The Upper Hand by Johnny Shaw

Published by Thomas & Mercer on July 3, 2018

The Upper Hand is the kind of crime novel that encourages the reader to root for the criminals. Those tend to be my favorite crime novels, at least when the criminal has a good heart. Most of the characters in The Upper Hand are guided by a basic sense of decency, even when they are also guided by criminal impulses.

Axel Ucker plans crimes as a hobby. His sister Gretchen burgles homes as a hobby, usually stealing valuable comic books from collectors. Axel’s brother Kurt is law-abiding but a bit nerdish. Their father was a professional thief until he was killed after a jewelry heist. Axel works for a bank that has just promoted him to a position of con man, selling investments to customers that won’t meet their needs but earn the bank a ton of money in hidden fees. That’s a kind of criminality that is just too dishonest for Axel.

Axel’s girlfriend Stephanie (he thinks her name is Priscilla) scams him out of his house and then dumps him, the first of a series of personal crises that play out over a couple of days, including the death of his mother and the loss of his job. The crime plot begins at the funeral of Axel’s mother, where a large woman identifies herself as Axel’s aunt (“Everyone calls me Mother Ucker”). The aunt wants to bring the Ucker children back into the fold of their father’s family. They have few options, since their mother’s will left the family home to a televangelist.

Scamming is a central theme of The Upper Hand. The Uckers have a natural talent for scamming, as they prove when they decide to scam the televangelist. Another theme is family, or more precisely, “a family is what you make of it.” What the Uckers will make of their newly-discovered extended family (and how the Ucker family should be defined) is a key plot point.

A bit of romantic comedy runs through the novel, with a stronger emphasis on comedy than romance. As in life, some romantic relationships work out and some don’t. Other objects of humor (if not outright mockery) include Christian rock and prosperity theology (“sermons were high-energy events that felt like a mash-up of a rock concert, a self-help seminar, and a time-share pitch.”).

The plot delivers a few surprises and a steady supply of chuckles. The main characters are likeable, despite the larcenous natures that some of them embrace. Even the villainous characters are too amusing to be unlikable. Readers who don’t understand that prosperity theology is all about enhancing the prosperity of preachers at the expense of their followers will probably dislike The Upper Hand, but open-minded readers who can relate to kind-hearted criminals should enjoy it.

RECOMMENDED

Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman

Published by Knopf on July 3, 2018

Safe Houses draws some of its background from a government spy agency called the Pond that was in a rivalry with the OSS (and later the CIA) before the government disbanded it in 1955. The Pond then continued its existence as a private organization because people who like to think they are doing important work sometimes have difficulty admitting that they are no longer the center of the universe.

Safe Houses is told in two alternating time frames. Part of the story takes place in 1979, when Helen Abell, new to her CIA posting in Berlin, is placed in charge of safe houses, an administrative duty deemed suitable for a woman. While making an unscheduled inspection of a safe house, visitors arrive and she overhears (and accidentally records) part of their conversation. She doesn’t know who they are or how one of them got a key; neither man is one of the six people who are authorized to have one. They seem to be talking in a sort of code. Later, she tells Clark Baucom about it. Baucom is her lover and a much older field agent. He tells her to burn the tape and never disclose what she heard to anyone. Of course, the obscure references on the tape to “the Pond” eventually gain clarity.

When she returns to the safe house to retrieve the tape, another visitor shows up (an agent she knows) and she overhears a sexual assault in progress. Helen intervenes, but her intervention puts her career is in jeopardy. Her life is also in jeopardy after it becomes clear that she intends to expose a CIA assassin who is also a serial rapist. That part of the story has Helen fleeing Berlin and making contact with a couple of female CIA employees who may or may not be on her side.

The other part of the story begins in 2014, when a Maryland woman and her husband are shot dead in their bed by their developmentally disabled son, Willard. Henry Mattick is in town when it happens, conducting a clandestine investigation into the family for a reason he doesn’t understand. When the son’s sister Anna wants to hire Henry to find the reason for the murders, Henry’s employer tells him to accept the assignment, to get inside the house, and to make copies of any documents he can find. It won’t be surprising to the reader that the 2014 story quickly links to the 1979 story.

