Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Art of Danger,’ by Stuart Doughty

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Interesting concept. Over the top execution. That’s how I’d describe Stuart Doughty’s The Art of Danger, first book in his John Kite series.

John Kite is a former London policeman, now working as an investigator for an insurance company that writes policies on objects of art. What no one knows is that John Kite is not his real name. He has a secret history, a former life from which he has cut himself off completely.

The theft of an obscure painting by a middling German Renaissance painter wouldn’t appear to offer any major challenges. But when John shows up with the ransom money to buy the painting back for its owner, no one meets him. Instead, someone gets killed, and John is plunged into a convoluted mystery involving Middle Eastern terrorists and an English public relations guru. John doesn’t know how a forgettable, not-at-all-priceless portrait could relate to the World Cup finals in Qatar. But he will learn the truth, even if it takes high-speed car chases and a helicopter pursuit.

John Kite is an interesting character, and art crime is an intriguing field for mystery fiction. John’s gradual revelations of his past, and the surprising things he himself learns, were strong plot elements. I felt the second half of the book lost credibility though, as the author resorted to high-speed chases right out of a Hollywood movie to tie up his story with a bang.

Cautions for language and some sexual content.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Silent Death,’ by Peter May

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Through the window of his taxi, he watched rain-streaked red sandstone tenements drift past, the colour leeched from them somehow by lack of light, like watching a black-and-white movie of his childhood spool by.

Peter May excels at creating interesting protagonists for his novels. He’s given us another winner (at least for this reader) in John Mackenzie, hero of A Silent Death. Mackenzie is a policeman with issues – highly intelligent but utterly lacking in interpersonal skills. Kind of like Monk, or Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes (in fact, Cumberbatch would be a good casting choice if this book is ever filmed). He made himself unwelcome at the Metropolitan Police, and now works for the National Crime Agency, not a step up career-wise.

It’s as much to get rid of him as anything else that his boss sends him to Spain, to collect a criminal being extradited. Only when he arrives, he finds that the criminal, a murderer and drug dealer named Jack Cleland, has escaped. This fact is of particular, urgent concern to Spanish officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, who is tasked with meeting and escorting Mackenzie. Jack Cleland blames Cristina for the death of his fiancée, and has vowed to take his revenge on her – by targeting her husband, her son, and her blind-and-deaf-aunt, Ana.

As Mackenzie applies his considerable brain to the problem of where Cleland might be hiding, Cleland kidnaps Ana. Surprisingly, an odd relationship gradually rises between the two outsiders, as Mackenzie also learns a few things about being human from Cristina.

Silent Death was engrossing, poignant and exciting. I rate this book very high. Occasional references to religion are not positive, but are fair from the characters’ point of view. 

Fiction, Reviews

‘Immortal Hate,’ by Blake Banner

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I recently reviewed a novel that I found a little difficult to read. Blake Banner’s Immortal Hate was not like that at all. It was fast and easy and very quickly finished. Popcorn reading, well done according to its kind.

Harry Bauer, hero of Immortal Hate and the other books in the Cobra series, is an international assassin working for the customary shadowy international organization. His brief is to eliminate the worst of the worst monsters in the world. He’s good at it, and remorseless.

“The worst of the worst” certainly applies to General Kostas Marcovic, fugitive Serbian warlord, who was guilty of one of the greatest atrocities in the recent Balkan troubles. Now he’s been identified as living under a pseudonym on the Caribbean island of St. George. Harry’s orders are simple – go in, kill the man (make it look like an accident if possible) and leave without making a fuss.

That, however, is not Harry’s style. On the ferry to the island he meets Helen, an attractive woman who runs a bar on the island. Helen senses that this is a dangerous man, and sets about enticing him to help her friend Maria extricate herself from the affections of a local drug lord. Harry is in no way reluctant to help out – he has a particular hatred of drug merchants – but Helen is not prepared for the swift and ruthless way Harry will go to work.

But that’s just the beginning. It turns out there are two old Serbians living on the island, and each claims the other is the real Marcovic.

On top of that, there’s a hurricane coming.

Over the top, lightning-paced and morally problematic, Immortal Hate was the equivalent of a Hollywood action movie. I enjoyed it, but I’m not entirely proud of myself for it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Relentless,’ by Mark Greaney

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The tenth novel in Mark Greaney’s exciting Gray Man series is Relentless. The Gray Man, you may recall from previous reviews, is Courtland Gentry, a former CIA assassin who was expelled from the service, operated as a free-lancer for a while, and has now been reinstated, though off the books. In Relentless, we find him in a hospital, being treated for wounds and a bone infection. But his boss asks him to interrupt his recovery to do an emergency extraction of a fugitive from Venezuela. That mission goes sideways in a big way. But Gentry learns that Zoya Zakharova, a former Russian agent and the woman he loves, has been assigned to a dangerous assignment in Berlin. He figures he’ll just postpone his treatment a little longer, to watch her back until the operation is over.

The mission is a complicated one – more complicated than most of the participants think. A private security agency called Shrike has been hired by a group – whom they believe to be Israeli Mossad-backed – to carry out an operation in Berlin. Only it’s not the Mossad they’re really working for, and the objective is known to only one man – a terrorist with lots of money and grandiose ambitions.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I found this book slow reading, and wasn’t sure why. I think the problem was that it was very, very complex – involving three nested covert operations. Also there were several different groups maneuvering against one another, and I had trouble keeping them straight. I think that kept me from getting emotionally invested until I was fairly well along in the story.

High stakes, lots of action. I’m not sure my trouble getting involved was the fault of the book. So, recommended, because I like the series as a whole.

Non-fiction, Religion, Reviews

‘Confessions of a Charismatic Christian,’ by Rick Dewhurst

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In spite of the fact that I’ve never given any of his novels a rave review, Rick Dewhurst keeps alerting me to his new books. This argues a level of spiritual humility which I can only admire. I like his writing style, but I don’t think he’s ever found his real vehicle.

He has a new book out now, in a different genre entirely. It’s a spiritual memoir called Confessions of a Charismatic Christian.

It wasn’t, frankly, what I expected. I was anticipating something along the lines of C. S. Lewis’s Surprised By Joy. The plan here is somewhat different. These Confessions are a series of spiritual lessons, each headed by an experience (not related chronologically) from the author’s own life. Sometimes a miraculous one.

I don’t mean to disparage the book’s plan, but I would have enjoyed reading more about the life that produced such an intriguing writer. But it’s a capital mistake to judge a book by what you think it should be, rather than what the author chose to create.

I had some difficulty with the early chapters, which are the heaviest on the charismatic lessons. Rick is the pastor of a charismatic congregation in British Columbia. Although I myself spent time on the periphery of the charismatic movement back in the ‘70s, I have since joined a church that takes a skeptical attitude toward signs and wonders (though not denying their possibility). So I wasn’t entirely in sympathy with a lot of that part. But as I read on, I found more and more material that was profound and edifying for everyone.

I thought the writing a little discursive – the text could have been tightened up some. And the tone is sometimes unnecessarily apologetic. But Confessions of a Charismatic Christian was an edifying book from a seasoned pastor. Worth reading.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Fool Moon,’ by Jim Butcher

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Many of my reading friends seem to be fans of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, a fusion of hard-boiled detective and fantasy stories. Harry is a working wizard operating in Chicago. At the beginning of Fool Moon, he is roused from a dry period in his career when his cop friend, Karrin Murphy, calls him in to look at the scene of a horrific murder – lots of blood, and gigantic wolf prints on the floor to boot. Harry isn’t an expert on lycanthropy, but he studies up on it quick, learning that there are several kinds of werewolf, and what he’s dealing with here is the baddest of them all.

Which leads us into a very complex story involving hostile police, hostile FBI agents, hostile werewolves, and hostile mobsters, all at odds with each other, but mostly agreed in not liking Harry. Much blood will be spilled before we get to the big final showdown.

I read one Harry Dresden book already (the first), and wasn’t greatly taken with it. My Butcher Brigade friends said I should try it again – the books get better. I have to say, I still don’t get it. The writing wasn’t bad, but it didn’t grab me. My main problem, I think, was that I just have a visceral reaction to the mechanics of Magic. Gandalf’s okay, because he’s a supernatural being (essentially an angel). But potions and magic incantations and pentagrams and all that stuff – it repels me.

Also, I sometimes had trouble following the story. In particular, the penultimate climactic scene involves a pit trap below some kind of wooden superstructure, and for the life of me I couldn’t picture the thing in my mind.

So I guess I’m not going to add the Harry Dresden books to my reading rotation. But lots of people like them, so you may react differently. The story, I must admit, was exciting, and sometimes stirring. And by the way, I should note that there’s lots of violence and gore.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder Unseen,’ by bruce Beckham

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Bruce Beckham’s Inspector Skelgill series, set in Cumbria, continues with Murder Unseen, though Skelgill himself takes a somewhat reduced role this time out. He’s off on a different assignment (and on holiday) much of the time, so the focus is on DS Emma Jones, his subordinate, mentee and secret admirer. DS Leyton, the other main member of the team, has a smaller case of his own to look into.

Lisa Jackson, an attractive young employee at a Carlisle design firm, walks into the office one morning and disappears from the face of the earth. The office is in a blind alley, and there is no back exit from the building.

A suspect quickly appears. Ray Piper, a married man and co-worker who recently ended an affair with Lisa, is seen with his car backed up to the office door shortly after her disappearance. But he has an explanation for every suspicious act and piece of evidence in the case, and it’s notoriously difficult to prosecute a murder without a corpus delicti. As time passes, the team will begin to despair of a conviction – until Skelgill himself returns to apply his intuitive investigative approach, and his close familiarity with the local terrain.

The Skelgill books aren’t highly charged thrillers, and that suits me just fine. They’re slower, quieter, and more character-driven than most mysteries, and the author loves to pause to describe the Lake District scenery. I enjoyed Murder Unseen, and recommend it.

I do wish Skelgill and Jones would get together, though. If she waits for him to make a move, she’ll probably wait forever.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Serpentine,’ by Jonathan Kellerman

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Below all that, the Valley was a vast circuit board, brown and white and beige, with dots of coral red where tile roofs sprouted like spores.

Brand new Alex Delaware novels are not cheap, but I can never resist buying them as soon as they’re available for Kindle. Because they’re that good. The premise (civilian psychologist assists police detective in solving crimes) has gotten a little threadbare over the years, but the storytelling has not diminished.

In Serpentine, Detective Milo Sturgis (the least gay homosexual in literature) asks Alex to consult on a case that’s been dumped in his lap by the powers that be, something he deeply resents. A city council member has pressured Milo’s boss to “strongly suggest” that he reopen a very cold case. It involves the death of a woman whose charred body was found in a burned-out Cadillac on Mulholland Drive back in the 1980s. A bullet in the body indicated it was actually a murder, but the case was never solved. The woman’s daughter is now a very wealthy woman, and she’d like to learn why her mother died.

Milo is prepared to hate Ellie Barker, the rich daughter, but she turns out to be an extremely nice person, very apologetic about asking for special attention, but hungry to learn about her origins. The evidence itself is suspiciously thin – it’s almost as if the original detectives, and several who picked it up cold over the years, did no work at all. All Ellie has of her mother’s things are one old photograph and a serpentine necklace.

Working from almost no evidence, the team spreads its net wide, employing shoe-leather investigation and a fair amount of psychological dead reckoning. A lot of lies are revealed, and gradually a story of remarkable evil comes to light.

What I particularly liked about Serpentine was that, unlike most books labeled “psychological thriller” these days, it actually lived up to its advertising. Most “psychological thrillers” nowadays devolve into obligatory slasher stuff. There’s violence in Serpentine, but the real climax is what it should be – a psychological shocker. An extremely good one.

Cautions for the usual – depraved goings on, some rough language. This book takes us a little further into the lives of homosexuals than I enjoy, but, as in all Kellerman’s books, there are delightful moments of anti-PC sensibility. Highly recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Smoke Screen,’ by Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger

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I see I forgot to review the second book in Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s new detective/journalist mystery series, starring Oslo police inspector Alexander Blix and writer Emma Ramm.

Smoke Screen opens tragically, with a bang, as a bomb goes off during Oslo’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Emma, who was left with a phobic fear of “countdowns” due to the horrific case she just finished, has gone to Oslo harbor for the midnight fireworks, just to face the big countdown involved. A tragic choice – her new boyfriend, who had come down to be with her, is killed in the explosion.

Another victim of that bombing is a woman named Patricia Semplass, who has been sought by the police for ten years, as a suspect in the kidnapping of her own daughter. Meanwhile, her husband, in prison for killing a man involved in the kidnapping, has received a photograph of a young girl in the mail. He is convinced it’s his daughter, who hasn’t been seen since the kidnapping.

Blix and Emma both get caught up in an investigation that just seems to grow more convoluted and contradictory as it goes. In the end, both their lives will be endangered, and a tragic choice will be made by the least likely person.

Smoke Screen wasn’t bad. I still don’t like this series as well as Horst’s Wisting books, but there were genuine surprises, and the attitude here remains more positive than in your general run of Scandinavian Noirs, so I give it a thumbs up.

Cautions for what you’d expect.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘My Anecdotal Life,’ by Carl Reiner

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I’ve always had a mild fascination with Hollywood and Hollywood stories. A deal showed up on Carl Reiner’s memoir, My Anecdotal Life, so I picked it up. It was an amusing book, though it won’t mean as much to younger people as it does to Boomers like me.

The son of an immigrant Jewish watchmaker, Carl Reiner took acting lessons at his brother’s suggestion, and went on to enjoy a long and successful career as a comedian, writer, and producer. He’s best known for playing second banana to Syd Caesar on Your Show of Shows, being Mel Brooks’s straight man in the 2,000 Year Old Man routines, and creating and producing the Dick Van Dyke Show. He also did Broadway plays and movies (who knew he wrote a Broadway comedy pronounced the funniest thing he ever saw by no less an authority than Grouch Marx, which died thanks to a noncommittal Times review?).

According to Reiner himself, he had a stock of show biz stories he used to tell his friends, and they encouraged him to put them in a book, and this is it. It’s not presented in chronological order (which I consider a flaw), but they’re pretty good stories, especially in the cases where you know who the participants are.

My Anecdotal Life does fail in one of the pleasures most of us look for in show business stories – it’s short on dirt. We all know today what we all suspected from the beginning, that Hollywood is a nest of vipers that even regular vipers give a wide berth. But you’d never know it from this book. Except in the cases of a couple critics, Reiner doesn’t say anything at all if he can’t say something nice. He comes off as a pretty nice guy himself.

The writing was… okay. I would have expected a funny man to be more deft with words, but I suppose a lot of it was in the presentation in the original telling.

I was a little worried about politics, as Reiner was a well-known liberal. That element was pretty scarce until the very end, where he throws in a couple chapters related to his involvement with the anti-war movement in the Vietnam years, plus a touching anecdote about meeting Pres. Clinton. But it wasn’t too bad.

Not a bad book. Minimal rough language. The book shows its age in including the occasional sentiment that wouldn’t pass muster with the politically correct crowd today, especially regarding men and women.