The Fake by Zoe Whittall

Published by Ballantine Books on March 21, 2023

The Fake is a novel about trust, its necessity and the consequences of its abuse. More importantly, it is a novel about emotional dependence and need.

Cammie is young, beautiful, sexy, and personable. She seems to be the perfect girlfriend until Gibson (older than Cammie and out of her league) realizes that she’s a nightmare. She’s the female version of George Santos (apart from running for office). Nearly every story she tells is an effortless lie. She’s also a thief and a con artist.

Cammie claims to be in remission from kidney cancer. She claims to be grieving for Morgan, a close friend who committed suicide. She claims her sister is dead. She claims she has been living with (and is leaving) an abusive boyfriend. She claims she sang on the recording of an Arcade Fire song. All lies, but that’s not the worst of Cammie.

Gibson lives in Toronto. He is in the process of getting a divorce from Veda. Before Cammie picked him up in a bar, Gibson was devastated by the divorce and wanted to reunite. Now Veda thinks that Gibson is handling the breakup better than she is. Gibson’s change of attitude is easily attributed to receiving Cammie’s nude selfies when they aren’t in bed together.

Shelby has always suffered from anxiety. Her wife Kate was the only person who knew how to make her feel better. Shelby has been in a deep depression since Kate’s death. Shelby resists contact with Kate’s homophobic family because they “cannot handle any emotional communication that isn’t positive, let alone admit the realities of life being a near-unending nightmare.” Shelby was extraordinarily dependent on Kate and is filled with self-pity because she has no other person to take care of her. She doesn’t seem equipped to take care of herself.

Shelby decides to attend a grief group. The star of the group introduces herself as “Camilla. Chatterbox, over-sharer, main character-syndrome-having Cammie.” Shelby falls for Cammie, but only as a friend who can help her cope with her anxiety. When Cammie claims to have been unjustly fired, Shelby persuades her friend Olive to interview Cammie for a production assistant position on a reality TV dating show. Cammie provides the link between Shelby’s story and Gibson’s.

Cammie differs from Shelby in that, by virtue of her manipulation, she always has someone to take care of her. Perhaps unintentionally, the novel raises questions about dependence: Cammie is dependent by choice (it’s easier than holding a job or staying in an honest relationship); Shelby is dependent because she needs a crutch against anxiety. There is an obvious moral difference between the two women, but is there a practical difference? Sure, people who need people are the luckiest people, but in both cases extreme dependence either destroys other people or becomes self-destructive.

The story follows Gibson and Shelby as they investigate Cammie’s lies and meet some of her (mostly former) friends and family. Their efforts lead to a well-intentioned intervention, but an addiction to lying is different from drug abuse, particularly when lying might be the product of a mental illness. Whether it is possible to change Cammie’s behavior is the question addressed in the story’s closing chapters.

Perhaps a more important question is whether interventions are meant to help the intervenors as much as the person who needs help. Gibson wants Cammie to change so he can keep sleeping with her. It may be that Gibson and Shelby, who suffer because they become dependent on Cammie, need self-interventions to learn how to move forward with their lives.

The Fake might be a good choice for book clubs whose members like to dissect characters and compare them to people they know. The novel’s interesting questions practically cry out for book club discussions. While the plot is a bit thin, characterization is solid. Readers might gain insight into dependent lives (and perhaps their own lives) by investing time in this short, well-written novel.

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Red London by Alma Katsu

Published by ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 14, 2023

Red London takes place after Putin, weakened by his fiasco in Ukraine, is replaced by Viktor Kosygin, another former KGB agent turned dictator. The richest Russian oligarch in London, Mikhail Rotenberg, has fallen into disfavor with Kosygin. Kosygin is demanding money from all the oligarchs but he seems to want everything Mikhail has. Mikhail survives when a Russian hit team invades his swanky London mansion, but the message has been sent.

In addition to Kosygin, the CIA, MI6, and parties unknown want to know where Mikhaiil's money is hidden. Lyndsay Duncan, a CIA agent starring in her second novel, is in London to run a Russian double agent (a subplot that drifts away without resolution). As long as she’s in London anyway, the CIA assigns Lyndsay to cozy up to Mikhail’s British wife Emily. Lyndsay finds it easy to infiltrate Emily’s circle of friends, as the circle is practically nonexistent. Apart from sending her to charity lunches that signal Mikhail’s standing among London’s elite, Mikhail shields his wife from the outside world. He only allows her to take their two kids on playdates where she can socialize with the judgmental wives of oligarchs. The British, including Emily’s parents, regard Russians as untrustworthy people who are ruled by “messily violent passions,” the antithesis of British Londoners who have eradicated passion from their very proper lives.

