A Shadow Intelligence by Oliver Harris

First published in Great Britain in 2019; published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on April 14, 2020

Not many novels are set in Kazakhstan. A Shadow Intelligence earned my interest just by sending characters to a country that is difficult to spell. Add a campaign to spread disinformation on social media, private militaries controlled by oil companies, and Afghan smugglers to a mix that includes British and Russian spies and you’ve got an unusually intriguing story.

A Shadow Intelligence doesn’t feature a superhero who fights and shoots his way out of every problem. Nor does he wear an exploding watch. Elliot Kane employs tradecraft, but he basically blunders into situations and hopes for the best. Elliot’s fallibility is another aspect of the novel that appealed to me.

Elliot begins the novel in a funk, having been recalled to London from an undercover assignment in Saudi Arabia that ended with the arrest of his agent. When he checks his email, he finds a coded message telling him that either he or the sender is in danger. Hidden in the message is a digital picture. He’s in the picture, talking to a person he doesn’t know in a room he’s never seen.

The message is from Joanna Lake, an MI6 field officer for whom Elliot has feelings. He asks colleagues about her status, only to learn that she’s no longer employed. She was last working with the Psychological Operations Group, a combined effort of MI6, the British military, and GCHQ, the British version of the NSA. Elliot doesn’t know what project occupied her time, but he learns that her unit was shut down, that she was escorted from the premises, and that security officials have been asking questions about both Lake and Elliot.

Elliot’s effort to find Joanna leads him to a dead body, an oil company called Saracen that is buying land in Kazakhstan, and a firm of private intelligence analysts (including many who recently jumped ship from MI6) called Vectis. Elliot travels to Kazakhstan, where his presence is noted by Sergei Cherenkov, who tries to recruit Elliot to spy for the Russians. Eliot begins to wonder whether the same pitch was made to Joanna and whether she accepted.

The web of intrigue convinces Elliot that previously unknown oil fields in Kazakhstan may lead to a Russian invasion and a war in which China will intervene. The international stakes are high, but from a personal standpoint, Eliot wants to know whether Lake is still secretly working for MI6, whether she was hired by Vectis to do sketchy work, or whether she is working for the Russians. A social media influencer in Kazakhstan named Aliya, the pro-western daughter of Kazakhstan’s president, and an Afghan smuggler who has a history with Elliot also feature in the mix.

The novel is an effective blend of mystery, suspense, and action. As an international conflict looms, the plot encourages the reader to join Elliot in speculating about Joanna’s role and why she messaged Elliot. Events have been shaped in a way that mislead Elliot (and thus the reader) before the dots connect in a way that makes sense. The story’s focus on the recruitment and deception of social media influencers to drive public opinion in directions dictated by governments or private businesses gives the story some currency.

Near the end of the novel, when Elliot has been identified as someone who should either be arrested or shot on sight, it seems unlikely that he can make it to the end of the book without being tracked and apprehended. That he does so is a mild stretch. Elliot’s fairly standard spy persona would have benefitted from a bit more character development. Those are relatively minor complaints in a plot-focused novel that delivers the kind of byzantine international jousting that makes spy novels so entertaining.

RECOMMENDED

Masked Prey by John Sandford

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on April 14, 2020

Readers who believe that the Deep State exists and is a threat to their way of life will probably want to bypass Masked Prey. Amazon reviews of an earlier John Sandford novel proclaimed Sandford to be a left wing propogandist because Lucas Davenport, who is pretty far from left wing, prevented the assassination of a female Democrat who was running for president. Those readers will be apoplectic if they read Masked Prey, notwithstanding that Davenport’s motivations are never political. The reality is that Sandford is just as likely to skewer politicians from both parties as he is to mock the extremists who ramp up hatred over the Deep State.

A hidden website called 1919 has posted grainy photos of the children of politicians. One of those children, the daughter of a Democratic senator, is a teenager who blogs about being hot in D.C. Her boyfriend is trying to see whether other sites have picked up the pictures she posted when he stumbles on 1919. The website takes its name from a doubling of the 19th letter, or SS. Viewing the site as an invitation to make political statements by killing kids, the FBI becomes involved. And since the case has a political slant, Minnesota’s Democratic senator calls Davenport, a federal Marshal who is on the senator’s speed dial.

