Blind to Midnight by Reed Farrel Coleman

Published by Blackstone Publishing on August 13, 2024

Nick Ryan (at least his name isn’t Jake or Jack) is a tough guy. Tough Guy fiction is populated by one dimensional characters, the dimension being toughness. That makes them boring. No character in fiction is more tedious than a self-righteous cop. Nick is a self-righteous Tough Guy cop, meaning he’s both boring and tedious.

Ryan has the usual binary view of the world that characterizes fictional Tough Guys, few of whom have room in their brains for nuanced thought. He is proud of his enhanced ability to discern the difference between right and wrong (an ability that evolved from his military service, where “right” meant “what superior officers tell me to do” and “wrong” meant “whatever the enemy is doing”). He is untroubled by his inability to perceive any gray area between right and wrong. Nick also prides himself on not making moral judgments, as if right and wrong are not abstract, contextualized judgments. Instead of moral judgments, Nick makes “professional assessments.” Much less messy than worrying about right and wrong, not that he needs to worry because he always knows what is right and what is wrong. Lucky guy.

Tough Guy fiction is all about establishing the Tough Guy’s credentials. Nick says “tough isn’t about having a gun. Tough is how you handle having one stuck in your face.” He tells this to a wealthy woman who wants to sleep with him despite his banal dialog (Nick understands that women can’t resist “real men”) but Nick can say no to her because he knows another woman is just around the corner. Such are the benefits of being a Tough Guy in Thrillerworld.

To prove his toughness, Nick fights several armed men at a time without pulling a weapon. And while tough isn’t about having a gun, Nick usually has at least two within reach and doesn’t hesitate to kill bad guys with them. He feels sad about it (sort of), but never regrets killing because regret, like hope, gets you nowhere. Nick assures us that he has feelings; he just doesn’t “surrender to them.” Of course not, because Tough Guys can’t let their feels get in the way of their toughs. When Nick explains that he has separated himself from his daughter to protect her from all the bad guys he attracts, he’s making it clear that his feelings consist of self-love and little else. I mean, the dude could just move to a different state with her and stop killing people, but that wouldn't be the Tough Guy thing to do.

Nick is a detective in NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau. He’s also the city’s “shadow watchman.” He isn’t quite Batman, although his masters have given him a fast car and a bunch of tech, everything short of a mask and a Batarang. When Nick isn’t performing his regular duties, he works as a “fixer,” solving the city’s problems in exchange for unprecedent access to resources. While Nick has little contact with the people who control him, he prides himself on his independence, which he furthers by blackmailing his immediate superior so he can do things the say he wants to do them — the Tough Guy Way.

Nick’s former partner planted blood evidence that he hoped would lead to the conviction of a child killer. The cop’s attempt to defraud the court was exposed and the cop “ate his gun” when the killer went free. Instead of heeding the obvious lesson that cops shouldn’t plant fake evidence, Nick decided to execute the child killer. After all, if Nick thinks the perp is guilty, why bother to give the guy a fair trial? Nick might think he knows the difference between right and wrong, but he has a warped sense of justice.

Having established that Nick is boring and indistinguishable from dozens of other Tough Guy protagonists, let’s take a look at the plot. Nick is working undercover because he is truly gifted at developing the convincing stench of a homeless person. He’s going after Shea Flannery, the president of the laborer’s union. His masters want to prove that Flannery is dirty, even if Nick has to supply the dirt. The fact that Nick didn’t quit on the spot after receiving that order is evidence of Nick’s inability to make moral judgments, not to mention an impaired sense of the difference between right and wrong.

Nick rescues a boy from a likely beating. The boy’s mother is Victoria Lansdale, the rich woman who wants to shag Nick. “Wealthy women smelled different,” Nick tells us in a moment of great insight. Thugs later use mild violence to deliver a message to Victoria’s husband: “Tell him the bill is long overdue.” Nick’s involvement in Lansdale drama is part of the story.

