Ignorance by Michèle Roberts

Published by Bloomsbury USA on January 22, 2013 

Ignorance tells the story of Jeanne Nérin and Marie-Angèle Baudry before, during, and after Germany's occupation of France during World War II. Marie-Angèle is the daughter of a devout Catholic, a middle class grocer in a small village. Jeanne is the daughter of a Jewish washerwoman who converted to Catholicism in 1920, the year of her engagement.

When her widowed mother enters the hospital, nuns take on nine-year-old Jeanne as a charity boarder in the convent. Jeanne is joined by her friend Marie-Angèle. Two formative experiences in her early teens shape Jeanne's understanding of womanhood. While Marie-Angèle looks on, Jeanne is required to expose herself to a priest who uses the sight to achieve sexual gratification. That experience provides her with context when she visits a Jewish man known to the Village as the Hermit, a collector of pornography whose wife was murdered in a pogrom. The Hermit draws pictures of Jeanne, sometimes dressed in his wife's clothes, sometimes nude.

Most of the novel focuses on later events in the lives of the two girls. By the time the war comes, they have left the convent. Jeanne begins a relationship with a Frenchman and eventually gives birth to a daughter she names Andrée. Marie-Angèle's parents do business with a black market supplier named Maurice who eventually seduces, impregnates, and marries Marie-Angèle. At the same time, Maurice is visiting a bordello in a neighboring village where he runs into Jeanne, who is working as a cleaning woman.

Michèle Roberts offers a nuanced portrayal of French families struggling with the hardships of war. As a coping strategy, they try to forget that the war surrounds them, that their country is occupied. They conveniently regard the resistance as communist controlled and want nothing to do with it while adopting a wary "live and let live" attitude toward their German occupiers. On the other hand, they often reveal their anti-Semitic attitudes in their harsh judgments of Jeanne and the Hermit while choosing to live in ignorance of Nazi atrocities.

The two girls are rich, complex characters. Marie-Angèle is convinced that her family belongs to a better class than Jeanne's family and has decidedly mixed feelings about Jeanne. As does everyone else, she assumes Jeanne became a whore when she moved into the bordello. Marie-Angèle helps Jeanne give birth to her child but is unwilling to renew their childhood friendship. During the celebration of Liberation, when Jeanne is marched down the street with women who serviced German soldiers, her head shaved bald to mark her "betrayal of France," Marie-Angèle feels a mixture of compassion and loathing for her former friend. Feeling repentant, she feels she is doing Jeanne a favor by arranging her transportation to London, where no one will know her, and by forcing her to give up her child for adoption.

Maurice is a more enigmatic figure. He shows one face to Marie-Angèle, another to Jeanne. Whether he is supports or opposes the occupation is never certain, although it seems clear that he is entirely motivated by self-interest. He smuggles Jews out of France but only if they have money. He helps Jeanne's mother but there is a price to pay.

Roberts has a keen eye for detail and a pitch-perfect ear for descriptive prose. Here she describes the women in the bordello: "Decked in skimpy pastel crêpe de Chine slips, arms and legs bare, feet swinging high-heeled satin mules, eyelashes brushed black, mouths transformed into sharp red bows, they waited to be bought." Captivating descriptions of scents and textures season the story.

Two sections of the novel are less satisfying than the rest. One concerns Andrée as she is raised by nuns who unjustly belittle her as the illegitimate child of a whore. The other is told from the point of view of a nun named Dolly who, until that point, has been a rather unsympathetic background character. Both stories are too abbreviated to add significant depth to the novel. The final chapter, taking the reader to London with Dolly, is also abbreviated but it provides, if not exactly closure, a fitting end to the story.

RECOMMENDED

Enemy of Mine by Brad Taylor

Published by Dutton on January 15, 2013 

Enemy of Mine does what an action novel needs to do: it delivers action. Along the way, it tells a surprisingly intelligent, carefully plotted story.

The prologue to Enemy of Mine begins with a nightmare (always a bad start to a novel) as Pike Logan dreams about the murder of his wife and child four years earlier. The main story begins with the assassination of an investigator who had gathered evidence implicating the Syrian government and Hezbollah in the 2005 death of Lebanon's prime minister. The assassin (a freelance terrorist known as the Ghost) then accepts an assignment to kill the American envoy to upcoming peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. A competing freelance assassin, an American named Lucas Kane but known by the code name Infidel, turns up to add spice to the plot. Pike encountered Infidel in One Rough Man.

Pike's ultimate mission, and that of the counter-terrorism Taskforce to which he is assigned, is to prevent the envoy's assassination. When they aren't with Pike, other members of the Taskforce come into focus, particularly Jennifer, an anthropologist who kicks butt when she isn't educating the other Taskforce members about world history. Knuckles and Decoy will also be familiar to series fans, while a new guy named Brett joins the team. Pike and Jennifer, however, are the only characters who gain new depth in this novel.

