The New Life of Hugo Gardner by Louis Begley

Published by Doubleday/Nan A. Talese on March 17, 2020

At 85, Hugo Gardner thinks of himself as a “tattered coat upon a stick.” He misses Valerie, to whom he was long married, but she recently left him for the younger man with whom she was sleeping. As an elderly husband he was boring, despite having once had an exciting career as a foreign correspondent and eventually as the editor of Time. While his daughter depends on him to pay tuition for his grandchildren, she otherwise sides with her mother and makes clear that she despises him. He gets along with his son, but has a vague feeling that he failed both of his children as well as his wife and grandchildren. His contacts with his son and grandkids have been “pleasant but not particularly affectionate.”

When Hugo must decide whether to have treatment to prevent his prostate cancer from metastasizing, he considers whether he wants to prolong his life and at what cost. Despite his shortcomings and the malaise they have produced, he thinks he is happy, albeit lonely. He takes joy from his garden and the birds it attracts, from walks on the beach and his writing projects, from food and drink and books and operas. If his memories are not all good, some are splendid. Hugo feels vast regret that he will die, a fate that comes closer every day, but he wants to die on his own terms: lucid, mobile, and independent.

As Hugo ponders his choices, he has occasion to go to France, where he worked for years as a journalist. He looks up some old friends, chats with them about the unlikely presidential candidate running against Hilary. He eventually contacts a former lover he abandoned for Valerie. They rehash old memories, not always pleasant (particularly from Jeanne’s perspective), but they make new ones, at least until the time comes to think about the future.

Unlike novels about seniors who look back at their lives, The New Life of Hugo Gardner is primarily about the difficulty of looking forward when not much time remains. Thinking about the future isn’t easy when there isn’t much future left. Hugo considers the future that everyone faces to be bleak, given the world’s refusal to confront the reality of global warming and its growing embrace of totalitarian leaders, but his concerns are more personal. Forming new or renewed relationships is difficult after a certain age. It is unlikely, after all, that he will find someone who will commit to a relationship that is doomed to end in the relatively near future. Even adopting a dog, only to make it an orphan, seems like a bad idea.

Or is Hugo refusing to think outside the box? He is hardly alone in his loneliness. Even much younger people feel isolated. Perhaps if he opens himself to opportunity, the rest of his days can be shared with people who care about him, even if those relationships are not what he had with Valerie or Jeanne.

The New Life of Hugo Gardner is not a novel for readers who insist on a page-turning plot. It is a contemplative character study that meanders in the nonlinear direction of thoughts that occur to an aging man. The publisher calls this novel a “comedy of manners,” but I read it as a bittersweet exploration of the nuances of aging. Hugo is far from a typical octogenarian — he is surprisingly virile for a man of his age — but he embodies the regrets of men who have lived self-absorbed lives, men who gave attention to careers rather than families and friends, who feel both betrayed and guilty as they try to chart a path forward. Hugo’s self-analysis and refusal to blame others for his faults gives him a certain charm, and his insightful commentary on life as it nears its end gives surprising weight to a light novel.

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The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 17, 2020

Harlan Coben seems to alternate between novels that are so-so and novels that are pretty good. The Boy from the Woods falls into the “pretty good” category. Since his last Myron Bolitar novel in 2016, he’s focused on writing stand-alones. The Boy from the Woods is a stand-alone at the moment, but the book sets up some mysteries about the protagonist’s past that invite resolution in future novels.

The Boy from the Woods imagines a senator named Rusty Eggers who is running for president. Eggers claims he wants to rebuild the country when he is only capable of pulling it apart. His rhetoric makes him popular with low-information voters while forcing everyone to choose a side instead of coming together as a nation.

The novel’s star, however, is a mysterious fellow who is aptly named Wilde — apt because he was discovered at the approximate age of six living by himself in a state forest. Since Wilde had no childhood memory of anything other than living in the woods, he believes he lived there for years until he befriended another child named David. That doesn’t seem plausible, but as events unfold, Coben sold me on the premise.