As gold diggers go, Emily is a reasonably sympathetic character. She comes from minor aristocracy. Maintaining the family estate is expensive and family wealth is dwindling. Emily knows that, unlike her siblings, she has average intelligence and no talent. If beauty is her only potential route to success, she might as well use it. Having caught Mikhail’s attention, she can’t find a practical reason to turn down a proposal from one of the world’s richest men. If he’s ruthless and a probable criminal in his business dealings, she doesn’t want to know about it. Emily might be a bit of a stereotype, but she is a stereotype with flesh. Sadly, she isn’t quite smart enough to understand that she will lose more than she will gain by bearing an oligarch’s children.

Lyndsay’s spy mission is complicated when she finds Emily keeping company with Dani Childs, a former CIA agent. Dani is working for a private company that hires former spooks. Dani also wants to get a handle on Mikhail’s wealth but she doesn’t know who hired the firm to obtain that information. Lyndsay also finds herself working with an MI6 agent who still carries a torch from the fling they had in Beirut. Those complications add spice to a modestly intriguing plot.

Lyndsay’s sympathy for Emily creates an interesting conflict between her duty to country (as her bosses see it) and her desire to help a woman who is stuck in a dangerous life. While Alma Katsu sprinkles in some gunfire as the predictable ending approaches, Red London is more a low-key spy/relationship novel than a thriller. Katsu makes token references to tradecraft but (apart from the occasional walkabout to expose tails) incorporates little into the story, depriving readers of the sense that they are reading about a field agent who has been trained at Langley rather than a bureaucrat who was told to do her best. Ultimately, the unchallenging plot and conventional ending of Red London are secondary to the relationships that give the novel its value.

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I Will Find You by Harlan Coben

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 14, 2023

I Will Find You sounds like a line from a movie delivered with threatening force by Liam Neeson or with understated assurance by Daniel Day Lewis. The unfortunate title aside, I Will Find You is a creative marriage of the “missing child” thriller and the “wrongly accused prisoner” story.

David Burroughs didn’t put up much of a defense when he was accused of taking a bat to his three-year-old son’s face and literally beating his brains out. David’s wife Cheryl was working the night shift at a hospital. All David recalls is drinking too much, passing out, and waking up to find Matthew’s unrecognizable body. He has no recollection of committing the crime, but he blames himself for not protecting his son and feels he deserves a life in prison. Nor does he recall burying the bat in his yard, despite his neighbor’s testimony that she saw him do it.

David is five years into his bit when Rachel, his former sister-in-law, visits him for the first time. She shows David a photograph taken at an amusement park. In the background is an eight-year-old kid who has Matthew’s distinctive facial birthmark. Could David have been framed for a murder he didn’t commit and, if so, who is the dead kid in his bedroom?

That’s a reasonably good thriller premise despite the holes that keep the story from being a smooth ride. It’s no less plausible than the average modern thriller, meaning not very plausible at all. Harlen Coben overcomes those problems by keeping the story in motion, leaving the reader with little time to say, “Hey, wait a minute.” Coben makes a valiant and reasonably clever attempt to explain the mystery while tying up most of the loose ends.

Naturally, David needs to bust out of prison, a problem that becomes more urgent after one of the guards tries to kill him. It seems that someone wants David to die before he learns the truth. Fortunately, the break-out isn’t difficult, thanks to the happy coincidence that the warden is David’s godfather. The warden isn’t convinced that Matthew is still alive but he also doesn’t want David to be murdered in prison.

David is assisted in his version of the search for a one-armed man by Rachel, the only other person who believes Matthew is still alive. Rachel has some baggage of her own, having sacrificed her career as a journalist by pushing a rape victim to tell her story, leading to a regrettable result. Cheryl has remarried and doesn’t want to think about Matthew, leading to a confrontation between the two troubled siblings.

Starting with the woman who testified about the buried bat, David and Rachel move from clue to clue. The plot twists nicely when David realizes that finding the person who framed him won’t necessarily help him find the kidnapper.

