Liking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to GooLiking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to Google pronunciations and meanings. This is also a complicated story of past terrorism in Europe...one that almost lost me several times. France's relationship to the Basque freedom movement, and the pan-European communist movements are at the forefront. Brutal, secretive, post-individual movements that have no pity.
Bruno once again puts his township at the center of his concerns and enjoys the company of his animals, lovers, hunting and drinking partners. ...more
Who woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided toWho woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided to talk about several threads at once, clearly not at ease with the Asian portion.
Market stall owners of Asian descent are set upon by Asians of different nationalities and the immigration/fakes/drugs issues that crop up are all thrown in for flavor. The complicated nature of the relationships threaten to overcome the slow pace of Saint Denis but somehow Bruno manages to come out on top once again.
The similarly complicated relationship between Pamela and Bruno presents choices I wouldn't make the way they do, I don't thin change that might be necessary. Wrenching change is offset by pleasant additions to the character list, like Hector....more
I just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soonI just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soon settled in and I just loved the characterizations, the language, the descriptions of heat, the language, the handcrafts of the main characters, the language, the immediate sense of danger one gets from a father returning home and from having a teenager in the house.
I should have kept her first book in the series because I wanted to go back and reread it, to enjoy it once again. I loved that one, too, and we don't absolutely need the first to understand the second, but one wants to enjoy the full span of it, the American settling in to a small Irish town. It is a little painful. French gets everything right in this, I thought...she pulls us this way and that and the end is a total surprise and unexpected, though we knew it wasn't working out the way the headlights were pointed.
This short shots series is really a great idea. It is basically a book-length short story or a short story with the heft of a novel. It is easy to seeThis short shots series is really a great idea. It is basically a book-length short story or a short story with the heft of a novel. It is easy to see Jassy Mackenzie's influence and it is because of her great thriller-writing skill that I picked this one up. I'd like to ask her why she didn't write another, and if I were to guess...but I shouldn't speculate. I have been wrong before.
This shows South Africa's crime scene, and it is terrifying to contemplate. Parts of major cities that are completely lawless, and one cannot even drive through, or stop one's car for fear of hijacking. But this also looks at the illegal gold mining that takes place and the dangers of mines that are officially closed but still being used by unscrupulous bosses with trafficked workers from elsewhere.
I've never read any Patterson, so the muscular feel may be his influence, but there is a strong female character that saves it from being a vehicle for the tall dark green-eyed body guard....more
What a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddiWhat a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddities of train travel and life under Communist Party rule, the humid heat of Guangzhou and the strange beauty of the southern mountains in the city of Guilin.
Shortly after the return of famed police Chief Inspector Wexford to England, deaths among those he’d met while traveling in China ties their lives together once again. Rendell was in her fifties and at the height of her powers when she wrote this book and it shows in every sentence. She somehow makes star-crossed love stories believable and the chintz-upholstered, heavily-draped world of the wealthy in England accessible.
Rendell died in 2015 but she remains one of Britain’s mystery greats....more
Jassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There isJassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There is often a sexy thread, too, that weaves through the piece…will she or won’t she? But while this title and a couple of Mackenzie’s other novels focus on environmental crimes, this novel feints and gives us a national security and industrial crime: nuclear waste that can be used for weapons.
The central mystery telegraphed to me early, so I read mostly to see how Mackenzie drew it out and for the pleasure of reading her on South Africa again. It is really all local action since the national security aspect takes a second seat, serving only to bump the case to a high enough level to involve de Jong’s love interest, David Patel.
But we are thrown a curve ball with several people seeming to be good choices as bad guys…only to have them turn up dead. We are thoroughly confused as to who is handling the local plant sabotage and who is handling the international transport of the really dangerous nuclear byproduct. A much different book could have come from all this, but I was just as happy to stay in South Africa.
Mackenzie introduced us earlier to a tangential character that she fills in with affectionate strokes in this novel, Warrant Officer Mweli. When Mweli is threatened late in the action, I found myself praying she’ll get through it. I’d love to see her developed further in future books, but this may be the end of the road for Mackenzie, as it was published in 2017 and is the last so far in the series. (I hope not.)
