Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs

Published by Scribner on August 27, 2013

Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who becomes curious about the hit-and-run death of an unidentified teenage girl. Although the case does not require the services of a forensic anthropologist, Brennan is certain that she's more capable of solving it than the assigned homicide detective. Remarkably, the detective takes her along as he investigates, even letting her interview a witness while he sits in the car and broods. In the real world, no homicide detective would tolerate Brennan's condescending attitude or her meddling, much less follow her around like a puppy while she does all the work. Nor would he bring her along while executing a search warrant at a potentially dangerous location -- dressing her in Kevlar, no less -- particularly when he has no reason to believe the search will uncover evidence that requires inspection by a forensic anthropologist.

Even more improbable is a subplot that sends Brennan to Afghanistan, where she is tasked with determining whether a soldier shot a villager in the back a year earlier by examining the villager's skeletal remains. Brennan's daughter happens to be in the military, serving in Afghanistan. This happy circumstance allows Brennan to go shopping with her daughter in a bazaar while dodging mortar rounds. The trip to Afghanistan eventually ties into the primary plot in a way that requires the reader to swallow a series of extraordinary coincidences. I didn't. The Afghanistan interlude is utterly predictable, completely unbelievable, and much of it comes across as filler designed to pad a thin story.

On the plus side, Kathy Reichs writes the kind of clever prose that encourages readers to set aside reservations about the story and characters. Fortunately for the reader, a good bit of medical jargon is translated into simple English, but it's unlikely that the seasoned detective who demands the translation would actually need it. What homicide detective doesn't know the meaning of "lividity"?

Unless you count an unfailing sense of superiority as a personality, Brennan has none. She's a one-note character and the note is irritating. The other characters are bland and boring. Brennan has a stereotypically shallow ex-husband. That relationship, and another failed relationship, like her scattered sister and her daughter in Afghanistan, are presumably meant to add human interest. They are of no interest at all. Brennan's "passion" for issues like "justice for the dead" (as if the dead care), and her frequent climbs onto soapboxes to tell us just how passionate she is (she often feels like screaming at people who care less than she does because she cares sooooo much), come across as narcissistic posturing.

Once Brennan returns from Afghanistan and refocuses on the murdered girl, the story follows a mundane, overused plot, taking a couple of obvious twists before racing to an eye-rolling ending. Despite receiving a series of graphic warnings telling her to mind her own business, Brennan goes charging into danger at midnight, pausing only to leave a voicemail for the detective assigned to the case (but inexplicably forgetting to take her phone with her), when any sane person would have called 911 and left the risky work to people who carry guns. Reichs understands the mechanics of thriller writing, as demonstrated by her snappy (although sometimes overwrought) prose style, but the novel's brighter moments are overshadowed by the story's silliness.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrøm

First published in Norway in 2011.  Published in translation by Other Press on August 27, 2013.

Days in the History of Silence is an unflinching examination of a woman's colorless, regret-filled life, her adoption or acceptance of shared solitude as a shield against pain. As she tells her story, it becomes apparent that the shield is a poor barrier. Other choices might serve her better, but ingrained habits are difficult to unlearn.

Eva has retired from her job as a high school teacher of Norwegian. Her husband Simon is surrendering to a form of dementia characterized by a disturbing silence. "It is not the feeling that he is no longer there," Eva thinks. "It is the feeling that you are not either." Eva has always been afraid that Simon would one day disappear; now she wonders if this is Simon's way of doing just that. Years earlier, Simon suffered from depression, a byproduct of surviving the war as a child by hiding in a concealed room (a time when silence protected him from discovery) and of bearing the guilt of his survival when so many of his friends and family "were crossed out of history." Now he goes days before articulating a random word, as if he is challenging Eva to find its meaning, perhaps to explain to him the meaning of his life.

If Eva is not as deeply depressed as Simon was, she is at least full of woe. She tells us about unsettling childhood and marital experiences. She thinks about the son she gave away. She makes gloomy observations of the life that surrounds her. Although she believes herself to be different from her husband, the reader comes to question the accuracy of that belief. Eva thinks she talks "all the time," but as her daughter points out, she never reveals her thoughts. She might be loquacious but she is isolated, even from her children.

