The Water Room: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery

....from the tbr pile .....
Installment #2 in this series featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit finds our heroes, Bryant and May (and the other people in the PCU) trying to solve the death of a woman drowned in her basement. Sounds straightforward, right? However, the dead woman was completely dry, sitting in a chair, in a dry basement. If that was the only problem for them to deal with, the book would have definitely been a lot shorter -- but add in a death by saran wrap, arson, and a fellow buried alive by his own truck. And then you still don't have the complete story.

Once again we have a detective story with a rather X-filish feel to it, where the detectives may be old but still have a lot to offer. The characters are very well drawn, and there is a wealth of history that is part of the story between the two covers. At 356 pages, this is not your typical detective story, and Bryant and May are not your typical detectives. And the PCU is not your typical police unit. So...if you like something quirky and offbeat, then you might want to give this series a try, but don't start with this one: start with Full Dark House. The book offers a bit of fun along with a good mystery and really kept me entertained for quite a while. I've just bought the next book in the series and will probably read them all.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has read Full Dark House and wants to follow the series, as well as someone looking for something a bit different in the mystery world. However, it's NOT for you if you want a standard police procedural-type book that's more down to earth. I thought the book was quite good and a cut above what's normally on my local bookstore's mystery shelves.

Overall...a fun read with a fine mystery.

*The Human Factor, by Graham Greene

This is an awesome book...one of my favorites for the year. I read this review on Amazon by someone some time ago who got upset because he thought Greene was a communist sympathizer and then told everyone he was going to throw the book away so no one else made the same mistake he did by reading it -- a) ANATHEMA-- throwing away a book (recycle if you don't want it) ; b) I respect people's opinions, but obviously he really didn't read the whole book and actually get it. This is why I don't trust Amazon reviews a lot of the time.

The Human Factor highlights a man, Maurice Castle, who is driven at times to make choices based on love and an often-misplaced sense of moral duty that have some pretty serious consequences for himself and others.

Castle is an agent in MI6, and as the book opens, a leak has been discovered in his division. Suspicion falls on his partner, Davis, who seems to have a lot more money than an agent in his position should -- he bets,he drives a Jag -- and he's also a pretty heavy drinker. Castle is older, near retirement, and leads a pretty quiet life, seemingly beyond reproach. But mild-mannered Castle is the one with the secret life. It started during his time in South Africa -- his black, African wife Sarah, was smuggled out of the apartheid-ruled country by a communist agent; and Castle long ago decided that he owed a debt of gratitude to the communists and started providing them with information from British intelligence, thinking that in some way he is helping Sarah's people. However, when his bosses decided that Castle will be the one who will provide their South African counterparts with information about an American operation in Africa, and he is forced to work with the very man who had held him on breaking race relations laws in South Africa vis-a-vis his relationship with Sarah there, a chain of events occurs which unravels his quiet and ordered life in England with his family.

However, this book really is NOT a story about espionage or the cold-war intelligence game. Castle marches to his own inner sense of personal morality, as noted by his mother at one point, where she says:

"You always had an exaggerated sense of gratitude for the least kindness. It was a sort of insecurity ....You once gave away a good fountain pen to someone at school who had offered you a bun with a piece of chocolate inside."

It hit me while reading that this "sense of gratitude" is the key to understanding Maurice Castle -- and it offers an insight into the reasons behind Castle's actions. Loyalty, for Castle, begets loyalty, but the reader may make judgments based on his or her own understanding of patriotism or morality that misconstrue Castle's actions completely, so understanding Castle as a human being rather than as a spy or as a British citizen is key to understanding this story.

