The Missing Piece by John Lescroart

Published by ‎ Atria Books on March 29, 2022

The Missing Piece is unlike most Dismas Hardy novels in that Hardy makes only an occasional cameo appearance. The plot is initially carried by his law partner, Wes Farrell, before their investigator, Abe Glitsky, begins to carry the load.

Farrell was a prosecutor for most of his career and prosecution is still in his heart. He assumes defendants are guilty. He assumes cops are telling the truth. He really has no business being a criminal defense lawyer and he’s starting to realize that. Hardy invited Farrell into the firm in a past novel and is willing to let him leave if that’s best for Farrell.

As he ponders that decision, Farrell agrees to handle a murder case. Paul Riley answered his door and was shot in the face. Riley’s father saw a man leaving the scene. He identifies the killer as Doug Rush. Riley went to prison for murdering Rush’s daughter but was recently released due to the efforts of a fictional version of the Innocence Project. Farrell got to know Rush when he was prosecuting Riley for the murder of Rush’s daughter.

The police quickly decide that Rush killed Riley to exact vengeance against his daughter’s killer. Although Riley’s father gives a shaky identification of Rush, the police do what they can to bolster the weak identification because it’s easier than identifying and ruling out alternative suspects.

Farrell thinks the case against Rush is weak but he also thinks his client is guilty. He gets Rush out on bond. That turns out to be a bad strategy when Rush is murdered.

The plot combines a whodunit with a police procedural. Glitsky is ex-police, although he works with the cops when they occasionally show interest in capturing the killer of Farrell’s dead client. Glitsky’s investigation take him to Rush’s motorcycle gang, to a couple of women who were sleeping with Rush (perhaps raising the ire of other lovers), and to a long list of prisoners who, like Rush, were exonerated while serving their sentences.

The plot holds together and is reasonably credible. The novel is noteworthy for its examination of the biases held by cops, prosecutors, and criminal defense lawyers. Cops think that everyone they arrest is guilty. Prosecutors think that everyone they prosecute is guilty. Criminal defense lawyers know that most of their clients are guilty, but they also believe that cops and prosecutors are willing to cheat to get convictions, a practice that sometimes causes the innocent to be convicted. Events in the story force characters on both sides to confront their biases.

The primary characters will be familiar to fans of the series. John Lescroart keeps the series fresh in The Missing Piece by moving Hardy to the background and placing two supporting cast members on center stage. As Glitsky and Farrell recognize that their assumptions stand in the way of serving their clients and finding the truth, they gain an illuminating perspective on the work they are doing.

I give Lescroart credit for writing another fair and balanced novel that emphasizes the importance of following evidence to wherever it leads, rather than basing decisions on pro- or anti-police prejudices. He even presents a balanced view of cops who overreact to suspects who resist their authority, while making it clear that (at least in San Francisco) needlessly violent behavior by police officers is intolerable.

As always, the story moves at a good pace, strengthened but not bogged down by characterization and relationships. Glitsky is the victim of violence a couple of times, adding some action that enlivens the story. False leads create multiple potential solutions to the whodunit. The correct solution does not strain credibility to an unacceptable degree. In short, this is another enjoyable Dismas Hardy novel, one that should not disappoint series fans.

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Hammer by Joe Mungo Reed

Published by ‎ Simon & Schuster on March 22, 2022

Russian oligarchs are in the news, making this novel timely, at least in the limited sense that the most significant character is a Russian oligarch. Oleg Gorelov took advantage of the chaos caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union and Russia’s transition to capitalism by starting and growing a business, then by purchasing and closing factories after selling their manufacturing machinery to China, then by buying a mine and making an investment deal with the KGB. Now he conducts his businesses from London, where he devotes a tenth of his income to acquiring art. Some suspect that he has engaged in ruthless acts to obtain some of the works. His apparent lack of concern when he learns that another Russian expat died might suggest a naïveté about the deal he believes he struck with Putin’s people about his ability to transact business in London.