Occasionally the story spotlights Col. Kurt Hale, who commands the Taskforce from Washington D.C. Hale sits on an oversight committee that answers to the president (the only elected official on the committee). Since the Taskforce operates "outside the bounds of U.S. law" (it doesn't notify Congress or obtain Congressional approval before kidnapping or assassinating its targets), Hale and Pike and everyone else on the Taskforce, as well as the president and everyone on the oversight committee, is by definition a criminal. A reader needs to accept this unlikely premise (at least, one would hope it's unlikely) in order to enjoy the story. Since modern thrillers are almost always built on unlikely foundations, I rolled with it.

The main plot is cunning, bringing to mind (without overtly stating) the familiar Arabic proverb, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Of course, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy. A couple of assassination schemes that unfold during the course of the novel are quite clever. The last quarter of the novel, after the main plot has wound down, seems like padding but it's enjoyable padding. A key subplot depends upon a wildly improbable coincidence that is easily forgiven since it drives the action at the end of the novel.

The story moves at a brisk pace. Brad Taylor's prose is straightforward but Enemy of Mine is about story, not style. The story is entertaining, although some events are predictable. Pike gets into bar fights to prove what a tough guy he is, just as he did in The Callsign. He risks his team and his cover to save a girl he doesn't know, after being ordered to cease operations, simultaneously proving his heroism and independence. In fact, Pike frequently disregards orders and never suffers any consequences because he always turns out to be right. Knuckles gives us the usual detailed description of the care a sniper takes to fire an accurate long-distance shot. The oversight committee is predictably bureaucratic in its refusal to trust the judgment of Taskforce members in the field. None of these scenes are bad, but they've all been done many times before.

Taylor has a more nuanced view of the world than some action novelists. He acknowledges that terrorists can be intelligent, that they do not share a unified ideology, and that the differing motivations of terrorist organizations lead them to pursue conflicting goals. Although Pike obviously disagrees with it, Taylor presents the Lebanese perspective on Hezbollah and the 2006 war with refreshing honesty, while Hale recognizes that there is a difference between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Unlike most action novel heroes, Pike knows that using torture as an interrogation technique is more likely to produce lies than truth. And unlike the vigilante "heroes" that populate so many thrillers, Pike has moral reservations about revenge killing, creating a dilemma when he experiences an overwhelming desire for revenge.

In short, this is an impressive action novel with a solid plot that reflects an unusually sophisticated worldview. On top of that, it's fun.

RECOMMENDED

The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

Published by Nan A. Talese on January 15, 2013 

The Drowning House is a novel in which dark secrets are revealed, one after another, like bullets from a machine gun. Unfortunately, it takes too long for the firing to begin, and unlike bullets, the revelations have no impact.

Clare Porterfield is a successful photographer who grew up in Galveston, where she returns after an absence of many years to select archived photographs for an exhibition. She has grown apart from her husband Michael, probably because she says things to him like "I want to hear your ideas but I don't want advice," as if the poor guy is supposed to know whether his suggestion of an idea will be construed as advice. Clare also makes condescending remarks about Michael's inability to understand her photography and belittles his "conventional" taste. Their marriage is rocky in part because Clare blames herself for their daughter's death, although Michael obviously does not. Clare is similarly consumed with grievances about her deceased father and unloving mother. She's constantly picking at the scabs of her past, refusing to let them heal.

The novel takes its title from an apocryphal story about the house adjacent to Clare's childhood home -- identified in Galveston guide books as the Carraday House -- in which a seventeen-year-old girl is said to have drowned during a hurricane in 1900. When Clare was still living at home, she spent much of her time visiting Patrick Carraday, "the brother I never had, then later, something more." Then, when she was fourteen, she and Patrick shared a dark moment, the details of which are slowly revealed as the story progresses. After that event, Clare is sent to the Ohio to live with her grandmother and Patrick goes to Europe. In the present, despite being married and not having seen Patrick since they were young, and in the absence of any evidence of interest on Patrick's part in renewing their relationship, Clare can't stop mooning over him. She wants another life, the life with Patrick she imagines she would have had if not for their separation. Clare will eventually discover the difference between fantasy and reality.

The novel's first half is told in long passages of expository writing that the reader must wade through while wondering if they will lead to an actual story. Eventually we learn that the Carradays are keeping a dark secret about their family while Clare's mother is keeping a dark secret about Clare's family. By the time the secrets finally emerged, one bombshell revelation following another, I had stopped caring. Actually, I never started caring, so the blockbuster secrets struck me as contrived melodrama.

I don't need to like a novel's characters because unlikable characters can furnish insights into human nature, but I learned nothing from tedious Clare. It's understandable that Clare is grieving the loss of her daughter. It's understandable that she injects her pain into nearly every conversation she has. It's understandable that she thinks "that grieving the loss of my child would be my life's work." It's understandable that she resents her father, her mother, Patrick's father, and just about everyone in Galveston. But it is just as emotionally draining to read about woe-drenched people who are buttoned up in an insular world of pain as it is to interact with them in real life. It doesn't help that Clare is condescending, not just to her husband but to almost everyone (she wonders, for instance, whether the names Shakespeare and Homer "mean anything" to "harried mothers ... and grizzled homeless men" as if mothers and the homeless never graduate from high school).