The Human Factor is truly an awesome novel, one of the best I've read this year. It starts out very slow, but the tension builds as the book progresses until you're so caught up in it that you can't look away. I'd definitely recommend it to people who enjoy British literature, and to those who enjoy reading about the grayness of human morality. It's also pretty decent as a novel of espionage if you don't want to get into the deeper aspects of the novel. Very highly recommended.

lost in Lost -- season 4

--book intermission--

I'm not a huge TV watcher, but some time ago I got hooked on this series and finished season 3 some time ago on dvd. So when season 4 came out, I snagged it to watch while flying to Seattle for Christmas. Now on the return trip, I finished season 4 (watched the rest during my vacation) and ooh-wee! What a finale! I know this has nothing to do with books, but I just felt like writing something about it. Back to books here shortly.

Priest, by Ken Bruen

from the TBR pile (only 99 volumes of books on the wall now -- well, not really but sounded catchy)

Here we are, at installment number five of the Jack Taylor series. First, let me say that I've read a number of reviews of this book in which it was the first Taylor book the reviewer had read -- this is probably not the best one to start with. There's so much of Jack's character that begins with book one (The Guards) that starting at book five leaves you with big holes to be filled in only by sketchy references to events from the others.

brief look (no spoilers, I promise)

Like its predecessors in this series, Priest finds us once again watching the train wreck that you just know is going to happen, from which you are unable to avert your eyes. After the tragic events in The Dramatist (the book just prior to this one), Jack completely loses it and eventually finds his way into a mental hospital. After some time, an encounter with another patient puts him back on the road to recovery (as if one can ever recover from what put Jack there in the first place), and he is released, back to the streets of Galway. His old nemesis, Father Malachy, has a job for him: he wants him to find out who decapitated a priest who has a penchant for molesting young children. But (and faithful readers know there's always a but) he has a lot more on his plate: a young man who wants to team up with him in the role of a Watson to his Sherlock; his relationship with Ridge his Garda friend; his realization that his actions in the previous book also had tragic consequences for those closest to him, and last but not least, the fact that the Galway he's known since a child is changing right in front of him, and not for the better.

As I've said previously about these books, don't look to them for your daily dose of warm and fuzzy. I think that one reason I enjoy these books so much is because Bruen (through the voice of Taylor) just sort of tells it like it is -- no holds barred. I tend to get very involved while I read these; I find myself wincing at stuff Jack said, or I sit and despair over whether the poor guy's going to ever have a decent life again. In fact, I think at the end of each and every book I wonder what could possibly happen next.

Definitely a no-miss if you like Irish crime fiction, but you should know that the mystery here sits in second place to the characters. These novels are definitely the most character driven of any that I've read. I'd definitely recommend these to anyone who has a taste for noir, and a taste for Irish authors. But for pete's sake, don't start with this one as your introduction to Jack Taylor. Go back to the beginning, start with The Guards, and work your way through.

As for me...onward to #6, Cross.

Full Dark House, by Christopher Fowler

from the tbr pile:
If I had to classify this novel in terms of genre, it would be somewhere along the lines of British police procedural meets the X-files. I was thinking while I was reading this that it would make a fun movie, but I countered that thought with the knowledge that some screenwriter would just screw it up, so better to leave it in book format.

What a cool book! I originally bought this book in mass market paperback format eons ago, but never got around to reading it until I saw the same book in trade paper size (which I really prefer), and I pounced on it. I picked it up last night and didn't look back until I finished it this morning. If that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is.

brief summary; no spoilers here:
Arthur Bryant, a most eccentric partner in detection of John May, was revisiting the pair's first case together some 60 years later, and the lab he was working was blown to kingdom come, taking Bryant with it. John May, of course, whose friendship with Bryant has lasted throughout their career as detectives in the Peculiar Crimes Unit (started during the Blitz in London), is devastated, and realizes that to solve the case of Bryant's death, he has to go back in time to re-examine their first case, since that was what Bryant was working on. It turns out that this case involved a very bizarre production of Orpheus in the Underworld, complete with can-can and high French knickers by the dancers at the end. They were assigned to the case when a pair of feet were discovered on the charcoal brazier of a Turkish street vendor - leading them to the death of a dancer in the theater staging the production. After that, the show was plagued with problems that required special assistance from the Peculiar Crimes Unit -- for example, a medium whose cat channeled the spirit of a dead pilot, along with other, shall we say, more unorthodox methodologies of crime solving. But back to the future: May will not rest until he solves Bryant's death, so he tries to put the missing pieces together to do so.

