Tag Archives: Kevin Wignall

Fiction, Reviews

‘The First Death of Winter,’ by Kevin Wignall

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The Senior Year Hiking Club of the exclusive Altdorf residential high school in Switzerland is on a mountain trek when a blizzard blows up. The teacher in charge makes the calculated decision –the right one, as it turns out – to return to the hotel at the cable car station rather than proceeding to their planned base camp. When they get back to the hotel, all the other tourists on the mountain have departed, and the weather makes it impossible to send another car down. But the night caretaker, a young American named Matty Burkhalter, opens the hotel for them so they can wait the storm out.

But that night, one of the students, a young woman, is stabbed to death. It’s The First Death of Winter. Matty Burkhalter finds himself responsible for preserving the evidence and (on the telephoned instructions of the police) interviewing the surviving students, now all suspects. Everybody has secrets, but Matty has a secret of his own – he’s wanted for murder in the US, and the less attention he gets from the police, the happier he’ll be.

Kevin Wignall is a reliable writer. Thrillers are his usual genre, but this one is more of a mystery, with echoes of Agatha Christie. He’s not the fanciest prose stylist out there, but his work is professional. The First Death of Winter was a low-key, satisfying mystery story. There’s a Christian character featured, who’s a little weird but sympathetic overall.

Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Ice in the Blood,’ by Kevin Wignall

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She sighed and said, “He’s quite sweet, actually, beneath all the company bluff and bluster. I kept thinking of Graham Greene the whole time I was with him.”

Jay didn’t get the reference.

“I don’t follow.”

“I mean, I think he’ll end up dead, sooner than later.”

I think of Graham Greene myself, actually, whenever I read a Kevin Wignall novel. The difference is that I find Greene wholly opaque to my comprehension, while I quite enjoy Wignall. On the other hand, Greene has a moral center (though I may differ with his judgments), while I’m never sure what Wignall wants me to think about his characters.

Jay Lewis, hero of Ice in the Blood, is a former CIA agent, now working freelance private security. Currently he’s living on the French Riviera, heading up security for Vitali Petrov, a Belorussian general who’s planning a coup in his home country. He has the support of the US and Britain. However, Jay is in fact a double agent, working for an undisclosed employer to thwart the coup.

Jay’s seen and done most everything, but he’s not prepared for the sudden appearance of a former girlfriend who has brought along a ten-year-old boy whom she says is Jay’s son (Jay never knew he existed). She’s a peaceful person, a career relief worker. She doesn’t know how to handle a boy like this Owen, who is obviously Jay’s son to anyone who looks at them both, and possesses what seems like an innate talent for intrigue and violence.

The woman disappears before Jay can figure out a way to put her off, leaving Owen in his care. Well, he’ll have to find someone to look after him, but that will take a few days to arrange. In the meantime, he lets the boy tag along with him. Owen clearly hungers for a male role model, and Jay quickly warms to him, even finding him useful as camouflage and as a source of information. Especially when Owen makes friends with Petrov’s son. A plan begins to gel in Jay’s mind – but it will involve putting Owen at some degree of risk.

But what if Owen wants to be just like his dad?

In a story like this, one expects the hero to learn heartwarming lessons about love and responsibility as parenthood changes him inwardly. And that does happen to some extent. But it’s a lot more complex than that, and in the end I wasn’t sure what to make of the story’s resolution.

But it was a good story, well-told, vivid, and exciting. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure it didn’t corrupt me a little.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Those Who Disappeared,’ by Kevin Wignall

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Kevin Wignall is always an interesting novelist, even when I don’t entirely care for some of his plotting choices. His latest is Those Who Disappeared, which had challenging moments, but was a very satisfying reading experience overall.

Foster Treherne is a young artist with a world-wide reputation, very famous and very wealthy. English and American by heritage, he lives mostly in Berlin and keeps a low personal profile. He’s generally disconnected from humanity, except for his staff. His father disappeared before he was born, and his mother committed suicide while he was a baby. His grandparents saw to his physical needs and education, but kept him at arms’ length. His essential view of life is, “People leave.”

