Lone Wolf by Gregg Hurwitz

Published by Minotaur Books on February 13, 2024

Gregg Hurwitz brings a couple of interesting themes to Lone Wolf. One is foreshadowed in the title. Series hero Evan Smoak, a/k/a Orphan X, has always been a loner. He prefers his own company to that of people and their infinite capacity to annoy him. He feels pity for people who fill their lives with pointless tasks to distract themselves from their loneliness.

A few books ago, Smoak became responsible for a teenage girl who was part of the Orphan project that turned Smoak into a killing machine. That responsibility carries with it the discomfort of a quasi-parental relationship he’s ill-equipped to handle. A few books ago he also started a halting relationship with a woman in his building but allowed it to fizzle away, in part to protect her from the violence he attracts. In Lone Wolf, after a brief visit to the disagreeable father he never knew, Smoak finds himself dealing with a brother he dislikes and his brother’s daughter, another teenage girl but one who lacks coping skills. The extent to which he will allow his family to touch his life is part of the unfolding drama, although it doesn’t get in the way of the action.

I admire the way Smoak’s personality has evolved during the series. Characterization is a cut above the usual for thriller tough guys. Apart from recognizing that he might be missing out on the humanizing value of relationships, Smoak is starting to feel old. He doesn’t recover from injuries as quickly as he once did. Aches and pains are accumulating; some will likely be permanent. Smoak recognizes a physical decline in his arms supplier (one of his few friends) and is haunted by the knowledge that he will face a similar future if he survives into old age.

The other theme develops when Smoak meets two billionaires who fancy themselves to be masters of the universe. One brags about his ability to earn profits by manipulating behavior through clandestine data collection. The other laments the softening of young people who are glued to screens and anxious about body image. One of them might be a murderer but orchestrating the murder of a few people might be less immoral than gaining wealth by surreptitiously controlling the behavior of millions.

The novel isn’t just about weighty themes and strong personalities. The plot is in constant motion. The action is credible and cinematic. Hurwitz weaves humor into a plot that starts with Evan’s niece pleading with him to find her lost dog. Naturally, the search brings Hurwitz to the home of a man who has just been murdered. He saves the man’s daughter but can’t prevent an injury that destroys her vocal cords. The encounter begins a war between Smoak and the assassin, Karissa Lopatina, a/k/a the Wolf. The story sends Smoak on a search for the person who hired Lopatina and on a mission to prevent her from returning to kill the dead man’s daughter. And yeah, to find the dog. The perfect blend of action, drama, and humor make Lone Wolf the best entry so far in what has become a strong series for thriller fans.

RECOMMENDED

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

First published in Great Britain in 2023; published by Scribner on February 6, 2024

Police detectives in the city of Cahokia work to solve a murder in Cahokia Jazz. Wikipedia, the repository of all knowledge, tells me that Cahokia, located across the Mississippi from the current site of St. Louis, was the first significant settlement in North America. The remaining mounds have been designated as an historic site. The city existed from 1050 to 1350, but the novel imagines that in 1922, it is a modern city populated by three segregated racial groups. The US is at war with Russia in the territory now known as Alaska. Against that background, Cahokia Jazz might best be described as a crime novel with literary aspirations set in the context of an alternate history.

In the eyes of some, the city founded by Aztec royalty is still ruled by Aztec royalty, although the native residents — Aztec by legend more than ancestry — were largely converted to Catholicism by a Jesuit priest. Native beliefs nevertheless shape policy. Private ownership of land is forbidden in Cahokia; land belongs to everyone. The Land Trust manages long-term leases of land to its tenants. Water and electricity are shared in the same way.

Frederick Hopper’s bloodied corpse is found on the rooftop of the Land Trust building. Hopper is a takata — a person of European ancestry. The two other prominent ethnic groups in Cahokia are takouma — with ancestry that is native to the continent, and taklousa — a person of African ancestry. A takouma word, written in blood on Hopper’s forehead, might be translated as a call for independence.

Two detectives are assigned to the case. Joe Barrow is a mix of takouma and taklousa. Phineas Drummond is takata. Hopper’s wife, representing the views of many takata, regards Barrow as a savage and will only speak to Drummond. Hopper was in the Klan, a popular organization in his home state of Ohio, before he moved to Cahokia. By the novel’s midpoint, the Klan will be leading an insurrection.

The story explains Barrow’s connection to Drummond, first as wounded soldiers who met in a hospital, then as partners in law enforcement. Barrow isn’t quite sure how he feels about Drummond. He appreciates Drummond’s willingness to see him as an equal (an unusual trait among the takata) but doesn’t admire the man’s personal qualities. Drummond is being paid off by bootleggers and has a taste for hookers. Thanks to his connections, Drummond has developed an addiction to amphetamines, well before amphetamines will be marketed by pharmaceutical companies. By the novel’s midway point, it appears that Drummond has fully betrayed his already shaky allegiance to law and order. He certainly doesn’t seem keen on solving Hopper’s murder.

