The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz

Published by Pinnacle Books on January 30, 2018

Tillie North is about to pass something along to her granddaughter when she’s killed in an explosion. Washington breathes a sigh of relief, since Tillie has somehow managed to amass embarrassing secrets since the days of the Truman administration. Tillie’s granddaughter, Ava North, is present when she dies, as is a fellow who works for the Gray Outfit named Thomas Laker. The Gray Outfit is one of those ultra-secret Homeland Security organizations that are so prevalent in thrillers. So what was Tillie planning to give Ava?

The story tracks back to 1941, when Tillie was in Hawaii, gathering information for Naval Intelligence by using her feminine guile (and body) to gather information from a Japanese diplomat. By the time they part, Tillie has gathered more information than she expected to learn, and more than she is willing to reveal to her minders, for reasons that suggest the government’s faith in Tillie’s patriotism has been badly misplaced. But really, it’s faith in Tillie’s intelligence that has been misplaced, given that Tillie comes across as a ditz who scarcely deserves the reverence with which she is viewed by the novel’s central characters.

In the present, the story follows Ava and Laker as they pursue the meaning of a cryptic notebook that Tillie left behind. The notebook has something to do with Tillie’s work the war, but the phrases she jotted on its pages make little sense, and the entries suddenly stop. Why Tillie believed that the best way to impart a secret to her granddaughter was to send her on a scavenger hunt for information is beyond me. Whispering in her ear would have done the trick without risking Ava’s inability to piece together Tillie’s obscure clues.

To uncover the notebook’s meaning, Ava and Laker interview people in Hawaii and Washington who knew Tillie. That leads them to a series of adventures of the sort that are common in thrillers: chases and fights and shootouts and so on.

Opposing Ava and Laker is a ridiculous fellow known as the Shapeshifter, whose job is to discover secrets and kill people. The Shapeshifter has an improbable (and nearly supernatural) ability to ferret out information, but characters like that are common in thrillers, and I’m willing to roll with them as long as their exploits aren’t consistently eye-rolling. Unfortunately, as the Shapeshifter tracked down three men, each of whom had inexplicably been given one piece of essential information that unlocks the novel’s puzzle, my eyes began to roll like tumblers on a slot machine. The ability of Ava and Laker to track the Shapeshifter’s movements is almost as difficult to swallow.

When Tillie’s big secret is finally revealed, I had to wonder how Washington could possibly have kept it a secret for so many years, and why the combined might of the nation’s military and intelligence services hadn’t managed to uncover the truth. There are other scenes in the novel that are just as difficult to believe. A bad guy who needs a building permit gets one from New York City in just a couple of days. A character who has been tied up suddenly gets her foot free to kick another character at an opportune moment. I might have been more willing to suspend my disbelief if the characters had been more interesting, but Laker and Ava have too little flesh on their bones. The novel as a whole lacks credibility, interest, and energy.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Eye by Bill Pronzini and John Lutz

First published in 1984; published digitally by Open Road Media on April 22, 2014

The Keeper of the Eye kills a drunken old man for committing the sin of rude behavior. He kills a gay man for committing the sin of being gay. He kills his third victim by mistake, but decides the man committed a sin worthy of death by having casual sex with Jennifer Crane. His fourth victim is a woman who is having an affair with an unemployed artist. The killings all occur on the same block. The killer, Lewis Collier, a/k/a the Keeper of Eye, is educated and articulate, but he has the deranged notion that he is the Lord's Avenger. The Eye sees everything and all that it sees is sinful. One of the novel's mysteries is how Collier sees and knows so much about the people on the block (as well as the undercover cops who are roaming about, hoping to find him).

Catching the serial killer is the job of Detective E.L. Oxman. He finds it hard to focus on the case after he meets Jennifer Crane, a woman on whom all men seem to focus. In the tradition of serial killer novels, Collier reveals himself to Oxman without revealing his identity, causing Oxman to worry that the Eye might have his eye on Jennifer Crane. Oxman's wife, on the other hand, is worried that Oxman might have his eye on another woman.

Although most of the novel is written in the third person, Collier tells his story in the first person as he dictates a recording of his thoughts. Bill Pronzini and John Lutz give Collier a distinct voice, educated and chilling, that imparts a creepier tone to his sections of the novel.

The attempt to catch a deranged killer is a familiar theme in crime fiction. This incarnation of that theme is particularly clever. The story winds its way to a twist at the end that I probably should have guessed but didn't. More importantly, The Eye distinguishes itself with its portrayal of the psychological impact of the murders on the intertwined lives of the block's residents. Relationships sour, friendships end, lives change. The disparate characters who live on the block -- including an aspiring actress who shoplifts jewelry to make ends meet, a burglar, a mentally disabled building superintendent who wants to be recognized for his winning streak at gin rummy, and a number of others -- are carefully drawn and generally sympathetic despite their faults, as is Oxman. The ensemble of credible neighborhood characters make The Eye stand out in the world of serial killer crime fiction.

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