Among the Missing, by Morag Joss (Delacorte Press; $25)

In the desolate area outside of Inverness, Scotland, a young woman, her husband and two-year-old squat in an abandoned house trailer, terrified that the authorities will learn they are in the country illegally. In a nearby bed and breakfast, a middle-aged bride makes plans to sell her rental car in a frantic attempt to get the money she needs to pay for something she hopes will thaw her new husband’s cold indifference. And a former bus driver, newly released from prison after serving time for a dreadful accident, sets out on the open road to escape his past.

These sad lives come together in a violent fashion when a bridge collapses, carrying with it the woman’s car. Ashamed of having sold a car that she didn’t own, she changes her name and starts life over, letting the world think she died.

She discovers the abandoned trailer in the woods, where Silva, the young mother, waits for her husband and child to return after the collapse. They are joined by Ron, the bus driver, who lands a job ferrying rescue workers to the bridge site by boat. Together the three form a quasi-family until one member breaks bad. Very bad.

Morag Joss’s deft touch at building suspense makes the story gripping even while it is devastatingly sad.

 

The Quest for Anna Klein, by Thomas H. Cook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; $27)

In the days following 9/11, former spy Thomas Jefferson Danforth writes a Washington think-tank to offer his wisdom in gathering intelligence about the tragedy. Specifically, Danforth asks to speak with Paul Crane, one of the firm’s most junior associates. Crane agrees reluctantly, hoping to return to DC as soon as possible. He realizes he’ll need to change his plans, however, when Danforth settles in to tell a story that began in 1939, when the world was on the brink of war. 

Danforth was asked if his Connecticut estate could be used as a place to train Anna Klein, a valuable spy. Danforth soon became enamored of Anna and volunteered to be part of her mission.  The mission changed, others were enlisted, treachery was suspected, Anna disappeared, life took some ugly turns, and Danforth ends up paying a high price for searching for Anna years after the war.   

Told through the modern-day interview and flashbacks to the past, the story keeps adding characters and double-crosses until it finally collapses of its own weight. The various surprises that are revealed at the end are not believable enough to make up for the confusing “Huh?” that was my general reaction from about the middle of the book on.

Cook is one of my favorite authors, and his books are usually peopled by characters who end up causing tragedy due to their moral shortcomings.  This book, on the other hand, is peopled with characters who aren’t compelling one way or the other. Their motives are, for the most part, neither noble nor caused by moral shortcomings. This may be the first of his books to disappoint me, but disappoint me it did—hugely. I was actually relieved when it was over, and it left me sorry I’d wasted my time. 

A One-Book Break from Mysteries

Every summer, I take a short break from murder and mayhem to read something that I feel I should read: a literary classic, for example, or a best seller that doesn’t include dead bodies. Past selections have included The Great Gatsby, followed by Scott Fitzgerald, a wonderful biography by Andrew Turnbull, and The Sound and the Fury (twice, and with the help of Sparks Notes to help me figure out what the heck was going on.) I also read Jane Austen, though last year I cheated and read Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Which did, obviously, include dead bodies: thousands of them, munching on the brains of the inhabitants of normally peaceful Meryton.

This year, my hiatus was spent reading Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken (Random House; $27.00). I can probably count on one hand the historical non-fiction books that I’ve ever read. And when I count those that I enjoyed up till now, only one finger is up: Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit.

Hillenbrand is a brilliant writer, and Unbroken is Seabiscuit's equal. The book tells the story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini, whose plane was shot down over the Pacific in World War II. He and two crew members drifted on a life raft for 48 days, covering more than 2,000 miles, until they washed up on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. The shark attacks, thirst, hunger, and strafing from Japanese bombers they endured turned out to be a day in the park compared to the degradation and torture they experienced as Japanese prisoners of war.

Hillenbrand’s research is extensive, and is all the more impressive considering her widely-reported health problems. She interviewed Louie, his friends and family, his war buddies, and many of the Japanese guards who played a role in his imprisonment. She was helped by Louie’s pack rat personality. He was able to share with her his extensive scrapbooks, diaries, letters, and memorabilia, including a scrap of a newspaper clipping about his running exploits that survived in his wallet despite a plane crash into an ocean, rafting through a typhoon, and a two-year imprisonment.

Unbroken is a remarkable story, and Hillenbrand’s writing of it was an awe-inspiring feat. The fact that the book could so hold my attention, despite its lack of dialogue, stiffs, and tough-talking cops, bespeaks of her incredible talent.

