MADNESS OF THE Q, Second Sam Teagarden Political Adventure from Gray Basnight

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“If you like a book that lands you back in reality feeling relaxed and happy about what could happen to an ordinary guy tossed into deadly events, Madness of the Q is ideal. It might even get you through the holiday season, feeling like you and Sam both have it pretty good after all.”

Breaking out of genre expectations, the new international thriller from Gray Basnight features a second appearance of math professor Sam Teagarden: a happily married American who agrees without argument to step forward when his nation calls him to fly to Europe to examine an epidemic of suicide and the ancient document that may be causing it, and who, when propositioned on a cruise ship by a woman who strips her lovely body in his cabin, prefers to get out on deck and have another imagined conversation with his smart and very supportive wife.

Madness of the Q leaps from one messy political murder to the next, as a killer working for the Vatican chases Sam through Israel and across Europe. Sam’s gentle stumbling pace upgrades to a desperate race, as a second assassination threat, this time from a group called Freedom From God (FFG), targets him as well. Once upon a time a CIA code analyst, and technically called into this case by the FBI, Sam is nonetheless way out of his depth, as even the first threat to his life sets off his posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) at maximum level.

That PTSD is well earned, after what happened to Sam in Basnight’s 2018 thriller, Flight of the Fox. Sam, it turns out, is politically significant to both his nation and his world, because his analytical skills in the preceding adventure impelled him to discover, and then reveal to the world, corruption within the US government. He has become a symbol, a person who can be trusted completely. That’s why the FBI wants him to come reassure the world about the ancient document and its implications.

This newly unearthed document is Q­—that is, part of the source document for the Christian gospels. It includes a fragment that apparently is setting believers to kill themselves, and nonbelievers to try to get Sam to vouch for what’s said there.

Almost accidentally, he’s the sole survivor of a failed US government and Israeli operation that lands him with the car, spy devices, and huge wad of cash. But Sam’s no trained spy himself, despite his brief work in a CIA code team:

“He certainly had enough cash for bribery, although waving money around was not something he had much experience with. Neither was he experienced in secretly traveling around the Mideast with zealots hunting him like lions on the savanna.”

Although he can kill if forced to, Sam’s basically a nice ordinary professor who’d rather be home with his wife and students. As a result, instead of a Patterson or Le Carré global thriller, Madness of the Q feels like an updated and gender-switched version of the Mrs. Pollifax “spy mysteries” written by Dorothy Gilman in the 1960s and 1970s.

As Sam’s wife, in one of his imagined conversations with her, tells him: “Don’t overthink it. And don’t put so much faith in that silly firearm. You’re Sam Teagarden. You don’t outshoot villains. You outsmart them.”

Here’s the book’s somewhat annoying flaw: Sam doesn’t actually outsmart anyone. Even his math insights are basic to an extreme. But he does outlast the villains, by hiding, jumping, and clinging to those who want to assist him, save his life, and get him to the meeting where he can testify about the fragments of the Q. This turns out to be highly effective as a story device: Sam is such a well-meaning and honest person that the book becomes a page-turner, and while his choices repeatedly flop for lack of spy savvy, his alliances prove well chosen in protecting him and getting him to the unexpected and wryly humorous final twists of the adventure.

If you like a book that lands you back in reality feeling relaxed and happy about what could happen to an ordinary guy tossed into deadly events, Madness of the Q is ideal. It might even get you through the holiday season, feeling like you and Sam both have it pretty good after all. 

[Down & Out Books, released Dec. 14 -- a nice gift book, as well as holiday relief!]

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

LIARS' LEGACY, Taylor Stevens, Second Thriller in New Series

One big benefit of recent global events is, the favorite terrain of international thrillers—pitting Russians against Americans—is suddenly very close at hand and of great concern. Author Taylor Stevens showcased stunning martial arts knowledge and close fighting, as well as advanced weaponry, in her Vanessa Michael Munroe thrillers over the past decade. Now, in a powerful switch to a brother-sister team targeted by multiple assassination forces, Stevens lays out the ultimate conflicts on a European canvas: secrets, power, and above all, potential profits.

