In the Mood for an American Dystopia Thriller from John Gilstrap?

 

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“This all adds up to why a John Gilstrap thriller, crammed with violence and testing of the soul, might be the perfect work of fiction to sink into, in a tough time for the real world.”

Global pandemic. Rising sea levels. Powerful nations making threats. When all that news of the moment seems too much to handle, it’s time to pick up the newest in the Victoria Emerson thriller series from John Gilstrap, Blue Fire.

Gilstrap’s most extensive series, with protagonist Jonathan Grave, took the action to both international escapades and American militia terrain, always featuring the explosive skills of Grave and his main sidekick, Boxers, aka the Big Guy. Connected unofficially with American government, Grave and his team applied skills that mirrored expertise Gilstrap acquired himself in explosives safety and hazardous waste.

In 2021, Gilstrap’s first Victoria Emerson thriller proposed an America on the brink of nuclear war. Emerson’s a U.S. congressional representative for the state of West Virginia, and when she’s ordered to enter a safety bunker without her three teenage sons (she’s a single mother), she refuses and finds other shelter.

As Blue Fire opens, Victoria Emerson’s running a survival-based town where she’s never without both a handgun and an M4 rifle. Her former government status isn’t well known, but her leadership skills have made her essential, and she’s maintaining the safety of a growing population there.

You know how it is: If you’re doing better than the folks around you, someone wants in. This time, for Emerson’s town of Ortho, West Virginia, invaders jealous of the community’s relative prosperity launch a coordinated attack. The process of holding them off demands that each of her sons become a leader, too—and face dangers that no mother wants near her family. But if they’re all going to make it, Emerson’s got to both let go, and teach skills like crazy.

Her oldest son, Adam, is out there on his own, probably headed toward the family’s home farm. But Emerson and her younger sons can’t get there until they’ve straightened out Ortho, and maybe some adjacent towns as well.

Check out Victoria Emerson as she endeavors to combine leading, acting as judge, and being true to herself, with Mr. and Mrs. Sable, called on the carpet for theft:

“Victoria felt heat rising in her ears. ‘Society may have collapsed, Mrs. Sable, but civilization has not. At least not here. Not on my watch. … We’re rebuilding from nothing here. Months from now, some of our residents will be thriving, and, alas, some of our residents will have a very long winter. Perhaps their last, but I certainly hope not.’”

Count on plenty of the firefights and explosions and team infiltrations that Gilstrap’s become noted for, a rapid pace of action, direct frontier justice, and hints that the ex-government hiding in a bunker could be a problem—but then again, there are clearly more books in this page-turning series, in which Victoria Emerson can continue to test her strengths against the grim aspects of dystopia, and seek a few minutes (or longer) to savor loyalty, friendship, and perhaps a bit more. If there’s time before her world ends.

This all adds up to why a John Gilstrap thriller, crammed with violence and testing of the soul, might be the perfect work of fiction to sink into, in a tough time for the real world.

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

Crime Fiction Gems for the Gift Season: Best Mysteries

Sometimes I miss a really great book from earlier in the year -- for which I kick myself -- but I lucked out a few weeks ago when one of the Inkshares team asked me to consider A GENTLEMAN'S MURDER by Christopher Huang as a holiday recommendation. The publishing team described it as close to Agatha Christie. But that only applies to the setting (England after World War I). It's actually closer to a Jacqueline Winspear, or a James Benn. If you're not familiar with those crime novelists yet, let's try it this way: If you'd been through a year of front-line service for England in the Great War, made it home safely and with honor, yet found yourself an endless target for racist slurs, even at the exclusive men's club where your family's credentials have made you a member ... would you leap into a crime investigation, to make sure the wrong person doesn't pay the consequences?

Of course you would -- if you're Lieutenant Eric Peterson, "late of the Royal Fusiliers," and your face shows clear evidence of your sophisticated and well-educated mother ... who happened to have been Chinese.

Peterkin's increasing involvement in a murder investigation forces the biases of his time and "class" to be revealed. But even as an "Oriental" by appearance, he's better off that the morphine addict he'll tangle with, or the malicious murderer whose traces can be found, one layer at a time.

Integrity, affection, loyalty to friends and relatives, they're all in this marvelous "amateur sleuth" detection novel. Although this is Huang's debut (via Inkshares), the book is written with both polish and pizzazz, and I already have four people I'd like to give it to, over the holidays. For more on this excellent "Golden Age" mystery, check out Huang's page at Inkshares.

