Mystery, Inc. by Joyce Carol Oates

Published by MysteriousPress.com on April 7, 2015

"Mystery, Inc." is Joyce Carol Oates' contribution to the Bibliomysteries series from Mysterious Press. Each short story is the creation of a crime writer. The stories are blurbed as "short tales about deadly books" but they more broadly address deadly authors, deadly bookstores, deadly libraries, and other deadly aspects of the literary world.

The owner of several mystery bookstores would love to acquire Mystery, Inc. in Seabrook, New Hampshire, the finest example of a mystery bookstore he has ever seen. To obtain the store at a good price, however, the current owner will have to die. How unfortunate.

"Mystery Inc." is as much an homage to mystery bookstores and mystery booksellers as it is a mystery story. Atmosphere is everything in a narrative that takes us for a loving stroll past cabinets filled with first editions of Poe and Doyle, pulp magazines filled with Hammett and Chandler, and a variety of art and memorabilia relating to death and crime.

Oates also delves into the philosophy of the mystery story and its relationship to the mystery of life. Mystery books, a character opines, allow us to see the many mysteries of life more clearly, from perspectives that are not our own.

Of course, a reader expects to encounter murderous perspectives in a murder mystery. Oates does not disappoint; the bookstore has a dark history. And of course, good mysteries deliver plot twists. Oates does that, and if the twist is not unexpected, it is nevertheless satisfying. "Mystery Inc." lacks the depth of Oates' best work but her stories never fail to entertain.

RECOMMENDED

Intrusion by Reece Hirsch

Published by Thomas & Mercer on December 9, 2014

Trying to make Intellectual Property law interesting is, well, just plain impossible. Trying to make an IP lawyer into an action hero is, well, just plain silly. Reece Hirsch gave it a good try but, at least in this novel, didn't make it work.

Someone has stolen the search algorithms of Zapper (a thinly disguised Google), causing Zapper's CEO to assemble a Dream Team of hackers and security specialists. The culprits appear to be in China, perhaps even working for the Chinese government. Zapper's IP lawyer, Chris Bruen, improbably decides to go to China to track down the thieves himself ... because IP lawyers are so well-equipped to take on the People's Liberation Army. Bruen specializes in safeguarding the privacy of clients but he takes a more hands-on offensive against hackers than the traditional "sue them into oblivion" approach. He is assisted by a former hacker who now runs the law firm's forensics lab.

Bruen's exploits in China are the conventional stuff of thrillers but they seem all-too-easy. A section of the novel that explains the making of a Chinese hit man is equally unconvincing. After Bruen returns to the US, he spends most of his time dodging the hit man. His actions are predictable and dull. He later comes running to the rescue of another character in San Francisco instead of waiting for the police to respond to his request for assistance. Seriously? Some of the novel's dialog fails to ring true although the prose in general is passable if unmemorable.

To be fair, there is an element of mystery to the plot. The kind of misdirection that is common in a mystery worked on me, although when the mystery was resolved I didn't buy the resolution (I can't say why without spoiling the mystery). Since the plots of most modern thrillers are founded on the implausible, however, I can't fault Hirsch for following that trend. More troublesome is that, once again, Bruen's ability to expose the wrongdoing is just a little too easy. Thrillers need to build tension and this one doesn't.

Intrusion does contain some interesting discussions about the ethics of hacking and the desire to set information free. Hirsch obviously understands the implications of data mining and the uses (some good, some nefarious) to which they can be put -- whether by the Chinese government, the American government, or a corporation like Google. That makes the novel interesting rather than exciting. The basics of a good thriller are here, but the thrills are largely missing and the characters are dull.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Fox Is Framed by Lachlan Smith

Published by Mysterious Press on April 7, 2015

The family saga that began in Bear Is Broken and Lion Plays Rough continues in Fox Is Framed. We learned in the first two novels that Lawrence Maxwell was wrongfully convicted of killing the mother of his two sons. He may or may not be guilty but the prosecution concealed evidence that might have created a reasonable doubt about his guilt.

Like Lawrence, Leo and Ted Maxwell are both lawyers. At the beginning of Fox is Framed, they win the release of their father on bail. Ted is convinced of his father's innocence but a head wound that Ted received in an earlier novel has shattered his career. Leo continues to feel conflicted about his father even though his father's prison inmate connections may provide a steady supply of clients. In any event, the prosecution decides to take Lawrence to trial again and a new lawyer is appointed to represent him.

When a prosecution witness dies, Lawrence becomes a suspect in that murder, as well. The reader's challenge (and Leo's) is to figure out whether Lawrence had anything to do with the new murder and, if not, to discover the true culprit. Leo knows that proving Lawrence's innocence of the second murder might be the key to an acquittal on the first murder charge, since the prosecution's other evidence of his guilt is scant. Like Leo, however, the reader wonders whether Leo's father might have been the killer in both instances.

Lachlan Smith is at his best when the scenes turn to courtroom drama. He deftly conveys the tension and unpredictability of criminal trials, the risks and rewards of cross-examination, the gambling on strategies that either work or backfire. The novel loses some of its punch when it turns from courtroom drama to family drama but it never descends into melodrama. The novel's ending sets up more family drama in the future, which is unfortunate. I'd like to see this series move in a new direction. Apart from that, the ending leaves certain questions unresolved, which is a cheap setup to force curious readers to continue with the series. That's something I would have done anyway, given my admiration of Smith's ability to craft strong courtroom scenes.

