Ratlines by Stuart Neville

Published by Soho Crime on January 2, 2013 

Three men have been assassinated: a Belgian and a Norwegian who, having allied themselves with the Reich, came to Ireland as refugees, and a German who worked for the SS. A note left in a victim's pocket suggests that the killer will soon be coming for Otto Skorzeny, formerly of the SS (a character who is borrowed from the real world). With President Kennedy about to visit Ireland, the Irish government can afford no political unpleasantness. The Directorate of Intelligence assigns Albert Ryan to investigate the killings. As Ryan pursues that task, the killings continue; a Breton who fought for Germany becomes the next person selected to deliver a message to Skorzeny. When it becomes clear that someone close to Skorzeny has betrayed him by acting as an informant, Ryan and Skorzeny are in a race to find the rat. Also putting pressure on Ryan to deliver information is a Mossad agent named Weiss who eventually becomes one of the novel's central characters.

The question of Irish neutrality during the war is directly addressed in a discussion between Ryan and a rabbi, but it provides a fascinating subtext that pervades the novel. Ryan is not a popular guy in his home town, in part because his family is Protestant, in part because he fought for the British during World War II -- the surest route he could find to leave home. In the eyes of many, he allied himself with his nation's enemy. Now he is being asked to ally himself with a former Nazi. Ryan's divided loyalties make him a more interesting character than is common in thrillers.

Weiss adds another layer of intrigue when he tries to exploit Ryan's sense of conflict for his own ends. Amidst the many competing agendas, the truth is obscured, at least for awhile, leaving Ryan even more unclear as to where his duty of loyalty may lie.

The plot is mildly complex but easy to follow. I wouldn't call it convoluted. It turns on a surprising twist that comes about two-thirds of the way into the story -- surprising but, I thought, credible. Stuart Neville creates a dark and gritty atmosphere while populating the novel with the kind of grim, morally questionable characters who serve as a perfect foil for Ryan. Action scenes are nicely interspersed with scenes of political intrigue.

Occasional moments of melodrama mar the story, and the characterization of Skorzeny is a bit over-the-top, but both of those are common flaws in modern thrillers, and neither is so pronounced as to trouble me. The ending, while satisfying, is a little too neat. On the whole, though, Ratlines is enjoyable and, at least on occasion, thought-provoking. That's more than I can say about most thrillers.

RECOMMENDED

Trouble Is My Name by Stephen Marlowe

First published in 1956; published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media on December 18, 2012 

Stephen Marlowe was a prolific author who wrote under a variety of pen names. He attached his real name (Milton Lesser) to a few science fiction novels that are all but forgotten. His detective fiction is largely remembered for his creation of Chester Drum, a private investigator based in Washington, D.C. Trouble is My Name, a Drum novel, was first published in 1956. The story takes place in that time frame.

During the war, the O.S.S. supplied gold bars to fund a partisan resistance group in Germany. The responsible O.S.S. officers, Fred Severing and Kevin Keogh, disagreed about whether the gold should go to a group of Bavarians or a group affiliated with the Russians. Then Keogh died and the gold disappeared. Years later, for reasons that remain murky until the novel's end, Severing, now a congressman and a probable vice presidential candidate, is back in Germany.

Chester Drum travels to Germany in search of Severing, who has displeased his party by disappearing without explanation. To find Severing, Drum needs to speak to Wilhelm Rust, a war criminal who has served his sentence, but the interview is interrupted by gunfire. The Streicher twins, entertainers who double as killers, are after Rust, as are the West German security police, Rust's son, and Keogh's daughter Patty, who wants Rust to explain how her father died. Drum, naturally, is caught in the middle.

Drum is the kind of private detective who dominated noir fiction in the 1940s and 1950s. He's bright, tough, and cranky. He oozes integrity. You have to wonder how any of these guys made a living. They were always working for free, doing what needed to be done because it was the right thing to do, disdainfully ripping up checks from clients who tried to fire them.

Drum's biggest problem is that "the right thing to do" isn't always clear. He wants to be on the side of the angels, but someone stole the gold and someone is willing to murder to recover it. Is Severing an angel, a devil, or a pawn?

