{read: Irish thriller} Ratlines by Stuart Neville

Ireland is one of the countries that offered asylum to the Nazis after WWII, but now, just weeks before JFK is scheduled to visit, someone is killing them. Albert Ryan, a man who fought in the war and now works for Ireland's Directorate of Intelligence, is tasked with getting to the bottom of it. But what he finds is that it's not quite as simple as it seems. He gets pulled into a tangled mess of intrigue and the bodies start to pile up. Can he find a way out?

I had discovered Stuart Neville years ago with his first novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, which featured an IRA hitman who is haunted by the 12 men he killed and, once released from prison, sets out to kill those who had engineered their deaths. (That's the first of a trilogy.) This standalone didn't disappoint, and the end is especially chilling. Neville excels at creating damaged male characters who fight against right and wrong, all the while knowing that a "normal" life will always evade them and death is just around the corner.

Ratlines by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime, 2013)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: psychological thriller} Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I am coming late to the Gone Girl party, and I suspect that many of you will not like what I have to say. This was one of the most hyped books of 2012, and I couldn't wait to read it. It seemed that everywhere I turned, people were reading it, loving it, and urging me to read it. I'd read Gillian Flynn before, and while I didn't fall in love with her books, I enjoyed them. I was expecting fireworks, something that was head-and-shoulders above her previous books. What I got was more like a sparkler.

Perhaps it was the hype, and perhaps no book could have lived up to it, but I disliked Gone Girl so much during the first third of the book that I almost didn't finish it. It sat on my table as I picked up another book and then another. The eager hopefulness in Amy's diary entries, contrasted with the contempt Nick showed toward Amy in his sections, turned my stomach. Yet, eventually I made it to the second third of the book, where the POV changed. Suddenly, I was intrigued. The change of narrator was interesting. I wanted to see what would happen next, what this person had to say. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm didn't last long. The plot felt contrived (although there are a few surprises), and while I briefly enjoyed pondering the difference between sociopath and psychopath and wondering which definition better fit these characters, in the end it wasn't a book that I'd recommend. It wasn't just that I didn't like the characters; it was that they weren't interesting. Beyond a few brief moments, I didn't much care what they'd do next. While the best books I've read have characters with voices so captivating that I'd listen to them do their Saturday chores and follow them down the grocery store aisles to see what kind of pasta sauce they'd choose, neither Nick nor Amy inspired this interest in me, and the plot wasn't exciting enough to make up for it. I was glad to be done with this book.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown, 2012)
My rating: 2.5 stars

{read: bookish thriller} Dominance by Will Lavender

It's been a while since I've read a book this creepy, although the creep factor didn't kick in for me until about two-thirds of the way through. Then, though, every creak in the house sounded suspicious. Perhaps it didn't help that it was nearly midnight and my dogs kept barking for reasons unknown to me. I expected a murder to  duck into the living room at any minute, axe in hand.

Before that, though, I had a hard time getting into this plot-driven thriller that's light on character development. In this book, which alternates between a college class taught by an esteemed professor/convicted killer years ago and a present-day murder, much is made of a game called The Procedure, in which people reenact, word for word, scenes from certain books as a way to fully understand them. Think of this like role-playing games for bookish types. Yet this game, which played such a central role in the book, could have been even more powerful if it had been tied in more directly to the murders themselves. I kept waiting for this and was disappointed not to see it.

In the meantime, some of the plot devices — gathering all of the former students into one house, for example — seemed contrived. The last page, however, made up for the shortcomings in plot and character earlier in the book.

Dominance by Will Lavender (Simon and Schuster, 2011)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: Danish thriller} The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I was eagerly anticipating The Absent One after enjoying the first one in the Department Q series, The Keeper of Lost Causes, and it made my fall TBR list. While it was enjoyable, it wasn't the pageturner that I was anticipating. I felt like I was plodding through it, waiting for the action to pick up.