The book weaves both past and present together to get to the root of the modern-day tragedy, and does it well by examining the original case back at the time of the Blitz. The characters, however, make this novel what it is. Bryant and May are very well suited to each other, and the rest of the characters are not droll toadies relegated to the background, but have lives of their own here. I'm very big on the use of place & setting as a character of its own within a novel, and here Fowler has done that -- the darkness of blacked-out London during the bombings has its own personality. Fowler's descriptions of how people coped and how society worked during the Blitz was also very well done.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes British mysteries, and to people who like mystery spiced with a bit of the fantastic & paranormal, but done so in a way that doesn't turn silly and take you off on ridiculous tangents. I already know I'm going to really enjoy this series and can't wait to get to the others.

*The Cambridge Theorem, by Tony Cape

Before you read this one, it might be best if you have some kind of idea of the Cambridge Four, so you might want to look here . I spent a LOT of time on the Internet looking this up, because my own knowledge was sorely lacking. Now, as it turns out, I want to read even more about this group, and about the true stories of Cold War spying.

As for The Cambridge Theorem, here goes:
DS Derek Smailes is assigned the task of looking into the suicide of Cambridge University student Simon Bowles. Bowles was a graduate student in mathematics, and in his spare time, he liked to apply mathematical logic to unsolved crimes, for example, the Kennedy assassination. While Smailes is willing to admit that Bowles' death was a suicide, as the investigation progresses, he finds himself being given vague answers and outright lies, and then discovers that Bowles was working on a new project involving the Cambridge spy ring (Philby, Blunt, Maclean and Burgess). But unlike his other projects, the files on this project have gone missing. Smailes begins to wonder if quite possibly this newest of Bowles' projects was tied into his death. The investigation heats up for Smailes, leading him into places that some people do not wish him to go and placing his very life in danger.

I think that the reader may want to have even a vague understanding of the Cambridge spy ring -- I spent a lot of time on the internet refreshing my memory about this piece of history. The story never lags, and the suspense builds throughout. I figured out most of the "whodunit" before the end, but it was still a very good read. The characters are drawn well and the story was quite good and mostly plausible.

I'd recommend this to people interested in British mysteries, and people who enjoy stories about espionage. Although this really isn't a hard-core spy novel, it does deal with spies and betrayals and does it well. I believe this is the first of a series featuring DS Smailes, and I would definitely be interested in reading more.

*A Perfect Spy, by John Le Carre

I saw this book dramatized on PBS (I want to say it was a Masterpiece Theater production) some years ago and remember being glued to it while it was on. So although this really isn't like the other spy novels I've read this month, I decided to include it because
a) I'd never actually read this one (I went the George Smiley route instead with his books)
and
b) I had a hankering to see the old series again but wanted to read this book before I bought the dvds.

I loved it. Absolutely. It goes on the favorites list for 2008 (which I will post at the end of the year). The title reflects a parallel between the characteristics of the life of Magnus Pym (the main character) and the characteristics of espionage: dissimulation, betrayal, keeping of secrets etc. It was so well done that I finished it yesterday and I'm still thinking about it, even with a stack of books sitting here waiting to be read before the end of the year.

I recently found a review of this book (http://time.com/time/magazine/article...) that notes that A Perfect Spy is a kind of what-if autobiographical account of John LeCarre himself (fictionalized, obviously). Whether this is or is not the case, this is one of the best novels I've read this year.

