When Harsh Politics Prompt a Thriller, Lisa Brackmann Steps Up with BLACK SWAN RISING

Lisa Brackmann is known in the mysteries world for her two series that take place "elsewhere" -- an intriguing multiplayer game theme in her Chinese series (memorable!), and a "Mexico noir" drug-running series with plenty of violence.

But neither one delivers the shocks and political reality of her new crime novel, BLACK SWAN RISING. The plot unfolds through two women: Sarah Price (not her birth name), whose past is so horrifying that it subjects her regularly to cyberstalking, even as she struggles to hide within a massive political campaign team; and Casey Cheng, TV news reporter determined to reach national levels, no matter how much harassment her career path triggers.

For both women, just being strong females turns them into targets of an organization as nasty and self-righteous as the original Ku Klux Klan. Online, it's called #TrueMen. Not only would its members adore any politician who talked in terms of "grab them by the p---y," they've taken the theme much farther, deliberately setting up women to be bullied and even physically harmed. Maybe, as Casey Cheng discovers, even shot.

There's a lot of rough language in this book, which makes it hard to pull excerpts that capture the tension and suspense; each passage I wanted to share involved four-letter words. And a lot of vile name-calling. And yet this book rang true, matching up with the worst gender bullying I've seen and heard.

Even though I felt vaguely ill half the time, I had to keep turning the pages. How could any two women stand up against a set of hate crimes organized nationally on the Internet and propelled by brutality and punitive actions? Blackmann pulls the plot toward a high peak of danger, never losing the "truth" of each character's power and vulnerability.

But here's the passage where news broadcaster Casey Cheng, still handicapped in healing from her attack and shaken by a mass killing, realizes she has a way to fight back publicly, as she meets with her boss:

"You know," Casey said suddenly. "I'm ready to come back now. I mean not my regular job, obviously." She laughed, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "I wish I could do it, but the fact is, I can't. But ..."

Three Dead in Alabama High School Shooting.

She waved at the monitor. ... She suddenly felt herself on the brink of tears. "You know, people who get hurt, whose friends and loved ones die ... they don't get to move on. And I was thinking ..."

She leaned forward. Time for her pitch. The hint of tears might even help. "We suffered a major loss in this community. Seven dead now. Five seriously injured. And we've largely moved on from it in terms of our coverage. What do you think about a special report? A series about the long-term repercussions of a tragedy like this?"

Jordan crossed his arms over his belly. Thinking it through. "So the angle is ... you?"

She smiled. "Who better?"   

Although Brackmann's finale ties up the story's threads, disturbing echoes remain after reading the book, and each news broadcast this year has a chance of amplifying those echoes.

So in this sense, although Brackmann has whipped out a stinging political thriller with a striking female angle, she's also done something much more. The power of this crime novel resonates like a Margaret Atwood speculation on threat of our future -- pulled much closer. Like, to next month.

It's not a stretch to say this could be the dystopia next door. I sure do hope it's not. Well played, and well written. I'd recommend buying a copy at its September 8 release -- but then being very thoughtful of who else to give a copy to. And that, in itself, is a frightening statement of where we seem to be heading. Thanks, Lisa Brackmann, and Midnight Ink, which stretched outside its usual comfort zone in bringing this to print.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Lisa Brackman Returns to U.S. Thriller Line, with GO-BETWEEN from Soho Crime

I'm a total fan of Lisa Brackmann's China-set crime series that began with Rock Paper Tiger, followed by Hour of the Rat and Dragon Day. Ellie McEnroe, an Iraq war vet with a bad leg, flashbacks, and a serious passion for life in modern China, gets pretty mixed up in how she handles life, especially the political pressures and risks that Americans can trigger in that place. Her mistakes are understandable, and her frustrations and loyalties appeal to me.

The thriller route that Brackmann also opened with Michelle Mason in Getaway rubbed me wrong -- I felt as though Michelle's poor choices didn't make sense for how smart she is. So I'm glad to say that with the second book in this series, GO-BETWEEN, Michelle seems to have her smarts back into place. Unfortunately, her situation -- partnered with a serious cannabis merchant in northern California -- is designed for failure, and when her boyfriend Danny gets arrested and tossed into the for-profit prison system, it's clear that the sociopathic ex-CIA agent who got them into this mess to start with is back in their lives. For the worse, actually.

