The Switch by Joseph Finder

Published by Dutton on June 13, 2017

The Switch is a fairly typical conspiracy novel, the kind where people do bad things to keep secrets a secret, either in the name of national security or job security. The plot follows the Hitchcock/Ludlum formula: Ordinary guy who stumbles upon a secret relies on resourcefulness and luck to stay a step ahead of the evil forces that want to capture or kill him. The evil forces our hero must elude include the NSA, a Senate staffer, private enforcers, the mob, and a Russian spy. The formula is reliable and Joseph Finder is a good storyteller who creates believable characters, but he can’t disguise the story’s familiarity.

Michael Tanner runs a company that distributes high-end coffee. His business is in trouble and his girlfriend left him. One his way home to Boston from an LA sales meeting, he inadvertently picks up the wrong laptop while going through airport security. The laptop belongs to a senator. Its contents, easily accessed via the password she wrote on a post-it affixed to the laptop, would be disastrous for the senator if they were made public. After all, she’s not supposed to have classified information on her personal laptop. The classified information is disastrous for the public, since it describes one of those ubiquitous government programs that lets the NSA spy on innocent Americans.

Tanner is searching the laptop for information about its owner when he finds top secret documents about the NSA project. He naturally discusses the information with a reporter who warns him that his life is in danger. Meanwhile, Will Abbott, the senator’s staffer, contacts various outside forces in an attempt to get the laptop back before taking the matter into his own hands. The NSA promptly learns that Tanner has the classified information, but doesn’t know how it got leaked. Will is therefore racing against the NSA to see who can recover the laptop first.

Some of The Switch is predictable, including the lecture about how we’ve sacrificed our privacy for convenience. True enough, but a common thriller theme. And yes, we live in a police state, at least when the police claim they are enforcing laws related to national security, and yes, we live in a post-truth era, but those lectures only have educational value for readers who live with their heads buried in the sand. Much of the rest of the story is also standard thriller fare, as Tanner tries to stay ahead of the various parties who want the information on the Senator’s laptop.

I give credit to Finder for resisting the urge to go over the top. The story seems plausible because Tanner never does anything that requires the skills of Jason Bourne. He doesn’t want to be a hero; he just wants to survive. He’s a believable character, as is Will, the other character who benefits from significant personality development. I'm not sure the ending is entirely plausible (in the real world, ordinary people who get caught passing classified information to reporters go to prison) but happy endings are also standard fare in conspiracy thrillers.

I like the coffee business angle to the story (financial thrillers are really Finder’s strength), but that’s a small component of a novel that doesn’t impart a new twist to an old plot. I can recommend The Switch because it moves quickly and it always held my interest, but I would have given it a stronger recommendation if Finder had found a way to surprise me.

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The Sound of the World by Heart by Giacomo Bevilacqua

Published by Lion Forge on May 23, 2017

The Sound of the World by Heart is sort of a tribute to New York City as seen through the lens of chaos theory. The story is about making connections, or choosing not to make connections and thus to avoid pain, in a city that is famous for people who bump elbows but never notice each other. There’s magic in the city, in its art, its library, its streets, its people … and some of that magic (or maybe it's just randomness) underlies the story that Giacomo Bevilacqua tells.

Sam is a photographer. He counts numbers in his head because he doesn’t want to think. He listens to the same song over and over. His memories are like digital pictures. Memories that don’t turn out well, he deletes.

Sam is on a New York adventure, living for two months without speaking to another human being. He plans to write a photo essay about his adventure and to publish it in the magazine he co-founded. The other co-founder helped Sam devise this challenge as a way to get over the pain of a loss.

Sam has taken 400 photos and somehow the same girl has ended up in dozens of them. Who is she? How did that happen? Part of Sam’s challenge is that his habit of deleting memories is coming back to haunt him. Of course, getting answers isn’t easy when you aren’t allowed to ask questions out loud.

Many of the scenes show the mystery woman and Sam in the same area, often oblivious to each other’s presence. One point of the story, I think, is its illustration of the notion that we need to open our eyes, to look outside of ourselves, if we don’t want to miss the things that might truly be important.

Bevilacqua writes in a minimalist, poetic style, letting the pictures tell most of the story, as good graphic novels should. I like the way the art tells one story while the text tells another, both working to make the story whole. The technique allows the reader to see relationships that would not be evident by reading the text or looking at the art alone.

Sam’s musings articulate an appealing, if unfinished, philosophy of life, parts of which might usefully blend into the reader’s own unfinished philosophy of life. Some of the story is about finding a preferred rhythm of life, and perhaps finding a place, or a person, whose rhythm matches your own.

