The Promise by Robert Crais

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 10, 2015

The Promise scores points for its fresh and imaginative plot. If you’re tired of “former Special Forces guy saves the world by being tougher and smarter than everyone else” stories, this “former Special Forces guy solves a crime with the help of a smart dog” story will be a refreshing change.

Amy Breslin’s son was killed in a terrorist bombing while traveling in Nigeria. Amy is a chemical engineer who makes explosives for the government. She has disappeared, apparently after embezzling a good bit of money. Elvis Cole has been hired to find her.

Shortly after the novel opens, Cole knocks on the door of a home that contains a murder victim. When the bomb squad shows up, Cole knows that the case is more complicated than it initially seemed to be.

While this is an Elvis Cole novel, much of the focus is on a police officer named Scott James and his K-9, a German Shephard named Maggie. While Maggie is a drug dog, she was trained by the Marines to sniff for explosives, a talent that she has retained and uses frequently during the course of the novel. Dog lovers will enjoy Robert Crais’ portrayal of Maggie.

Scott James isn’t Superman. He’s a decent guy who wants to do the right thing. More importantly, he loves his dog, and doing the right thing means doing what’s best for Maggie -- which is really the police department’s dog, a source of some conflict as the novel progresses. James comes across as an authentic and sympathetic character. He’s the best part of the book.

The other characters are familiar but again, none of them are Superman. As opposed to thrillers that try to convince us how awesomely superior the protagonist is to the rest of the human race, these characters are extremely competent but comparatively low-key. That makes them easy to like and easy to believe.

Why is Amy doing what she’s doing? Why has Cole been hired to find her? The plot is clever, filled with misdirection without sacrificing realism. Crais doesn’t overreach, which is also refreshing, given how outlandish most modern thrillers have become. The ending has multiple components and they are all satisfying.

RECOMMENDED

The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley

Published by Simon & Schuster on December 8, 2015

The Relic Master is a fun, light-hearted story. It combines action with comedy, a bit of romance, occasional drama, and a touch of mad genius. Funny, touching, and sometimes exhilarating, The Relic Master is a shrewd Middle Ages romp with a surprisingly coherent plot.

Dismas makes a living hunting down religious relics for his two rival clients, Archbishop Albrecht and the ruler of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. Bits of bone from a saint’s skeleton, shards of wood from the cross, and straw from the manger are just a few of the thousands of items that collectors seek. Most of the relics are fake and Dismas stays away from obvious attempts to defraud, but by applying a series of tests (does the relic have a sweet smell? has it been known to promote healing?) he tries to authenticate them as best he can. Frederick is the more discerning of his clients while Albrecht wants to acquire as many relics as possible and doesn’t much care whether they are genuine.

With the approval of Pope Leo X, Albrecht (among many others) sells relics as indulgences -- buy one and your time in Purgatory is shortened. The more you pay, the less time you need to serve. Apostle Peter’s fishing boat might knock a couple hundred years off a wealthy man’s sentence. Half of the sale proceeds go to the Pope, who uses them to build cathedrals or to …. well, there are rumors. Dismas doesn’t recall the Bible mentioning anything about buying one’s way out of Purgatory by investing in indulgences but it is not his place to criticize. Martin Luther is more vocal in his criticism, citing indulgences as evidence of church corruption that justify the Protestant Reformation.

The historical background to the story is sound, but the story gets its kicks from both the characters that Christopher Buckley invents and from a lively plot that involves the greatest relic of them all -- a burial shroud that, before it made its way to Turin, was known as the Shroud of Chambéry. Dismas and an artistic friend get into a bit of trouble with one version of the shroud and Dismas can only redeem himself (or die trying) by getting into trouble with another.

Dismas is a likable character, kind-hearted but crafty and not immune to temptation. Personality traits of other characters (greed, vanity, lasciviousness, slothfulness) are magnified in amusing ways. Buckley introduces a female character who adds wisdom and common sense to the mix while serving as a love interest for Dismas.