Mackenzie does have another series, apparently, not all available in the U.S. In 2020 Mackenzie published an erotic novella called Switch, but there are others: Soaring (2016), Drowning (2016) and Folly (2013). So, she's still working. Good news for us.
By the way, Mackenzie also had an influence on my interest in handguns. I find myself seeking pictures of different makes to get an idea of size, weight and accuracy. Maybe I’ll have tried a few at the range by the time Jade de Jong is back online....more
We go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and iWe go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and in preparation Jade takes scuba diving lessons. I found myself unnecessarily jealous of this fictional setup.
Shortly, as is usual for Ms. de Jong, people start dying. And not just dying, but being horribly slain and everyone is looking around for a culprit. In this particular novel, far-flung characters are somehow connected, though just how this is so does not become apparent until the very end.
{spoiler alert} (view spoiler)[ The third in the Jade de Jong series is my least favorite of this series. Mackenzie was stretched in this one, and just barely made it all come together at the end. Also, sorry to say, she told us early in the novel that animals and plants were not her forte, similarly to her father. She knew every brand and type of shooting instrument, but the natural world was not her area of expertise.
So Jade’s understanding of the destruction of the natural world in this novel about crimes to the environment might be perceived as ‘thin.’ We forgive her because she is perfectly willing to admit she knows nothing. Her real horror is reserved for the possibility that the golden sands might no longer be available to hard working cops and business owners rather than for the sea creatures including, ahem, reptiles like leatherback turtles. (hide spoiler)]
It is hard to retain any sense of superiority when Mackenzie writes a smackdown like this stunning description:
"Most of the cars had GP number plates and were also heading west, holiday over, back to Gauteng. Grim-faced at the prospect of returning to world, with their tank tops and shorts revealing deep sun tans and post-holiday flab. Arms as bloated and brown as cooked sausages, feet slapping along in flip-flop sandals. Kids trailing behind them, bored, restless and yelling."
Don’t know about you, but I feel like I am there.
I got a bit lost in the description of the central crime, and I kept losing track of who the bad guys were. But heck, I hope Mackenzie had fun researching this one because Richards Bay sounds gorgeous....more
This tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezinThis tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezing temps…that one might be forgiven for thinking the police were doing nothing at all to catch the mysterious killer of a young boy.
And really, they weren’t. Another two murders started to put the wind up and made them look back…but look how easy it would have been to overlook all the clues that would have led them to the killer of the boy. If one of the murdered wasn’t former Chief Inspector Van Veeteren’s son, I think we can safely say an opportunistic mass murderer would have gone free.
The involvement of the now-retired Van Veeteren added to the misty hard-to-get a clear angle on the case, and yet everyone in the station was on their best behavior to solve this case “for the chief.” The chief was, at best, ambivalent about the death of his son, who was recovered from a history of addiction. The scourge of drug addiction broke relationships and a life that barely had gotten started.
So, we are aware of the killer’s motives, actions, plans but we have no way to signal the same to the police. We grow increasingly anxious as the killer seems to have one solution to people finding out about his crime: kill them. Bodies keep accumulating and finally, finally, a clue is found that links the victims. It is the terrible tension that keeps us involved…how long can this go on and what on earth will be the thing to unravel the whole?
The writing and translation are stellar. There is one piece I must recount here:
“On Wednesday, December 9, it was 50 or so degrees, and the sky was high and bright. The sun seemed to be surprised, almost embarrassed at having to display itself in all its somewhat faded nudity.”
Hour of the Wolf ends with a scene in New York, and Nesser captures the cold December feel and the vastness that is New York. Chief Inspector Reinhart of Maardam stayed on the 24th floor of Trump Tower (!) with a view to the north and east of Manhattan. He describes how inhospitable it seemed in the chilly fall weather when the sun set early. (This was long before Trump ran for office, so Nesser had his finger on the pulse.)
First published in 1999, this can already be considered an old one, one of the last of the Van Veeteren series which were still being written, translated and published into the 2000s. Håkan Nesser won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times and prestigious the Glass Key Award once. Around 2006, Nesser moved to Greenwich Village in New York for a couple of years where a new series featuring a Swedish police inspector with Italian roots, Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, was published.