I've already nominated Helene Tursten's dryly entertaining Nordic noir story collection, AN ELDERLY LADY IS UP TO NO GOOD, for "Best Stocking Stuffer." Tursten demonstrates that a tightly spun story, well told, is at least as memorable as a full-length crime novel. I am still marveling at what "Maud" manages to do with the simplest of devices and efforts ... deadly and smart! All you need is to have no compunctions about murder, and you, too, can do what Maud's done. A dandy touch for this book: Soho Press published it as a "tiny" volume that will slip comfortably into a stocking at the mantelpiece, or among the folds of a festive holiday table napkin. Good one! The review is here, if you'd like  more details.

September overflowed with good books hitting publication, and I never quite got around to mentioning Denise Swanson's DIE ME A RIVER. The book belongs in her "Welcome Back to Scumble River" series, and features school psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd (on maternity leave) and her police chief husband Wally. Although it's technically a "cozy" -- small-town setting, amateur sleuth, no gory violence, no need to double-check that the door's locked and windows are secure -- the writing is top notch, the pacing and twists deft and clever, and the finale highly satisfying. Don't worry about any possible spirit presence along the way. Give this to yourself for relaxing between holiday achievements. Or to your best friend, for similar purposes. It's a keeper.

The crime novel that got most deeply under my skin this year was THE NIGHT MARKET by Jonathan Moore. Inspector Ross Carver's effort to investigate a bloody, very gory murder turns into an exposé of how marketing and high technology may easily destroy what we most prize about being human. I plan to re-read this every six months or so, to remind myself why it's so important to keep reading, keep thinking critically, and find the very best storytellers who can open us to our own misconceptions and dangerous dead ends. I have three very close friends who may find a copy among their holiday gifts. Compelling, powerful, well told, and utterly unforgettable. The full review is here.

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

Brief Mention, THE COMPLETIONIST, Siobhan Adcock

This new dystopian suspense thriller offers up "near-future America" as a male-dominated police state after a environmental collapse -- where the very stuff of life, water itself, has to be engineered. As a result of its disastrous effects on the birth rate, pregnancy is suddenly a "must do" if it's possible -- any fertile woman is compelled to bear her child, and women must give up their lives beyond intense parenting, in order to devote "Care Hours" to their offspring, for best and most productive survival.

The title of Siobhan Adcock's THE COMPLETIONIST refers to the term the author uses for a nurse-midwife who nurtures a pregnancy to its successful birth -- and it's the career of Gardner Quinn, the missing sister of war veteran Carter Quinn. Quinn, a veteran of the water protection wars, has extreme PTSD and linked substance abuse problems. But he'd determined to respond to the request of his other sister, Fredrika, and search for Gardner.

What he can't foresee, of course, is the damage he'll do to his own family while trying to redeem it.

Adcock's earlier book, The Barter, also focused on motherhood, but from a very different approach. In shaping THE COMPLETIONIST as a dystopian crime novel, she made inevitable the comparisons with Margaret Atwood's grimly powerful The Handmaid's Tale. But Adcock is not a literary writer -- she's tuned to the quick pace and twists of a thriller instead -- and her conclusion doesn't hold up the weight of the topic she'd tackled. Read this one as a page-turner, and keep expectations modest: It's not a "change your life" book, despite the social themes. I enjoyed it, but found the ending a bit drab compared to some of the high suspense earlier in the book.

Simon & Schuster brought this out, and it's a June release.


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

Edgy San Francisco Mystery, Dystopian, from Jonathan Moore: THE NIGHT MARKET

Wow!

I really liked Jonathan Moore's mystery from last year, The Dark Room. And I figured I'd enjoy the 2018 book, which was already scheduled at that time. But I had no idea what was in store -- THE NIGHT MARKET knocked me breathless.

Fiercely plotted with twists and blade-sharp revelations, wrapped around homicide detective Ross Carver in a San Francisco of the hauntingly near future, THE NIGHT MARKET takes "techno-thriller" to a new height of expert writing and psychological disturbance. I couldn't put it down, and I'm shaken by the suggestions on how Big Money and Big Advertising may already be twisting our culture -- and threatening our lives.