While siblings Jill and John (aka Jack), loyal yet often in conflict, struggle to deplane after escaping Dallas (see the prequel, Liars' Paradox), they're unaware that at least two "kill teams" are after them. A collapse in the global assassination market has followed the death of a figure called the Broker, who's kept murder-for-hire available to government agencies. Now it's time to "take out" all the freelancers who ever worked for the Broker. That means at least Jill -- and since the siblings' missing mother Clare was the Broker's final target, there are reasons for these killer contractors to have Jack on their lists, too.

LIARS' LEGACY takes the legacy the siblings have from Clare — not just combat skills but disguises, safe houses, multiple identities — and spins it into both a dangerous safety net for Jill and Jack, and a trap that keeps them seeking Clare herself in the manipulations and risks that surround them. Stevens punches the action in sharp short chapters from several points of view, and danger escalates: Fans of Jason Bourne, and even more so of Karen Robards and Karen Slaughter, will feel at home in this high-tension action thriller with its constant twists of pressure and information. Even if Jill and Jack can enlist some allies, they're overwhelmed by the numbers. Plus they can't trust their own alliance:

Jill gave him a heavy dose of side-eye. "Why would anyone come after us in the first place if they didn't already know what they were chasing?"

[Jack] didn't have an answer for that, either.

"I marked four," she said. "How many do you think we missed?"

He shrugged in noncommittal nonanswer.

There was no we here. He knew exactly how many operatives had followed him off that flight, and he also knew they weren't the only ones who'd come looking. There'd been another spotter in the waiting area — he'd made the guy right about the time he caught sight of Jill — and where there was one, there'd be others. Priorities had forced him to keep moving and trust that she'd find what needed finding and let him know the rest later.

The whole truth required quid pro quo, and she was holding out.

This second book in the new series from Stevens is much stronger than the first, which explained many connections but lacked the sustained force of risk that LIARS' LEGACY conveys. While it's always good to read a series in order, especially to appreciate the author's growth, this may mark one of the rare exception. Best advice: Leap into LIARS' LEGACY and then, more slowly, pick up the prequel and pick apart the threads.

Because for sure, in this Taylor Stevens series, every thread is going to contribute to the ongoing action and revelation of this book and the ones to follow. (Don't you hate having to wait a year between titles?!)


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

Olen Steinhauer, THE LAST TOURIST, March 2020 Release

Olen Steinhauer's penetrating anti-spy espionage book The Tourist was published in 2009; for his March 2020 title, he's chosen THE LAST TOURIST. Like his other titles, this one can be read in several vital ways -- as announcing the last in his "Tourist" books, for instance, or as a label for Milo Weaver himself, struggling stepfather and agency-organized murderer with mega regrets. The group he worked for was called the Department of Tourism, and it tackled adjusting the global balance of power, one daring and highly illegal exploit at a time.

In the opening section of THE LAST TOURIST, however, it's not Milo's point of view we're sharing, but that of the very naive CIA desk jockey Abdul Ghali. To his astonishment, this young American whose first language is a special Arab dialect is summoned from his desk to fly to North Africa and interview Milo Weaver -- someone he's never heard of. But the CIA issues Abdul a specific set of questions to ask the notorious former "Tourist," and off he goes. Even Abdul has to wonder whether he's been chosen for the task because he is, ahem, expendable.

The shock took a while to fade. The idea that the Agency considered me expendable, yes, but more than that I couldn't shake the image of Collins, tosssed against that stone wall, the way his head had lost its form. His broken body stuck with me as we drove north, into the wide black desert that had been a home to my people, but to me looked like the antithesis of home, a terrain that left nowhere to hide.

On the other hand, Milo's transformation from authorized criminal of the Department of Tourism has led to his developing a very different organization, entirely information based: The Library. And Abdul's presence is quickly enmeshed in the issues of who's gunning for The Library now, and whether the attack is survivable — for Abdul, for Milo, for the information network itself.