Nesser’s oeuvre is Scandi classic. Read them all....more
The second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. ThThe second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. The focus is trafficking of women across borders and the story is a desperate one for many unfortunate characters.
Mackenzie manages to capture the work style of every one we meet, from the school principal to the small time bureaucrat and seller of false documents. Even the nicely-dressed and -spoken man who delivers ultimatums about getting fake documents on time is believable, partly because he backs up his threats with action.
There is a particularly memorable scene that shares the experience of minibus taxi-riding in South Africa:
"The taxi driver was busy peeling a banana with his knee propped against the wheel. While he ate the fruit, he conducted an animated conversation with the man in the passenger seat. Lots of unbroken eye contact, reminding Jade of the way David liked to drive.
When he had finished, the taxi driver flung the banana skin out of the window and, still steering with his knee, began to peel an orange.
The vehicle felt wallowy on the road, its uneven progress a testimony to ancient shocks, balding tires, brakes worn down to the rim."
This novel exhibits horrific violence against those who are thought to threaten the system but again, as in previous Mackenzie novels, the pace is blistering. We can’t stop reading even if we want to. This novel particularly had great impetus that led us to a shocking conclusion.
This novel raised my opinion of Mackenzie’s skills even higher and I am thoroughly hooked now and must finish the series. I have already checked to see if there are any more novels in her oeuvre and I am surprised and disheartened to see she may have gone back to her day job. Her character development and braided story lines are far more accomplished than most and I certainly hope she is well compensated for giving up novel writing, if indeed she has.
What she really needs is a film contract for a limited TV series. Her characters and themes rock out loud and are way suitable for a diverse audience....more
I read this fourth of the books in the series so far and while I enjoyed it, I did think the later books are stronger. But, one simply must read them I read this fourth of the books in the series so far and while I enjoyed it, I did think the later books are stronger. But, one simply must read them all because McCall Smith is a treasure and such great company in the worst of times.
The dog...the dog is a character and it is absolutely imperative we know what goes on in his life. And he does get into some trouble...trouble I would never have guessed. But Marten is one that everyone feels comfortable expressing love for, so go with it and enjoy the crimes committed that are investigate by the Department of Stupendous Sensitive Crimes....more
The second of this series that I read inhaled and enjoyed so much. It is totally unnecessary to read the books in order and in fact I did not. The chaThe second of this series that I read inhaled and enjoyed so much. It is totally unnecessary to read the books in order and in fact I did not. The characters are so well-introduced that we are comfortable with them knowing they had a past.
In this, Varg gives away something he dearly loves in order to achieve a goal his lover makes him feel he must want...though in fact, he doesn't. This is a good one for people who can be talked into something ... who isn't one of those people? But when the stakes are high, this can be a very tricky and unsatisfying experience.
McCall Smith shows and tells why it is not always necessary to go the entire way to satisfying someone else's goals. Things turn out fine for him in the end, but his instincts at the start were fine. He probably should have heeded his doubts.
All to say, the philosopher is what we go to McCall Smith to hear. The mystery is secondary....more
Charlotte Carter. We are lucky to be alive in this time when publishers are doing the right thing for themselves AND for us by republishing terrific, Charlotte Carter. We are lucky to be alive in this time when publishers are doing the right thing for themselves AND for us by republishing terrific, under-read authors. Charlotte Carter is new to me but she is one of the best writers for a kind of hard-boiled mystery reminiscent of Raymond Chandler and the kind of glamour and won’t-look-away savvy of Nina Simone and James Baldwin.
Nanette Hayes is the series. Described as “a Grace Jones lookalike in terms of coloring and body type (she has the better waist, I win for tits)”, Nan is, when we meet her, busking on NYC streets with a saxophone, supplementing part-time work as a translator, French to English.
As far as I can tell, the series is only three novels long, but Carter has such a delicious and particular voice, you’re going to want to read all of this in a rush of indulgence. The first book in the series, Rhode Island Red, comes out July 27, just in time for long hot days in the hammock. August and September bring the last two, Coq Au Vin and Drumsticks. It’s like eating bonbons—very hard to resist.
