The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre

Published in the UK in 2022; published by Penzler Publishing/Scarlet on November 7, 2023

Jen Dunne’s first husband (a bent cop named Jason) has been gone for ten years, presumed dead for the last three. Jen isn’t sure she trusts her soon-to-be-second husband, Zaki Hussain, but after the first one she’s not sure she trusts any man.

Jen has a pre-wedding hen weekend on a private island in Scotland with a group of friends and Zaki’s sister Samira, who is happy to get away from her newborn twins. Of the other hens, Michelle Cassidy is a famous singer who fronted the band Cassidy before she went off on her own. Now she’s dealing with the unwanted posting of her sex tape to the internet. Helena was Michelle’s guitarist before the band broke up, creating bad blood between Helena and Michelle. Now Helena is a music teacher.

Kennedy is Jen’s tennis (and de facto life) coach. She was a professional tennis player when she was young, but pictures of her at that age seem to be nonexistent. Nicolette (who thinks her husband is having an affair) plays tennis with Jen and spreads antivax conspiracy theories. Beattie is Jen’s former sister-in-law. Beattie has never been able to accept Jen’s claim that Jason was a criminal and believes that Jen is responsible for his disappearance. Lauren isn’t a guest but she owns the island home that Jen rented and wants to make sure the women don’t trash it.

The only male at the party is a hot Spanish chef. Someone cuts his throat in the kitchen while the women are busy getting drunk and sniping at each other. The island has no cell service and the landline isn’t working. The house has wifi but all messaging and email apps have been blocked. The boat that is their only way off the island has disappeared.

My initial thought was: one of these women is the killer. Followed by: the killer is going to pick off the rest of the women one by one. After having those thoughts, I hoped Chris Brookyre wouldn’t follow such an obvious formula. While I was pleased that Brookmyre went in a different direction, the story needed more murder victims. Nearly every character is too annoying to live.

One of the women disappears. The remaining women are provided with a new messaging app that transmits instructions from someone using the name The Reaper. The Reaper has is holding the missing woman as a hostage. The Reaper wants one of the women to confess her sin and threatens to kill the hostage f the confession is withheld. That’s at least a modest twist on the usual slasher plot.

The women have a collective abundance of sins, but they aren’t sure which one the Reaper has in mind. They don't have time to screw around because the hostage has been planted on a block of ice with a noose around her neck. Maybe she’ll slip off the ice and die immediately. On the other hand, it takes ice some time to melt in Scotland. The uncertain timeline for the hostage’s demise seems a bit silly, but it gives the women time to scamper around the island while engaging in endless conversations.

The women decide to search for the hostage in teams of two. Jen and Beattie don’t get along so naturally they team up. Michelle and Helena don’t get along so naturally they team up. The teams make so sense, but they work as contrivances to set up dramatic disclosures about the characters’ respective sins that advance the plot only because the plot consists largely of dramatic disclosures. The anguish the characters feel about their past misadventures and their hand-wringing confessions takes up entirely too much of the novel’s word count.

Domestic drama permeates the novel. A husband threatens to kill the kids if a wife leaves him. A husband’s “coercive control” of his wife amounts to serial rape. A character confesses to having an affair with another character’s husband. A character’s alcoholic mother was unable to care for her. A character gives up a baby for adoption. More than one character is jealous of the success that other characters have achieved. The excess of drama eventually gives way to melodramatic confrontations that end with melodramatic expressions of forgiveness and regret. The ease of proclamations like “I forgive you” and “I missed you” are unconvincing after a character has spent a lifetime saying “I hate you” and “I will never forgive you.”

The story creates interest more than suspense. The reveal — who is the Reaper? — depends on another contrivance. It isn't surprising because contrived surprises are the norm in this novel. The plot wrap up is too tidy. By the end, the reader is meant to love characters who seemed hateful in the early pages, but I wasn’t ready to join them in a group hug.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

First published in Great Britain in 2023; published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 7, 2023

Is there something subversive about planting vegetables on property owned by other people? Birnam Wood is an anti-capitalist cooperative in New Zealand, a “grassroots community initiative” to plant “sustainable organic gardens in neglected spaces” while fostering “a commitment to help those in need.” Some of the planting is done openly. Other times it is clandestine. I’m not sure most people would care if “guerilla plantings” resulted in vegetables growing alongside highway off ramps or in junkyards. As social change organizations go, Birnam Wood is even more of a yawner than most. Still, the plant activists seem to have righteous intentions, so good on them.

