The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

Published by Random House on March 8, 2011

By the time she is thirteen, Natalia has taken so many trips with her grandfather to visit the caged tigers that she feels like a prisoner of ritual. Then a war hundreds of miles distant breaks the ritual: the zoo closes, curfews are implemented, students are disappearing, and spending time with her grandfather seems less important than committing small acts of defiance: staying out late, kissing a boyfriend behind a broken vending machine, and listening to black market recordings of Paul Simon and Johnny Cash. When her grandfather is suspended from his medical practice because he is suspected of harboring "loyalist feelings toward the unified state," Natalia adopts new rituals that keep her at his side when he isn't paying clandestine visits to his old patients. In return, he takes her to see an astonishing sight that offers the hope for an eventual restoration of the rituals that made up their pre-war lives. Natalia's grandfather tells her that this is their moment: not a moment of war to be shared by everyone else, but a moment that is uniquely theirs.

The Tiger's Wife is filled with wondrous moments, small scenes that assemble into a novel of power and wisdom and beauty. As an adult doctor delivering medicine across new and uncertain borders, Natalia grieves for her deceased grandfather while recalling the lessons he taught and the stories he told -- stories that more often than not center on death: how it is faced, feared, and embraced. Death is everywhere in this novel: death caused by war, by disease, by animal and man and child. And there is death's counterpoint, a character who cannot die (or so the grandfather's story goes). Death is virtually a character in the novel, as is the devil -- although the devil's identity is somewhat obscure, appearing as someone's uncle in one of the grandfather's stories, suspected of wearing the guise of a tiger by others. The tiger, of course, is a force of death -- feared by many, but not by the tiger's wife, who shows us that fear is unnecessary. Ultimately, coming to terms with death is, I think, the novel's subject matter.

Téa Obreht writes with clarity and compassion. She tells the interwoven stories that comprise The Tiger's Wife without judgment or sentiment. Her characters are authentic; with only one or two exceptions, she doesn't go out of her way to make them likable or sympathetic. Nor does she ask readers to hate characters who commit evil acts, although she wants us to understand them. She does not insist that we either condemn or condone the actions of a wife-abusing butcher. Instead, she gives us a chance to comprehend human complexity, to know that there is more to the characters than their offensive or violent actions. The village gossips, knowing nothing of the truth, judge both the abuser and the abused. Obreht shows us how foolish it is to judge others without knowing them ... and how unlikely it is that we will know enough to judge.

Obrecht writes with the maturity and confidence of an accomplished novelist. Her style is graceful. It is difficult to believe that this is her first novel. If she continues to produce work as sound as The Tiger's Wife, readers should wish her a long career. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

Published by Crown on March 8, 2011

Vanessa Michael Munroe is a dangerous loner who bears emotional and physical scars, reminiscent of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. Like Salander, Munroe is adept at acquiring information. While Salander relies upon her skills as a computer hacker, Munroe infiltrates cultures, sometimes posing as a man, working in developing countries for private businesses and organizations like the IMF. Despite her desperate need for down time and the fact that it really isn't her line of work, she accepts an assignment to locate a wealthy businessman's daughter who was last seen in Namibia four years earlier. The businessman insists that Munroe work with Miles Bradford, a mercenary whose job is to keep her safe. The search takes Munroe to Central Africa, where she has some history that she would prefer to remain buried. Yet she remains a product of her inescapable past: fierce and determined, but tormented by the preaching voices that keep her awake at night. Munroe travels to some nasty places and encounters even nastier people who would prefer that the circumstances of the young woman's disappearance remain a mystery. She also meets up with the life she left behind, including a close friend: a gunrunner from whom she walked away nine years earlier.

If the gunrunner brings to mind Humphrey Bogart, Munroe would have to be a warped composite of Jessica Alba, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, and all three Charlie's Angels. She's a great character: an intuitive, intelligent action hero who speaks multiple languages, practices martial arts, and is handy with a knife; a haunted nomad with a horrific past whose understandable ferocity is barely restrained (except when it's not). She has a (largely unfulfilled) desire for romance that conflicts with her instinct for self-preservation, adding edginess to her character. Munroe has enough appeal to support a series of sequels (which is probably the author's plan). Certainly there are aspects of her persona that aren't fully developed; perhaps Stevens intends to complete the picture in future novels. The other characters have been requisitioned from central casting (Daniel Craig as the mercenary, I think) but Stevens gives them enough personality to keep them from being complete stereotypes.

The Informationist takes place in a setting that will be unfamiliar to most readers, as it was to me, but Stevens brings it alive. She paints a vivid picture of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The African locale is a welcome departure from thrillers set in Uzbekistan or Los Angeles. Munroe's writing style is straightforward; her capable prose isn't stirring (that's rare in a thriller) but it is more than adequate to tell the rapidly moving story. There are times when the narrative is a bit over the top, particularly in its description of Munroe's "blood lust" as well as her tendency to bind people with duct tape and point guns at them (when one of the characters told her she had to stop doing that to him, I had to agree). The last part of the novel turns into a guessing game (just who is betraying whom?) and the unexpected resolution is satisfying.