Magnus Pym, intelligence agent for the British, has gone to London after the news of his father Rick's death. He is supposed to return to Vienna, where he and his wife Mary are currently stationed, but instead he sends his luggage on home without him. When the suitcase arrives, without Magnus, British intelligence is left to wonder whether or not Magnus has defected, taking with him information which is beyond valuable, and jeopardizing the lives of his "joes," or the agents and intelligence network in place in Czechoslovakia. But Magnus is not behind the iron curtain; rather, he's in Devon, along the coast, in a home where he's known as Mr. Canterbury, and where he's being going for some time. This time, he's there to tell his story, racing against time, waiting for his people to come get him and bring him in. He wants to leave a record of the truth, especially for his son, Tom. What he ends up with is the life of Magnus Pym from his childhood on, reflecting especially on his relationship with his father Rick, the ultimate con man, for whom the con never stops, not even with his only son. It is this life that put into motion the makings of "a perfect spy." But you really have to read it to understand it.

While different from other novels by LeCarre, it is still a book that will totally absorb you from start to finish. The characters are very real, the story is not just one story, but several that interweave throughout the novel, and it is just one of those books that you will find difficult to put down.

I'd recommend this to people who like LeCarre's work, as well as those who like stories that focus on the relationships between fathers and sons. It's a long book, but it will go by so quickly that you'll be sorry it's over. Very very good novel; LeCarre is a brilliant writer.

*Reilly: Ace Of Spies, by Robin Bruce Lockhart

Robin Bruce Lockhart is the son of Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, who was acting General Consul in Moscow in 1917 (and also served as a secret agent) when the Bolsheviks overthrew the government in Russia; then later arrested by the secret police there for purportedly being involved with a plot to assassinate Lenin. He knew Sidney Reilly, the subject of this book, and passed along several stories to his son, who compiled them in this book. There are stories from others about Reilly here as well, and Robin Bruce Lockhart, the author, had actually met the enigmatic Reilly as a child. The book covers Reilly's life & career, then moves along to examine different conclusions as to whether Reilly actually died in 1925 (when he'd gone back to Russia) or whether he remained a prisoner, escaped, or whatever.

I first became aware of Sidney Reilly when, in the 1980s, PBS first broadcast that phenomenal series "Reilly: Ace of Spies." I watched every episode without fail. Lockhart's book was the basis of that series. The book was really interesting, and it was an intriguing look at some of the inner workings of spycraft & espionage from the British, as well as that of the Germans & then the Russians and Bolsheviks. I have 2 issues with this book. First: it does tend to read like a group of stories passed down and then transcribed onto paper. Second: there is absolutely no documentation of sources anywhere. The historian in me (my college majors) always views undocumented work etc. with a bit of skepticism, especially in a work that is definitely historical in nature.

Overall, though, it was very interesting and whetted my appetite enough to compile a list of other publications that deal with the same subject matter in Lockhart's book. I'd recommend it to people who are interested in real-life British spies, or in the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, in the machinations by the CHEKA in order to maintain Bolshevik rule, or to anyone who might wish to read an interesting biography.

*Greenmantle, by John Buchan

Greenmantle follows Buchan's "Thirty-nine Steps" not as a sequel so much (imho), but rather as something along the line of the further adventures of Richard Hannay, the main protagonist and overall hero of the Thirty-nine Steps. Hannay has since been a soldier in WWI, in which he was injured at Loos. Now he is called into action once again, this time by the Foreign Office. Sir Walter Bullivant, the senior man at the FO, explains to Hannay that there is a German plot to drag Turkey into the war. The problem is not so much Turkey, per se, but all of the provinces where Islam is very strong; and the rumor is that Germany has something to bring all of the provincial Muslims together to fan the flames against the allies under German auspices. Just what Germany has is the unknown factor, and it's up to Hannay to figure it out. He is given only one clue: a half-piece of paper with the words "Kasredin", "cancer," and "v.I." It is from here that an incredible adventure begins which will keep the reader pretty much glued to the book.

Phenomenal read, and I recommend it highly. Yes, there are some improbable spots in the novel, but hey...it's an adventure and it's fun. The characters are great, and as noted at the beginning, you'll be wondering after a while how the good guys are ever going to get out of each predicament in which they find themselves. Also...consider the subject matter. This book was written in 1916, but in some ways is quite relevant to the world's situation today.

