God's Pocket by Pete Dexter

Published in 1983

God’s Pocket isn’t as strong as Paris Trout. That isn’t surprising, since God’s Pocket was Pete Dexter’s debut novel. It is nevertheless a strong start to Dexter’s career as an award-winning author.

The novel begins with the death of Leon Hubbard. The police are told that the death was accidental but the reader and a handful of witnesses know that to be untrue. Over the next few days, the residents of God’s Pocket, a working class area in South Philadelphia, talk about what a great young man Leon was. Nothing could be less true, but it doesn’t pay to speak ill of the dead -- particularly in God’s Pocket, where everyone sticks together.

Leon’s step-father, Mickey, knows that Leon was a worthless psychopath. Leon must do his best to appease Leon’s mother while figuring out way to pay for the funeral -- gambling on the horses is one possibility, trying to get paid for his most recent truck hijacking is another. Nothing works out very well for Mickey or for his friend Bird, who is in financial trouble of his own due to a misunderstanding with the mob. Things aren’t much better for the undertaker who won’t bury Leon without payment in advance.

The novel’s other key character is a newspaper columnist, the celebrated voice of the common man, who hasn’t believed a word he’s written in at least ten years. He’s supposed to be writing about Leon’s death but he’s more inclined to woo Leon’s mother, who appreciates the attention even if it’s coming during what should be a time of mourning. The columnist and Leon’s mother are both coming unglued in their own ways.

Dexter gives the residents of God’s Pocket a believable group identity. They look out for each other even as they gossip about each other. They are suspicious of outsiders; they rarely leave God’s Pocket except for work; they feel downtrodden and misunderstood as they divide their time between the two neighborhood bars. Attention to local detail adds to the book’s authenticity.

Leon’s death and its true cause weave in and out of the plot, but the story is largely Mickey’s. The plot moves in unexpected directions but it always manages to be convincing. Several moments of dark humor lighten the mood. Perhaps too much attention is given to the columnist (a natural inclination for Dexter, who was himself a columnist) and not enough to the character who is most centrally involved in Leon’s death, but since that story is entertaining from beginning to end, I really can’t fault it.

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In the Name of the Queen by John MacRae

Published by Endeavour Press on June 27, 2016

In the Name of the Queen has a 2016 copyright, although it appears to have been first published in Great Britain in 2012. In any event, unlike some of the novels that Endeavour Press has resurrected, this one is of fairly recent vintage.

Mike Farrah is in military intelligence. His father is Lebanese and he speaks Arabic fluently. He is recruited by MI6 to impersonate a Jordanian billionaire, the son of a man who has long been dead.

The mission requires Farrah to seduce a Saudi woman whose father is a banker. In fact, he is suspected of being al Qaeda’s banker. Farrah’s minders hope he can help them locate the banker so that he can be snatched by the CIA, which does the dirty work for MI6.

After a good bit of training (including instruction in the art of seduction), Farrah goes to Cairo where he assumes his undercover identity. The beautiful woman is also living in Cairo because she cannot tolerate the intolerance of Saudi Arabia, and is particularly unwilling to be treated as inferior because of her gender. The woman’s brother, on the other hand, has more extreme views and considers everyone in Cairo -- particularly Farrah -- to be decadent and unworthy of his sister’s attention. That, of course, leads to a clash between Farrah and the brother.

Some aspects of In the Name of the Queen are predictable, but the novel also takes a couple of unexpected twists. Farrah learns that he cannot trust anyone -- particularly Mossad, a devious agency that is as dangerous as the enemy he is trying to battle. All good espionage novels are about betrayal, and the question in this one is whether Farrah will betray the beautiful woman and her father before he is betrayed by the people who are supposedly on his side.

Sex scenes tend to be cheesy (“quivering manhood”) and awkward (“exploded in a hot explosion”) as John MacRae proves himself to be one of those British authors to whom the prose of sex does not come naturally. I’m not quite sure I understood Farrah’s motivation for certain actions he takes as the story reaches its climax, and I was unhappy with a couple of unanswered questions that dangle at the novel’s end.

On the other hand, the story is good, the pace is steady, and action scenes are both credible and exciting. The plot does not overreach, which sets In the Name of the Queen apart from most modern thrillers. Characters have a reasonable amount of depth. In the Name of the Queen isn’t in the top tier of spy fiction, but fans of the genre should enjoy it.

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The Innocents by Ace Atkins

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on July 12, 2016

Quinn Colson is back in Tibbehah County, where he was voted out of office as sheriff. After doing some contract police training in Afghanistan, Quinn has returned to keep an eye on his addled dad. Lillie Virgil is the sheriff now. Read The Redeemers if you want to know more about the background, but The Innocents can be appreciated without reading earlier installments in the series.

Since the last novel ended, the local “titty bar” has acquired a new owner. One plot thread begins with an underage pole dancer who wants to acquire enough money to get away from her judgmental father. Another involves current and former high school football players who are in trouble with the law and the beloved coach who is the state’s three-time High School Coach of the Year. Eventually the plot coalesces around a murder mystery that Quinn and Lillie are called upon to solve. The murder is particularly gruesome, but that seems to be the way people die in Tibbehah County.