A journalist brings Barrow to the attention of the Man of the Sun, a leader in the Aztec tradition. Barrow describes the Man as “the lord high wizard to the takouma” but he seems pretty much like every other religious/political leader. The Man refers to Barrow as “Thrown-Away Boy,” a phrase from an Aztec myth that is uncomfortably descriptive of Barrow’s childhood.

The Man’s niece, Couma Hashi, presides over the House of the Moon. Barrow meets Couma in the course of his investigation and is quite taken with her, although he realizes she is out of his league. Barrow will eventually find himself in a shootout, protecting Couma from political assassins.

The word painted on Hopper’s head is popular with the Warriors, a group that uses graffiti to support Aztec independence. Barrow’s prime suspect soon becomes a Warrior who believes in the Aztec tradition of blood sacrifice, although the modern version of the sacrifice is performed on rats. On the other hand, as a takouma suggests to Barrow, Hopper’s murder might be an “attempt to whip up takata against takouma.” Barrow will wonder whether that might be the case when he is literally caught between two angry racial groups as they march toward each other.

Cahokia Jazz is a story of death and sacrifice, politics and power, but it also tells the story of Barrow’s personal journey as he struggles to give a meaningful shape to his life. Elements of an action novel keep the story moving, but a subplot of unrequited love adds depth to Barrow’s character. His love is about as realistic as my dream of being Sandra Bullock’s boyfriend, but sometimes dreams come true. Will Barrow’s love be his downfall?

Much of the novel’s tension comes from the alternate futures that Barrow can imagine for himself and the uncertainty of the choice he will make. He becomes something of a hero before the novel ends, but events tempt him to abandon law enforcement and pursue his true love — playing piano in a jazz band. The jazz performance scenes capture the creative magic of musicians at work.

I admire the research and creative reflection on “what might have been” that animates Cahokia Jazz. World-building can be essential to the credibility of speculative fiction. Francis Spufford’s city-building is masterful. Drummond knows every speakeasy and house of ill repute; Barrow knows the jazz clubs. The novel’s political background has the racially pure FBI chasing everyone suspected of being a communist sympathizer, which of course includes union organizers. Loan sharks are among the mobsters who add to the 1920s vibe.

Cahokia Jazz is an ambitious novel. To realize its ambitions, the lengthy story lags as its various elements catch up with each other. Still, Spufford always maintained my interest in the story’s multiple threads. While Cahokia Jazz has obvious parallels to modern America’s racial and political division, the novel blends politics with action and mystery. The story’s ending forces Barrow to make a difficult choice, one that involves sacrifice and the death of a friendship. The novel ultimately succeeds because of Barrow’s complicated story, the kind of story that is simultaneously sad, heartwarming, and inspirational.

RECOMMENDED

Kingpin by Mike Lawson

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on February 6, 2024

Patrick Grady is a Washington, D.C. lobbyist. Real estate tycoon Carson Newman hired Grady to kill a bill that would protect tenants’ rights. His efforts put him in the middle of a war between Newman and House Minority Leader John Mahoney. Newman expected Mahoney to kill the bill as a reward for Newman’s campaign contributions. Mahoney, who is usually happy to grant favors in exchange for cash, saw greater value in passing the bill and showing voters that Democrats could actually accomplish something they care about. Mahoney is therefore cheesed off that Grady successfully lobbied a dozen Democrats to oppose the bill.

Mahoney assigned his intern, Brian Lewis, to investigate the Democrats who voted against the bill and figure out how they were connected to Newman. Lewis finds the connections and writes a report but dies of a drug overdose before he shows it to anyone.

Lewis’ mom raises a stink with Mahoney because she knows her son was investigating corrupt politicians and believes he was murdered. To keep Lewis’ mother from going to the press, Mahoney assigns Joe DeMarco to appease her.

Series fans will know that DeMarco would rather play golf than work. He doesn’t use his law degree for anything useful. He has a basement office in the capitol and a job title, but his only duties involve cleaning up messes and running errands for Mahoney.

DeMarco’s initial plan is to placate Lewis’ mother by making it seem like he’s investigating her son’s death. She convinces him that her suspicions might have some merit, but he doesn’t know what Lewis discovered. Lewis’ laptop is in the hands of a private investigator who is working for Grady. The PI had Lewis followed by Sydney Roma, a recovering drug addict who is getting her life together with the PI’s help. At Grady’s request, the PI wipes the incriminating evidence from the laptop and has Sydney concoct an excuse that will allow the laptop to be returned to Lewis’ mother. DeMarco views the laptop’s sudden reappearance as suspicious and begins to look for Sydney as his best connection to Lewis’ killer.

