Darktown by Thomas Mullen

Published by Atria/37 INK on September 13, 2016

Darktown begins a few months after the first black police officers are sworn into the Atlanta Police Department. The key characters are a new black officer named Lucius Boggs and a new white officer named Dennis Rakestraw (Rake). Boggs is partnered with another black officer named Tommy Smith. Rake is partnered with Dunlow, an aging cop who prefers to beat black suspects rather than arrest them. Dunlow also encourages witnesses to lie and solicits bribes. Part of the novel involves the moral dilemma that Rake confronts as he decides whether justice includes finding the truth about crimes against black victims rather than blaming the crime on a convenient black suspect.

The primary plot thread concerns the murder of a black woman. Boggs and Smith last see her alive as she flees from a white man’s car. The white man is drunk and crashes into a light pole, but when they call white officers to investigate (because they have no authority to arrest or detain white suspects), Dunlow has a chummy conversation with the driver and lets him go. After the woman’s body is found, Boggs investigates her murder. Since he isn’t a detective, he places his job at risk by delving into a murder investigation, but the murder doesn’t seem to interest the white detectives. Whether justice will be done is the question that carries the novel.

Thomas Mullen has a nuanced view of his characters. The racists have their good moments and the victims of oppression have their bad moments. There is enough complexity in their personalities to make the primary characters realistic, rather than the stereotypes that novels set in a racist environment often become.

In the first half, the plot is just a frame for a larger story of racial injustice. The story’s background details stand as a reminder of how blatant racism endured in the south after the Second World War. Black officers entered the police station and the courthouse via a separate entrance, but they were headquartered in the basement of the black YMCA. They could not enter the courthouse wearing uniforms, but were required to change into their uniforms before testifying (and were assigned a broom closet for that purpose). Unlike white officers, they were not paid overtime for testifying.

The purpose of hiring black officers (at least from Boggs’ perspective) was to stop police brutality, but white officers continue to beat and kill black citizens. Yet the black community leaders (including Boggs’ father), eager for the new black officers to make waves in the department, don’t understand or appreciate what the new officers must endure every day if they want to keep their jobs — and their lives.

The first half might be a bit overdone, sacrificing pace for building a background. Fortunately, the story builds tension in the second half as Boggs and Rake pursue separate but converging investigations when they should be walking their beats. The crime is more complex than it first appears to be, which gives the story an extra shot of intrigue. The plot has the hallmarks of a classic noir mystery, making the novel an enjoyable read both for mystery fans and for readers who want to get a better sense of life in the segregated south shortly after World War II.

RECOMMENDED

A Death in the House and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak

Published by Open Road Media on July 5, 2016

A Death in the House is volume 7 in the Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak series published by Open Road. The introduction attributes Simak’s apparent hiatus from science fiction in the mid-1930s to his work as a newspaper editor, moving from town to town in the Midwest after being hired to save sinking newspapers. At the same time, shrinking markets for sf left him with few places to which he could submit his work. Fortunately, the hiatus did not last long and Simak went on to produce some of science fiction's most memorable stories.

The stories (with publication dates) collected in this volume are:

"Operation Stinky" (1957) - A smelly alien meets a drunken human. This is an amusing story that previews themes that Simak developed in greater depth in “A Death in the House,” also collected in this volume.

"Green Thumb" (1954) - This intelligent alien plant story that also previews “A Death in the House.”

"When it’s Hangnoose Time in Hell" (1946) - A western.

"The Sitters" (1958) - Aliens prove to be twisted babysitters. Those who benefit might approve of the aliens’ approach but parents will be horrified.

"Tools" (1942) - An intelligent cloud of radon from Venus is messing with humans, but the radium industry is big business and profits matter more than people. Like many of Simak’s stories, “Tools” is optimistic even as it cautions against greed and other deadly sins.

"Target Generation" (1953) - A generation ship story with some twists. The story has some features in common with Brian Aldiss’ excellent 1958 novel, Non-Stop.

"War is Personal" (1945) - A “pilots behind enemy lines” war story.

"Nine Lives" (1957) - A time travel story with cats.

"A Death in the House" (1959) - A farmer finds a smelly plant-like alien that soon dies -- or does it? Simak’s humanity shines through in this story, as well as his sense that aliens (and by extension, humans who are different from us) are just as capable of empathy and kindness as we are. It’s my favorite story in the volume and one of Simak’s best.

"The Birch Clump Cylinder" (1974) - An alien starship drive that uses time as a source of energy falls to Earth, setting up a clever time travel story.