I can't recommend this one highly enough; those who like older stories of espionage and spycraft will really enjoy it. Others who may enjoy it are those who like good old-fashioned stories of adventure; and those who read The Thirty-Nine Steps by the same author may wish to read it to find out what happens next to Richard Hannay. Very well done.

*A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler

Charles Latimer, former lecture of political economy, quits the academic world and becomes a writer of crime fiction, with such titles to his credit as "A Bloody Shovel," "I, Said the Fly," and "Murder's Arms." He does all right as a novelist, and decides one day that he needs a change of scene. Off he goes on vacation to Istanbul, where he meets a Turkish secret policeman, a Col. Haki. Haki contrives some reason to speak to Latimer, then invites him to view a corpse which has recently washed up onto shore from the Bosphorus. As it turns out, the body belongs to one Dimitrios Makropoulous, whose dossier is full of political machinations and other crimes. Latimer is convinced that if he could retrace the steps of Dimitrios, and find out how his body washed up on shore, that he could write his best book yet. Armed with the info provided by Col. Haki, he does his best to find out just who was Dimitrios Makropolous...and enters into a world of intrigue and into the life of a very dangerous individual.

An amazing story, I can definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of British crime fiction, or anyone who likes novels set just before WWII. A really good look at how power is brokered, on the backs and lives of others, between the two world wars.

*Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady

The national headquarters of the American Literary Historical Society is in Washington, DC, its purpose ostensibly for literary analysis, advance and achievement. No one goes there and takes tours -- they can't get past the main desk without proper clearance. In reality, it's a CIA office where people read and analyze mystery and spy novels (what a dream job!) to seek out correlations between fiction and fact.

One of the employees there, Ronald Malcolm, advises another employee (Heidegger) to ignore it when he finds a record for two crates of books that the society never received, but for which they had paid. Malcolm's advice was not followed. Shortly after this, it's Malcolm's turn to go out and get lunch for the group, which he does, taking his time. Upon his return, he finds everyone at the society dead. Sizing up the situation, he realizes that now he's in danger, and he does what he's been trained to do: calls the panic line at CIA headquarters, where he identifies himself as Condor. From this point, things go horribly wrong for Malcolm, and he finds himself on the run, with his life on the line.

An awesome book -- you seriously don't know who you can trust in this story which heightens the experience and the aura of suspense which builds throughout. Even 34 years later this book still has the ability to keep you turning pages. Recommended for people who enjoy espionage fiction, suspense or people who like stories about the CIA.

I know I saw this movie (dating myself, I think probably when it came out and Robert Redford was still young), but I just bought it anyway. I have this thing...when movies are made from books that I've read, I have to watch them to see how they measure up to the book. So I'll make an addendum and let you know.

*The Defection of A.J. Lewinter, by Robert Littell

I haven't read Cold War espionage fiction in so long...and this is really fun!

A.J. Lewinter is a scientist with a specialty in ceramics, working at MIT on a project involving ceramic nosecones for ballistic missiles, and as the book opens, he is in Japan for a conference. After spending some time at a Noh theater performance, he goes to the Russian Embassy, where he makes it known that he wants to defect. At first, they do not take him seriously, but when questioned further, he offers up a formula and the next thing you know, he's on a plane for the USSR with nothing but a dozen bottles of Head and Shoulders shampoo and 500 Chlor-Trimetron allergy pills. And here begins a story that is a bit of a mind boggler. The book is structured like a chess game, and within that structure the actions of international agents also play out like a chess game, each side trying to make the other side guess as to whether or not a) Lewinter's defection is genuine, or b) whether or not the information he has to offer the USSR is worthless or priceless. I won't say more about the plot, because any info would totally wreck someone else's reading experience.

