Invasion of Privacy by Christopher Reich

Published by Doubleday on June 16, 2015

Invasion of Privacy is an old-fashioned conspiracy thriller that is updated with modern technology. In the past, the bad guys had to break into the good guy's home to manually erase answering machine messages or steal compromising photographs. These days, they remotely erase text messages and photographs from smart phones.

Joe Grant is an FBI agent who specializes in electronic surveillance. He is in Austin, working on Operation Semaphore, which has something to do with a wealthy and somewhat batty CEO named Ian Prince and a supercomputer called Titan. As the operation goes sideways during a meeting with an informant, Joe manages to call his wife, Mary, and leaves her a message that the FBI would prefer she didn't have. Why he leaves a cryptic voicemail for Mary instead of, for example, calling someone with a gun who might be able to help him is something I never quite understood.

When the message disappears from her phone, Mary understands that she can't trust the FBI. She is one of two individuals who want to get past the FBI's cover-up. The other is a drunken ex-journalist named Tank. The drunk who manages to pull himself together long enough to do battle against the forces of evil is a stock character in Thrillerworld. Tank is likable but far from unique.

Every family in Thrillerworld has a kid who happens to a superhacker. Mary's daughter Jessie fills that role in Invasion of Privacy. She is such a trite addition to the story that she's really a subtraction from it. Her contribution (apart from teenage angst) consists of jetting off to a hacker's convention to engage in activities that are both predictable and impossible to believe.

Too much of Invasion of Privacy has the familiarity of a thriller written on autopilot. Christopher Reich made his reputation as an author of complex financial thrillers, but Invasion of Privacy only gives a passing nod to the world of finance while focusing on chase scenes, high-tech surveillance, stereotypical hackers, and more chase scenes.

In addition, too much of Invasion of Privacy is contrived. The cryptic message Joe leaves for Mary is so cryptic that he could not possibly have expected Mary to figure it out -- except she does because otherwise, the plot would grind to a halt. No FBI agent would take valuable evidence of a criminal investigation home and leave it in a "gadget box" but Joe does because if he didn't, the plot would grind to a halt.

Here's what's really shocking: I enjoyed reading Invasion of Privacy even while I was rolling my eyes. The ending is something of an anti-climax but it's reasonably satisfying. The story moves quickly which, given its lack of depth or complexity, is a good thing. The characters are shallow but likable. Invasion of Privacy is an undemanding, predictable novel but it's fun. Still, I expected more from Reich.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child

Published by Doubleday on May 12, 2015

Jeremy Logan is called upon by a think tank named Lux to investigate a computer scientist's oddly gruesome suicide. Logan was once kicked out of the same think tank because his academic specialty -- ghost hunting -- was not viewed as an intellectually rigorous pursuit. Can you imagine?

Before he died, the suicidal scientist had been acting batty -- talking to himself, behaving with uncharacteristic rudeness -- behavior that started after he was assigned the task of overseeing the remodeling of a wing of the mansion in which the think tank is housed. Other residents in the think also reported hearing voices and perceiving strange phenomena.

The dead scientist stumbled upon a hidden room before he died, hence the novel's title. Logan's task is to figure out how the forgotten room relates to the scientist's death.

The Forgotten Room tells a decent story, although one that lacks a "WOW factor." The story is based on impressive research that ties brain chemistry to Renaissance church music -- at least, it impressed me, which is not difficult given my lack of knowledge about either subject. The plot is reasonably clever, but it failed to excite me. The novel's surprises are not very surprising and the ending is predictable. Almost no attempt was made to develop characterizations or motivations regarding the novel's villains.

My reaction to The Forgotten Room was more "HUH" than "WOW," meaning I was interested but not absorbed in a plot that left me wanting more. The Forgotten Room is an easily forgotten novel that nevertheless has modest entertainment value.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Wisdom of Perversity by Rafael Yglesias

Published by Algonquin Books on March 24, 2015

Too many novels that address the impact of child molestation on adult life turn into weepy, melodramatic stories that have all the depth of a Jerry Springer interview. The Wisdom of Perversity offers a lucid and subtle view of the subject, recognizing that lives are shaped by many experiences, not just one; that similar experiences affect different lives in different ways; that different people adopt different strategies for moving past the past; and that undoing damage often requires creative thinking that you won't get from Dr. Phil.

The Wisdom of Perversity takes place in two time settings. The first, beginning in 1966, involves two kids: Brian Moran and his friend Jeff Mark. Jeff's family is (to use Jeff's expression) weird. Jeff's wealthy cousin, Richard Klein, is an executive at NBC. Klein rudely introduces Brian to the adult world while Jeff's mother manipulates family members for Jeff's benefit.

A third child, Julie Mark, eventually enters the 1960s story, but she makes her first appearance in 2008. She is married to Gary Rosen and has a son named Zach. Gary is a legal analyst who is covering accusations that Sam Rydel, a former NBC page who worked under Richard Klein, is a child molester. Julie reconnects with her cousin Jeff, who is now the most beloved director in Hollywood, and with Gary, who is now a screenwriter/playwright, after learning that ugly secrets they have all been keeping for 40 years might soon be exposed. Or, if not, it might be time for all of them to expose their secrets to the world.

