Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Published by Random House on February 14, 2017

The dead want nothing so much as to be loved. At least, that’s what we are told by the dead characters in Lincoln in the Bardo.

Much of the novel, in fact, consists of conversations held by dead characters. They watch, and comment upon, the death of Abraham Lincoln’s young son, Willie, who soon joins them.

That death and the circumstances surrounding it also the subject of scholarly commentary and contemporaneous documents (often less than scholarly) that are liberally quoted, snippets woven together to make chapters of their own. The same technique is used to construct chapters about the Civil War dead, displeasure with Lincoln’s presidency, and criticism of Lincoln’s parenting style.

The dead turn to Willie for inspiration as he tries to remain in the material world, hoping to see his father once more. Some of the (dead) characters, however, believe that Willie needs to move on, although they have not done so themselves. In fact, their inability to accept death, to accept their own deaths, just as Lincoln struggled to accept his son’s death, seems to be the point of the story. Acceptance of anything that holds us back is liberating.

Parts of the novel, particularly the dialog of spirits who criticize and backbite each other, are quite funny. In a random assembly of the deceased, sins are confessed, grievances are aired, secrets are revealed. The dead have been silent too long, and Willie’s appearance, his ability to communicate with his father, albeit briefly, gives them a chance to be heard. Or so they hope. Mostly they want one more chance to talk about themselves, just as they did before they died.

Parts of the novel, particularly Lincoln’s thoughts of his lost son, are quite moving. And parts, suggesting that bigotry and pettiness survive death, would be depressing if they were not lightened by the humor that pervades the story.

I give George Saunders credit for inventiveness. I’ve never read a work of fiction quite like Lincoln in the Bardo. The story has a worthy message about the burden of suffering that we all carry in varying degrees, and our responsibility to lighten the load of others when we can. I can’t say I was entirely captivated by the story Saunders tells, but it made me laugh, and it made me think. Any novel that consistently does those things merits a recommendation.

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The Book of Mirrors by E.O. Chirovici

Published in Great Britain in January 2017; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on February 21, 2017

A literary agent, Peter Katz, receives a partial manuscript of a nonfiction work describing the author’s experiences at Princeton in 1987. The manuscript concerns a young man named Richard Flynn who wants to be a writer and whose new roommate, an attractive young woman named Laura Baines, is studying psychology. Laura is apparently working on a secret project with Professor Joseph Wieder. Flynn gets a job cataloguing the professor’s library and promptly falls in love with Laura, but things take an odd turn when, shortly after Laura seems to pull away from both Wieder and Flynn, Wieder is murdered.

Katz is intrigued by the opening chapters and wants to read the entire manuscript, but contacting Flynn proves to be difficult, and it seems like a story to which Katz will never learn the ending. From the reader’s perspective, however, the story is just beginning. It continues with the introduction of John Keller, an unemployed writer/reporter who agrees to investigate Flynn’s story and to write a new version of the book if the original manuscript can’t be found.

Keller interviews sources and hears conflicting accounts of pretty much every fact that pertains to Flynn, Baines, Wieder, and various others who were involved with their lives. The stories are so dramatically different that Keller and the reader are challenged to determine who (if anyone) is telling the truth, what motivations they might have for lying, and (most importantly) who actually murdered Wieder.

The story is told from four perspectives: Katz, Flynn (who speaks through his partial manuscript), Keller, and Roy Freeman, a retired detective who worked on the unsolved murder. While each perspective is written in the same voice, the consistent voice arguably supports the continuity of the story. More importantly, the changing perspectives on the investigation keep the story fresh as the plot advances.

The plot has enough complexity to keep the reader guessing but never becomes convoluted. I like the way important aspects of the mystery are resolved while the reader is left wondering about others. The elusive nature of truth is the novel’s theme, and the plot illuminate the theme in clever ways.