The world of espionage is fascinating, and I'm sure that a lot of the tactics used in this book have some basis in fact, because it's really difficult to believe someone could just make up the convoluted machinations of our intelligence operatives. The writing is absolutely superb and I was not prepared for the ending. I spent way too much time trying to figure out "what would happen if..." after I finished the book. To me, that speaks highly of the author, and now I can't wait to get my hands on more by Littell. As if the tbr pile wasn't huge enough already -- sigh--.

Definitely recommended; I'd say that people who enjoy novels of espionage, the Cold War, and the inner workings of our intelligence agencies would enjoy it the most.

*The Tears of Autumn, by Charles McCarry

I listened to, rather than read this book and it was so good that I rushed out and bought The Miernik Dossier (the first of the Paul Christopher series) and have plans to read each and every book in the series. What intrigued me was yet another JFK assassination theory. I'm not a conspiracy theory nut, but I am interested, and never did believe in either the single-bullet theory nor that of the lone gunman. And as much as I loved Oliver Stone's JFK, well, let's just say that it was a lot of theories rolled into one. Here, McCarry gives us one more theory to contemplate.

When Paul Christopher hears that JFK has been assassinated in Dallas, he immediately knows who did it and why. At a time when Lee Harvey Oswald was considered both the mastermind and crazed lone gunman of Kennedy's assassination, nobody higher up wants to even consider the alternatives. But Christopher knows, and embarks on a journey filled with danger and intrigue to prove it, even if only to himself.

Tears of Autumn is an intelligent read, and doesn't insult anyone's intelligence. The assassination plot is quite plausible, without being in your face about it, and the author's fine writing makes you believe that these events could have happened in the way he posits.

The characters are very believable; the action is nonstop, and the writing is incredible. If you are at all interested in the JFK assassination, or in Vietnam, or if you just want a quality read, then I can definitely and most highly recommend this book.

*The Miernik Dossier, by Charles McCarry

I must confess that after the Berlin Wall came down, I had this feeling that that was it for the Cold War spy novel. So I was truly happy to find this book, which was written in 1971, so I could once again relive the Cold War spy experience.

The Miernik Dossier (the first of the Paul Christopher series), is written in a style that one would find if they could infiltrate the files of an espionage agency and open up an actual dossier. The story is told through reports of various agents, intercepted communications, a diary, letters, etc. It tells the story of a mixed group of intelligence agents who normally met for lunch once a week in Geneva among other interactions, who find themselves brought together on a trip to the Sudan. The point of the trip, for Paul Christopher (an American agent under deep cover at the time), is to determine whether or not one of the group, Tadeusz Miernik, is indeed a spy from behind the Iron Curtain and mixed up with a small band of terrorists in the Sudan called the Anointed Liberation Front (ALF). It all starts when Miernik requests to remain working for the World Research Organization in Geneva, after he is contacted from Poland and called back home. His story is that he will be put into prison if he returns, but others think he is Soviet spy who is possibly going to defect to the West as a cover. The trip to the Sudan, ostensibly to take a Cadillac to the father of one of the group provides the vehicle through which Paul can watch Miernik and make reports on his status.

I won't add any more about the plot line, but McCarry is a talented writer who lets the suspense build page after page, and who allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. The characters are very well drawn, and the whole atmosphere of intrigue, deception and spycraft quickly engaged me so that I did not want to put this book down.

Definitely recommended for those who enjoy Cold War-era spy fiction, and anyone who has maybe read McCarry's later works in the Paul Christopher series and missed this one.

Highly recommended.

December: The Great Spy Game

It's December, the end of the year, and I'm not in the mood for the usual Christmas fare that's hitting the bookstores this time of year. I have just finished "The Tears of Autumn" by Charles McCarry, and decided I wanted to read as many of his books as possible. It just so happens they're in the "spy novel" genre, so I figured I'll just do that genre for the month. So...I'll be back with my review of what I'm reading now (The Miernik Dossier) and Tears of Autumn very shortly.