The Maze by Nelson DeMille

Published by ‎ Scribner on October 11, 2022

Some John Corey novels are nonstop action. The Maze keeps the reader waiting for action to break out. It inevitably does, albeit in a pronged scene near the novel’s end. During the wait, Corey’s snark becomes the story.

Corey is on a three-quarter disability retirement. He can’t take a law enforcement job without losing his disability — not that he could return to law enforcement without crossing all the bridges that he’s burned. Corey is wasting time at his uncle’s Long Island vacation home, idly wondering whether he should become a mercenary while keeping an eye out for an SVR hit team (or anyone else who might want to kill him). While he waits, he’s offered a job with a couple of former NYPD colleagues in a private investigation firm.

Not so coincidentally, one of Corey’s former lovers, Beth Penrose, comes back into his life and bed. She encourages Corey to take the job. When he discovers that the firm hosts parties, complete with hookers, for local politicians and cops, Corey wonders whether Beth is setting him up as a spy. Without waiting to learn the truth, he decides to go undercover and gather evidence of political and police corruption.

The Maze has a lightweight plot. Since the gunplay comes late in the story, the reader is largely left with Corey’s unspoken thoughts. The thoughts are amusing but not a substantial foundation for a thriller. While the plot eventually makes a connection to the discovery of several dead bodies, the corpses add little but background to the story. The Maze left me with the feeling that Nelson DeMille phoned this one in based on an idea that he sketched out on a napkin. At least he didn’t hand it off to his son, as he did with the previous Corey novel. I'm getting the impression that DeMille, like many successful writers, has decided he can feed thin gruel to his base and they'll lap it up.

I recommend The Maze with reservations to John Corey fans because it’s a John Corey novel. To readers who haven’t followed the series, I suggest starting with earlier, meatier entries and working your way forward. If you don’t get around to this one, the world won’t end.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD on October 4, 2022

Do you think you are smarter than an octopus? The octopus might disagree. You might be smart in the way that humans can be smart, but the octopus is smart in the way that octopi are smart. There is little basis for comparison because exploring and surviving in an underwater environment requires a different intelligence than exploring and surviving on land. All I can tell you is that, after reading The Mountain in the Sea, I might never eat octopus again. And I certainly don’t want to piss one off.

The Mountain in the Sea imagines that most of the oceans’ natural resources — in particular, their aquatic life — have been depleted. Automated fishing ships nevertheless continue to harvest as many fish as they can find. Some ships are staffed with slaves because robots that gut and freeze fish are difficult to maintain, while humans are expendable.

Con Dao, an archipelago in Vietnam, was acquired by DIANIMA, an international tech company. Con Dao has served as a tourism destination favored by divers, and as a prison destination for dissidents. DIANIMA evacuated the locals and tourists to preserve Con Dao in its natural state, although automated monks from Tibet were allowed to stand guard over their turtle sanctuary.

DIANIMA supposedly intends to protect ocean life (with armed drones that attack automated fishing ships if they come too near) but its true purpose is likely more nefarious. The world’s only advanced android (named Evrim) was developed by DIANIMA and resides in Con Dao because its existence is illegal everywhere else. Evim’s smile is “like the shadow of your own death.”

Ha Nguyen is a scientist who studies octopi in Con Dao. She wonders about the extent of their evolutionary development. Do they communicate with a form of language? Do they have writing? Have they developed a cosmology? Do they regard humans as gods or demons? Much of the novel follows Ha as she tries to communicate with octopi and to understand their (and her own) place in the universe.

The other critical branch of the novel follows Eiko, who was kidnapped into slavery after taking the wrong taxi on his way to a new job with DIANIMA. That plot thread follows a small band of captives who plot a way to defeat the artificial intelligence that runs the slave ship. Or does Eiko misunderstand the true nature of a fellow captive’s plan for freedom?

Eiko’s story gives the novel most of its action, while Ha’s is more contemplative. Yet both stories create tension as the protagonists encounter and cope with different kinds of threats. (A third subplot involving a Russian hacker named Rustem is less successful.) The elements of a thriller hold The Mountain in the Sea together, but this is less an action novel than a cerebral thought experiment that brings together natural evolution, human intervention in species development, and environmental crisis.

In addition to the difficulty of communication with nonhumans, consciousness is a theme that pervades Ha’s thoughts and the novel as a whole. What does it mean? Is Evrim conscious? What about the automated monks? Or the slave ship that threatens to starve humans to death if they stop gutting and freezing fish? Or the octopi? They all seem self-aware, but does consciousness require more than that? The automonks and Evrim have been programmed to be self-aware, but isn’t that also true of humans, who are programmed by evolution and the DNA it produces? At the same time, are we hardwired to fear any consciousness that might compete with our own?

The evolutionary development of a species of octopus that uses symbolic communication, that overcomes the short life span that is common to octopi, that raises families, protects its elders, and is cautious but curious in interactions with humans, is explained with sufficient scientific detail to give the novel credibility without bogging down the story. Chapters are separated by passages from two books (one about oceans, one about artificial intelligence) that treat the reader to interesting facts and bold opinions.