Wilde eventually went into foster care, but as an adult has continued to live in the woods, sheltered by an eco pod. David’s mother Hester has not seen much of Wilde in the six years following his involvement in a car crash that killed David. David married a woman named Laila and had a son named Matthew. Wilde is Matthew’s godfather. Sometimes he stays overnight with Laila, who keeps her distance from Wilde when she’s not using him for comfort. The relationships in this book are complicated, but they are not far-fetched.

Matthew becomes concerned about a classmate named Naomi Pine, who is always being bullied by popular kids, including Crash Maynard, whose father Dash is a documentarian. Naomi was placed for adoption by a biological mother she never knew, which gives her a bond with Wilde. The plot kicks off when Naomi disappears and ratchets up when Crash disappears. At least one of those disappearances seems to be related to pressure that Dash is receiving to release a rumored tape that shows the kind of wrongdoing that might bring down Senator Eggers. As a favor to Matthew, Wilde goes looking for Naomi, whose teacher happens to be another woman with whom Wilde has kept company at night.

I’m particularly impressed with the way the story imagines Eggers’ ability to manage obvious evidence of his unsuitability for office by denying and deflecting. Bots attack social media in ways that change the public's focus. He has bots call the evidence fake news. He has bots fabricate defenses that paint him as a victim. He has bots assert that damaging videos were obviously photoshopped. He has one set of bots make social media comments that appeal to the right and another set of bots make social media comments that appeal to the left. Then he has the bots attack each other while he stands aside and waits for a new controversy to occupy the public’s attention. So it goes in the age of easily manipulated social media.

To his credit, Coben avoided the outlandish plot development that often mars thrillers, including some of his own. The facts twist at the end, revealing a surprise in what otherwise might have been a predictable story. Another surprise follows, this one a little too manipulative, but it deals with a collateral plot thread and doesn’t overwhelm the story. The central plotline is believable, and all the more entertaining because it is convincing. Wilde has an air of mystery that substitutes for a personality (he’s a strong, silent type). I expect his personality to grow, much as Myron Bolitar’s did, as more novels explore Wilde’s past. On the strength of The Boy from the Woods, I am optimistic that those novels will be worth reading.

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Scornful Stars by Richard Baker

Published by Tor Books on December 3, 2019

Richard Baker’s Breaker of Empires series is written in a style that reminds me of Jeffrey Archer. The protagonist behaves in a way that is consciously proper, as if he wishes to be an exemplar to others, while the writing style is formal, graceful without being stilted. You won’t find slang or foul language passing the lips of the series’ hero.

The hero of the series is Sikander North, a member of an aristocratic family on his homeworld. He begins the series as a lieutenant in the Aquilan Navy, although he is a Kashmiri, not an Acquilan. By the second novel, he is assigned to naval intelligence but posted to a remote world as a result of his actions in the first novel. He does rather well in that assignment and, by the time Scornful Stars begins, he has been made the captain of his own ship.

His patrol beat includes the Zerzura Sector, which is part of the Terran Caliphate, “one of the largest powers in the Coalition of Humanity” that includes worlds colonized by humans during the First Expansion. Its power declined after the Second Expansion, as the Aquilan Commonwealth, the Republic of Montréal, and the Empire of Dremark ascended. Fans of the series will be familiar with the political and military rivalries among those powers.

The other powers would like to gain influence in the Zerzura Sector. To that end, Dremark offers to sell some not-quite-mothballed military vessels (retrofitted to remove any classified technology) to Zerzura. Joining the Dremark delegation is a spy named Bleindal, with whom North has battled in the past.

North’s ship is patrolling four systems in the Zerzura Sector. Piracy has been a problem that North hopes to do something about. He is, in fact, entreated to do so by a lovely woman whose shipping company is plagued by pirates. Of course, North takes an interest in the woman and, all very properly, pursues a relationship with her. Alas, his duties interfere, as duties tend to do.

