thriller.

RECOMMENDED

A Saint from Texas by Edmund White

Published by Bloomsbury on August 4, 2020

Sometimes a book that would not otherwise interest me is so beautifully written that it carries me along. A Saint from Texas is a family drama set largely in aristocratic France, although significant parts of the story revolve around a nun in South America. While neither nuns nor aristocrats whet my literary interest, much of A Saint from Texas is absorbing. Edmund White made me care about characters in a genre that typically bores the pants off me.

Speaking of people losing their pants, White titillates with sufficient sex in its various configurations that any reader whose blood still flows hot on occasion will wonder what naughtiness the novel’s twin protagonists will be up to next. They are twins in a literal sense, two sisters who take divergent paths in life while remaining very much the same person in fundamental ways. Yvonne considers Yvette her “ransom paid to virtue.” Yvette lives a pious life on behalf of both sisters, freeing Yvonne to explore the sexual interests that Yvette makes an unsuccessful effort to subordinate. In the end, Yvonne considers them both to be “good Texas girls,” a label that is questionable in Yvonne’s case even if religious judgment is removed from the definition of “good.”

The story begins in Texas, where luck and oil (and later real estate investments) make Peter Crawford a wealthy man. He has two daughters, Yvonne and Yvette, and a new wife, Bobbie Jean, who dedicates herself to giving the girls a sophisticated and educated life. Both girls are bright, but Yvonne is drawn to fashion and celebrity while Yvette wants to live a religious, cloistered life. We eventually learn, in a scene that seems forced, that Peter is a seriously flawed father.

Neither sister wants to stay in Texas and they both have the financial security to do as they please. Yvonne travels to Paris where she marries a baron because aristocracy suits her. Of course, her husband, Adhéaume de Courcy, has only married her for her money, which he squanders as quickly as he can in ways that will maximize his desire to be envied for his good taste. Yvette, meanwhile, converts to Catholicism and joins a convent in Colombia, but only after she apparently performs a miracle by lifting a car to save a trapped child.

The novel is a study in contrasts. Texas is new and brash, a state of Barcaloungers. Paris is old and reserved, where the Louis XIV furniture that Texans would toss in the trash is revered. The convent is austere, a place where old and new have little meaning. Texas food is spicy; the food favored by French aristocrats is bland; a Filipina nun in Colombia feels lucky when she can eat white rice. Yvette has renounced materialism; Yvonne is consumed by it, at least when it comes to fashion.

Yet there are similarities in the interior lives of Yvonne and Yvette, including their attraction to women. Yvonne prefers male bodies but regards women as more considerate lovers; Yvette’s experience with a male was unwelcome, so she has less basis for comparison. Neither woman has perfect self-control, which is awkward for a married woman or a nun, but it is difficult to judge either of them, given their circumstances.

We learn about Yvette’s life (including her doubts about the church and her inability to control her sexual desire) from letters that she writes to Yvonne. White concentrates the plot on Yvonne, whose eventful life includes a ménage à trois, a strained relationship with her husband’s parents, a tense relationship with a father who disapproves of her husband, and a priest who gives her unlikely advice about how to solve her marital problems. The advice seems much too casual to be authentic and not the sort of thing that even a fallen priest would suggest. That aspect of the novel and some others (including an effort to purchase a sainthood for Yvette, the sexual choices made by the twins, and White’s portrayal of French aristocracy) are presumably intended as satire, but the satire is too underplayed to be effective. The injection of satire is also unsettlingly discordant, given that significant parts of the novel (such as the odious behavior of Peter) are apparently meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, if Peter’s conduct toward Yvette is meant to be satirical, it isn’t funny. Some subject just don’t lend themselves to humor.

After a significant event resolves the drama that surrounds Yvonne’s life, the story peters out. The next few decades pass in a whirlwind of exposition that adds little to the story.

Notwithstanding the novel’s troubling aspects, White’s ability to create complex characters and to detail their lives in observant and elegant prose makes the novel worthwhile. All but the last couple of chapters are fascinating, in the trashy way that Dallas and Nip/Tuck were fascinating. Deeply religious readers might want to avoid the novel entirely. Readers who insist that only admirable characters can make a book enjoyable will find few characters they would want to know. Moral faults aside, both Yvette and Yvonne live the life they choose, and Yvonne at least lives an interesting (albeit scandalous) life that compelled me to keep reading.