Steinhauer's fast-paced thriller is based squarely in "today," including the current US presidential administration. He works from two directions: the awkward moral choices and deepening of Milo himself (and incidentally Abdul, much though he hates the notion), and an outrageous proposal about the nature of our time.

In terms of Milo, here's how I described this conflicted spy-on-spies back in 2012, when the original Tourist trilogy was completed:

The trouble is, Milo Weaver, like George Smiley, is one of those people who feels "responsible." In spite of having done some terrible things, he's mostly done them when directly ordered to do so, and he's the sort of spy who'd somehow try to make things right for people he's hurt by accident. So when people he cares about are threatened, and he's the only one who can take action, he's got little choice in his moral calculus: He's got to go back undercover.

In fact, Milo in later life is far further undercover than ever ... and managing a massive information network that engages a dozen nations and uses the effort of balancing their databases as a way to damp down conflict and disaster. With his sister Alexandra, he's held the group together so far, but with his power and control come regular attacks, and the group itself is a prime source of those! So, can he (1) maneuver around the latest effort to depose him and capsize The Library, (2) avoid killing indiscriminately and preferably only murder truly bad people, and (3) save enough of his interior morality to be able to face the questions of his now 17-year-old stepdaughter honestly?

You want to know about the outrageous proposal part? Let's start with the US court decision commonly called "Citizens United" -- the one that enables private wealth to operate easily as a political force. Steinhauer, through Milo's very uncomfortable multinational (and very risky) discovery process, paints the entire global power structure as transformed into a balance of profit: Corporations, especially information ones (such as a thinly disguised Facebook-cum-Snapchat), can overwhelm and overrule, and the Big Decisions are now made to favor their increasing wealth and power. Milo's catching on:

Bad days in America and always, the cloud that hung over all human endeavor: climate change. As world temperatures crept steadily upward, people remained resolutely distracted by the crimes humans committed against each other. Everyone was dancing to the wrong tune, and dancing toward a cliff.

Later, Milo will try to explain this to Abdul, a perfect foil in such naive ignorance:

"Look we got it wrong, and we kept getting it wrong. All of us. Afer 1990, we thought history as we knew it was over. The last big competing superpower had imploded, leaving only the US to oversee the final move into a liberal democratic world order. Not everyone agreed. ... Factionalism. So we all started adjusting our policies to deal with this. But history kept shifting. Russia and China rose and Europe began to fracture, which brought us back to the start: Superpowers were back. ... Money ignores borders. Corporations are the new nation-states."

Although there seem to be quite a few lectures to Abdul (and Milo's lectures to himself), the action is swift and suspenseful, with abundant firearms, explosions, and chases. (I'm on board for the film versions, just let me know when, Mr. Clooney.)

How Milo will resolve the dangerous refocusing around him and whether he and his family can survive it without further deaths or deep wounds -- moral or physical -- is in doubt all the way through. Brace for an ending that clearly concludes the Tourist espionage books. The author never gave you any other expectation, right? But is it also the end of the world, as we know it?

And who are we more similar to: Milo? His sister Alexandra? Or ... Abdul?

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

Corruption in the Oil Industry and Land Deals Speeds Paul E. Hardisty's Thrillers to the Top

Things keep changing in the global publishing arena. Orenda Books is a relatively new British publisher, carried in the US by Trafalgar Square Publishing at the Independent Publishers Group. When a copy of Paul E. Hardisty's second thriller, THE EVOLUTION OF FEAR, came my way via IPG, the distributor noted that Hardisty's first novel, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, climbed onto the Crime Writers Association (CWA) charts right away: short-listed for the 2015 John Creasey "New Blood" dagger.

So of course, I picked up the first book, first.

Here's the situation as The Abrupt Physics of Dying opens: Claymore Straker's been working as an oil company engineer for a company of questionable ethics, in Yemen. His job is to conduct surveys of oil locations, present and future, and collect the test results for the company, while at the same time assuring the local people that the company only means to bring them good things: money, schools, a hospital even. He's been lying for his clients for so long that it doesn't bother him much.

