Night Shift by Robin Cook

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on December 6, 2022

Not many writers have the requisite knowledge base to produce medical thrillers. Robin Cook might owe part of his popularity to his ability to write credible thrillers set within the environs of the medical industry. He’s prolific, but perhaps a bit too prolific, as his work often seems unpolished. Perhaps his books don’t seem that way to him. While I’ve enjoyed some of Cook’s plots, Night Shift is predictable and only modestly suspenseful.

Jack Stapleton is a medical examiner in New York City. He works for his wife, Laurie Montgomery. Jack and/or his wife have been the central characters in about a dozen of Cook’s novels. Jack spends most of the novel feeling abused because the rest of the world will not defer to his superior knowledge, although he does make an effort to preserve domestic peace by attempting to compromise with his wife about his anti-vax mother-in-law and the proper response to his daughter’s autism. At least Cook makes an effort at characterization, even if he didn’t (in Jack, at least) create a likeable protagonist.

Dr. Susan Passero is a good friend of Laurie and tangentially of Jack. She dies in her car in a hospital parking garage, presumably from a heart attack. Jack performs the autopsy but can’t identify an apparent cause of death. He feels pressure to prepare a death certificate and release the body because Susan’s husband wants to adhere to a Muslim tradition of prompt burial. Her husband also wants the death certificate so he can make a prompt life insurance claim. Jack knows the husband but didn’t know he is a Muslim and is suspicious of his insistence that a death certificate be issued quickly.

Jack violates medical examiner rules that his wife is supposed to enforce by interviewing witnesses to conduct a death investigation. He cheeses off a hospital administrator by snooping in Susan’s office and talking to support staff. He learns that Susan also cheesed off people in the hospital by seeking a position on the committee that reviews patient deaths, which Susan seemed to think had been increasing for reasons that were unrelated to the pandemic.

Jack’s investigation leads to the death of one of the people he interviewed and eventually leads to a couple of attempts to murder Jack. Two scenes involving Jack’s attempted murders create the novel’s most suspenseful moments, although the suspense is limited. After all, if you don’t count James Bond (movie version) or Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle version), it’s not often that series protagonists die. Even more rarely do they stay dead.

Cook’s explanation of the medical jargon and difficulty of establishing a cause of death is credible and interesting. I enjoyed his insightful portrayal of hospitals as profit centers administered by businesses that have more interest in the bottom line than patient care.

The reader learns the killer’s identity while a third of the book remains, which takes some steam out of the story. My primary gripe is that Cook’s writing style makes the novel come across as a first draft. Cook is in love with needless adverbs. His characters engage in robotic dialog intended to educate the reader, not to create the illusion of two real people having an actual conversation. A couple of characters say that things need to be done “pronto,” just one example of dialog that doesn’t ring true. Police officers take time in the middle of a gunfight to get Laurie up to speed about why they’re shooting. A couple of careful rewrites might have made Night Shift a better novel, but not without adding some twists and thrills to enliven the rather conventional plot.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino

First published in Japan in 2011; published in translation by St. Martin’s/Minotaur Books on December 13, 2022

A police officer finds a man with a knife in his chest on the Nihonbashi Bridge, leaning against a parapet below two statues of kirin. The artist who created the statutes added wings to the mythical beasts. The man is rushed to a hospital where he dies without identifying his attacker.

The stabbing victim is Takeaki Aoyagi, an employee of Kaneseki Metals. As the police search a nearby park for suspicious persons, Fuyuki Yashima flees from an approaching officer. He is hit by a truck while running across the street. Yashima has Aoyagi’s wallet, making him the leading suspect in Aoyagi’s murder. Although Yashima’s wife isn’t particularly forthcoming with the police, the reader knows that he called her shortly before he died and said that he had done something awful.

American cops would have congratulated themselves for solving the case without exerting themselves. The Tokyo police are tempted to close the case with a finding that the killer is deceased. Fans of Keigo Higashino’s stories about police detective Kyoichiro Kaga will know that Kaga is never satisfied with circumstantial evidence. He wants everything to make sense and he’s not willing to close the case without discovering a sensible motive for the murder. He would also like to find a witness who saw Aoyagi and Fuyuki together before the murder occurred. To that end, Kaga and Shuhei Matsumiya repeatedly walk through the neighborhood where the crime occurred. The search brings them to a shrine in the Nihonbashi Seven Lucky Gods shrine group and the discovery that someone regularly left one hundred origami cranes (all the same color, but each set a different color) at the shrines. Kaga eventually realizes that the cranes are a clue.

