The Steel Kiss by Jeffery Deaver

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 8, 2016

I’m happy to report that Jeffery Deaver has returned to form with The Steel Kiss. Or maybe I just like Lincoln Rhyme more than Kathryn Dance, the lead character in Deaver’s last (and thoroughly forgettable) novel.

Without the assistance of Lincoln Rhyme, who is teaching forensic science in lieu of employment with NYPD, Amelia Sachs is trying to catch a suspect who killed someone with a ball peen hammer. The villain is, of course, a serial killer. He resorts to hammers only of necessity. His weapon of choice is a controller that operates “smart” products -- ovens, microwaves, and any other product that can be told what to do via an internet connection. His targets appear to be conspicuous consumers, although the reader (like Rhyme) is challenged to identify the rationale that underlies his choice of victims. His manner of killing is inventive, as is his personality, which makes him one of the more imaginative villains Deaver has concocted.

As usual, Sachs plays a central role in the novel, and the return of her ex-con ex-boyfriend, who may or may not be innocent, adds some zest to the story. A young woman in a wheelchair is turning her attention to forensic evidence, giving Rhyme a new friend, but is she in competition with Sachs? Other familiar characters round out the cast, including Lon Sellitto and Mel Cooper.

I appreciate Rhyme’s stand-offish personality, which seems natural for a character with his intellectual gifts. It’s certainly a refreshing change from the self-aggrandizing chatter of other fictional forensic experts, who can’t stop trying to gain the reader’s approval with constant reminders that they care so much more about crime victims than anyone else in the world possibly could. Rhyme cares about evidence and where the evidence leads him, which is exactly how a forensic scientist should be, even if it makes him seem callous. Sympathy impairs objectivity, which is why so many fictional forensic examiners strike the wrong note.

Like most thrillers, some parts of the novel are hard to believe. When Sachs rushes into a burning building to save evidence -- not knowing what the evidence might be or how she will recognize it -- I had my doubts about the story’s credibility. But it’s a good scene, which made it easy to suspend my disbelief.

Some plot twists and surprises await the reader near the end of the novel. One of the surprises is a bit of a cheat -- Rhyme knows facts that Deaver conceals from the reader -- but I’m giving Deaver a pass for that. Other parts of the novel also use misdirection, but the facts concealed from the reader are unknown to the investigators, so that didn’t strike me as cheating. A final surprise at the end isn’t very convincing at all, but I suppose it was necessary to set up the next novel.

The subplot involving Sachs’ ex-boyfriend is a bit forced. A subplot that relates to Rhyme’s decision to resign from NYPD is more interesting. On the whole, The Steel Kiss is a solid entry in the Lincoln Rhyme series and a welcome return to form for Deaver.

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The Hunt for Vulcan by Thomas Levenson

Published by Random House on November 3, 2015

Despite the title, The Hunt for Vulcan is not about the search for Mr. Spock’s home planet. It is, as Thomas Levenson explains, “a cautionary tale: it’s so damn easy to see what one wants or expects to find.” That is just as true for scientists as it is for everyone else.

Vulcan is the name given to a planet that never existed. Levenson traces its origin to theories of celestial motion that Robert Halley and Isaac Newton rather stunningly worked out using, I suppose, quill pens and infant telescopes. After praising Newton and Halley, Levenson tells of subsequent scientists who took up Newton’s quest to construct a mathematical model that would account for the behavior of every object in the universe. Newly discovered objects (Uranus and its wobbly orbit) as well as newly discovered phenomena (Jupiter apparently speeding up in its orbit, Saturn apparently slowing down) inspired refinements of Newton’s model of gravitation. Not all of them were accurate, but Uranus’ wobble led to the discovery of Neptune.

The next scientist who receives extended discussion is tobacco engineer-turned-astronomer Le Verrier. Having predicted Nepture’s discovery in order to account for Uranus’ wobble, Le Verrier concluded that another celestial body would account for Mercury’s precession. That “planet” came to be known as Vulcan. Its existence was widely accepted not only because Le Verrier endorsed it, but because a credible amateur astronomer believed he observed it.

Scientists bent over backwards to believe that Vulcan existed because, without it, something seemed to be amiss in Newton’s theory of gravity. Rather than committing an act of scientific heresy by suggesting that Newton was wrong, scientists embraced Vulcan, and even calculated its orbit, despite the troubling absence of Vulcan from the visible sky. Leave it to Albert Einstein to pop their Newtonian bubble and explain Mercury’s wobble in a way that did not rely on a fictitious planet.

The story of Vulcan is the story of how (some) scientists invent facts to fit observed phenomena into accepted theories to which they steadfastly cling. As Levenson notes, an empirical fact that “refuses to conform to the demands of a theory invalidates that theory, and requires the construction of a new one.” Yet scientists have often found it easier to construct new facts than to abandoned cherished theories -- hence the construction of Vulcan, a planet or group of asteroids (perhaps concealed by the sun’s glare) that must exist if scientists were to keep faith with Newton.