Harlan Coben’s standalone novels tend to be hit or miss with me. About half are misses. Constant motion, adequate attention to characterization, and clever plotting move I Will Find You into the hit category. David never actually says “I will find you,” making it unnecessary to decide whether Neeson or Lewis should play his part if the book is filmed.

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All That Is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay

Published by Bantam on March 7, 2023

Guilt is often ambiguous. If guilt were always certain, there would be no drama in trials. William Landay sustains ambiguity throughout All That Is Mine I Carry with Me, creating a story that, until the final pages, keeps the reader guessing.

The story is narrated by several characters, starting with Philip Solomon. Solomon’s childhood friend, Jeff Larkin, gets together with Solomon in 2015. Jeff and Philip bonded in their childhood over shared knowledge of a secret involving Jeff’s family. Later, in 1975, Jeff's mother disappeared.

Jeff tells Philip that his father, Dan Larkin, has Alzheimer’s. Dan is in the care of Jeff’s sister, Miranda. Jeff refuses to speak to his father. He believes his father murdered his mother. Philip decides there might be a book in Jane Larkin's disappearance and its aftermath, so he decides to interview the family members, as well as the primary police investigator, who has since retired.

The family has been torn apart by their father’s potential guilt. It took time for Jeff to reach the conclusion that his father killed his mother. For years after he entered adulthood, Jeff battled substance abuse. He could not easily get past the failure of his most significant relationship, leaving him drunk and alone for much of his life.

Jeff’s brother Gary (like Dan, a lawyer) has always been willing to give Dan the benefit of the doubt. Miranda can’t make up her mind about her father’ guilt. Her unresolved feelings likely contributed to the severe depression that defines much of her life. Jane’s sister Kate is convinced of Dan’s guilt and no amount of ambiguity will shake that certainty or soften her fury.

The evidence against Dan is circumstantial. He had a girlfriend while he was married. He changed his tie on the day Jane disappeared. Jane’s car, abandoned at a train station, is oddly free of his fingerprints. Accusations surface about Dan’s history of sexual abuse but Dan denies them. Small clues add up to suspicion but fall well short of overcoming reasonable doubt. The police investigator is frustrated by his inability to build a stronger case against Dan but prosecutors correctly decide that charges should not be filed if they cannot be proved.

One section of the novel seems to be narrated by Jane, who begins by telling the reader that her husband killed her. The next section relieved my potential disappointment by clarifying that the reader is not getting a perspective from beyond the grave. Subsequent chapters tell the story from Jeff’s, Miranda’s, and Dan’s point of view. A shaky family is eventually torn apart by a decision, driven by Kate and reluctantly joined by two of the children, to sue Dan for wrongful death.

Did Dan kill his wife? William Landay peppers the story with information that suggests his guilt and innocence. The reader does eventually learn the apparent truth, but the bigger story is the impact of ambiguity on the lives of Jane’s family. Unresolved suspicion is destructive but so is false accusation. Only Gary seems capable of understanding that the truth can’t always be known and that life goes on even in the absence of certainty. The family’s mistake lies in the belief that the legal system is capable of resolving doubts or bringing closure. Circumstantial evidence doesn’t become any stronger by presenting it to a jury.

The wrongful death trial contributes the strongest scenes to the novel — skillful cross-examinations are the stuff from which legal thrillers are made — but the reader knows before the verdict is delivered that the opinions of strangers who hear the evidence are no better than the reader’s own opinion or those of the family members. The story builds to a careful ending that delivers a measure of justice and truth that is beyond the power of the legal system to achieve.

While the family members generally remain civil with each other (and some even maintain a relationship with Dan), the novel’s strength lies in its exploration of how suspicion and uncertainty can affect families of crime victims. All That Is Mine I Carry with Me works as a legal thriller and as family drama while illustrating the legal system’s inability to deliver the kind of peace that victims seem to expect from it.

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Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

First published in Great Britain in 2023; published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 7, 2023

Is there something subversive about planting vegetables on property owned by other people? Birnam Wood is an anti-capitalist cooperative in New Zealand, a “grassroots community initiative” to plant “sustainable organic gardens in neglected spaces” while fostering “a commitment to help those in need.” Some of the planting is done openly. Other times it is clandestine. I’m not sure most people would care if “guerilla plantings” resulted in vegetables growing alongside highway off ramps or in junkyards. As social change organizations go, Birnam Wood is even more of a yawner than most. Still, the plant activists seem to have righteous intentions, so good on them.

