Crime Fiction, or Science Fiction? Eric Rickstad's REMOTE: THE FIVE (The Remote Series Book 2)

It's rare that a publisher and author can dance their calendars so well that book 2 in a series is published before you've lost the stinging memories of book 1 -- but Eric Rickstad and Blackstone Publishing have made it work, just in time for some properly creepy summer reading.

Book 1 in the series, called Remote: The Six, released on April 8; this week, book 2, REMOTE: THE FIVE, is available. Although it's an author's job to give enough scaffolding so you can jump into a later book in a series and not feel lost, the double premises behind Rickstad's plotting mean you'll appreciate this new volume more if you've read the first one; I'll paste that review below, since the publication where it appeared abruptly vanished this spring (alas).

Premise 1: Serial killings of entire families are taking place, with FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark assigned to identify the murderer and stop him. Means and opportunity aren't hard to pull together, but motive depends on this next part --

Premise 2: Gilles Garnier, also known as X, is one of six people raised with a new-to-humans ability: They can "remote view," that is, see and hear what's happening in some other location. The killings are his part of his psychotic effort to find or create other remote viewers.

 Hold on -- before you discard the notion as too far from reality, bear in mind that the author's "discussion topics" from the first book reveal that he's based this on a CIA research program, historically real. He's clearly spent major effort on the FBI procedures involved in Agent Stark's efforts, too. In effect, Rickstad is shifting a dark crime novel just a bit further along into what the future could bring -- so in that sense, park this book in the "dystopian" genre, too. And who isn't grimly interested in dystopian fiction just now, in an effort to understand what's going on in our scary global situations??

As REMOTE: THE FIVE opens, it seems another of the remote viewers, S, is turning to murder: 

This woman, suspected of the murders of two MIT researchers in the field of bioengineering and genome modification, had the same strange scar on the back of her neck that Garnier and Q had. This woman whom Garnier suspected of being manipulated by the program, as was Q, into murdering a list of individuals in the hope of maintaining or strengthening their fading remote-viewing abilities. Of course, it might really have been only a test by the program to see how far the two would go to maintain their ability—to determine how strong their addiction to that power really was. 

There's that dystopian note: "addiction to power."

Stark and Garnier head in separate directions, each pursuing a persistent hunch about the ongoing murders. The FBI agent has his own twist: He seems unable to let go of pursing the case, even when his own wife and small child are in enormous danger. And Garnier appears to be dying. So, will the case be solved before Garnier can't even walk and wake, or before Stark carries his own trauma from childhood into another generation?

If you like all threads neatly tidied by the end of a book, don't try this one -- there are quite a few strands left dangling at the end, and there's little resolution of the threats that seem only to deepen. But for those hooked on the estrangement and bitterness of noir (or related dystopia), this is a prime candidate for book of the summer. Of course, the sequence of titles and the rough-edged ending to REMOTE: THE FIVE make it clear there are more books ahead in the series, so it's understandable that threads dangle. Rickstad has left more of them unresolved than is usual, so book 3 will need to carry a lot of power.

Let's see how soon the next book will come to the shelves!

 

BOOK 1 review, originally published in the New York Journal of Books:

Remote: The Six, The Remote Series Book 1 by Eric Rickstad 

Kudos to Blackstone for opting to release both of the first two books in Eric Rickstad’s new Remote Series within the same year: book 1 now, and book 2 in July. The suspense raised by this new thriller, Remote: The Six, could otherwise be close to unbearable—because Rickstad is a master of suspense and quickly ramps up both tension and personal threat for FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark. On the road, constantly falling behind the attacks of a brutal serial killer, Stark is all too aware that this man is deliberately assaulting families. Like his own, his wife and eight-year-old son, whom he hasn’t seen in literally months, thanks to his job.

 

Stark appears to be mostly a lone hunter, with support from forensic teams wherever he lands to assess the latest deaths. “The FBI had not been brought in until the third murdered family … made it clear through MO—victims bound to chairs, wife’s throat cut, father and children bludgeoned—that there was likely a single killer working across state lines.” So he’s doing his own assessments, asking creative questions, probing behavioral and psychological patterns. Rickstad doesn’t hold back on the twists from the start: Just a few pages in, Stark reflects that he knows “all too well the bloody fingerprint a father’s violence left on a son’s soul.”

