The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb by Nicholas Rinaldi

Published by Scribner on August 12, 2014

Charlie Stratton reached 25 inches and then stopped growing for several years. Needing money, his parents agreed to let their five-year-old become a circus attraction. P.T. Barnum changed Charlie's name to Tom Thumb and made him famous. During the next two years, while Tom wooed royalty and wowed the crowds in London and Paris, his parents, feeling left out, did not handle his success well. Barnum became Charlie's surrogate father, his God and his Devil, all rolled into one.

After this brief introduction to Tom Thumb, the heart of The Remarkable Courtship begins at the cusp of the Civil War, when Tom has reached 23 years and 32 inches. Convinced the war will be over quickly, Barnum takes Charlie to Manassas. The first battle of Bull Run is about to start and Barnum, like the reporters, congressmen, bankers, and parlor women who line the road, is eager to get a good seat. Contrary to Barnum's expectations, the battle does not bring an end to the war, and so the novel moves on.

Charlie narrates most the novel from his first-person perspective. In many respects, Charlie's life is about what a reader would expect his life to be. He craves normalcy. He wants a wife or lover. Charlie is a lonely dwarf. Smitten with the 8-foot-tall Ann Swan, he experiences "the lust of the tiniest shrub wanting to sink its root into the flank of a mountain." Having been created as an oddity, Charlie believes he is entitled to the "uncommon and unimaginable," including his dreams and desires, but the uncommon life he lives is not the one he wants. Nicholas Rinaldi conveys that convincingly but unsurprisingly. If there is a formula for structuring the life of a little person, this novel follows it.

Eventually Barnum hires a dwarf named Lavinia (Charlie is smitten again) and the novel shifts to her point-of-view as we learn her backstory. Her life is also about what a reader would expect, or perhaps less interesting than a reader would want. Her narrative voice is not distinct from Charlie's. But for letters Lavinia receives from her brother, the Civil War all but fades into the background. Fortunately, it returns to the foreground at the novel's midway point and from time to time thereafter.

The novel does a good job of depicting the Civil War's impact on those who fought and on those who did not, including those who opposed conscription and the class warfare that the Union created by permitting the wealthy to buy their way out of the draft. A similar problem troubles the Confederacy, exemplified by a deserter who explains how he repeatedly collected a bounty for volunteering as a replacement soldier for wealthy landowners, only to desert and collect additional bounties in other towns.

Lincoln briefly appears as a minor character, one of the better characters in the book. Ulysses S. Grant, Walt Whitman, and John Wilkes Booth are among the other figures from history who make brief appearances while adding little to the story. They are dropped names more than contributing characters. As for the major characters, most of whom seem needlessly petulent, I never found myself caring much about them. Rinaldi did not inspire my sympathy or empathy for characters who, in real life, probably deserved both.

The Remarkable Courtship's best attributes are its descriptions of civilian life during the Civil War and of the war itself, as seen from a (diminutive) civilian's perspective. For all the interest generated by the story's background, I was too rarely engaged by the story itself, despite its occasional tense moments. Most of the story's mild intrigue comes from a villainous man who bears malice toward Charles and whose identity we only learn at the end. Rinaldi's attempts at humor generally fall flat. While Rinaldi's writing is fluid and occasionally elegant, it is not the kind of soaring prose that can overcome a novel's deficiencies. My mixed feelings about The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb are based on the sense that this is a decent novel that could have been much better.

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Jack Strong: A Story of Life after Life by Walter Mosley

Published digitally by Open Road Media on July 29, 2014

"Jack Strong" is a short story that is available for purchase in a digital version. This blog usually reviews books, but is making an exception for this story because (A) it is written as if it is the first in a series and (B) the blog is a fan of Walter Mosley.

As a general rule, I like Walter Mosley's crime fiction more than his science fiction, but anything he writes is certain to be literate and thought-provoking. The short story "Jack Strong" is no exception.