First published in 1997, Rhode Island Red is written from a Black woman’s perspective and set in New York City just after stop-and-frisk was added to our lexicon. Cops were hated then, maybe even more than now? Even the title is a mystery; we don’t even know what the title means until close to the end but if you were to guess…
Nanette longs for France but grew up in the States as a child prodigy in maths, languages and spelling, of all things. One day another sax street player—a White man a little older than she—shows up needing a place to stay…and who ends up dead within hours.
It’s a complicated story, as it always must be when a stranger gets killed inside one’s own apartment. Nan calls the cops, only to have them question her motivation in bringing him home to her apartment. It’s a good question, one that Nanette will spend the rest of the story asking herself.
Carter wasn’t ahead of her time. She was playing old tunes in the 90s, but they were the anthem of the century. In a sense, she was closing the joint. We as a country are just catching up with her now. Radical. Real. Rhode Island Red....more
I waited too long to write a thorough review. I was impressed with the author's convoluted storyline, describing for us how our highest courts could bI waited too long to write a thorough review. I was impressed with the author's convoluted storyline, describing for us how our highest courts could be corrupted unless rules governing their management are reformed. In the days before the severe partisanship we are seeing now, such an occasion may have been unlikely. Now electeds and appointees have reason to fear for their own safety. Not so unlikely then.
I admire the stick-to-it-tiveness of Stacey Abrams, and despite critics's denials, do think there was something untoward about her failure to become governor in 2018. Abrams is enormously talented and I read this to see a little further into the way her mind works. She has found a way to lose herself in the creation of a new fiction and I understand that.
All that being said, I was not convinced by this work. It seemed a little stilted to me. It may have been saved if she'd collaborated with some real Washington insiders...those who know the spies and their tactics. Although it was replete with insider information, if never seemed to gel for me as truly 'of D.C.' I might be more convinced by Abram's lesser characters, the ones without a long role to play.
Stacey Abrams is interesting. Because of that, this book is interesting. For those of us that will never have the opportunity to talk with her, this is a kind of conversation. ...more
The e-edition of Hamilton’s latest in the Ava Lee series is out and you will want to take this trip with Ava as she hits several continents: AmsterdamThe e-edition of Hamilton’s latest in the Ava Lee series is out and you will want to take this trip with Ava as she hits several continents: Amsterdam and Antwerp in Europe, Singapore and mainland China in Asia, and back to Toronto in North America.
Ava’s collecting debts but for a friend, as she had in her early career. It brings back memories. This time it is not debts Ava is following but cold, hard investment theft wrapped up in a not-so-generous evangelical megachurch on the outskirts of Toronto. Hamilton creates the cruelest, most unambiguously unforgivable villains to walk the earth, and places them in a world we recognize. From there, the scandal just gets bigger…
Has anyone read the 14th-century Chinese novel called, variously, The Water Margin, Outlaws of the Marsh, and All Men Are Brothers? It is a rip-roaring 4-volume Song Dynasty yarn, a masterpiece of storytelling, packed with colorful characters whose names tell it all: Little Whirlwind, Blue-Faced Beast, Impatient Vanguard, etc. The epic story tells of 108 bandits who live by the margin of Liang Shan Marsh and pursue justice by unconventional means.
Hamilton’s story this time has elements of this ancient tale. He named his thieving church leaders Cunningham, Rogers, and Randy. Ava’s triad connection in Chengdu, Han, is blustery and loud, his crass manner and crude-but-effective methods modeled on characters in the ancient tale. Han uses his fists when words are not enough. He carries a large weapon to focus the attention of his opponents on their limited options.
I adored this tale for these elements, and for outlining and pointing to the real and acutely painful problem that Ava uncovers in the course of her investigations, something that has been plaguing the West, particularly the United States and Canada, for some years now. The problem has its source in China and concerned North Americans have wondered how on earth this is happening without and/or despite Chinese government oversight.
The answer to that question echoes what we hear when contemplating the indescribably painful political atmosphere in the United States: it is completely within the realm of the country’s leadership to stop the trouble. For some reason beyond our understanding, the leadership prefers chaos. God help us all.