 

So in many ways, Stark’s solo hunting for the serial killer is a perfect fit for his own damaged self. Alas, he’s got less than one chapter of the book to hunt that way, as his superior, an FBI Special Agent in Charge, arrives without warning on the latest crime scene, with a very strange civilian in tow. Stark is expected to take on as a partner this peculiar and intrusive man, who reminds him of “a secretary bird, which takes flight only when pressed by imminent danger.”

 

Yet this is also the moment when Rickstad’s ground-shaking crime novel crosses over into speculative fiction (what used to be only called sci fi), because Gilles Garnier has his own way of searching for the perpetrator: something called remote viewing, which lets him see what someone else is looking at.

 

Stark’s very unhappy with the notion, which reminds him of course of all the fraudulent or at best useless psychics he’s already seen in action. Rickstad then cleverly braids together several long processes: of Stark revealing only to himself his own internal damage, of the frustrations of the serial killer, and of Gilles Garnier confessing what he’s actually doing, and how he’s gained the capacity to do it. (For those who hate crawling inside the minds of gruesome killers and their terrified victims, this book’s a good thriller for you, because those aspects don’t take up a lot of the narrative.) The pacing is impressive, the dialogue and twists highly satisfying, and by the time Stark himself is unraveling, it’s all too clear why.

 

Equally intriguing is Stark’s own theory of the killer, which involves a biochemical form of addiction to arousal. He’s aware that the theory makes him an outsider, and even Gilles Garnier agrees it will put off the other professionals: “Addiction implies a lack of free will, of personal responsibility.” But might this be the case anyway?

 

This is indeed book 1, so there are a couple of scary dangling threads at the end. (Not long to wait until they’re back in play, with July 8 the predicted release date for book 2, Remote: The Five.) But Rickstad also offers some startling information in his promotional “discussion topics,” which include the presence of historically real serial killers in his home state, and a CIA research program, also historically real, on remote viewing. Maybe the sci-fi side of the book is actually a view into something scary and very possible, after all.

 

 

Sixth Jeremy Logan Speculative Crime Fiction from Lincoln Child, CHRYSALIS

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Fans of this series will enjoy the extended romp with Logan and his demands for revelation; newcomers can relax into Lincoln Child’s lively narrative.”

It’s not unusual for crime suspense to incorporate cutting-edge technology—from DNA to facial recognition to global databases, many a novel has hung its plot on a radical change that hasn’t quite come into real use. In Chrysalis, the sixth Jeremy Logan thriller, Lincoln Child pushes this cutting edge into a whole new dimension, as he spins together media, medicine, and moguls. Buckle in, because the warp speed of this ticking-clock plot gives no relaxing interludes.

Jeremy Logan isn’t a conventional crime solver. He’s an enigmalogist, a nearly psychic investigator of inexplicable phenomena. His ability to make unexpected connections in data, including among human motivations, makes him particularly valuable.

So when Chrysalis, a technology and advanced science company embedded in its own city-like compound in western New England, falls victim to a blackmailer and significant individuals among the company’s projects suddenly die, the pressure’s on Jeremy to move swiftly. Even aided by Chrysalis’s own outstanding virtual reality, it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to outmaneuver the demand for a billion dollars in cryptocurrency. Because if the blackmailer’s not paid, thousands more lives and the company’s entire future are at stake.

But payment alone couldn’t persuade Logan to immerse himself and risk his life on such a mission. It’s who’s asking him—a living phantom of entrepreneurship, John Christie IV himself, who tells Logan, “The work being done here is precious. It’s the future of technology—the future of man. We have our own people looking into this tragedy, but the time element is critical. … You’re the only person in the world I felt comfortable contacting. You’re our Hail Mary, Jeremy. You’re our just in case.”

The pressure to solve both the technical and the human forces arrayed against the company is enormous, and Child maintains the race against time for all of Logan’s efforts. That said, there’s little room for character development, and as the mechanics of the threat are gradually unraveled, they lead to a shorter fuse and more compressed action. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the ending falls a bit flat—nobody’s sacrificed anything of value (other than a couple of quickly ended lives) and there’s no growth or deep resolution that will light up a reader’s energies afterward. Yet Child is adept at tying together all his threads by the finale, with a neat and not expected solution.