DeMarco novels are fun because murders and criminal conspiracies are balanced by humor. DeMarco isn’t an exemplary individual but his compassion and sense of justice offset his many flaws. Mahoney is a corrupt alcoholic but somehow likable, in part because he sometimes uses his power to help people who deserve a break. Sidney is a great addition to the story because of her unbreakable spirit.

DeMarco uses a clever ruse to move the plot toward a desirable ending. He also defies an FBI agent because, true to form, the FBI is willing to let murderers off the hook if they can take down a more headline-worthy villain — in this case, a wealthy Albanian gangster. DeMarco doesn’t want that to happen, even at the risk of making himself a target of an FBI investigation.

DeMarco stories usually have credible plots and reasonably happy endings. Kingpin is no exception. DeMarco novels might have a bit more violence than a typical beach read, but the violence isn’t particularly graphic. Crime novel fans can spend pleasant afternoons on a beach with Kingpin and come away smiling.

RECOMMENDED

The Price You Pay by Nick Petrie

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on February 6, 2024

Nick Petrie continues a reliable thriller series in the latest Peter Ash novel. Trouble has a habit of finding Peter, interfering with his desire to live a quiet life with his wife June, the woman who helps still the noise of PTSD that would otherwise make it impossible for Peter to sleep indoors.

Peter’s good friend Lewis used to be the leader in a small group of thieves who specialized in stealing from criminals. The criminals who survived or the organizations for which they worked would like to get revenge, but they only know the thieves as the Ghost Killers. Cops think the Ghost Killers are an urban legend, but the underworld knows better.

After the Ghost Killers retired, one of their number needed help to recover from a brain injury. Teddy’s speech therapist told him to record every memory of his past in a journal. Teddy dutifully wrote down everything he knew about the other Ghost Killers and the crimes they committed. Unfortunately, he shared some of that information with his speech therapist (he was shagging her by that point and wanted to impress her). She turned out to be bad at keeping his secrets.

One of the criminals who lost money to the Ghost Killers learned about the journals. Lewis worries that if the journals are distributed throughout the underworld (or to the police), all of the Ghost Killers will be at risk of arrest or retribution. Yet the woman who wants the journals suffered a deeper loss than money, giving her a special motivation to find Lewis and the other Ghosts. She wants to go Keyser Soze on them. She hires a man to find the journals and to bring the Ghost Killers to her. The man is a former CIA agent. He’s good at his work but he learns that Peter and Lewis are formidable adversaries.

The Price You Pay is an intelligent action novel. Peter and Lewis stay true to the personalities they have developed in earlier novels. Peter is defined largely by his courageous efforts to battle his PTSD while Lewis is overcoming his dark past by making a relatively normal life with his new wife and her kids. Or course, life might not qualify as normal when Lewis is being chased by men with guns, as is often the case.

Petrie creates suspense by forcing Peter and Lewis to overcome obstacles as they track down the stolen journals and protect their families from the woman who seeks revenge. They use their wits in combination with their fighting skills, bringing a freshness to action scenes that go beyond improbable shootouts and tough guys hitting other tough guys in the throat. Their wives bring skills of their own to assist Peter and Lewis. The ending delivers the kind of tension that thriller fans expect. I’m pleased that after eight books, this series hasn’t gone stale. I hope Petrie can keep it going for a few more.

RECOMMENDED

Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

First published in the UK in 2023; published by Henry Holt and Co. on January 30, 2024

The marketing of Prima Facie gives the impression that it is a legal thriller, but the impression is false. This is an agenda-driven novel. I have no quarrel with the agenda and I have no problem with using a novel to make a point if the writer honors the elements of successful fiction. Disguising an essay as a novel usually results in an uninteresting novel. That’s certainly true here.

Tessa Ensler is a barrister who is extraordinarily pleased with her cross-examination skills. Unfortunately, Suzie Miller writes courtroom scenes in the abstract. She rarely treats the reader to actual cross-examinations, opting to have Tessa boast of her technique without revealing the questions she is asking. Miller makes no effort to deliver the suspense that good cross-examination scenes generate.

Instead of following the traditional path of a courtroom thriller, the book focuses on Tessa’s personal experience as a crime victim and the impact of crime on her life and career. It’s fine that Miller didn’t write a legal thriller. She can write any book she wants. Unfortunately, the book she wrote isn’t interesting.

The novel is written in two parts. Both halves travel between the past and present. In the first half, the past focuses on the circumstances of Tessa’s acceptance into a prestigious law school. It’s a typical story of a working-class girl transitioning into a life where her contemporaries are posh. In the present, Tessa is pleased with herself because she regards herself as a masterful barrister. She enjoys flirting with posh Julian and enjoys even more his admiring comments. Before the first third of the novel has gone by, Tessa is feeling even better about herself because she shagged Julian on the couch in his office. When she actually goes on a date with Julian, however, they have wonderful drunken sex, Tessa wakes up and vomits, Julian wakes up and wants round two, and when Tessa declines he rapes her.