Nick’s dad is a retired cop. He testified against corrupt cops and is now unwelcome in their company. His dad’s best friend, Tony Angelo, also a retired cop, is murdered. Nick decides that investigating Flannery is less important than solving Angelo’s murder. Tough guys never follow orders. Nick’s investigation of Tony’s death is another part of the story. So is the Flannery plot thread.

Nick’s beloved independence allows him to investigate the murder of Vlado Markovic, who was supposedly killed in New York City on 9/11. The official conclusion is that Markovic was mistaken for an Arab and was killed in a hate crime. Not true, but Reed Farrel Coleman ties Markovic’s unlikely murder to more plausible plot threads.

The plot is no worse, and in some respects more clever, than is traditional for Tough Guy novels. Unfortunately, Nick is just another Tough Guy. Coleman gives the reader no reason to care about what happens to him. Dialog is uninspired. So are sentences like “He had somewhere to do and something to do.” I have nowhere to go and some other book to read. I hope the next one is more original than Blind to Midnight.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey

Published by Orbit on August 6, 2024

The latest project of the writing team known as James S.A. Corey is a classic alien invasion story. It has elements in common with Peter F. Hamilton’s recent Salvation trilogy, in that the aliens take some humans as captives before killing the rest. While Hamilton’s story focuses on humans (and their descendants) who fled Earth and avoided captivity, Corey’s follows the lives of human captives.

The tradition in alien invasion stories is for puny humans to find a way to fight back against a more powerful enemy. And so it is a foregone conclusion that the humans in The Mercy of Gods, when facing a choice between living a reasonably comfortable life as slaves or finding a way to resist, will decide to make a stand. As a character explains: “This is about what we are. As a fucking species.” Yet making an emotionally satisfying but futile stand, while a very human thing to do, might not be the smartest long-term strategy. Whether to fight or wait is the conflict that underlies the first book in the Captive’s War series. (The Mercy of Gods is preceded in time by a novella that hasn’t yet been published.)

As alien species go, the Carryx are nothing special. I visualize them as giant cockroaches but others might imagine them differently. Their social organization is in one respect similar to an ant colony, with a Sovran playing the role of queen who is served by all the other Carryx. The most interesting characteristic of the Carryx is the change in physical form that they undergo when their social status changes (from soldier to Librarian, for example).

The Carryx have roamed through hundreds of solar systems, looking for species to enslave. They’ve been quite successful in that endeavor. The Carryx believe that “rigor and intelligence,” properly applied, will reveal that the universe is expressing an “implacable truth.” Naturally, the truth is that the Carryx are superior to all other beings and are therefore entitled to subjugate them.

The Carryx  cherry-pick the most accomplished inhabitants of an invaded planet for relocation on the Carryx home world, then kill an eighth of a planet’s remaining population to show they mean business. The newly enslaved must demonstrate that they have something to offer the Carryx. If they aren’t useful, they’re wiped out in favor of species that can bring something to the table. Producing something of value to the Carryx is the key to survival.

The human characters are scientists living on the planet Anjiin. Earth has long been forgotten as humanity’s planet of origin. When the Carryx invade Anjiin, they select Tonner Freis and his highly regarded research team to join the other worthy humans who will be transported to the Carryx home world. Tonner’s team has been performing biological research involving the proteins of different species. Their project is way over my head, but it eventually becomes important to the story. Fortunately, an understanding of molecular biology isn’t necessary to follow the plot.

Hundreds of intelligent species from a variety of planets are housed on the Carryx home world. After a species is evaluated, its useful members are dispatched to other worlds controlled by the Carryx. Each subjugated species is assigned a Carryx Librarian to catalog their knowledge.

The Carryx have tasked Tonner’s group with changing something that looks like a berry into a substance that will provide nutrition to something that looks like a turtle. The Carryx assigned the same project to a species that resembles Earth monkeys. The monkeys decide that they can gain an edge in the competition by attacking the humans. Violence ensues. The conflict makes clear that humans are competing against every other species and that the Carryx favor the survivors. Comfort, benefits, and greater resources reward species that are useful to the Carryx. Fortunately for readers, it is a given in science fiction that, in the long run, humans will always win competitions with aliens.