Mira Bunting has spent many “lost years” working with Birnam Wood, perhaps in the hope that she will demonstrate organizational skills that might appeal to an employer. Shelley Noakes is a more natural manager but she is tired of the group’s “suffocating moral censure.” She would like to get out or Birnam Wood. More importantly, she would like to get out of her relationship with Mira, who fails to treat her with the love and respect that Shelley believes to be her due.

Mira is planting secret vegetables on land near a National Park owned by Owen Darvish when she spots a small airplane on a private landing strip. The pilot is Robert Lemoine, a billionaire who made a fortune from drones. Lemoine explains to Mira that he’s buying the land from Darvish so he can install a survivalist bunker in which he can wait out whatever environmental catastrophe will first arrive. Mira justifies her trespass by telling Lemoine about Birnam Wood. He seems taken with the idea, or perhaps with Mira, and agrees to provide preliminary funding so that the organization can expand. The reader soon learns of Lemoine's hidden agenda.

A founding member who has been traveling, Tony Gallo, makes an unexpected appearance at the latest Birnam Wood meeting. Tony once had a thing with Mira. Tony doesn’t get along with Shelley. He’s “increasingly at odds with the prevailing orthodoxies of the contemporary feminist left, which seemed to him to have abandoned the worthy goal of equality between the sexes in pursuit of either naked self-interest or revenge.” Tony was doing personal journalism until he was accused of writing an essay that amounted to poverty tourism and revealed his white privilege. Now Tony is looking for a way back into journalism without becoming an actual journalist. To do that, he needs to do the kind of investigative reporting that will reinforce his progressive credentials.

Mira presents Lemoine's funding offer at the meeting while carefully refraining from endorsing the billionaire or the capitalism he represents. Tony opposes Mira’s proposal to accept dirty money from Lemoine. The other members are swayed by the promise of a cash infusion for their precarious organization. Tony walks away from Birnam Wood but senses an opportunity to showcase his chops as an investigative journalist. Tony reasons that a billionaire who throws money at a leftist group must be up to something. Tony’s instincts are sound. He discovers that Lemoine is involved in a secret project that will get him into big trouble if he’s exposed.

The plot hinges on the project’s secrecy. Lemoine is doing something on a significant scale in a national forest. Doesn’t anyone in New Zealand enter its national forests? It’s difficult to believe that Lemoine’s scheme would have even a remote chance of operating undetected, but I don’t know enough about New Zealand to be sure of that. The story develops some suspenseful moments as Tony hides in the woods, evading drones and capture as he gathers evidence of Lemoine’s operation, but suspense remains low-key for most of the story.

I can’t agree with the novel’s billing as a literary thriller. It is literary in the sense of being well written, with ample attention to character development, although the literary nature of the prose creates a pace that is inconsistent with a thriller. I wouldn’t want to accuse Eleanor Catton of writing run-on sentences, but readers might want to put on comfortable shoes before walking from the beginning to the end of her paragraphs. I have little patience with thriller writers who manufacture “page turners” by putting few words on a page, but Catton goes too far in the opposite direction. She rivals Henry James in her ability to create a scene by describing every single object in sight, including (in Catton’s case) the varieties of spinach and beets and cabbages and cauliflowers and leeks and carrots (and on and on) planted by Birnam Wood.

The novel’s most promising moments come during an argument at a Birnam Wood meeting about the nature of political and economic change and the ineffectual, scolding approach taken by some members of the left. The novel spotlights the in-fighting that make many organizations, and particularly groups comprised of progressive volunteers, completely dysfunctional. "Im pure in my ideals and everyone else is a sellout" isn't the kind of attitude that assures the planting of subversive cabbage patches.