Carl, the new head of Department Q, returns from vacation to find that a case with a conviction has landed on his desk. This is odd because Department Q, located in the basement, was created to investigate cold cases, not ones that were already solved. But the more he and his trusty sidekick Assad investigate, the more they realize that all is not as it seems. On the personal side, Carl has his own problems to contend with — a shooting that left one of his colleagues dead and the other paralyzed from the neck down, and for which he feels guilty. To add more drama, Carl and Assad get a new colleague, Rose, who has feminist views, and Carl begins to realize that Assad has a complex past.

One complaint I had about this book, in addition to its pacing, is that a female character, Kimmie, is motivated by a vicious gang rape in her past.  This is a predictable plot device, and I expected more from Adler-Olsen.

All of that being said, I'll still read the next one in this series when it gets translated.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton Adult, 2012)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: psychological drama} Broken Harbor by Tana French

Broken Harbor is much more than a standard police procedural. It is at once a complex psychological drama, as well as an exploration of the impact of economic recessions and mental illness on families already struggling to stay afloat. This is a book you won't want to put down.

Scorcher Kennedy and his rookie partner, Richie, are called to investigate the murder of a husband and two children that left the wife/mother in intensive care. Scorcher is looking for an easy arrest on a high-publicity case to put his career back on track, and Richie wants to solve his first murder. But, of course, there are wrinkles and twists to what should have been a run-of-the-mill investigation. The baby cameras. The holes in the walls. What was going on in this house?

Coincidentally, the nearly deserted housing development where the house is located is also the spot where Scorcher and his family used to go on vacation when he was a boy — and it was the scene of his family's great tragedy. Despite his best efforts, echoes of his past bubble up into his present, starting with his sister, Dina, who is both beautiful and crazy. As he says, "Various therapists and psychiatrists have diagnosed various things along the way, but what it comes down to is that Dina is no good at life. It takes a knack that she's never quite got hold of. She can fake it for months at a stretch, sometimes even a year, but it takes concentration like she's tightrope walking, and in the end she always wobbles and goes flying."

French skimps on neither plot nor character development. Even the supporting characters in this book, like the Grogans who live down the street from the murdered family, are well-drawn and three-dimensional. She creates characters in which we recognize something of ourselves as we watch Scorcher identify with them, whether he wants to or not. Then his own life starts to fall apart, and he questions the things he always believed to be true about himself.

Although Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is the hit psychological thriller that everyone's talking about,  I'd recommend Broken Harbor instead. Gone Girl contains some surprises, but the plot felt contrived and even predictable in places, and Flynn's characters seemed two-dimensional. In contrast, French peels away the layers of her characters and lays them bare before us, exposing their motivations and showing us how easily things can go wrong, one small step at a time. The final pages of Broken Harbor, in which the killer explains what happened and why, are chilling and heartbreaking. I had high expectations for this book, and that usually means I'm disappointed. In this rare case, the book exceeded my hopes.

Broken Harbor by Tana French (Penguin Group, 2012)
My rating: 5 stars

{read: Southern thriller} A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

An atmospheric Southern novel, A Land More Kind Than Home in some ways reminded me of Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter in its use of setting and dialogue to convey mood and character.

The plot moves fast, starting with two brothers, Jess, 9, and Christopher, 11, who each see things they shouldn't have. Christopher can't tell anyone what he saw because he's mute, but the consequences are nevertheless swift and devastating.

The story is told by three narrators: Jess, Adelaide, a midwife who's in her 80's now and carries the history of the town with her, and Sheriff Clem Barefield, who has his own history that ends up playing a role in the ongoing events.

Wiley Cash does a superb job of weaving in the back stories and flashbacks to provide a nuanced account of not only these few tragic days but also what's led up to them. Snakes, crazy Christians, tragedy, healing, and perhaps even a little redemption and hope — this book has it all, and you won't want to put it down. Plus, it has a great title. Who can resist?

