Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon

Published by Atria Books on May 29, 2012

Set in 1945, Istanbul Passage tells an absorbing story that builds suspense like a Hitchcock movie. The novel rests upon a storyline that was a favorite of Hitchcock's: the (relatively) innocent man caught up in an intrigue he did not anticipate, forced to use his wits to avoid arrest or death. As is often the case in spy novels, themes of betrayal and moral ambiguity in a changing world pervade Istanbul Passage. The temptation and motivation to betray touches every important character.

Leon Bauer (American) is married to Anna (German) who is bedridden with a mysterious ailment. Leon works for R.J. Reynolds in Istanbul but does a bit of spying for Tommy King (Office of War Information) on the side. Tommy is pulling out of the city, leaving Leon to take delivery of a post-war defector named Alexei (Romanian) who is smuggled into Turkey by boat. The handover does not go smoothly. Hours later, in an early plot twist, Leon discovers that people he trusted are not on his side.

Leon learns Alexei's true identity from Mihai, a Mossad agent who believes Alexei to be a butcher, a killer of Jews (an accusation that Alexei denies). Mihai, the only person Leon trusts, refuses to help Alexei. In fact, he argues that it is no longer ethical for Leon to help Alexei gain his freedom. Leon thus confronts a dilemma. Alexei might be evil, but there are degrees of evil, and Alexei's role in the war is unclear. Alexei may be able to provide valuable Russian military intelligence to the Americans. Is it better to hand Alexei over to the Russians so that he can be executed (which might seem a just punishment for his alleged actions during the war) or to give him a pass for his wartime behavior in exchange for the information he claims to possess? Leon stands uncomfortably in the middle of this Hobson's choice, a position that becomes even less comfortable when the Turkish secret police take an interest in Leon's involvement with Alexei. Compounding Leon's problems is a mole whose identity is not revealed until the novel's end.

The revelation of the mole's identity is mildly surprising thanks to deft misdirection. Leon's moment of truth is a highlight in a book filled with scenes that make an impact.  Despite the moderately complex plot that brings together a number of carefully drawn characters, Joseph Kanon maintains a deliberate and gradually escalating pace.

Istanbul Passage raises fascinating ethical issues. When Mihai argues that the actions of people struggling for survival can't be judged by others who weren't in their shoes, he fails to understand that the same logic might apply to his judgment of Alexei. How should the reader view Alexei? He seems unremorsefully selfish yet he is capable of self-sacrifice. He is a Romanian who allied with Germany when Germany seemed to be prevailing, then switched his allegiance to Russia, and now seeks an alliance with the Americans. Other Romanians see him as a traitor, Mihai considers him a war criminal, but in the end, Alexei may simply be a man who tried to stay alive.

At the same time, how should the reader view Leon? As a devoted husband, he wants to help his wife but lacks the funds to do so. As a man who is attracted to women, he finds it difficult to resist advances. Leon is probably the most morally stalwart character in the book but he is no stranger to temptation. He wants to do the right thing but in the end he comes to understand that there is no right thing. And since nothing he can do will change the past, the question that confounds him is how to behave in the present.

Kanon manages to generate excitement without endless explosions and car chases. Action scenes are rare but riveting. Kanon writes dialog that is both realistic and smart. His characters are artfully constructed. Leon, of course, is the most fully developed. The reader is privy to his disjointed thoughts, often triggered by something he hears or sees but disconnected from his present environment. Strong characterizations combined with suspense, emotional intensity and ethical ambiguity make Istanbul Passage a standout spy novel.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Winemaker by Noah Gordon

Published in Spanish in 2007; digitally published in translation by Barcelona eBooks on June 5, 2012 (distributed by Open Road Media); print edition scheduled for publication in September 2012

The intersection of wine and literature is a fine place to rest. The Winemaker will appeal to those who like a good story and to those who appreciate a good glass of wine. Those who love both wine and literature might place The Winemaker on their annual list of favorite reads. It will certainly be on mine.

After four years working in the vineyard and barrel room of a vintner in Languedoc, Josep Alvarez has developed an appreciation of fine wine that he could never have imagined growing up on his father's farm in Catalonia, where grapes are grown to produce vinegar and wine that tastes like horse piss. When he learns that his father has died, Josep decides to return home, hoping that he is not being pursued by the Spanish authorities. Initially, we know only that Josep joined the Carlist militia in 1870 and that he later left Spain, but we don't know why. Returning to his village, he discovers that his brother, Donat, is living in Barcelona and wants to sell the farm. Josep buys it and settles in, content to own "a slice of Spain," to use the knowledge he acquired in France to revitalize the neglected vineyard. Climbing a hill on the property and discovering hundred year old Garnacha vines, he begins to wonder whether it might be possible to produce grapes suitable for something more palatable than vinegar.

