Foresight by Ian Hamilton

Published by House of Anansi Press/Spiderline on January 21, 2020 (digitial) and February 4, 2020 (paperback)

Foresight is an enjoyable addition to Ian Hamilton’s engaging look at Chinese triad villains who, villainy notwithstanding, embody traditions of loyalty and honor. Foresight is set in the early 1980s. It focuses on Chow Tung, known to all as Uncle. Fans of Hamilton’s excellent Ava Lee series will recognize Uncle as the mysterious force behind the series heroine.

While Ava Lee books are action novels, the Uncle novels (Foresight is the second, following Fate) are more in the nature of political suspense novels. The political dimensions are both internal, as Hong Kong Triad factions alternate between competing and cooperating, and external, as Uncle begins doing business in a Chinese economic zone, evoking memories of the life he fled as a much younger man. It turns out that, for Uncle, the present might be just as dangerous as the past.

Uncle grew up in Wuhan (long before COVID-19), but after a perilous swim across Shenzhen Bay, Uncle began to pay his dues as a gang member in Hong Kong. He eventually worked his way to the top of the Fanling Triad, holding the position of Mountain Master. His goal is to move the business into avenues that are honest (more or less) and sustainable, a goal that takes on some urgency when Hong Kong permits six legal off-track betting shops to complete with Uncle’s illegal shops. Even when he operates in ways that might transgress the law — other forms of gambling, massage parlors, and night markets — he has made clear to local law enforcement that he will not engage in loansharking or allow drug dealing in Fanling. The police are therefore willing to tolerate him as a semi-respectable businessman.

When China opens economic zones to encourage the production and export of goods, Uncle senses an opportunity. Not an entirely legitimate opportunity, since he’s looking at expanding the market for knockoff Lacoste clothing that the Triad sells in night markets. He invests in the Chinese company from which he buys the fake Lacostes, enlarges the line by adding other designer brands, and moves from there to designer jeans. To spread the bounty, he encourages other Hong Kong Triads to work with other economic zones to produce handbags, shoes, and other counterfeit goods. There is money to be made.

The entrepreneurial story is interesting, but the plot takes off when Uncle — who has naturally greased certain Chinese officials — finds himself used as the pawn in a political war. He is detained on a trip to China and comes to understand that if he wants to make it home to Hong Kong alive, he will need to rat out one of the government officials who has been protecting him. Will Uncle save his own skin or will he die an honorable death?

Uncle might be a criminal, but’s he’s an easy character to like. He still mourns the loss of a woman who, more than twenty years earlier, did not survive the swim to Hong Kong. He has earned the respect of his gang members by listening to them and treating them fairly. He is calm and rational, rarely losing his cool. Even the competing Mountain Masters (or at least most of them) respect his integrity, not to mention his ability to earn profits without making waves. It is hard not to root for such a decent person, unless you are in the chain of command at Lacoste.

The plot is all the more interesting because of its setting. Hamilton delves into modern Chinese political history from the Cultural Revolution to the economic reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping. Deng even earns a cameo. While a good many crime novels that are set in America seem to be clones of each other, Hamilton gives his stories a fresh taste by steeping them in unfamiliar flavors. The novel is straightforward; Hamilton never tries to position the story as a great literary work. He instead puts likeable characters in challenging situations, introduces a credible degree of suspense, and creates an easy read that is both enlightening and entertaining.

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Like Flies from Afar by K. Ferrari

Published in Spain in 2011; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 24, 2020

Mr. Machi has a problem. Someone deliberately caused his BMW to have a flat tire. When he opened the trunk to find the spare, he instead found a dead body. His instinct is to get rid of the body, but it is attached to the trunk’s hinge with the fur-covered handcuffs he keeps for encounters with his mistress.

Getting rid of the body is a challenge, even in Buenos Aires, where dead bodies are not uncommon. But as he gathers the tools he needs to detach the corpse from his trunk, Mr. Machi is preoccupied with thoughts of how the body — of someone he doesn’t recognize — ended up in his car. He doesn’t think he has many enemies, certainly none who would go such extravagant lengths to cause such a serious problem. And how many of them could know about the fur-covered handcuffs?

