Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn

Published by Atria Books on August 5, 2014

Bernie and Suzie have had misunderstandings in past novels, but serious problems loom when Bernie and Chet show up unexpectedly at Suzie's apartment in D.C. and meet Eben St. John, who seems to be on very friendly terms with Bernie's girlfriend. Suzie explains that she's interviewing St. John for a story she's writing, but when she visits his office tne next morning and finds that he's been shot to death, the police (and Bernie) wonder why St. John was confessing his feelings about Suzie in his diary. Their conflict is upsetting to Chet, but Chet is even more bewildered by a strange bird he keeps seeing that has no wings or eyes. Of course, Bernie doesn't see it because Bernie, with his limited human senses, never notices anything that Chet regards as important -- like squirrels and hidden food. Did I mention that Chet is a dog?

Bernie's problems are compounded when the gun that killed St. John turns out to be a gun that Bernie had handled, leaving his fingerprints for the police to find. It naturally becomes Bernie's mission to find St. John's killer and therein lies the plot. All Bernie knows is that St. John had a contact who possessed information that could change the course of history and that St. John was preparing to share his secret -- and who knows what else? -- with Suzie. Somehow Bernie winds up chumming around with a presidential candidate (difficult to avoid that in D.C.) as he tries to deduce the reason for the murder and the killer's identity.

The plot is reasonably strong, offering light entertainment and modest surprises, but the point of a Chet and Bernie novel is not so much the plot as it is the chance to enter Chet's world. Chet always narrates these novels and his thought process always makes the novels worth reading. Chet's thinking is quite literal (he's still trying to understand "don't let the tail wag the dog" and is a little concerned it might happen to him). He has a short attention span, he's easily distracted, and he's no fan of horses ("prima donnas, each and every one"), foxes, or most other non-dog animals. He has a poor memory for things like obedience commands, but an excellent memory for scents, treat locations, and people who know how to administer a good scratch. He's enormously frustrated when he spots a clue and Bernie doesn't understand why he's making a fuss, but Chet always manages to contribute something worthwhile to the investigation -- while contributing good humor for the reader's benefit. This is a formula that never gets tired. I would rate Paw and Order as one of the better Chet and Bernie novels on the strength of its fast-moving, amusing plot, but thanks to Chet, all of the novels are good -- at least for readers who love dogs.

RECOMMENDED

Herbie's Game by Timothy Hallinan

Published by Soho Crime on July 15, 2014

There's something endearing about Junior Bender. Yes, he's a burglar, although his secondary career involves solving crimes committed against criminals who, for obvious reasons, don't want to call the police. Yes, he's relatively amoral, although he has a (somewhat flexible) ethical code. Yes, his friends are mostly thieves, con artists, and killers. Yes, he views crime as a reasonable way to make a living. Those minor character defects notwithstanding, Bender is bright and funny and self-aware. He cares about his daughter. His heart is mostly in the right place. He has enormous empathy for people who have lived difficult lives. What's not to like?

When someone steals an important list of names from Wattles' safe -- the kind of list that could get Wattles killed -- he turns to Junior Bender for help, not because Bender is a friend (he recently tried to have Bender killed), but because Bender is one of the few burglars who could have pulled off the job. If Bender didn't do it, he can find the person who did, and Wattles uses both cash and threats to induce Bender's cooperation. Unfortunately for Bender, his first stop brings him to the body of his mentor. It is Herbie's game -- burglary -- that Bender learned to play so well. Herbie's death makes Bender's mission personal, particularly after that mission is expanded by a letter from beyond the grave. But will Bender's investigation cause him to learn more about Herbie Mott than he wanted to know?

The story takes Bender on an enjoyable journey through the underworld he loves. The misfits he meets include a crooked psychic, a magician who doubles as a pickpocket, a guy with calculus symbols tattooed on his body, several friendly hit women, a couple of teenage girls who are filling their college fund with proceeds derived from hacking, and people with names like Stinky and Burt the Gut. An odd brooch that comes into Bender's illicit possession in the first chapter adds to the story's mystery and, in a particularly funny scene, causes him to get beaten up by a little Filipino named Ting Ting.