The element of magic I mentioned might be real or it might be in Sam’s head. Is Sam entirely sane? Maybe not. Is anybody? But some connections have their own kind of magic — even when we don’t see the connections, don’t know they exist — and I think that’s the point the story is making. The story doesn’t try to be deeply philosophical, and maybe it stretches a bit to make its points, maybe it even borders on being overly sentimental, but the story is narrated in a voice that feels true, and I have to give it credit for being so well done.

I love the art, particularly the cityscapes. They’re almost impressionistic but they capture the reality of the city.

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Extraordinary Adventures by Daniel Wallace

Published by St. Martin's Press on May 30, 2017

Extraordinary Adventures is a romantic comedy that focuses on a social misfit. In that sense, it channels The Rosie Project, although the plot and characters are quite different. The novel is a light, pleasant beach read. It isn’t belly-laugh funny but it made me smile often enough to earn an easy recommendation.

Edsel Bronfman, at 34, has never had a social life. He isn’t sure whether he’s a virgin. Bronfman “wins” a weekend at a Florida condo, which he will be pressured to purchase if he says yes. The catch is that he must bring a companion, because couples are more likely to buy than singles. Unfortunately for Bronfman, he has no companion and not much hope of finding one before the offer expires. His best bet as a travel buddy might be the receptionist in the office building where Bronfman works — she actually had a brief conversation with him one day — but she’s a temp and has disappeared before he works up the courage to ask her on a date.

Bronfman believes he suffers from a condition that prevents him from doing anything to improve his position in the world. He is, in his mother’s words, “a second guesser of second-guesses.” But Bronfman’s mother also told him, during his childhood, that his future was “a disappointment waiting to happen,” so it is easy to understand why Bronfman turned out the way he did.

Bronfman nevertheless sees the weekend in Florida as a motivation to change his life. Bit by bit, Bronfman tries to become a part of world. He discovers that when you become part of the world, the world gives you things to do, which can be kind of a pain, but he takes it as a learning experience. His encounters leave him on the periphery while giving him the illusion of being on the inside and of bonding with the insiders who, in truth, barely notice him. But they also, bit by bit, allow Bronfman to let go of the past and to define himself in the present. As the novel nears its end, someone asks Bronfman “What do you want?” and Bronfman realizes it is a question he has never asked himself. His answer is encouraging.

The characters in Extraordinary Adventures are amusing and quirky. His co-workers are typical of cube-dwellers who are diligent in their efforts to pursue interests at work that do not include work. His neighbor is a drug dealer who probably stole all of Bronfman’s possessions (except for his promotional pen collection). Bronfman’s mother is now old and a bit addled, unless she’s just seeing the world in a different way. She’s convinced her caretaker is stealing from her and breaking things. Her kindly caretaker is justifiably convinced that Bronfman’s mother is off her rocker.

Sheila, the receptionist, is a bit of an enigma whose stories about her past and present might not be entirely reliable. A police woman named Serena might be a dating prospect, but Bronfman isn’t sure about dating a woman who carries a gun. The drug dealer’s female friend is also on Bronfman’s short list of travel companions. In their own ways, all three women appeal to Bronfman, simply because they have noticed his existence.

The ending is predictable but satisfying. In fact, a romantic comedy would probably be unsatisfying if it did not end in a predictable way. The choice Bronfman makes might not be entirely unexpected, but I suspect that most readers will simply want him to make a choice, to move his life forward. Extraordinary Adventures succeeds because Bronfman succeeds in opening himself to the world of possibility, even if his success is exactly what the reader anticipates.

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A Game of Ghosts by John Connolly

First published in Great Britain in 2017; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on July 4, 2017

A Game of Ghosts advances and, to an extent, brings to an end subplots that have forming in recent Charlie Parker novels. Familiar names or entities relating to those subplots include the Collector, the lawyer Eldritch, and the Brethren.

There are more ghosts than usual in this Charlie Parker novel. Charlie’s daughter Sam is still visited by the ghost of her half-sister Jennifer. Tobey Thayer foresees death, sometimes in the form of ghosts. Mike MacKinnon disappeared after seeing ghosts, and now his son Alex has seen one, portending the arrival of evil in his home. Other characters see or become ghosts as the novel progresses.

Charlie Parker is now on the government payroll as a private contractor. FBI Agent Ross has assigned him to find a private investigator named Jaycob Eklund who, like Parker, is a private FBI asset. Eklund has dropped off the radar.

The Brethren have taken note of Eklund and of a man named Routh, also known as the Cousin. Routh and Thayer are both connected to Eklund. Those connections furnish Parker’s link to evil, both mortal and supernatural, as Parker and his two associates, Angel and Louis, work their way through a trail of dead bodies while trying to find a living person who might know what happened to Eklund. The mystery puts Parker in the middle of an intriguing power struggle between a widow and her son.

