Unfinished Business by Conrad Williams

Published by Bloomsbury Reader on May 5, 2016

Unfinished Business is an industry novel, the kind that focuses with a jaundiced eye on the movie industry, the fashion industry, or similar businesses that manufacture or trade upon celebrity status. This one is about the book industry, told from the perspective of an agent. Books about a personal service business aren’t very interesting unless someone takes a Machiavellian approach to the business. Fortunately, a couple of agents in Unfinished Business go to war, which provides the novel with its greatest entertainment value.

Few of the characters are happy. Vince Savage, a once promising writer, senses that his writing career is imploding. His wife Madelin is concerned that her weakened ability to control Vince might require the wake-up call that only a good dose of infidelity can deliver. Their daughter Holly dials random numbers and calls the person who answers a “stupid idiot.” Vince and Frank Jones, a war reporter, have equal disrespect for the other’s profession. Mike de Vere, a literary agent, spends much of the novel questioning his purpose, self-worth, and place in the universe.

As the novel opens, Mike has just been canned by his most promising new author. To make the day worse, a sycophantic upstart in the office named Colin Templar wants to get rid of all the mid-list clients who don’t produce best-sellers (meaning most of the writers who have actual literary talent), in favor of writers like Dan Brown who are more marketable. Why look for potential Booker winners when the public would rather read supermodel memoirs?

Soon Mike is competing for clients and for love. While wondering if he is “hampered by romantic, old-fashioned character traits” in his quest for happiness, Mike understands that he is incapable of “strategic reinvention.” Mike does not want to abandon his B-list of literary writers, even though they no longer seem capable of producing anything worth reading. Naturally, his career takes a self-inflicted tumble and the novel’s dramatic tension, such as it is, centers on whether he will recover.

Characters engage in spirited but well-worn debates about the value of compelling literature that few people read versus bestsellers that are forgotten as the reader moves on to the next trendy book. One side argues that writers should “address the concerns of contemporary readership” (e.g., sex) while the other contends that “any kind of prescription in the arts leads to mediocrity.” I particularly liked the reference to “genre envy.” The notion that there is a place in the world both for serious literature and fun fiction (as well as the miraculous novel that satisfies both criteria) doesn’t seem to occur to any of the characters, although that might be Conrad Williams’ point.

Mike’s critique of Vince’s latest unsellable novel is my favorite part of the story. It describes the work of many literary authors who have mistaken success for a license to become self-indulgent. Clever wordplay becomes an end in itself, “the thrall of narrative” becomes a substitute for the truth that fiction should broadcast. Mike’s argument is really a criticism of “postmodern detachment” that illustrates the shallowness of modern life by telling an empty story about vapid people when readers crave depth of character and a plot that delivers profound insight into human nature.

How does Unfinished Business fare under Mike’s standard of a great novel? It’s more an entertaining soap opera than a novel of great emotional truth. It is only modestly insightful. A self-revelatory moment at the end about the difference between love and sex is banal. Stretches of the story are less than absorbing and the rest is more clever than smart. But clever is more than most writers accomplish and the parts of the novel that worked for me worked quite well. The tidy ending is conventional, the kind of ending that an agent might suggest to an author to maximize sales of a book. I suppose that’s consistent with the novel’s overall theme but it doesn’t have the ring of honesty. Still, Williams’ prose is strong and the novel delivers enough amusing moments to overcome its faults.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Good Traitor by Ryan Quinn

Published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5, 2016

Even in the digital age, most novels marketed as being “ripped from the headlines” are stale by the time they are published. Several recent novels have borrowed from the Snowden controversy to build plots around (in the words of a character in The Good Traitor) “courageous people who leak information because ... it is in the public’s interest to know” and the government “cowards who bury their mistakes in secrecy and claims of patriotism.” The Good Traitor backs away from making any bold statements -- it is an action novel, rather than a political novel -- but it builds on some interesting ideas.

