Simply Lies by David Baldacci
David Baldacci has fashioned an exceptional old school neo-noir tale with Simply Lies (Grand Central, 432 pages, $30.00).
The driving force of this series debut is Mickey Gibson, an ordinary single mother who has the rather extraordinary job working for ProEye, an international outfit that specializes in tracking down tax cheats and all manner of con artists. A routine assignment puts Mickey on the trail of a conman who’s beaten every system at every turn and who’s willing to kill to keep from getting caught, including her.
Baldacci’s latest is staggeringly effective storytelling that never disappoints. It reads something like a post-modern version of what Patricia Highsmith might have fashioned in one of her Ripley tales, only told from the POV of the hero instead of getting bogged down in the moral morass of an anti-hero (with apologies to Taylor Swift!). Simply Lies is not to be missed, and that’s the truth.
City of Dreams by Don Winslow
Ads for City of Dreams (Morrow, 336 pages, $29.99) have been popping up all over various outlets on cable TV, rare treatment for a book indeed, unless the author is pop culture wunderkind Don Winslow.
His latest effort, a sequel to “City on Fire” and the second in a planned trilogy, once again features Danny Ryan whose criminal lifestyle suggests murky morality at the very least. Everything being relative, though, Danny’s easy to root for because everyone is out to get him from the FBI to the gangsters he turned against. So he packs up and heads to Los Angeles where a studio happens to be making a movie based on his life. It’s only natural for Danny to want fair compensation, even as FBI antagonists aren’t ready to let his story end.
Winslow is as brilliant a writer as he is a storyteller, so let’s hope the reports of his retirement are greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase Mark Twain. City of Dreams is distinguished by the staccato prose and terrific character development that has long defined his brand. Tense, tumultuous and terrific.
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
There are plenty of reasons why Dennis Lehane is generally considered to be the finest mystery writer of our time. And all of them are keenly on display in sensational Small Mercies (Harper, 320 pages, $28.99), his best book since the iconic Mystic River.
Lehane’s most brilliantly realized tale ever features Mary Pat Hennessey, a strong-willed, somewhat slovenly figure who’s spent her enter life in an underworld-riddled Boston suburb, currently further roiled by a heat wave. Then her daughter disappears the same night an African-American man is murdered. Mary Pat may not have much money in the bank but she’s got more than enough moxie to take on the Irish mob to find her daughter and take down anyone in her path, regardless of the consequences.
In lesser hands, Small Mercies might have been crushed under the weight of bigger stories with higher stakes. Lehane, though, is able to magically shrink the world to Mary Pat’s point of view, resulting in a great mystery that doubles as a shrewd and sensitive novel that explores the heart of darkness lurking in all of us. Labels aside, Lehane has never been better and his latest is an apt reminder of why we love to read.
The Last Kingdom by Steve Berry
The always great Steve Berry is back with another, well, great thriller in The Last Kingdom (Grand Central, 464 pages, $29.00), once again relying on his mastery of history.
This time that history threatens the global supremacy of the United States in the form of a long-lost document that dates back almost 150 years. The complex plot pits the stalwart Cotton Malone against evil doers who are after the same thing he is: the truth behind a Bavarian king’s enigmatic pursuit of lands that may now hold the key to America’s future.
History buffs especially will devour this quest story of sorts in which the truth is the rarest treasure of all. The number of rivals Malone must fend off in the process will similarly please fans of the wildly manic John Wick movies. Combined, that makes The Last Kingdom a page-turner of the absolute highest order.
Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen
A storm, real or metaphorical, always seems to be brewing in Hard Rain (Minotaur, 262 pages, $27.99), Samantha Jayne Allen’s stunning follow-up to Pay Dirt Road.
Private detective Annie McIntyre, fresh off solving a murder, takes up the case of a man washed away by floodwaters after rescuing a young woman in a small Texas town decimated by those heretofore mentioned storms. Amid the devastation around her, Annie ends up finding a dead body belonging to someone else, opening the door to another beautifully crafted mystery, in which the typical urban sprawl for gritty crime novels is replaced by rural wastelands.
That’s especially appropriate, given Allen’s moody, sullen style that mirrors the sensibility of the world she fashions in Hard Rain. She reads like a rural Michael Connelly and Annie proves to be every bit the equal of his Renee Ballard. This is crime writing at its level best, not to be missed for genre aficionados.
The Rescue by T. Jefferson Parker
Speaking of great writing, T. Jefferson Parker’s typically wondrous prose is on vivid display in The Rescue (Forge, 352 pages, $28.99). I’ve been reading Parker for, oh, over thirty years now, ever since he debuted with Laguna Heat, and he’s never disappointed me once.
He returns here to the kind of drug-laced world of crime that have fueled several of his more recent titles, only this time Parker adds an effective, though familiar, twist in the form of a drug sniffing dog that journalist Bettina Blazak rescues from a putrid Mexican animal shelter. The problem is Felix has enemies out there of the two-legged kind who are after him, which means now they’re after Bettina, too. What’s an intrepid reporter to do when her de facto partner can’t explain who these people are or why they want him prematurely put down?
Parker’s versatility as a storyteller has long been one of his most shining attributes and The Rescue is like none of his other near thirty titles, except for the fact it’s a terrific crime-thriller. His prose remains a wonder to behold, as he carves out his place as the cooler, hipper version of James Lee Burke.
Downfall by Mark Rubinstein
Mark Rubinstein has penned his best book yet in Downfall (Oceanview, 352 pages, $27.95), a classically structured Hitchcockian mystery.
I say Hitchcockian because the opening reminded me of the kind of tale the master loved to tell. Dr. Rick Shepherd is approaching his office when he has to detour around the crime scene tape where a man has been murdered. Rick spots a picture of the victim on the news that night and, low and behold, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Rick. It becomes abundantly clear soon afterwards that Rick was the intended target, having found his way somehow into the bad graces of very dangerous forces. Surviving means finding them before they take another shot at him.
Hitchcock always allowed himself one major coincidence, and Rubinstein follows suit there, as well as the structure of an innocent man wronged, an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances. That helps make Downfall an extraordinary thriller which begs to be read in a single setting.
Gangbuster: One Man’s Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan by Alan Prendergast
Alan Prendergast has fashioned a superb nonfiction legal thriller in Gangbuster: One Man’s Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan (Citadel, 292 pages, $28.00).
This period piece finds crusading Denver District Attorney Phillip Van Cise taking on all manner of really bad guys in the 1920s. The book focuses mostly on his dogged efforts to bring down the KKK that in those days had become a massive criminal enterprise that spared no one in their quest to remake America in their image. It’s a David vs. Goliath tale, though in this case the Goliath really is a hundred feet tall, which doesn’t deter Van Cise’s efforts in the least.
Gangbuster busts out of the gate and never lets up in riveting and relentless fashion. I had to pinch myself a few times to remember all of this really happened, made all the more relevant by the radical right’s efforts today to do pretty much what the Klan was trying for a hundred years ago. Don’t miss it!