Sensitive readers should be aware that they might be disturbed by some of the more violent scenes in the novel, particularly those involving Munroe's memories of her teenage years: readers who would be put off by graphic descriptions of abuse involving minors should stay away from this novel. For those who can cope, however, The Informationist offers a unique thriller experience that most fans of the genre should enjoy. 

RECOMMENDED

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

Published by Tor on May 10, 2011

As you might suspect from the title, the story told in The Quantum Thief involves a thief. The thief's current identity is Jean le Flambeur (his past identities are something of a mystery, even to him). The novel opens with Jean escaping from a Dilemma Prison, busted out by Mieli (with an assist from her artificially intelligent ship) so that Jean can carry out an assignment for Mieli. She takes him to the Moving City of the Oubliette on Mars, where Jean's storyline intersects a couple of others: Isidore Beautrelet's investigation of a murder that resulted from pirating the victim's gogol (essentially, the uploading and enslavement of his mind), and Raymonde's attempt to get to the bottom of an apparent political conspiracy that jeopardizes the ideals of freedom and privacy upon which the Oubliette was founded. Along the way the reader discovers that the relationships among the primary characters are complex if not Byzantine.

The Quantum Thief is filled with richly inventive ideas. I particularly like the notion of using Time as currency: when a person's allocated Time in Oubliette has all been spent, his body dies (to be held in storage pending resurrection) while his gogol becomes part of a collective that keeps the city functioning. Another intriguing concept is the ability to make memories private or public, to share them selectively with others. Fun stuff, but ideas alone do not a novel make. A common flaw in hard science fiction is a lack of balance between the science and the fiction, with ample attention given to futuristic concepts but not enough to the demands of storytelling: a coherent plot, fully developed characters, dramatic tension, credible dialog, and the like. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Hannu Rajaniemi crafted a novel that gives due attention to these requirements. His characters have intriguing personalities, the story is carefully paced and the storylines come together nicely at the end. The novel is a skillful blend of science fiction and political thriller. The ending is a bit abrupt, the solutions to the novel's many mysteries seemingly jammed together in the last few pages, but overall The Quantum Thief tells an entertaining, capably crafted story that explores the themes of freedom and privacy in a thought-provoking manner. The ending also leaves open the possibility of (and practically invites) a sequel.

The novel employs a number of terms that are defined only by their context, a technique that avoids pace-slowing exposition but risks confusion to the extent that their meaning is unclear. I happened upon a Glossary of terms in The Quantum Thief in Wikipedia that struggling readers might find helpful. Readers who prefer to puzzle it out for themselves, or who simply have a more intuitive understanding of invented terminology than I do, probably regard reliance on the glossary as cheating, but I was grateful for its existence. Because the novel covers such unfamiliar ground, I found it made for tough sledding at times; occasionally I had to reread paragraphs before I could absorb them fully. I don't say that to put readers off; on the contrary, difficult novels are often more rewarding than easy ones, and that is true of The Quantum Thief. In any event, after awhile the brain adjusts and the world Rajaniemi created starts to become recognizable. I recommend the novel to fans of hard sf and I look forward to seeing more from Rajaniemi. 

RECOMMENDED

The Gods of Greenwich by Norb Vonnegut

Published by Minotaur on April 26, 2011

Although I've enjoyed financial thrillers by Joseph Finder and Steven Gore (I haven't yet gotten to Stephen Frey or Christopher Reich), I approach them with some trepidation because for me, reading about finance is about as exciting as watching the Dow Jones ticker scrolling along the bottom of a television screen. As I began The Gods of Greenwich, however, those concerns vanished and never returned. The plot is smart and compelling, the characters are engaging, and Norb Vonnegut's writing style is energetic. This isn't a book that bogs down in the jargon of arbitrageurs and commodities brokers. Like a volatile market, the plot moves in unforeseen directions with unexpected speed.

Wealth, power, and crime are the key ingredients in a financial thriller. In The Gods of Greenwich, they are present in abundance. Norb Vonnegut creates credible characters from the financial world, both shady and relatively honest, while adding a ruthless female contract killer to the mix. The characters are strong, familiar without becoming stereotypical. Cy Leeser is the ultimate money managing jerk, complete with a trophy wife who isn't quite good enough, a 19,000-square-foot home that isn't quite big enough, a family that isn't quite large enough, a priceless art collection that isn't quite exclusive enough, and an oversize ego that's more than enough to make readers crave his downfall. Jimmy Cusack is a young hedge fund manager who is less successful than Leeser; the sluggish economy has caused his clients (including his father-in-law) to bail, forcing him to join Leeser's hedge fund team to save his condo from foreclosure. Jimmy's wife Emi suffers from a facial recognition disorder. Ólafur is a managing director at Hafnarbanki, Reykjavik's oldest bank, a rising star whose job depends upon thwarting Leeser's plan to drive down the value of the bank's stock. The contract killer is Rachel Whittier, an innovative murderer whose connection to the main story remains a mystery for much of the novel (as does the identity of her employer). Equally mysterious during the novel's first half is the role that will be played by Cusack's best friend, a trader dubbed "the Geek," who, like Ólafur, has ties to some powerful people in Qatar. Leeser's bodyguard, his head trader, and his feisty trophy wife (who is also a bestselling novelist from years past) round out the cast.