Science fiction stories that explore consciousness in artificial beings have been around for decades, as have stories about the difficulty of communicating with aliens. Stories that explore communication with non-human life on Earth are less common. The Mountain in the Sea succeeds by inviting the reader to imagine the possibility of awakening human consciousness as we connect to species that are different from humans yet similar in important ways.

RECOMMENDED

Righteous Prey by John Sandford

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on October 4, 2022

Righteous Prey is a Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers crossover novel. Davenport novels are usually a bit darker than Flowers novels. Righteous Prey is essentially a buddy novel that balances humor and darkness. Davenport and Flowers banter their way through the plot as they try to stop five killers who are targeting assholes. The reader might have trouble deciding whether to cheer for the killers or for the cops.

Five billionaires who became wealthy through bitcoin investments are bored. They meet Vivian Zhao at a bitcoin convention. Zhao persuades them that the country is full of assholes who need killing and that people with money and time on their hands are well positioned to kill them. Zhao doesn’t have money of her own but she’s full of anger, largely because she doesn’t have money of her own. She’s taking out her anger on assholes by organizing a group that identifies itself as The Five. Each killing is accompanied by a press release taking credit for making the world a better place, one asshole at a time.

Readers who condemn John Sandford for being liberal (Amazon “reviews” suggest that those readers are plentiful) might be happy to learn that the killers are liberals. They are, at least, fed up with conservative and/or racist assholes. One victim is a criminal who preys on elderly Asians. One is a corrupt Texas politician who rails against migrants. One operates a hedge fund that acquires businesses and fires their employees. One might as well be Alex Jones.

Sandford likes to play with the professional rivalries between the FBI, the federal Marshals, and state or local cops. The “real cops” view the FBI’s “Special Agents” as useless, a perception that Sandford borrows from the real world. In this novel as in many of Sandford’s, all law enforcers not named Davenport or Flowers are just getting in the way.

The novel makes a strong indictment of bump stocks (as did the shooter in the Las Vegas massacre), not that the NRA or Republican state attorneys general care about mass shootings. To a lesser extent (primarily through a brief televised appearance by the wives of Davenport and Flowers), the novel spotlights ghost guns and suppressors, contributors to gun violence that don’t seem to be on any national politician’s radar.

The plot’s lighter side focuses on banter about Flowers’ fledgling career as a thriller novelist. He is finishing his second novel and just signed a contract for a third. I enjoyed the Inside Baseball view of publishing — just enough information to offer a glimpse of writing as a profession without bogging down the story. The best advice Flowers gets is from another cop: “Don’t make your hero into superman. . . . You know, they’re in thirty-two gunfights in three days against a hundred terrorists and get a flesh wound in the shoulder.” That’s a pet peeve I share, although it’s even worse in movies than in novels.

Fortunately, Sandford limits the shootouts but still manages to keep the story in motion. Action doesn’t always need to consist of gunplay and fistfights, although there is a realistic gunfight at the novel’s end. Sandford is never afraid to have Lucas and/or Flowers sustain more than a flesh wound, but in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won’t discuss the battle’s outcome. It suffices to say that this is a thriller with real thrills and that bullets fired rapidly with a bump stock have consequences.

There isn’t much to say about a Sandford novel. They’re always compulsively readable. This one is no exception. The Inside Baseball paragraphs about writing explain how to make a decent income writing thrillers. Not everyone can do it. Sandford deserves every penny he earns.

RECOMMENDED

Next in Line by Jeffrey Archer

Published by ‎ HarperCollins on September 27, 2022

One wonders how many novels Jeffrey Archer can milk from the career of William Warwick and his relentless battle against the nefarious criminal Miles Faulkner, as well as Faulkner’s unethical lawyer, Booth Watson. At least one more, apparently, as Next in Line leaves a plot thread dangling.

Princess Diana, the world’s favorite royal after the Queen grew to old to do anything interesting, is taking a break from Prince Charles. She’s yachting (and presumably canoodling) with a rich fellow when terrorists controlled by Gaddafi capture the yacht and take her captive. That’s a crime that differs from William Warwick’s usual fare. Perhaps Archer thought it was time to add some excitement to William’s drab life.

Now if Diana had actually been kidnapped, the world might have noticed, so this book might need to be viewed as an alternate history. In a brief statement at the end, Archer apologizes for making small changes in history while applauding himself for his meticulous research.

In any event, the kidnapping is a late addition to the plot. Most of the novel follows the usual path of a William Warwick story. William’s pretentious father is again prosecuting Faulkner, this time for the prison escape that occurred in Over My Dead Body. Watson tries to enrich himself by defrauding Faulkner and his client’s ex-wife Christina, who is once again playing tug-of-war with her ex-husband over his art collection. Unless it’s Christina’s art collection now — it’s difficult to keep track.