Martin works in an auction house. Martin’s roommate James is a piano player. When Martin and James were in college, James was dating a woman named Marina. Marina’s parents were party members in the USSR before they moved to England. In London, they tried to raise her to be “a completely different person from themselves.” Her father disappeared when she was 21. He might have drowned or been murdered. He might have abandoned his family. The uncertain fate of Russians who take their wealth out of Russia is one of the novel’s themes.

Marina now works in financial services. She is married to Oleg. Martin becomes reacquainted with Marina in 2013 when Oleg brings her to an art auction. As Martin begins to spend time with Marina, he becomes acutely aware that Oleg is a dangerous man. Just how dangerous he might be weighs on Martin's mind.

Initially, Hammer’s focus is on Martin. The focus shifts to Oleg when Oleg travels to Moscow to witness his mother’s lingering death. Oleg responds to a cousin’s letter by visiting her in an eastern region of Russia. The visit is a revelation that opens his eyes to the way ordinary Russians live, as if he has never seen them before. He is also disturbed that Putin has started a war to annex a portion of Ukraine (as I said, the story is timely, although the 2014 war was fought for control of the Crimean Peninsula). Oleg feels compelled to run for office against Putin. This is before it became clear that Putin would be president for life, but it is still a remarkably dangerous thing to do. Oleg is told of the risk that Navalny was taking to oppose Putin, and that was before Putin threw Navalny in prison after trying to have him killed.

Relationships change rapidly during the two years in which the story unfolds. None change is for the better. Marina has come to believe that Oleg doesn’t see her. “The first she knew him, she felt so closely seen, yet he was attending only to his own reflection in her eyes.” Martin’ friendships with James and Marina and his relationship with Oleg are all affected by decisions that impair trust.

Hammer doesn’t have the same impact or emotional complexity as We Begin Our Ascent, Joe Mungo Reed’s brilliant first novel, but the characters have a convincing degree of depth and the twin storylines are interesting. The story involving Martin’s role in the art industry (and the characters’ art commentary) will appeal to fans of the kind of art that shows up in galleries, but that story peters out when the focus shifts to Oleg.

Oleg's story has a feeling of inevitability that might deprive it of suspense, but the novel isn’t intended as a thriller. Reed certainly put me into the head of an oligarch in way that thriller writers and spy novelists haven’t managed.

Hammer has something to say about how money changes people and how people can change despite their money. Martin’s boss, for example, understands that acquiring wealth is only “the first part of being rich.” The art gallery helps the rich confirm “the actual materiality of being rich” by selling rich people things they do not need or necessarily appreciate but purchase because others cannot afford them. Martin has rejected his parents' hippy attitude toward money, an attitude they seem to abandon themselves when they have the opportunity to acquire modest wealth. Marina understands that wealthy people expect their children to "earn for themselves" because "further acquisition signals seriousness." Money changes people, Reed seems to say, even when its recipients deny that they have been altered.

More importantly, I think, the novel has something to say about how ordinary people with ordinary money relate to people who are swimming in wealth, and about the outsized importance that wealth has on the way people of ordinary means think and behave. If the novel is a bit uneven in its juxtaposition of Martin’s story with Oleg’s and with its attempt to bridge the two worlds with Marina, its strengths easily repay a reader’s investment of time.

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The Rising Tide by Sam Lloyd

First published in Great Britain in 2021; published by Penzler Publications/Scarlet on March 15, 2022

Relationship drama bubbles through the backstory in The Rising Tide. Lucy and Daniel Locke are married. At the 18th birthday party of their daughter Billie, Daniel’s friend Nick Povey made a pass at Lucy. That same day, Daniel learned that Nick betrayed him in a way that will jeopardize the continuing existence of Daniel’s business. By the time the story begins, Daniel and Lucy are about to lose their home in Skentel, a village on England’s North Devon Coast.

In the present, Daniel takes their boat into the sea despite storm warnings. The boat is found adrift but sinking as the storm is building. Nobody is aboard. Lucy soon learns about the boat and realizes that Daniel and their two kids are missing. She joins the local boat owners as they perform a search-and-rescue operation.