Most of the story is a set-up for novels to follow. Characters on Tonner’s research team include Dafyd Alkhor (who isn’t on the same level as the other researchers but used a social connection to join the team), Else Yannin (who was sleeping with Tonner before she started sleeping with Dafyd), Jessyn Kaul (who worries that she will run out of the pills that keep her brain from rotting), her supportive brother Jellit (not really part of the team but he hangs out with his sister), Rickar Daumatin (whose is defined by rage and cynacism), Campar (who uses humor to cover his insecurities), and Irinna (younger than Jessyn but a talented researcher). They all play individual roles in advancing the story and those who survive will presumably benefit from further character development as the series progresses.

The final element of the first book involves a species known as the Swarm. The Swarm pose an actual threat to the Carryx. They’ve gathered information that has enabled defenses and counterattacks against the Carryx. A spy for the Swarm has acquired critical intelligence but must work with humans to transmit that information to other members of the Swarm so it can be put to good use.

A key theme is the morality of harming a small number of individuals for the greater good of the whole. While sacrificing oneself might be an easy choice for a selfless character, sacrificing friends to save a larger number of strangers is a more difficult decision. When do humans have the moral authority to sacrifice others against their will?

Some alien species will likely be beyond human comprehension. Science fiction writers typically create aliens that humans can understand, usually by giving them the lust for power and conquest that we see in humanity’s less desirable members. Through Dafyd, Corey argues that it is necessary to understand a more powerful enemy before the enemy can be defeated. As Dafyd explains to Rickar, the Carryx can be perceived as bloodthirsty monsters, but from their perspective they are carrying out their proper role in the universe.

Dafyd’s ability to understand the Carryx will likely make him the most important character in the series. How Dafyd and the other humans (perhaps with the assistance of the Swarm) will put that understanding to use remains to be seen. Given Corey’s success with the Expanse series, I expect that the humans will concoct clever means to battle the Carryx.

Reviews of the first novel in a series are always conditional. A trilogy that begins with promise might end with disappointment. I can only say that the strong characters and intriguing set-up in The Mercy of Gods give me reason to look forward to the next installment.

RECOMMENDED

The Chamber by Will Dean

Published in the UK in June 2024; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on August 6, 2024

This is a plot that crime fiction fans will likely have encountered before. A half dozen people have gathered in a remote area. One by one, they die of an unknown cause. If foul play is afoot, one of the group members is likely a murderer. Is the killer one of the survivors or did the butler do it?

The Chamber images that six deep-sea divers are housed in a diving bell. Because they are living at the bottom of the sea, they cannot leave. Bringing them back to the surface will take days because they need to decompress.

The divers (or at least some of them) die serially for no apparent reason. Their job requires them to be compulsive about hygiene, but is it possible that the atmosphere or their food supply is contaminated? Could someone outside the bell be poisoning them?

The details of saturation diving make The Chamber a thriller that reads like a horror novel. Will Dean conveys the fear, claustrophobia, exhilaration, and boredom of confinement in a cramped undersea chamber, breathing helium, anticipating a simple and last mistake, and enduring days of tedium when the chamber returns to its mother ship. All of this to keep the oil flowing. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose this occupation. Just reading about it makes me cringe.

The narrator is Ellen Brooke. She is the only woman on a team of divers working at the bottom of the North Sea. Each character has a personality, some more than others if only because some characters outlive others and thus spend more time in the reader’s company. Although all saturation divers are trained to respond to contingencies in the same way, each character has his (and her) own way of dealing with adversity. Their differing responses to a growing threat (including the degree to which they are willing to continue trusting each other rather than allowing order to break down entirely) contribute to the story’s realism.

 The divers pass the time by telling funny or harrowing stories about other diving experiences, either commercially or in the military. Death is obviously on the characters’ minds — it would be even if they weren’t dying, one by one — and some of the most intense moments come as characters discuss the deaths of family and soldiers and co-workers. All the stories add flavor to the novel, but they also add meat to the characters.

