Karen Cleveland: Need to know, 9781524797362: International edition, 9781524797027 Hardback, Ballantine/ Penguin Random House US, Pub date: 23. January 2018,

I  was lucky to receive a pre publication proof, thank you Penguin Random House,  and can guarantee once you start reading “Need to know”, out in January 23, 2018, this thriller will keep you glued to your seat way past the amount of reading time you thought you would allow yourself. 

This is one of the fastest paced thrillers I have read in a very long time and the author Karen Cleveland who spent her time as a CIA analyst, some of them in counterterrorism, certainly knows how to apply her experience to the novel.  A fantastic, fast paced read from start to finish with an ending I kind of suspected towards the end but the twist is superb!  It seems unbelievable that this is her debut novel.

Film rights were sold to Universal Pictures for Charlize Theron and rights to the novel sold in more than 20 markets which is a very strong indicator of the quality of the book.  

Here is what happens: Vivian Miller works as a career CIA counterintelligence analyst assigned to uncover Russian sleeper cells in the US. She is also happily married and the mother of 4 children, juggling parental duties with Matt, her husband of 10 years.  Vivian develops a program that allows her to filter out possible Russian espionage suspects who lead a completely normal life within the US. The system also grants her access to the computer of probable sleepers.  One day she logs herself into the computer of a Russian suspect we later know as Yuri detecting a promising file.   Within  the next clicks through the dossier her entire life falls apart demanding impossible personal and professional choices.

I realize this reads like a blurb of the book but it would be cruel if I revealed any more than what is only the very first chapter. Go out and buy the book  once it is published January 23, 2018, you have great suspense ahead of you.

German edition: Martin Suter: Montecristo, 9783257243666, Detebe (Diogenes) Taschenbuch, 13, €

English Edition: Martin Suter: Montecristo, 9781843448228, paperback, No Exit Press/ Old Castle Books

Martin Suter is a Swiss author I have enjoyed 
reading immensely for some time. He is regularly in the top section of the German bestseller lists, I am really surprised he is not more successful in England. Working originally as a copywriter and creative director in advertising, this training still transpires in his writing: his sentences are clipped, short and to the point mixed with a dry, black sense of humor which I love. The plots are always unexpected and twisted.  “Montecristo”, a thriller set in the world of Swiss finance, is no exception.
 

Jonas Brand is making his living as a video journalist working for a People style magazine in Zurich while trying to raise financial backing for his film project “Montecristo”.  Then two seemingly unconnected events unsettle his carefree existence.  While riding the train, he involuntarily  witnesses  a suicide or “Personalschaden”/”human damage” as the Swiss train company refer to it.

Jonas soon discovers that the dead man was working as a top trader on the floor of one of Swiss's leading banks.  When he gets home and leaves two 100 Swiss Franc notes for his cleaner, he notices both bills showing the same serial numbers, something his bank manager Mr. Weber assures him is impossible yet at the same time confirming both bills are clean and no counterfeits.  When he is attacked while walking home and his apartment is broken into after meeting up with a high ranking Swiss banker to discuss his unusual discoveries, Jonas contacts Max Gantmann, a former TV economics front man now working behind the scenes as an investigative journalist and a trusted friend.  Max does not believe that burglary and assault are not connected as the police want Jonas to think. What unfolds is a high caliber thriller set in the ruthless world of finance which kept me turning over pages faster and faster until the very last page. 

I read the book in its German original but an English Edition is published by No Exit Press.

Abir Mukherjee: A Rising Man, Vintage (Penguin Random House) Paperback, 9781784701345 /

German edition:  Ein angesehener Mann, Heyne
 

I cannot remember how I discovered “A Rising Man” by Abir Mukherjee but I am very glad I did, he is a true find. I really fell for this captivating historical thriller set in 1915 Calcutta which had me turning the pages rapidly making it very hard to tear myself away from the book.  The novel was shortlisted for the CWA Gold and Endeavour historical daggers and was selected Book of the Year of the Daily Telegraph in 2016. A German translation is out already and the sequel “A Necessary Evil” was published this year cannot wait to read it, the second one in a new series.  The atmosphere of the book reminds me a great deal of M.J. Carter’s “A Stranglers Vine” but Mukherjee’s novel has a more realistic feel to it, painting a vivid portrait of the British Raj.

 

This highly atmospheric novel opens  in Calcutta of 1919 were the British Raj is affording many British a life they would never be able to dream of in England, all at the expense of  India’s treasures  and its citizens. Captain Sam Wyndham is thankful for his new Calcutta posting hoping to leave his nightmares of WWI behind.  Travelling with him is the ghost of his wife Sarah who died during an influenza epidemic and his addiction to morphium and painkillers, consequences of the war. Previously employed at Scotland Yard he comes with high recommendations but has barely time to settle in when he is called to his first murder victim in the darker parts of Calcutta. 
 

A senior British Official, Alexander MacAuley, aid to the Lieutenant Governor and problem fixer par excellence, was found brutally murdered with a note stuffed in his mouth signaling the British to leave India to the Indians. The murder is first attributed to rebel movements but Sam has his doubts once he starts digging.  Arrogant English Inspector Digby and a very smart but disadvantaged Indian Sergeant Banerjee, also known as “Surrender-Not”, are part of his investigative team.  I am not going to go into much more detail as it would spoil the fun, but from the opium dens of Calcutta to the Lord Governor of Bengal, a cast of very colorful characters paint a rich portrait of the early 20^th Century Calcutta and the first uprisings of the Indian independent movement. 