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash (HarperCollins, 2012)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: psychological thriller} Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron

This psychological thriller will keep you turning the pages. It opens with a garage sale, two very pregnant women, and an old house. But one of the women is harboring a grudge from high school, and she'll go to any lengths to get the justice she thinks she deserves.

Never Tell a Lie is a quick and enjoyable read, even if the plot is somewhat predictable. I still wanted to pick it up to see what happened next and if I had guessed correctly. Ephron does a good job of keeping the characters believable, and she resists the urge give the book an unreservedly happy ending and tie everything up with a neat bow. Just like in life, the characters realize that people make mistakes and you'll never know if they're telling the truth, but you still have to go forward.

Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron (Harper, 2009)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: psychological thriller} Sister by Rosamund Lupton

**spoiler alert**A book club member highly recommended this psychological thriller, but for me it was only OK. About halfway through, I found myself wishing it was over, but I kept reading to find out who the killer was. In a nutshell, the plot is this: After Tess gives birth to a stillborn baby and is murdered, her sister Beatrice refuses to accept the police's verdict of suicide due to postpartum depression and launches her own investigation.

The story is told in a letter from Beatrice to (dead) Tess, and at times it felt awkward. For me, the most jarring point of this plot device was at the end of the book, when we learn that the attorney to whom Beatrice has been telling the story of her investigation was completely fictional and that, in fact, Tess has been drugged by the killer and left to die and has been writing this letter in her head to try to keep herself sane and awake.

I didn't dislike the book, as it kept me guessing about the killer and had some interesting insights about the relationships between sisters and mothers and daughters, and I enjoyed Tess's Polish friend, who ends up being Beatrice's savior.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton (Broadway, 2011)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: murder and PIs, Chicago-style} We All Fall Down by Michael Kelly

This is the fourth in the series featuring Chicago private investigator Michael Kelly, a former cop. (Start with The Chicago Way if you're new to the series. It will be confusing to jump in mid-stream.) This is another great Michael Harvey read with short chapters and a fast-moving plot. A lightbulb that could be filled with anthrax falls in the subway, and the city and feds move quickly to contain any possible threat. Yet people with mysterious symptoms start showing up in the hospitals and dying. As the death tolls mount, the scientists try to uncover the threat and discover a vaccine, yet everything is not quite as it seems. Harvey does a good job of explaining the bioterroristic aspects of the plot in a way that's easy for regular people to understand, and, as always, he has a tight handle on the culture of Chicago and its seamier underside. 


I enjoy Harvey because his writing style is clean and tight and reminds me of Dennis Lehane, who as careful readers will know, is one of my favorite authors. (I'm excited to see what he does next now that Patrick and Angie seem to be retired from the PI biz. But I digress.) Harvey does for Chicago what Lehane did for Boston, although I confess that I got a bit lost on some of the political twists and turns. I guess that's Chicago.


We All Fall Down by Michael Harvey (Knopf Doubleday, 2011)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: spy thriller} Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre

In honor of the upcoming movie remake of the John Le Carre 1970s classic Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy novel, I offer this review of his most recent spy thriller.

This is the first book by le Carre that I've read, and I would definitely pick up another one. The plot was engaging and the characters were real enough to be interesting even though they felt a little two dimensional at times. I wanted to be entertained, and I was. Two young English people, Gail and Perry, go on holiday only to meet up with Dima, a self-proclaimed Russian mobster looking for asylum. He latches onto Gail and Perry, who then get tangled up in a web of British intelligence officers and their plans for Dima and his family.

** spoiler alert **

At the end, I had a premonition of bad things as soon as Luke said that he was looking forward to the beginning and the ending of what was to come. By the time they got to the airport, though, I thought they were safe and the explosion took me by surprise. I liked the ending, although I think it left many unanswered questions. Some are easy (who did it? probably the Prince, although it's also possible it was just an accident or that it was rigged by the British people who didn't want the whole thing to come to light) and others are more complex (what happens to Tamara and the family? where do they go now? What do Gail and Perry do?). Le Carre doesn't get into any of that. Dima is dead. The story is over. I have to admire an author who doesn't try to tie up all the loose ends in a pretty little bow.

Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre (Viking Adult, 2010)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: Danish crime thriller} The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I am stingy with my 5-star ratings, but this one deserves it. It's the best Nordic crime thriller I've read and perhaps also the most accessible to the American audience. (OK, so I'm an ordinary reader). Carl is the head of the new Department Q in Denmark, which is assigned the job of investigating cold cases. The first of the 40 or so that they tackle is the disappearance of Marette, a politician who was assumed to have committed suicide after she disappeared from a ferry en route to Berlin five years ago. But no body was ever found, and there was no evidence that she might have been contemplating suicide. With the help of his energetic, mysterious assistant Assad, Carl reluctantly digs into the case. He's more interested in sinking into his own depressive state after a shooting at a homicide scene left one of his partners dead and another paralyzed from the neck down. Carl blames himself and just wants to sleep away the hours to retirement, but he gets drawn into the case despite himself. Assad provides some comic humor and contrast to Carl's gloomy mood and later, some unexpected investigative expertise.

If you've read the Nordic authors (Larsson, Mankel, etc.) and liked them, you'll love this. If you've been hesitant to try them, pick up this one first. You won't want to put it down.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton Adult, 2011)
My rating: 5 stars

{read: Swedish crime thriller} The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler

Although he (she?) is billed as the next great Swedish author, Lars Kepler (the pen name of a couple) lived up to the hype. Think Stieg Larsson minus the social commentary and history, but keep the unexpected plot turns, suspense, and believable characters, and you have Lars Kepler.

The story starts out with a gruesome massacre, and hypnotist Erik Maria Bark is called upon to hypnotize the gravely wounded son, the only witness, so that the police can try to identify and catch the killer before he find's the family's other remaining living member, the boy's sister. But what Erik finds out surprises Detective Joona Linna, who has a track record of always solving his crimes. As they begin to act upon what they learned, they discover there are unforeseen consequences of Erik's action. Ten years ago, he promised that he would never hypnotize anyone again after an incident involving one of his patients. In addition to this, he's also dealing with his own problems, including a prescription drug addiction and a marriage that's falling apart. Just like in real life, everything seems to fall apart at once for Erik.

The many layers of this complex story kept me turning the pages. Just as one plot thread seems to get resolved, another one develops and moves into the forefront. What you discover in the end isn't what you were looking for in the beginning. I'm looking forward to the next translations of Kepler's work.

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: private investigator mystery} The Cut by George Pelecanos

Although some of my mystery book club members have raved about George Pelecanos, this is the first book of his that I've picked up. He introduces a new protagonist in this one: Spero Lucas is a 30-year-old Iraq vet returned to his native D.C. area. He's picked up work as an unlicensed private investigator and specializes in finding things and taking a 40 percent cut of whatever he finds. But when he starts to investigate the burglary of some Fed Ex-ed marijuana for an imprisoned drug dealer, he finds things are more complicated than they seem.

While one of the book's promo blurbs touted Pelecanos as one of the crime thriller writers who elevates the genre into literary fiction, similar to Dennis Lehane (whose books I love), it didn't quite reach that level for me, although it was definitely entertaining and held my attention. Lucas seemed to have elements of Robert B. Parker's Spenser and Michael Harvey's Michael Kelley in him. Curiously enough, he also reminded me somewhat of Seth Quinn in Nora Robert's Chesapeake Blue, the fourth book in her Chesapeake Bay Saga.

For those interested in the local music and restaurant scene in D.C., this would also serve as an excellent travel guide.

The Cut by George Pelecanos (Hachette Book Group, 2011)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: debut psychological thriller} Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

What would you do if each day when you woke up, you remembered nothing? A man in bed with you, in a room you don't recognize, tells you he is your husband, Ben. Another man, Dr. Nash, calls you on a cell phone and tells you that you've been seeing him to treat your memory problems and you should read the journal that you've hidden in your closet. This journal, where you write down everything that you learn each day, acts as your memory. But things aren't making sense.