Despite its lurid subject matter, Safe Houses is told in a measured style that lends credibility to the narrative. The plot blends suspense with enough action to keep the story moving at a good pace, but Dan Fesperman doesn’t short-change characterization. The novel is a bit short of atmosphere (other than place names, it doesn’t convey much sense of being in Berlin or any of the novel’s other locations), although Fesperman does an excellent job of conveying the limitations that were placed on women in society (and particularly in male-dominated organizations like the CIA) in 1979. In a time when the #MeToo movement is focusing attention on how powerful men feel empowered to abuse women, Safe Houses shines a spotlight on the importance of standing up for what’s right, and on the risks that people take when they decide to do the right thing.

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A Long Island Story by Rick Gekoski

Published by Canongate Books on July 3, 2018

Rick Gekoski's first novel, Darke, was published when Gekoski was 72 years old, which makes me think there is hope for me yet. A Long Island Story is his second novel.

Is it bad to give up a dream? Or can giving up a dream be an important step toward getting on with life? That’s one of the central questions the reader of A Long Island Story is invited to ponder.

Ben Grossman works for the Department of Justice during the dark days of McCarthy, barely hanging onto his job but living in fear that, like so many of his innocent colleagues, he will be denounced as a Communist. Ben and Addie live in Alexandria and are raising their two children to respect the struggle for civil rights. Their liberal political views make it only a matter of time before Ben is purged from an intolerant government.

Ben and Addie generally agree on political goals, if not strategies, but passion has bled from their marriage. Addie and the kids are spending a seven-week summer vacation with Addie’s parents, Maurice and Pearl, at their Long Island bungalow. Addie’s brother Frankie and Frank’s wife Michelle join them, as does Ben briefly, during his vacation from work. But the stay with Addie’s parents is prefatory to a move to Long Island that Addie dreads: public schools for the kids, a suburban apartment instead of a home in Virginia’s farmlands. Ben plans to open a law practice in Huntington, a stifling place for women. Addie can barely tolerate Long Island for the summer and has no desire to return to the childhood home from which she escaped. The stress is one of many forces that might tear their marriage apart.

Also having an impact on their marriage is the affair Ben is having with a wealthy woman who wants to support him while he pursues his dream of being a writer. Addie is about as unsupportive as a wife could be, choosing her family’s lifestyle over her husband’s happiness. She thinks it is bad enough that he wants to abandon his job before being fired; she views his desire to write, even in his free time, as frivolous and regressive. Ben and Addie spend much of the novel competing to see who can be more selfish, leading to novel’s most confrontational (and strongest) moment.

Maurice has his own problems, giving rise to a subplot that relates to a side business he operates — a legitimate business, but one that leaves him indebted to an Italian with mob connections. Ben and Addie’s children have their own anxieties, the uncertainties and fears that children have when parents aren’t getting along.

Some of the story is taken up by kids building forts and letting the day drift by, which might be a nice way to spend time but dull to read about. More interesting are the typical fears that parents experience: the brief disappearance of a child, the polio epidemic, whether to risk taking the children to a polluted but convenient beach.

Characters are assembled in detail, perhaps excessive detail, not all of it terribly interesting. It is good to know about the family history and the longings and failings and triumphs that shaped their personalities, but their individual reactions to the latest hit song and their meal preferences and the inevitable fights and illnesses among the children who crowd into the back of a car are less enlightening.

The setting is also carefully rendered. Ben’s job sends him to the South and Midwest, where he makes legal arguments in support of rural electrification to local judges who (as Ben imagines it) are put off by the eloquent “Yankee Jewboy bigshot who thought he could hornswoggle a bunch of rednecks.” The country has readily swallowed McCarthyism because the American public “has an insatiable need for someone to blame.” How little the country has changed.