The novel's central conflict arises from Eva's need to decide whether to place Simon in a home for the elderly, to "give him away" as she gave away her son. Eva is clearly capable of acting as Simon's caretaker, but she thinks "our solidarity has something suspect about it now." As the novel unfolds, a secondary conflict develops as Eva tells us about Marija, the undocumented Latvian they hired to help with household chores, a woman whose companionship substituted for friendship in Eva's friendless life. The decision to fire Marija after three years of employment, and the anger it instilled in her three daughters, weighs heavily on Eva's mind. Eva refuses to explain the decision to her daughters, and while that refusal seems inexplicable to the reader, it is consistent with Eva's inability to reveal herself to them.

The reason for Marija's termination goes unexplained until near the novel's end. Given the buildup and the event's centrality to the story, Merethe Lindstrøm must have intended the explanation to have more force than it delivers. Still, this is a novel of striking images and metaphors, particularly Eva's memory of a young intruder who, despite Eva's perception of a threat, may have only been "seeking refuge" or "searching for someone, or something" -- just as Eva and Simon have spent (or wasted) their lives doing. Some moments in the story are exceptionally poignant (as when Eva checks her husband for a pulse even though she can see him breathing). Yet there is no balance here, no spark of happiness or hope to offset the unremitting melancholy, and while some lives are like that, reading about them can be an emotionally oppressive (albeit intellectually rewarding) chore. For that reason Days in the History of Silence is a novel I admire rather than love, but there is much here to admire.

RECOMMENDED

Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

First published in the UK in 2011; published in the US in hardcover by Marian Wood/Putnam in 2012 and in paperback by Penguin in 2013

Noir is dark by definition, but Bernie Gunther is at his gloomiest in Prague Fatale. He's coping with the ugly events that marked him in earlier novels. It is 1941 and Bernie is back in Berlin. After harrowing experiences in Belorussia, feeling that he is merely "a blur" of the man he once was, Bernie entertains thoughts of suicide. When he looks at the mangled body of a man hit by a train, he sees himself. He is inspired to live only by the knowledge that so many Jews with so much less have soldiered on.

The mangled body is that of Geert Vranken, who came to Germany from Holland in search of employment. That his death was neither an accident nor suicide is clear from the multiple stab wounds that cover his torso. Bernie makes little progress in the death investigation until he saves a beautiful woman named Arianne Tauber from a mugging. Arianne eventually tells Bernie an intriguing story about an envelope she was hired to deliver that has now gone missing. The information causes Bernie to investigate the death of a Czech spy before he is summoned to Prague by General Heydrich, in whose pocket Bernie unwillingly resides. At that point Prague Fatale turns into a locked room murder mystery, giving Bernie a chance to exercise his considerable detective skills.

Because Prague Fatale is a murder mystery linked with a spy mystery, the plot is even more intricate than is common in the Bernie Gunther novels. The mystery's resolution isn't entirely unexpected but the setup is clever. A plot twist at the end is too often foreshadowed to be truly surprising, but it is nonetheless satisfying. A final twist seemed to be tacked on as an afterthought. The Nazi intolerance of (and hypocrisy toward) homosexuality is one of the novel's better themes, given that gay men are among the forgotten victims of Nazi tyranny.

By now, Bernie Gunther fans are so used to the character that his understandably bitter complaints about his life are taking on a broken record quality. He gives voice to his fears of what the Nazis are doing to him, and to Germany, so often that it becomes a numbing mantra. Prague Fatale would have been a tighter novel without the frequent repetition of Bernie's angst. Still, that's a relatively minor quibble. Bernie Gunther is who he is (as he often tells us), and that's what makes these novels so absorbing.

RECOMMENDED

Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

Published by Atria Books on June 18, 2013

Children of the Jacaranda Tree spotlights characters who endure serious hardships in Iran as the direct or indirect victims of political oppression. The novel begins in 1983 with Azar, who is being transported from a prison in Tehran to a hospital where, with little assistance, she gives birth to Neda. The weeks that follow childbirth reveal the misery of caring for a baby in an uncaring environment and highlight a mother's fear of separation from her child.

As the novel jumps around in time, covering a period from 1983 to 2011, we meet other victims and survivors of tyranny. The time span gives Neda a chance to grow up and, not surprisingly, she reappears near the end of the novel. Neda has heard tales of horror recounted by her mother, relatives, and political refugees, and she seems destined (as is likely true of Sahar Delijani, who was born in the same Tehran prison as Neda) to become a bearer of their stories.

The changing time frames and characters give rise to one of the novel's central weaknesses. Character development suffers, and it becomes difficult to make a connection with the characters, because they are introduced, usually under traumatic circumstances, and then disappear as the story shifts to someone else. Their stories do not interconnect as seamlessly as they should. We learn a good bit about the brutality the characters witnessed or endured but we learn too little about the characters themselves.

