Summertime Thrillers continued…..

Flynn Berry: A Double Life, 9780735224964, Viking / Penguin Random House US, hardback, pub date: 31. July 2018

 

Flynn Berry won the 2017 Edgar Award for Best First Novel with “Under the Harrow” , she is also a recipient of the famous Yaddo fellowship.  This says a lot about her credentials as a writer.  After having finished “A Double Life” which kept me turning the pages breathlessly particularly during the last third of the book , I can confirm she has exceptional talent.  Her sentences are spare and beautifully crafted portraying the protagonist with razor sharp precision, with an excellent plot at the heart.  The New York Times have just recommended this mystery as recommended summer reading.

 

“A Double Life” borrows the idea for the novel from one of the famous unsolved crimes in English criminal history, the Lord Lucan case who attacked his wife and murdered the nanny.  But this is where the similarities end, Flynn spins her own yarn

Told from Claire's perspective, she lives a simple, quiet life as a dedicated NHS doctor but no one suspects that this isn’t her real name. She is  the daughter of a criminal, her brother an addict and her father a Lord who disappeared after he killed his children’s nanny while they slept upstairs injuring his estranged wife. The police never found him; the only evidence he left behind was his blood stained car near the English Channel. 

Claire’s life is disrupted when the police inform her that they belief they have found him.  When this Investigation also turns cold, she decides to follow some of her suspicions, that he must have had help from his privileged powerful clique of friends if he was indeed the murderer.  Trying to find answers who this man she called father really was, the memory of her mother and her struggles to raise a family on her own make her even more determined to get to the bottom of the truth.  Was he really the cold blooded murderer from a wealthy, privileged background who married down and got bored with the responsibilities of a family? But why would he murder the nanny and not her mother and why bother anyway since her parents were already separated?  She is convinced her father is alive and hiding.

I could not find a German translation for her first novel  which is really surprising.  As an editor in Germany, I would pick her up quickly.

 

  

C.J. Box: The Disappeared, 9780399176623, Putnam (Penguin Random House USA) hardback,
Paperback:  9781784973193, Head of Zeus, October 2018,

Joe Pickett is one of my favorite characters in American crime fiction I unashamedly admit, a Wyoming based game warden that always ends up in trouble chasing the bad guys.  

“The Disappeared” is C.J. Box's  18^th Joe Pickett novel, they are fun to read and I never get tired of his new cases while taking an armchair trip to Wyoming at the same time.  Check them out if you like a cross between Western & crime fiction, he has also been translated into German but they seem to be out of print currently, you can buy them online used.

Joe Pickett and the new governor Colter Allen are not exactly friends, unlike Rulon, his old boss who has used his knowledge of wild life and the human psyche in numerous more or less concealed operations.  Joe is very surprised to be summoned by Allen and told to start a secret investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy British business woman called Kate Sheldon-Longden who vanished into thin air after vacationing at the Silver Creek Ranch in Saratoga which is outside Joe’s jurisdiction as a game warden.  It is also the very place where Sheridan, Joe’s daughter, is currently working as an outdoor guide and horseback trainer for the high paying clientele.  The police have failed to find any trace of Kate and journalist and family members poking around are causing bad publicity the new governor doesn’t need.  How falconry, seemingly green wind energy and other rogue characters come into the picture is for you to find out yourself when reading “The Disappeared”.

SUMMERTIME AND THE READING IS EASY ........

C.J. Tudor: The Chalk Man, 9780718187439, Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House UK, hardback German: Der Kreidemann, Goldmann Verlag)

I enjoyed this very English unbloody mystery;  unexpected revelations kept  me hooked until the very last page. 

When twelve year old Eddie Adams witnesses a terrible accident at a fair, his teacher Mr. Halloran is there at the scene and takes him and the victim, a young woman under his wings . Soon Eddie’s gang - Metal Mickey, Fat Gav, Hoppo and Nicky, the only girl - baptize Mr. Halloran “The Chalk Man” after he gave Eddie the brilliant idea for a game, to leave secret messages in chalk for one another.  This proves great fun until the chalk drawings lead to a corpse of a badly mutilated girl causing terror in their little village  and overshadowing their friendship forever. Told from Eddie’s perspective in a very unagitated language switching between present and past events of 20 years , layer by layer many secrets come to light.  When the adult gang receives another set of chalk drawings in the form of a letter dropped in their mail box, the past starts to catch up with them and their individual secrets.

Cristina Alger: The Banker’s Wife, 9780525538486, Putnam/Penguin Random House US, paperback

Three strong female protagonists are at the center of this thriller set in the financial world of ruthless Swiss bankers and offshore banks. 