Elizabeth Black's descriptions of Galveston are informative and colorful. She writes wonderfully rhythmic sentences, but they had a tendency to lull me to sleep. Black strives to fill every sentence with deep meaning. After awhile, her observational prose ("It's interesting to watch the very rich play the role of host") and earnest questions ("Have you ever discovered yourself in someone else's snapshot?") and reflective comments ("A child is a chance to be someone new and different") become grating. In fact, if I had to describe The Drowning House in a single word, "grating" is the word I would choose.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Seconds by David Ely

First published in 1963; published by Harper Voyager on January 22, 2013 

According to the publisher, Seconds is a cult classic. I must belong to the wrong cult because I wasn't familiar with it until it appeared in a new edition.

Should Wilson leave his life behind? Should he start again? He gets along with his wife but passion, even affection, has long disappeared. He rarely hears from his daughter. His job at the bank provides him with a comfortable living but its routine nature is less than satisfying. It's a difficult decision to make but, as someone tells him, "there never was a struggle in the soul of a good man that wasn't hard."

These questions arise when Wilson (who isn't yet known by that name) gets a call from a dead friend who recommends a service that offers its clients a rebirth. Wilson doesn't quite understand what the service is all about, but his friend arranges an appointment and Wilson keeps it. The firm provides Wilson with a faked death complete with a corpse that passes as his own, then gives him a new appearance, occupation (artist, complete with a fine arts degree, portfolio, and solid reviews), and residence.

Reinventing oneself as a completely new person, leaving the old self behind, is an inviting fantasy, but Wilson learns (and this, I think, is the story's point) that it isn't as pleasant as we imagine it to be. It isn't easy to "cast off all the old associations and memories on which he had become accustomed to depend." In fact, once Wilson is "dead," he defies the rules by investigating his old life as others saw him. Unsurprisingly, he's not pleased with what he learns, or with the knowledge that he is so little missed. The fate of those, like Wilson, who don't follow the rules, who don't adjust well to rebirth, is the story's kicker.

If Seconds is indeed a cult classic, I can understand why. Soylent Green is something of a cult classic for similar reasons: there's a sort of irony in the surprise ending and the story can be seen as a commentary on the true value of human life. Seconds sends additional messages: Dreams don't always come true, particularly when the dream isn't yours to begin with. And: If you want to abandon your life because you've made a botch of it and start over, what makes you think you'll do any better the second time around? As with Soylent Green, you need to accept a certain measure of implausibility to enjoy Seconds, but enjoy it I did. I guess that means I've joined a new cult.

RECOMMENDED

Bibliomysteries by Laura Lippman and William Link

MysteriousPress.com is publishing (in digital form) a series of stand-alone mystery stories by popular crime authors in which books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts play a central role.  I don't usually review individual short stories, but I'm making an exception for the Bibliomystery series because the concept is interesting and the authors are well known.

"The Book Thing" by Laura Lippman was published on January 15, 2013.

Expensive illustrated books are disappearing from the children's bookstore in Tess Monaghan's North Baltimore neighborhood. Since Tess wants the store to survive so her daughter will have a place to shop for books, she agrees to investigate despite the owner's inability to pay her. It doesn't take Tess long to discover how the thefts are being committed.

While Tess tries her hand at social work and matchmaking before the story is done, the tale's best moments belong to the thief rather than the private investigator. He is drawn with uncommon understanding and compassion. The thief prompts Tess to think about the lives that books live, they ways they die, and the purposes they serve.

Given the uncertain future of brick-and-mortar bookstores, the story is notable for its condemnation of tacky readers who get free advice from bookstore owners and then download the recommended books into their eReaders from online retailers. The story also has a telling message about parents who burden their kids with their own childhood favorites (potentially killing the child's desire to read) rather than letting their children discover their own treasures. In short, this bibliomystery isn't much of a mystery, but it's a fine examination of the role books play in our lives.

RECOMMENDED

"Death Leaves a Bookmark" by William Link was published on December 11, 2012.

Troy Pellingham, hoping to speed up his inheritance, kills his wealthy uncle, the owner of an antiquarian bookstore, by toppling a heavy bookcase on him and smashing his skull with a heavy art book.  Police Lieutenant Columbo investigates the death.

All the familiar Columbo props and mannerisms are showcased: his cigars and rumpled raincoat; his search through every pocket for the one that's holding his notebook; his disarming pretense of forgetfulness; his habit, when questioning a suspect, of saying "Oh, just one more thing" as he is about to leave; his repetition of phrases like "boy, oh boy" and "That's a new one on me!"

In "Death Leaves a Bookmark," Columbo doesn't piece together clues like he did on the television show. In fact, he solves the crime without much effort at all. Still, the murderer and his attractive cousin (who plays a vital supporting role) are well defined characters, and their interaction adds spice to the story.

If you are unfamiliar with Columbo and don't see Peter Falk in your mind as you read "Death Leaves a Bookmark," I would recommend this story with resrvations because there isn't much to it. For Columbo fans, I recommend it whole-heartedly just for the joy of seeing the weathered detective in action again.

RECOMMENDED