The set-up is interesting and credible. Marlowe's capable prose moves the story forward at a steady pace, leading to an extended action scene that (unlike many modern thrillers) is also credible. The conclusion is pure noir and quite satisfying.

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Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey

Published by Soho Press on December 26, 2012 

Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See is an honest, searing examination of a man in pain, a man suffering from a mental illness that is beyond his understanding or control. The illness turns him into a raging a-hole, and because it is not a physical illness with easily identifiable symptoms, because he suffers from bipolar disorder rather than cancer, he is shunned, treated with derision rather than sympathy.

As the novel begins, Greyson Todd, a studio executive, is becoming increasingly reclusive. He can't handle the noise of life. His memory, once his strongest asset, is failing. He can no longer cope with responsibility. One day, after a bit of planning, he leaves his life and eight-year-old daughter behind. The story then begins to tumble in time until the reader realizes that in the present, Greyson is hospitalized, undergoing treatment for his condition.

Some of the novel is quite compelling, particularly the sections that directly address Greyson's mental illness. Juliann Garey describes Greyson's decaying mind in powerful, convincing prose. "Slowly, over time, like wallpaper, the face I have shown the world has peeled away. I am a building on the brink of being condemned." His description of depressive thinking and suicidal ideation is vivid. Greyson's attempts to anesthetize and to distract himself are frighteningly real. The descriptions of Greyson's treatment -- the ECT (a nice name for electroshock), the memory loss, the lethargy and other side effects of lithium -- are harrowing. They leave the reader wondering whether the cure is worse than the disease. There are also some touching moments as Greyson's mind begins to clear and he tries to reestablish relationships that may or may not be permanently damaged.

Other parts of the novel seem fragmented. I'm sure that's deliberate, a representation of a fragmented mind, and after an understanding of the novel's structure takes hold, the random jumps in time become easier to digest. The fragments, pieced together, tell the story of Greyson's life. Some work better than others. The early years (1957-60), showcasing Greyson's relationship with a father who had his own mental health problems, are insubstantial. The 1970s and early 1980s, when Greyson is advancing from agent to superstar agent to studio executive, tell a too familiar story of Hollywood excess. More interesting are the years after Greyson leaves his family: an erotic encounter with a Bedouin in the Negev; touring the sex menu in Bangkok; in apparent pursuit of a death wish, taking a dubious tour of the "real" Africa. Greyson's attempt to live independently in New York, characterized by isolation and paranoia and meltdowns, reflect some of the novel's strongest writing.

This is not a good choice for readers who want to bond with likable characters. It is easy to sympathize with Greyson, but an honest portrayal of a manic-depressive assures that the character will often be unlikable. Greyson's daughter is quite likable, as is an old man who befriends Greyson when he's living in New York, but they both play limited roles in the overall narrative. Readers looking for happy endings and closure might also be disappointed with the novel. Still, there is a sense of guarded hopefulness at the novel's end; the story isn't entirely bleak. The ending is realistic and, as Garey makes a point of saying, it isn't Hollywood cheesy.

The novel's message -- other than the need to understand rather than condemn the mentally ill -- is that bipolar disorder is an extreme manifestation of what most of us experience in our daily lives: highs and lows, mood swings, moments of irrational anger or unexplained exuberance. We manage to stay in control, "the ups and downs stay within a manageable range," but that reflects our good fortune, our good brain chemistry, not our good character. We can't take credit for it, any more than Greyson is to blame for the faulty wiring of his brain. I give Garey credit for conveying that message so effectively.

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Raised from the Ground by José Saramago

First published in Portuguese in 1980; published in translation by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on December 4, 2012

José Saramago’s death in 2010 was a sad loss for the world of literature, but his novels endure.  It is often difficult to know what to make of a Saramago novel.  He infuses drama with humor so as to make them indistinguishable, relies upon fantasy to illuminate reality, distorts history to help us understand the present.  Saramago merges philosophy with storytelling.  With keen observation, he chronicles moral failings while remaining an extraordinarily forgiving writer.  Unlike nature, which “displays remarkable callousness when creating her various creatures,” Saramago displays compassion and understanding when creating his flawed characters.