Here's how it starts: Ross Carver and his partner, as the homicide team on duty, answer a call to a home where there's a presumed murder that's just taken place. That is, there's a corpse, and blood -- and the neighbor reported sounds of a frightening disturbance. But when Carver gets into the room with the body, what he sees makes no sense ... a covering of some kind of fungus already engulfing the body. Even less does the next moment make sense, as the FBI bursts onto the scene and drags Carver and his partner out to some kind of biological decontamination rig.

We know that -- but Carver, waking up in his own apartment with a neighbor he's never met taking care of him, has to start from scratch, because his memory has been wiped, and so has his partner's. The messed-up records of where he may have been are enough to suspend him from duty. But the tiny scrap of information left for him -- a fragment from a case he and his partner were supposed to investigate -- turns out to tie him back to the dangerous experiment he seems to have stumbled into.

The trouble is, it looks like organized crime and Very Very Big Money are running a scam in San Francisco -- maybe across the country -- that Carver can't afford to discover if he wants to survive.

Here's a scrap of conversation between Carver and his mysterious neighbor, Mia, who might be on his side. Or not. At any rate, she's ahead of him on figuring out the technology behind the crime scene that he witnessed:

"I didn't know what else to do," Mia said. "I've been sitting here for weeks, waiting. Either to be killed, or for someone to pull me out. And there wasn't any other choice. I  can't do this alone. I don't even know how they got to her, so I have no idea what's safe and what isn't." ...

"Did Johnny Wong kill her?" Carver asked.

"I don't know."

"But you didn't hear that name for the first time from me. You already knew about him, didn't you?" ...

"We finally had a lead," she said. "Years in the dark, and then we thought we had a way in."

"Tell me."

"It's like what they said about J.F.K. You want to know who killed the president? List the world's best marksmen, and then find out which ones were in Dallas. Making these devices would be incredibly hard. We guessed only a few scientists in a few labs could do it."

"So you did your research, and then you made a list."

The closer Carver gets to figuring out the trap he's in, the closer he gets to a very nasty death. Or worse.

I couldn't put this one down, and I know I'll re-read it, tugging at the dangerous truths woven into the page-turning fast-paced plot. I know it took Moore a while to bring this one to publication -- he had to insert at least one other book before it -- and it was worth the wait. He sees it as the finale of a three-book painting of San Francisco: The Poison Artist, The Dark Room, The Night Market. Which of course suggests there won't be a sequel -- I wonder what he'll next bring to dark, vivid life on the pages.

From HMH, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. And do check out Moore's author webpage, here. Last but not least, should I point a finger at the character name, for mystery/suspense fans who know their classics??

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

Darkness, Drowning, and a Drug-Danger Landscape in THE NINTH LIFE, Clea Simon

Ready for some shocks to the heart and mind? THE NINTH LIFE from Clea Simon releases on March 1, the start of this Massachusetts ex-journalist's fourth crime fiction series. But if you think you already know all about Clea Simon because you've read her other books, forget it. THE NINTH LIFE is tough, gritty, urban, and often violent -- and can best be read as if it were a debut for both the author and the series, with its radical new direction.

Before you read further, think about this: There's a release party for this book at the Harvard Book Store. Got that? The cover may have a cat on it, but Simon is tackling grim and serious issues, in a fast-paced mystery that depends on Blackie, the cat on the cover, being able to somehow communicate to his human partner Care what he's able to discover:

The night's shelter has done me good. I leap and land with a grace I'd not remembered, and my satisfaction is deeper than vanity. I am on a hunt, and I cannot afford to fail.

Haunted as he is by the moment when he seems to have woken into this cat body after being drowned in a culvert -- from what form? for what reason? -- Blackie is nevertheless the ultimate rational investigator, persistent and straightforward and without scruple. That puts him in opposition to Care; even though she's at once his guardian and partner, grasping his needs without entrapping him, he soon realizes she's trapped by her emotional attachments to the group of homeless, battered kids she's hanging out with. And the criminal and drug-pushing gang maneuvering them through the harshest regions of the city, wherever it is.

In a recent interview in The Big Thrill, Simon spoke of her drive to cut new terrain in this book, deeper and darker than in her other series: to probe the nature of isolation, as well as the bonds people forge with their self-made "family of choice." For Blackie and Care, the guardianship Care assumes so passionately for both the independent Blackie and the very dependent (and drug-addicted) boy Tick come into inevitable conflict.

And by the end of the second chapter, it's clear that Tick's mistakes are costing everyone at the most basic and dangerous levels, as Care herself reveals while Blackie evaluates the scene:

Her voice has tightened. I sense the others listening.