None of the stories in this volume are duds and all except the war story entertained me, but only one -- the title story -- shows Simak at this best. It’s interesting, however, to see how two of the earlier stories shaped the title story.

RECOMMENDED

Livia Lone by Barry Eisler

Published by Thomas & Mercer on October 25, 2016

Livia Lone follows a current trend in “vigilante justice” novels. A woman who suffered horrific abuse as a child becomes a hardened killer as an adult who avenges crime victims by killing their victimizers. My favorite of those is Taylor Stevens’ Vanessa Michael Munroe. Livia Lone struck me as an attempt to blend Munroe with Barry Eisler's professional killer, John Rain. Unfortunately, Lone isn’t as interesting as either Munroe or Rain. In fact, Livia Lone (speaking of either the character or the book) is predictable, too often boring, and way over-the-top.

Livia Lone is a cop, but in her off-duty time she murders rapists. That hobby lets her kill time while she waits for her true prey to be released from prison. Timothy Tyler was once her captor, and she wants him to tell her what happened to her sister after they were both trafficked as children from Thailand. Livia’s backstory is told in chapters that alternate with the present day.

The chapters set in the past explain how Livia came to be the person she is. Barry Eisler describes (in scenes that deliberately avoid being too graphic) sexual abuse by her captors and then by the influential American who adopts her. Contrasted with the evil adults who abused Livia are good adults who are kind to Livia. Livia’s backstory comes across as manipulative rather than honest, and characters from her past seem to exist only to make the reader cheer or boo.

In the present, Livia is a police detective specializing in sex crimes, particularly those involving children. Livia is on a crusade. That’s a bad quality in a real cop because crusades impair objectivity, but it’s also a bad quality in a fictional cop because crusaders do not tend to have multi-faceted personalities. That’s the novel’s biggest problem.

Nothing about Livia is surprising. Her life follows a blueprint. She is the icon of an abused child who overcomes her past by empowering herself. The only thing unique or interesting about Livia is that she conflates killing bad people with sexual bliss.

Other characters suffer from the same one-dimensionality. Livia’s classmate, his father, and a cop who eventually becomes involved in her life are such exemplars of good they should be wearing halos. Villainous characters are exemplars of pure evil. That’s common in thrillers (many readers seem to like a clear dichotomy between good and evil) but the failure to reflect the real world keeps me from recommending the novel to readers who are looking for something that might make them think.

With the exception of a few good people, every male Livia knows is a rapist or a child molester. Other than Livia, nearly every female is a victim, and they all agree that murdering victimizers is the best kind of justice. It’s enough to make me give up on the human race.

To give the story some action, Eisler has Lone confronting an attacker from time to time, but the scenes are so contrived that they do nothing to change the story’s predictable nature. Some of the abuse visited upon victims (but not Livia, because readers wouldn’t like that) is taken so far over-the-top that I just couldn’t believe any of it.

As I mentioned, the only interesting aspect of Livia is her kinky sexuality, even though I didn’t believe a moment of it. Oddly, Livia needs to get rough with a guy before she can enjoy sex with him. Of course, if a guy needs to get rough with her in order to enjoy sex, she kills him (which in itself is a kind of a sexual experience for her). The double standard would be an interesting character trait if it were acknowledged and explored, but like anything else that might give complexity to the story, it’s just ignored. Still, Livia’s kink is the only interesting aspect of her personality. People who feel justified about being a serial killer should be interesting, but Livia isn’t.

I’m disappointed that Livia Lone isn’t a better, deeper book. It is written in prose that flows smoothly and, while it could have been much tighter, the story moves at a reasonable pace. Many of Eisler’s fans will like this new series despite (or perhaps because of) its lack of nuance. I have no problem with that, but I don’t plan to read another one in this series and I can’t recommend this one. It gets a big ho-hum from me.

NOT RECOMMENDED

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

First published in Germany in 2014; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on September 13, 2016

“Death is the Cold Lady,” says Horned Hannes as Andreas Egger carries him on his back from the goatherd he was tending. Hannes was near death when Egger found him, but on the way to the village, Hannes suddenly separates himself from Egger and begins to run back up the mountain. “Stop, you stupid fool!” Egger calls. “No one has ever outrun death.”