The pirates seem to know when the military will arrive. North develops a theory as to why that might be, putting him in a position to shoot it out with pirate ships. Later, he seizes an opportunity to thwart Bleindal’s nefarious plans, which leads to more shootouts, both between vessels and between North’s boarding parties and provocateurs.

The emphasis in the second novel was on diplomacy, while this one explores how corruption results in a breakdown of diplomacy. All three novels feature strong action scenes and interesting discussions about military strategy in the context of space, where warships are separated by thousands of kilometers.

A fair amount of military science fiction is ghastly, but the Breaker of Empires series combines a thoughtful balance of diplomacy and politics with military action. Baker’s attention to the forces that drive military engagements gives the series greater depth than most military sf can muster.

Scornful Stars continues Baker’s strong characterization and carefully conceived universe building. The story balances moments of excitement with convincing descriptions of what it might be like to serve in a space-based military organization. Baker’s attention to detail adds credibility to the story, while his focus on the impact of war on his characters adds an important dimension that most military action novels address only in generic terms.

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One Minute Out by Mark Greaney

Published by Berkley on February 18, 2020

You know what you’re getting when you read a Gray Man novel. An abundance of action, a fair amount of mayhem, and a story that blows past the boundaries of plausibility. You also know that characterization is rudimentary, with the exception of the protagonist, whose personality is well established. Court Gentry is an action hero, not an introspective character who cares about personal growth. He knows what he knows and that’s all he’ll ever know. He’s happy with that, so why should readers complain?

I don’t follow many unidimensional action heroes, but there are a few I find entertaining. The Gray Man series is on that list. Few action thriller writers actually deliver thrills. Mark Greaney is one of them. I don’t care that the action is implausible because the story moves so quickly that I don’t have time to think about it.

The Violator, a/k/a the Gray Man, a/k/a Gentry, is hired to kill a retired Serbian war criminal by people who think he deserves to be dead. Killing people is Gentry’s thing, and if he’s paid to do it, all the better. Of course, he only kills people who deserve it, and to some minds, that makes it okay. To my mind, fretting about Gentry’s morality— he doesn’t claim to have any — would get in the way of the story.

As he’s getting ready to take the shot, Gentry goes against his instincts and noses around because he senses something’s not right. When he investigates, he discovers a couple of dozen women and girls who are shackled to the floor. He learns that the women are being trafficked as sex slaves — a popular thriller theme in recent years — and that the women are likely to pay a price for the mayhem he is causing. Gentry doesn’t have the resources to rescue a dozen women from a hellhole, but after he kills the war criminal and makes his escape, he feels guilty about whatever grief he might have caused them.

Gentry eventually hooks up with a female EUROPOL analyst named Talyssa Corbu. She’s usually tracking down financial criminals, but she’s freelancing in an effort to take down the sex slave pipeline. She has a personal stake because she enlisted her sister to cozy up to one of the leaders of the Consortium that manages this billion-dollar enterprise, and her sister, not being trained as a spy, got herself kidnapped and added to the stable of sex slaves. Talyssa eventually uses her skills at following the money to help Gentry use his skills at killing bad guys.

To follow the kidnapped girls, Gentry chases after and boards a yacht, then tries to figure out how to infiltrate a heavily guarded way station for enslaved women in Italy. In the meantime, the CIA has an important mission for Gentry and needs him to come home. To that end, a team is sent to Italy to bring him home against his will.  All of this is just an excuse for chase scenes, gun battles, underwater chase scenes involving gun battles, and . . . you get the idea. By the time it’s all over, Gentry is in California and a lot of people are dead.