The protagonist, Christine, begins to slowly piece together what she thinks are the missing 20 years of her life. But when she begins to wonder if people are conspiring against her, she's not sure whether to trust her instincts or if this paranoia is part of her neurological condition. The ending to this book is chilling. Although I had guessed where it was going slightly before Christine figured it out, there were still some twists and turns I hadn't anticipated. This is the best thriller I've read this year.

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson (Harper, 2011)
My rating: 4 stars

{read: Irish thriller} The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

One of my favorite authors is Tana French (In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place), an Irish writer who writes character-driven mystery/thrillers about different members of the Dublin Murder Squad. The Ghosts of Belfast is billed as one of the best new Irish novels, and I had high hopes. Although it was more plot-driven than French's books and didn't remind me of her writing at all, I really enjoyed this and had trouble putting it down. Although the first few chapters were a little bit choppy, the character development and plot ran smoothly after that even though I sometimes had trouble keeping track of the minor characters and the struggles between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Neville throws in a pinch of romantic interest but keeps it real and avoids the obligatory sex scene between the two love interests (Gerry and Marie).

Gerry Fegan, the main character, is a "hard man" - translation: IRA assassin - in Northern Ireland. He killed 12 people whose ghosts follow him around and won't give him any rest. The only way to make them go away is to kill the person (other than himself) responsible for their deaths. But as he embarks upon this path, he has to deal with the mysterious pull he feels toward Marie McKenna, whose family has ostractized her because she took an RUC officer as a lover. Along the way, his former comrades learn that he's the one responsible for the new spate of deaths. It all comes to a head at dogfighting ring out in the country, and Gerry has to figure out how to balance the wishes of the ghosts against the struggle to keep himself, Marie, and her young daughter alive. Neville has a sequel out, and I can't wait to read it.

The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville (Soho Crime, 2009)
My rating: 5 stars

{read: literary thriller} The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld

This historical mystery starts with the bombing of Wall Street in 1920, the first terrorist act committed on U.S soil. The mystery of who did it was never solved, although Rubenfeld offers a compelling solution in this novel. The backstory spans WWI and the plot is pretty wide-ranging, including Freud and his study of the psyche and war neuroses, Madame Curie and the discovery of and uses for radium, and the use of X-rays to improve medicine. The two protagonists, Dr. Stratham Younger and Detective Littlemore, in some ways reminded me of Clive Cussler's famous duo (Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino) since they manage to get out of some pretty sticky situations. The plot was fresh and kept me guessing as it went along, and Rubenfeld addressed many different plot angles in this wide-ranging novel.

The pace felt a little slow to me, especially at first, although it picked up as it went along. There were so many loose ends to address at the end that I had forgotten about all of them. I kept expecting it to be finished, only to turn the page and then remember that there was this piece, and that piece, and then that one. I think he touched on them all, but to be honest I wouldn't have remembered if he skipped a few of the more minor details.

The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld (Penguin Group, 2010)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: mystery} Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

This book, the second in Lehane's Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro series, has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. Kenzie and Gennaro, private detectives in Boston, take a case in which a psychologist seems to be threatened by the Irish mafia and receives a picture of her son in the mail. But as the story develops and the gruesome deaths keep on coming, the evidence seems to point to a killer who's been in jail for 20 years. At the same time, Patrick is starting what might be a serious relationship with a surgical resident and Angie is struggling to put her 12-year marriage behind her.

Lehane's characters are troubled and flawed, yet realistic and funny. The prose is clean, the dialogue is crisp, and the pacing is perfect. I'm a huge fan of the Kenzie and Gennaro series. As one of my friends said, Kenzie and Gennaro are her favorite detective pair. I agree. The six books in this series, ending with the recently released Moonlight Mile, are time well spent.

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane (HarperTorch, 1996)
My rating: 5 stars