Raised from the Ground is the story of the latifundio, the Portuguese landed estates and those who toil upon them. The laborers are the victims of "infinite misfortune, inconsolable grief, both of which lasted from the nineteenth century to the day before yesterday." Plagues, famines, wars, and the cruel overseers of the latifundio are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the "great evils" that devastate the working poor. The workers spend their lives as if "tethered to a stake," governed by arbitrariness, and in a state of perpetual hunger. Is death the only escape, or is change possible? Fighting for a minimum wage and an eight hour day may seem futile, but futility is a way of life in the latifundio. It is the need to fight for change that compels the narrator to proclaim: "we are not men if we do not raise ourselves up from the ground."

With their meager possessions loaded onto a donkey cart, the shoemaker Domingos Mau-Tempo and his wife (Sara da Conceição) and son (João) make their way to their new home in São Cristóvão, the first of several relocations Domingos will impose upon his family. Domingos' miserable story (briefly interrupted in 1910 by the arrival of the Portuguese Republic and the end of the monarchy) segues into Sara's sad story and eventually becomes João's. Circumstances turn João into an unwitting labor leader, or at least he is mistaken for one; his support of a strike becomes the defining event of his life. The meandering story eventually introduces João's son António, who is drafted into the army despite his illiteracy, his daughter Gracinda, who wants to marry João's friend despite her poverty, and his granddaughter Maria, who shares his blue eyes. In 1974, the Carnation Revolution overthrows Portugal's dictatorship, an event that brings the living and dead together in celebration, a fitting end to a powerful story.

The novel's run-on sentences, assembled from words seemingly poured from buckets, flow with a rhythm that is uniquely Saramago's. Dialog is buried haphazardly in the text, always in keeping with the rhythm of the narrative, never set off by quotation marks, and while it's usually easy to understand who is speaking, some readers will be put off by the unconventional style. Although the narrator's identity is neither clear nor consistent, the narrator's chatty editorial voice is always present. As if conversing with a friend, the narrator will mention a town and say "you probably know the place." The narrator sometimes professes not to understand the mysteries of life that he is relating, sometimes says "let's see how things turn out." He gives the reader information that, he says, won't contribute to an understanding of the story, but will let us "know each other better, as the gospels urge us to do." He reminds us that "the seemingly unimportant and the seemingly important form part of the same narrative," and all of it, taken together, is "as good a way as any to explain the latifundio." He suggests that people who might take a different view of the latifundio "clearly don't know much about life." All of this is vintage Saramago: tongue-in-cheek, playful commentary masking profound wisdom shaped by boundless compassion.

Compassionate wisdom is abundant in this haunting story. Saramago reveals the dignity and tribulations of the working poor and the indifferent cruelty of those who exploit them. He explores poverty and charity and the great equalizing force of death. He bemoans wars that tax and kill the poor while benefitting the rich. He ridicules the labeling of striking farm workers as terrorists and exposes the true terrorists: the government agents who have the power to brand those who speak for the powerless as "dangerous elements." He describes the torture of a man from the standpoint of an ant that, unlike the torturers, has a conscience. He lampoons priests who pray for the landowners and lecture the poor. Most importantly, amidst all the agony and suffering that his novel documents, he wryly acknowledges that "life has its good points too." Travel and beauty and sex and birth bring joy and renewal, even if only for a moment. Yet if "each day brings some hope with its sorrow ... then the sorrow will never end and the hope will only ever be just that and nothing more."

Saramago's matter-of-fact presentation of the absurd is filled with deadpan wit and goofy digressions. He treats the reader to hilarious descriptions of peasantry sex ("they huff and puff, they're not exactly subtle"), a political rally ("Where do I go to take a piss?"), middle age ("if this is the prime of life, then allow me to weep"), and the revolution ("what kind of name is junta for a government, there must be some mistake"). António's tall hunting stories, including his technique for catching a hare with pepper and a newspaper, are reason enough to read the book. Yet even the funniest stories are in some sense allegorical. They illuminate life in the latifundio, which isn't much different for rabbits and men.

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Merry Christmas!