Davenport enlists the help of Bob and Rae, two Marshals who have become recurring characters in the series. Their light-hearted banter balances the darkness of the plot as Davenport pokes his nose into the various rightwing groups that might have created or taken an interest in the 1919 website. Some of those groups, of course, blame the left for planting a false flag. The truth about the site comes as a surprise.

The novel’s creepy entertainment value comes from Davenport's encounters with white supremacists, militia groups, and members of other fringe organizations, each with a different take on how government is a force for evil and why their own insular group holds the secret to human salvation. Sandford plays fair, making it clear that however whacky most of these folk might be, and however much they love their guns, most of them aren’t interested in carrying out acts of violence (if only because they fear arrest or being killed). They may be repulsive but killers tend to be lone wolves, not the sort who seek out validation in packs of like-minded screwballs. Sandford nevertheless recognizes the unfortunate reality that some people who hold beliefs far removed from objective reality are both deranged and dangerous.

Like all Sandford novels, Masked Prey moves quickly. Davenport makes a couple of morally questionable decisions, the kind of decisions that prove he is motivated by a desire to be effective rather than poltical or self-righteous beliefs. Davenport isn’t always admirable but he’s always interesting. That’s one of the reasons I keep coming back to the series. The larger reason is that Sandford is a born storyteller. He peppers the text with wit, clever observations, and sudden plot twists. If it were possible to go to the beach in the age of COVID-19, this would be the kind of fun, fast read that makes a good beach novel.

RECOMMENDED

The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack

Published in Great Britain by Canongate Books in 2018; paperback edition published on April 7, 2020

Life in an isolated rural area, the choices people make to embrace or abandon such a life, and whether they have the power to make choices at all, are the animating themes of The Valley at the Center of the World. The novel explores the complexity of people who live simple lives, reminding the reader that no life is ever simple. A character in the novel, reflecting on how things are changing in the valley, thinks about how things have become complicated and how she wants them to be simple again, but the changes she sees involve people, not landscapes, and people are never simple.

Two primary characters, David and Sandy, are a study in contrast. David has the serenity of certainty. He is the only remaining resident who has a long history in the valley. He knows his place in the world and that place makes him happy. Unlike his wife Mary, who viewed home as the place from which she would escape when she became an adult, David has never wanted to leave the valley. Mary admires and depends upon the stability that her husband brings, but she can’t help wondering whether she might have lived a different life, one that was not so fixed by her husband’s contentment.

David’s greatest fear is that the valley’s few remaining residents will move away, as did their daughters, Kate and Emma. Kate, like David, figured out what made her happy. She moved away, but not far, dropped out of college, got married, had kids, and causes no worries. Emma, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to know what she wants.

In that respect, Emma is like Sandy. They met in Edinburgh but Emma wanted to come home to the valley, feeling “we’re tied to the islands by elastic.” Sandy didn’t feel the pull but he went with her, moving into the house next to David’s, a house that David and Mary owned, and lived there for three years. Then Emma decided she had to go away, leaving Sandy to wonder whether he wants to stay, whether he even has a choice. Unlike David, Sandy is not certain of anything. He doesn’t know whether tending sheep offers the promise of a satisfying life. An inevitable conflict between David, who wants to bind people to the valley, and Sandy, who doesn’t want David to control his life, is the initial source of the story’s dramatic power.

Other characters, the only other residents of the valley, add to the novel’s understated drama. Terry drinks too much, sometimes with Sandy, and feels sorry for himself, bringing everyone down with his bitterness. Alice, a mystery writer whose husband died, moves to the valley as a means of escaping into the past, to a place where she used to vacation with her husband. Alice is working on a book about the valley but she can’t quite decide what she wants to say, what she wants the book to be. She’s trying to understand Maggie, who lived a long life in the valley, but the letters Maggie wrote are all about work and weather. According to David, “wark and wadder”sums up her life. Perhaps thinking of her own life, Alice wonders whether that is enough.

