Mission to Paris, by Alan Furst

 

Mission to Paris, by Alan Furst

 

Mission to Paris is one of those all too rare novels that strips away the characters’ coats of armor to revel real people, pushed and transformed in the awkwardness of real situations.  

 

I get so tired with the ho-hum triteness of perfection.  I think you know what I mean; characters always knowing the perfectly clever replies, making the right moves, with perfect timing, always choosing the best wine, staying in the best hotels, getting the girl, and forever being one step ahead of numerous adversaries. 

 

Frequently tucked into the clutter of plot, there’s also the triteness of heavy-handed romance.  Boy gets girl, loses girl, gets girl.  Even reminding yourself of the pattern makes you want to toss the book hard enough to dent the wall. 

 

Alan Furst, in all his novels, and definitely in Mission to Paris, avoids those careless blunders of perfection and the lack of them is the key to chiseled characters, dented and scratched by age and experience and inexperience, that glued me to each page.  This novel, that purports to be a spy novel, is more a study of humanity, supported by an intriguing and ever shifting and intensifying plot.

 

It is autumn of 1938 and the setting is Paris, a Paris straining under the threat of war.

 

To refresh your memory, in 1933 Hitler came to power in a Germany still seething over its treatment by the Allies at the end of World War I.  In many German political minds, France was the mastermind of this villainy.  While peace was now in hand, Germany burned with the need for white-hot revenge and the object of that revenge centered on France.

 

In 1938, the Germans were playing political poker, holding their cards tightly and making the world guess.  Would there be war?  Should France rearm?  Surely everyone wanted peace, n’est pas?

 

Despite this Parisian world of intrigue and uncertainty, Warner Brothers wants to film a movie, staring Fredric Stahl, Austrian by birth, but now a Hollywood heartthrob.  Stahl is mostly non-political and simply wants to make the movie and get back to America.  He speaks his native language, German of course, but also English and French.  He is also a star of some magnitude, making him the perfect chicken to be flavored, stewed, and served to an array of politicians and plotters of all the major players.

 

And while he innocently meets old friends and enjoys his favorite city, the pot begins to boil. Stahl is not immune.  He feels the heat building.  And suddenly the plot intensifies to heart stopping intensity.

 

The beauty of the writing and finely drawn characters alone carried its own joy, transporting me to that time and place.  Then the carefully crafted plot, carried me into the caldron of passionate intrigue and nail biting intensity.  This is a book that will haunt you and even make you doubt your own courage, as you’re engulfed in the rising flames of war.

 

Pick up a copy of Mission to Paris, by Alan Furst, and like all his other spy novels, you won’t want to put it down.

A Single Spy by William Christie

A Single Spy

The New York Times called A Single Spy, “A panoramic, smart, hugely enjoyable thriller.”  Even so, it sat on my ‘to read’ list for quite a while.  These days I go for quick, spicy reads and at almost 500 pages A Single Spy threatened to keep me occupied through the spring and into the summer.

But, I do like World War II spy stories, so eventually I plowed in and found I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.  It’s one of those well told tales that grip you so hard, that when you’re starving and your significant other calls “Soup’s on,” you beg for a few more minutes to finish the chapter, but then you lie and sneak in another chapter.

The author, William Christie, must have done an amazing amount of research to authentically reach into the life of a boy from the desert, both an orphan and thief, being threatened and recruited by the Soviets to be infiltrated into Nazi Germany as a spy.  Alexis Ivanovich Smirnov must accomplish mission after daring mission, while wading through the dark and muddy waters of suspicion and intrigue, with his life at risk with every step. 

Christie captures the intense action of the underbelly of war, with chiseled, indelible characters and a never ending string of secret plots and fast paced action, with Alexis living on the edge at every turn.