Much of Like Flies from Afar consists of Mr. Machi scrutinizing memories of the people he has angered or alienated. His wife. His gay son. His daughter’s boyfriend. His bodyguard. Various women. People who have an interest in the Buenos Aires club he owns. The employees he fired after years of loyal service for missing a shift. Although he won’t admit it to himself or doesn’t care, it seems unlikely that anyone actually likes Mr. Machi, because he acts with a callous disregard for the people he doesn’t actively despise. Mr. Machi thinks of himself as an innocent victim, but the reader recognizes that his shallow lack of self-awareness is a barrier that shields him from self-reproach.

Like Flies from Afar is a dark comedy. Mr. Machi’s cluelessness furnishes the humor. The story, in fact, builds to a surprising punchline. Readers might be disappointed that there is no satisfying resolution of the mystery — its continuation is left to the reader’s imagination — but the ending is a satisfying, and almost karmic, non-resolution of the simple plot.

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The Last Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

Published by Minotaur Books on March 24, 2020

Olen Steinhauer is a Plotmeister. The Last Tourist is set ten years after Steinhauer’s Milo Weaver novels, a trilogy that seemed to set up further adventures involving Weaver and a Chinese spy. Instead, The Last Tourist moves in multiple directions, involving Russians and Boko Haram, before it finally circles back to the Chinese and bounces around Europe. Yet the true villain in this novel isn’t a nation or a terrorist organization, a twist that sets The Last Tourist apart from most other spy thrillers, including the earlier Milo Weaver novels.

Since I read the first three novels only after they were recently rereleased, they were fresh in my mind when I read The Last Tourist. This review might spoil some surprises in the earlier novels, so you might not want to read the full review if you plan to read the earlier Milo Weaver novels before you read The Last Tourist. If you are wondering whether you should read those books before you tackle The Last Tourist, the answer for two reasons is yes. First, because the books are excellent. Second, because it’s necessary to read them to have a full appreciation of the new novel. The Last Tourist arguably stands alone, but it stands on one leg if you haven’t read its supporting structure.

The first and third sections are set in January 2019. Parts of those sections are told from the perspective of a young CIA analyst named Abdul Ghali, a first-generation Sahrawi-American. Ghali has been chosen to make contact with Milo Weaver, who is reported to be in the Western Sahara. Ghali has been told that Weaver is working with the Massive Brigade, a violent left-wing movement that was at the heart of Steinhauer’s The Middleman. At one point, it appears that Ghali was assigned to the job not just because he is Sahwari but because he is expendable. As if usually true in a Steinhauer novel, there is more to the CIA’s choice of Ghali than meets the eye, although the truth in this shadowy world is never quite clear.

Weaver tells his story to Ghali in the second section, which fills in the ten-year gap since the last Milo Weaver novel. Weaver took over his father’s role in the Library, a clandestine organization in the bowels of the United Nations that is funded by Germany and a few countries (like Iceland) that don’t have significant intelligence services of their own. He enlisted the help of his sister Alexandra and former Tourism director Alan Drummond. He tried but failed to enlist former Tourist Leticia Jones, but she nevertheless plays a key role in the story.

From clues provided by Kirill Egerov, a former colleague of Milo’s father who is killed before Milo can meet with him, Milo discovers that a new group of Tourists are conducting strategic assassinations. But the CIA disbanded its Tourism section after nearly all the Tourists were killed. Who are these new upstarts? Answering that question sends Milo on a treacherous journey. In the novel’s third part, Milo and the few helpers he manages to enlist try to use the answers to thwart a scheme that poses a new and credible threat to the free (and not-so-free) world.