As Lucy is searching for her husband and children on a violent sea, all she can think about is yelling at Daniel. At least that gives her a break from thinking about Jake Farrell, who agreed to take her on his boat to search for her family. Jake is Lucy’s ex.

At another point in the story, Lucy runs into the ocean and nearly drowns just to “see what it was like.” This is just hours after she was drenched in seawater after the boat in which she was searching for her family nearly capsized. Fear that a parent’s children are dead (although Lucy never believes that because “mother’s instinct”) might well motivate a parent to engage in bizarre behavior, but Sam Lloyd never managed to make me sympathize with Lucy’s hysteria.

On the other hand, perhaps the reader is not meant to like Lucy, at least not while the plot is taking shape. As the mystery of the missing kids deepens, collateral characters make unflattering statements suggesting Lucy might not be likable at all. Lucy has ambiguous thoughts about “what happened in Portugal.” Those moments add a layer of intrigue as the reader begins to wonder whether Daniel, who seems to be the villain, might have acted in response to something Lucy did.

Detective Inspector Abraham Rose investigates the suspicion that Daniel scuttled the boat, drowned his kids, and threw himself overboard. The evidence all points in that direction, which is enough to make the reader believe it isn’t true.

Rose has lung cancer. He’s also having a crisis of faith that leads him to believe in Satan but not so much in God. He nevertheless believes his investigation is compelled by “a higher authority” than the law. Since he isn’t delusional, it isn’t clear why he harbors that belief. Rose’s thoughts often turn to a mother who suffers from dementia and a girlfriend he lost long ago. Those thoughts inspire him to feel sorry for himself, particularly when prayer doesn’t make him feel any better.

Lloyd follows the common convention of adding first-person narratives to the story without identifying the narrator. Since it is clear that the narrator dislikes Lucy, and given the positioning of the narratives within the story, the reader is encouraged to assume that the narrator is Daniel. Seasoned readers will suspect that they are being played.

Part of the truth is revealed somewhere around page 250 (of 350). Another part (perhaps derived from a famous book that became a famous movie) is revealed a dozen pages later. If the truth seems a bit contrived, that’s the way the modern thriller goes. The story then becomes a whodunit that challenges the reader to guess the identity of a villain who has contributed to Lucy’s mess. The villain’s motivation is thriller-standard and not particularly imaginative or credible. On the other hand, the villain’s identity is not easily guessed (at least not by me). But on my third hand, I didn’t buy the ending because the villain’s actions are cartoonish. On my final hand, those are common flaws in modern thrillers and not sufficient reason to advise against reading the book.

The “mother’s fierce love for her daughter” theme is overdone, although I give Lloyd credit for writing an intensely moving scene at the end of Part I. The long walk to the ending feels padded, as though Lloyd wanted to avoid rushing to a climax and instead dragged the story to its conclusion. Characters share thoughts they had shared several times already. Regrets and loss of faith and memories of “a life that no longer exists” and just get on with it, can’t you? Even after the climactic moment arrives, another 50 pages await. A tightening edit could have enhanced this thriller’s sense of urgency and kept tension from dissipating.

Still, the novel places interesting characters in difficult situations, keeps the reader guessing about whether protagonists are good or evil, and creates a reasonable amount of suspense. The suspense wanes and the characters are problematic, but Lloyd’s prose is vivid and the story has enough strong moments to make it worth reading.

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Born for Trouble by Joe R. Lansdale

Published by Tachyon Publications on March 21, 2022

I always enjoy Joe Lansdale’s stories about Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. I always enjoy anything Lansdale writes. Born for Trouble collects five Hap and Leonard stories. For readers who are unfamiliar with the duo, this is as good a place to start as any. These are excellent tales by a skilled storyteller.

The two longest entries I’ve read and reviewed before. “Coco Butternut” and “Hoodoo Harry” were published in their own volumes.

