Every Cloak Rolled in Blood by James Lee Burke

Published by ‎ Simon & Schuster on May 24, 2022

Aaron Holland Broussard is part of the Holland family that James Lee Burke has chronicled in a dozen novels. Broussard is also Burke’s alter ego. At 85, it isn’t surprising that Burke uses Broussard as a way to reflect on his life, on the mystery of existence, and on loss.

Broussard is an 85-year-old novelist who, like Burke, lives with the pain of a daughter’s death. Burke explains in a letter to the reader that his daughter died of natural causes in 2020. Broussard feels he is being “boiled alive” by “psychoneurotic anxiety and agitated depression.” Broussard’s daughter died but is still at his side, appearing to warn him of dangers arising in both the corporeal and spirit world.

Broussard lives alone, although prolific writers who are surrounded by family spend much of their life alone in the act of creation. How much of Broussard is really Burke is unknowable to anyone who doesn’t know Burke. Nor does it matter. The novel is not a biography; it succeeds or fails as a matter of literary merit.

Broussard has evolved during his long life. He feels shame for supporting Strom Thurmond’s election and for cheering American pilots who gunned down civilians fleeing their village during the Korean War. Yet he was never part of a mob — not a Klansman, not a waver of Confederate flags, not a bigot. He believes heroism should walk with humility, that bravery follows kindness. He is a decent man who regrets his mistakes.

The story begins with a young man painting a swastika on Broussard’s barn. At various times, Broussard confronts or tries to reason with or help the boy and the father who poisoned him. The story involves drug dealing and buried gold on a reservation, a couple of gruesome murders, ineffective cops, and an unfortunate woman who wants to make a movie with Broussard. While some of the story is reality-based, a good bit of the novel asks the reader to believe (or at least accept that Broussard believes) that spirits of the dead are trying to influence us with evil or save us from ourselves. Broussard, on the other hand, wonders if he might be delusional, forced by grief to see things that aren’t there. A reader might wonder if that’s true, but that does not appear to be the conclusion that Burke invites.

Every Cloak Rolled in Blood succeeds despite its reliance on the supernatural themes crime writers often use to address the existence of evil. Broussard explains that the “great mystery for me has always been the presence of evil in the human breast.” On several occasions, Broussard encounters Major Eugene Baker, the officer who ordered his cavalry troops to massacre peaceful members of the Blackfoot tribe as they slept. A state trooper named Ruby Spotted Horse has a cellar that is a “conduit into a cavernous world that has never been plumbed,” a place where Baker’s spirit resides, among others who have the power to “come back upon the living.”

I’m not a fan of supernatural themes — the supernatural seems too easy as an explanation of evil, a copout that allows humanity to avoid responsibility for inhumane behavior — although I forgive Burke and other accomplished writers for evoking evil spirits. Burke’s prose makes forgiveness easy, particularly when he offers other insights into the human condition. Examples:

“I do not enjoy my role as an old man in a nation that has little use for antiquity and even less for those who value it.”

“I hate the violent history of the Holland family, and I hate the martial mentality of those who love wars but never go to them.”

“When you lose your kid, the best you can hope for is a scar rather than an open wound.”

 “I would like to claim power and personal direction over my life. But not a day goes by that I do not experience a reminder of an event that left me at the mercy of strangers.”

“The United States prides itself on the freedom of the individual, but we are still a Puritan nation and obsessed with sex.”

Burke’s letter to the reader describes Every Cloak Rolled in Blood as an “attempt to capture part of mankind’s trek across a barren waste into modern times.” Modern times include “the recalcitrant and the unteachable” who refuse to wear masks during a pandemic because the selfishness of cultural grievance is more important to them than public health. Those grievances include being the butt of jokes told by the “Hollywood friends” of liberals on Saturday Night Live, a grievance that fails to consider what they have done to earn mockery. The trek includes a long history of violence and bigotry and oppression. Burke writes movingly about Native Americans who were slaughtered and brutalized by white soldiers who, instead of being tried for war crimes, were lauded as heroes.

Burke describes Montana landscapes with religious awe and views his characters through the focused lens of compassion. The novel is, in some sense, a howl of pain, notable more for the emotions it evokes than the plot. But it is also a reminder that we must always struggle to understand our place in the universe, to be a barrier against the historic march of evil, to be strong but polite, open but on guard, emotional but not helpless or hopeless.

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Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Published by Orbit on May 3, 2022

The crew of the Vulture God returns in Eyes of the Void, the second book of the Final Architecture trilogy. The first novel built the future in which the novel is set. This one expands the reader’s understanding of the universe while advancing (albeit slowly) the fight between the Architects and the various human and nonhuman species who are fleeing the Architects’ grand design.