William Boyd: The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, 9780241295878 hardback and outside the UK 9780241295885, C format paperback / publication date: November 2, 2017, Viking (Penguin Random House)

Those who have been following my blog know that William Boyd is one of my absolute favorite contemporary authors.  “Any Human Heart” (Eines Menschen Herz) and “Sweet caress” (Die Fotografin: Die vielen Leben der Amory Clay) sit on my shelf of beloved books.  I was very happy indeed to get my hands on his upcoming book of short stories “The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth) pre-publication date and what a treat it was.  Boyd is simply a master story teller.  

“The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth” is by far the longest short story in the book, a small novella in itself, a story of how chance encounters with different man shape the direction of Bethany Mellmoth’s life repeatedly.  I loved the one of the frustrated film director/screen play writer whose life situation is revealed bit by bit through the letters he writes to his girlfriend, brother, banker, producer and his leading actor, really had me laughing at times. The book begins with the story of the philandering husband who has resorted to kissing only which he doesn’t consider cheating . Then there is the story of the couple whose relationship starts with the end and ends with how they met.

Almost a small thriller in itself is the last story.  A mediocre actor is offered 1.000 pounds during an audition by a stranger if he drives a small glass container of liquid, supposedly holy water for a baptism, to a remote church in Scotland.  All these stories are William Boyd at his best, he describes human weaknesses so very brilliantly, you just keep turning the pages furiously. I cannot wait for his next book, he is said to be working on a novel due next year. 

Daniel Silva: House of Spies, 9780062669049, large format paperback (C-Format), Harper Collins US, available

I am a huge fan of Daniel Silva who in my opinion is one of the best thriller writers at the moment. What really blows me away is the clairvoyant foresight he seems to have about looming terrorist attacks and how well connected Silva must be to the world of spies and counter intelligence. 

When another horrible terrorist attack shakes the world, I occasionally find myself wishing for men like Gabriel Allon and his team hoping they truly exist to protect us and our democracy from religious zealots who are threatening freedom as we know it.

In “Black Widow” he wrote about ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris before they actually happened, by publication date they had much to our horror become reality.  As is the case with his latest novel, “House of Spies”, centering on terrorist attacks in London. Silva writes in his always very informative afterword that he turned in the draft of this book on March 15 and on March 22 ISIS struck down many innocent tourists on Westminster Bridge. Although fiction, it is apparent his books are very much based on research and facts. 

Gabriel Allon, now the head of Israeli intelligence, is still hunting down Saladin, one of the most dangerous ISIS masterminds.  A primary source of funding ISIS’s deadly missions comes from profit made through the drug business which leads Allon and his team to wealthy French multi billionaire Jean- Luc Martel who owns many businesses, all rumored to be screens for laundering drug money. One such business is a famous art gallery run by Martel’s model partner Olivia Watson. I am not going to spill the beans about what is happening next in this page turning thriller but you are in for 526 pages of guaranteed fast paced plotting and action of the best kind.

Elizabeth Strout:  Anything is possible, 9780241287972, Viking (Penguin Random House UK) Hardback

Elizabeth Strout’s “My name is Lucy Burton” became an instant New York Times Bestseller with the success continuing across the Atlantic landing on several  European bestseller lists.   In May 2017 her short story collection “Anything is possible” was published, all stories are connected to Amgash/Illinois, the home town of Lucy Barton.

 I love Elizabeth Strouts subtle, precise description of the lives of ordinary people, the horrors and hurts hidden behind the most ordinary small town facade.  Most stories start very innocently until wham, a real twist in the story shakes you.  As most of Amgash’s inhabitants are well known to each other or even related, the stories reveal interesting angles of previous characters in other stories. “Dottie’s Bed and Breakfast” for example is one of them as is “Sister” where Lucy Barton makes an appearance.

 

I greatly enjoyed each and every one of the short stories; Elizabeth Strout is a fantastic short story writer, go out and buy a copy. The German edition is not available yet. 

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney: The Nest, 9780062666420, Harper Collins, paperbackGerman edition: Das Nest, Klett Cotta, 9783608980004, hardback 

Right up front:  I greatly enjoyed “The Nest”, got sucked in from the very beginning. This is such a cleverly constructed novel, it is hard to stop reading it is so intoxicating, you just want to find out what happens next to all the Plumbs.  Full of gossip, very funny at times but serious and dark in other parts, a very New Yorkish family portrait in my opinion. 

The four Plumb siblings try hard to hide their less than perfect lives from each other, desperately waiting for their trust fund to bail them out once Melody reaches the age of 40 to ease some of their severe financial strains.

Leo, the notoriously bad boy of the family with a trophy wife who is about to divorce him, has been freshly released from rehab and is summoned to a lunch with his three other siblings Melody, Beatrice and Jack. To their horror the Plumb siblings were informed that their sacred trust fund was slashed into by their mother to bail out Leo from a disastrous car accident with a nineteen year old waitress while driving intoxicated filled to the brim with alcohol and coke.  A seriously smaller payout would be a disaster to them all.  What plans does Leo have to repay his siblings?   Melody has college tuitions at a private university for her twins coming up and a mortgage the family budget can no longer handle. Jack’s antique business isn’t what he has led his partner Walker to believe secretly borrowing against their summer cottage and Beatrice is a former writer with a decade long writers block wasting away as an editor at a New York literary magazine on a ridiculous salary. 

I will not reveal how this clever, witty story unfolds, but I could hardly believe this is D’Aprix Sweeney’s debut novel it is so masterfully constructed. I loved her fluent style of writing, her sharp sense of humor and how all the characters become part of your life as you keep wondering what’s next.  The book fully deserves to be in the bestseller lists, the German edition, also called “Das Nest” came out early in 2017 and is available.