A motive appears when Kaga learns that Yashima had been employed at Kaneseki Metals as a temp worker. Aoyagi was a supervisor who may have participated in unethical conduct that harmed Yashima. But why did Yashima suddenly decide to take revenge on Aoyagi? Did they arrange to meet? If their encounter was a coincidence, why did Yashima have a knife? Kaga refuses to declare the crime solved until he has all the answers. And if Yashima isn’t the killer, who did the deed?

The intricate plot involves several additional characters, including members of Aoyagi’s family and Yashima’s girlfriend. Some of the characters learn lessons about accepting responsibility for bad deeds and having faith in the people we love. Higashino constructs the plot like an origami crane, folding the facts this way and that until they reveal something previously unseen. Higashino leaves no loose ends in this police procedural as each clue eventually contributes to the mystery’s resolution. Even the kirin statues have significance.

In that sense, this is a classic detective story, the kind of thing that Agatha Christie and Rex Stout used to write. Mysteries have grown out of fashion in the US, having been supplanted by plots that feature tough guys who give more attention to guns than clues, but pure detective fiction remains popular in Japan. Hagashino is one of the genre’s contemporary masters.

Higashino’s descriptions of shrines, stores, restaurants, and the Nihonbashi Bridge give the story a strong sense of atmosphere. While he was writing for a Japanese audience, his explanations of Japanese traditions open a window into Japanese culture for foreign readers. Higashino devotes a subplot to a Japanese tradition of honoring the dead. Kaga did nothing on the first anniversary of his father’s death and must deal with family pressure to organize a memorial service for the second anniversary. Kaga doesn’t see the point of memorial services, but the brief skirmishes with family members give Higashino a chance to flesh out Kaga’s personality (or lack of personality when he isn’t doggedly solving crimes). Higashino gives more attention to characterization in his Detective Galileo series, but his Detective Kaga books are equally a must for mystery fans.

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JUDAS 62 by Charles Cumming

First published in the UK in 2021; published by Mysterious Press on December 6, 2022

JUDAS 62 continues the story that Charles Cumming began in BOX 88. The book is the second in a series that features Lachlan Kite. It isn’t necessary to read the first to enjoy the second.

Kite is essentially running BOX 88, a clandestine organization that brings together spies from the US and Great Britain, a pairing that isn’t legally sanctioned and that is only known to a few key employees of the CIA and MI6. BOX 88 told the story of Kite’s first assignment. JUDAS 62 tells the story of his second mission. The details of Kite's current predicament are sandwiched around the story of his second attempt to please his spy masters. That mission left some loose ends that, decades later, Kite needs to tie up.

In the present, Kite learns that his name (or rather, the name of the alias he used in BOX 88) is on a Russian hit list (the Judas list). That revelation follows the assassination of a Russian defector who had been given a false identity and a job in Connecticut. Kite resolves to put an end to the assassinations.

The story then pauses as Kite remembers his second assignment for BOX 88. Kite was sent to Russia, where he posed as an English language instructor. Before leaving, he had a tiff with his girlfriend Martha, who got high and canoodled with another guy at a party. Martha eventually resurfaces to complicate Kite’s life.

Kite’s mission in Russia is to exfiltrate Yuri Aranov, a Russian scientist with expertise in biological and chemical weapons. Aranov is willing to defect to the country that offers him the best deal. The British want to make sure that country isn’t Iran or some other nation that might deploy the weapons that Aranov is capable of designing. Aranov has agreed to enroll in the English language class that Kite will teach so he can hear Kite’s pitch.

Kite is confident that one or more of his students works for the FSK and is taking the class to keep an eye on Aranov or Kite or both. Kite nevertheless makes no effort to resist seduction by his most beautiful student, Oksana Sharikova, in part because he’s still miffed at Martha and feels that if he is betraying her, she deserves it for betraying him. Betrayal, of course, if a primary theme in nearly every good spy novel. Oksana was with Aranov before she seduced Kite, but Aranov betrayed her for another woman. Kite worries that Aranov might view Kite’s relationship with Oksana as a betrayal. The reader will worry that Oksana is an FSK honeytrap who will betray Kite.

