Merry Christmas!

The Tenth Circle by Jon Land

Published by Open Road Media on December 17, 2013

Beginning with a missing colony on Roanoke Island in 1590 (which left behind the word Croatoan) and continuing to the missing crew of the Mary Celeste in 1872 -- as well as Napoléon, who was counting on the cargo that the Mary Celeste was carrying, disguised as barrels of alcohol, to help him reclaim his empire -- it's clear that a new world-threatening danger is being unleashed, and that only Blaine McCracken can save the day.

Turning from the prologue the present: Israel's defense minister wants to destroy an Iranian nuclear complex but the Israeli military isn't up to the task of penetrating the heavily guarded underground facility. To whom does the defense minister turn? Blaine McCracken, of course. Following the formula of his earlier novels, Jon Land starts The Tenth Circle by having McCracken do something outlandish and, having lulled the reader into abandoning any sense of disbelief, moves on from there to the truly strange.

The new threat to America is, in some sense, the typical thriller threat -- Islamic terrorists are blowing up bridges and buildings all over the country -- but Land makes it interesting by giving the terrorists a new motive: a crazy Christian preacher with a murderous past who is stirring up religious bigotry and hatred against Muslims. Yet the true villains are not so easy to identify and the weapon they wield -- well, it isn't a dirty bomb or a deadly virus or other conventional thriller fare. Conventional isn't a word that comes to mind while reading a McCracken novel.

Land writes pure escapist fiction. This isn't the kind of story you want to think about too deeply. Very little in The Tenth Circle is believable. McCracken and his sidekick Johnny Wareagle are so close to being comic book superheroes that they should be wearing capes and masks. Does it make sense that Captain Seven, McCracken's mad scientist friend (who is more of a stoned scientist friend), just happens to have the Roanoke Island governor's journal from 1590 sitting on his desk when McCracken comes calling? No, but Land is one of the few writers who can craft a completely implausible plot that I completely enjoy.

The Tenth Circle moves like lightning on crack. Action scenes are vivid and original. Land never relies on clichéd phrases to tell his story. Dialog is amusing, particularly when McCracken is talking to Captain Seven. Although Land always plays it straight, he brings a tongue-in-cheek attitude to certain scenes (a group of senior citizens taking on armed commandos with bocce balls was one of my favorites). The Tenth Circle isn't serious literature or even a serious thriller, but it's seriously fun to read.

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The Two Moons by James P. Hogan

First published in 2006; published digitally by Baen Books on December 3, 2013.

The Two Moons reprints two novels by James P. Hogan. Inherit the Stars, a fine if flawed science fiction novel, was first published in 1978. Its less interesting sequel, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, was published in 1981. Both novels are reviewed on Tzer Island; follow the links if you're interested.

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The Coming by Andrej Nikolaidis

Published in Montenegro in 2003; published in translation by Dzanc Books and Open Road Media on December 17, 2013

"What is history but a crime story with humanity as its cast?" A character in The Coming asks that question while discussing predictions of the Apocalypse made by some of history's famous figures, but the question serves as a statement of the novel's primary theme. The Coming takes the guise of a detective novel, but it has little in common with the genre's ordinary conventions. It takes place in the midst of worldwide apocalyptic events: earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, rising sea levels, frogs raining from the sky, and a mid-summer blizzard in Ulcinj. Most people in Ulcinj (where the novel is set) have given up work and are waiting for the end times, but since they didn't do much work in the best of times, the difference is barely noticeable. When we hear about the MTV Apocalypse Awards, it becomes clear that The Coming will work elements of satire into the story, but this isn't a light-hearted comedy. The characters tell ironic stories of difficult lives (their own and others they have known), lifelong suffering to which they were condemned because of their birthplace and because they "are all victims of our parents' inability to resist the reproductive urge." Their lives are crime stories of a different sort.

Perhaps the Apocalypse will finally reveal the truth that people crave. The nature of truth is another of the novel's themes. One of the novel's two central characters is a private detective, hired to find the truth about the violent murder of a family in Ulcinj. While the detective tries to project the image of a hard-boiled Sam Spade (because that's what he assumes his clients want), he's actually more of a philosopher-storyteller. His job is not to discover the truth but to invent the truth that the client needs to hear.

Point of view shifts back and forth between the detective and Emmanuel, who reads about the murders in the newspaper and believes he understands the crime's true purpose. But is Emmanuel's understanding of the truth reliable? Emmanuel is confined (for his own good, he repeatedly tells us) in an institution. He is convinced that his actions and thoughts have terrible consequences for people he doesn't know. Many of Emmanuel's far-ranging thoughts focus on Sabbatai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah who lived in seventeenth century Istanbul, attracted followers (as prophets tend to do), converted to Islam to avoid execution while continuing to claim he was the Messiah, and was exiled (accompanied by his followers) to the pirate city of Ulcinj, where he became obsessed with the "false" (and competing) prophet Fra Dolcino. Emmanuel tells of a battle of books that tell competing truths, one authored by Dolcino and two by Zevi, one filled with "just about as much truth as the world can bear" while the other, The Book of the Coming, tells the real truth.

The Coming is a brief, thought-provoking novel written in prose that is engaging and clever. In part, it is a book about books: their importance, their symbolic value, their role in the life of a society, their relationship to truth, illusion, and deception. In part, it is about the relationship between parents and their children. The novel covers a large amount of ground with relatively few words. The detective and Emmanuel are both philosophers of a sort, opining about the human condition from their own unusual perspectives. The detective's view is understandably jaded while Emmanuel's might be the view of a madman, but they both shed light upon the mysteries of life.

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The Prince of Risk by Christopher Reich

Published by Doubleday on December 3, 2013

A conspiracy is afoot and the only (good) people who know about it are the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. Until they die. Just before their car explodes on the White House lawn, the head of the NYSE texts the word Palantir to his estranged son, hedge fund master Bobby Astor, whose ex-wife, Alex Forza, happens to be an FBI agent. Astor has no idea what Palantir means, but he is determined to find out. The conspirators, of course, are aware of the text, knowledge that puts Astor's life in peril. In the meantime, Astor has made a bet that Chinese currency will be devalued, a gamble that places him in financial peril, to the extent of losing 400 million dollars.

Global conspiracies are plentiful and far-reaching in the word of thrillers. This one involves electronic surveillance of 57,000 influential people (mostly in government and business). Impressive but credible, given the resources of the conspiracy's backers. Is the conspiracy farfetched? In some respects, yes, but no more farfetched than is common in modern thrillers. Apart from one scene at the end, nothing about the story made me unwilling to suspend my disbelief, in part because Reich includes convincing detail about the conspiracy's design. Of course, a reader who is more knowledgeable about software or the mechanics of Wall Street financial transactions might not be as easily convinced as I was. And even to the extent that I was unconvinced, the story is so fun that I easily overcame my skepticism.

The story features -- wait for it -- a warrior monk. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a warrior monk to show up on Wall Street, but Reich somehow makes it work. In fact, Reich makes a lot of things work together in this entertaining joinder of a financial thriller with an international conspiracy thriller. He builds tension as several storylines weave together and he advances the plot at a steady pace. His characters are flawed in ways that make them interesting but they never become thoroughly unlikable. Alex's characterization as a self-righteous a-hole is realistic, even if the prayers she says while standing before a portrait of J. Edgar Hoover are a little over-the-top. At the same time, these are the conventional characters of genre fiction, developed without richness or texture. That's one of the novel's only weakness, and it's a small one given that this is a plot-driven story. The other, again small, is that the plot features few surprises (other than the appearance of a warrior monk), but I enjoyed it all the same.

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