But he has a vulnerability: He cares about his local driver and close friend Abdulkader. When a rebel leader named Al Shams captures Clay and Abdulkader, there's only one deal on the table: Clay must visit more of the sites being poisoned, take samples that prove it's from the oil operations, and get that information to the company leadership with a message from Al Shams: "All that is within this land is a gift from God to those who have lived here since before the prophet." Abdulkader's life depends on Clay completing this mission by a deadline that Al Shams sets:

"My people are dying. Your oil is killing them. What you must ask yourself, Mister Claymore, is if you care. ... I am giving you an opportunity, my friend, to find what you have lost."

But the oil company's corrupt -- well, Clay knew that, in a way -- and although its environmental effects are actually far worse than Clay realized, his efforts to make the leadership listen fall on deaf ears. Receiving Abdulkadar's severed hand in a package confirms that the deadline was intended, real, and fierce.

But that doesn't stop Clay's awakened conscience from driving him to fight for the Yemeni people, now that he's reawakened to caring about the land and the individuals. In The Abrupt Physics of Dying, his math and science skills are of little avail when he finds he's on the wrong side of both Yemen's secret service and the CIA.

The book's bloody and fearsome ending reshapes Clay Straker into an international race to escape being framed, in THE EVOLUTION OF FEAR. There's a woman he's begun to care about also, across barriers of ethnicity, religion, and motives. This time, it's not just the CIA on his tail: The Russian mafia, Greek Cypriots, and Turkish land developers have surrounded the woman in her role as a powerful journalist, and once again, Clay's struggling to free someone he cares about from a hostage situation. Even if he succeeds, will she accept him as lover and friend -- or push him away, symbol of the oppressive money forces operating around her. What must he give up, to maintain Rania's safety and his own sense of integrity? He struggles to understand:

"Justice isn't an event, she'd said. It isn't something you do once. There is no end to it. Forgiveness, you earn."

I have complete confidence that Paul E. Hardisty -- whose bio is outrageously interesting and laced with risk -- will carry this series forward. Consider me eagerly waiting for the next Clay Straker adventure, with its suspense and moral conflicts, as well as highly memorable characters and situations. Good stuff.

Yes, these deserve reading in sequence. Both are available via the usual sources, thanks to Trafalgar's adept US distribution.

Brief Mention: VANISHING GAMES, Roger Hobbs

In 2013 Roger Hobbs won the prestigious CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for his debut thriller, Ghostman. An acknowledged master of suspense, Hobbs positioned the criminally skilled Jack -- gambling under the name "Jacques Fisher" in an Oregon casino as VANISHING GAMES opens -- within a dark underworld rooted in Macau and Hong Kong. In this second book, Jack's "jugmarker" (the person who plans and directs a serious criminal caper) needs him to come back to the region, this time operating in the South China Sea. It's been years, and Jack and Angela, each a superb performer with appearance shifts and high-tech protection, have changed so much that they might not have known each other if they'd passed in an airport.

Very few people know how to contact Jack. But Angela still can, and does, when a standard heist of gemstones goes seriously awry and her life and operations are under extreme threat.

I had not read Ghostman before this second book, and I enjoyed the swift action and insight (imagined? real??) into a world of international jewel theft. Hobbs doesn't yet paint depth of character successfully, but his maneuvers, twists, and discoveries make for a page-turning read (with a lot of gore), and Jack and Angela's collaboration has long-term possibilities. I prefer more layers in my protagonists, but I'm willing to keep following this series on the assumption that Hobbs will deepen as he keeps writing.

I just wish I knew someone who could verify for me that the global thievery networks do operate the way Hobbs shows them. No, actually, on second thought, I'm relieved that I don't know anyone caught up in so much violence. I'd rather read about it, and hope it's uncommon in real life.

For VANISHING GAMES, thank goodness, we're not going to meet the ghostman, or the jugmarker, living down the street. This is hard-boiled crime writing at its most forceful; don't expect any happy endings or intervals to last!