The Relic Master moves at a good pace. Clever plot twists in the last quarter lead to a satisfying conclusion. This could almost be classified as a tongue-in-cheek historical thriller with a romantic element, but the novel actually defies classification. It is both original and enjoyable.

RECOMMENDED

Ivory by Tony Park

First published in Australia in 2009; published by St. Martin's Press on November 17, 2015

Alex Tremain is a good looking pirate, a kind-hearted rogue with a sad background, making him the kind of bad boy that seems destined to star in a trashy romance novel. Unsurprisingly, the key female character, Jane, is attracted to him, even after his pirate gang hijacks the cargo ship that is bringing her to Johannesburg and kidnaps her in the belief that she is holding valuable treasure. Jane doesn’t know the nature of the treasure, but she has a hunch it belongs to her wealthy employer, with whom she is having an affair.

Naturally, Alex’s good nature is at odds with a more evil pirate in his crew, the kind of pirate who thinks that Jane should be tortured in predictable ways. And naturally, as a kind-hearted rogue, Alex would rather con women than torture them, leading to a predictable conflict with the evil pirate who turns into one of the novel’s chief villains.

Alex is too contrived to be a believable character. He is a socially and ecologically conscious pirate who won’t smuggle people or drugs or timber or wildlife. In fact, he secretly reports illegal fishing vessels to the police, because illegal fishing is much worse than boarding vessels and stealing from everyone on board. His desire to “start afresh as an honest man” doesn’t ring true because Alex is too honest and decent to have gone into the piracy business in the first place. I’ve enjoyed many novels in which the protagonist is a thief or other brand of criminal, but they are usually lighter fare, not meant to be taken seriously. Tony Park never convinced me that Alex was anything other than the stereotypical (and mythical) “bad boy” of romance fiction, the kind that women can feel safe about loving since they know he won’t actually hurt anyone. Or, at least, he’ll only hurt people who deserve it. Is there a bigger cliché in fiction?

Jane is also a stereotype. She’s in love with her married boss, one of those hopeless situations that can only be resolved by falling in love with a dashing pirate. She feels “a jolt of electricity” when Alex brushes his fingers against her arm and “her heart was pounding fast” after Alex tells her “I only have eyes for you.” Too many cheesy lines like that are a disappointment in a novel that is otherwise capably written.

The cheesy parts of Ivory are too predictably cheesy. Alex sees in Jane a reason to “redeem his wasted life.” Everything that happens between them is so predictable, and described in such torrid detail, that I had to check to see if I had chosen to read a “new adult romance” by mistake. Ivory isn’t marketed that way, but it is more a tawdry romance novel than it is a thriller.

I liked the descriptions of Mozambique and South Africa. The novel works relatively well when it sticks to action scenes, although even then Park takes a series of missteps. The biggest involves an elephant hunt that has Alex encountering an elephant he remembers from his childhood, all so that we can see once more what a great guy Alex is. Seriously?

The valuable treasure that Alex is pursuing from Jane borders on the ridiculous, but it is in keeping with the plot as a whole. That “surprise” was the final straw that kept me from recommending this novel, at least to thriller fans. I suspect that romance fiction fans will like it, but I can’t recommend it to anyone else with any enthusiasm.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Tenacity by J.S. Law

First published in Great Britain in 2015; published by Henry Holt and Co. on November 3, 2015

Tenacity is a first novel that reads like a sequel. Danielle “Dan” Lewis was captured by a serial killer four years before the novel begins. The novel frequently refers to that traumatic time in Dan’s life. In fact, so much reliance is placed on the past that I wondered if Tenacity was recounting events that took place in an earlier novel, but that isn’t the case.

Dan now works as a naval investigator for Crimes Involving Loss of Life (known as “Kill”), a division of the Special Investigation Branch. She starts the novel damaged -- both by the serial killer and by another violent incident in her life -- and she isn’t handling her damage very well.