While A Long Island Story did not consistently hold my interest, the novel’s best moments are compelling. The main story could have resolved in many different ways, but Gekoski bucks the modern trend of leaving stories unfinished. Given that the story is set in 1953, following the conventions of less modern novels seems appropriate, but the ending benefits from a modernist realism, shedding light on what a conventional ending to a 1950s story really means. If I didn’t like A Long Island Story as much as I liked Darke, the honesty with which the characters are rendered, the subtlety of the ending, and the theme of pursuing or abandoning dreams combine to earn A Long Island Story an easy recommendation.

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Warning Light by David Ricciardi

Published by Berkley on April 17, 2018

Iran has a “secret” nuclear facility near the site of a recent earthquake, but not so secret that the CIA is unaware of its existence. A British Airways flight with apparent engine and hydraulic problems approaches the airspace over the facility and makes an emergency landing at Sirjan, much to the consternation of the Iranian military, given the flight’s intrusion into prohibited airspace. However, shooting down a crippled civilian craft with a large number of passengers would be bad for Iran’s image, so Zac Miller, an American passenger, finds himself on the ground at an airport that was shut down due to the earthquake. Not long after that, he’s taken prisoner as a suspected spy because he took some pictures of a mountain sunset.

Of course, the Iranians are right. Miller is a spy, but not a field agent. He’s an analyst who is slotted into the mission at the last moment, after the real spy had to drop out. The CIA’s brilliant scheme is to have him take pictures of the “secret” nuclear facility as he strolls across the airport tarmac. And for this they put the lives of everyone on the British Airways flight at risk. The idea is just dumb enough to be real.

Miller is taken prisoner because he’s the only passenger taking pictures of the “secret” facility. With improbable speed, the Iranians set up Miller as a suspect in murders committed in Singapore and Paris. Also improbable is Miller’s escape from custody, but it sets up the cross-country trek that takes up a good part of the story, as Miller tries to evade Iran’s military and make his way to a friendlier environment.

The story takes Miller to Iranian goat herders and later puts him in the hands of Dubai police officers, one of whom lost his wife when the U.S.S. Vincennes, an American naval vessel unlawfully operating in Iranian waters, shot down a civilian aircraft that was leaving Iran. The police officer believes the military action was deliberate; Miller believes it was a mistake. The truth is less clear, but the novel acknowledges that the incident shaped the way many Iranians view the American government.

In any event, Miller feels abandoned by the CIA, which decides that he has gone rogue and turned into a serial killer. The CIA wants to kill Miller because that’s how the CIA solves problems. That creates a classic "good guy must prove his innocence before other good guys kill him unless the bad guys kill him first" plot that is standard in thrillers.

An elderly high society British woman also plays a key role in the story, having taken a shine to Miller while sitting next to him on the British Airways flight. I wasn’t persuaded that she would be so obsessed about a man she knew for such a short time, particularly after she learns that he’s accused of multiple murders.

The plot struck me as a bit farfetched, from the scheme to put civilian passengers on British Airways at risk to the Iranians’ immediate and successful effort to make Miller look like a murderer (maybe Iran has a contingency plan to frame CIA agents). More troubling is that Miller’s adventure is just too easy. He readily evades capture, crosses borders at will, and never faces a threat of death sufficiently serious to cause the reader to worry about his survival. The story lacks tension and suspense. Not all thrillers need to be thrilling, but this one was clearly meant to be, and it falls short of the mark.

The promotional materials for Warning Light emphasize that David Ricciardi incorporated his personal experiences into the novel, including backpacking through the mountains of the western United States. Backpacking in mountains in the US is fun and not particularly dangerous. That’s kind of how Miller’s trip through the mountains in Iran comes across, but for the occasional battle to the death.