Stalin and Hitler, two of the most vicious and destructive creatures in human history, created tightly controlled regimes, build on cruelty, lies, and egocentric ambition.  Imagine being placed in the middle, where no one can be trusted and mere suspicion can end your life. Christie places Alexis in the midst of these almost unimaginably tumultuous societies.  His sense of detail and authenticity is so razor sharp that the reader is no longer reading, but living in the midst of danger, with every decision testing your courage and your humanity.

I suddenly found that 500 pages was not too long, but too short.  The pages flew by me like leaves in an autumn wind.  Twists and turns and a streaming plot kept me entranced from start to finish.  I didn’t just read about Alexis, I was right there beside him for every moment of mind numbing action.

Like World War II novels and well told spy stories?  Try on A Single Spy; you’ll find it’s a perfect fit.

Invisible, by James Patterson and David Ellis

Invisible, by James Patterson and David Ellis

If you ever, ever want a page turning thriller, grab a James Patterson novel.  My only caveat is:  Give yourself plenty of uninterrupted time. Be willing to give up some sleep and a few meals.

Did you realize Patterson has had 114 best sellers?  Seems impossible.  How does he do it?  Ever noticed that Patterson almost always has a co-writer?  The long and short of it is, he comes up with a fifty to sixty page outline and turns it over to another author for the writing.  But, it isn’t cruise control.  He edits and collaborates and maintains control of details, such as the cover and publicity.

Unless you’re blind, you can see he maintains more control than he admits to.  The stories are always fast paced, with short sentences, short chapters, and always, always entertaining, with twisting plots.  To loosely paraphrase his intent, he always wants anyone who picks up one of his books to be in for a good, intense page-turner that never slows down.

He’s been quoted as saying, he’s not trying to write War and Peace, but trying to entertain millions of people.  Boy, has he done that!

With Invisible, he and David Ellis do that again!

Emmy Dockery is a somewhat disgraced FBI Research Analyst, who’s been put on a leave of absence. 

I admit to a great prejudice. As soon as I see a female name in a novel, in many cases I’m ready to put the book down.  In my opinion, too many female protagonists are angst filled, self-analyzing characters with a penchant for comparing sunsets to soft satin and apologists for every character flaw known to man.

I like strong female characters.  Take Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.   Elizabeth can hold her own in anybody’s company and makes no apologies, nor does the author have to result to ridiculous pandering.

Emmy Dockery is in the same mold.  No false modesty.  No dreamy-eyed fixation on her male counterpart, Harrison ‘Books’ Bookman.  More professional respect than anything else.

Here’s the riveting plot:  There’s a serial killer on the loose and as a disgraced, but intelligent and professional research analyst, Emmy keeps analyzing.  But, who else but her can see the trail, when everyone else only sees the forest?  Who can blame them? It’s not as if the FBI, although their resources are indeed mighty, can keep track of every puff of smoke, from the thousands of fires and fire related deaths that occur each and every year.

This killer leaves no trail and his viciousness is literally covered in smoke. So what evidence does Emmy have?  A little of ‘I suppose’ and a lot of ‘it only makes sense.’  That’s all ya got?  Well, get the hell outta my office and keep a low profile while you’re on suspension, unless you never want to work here again.

But, talking to Emmy about giving up the trail, is like trying to explain to a bulldog that he really should let go of a well-gnawed bone.

Gritty characters all round.  Plenty to admire and hate.  The plot is breathtaking and nail biting.  The killer is remarkable.

Invisible?  There’s a lot here that’s invisible and it not just the killer.

Blame by Jeff Abbott

Blame by Jeff Abbott

Ready for another book? Need a good mystery that reads like jagged pieces of glass dumped in a wastebasket?  That’s not a dis, that’s the reality of the main character, Jane Norton.  The jagged pieces are her life, or the way her life has shattered since she lost her memory and her close friend in a car accident two years ago. Everyone’s sure it was her fault.  Police reports and newspaper articles, and internet savages seem to confirm that.

Everybody blames her and with a severe loss of memory, she doesn’t know how to defend herself or which way to turn.  Some people are nice to her, but most treat her as damaged and deranged goods.