Sandy’s confusion heightens when, after he moves into Maggie's old house, a young couple moves into the house he formerly occupied with Emma. His attraction to Jo, Ryan’s wife, is mutual and uncomfortable. He feels torn when Liz, his mother, suddenly reappears after a four-year absence from his life. He resents her presence as much as he craves it. Liz’s backstory explains why she found it impossible for her to stay with Sandy’s father or to be a proper mother to Sandy. She loves Sandy, “just not in the way that was required of her.”

Characters who grew up in the valley have their own way of speaking. When Alice asks David what kind of stories Maggie told, he replies: “Well, du kens, juist stories aboot fok. Aboot da valley. My parents, her parents, idder fok at used to bide around here.” Malachy Tallack provides a glossary of Scottish dialect, but it’s not really necessary. If you can hear the voices in your head, you’ll understand what they’re saying. Hearing those voices is one of the pleasures of reading the novel.

Much like the book Alice is writing, The Valley at the Centre of the World is as much about the place as the people who inhabit it. The valley sees little change. It is a place that will endure, as it always has, untroubled by urban bustle, until its few sheep farmers finally die or move away. Yet it is the depth of characterization that makes the novel special.

The novel is quiet but eventful. The story encourages readers to get inside the skin of each character, to wonder what will finally become of them. Mary might wonder about alternative lives, but she knows she is fundamentally happy with what she has. Terry is passive, “as though his whole movement through life had been guided by decisions were not his own,” and unlikely to change. Sandy and Alice have the strongest temptations to leave, but will they? “I’m no sure what I want, exactly,” Sandy tells Jo. “I used to ken, but now I don’t.” Alice’s family wants her to come home. She isn't sure she has any reason to stay, but the more she works on her book about the valley, the more it feels like home.

The valley never changes, but people do. Some people fear change, others see no need for it. Whether the characters will find ways to be content with their lives, by embracing or rejecting change, is the fascinating question that invites the reader to imagine how the characters' lives might turn out.

RECOMMENDED

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

Published by Del Rey on January 14, 2020

The Vanished Birds is a contemplative work of science fiction. The story involves a miraculous boy with the power to revolutionize interstellar travel, but it is really a story about connections that grow and endure in the face of hardship.

Captain Nia Imani owns a cargo ship that travels in Pocket Space between the Federated Worlds. She has a crew of four, including Nurse, her best frenemy, whom she rescued from the fringe region years before the story begins.

During the first part of the novel, Imani takes a lover on a world that is part of her trade route. Kaeda is just a child when she first sees him. He is a young man when she first sleeps with him. He ages fifteen years between encounters, while she ages only eight months. Simon Jimenez allows their relationship to unfold slowly, focusing on Kaeda and the life he lives between liaisons with Imani. Relativity teaches Kaeda that time is not on his side, that “the best-case scenario of a well-spent life was the slow and steady unraveling of the heart’s knot.”

During his last meeting with Imani, Kaeda introduces her to a boy of about twelve and implores her to take him on her ship. The boy was apparently on a vessel that crashed on the planet. Kaeda and his wife raised the boy. Now he wants to give the boy the life for which Kaeda always ached, a life that would allow him to see different sunsets. The boy’s name is Ahro.

Imani takes Ahro to Pelican Station where its designer, Fumiko Nakajima, offers her a new contract. She must take the boy to the fringe region, keep him safe for as many as fifteen years while he develops, and then surrender him to Nakajima. Nakijima suspects Ahro has a gift, an ability to manipulate quantum entanglement, that will one day allow him to think of a place and travel there instantly. Nakijima’s backstory is developed in depth before she disappears, only to resurface near the novel’s end. Ahro’s backstory is less detailed and more mysterious.

Imani doesn’t warm to people easily, although there is something about the boy and his fascination with a flute that speaks to her. They spend years together on their ship. The journey gives the reader time to learn about Nakijima’s representative, Sartoris Moth, who was sent along to keep an eye on the boy, and Vaila, who was Nakijama’s personal pilot. Both characters seem to play stock roles until the reader discovers that they are capable of surprises.

