Monthly Archives: August 2015

The Burdens of Intimacy: The Ways of the World

30 Sunday Aug 2015

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Review: The Ways of the World, by Robert Goddard
Grove/Atlantic, 2013. 404 pp. $25

Halfway through this engaging thriller, a Japanese diplomat observes, “An invisible opponent is the hardest to judge. Is he cleverer than we think or not as clever as we fear?”

To his listener–and the reader–that’s the rub. While investigating his father’s suspicious death, James Maxted is working blind, whereas every move he makes stands out as plain as day to an ever-increasing array of interested onlookers. Are they friends or enemies? Or could they be both, depending on the circumstances?

But let’s start at the beginning. The time is March 1919; the place, the Maxted family estate, near Epsom, England. James, known to all but his family as Max, has recently been repatriated from a German prison camp, where the former fighter pilot spent a lengthy stint. However, it’s a tense homecoming, for Max has never gotten along with his family, and his father has just died. Sir Henry Maxted, a career diplomat working in a minor capacity at the Paris Peace Conference, has fallen off a roof, in what the Paris police are wont to call an accident. James and his elder brother, Ashley–Sir Ashley, now, and proud of it–are to fetch his body home for burial.

Now, you don’t really believe that an experienced member of the Foreign Office would just happen to tumble off a seven-story Montparnasse apartment building while–coincidentally–the great powers were meeting to reconfigure the postwar world? I didn’t think you would, but what’s important is that James doesn’t, either. Despite his elder brother’s impatience–nothing must encumber Sir Ashley’s smooth inheritance of land and title–James sets out to learn the truth.

Lloyd George of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and President Woodrow Wilson, in Paris, 1919 (Courtesy Library of Congress).

David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States, in Paris, 1919 (Courtesy Library of Congress).

And what a complicated truth it is, which reveals to Max more about his father than he’d have ever suspected, and of the often dirty profession he followed. First of all, there’s Corinne Dombreux, the lovely, young woman who lives in that Montparnasse apartment. Her late husband was spying for the Russian monarchy. Or was it the Bolsheviks, and was he playing a double game? Either way, the French security service considers Mme. Dombreux a potential enemy; her connection to Sir Henry opens up all sorts of unfortunate scenarios, as Max only gradually becomes aware.

This is where Goddard excels. He unfolds his narrative like a jeweler, one facet at time, and just when you think you might have glimpsed the extent of the stone, he shows you another facet, and another, until you’re not sure just how big it is, or how many reflections it casts. That, of course, is Max’s viewpoint too, and just as you don’t know whom to trust, neither does he. First appearances always deceive, except concerning Max; his unpleasant brother and sister-in-law; and Sam Twentyman, his former sergeant and would-be business partner. Reversals and double-crosses, the necessary “no–and furthermore” I so admire, spill from the pages.

Yet The Ways of the World doesn’t satisfy me, and though I’m glad I read it, I’m unlikely to follow the series further. (Both the cover and the last page promise more adventures.) I share Goddard’s love for intricacy, and I’m always ready for a good yarn, but I think the author gets ahead of himself, so that, at times, the machinery of The Ways of the World clanks like a rough-firing engine, when it should tick like a watch. For instance, many, many bodies fall, which feels both excessively gruesome and a pat way of ratcheting up the tension. Also, I thought Goddard rescued the good guys rather too easily a couple times, and the ending feels like a cop-out.

I was further disappointed not to see Paris. There are plenty of place names and métro stations, but those details don’t make up the city; the narrative could have taken place anywhere. Not everyone can be Alan Furst or Robert Harris (or should be), but I’d have liked color, sense of 1919–and fewer French characters who happen to speak impeccable English.

I’d love to find a first-class thriller about the Paris Peace Conference. The Ways of the World isn’t it; it’s good, but I doubt it will stay with me.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

A Very Odd Couple: Crooked Hearts

24 Monday Aug 2015

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Review: Crooked Hearts, by Lissa Evans
HarperCollins, 2015. 282 pp. $25

Vera Sedge’s life is a painfully funny mess. It’s 1940, and London’s getting pounded by the Blitz, but to her, that’s not the worst; the war seems just “out there” someplace. Rather, Vee, as she’s called, runs herself ragged caring for her lazy, selfish nineteen-year-old son, excused from military service because of a heart murmur and running around somewhere, doing things he refuses to talk about. Her dotty mother, also living with them in a northwest suburb, expects to be waited on too, while she writes long, chatty letters to Mr. Chamberlain (and then Mr. Churchill) to complain, in a pen-pally way, about shortages and shoddy goods and refugees who must certainly be spies.