"He had a message. I was supposed to find you. Only --" He breaks off. Kicks at the dirt. ... "He said someone is weighing down the scale. That you'd know what to do. That Fat Peter wasn't on the level."

"Fat Peter?" She's leaning in. "He said that?"

... "I figured I could do it. I mean, I'm sorry you won't get the coin --"

"The coin?" She explodes, spitting the word out. "I'm not thinking of the coin. This was a message, Tick. A message. If you had found me, if you'd told me this before, maybe I could have saved him."

For all the efforts Care makes to provide affection and direction to the ragged crew around her, the dire and hungry poverty drilling into them and the siren call of "the scat," the drug that Tick's embraced, keep driving this group into worse risks and greater danger.

Simon nails (sometimes brutally) the cruelty and costs of living on the street and wrestling with people who aren't trustworthy. Blackie serves as blunt narrator of this dark world where there is no social safety net. Trading sex, drugs, and deals is a terrible way to get by. And it's raising the cost of what Care will have to pay if she's ever going to pull Tick back out of danger.

There are mysteries here beyond the crime narrative. What city are Blackie, Care, and Tick inhabiting? And when? Some aspects speak of the eras of the guilds in medieval Europe -- others of some barren and fire-blighted sections of modern New York City or Detroit. And what about Blackie -- does the "ninth life" refer to his ninth time as a cat, or has be been human at some point in the past? What chance does Care have to make a life for herself, beyond what she needs to do for Tick?

The book's stunning finale begs a sequel, and it's good to know there's one in the works. I'll be watching in particular to see whether THE NINTH LIFE trickles out of the adult (and cat-centered) categories, toward the young-adult dystopian fanatical readers, who'll recognize something from other worlds and other despairs in these pages.

This isn't an easy book to read. It has the rough edges of a deliberately coarse narrative, and the darkness of an "Oliver Twist." I had moments when I objected to being held in prolonged suspense, and wanted more assurance of loyalty and growth. But this sensation seemed also to fit with the nightmare of homelessness that Simon evokes, and most of the time, I accepted it as the price for a very new kind of crime fiction.

I'm looking forward to the next in this new series -- from Severn House, bringing out an American edition, which almost guarantees a modest print run and the need for collectors to get quickly into action. Don't miss the chance.

[PS - Simon is releasing two books on the same date. Please check the adjacent review here.]

Mysteries for Kids, Fresh, New, Exciting (Shelley Tougas, Kekla Magoon)

Have you noticed who talks about the Nancy Drew books? Yes, I'm afraid so -- it's the 50+ crowd. It's not the kids, except for the ones who are reading "retro." And don't even ask about the Bobbsey Twins. The Hardy Boys? Those are on those cute mugs and T-shirts you can buy online for older co-workers.

But there are fresh new mysteries this season that are so good, there's no need to mourn the old character series. And adult readers have the fun of purchasing these "for the kids" and indulging in going cover to cover themselves, rapidly, before wrapping the gifts.

Take FINDERS KEEPERS by Shelley Tougas, for starters. This is a "middle grades" mystery -- the protagonists are ages 10 and 11, and kids usually "read ahead" by at least a year, so 9-year-olds are headed for this book. Tougas, a Wisconsin author, knows her age range well, and spins an adventure that has to do with the family summer cabin being put up for sale in the tough economy, so that Christa is facing the horrible possibility of no trees to climb, no lake to swim in -- and an endless series of summer crafts workshops that her teacher parents will sign her up for. Ugh!

Christa's biggest talent is her imagination. She can turn create a gold-panning adventure out of simple kitchen tools and a few other items, and new neighbor Alex Clark, just a year older, has parallel skills. But it's Alex's grumpy Grandpa -- soon to be the official "babysitter" for Christa, too -- who provides the real excitement, because his mother (long ago) might have held -- and hidden! -- a treasure trove of cash belonging to gangster Al Capone.

Tougas nimbly escorts the kids through figuring out who Capone was and why his money would be scary. If you find it, can you keep it -- to rescue your family's summer? Or is it cursed and would it ruin your life? Who else is looking for it? Escapades multiply, and even adults helping younger kids read this will be surprised by some of the twists and turns. It's fun! (Check the author website for her other middle-grades mystery, too.)