But, there’s more to it than that.  A lot more.  The dead boy’s mother, who lives next door, hates her viciously.  Jane’s schoolmates avoid her and often take their suspicions well past smirks and derogatory remarks in the hallway.  David, the boy who was killed was a popular guy, with friends galore.  His friends don’t forget.  Then there’s the suicide note found in the car, a note that Jane wrote.

“I was your friend,” is heard often, as an accusation.  Others put a positive spin on it.  “I am your friend.”  And at times the positive ones can turn out to be the most vicious.

A parade of characters romp through this engaging book and they all care and don’t care, believe her and don’t believe her.  They think she couldn’t have done it on purpose, then turn on her like whirling dervishes.  Without a memory, how do you defend yourself, and how do you even know if you should?

As Jane says, “Today I went to my friend’s grave.  I went to the crash site.  There were people there who don’t like me at all. The still blame me. They think it wasn’t an accident. One of them tried to hurt me. The other is smearing me online.”  The accusations swirl around her and not even she knows what she did or if she did anything.

In my own life, I’ve had friends who were wrongly accused. Tough to defend yourself if you didn’t do it and know you didn’t do it, even if you have a full memory.  What if you have no memory, or only thin shards of memory here and there, none of which fit together?

Maybe Jane is guilty of deliberately causing the accident.  Her own mother seems to think so.  Many of her classmates think so.  Even some of her former friends, who want to believe her, think so. And often she thinks so.

The main thing that makes this book so engaging is not the originality of the plot.  Memory loss, including complete memory loss is not uncommon in fiction. The main thing is the characters ring-true, even though the book is populated with college students, the wealthy, the middle class, the average, the intelligent, the conniving and the honest.  And all of them are vital to the plot.

You hear the term page-turner bandied about so often it loses its impact. In the case of Blame, it’s warranted. I stayed up late, I got up early, I read through supper and with my morning coffee. Jane’s plight became my plight.  I wanted to know, had to know.  The questions pound at the reader: What would I do?  Where would I turn?

And then comes the ending and in a swirling maelstrom of anger, action, blood, and revelation, against all odds, and through a series of devilish twists and turns, everything becomes clear. Somehow the jagged pieces of glass became a mirror that reflected the good, the evil, the darkness and the light.

Need a good mystery?  You’ve just found one.  Blame by Jeff Abbott.

Camino Island by John Grisham

Camino Island

Camino Island, John Grisham’s latest doesn’t start out as a page-turner, but that’s how it ends up.  Along the way, you’ll meet thieves, a bookstore owner in the town of Santa Rosa, on Camino Island, Florida, and a young and semi-failed novelist and former resident.

A motley group of thieves, who seem to have little in common besides greed, plan a perfect heist of rare manuscripts from the Princeton University library.  With the manuscripts insured for twenty-five million dollars, insurance investigators snap into action, along with the FBI. Do they work together? In which book have you ever heard of two agencies working in harmony? But, in this case dual purposes make perfect sense.  Insurance companies don’t care about the crime only the recovery of property, and the FBI only cares about arresting the perps.

Mercer Mann, a less than successful novelist and former resident of Camino Island, is recruited to return to her childhood home and go under-cover. The target is Bruce Cable, who runs a successful independent bookstore, but makes most of his money dealing in rare books.

Let’s take a look at the unfolding.  First off, as Grisham admits in the end notes, he knows nothing about the Princeton Library, or the nuts and bolts of robbery and the result is his robbers are as interesting as cold oatmeal, which is odd because he’s known for character development, as much as compelling plots.  His books, like The Firm, The Pelican Brief and the more recent Rogue Lawyer, all grab you from page one and sweep you along on a twisting, turning ride.  Not so with Camino Island.  But, if you plod through the first 15% (yes, I read it on Kindle), you’re treated to some real John Grisham. You’ll know Bruce Cable and Mercer Mann as well as you know Mitch McDeere (The Firm), Darby Shaw (The Pelican Brief), and Danilo Silva (The Partner).  Once Grisham develops a character, you’re hooked into a plot with unexpected detours, unexpected pleasures, and a raucous ending.