A London house bombed in 1940 (Courtesy Imperial War Museum, public domain).

A London house bombed in 1940 (Courtesy Imperial War Museum, public domain).

Vee would dearly love to latch onto a paying scam; it’s the only way she knows how to earn her meager living. But as a con artist, she’s inept, partly because she rushes headlong into whatever looks good right that second, only to find that the string of lies she’s told don’t hold water, and she’s trapped. She tries passing herself off as a door-to-door fund raiser for the wartime charity du jour but earns more suspicion than income.

Meanwhile, Noel Bostock, a brainy ten-year-old with no friends or social skills (“hobbies are for people who don’t read books”), lives with his demented godmother, Mattie. His tender love for her is all he has in the world, and when she wanders out one night and dies of exposure, Noel’s bereft and alone. The law says that, like all other children living near bombing targets, he should have been evacuated. But, as resistance is his godmother’s legacy–in her heyday, she fought for woman suffrage, chaining herself to fences and serving a prison term–legal authority means nothing to him.

Vee takes Noel in, thinking to pocket the government allowance for harboring an evacuee child, and her first impression is that he’s simple and pliable. Wrong. What she’s found is a partner in crime–a senior partner, the brains behind the operation. Noel, ever organized, quickly figures out which charity they should target, in which neighborhoods, using whatever script he’s concocted for her. Immediately, their efforts bear fruit.

I have to admit, I felt uncomfortable reading about this dynamic duo bilking credulous, good-hearted folk for money that would never reach the widows, orphans, or wounded soldiers it was meant for. Granted, judged against the venal behavior they see around them, they’re small fry. In Evans’s world, nobody has time to be a hero, because being on the take requires every spare minute. If this is England’s finest hour, as Churchill proclaimed, you have to wonder what the brave, doomed pilots in the RAF were fighting for. (Vee, of course, evokes the Churchillian two-finger salute for victory.) Crooked Hearts is a sendup on a small, yet potent scale, a wartime theater of the absurd.

But when there’s no time for heroism, that leaves love, which takes no extra effort or splendid opportunities. You get the sense that Vee and Noel will somehow soften each other’s carefully sheltered heart, and it’s worth finding out how. There’s a dollop of comeuppance for those who really need it, which is satisfying too.

I loved the humor in Crooked Hearts–the letters to the prime minister, the ridiculous scrapes Vee gets into, the ten-year-old who talks over his guardian’s head, the satire on British attitudes. Most of the characters are merely that, a collection of attitudes. But the novel works because Vee and Noel are fragile humans whose desires have been thwarted so long–as in forever–they can’t even name them. Theirs is a fine tale.
Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

A Life Not Lived In: High Rider

17 Monday Aug 2015

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Review: High Rider, by Bill Gallaher
Touchwood, 2015. 263 pp. $16

In 1867, John Ware, a young black man of strong character and dignity, realizes that he has no future in his native South Carolina. His new freedom will mean nothing, so long as any white man with a gun or length of rope may use them on him with impunity. Since Ware has always loved horses and can tame even the most ornery mule, he dreams of being a cowboy. So he sets off for Texas, on foot. It’s a thousand miles across the Deep South, and should the Klan find him, he won’t get there–not to mention that he can’t be sure anyone will hire him. Of course, someone does, and Ware eventually becomes famous as a rancher–in Canada.

John Ware, his wife, Mildred, and two of their children, 1890s (Courtesy blackpast.org).

John Ware, his wife, Mildred, and two of their children, 1890s (Courtesy blackpast.org).

Unfortunately, Gallaher lets this excellent premise–and character background–get away from him. The scenes of slavery speak loudly of cruelty, viciousness, and the struggle to maintain dignity when one is powerless. However, the tendentious commentary, which reminds me of voiceovers in language Ware would never use, undercuts the effect. For example: “Therefore, it was time to go, to leave behind this land of cruel deeds committed by heartless, single-minded people.”

The reader can tell right away who’s good and who’s not. The people who welcome Ware do so with open arms, with nary a conflict thereafter. Those who’d just as soon spit on him lose no time doing so. As a result, there’s little tension, and whatever happens feels utterly predictable, if not ordained. The only character in this novel, black or white, who has the least shade of gray to him is a disabled Confederate veteran who rows him across a river solely because he needs the toll money.