Relationships in the book tangle and untangle, sometimes ending with real or perceived betrayals. By the time the novel approaches it end, the beginning seems to have lost its relevance. Then Jimenez deftly circles back to the novel's start, giving it new meaning in light of all the years (both temporal and relativistic) that have passed. The ending suggests a connection between characters and generations that is bridged by music, and while I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the mechanics of how that worked, the story is so appealing that I didn’t fret about it. In fact, a good many explanations are wanting (how does Ahro’s blood make instantaneous travel possible, and how can it be used to power a fleet of ships?), but I guess some things need to be accepted on faith for the sake of enjoying a good story.

Characterization and relationship development are the strengths of The Vanished Birds. For that reason, this is probably a good science fiction novel for readers who are not fans of science fiction. Imani holds herself responsible for the loss of a sister she left behind. She prefers the isolation of constant travel, but her willingness to look after the boy reflects the hope that she might be able to bond with someone she will not lose. Ironically, making that choice causes the loss of friends and crew members who do not want to spend fifteen years in the fringe territory. And whether she will lose or regain Ahro is the source of the novel's dramatic tension.

I would need to read The Vanished Birds again to appreciate all its nuances. It is certainly a novel that would bear rereading. Jimenez constructed it with skill, ultimately tying together its disparate sections (some of which would stand nicely as short stories) to create a unified whole. For its detailed characterizations and evocative descriptions, The Vanished Birds is an award-worthy example of science fiction that breaks the boundaries of the genre.

RECOMMENDED

The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD x FSG Originals on April 7, 2020

Stories like Kathryn Scanlan's seem to be in vogue in literary circles. They are praised for being astutely observed; whether the observations are worthwhile seems to be less important than the writer’s ability to capture a moment or sensation, or to illuminate or at least illustrate a shared human experience. Plot and characterization are secondary, indeed unimportant, to stories like these.

This is hardly a new trend. In a couple of recent books, Sam Reese quotes an observation that A.L. Balder made in 1945, when he described the (then) “modern short story” as “plotless, static, fragmentary, amorphous — frequently a mere character sketch or vignette, or a mere reporting of a transient moment, or the capturing of a mood or nuance.” That’s pretty much how I would describe the stories in The Dominant Animal.

I have picked up and put down several story collections in recent years, unable to make it to the end both because the stories seem pointless and because nothing about the way they were written grabbed me. I made it to the end of The Dominant Animal because, although it is packed with stories, each can each be consumed in a minute or two. Many of the stories have an ambiguous meaning. A surgeon who cares about animal rights traps mice that are destroying his expensive cars by using glue boards, inadvertently kills one while trying to free it, and then closes the eyelids of the woman to whom he is relating the story. What’s that all about?

The picnickers in another story eat their hands while waiting for a pig to roast. In her mind, a woman compares baby squirrels to human babies. A man who awakens his neighborhood with a chainsaw every morning is arrested and quickly released, both for reasons unknown. In the title story, a woman disowns a dog that kills her other dog, then goes walking with a man who makes a strange sound. Dying pets and disagreeable men are recurring themes.

Maybe these stories will make more sense to other readers than they did to me. To be fair, I did appreciate a few of the stories. The story I most enjoyed is “Mother’s Teeth,” perhaps because it is slightly longer than the rest. While waiting for her mother’s chemo session to end, a woman eats ice cream and has sex with an elderly man in the locker room of a recreational facility. Later she endures her mother’s criticism, but the ending is happy (in the narrator’s view) because her mother dies.

A story about a woman who brazenly misappropriates another woman’s dog is interesting. So is an ambiguous story about two children who seem to be fending for themselves. A story about a disastrous casino and golfing vacation has something to say about the importance of changing patterns, just like clouds that are “tired of the same old thing.” A story about Scandinavian dieting is amusing. A story about untraining a trained dog would have been amusing but for the darkness that surrounds it.

So that’s about a half dozen of the forty stories in this collection that did anything for me at all. The ratio is just too low to recommend the volume as a whole.

NOT RECOMMENDED