Mira Bunting has spent many “lost years” working with Birnam Wood, perhaps in the hope that she will demonstrate organizational skills that might appeal to an employer. Shelley Noakes is a more natural manager but she is tired of the group’s “suffocating moral censure.” She would like to get out or Birnam Wood. More importantly, she would like to get out of her relationship with Mira, who fails to treat her with the love and respect that Shelley believes to be her due.

Mira is planting secret vegetables on land near a National Park owned by Owen Darvish when she spots a small airplane on a private landing strip. The pilot is Robert Lemoine, a billionaire who made a fortune from drones. Lemoine explains to Mira that he’s buying the land from Darvish so he can install a survivalist bunker in which he can wait out whatever environmental catastrophe will first arrive. Mira justifies her trespass by telling Lemoine about Birnam Wood. He seems taken with the idea, or perhaps with Mira, and agrees to provide preliminary funding so that the organization can expand. The reader soon learns of Lemoine's hidden agenda.

A founding member who has been traveling, Tony Gallo, makes an unexpected appearance at the latest Birnam Wood meeting. Tony once had a thing with Mira. Tony doesn’t get along with Shelley. He’s “increasingly at odds with the prevailing orthodoxies of the contemporary feminist left, which seemed to him to have abandoned the worthy goal of equality between the sexes in pursuit of either naked self-interest or revenge.” Tony was doing personal journalism until he was accused of writing an essay that amounted to poverty tourism and revealed his white privilege. Now Tony is looking for a way back into journalism without becoming an actual journalist. To do that, he needs to do the kind of investigative reporting that will reinforce his progressive credentials.

Mira presents Lemoine's funding offer at the meeting while carefully refraining from endorsing the billionaire or the capitalism he represents. Tony opposes Mira’s proposal to accept dirty money from Lemoine. The other members are swayed by the promise of a cash infusion for their precarious organization. Tony walks away from Birnam Wood but senses an opportunity to showcase his chops as an investigative journalist. Tony reasons that a billionaire who throws money at a leftist group must be up to something. Tony’s instincts are sound. He discovers that Lemoine is involved in a secret project that will get him into big trouble if he’s exposed.

The plot hinges on the project’s secrecy. Lemoine is doing something on a significant scale in a national forest. Doesn’t anyone in New Zealand enter its national forests? It’s difficult to believe that Lemoine’s scheme would have even a remote chance of operating undetected, but I don’t know enough about New Zealand to be sure of that. The story develops some suspenseful moments as Tony hides in the woods, evading drones and capture as he gathers evidence of Lemoine’s operation, but suspense remains low-key for most of the story.

I can’t agree with the novel’s billing as a literary thriller. It is literary in the sense of being well written, with ample attention to character development, although the literary nature of the prose creates a pace that is inconsistent with a thriller. I wouldn’t want to accuse Eleanor Catton of writing run-on sentences, but readers might want to put on comfortable shoes before walking from the beginning to the end of her paragraphs. I have little patience with thriller writers who manufacture “page turners” by putting few words on a page, but Catton goes too far in the opposite direction. She rivals Henry James in her ability to create a scene by describing every single object in sight, including (in Catton’s case) the varieties of spinach and beets and cabbages and cauliflowers and leeks and carrots (and on and on) planted by Birnam Wood.

The novel’s most promising moments come during an argument at a Birnam Wood meeting about the nature of political and economic change and the ineffectual, scolding approach taken by some members of the left. The novel spotlights the in-fighting that make many organizations, and particularly groups comprised of progressive volunteers, completely dysfunctional. "Im pure in my ideals and everyone else is a sellout" isn't the kind of attitude that assures the planting of subversive cabbage patches.

Yet the novel bogs down with conflicts between Mira and Shelley, both of whom seem to develop a thing for Lemoine for reasons that are less than obvious. Chalk it up to billionaire charm, I suppose. The novel is contaminated by sentences like “She wished she could tell her friend the honest truth, which was not that she loved her because she needed her, but that she needed her because she loved her, and in her monumental stupidity and self-absorption, she had only just figured that out.” Self-absorption infects all the speaking characters, but that makes them more annoying than interesting.

I give Birnam Wood high marks for an original if not entirely convincing plot. The final pages are over the top. Perhaps those pages reflect a literary determination to eschew happy or predictable endings, but it is predictable for that very reason. Despite the novel’s flaws, including its pace and disagreeable characters, my inability to guess what might happen next kept me reading with full attention.

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