Leeser's fund makes money no matter how much the market falls. How he hedges the fund's investments -- his "secret sauce" -- is a mystery that provides the key not only to his success but to the novel's dramatic tension. (The hedge turns out to be ... creative. I'm not at all sure it would work outside of thriller world, but it's creative nonetheless.) The reader's sympathy rests with Cusack, who finds himself caught in the middle of a conflict he doesn't understand. Through much of the novel he's fretting about financial risk (he has money problems galore); it only dawns on him gradually that both he and his wife are facing a much greater risk, endangered by sources they can't identify for reasons they can't penetrate.

Greenwich, Connecticut is the epicenter of the hedge fund industry. Vonnegut demonstrates his familiarity with both the location and the financial machinations of the ultra wealthy. I felt some guilty pleasure in reading about the troubles that befall the hedge fund "gods" when the market tumbles (what a shame it is when a diner can only afford two $1,200 bottles of cabernet with dinner instead of the usual three!). But the novel is based on suspense, not on deriding the wealthy, and suspense builds nicely as Vonnegut steers the characters on their collision course. The wild, frenetic climax ensures the novel's classification as a thriller.

For the most part, Vonnegut writes with flair. My only criticism of the novel is that Vonnegut sometimes indulges in metaphors that don't quite work. At other times they enliven the story. Perhaps Vonnegut isn't the first writer to refer to Ferraris and Aston Martins as "four wheeled Viagra" but it's the first time I've seen the phrase and it made me smile. Some readers were apparently put off by one of the final scenes (the zoo scene, for those who have read the book); I thought it was fun. The action at the zoo isn't chilling but it gave the ending some zest. While it may have stretched the limits of plausibility I didn't think it required a greater suspension of disbelief than is common in thrillers. In any event, it's a rather small episode in a dynamic, suspenseful novel.

The snappy writing, the clever plot, the lively pace, and the credible characters add up to make The Gods of Greenwich the best financial thriller I've read. 

RECOMMENDED

Lucifer's Tears by James Thompson

Published by Putnam on March 17, 2011

Whenever I read a novel written by a Scandinavian, I feel the need to button up my parka and don a fur-lined ushanka. James Thompson (American by birth, resident of Finland by choice) writes so convincingly about cold Finnish nights that the novel left me shivering. Of course, the plot -- involving a gruesome murder and atrocities committed in two wars -- may have inspired some of those shivers.

A blood-covered body is found in Rein Saar's bed. Saar claims to have been knocked unconscious before waking up next to the corpse. Homicide inspector Kari Vaara (last seen in Snow Angels, which I haven't read) and his braniac partner Milo Nieminen are assigned to the case. The man who has the strongest motive to kill the victim has a strong alibi: he was partying with the national chief of police at the time of the victim's death. Political corruption and kinky sexual practices enliven the plot, but those are overshadowed by Vaara's discovery that one of Finland's greatest war heroes may be concealing a shameful past.

James Thompson will inevitably be compared to Stieg Larsson (indeed, my advance reader's copy, which I won in a contest, makes that comparison on its cover). Thompson doesn't match Larsson's convoluted plotting, but he comes close, and Thompson's writing is less ponderous. Thompson's characters aren't quite as compelling as Lisbeth Salander, but they have strong, intriguing personalities. Nieminen is the Scandinavian version of the cowboy cop: a bit reckless, eager to use his weapon, but unique in that he's gifted with a Mensa-level IQ and an ego to match. Vaara is an interesting mix of Sensitive Guy and Dirty Harry whose visits to a therapist aren't reducing his stress. The supporting characters, including Vaara's American wife and her siblings, are weaker; Thompson relied on stereotypes when he created them. By the same token, the villains aren't particularly interesting; they channel thriller villains we've seen many times before.

Thompson is a capable writer; his style isn't flashy but it isn't dull. The story moves at a brisk pace and it always held my interest. The novel's ending sets up the next in the series in a couple of ways: by creating some concern about Vaara's welfare and by altering his job responsibilities. Even without the setup, I'd be looking forward to Vaara's continuing adventures.

The characters in Lucifer's Tears express varying opinions on a variety of hot-button topics, including Finland's approach to abortion and health care, America's invasion of Iraq, and Finland's alliance with Germany in World War II. I thought those discussions added interest to the novel but some readers might be offended by the opinions that the characters express. Readers who prefer their thrillers to steer clear of controversial political issues should probably avoid this novel. The novel includes graphic descriptions of sex and violence as well as some rough language. Readers who are offended by content of that nature might not like this novel. For readers who aren't bothered by those caveats, I would recommend Lucifer's Tears as a reasonably enjoyable thriller. 

RECOMMENDED