At the end of the first novel, the Architects took a break, perhaps in response to contact made by Idris Telemmier, one the original humans who was designed to stay awake while navigating through unspace. Now the Architects are back, redesigning worlds in an apparent desire for a different aesthetic. The redesigns are unfortunately fatal to all life on the planet, as they involve pulling some of the planet’s core to its surface.

In the first novel, the Architects did not bother worlds that had artifacts of the Originators. Soon after Eyes of the Void commences, the Architects are carefully removing artifacts from a world that has been colonized by the Divine Essiel, leaders of a religious cult who make an improbable promise of protection from the Architects to those who build and occupy a “great new temple.” Idris happens to be on that world for a time, but various individuals from multiple species would like to capture him for their own purposes.

Idris is the novel’s most interesting character, if only because he has been forced into a life he never wanted. Having been given the extraordinary but painful ability to see into unspace without being driven mad, Idris feels compelled to use that power for the greater good while satisfying his own fear-driven curiosity about the true nature of unspace and its inhabitants. That curiosity will be at least partially satisfied by the novel’s end.

The remaining crew of the Vulture God spend most of the novel trying to rescue each other. They hope to snatch Idris from the Divine Essiel’s planet before it is destroyed. They hope to snatch Kris Almier, their knife-wielding lawyer, from the clutches of the Uskaro family, residents of a prosperous colony world. They need to rescue one of the characters a second time. Solace, one of the warrior-angels known as the Parthenon, does much of the rescuing. Solace’s character, having been developed in the first novel, undergoes little change in the second. Kris and Idris are the most interesting characters in this installment.

The Naeromanthi are one of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s most interesting creations. Realizing that living on a planet made them vulnerable to the Architects, the Naeromanthi built and filled huge arks and dispersed them throughout the galaxy. The quickly lost the cultural referents that come with planetary attachment and developed into a nomadic culture, scavenging whatever they can find from other planets and ships. It occurs to some humans that they should follow a similar path.

Eyes of the Void is wordy. Descriptions of unspace and Idris’ reaction to it are often redundant. Padding is not an issue I’ve noticed in Tchaikovsky’s other work. It is, however, an issue in the second novel of many sf trilogies. Still, the novel serves its purpose as a bridge between a fascinating first novel and the promise of an equally fascinating conclusion.

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Wild Prey by Brian Klingborg

Published by Minotaur Books on May 17, 2022

Inspector Lu Fei of Raven Valley Township is incorruptible which, in China, is bad for a career as a government employee. Lu has thus been relegated to a small community where his talents are wasted. Lu begins Wild Prey in a marketplace, watching for a man who is wanted for selling black market products. The man has violated Chinese laws that protect wildlife by prohibiting the sale of animal products that, according to ancient superstitions, improve heath or virility.

Lu next deals with a young woman who reports a missing sister. The sister went missing outside of Lu’s jurisdiction, but Lu’s efforts to encourage an investigation by the correct authorities are unsuccessful. Lu travels to the city where the sister, Tan Meixiang, was last working. Coincidentally, she was employed in a restaurant that is suspected of serving dishes made from black market animals. The restaurant has a reputation for delivering other shady services to its exclusive clientele, but the owner’s connection with powerful people shields him from prosecution. The owner, Wilson Fang, flees from the premises during a shootout for which Lu will inevitably be blamed.

Lu’s unorthodox investigation of the restaurant leads to his suspension. At the same time, it attracts the attention of a well-placed individual in a shadowy government agency. He recruits Lu to act as an undercover operative, posing as a buyer of exotic bushmeat to infiltrate the seller’s facility in Myanmar. The assignment is dangerous; more than one person will become lunch for a tiger before the story ends. Fu believes that the assignment will lead him to Wilson Fang and might therefore help him discover Meixiang’s fate, so he accepts — not that he has much choice. The plot elements and many of the crooked characters come together deep the Myanmar jungle.

Wild Prey is the second Lu Fei novel. Lu is a likable character, a classic crime novel cop who refuses to play the game and whose career suffers because he places justice ahead of the career aspirations of his superiors. While Wild Prey treats the reader to a series of action scenes, Lu is also likable because he’s nonviolent by nature, preferring wits to weapons as problem-solving tools. Lu is nevertheless capable of holding his own in a fight, particularly when his life depends on the outcome.

Lu is pursuing a woman who operates a local bar. In his undercover role, he is expected to drink excessively and sleep with prostitutes. Avoiding the latter obligation is another test of Lu’s character. In the end, Lu’s character serves him well.

The familiar elements of police-based crime novels are freshened by the Asian setting and an atmosphere that emphasizes the customs and cuisine of both China and Myanmar. Brian Klingborn’s descriptive prose transports the reader to fascinating lands while he delivers the excitement and characterization that crime novel fans admire.