Ellen misses her children when she accepts long contracts, to the point where she brings their towels with her so she can smell them. (I don’t understand the desire to smell kids. If they ever have a pleasant odor, I haven’t noticed.) In any event, although the money is good, I wondered why Ellen works in a dangerous occupation that makes her miserable by keeping her away from her kids for weeks at a time. To Will Dean’s credit, the novel eventually provides a convincing and surprising explanation of Ellen’s choice, one that will help the reader understand the underlying mystery.

With nearly a hundred people working on the mother ship, the list of potential suspects is long, assuming they are positioned to poison the divers’ food or drinks. The suspects that occur to Ellen include the supervisor (although he’s always been trustworthy), the night supervisor (less well liked), and the medic who sends down medications that never revive them after they pass out. None have an obvious motive, but neither do the other divers. After all, they’ve each saved the lives of the others repeatedly.

At the same time, Dean suggests that extreme environments (particularly the deep-sea confinement that causes “bubble brain”) might lead to extreme behaviors. The Chamber earns its status as a horror novel by making me contemplate a month in a bubble with five other people, one of whom might be a crazed killer.

Tension builds as divers die while their co-workers, both inside the bell and on the ship, are unable to protect or save them. Dean creates a solid mystery by delaying the reveal until after the action seems to have ended. The mystery’s resolution takes some effort to unravel. Dean plants suggestions that point in opposite directions until the reader thinks them through, yet enough ambiguity remains to encourage second-guessing. For the clever way in which Dean stretches an old plot into new dimensions and his masterful creation of characters and atmosphere, I give The Chamber a strong recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

The Best Lies by David Ellis

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on July 23, 2024

Leo Balanoff has a younger brother named Trace. They were raised by a mother who purchased them after she inadvertently killed her own children. She was a decent if overprotective mother to her stolen children, although Leo eventually came to doubt her claim that they needed to keep moving because someone was trying to kill them.

Leo’s college life had a little hiccup when he apparently committed a felony assault by punching a cop. The circumstances surrounding the hiccup are revealed as the story unfolds.

In college, Leo became involved with Andi Piotrowski, who planned to become a cop so she could take down human traffickers like the one who sold Trace and Leo. They’ve been apart for five years, but Leo is disappointed to learn that she quit her law enforcement job and is providing private security for a medical research business.

Leo is now a lawyer, although his license was suspended for five years because he induced a guilty man’s confession to save his innocent client by pretending to be an FBI agent. One of the quirks of our criminal justice system is that FBI agents can pretend to be anyone without consequence but pretending to be an FBI agent is a crime. In an effort to save his license, Leo’s law firm arranged for a mental health evaluation that proclaimed Leo to be a pathological liar. Why they thought that would help is beyond me.

As the novel begins, Leo is facing a trial for murdering Cyrus Balik. The evidence against Leo seems solid: his fingerprints on the murder weapon, his blood on the victim’s sleeve. The reader will wonder how Leo is going to get out of this mess.

Most of the novel tells Leo’s backstory. Leo was representing Bonnie Tessler as a cooperating witness against Cyrus. A few weeks after Leo and Bonnie have confidential meetings with the FBI and local law enforcement authorities, Bonnie dies from a drug overdose. Leo believes Bonnie was murdered. He views Cyrus as the logical suspect but wonders how Cyrus learned that Bonnie was cooperating against him.

Leo has more than one reason to regard Cyrus as worthy of vengeance. Leo’s connections to Bonnie and Cyrus are revealed as the story unfolds.

Shortly after Cyrus dies, Leo is drawn into a criminal plot orchestrated by Nico Katsaros. Leo’s connections to Nico are revealed as the story unfolds.