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Before He Finds Her by Michael Kardos

Published by Mysterious Press on February 3, 2015

An elderly reporter, nearing death, blogs about the unsolved murder that has obsessed him -- unsolved in the sense that Ramsey Miller, who killed his wife and fled with his daughter, has never been apprehended. Of Ramsey's guilt and the daughter's death, the reporter is certain.

Melanie hates the isolation that defines her life, but living in witness protection means no internet, no travel, and no real friends. Melanie lives with her aunt and uncle and is, of course, hiding from Ramsey.

Early chapters of Before He Finds Her alternate between the past and present. The chapters in the past follow Ramsey, who believes he is just awakening to the beauty of life but is actually awakening to madness, embodied in his belief in an impending apocalypse he attributes to the "orbital axis." Ramsey's childhood is depicted more realistically and sympathetically than most thrillers manage.

As the novel moves forward, Melanie, being young and foolish, decides she needs to find Ramsey before he finds her. Michael Kardos never quite sold me on that motivation. In any event, to further her quest, Melanie meets with the blogger. Her investigation proceeds in an unexpected direction. More than that I will not say.

Most of the first half of Before He Finds Her reads more like a human interest story than a suspense novel. I would not say that the second half is more suspenseful but it reads more like a thriller. None of the surprising revelations are particularly surprising, which is the novel's greatest weakness.

While I was reading the first half, I found it difficult to suspend disbelief in certain aspects of the story that just didn't seem plausible. To my relief, Kardos deals with those in the second half. That cemented my interest. The story is plausible (a plus in the modern era of implausible thrillers). Even if the ending is telegraphed at an early point, eroding the excitement and shock value that thriller fans crave, I enjoyed the characters and the storytelling.

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The Last Word by Hanif Kureishi

Published in Great Britain in 2014; published by Scribner on March 10, 2015

Witty observations about human nature are Hanif Kureishi's specialty. In The Last Word, he turns his attention to the dying craft of writing literature at a time when there are "more writers than readers. ... The only books people read were diet books, cookbooks, or exercise books. People didn't want to improve the world, they only wanted better bodies." There isn't much of a story in The Last Word, but Kureishi improves the world by adding a few laughs. While there is more wit than substance in The Last Word, I found the novel worth reading for its ample supply of amusing sentences.

Harry Johnson has been commissioned to write a biography of Mamoon Azam. Mamoon, one of the first dark-skinned Indians to make a splash in the literary world, is Rushdie-like in his stature and opinions. The publisher envisions a controversial biography with a "hot, moody photo" of Mamoon on the cover that will stimulate sales of his books -- "long family novels set in colonial India" -- which are critically acclaimed but mostly ignored by a general reading public that views them as too intellectual.

Mamoon's current wife, Liana Luccioni, insists that the biography must not damage Mamoon's reputation, exactly the opposite of the book Harry's publisher wants him to write. To an extent, The Last Word is a biting commentary on celebrity biographies, which dish dirt to titillate rather than illuminate. Contrary to Liana's belief that readers want "upliftment, to learn the path of greatness so they can follow down it," Harry's publisher believes that readers want icons to be trashed so they can consider themselves the icon's equal.

Mamoon, on the other hand, has no desire to be peeled "as you would an onion." Serious writers are out of fashion, says Mamoon. Now, "no sooner has someone been sodomized by a close relative than they think they can write a memoir." Although Harry believes readers will understand that "sexuality makes fools of everyone," Mamoon resists being made fashionable through the exposure of a past that (if the gossip is to be believed) was exciting and provocative if selfish and cruel. While Mamoon accuses biographers of envying the sex lives of the subjects they trash, he also denies that his life was filled with sexual escapades ("even Philip Larkin had more sex"). Mamoon does, however, appreciate the idea of biography as fiction, since fiction often yields truths that haphazard reality cannot so easily convey.

Although written as a comedy, The Last Word contains some serious thoughts. It is ultimately a novel about the meaning and making of art. Should art stand alone, divorced from its context or creator, freed from "banal and simplistic correlations" between art and the artist's experiences? Is art merely a seduction? To be taken seriously, must artists display passion by crossing boundaries that are denied to most of us? The notion of how love should fit into one's life provides a related theme (for what is love if not art?) that becomes more prominent toward the novel's end. The novel has broad elements of a love story but doesn't try to be one (or perhaps it tries and fails). The assessment of a life in the final years (art as the continuous rewriting of memory) also gives Kureishi a chance to express serious thoughts about reflection and atonement. Still, The Last Word is too fluffy to be regarded as a serious novel.

I suspect that many readers will dislike the novel because they dislike nearly every character but, in a comedy that exposes the weaknesses and foibles of the human spirit, likability seems unimportant. The Last Word is not a long novel but it suffers from a surprising amount of redundancy. Some of that results from seeing Mamoon through various eyes but some of it is repetition that serves no apparent end. To the extent that there is a plot involving Harry and the various women in his life, it's silly and insubstantial. To the extent that the plot focuses on a writer writing about a writer, the story's best moment is a clever plot twist near the end. The Last Word is not as profound as Kureishi wanted it to be, but it gave me enough chuckles to be satisfying.

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