Part two tells how Josep became a soldier for lack of other options. In part three, having discovered that his duties as a soldier were other than what he expected, Josep struggles to make his way into the world. Part four returns to the present (1874) as Josep pursues his new life as a winemaker. Part five (beginning in 1876) completes a journey of self-discovery as Josep learns to embrace the pleasures of a simple life while resisting his neighbors' urges to be satisfied with its limitations.

While there is satisfying drama in the growing of grapes, Noah Gordon finds things for Josep to do that heighten the story's tension, from chasing a wild boar to the odd but dangerous sport of castell-building. Josep owes a debt to his brother that creates family discord. Even the mysterious relationship between Josep's neighboring farmer and the village priest adds dramatic interest to the story. When Josep's brief militia experience comes back to threaten him toward the novel's end, the story gains a layer of political intrigue without devolving into a cheap thriller. It also becomes a tale of turmoil as Josep realizes that he was manipulated by a friend.

The Winemaker is a novel of relationships and personal growth rather than action and suspense. Gordon also wedges in a love story, as Josep pursues romance (and/or sex) in a village where options are severely limited. As the story unfolds, the reader wonders about Josep's feelings for Teresa Gallego, the girl he left behind when he entered the militia, whose life he fears was ruined by his failure to return to her.

Gordon captures the place and time in his vibrant descriptions of mills and barrel makers and horse-drawn carts. He convincingly recreates sleepy, gossipy village life. The Winemaker treats readers to a brief history of Spanish land reform and civil strife during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of greater significance to wine lovers, the novel provides a unique glimpse of winemaking on a small nineteenth century Spanish farm. Gordon writes lovingly of the hardships of winemakers who are at the mercy of weather, pests, rotting vats and fickle soils. The description of the final stages of wine production -- the experimentation required to produce the perfect blend of varietals -- is fascinating. Wine lovers will certainly admire this novel, but I think most fans of character-driven fiction will enjoy it as well.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Bourne Imperative by Eric Van Lustbader

Published by Grand Central Publishing on June 5, 2012 

"She took another long drag from her cigarillo, which emitted smoke like a just-fired pistol." If this is the kind of sentence you love to read (and I can't believe it is), The Bourne Imperative is the book for you. It is packed with similar silliness.

Jason Bourne fishes a fellow out of the water who speaks multiple languages but remembers nothing about his life, including his own name. Did Jason Bourne catch another Jason Bourne? That would be quite a coincidence, but so is the fact that Bourne happens to be boating in the same Swedish archipelago where the nameless man is being pursued by rogue Mossad super-agent Rebeka, whose life Bourne saved in The Bourne Dominion. The nameless man knows about some nefarious doings of Mossad in Dahr El Ahmar, but he can't remember what he knows. Bourne's larger concern is super-terrorist Nicodemo who seems to be a clandestine player in Core Energy, a company that is trying to corner the market on rare earths. Rebeka's larger concern should be Ilan Halevy, "the Babylonian," who has been commissioned to kill her (among others) by Mossad. An alliance between yet another rogue Mossad agent and a Minister of the Chinese government adds an additional layer of convolution to this messy plot.

Meanwhile, back at Treadstone, a new boy named Richard Richards is keeping an eye on co-directors Saroya Moore and Peter Marks, reporting directly to the president. A subplot involves Saroya's pregnancy, political reporter Charles Thorne, the senator to whom he is married, and Maceo Encarnacion, the president of a shadowy internet security firm,. Another involves Martha Christiana, whose contract to assassinate Don Fernando is complicated by her deep feelings for him. You need a large scorecard and a fistful of colored markers to keep track of all the betrayals as the various plotlines unfold.

The clutter of characters and the novel's form -- jumping rapidly from scene to scene so the reader can watch as the action progresses on several fronts -- is about all this novel has in common with the original Bourne trilogy. As you might expect given Eric Van Lustbader's production of a new, lengthy Bourne novel every year, The Bourne Imperative has the feel of having been hurriedly written. Van Lustbader takes shortcuts, relying on stock characters and clichéd phrases to prop up the story. The Babylonian is almost a cartoon villain, the Incredible Hulk on steroids. Action/fight scenes, of which there are many, are so unimaginative, and rendered in such bland language, that they create no adrenalin rush. Some of the scenes that take place in Mexico read as if they were belong in a cheesy Mexican soap opera.

Apart from being entirely too dependent upon coincidence, The Bourne Imperative too often asks the reader not just to suspend disbelief, but to believe the impossible. For instance, the latest excuse to kill Bourne concerns "a top secret Mossad camp ... harboring even more top secret research" that Bourne happens to have encountered. We all know that Bourne is an amazing guy, but in this novel he seems to have acquired x-ray vision. How else would he know that there are "experiments going on" inside a building he flew over in a helicopter just by looking at the outside of the building?