In the novel’s second half, the past focuses on Tessa’s report of her rape to the police and the present begins with her testimony in Julian's criminal trial. The then-and-now format slows the pace of a story in which only the now is interesting. I kept wanting Tessa to get on with the trial, but her trial narrative is constantly interrupted by flashbacks that the reader will recognize from countless similar stories. Tessa sees Julian at work, Julian seems perfectly normal and acts as if their encounter was insignificant, the police interview Julian and Tessa’s life at work becomes unbearable. Why frequent interruptions of the trial were necessary to flesh out the recent past is unclear to me. I’d chalk it up to deciding upon a trendy literary technique that wasn’t well executed, rather than sticking to a linear story. If the intent was to build suspense by delaying trial scenes, the technique instead caused all suspense to evaporate.

When Miller finally has Tessa on the witness stand, Tessa spends most of her time explaining her thoughts between questions. She has so many thoughts the jury must have wondered why it took her so long to answer. When she finally answers, almost always with a fluster, the answer is followed by an internal monologue questioning why she didn’t give a better answer. I understand that trial witnesses second-guess themselves, but all the fretting about answers — and I mean every answer, even those she has rehearsed with the prosecuting barrister —destroys the flow of direct and cross-examination that might have made the trial interesting. We are treated instead to an insecure witness who forgets her training as a barrister and seems incapable of clear thought.

Now, I get it. Miller wanted to bring home the trauma of testifying in a trial after being victimized. The reader can understand that trauma without having Tessa constantly telling us how traumatized she feels. To this reader’s dismay, Miller disregards the rule that advises writers to show, not tell.

Prima Facie is a well-intentioned but somewhat misleading indictment of the failure to secure more sexual assault convictions in England. A prosecutor repeatedly tells Tessa that the conviction rate in sexual assaults is very low. Dig into the statistics, and you’ll learn that the conviction rate of reported rapes is low because (for whatever reason) the complaining witness decides not to pursue the case before it goes to trial. Tessa wants her case to go to trial, so the overall conviction rate doesn’t apply to her case. She claims the conviction rate of cases that go to trial is 1.3%, but that’s just not true. The unsourced statistic pops up in the press, but it is an estimate of the percentage of rapes (not just those that go to trial or even those that are reported) that end with convictions. When charges go to trial in England, the conviction rate is somewhere around 75%, only a bit less than the 81% conviction rate for all crimes. Again, I have no quarrel with pursuing an agenda — it’s quite likely that the British system of justice does not serve rape victims well — but a writer who pursues an agenda loses credibility when she makes her point with inaccurate assertions of fact.

Tessa tells us about the psychological impact that the rape had on her, but again does more telling than showing. Miller makes the same error when Tessa describes a painful sexual assault exam as well as interviews with the police that (she tells us) leave Tessa feeling humiliated. The scenes feel like more like textbook accounts of rape and its aftermath as they are presented in social work literature, not as the first-person experience of a rape victim. I had the same impression when Tessa describes a failed rape attempt during her teen years. The narrative wants to make a point about feelings of powerlessness and shame experienced by rape victims, but Miller doesn't make the reader feel Tessa's pain.

When Tessa makes her complaint to the police, she suddenly feels it is unfair that the prosecution must prove the truth of her accusation while Julian is presumed innocent. I understand that becoming a victim might spark a change of perspective, but I have difficulty believing that a trained and experienced barrister would suddenly forget why all the rights she devoted her career to protecting are important. The story made me wonder whether Tessa was ever serious about her job or just enjoyed the glory of winning. Julian is repulsive, but he at least is unlikable from the start. When Tessa gives a self-righteous speech in court about feeling betrayed by the justice system she devoted her life to, I could only wonder why she forgot the reasons she devoted her life to giving exactly the same defense to her clients that Julian’s barrister gives to Julian. While she berates herself for doing “awful things to women” in her own cross-examinations (what we see of them is far from awful), the truth is that cross-examination is usually the most important protection that defendants have against false accusations. Cross-examination is not an “awful” feature of the criminal justice system even if the experience can be unpleasant or traumatic. It is the cost of assuring (not always successfully) that innocent defendants are not convicted.

In the end, by telling a one-sided agenda-driven story, Prima Facie is more a lecture than a convincing novel. Tessa is the only character who has a personality. The plot is entirely predictable because it is driven by the need to teach predictable lessons. Maybe people who are driven by the same agenda will appreciate Prima Facie but judging the novel solely by the standards of literature, Prima Facie does too little to earn a recommendation.

NOT RECOMMENDED