A man awakens in Las Vegas with conflicting memories. He recalls being a male pit boss, a female stripper, an old man at a bus stop, an obese woman playing slot machines. He notices that he has white male hands except for one black finger and one young woman's finger. He looks in a mirror and sees that he is a patchwork of skin tones, with different eye colors and varying colors of hair on different parts of his body. He is, figuratively and perhaps literally, Everyman -- and Everywoman, penis notwithstanding -- "an agglomeration of potentials on one side and personalities on the other." His driver's license says he is Jack Strong.

Momentarily settling into the personality of Lance Richards, Strong finds Richards' past catching up with him when he enters the casino Richards once managed. Fortunately, Strong is strong and at least one of his personalities is a skilled fighter. The violence that follows triggers a vigorous debate among his various selves -- some virtuous, some shady, some religious, some hedonistic -- about the morality and the consequences of his actions.

While all of the people residing in Strong's head are dead, they are capable of learning and changing. Working together, considering issues jointly, they make Strong a better person than some of his more nefarious identities would be if left to their own devices. Perhaps Mosley's point is that we are all influenced by many people over the course of our lives, and that we benefit from listening to their collective wisdom. Or perhaps his point is that we are all a complex swirl of good and bad and that we need to make choices that overcome our darker impulses.

The concept of multiple identities inhabiting a single individual has been done before and nothing much here is new. How Jack Strong came to exist is never explained, which I count as a mild weakness in the story. "Jack Strong" lacks the depth and emotional resonance of Mosley's best work, but you'd expect that in a short story. I still prefer the complexity of Mosley's crime fiction, but the characters are appealing and the plot, while a bit thin, is enjoyable.

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The Good Suicides by Antonio Hill

Published in Spain in 2012; published in translation by Crown on June 17, 2014

Is pleasant deception preferable to ugly truth? A character in The Good Suicides is told that "honesty is an overrated concept," a value less worthy than loyalty. That theme plays out in Antonio Hill's second Hector Salgado novel.

Inspector Hector Salgado, an Argentinian by birth who now lives in Barcelona, is seeing a therapist to help him come to terms with the disappearance of Ruth Valldaura, the ex-wife who left him for a woman. Salgado believes that premature mourning of Ruth would be a betrayal despite his fear that she is dead. He wants to heed the therapist's reminder that life consists of what we have, not what is missing, but he cannot stop blaming himself. The only lead suggests that Ruth disappeared due to a curse cast by a witch doctor who was severely beaten by Salgado after Salgado broke up his profitable prostitution ring (an event that apparently happened in The Summer of Dead Toys).

Having been removed from the investigation of Ruth's disappearance, Salgado is assigned to investigate the suicide of Sarah Mahler, who apparently jumped in front of a subway train after reading the only message on her cellphone: the text "Never Forget" accompanied by a photograph of three hanged dogs. Sarah was employed by Alemany Cosmetics, where another employee recently killed himself, but only after he also killed his wife and child. It soon becomes clear that the two were among eight individuals at Alemany Cosmetics who attended a team-building retreat and are now keeping a dark secret, the nature of which remains a mystery for much of the novel.

The novel's other key character is Leire Castro, Salgado's subordinate. Leire can't abide the thought of spending the last six weeks of unplanned pregnancy alone in her new apartment. She foregoes her maternity leave to spend her time investigating Ruth's disappearance.

Understated and tasteful subplots involving a character's attraction to his fiancé's daughter and a woman's submission to her dominant partner add spice to the story. Other storylines of domestic drama involve Leire's uncertain relationship with her baby's daddy, Salgado's struggle to raise his sullen teenage son, and tension between two Alemany siblings. Those aspects of the story give flesh to the characters without resorting to melodrama.

The first of the novel's two mysteries -- why are employees of Alemany Cosmetics dying and what's up with the dead dogs? -- resolves straightforwardly. Still, I was not convinced of the characters' motivations for acting as they did, both initially and (in some cases) after the initial event takes place. As for the second mystery -- the disappearance of Ruth -- I have to admit I found the final pages baffling. I'm not sure they do anything more than set up the next novel. That's disappointing, but effective if the point is to make readers buy more books. I'll probably read the next novel, if only because I liked the intimate psychological portraits of the key characters in this one. I have the sense, however, that I should have started reading this series with the first novel rather than the second.

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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.

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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.

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