I like the way Brackmann takes us into Michelle's struggle to assess and confront the situation:

You can't worry about that now, she told herself. First things first. See Danny. Tell him what was going on. Find out what he thought she should do.

She'd worked through all the options, and she thought she knew what the best one was, but maybe he had a better idea. An angle she hadn't thought of. Because the best option she'd thought of for this situation wasn't very good at all.

Ironically, what Gary -- the ex-CIA manipulator -- wants Michelle and Danny to do for him is connected to the war on drugs, as well as big-money politics and the role of nonprofits with wealth behind them. Michelle's assessment turns out to be on target: There are no good options this time.

Dark, quirky, moderately violent, and a page-turned for its intrigue and smart twists, GO-BETWEEN captures the nightmare of every person who's ever done something "a little bit against the law" -- and is waiting for the penalty stage of capture and punishment. Scary stuff, and a compelling read as a modern thriller with bite! (From Soho Crime, of course ...)

Ellie's in Danger in China, in DRAGON DAY, Lisa Brackmann

If only this were the "old days," when the death of Sherlock Holmes could be reversed by reader pressure ... If only DRAGON DAYS were not the finale of Lisa Brackmann's cutting-edge Ellie McEnroe series ... Then again, knowing before opening the book that this is The End gives extra sharpness to the start of this fast-paced crime thriller set in today's Shanghai and beyond. But omigosh, I don't want to say goodbye to Ellie, or "Yili" as she's called by her Chinese friends. Nor do I want those strands of suspense and adventure from Rock Paper Tiger and from Hour of the Rat to finally be knitted up.

But that's what California author Lisa Brackmann announced, along with Soho Crime, and that's that. If you haven't read the earlier two books, you'll still be able to enjoy every crazy moment of DRAGON DAY -- but if you have the time, dive into them first. It will add to the sense of danger that Ellie can't avoid, as her underground artist friend Lao Zhang announces he's coming back to the Beijing to confront the dangers that Ellie's been handling on his behalf. Well, she was only supposed to handle his artwork, the way an agent would. But the art and its sales are banned, the government and police of at least one country, probably two, are watching her every move (and email), and as a result, business hasn't been great.

Moreover, unscrupulous and powerful (and murderous) art collector Sidney Cao has Ellie in his debt -- he saved her life in an earlier book -- and there are tasks he wants her to tackle for him, in terms of his overprivileged and even more unscrupulous grown children. Tasks that force her into uneasy and unpleasant collusion with the same secret police who keep trying to force her to betray Lao Zhang. Sheesh!

Actually, Ellie's a lot more, umm, direct in her language. An Iraq War vet with lasting pain and a Percocet habit to go with it, she's beyond blunt. Plus, she's in something suspiciously like an intimate relationship with an undercover Chinese cop. Oops. She nicknamed him Creepy John a long time ago, but he's a lot more supportive of her than, say, her mom who's mostly living with her. Maybe that's because he knows what's going on:

"Maybe I can find out what they want from Zhang Jianli, what they say he did," John says, and he's making an effort to sound calm. Like it's no big deal. "He's just an artist. Maybe it isn't so bad."

I  don't know who he's trying to convince: me or himself.

"It doesn't matter what he did." Suddenly I'm so tired that I can't even hold my head up anymore. "It's whatever they want it to be, right?"

Because if there's anything I've learned, it's that sometimes there's no reason for any of it. Sometimes it's just wrong place, wrong time. Somebody with power gets a bug up his a**. Like the musical where the hungry guy steals the loaf of bread and the cop gets the hard-on of all hard-ons over it.

John rests his hand on mine, just for a moment, then pulls it away, like he's embarrassed.

"Try not to worry, Yili."

Right.