Watch for quirky scraps of humor, like the moment when the “Alexa” figure in the programming absorbs Jeremy Logan’s orders quickly so he can take action. As he rises, he tells the voice of the software, “Grace, you’re a peach.” Her reply: “No, Jeremy. I am a virtual assistant.”

Fans of this series will enjoy the extended romp with Logan and his demands for revelation; newcomers can relax into Lincoln Child’s lively narrative and marvel at how a little stretch of current technology can create a scary world of possibilities.

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

"Neo-Noir Procedural" Crime Fiction: MIDNIGHT, WATER CITY by Chris McKinney

This year's most remarkable crime fiction may be Chris McKinney's July 13 release, MIDNIGHT, WATER CITY. Take a hard-boiled detective novel, with all its bitterness and grim assessment of the human race -- and knock it 80 years into our future, when a strike from a major asteroid is averted just in time to save what remains of Earth.

 But that's not the heart of the book, or it wouldn't be such a good read. 

The protagonist tells the story, and remains simply "I" throughout -- a man who's reinvented himself too many times, with wives and children gone, and a current wife and small daughter he adores. But his career hasn't shifted much: Long ago he was head of security for the world's most important and heroic scientist, Akira Kimura, who saved the planet from that asteroid. Then he became a police detective. And as MIDNIGHT, WATER CITY opens, Akira has called him back, because she feels under threat.

Unfortunately, it's too late. And as Akira's life, science, and secrets unfold, the criminal behind her murder becomes painfully obvious: a family member who's determined to out-think her, out-class her, out-live her ... and even take on the deification that the culture has given to the amazing astronomer and politically savvy women who saved the world.

The book's also an environmental morality tale, plus a crushing accusation of a culture that's increasingly divided between haves and have-nots, or Less Thans. What saves it from becoming another Gulliver's Travels or similar bitter satire is the tender loyalty that the protagonist displays despite his despair:

Some people would say that using the word "security" for what I did for Akira is a stretch. But it's what I did. I kept her safe by any means necessary. That instinct hasn't faded ... people on all levels tried to take her down. I silenced them all. Aching joints now, perhaps the loss of a step, but when I'm in mode, I know I've got a power bomb or two left in me.

But it's been ages since I had to be in mode. Decades. I get to the telescope door and let its scanner flash over my face. Even after all these years, it recognizes me and opens, and for some reason, I'm surprised. Not that I still have clearance, but that the machine even recognizes me. Because the older I get, the less recognizable I am to myself.

This protagonist has some special abilities of his own, and he's relied on them to direct his ethical compass during a lifetime of protecting Akira. But when he begins to realize the real crimes that are emerging from his past, and hers, even his strengths are tainted, and the classic hard-boiled formula of a wounded detective unable to save himself seems about to take over.

McKinney tosses some stunning twists into this, though, and crime readers may find this book's play of betrayal and discovery to be a haunting futuristic version of the best crime fiction of the past.

Released by Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press.

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

Is This Our Future? AGENCY from William Gibson

[originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“As for all really important worldmaking, the key to the power of Agency is not the imaginative twists of computers, software, or politics, but what people do for the sake of those they care about, and those who care about them. Even if the one caring is clearly a piece of software. ”

For suspense readers, “agency” is shorthand for the CIA. But Agency in William Gibson’s speculative creation goes far beyond an intense, suspenseful thriller—it’s the intro to a new world, one in which crime and criminals, whether government-hired or corporate or “mob,” test the boundaries of how to shape the future. And maybe even the past.

The book begins simply enough: A software tester, better known these days as a beta tester, takes on an assignment for a San Francisco-area company, after a couple of years of unemployment. Verity Jane (Jane’s her last name) believes the parent company is “in gaming.”

But when Verity powers up the augmented reality (AR) set she’s taken home to test, it—or she, Eunice—clearly has capacities well beyond the expected. In fact, Verity’s first notable action is to ditch the AR gear and retreat to the bathroom, to make a private call to the CEO who’d hired her. “‘Is this for real? … Just tell me there’s not someone somewhere doing Eunice, for my benefit?’”

