The Hunter

TITLE: The Hunter

AUTHOR: Tana French

A sequel to The Searcher, this book picks up two years later. Retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper has settled into small town life in Ireland where he is mostly accepted by the locals, especially Lena Dunne with whom he has a comfortable relationship. They both care about fifteen-year-old Trey Reddy who, with their guidance has begun changing from a near-feral kid into a good kid with a good future. So, when Trey's absentee father returns from London with a wealthy investor in tow, Cal senses trouble. 

Slowly, Johnny Reddy's great plan -- to dig for gold in the fields and nearby mountain -- is revealed. Local investors are needed and Cal smells a scam. He wants to protect Trey from her father's scheming, but Trey has plans of her own.

French's prose is compelling and the way she uses the town as a character helps build the suspense. This isn't much of a mystery, but it is a well-written story about characters I've come to love.

Searcher

TITLE: The Searcher

AUTHOR: Tana French

Tana French is a good writer, and while I prefer, so far, her Dublin Murder Squad books to her standalone novels (just two, so far), her prose makes all her books compelling reads.

This is not really a mystery, though the plot revolves around a missing teenage boy in rural Ireland. Retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper bought a house he'd seen on the internet, a real fixer-upper located near sheep farms and a nearby village. He sees the move as a way to get over his divorce and to put the job behind him, but when a thirteen-year-old kid pushes him to investigate his older brother's disappearance, he reluctantly takes on the investigation. As he starts casually questioning the locals, he begins to expose secrets and dangers he didn't bargain for.

Anyone looking for an intricate mystery will be disappointed, given the investigation is more plot device to peel back the facades of Cal's new neighbors as well as leading Cal to face some truths of his own life. In fact, the investigation doesn't start until a hundred or so pages in, as Cal settles into his new life. French skillfully builds tension while evoking a sense of place. The characters seemed so real that I hated saying goodbye to them. My only quibble is that Cal, a southerner who spent decades working in Chicago, didn't seem fully American, but that's a tiny quibble about a very readable book.

The Witch Elm

TITLE: The Witch Elm
AUTHOR: Tana French

I finished reading this book weeks ago, but a broken arm made typing difficult, so I waited until now to attempt the review.

This is a standalone book by the author of The Dublin Murder Squad books. As an aside, I've been watching the STARZ series of those mysteries and while I'm enjoying it, I find the combining of the first two books into one season is a bit disjointed. And while I like all the castings, the actor playing Frank is nothing like I'd pictured. Now, back to the scheduled book review.

The narrator, Toby seemingly has it all. A good job, a great girlfriend, and a couple of best buds, along with amazing good luck. He's always considered himself lucky, but a fateful night changes that. After spending a night drinking at a pub with those besties, he ends up surprising burglars at his home and suffers a terrible beating, including a head injury that leaves him with gaps in his memory and psychological scars. After a few weeks in the hospital, he's coaxed into staying with a beloved uncle who has recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. His uncle's house has been in the family for a few generations, which brings back memories of the summers he and his two cousins spent there during their childhood and teens.

Things seem to be going well with Toby's recovery until the day a skull is found in the hollow of an old elm tree in the garden. When the skull is identified as belonging to a boy Toby and his cousins knew in school, a boy everyone thought had jumped to his death after graduation, Toby has to face the reality that his memories of the past, what he knew and what he didn't know, were not what he'd thought. Family secrets are uncovered as the police investigate. The mystery of how the victim died, then who killed him, is almost secondary to Toby's mental unraveling. French has woven an intriguing story involving PTSD, memory, the lies we tell ourselves, and the nature of identity. Her attention to details, of grounding her characters in reality, made me care deeply for Toby, his cousins, and his uncle.

A Hero of France

TITLE: A Hero of France
AUTHOR: Alan Furst

With this book now read, I am caught up with Furst's series set during World War II and am eagerly awaiting another. This one focuses on the French Resistance in 1941 and the covert work done by the leader of a Resistance cell who is known as Mathieu. He and his team specialize in getting downed British fliers out of occupied France so they can be returned to England to fight again. A few familiar characters from previous books show up and I admire Furst's ability to juggle all the characters' timelines as his books are not written in strict chronological order. This attention to continuity and connections add realism to the series and while each book stands on its own, reading all of them gives the reader a real sense of the concurrent events of a Europe in the midst of war.