A cardinal rule of writing is, write what you know about.  Well, as an experienced practicing attorney, John Grisham knows the law and he also knows people.  When he combines those with an ingenious plot, he has a winner.  Camino Island is another winner, but like an experienced gambler, you have to be willing to accept a few bad hands before the money rolls in.

John le Carré: Call for the Dead

The first thing a book reviewer should tell you is what connects the books he favors.  Your fertile mind already knows why a reviewer’s preferences are relevant.  But wordy bastard that I am, I’m going to tell you anyway. 

Books that are page-turners for one reader are slogs in ankle deep mud for another.  Why is that?

As Louise Rosenblatt famously wrote, there are three points of view involved in reading a book:  what the writer intended to write, what he actually wrote, and what the reader’s experiences bring to the book.

Let’s say an automotive enthusiast thinks he’s writing a thriller, but what really comes out is a plot strung together with fists full of engineering details.  The Tom Clancy of Detroit.

Along comes a reader who’s an engineer.  He’s enthralled!  Along comes yours truly, who knows how to change oil, put gas in the tank, and on rare occasions (thank goodness) knows how to use a jack and a spare tire.  Which one of us is this book going to thrill?

So what kind of reader is this reviewer?  I like character driven plots.  And by that, I don’t mean angst upon angst, but rather main characters who embrace the human element and are strong and true to themselves.  Don’t give me a detective that is suddenly afraid to pull the trigger, or a terrified wife who cannot overcome her fears and rise to the occasion.  Don’t bore me with twenty pages of divorce and finding solace in a bottle.

How about the plot?  I demand twists, turns, and even a few digressions, but not to the detriment of this reader’s attention span.

At the top of my list is prose that flows as smoothly as water over glass, without pretentiousness or contrivances.

Now that you know. let’s breeze off into the world of espionage, 1950’s style, with John le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead, where we’ll meet Carré’s most famous character, George Smiley.

“When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary…Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.”

This is our hero, our main character in an espionage novel???  Unlike James Bond, who roams the globe in fast cars, with the fast women, while winning vast sums in casinos, and staying in the world’s grand hotels, George Smiley lives in an unremarkable apartment in London.  In the war he distinguished himself with hard work and undeniable results.  But, he just didn’t fit the model of a leader, so while he was kept on after the war, he remained ordinary and a bit of a necessary pain for the bureaucrats in charge.

But, most of all, George Smiley has a mind that processes bits and pieces that don’t quite fit.  He also has the constitution of a bulldog whose teeth never loose their grip, no matter how many other minds distract his path of inquiry.

Call for the Dead begins with a suicide.  Immediately Smiley is under the gun.  He interviewed the man only yesterday.  Did the interview go badly?  Was it something Smiley said that caused an unintended event?

Smiley seems to have been affected only by the tragedy that produced a death and a widow, not by the snide inquiries into his own behavior.  Something bothers him and it’s not the bureaucratic heat.

For the next 150 pages the book would not release me from it’s thought provoking pages.  When I wasn’t reading, I was thinking.

It’s no wonder the Sunday Telegram glowed with enthusiasm:  “Intelligent, thrilling, surprising…makes most cloak and dagger stuff taste of cardboard.”

George Smiley flows off the page, just as real as if we were sitting with him in some innocuous parlor, sipping tea from cracked cups.  And the plot, even with the unexpected twists and turns, never waivers.

Toss away thoughts of James Bond’s world, singlehandedly stopping madmen from producing nuclear weapons and controlling the planet.  Instead, pick a quiet time, pour yourself a whiskey with soda, settle into an easy chair, and blissfully wander into George Smiley’s world of quiet, deliberate espionage. But, don’t be lulled, it’s a thriller.