Another fantastic addition to Hamilton’s box of jewels.
P.S. If you are going to pick up Outlaws of the Marsh, please choose Sidney Shapiro’s translation, the language of which made me fall in deeply love with Chinese culture, habits and humor. Shapiro’s word choices make the ancient book immediately relevant, laugh-out-loud funny, and the long read tireless.
A tense and absorbing political thriller is not what I was expecting for this second book of a trilogy about the head of a Hong Kong triad establishinA tense and absorbing political thriller is not what I was expecting for this second book of a trilogy about the head of a Hong Kong triad establishing businesses in southern China. Ian Hamilton, creator of the Ava Lee series, does some of this best work here, recreating exactly how it is possible for corruption to take place in China’s Special Economic Zones.
If this story has any truth to it, real life in triads is long periods of calm: Uncle Chow Tung is young for a triad leader, in his forties, but for all the criminality of gang-life, his daily existence is remarkably staid. His only vice is playing the horses at Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Racecourse. Lesser leaders get up to more deviltry in their free time, perhaps, but the fact that Uncle provides a stable, low-drama income from betting shops, restaurants and massage parlors is what his triad and others in the area appreciate about him.
We get a course in foresight, the savvy business planning Chow engages in to supplement the triad’s falling income as a result of economic changes in Hong Kong. It’s the 1980s. Chow reads in the paper that Deng Xiao Ping is trying something new: socialism at the top of society and a loosened market-based environment at the individual level.
The circumstances in Shenzhen and the other special economic zones were unlike anywhere else on earth at that time and the Chinese government was making it up as they went along. If things started booming a little too wildly, they would clamp down with a blinding ferocity. Hamilton walks us through a mini-purge and it is terrifying. The individual is insignificant and rule of law is virtually unknown.
Despite the fact that there were only two women in this entire book, one being a restaurant owner selling congee and one showing up for one or two sentences in the last quarter of the story, I was surprised to find I did not really feel the lack. To me, learning the relative ease with which Uncle began his empire in China as well as concise details about the bribes he had to pay and the conditions of his continued investments was utterly absorbing. I was as stressed as Uncle through the twists and turns of his fortunes.
At the very end of the book, I was left pondering the dubious legality of all the foreign investment enterprises in those special zones and the odd criminality that comes out of political infighting in China. In politics as in business, there is hardly a safe place of truth and virtue. Is that something we just have to acknowledge and get on with the business of skimming, lying and personal advantage and to hell with everyone else? What a chump I am. I can’t make it in the real world, I’m afraid.
I love the work Hamilton did here. The tension is ratcheted up high in parts, and for Chow Tung and us both, it is pure torture. I can’t wait to read the next installment which should bring us our first glimpse of Ava Lee. This is terrific, addictive storytelling....more
This trilogy began as an aside to the long-running Ava Lee series by Ian Hamilton. Ava Lee, you will remember, was mentored by a much-older man calledThis trilogy began as an aside to the long-running Ava Lee series by Ian Hamilton. Ava Lee, you will remember, was mentored by a much-older man called Uncle who wasn’t a relative but who became closer than blood. Before he died, they worked together collecting debts around Asia. Later she learned he held the highest-ranking post in a Hong Kong triad, as Mountain Master.
Earlier in the Ava Lee series we were treated to Uncle’s passing, replete with noisy, atonal bands playing discordantly at his funeral march. The detail in that description was lovingly crafted, introducing us to a lively, diverse triad scene that we sense has been something of a fascination for Hamilton. We revisit in greater detail here since this title begins with the death of the Mountain Master who preceded Uncle in the role.
For those readers who have despaired of office politics, this book may bring on a kind of PTSD. Triad life appears to be office politics with machetes and sub-machine guns. The leadership team all have very cool monikers, like White Paper Fan, Red Pole, and Straw Sandal, all of which operate under the Deputy Mountain Master, the Vanguard, and the Incense Master. They don’t sound scary.