Steinhauer keeps a number of balls spinning in the air, challenging the reader to understand how they are connected. They include: pirates who are sinking cargo ships in the Philippine Sea; kidnappings of young girls by the Boko Haram; the death of a dissident blogger in Moscow; a successful communications app with undefeatable encryption; an activist for Massive Brigade who may or may not have a plan to threaten the world’s industrialists during their annual gathering at Davos; and the fate of Erica Schwartz, the alcoholic head of German intelligence who was a prominent character in two of the earlier novels.

Milo is a fascinating character because he comes full circle during the course of the four novels. In the beginning, he is an amoral killer, carrying out assassination without question because the CIA views them as necessary. After seeing the consequences of his work, and after fearing for the lives of his wife and daughter, he comes to believe that implementing foreign policy with a bullet is more harmful than helpful. Or at least, he comes to believe that his own priorities leave no room for a life of violence. By the end of The Last Tourist, Milo has changed again, adding nuance to his understanding of his role in the geopolitical world. He is no longer a remorseless killer, but he is no longer deferring moral decisions to amoral people.

Letitia undergoes a similar transformation. She also starts as a Tourist, then becomes a freelance assassin, then gains a moral sense from her revulsion to the rape and kidnapping of children by Boko Haram. Her new ethics are informed not by a rejection of violence but by a rejection of collateral damage. Even Ghali, who begins as a loyal CIA analyst and ends with a broad understanding of new risks that the world faces — some of them posed by the CIA — undergoes a transformation that compels him to make a difficult and inspiring decision.

Steinhauer is able to cram abundant plot and characterization into The Last Tourist, a novel of ordinary length, by eliminating every word that might be unnecessary. The story is a smart balance of plot development, action, characterization and atmosphere, without a hint of padding. The Last Tourist is every bit as impressive as the trilogy that preceded it, further cementing Steinhauer as the best of America’s current spy novelists.

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Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton

Published by Del Rey on October 29, 2019

Salvation Lost is the second novel of the Salvation trilogy. Readers who have not read the first novel (Salvation) are cautioned that this review makes references to that novel that might be regarded as spoilers.

At the end of Salvation, I expected the direction of the trilogy to change. The novel’s “present” is set about 200 years in the future. Things are looking bleak for Earth as humans come to realize that aliens known as the Olyix are not the benevolent benefactors they seem to be, but are intent on capturing the entire human race, reducing individuals to a bodiless essence and storing them in cocoons (“a bulbous barrel of flesh with a distended head protruding at the top”) to further what seems to be (from the Olyix perspective) a divine mission. This is what happens when people (or aliens) think they are doing the work of God. Another Salvation storyline is set in the far future, focusing on the descendants of humans who fled Earth and its colonies. These future humans are plotting and training to battle the Olyix, as have generations before them. I expected the second novel to focus on the characters in the far future, but quite a bit of the novel engages the reader with familiar characters from the present, who are fighting in Earth’s end days to give the human race a chance to survive. I was happy about that because I felt a stronger attachment to the characters in the present than to those in the future.

Much of the future story deals with the crew of a starship, including characters who will be familiar to readers of Salvation. They have created what they believe will be a trap for the Olyix, with a goal of capturing one of their ships and pinpointing the location of their home base. Their larger plan is to take the war to the Olyix. The problem is that the Olyix have been around a long time and this is all “been there, done that” to them.

Much of the present story deals with efforts to thwart the Olyix as they try to snatch every human. The humans hope to slow the Olyix enough to allow substantial numbers of humans to flee — and to prepare them to keep fleeing, generation after generation, until humans ae in a position to take it to the Olyix. Peter Hamilton provides greater depth of characterization in the second novel than he did in Salvation, as we take a close look at conflicted members of a powerful family who face the prospect of losing all the wealth they’ve created.

To the story in the present, Salvation Lost adds some lowlifes who find themselves well paid to commit acts of vandalism for reasons they don’t fully understand. An entity that calls itself that watcher joins the story of the future. Hamilton eventually reveals the reason the lowlifes are being exploited and the nature of the watcher. Both revelations impart interesting twists to the plot.