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The Island by Adrian McKinty

Published by Little, Brown and Company on May 17, 2022

The Island is an uncomplicated mix of thriller and horror elements. A widower named Tom has traveled to Australia for a medical conference. He’s taken his new wife and his two kids. The kids don’t like their stepmom, who is half their dad’s age, but they’re more upset that they haven’t seen any cool animals. Tom spends a few hundred bucks to buy a few hours of time on a private island, ignoring obvious warnings that invading the island’s privacy will be a bad idea. After another couple joins the tour, a ferry brings the six people and their two cars to Dutch Island.

Adrian McKinty signals that Dr. Tom is a disagreeable character when Tom complains that the car rental company gave him a lesser Porsche SUV than the one he reserved. McKinty signals that the reader should have sympathy for Tom’s wife, Heather, when she struggles to do her best in her unfamiliar parental role. Those signals alert the reader to the likelihood that things will not go well for Tom but that Heather will show her mettle. Just to make sure the reader doesn’t dwell on Tom’s unpleasant encounter with the island's residents, McKinty provides more tidbits about Tom’s past to suggest that that his eventual fate is only the product of karma.

Tom does something stupid that gets Tom and his family in trouble with the island’s inhabitants, a family of misfits named O’Neill, led by a woman they call Ma. The O’Neill family decides that vengeance requires them to kill Tom’s family, apart from the 14-year-old girl who will become a replacement wife for one of the O’Neills. For good measure, the O’Neill family tortures the tag-along couple so that the reader will have no doubt that the O’Neills are evil. This sets an action story in motion, as Heather and the kids use a combination of wits and luck to turn themselves from prey to hunter.

The story makes interesting use of Australia’s history of oppressing Aboriginal people. The plot is otherwise predictable, but the story moves quickly and generates the excitement that McKinty intended. The traditional season of beach reads is approaching. The Island falls neatly into that category — entertaining but no great loss if the reader leaves it buried in the sand.

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Overboard by Sara Paretsky

Published by William Morrow on May 10, 2022

I always enjoy the plot complexity of V.I. Warshawski novels, but there’s a little too much going on in Overboard. The primary story involves the mystery of a young woman who is running from a danger she won’t articulate. Subplots involve art theft, blackmail, Chicago land development shenanigans, elder abuse, vandalism of a synagogue, a drone that supposedly sucks everyone’s data from the air, and a kid who is trying to survive bad parenting. Sara Paretsky depends on unconvincing coincidences to bind the subplots together. Trimming a subplot or two might have added some urgency to an uncharacteristically slow story. Still, any Warshawski novel is worth a reader’s time, if only for the rich Chicago atmosphere.

Overboard begins with Warshawski’s dogs finding an injured teenage girl near the river. Of all the millions who inhabit Chicago, it’s an amazing coincidence that Warshawski finds the girl, but that’s a forgivable contrivance because it sets the story in motion. The girl (Julia) speaks only one word to Warshawski, a word that might be Hungarian. Warshawski takes her to a hospital that she trusts. A janitor who speaks some Hungarian makes an unsuccessful attempt to communicate with Julia. The police visit and soon the janitor is dead, Julia disappears, and the woman sharing Julia’s hospital room suffers misfortune.

Warshawski spends most of the novel eluding a corrupt police officer who is convinced that the girl gave something to Warshawski. After Warshawski is in the news for finding Julia, a teenage boy (Brad) wants her to help him discover whether his father is in trouble. Warshawski has a history with Brad’s family that does not endear his quarreling parents to Warshawski. Eventually Warshawski will need to hide Brad and Julia, both of whom possess knowledge that might endanger their lives. Part of Warshawski’s quest involves learning what the two kids have that the cops and their gangster pals are trying to make them surrender.

The story follows Warshawski as she pounds the pavement to find Julia (although the manner in which they reconnect depends on another unlikely coincidence) and pounds it some more to figure out why Julia and Brad and an elderly woman are in so much danger. Warshawski is twice taken to the Chicago Police Department’s version of Gitmo, from which she makes an extraordinarily unlikely escape. A final action scene has Warshawski playing a daring but stupidly dangerous role. None of this quite added up to a believable story.

Key plot points hinge on a small drone doing impossible things, like causing a blackout and blocking all cellphone coverage in a building. (The drone also magically absorbs all digital data contained within a building, but the plot doesn’t depend on that remarkable feature to save the heroine.) The drone’s conventional ability to take pictures is a more believable plot driver, although the picture it happened to take is — yes, once more — an unlikely coincidence.

The corruption and brutality of the Chicago Police Department is legendary. Paretsky makes it central to the plot. It is also part of the novel’s Chicago atmosphere, along with crooked real estate deals, a polluted river, and the city’s ethnic diversity. Paretsky’s novels are a joy to read for anyone who has explored Chicago. Paretsky’s prose and atmospheric writing give the novel its value, but the story is a bit ho-hum compared to other books in the series.

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