As for the setting, Gallaher describes interiors meticulously, giving you a snapshot of everyday objects. But he rushes through the outdoor scenery, which leaves me wanting a sense of place, particularly the magnificent Alberta landscape that moves Ware to put down roots in Canada.

What a shame, for High Rider could have been so much better. Comparing it to Paradise Sky (July 13), whose hero resembles Ware, underlines the point. I don’t mean that High Rider could or should have been picaresque and funny like Paradise Sky, only that the latter book explored its protagonist’s inner life and emotional transitions. By contrast, we’re informed that Ware longs to settle down and marry, and that he feels ashamed, a little, to visit prostitutes. But I don’t see him wrestling with that shame, or with what settling down means, maybe trying to imagine what it would feel or look like, how he views that next to what his parents had, and so forth. We’re also told his resentment of bigotry–not exactly news, there–or how tired he is of having to prove himself over and over and over before his white colleagues will accept him. Again, however, Gallaher never takes that anywhere, as if these observations were enough and bear repetition. It’s as if Ware never inhabits his skin, even though his skin has determined his life path.

The only quirk Ware has is a passion for breaking horses, at which he excels beyond compare. (The scene I liked the most was the prologue, in which he goes to fantastic lengths to tame a particularly unruly one.) Reading this, I wondered at the metaphor here, of a former slave asserting his mastery over an animal, who’d then be his servant–one lovingly treated, like a friend, but still. I wish Ware had pondered that parallel, or other aspects of his fascinating life. Too bad he doesn’t, and that High Rider never really gets off the ground.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Hunting Dissidents, and the Truth: The Seeker

10 Monday Aug 2015

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Review: The Seeker, by S. G. MacLean
Quercus (UK), 2015. 398 pp. £14

A politician once said of Germany that it took half the country to control the other half (and he was speaking around 1900, well before either world war). I get the same chilling impression of midseventeenth-century London from The Seeker, a mystery that involves murder, royalist conspiracies, and the terror of speaking one’s mind.

Cover by Henry Steadman (Courtesy Quercus Books, UK).

Cover by Henry Steadman (Courtesy Quercus Books, UK).

It’s 1654, and after a fractious, savage civil war, Oliver Cromwell has seized power, employing a vast, pervasive spy network to root out anything he considers subversive. His most ubiquitous, feared agent is Damian Seeker, who seems to know whatever you shouldn’t have done, when, and with whom. So if you’ve spoken against the Lord Protector Cromwell’s joyless, repressive regime; longed for the Stuart monarchy to return; written a poem extolling liberty; or merely sat in the same room as someone who’s done any of these, when The Seeker comes for you–and he will–don’t bother to deny a thing. It’s better not to.

However, what makes Seeker more than an extraordinarily energetic, gifted goon is a passion for truth, no matter where it leads. Consequently, when an assassin fells John Winter, a soldier who enjoyed the Lord Protector’s favor and sat in his inner council, it’s more than a security breach. It’s also a murder case, and finding the killer matters, not only because he could strike again, but–well, because. And from the first, Seeker doubts that Elias Ellingworth is the killer, even if he was discovered near Winter’s body, holding the bloody knife, and even if he’s penned seditious pamphlets.

To find the real murderer, Seeker must follow a sinuous trail that quickly branches in several directions, all of which appear to threaten the regime. Coffee houses, the latest fad in London, are the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy, though they’re also places for free conversation on any topic under the sun. I like how MacLean plays this theme. Cromwell’s followers pretend that they have swept away a tyranny based on birth and replaced it with a temperate government that values merit. But, as Ellingworth insists, the Lord Protector has betrayed the democracy he once professed and instituted a tyranny of his own. That Seeker, a commoner of humble origins, hunts down dissidents to uphold an unjust, autocratic ruler lends the conflict a fitting irony.

Little is known about Seeker’s origins, though, for the man never talks about himself or his feelings, if he even has any. He’s all work. However, Maria Ellingworth, the imprisoned suspect’s sister, interests him, and I doubt I’m giving anything away by saying that the young woman’s naive honesty and directness slowly seep through his defenses. It’s obvious from the get-go, though anything but obvious how it will end.