Closer to adult level in terms of ethical choices and dangers is SHADOWS OF SHERWOOD by Kekla Magoon. This is the first "Robyn Hoodlum Adventure" and it's a doozy. Robyn, with her light-brown skin and braided kinky hair, fits in well in her neighborhood of Nott City, where her parents are important politically, and of "opposite" heritage -- one dark, one light. But when the greedy governor of the region sends his henchmen (henchwomen?) to lock up all the people capable of resisting him, Robyn escapes the net and connects with the rebels of nearby Sherwood.

Adult readers, and many younger ones, will realize right away that this is a play on the old tale of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, but the path that our Robyn takes out of her comfortable life and into exile -- most wanted fugitive! -- is unexpected and suspenseful. Plus there's a generous dash of mythology involved, with the "old" myths of the moon having some influence on what's open to Robyn -- and to how she'll manage without her parents.

A few times, I felt like Magoon missed a moment when things could have been tougher or sadder; Robyn's new friends call her "mean" a couple of times, with reason, and I would have liked to see Robyn struggle and grow more around that issue. (I'm a fan of Peter Abraham's insistence that the author's job is to make things harder on the protagonist.) But by dodging that kind of pain, Magoon keeps the story at a more general level, far removed from the risks and losses of, say, The Hunger Games trilogy. Wise older people lend a hand to Robyn and her allies; youngsters come around to her side instead of betraying her; and there's a minister in training named Tucker (yes, as in Friar Tuck!) who creates a safety zone for the vulnerable child rebels.

I couldn't put it down -- the page count, admittedly with large type, short chapters, and plenty of white space, is 355, but the action is swift, the characters need hugs (and make do with an arm around each other's shoulders), and there are no distractions from the brisk forward motion. At the adult level, this would have been classified as a thriller, and thus would be in the mystery field -- for kids, though, it's more of an adventure type. The ending signals "series" very clearly. Robyn has a lot more to achieve! But the skills and insight that she's gained by the end of this very good book are going to serve her well in the missions that clearly lie ahead of her. It's going to be really, really hard to wait for the sequel! Author website here -- but as of this review date, not yet updated to SHADOWS OF SHERWOOD.

I plan to pick up multiple copies of this one. It will be a holiday gift for a couple of kids, but maybe even more highly valued by the several adults I know who are watching for the best in kids' books. No, I don't consider this YA (young adult), even though there's social chaos, political maneuvering, and such ... the issues are ethical and passionate but, at least in this first volume of the series, not heartbreaking, and there's no physical attraction to deal with between the characters. Safe to give it to that rapid-reader 9- or 10-year-old whom you appreciate; those over 13 may curl their lip at this ("too young a book!") but will enjoy sneaking into its pages anyway. Just don't tell them you noticed what they decided to read after all.

Vermont Author Don Bredes, POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD

There's a lot to discuss in terms of the new book from Vermont author Don Bredes, POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD. Fortunately, for readers who emerge from this dystopian novel eager to talk with someone about some of the pressing aspects, Bredes is hosting passionate discussions; check in at his website http://donbredes.com, and click through to the topics that burn for you.

But first you'll need to read the book (of course). It's not a mystery, yet I want to write about it here because (a) the author's local (yeah, we do that at Kingdom Books), (b) the topics embedded in the tale are hot ones, and (c) the book has been described as YA (young adult) fantasy.

Let's get to the plot: Fifteen-year-old Polly Lightfoot, a gifted "natural" witch whose magic still benefits from the words found in spells, is supposed to be hiding her talents while living with an aunt and uncle in New Florida. Her father's trying to keep her safer than she would be in their original home up where New England once was -- the area's been taken over by the post-nuclear-war forces that insist on complete Christianity, and even burn witches alive.

But living with her relatives includes obeying them and their pastor, and Polly can't do it. With the unexpected arrival of her animal familiar, the raven Balthazar, who can communicate with her directly, she's motivated to run away, head north, try to get home to where people accept her for herself.

Thus begins an epic journey through areas of environmental collapse, radiation danger, clusters of "frenemies" who will assist Polly under some conditions, then turn her in under others. It's a Pilgrim's Progress in dystopian attire, and I would toss away the "fantasy" label and replace it with "magical realism" -- parallel to Howard Frank Mosher's Walking to Gatlinburg  and Disappearances. (Not coincidentally, Mosher and Bredes are long-time friends.)