To be fair, the story, stripped to its essence, isn't half bad, and the scheme involving the Mossad agent and the Chinese minister includes a clever twist. Still, the plot seems like a patchwork, something cobbled together from bits and pieces torn from a dozen other thrillers. Regrettably, it is built upon the worst excesses of action-based thrillers. The ending is just preposterous. I'm prepared to accept preposterous for the sake of a good thriller, but this one isn't.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Little Night by Luanne Rice

Published by Pamela Dorman Books on June 5, 2012 

Luanne Rice is a capable writer who specializes in telling stories about family dynamics.  The bare bones of a good story are buried deep within Little Night.  Sadly, a determined reader will need to dig through contrived situations and weakly developed characters to find it.

The prologue begins in 1993 with the arrest of Clare Burke after she smashes Frederik Rasmussen’s face with a burning log.  After years of estrangement from her sister Anne caused by Anne’s controlling husband Frederik, Clare had noticed Anne’s injuries during a visit.  Clare was convincing Anne to flee to a place of safety when Frederik came home and began to choke Anne.  The police do not believe Clare was protecting Anne when Anne refuses to contradict her domineering husband, who accuses Clare of attempting to murder him.

In 2011, Anne’s daughter Grit visits Clare in New York City.  Grit is a follower of Clare’s bird blog.  She shares Clare’s animosity toward Frederik.  Grit also has issues surrounding her mother’s uncaring behavior and her brother’s apparent death in a bog.  Grit and Clare nonetheless bond over the fact that they both miss Anne.  Before she fled home, Grit stole Anne’s diary which Clare reads to gain insight into Anne’s personality.

Part two begins with a posting on Anne’s blog that (with good reason) questions her parenting of Grit.  Reading it together (as well as subsequent entries) gives Clare and Grit another bonding opportunity.

Other events are scattered through this mostly uneventful novel.  Grit behaves in a self-destructive way.  She gets tattoos from an artist named Dennis.  She earns a little money by cooking for pretentious people.  Clare examines her feelings for a bird enthusiast named Paul.  Yet most of the novel’s drama is reserved for the last couple of chapters, which I thought were entirely unbelievable.

In fact, I didn’t believe much of the story at all, beginning with the setup.  I doubt Clare would have been prosecuted, much less convicted and sentenced to prison, given the fairly obvious evidence of Frederick’s abusive nature (Anne’s loyalty to her husband notwithstanding).  The subplot involving Grit’s brother is similarly contrived.

Neither did I believe that the characters were real.   Frederik is too over-the-top to be convincing.  Sure, there are people in the world who are as evil as Frederik, but Rice fails to develop Frederik in sufficient depth to make his personality ring true.  Anne is subservient because Rice needs her to be that way to make the story work, but we never learn why such a seemingly strong-willed girl changes so dramatically that later in life she betrays both her sister and her daughter for the sake of a man she doesn't seem to like.   Dennis is improbably attuned to Grit from the instant they meet.  His perfect sensitivity makes him seem more like an illusion than a real person.  Neither Paul nor Dennis is a fully realized character.  They are empty vessels, existing only to spice the story by giving Clare and Grit the opportunity for love.

Some aspects of Little Night are hokey:  a bartender’s intuitive knowledge that Clare had served prison time (a mere two years) because of her “blank stare”; the upscale soap opera that was Anne’s life before Frederik came along (fate’s punishment for her wanton ways?); Dennis feeling moved to kiss Grit while giving her a tattoo, apparently because he senses her tortured soul.  Clare’s childhood discovery that her perfect father was a less-than-perfect husband -- a realization that “broke Anne in a way that changed her forever” -- is trite.  Scenes of family drama are robbed of their potential power by cheesy, melodramatic writing (Grit “missed her mother so much she thought her head would explode”).  The characters engage in so much hand-wringing about their family problems that the narrative becomes emotionally deadening.

Rice presents some interesting information about birds and bogs.  She draws interesting parallels between nature and families, both of which are filled with beauty and brutality.  Unfortunately, Rice feels a need to explain her metaphors, as if she thinks her readers are too dim to grasp them without assistance.  That’s the fundamental problem with this uneven novel:  sometimes Rice tells us too much, other times not enough.   Rice's failure to find the right balance makes Little Night a novel of limited appeal.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood

Published by Oxford University Press on May 23, 2012 

Bruce Hood argues that the self is an illusion, "a powerful deception generated by our brains for our own benefit." He contends that a correct understanding of self contradicts the popular view that we are individuals within our bodies, "tracing out a pathway through life, and responsible for our thoughts and actions." His argument that the self is merely an illusion will probably not be well received by the portion of the mental health and self help industry that makes a living teaching people to understand themselves, control themselves, or change themselves. Hood argues that none of those objectives can be accomplished, although we might maintain the illusion that we have accomplished them, because we cannot change or control what does not exist.