The crime involves industrial espionage for China’s secret police. Chris Roberti is an FBI agent who earns extra income by helping a spy for China. Chris introduces the spy to Nico. Andi has access to plans for technology that the Chinese government would love to acquire. By threatening to expose evidence that Leo committed a murder, Nico induces Leo to act as a courier, ferrying the plans from Andi to the Chinese spy. The criminal plot doesn’t go as planned, in part because Leo’s adversaries underestimate his intelligence.

David Ellis constructed the story brick by brick, each new row adding facts that illuminate or belie facts that form the novel’s foundation. By the novel’s last act, several characters have a motive to murder Leo. Other characters are not who they seem to be. Mistaken identity subplots abound. Good guys cannot easily be distinguished from bad guys.

David Ellis invites the reader to reevaluate the story and its characters after each plot development. My only complaint is that Ellis continues to lay long rows of bricks late in the story, after key plot points are resolved, extending the book by a significant length when abbreviated scenes would have hastened the story to its conclusion. I nevertheless appreciated the plot structure, the strong storytelling, and the intriguing characters.

RECOMMENDED

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Published by Viking on July 16, 2024

The Bright Sword takes place at the end of the time of magic. King Arthur is believed to be dead. Without his guidance, Britain is changing. Change is irreversible, but the future can be shaped. The few remaining knights of the Round Table feel a duty to choose Arthur’s successor and to defend Camelot from attack by lesser kings.

After the battle in which Arthur was lost, the Round Table is 94 knights short of a quorum. Having failed to save Arthur, Lancelot is living in a monastery, where he plans to spend his life in total seclusion. He is trying to atone for his many sins. Canoodling with Queen Guinevere seems to be high on that list.

The rollicking story begins with and focuses upon young Callum, who journeys to Camelot with a plan to beg Arthur for a position as a knight at the Round Table. Callum acquits himself in an unexpected encounter with a knight as he travels to Camelot. The knight’s identity, when finally revealed, fits well within the tradition of Arthurian tales.

Callum is dismayed to learn of Arthur’s death. The surviving knights seem to have lost their purpose. Britain has been forced into an early version of Brexit by the loss of its unifying force. Competing claims for the throne distress the knights, who aren’t used to making nakedly political decisions.

After winning a challenge, Callum is invited to join the group and to undertake new quests that will eventually determine Britain’s leadership. Adventures ensue, including encounters with magicians, giants, gods, the Lady of the Lake, and other characters drawn from Arthurian legend. From jousting competitions to farmers armed with pitchforks running across a field toward knights in armor, Lev Grossman assures that action scenes will keep the story from dragging. Yet the novel’s real interest lies more in its characters than in their adventures.

Backstories occupy much of the plot. We learn how Callum acquired the skills of a knight when he wasn’t being abused by his employer. We learn about the eventful lives of Sir Bedivere, Sir Dinadan, Sir Dagonet, Sir Constantin, and Sir Scipio. Gawain plays a small role in the story, but it’s appropriate for some of the lesser knights to enter the spotlight.

The knights were a diverse bunch. Bedivere’s physical longing for Arthur explains his loyalty. We hear less about the well-known past of Sir Lancelot, but we see him in the present, where living up to his legend proves to be his greatest challenge.

We don’t hear much about Merlin’s past but he plays a key role, often in battle with his former apprentice, Nimue. The story’s gossipy style exposes Nimue’s plan to seduce one of the knights. Whether she needed the assist of magic is not quite clear, even to Nimue.

The most interesting backstory belongs to Sir Palomides. The former prince of Baghdad is more intellectual than the other knights. Still, he found the struggle between Islam and Christianity to be less troublesome than his struggle for the love of Isolde.

By the end, most characters are transformed by adventures that expose them to miracles and force them to do (or attempt) great deeds. Just when it seems that their lives will normalize, along comes another invasion. That’s British history in a nutshell. “Change is the only certainty.” That’s also the ultimate lesson that the reader — like each character — is invited to internalize.

Yet the novel’s most profound question is one a knight contemplates in the moments before his death: “why it should be that we are made for a bright world, but live in a dark one.” In that respect, the world of Arthur parallels and continues to illuminate the modern world.

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