The book is also a tribute to great minds and, by extension, to open minds that are willing to search for new theories when flaws in the old ones become apparent. Yet despite Levenson’s veneration of great minds, he reveals great character flaws (most notably, great egos) that bedevil the best and the brightest ... with the possible exception of Einstein, who seems like a genuinely nice guy. In addition to setting the time and place in each chapter, Levenson scatters interesting biographical facts about the scientists who advanced the understanding of celestial mechanics. (Edison’s contribution to the story consists primarily of shooting a stuffed jackrabbit on a hunting trip.) Perhaps the book strays too far off course when, near the end, it discusses the politics of scientists in World War I, but a little padding is a forgivable sin in a book this short.

When scientists are the intended audience of science writers, I can’t keep up with jargon and math. When a book is so dumbed down that it assumes all nonscientists dropped out of school after seventh grade, I get bored and/or irritated. It always pleases me to find a science writer who uses engaging prose that allows me to grasp (albeit incompletely) concepts about which I know little. Levenson is one of those writers. He writes with passion about the tense joy of observing an eclipse. He is equally passionate about the history of science. That passion, combined with his clarity of expression, makes The Hunt for Vulcan a valuable read for those of us who don’t have degrees in physics. It is even more valuable as a reminder that ideas, once proven wrong, need to be replaced with better ideas.

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City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

Published by Broadway Books on January 26, 2016

City of Stairs didn’t need a sequel but I have no complaint about Robert Jackson Bennett’s decision to write one. City of Blades is less surprising than City of Stairs, but that’s to be expected in a sequel. There is plenty of action and excitement, and if City of Blades didn’t blow me away as did City of Stairs, I nevertheless enjoyed reading it.

General Turyin Mulaghesh (retired), finds herself pressed back into service, this time to undertake an investigation for Shara Komayd. A new ore has been discovered in Voortyastan. The ore has unexplained properties. Shara worries that the ore may be miraculous, which would imply that a Divinity still exists (despite the presumption to the contrary at the end of City of Stairs). Since Divinities are nothing but trouble, the possibility that one survived is worrisome. A Saypuri spy with expertise in the miraculous, previously dispatched to study the ore, has disappeared. Hence the need for Mulaghesh.

City of Blades reunites Mulaghesh with Sigrud, my favorite character from City of Stairs. They explore the disappearance of the Saypuri spy and the nature of the miraculous ore while dealing with the unsettled political and military situations in Voortyashtan. A Saypuri outpost is building a harbor there to better serve Saypuri commerce, if not the Voortyashtani. Sigrud’s daughter Signe plays a key role in that effort, adding family drama to the plot.

Bennett always fills his books with interesting ideas. One of my favorites in City of Blades is the notion of Divinities (gods) creating an afterlife as a means of coaxing or coercing mortals into doing what they wanted (coaxing with a version of heaven, coercing with many imaginative versions of hell). But when the gods die, what happens to all the souls who have transitioned to afterlife?

Bennett’s books excel because he mixes ideas and plot with complex characters. City of Blades fleshes out Mulaghesh, explores her formative years as a soldier and the way her past has shaped her present. It does less with Sigrud until the end, which I found disappointing.

City of Blades lacks the moral heft of the first novel, although it offers a good lesson at the end about the heartache caused by the word “deserve.” The sequel doesn’t have the same depth as City of Stairs, but in the second half it develops some of the insight into human nature that makes City of Stairs so memorable. The novel is primarily an exploration of war -- all wars, the nature of war, its inevitable pointless horror -- as well as its impact not just on civilians, but on warriors. It is a story about the difference between soldiers and savages. The ideas expressed are not entirely original or profound, but they have the ring of truth.

If City of Blades is more predictable than its predecessor, that’s because it continues a spectacular universe and must necessarily pale in comparison to the first revelation of that universe. City of Blades still manages to tell a powerful story. The ending, in particular, is strong.

RECOMMENDED

The Ancient Minstrel by Jim Harrison

Published by Grove Press on March 1, 2016

One of the characters in The Ancient Minstrel mentions that editors want big, sprawling stories that smack readers in the face. Jim Harrison doesn’t do a lot of smacking. He writes meandering stories that observe foibles and failures, that pry into the ordinary, that tell stories within stories and make readers pause and grin and perhaps indulge in a knowing chuckle. His characters enjoy sex and food and rivers but they are usually uncertain about the other things in life, if any, that might give them pleasure. The three novellas collected here are emblematic of Harrison’s work.