Illicit border crossings are a classic component of spy fiction. Cummings builds suspense as the reader wonders whether and how Kite and Aranov will make it out of Russia. Cummings tosses in enough complications to make those worries palpable. The story then shifts back to the present, where Kite decides that a Russian defector who is on the Judas list should be moved to Dubai and dangled as bait for Mikhail Gromik, a Russian intelligence officer Kite first encountered in BOX 88. The plot will imperil the double agent England has planted in the FSB (BOX 88’s source of information about the Judas list), creating additional suspense in a story that regularly places sympathetic characters in harm’s way.

An interesting side note in JUDAS 62 involves the difficulty that male spies have keeping it in their pants. Kite nearly messed up his assignment in BOX 88 because his attention was diverted by a hot young woman. Kite does the same thing in first half of JUDAS 62, when he was still a young and relatively new spy. Late in the novel, another spy breaks a woman’s heart because of his opportunistic approach to sex — if the opportunity is there, he seizes it. Cumming suggests that the thrill and danger of being a spy encourages men to seek inappropriate sexual release, but it could just be that they are being guys — guys who have the personalities and looks to succeed both at spying and seduction. In any event, while the sexual adventures of the characters are not presented in graphic detail, they add some spice (and extra drama) to the story. To his credit, Cumming recognizes the harm caused to sincere women who are used for the sexual convenience of men.

Another interesting side note is wrapped up in a speech that Kite gives at the end of the novel as he encourages another spy to remain with the organization. Intelligence agencies exist to collect information, Kite proclaims, but the problem with the world is not the absence of information but the flood of untrustworthy information. In Russia and China, state-controlled media tell residents what to believe. In the US, liars on social media tell Americans what to believe. And sadly, too many people believe the lies. “It’s a question of whether people are smart enough to realise that they’re being manipulated,” Kite says. The other problem is that people in power want to remain in power and will “do everything they can to remain in place.” Spreading misinformation helps them achieve that goal. Kite wants good people to “make it as difficult as possible for corrupt people and those who serve them to remain in power and manipulate the truth.” The point Kite makes is clearly not limited to spies.

I enjoyed BOX 88 and I enjoyed JUDAS 62 even more, in part because we get to see more of Kite as an older, more mature man. The plot in the new book is also more complex, particularly with regard to events in the present. Cumming has a long history of producing capable spy fiction. He’s doing some of his best work in the BOX 88 series.

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Fake Money, Blue Smoke by Josh Haven

Published by Mysterious Press on December 6, 2022

Counterfeiting, art theft, swordplay, and a train robbery. What more do you need to make a thriller? Or, for that matter, a love story?

Matt Kubelsky was sentenced to prison after being convicted of murder while he was serving in the Army. After his lawyer obtained a sentence reduction, Matt was transferred from Leavenworth to a federal prison in New York and released after five years. He is surprised when his former girlfriend, Kelly Haggerty, offers to pick him up when he's released. He might be even more surprised when she offers him a job.

Kelly is a counterfeiter. She has concocted a scheme to use fake money to pay thieves to steal Klimt sketches using information she purchased from an insurance guy (using fake money) about the security plans to transport the sketches. She intends to sell the sketches to an art collector in Qatar. She needs Matt to (1) hire the art thieves, figuring that Matt probably made the right connections in prison, and (2) act as her bodyguard when she gets paid for the stolen art.

There are a couple of salient facts that Kelly doesn’t tell Matt. To avoid spoilers, I won’t reveal them. Suffice it to say that the scheme is more complex than Matt imagines and that Kelly, while greedy, is motivated by more than greed.

Matt readily accepts the gig because he needs money and because his only other plans involve (1) covering up the swastika tattoo on his neck that kept him from getting murdered in prison and (2) getting even with the people he blamed for his imprisonment. The first plan is easy to execute but the second takes a little more time. He also needs to protect himself from the white supremacists who feel betrayed when they realize they have been paid for art theft with counterfeit currency. Fortunately, the art collector in Qatar likes Matt and gives him a sword that helps him with vengeance and self-defense.