And now, back to low-brow mysteries for me. Summer vacation is over.

Sixkill, by Robert B. Parker (Putnam; 26.95)

In January 2010, the mystery world suffered an irreplaceable loss when Robert B. Parker died. Parker wrote a series of detective stories starring Boston sleuth Spenser. Sixkill is his last.  

When a young woman is found dead in the hotel room of grossly obese actor Jumbo Nelson, most everyone thinks he killed her—by squishing her, if nothing else. Oddly, the cops aren’t totally convinced. They know the 400-pound tub of lard will probably be convicted of the crime regardless of whether he did it, so before charging him, they want to make sure he’s actually guilty. They ask Spenser to look into the case.

Jumbo’s studio wants Spenser to report that the "repellent puke" (as Spenser calls him) is innocent. The studio is backed by organized crime figures, and they can be convincing. But Spenser has befriended Zebulon (Z) Sixkill, a Cree Indian who had served as Jumbo’s bodyguard until Spenser took him down in a fight. Now Spenser has taught the younger man how to better protect himself, and the grateful Z has Spenser’s back.

It’s a terrific story, and Z is an engaging character. I would have liked to have read other Spenser stories that included the younger man.

The book’s only flaw is the excruciatingly tedious Yoda-like dialogue between Spenser and his long-time girlfriend, Susan, such as this exchange, in which Susan describes Z:

 “He sounded rather like you,” Susan says.

 “You think?”

“I do,” she said

“Who better?” I said.

“No one, if your goal is to be a wiseass. . .”

“What better?”

It would be one thing if this were atypical, but the book is full of this annoying, stilted dialogue. So much so, in fact, that I actually wondered if someone else had added some to expand the book after Parker’s death despite a press release that described the book as the “last Spenser novel completed by the legendary Robert B. Parker.” I checked with the book’s publicist, who wrote back this rather patronizing denial:

As stated, it was the last Spenser novel completed by Parker. If someone else finished it, it wouldn’t have been *completed* by Parker, would it? So that is the answer: completely finished, yes.

So there you have it: only Parker is to blame for the book’s bad dialogue. 

I’ll miss Spenser. RIP, Robert B. Parker.

Live Wire, by Harlan Coben (Dutton; $27.95)

It’s taken me a while to get around to reviewing Harlan Coben’s latest. Not due to any reluctance on my part, but just due to life getting in the way. But it reproaches me each time I see it on my shelf, so today is the day.

Coben started out writing a series of mysteries starting Myron Bolitar, former Duke basketball star turned sports agent/sleuth.  He then wrote a boatload of stand-alone mysteries, each one of which manages to pull me in from the first page.

With Live Wire, Coben returns to Myron Bolitar and his world of crazy misfits. In his latest case, Suzze T, former tennis star, now the pregnant wife of a rock star, asks for help. After posting the picture of her baby’s sonogram on Facebook she received an ominous message: “Not his.” Now her husband has run off, and she desperately needs to find him to explain.

The case takes an unexpected twist when Myron learns that the person who posted the message was his sister-in-law, Kitty. Kitty and Brad Bolitar had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth some years before after a fight with Myron in which some unforgivable words were exchanged. Now Myron’s father is dying, and wants his second son found.

The book is a solid mystery, despite its rather confusing plot. Where it fell apart for me was in the character of Bolitar’s sidekick, Win Lockwood. Win is basically a sociopath, but entertainingly so: promiscuous, cold, but always willing to have Myron’s back. As he ages, however, his promiscuity and detachment have become less entertaining and more pathetic, so that in this latest, he came across as just a dirty old man. (Though the two women he was with, beautiful Asian models named Mee and Yu, made for some humorous puns.)

Coben still writes up a storm, and his latest, though not his best, still makes for a good read.

Buried Prey, by John Sandford (Putnam; $27.95)

John Sandford amazes me. After 21 books in a series, most authors’ books would be predictable and formulaic. But not Sandford’s “Prey” books, starring Minnesota cop Lucas Davenport. This latest is as fast-paced, engaging, and unpredictable as any of its predecessors. Perhaps even more so.

Half the book takes place many years ago, when Davenport was a patrol officer trying to move to detective. He worked a case involving two young girls, sisters actually, who went missing. While the more experienced cops on the case focused on one suspect, Davenport believed someone else might have been responsible. The investigation was closed when the cops felt they had their man. Too young to have the confidence to rock the boat, Davenport didn’t put up much of a protest. The volume of other cases quickly distracted Davenport from the disappearance, and soon he, too, moved on.

The second half of the book takes place now, decades later, when the bodies of the girls have shown up in a building being torn down. Davenport, now the top cop in the state, feels he owes it to the girls and their parents to solve the case this time. He reviews his old notes and starts retracing his steps. Soon he sees connections that he hadn’t noticed back in the day. In the meantime, he learns that there were other victims, and has to live with the knowledge that his reticence may have contributed to their deaths.

As always with Sandford’s mysteries, the book is skillfully plotted, with realistic dialogue and great characters. Sandford is one of my favorite authors, and I am rarely disappointed. This latest is a doozy.

The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown; $27.99)

Micky Haller doesn't like his latest client. Lisa Trammel had already turned to him for help when her bank threatened to foreclose on her house. When she is accused of murdering one of the bankers, she naturally expects that Mickey will represent her. But Lisa balks at much of Mickey's advice, and he occasionally sees a disturbing viciousness that she barely holds in check.

The case is made more complicated by the fact that the prosecutor is a friend of Mickey's ex-wife, Maggie, whom Mickey is trying to woo again. Mickey will take advantage of any weakness he can exploit to win his case. His cutthroat ambition, along with the prosecutor accusing him of not playing fair, threaten to undo the new closeness he's been enjoying with Maggie.

Michael Connelly, one of my favorite authors, writes two series: Mickey Haller courtroom mysteries, and Harry Bosch police procedurals. Both are terrific, and I'm hard pressed to say which series I prefer. The Fifth Witness is similar to The Lincoln Lawyer, in that Mickey has to tread a very thin line between his personal moral code and the rules governing defense lawyers. I have to say, I never pictured Mickey Haller as looking even remotely like Matthew McConaughey, so I was stunned to learn that the actor would play him in this spring's The Lincoln Lawyer. But McConaughey did a great job, tried not to look too gorgeous, and was quite impressive. Nevertheless, I still didn't picture McConaughey when I read The Fifth Witness. For one thing, it's very hard to imagine someone who looks like he does having to work so hard to win back his ex-wife. I'm hoping they turn many more of Connelly's books into movies and that eventually, I won't be able to picture anyone else playing Mickey.

Meantime, back to books: if you haven't already discovered Michael Connelly, you're missing one of the best mystery writers of our times.

Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown; $24.99)

The minute she sees the child being tormented, retired detective Tracy Waterhouse steps in. In an instant, she changes from a law-abiding, law-enforcing lonely soul to something far less predictable, on the run from the very cops she used to serve with.

The minute he sees the dog being tormented, private detective Jackson Brodie steps in. In an instant, he changes from a cold, lonely soul to someone who would nearly kill to protect his new pet.

Tracy knew the woman tormenting the child: it was a hooker very familiar to the Leeds police. She’s less certain about whether the hooker was the child’s mother. She knows something’s not quite right when she picks up a tail and finds a dead body. Jackson Brodie, meanwhile, reluctantly pursues his latest case: a woman, adopted as a child, who wants to learn all she can about her birth family.  

Kate Atkinson’s trademark is her ability to tell separate stories that end up being two parts of a third story. I really like her books, though none have wowed me to quite the same degree as Case Histories, her first Jackson Brodie mystery. This latest is most enjoyable, however, with memorable characters, poignancy, and her usual fabulous plotting.

John Le Carre, T. Jefferson Parker, and Brad Meltzer

It’s been such a long time since I’ve blogged—I don’t blame you if you’ve given up checking my site. My only excuse is the same lame excuse folks nowadays use anytime they haven’t done what they had promised—I’ve been busy. Not too busy to read, but somehow, I always find other things to do when it comes time to reviewing what I’ve read. (And it is March Madness season, after all!) So to make up for my slackerness, this blog entry will cover three books that I’ve read over the past several months: John Le Carré’s Our Kind of Traitor, T. Jefferson Parker’s The Border Lords, and Brad Meltzer’s Inner Circle.

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After reading Le Carré’s latest, Our Kind of Traitor (Viking; $27.95), I was left with the same feeling I always have when I finish one of his books: I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand his books. I seem to miss key plot elements and have to retrace my steps to figure out just exactly how this character got to whatever sticky wicket he’s stuck in. In this case, a young couple on vacation in Antigua meet a Russian money launderer named Dima who insists on a game of tennis. That brief encounter is enough to raise alarm bells on the part of the British Secret Service. The agents debrief the young couple and enlist their help in getting Dima to tell what he knows about dirty money around the globe. But Dima won’t talk unless the Brits promise to get his family out of Russia, and more unlikely, Dima’s children into the top British schools.

The book took me twice as long as most, since Le Carré’s understated style means that I have to re-read important points in the action. The ending, in particular, was nearly too dense to understand, and I’d love to run my interpretation of it past someone else who has read the book. I wanted to like this book, and for the most part, I did—I just wish Le Carré could make important twists a bit more obvious, so I don’t miss them the first time around.

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T. Jefferson Parker’s The Border Lords (Dutton; $26.95) is the fourth book in Parker’s series starring ATF agent Charlie Hood. When undercover ATF agent Sean Ozburn, posing as a meth and gun dealer, drops out of sight, the rest of the Operation Blowdown team doesn’t know what to make of it. But when the team finds the bodies of the North Baja Cartel assassins in a safehouse rented by Ozburn, the team begins to suspect Ozburn of the murders. As one of his closest friends, Hood tries to reach out to Sean, but is met with suspicion and paranoia. Working with Sean’s wife, Hood keeps probing until he learns the amazing reason for why the agent has gone rogue.

And an amazing reason it certainly is. Some might say it defies credibility—and I would be among them. Parker is such a good story teller that the book held my interest, but the plot turns on what was, ultimately, a device that was simply too farfetched.

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Brad Meltzer’s The Inner Circle (Grand Central Publishing; $26.99) has at its core an unlikely hero: Beecher White, archivist at the National Archives. Beecher thinks it’s his lucky day when Clementine Kaye asks for his help in tracking down her father. Beecher had a major crush on Clementine when they were kids, and he wants to impress her now that they’re grown up. In order to impress her, he takes her into the secret room at the Archives where the President comes to review old documents. Clementine spills a cup of coffee and in the ensuing chaos, Beecher and another archivist find a 200-year-old dictionary hidden under a chair—as if the President might have been trying to hide it. When the other archivist dies suddenly, Beecher knows he’s in some deep trouble.

This is a well-plotted political novel with surprising twists and turns. Beecher is a pathetic character, but endearingly so.

                                     

  

Secrets to the Grave, by Tami Hoag (Dutton; $26.95)

Teacher-turned-child protector Anne Leone has barely recovered from her near murder when she’s called in to help on another case: a 4-year-old is found barely alive, draped over her mother’s body. The only clue is a 911 call the child made in which she said “My daddy hurt my mommy.”

Should be cut and dried, except that many men in mommy’s life were called “daddy.” The local sheriff needs help, and turns to Anne’s husband, Vince, an FBI profiler. Soon the victim’s best friend goes missing, the victim’s body parts are mailed to another friend, and the investigators learn that there are as many mysteries surrounding the victim’s true identity as there are surrounding her death.

I wish Tami Hoag would move on from the Leones. I just don’t like them. They don’t seem to fit together very well, so their dialogue is not realistic. I find Anne to be particularly unlikable. She wants to help children, which is admirable; yet she is inconsistent and does not always seem to have the child’s best interest at heart. She fought to keep a troubled child out of a juvenile facility after he stabbed a classmate, and as a result, he was housed the county mental hospital—not the best solution, in my opinion.  Anne visited him for a while, but dropped him when the 4-year-old came into her life. (Anne has lots of excuses for why she could no longer visit the boy, but I’m not buying. He was a 12-year-old surly troublemaker, and she replaced him with a 4-year-old little princess. I’d probably act out, too, which is just what the older child did, with terrible results.)

It also troubled me that Anne and Vince were allowed to take the 4-year-old home without already being approved foster parents. Perhaps the state of California, where the book takes place, is okay with well-intentioned folks stepping up to take care of children in situations like this; I’d feel a whole lot better if the parents had to undergo some screening and training in fostering first. Particularly since Vince is the first to admit that he was a lousy father to his own kids.

I’m not going to read another Tami Hoag mystery if these characters are in it.  The mystery isn’t compelling enough, there are far too many red herrings, and the romance—something Hoag used to excel at—is tepid at best.