The best part of Salvation, I thought, was the detailed future-building: the economic and social structures that evolve around unlimited energy, instantaneous transportation, and food printing. Salvation Lost takes that all as a given and delivers a meatier plot than the first novel. Both the past and future elements of the plot are exciting and fast-moving. Both contain surprises that spin the story in new directions.

Some of the novel’s themes are drawn from decades of science fiction, including human ingenuity and the value of self-sacrifice. While the themes are familiar, Hamilton’s imaginative use of future technology makes them seem fresh. Hamilton advances a story that rises above a typical “humans versus aliens” space opera, simply because the detailed universes in which the plots unfold are so convincing. Salvation Lost is a much stronger novel that the space-filling middle installment that so often bridges the first and last novels of a sf trilogy.

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Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock

Published by 47North on February 18, 2020

Anne Charnock always brings a fresh, intelligent approach to her science fiction. Bridge 108 takes place in a dystopian future, but Charnock's focus is not on the panicked reaction of a disintegrating society to chaotic events. Rather, in calm but forceful prose, she addresses the political and personal implications of refugees who flee to England from southern Europe to escape drought and wildfires. Her story is a nuanced look at different perspectives of human trafficking and exploitation of refugees.

Caleb and his mother were walking to England from Spain. His mother planned to bring him to a reception center, where he would receive an inoculation against addictions, a way of controlling crime and compulsions. Along the way, however, Caleb’s mother succumbed to mental illness and abandoned him. Caleb hopes to find his father, who set off ahead of them.

A young woman named Skylark found Caleb in northern France. She warned Caleb that the reception center would assign him to a work camp where he would have to serve a period of indentured labor before earning an uncertain opportunity to live an independent life. Misbehavior or a failure to learn English and the names of all the British kings could result in his deportation, while the inoculations might make him “lose his spark.” Caleb agrees to let Skylark smuggle him into England, bypassing the reception center.

As the story begins, Caleb is twelve and working for Ma Lexie. Ma Lexie is part of an extended family that has cornered the recycling business in the enclave. She depends on illegal labor for her rooftop business, which consists of sewing and repairing recycled clothing that she sells at a market. Caleb works on the rooftop, where he has proven himself adept not just at sewing but at fashion design.

Caleb takes a shine to a girl on a neighboring rooftop. They communicate by throwing messages in plastic bottles back and forth. Eventually Caleb must make a choice between staying with Ma Lexie or joining the girl on a perilous journey.

Shifting perspectives give the reader different ways of understanding the society in which Caleb lives. To an immigration agent, Caleb is a victim of human trafficking, Skylark is evil because she smuggled him into England to work as a slave, and Ma Lexie's family is evil because they exploit refugees. When we see the world from the perspective of Skylark or Ma Lexie, however, they do not seem to be people of malicious intent.

A look at the government labor camps suggests that if refugees are exploited by people like Ma Lexie, they are more viciously exploited by the government. They do miserable work in fish farms, hoping that after ten years they might be given permission to pursue legal employment — a hope that is ruthlessly quashed when the government decides it is time to reduce the ranks of migrants by making arbitrary decisions to send some back home.

Caleb is a sympathetic character who embodies the hopes and fears of most refugees. He wants a simple but decent life, a chance to work for himself and to live with dignity. The immigration agent who first encounters Caleb seems well-intentioned if a bit shifty in his approach to the truth. Skylark, despite being labeled as a human trafficker, and Ma Lexie, despite being labeled as a person who exploits slave labor, both come across as caring individuals who sincerely want to help Caleb, even if they might be helping themselves at the same time.

Charnock thus advances a subtle understanding of illegal immigration. She illustrates how people who are condemned for breaking the law, including undocumented migrants and those who help or employ them, might be offering more benefit to society than the governments who condemn them. Like the best dystopian fiction, Bridge 108 imagines the future we might become based on the direction we are headed. The novel works as a cautionary tale but it also works as a well-told story about a young man who is trying to survive on his own terms.

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