That scene begins A Whole Life. As the title suggests, the novel is the story of Egger’s life. It is not an easy life. Egger encounters death, and nearly meets his own, more than once. He lives on a mountain that is prone to avalanches. He works for a cable car company, risking his life while dangling in the air to keep the cables clean and oiled. In 1942, he goes to war, having been conscripted by the Wehrmacht. In the Caucasus and as a POW, he observes more death. Later his abusive step-father, in a chance encounter after years of separation, reminds him that “Death misses no one.” A funeral procession interrupts when he wants to enjoy a child’s laughter. When he meets a couple who are lost in the mountains, the husband was preparing to “lay down and die.” And so on.

Despite all the imagery of death, Robert Seethaler reminds us that other images can be life-affirming. Andreas doesn’t have a television but two televised events stand out in his memory -- seeing Grace Kelly waving to reporters and watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Some images spark a sense of awe that can never set aside.

Egger’s life is a series of transitions, from job to career, war to peace, husband to widower. A Whole Life is not so much the story of a man who is struggling to find himself as it is the story of a man who stumbles forward, taking what comes his way. It is the story of a solitary life, for as Egger tells a tourist, “Every one of us limps alone.” Where other novels celebrate the importance of love and friendship, A Whole Life celebrates solitude. Joy, for Egger, does not come from social interaction; it comes from being alive.

Perhaps Egger is deluding himself when he extols his pleasure in being left alone. Perhaps Egger saw so much of death that he feared forming attachments with friends and lovers who would inevitably die. Those are questions for each reader to decide. Arguably of greater importance is that Egger lived a simple life, did not succumb to temptation, caused no harm, never had a reason to experience guilt, and felt no regret. Perhaps being able to look at the mystery of life “with a full-throated laugh and utter amazement” is enough to make a life whole. I admire A Whole Life for its refreshing and unexpected perspective.

RECOMMENDED

Will Eisner's The Spirit: Who Killed The Spirit? by Matt Wagner and Dan Schkade

Published by Dynamite Entertainment on October 25, 2016

Will Eisner was the most accomplished graphic storyteller of his generation. He is best known for The Spirit, a series that ran from 1940 to 1952. His multi-page stories, published in Sunday newspapers, came to be known as “the Spirit section.”

Eisner’s innovative approach to the series set him apart from other cartoonists of the time. He wrote adult fiction with mature themes (subject to the constraints of his time and audience), putting a mask on his detective only to accommodate publishers who wanted a costumed hero. He gave his detective a rumpled look and used shadows to convey a gritty, noir sense of the city he served. His detailed backgrounds often showed derelicts, clotheslines, and the detritus of urban decay. His perspective was cinematic, constantly changing, showing the scene from a variety of angles and distances. He gave new shapes to the standard square panels that defined comic art. He even transformed The Spirit logo with each story, making it a part of the background (the letters spelled out in blowing bits of paper, appearing on a billboard, or squeezed together to form a towering building).

Eisner’s stories were deeply humanistic. He often used humor to expose greed and corruption. Clearly influenced by his experience of anti-Semitism, Eisner depicted the struggles of ordinary people, sometimes making them the story’s focus while relegating the Spirit to a background role.

Written by Matt Wagner and drawn by Dan Schkade (with covers contributed by several other artists), Who Killed the Spirit? is intended as a 75th anniversary celebration of Eisner’s series. If it isn’t quite Eisner in the depth of its storytelling, that’s to be expected. Nobody is Eisner. The volume is nevertheless a worthy tribute to Will Eisner’s iconic hero.

The Spirit is dead … or is he? Dolan thinks Denny Colt has been dead and buried for two years (really dead, this time) until he gets a return visit from the Spirit. Meanwhile, detectives Sammy Strunk and Ebony White (redrawn to avoid Eisner’s racial stereotyping) decide to find out why the Spirit has disappeared.

The Spirit himself explains why he disappeared, although it’s all kind of a mystery to him ... and mysteries, of course, need to be solved. He begins with an overheard name, Mikado Vaas. From his underworld interrogations, he learns that Vaas is something like Keyser Söze -- more myth than man. And then there’s the mysterious woman who occasionally appeared to gaze at him in his captivity.

Along the way, The Spirit encounters familiar enemies like the Octopus and woos Dolan’s shapely daughter as Dolan decides whether he really wants to retire, turning the police commissioner’s job over to a politically connected boob. The story is long, unlike traditional Spirit stories, but it has all the elements of a Will Eisner story. It is consistently entertaining.

In fact, from the standpoint of writing and particularly the art, this homage to The Spirit channels Eisner faithfully. It almost feels like a story Eisner could have done, and that’s high praise.

RECOMMENDED