A number of Rafael Yglesias' characters are "scarred veterans of a nearly invisible trauma whose aftereffects had no true experts." They confront substantial questions: When should the past stay buried? Should private horrors be made public long after they have ended? Is exposing the truth worth the price of exposure? Which is worse: a child molester or an adult who enables a child molester? Can we judge people for what they become when they have no control over what they become? Is it possible to make something healthy out of desires that were kindled by "perversion"?

By being honest without becoming cheap and maudlin, The Wisdom of Perversity tells an emotionally affecting story. Yglesias changes pace with humor at unexpected moments. The humor serves to keep the drama from becoming oppressive. It works because, after all, life is pretty funny during the moments when it isn't tragic.

The Hollywood glitz takes a bit of edge off the story, which I view as the novel's primary weakness, but Yglesias makes it possible for the reader to feel compassion for Jeff despite the fact that Jeff's woes are softened by his fame and fortune. Some of the secondary characters (including Zach, Gary, and Sam Rydel) are underdeveloped, but that is a small quibble. This is one of the smartest, most engaging novels I've read that focuses on issues of child sexual abuse.

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Here Are the Young Men by Rob Doyle

Published in Ireland in 2014; published in the United States by Bloomsbury on June 16, 2015

A common theme of literary novels is that people are all the same in fundamental ways. The theme of Here Are the Young Men is that people are fundamentally different.

The young men to which the title refers have been raised in the suburbs of Dublin. They are friends. They share common experiences, anxieties, and cynicism -- a feeling of emptiness, exiles in their own country -- yet despite their commonalities, they make individual choices that set them apart from each other. They also evolve during a pivotal summer in their young lives, setting paths for themselves that inevitably strain the bond that has held them together.

Joseph Kearney, a nihilist who is obsessed by sex and violence, spends much of his time wanking, fantasizing about mass murder, and thinking up bloody video games (including "Orgasm of Hate") that, if they existed, would -- sadly enough -- likely sell by the millions. Kearney's fantasies become progressively more revolting as the novel progresses, as do his actions.

Richard Tooley ("Rez") is engulfed in numbness. He want to eradicate from his life those feelings that are "expected" or "programmed," leaving only those that are genuine. Rez is a philosopher of despair, the one emotion he regards as honest. He believes his mind is a virus that is killing him with unstoppable thoughts, producing a darkness of the soul.

In many respects, Kearney and Rez are mirror images. Kearney sees all the darkness in the world and embraces it. Rez sees all the darkness and is horrified by his inability to turn away from it.

The third significant character, and probably the most well-adjusted (although that is meager praise given his choice of friends), is Matthew Connelly. Matthew holds out hope of college acceptance as an alternative to work, which he detests, but having devoted his young life to alcohol and drugs, he worries about his performance on his Leaving Certificate examination. He spends the summer drifting, getting high and drunk as he frets about his friends, his lover, and his future while awaiting the test results.

All three men are friends of Jen, the only character with a definite plan to attend college. Jen also feels deadened by the dullness of Dublin and plans to travel first, but she believes "there's more to life than only hate and rage." Unfortunately, her attempt to connect with Matthew is filled with obstacles.

All of the characters regard Dublin as drab and joyless. Despite being drunk or high most of the time -- the only way they seem capable of responding to the challenges of life -- they voice some fascinating thoughts. The thoughts reflect confusion and existential angst as the characters try to find the point of a universe built on entropy, but they also reflect a time and place in which nothing seems original or meaningful. Rez, for instance, loves The Clash, but he believes their music originated in a time when it was possible for music to express something new. Rez equates current music to the life he is living: derivative, stale, repeating what others have already done.

Here Are the Young Men is neither an easy nor a fun read. A couple of dark events near the summer's end add drama to a story that is otherwise focused on drugs, alcohol, sex, and disintegration. The ending comes as a shock but it is oddly gratifying and true to the story that precedes it.

Few readers would want to know the protagonists. No rational person would want to live their lives. For that reason, many readers will find Here Are the Young Men unappealing. The novel is nevertheless compelling in its brutally honest view of alienated young men who are struggling to make sense of life in an environment they regard as irrelevant and hopeless.

RECOMMENDED

The Blue Room by Georges Simenon

First published in France in 1963; published in translation in the UK by Penguin Classics on January 1, 2015; Penguin Classics U.S. digital edition forthcoming in 2016

Tense and surprising, The Blue Room is the account of a man named Tony who is being interrogated and will soon be brought to trial for a crime. For most of the novel, the reader is uncertain of the crime's victim and of Tony's guilt or innocence.

What the reader does learn is that Tony had an affair with the grocer's wife, that the grocer's wife was deeply in love with Tony, and that Tony was careless in the way he responded to the woman's affections. When he answers "of course" to the question "Would you like to spend the rest of your life with me?" he does not realize that his offhand remark, tossed out without a moment's thought, will have profound implications. It is a moment that returns to haunt his memory again and again throughout the course of the brief novel.

Georges Simenon was a master of psychological suspense. In the spare prose of a defeated man -- defeated by life, defeated by himself -- Tony examines his life, ponders the interrogator's questions, and never quite manages to voice his inevitable regret. Simenon creates a vivid sense of place (even of the blue hotel room in which Tony and the grocer's wife make love), captures the textures and scents of the world, and makes each character meaningful.

The Blue Room is a haunting novel that teaches powerful lessons. The crime(s), once revealed, are less important than the real crime -- to act for one's own pleasure, to speak without thinking, without regard to the consequences that selfish acts and words have upon others, and ultimately, upon oneself.

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