Kelly is a resourceful criminal with a pleasant personality. Matt has a flexible moral standard (he doesn’t object to murdering those who deserve it) but, like Kelly, he isn’t all that bad if you ignore his willingness to commit crimes. Josh Haven makes it easy for readers to hope that Matt and Kelly will survive the threats they face and perhaps even prosper.

Fake Money, Blue Smoke is a light crime novel, notwithstanding the occasional beheading. The art theft involves a classic train robbery. It’s difficult for a crime fiction fan not to welcome a train robbery. Matt and Kelly seem to reignite the passion they felt before Matt went to prison. Whether their emotions are genuine or whether they are using each other (or both) is a question the reader will ponder until the novel’s end. And while the culmination of the criminal scheme involves a twist that isn’t surprising, the ending suits the beach read nature of the story.

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A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

Published by Knopf on December 6, 2022

An unfortunate marriage at the age of 18 to a man twenty years older takes Eliza Ripple from Michigan to Monterey. When her husband is killed in a bar two years later, Eliza begins a career as a prostitute, working for a madam who takes good care of her employees. In 1851, Monterey is relatively lawless, although its residents enforce their own brand of justice if they deem the task worthwhile. Neither the townspeople nor the sheriff are particularly troubled when prostitutes are murdered.

Eliza is a pleasant young woman who earns a good living as a prostitute. Some of her customers are sailors ashore between voyages. One is in the construction business. One is a lawyer who makes vague references to a wife. One is an older man who brings her to his home where his wife seems tolerant of his adventures. One takes her out to dinner; another only meets her in the brothel but seems to enjoy her companionship as well as her body.

Eliza befriends Jean, a woman who works in a bordello that services women. Eliza spends much of her free time with Jean, roaming around Monterey and the surrounding countryside, occasionally on rented horses. When they discover a dead body, Eliza’s keen powers of observation help her identify the murder victim as a prostitute who once worked in her establishment. The term “serial killer” had not yet been coined, but Eliza and Jean begin to connect the disappearances of multiple working girls. They decide to track down the killer.

The story follows Eliza for a couple of years after her husband’s death. Eliza’s haphazard investigation of the missing prostitutes drives the plot, but the deeper story is told by the details of Eliza’s life. As she considers whether each of her customers might be the killer, she evaluates the behavior of all men. Some, like her dead husband, are cruel. Some are superficially kind but seem to be on the edge of violence. Some are needy. Some are indifferent. A few are genuinely decent.

Eliza and Jane discuss the topics of the time — slavery and the threat of a war that might divide the country — defying the understanding that, as women, they are not capable of expressing meaningful opinions. Eliza’s customers tend to pontificate, sometimes discussing political or philosophical questions that interest Eliza, although they do not invite her to do anything but listen. She takes advantage of her free time to read Dickens and The Scarlet Letter, exercising her mind in ways that her madam encourages, even if her customers might regard her intellectual pursuits as a waste of time. Reading Poe introduces her to Dupin and suggests a model of detection that will help her investigate the deaths of her professional colleagues. Dupin’s powers of observation parallel Jane Smiley’s observant attention to detail as Eliza and Jean search the streets and faces of Monterey for clues.

The “hooker with a heart of gold” is a familiar character, but Smiley does not content herself with the familiar. Eliza is something of an early feminist. She views prostitution not as subjugation by men but as a pragmatic path to freedom, much like the underground railroad that interests Jean. Eliza’s husband steered her course until her madam took note of her after her husband’s death and began to direct her life as a working girl. Smiley encourages the reader to wonder whether Eliza will eventually become the captain of her own ship and how she might find a less dangerous occupation. At the novel’s end, Smiley supplies a satisfying answer.

The plot is equally satisfying, culminating in a moment of peril and resourcefulness as Eliza and Jane learn who is responsible for the dead prostitutes. At the same time, Poe fans should not expect the second coming of Dupin. Crime and detection provide the novel’s framework, but they are secondary to the novel’s other virtues. Smiley’s prose is a model of elegant understatement. While the novel is not particularly suspenseful — I would categorize it as a pleasant historical drama, not as a thriller — I do not imagine that suspense was Smiley’s intent. A Dangerous Business is the quiet story of a woman who comes of age in a difficult time for single women (as most times have been), who learns about life, and who strives to benefit from those lessons. Readers who expect nothing more will likely enjoy the book for what it is.

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