Delijani's writing style is not as powerful as her subject matter. Compelling scenes are not matched by compelling prose. She strives for a literary flair that she doesn't quite attain. Some of her well-intentioned sentences come across as trite or heavy-handed. Other sentences belong in a cheesy romance novel. The picture she paints of life in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution -- the oppression of women, fear of the Revolutionary Guard -- is a familiar one, and Delijani fails to do it justice. Additional drama provided by the background of the Iran-Iraq War is too colorless to generate a strong emotional response.

There are times when Delijani's writing shows promise -- she isn't completely unskilled -- and I give her credit for telling an important story. She just doesn't tell it with the authority and power that it deserves.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

First published in Australia in 2012; published by Atria Books on August 20, 2013

The Daughters of Mars tells the story of two sisters who bond over the trauma of war, sisters who must practice "being full at ease with each other." At the same time, the novel recounts each sister's journey of self-discovery. On a larger scale, it tells of the strength of women in a world made hostile by men.

As the result of an event in which she feels morally complicit, Sally Durance carries the burden of guilt through much of The Daughters of Mars. She feels a wedge has been driven between her and her sister Naomi. Sally remains in the Valley, working as a nurse in a country hospital, while Naomi, also a nurse, returns to a more sophisticated life in Sydney. The war gives Sally a chance to escape from the bush by joining her sister in a volunteer corps of military nurses. Sally and Naomi are initially sent to Cairo, where Australian soldiers are digging trenches in anticipation of an assault by the Turks. They are soon serving on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, and later in hospital tents on Lemnos.

The genius of Thomas Keneally's storytelling lies in the small details: the traffic jam of ambulances and trucks as the hospital ship offloads the wounded; the sounds made by a drowning horse; the differing forms of chemical warfare. Images of war and its impact on the nurses are vivid.

Book one introduces a varied cast of memorable characters, each of whom makes an impact, large or small, on one or both of the Durance sisters. Some return later in the novel; others meet their fate in war. The female characters, in particular, are strong-willed and self-sacrificing. By book two, the sisters have (unwillingly) taken separate paths. Each sister considers possibilities of romance that the war has opened up to her. To the extent that The Daughters of Mars is a story of romance, however, it reflects a larger theme: the story of a changing world, a world in which women are gaining the courage to say what they want from men.

The changing role of women, their growing role as leaders (not just in romance), is only one of several strong themes. The novel is also a contemplation of morality -- which, to those who preach it, is "really a kind of fussiness." War changes one's perception of morality; small transgressions lose their importance when compared to the vileness of battles fought with mines and mustard gas; crabbed notions of sexual morality give way to the need for physical pleasure as insulation against the daily threat of death. The Daughters of Mars is also an examination of war: its causes (young men feel "the pull of self-immolation") and, more strikingly, its casualties -- including psychological casualties, as women (and less charitable men) debate whether "shell-shocked" soldiers are ill or malingerers -- and the impact those casualties (particularly altered personalities) will have on the women who married the injured soldiers.

To a large extent, the novel is a study in contrasts: rural versus urban Australia; Australia versus Europe; colonial directness versus mannered old world reticence; fortunate health versus sudden disability; traditional roles of women versus emerging feminist thought; the love of women for men versus the love of women for each other; death by war versus death by disease. Many of the contrasts are gender-based. The Daughters of Mars also explores the different ways men and women measure themselves.

Readers who lack the patience for a story that develops at a sedate pace might have trouble staying with The Daughters of Mars. Some passages read like a travelogue as Susan sees a new world from the deck of a ship or through the windows of a train. For those who persevere, calmness gives way to intensity. The novel is, in that regard, like war: for long stretches, nothing of consequence happens, soldiers get bored, but when action erupts, it is furious. A key secondary character suffers one tragedy after another and the piling on becomes a bit much. The ending is odd (but very modern or postmodern or whatever). And while I do think The Daughters of Mars is longer than it needs to be -- again, there's just too much piling on, although tragedy is spread among many characters -- it's difficult to complain about length when a novel is written in such fine prose. In any event, this is ultimately a war story, and war stories are inauthentic if they are not about loss. The First World War was a long war, filled with losses for the countries that fought it. The Daughters of Mars accordingly tells a long sad story, but it is in many respects a compelling story.

RECOMMENDED