Then he gets the news that his father’s body has been found, frozen in a Swiss glacier. With the help of an embassy employee, an attractive woman named Daniela with whom he cautiously begins a relationship, he gets the opportunity to see his own father for the only time in his life – in mummified form. Suddenly he conceives an obsessive desire to learn about this man. He studies his personal journal, found wrapped in plastic with the body, and goes through his old photos and documents. He makes contact with his father’s once-close group of post-graduate student friends, and is puzzled by their reactions. They tell contradictory stories, and lie about one another. They all say the same thing about Foster’s dad – “He was fun to be with, but had a dangerous side.” Are they trying to protect Foster from some harsh truth? Or is one of them actually guilty of murder?

Those Who Disappeared is a splendid example of a story which contains no shootouts or fist fights, but keeps the tension high and the reader fascinated. What’s better (for this reader) is that it’s the story of a man re-integrating with life. I love that kind of story, as it’s an experience I expect I’ll only ever have vicariously.

Anyway, I highly recommend Those Who Disappeared. There’s one problematic plot element for Christians, but it’s not preachy or implausible.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Names of the Dead,’ by Kevin Wignall

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Not only was he less sure now of the difference between their crimes, but there was also this other side to it, the love these people here in Lisbon felt for a man who the world viewed, with good reason, as a monster. Who would speak for Wes in such a way? One person, maybe, and she had died for it.

I’ve become a fan of Kevin Wignall’s novels, but I’ve never liked one of them as much as I like his latest, The Names of the Dead. Other readers are likely to have different opinions, but this one worked for me.

James “Wes” Wesley is a former CIA agent, abandoned by the agency and now languishing in a French prison for war criminals. He’s not quite innocent, but not as guilty as the world thinks. His best friend is Patrice, an African and former commander of God’s Own Army, a very real and vicious (ostensibly Christian) terrorist group. Patrice is repentant, and spends much of his time studying the Bible. He shares his wisdom with Wes, but Wes remains skeptical.

Then news comes that Wes’s ex-wife has been murdered. Also, their son (whom Wes didn’t know about) has gone missing. Wes gets compassionate early release. His former CIA colleagues try to kill him, but he manages to escape. Then he’s rescued, more or less, by a young woman. She is Mia, the granddaughter of one of Wes’s fellow prisoners, recently deceased, a Croatian war criminal. Mia is on the autism spectrum and doesn’t care to be touched, so there’s no question of romance. But she has nowhere to go and likes to drive (stopping frequently to visit cathedrals), so they form an unlikely team as they travel across Spain, Portugal, France, and on into the Balkans.

Wes’s plan is simple and limited – he will find the men who framed him, and kill them. Then he will find his son.

But on the way, guided by the Bible Patrice gave him as a going-away present, Wes will learn to see himself in new ways. And in the end he will make the hardest decision of his life – and the most right.

I have no knowledge of author Wignall’s faith or lack of it, and it would be wrong to call The Names of the Dead a Christian novel. But it’s a book that takes Scripture seriously, and in a positive way. The questions Wes struggles with – about human connections, personal choices, and moral good – resonated for this reader. I recommend The Names of the Dead highly.

Fiction, Reviews

‘When We Were Lost,’ by Kevin Wignall

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I probably wouldn’t have bought Kevin Wignall’s When We Were Lost if I’d noticed it was a young adult novel. (Young adult novels are too mature for me, emotionally speaking.) But it was Wignall so I snapped it up, and I’m not sorry I did. It was an enjoyable story, easily appreciable by an adult. Or even by me.

The setup is nice. Tom Calloway is a high school junior and an outsider. Orphaned young and raised by an eccentric, uninvolved aunt, he’s generally walled himself off from his peers. So when he gets maneuvered into taking a class “environmental” trip to Costa Rica, he’s not enthusiastic. He doesn’t expect anything good to happen.

What happens is far worse than he expects – and in surprising ways, better. Their plane goes far off course and crashes in the jungle, killing most of the passengers except for a few rows at the back of the plane – Tom and some classmates.

One of the other boys assumes leadership, and it gradually becomes apparent to Tom – and to some other social outcasts who happen to know about the real world – that the guy is way over his head and leading them into disaster. Through the challenges that will face them as they try to find their way back to civilization, Tom will make hard choices, grow as a person, discover his own leadership, and find relationships he never imagined he could have.

When We Were Lost is a pretty cool story, with a lot of good life lessons for young people (my only caution for Christian parents is that they take time at one point to make pitch for gay rights). Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘To Die in Vienna,’ by Kevin Wignall

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To Die in Vienna

I’m fond of Kevin Wignall’s novels. Between Graham Greene and Ian Fleming on the espionage scale, his books run much closer to Greene, but I don’t like Greene much, and I do like Wignall. To Die in Vienna is not my favorite of his works, but it’s pretty good.

Freddie Makin used to be an intelligence agent, but after a very bad experience he gave it up – mostly, except for the nightmares. Now he does electronic surveillance, for clients whose identitiesw he does not care to know. For a year he’s been in Vienna, monitoring the life of a genius scientist named Jiang Cheng. He’s grown rather fond of the man, whose activities seem in no way suspicious.

Then one day Freddie abandons his monitoring early to go home with a headache. He finds a man in his apartment, waiting for him with a gun. Freddie manages to kill the man, almost accidentally. Then Jiang Cheng disappears. Freddie doesn’t understand what is happening, but some things are clear. Jiang must have seen or done something that made him a danger to someone. And whoever got rid of him clearly wants Freddie dead too.

So he has to disappear. Fortunately his experience as a spy has prepared him to change identities. But that’s a temporary measure. He’s certain of one thing – he must find out what the “too much” was that Jiang knew, find out who the killers are, and make a deal with their enemies – whoever they are.

To Die in Vienna is leisurely as spy novels go, but I liked that. The emphasis is on personalities, and we get to spend time with them. That makes for enjoyable reading, for my taste.

I thought the plot relied too heavily on coincidence at a couple points. Otherwise I can’t find fault. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Fragile Thing,’ by Kevin Wignall

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A Fragile Thing

“I worry about you, that’s all. And I want you to be happy.”

He smiled, but said no more because he didn’t want to lie to her again, not about something so unimportant.

There is a class of authors whose work just flies over my head. I don’t get them. I accept their greatness based on the testimony of readers smarter than I.

Kevin Wignall is an author I sometimes don’t understand, but I like him anyway.

A Fragile Thing is a challenging book presented in disarmingly simple form. I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure how to evaluate it.

Max Emerson is an international money man, and fabulously rich, living in Italy. He invests money for some of the wealthiest, most powerful, and most evil people in the world – dictators, crime lords, drug kingpins, human traffickers. He tells people (frequently) that he never breaks the law. And that’s technically true. But he has facilitated and turned a blind eye to a number of crimes. Now he’s under pressure from the FBI, and hackers are threatening his records.

Max is alienated from his older brother and sister, and their families. His brother in particular is ashamed of Max’s reputation. This makes family events awkward, and Max generally visits his parents, in their Swiss mansion, only when his siblings aren’t around.

But when his parents are killed in an accident, and Max gets a posthumous letter from his mother, saying that if they die suddenly they’ve probably been murdered, Max is the one family member with the knowledge and resources to hunt down and punish the killer. Which he does, in a very surprising way. Continue reading ‘A Fragile Thing,’ by Kevin Wignall →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Among the Dead,’ by Kevin Wignall

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Among the Dead

‘…A death, it’s quite something to deal with. Ultimately that was our problem – we were shallow, just not shallow enough.’

The most profoundly moral kind of book, I think, is a genuinely realistic story about immorality. It’s easy for moralists (even, or especially, Christian moralists like me) to say what people ought to do in this or that situation. But the disturbing question is, “Would I really do the right thing? Especially if it was hard and embarrassing? Or how far would I go to cover it up?” Those are among the questions raised by Among the Dead, a fascinating novel by Kevin Wignall.

Ten years ago, five university student friends in England were driving from a party, all of them a little drunk, when their car struck a young woman who darted into the street. Since she was dead anyway, they agreed they couldn’t do anything to help, and reporting the accident to the police would only cause unnecessary trouble, doing no one any good.

Now, ten years later, they are generally out of touch with each other. They’ve tried to forget the past – with mixed success. When one of them dies of an overdose, Alex, a sleep researcher who suffers from insomnia and night panics, tries to get in touch with the others, to let them know.

But more deaths are coming. Is it coincidence? Or is someone killing the group off, a decade after their crime?

Among the Dead wasn’t a cheery read, but I found it fascinating and challenging. I recommend it for serious readers. Cautions for language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘People Die,’ by Kevin Wignall

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People Die

He did feel bad for burdening her, yet at the same time he’d wanted to tell her much more: that he was lonely, that he felt like indistinct bits of him were dying, that nothing was clear anymore. It was enough though, what he’d told her was enough, like a gasp of pure oxygen, burning the tissue of his lungs.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of People Die, Kevin Wignall’s debut novel. It’s not exactly amoral, but not exactly moral either. I suspect it’s one of those sophisticated books not intended for middlebrows like me.

JJ Hoffman is a freelance hit man, based in Geneva. He has an impeccable reputation in his field – he does his work efficiently and dispassionately, leaving no metaphorical messes behind.

But now he has found his handler murdered, and rumor says that several others of his colleagues have been killed too. Almost by coincidence (I think it counts as a minor deus ex machina) he is contacted by an American who tells him he knows what’s going on. He wants JJ to come and visit him, at an inn in New England.

The problem is that the inn is owned by a woman whose husband JJ murdered a few years ago.

People Die is a well-written tale. I thought it passed the bounds of plausibility a few times – and not in the normal way of thrillers, on the action side. The implausibilities here are psychological. And the resolution just made no sense to me. There’s a kind of grace at work here (in fact the book could be seen as a sort of Christian metaphor), but there’s an amorality at the same time. I couldn’t work out what to think about it in the end.

Worth reading though. Cautions for language, violence, and adult themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Who is Conrad Hirst?’ by Kevin Wignall

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Who is Conrad Hirst?

Call it conscience, if you will; all I know is that it’s a sadness for which I’m profoundly grateful, no less than if my sight had been restored to me after years of blindness. What overtook me yesterday was a longing to be the person I once was.

Conrad Hirst, titular hero of Kevin Wignall’s Who Is Conrad Hirst?, is a professional hit man. He works (or so he thinks) for a German crime boss. Years ago he stumbled into the profession after a devastating personal loss and time spent as a mercenary. He has been good at his job because he felt nothing, and because he displayed so little personality that people tended to overlook him.

But now he’s had a shock. “I saw myself in a mirror,” is how he describes it. He wants out. He wants to stop being this person.

His exit strategy seems clear. Because of the compartmentalized nature of the organization he works for, only four men know who he is – all of them bad men. He’ll just kill them and walk away with a clean slate.

Of course it’s not that easy. He soon discovers that he isn’t working for the people he thinks he’s working for, and a whole lot more people know about him than he guessed. He keeps on the move, improvising as he goes, trying to figure out who his real boss is and to eliminate him. As he goes, he makes an effort to overcome the bad habit he’s acquired – killing inconvenient people. When most of us slip in our efforts to end a bad habit, the results aren’t that devastating. When Conrad slips, people die.

The moral contradictions of being a professional killer are boldly explored in Who Is Conrad Hirst? What is a hero? What is a villain? There are truly distressing moments – lots of them – when we bounce back and forth between sympathizing with Conrad, and hoping someone will just kill him and put him and everybody else out of his misery.

Who Is Conrad Hirst? is a fascinating, troubling book, like all Kevin Wignall’s work. I salute the author’s focus on questions of human choice and moral reformation, though I think he gives more credit to human nature (unassisted by divine grace) than it deserves.

Also, there’s a very neat twist at the end.

Highly recommended, with cautions for violence, language, and extremely shocking situations.