Is the argument convincing? Yes and no. According to Hood, who we think we are is a product of external influences: "it is the experience of others that defines who we are." Our brains manufacture models to make sense of the external world, and we experience those models as "a cohesive, integrated character," but the model is just a construct, not a reality. I buy that, but I'm not sure the word "illusion" is synonymous with "mental construct." I suppose one could argue that any product of the brain -- a thought, an emotion, a sensation -- is in some sense an illusion as opposed to a tangible reality, but I find that difficult to accept that creations of the brain are correctly categorized as illusions.

Hood's thesis, as summarized in the last chapter, is that the self is the product of the mind, built over time from observing externalities. I'm not sure why this means that the self is an illusion. A house is built over time from materials derived from external sources, but a completed house is no illusion. Yes, the self may be based on imperfect memories and misperceived experiences. Yes, the self is "continually shifting and reshaping" as external influences change. That tells me that the self is fluid, not that it isn't real. Of course, Hood contends that the brain fights hard to protect the self illusion, and that may be exactly what my brain is doing as I write this. Even if "self" is an illusion, however -- and Hood acknowledges this -- it is a useful illusion, and one with which we are stuck. As Hood notes, we "need a pretty strong sense of self to survive," so even if self is an illusion, it is one most of us need to embrace.

On the other hand, perhaps my quibble is only a semantic disagreement with Hood's use of the word "illusion." Much of Hood's argument is indisputable. Hood presents the heart of his argument in the preface. The remainder of the book is packed with information. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the brain: how it functions and how it develops during infancy. Chapter 2 focuses on the social interaction of babies, who (Hood says) are hardwired with a Machiavellian ability to manipulate adults. He also discusses the development of self-consciousness during infancy. Chapter 3 explores the notion of the "looking-glass self" (the theory that we conceptualize ourselves based on how others see us), examines the role memory plays in the development of the sense of self, and discusses the phenomenon of false or induced memories. Hood's premise is largely dependent upon this research. If our sense of identity is based on a composite of our memories, and if our memories are inherently unreliable, are we really who we think we are? Hood also discusses the role that gender and stereotypes play in shaping the sense of self, as well as autism and psycopathy, ADHD and impulse control. Chapter 7 discusses the fallibility of memory and the relationship between memory and identity.

Some aspects of the book are likely to be controversial, particularly the assertion that "the freedom to make choices is another aspect of the self illusion." Chapter 4 suggests that people are not truly responsible for their actions -- a point of view that is shunned by a criminal justice system. That brain injuries rather than conscious choice may lead to aggression or pedophilia is a reality that the law would prefer to ignore. More doubtful, however, is Hood's assertion that our actions are never a product of free will. Toward the end of chapter 4, Hood acknowledges what seems obvious: even if free will doesn't exist, we might as well accept the illusion that it does because the illusion makes us happy.

The most valuable concept that follows from Hood's argument is his rejection of the notion that "winners," extraordinary achievers who manage to overcome formidable obstacles, are inherently better than "losers," the large majority of people who are limited by their circumstances. Hood asks why we blame people for failing to achieve "rather than the circumstances that prevent them from achievement." I suspect that society isn't ready to accept the ramifications of that simple question.

Much of the rest of The Self Illusion could come from Psychology Today. It's all very interesting and Hood credibly connects the wide-ranging topics to his central premise. Do we lose our sense of individual identity in a crowd? Do we join groups to define our identity? Why do we fear ostracism? If the self can be easily molded (even made to do evil) by group membership, can a core self really exist? What do identity disorders say about our actual identity?

After absorbing as much of this information as I could, I think Hood's evidence for the nonexistence of self can be summarized this way: 1. We do not always behave as we expect to behave. 2. We often behave as we think others expect us to behave. 3. When we are in a group, we engage in group behavior rather than behaving as individuals. 4. Behavior is sometimes caused by a mental disorder. This summary is too simplistic to be fair, but I don't think the broader arguments in The Self Illusion convinced me that self is an illusion so much as it reinforced my understanding that the self is complex. Clearly we construct a sense of ourselves that is influenced by a variety of factors (from dopamine to Twitter), but I'm not sure that construct is illusory so much as it is malleable. In any event, Hood assembles a large amount of information that is useful and interesting, whether or not you ultimately agree that it proves his point.

RECOMMENDED