Classic analysis of genre novels -- those that submit to such genre conventions as having an ending that somehow mirrors and fulfills the opening, and a main character whose strengths and weaknesses interact with situations and eventually justify the good or sad ending -- often consider two arcs that define the book: an arc of plot, and an arc of character. Powerful novels often make the two interdependent. As a simple example (since we're talking teenaged protagonists), Harry Potter becomes courageous and moral through his choices in frightening and distressing conflicts. At one point in the noted seven-book series, the very wise wizard Albus Dumbledore shows Harry that even a mythic sort of situation can't force a person to be a particular way; it's one's choices that create the path.

Looking at POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD in these terms, the plot arc -- escaping oppression, traveling a long distance with little support, evade enemies, reaching (we hope) safety -- is straightforward, and Bredes enables its forward motion through Polly's friend on the road, Leon, as well as the short-phrased guidance of Balthazar flying ahead and above. The character arc is set in motion through Polly's age, 15: We may assume she is naive in many ways, unskilled in wilderness survival, semi-skilled in the magic that makes her a witch, and is going to deepen as a person while she remedies these "not-yet" factors of herself. Classic "YA" direction also assumes Polly will move from teenager status to something more adult, by experiencing loss, making uncomfortable decisions, and following her longing to connect with her father and her "people" in the north.

Some of this does in fact take place; there are also character changes in Polly's friend Leon that are interesting to look back on. It was intriguing to me, though, that I could have replaced Polly with an adult (say, someone in her twenties or thirties) in much of the book. In other words, the ways the plot arc and character arc connect have less to do with the drama of entering adulthood, and more to do with a determination to keep moving north, across the obstacles.

Also at play in the book is a "mission." This idea is introduced in the first chapter, when we learn that Polly's father has a mission for her to tackle in Florida, as well as wanting to keep her safe there. I felt that the mission rarely took on definition, though, as Polly showed little personal commitment to it -- just suddenly accusing herself of failing it, and at another point, being assisted to regain an item she's lost possession of, but neither moment takes up many pages or much room in her emotions. I would have liked to see the mission fleshed out more -- which may come in part from my enjoyment of the way mission and mythic are often bound together in "fantasy" genre books.

I'll be interested in following the path of this novel in the wide world; will teens read it, or will it become largely a book that adults seek out, looking for how Bredes handles the "cli-fi" theme (social collapse melding with climate collapse) and appreciating the connections also to the Salem witch trials of New England and Arthur Miller's The Crucible? For me, the book also reawakens an urge to re-read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, another grim look at where dogma and destruction can lead.

Last but not least, a word to those who may have strong religious frameworks: Don't look for them in POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD, where Christians are fanatics, and witches are mostly born that way. But do take a look at this recent New York Times blog post, which I think is worth considering in terms of how this book, and others moving into the YA field, are constructed: Childhood Heroes ... by Rachel Kadish.

Thanks, Don Bredes, for stepping forward to promote discussion of our pressing issues as a culture and as an ecosystem.  And a warm thank you to Green Writers Press, publisher, for daring to step into controversial fiction in its Vermont and national profile.

Diversion: STATION ELEVEN, Emily St. John Mandel -- Not a Mystery, but Mysterious

Mysterious and wonderful. Deeply satisfying. A book to remember and share.

Emily St. John Mandel's much-promoted novel STATION ELEVEN begins in the middle -- not just in the middle of stage, in the middle of a performance of King Lear, where actor Arthur Leander is about to die. But in the middle of the timeline of this dystopian novel. And whether the dystopia is defined by the Hollywood of our century, or the survivalist mode that follows a dramatic plague outburst upon the earth, is open to question.

But there's never a moment in the entire adventure when there's any doubt about the integrity and passion of Kirsten Raymonde, once a child actor, later a performer on the edge of the known world. And for all the desperation and violence of her new world, Kirsten's one of several people well worth liking in this tapestry of rediscovery.

Renewed. Refreshed. Bathed in an unearthly light that sings. That's where my "take a holiday" plunge into this non-mystery landed me. I am so glad.

[PS -- like graphic novels? you may be amazed at how Mandel's fictionalized one takes life in the center of this book.]

Brief Mentions: Alan Furst, Åsa Larsson, Joelle Charbonneau

Summer schedules can be downright challenging, but the graduations, birthday, and family weddings are over for now, and I have a great stack of mysteries that kept me calm on the inside while dancing through June's gentle chaos. Reviews will roll ...