I love the background details in these novels. Church and high school football are the most important things in town although most people only pretend to care about church. Quinn’s mother loves to listen to Elvis’ last concert just to have a good cry. Sheriffs and other elected officials who actually do their jobs can count on losing the next election.

I also love the realism of Ace Atkins’ characters. From immigrants who feel they are being kicked around (sometimes justly, sometimes not) to rednecks who cling to bigotry as a mark of strong character to well-educated people who are made to feel unwelcome, the background characters represent the mix of people who live in poor southern counties.

The Innocents isn’t particularly suspenseful and the plot isn’t particularly surprising, but the story moves quickly, action scenes are exciting, and (in contrast to most modern thrillers) the story never stretches the boundaries of credibility. I would recommend The Innocents for those reasons alone, but I particularly recommend the series to readers who are looking for complex characters who struggle with their lives as they evolve from book to book.

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The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke

Published by Simon & Schuster on August 30, 2016

The Jealous Kind is a crime story, but it’s also the story of a teenage boy who is learning to understand himself, who is creating an identity he can carry into adulthood. The novel is also about friendship -- the difficulty of separating true friends from false friends, of deciding whether a friendship is real and when it should end. And it’s about the difficulty of being a decent person in an indecent world.

Aaron Broussard is a high school student in Texas from a working class background. His interest in a girl sparks conflict with a bully. Before long, Aaron and his friend Saber Bledsoe are suspected of torching a car near the area where a Mexican girl’s body is found. On top of that, one of his teachers, a man who is suspected of sexually abusing children, is deeply antagonistic to Broussard and Bledsoe. And on top of that, various characters have mob connections, making them doubly dangerous. And to top it all off, Aaron interacts with police officers who belong “to the huge army of people who believed that authority over others was an achievement and that violence was proof of a man’s bravery" -- although one police detective is a better example of humanity than the others.

As the plot unfolds, various acts of mayhem and murder occur. Aaron and/or Saber are suspected of involvement in most of them. The challenge for the reader is to figure out who did what. With an assortment of mobsters, gang members, and potentially violent people to choose from -- people whose motivations might be protective or destructive -- the challenge is enough to hold the reader’s steadfast interest.

Aaron’s father might be the novel’s most interesting character. He has an old-fashioned kind of southern honor. He’s well educated and knows that those of lesser “breeding” might mistake his sense of civility and manners for weakness. He believes in turning the other cheek, a value he labors to instill in Aaron.

Aaron’s father served in World War I, an experience he doesn’t like to discuss. World War II is looming, but the theme of war in The Jealous Kind is broader than international conflict. Class warfare and a hint of race wars are background themes through which the story must be viewed.

James Lee Burke builds tension chapter by chapter. It seems inevitable that Aaron will confront a life-changing moment. Whether he will survive, not just physically but emotionally, becomes the novel’s gripping question. The story is about courage, with which Aaron is plentifully supplied, but it is also about having the wisdom and maturity to make good choices -- to understand that violence is a last resort, even in a violent world. These are lessons taught by his father that Aaron will need to learn if he hopes to survive without ruining his life.

The Jealous Kind is one of Burke’s most powerful novels. In addition to Aaron, key characters engage in small acts of heroism, defying evil, standing up for principles despite overwhelming opposition. The point of The Jealous Kind, I think, is that it’s possible to find the courage and the will to confront evil without becoming evil. And sometimes courage is collective, as when friends have each other’s backs. There are always lessons to be learned from Burke’s novels and from that standpoint (as well as memorable characters, remarkable prose, and a compelling story), The Jealous Kind is one of his best.

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Arson Plus and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

Published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on June 14, 2016

This volume collects three of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories, originally published in Black Mask during the early 1920s. It also includes a couple of introductions, apparently taken from The Continental Op: The Complete Case Files, one of which details the history of the Continental Op stories.

Since prices change frequently, I generally don’t take them into account when reviewing books. I will say that there are only three stories in this collection, and that readers might want to ask whether they would get more value for their money by purchasing The Complete Case Files or some other collection that includes more stories.

The three stories aren’t bad, but they are not up to the level of Hammett’s later work. Many later stories in the series were better. I’ve always been a bigger fan of Hammett’s novels, which are justly praised by fans of noir.

The stories:

In “Arson Plus,” the Continental Op helps the police solve a murder. A man dies in a fire. Suspects include housekeepers and a niece, but the solution is trickier than it first appears. This is the best story of the three.

In “Crooked Souls,” the Continental Op is hired after a wealthy man’s daughter is kidnapped. The plot is familiar, but it might have been fresh when the story was first published.

“Slippery Fingers” turns on finding the suspect who left bloody fingerprints on a gun. The story seemed to me to turn on an unlikely premise, but I’m hardly an expert on the state of fingerprint technology in 1923.

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