Inspector Ross Hogan takes a job as Diana’s personal protection officer, while William is assigned to an undercover job with Royal Protection (the British equivalent of America’s Secret Service, albeit charged with protecting royals rather than politicians). Warwick is investigating fraudulent claims for expense reimbursements submitted by the cops, which seems small potatoes compared to the money spent by British citizens to fund the royals. It is a big deal to William, however, who is absolute in his view that the police should never break the law — unless, of course, he’s kidnapping Faulkner in Spain and hauling him back to England without bothering to pursue an extradition. Like most people who make a show of their rectitude, William’s principles are flexible when it comes to William.

The story is a bit dull, if only because it seems like something series readers have encountered before — four times before when it comes to crimes involving Faulkner’s art collection. While the plot enlivens when the terrorists make their appearance, the terrorists are nearly as stupid as Bond villains. They discuss their plans within earshot of witnesses, not pausing to consider that the witnesses might have been planted by the police because they speak the terrorists’ language. They spare the life of a cop for no obvious reason other than Archer’s desire to avoid disappointing his readers by killing off a character they might care about.

Lengthy bits of the novel focus on two British obsessions: cricket and the correct protocol to follow when encountering a member of the royal family. British readers might find these bits of interest. I’ve read several novels that describe cricket matches and still can’t figure out how the match is scored, although I do like the customary break for tea in the middle of the game. Alan Lazard recently pretended to pour tea (or maybe a psychedelic drink) after scoring a touchdown for the Packers, but I can’t see impatient and uncivilized Americans tolerating a real tea break in any sport. On the other hand, some Americans do take an interest in royals, at least when they’re misbehaving. Archer portrays Diana as a misbehaving wife, although the world was willing to forgive Diana anything for enduring a marriage to the current king.

Maybe fans of royal scandals are a good audience for this book. I wouldn’t recommend the novel as a standalone because it is premised on so many events developed in the earlier novels. Readers who read the first four might as well read this one, but the last novel remains the best in the series, probably because it overcame the privileged stuffiness of the central characters.

RECOMMENDED

The Other Side of Night by Adam Hamdy

Published by Atria Books on October 11, 2022

The Other Side of Night seems to be a story of crime and failed romance until it completely jumps the track. In the end, it is an unsuccessful mixture of genres, borrowing the worst of each to create a complete mess.

David and Elizabeth Asha had a son named Elliot. David’s best friend (and Elliot’s godfather) was fellow physicist Ben Elmys. Harriet (“Harri”) Kealty was crazy in love with Ben before he ghosted her for reasons she does not understand. David apparently ghosted Elliot by jumping off a cliff. Ben adopts Elliot and then ghosts him.

Harri is a former cop. She was accused for no obvious reason of pushing someone into the path of a moving train. No evidence supported the accusation but somehow a vindictive superior orchestrated the loss of Harri’s employment. Since then, she has been drifting, although she saw herself being saved by her deep love of Ben.

The descriptions of Harri’s feelings are the stuff of cheesy romance fiction: “His eyes told her everything she needed to know. They gazed into hers as though nothing else existed and she was in his world.” Gak. “She felt a thrill of excitement as he took her hand.” She “wished they could stay in this moment forever.” Trite much? “This is what she’d been searching for. A soul to complete her.” Seriously?

Harri wonders whether bitterness might cause her to suspect that Ben had something to do with David’s death as well as the disappearance of Elizabeth’s cancerous corpse and the death of a cop who used to be Harri’s partner. Although she is no longer a cop, Harri can’t stop investigating any suspicion that pops into her mind. She wonders whether the cancer that killed Elizabeth could have deliberately induced. She wonders whether Ben might actually be Elliot’s father. At some point Harri tells a monstrous lie about Ben for no clear reason, yet the reader is meant to forgive and even root for her. I never found a reason to care about Harri.

After dabbling in cheesy romance and the themes of crime fiction, Adam Hamdy turns the novel into a science fiction story, substituting philosophical gibberish for a sophisticated explanation of its premise. Since that premise comes late in the novel, I won’t spoil it by ridiculing it, except to say that science fiction only works if it is based on science rather than gimmickry. Hamdy relies on his implausible gimmick to explain Elizabeth’s disappearing body and David’s disappearance from Elliott’s life. It is no surprise when David reveals that he has abandoned physics for poetry since his ability to explain physics amounts to “all the secrets of the universe are inside this snow globe, but you can’t possibly understand them.” How convenient.

Apart from the failed attempt to save a dying story with an injection of B-movie science, the most significant problem with The Other Side of Night is structural. Point of view shifts a few times, which is fine, but relatively late in the novel, we get: “Readers, Ben has his version of what happened, but I think it’s tainted by his role in events. . . . I think it is important that you hear the truth from me.” Huh? “Me” is the person telling the first-person story, so why is there suddenly an overarching narrator with the power to overrule the story told by other characters? The über-narrator offers an explanation I can only describe as lame.

The story is soaked in melodrama. Dead mama melodrama, dead wife melodrama, abandoned child melodrama, lost love melodrama, all seriously weepy stuff. Even the science fiction that explains the plot is melodramatic. Overwrought melodrama, cheesy romance, and implausible science fiction combine in a novel that can’t decide what it wants to be and never finds its footing.

NOT RECOMMENDED