If that's too strong for you, the rest of the book won't be a good fit, as Sidney Cao's demands force Yili into situations full of sexual perversion (which thank goodness she only has to witness), family menace, and more than one mutilated body of an otherwise nice person. But if you enjoy noir, and the grim politics of global power, interspersed with humor and even some tenderness, well, DRAGON DAY was released today -- there's a copy waiting for you. (I strongly suggest getting all three in this series; it will be three great rides.)

Brackmann's quirky preface in Ellie's voice, reminding us that she was born in a year of the sheep (in the Chinese zodiac) but that China itself is nearly synonymous with dragons -- could there be a dragon in the sheep, or a sheep inside the dragon? -- is fair warning of the knotted problems ahead, and the potential for explosion as Lao Zhang's reappearance comes closer.

And it's worth guessing whether the book will end with dragon fire or sheep warmth.

Now that I have Ellie McEnroe permanently under my skin, I confess I'm very curious about Brackmann's next direction. Knowing how the publishing world works, I guess it will be about six months until hints emerge. Guess I have time to re-read the series, before that happens!

Scandinavian Noir, or Gamer Espionage? Anders de la Motte, BUZZ

Caught up in crime fiction that depends on the Internet? Already a fan of Lisa Brackmann's China-based thrillers and illicit gamer underworld? Have a special place on your shelf for William Gibson's Neuromancer, the speculative fiction that launched cyberworlds and serious online gaming?

Here's your next tasty work of crime fiction: BUZZ, from Swedish author and politician Anders de la Motte. This is another case where American readers are getting the good stuff later than the Europeans, who've already made the crime trilogy of Game, Buzz, and Bubble into a best-selling series. Thank goodness, the translators are helping us to catch up.

HP -- Henrik Pettersson, living under multiple aliases -- should have known better. Hiding from the Gamemaster (with good reason), he's been spending his ill-gotten gains in various locations around the world. But when he accepts an invitation to an Arab compound of sin and sexuality, not only does he indulge heavily in both, but he gets so stoned that he puts his fragile constructions completely at risk. Soon he's in the hands of the police, accused -- with convincing evidence -- of having murdered the woman who seduced him there.

In flashes of insight, bits of e-mails, and alternating chapters that reveal the setup that HP's sister Rebecca has fallen into, the tense and powerful net that's trapping HP becomes clear. His return to Europe, under yet another alias, can't be good news, can it? After all, the Game is likely to catch up with him there, and the consequences could be fatal -- at least.

If you're able to fit in a reading of Game before you tackle Buzz, so much the better. But de la Motte does a delicate tease of reveals, making clear the most important parts of what happened in the earlier volume, and it works well to jump straight into this new one. Tautly plotted, cunningly arranged, and smoothly translated by Neil Smith (whose only flaw is a slightly ragged edge between Americanizing the text and leaving it with a British tang), this is a postmodern thriller with sturdily familiar narrative and an enduring attachment to the badness of bad-boy betrayal. A hearty thank-you to Atria for bringing the book to American readers.

We Met the Author and She/He Graciously Signed This Book ...

Dave and I recently spent four days with 1200 mystery lovers -- maybe a third of them authors! -- at this year's Bouchercon in Albany, NY.  It was a fantastic experience, and we'll think (and maybe write) about it for years to come, I'm sure.

We are especially grateful to the many kind and generous authors who took time to sign books for us. Some are for our own collection, and many are for Kingdom Books. If you treasure signed first edition mysteries, please do look through our ABE listings. Dave is adding more books each day.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos of some of the authors at work. Again, thank you!

Louise Penny

Tess Gerritsen

Margaret Maron

Matt Clemens and Max Allen Collins

Harlan Coben

Joe Lansdale

Lisa Brackmann (with coffee!), Cara Black, Juliet Grames

Sue Grafton

yours truly, Beth Kanell

HOUR OF THE RAT, Lisa Brackmann: Suspense and Danger in the Real China

RELEASED TODAY!

So, you're reading international crime fiction, right? And you definitely can picture the art, canals, and food (even almost smell it) in Donna Leon's Venice mysteries; you're getting worried about gray-sky days because in the Scandinavian mysteries they mean more killings and more depression; and you can't decide which African crime fiction you like better, the almost cozy ones by Alexander McCall Smith or the edgy and dangerous ones by Jassy Mackenzie.