The Good Traitor imagines a journalism website -- called Gnos.is -- that writes itself. Computers search the web for information and use algorithms to draw inferences from that information. Other algorithms test the likelihood that the inferences are correct. Some sources contribute to Gnos.is directly but most sources unwittingly contribute information as Gnos.is scrapes data from the internet. When a certain threshold of veracity is reached, the computer labels its conclusions as facts. The computer then publishes the facts as news stories that the computer writes. The point of all this is to eliminate human error and bias from news reporting.

The government hates Gnos.is because it publishes accurate information that the government would like to keep secret. Apparently other people hate Gnos.is (or its reporting) because its unwitting sources contributed to a story about corruption in China. When three of those sources are suddenly murdered by the creative use of technology, the operators of Gnos.is call upon Kera Mersal to help them follow the story. Kera, like one of the Gnos.is founders, is running from the CIA, having been labeled as a traitor because she leaked classified information (which was classified to help the CIA avoid accountability for illegal acts).

The Good Traitor is the kind of novel in which the bad guys can hack computers make airplanes crash and elevators fall. Readers need to suspend their skepticism to enjoy the story. I can do that but I rolled my eyes at a character known as BLACKFISH who roams around China getting into gun battles without being caught.

Other than Gnos.is, which is clever, the rest of the story has been done before -- conflict in the CIA hierarchy, various patriots being framed as traitors, computers turned into assassins. The plot fizzles as it reaches an ending that’s just too easy, given everything that precedes it. The story tries to straddle a line concerning the ethics of revealing improperly classified information, perhaps to avoid angering readers on either side of the debate, but that choice weakens the book. All of those issues make The Good Traitor an imperfect novel, but it’s still a reasonably fun novel. I'd shelve it low on the second tier of spy novels.

RECOMMENDED

Redemption Road by John Hart

Published by Thomas Dunne Books on May 3, 2016

Redemption Road is an intense psychological drama. Characters are living with dark secrets, or trying to find a way to live with them. With strong dialog and cinematic descriptions of settings, John Hart makes it easy to visualize the characters as they move through the chaos of their lives. If they are moving along a road to redemption, it is a twisted road that may not lead to the expected destination. The main characters in Redemption Road are seeking a path to empowerment more than redemption. They want to get some version of their lives back.

Elizabeth Black’s father is a preacher who sees everything as black or white. Elizabeth is a cop who sees a lot of gray. But Elizabeth is being investigated for shooting two unarmed men 18 times in a manner that suggests torture. The shooting occurred as Elizabeth rescued a young woman named Channing who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Elizabeth has been suspended as she waits to learn whether she will be charged with double homicide. Adding another complication to her life, Adrian Wall is getting out of prison.

Adrian, a former cop, served 13 tough years before his release on parole. Elizabeth is haunted by the memory of finding a woman’s body sprawled across the altar of her father’s church and by Adrian’s arrest for that crime.

At age 14, Gideon Strange is 13 years past his mother’s murder, a death that psychologically destroyed Gideon’s father. The time has come, Gideon thinks, to take revenge. That means killing Adrian Wall.

As all of these plot threads weave together, more women die, and the lives of Adrian and Elizabeth become even more chaotic. They are entangled with a strong cast of characters, including Channing and her parents, the warden who agreed to Adrian’s early release, Elizabeth’s partner, and an elderly lawyer named Crybaby Jones.

Redemption Road focuses on character development rather than action, but the plot builds dramatic tension from the first page. The reveal at the end isn’t entirely surprising, although it comes with a surprising twist that ties characters together in an unexpected way. I thought I would be disappointed if the reveal turned out as I suspected it would, but any disappointment I felt was outweighed by the novel’s multiple virtues.

RECOMMENDED

In the Company of Spies by Stephen Barlay

First published in 1981; published digitally by Endeavour Press on February 15, 2016

First published in 1981, In the Company of Spies is a cold war novel that fits comfortably on the shelf of second-tier novels that entertain fans of the spy genre. A Hungarian by birth, Stephen Barlay escaped from the Soviet invasion (and his likely arrest) in 1956. A journalist in Hungary, Barlay wrote both fiction and nonfiction in English while living in Great Britain. In the Company of Spies was, perhaps fittingly, produced as a made-for-TV movie in 1999.