Bender does a fair amount of soul searching in this novel -- searching for a soul he's not sure he has, or at least not the right kind of soul, the kind upon which love is not wasted. Looking at Herbie's life (particularly Herbie's parenting) forces Bender to examine his own life (and parenting). What he discovers is not always pretty, but Bender at least has the decency to be troubled by it. That's one reason he's such a likeable character. Another is his belief that "a wall of books makes civilization seem real, despite all the evidence to the contrary." As Bender ponders life (his and others'), he gives the reader some thoughts to chew on, including the reminder that people are always changing, whether we like it or not.

As always, Timothy Hallinan moves the story at a brisk pace without skimping on characterization, develops an interesting plot, and fills the pages with clever prose. The motive for the act that caused Herbie's death (and for murders that follow) is a wildly improbable coincidence, but those have become routine in modern thrillers. That credibility issue notwithstanding, Herbie's Game is a strong entry in a fun series.

RECOMMENDED

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Published by Random House on July 29, 2014

Lucky Us is an amusing novel that is more notable for its comedy than its drama. Stray remarks (like the notion that spilling brandy makes a room smell like "a French accident") keep the tone light even when the story is tragic. The meandering plot is offbeat and the characters are eccentric. Amy Bloom plays with gender and race and ancestry and sexual identity in a carefree way, making the point that none those things matter. All of that is admirable, but Bloom never induced me to make a serious connection to any of her characters, perhaps because I was never quite convinced that the characters were real.

Eva Logan has been living with her mother and visiting with her father, Edgar Acton, twice a week. When Edgar's wife dies, Eva's mother takes Eva to her father's house where Eva discovers she has an older sister named Iris. As Eva is getting to know Iris, Eva's mother leaves, never to return. As soon as Iris graduates from high school, she takes a bus from Ohio to Hollywood, where she plans to be a star. Eva, smarter than Iris but lacking her poise and ambition, tags along. World War II looms in the background.

Iris' road to stardom hits a pothole but she manages to impress and befriend Francisco Diego, stylist to the stars. Francisco joins the sisters and their unemployed but very literate father on a road trip to Brooklyn where a new life (and the meat of the novel) begins. The story continues through and beyond the war years and introduces a number of additional characters, including Edgar's new love interest, the "pale and dark" Clara Williams, who can't decide whether to pass for white or black. A boy who was not-quite-adopted by Iris and sort-of-raised by Eva seems like he will play a prominent role before fading into the background.

One of the more interesting characters is Gus, the ex-husband of Iris' eventual lover. Although he is an American, Gus is detained during the war for the crime of having German ancestry. If America is better than Germany because it doesn't send innocent people to death camps but only takes away their freedom, Gus writes, "future generations will admire our restraint." That's an example of the wry humor that persuades me to recommend the book to like-minded fans of understated humor.

While Lucky Us is in many ways a fine novel, its abundance of characters sometimes gives it a scattered feeling. I felt little emotional attachment to any of them. Scenes that should have emotional power failed to move me. I often found it difficult to understand why the characters behave as they do. Why does Francisco join the rest of the characters on their trek to New York? Why does Gus undergo such an extreme transformation of identity? Why does Eva make so many odd choices before she finally moves her life in an intelligent (albeit unlikely) direction?

None of the bothersome aspects of Lucky Us prevented me from liking it. The story follows a winding path and makes some sharp, surprising turns. Some characters fare better than others, but that's life. Some are lucky, as the novel's title implies (not without irony), but the story makes clear that good luck is fickle and not always recognized. The characters have happy and sad moments, like all lives, but they are resilient, each finding a way to make it through darker times. The plot depends upon a series of improbabilities and too many of them are less than convincing, but I enjoyed the overall effort nonetheless.

RECOMMENDED

The November Man by Bill Granger

First published in 1986; published digitally by Grand Central Publishing on July 29, 2014

A good spy novel should have intrigue and suspense and characters who wrestle with internal conflicts. It should recognize the moral ambiguity inherent in espionage. Most importantly, it should hold a reader's rapt attention from the first scene to the last. The November Man does all that. First published in 1986 and the first in a series, a digital edition of The November Man is being re-released to coincide with the release of a movie of the same name.

Alexa, a KGB assassin, has been ordered to kill the agent known as November despite his offer to defect to the Soviet Union. November, whose real name is Devereaux, thinks he is safe because he left the trade, erased himself from the world, and is living a nondescript life in Switzerland with the woman he loves and a boy he rescued. Whether Devereaux will be forced to return to the trade, and what that will mean to his relationship with Rita, is a question that alternately torments and intrigues him.