The story does not bog down with unnecessary detail and the pace is appropriate to a literary mystery … quick enough to keep the reader interested, slow enough to give the reader time to chew on the conflicting versions of the facts. Characters have carefully defined personalities and E.O. Chirovici’s writing style is smooth. A Book of Mirrors is a solid mystery and the beginning of a promising career.

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Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr

Published by Marian Wood Books/Putnam on April 4, 2017

As is common in Bernie Gunther novels, Prussian Blue tells two stories. One is set in the present (1956), the other in the past (1939).

In the present, Gunther’s old nemesis, Erich Mielke, offers him a chance to return to Germany, all debts paid. He only needs to kill a woman who was featured prominently in The Other Side of Silence. Mielke has in mind a death by poison and wants Gunther to carry out the plan in England. Of course, Gunther fans know that he isn’t a perfect person, and is shaped by the circumstances of an imperfect world, but he isn’t somebody who readily commits murder, particularly one that he’s ordered to commit. And so Gunther begins another odyssey, this one taking him on a treacherous journey back to his beloved Germany.

On the way to his destination, however, Gunther takes a few breaks to remember his earlier life. The 1939 story, and the bulk of the novel, involves a murder investigation. Reinhard Heydrich assigns Gunther to visit Martin Bormann in the Bavarian mountain village where Hitler keeps his vacation home. The victim is a seemingly unimportant civil servant, but Bormann doesn’t want anyone getting away with a murder in Hitler’s residence. Hitler, after all, would be unhappy, perhaps with Bormann. While Bormann praises the “family values” of the rural residents who are loyal to the Nazi party, he wants Gunther to learn which of them is the murderer. The list of suspects is almost unlimited, since villagers are being forced to sell their homes at low prices to Nazi officials while working triple overtime to complete construction on the various building projects that serve only to glorify the Leader.

As series fans know, Gunther is opinionated. He doesn’t like Nazis or the French or the British or Bavarians or almost anyone who isn’t a Berliner. Being opinionated is good because it gives Gunther a personality, but it’s bad when he expresses the same opinions over and over. Lengthening a Bernie Gunther novel with redundant opinions is problematic because Gunther has such a dark cloud over his head that sticking with him for more than 500 pages is enough to trigger the onset of depression in even the most well-adjusted reader.

Nevertheless, Gunther novels are always interesting, and they always maintain a steady pace despite Gunther’s contemplative digressions. Gunther makes it to page 16 of this one before someone beats him up, and that pattern continues as Gunther is repeatedly shot at, wounded, beaten, and generally abused throughout the course of the novel. It’s no wonder he’s unhappy, although his displeasure with life has more to do with the fact that he can’t be an honest police officer with so many wicked people running his country.

Prussian Blue lacks the gut punch of my favorite Bernie Gunther novels, but the 1939 story is a good police procedural that keeps the reader guessing as Gunther uncovers clues to the killer’s identity. The 1956 story sets up another chapter in Gunther’s life, another change, another chance, another novel, and another opportunity to see where Gunther’s dark life takes him.

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Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade by Joe R. Lansdale

Published by Tachyon Publications on March 14, 2017

Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade is a collection of stories about Hap Collins when he was young and his developing friendship with Leonard Pine. Most of the stories appear here for the first time, although one of the most powerful, a story about bullying and abusive parenting called “The Boy Who Became Invisible,” was published in 2009. The stories are woven together with an overlaid narrative that consists of Hap and Leonard telling stories to each other or to Hap’s family.

After Hap and Leonard discuss the problem with modern schools (they don’t allow self-defense and thus teach kids to be victims), illustrated by a story from Hap’s school days, we learn how Hap and Leonard met. Naturally, it involves a fight. This is followed by the story of the first time they fought together (a story that appears in a volume of Hap and Leonard stories by the same publisher).

Some of the other stories are light, some are dark, most are a mix. Some tell about Hap’s family and the town where he grew up. Some are about crimes he witnessed, or their aftermath. One is a ghost story his daddy told him. One is a story about snakes and what they teach us about people. Leonard appears in some, but not all, of the stories. This is a Hap-centric volume.

The best stories are about tolerance, an American value that has always been in short supply in much of America. The title story, “Blood and Lemonade,” is about perceptions of race in Texas during Hap’s childhood. As Leonard says at a couple of different points in the book, things have changed, but not enough. The story teaches a profound lesson about taking the good with the bad, and not allowing the bad to taint the good.

All of the stories are solid contributions to Hap and Leonard lore, but they are also solid stories of the kind that Joe Lansdale does so well.

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Miguel's Gift by Bruce Kading

Published by Chicago Review Press on April 1, 2017

Nick Hayden is an immigration agent. He keeps himself busy arresting undocumented aliens in 1987 Chicago. His trainer, Charlie McCloud, has burned through his humanity from too many years on the job, but wants Hayden to view immigrants as people. Hayden struggles with that lesson for much of the novel.

Hayden joined the INS (as the agency was then known) to learn why an agent died on the job. To that end, he had to lie on his application. His job will be jeopardized if his secret becomes known, since the agent was Hayden’s father.

The Miguel who appears in the title is Miguel Chavez, a Mexican who crosses the border, travels to Chicago, buys a fake green card, gets a factory job, arranges for his wife and children to join him, and lives happily for two years before INS gets a tip from a disgruntled worker who is unhappy that Miguel got promoted ahead of him.

Hayden and his partner want Miguel to work with them to bust a Chicago supplier of counterfeit green cards. Being an informant is dangerous, and Hayden’s partner wants to follow the law enforcement tradition of making false promises of safety and future benefits to induce Miguel’s cooperation. Hayden sees Miguel as a decent person, not as a wetback, and struggles with putting Miguel’s life in danger. Not wanting to be deported and give up the life he has made for his family, Miguel agrees to take the risk.

I like the novel’s realistic depiction of inter-agency strife, particularly between the INS, which wants to deport undocumented aliens, and DEA, which wants to keep them in the country and use them as drug informants. I also appreciate the novel’s portrayal of government agents who view perjury and violating the Constitution as appropriate tools of law enforcement.

The recognition that law enforcement agents too often consider the law to apply to everyone but themselves leads to a nice discussion of the gladiator syndrome: law enforcement agents come to think of themselves as heroic figures who, feeling hamstrung by the requirement that they obey the law, decide to operate outside the law because they feel justified in their righteous crusade. After walling themselves off from social norms and developing a bunker mentality, gladiators become self-righteous assholes who can only find companionship in taverns with other gladiators.

At the same time, the novel offers a balanced view of INS agents, praising them for professionalism and efficiency while recognizing that some agents fail to meet that standard. Miguel’s Gift also offers a balanced view of immigration, making the point that politicians pander to the angry white men who condemn illegal immigrants while taking no action against the vast number of American employers that depend on illegal immigrants for cheap labor. Unless, of course, a politician needs INS to enforce laws against one business in order to help a competing business.

Ultimately, what happened to Hayden’s father, Hayden’s search for the truth, and Miguel’s career as an informant are all stories of politics within INS, the politics of bureaucracy. The bottom line is that politicians pretend to squawk about illegal immigration, but businesses need illegal immigrants to keep wages low, and politicians are in the pockets of business leaders. The novel illustrates how immigration enforcement hurts immigrants when the government tries to put on a show, while protecting businesses that create a demand for illegal workers from the risk that they get in trouble for hiring them. The novel is set 30 years in the past, but none of that has changed, other than an escalating level of angry rhetoric.

I give Bruce Kading credit for telling an entertaining if unchallenging story, but also for telling the truth about the politics of immigration policy. And I give him credit for illustrating the truth in a touching ending that good people are good people, even if they are branded as “illegals.” Miguel might be a bit too one dimensional, a bit too saintly, but it is nevertheless encouraging to see an undocumented immigrant portrayed in a positive light.

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