The novel is set in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Helmut Rust gets a message from a Russian who dies during its delivery. The coded message tells Rust, who was forced out of the CIA, that his father wants out of Russia. When Rust makes his way to Russia, he learns that smuggling his father out of Russia is no longer the mission that awaits him.

Rust’s life is complicated by a love triangle, a brother in a wheelchair who works for the CIA, and friends who might be enemies. This is the typical fare of spy novels and, if Barlay doesn’t take the story to the lofty levels attained by the genre’s best writers, he nevertheless gives Rust enough depth to instill sympathy for his predicament. Most of the novel’s twists are not entirely unexpected but the story does deliver a nice double-twist at the end. In fact, the last pages and Rust’s reaction to the surprises are the best part of the story.

A suitable mixture of action and intrigue keeps the story in steady motion. Barlay’s prose is uninspired and occasionally awkward, but no more so than some contemporary writers of second tier espionage novels (a few of whom have achieved bestseller status for reasons that are apparently unrelated to writing ability).

The great insight of In the Company of Spies, I think, is its insistence that Americans who have never experienced an oppressive government have no right to judge the victims of oppression -- people who, motivated by fear or survival, do things that are contrary to the interests of human rights or world peace. To the extent that the novel tries to deliver profound political insights, I think it is less successful. International political issues, particularly in a time of crisis, are more complex than Barlay is able to convey.

The novel builds on the belief that Kennedy betrayed Cuban-Americans by abandoning the quest for Cuba’s “liberation” in exchange for Khrushchev’s agreement to remove missiles from Cuba. Regardless of where the reader comes down on what is no longer a hot-button issue, In the Company of Spies exploits the time and setting in a way that spy fiction fans should enjoy.

RECOMMENDED

Panther's Prey by Lachlan Smith

Published by Mysterious Press on April 5, 2016

Panther’s Prey begins with the trial of a homeless, mentally ill man who, according to his public defenders, falsely confessed to a sexual assault. Rodriguez has a history of confessing to crimes he didn’t commit. When Rodriguez is acquitted and is later accused of committing another sexual assault (leading to a death), Leo Maxwell (his lead lawyer) doesn’t know whether he should feel guilty for winning his release or angry that the police are focusing on his former client rather than pursuing the real rapist.

It struck me as odd that the police and prosecution would immediately pursue Rodriguez for the new crime. True, some police and some prosecutors are lazy and many are vindictive, so wrongly accusing a guy who was acquitted after they wrongly accused him in an earlier case might satisfy those motives, but it helps to have some actual evidence of guilt that seemed nonexistent here. And whether a judge would allow the client to plead guilty to a new murder, when the guy has a history of pleading guilty to crimes he didn’t commit and when no significant evidence points to his guilt, struck me as unlikely. The novel’s shaky premise troubled me.

In any event, Leo recasts his role from lawyer to investigator and eventually to suspect as he tries to determine who committed the murder. The victim was his co-counsel in the Rodriguez trial, a woman who left a corporate firm to gain trial experience with the public defender’s office. The investigation causes Leo to delve into the motives that other people might have had for killing the former corporate lawyer. More deaths occur as Leo finds himself imperiled (or set up) by a conspiracy.

Plot threads from earlier novels are woven into this one. Series readers will recall that Leo’s father was released from prison after his innocence was established. Someone connected to Leo’s father is killed in Panther’s Prey with a murder weapon that is associated with Leo. Thus Leo is transported from one jail cell to another, accused of this crime and that, all the while trying to solve multiple murder mysteries.

Is the plot a bit much? Maybe, but it’s not so improbable that I couldn’t enjoy it. I was happy to see that the family drama that carried the first three novels was toned down in this one. My biggest complaint is my personal preference for courtroom drama in legal thrillers. After the Rodriguez trial, which occupies a small portion of the book, Panther’s Prey reads more like a detective story than a legal thriller. Lachlan Smith understands the drama inherent in criminal trials. I hope he milks that drama more in future installments. As an investigative/conspiracy novel, however, Panther’s Prey is a fun addition to the series.

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