That’s The Seeker’s greatest strength, I think. Except for a scene or two recounted out of order to withhold a secret, the novel is exceptionally well plotted, no mean trick, given the sheer number of characters. Further, MacLean excels at hiding whether certain key characters are friends or foes, sometimes up until the end. I could have done without a cliché action or two, as when Seeker holds off his men to battle a traitor in single combat, but that’s a minor quibble. I love the period details, which flow seamlessly through the narrative and lend atmosphere. The language does slip occasionally, though; I’m certain no seventeenth-century Englishman would have ever used the phrase liaise with.

Seeker’s also pretty thin as a character, yet he’s the deepest of the lot. Late in the novel–too late, I think–we’re told (not shown) why he’s so loyal to Cromwell, and why he loves order above all. But I’m not entirely persuaded, and I think it would have taken little to establish this in small ways throughout the narrative. Seeker has potential–why is he so fierce, and why does truth matter to him?–but this book doesn’t exploit his inner conflicts. Maybe in future installments, MacLean will show more of him and her other characters.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Seeker. In the interest of full reporting, let me add that the novel won the 2015 Crime Writers’ Association Endeavour Dagger for Historical Fiction.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

The Hard in Hardscrabble: Island of Wings

03 Monday Aug 2015

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Review: Island of Wings, by Karin Altenberg
Penguin, 2011. 311 pp. $15

In July 1830, Neil MacKenzie, a handsome, young Glaswegian minister, takes up a post on a remote island in the Hebrides, joined by his new bride, Lizzie. St. Kilda, also known as Hirta, is a harshly beautiful place. The islanders live in ancient hovels knee-deep in filth, and they subsist on sea birds such as puffins and gannets, and what poor crops they can coax out of the thin soil.

St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides (Public domain; courtesy urbanghostmedia.com).

St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides (Public domain; courtesy urbanghostmedia.com).

But it’s not the poverty that draws Neil MacKenzie, though he believes that his calling lies among the humble. It’s that the St. Kildans, having lived with pagan lore for centuries, and (as he and his church preceptors believe), knowing nothing of Christian civilization, they offer the test he’s been seeking. Can he, through faith, force of character, and energy, lead them onto the true path? As a consequence, a zealous vision of grandeur takes hold of him. He’s quick to put himself and his task in the center of everything that happens, a further reflection of his test. And therein lies the tension, because despite his herculean efforts, he can’t pull everyone along with him, least of all his long-suffering wife.

Lizzie, though isolated by shyness and a language barrier–unlike Neil, she doesn’t speak Gaelic, the only tongue the islanders understand–gradually learns more about the St. Kildans than he does. These people are poor and illiterate, but they’ve developed a social organization that makes decisions through consensus and strives to reduce conflicts over envy and greed (so much so that mainland dilettantes condescend to visit and pronounce the St. Kildans noble savages). Lizzie doesn’t go so far as to assume that the islanders are civilized, but she does recognize that her husband is trying to alter a way of life of which he knows nothing except his own contempt for it. Further, she realizes that telling people the Lord will provide may sound empty, when they helplessly watch their infants die of a horrible, wracking illness, and where hunger is common at least half the year.

The best part of Island of Wings is the setting, rendered in simple, compelling prose:

Winter followed autumn almost unnoticed, in the same way that dusk was merely a darkening of each bloomy day. The island was thus empty of life, and the fierce Atlantic gales that swept across the crags and glens week after week, month after month, increased the isolation of the couple in the manse. When their need for closeness and their longing to be loved was too great they would sneak around each other like cats around a plate of hot milk snatching at tenderness.

The struggles between islanders and the elements, preacher and flock, and Neil and Lizzie, make for an interesting story. But interesting is a tame word, and what keeps Island of Wings earthbound for me is the clumsy characterization. Altenberg, though she employs an eye for detail and moment-to-moment emotional transitions, never unleashes them from her tight grasp. Rather than show them, she lists them: “As he continued to look out to sea he was aware that her gentle devotion threatened to embrace him. Despising himself, he felt a need to deflect his sense of failure and shield himself from her love. At that moment he resented her decency as much as his own weakness.”

Three sentences describe a man’s greatest character flaw, the inability to admit vulnerability. I understand this type of character too well–I grew up with people like that–so I empathize with Lizzie and how she suffers, which is why I didn’t put the book aside. The themes Altenberg has chosen, of isolation, cultural clash, and social blindness, strike a chord with me as well. Nevertheless, Island of Wings could have been a very good novel, not just an “interesting story,” and I hope that in her next effort, Altenberg puts it all together.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.