The other three:

“Sad Onions.” Hap and Leonard come upon a woman in the road who walked away from a single-car accident that killed her husband. The accident doesn’t seem right to Hap or Leonard. Since it is none of their business, they look into it. The wife is young, white, and beautiful. Her dead husband was a wealthy, older black man. The police don’t seem interested. Hap and Leonard uncover a murder plot and make their usual irreverent jokes as they try to avoid becoming the next victims.

“The Briar Patch Boogie” begins with a funny conversation about how perspectives change as we age. On a miserable camping and fishing trip that might have been fun when they were young, Hap and Leonard witness a murder. The killers are guys who make a sport of killing hookers. The story eventually turns into a “Most Dangerous Game” plot, with the twist that the hunters use bows and arrows. The story delivers a true rush of adrenalin.

“Cold Cotton.” Hap’s doctor recommends a once-over by a therapist named Carol Cotton as an alternative to Viagra when Hap isn’t getting the desired results with his wife Brenda. Perhaps Hap is stressed by the evil in the world or by his violent response to it (although he’s made a point of being less violent after moving past his midlife point). Before Hap decides whether to call the therapist, she hires Hap and Leonard (and Brenda and Leonard’s lover Pookie) to provide security in response to threats she’s received. The story takes a couple of unexpected turns and ends with the kind of bloodbath that Hap and Leonard regularly encounter. No wonder Hap needs therapy for his limp organ.

Hap narrates the stories and isn’t shy about sharing his opinions. Like, “in Texas every asshole walks around with a gun and thinks they’re Wyatt Earp.” All the characters, including minor characters, regularly exchange good natured insults; snappy dialog is part of the fun.

These stories reflect aging characters. Hap, at least, is mellowing. Leonard still views violence as a first option when villains deserve a good thrashing (or a good killing), as they usually do. The enduring value of the stories is that Lansdale has imagined a world in which a straight white liberal and a gay black Republican can agree on something — in fact, on most things. Their mutual understanding that human dignity, respectful behavior, and fishing are fundamentally important provide a bond that transcends their political views. Hap and Leonard could be role models for us all (regardless of how we feel about fishing).

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The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Published by Tor Books on March 15, 2022

John Scalzi spent two months of his pandemic knocking out an amusing novel. When he’s being serious, Scalzi can be an incredibly moving writer. Even when he knocks out a two-month pandemic wonder that is written for laughs, he’s a good storyteller who makes me smile.

Jamie Gray has a tech job for a niche startup that competes with food delivery apps like Uber Eats. After he’s fired, he signs up to make deliveries because there aren’t many jobs available during the pandemic. After making several deliveries to a customer who has sympathy for Jamie’s situation, the customer offers Jamie a job. His new job, as he frequently explains, is to lift things.

Until he arrives in Greenland, Jamie doesn’t realize that he will be working in another universe. It’s possible to cross into that universe (and for very large and nasty creatures called kaiju to cross into ours) when the dimensional barrier is weakened by nuclear explosions. Unfortunately, the radiation from those explosions attracts the kaiju, who are basically powered by their own naturally occurring nuclear reactors.

The kaiju are not so much animals as ecosystems. They maintain symbiotic relationships with parasites that keep them from exploding like a nuclear bomb. Every now and then, their system breaks down and the kaiju die a spectacular death.

Most people don’t know about this alternative universe, although rich people are in on the secret because they’re helping the government fund its study. Jamie’s team is one of three that periodically enter the universe through the Greenland portal. Most of his colleagues are scientists but they still need someone to lift things.

Scalzi explains enough of the science underlying the alternate Earth to fool me (a nonscientist) into believing that the story is plausible. That’s all the science I need in a story that is meant to amuse.The plot sets up a rich guy as an evil nemesis of Jamie. Naturally, the evil rich guy embarks on an evil scheme and it will be up to Jamie (and a few other characters) to thwart him.

This is primarily a science fiction conspiracy thriller with enough action to justify calling it a thriller despite its failure to thrill. The plot doesn’t hold any real surprises, but the characters’ banter is … amusing. Scalzi fans presumably understand how his characters  engage in good-natured banter. The banter is probably enough to keep them happy until Scalzi turns his attention to more serious work.

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