Philippine Crime Fiction, SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES, F. H. Batacan

A story within a story -- a no-holds-barred dark police procedural with brutal crimes and a very twisted criminal, and at the same time a remarkable publishing success created by two astounding women. Yes, that's the new crime novel SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES from F. H. Batacan, whose work in a Philippine intelligence agency fueled the passions that feed this compelling work of suspense and salvation.

In an author interview provided by publisher Soho Crime, Batacan confirms grimly that injustice hasn't changed in more than a decade in her homeland. "The poor and disadvantaged have little hope of justice or redress of grievance, the politicians and lawmakers are still happily raiding the public coffers, and crimes go unsolved and unpunished by the thousands."

But seeing that situation through the eyes of a forensic researcher and a psychologist who happen to be Jesuit priests, Father Gus Saenz and Father Jerome Lucero, cuts more deeply than the plain statistics. Soon after SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES opens, both men face the frustration of knowing another Philippine priest, at a higher level, still has access to children, even though he's a known molester and abuser. At the same time, they're caught up in investigating the gruesomely murdered bodies of children at the edge of society, from families so poor than the children's dump scavenging has to provide food and scant income.

The friendship between Saenz and Jerome is deep and complex -- the older man, Father Gus Saenz, was mentor to the younger, but Father Jerome is no longer a schoolboy, and his insights into criminal behavior the the adult consequences of child abuse are invaluable to Saenz. Still, neither of them realized how desperate the poverty around them could be, until they heard from one dead child's father, telling them how bad life's been, with one parent ill (lung condition) and the other an ex-convict:

"We depended on [the child's] earnings to get by. Often, he would bring food from the dump."

Saenz's eyes widened. "From the dump?"

"If he couldn't find metal or wood or paper to sell, he would look for food -- anything thrown away that could still be used. If it was too spoiled or rotten, he would mix it together for pig slop and sell it. If there were scraps that could still be eaten, he would bring them home. Vegetables, fruit. Moldy bread. Animal fat, animal skin. Bones to make soup." ...

Saenz isn't naive; he's always known that this is the sort of existence that the country's poorest live from day to day. But to hear about it firsthand, told with such apathy and resignation, is a different thing altogether.

But is someone harvesting organs from the fragile children of the mountains of trash? Or re-enacting a horrible abuse on the small bodies?

The warm and direct friendship of the two Jesuit priests, the snippets of revelation from the criminal, and the self-justifications of the empowered all weave together into an intriguing and well-paced book that I couldn't put down. The title is from the perpetrator's perception of the investigators: "I can feel them. Scurrying in circles around me, smaller and smaller circles like rats around a crust of bread or a piece of cheese. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. The moment when I slip up, when I make a mistake, when I get careless. ... The priest knows. He's coming for me."

In fact, the writing is so smooth, the story so well plotted and well knit, that it's hard to believe the tale of this book's discovery: After Batacan won a prestigious prize in the Philippines for a much shorter manuscript, a mere 40,000 words long (about 150 pages), Soho editor Juliet Grames overlooked it once, then happened to read it, at the same time when the author was read to expand it. "I realized the novel was rich with atmosphere and heroism, and simultaneously darkly noir and glimmering with faith in the better aspects of human nature," Grames reported.

Batacan's decision to expand the story to the full length of a Soho Crime novel succeeded so well that the book might have come this way from the start: well rounded, and uplifting, in spite of the grim brutality it portrays.

It's good to know that Batacan plans to give us more of these two investigating Jesuits. Their triumphs may not gain full justice in a land where so much is politically impossible -- but they have each other's back, and they know what they're called to do, and who is calling them to action.

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!

New Today from Taylor Stevens: THE CATCH

About twice a year I wish I lived near Texas ... and now is one of those times. Not for the climate, or the urban traffic, but for the presence of Taylor Stevens, talking with readers at her release events this week for THE CATCH, the fourth in the grimly satisfying suspense series that features Vanessa Michael Munroe -- better known simply as Munroe, for good reasons.

Lacking the Texas journey, I'll settle for re-reading THE CATCH. An advance copy arrived here a couple of months ago, and it was really hard to wait until the release month, so I gave in and devoured the book early ... and it's stayed with me ever since.