Annabel is the wife of Matthew Lerner whose sudden death in a  plane crash over the Alps  leaves her facing the facts that her husband might have held more secrets than she thought possible in his job for Swiss United, a dangerous, powerful banking cartel. Marian Tourneau, investigative journalist, engaged to Grant Ellis, the son of an ultra-rich New York banking family, is shocked to learn of the mysterious death of her boss Duncan who was working on a secret story about the illegal money laundering by high caliber individuals. She agrees to continue the investigation Duncan started when a secret caller offers here a USB stick with explosive material originally intended for Duncan.   When Zoe, Matthew Lerner’s assistant delivers his laptop to Annabel containing secret financial data, their lives are put in immediate danger. 

This thriller is fast paced, at times predictable borrowing heavily from recent events in the financial world.  But it has enough twists and turns to make it a satisfying thriller pulling all three storylines eventually together. The ending however was far too sugar coated and Hollywood like for my taste.

Francisco Cantu: The Line becomes a river, Non-fiction.Bodley Head, Penguin Random House UK& 9781847924872 & Riverhead/Penguin Random House USA, 9780525536253, both hardbacks,

If you have been following the atrocious treatment of Mexican immigrants in Trump’s America  like I have during my very recent US visit, “The Line becomes a river “ is a revealing story told from the realities of a former border control official and the cost to their own soul.  The separation of children from their parents when crossing the US illegally shook the US, uniting many Republicans and Democrats.   One can only imagine what some officials went through psychologically when told to apply this order knowing what damage it would inflict to the children in particular.

Francisco Cantu served as an agent for the United States Border Patrol from 2008 – 2012 working in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, classic border countries with a history of Mexican immigrants.  He is a third generation Mexican-American himself and despite his mother’s warning what such a job might do to his psyche and soul, he felt he was up to the daily challenges of working the border. Cantu describes the daily patrols, the politics, the plight of those caught, and the tight knit community of border agents. His language is honest and beautiful as he unashamedly writes about his conflicts. When empathy for those crossing the border overshadows his sense of duty and he starts to have nightmares, Francisco knows he has to act deciding to leave the patrol for civilian life. 

He begins working in a coffee shop for a start and befriends Jose, an illegal immigrant of many years who has a family and works nearby. As Jose shares his lunch with Francisco, a warm friendship develops between the immigrant and the former border control man. When Jose travels back to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return Cantu discovers that he is being held by the border patrol as he could only reenter the US illegally. With clarity and compassion Cantu describes what happens once he gets himself involved in Jose’s and his family’s case trying to unite him with his boys in the US who are US citizens.  It is a heartbreaking story at times.

I found this great book very enlightening and uplifting despite it’s sometimes very sobering events describing the human cost on both sides. Cantu is now an award winning writer and a former Fulbright fellow.

Esi Edugyan: Washington Black, 9781781258972, Serpents Tail /Profile Books, pub date: August 1, 2018, trade paperback

Esi Edugyan lives in Victoria, British Columbia and was a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Award for her previous work “Half Blood Blues”.  I have to confess I had never heard of her before. After reading the proof of her upcoming new novel “Washington Black”, I am no longer surprised why she was shortlisted. The quality of her writing is superb, reminding me of the language in classics. It was a pleasure to read such finely crafted writing and such a captivating story. 

I am positive “Washington Black” will appeal to readers who enjoyed “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi  or “ Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead.

This literary novel is set in the cruel world of slavery in the early 19^th century narrating the incredibly adventurous life story of George Washington Black, “Wash”,  a slave boy born on the Faith Plantation in Barbados.  The barbaric way plantation owners used to exploit their “human merchandise” cutting sugar cane is truly incomprehensible, the cruelty and punishments beastly.  Such is the daily life of the child slave Wash who is lucky to have the fierce protection of Big Kid, the closest thing he ever knows to a mother.  His life changes dramatically when they are ordered to serve at a dinner in the big house where Erasmus Wilde is entertaining his brother Christian “Titch” Wilde, a scientist from England  who recognizes something in the boy. Titch, a wealthy eccentric explorer is opposed to slavery unlike his brother whose cruelty knows no boundaries.  He begs his brother to loan Washington to him to assist with scientific experiments.  Washington has a quick mind but never having known kindness from white people he has to shed his mistrust while learning to read and write becoming an invaluable assistant to Titch who is building a “cloud cutter”, an early version of an air balloon.  Events heat up when Titch’s and Erasmus cousin Philipp visits the plantation from England leading to two terrible accidents and a death, disfiguring Wash. The hasty escape of Titch and Wash by their newly build cloud cutter is  the beginning of an unimaginable  journey  to freedom for Washington, his coming of age in strange countries, surviving danger and slave catchers together with Titch who recognizes in him a human being  becoming his family and friend. When Titch suddenly disappears in the Canadian Arctic, Washington is completely lost and forced to fend for himself.  His travels to his true inner freedom lead him through many encounters and countries, Nova Scotia, England, Holland and Morocco trying to answer the very question what true freedom really means .   

A German translation of “Half Blood Blues” by Insel  Verlag is available but I could not find a German publisher yet for this novel.