This trilogy begins with Uncle Chow Tung leaving mainland China with his financée in 1959 and then jumps to 1969 where the action of this novel takes place. The action in the follow-on books appear to be spaced by a decade. Next up is Foresight....more
Reading several Ava Lee books in a row is intense but this series can sustain close reading and I needed to catch up on all that has been happening. IReading several Ava Lee books in a row is intense but this series can sustain close reading and I needed to catch up on all that has been happening. I want to be ready to contemplate the TV film series, whenever it manages to present itself.
Hamilton has managed, in the last three books of the Ava Lee series, to create a parallel trilogy detailing the life of Uncle Chow Tung, Ava’s mentor for the first years of her career as a forensic accountant and debt collector. That trilogy includes Fate,Foresight andFortune: The Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung.
In this installment of the Triad Years, Ava goes to Hong Kong to handle a defection among the collection of allied triads working under the aegis of the Shanghai organization of Ava’s friend, Xu. And it has gotten personal for Ava, too: someone Ava has relied on to help her since Uncle’s death, Lop, has been shot and is near death.
During the course of the novel, we see Ava unusually decisive about life-and-death decisions: she plots the ambush of the defecting HK triad under the leadership of a figurehead who had once tried to kill her. At the same time she seeks to rehabilitate a drug- and alcohol addicted film director on the mainland. It may seem she is a bundle of contradictions.
All this gang payback deepens her relationship with those that survive the fighting, and destruction is avoided. But Ava’s relationship with the Shanghai triad is more expansive even than before. The action takes place entirely in Hong Kong.
I haven’t a clue whether or not the relationships exposed herein exemplify real triad behaviors. I can only guess that if other books Hamilton has written cut close to the bone, this one may as well. If you ever wondered what hit teams are thinking while involved in shootouts, this may give some clarity. Spoiler: there is always collateral damage....more
It is tempting to point to the many truths this series of books tell about contemporary society in China/Asia and suggest that events described are reIt is tempting to point to the many truths this series of books tell about contemporary society in China/Asia and suggest that events described are real, that just the names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.
This particular story takes on the film industry in China, notorious for its propagandist control over messaging. We imagine what it must be like for contemporary artists and actors to thrive in such conditions. Or perhaps not so much.
A great deal is happening at once in this installment and Ava, now enamored of a beautiful movie actress, has toned down her jet-setting lifestyle to a Beijing hutong apartment and zhajiang noodles and sweet and sour soup at a streetside canteen. Plots and revenge dominate the lives of movie industry players, and illicit sex tapes of young and now-famous actors and directors threaten to take down storied careers.
Author Hamilton is working with a new editor after a successful run of eleven books in his series of Ava Lee, forensic accountant, investor and practitioner of bak mei, an ancient and deadly martial art. Things do seem a little different, just like Ava curbing her propensity to fly to several continents over the course of two days. She gets hurt in this one, too. She’s been hurt before, but it seems like she might have been a little slow in reacting to a thrust by a thug: “he was faster than he looked.”
A few loose threads were left open, but we know as the book closes what the next installment will bring and that is impelling. I noticed when I ordered the twelfth book in the series that there is a new, shorter trilogy giving the backstory of Uncle, Ava’s mentor who died in his eighties. Hamilton is looking to free himself up to imagine new lives and situations. Keep your eyes peeled for Fate, Foresight and Fortune: The Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung....more
Entering week eight of coronavirus, I deserve a break. And one of my favorite series of all time has to be Ian Hamilton's Ava Lee books. Canadian by bEntering week eight of coronavirus, I deserve a break. And one of my favorite series of all time has to be Ian Hamilton's Ava Lee books. Canadian by birth, Chinese by race, lesbian by choice, and accountant by vocation, Ava Lee is one special protagonist.
Now in her mid-thirties, she hasn't slowed down any. She has agreed to help out an old friend-of-a-friend and ends up collaborating with a government she hasn't worked with in the past. The whole experience looks like it will end badly, but the denouement shocks us utterly. Hamilton plot lines are unique. He doesn't copy anybody and he always talks about our culture now, highlighting personalities and events that look vaguely familiar from the headlines. This contemporaneity may be why I admire his style so much.