Hanley, director of operations for the Section that employed November, has apparently suffered a breakdown. Contrary to regulations, Hanley has been calling November over unsecured lines, babbling about "Nutcracker" and saying "there are no spies" over and over. Hanley's meaning is unclear (even to November), but Hanley's boss eavesdrops, pronounces Hanley a threat to national security, and sends him to an institution for wayward government employees where heavy medication and electric fences assure his docile silence. Hanley's loyal colleague, Lydia Neumann, seems to be the only person who takes his side.

Who is November and why do so many people want him dead? How do the Russians know so much about him? Has he been betrayed by his former employer? For the first half of the novel, all we know with certainty is that November used to be a spy, one of the last of a vanishing breed. The novel introduces us to several others in and on the periphery of the spy game, all of whom are strong characters.

A part (but only a part) of "there are no spies" refers to the replacement of human operatives with signals intelligence, satellite surveillance, and other forms of spying that do not involve sending humans into the field. One of the novel's themes is the argument that humans interacting with humans can learn critical information that satellites cannot, and can give meaning and context to electronically gathered information that would otherwise be lost.

The spare elegance of Granger's prose and the emotional truth he gives to his characters makes The November Man stand out in the world of espionage fiction. If the plot is not as twisty and complex as some other spy novels might produce, it has the virtue of being tight, credible, and meaningful.

RECOMMENDED

Blacklist by Jerry Ludwig

Published by Forge Books on June 10, 2014

Teddy Weaver, a Hollywood writer hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee, flees the country to avoid betraying friends who once supported the Communist Party. Teddy's long-time friend and writing partner, Leo Vardian, makes a different choice: he names names, although he has always maintained that he refused to name Teddy. Leo goes on to direct films while Teddy writes in anonymous exile. The two meet again but never manage to reconcile before Teddy's death.

While Teddy and Leo provide the background to Blacklist, most of the story takes place several years after HUAC has abandoned its search for Hollywood communists. Teddy's son David, who eventually replaced Leo as Teddy's writing partner, returns to Hollywood from Paris after his father's death. He reconnects with Jana, Leo's daughter and David's childhood friend, but has difficulty making peace with Leo. The novel's early drama centers on David's conflicted relationships with Leo and Jana.

David has an anger management problem that makes him lash out at authority figures, including the FBI agent, Brian McKenna, who tormented his father and is now the liaison between the FBI and Hollywood studios. When a homicide occurs midway through the novel, David (who was seen punching out the victim not long before the homicide occurred) becomes a logical suspect. McKenna and the local police are even more inclined to suspect David when they realize that two recent homicides are connected by the same thread: both victims were informers who caused Hollywood writers and directors to be blacklisted. With J. Edgar Hoover pressing McKenna for results, the second half of the novel is aptly subtitled "The Hunt for the Blacklist Killer" -- at least until a murder occurs that don't fit the pattern.

Blacklist offers a useful reminder of a shameful period in American history, and does so with a nuanced view. It is easy to condemn people who avoided the blacklist by accusing others of Communist affiliations, but it is also easy to understand why someone who needs an income to pay for a spouse's medicine or a child's education might do so. Leo's decision to cooperate has ramifications that go well beyond the lost careers to which he may have contributed. Is the enormous guilt he carries sufficient punishment for the betrayals he committed? Everybody targeted by HUAC lost something -- those who stood up to the government lost their jobs, those who did not lost friends and self-respect. The people most deserving of blame are Hoover, Joe McCarthy, and others in government who orchestrated or carried out the un-American witch-hunt.

Unfortunately, the story's setting is better than the story. The first half is slow moving. The murder mystery in the second half is enlivened by the attempt to frame David, but the killer's identity comes as no surprise. The theme of betrayal runs through the novel as the reader wonders whether Jana will betray David (just as her father betrayed his father) but that subplot fizzles away. The story is too contrived to be truly engaging.

Each chapter is titled with the name of the character who narrates it. The names are helpful because the narrative voice is always the same. Without the chapter titles, it would be difficult to guess which character is speaking. While the novel is written in capable prose, it never soars. The characters are unremarkable, but the characters we are given reason to dislike are at least fashioned with a degree of complexity. None of the characters grabbed me. David is remarkably dull. McKenna is the most realistic character but he is also the least likable. In short, I liked the subject matter more than I liked the book or its characters.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS