Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘Nameless, Season 2,’ by Dean Koontz

Leave a comment

“For a lot of people, the definition seems to change to fit the times and the culture of the moment. My definition doesn’t change. It isn’t about judges, who can be biased. It’s not about courts and laws that can be corrupted. To me, justice is nothing more or less than truth. Justice requires that the truth of Dr. Siphuncle’s actions must be revealed, and that he must suffer the consequences of that truth.”

Dean Koontz, who likes nothing better than changing things up, has given us a second “season” of novellas about his character known only as “Nameless.” But there are differences. In the first series, released back in 2019, we followed Nameless on his strange “assignments.” He is a man with no memory of the past (he suspects this was by his own choice). When he arrives in a town he finds a car waiting, and he has hotel reservations, a weapon, and support resources. He is given instructions about his assignment, which generally involves either exposing or killing some genuinely evil person who thinks himself untouchable. At the end of the first series, Nameless (and the reader) learned his true identity, along with the shattering causes that led him to this mission.

Now he’s back for Season 2, with his amnesia restored, carrying out missions following the same pattern. But things have changed a little. His missions seem less well-planned now. He encounters surprises – sometimes dangerous ones – that weren’t bargained for. And for some reason, arrangements of roses greet him in every hotel room he stays in. But strangest of all, he’s having disturbing premonitions, of a dystopian near-future in which a great popular movement of hatred and authoritarianism transforms America into a ruthless killing ground.

The stories have sufficient continuity that they could have been published as a single novel, albeit an episodic one. But the author and publisher have chosen to release them as novellas, and they work fine in that form. I enjoyed them very much, though be prepared for a few tears at the end.

The novellas are, in order of presentation:

1. The Lost Soul of the City;

2. Gentle Is the Angel of Death;

3. Kaleidoscope;

4. Light Has Weight, But Darkness Has None;

5. Corkscrew;

6. Zero In.

A great summer read, with some food for thought. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

Fiendish: ‘Hide and Seek,’ by Ian Rankin

Leave a comment

Author Ian Rankin said his first two Inspector Rebus novels were based somewhat on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Readers, he said, didn’t notice the similarities in Knots and Crosses, released in 1987, so he dropped all subtleties and screamed out parallels in Hide and Seek, released in 1990.

Sections begin with Jekyll-and-Hyde quotations. Character names are borrowed. The plot focuses on someone or something named Hyde. And there’s an anti-drug campaign gearing up in the background. It’s a much darker story than the other two Rankin novels we’ve reviewed here, which may point in the direct of future books. The next one deals with a cannibal–maybe I won’t jump into that one just yet.

In Hide and Seek, the police are called to a dilapidated row house, one of many squats for junkies and other homeless. They find Ronnie dead of an apparent overdose, arranged on the living room floor with a couple candles and a pentagram drawn almost perfectly on a near wall. Could this be the victim of some black coven’s ritual or did his hard life simply catch up to him?

Forensics reveal the drug found by the body were not the same as what was found in the body. This man injected himself with rat poison, so it would be natural to conclude his dealer wanted him dead. Plus the last person likely to have seen Ronnie alive claims he knew someone wanted him dead.

As Rebus is pulled off of all other cases in order to give time to the chief’s new anti-drug campaign, he has the time to ask questions and make requests of DS Brian Holmes for some shoe-leather work.

In one sense there is no case here. Someone unreliable is claiming foul play, and it doesn’t make sense that Ronnie would inject himself with poison. But maybe that’s all that happened and the pentagram is art on the wall. But what does Rebus’s gut tell him? It tells him to keep asking questions.

I’ve enjoyed what Rankin’s writing so far and intend to read more. I think they will improve as they go. He winks at us with his new Detective Sargent Holmes, a young, well-grounded officer who isn’t sure Rebus is trustworthy yet, and Chief Superintendent “Farmer” Watson, who sees the good in everyone he meets and drinks orange juice at a bar.

Rebus spent a little time looking for a new church between this book and the last, possibly having trouble finding one sufficiently gospel-free. Repentance is no good. Cheery optimism isn’t either.

There’s an odd description of a minor character as the most Calvinist-looking man in the room. That’s a Scottish way of saying someone is severe-looking, I think. Perhaps Americans would use “puritan” the same way. There’s also a mild defense of homosexuality, but it seems realistic, not advocative.

Reviews, Writing

‘The Tomorrow War,’ and other struggles

Leave a comment

I watched Amazon Prime’s The Tomorrow War, starring Christ Pratt and Yvonne Strahovski. Everybody’s talking about it, and the praise has been about equal to the derision among my friends on Basefook.

I liked it fine. I’m not in a position to review it properly, because I had it on mainly as background noise while working on the new Erling book. I keep hearing about plot holes, and plot holes are a congenital problem in time travel stories. I have to admit I didn’t catch the holes. The story worked pretty well for me, and there was a satisfying resolution.

My problem with the movie was the same thing that keeps coming up in action movies (and books) everywhere nowadays – the equal participation of women in violence. I confess to my great, patriarchal sin – I hate seeing women slaughtered.

Now logically, in a situation like that in this movie, where the women are going to die horribly anyway if they lose, so they might as well fight, it makes logical sense.

But for me, it’s not entertainment. And I think it’s intended to desensitize us to violence against women, for political purposes.

So that was my problem with the story. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. Even teared up a little (in a manly way) at the end.

J. K. Simmons, as usual, was great.

Meanwhile, I came up with a new scene for the Erling book that pleased me quite a lot, in concept. Based on material in Flatey Book, mostly unknown to Heimskringla readers. Only I couldn’t figure out how to finish the scene, how to bring it home.

This morning, in the process of waking up, the resolution became clear to me.

And it rested on a point of theology I’d been contemplating the other day.

That’s really, tremendously satisfying.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Death’s Requiem,’ by David J. Gatward

Leave a comment

Returning to the church, Gareth made his way back inside, through the paneled porch, and was aware immediately of the smell of the building, the tang of cold stone mixing with the sweet scent of varnished wood, of candles and books and history. He breathed deep, secretly hoping to take in some of the ancient peace that he always sensed buildings like this contained, as though they somehow saved up humanity’s prayers, acting as great spiritual batteries where people could go to be recharged somewhere.

In the previous five books of David J. Gatward’s Harry Grimm series, we have seen how Inspector Grimm transferred from Bristol to the idyllic Wensleydale area of Yorkshire. A hulking, facially scarred veteran paratrooper, Harry was prepared to experience (and exploit) the natural fear he inspires in most people. But the easygoing crew in the town of Hawes resolutely refused to be intimidated by him. They welcomed him into their circle and their community, and he’s beginning to enjoy the life – and even the food. Death’s Requiem picks up the story during the worst snowstorm in years.

The nearby town of Askrig is the home of an internationally famous pop singer, Gareth Jones, who recorded “that Christmas song – you remember.” Following the death of his wife and a scandal that marred his clean public image, he has chosen to launch his new album with a concert in the church, where he used to be a choir boy. All his old friends gather for the concert, as well as a standing-room-only crowd of other locals. The concert is disrupted at one point by intruders dressed as Satanists, but they are soon gotten rid of. Otherwise, the concert is a triumph.

But the next morning, the female vicar finds a body hanging from a bell rope in the tower, surrounded by Satanic graffiti on the walls. Inspector Grimm and his team will need to untangle old relationships and long-buried secrets to solve the case and avert further murders.

The Grimm books are reliably enjoyable, and Death’s Requiem was no exception. My only problem with it was that it raised a familiar issue – it seems as if every form of entertainment is required to supply a minimum quota of homosexual characters today. In most cases, the creators choose to make them lesbians, because lesbians are less icky to many readers. That is the case in this book – and it’s mixed up with the issue of homosexuals in the church.

But I suppose I should be grateful anytime the church gets any positive mention at all.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Light It Up,’ by Nick Petrie

Leave a comment

The Marine, whose name was Peter, looked like he was made mostly of ax handles and shovelheads, bound together with thick rigger’s rope at the joints.

The enjoyable saga of Peter Ash, Nick Petrie’s itinerant, fresh-air hero, continues with Light It Up, a tale of legalized pot gone very wrong in Denver and its environs.

Peter, a combat-hardened Marine veteran, suffers from persistent claustrophobia caused by PTSD. In the last book he fell in love with a fiery woman named June, who has given him a year to readjust to indoor living. Then a friend, Henry Nygaard (Norwegian name; he’s from Minnesota) asks him to help him out with a problem in Denver. Henry’s daughter and her husband are running a business providing security for marijuana merchants – pot is legal in Colorado, but federal regulations force them to deal solely in cash, an irresistible magnet for crime. But the last cash delivery they were guarding disappeared entirely, along with Henry’s son-in-law. Peter shows up to help guard the next trip, and it goes very bad, very fast. Peter is left with a sense of obligation to find the criminals and bring them to justice, one way or another. But he has no idea the kind of power he’s up against.

The Peter Ash novels remind me a little of Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger books, except that Peter is younger and his forte is hand-to-hand combat, not sharpshooting. But there is the same kind of honorable hero, slightly-over-the-top action, and slightly improbable endurance and triumph. Lots of fun. I’m not a fan of legalized pot, but I’m happy to report that the cannabis business doesn’t come out looking very admirable here.

Questions about the church and homosexuality show up, but no conclusions are drawn. All in all, great series, great book.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Savannah 1.0: The Quest for Love,’ by Terry R. Lacy

Leave a comment

The kitchen trash can was one of those with the electronic sensor which opened when he waved his hand over it. What had taken them so long to invent such a wonderful contraption? You could open a trash can without having to touch it? They had the ones you could open with your foot, of course, but then you had to change your socks every time you used it, and that meant you also had to wash your feet.

I don’t think I’ve every written a review like this one before. I am going to praise this book, while stating that I have no plans to continue with the series. I shall explain my reasons, anon.

Dan Mitchell, the protagonist of Savannah 1.0: The Quest for Love, is the quintessential IT nerd. He knows his job and science fiction, and pretty much nothing else. He suffers from extreme OCD, has few friends, and no hope of a girlfriend. So when the science of robotics advances (the year is 2028) to the point where robots look and act entirely human, he mortgages his house to finance the purchase of a “companion bot.”

When Savannah arrives, she’s all he hoped for and more. Beautiful, caring, sexy, eager to learn about the world. There is one small glitch, though – she doesn’t know she’s not supposed to run into the back yard naked. This gives the neighbors a show, and also gets both of them arrested. Also, it gets Dan fired from his job.

However, the robot manufacturer comes to his rescue, offering free legal representation and a new (though somewhat sleazy) job, at twice his previous salary. He begins a new stage of his life, as showing Savannah the world (and sometimes protecting the world from her) gradually draws him out of his shell.

If you ever saw the film, “Lars and the Real Girl,” there are some similarities here – except that the movie showed the main character gradually getting past his “doll” girlfriend stage to connect with a genuine woman. I’m not sure that something like that isn’t the ultimate goal here, though. There are suggestions in that direction. But this is only the first volume, and so far the depiction of human/robot relationships seems pretty rosy.

Which is where I have trouble with it. I saw this book advertised on Instapundit, but I don’t see much conservative or libertarian about it (though it’s admittedly early days). Republicans and conservative Christians are painted as a bigoted lot – because of their knee-jerk opposition to machine love.

But my big problem with the book was that I found it too personally appealing. I’m not that different from Dan, and I found the fantasy pretty seductive. I think the experience was bad for me. It comforts facets of my personality that shouldn’t be encouraged.

So I won’t continue with the series. But it’s well-written and appealing, and may even turn out fairly healthy in the end. The sex is not explicit.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Drifter,’ by Nick Petrie

Leave a comment

Skinner was pale with rage, a peculiar glitter in his eye…. Again Peter felt that powerful urge to do him permanent damage. There was something primitive about it, like the urge to kill a snake. Snakes had a certain wrongness to them, the flickering tongue, that sinuous slither. Skinner had a different kind of wrongness. An emptiness in the eyes. An utter lack of regard for anyone other than himself. In ordinary moments he could hide it, could put on his charming act. But not now.

I’ve already reviewed one of Nick Petrie’s Peter Ash novels, but this one, The Drifter, is the first in the series. Peter Ash is a Marine, a veteran of Middle East action. He came home physically intact, but with a bad case of PTSD. It manifests itself as galloping claustrophobia. He’s spent a year mostly hiking and camping when he gets news that a good Marine buddy, Jimmy Johnson, has killed himself. Peter feels guilty – he should have gone to see him like he’d promised. So he goes to Milwaukee and finds Jimmy’s wife and two little boys struggling. He volunteers to rebuild their sagging front porch for them.

Under the porch he finds two sinister things – a large, angry dog and a suitcase filled with money and plastic explosives. What was Jimmy involved in? It turns out somebody’s been watching the house, and following Jimmy’s wife around. There’s a big plan in the works, and that suitcase is an important part of it. Very dangerous men will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.

I like this series very much, so far. Peter Ash is a great character – an Achilles with a vulnerable heel, formidable but relatable in his one vulnerability. The supporting characters are good too, and the plot is well crafted. The plight of the combat veteran is a continuing theme. Also, Peter strays onto the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, my (virtual) graduate alma mater. That doesn’t happen often in any form of entertainment.

Recommended. Cautions for language and violence.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Long Lost,’ by James Scott Bell

Leave a comment

Steve Conroy’s world went to pieces 25 years ago, when he was five. A man broke into his home and kidnapped his older brother. Believing the kidnapper’s threats, Steve didn’t alert anyone until morning. Some time later, his brother’s body was found in the ashes of a burned house, along with that of the kidnapper. Since then he’s lived with the guilty knowledge that he might have saved his brother if he’d called for help sooner.

He married, went to law school, and took a job with the district attorney’s office. But he developed a cocaine habit and lost everything. As James Scott Bell’s Long Lost begins, he’s trying to set up a practice on his own, living in an apartment in a sketchy neighborhood, threatened with eviction from his office. It looks as if he’s about to crash and burn again.

Then he has a remarkable day. First, an attractive young female law student shows up on his doorstep, eager to be his assistant. And a soon-to-released prisoner wants to retain him as his counsel, offering a large cash advance on his fees. Even better, the new client seems to be a genuinely positive guy, keen to turn his life around.

How is he to know that he’s soon to be targeted for murder, arrested, and faced with revelations that will re-write his own past and destroy – or resurrect – all his dreams?

I like James Scott Bell very much. He does a superior job of something I aspire to in my own books (with what success it’s not for me to say), writing Christian stories for a secular audience. Long Lost is actually a re-issue (only slightly edited) of one of his earlier books. This is visible in a somewhat less practiced hand in the writing. The Christian content is more awkward than in his later work, it seems to me. On the other hand, his greatest strength as an author – strong plotting – is very much apparent, and there are some really neat surprises along the way.

Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Dead Man’s Sins,’ by Caimh McDonnell

Leave a comment

Marshall’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly without producing any words. It happened enough times that you could have stuck a light in there and used him to send Morse code messages to passing ships.

There are few pleasures in my reading life to match the appearance of a new Bunny McGarry novel. Caimh McDonnell’s comic mysteries started out hilarious, and they just seem to get better. The latest, Dead Man’s Sins, is officially Number 5 in the Dublin Trilogy, though it is in fact a sequel to the first prequel. But who’s counting? Certainly not the author.

Bunny McGarry is still a Dublin police detective at this point, but is taking a sabbatical from his job. He gets a call from the widow of his late partner, who depends on him for constant help and never shows any gratitude. Two tough guys have shown up at her house, claiming that their boss, Cooper Hannity (a prominent Dublin bookie), now owns the place. Bunny “sorts them out,” but soon learns the guys were legally in the right.

Hannity’s wife is Angelina, a former ballerina and model who was once a kid Bunny mentored on the mean city streets. But she’s no help in this matter, having no control over her overbearing, possessive husband. And when murder happens, Bunny finds himself in the middle of a very neat frame that not only threatens his own freedom, but some secrets he’s been keeping for other people.

What’s wonderful about this book – aside from the hilarious writing – is that McDonnell makes the most of his characters. They keep showing us surprising facets, and those facets make the whole story more profound. Yes, I said it – profound. There are moments of genuine depth here, and glimpses of moral vision.

In between a lot of brawling and cursing and slapstick, of course.

Though, to be fair, I must admit I figured out the culprit.

Nonetheless, I really loved Dead Man’s Sins. Highly recommended, with cautions (mostly) for language.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Harald Hardrada: The Warrior’s Way,’ by John Marsden

Leave a comment

It has been my experience, as a Viking enthusiast, that historical biographies of great Vikings tend to be disappointing. A particularly sore memory is a biography of Canute the Great, some years back, that reduced a life of battle, intrigue, and conquest to the statistical analysis of personal names in old charters. The problem is sources, which in the Early Medieval Period (we used to call it The Dark Ages, precisely because of the scanty written record) tend to be spare even in relatively well-organized countries like France and England. For famous Scandinavians, the most accessible sources are the Icelandic sagas, which historians usually reject wholesale (in spite of the groundbreaking work of Torgrim Titlestad, available in a marvelously translated book called Viking Legacy).

In the case of Norway’s King Harald Hardrada, subject of Harald Hardrada: The Warrior’s Way by John Marsden, the situation is a little better. King Harald Sigurdsson lived his legendary life at the very end of the Viking Age, when things were getting a little better organized. On top of that, he had a wide-ranging career and often left discernable, discoverable tracks in local records.

I’ve often said that if there was ever a real-life Conan the Barbarian, it was Harald Sigurdsson, the tall and mighty half-brother of King Olaf Haraldsson, patron Saint of Norway. Carried wounded from the battlefield of Stiklestad, where Olaf died (Harald was 15 years old), he fled to Russia, where he served Prince Jaroslav as a mercenary. Then on to Constantinople, to join the fabled Varangian Guard, the emperor’s personal corps and bodyguard. After fighting all around the Mediterranean, he was imprisoned and escaped, participated in a rebellion, and personally blinded the deposed emperor. Then, having illegally sent treasure back to Russia for safekeeping for years, he fled the capitol and sailed back to Jaroslav. He married Jaroslav’s daughter, then returned to Norway, where he traded half his treasure to his nephew, Magnus the Good, for half the kingdom. Magnus’s death a few years thereafter left him as sole king. He spent most of his reign fighting wars with Denmark, until in 1066 he turned his eyes to England. In September of that year, he and his army were slaughtered by King Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge, after which the weakened English army went on to be beaten by William the Conqueror at Hastings a few weeks later.

That’s some life. It would be hard to make it dull, but there are historians who could do it.

Thankfully, John Marsden is not one of those.

I had trouble putting Harald Hardrada down. I knew the story well, of course, but Marsden does an excellent job of presenting it as a series of puzzles – he assumes the sagas unreliable, but he doesn’t dismiss them out of hand, especially when buttressed by contemporary skaldic poems. Sometimes he actually defends the saga writers against more skeptical historians. The narrative that emerges is worthy of the epic subject.

To top it all off, he even tells the story of Harald’s famous banner, “Land-ravager,” relating a legend I’ve already described on this blog, some time back, that an ancient scrap of silk on the Isle of Skye, known as “The Fairy Flag of Dunvegan,” belonging to the Clan McLeod, may plausibly be “Land-ravager” – there’s even scientific evidence. It’s that kind of touch that makes Marsden’s Harald Hardrada a treat for the Viking buff.

Highly recommended.