There's plenty going on here: various missions, overtures from British intelligence to help and perhaps take over the running of the escape pipeline, and the German high command determined to break up the organized French resistance. But as usual, it's the characters who get under my skin more than the events. Furst bases his books on well-researched events and activities, bringing to life the simple bravery of people fighting for what they believe in. And in today's political climate, these books are a good reminder of how easy it is to lose one's freedoms. Highly recommended.

Midnight in Europe

TITLE: Midnight in Europe
AUTHOR: Alan Furst

This historical spy novel is set mostly in Paris from late-1937 through much of 1938. The protagonist, Cristian Ferrar, a Spanish emigre living in Paris, is a lawyer for an international firm and travels often for his job, spending time at the main office in New York, where he has a lover, and in Paris. But he also is a supporter of the Republican forces in Spain fighting Franco's fascist army. Unlike most of Furst's novels that I've read, which focus on spying against Germany, in this book, Nazi Germany's actions form a backdrop for the conflict in Spain when Ferrar is enlisted by the Republic's diplomats in Paris to help supply arms to the Republic's army. Since most countries won't ship arms directly to Spain, Ferrar and Max de Lyon, a diplomat/arms dealer, engage in dangerous clandestine operations.

The usual Furst thrills are on display, with Cristian becoming involved with a woman who likely is more than she seems, close calls in enemy territory, and even appearances of characters from other of Furst's novels, especially Count Polanyi. As always, I felt like I was part of the time and place, thanks to Furst's impeccable research and attention to detail. His books might not be compulsive pageturners, but they are engrossing, filled with wonderful, fully realized characters. Now, on to the next one!

Hot Plastic

TITLE: Hot Plastic
AUTHOR: Peter Craig

Seemed like I'd never finish another book, but I finally did and what a romp it was. Hot Plastic is the story of an odd family -- a father, his teen son, and the young woman taken on as a partner -- of grifters, mostly dealing in credit card fraud.

The book is told mostly in flashback, and starts with Collette, the young woman, frantically driving a shot Kevin, the now grown teen, to a hospital after a scam gone wrong. The bulk of the book is set in the past, telling how they got to this point, before moving forward.

Craig's got a nice, breezy style that captures not only the lives of people living on the edge or the wrong side of it, but the awkwardness of adolescence as Kevin lusts after Collette who's shacking up with his father while trying to compete with dad in every way possible as he tries to prove he's as good at grifting as his father or Collette are.

These characters lie, steal, cheat. They hurt people and they hurt each other. And yet, they are oddly appealing for those flaws. I can't wait to read more by this author.

Six Bad Things

TITLE: Six Bad Things
AUTHOR: Charlie Huston

Okay, I haven't updated my current reading. And now that I'm going on vacation and won't be reading, I'll wait til I get back.

This is the sequel to Caught Stealing, and the second in what's said in the next book to be a trilogy. I'm not sure what it says about me that I love Hank Thompson, the protagonist of these books. Hank has done bad things. Many of them involving ending people's lives. In the first book, he ended up in deep trouble after helping a casual friend, not knowing the guy had ripped off mobsters to the tune of millions. In this book, Hank has been living in Mexico, trying to maintain a low profile given his notoriety in the US. But of course, in this noir realm, things don't work out and Hank is forced to return to the States to protect his parents.

More people die, some by Hank's hand. Some deserve death, others don't, and given how dark Hank has become and his weaknesses (addictions), I shouldn't like him, but I do. His narration is as sprightly as it was in the first book, he's surrounded by another fun and funky cast of characters, and his situation is as dire as the first. In order to survive in a violent world, Hank has to be as violent or more so.

Huston has a strong grasp of character and develops Hank without a false note as the reader watches Hank gradually change into something he doesn't like while remaining sympathetic. After all, given his situation, with people trying to kill him from every direction, who could blame him for being a survivor willing to do whatever it takes, to stay alive and keep his parents safe.

I think the third book will be the first on my reading list when I get home.

The Tinder Box

TITLE: The Tinder Box
AUTHOR: Minette Walters

I can't remember when I last read a novella. Maybe never. I usually don't like short stories or even novella length tales because they're too short for me to sink my mental teeth into, but I was desperate for more of Ms. Walters' books to read and got this from Amazon.

I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as her novels. In a way, it reads like a treatment, maybe a detailed summary, of a book to be written. As she has in many of her books, Walters deals with prejudice here, in this case of the English toward the Irish. An Irishman is accused of killing an elderly English neighbor and her nurse and another neighbor, an Irishwoman, doesn't believe he did the deed. As is true of her books, nothing is quite as it seems, with the truth slowly being revealed in fits and starts. But there's not enough time to develop the plot twists to full satisfaction or to throw sufficient red herrings at the reader for a truly suspenseful tale.