The moment that Verity starts digging in to test Eunice’s capabilities for herself, readers leap from the West Coast to somewhere in Britain. The second chapter of the book actually springs farther than that in terms of worldmaking, though: Detective Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer, striding along beside a freelance investigator she’s pulling back onto a case, is reflecting on the terminology for chunks of the past, called “stubs,” that people in her system are able to initiate. Except they’re more like branches, pieces of continuity forking away from the recorded past, to expose potential futures where government and society may vary radically.

Inevitably, these two strands of narrative meet, and swiftly. Government in the future insists on seeking out Eunice’s origins and intent, although it will be a long time in the lives of all the protagonists before the British manipulations begin to make sense and have effects, positive or negative. At least at first, it seems Verity Jane is in a kinder, better world than DI Lowbeer and her hired hand, Nethercott. Eunice, who identifies as African American, claims to be eight hours old. In turn, Verity’s thirty-three.

“‘Jesus year,’ said Eunice, ‘thirty-three.’

‘You religious?’

‘It just means time to get your shit together.’

There was a looseness to this beyond [Verity’s] experience of chatbots, but a wariness as well.”

Soon Verity and Eunice move beyond talking about movies and apps, and Verity’s reputation as an “app whisperer” turns out to hide a deep and intelligent loneliness that Eunice mitigates. Can we say that Verity matters to Eunice, just because Eunice makes sure Verity gets the breakfast she needs, or finds important items already packed when it’s time to run? Without Verity—and there’s clearly no frivolousness in Gibson’s choice of this name—can Eunice achieve what she/it intends to? How much will the British interfere, and if there’s really a risk of nuclear war behind all of this, will Eunice’s existence affect that risk? Can the British team affect it?

As for all really important worldmaking, the key to the power of Agency is not the imaginative twists of computers, software, or politics, but what people do for the sake of those they care about, and those who care about them. Even if the one caring is clearly a piece of software.

And that title, Agency? Here’s the first definition from one dictionary: “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” Much like Gibson’s world-shaping debut novel Neuromancer (1984), Agency points with creative and incisive interest toward the choices that portend. We’ll be fortunate if the human journey of non-artificial reality gives us artificial intelligence as significant and generous as Eunice—with worldmaking agency to follow. 

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

Provocative and Entertaining Dystopian Novel: EARLY RISER from Jasper Fforde

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

Taking Early Riser into the summer reading stack will be surprisingly refreshing. Even though it arrives with both love, and a shiver of foreboding.

Dystopian fiction has become a necessary aspect to our politically unsettled and climate-challenged lives, and there’s a new longing for Joseph Campbell’s heroic figures to show us how to survive with honor and preserve a thriving planet.

As Jaspar Fforde leaps into the genre, an adult level of frustration and chaos appears: Early Riser, unlike Fforde’s long series of literary spoofs, lifts its curtain on despair and death, moderated by the equivalent of Big Pharma. Charlie Worthing, a novice “winter consul” allowed to stay awake for the frigid months of the new form of winter—while most people lie in a drug-induced sleep to save energy—seeks the source of viral dreams that are infecting sleepers and the awake. For Charlie, the dreams overlap the strange things going on around him: manipulations by two sides of the culture clash, and provoked disappearances of those who might be able to object.

What makes Early Riser unforgettable, though, is not the particular form of dystopia Fforde displays, but the affection and loyalty that Charlie and some of his new acquaintances turn into effective action against pharmaceutical giant HiberTech. Even as Charlie tackles his first assignment, taking a “soul-dead” individual named Mrs Tiffen to be parted out and recycled, the small details of humanity catch at him like “stick-tights” caught walking across a field of seeding plants: “Mrs Tiffen could play the bouzouki,” he notes at the opening of the book. “Not well, and only one tune: ‘Help Yourself’ by Tom Jones.  … She and I had not exchanged an intelligent word since we met five hours before, and the reason was readily explained: Mrs Tiffen was dead, and had been for several years.”

As Charlie confronts his first wakeful winter—where a mild day is around minus forty degrees—he also notes how hard he finds it to believe that a person who can play the bouzouki is no longer a person. Alive. Loving.

Affection becomes Charlie’s own melted area. His Morphenox-twisted dreams and the viral psychopathy infusing the people he meets mingle with an artifical affair he’s been dragged into—the highly attractive (but crazy?) Birgitta needs him to pretend to adore her. “‘The best relationships always begin like a bad rom-com in my experience. I’ll find a tartan travel rug and a picnic set for the Sno-Trac,’ she added, now quite enthused by the whole idea.”

Fforde sweeps the action forward briskly, unafraid of mythologizing as he goes along, complete with Villains with a capital V. He conflates Winter with the possibility of global evil, so that Charlie admits, “The citizenry didn’t know or care what the Consuls did during the cold to keep them safe, they just wanted to wake alive in the Spring, same as always. For many people, the Winter didn’t really exist except in an abstract sort of way, and by consequence, neither did we.”

The book couldn’t be further from a “beach book” in its details, yet the cover catches a bit of the viral dreaming from the story and offers a beach scene (sprinkled with snow). It’s a good hint for this season: Taking Early Riser into the summer reading stack will be surprisingly refreshing. Even though it arrives with both love, and a shiver of foreboding.

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

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Political Thriller, FATE OF THE UNION, Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens

What a delight to receive a copy of this book from Matt Clemens, one of the top collaborators among today's thriller authors. In FATE OF THE UNION, second in a series that Clemens and Max Allan Collins began last year with Supreme Justice, former Secret Service agent Joe Reeder responds to the apparent suicide of a retired colleague. The opening chapter makes it clear that Chris Bryson was murdered by a very professional team, probably also based in Washington, DC, where the action unfolds. But Reeder and his quickly adopted investigation partner Patti Rogers, an FBI Special Agent, need to prove more than murder here; they need to show there's some point in opening up the case, when it would be so much more convenient, for a lot of powerful people, to leave it alone.

This series is set in the "2020s," when the authors picture an even more polarized national politics than today's. Embedding speculative politics into a DC thriller adds a fresh and provocative aspect to the writing of this team. Collins is the lead of the pair, and is best known for the Tom Hanks film based on Collins's graphic novel Road to Perdition. Clemens, in turn, is both a collaborator with Collins, and a steady support for emerging mystery authors. Their writing teamwork is well established, and develops great plot twists, clever red herrings, and strong characters that make the fast-paced ride well worth it.

The book's published by Thomas & Mercer, an Amazon imprint, so you may need to order it online rather than at your local shop. No need to read the earlier book first, but it does add some character depth to take this pair in order. Great entertainment, with a constant sense of how the book could easily become a film -- explosions, car chases, and conflict. And, oh yes, conspiracy. LOTS of it. A good fast-paced read for winter relaxing!

[Note: The book was released in early November, but I had to wait for Dave to finish reading it, as he called first dibs. Married life demands compromises! For extra credit, check out the author websites: Collins here, and Clemens here.]

Texas Rangers & Western Bioterrorism, STRONG LIGHT OF DAY, Jon Land

Jon Land brings us a new adventure with Caitlin Strong, a fifth-generation Texas Ranger who's still prying loose the tales of her grandfather's and father's exploits in the tough-minded law enforcers. In STRONG LIGHT OF DAY, she and her lover Cort Wesley are galvanized into action by the sudden disappearance of 30 students from Cort Wesley's son's school -- including his son. Although there's no ransom demand, what else could this be but a major kidnapping, immaculately planned?

To discover where the students are, and make a workable plan for their rescue, Strong and her team (yes, including her massive assistant Guillermo Paz, when he's not seeking paranormal advice) must probe the local wing of the Russian mob. Land deftly interweaves the conflicts of an earlier generation to show how inevitable it is that the mob would pick Strong's Lone Star State for the launch of a major bioterrorism plot.

This is a fast-paced thriller, with a bit less of the supernatural than some of the earlier ones in the series. Instead of ghostly presences, there's a major disturbance on the home front, as Cort Wesley's boys step into action, clearly the next generation getting involved. Count on a hint of Romeo and Juliet too, as Cort Wesley's family took one side of the law, Caitlin Strong's the other, at least in the past. Did their interests ever coincide? What opened the way for the current generation's intricate entanglement?

You don't need to read the others in the series before this one (this is number seven - click here for Land's blog post on how Caitlin Strong was born as his fierce and wonderful character), although some things will be clearer if you have. Pick up a copy for a fast ride with just the right amount of "it hasn't happened yet but it could" -- and plenty of lively firefights, but not much in-your-face gore. I'm a fan of the SUV combat scenes, myself!