RECOMMENDED

The Last Agent by Robert Dugoni

Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 22, 2020

The Last Agent follows The Eighth Sister as the second book to chronicle the exploits of Charles Jenkins, an unretired spy. Jenkins came out of retirement in the last novel because he needed the money. In this one, Jenkins returns to Russia to repay a favor.

Jenkins escaped from Russia in The Eighth Sister thanks to the sacrifice of Paulina Ponomayova. She provided a distraction that gave Jenkins time to get away from his pursuers. Jenkins assumed she died. It turns out that she is alive (at least for the moment) and in prison, where she will certainly be tortured on the premise that she knows the identities of spies who have passed information to the CIA for decades.

Naturally, the CIA decides that it would be smart to send Jenkins, a tall black guy who stands out in Russia, to rescue Paulina. Jenkins coerces a retired Russian spy, Viktor Federov, into providing an assist, playing both on Federov’s greed and on his competitive nature. After they confirm that Paulina is still alive, Jenkins concocts a plan to bust her out of prison and smuggle her out of Russia.

Farfetched? Of course it is, but improbability doesn’t get in the way of entertainment in a novel that is largely a setup followed by an extended chase scene. Much of the fun derives from the novel’s tradecraft, the various deceptions and ruses that the CIA employs to keep Jenkins and Paulina from being captured or killed. As for the chase, on roads and trains and boats and foot, Robert Dugoni delivers the excitement that a thriller should generate. The outcome is predictable and the story is bit light on drama, but the last half moves too quickly to allow time for contemplation of the novel’s faults.

The very last scene sets up a return to Russia to save the surviving spies whose identities Jenkins tried to protect in the first novel. Jenkins might want to stay unretired because he hasn’t felt this young in years, chases apparently serving as a tonic for youth until you get caught. I fear that Dugoni will go to the well once to often if he sends Jenkins back to Russia — by now, every cop in Russia must know that a tall black guy should be detained with no questions asked — but it isn’t fair to judge a novel I haven’t read. Maybe the formula will work a third time. I can attest that it worked well enough the second time to earn a recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Spook Street by Mick Herron

Published by Soho Press on February 21, 2017

Mick Herron’s Slough House books are among the most entertaining spy novels of the current century. Slough House is home to members of the British Secret Service who are considered unworthy of employment but who, for whatever reason, cannot be fired. Under the deceptively watchful eye of Jackson Lamb, the “slow horses” at Slough House manage to prevail, more or less, in their fight against England’s enemies, or its friends, depending on the circumstances. Spook Street is the fourth novel in the series.

Spook Street opens with stage setting, reintroducing familiar characters and their problems, which variously include a gambling addiction, alcoholism, anger management issues, and troubled relationships. A new character, J.K. Coe, is clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum and probably high on the psychopathy scale. A terrorist bombing occurs in the background but doesn’t seem immediately connected to the plot.

The plot’s immediate concern is River Cartwright, whose grandfather, a legendary spy who raised River, is becoming lost to dementia. River’s grandfather is increasingly paranoid and apparently living in the past, certain he’s being followed by an enemy. Lost in his fantasy, when River comes to his home and draws him a bath, the old man seems determined to kill his grandson.

That plot eventually sends a capable killer to Slough House while Lamb is off buying whiskey, leaving nobody tending the shop who has the skills to fight an armed assassin. Before that happens, a slow horse does some actual spying, traveling undercover to France and learning about a black ops training site that was apparently responsible for the attempt on the life of River’s grandfather and for the assassin who invades Slough House. The purpose for the site remains a mystery until the novel’s end, one of a few mysteries that occupy the reader as the story gathers steam.

Like the other novels in the series, Spook Street integrates humor, action, and unexpected moments of drama. The first third is a mix of wit, farce, and slapstick before a more serious story begins to unfold.

It seems unwise to pick a favorite character in this series because the character might not survive until the end of the story. But live or die, the characters all have the kind of quirky personalities and idiosyncrasies that invite empathy. They are not necessarily a likeable bunch — they tend to have love-hate relationships with each other — but they are fundamentally decent and, on occasion, surprisingly competent. Particularly Lamb, whose competence is never in question, but whose Machiavellian nature asserts itself in the interest of a good cause at the novel’s end. Above all, having been a joe for much of his life, Lamb takes care of his joes. “And one thing joes learn quickly is that those who write the rules rarely suffer their weight.”

Mick Herron stitches this all together with fine prose, deadpan humor, and sympathetic insight into the emotions of third string players. Spook Street maintains the high level of a series that offers a unique and welcome take on the British spy novel.

RECOMMENDED