Still, Walters demonstrates her deftness in character development here, quickly establishing the people in the small community as individuals and makes her point re: how easily prejudices can lead to snap judgments, mistakes, even violence and hate. A nice, quick read.

Killing Rain

TITLE: Killing Rain
AUTHOR: Barry Eisler

The fourth book to feature John Rain, freelance assassin. I love this series. Eisler knows his stuff and this book, as are the others, is full of details of place, as well of methods of killing and tricks of the espionage trade. It's the little insider details that move this series above many others in the suspense genre.

In this one, Rain, a Japanese American who has had plastic surgery to appear more Japanese, has been hired by the Israeli Mossad to arrange the death of an Israeli selling arms to anyone with the funds. Working with a former sniper buddy, Dox, Rain botches the assignment and while he tries to fix things, also finds himself now the Mossad's target.

The book builds on what's come before, but Eisler provides enough background that you can read this alone. However, it would give away some details that might spoil the earlier books, so I would read them in order. That will also make it clearer how much Rain has been changing emotionally over the series thus far as he finds himself becoming almost a social creature.

There isn't a lot of surprise or suspense in this. We know Rain will survive because the next book, The Last Assassin, is excerpted in the back of the paperback. But there is always some doubt about the survival rate of the people Rain starts to feel close to and whether or not he'll fully succeed in his mission. To make it easier to root for a man who kills for a living, his victims usually deserve it, though there are often other deaths that aren't so clearcut, for which self-defense could be argued. Still, a lot of questions about morality are brought up by this series, giving it an extra element that many thrillers don't have.

Bottom line? I'm eagerly awaiting the next book's appearance in paperback.

~~~o0o~~~

And yes, I know I haven't answered my own meme yet. Been busy, but will try to get to it this weekend. I actually came up with questions I need to think about!

Bay of Souls

TITLE: Bay of Souls
AUTHOR: Robert Stone

I finished this a couple of days ago, but was busy with other things and to be honest, I wasn't sure what to say about this. This is the first book by Stone that I've read and I would read others. He's a good, solid writer who has a full command of his characters. Michael Ahearn, a professor at a midwest college, husband, and father, becomes infatuated with a new colleague, Lara Purcell. They're soon having an affair and when Lara, who's from a Caribbean island, asks him to join her there, where she plans to undergo a ritual to restore her soul, as well as take care of personal affairs after the death of her brother, Michael readily agrees, despite the danger of a revolution on the island and forsaking family.

There's no doubt Michael's obsession is slowly destroying him. Stone is masterful with the psychological aspects and the dangers Michael faces emotionally and well as physically on the island are well drawn, but ultimately, I felt something lacking. I suppose I wanted something more from the ending, though I can't complain as it fit the story. But still... I can't put my finger on what seems to be missing from this book. It was enjoyable, I read it fairly quickly (yeah, I know it didn't seem like it), the prose moved along at a decent pace, and the characters were believable. The book was a bestseller and received critical accolades. I guess I just wanted a more explosive payoff than the quiet one I got.

Ah well, on to the next book. I'm reading my gym book on the subway, too, so won't be changing my subway reading in the sidebar for a while yet. And I just got a copy of Minette Walters' The Tinderbox, a novella published in England. Online shopping is a wondrous thing. I got it through a listing on Amazon and the supplier was the efficient and speedy The Book Depository Ltd.

The Interpreter

TITLE: The Interpreter
AUTHOR: Suki Kim

I'm choosy about what I read, so I'm rarely disappointed by content or writing style, because I skim a bit in the middle of books that have interesting plots when I'm not familiar with the author. In the case of The Interpreter, I was intrigued by the plot of a Korean-American interpreter in her late-20s who gradually learns disturbing truths about her parents, small grocery owners in NYC who were murdered 5 years earlier. The prose, when I skimmed, seem succinct and eloquent. I wanted to read and enjoy this book. And I did. Eventually.

My disappointment in this book is that it could have been better. It took forever to get to anything resembling tension or action or intrigue. Except for a few little hints here and there, the first half of the book meanders around Suzy, the protagonist's personal life. And while the background is important as the layers of her early years and teens are peeled back, there was little to involve me emotionally until layers down deep are exposed and the book takes off in the second half, while maintaining its slow, meandering pace.

I imagine, given the author is Korean and moved to NYC when she was 13, that the book accurately portrays Korean immigrants and the Korean culture in NYC neighborhoods. It's an interesting peek into that community. I can't say that another reader won't be hooked from the start, but I think it takes some patience. So I won't heartily endorse it, nor will I tell you to forget it. I liked it. I just wish I could've liked it more. Maybe Suki Kim's next book will be more to my liking.

The Echo

TITLE: The Echo
AUTHOR: Minette Walters

It's a sad day. I have now read all the paperbacks I have by this author. I have to wait for her new one to come out in the US in paperback. I hope I don't go through withdrawal.

A woman asks a reporter to track the identity of a homeless man she found dead of starvation in her garage. Mike Deacon, the reporter, has his own problems: two ex-wives, a dysfunctional family situation, a love of alcohol, and a career in the toilet. Enthralled by the woman, Amanda Powell, he pursues the investigation and along the way, befriends a homeless teen, an elderly retired lawyer, and the odd photo expert at the newspaper he writes for. Soon, he comes to realize that the dead man, Billy, could be one of two missing men, both of whom had reasons to vanish. Billy was obsessed with redemption and in pursuing the truth of Billy's life, Mike finds redemption of his own.

But this story does not have the pat endings of some of Walters' books, where all the pieces fall into place. This one ends with some ambiguity, the way life tends to be. I love all her characters because they're so well-rounded and realistic, especially the truth seekers, but possibly Mike, at his irascible best, is my favorite even if the book isn't. (It's hard to choose a favorite book, but Acid Row, Fox Evil, and The Breaker are right up there.)

All the elements that make her books special are here: psychological intrigue, secrets, lies, deception, plot twists, indelible characters, literary writing. If you haven't read her, try one. I'll bet you won't be able to stop with just the one.

The Blue Place

TITLE: The Blue Place
AUTHOR: Nicola Griffith

Because I read this after its sequel, there will be spoilers in this review.

A while back I read and reviewed the sequel to this one, Stay. I was surprised upon reading this that knowing how things turned out didn't ruin this one for me. The mystery was still fresh, and I hadn't realized that Aud doesn't know Julia, who she's mourning in Stay, all that long. So there were the details of how they met and came to love each other, plus all the wonderful descriptions of Atlanta and Norway. Griffith is a literary writer who immerses the readers in the details of a place to the point you can hear tires crunching on gravel or the birds singing overhead and smell the flowers blooming in Aud's garden or by the lake. You feel the cold when she's exploring the glacier in Norway and you feel her pain when she finally lets herself love someone with all the fear of losing that special someone.

Aud is one of the strongest female characters you can meet in fiction. Tall, physically capable, a trained cop skilled in martial arts, knowledgeable about more things that the average person, someone who can build furniture and repair homes, Aud has enough money to not need to work, a curiosity and need to stay busy that leads her to take work, and a closed off psyche. For all of her physical attributes, emotionally, she has plenty of room for growth.

I've enjoyed meeting her and tagging along on her journey. In a response to my review of Stay, Nicola Griffith mentioned a third book might be coming. I've already put it (untitled -- N. Griffith) on my To Read list.

Caught Stealing

Title: Caught Stealing
Author: Charlie Huston

I go this at the NY Comicon in February, a giveaway, and it's autographed. But I didn't let that influence me. I really did enjoy it and will probably get the sequel, Six Bad Things. Hank is an average guy, a bartender who does a favor for a neighbor and suddenly finds himself on everyone's most wanted list. It seemed innocent enough; just watch Russ's cat for a few days. But the cat's got a key that a dirty cop and his dirtier friends the Russian mob wants. Then there are Russ's "former business associates" who also want it, or more specifically, what Russ decided to keep for himself, and Hank's the one everyone converges on in a classic case of wrong place, wrong time.

A beating lands Hank in the hospital and costs him a kidney. When he gets out, things take a turn for the worse and he's barely keeping ahead of the people who are trying to get what they think he has, then kill him, and meanwhile, innocent people are getting killed simply because they know Hank.

This is noir at its funniest, because Hank's narration is what kept me reading. He's a likeable character even if not all of his choices are wise ones and Huston's style kept moving the story forward even though there isn't much plot to it. I don't think it's for everyone, but if a gritty narrative with underlying humor is your thing, this book might just be for you.

Stay

Title: Stay

Author: Nicola Griffith

The blurb on the back of this trade pb categorizes it as crime fiction, but this isn't a traditional mystery or suspense. The one book I've read previously by Griffith was science fiction. This one is more mainstream, focusing on loss, grief, and healing. Aud (rhymes with "shroud") Torvingen is skilled in the art of self-defense and a good offense. She's a woman who knows how to use her hands, both to restore a mountain cabin and to kill with those bare hands. At the start of the story, she's mourning her lover, Julia, who was murdered, a murder Aud couldn't stop, so along with her grief is the pain of guilt.

Reluctantly, she agrees to find a friend's missing fiancee. Tracking the woman to New York, she finds a different kind of loss. Tammy has lost her sense of self to the abusive man she's been living with, a sociopath whose skill at manipulation comes up against Aud's pain and need to release pent-up anger.

I fully expected Aud's hunting of that man to provide the bulk of the narrative, but that plot point is quickly made and the story moves on as Griffith focuses on Aud's emotional turmoil, her need to make amends for the bad things she's done, and an emotional quest that makes the plight of one illegal immigrant girl the focus of her attention.

I know this sounds disjointed. There's no easy way to sum this book up without revealing too much. In many ways, there isn't much of a story for 300 pages. So many pages are consumed by mundane things in life, and Aud's refurbishing of the cabin she's inherited. Her background is only sparsely filled in. But the prose sings. It sucked me in, somehow making me feel more is going on than seems on the surface. At its heart, this book is about the quest for personal salvation, of healing and of self-discovery. Aud slowly learns to accept that she's human, even if the acceptance is half-hearted.

I loved the book, but it's not for everyone. The lesbian aspect will be a turnoff for many, but something this well written is a worthy reading experience for the reader willing to try something a bit different.

I'm going on vacation in a few days, for about 10 days. The June Booked by 3 will be posted soon after I get home.

Rain Storm

Title: Rain Storm
Author: Barry Eisler

Another adventure starring that king of assassins John Rain. Rain has been hired by the CIA to eliminate an arms dealer, via his usual "natural causes" MO. But nothing ever goes as planned on CIA jobs and in Barry Eisler's books, so complications abound. A mysterious woman, an attempt on Rain's life, the appearance of an old war buddy who seems to also be working for the Company, and a target who seems well aware that he's been targeted all force Rain to reassess and switch tactics.

More important, Rain starts to question his own feelings and shows signs of developing, if not a conscience, than a level of self-awareness not previously on display. He's come to care about people despite his best efforts not to, though that fact doesn't alter his behavior. He continues to be a fascinating character, one whose development feels real.

And the Acknowledgments, full of specifics, are nearly as informative as the explicit descriptions in the narrative that have informed all Eisler's Rain books thus far. I can't wait til the latest, Killing Rain, is available in paperback. This is one series that has wormed its way into my heart.

Blood of Angels

Title: Blood of Angels
Author: Michael Marshall (Smith)

This is the third in The Straw Men Trilogy. The first, The Straw Men, was full of shock and suspense as a worldwide conspiracy was slowly revealed. The next, The Upright Man, was full of suspense and gore and while it didn't have the surprise of the first, since the conspiracy was known, the horror was higher because we knew how depraved the killers were. This third continues in that vein, but seems smaller somehow, concentrating on one case of a possible serial killer, and side stories involving teen drug dealers and an older, former assassin. Somehow, all three elements come together, as the reader knows they must. And as in the previous books, Marshall's skill with words carries the reader through to the somewhat ambiguous ending.

Ward Hopkins, a former CIA staffer, and Nina Baynam, an FBI agent, are lured from their idyllic hideaway after the events of the previous novel when Nina's boss asks her to help in the investigation of a murder in a small Virginia town where such crimes are most unusual. Complicating things is word that Ward's brother, Paul, the serial killer known as the Upright Man, has escaped custody. Paul is one of the Straw Men, killers who believe violence is more in human nature than civilization and they are determined to restore the world to its supposedly natural, violent state.

There is a danger in sequels, especially when the message was received loud and clear in the previous book(s), and this book, to me, is the weakest of the three. But I've long ago come to love these characters and I love Marshall's way with words, both of which made this book a compulsive read. The book has more than its share of gore, but if you don't mind that, you can't go wrong with this author's books.

He's using Michael Marshall for his non-science fiction books and his full name of Michael Marshall Smith is what his science fiction appeared under. He dropped the Smith to avoid confusion with Martin J. Smith who wrote a book called Straw Men around the same time The Straw Men was published.

I haven't decided on what to read next, so am reading my gym book for both my work commute and at the gym. Therefore, I won't change the sidebar reading until I choose the next subway book.

Hard Rain by Barry Eisler

I like Barry Eisler's writing and I like his professional assassin protagonist, John Rain. A lot. This is the second book in the series, and while it isn't full of the freshness of the first book, Rain Fall, it has a lot to recommend it, namely, a familiarity with the characters.

The book picks up some time after the events of the first, with John making plans to leave Japan for good. Half-Japanese, half-Caucasian, Rain had his features surgically altered so he can appear more Japanese and blend in, but even with all his precautions, he knows time might be running out for him now that he's made a powerful enemy due to his actions in the previous book. But a favor requested by an old friend/nemesis from Japan's version of the US' FBI causes him to alter his plans. That "friend," Tatsu, can make life difficult for him, even impede his departure from Japan, so Rain reluctantly agrees to help and discovers a web of deceit and political corruption that traps his young computer hacker friend Harry. And what began as a professional matter becomes personal, for Rain and for Tatsu, with all the requisite twists and turns.

Eisler knows his stuff. He has a law degree, worked for the US government for three years, and lived and worked in Japan for many years. He also has a black belt in judo and is knowledgeable in most martial arts and ways of disarming, maiming, and killing an enemy by hand. His expertise enhances the writing without bogging it down. And because he has imbued Rain with a code of self-imposed ethics, Rain becomes human to the reader, almost understandable, and deserves any feelings he earns from the reader. What happens to a man trained by the military to kill once the war is over? What does killing so often he loses track of how many lives he's claimed do to a man? John Rain is an answer to those questions.

John Rain isn't an easy man to like, but that just makes these books more appealing to me, because Eisler finds a way to make me care about him, page after page after page.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

I have a dilemma: How to review this book without giving away any of its surprises. I can start with Lehane's style. His skill with prose is fully evident here, from evocative descriptions to complex characterizations. I thought Mystic River was as good as it gets, but Shutter Island feels more assured, if possible, as if he was showing off in the former book and is more comfortable with the latter.

Shutter Island, set in the mid-1950s, revolves around a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane, located on a rugged island in New England. A hurricane is roaring up the coast toward the island and one of the patients/inmates--Rachel Solando, incarcerated for killing her children--has gone missing. Enter Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall and the protagonist, and his new partner Chuck Aule. Assigned to find the missing woman, they encounter subtle stonewalling that leads Teddy to suspect all is not what it seems.

Teddy, too, is not what he seems, and as he slowly reveals to Chuck, he has his own reasons for taking the assignment. There's another inmate at the asylum, someone Teddy wants very much to kill: the man responsible for Teddy's wife's death.

But this is no mere mystery/suspense story. This is a psychological tale that plays with the reader's assumptions as much as it plays with Teddy's. I was reminded of Arturo Perez-Riverte's The Club Dumas and Guy Burt's The Hole and Sophie, books that also weren't quite what they seemed. But Shutter Island stands on its own, partly due to Teddy and partly due to Lehane's accomplished storytelling.

For readers expecting another Mystic River or something akin to Lehane's Patrick and Angie mystery series, pass this one by. But for people looking for an intriguing, well written suspense story, I recommend this heartily.

The Upright Man by Michael Marshall (Smith)

Michael Marshall Smith has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His first three books (Only Forward, Spares, and One of Us) were science fiction. His next, under the name Michael Marshall, was a thriller called The Straw Men. This is the sequel.

It's difficult to discuss this without giving away too much of the first, but the action picks up after some time after Ward, John, and Nina dealt the Upright Man and his fellow psychopaths and serial killers a severe blow. But the Upright Man, one of a group of people who believe man's nature is that of hunter and killer, is still loose and his connection to Ward (revealed in the first book) makes tracking him down a personal mission for Ward. His responsibility for John's daughter's death keeps John on his tail. And Nina, a tenacioius FBI agent who was nearly killed by the Upright Man in the first book, has her own reasons to hunt him down.

But this is more than a typical thriller. It's about the nature of humanity, about deceit and secrets, though the story is more straightforward than in the previous one, now that The Straw Men have been revealed as an evil that has penetrated all levels of society. In The Upright Man, Ward and the others discover how ancient that evil is.

There are authors who would have told this story with fewer words, but in Marshall's hands, not one word is wasted. He paints pictures and sets moods, his prose crawls along your skin and seeps into your pores. His characters are painfully real with attitudes and agendas. If you're not squeamish and you enjoy genuine thrills that touch but don't quite cross into the preternatural, give these books a try. And if you find that, like me, you can't get enough of his wrting, you'll still have his gritty science fiction waiting for you.