Munroe became an iconic character as of book 1 in the series, The Informationist. A multilingual expert in digesting information at a level that's of value to big corporations and syndicates, Munroe is also the product of an extremely abusive childhood, one that's given her good reason to prefer the anonymity of dressing like a slender young man, and made her -- for survival's sake -- highly proficient in martial arts and out-thinking very smart criminals and syndicates.

But books 2 and 3, The Innocent and The Doll, have further wounded, even crippled, Munroe emotionally, and at the opening of THE CATCH she's hiding in male guise, working for a small maritime security company in Djibouti, Africa, with a relatively simple commercial job to do. If she'd applied her brilliance to her own life -- granted, hard for any of us to do -- she might have realized the respite would be temporary. Events quickly overwhelm her best intentions, as her boss forces her into armed guard work on a ship bound for Kenya ... via the Somalian coast.

Following Taylor Stevens into the dark and violent menace of Somalian high-seas piracy is an exhilarating journey into today's "darkest Africa," where poverty and greed and vast chasms of opportunity create the ultimate criminal wonderland. Munroe's quick conclusion that a highjacking of the ship she's guarding isn't what it seems leads her to escape with a hostage, the ship's putative captain. But she's seriously wounded, unable to defend herself and her hostage with her usual skills, and even her quick linguistic gifts send her into increasing danger.

When Munroe finds an information broker who may be able to help her crack the multiple shells of criminal plans surrounding her ship's highjacking, she's inwardly elated but must stay in grim persona, driving a bargain for what she needs with this Somali hawaladar, broker of information and money:

"Not CIA?" he said.

She shook her head.

"What agency then?"

"None," she said. "Just an individual."

"With money to spare, and you speak my language."

She nodded.

"There's no way to guarantee you're telling the truth?"

"None," she said. "But I don't want anything from you that might incriminate you."

He shifted forward again, deeper against the desk than he had before, so that his face was closer to hers, his expression clouded with mistrust and accusation. "If there are no demands for ransom and the ship disappeared, where does your information come from? How do you know a ship was hijacked?"

"I was on it," she said. ... "If the hijacking was paid for by Somali money, then tell me nothing, return me half the money, and I'll be on my way. If it was foreign investment, then I only ask that you give me whatever rumors are passing through on the wind, and the payment is yours."

It's not that simple, of course, and Munroe's adaptations to being wounded and ill make her in some ways more like "the rest of us" for this adventure -- more vulnerable, more at risk, more dependent on friendship. Except ... her emotional wounds have cut her off from the very people she most trusts and needs, the ones who've worked with her and care about her, even if they don't always understand her. And in the midst of trying to stay alive and resolve the crimes and free up the people for whom she has taken responsibility, Munroe also needs to resolve her relationship with her past -- and future.

I'm grateful that I could stay in the cool green safety of the Vermont hills to read this one, even though I'd love to hear Stevens talk about her research in person (she often does so online; best bet is her Facebook feed, where she shares links to some of her appearances). Today's Somalian piracy and the intricacies of Muslim life in Africa also intrigue me, so I like finding them in THE CATCH. Most of all, though, it's Munroe I enjoy and want more of: a wounded superhero of a woman, caught up in international intrigue, struggling for breathing space and for the capacity to trust.

Now in Softcover: THE INNOCENT, from Taylor Stevens

I recommend the technologically sophisticated, globally based thrillers by Taylor Stevens pretty often: The Informationist, and The Innocent. Both feature Vanessa Michael Munroe, a consultant whose past gives her invaluable insight that adds to her tech-savvy corporate analyses of terrible situations. The first is set in Africa, and the second in Argentina.

So here's a quick heads-up: The Informationist just came out a couple of weeks ago in softcover. I'll put the cover art here, in case you're browsing a real shelf of books. Crown Publishing/Ballantine sent us a copy; now we've got the usual book-lover dilemma: keep it on our own shelf next to the hardcover, or ... put it in the shop and let someone else have a chance to read it?