Having said that, Ricciardi delivers one good scene involving a sailboat trying to cross the English Channel in a storm that conveys a true sense of excitement and danger. If the novel had done that more often, I would have no reservations about recommending it. Ricciardi’s prose and pace are fine and, as first novels go, Warning Light isn’t a bad effort, although the ending (which sets up the next novel) is weak. I would chalk this up as decent first draft that wasn’t quite ready to be published.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Remind Me Again What Happened by Joanna Luloff

Published by Algonquin Books on June 26, 2018

Claire Scott contracted Japanese encephalitis from a mosquito bite in India. She is hospitalized with a high fever in a Florida hospital before her panicked husband Charlie finds her. Charlie was in love with Claire once, but they have been separated for some time. When Claire comes out of her coma, her seizures and memory loss cause them to reunite, soon to be joined in Boston by their old friend Rachel. The novel explores the evolution and disintegration of their triangular relationship, and the discomfort that comes from their reunion.

Claire’s memories from age 17 to 34 are gone, and her ability to form new memories is impaired. She doesn’t recall living with Rachel and Charlie after the death of Rachel’s parents. Rachel is helping Claire sift through memories with old photographs and boxes that Claire packed away, but Claire spends most of her time keeping track of Charlie’s sighs and unspoken criticisms of her endless questions about her past. Charlie does not respond well to not being remembered. He wonders if Claire, who traveled the world as a journalist, was sleeping with Michael, her photographer, during their separation. Claire wonders whether Charlie was sleeping with his co-worker Sophie. Neither of them seem capable of recapturing the love that united them in marriage.

Remind Me Again What Happened is told from the perspectives of its three primary characters. Claire’s and Charlie’s chapters explain why each is irritated by the other. Claire feels suffocated by Charlie, who fears that she will suffer a seizure if she leaves the house and does not understand why she resists his desire to keep her safe. Claire feels Charlie blames her for her memory loss and that he resents the time he spends filling in the gaps, reminding her of events again and again because memories refuse to form. Those perceptions are accurate, as Charlie tells us that he is “still too twisted up with old anger and hurts” to treat Claire, who clearly feels no desire for him, as anything other than an obligation.

From the photographs and Claire’s stories, the reader learns about Claire’s childhood, which she remembers vividly. Recalling stories told by her parents shapes her current understanding of how she should be living her life. It is easy to feel sympathy for Claire, both because her memory loss has robbed her of an identity and because her seizures have robbed her of the opportunity to leave home long enough to gain new experiences and build a new identity. It is harder to sympathize with Charlie, because he is controlling and selfish (at least from Claire’s perspective), but the chapters that are told from Charlie’s point of view make it possible to understand that he also feels trapped in a situation that is beyond his control.

Rachel’s chapters focus on the relationship she once had with Charlie and the difficulty she has deciding whether to forgive Claire for an act that she views as a betrayal. She also recalls her anxiety when Claire and Charlie began to date, signaling the time when Charlie and Claire would move out and leave Rachel alone. She wonders if Charlie is correct in saying that Claire has not forgotten the past but is trying to rewrite it, to make it more palatable. Rachel finds herself caught in the middle, her loyalty to two friends divided, wondering if she will eventually choose sides in the growing divide between Charlie and Claire. Joanna Luloff builds sympathy for Rachel, as she does with the other characters, but like all people, Rachel sometimes lets undefined anger overcome her better nature. The reader likes Rachel in her better moments and is able to understand why there are times when her conduct is less than exemplary.

As is usually true in memory loss novels, the plot feels a bit contrived, but this relationship drama is character-driven. The plot is just a framework to reunite the characters after they have drifted apart. The reader wonders whether the characters will be able to reconcile their feelings, to gain insight into their own behaviors rather than blaming each other for making them act as they do. They all have secrets (even if Claire does not remember her secrets), and the reader wonders whether they will finally reveal their secrets to each other, or whether some secrets are better left concealed.

As is common in character-driven novels, the ending provides little closure because the lives of the characters will continue to evolve even after the story ends. That can be frustrating, but even if the ending of Remind Me Again What Happened isn’t entirely satisfying, it allows the reader to imagine any number of ways the story might continue by opening the doors to potential futures, just as all of us are engaged in a constant process of reinventing our own futures. Luloff scores points for reminding the reader of life’s uncertainty and of the struggle we should undertake to be good to each other, even if we do not ultimately succeed. She also scores points for telling the story in elegant, understated prose that brings the characters fully to life.

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