So, what are you going to do about China?

I promise, I don't usually talk or write like that -- but Ellie McEnroe, age 27 and a long-term injured Iraq War veteran living in China, definitely does. Lisa Brackmann's adventurous American in Beijing keeps getting into controversy, though, and in modern China, mouthy Americans are mostly not welcome. Americans who support, hide, and have contact with anti-government artists are even more not welcome. Even with her connections, and now her mom living with her, Ellie is in trouble.

Readers who caught Brackmann's first Ellie McEnroe title, ROCK PAPER TIGER (2010), already know Ellie's war wound has left her vulnerable to pain-easing drugs, and her refusal to play things safe has set her against the Chinese government when it chases after her artist friends. Especially intriguing is the way Ellie finds herself caught up simultaneously in an online gaming world that has odd connections to who she's seeking and who's chasing her. (Shades of William Gibson, really.)

HOUR OF THE RAT takes Ellie out of Beijing -- she's burning out in a lot of ways, and it's time to get to other locations. The opening scene, an art opening event, captures her situation:

Guests and artists mill around, drinking Yanjing beer and eating yangrouchuanr, which normally I'd be all over, but the meat on these is so small and gristly that I wonder if it's actually mutton and not dog instead. Or rat.

I was born in the Year of the Rat, and eating my birth animal seems like it would be bad luck. So I stick to the beer.

"Why are we here, again?" I ask.

"I'd heard good things about the painter," Harrison says, flicking his hazel eyes at one of hte giat canvases, one where a fat naked guy whose face is done up in Peking Opera makeup lies sprawled across a red Ferrari, his guts spilling out of his sliced-open stomach. ... "I agree with you, it's disappointing."

... He's my boss, sort of.

I manage the work of a Chinese artist. An important one. Which is pretty funny, considering that I know f***-all about art. Which is why, I guess, Harrison keeps trying to get me to learn.

In addition to this sense of burnout, two nearly irresistible forces are on Ellie's case: (1) Somebody keeps trying to purchase her client's art, which oddly enough is not a good thing because he's in danger with the government and any sale will bring people after him right now; and (2) Ellie's mom, who seems to have run away from her American life, is trying to direct Ellie's life instead (while bringing her own Chinese boyfriend into the mix).

But when Ellie goes on the run -- with her mother and said BF in tow -- a third and maybe even a fourth factor (both political/police related) press into her life. And the places she ends up running to and through are some of the scariest in modern China, because they are the most heavily polluted and poisoned and -- you knew this was coming -- doggedly made invisible by the government.

Brackmann, musing on how she developed HOUR OF THE RAT, says, "Many in the West tend to think of Chinese as passive and uninvolved when it comes to politics, and while it’s true that the CCP does not look kindly upon activities that threaten its monopoly on power, Chinese people have been very vocal when it comes to environmental issues. Many of the approximately 180,000 “mass incidents” in China last year were provoked by pollution or other environmental concerns. Tens of thousands of people have protested polluting factories in places like Ningbo and Xiamen. These are issues that unite poor peasant farmers and well-to-do urban dwellers alike."

In terms of Ellie's life, that means there are people who may give her some support and information as she tries to escape whoever is chasing and threatening her and the ties to these polluted places. But it also means nobody around her can afford to go on the record.

Brackmann's crime fiction is exhilarating and compelling, and I had no regrets about trading in my preconceptions about China, to absorb both the current issues and the clear passion that Ellie has for the place and its diversity. Readers don't need to read Rock Paper Tiger first, but -- why not get both books for double enjoyment? Brackmann is definitely sustaining the strong narrative voice and deft weaving of plot and character that brought her huge praise for the first Ellie McEnroe adventure, and I hope she's planning more. I'm in for this.

More from Brackmann, here: http://www.lisabrackmann.com/books/hour-of-the-rat

Our review of Rock Paper Tiger, here: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-global-gets-dangerous-lisa.html

And if you've been reading this while also trying to remember whether you were born in a year of the rat, or dragon, or horse ... check here: http://www.ofesite.com/spirit/chinese/animal2.htm