But here are three titles I won't be reviewing at length this time:

1. Alan Furst, MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE. Furst's pre-World-War-II noir brings Europe in its potent darkness alive, and although technically his books are mysteries (thrillers), they separate from the crowd in two ways: First, we know the upcoming world events that will  follow the action of each book (war will break out, yeah), so the suspense resides in the smaller, personal details of lives and goodness at risk. This time the protagonist is Christián Ferrar, whose efforts in the Spanish Civil War threaten to give him the ultimate reward, as in, "No good deed goes unpunished." (I was eager to get more details of the Spanish Civil War myself ... I'd always been a bit fuzzy about it.) Second, Furst writes with the lush deliberation of a deep literary novel. The drawback for MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE is that this leads to an ending that's hesitant, sweet, but also distant from the press of the plot. Consider it a tease, perhaps, for the sequels we know are en route. Note: Furst's "sequels" are not a series in the traditional sense -- some characters occur in multiple books, but there is no need to read his others before opening up MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE. And yet ... I want each of them on my shelf.

2. Reading Scandinavian noir? You may still not know the name Åsa Larsson; she isn't at the top of the PR lists. But oh my, her books have gripped me this summer. I'm catching up -- I read Sun Storm and The Blood Spilt, and devoured The Black Path, then cruised into the most recent, Until Thy Wrath Be Past. I'm fully committed to the protagonist, lawyer and crime victim and now dogged sleuth Rebecka Martinsson. The fifth book comes to the United States in August, and I've pre-ordered my copy of The Second Deadly Sin. Most intriguing aspect (besides the character of Martinsson): discovering Swedish prejudices and ethnic groups. Mmm.

3. Joelle Charbonneau's widely awaited final book in her YA dystopian series "The Testing" is here -- GRADUATION DAY. It's a fitting finale to Malecia "Cia" Vale's investigation of the powers running her post-apocalyptic world, and distinguishes the series emphatically from its "older sister" in "The Hunger Games." I wasn't entirely happy with the percent of the book that takes place through Cia's thoughts, present tense, but I think that's more a personal taste -- and I suspect the frame is on target for many "young adult" readers who live in the intense present themselves. No major issues of sex or religion in this series -- it's all about power, personal and governmental. Cia is a reluctant leader, but once she accepts the role, the action is nonstop. More about the books at the author website: http://www.joellecharbonneau.com

New YA Fiction from Laurie Halse Anderson and Joelle Charbonneau

This is a big weekend for hearing Laurie Halse Anderson and her new book, THE IMPOSSIBLE KNIFE OF MEMORY; she'll be on National Public Radio today, and tomorrow the New York Times Book Review has comments on it from Jo Knowles, a perceptive Vermont-based author in the same field. Way to go! Commentators unfamiliar with the leap of "young adult" (YA) fiction into our culture's mainstream may focus on the age of the protagonist, Hayley Kincain, a senior in high school. But readers are onto Anderson for the sustained tension of her plots, the complexity of her characters, and the forms of courage they demonstrate. Quick summary: Hayley's dad, an Iraq/Afghanistan vet, complicates her life to such an extent that she has almost no memories of her life before this year's move "home" to the house her deceased grandmother owned. Is it even possible to have real friends, if your dad is your 24/7 care assignment and often violent? Before you brush this aside as a "teen" situation, try inverting the ages -- suppose the protagonist were the adult, trying to cope with a terrorism-damaged teen who is a threat to those around him? Yeah, this could happen to any of us, couldn't it?

Joelle Charbonneau's newest, INDEPENDENT STUDY, is book 2 in her "Testing" trilogy. If the "Hunger Games" hadn't already set such a high bar for dystopian competition, there would be a lot more attention for this new book. But even so, Charbonneau is rising rapidly on the lists, and I like 17-year-old Cia Vale -- isolated from her family, threatened by a manipulative government trying to recreate society after a nuclear and chemical war, and rapidly developing the survival skills and planning ability of a junior Jack Reacher. Courage, betrayal, and enormous impossible tasks to accomplish ... well, that's how adulthood looks from the teen years. Actually, that can be how adulthood looks from midlife, too,

Neither of these is a conventional mystery, yet each has that recognizable thriller pattern of high tension, risk, and investigation. For a venture across the genre lines into the titles that teens and adults are now sharing, I can recommend both. No need to read other Anderson books before the newest -- hers run independently -- but for the Charbonneau, the suspense will resonate more from a reading of The Testing before this new volume.