The highlight comes near the end when Gentry enlists some over-the-hill action heroes and a geriatric helicopter pilot to help him assault a rich man’s estate. The story isn’t even slightly plausible but it is richly entertaining. I wouldn’t rate One Minute Out as my favorite Gray Man novel, but it is much better than the bulk of action hero thrillers, the ones I typically abandon after twenty pages because the protagonists are so self-righteous and full of themselves. Yeah, Gentry knows he’s the baddest assassin out there, but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He is who he is, and Greaney’s emphasis isn’t so much on what a great patriot Gentry is (that’s an understated given) or how he’s a great American hero (debatable, even in Gentry’s mind), but on how much fun he can deliver to the reader by having Gentry break things and kill bad guys.

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Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith

Published by Little, Brown and Company on March 3, 2020

Dark, disturbing, and gritty, Blackwood is Michael Farris Smith’s latest contribution to the literature of the American underbelly. Set in a kudzu-covered valley in rural Mississippi, the novel follows characters who seek escape. The kudzu vines that build a cage around houses and abandoned cars are presumably a symbol of the forces that strangle freedom, forcing characters to reach for figurative machetes to cut themselves free.

Colburn Evans comes back to his hometown in response to an ad that offers a free storefront to anyone who agrees to become a town resident. Colburn assembles sculptures from scrap metal. He envisions the storefront as his workshop. But Colburn finds himself shunned by residents who recall his family’s past, including his father’s apparent suicide-by-hanging. A character tells Colburn that the valley is “one big ghost story. Stories about the past. Stories about the man who killed himself. It’s what we do.” Memories of his father’s death haunt Colburn for reasons that only become fully apparent late in the novel.

The novel’s most decent character is Myers, the local sheriff. He comes across a drifter who appears to be living in a broken down Cadillac with a woman and their son. The story begins with a look at the drifter, who is well along the road to derangement. The fate of the woman and her two children is one of the plot-drivers. The boy soon becomes a fixture in the valley, rummaging through garbage for food, collecting cans in a shopping cart, warily accepting charity, finding independence because he has no choice. Myers eventually comes to regret that he didn’t arrange to repair the Cadillac and send the family on their way. The novel suggests that for a decent person, regrets of that nature — why didn’t I do more to help? —are inevitable.

Colburn is drawn to a bar owner named Celia, another decent character but one who is habitually drawn to troubled men. One of those men, a fellow named Dixon, is married, which creates a conflict (mostly in Dixon’s mind) between Dixon and Colburn. Dixon’s wife wants Dixon to end his embarrassing relationship with Celia while Celia wants Dixon to let her make her own choices about how she lives her life. Like other characters in Blackwood, Dixon struggles to contain the bitterness that compels him to make decisions he will only regret.

The characters coalesce in a plot that uses random acts of violence to illuminate the tragic circumstances of people who cannot see beyond their mistaken assumptions. An unnoticed woman goes missing, followed by the disappearance of twin children. Suspicion focuses on Colburn, since he is an outsider. Eventually another key character goes missing. The misinterpretation of circumstantial evidence leads multiple characters to arrive at false conclusions about the guilt of other characters. Nobody gets it right because they don’t try to get past their anger and view the facts with a rational mind.

In the end, the novel offers a lesson in compassion and understanding. Characters discover the peril of making harsh and unnecessary judgments. One outcast regrets his failure to recognize how he viewed another outcast. “He thought of the boy and the life he had lived and the way he looked and his inability to participate and all that he had missed and would forever miss. It’s not your fault and I looked at you the same way the world looked at you and I should have known better.” If we can’t recognize pain in people who are like us, the novel seems to ask, how can we hope to understand people who are less fortunate than us?

The story’s grit is offset by its grace. Smith’s fluid prose rises above the brutal world it illuminates. Dialog is sharp; atmosphere exudes from the pages. The story is intense, the themes are timeless, and the characters — like your neighbors — are recognizable as types but surprising as individuals. This isn’t a “feel good” story so it might not travel to the top of the best seller charts, but it is a better book than most of the best sellers I’ve read.

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