Author Hamilton writes in his Acknowledgements that this was a difficult book to write and indeed, was not originally part of this series. That statement raises all kinds of questions in my mind, but I can unequivocally say that this story is breathtaking in the leaps it takes in plot and character development. Remember what I say about 'familiar' figures and you will forever wonder what truth there is in this heartbreaking novel. In the very next book in the series, Ava says something about "one can never be too cynical," and one fears she learned that lesson from cases like this one.
We also learn that Hamilton had such deep disagreements with his long-time editor Janie Yoon over this book that they went their separate ways. I did notice that Ava is not quite as sure of her ability to solve every problem as she has been in earlier books. She's getting older, something I appreciate since I very much am, too.
This story takes place in the Philippines and yes, it is a departure from other efforts. During the action sections of the novel, Ava barely speaks to the folks who bring her the case. We follow her, hoping there is not an iota of truth to any of it, but suspecting a story like this doesn't get conceived in a vacuum.
Vargas doesn’t spare us the grisly details of outrageous crimes committed against defenseless girls and women, but never have I ever wanted to be in aVargas doesn’t spare us the grisly details of outrageous crimes committed against defenseless girls and women, but never have I ever wanted to be in a mystery novel before. The characterizations of police officers and villagers are so full of personality, intelligence, and humor that one cannot help but wish these folks were by one’s side—or at least televised.
According to Wikipedia, four of the Vargas mystery series have been serialized for television. I saw one, once, years ago. It was painful, considering the renown of French cinema and the intrigue of the novels. it is definitely time for a new rendition.
Any new film series of the novels must be filmed in France and in French because the charm of the series is the utter French-ness of the interactions, the local dishes like the cabbage soup with onions and ham the officers eat nearly every night of the investigation, and endless bottles of Madiran.
Vargas has given us a convoluted mystery so dense with criminality that we scarcely know which way to turn. Just today I was listening to a podcast discussing the many thousands of rape kits in American cities which were never run for DNA: when the kits were finally examined, the entire body of knowledge around rape and serial rape has been turned on its head. It turns out that there were many, many more rapists than one ever thought possible, and one out of every five rapes is caused by a serial rapist.
There has been, as can be seen in the history revealed in this novel and in the untested rape kits languishing on shelves in police stations all over America, a dismissive attitude towards crimes against women. In this mystery, some truly horrifying crimes are described (thankfully in a matter-of-fact, non-inflammatory way) and some male attitudes are examined for bias. At one point Chief Inspector Adamsberg realizes describing his favorite female lieutenant as worth “ten men” would be better changed to “one woman.” Those of us who have worked with colleagues of both sexes are pleased Vargas made a point of chastising Adamsberg for old attitudes.
Vargas is known for the depth of her knowledge about medieval subjects and archeology and gradually she incorporates some of her encyclopedic knowledge in this more modern mystery. There is an archeological dig, and we learn how to find the site and what it takes to manage it. There is a medieval tie-in, but the shocking part is that it sounds medieval when in fact some of the events happened within recent history.
Chief Inspector Jean Baptiste Adamsberg always puts me in mind of Simenon’s Jules Maigret, though the two police chiefs are quite different in many ways. One difference is that Maigret, unless my memory is faulty, wasn't necessarily a masterful team leader. Adamsberg is far from alone. We are intimately familiar with his entire team and grow to rely on them to keep their chief operating in maximum intuition. Adamsberg's “tiny bubbles of gas in [his] brain” jiggle when he walks, stimulating thought. Not so far, then, from Poirot’s “little grey cells.”
This novel, originally published in May of 2017 by Flammarion of France, has been translated by Siân Reynolds, winner of many awards, including a coveted Dagger from Crime Writers’ Association. Reynolds is a professor emerita of French at the University of Stirling, Scotland. In her words,
”… Fred’s books are quirky and often fantastical, sometimes with historical elements, and much appreciated in France. They are about French characters usually in a recognizably French environment, and will necessarily seem a bit foreign to anglophone readers, so the aim is to make them enjoyable on their own terms – but in English.”
This Reynolds does in spades. The novels are a remarkable glimpse of French culture and altogether are a marvelous series. Highly recommended....more
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