As always, John Connolly writes with an abundance of style and flair. The story moves quickly. The plot is a bit less engaging than some other Parker novels, in part because Connolly seems have used A Game of Ghosts to tie up some of the dangling subplots that he advanced in earlier novels. For that reason, this novel focuses less on unraveling a mystery and more on the supernatural elements that always lurk in a Parker novel.

Given that Parker’s dead daughter is a ghostly character in these novels, and that his living daughter seems to have supernatural powers, there’s little doubt that the supernatural will continue to play an important role in the series. Now that the Brethren plotline is largely resolved, I’d like to see the novels give less emphasis to supernatural elements, because I think Parker novels are best when Parker is hunting down a killer or some other evildoer. Parker doesn’t do much of anything in A Game of Ghosts as he’s usually a half step behind the evildoers, who often hog the stage. Still, A Game of Ghosts is an easy, enjoyable read, and it paves the way for fresh plots in future novels.

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The Right Side by Spencer Quinn

Published by Atria Books on June 27, 2017

Spencer Quinn is justly celebrated for his Chet and Bernie stories, which are light and amusing. The Right Side is dark and serious. About halfway through the book, however, a wonderful dog appears, although the dog isn’t Chet, who narrates the Chet and Bernie books. This dog, like the novel, is dark and serious. But she’s still a dog.

Readers who want a favorite author to write the same book over and over might dislike The Right Side. Readers who admire the ability and courage of a good writer who departs from a successful formula might like The Right Side even more than the Chet and Bernie novels.

Raised by a former Green Beret, LeAnne Hogan knows how to shoot. But she lost her shooting eye on a mission in Afghanistan and she has shrapnel embedded in her brain. Her memory is fuzzy as she recovers in Walter Reed, although she remembers the childhood that shaped her. As she recuperates, she has repeat visits from a psychiatrist and an Army intelligence officer, neither of whom she trusts.

LeAnne was in Afghanistan at the request of a female colonel who wanted her to join a team that would gather intelligence from Afghan women (on the dubious theory that women are more likely to talk to women). During the first third of the novel, LeAnne’s backstory alternates with her present, as she tries to cope with her injuries and memory loss, and with unexpected death, at Walter Reed and in her post-hospitalized life.

LeAnne’s experiences have changed her. Her injury has made it difficult for her to focus and to keep track of time. She’s become something of a bigot with regard to Americans of Middle Eastern ancestry. She’s gruff and short-tempered. She’s developed a sense of entitlement because of her military service and a sense of worthlessness because of her injury. In other words, she’s imperfect. That makes her interesting and realistic.

What happened on the mission that took her eye? LeAnne isn’t sure. The Captain from Army intelligence drops some hints, suggesting that there’s more to the story than LeAnne remembers. He keeps track of LeAnne as the story moves along, leaving the reader to wonder why he’s taking such an interest in her. And since LeAnne’s brain injury makes her a less than reliable narrator, part of the reader’s challenge is deciding whether LeAnne’s perceptions of reality are entirely accurate.

After this set-up, a dog appears. I’ll leave it to the reader to discover how that happens and the almost mythical role that the dog plays in LeAnne’s life, despite her general antipathy to dogs. Suffice it to say, it would be hard for a dog lover not to love this book.

A brief friendship at Walter Reed with a woman named Marci animates the rest of the novel, as LeAnne becomes embroiled in Marci’s past while trying to make sense of her own past and present. Other characters help or hinder Marci, but she would be largely directionless if it weren’t for the dog, who leads her in the directions that only make sense to dogs, but as dog lovers know, those directions often turn out to be the right ones.

Quinn honed his storytelling skills in the Chet and Bernie books, all of which I’ve enjoyed. He knows how to keep the story moving at a good pace without sacrificing characterizations or setting. As LeAnne moves around the country (and Afghanistan), Quinn always establishes a convincing sense of place. His supporting characters are convincing and, given the serious nature of the novel, LeAnne has more depth than Bernie (or Chet, for that matter).

A couple scenes in the book would be difficult to believe if not for the dog’s mythical quality. This is the sort of story that a reader believes because the reader wants to believe it, not because it’s particularly plausible. That Quinn made me believe the unlikely is one reason I loved The Right Side. LeAnne’s character development and the dog story are the other reasons. The twin mysteries (what happened in Afghanistan? what happened to a kid who goes missing midway through the story?) are entertaining enough, but this is a novel I admire for reasons other than the plot.

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