Dan is assigned to look into an apparent suicide of Stewart Walker on the HMS Tenacity, a nuclear submarine. Dan feels pressure from certain naval officers to determine that the death was, in fact, a suicide. She also feels pressure to keep her nose out of a related police investigation into the murder of Walker’s wife. Of course, following a formula familiar to thriller readers, Dan decides that pursuing justice is more important than following orders.

Dan is teamed with John Granger, who assisted her in the Hamilton investigation. That unhappy relationship creates a source of tension that gives the story an added kick.

The story milks some drama from the fact that the submarine sets sail with Dan as the only female on board. The captain and most of his company are offensively sexist. Her investigation is obstructed at every turn. Her naval career is threatened. Can she find a way to make justice prevail?

The book does not paint a flattering portrait of submariners in the British navy but, given the author’s credentials, I suspect it is accurate. In any event, the detailed submarine setting adds a sense of authenticity to the story.

The story is a bit too heavily dependent upon coincidence, but that’s common in modern thrillers. Dan is a sympathetic character. Supporting characters are one-dimensional but that is also common in thrillers. The story develops a reasonable amount of suspense and moves at a reasonable pace. The ending holds some surprises. The story does not resolve every loose end, apparently setting up a sequel, but it does resolve the main storyline in a satisfying way. In short, Tenacity is a reasonably strong and enjoyable debut novel.

RECOMMENDED

An Evil Mind by Chris Carter

First published in Great Britain in 2014; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on December 1, 2015

The serial killer in An Evil Mind refers to an FBI study that supposedly claims 500 serial killers are at large in the United States. The FBI statistics I can find put that number at 35 to 50 and many authorities consider even those estimates to be exaggerated. In any event, if you read enough crime novels, you might think a serial killer lurks on every corner. There are so many serial killer novels that it is difficult for writers to find a fresh angle. Chris Carter doesn’t quite do that here. He gives us a Hannibal Lecter clone with a twist, but the twist is not sufficiently innovative to make his villain stand out.

A traffic accident leads to the discovery of severed heads in the trunk of a car in Wyoming. Robert Hunter, an LAPD detective who happens to be one of those gifted, all-knowing criminal profilers who exist only in crime fiction, is called upon to advise the FBI. He’s tapped for assistance not so much because of his profiling skill but because the killer will only speak to Hunter.

The killer is apprehended early and much of the story involves the killer’s descriptions of past murders. Structuring the novel in that way deprives the story of suspense until, well after the midway point, Carter tries to inject some by using a well-worn device (one victim may still be alive, can she be rescued before she dies?). The device is too overused to have any hope of generating the suspense Carter wants to achieve.

The only thing that approaches freshness in An Evil Mind is the killer’s relationship with Hunter. Of course, that relationship leads to a revelation (I won’t spoil it here) that fills Hunter with fury and despair and other emotions that are intended to make the reader sympathize with Hunter. Unfortunately, the revelation is so contrived that it fails to serve its intended purpose.

Carter repeatedly relies on transparent, over-the-top devices to manipulate his readers’ emotions. Really, readers don’t need to have a kidnapping victim work as a volunteer for children with terminal cancer in order to care about her. Readers don’t need to listen to Hunter describe how he learned about his girlfriend’s pregnancy (“We were both…” Hunter paused to catch his breath. “So happy”) the very day she was killed in order to understand why, years later, he is still haunted by his past. None of this feels honest and the lack of honesty kept me from buying into the story.

The story moves at a good pace, thanks to the usual thriller formula (short chapters, lots of dialog). Carter’s prose is well-suited to the story he tells. Characterizations are about average for a modern thriller. The last few chapters hold a surprise and the resolution is better than I expected it to be. Predictability, contrivances, and a lack of originality are the novel’s key flaws. They aren’t necessary fatal -- it is easy to stick with the story until it reaches its climax -- and fans of serial killer fiction who don’t mind reading the same story over and over will find things in this one to enjoy (including a particularly reviling psychopath and some gruesome descriptions of his evil deeds). If you are looking for something new, however, look elsewhere.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS