Mad River

John Sandford is a story teller and his series has added Virgil Flowers to his on-going set of characters.  Virgil is a detective put on special cases.  He is a rural guy who has a tenacity that helps him with particularly tough cases.

In this novel he is up against a set of young killers - modern day misguided Bonnie and Clydes who set off on a killing spree that has the entire state upset and a vigilante sheriff's department in particular anger.

Virgil finds their killing spree something easy to solve - they did it, but what is not easy to determine is where they are.  The frustration of knowing they are near, but not being able to find them wears on everyone's nerves and sets the deputies in a kill on site mode - especially after a policeman goes down.

Virgil, on the other hand, knows that there is another person who triggered this spree, a person who paid for the first killing and that person will go free if the trigger happy killers are killed.  We see the frustration and we worry along with Virgil that vigilante justice will undo the justice needed to get the real triggerman.

We travel in SW MN and the small towns and unpopulated counties in a wonderfully written story that forced me to be up most of one night because I could not stop.  Good dialogue, good characters and a pace of narrative that is addictive.

American Emperor David O. Stewart

American Emperor David O. Stewart

Aaron Burr is one of those historic names that always seems to be on the sidelines, but as a full-fledged character in the specter of a new nation, he is a definitely worthy knowing.   Vice President, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and then tried and acquitted of treason in a bizarre and lengthy trial that was both mishandled and very difficult to understand.

Yes, he committed treason, even if not convicted.  In partnership with the shadowy General Wilkinson of New Orleans he attempts to lead an insurgency against Mexico and Spain and to capture Florida, Louisiana, Mexico and ???  Should he be successful in his efforts he would, of necessity, be the Emperor.

Vanity knows no limits, but neither does the variety of intrigues.  Wilkinson who everyone now knows was a double agent with Spain during his time as our Western Lands General plays it cool, ready to go with the winner and ready to dump on Burr when the plot becomes known.

Then there is the future presidents Jackson and Harrison who were role players that find a way to escape accusation and censorship even though their involvement is quite well documented. 

Declared innocent of charges by the Supreme Court and Justice Marshall who dislikes Jefferson and may have let that influence his decision, Burr does not repent and go in to seclusion. Instead he heads to Europe where he attempts to get first England and then France to back his plan.  His only successful negotiations seem to have been with a litany of whores.

So is this man crazy, would he have been a hero a little later in the Texas war, was he a megalomaniac?  I cannot put a label on him.  But I also find that he must stand with Benedict Arnold as one of the shadiest figures in that era and Thomas Jefferson, with whom he had been VP and despised does not come out with high grades for being assertive and taking action in this affair.

Good historical reading.

WALKING THE AMAZON BY Ed Stafford

This is a book dedicated to detailing an 860 day journey walking the length of the Amazon River.  Yes this is a first – why? Probably because it would not make sense to anyone but a person like Ed Stafford who is driven by the quest to go where others haven’t to accomplish new things – to get Guiness World Records.

The Amazon and the forest really get very little attention, something I would have liked.  Walking, floating, cutting his way through the forest gave him a lot of opportunity to report on the forest itself or the river.  But this was more of a personal adventure with the focus on him, his trusty companion, guide – Cho, who was contracted to walk with him in Peru and made it all the way to the sea.

Ed allows us to see his mood swings, his conflict with his original partner Luke who leaves before they get out of Peru, his nasty moods with Cho and other native guides.  Ed would not be described as easy going, but then a journey like this needs drive and fortitude.

We know from our own journey that it is difficult to cover all the days and all the experiences.  The journey gets more detailed the first half, but that is natural.  The second half often has repetition and the first half determines the dialogue.

Even in this remote part of the earth, using a machete to get through areas of dense jungle and swamp, it is still a story of people.  The suspicion of some indigenous villages, the threats to Ed because he is a white person and the rumors and actions of other whites have made them untrustworthy.  It is about getting shelter and help from people living their lives in isolation or want providing food and shelter to the expedition, about the little bureaucracies that develop in each community despite the seeming isolation. 

He touches on deforestation, mining, drug running, agriculture, roads... but the tail is more about two people from two cultures walking to the sea.  Cho had never left Peru, had never ridden an escalator, had never seen the sea.  His story was really compelling and happily Cho is now going to England where I hope he will prosper.

It is an adventure that provides entertaining reading.

http://www.walkingtheamazon.com/ 

The Lock Artist

We discovered Steve Hamilton's mysteries when we were walking around Lake Superior.  We were at the Berry Patch in Paradise MI and Shirley, the proprietor, said have you read - A Cold Day in Paradise.  We hadn't but we bought the book and found a series based in the region we were walking and love.  It was a natural fit for our relaxation.  The books (we bought two of the series) were good and they have gotten some Edgar Award recognition, but it was not until this book that I was really sold on Hamilton's tremendous gift for telling a story, laying it out and withholding just enough to tease you forward.

It plays back and forth between a very tragic event in the narrator's life and his path to criminal life.  The author introduces the primary character - "I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me.But you can call me Mike."

We finally learn why Mike does not talk, but it is his very silence that propels the story along.  We see him As a victim, an artist with a rare talent for opening locks, safes, etc, Mike is an observer, as much as a participant, who describes his partners in crime, people he seldom spends time with, in details that give us a real look at the seamy side of criminality.

Mike is also a victim because - he cannot speak up - and we know that if he could he probably would have been killed, and because he has an addiction for opening things.  

From a juvenile crime in which he is the only one caught - and the least criminal of the four, to sentence to serve, to a love of a young woman, we see him mature, but also get caught in a terrible avalanche of activities from which he cannot extricate himself.

The story has a great pace and is really an unusual crime perspective.  Definitely highly recommended.  

The Expats by Chris Pavone

Kate and I listened to this on CD while driving from Washington to MN and it was the perfect book for passing the miles and hours.   We both enjoyed the book and even after that long of a drive, we sat in our driveway and listened to the last track of the last CD.

A criticism that comes to mind might be corrected in the book layout, but for an audible listener there were so many time and location shifts back and forth that we would find ourselves confused and have to pause while the one of us who figured out where we were helped the other get grounded.

We were fascinated by the authors plotting of dialogue and storyline as he took four principal characters and a few supporting roles and created a situation with as many twists as the old Saturday 5 cent serials (did I just date myself?).

Who is CIA, who is FBI, who is manipulating and who is manipulated.  Is the statement real or part of an alternative reality that is being pursued or plotted?

There are crooks, but there is no innocent person in the book.  Some seem better than others, but at times the heroine or the hero seem callous and frustrating.  The plot goes down the alleys of Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Paris, and Geneva, but the location is not nearly as important as the flow of information and the clues to the reality that slide in to obscure actions and conversations.

There is enough suspicion for everyone.  At one point we began to think the judgments of the wife Kate to her husband Dexter was dis-ingenuousness considering what we knew of her.  Who among the four would end up with the money?  Who would have remorse for the figures that died?

Was Dexter really pursuing a righteous cause or did he get caught up in greed.  Was Kate reacting to the unfolding story because she was alarmed or because she was fighting her own guilt.  Did Bill really work as an agent?  Was he really unaware before he began very aware and therefore dangerous.  Is Julia supporting Bill or is she less the dupe and more the mastermind?   You have to read to find out.

In many ways the credibility of the can only be accepted if you suspend a few realities.  Kate is bored, she moved to Luxembourg for her husband, but she was one ass kicking fem fatale in her career so boredom has to be expected and we see it in the drudgery of her day, the contents of conversations, and her frustration with suppressing her own talents and skills.

Dexter is boring.  A nerd - is he also an amazing international thief?  Only Bill is exciting as he is the man about town hulk with athletic and social skills to wow them all.

Put all these characters and their convoluted histories in an out of the way country where few readers have been or heard of (yes Kate and I have been there and liked it alot) and you find the writer used the readers ignorance to create an almost fabricated location in a real place.

Slick!

The House of the Hanged

House of the Hanged, Mark Mills

This was a pleasurable read – a spy story set just before WWII but without the normal Nazi angst. Instead it is a story that dates back to the post revolution days of the Soviet Union and the involvement of a British Operative to rescue a woman he had to leave behind when he was evacuated.

The results of that failed attempt waited 17 years to become apparent and in the meantime an inheritance allows Tom to retire from the service and buy a villa in France.  It is all decadence and joy until three different assassination attempts open up the old instincts and put everyone in his social group under suspicion.

There is his old SIS chief, a Russian husband and wife, exiled from their home land, two Germans, an artist and a French Policeman who must play a role in Tom’s life and the intrigue that comes when such unexpected attempts surface.  No one is completely the way that they seem except for Lucy, a young woman just coming of age who is Tom’s godchild.  She brings a fresh youthfulness to the story and a desire for her godfather.

The action never becomes over powering with blood and guts.  It is more of a novel about this group that has the twist of spies and espionage.  The reader will enjoy the final settling of affairs, but might desire a little tougher perspective.  However, this is a British and not American novel so it is less in-your-face and more cerebral.

I could not stop reading.