Typical of Jim Harrison’s recent fiction, “The Ancient Minstrel” is about an aging man who drinks too much, sleeps around (a habit that is impaired by aging and drinking too much), lies habitually, and copes with “imagined monsters” as well as all of life’s “deep injustices” (such as the death of a pet). The story’s protagonist, a 70-year-old writer/poet, is melancholy but his thoughts of suicide have always been interrupted by hunger before he could act upon them. The writer is semi-separated from his surprisingly tolerant wife. Whether that tolerance will extend to harboring the pregnant pig he impulsively purchases for their Montana ranch is one of many situations that showcases Harrison’s wry humor.

The point of “The Ancient Minstrel” (I think) is that there are always reasons to continue living, unexpected moments of pure joy that, even if fleeting, make it all worthwhile. A brief epilog, written in the first person, discusses the craft of writing in very personal terms.

The second entry, “Eggs,” tells the story of Catherine, whose grandparents owned the Montana farm where her mother (a London transplant) desperately wanted to live. The story explores different periods of Catherine’s life: London during the Blitz, Palm Beach after the war, wrong men everywhere, including an incarcerated brother. Through it all, her affinity for chickens never abates. The title refers not just to chickens but to Catherine’s own eggs and the difficulty of finding someone worthwhile to fertilize them. The point of the story might be that chickens are better for your mental health than parents or partners. But the more meaningful theme is that the past is always part of the present. Life is “a constant whirl in which people often behave horribly,” yet “the past lives on in all of us” and we need to find a way to make peace with it.

“The Case of the Howling Buddhas” features Sunderson, a retired cop and current private investigator who is familiar to Harrison fans. The story, in fact, is almost a continuation of the last Sunderson novel, with frequent references to past events. Sunderson’s behavior is rather scandalous (it usually involves females who are barely, or not yet, old enough to vote), which makes him either endearing or disgusting to readers (opinions are sharply divided, judging from Amazon reviews). This story comes the closest of the three to having a plot (Sunderson is hired to track down a wealthy man’s daughter who has run off with a Zen teacher) but its focus is on Sunderson’s lust for a girl who is a half century younger than Sunderson. The ending comes as a shock.

I like Jim Harrison for many reasons. One is that he makes a point of writing about characters who go out of their way to play with dogs. Another is his ability to capture all of the anxieties, regrets, vanities, and emotional frailties of aging men. Another is that his characters are, like all of us, “trying to figure out life,” although the theories they derive are funnier than most of us manage to conjure. Another is his honest depiction of rural life, in counterpoint to the “literary tradition” that buries rural America “in honeysuckle and lilacs, hardworking and noble yokels.” Another is his recognition that big events can have small consequences that compound over a lifetime. Another is the amount of wisdom he manages to impart in throwaway sentences as the story meanders along. Another is the deep love of nature that his characters express. And another is the way he manages to give a folksy quality to literary prose (or a literary quality to folksy prose). All of that is present in these three novellas, which I recommend as must reading to Jim Harrison fans.

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The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich

Published by Doubleday on January 19, 2016

The Winter Girl tells a creative suspense story that builds on family secrets. Scott is a laid-off photographer of Asian newlyweds, staying in the home of his hospitalized father-in-law, who calls Scott multiple times a day to berate him via answering machine messages. The father eventually comes home to live his last days with Scott and Elise, while doing his best to burden their lives. Elise’s brother is serving a sentence, adding to the family’s dysfunctionality.

Intrigued by lights that turn on an off at the same time every night in a neighboring house, Scott succumbs to an impulse of trespass. Finding an unlocked door, he explores the house while his wife is visiting her father. Later he persuades Elise to experience the pleasure of sex in a stranger’s home. It all seems like harmless fun -- the last gasp of a desperately unhappy marriage -- until they find the blood. That’s when the story really begins.

The neighbor’s house contains secrets. The reader learns something about them halfway into the novel. Eventually more secrets are revealed that have a profound impact on Scott and Elise, who have secrets of their own. Without divulging the nature of those secrets, I can say that they are all presented in a way that makes them believable.

The plot is far from predictable. It builds and sustains suspense due, in part, to the fact that it is so difficult to anticipate what might happen next. Some violent moments qualify as gruesome, so sensitive readers might want to give the novel a pass. And since these are some of the most messed up characters you’ll ever meet, readers who do not like fiction unless they like the main characters should probably stay away from The Winter Girl. Scott is the most “normal” of the bunch, but he is a passive observer with little moral strength. He’s hardly anyone’s idea of virtuous.

The ending is disappointing, if only because it’s a surprise ending that has been done before and therefore doesn’t have the power the author intends. Still, Matt Marinovich won me over by wielding strong prose, crafting realistic (albeit miserable) characters, and maintaining an atmosphere of suspense. Despite feeling a bit cheated at the end, I enjoyed the novel as a whole.

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