Yet the novel bogs down with conflicts between Mira and Shelley, both of whom seem to develop a thing for Lemoine for reasons that are less than obvious. Chalk it up to billionaire charm, I suppose. The novel is contaminated by sentences like “She wished she could tell her friend the honest truth, which was not that she loved her because she needed her, but that she needed her because she loved her, and in her monumental stupidity and self-absorption, she had only just figured that out.” Self-absorption infects all the speaking characters, but that makes them more annoying than interesting.

I give Birnam Wood high marks for an original if not entirely convincing plot. The final pages are over the top. Perhaps those pages reflect a literary determination to eschew happy or predictable endings, but it is predictable for that very reason. Despite the novel’s flaws, including its pace and disagreeable characters, my inability to guess what might happen next kept me reading with full attention.

RECOMMENDED

Sell Us the Rope by Stephen May

First published in the UK in 2022; published by Bloomsbury on March 7, 2023

“When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope. But first they will lend us the money we will use to buy the rope.” The joke that contributes to the novel’s title is told in 1907 at the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party. The Fifth Congress is held in London. Its delegates come from many countries, all (apart from the spies) dreaming of a revolution that will give birth to a workers’ paradise created by a Marxist economy.

Koba Ivanovich is a delegate from the country of Georgia. He is unimpressed by London, where child labor abounds, the homeless are not allowed to sleep at night, and the streets are filled with the stench of human and equine waste.

Koba is working for the Okhrana, the secret police force of the Russian Empire. Koba became an informant after distributing pamphlets calling for a workers’ uprising. Unfortunately for Koba, the pamphlets were printed by the Okhrana as a means of ferreting out potential revolutionaries. Koba avoided prison by cooperating with the Okhrana. Although he adopted the name Koba, his true name is Joseph Stalin.

The first half of the novel establishes the characters and sets up the plot. Delegates to the Congress jockey for power as they debate revolutionary strategies, Menshevik versus Bolshevik. At an evening gathering, Maxim Gorky lectures about the need for a tax on land. An American capitalist who hosts that gathering is sympathetic to the revolutionaries and willing to help finance their efforts, but only by loaning them money with interest — hence the joke about rope. Koba is privy to a plan to secure financing the old fashioned way, by robbing a bank. All of this should be fascinating to history buffs, but it is also essential background to a late-developing plot.

Delegates preach the need to empower workers, but most delegates are men who lack the vision to support the empowerment of women. Two female delegates, Rosa Luxemburg and Elli Vuokko, not only fight for a world in which women and men are equal partners in the economy but are equally free to initiate sexual encounters. Together, they make the point that men have fragile egos who are afraid to ask for what they want. Men are motivated to vengeance by fear of a rejection that might not occur. Rosa and Elli ask why men find it so hard to listen to women, why women are expected to feel gratitude for not being murdered.

Elli is a delegate from Finland, where women have the right to vote. She wonders whether voting matters, as elected representatives rarely deliver transformative change, no matter what the Mensheviks think. Koba is thinking of sex with Elli but is flustered when she makes the first move, as if he finds it emasculating to accede to a woman’s desires. Koba’s relationship with Elli becomes a dramatic focal point as the plot heats up in the second half.

The plot is driven by Koba’s divided loyalty to the Okhrana (a loyalty only of convenience) and to the revolutionaries. To mitigate his risk of being outed as an informant, the Okhrana want him to plant evidence that loyal delegates are working for the Tsar. Evidence is hardly necessary, because the Party will readily accept a pointed finger as proof of guilt. “People — and not just in the Party — love to think the worst.” The story’s tension escalates as Koba tries to play both sides. Is he willing to betray people he has come to care about in order to save himself from the Okhrana? Or does the Party pose an even larger threat to Koba than the Tsar?

Stephen May tells a restrained story, trusting the reader to fill in the sweeping breadth of history to come. His focus on a few days during the Fifth Congress allows him to develop his characters as they exist in the moment. The story combines an intriguing plot with characters who have strong personalities. Elli imagines her future as a factory manager after woman are recognized as equal. She tells Koba that she will take many lovers, will never marry or own a cat. In reality, Elli will become a member of the Turku Female Red Guard during the Finnish Civil War and will be captured, raped, and executed by the White Army in 1918. She played a relatively small role in history, but as she is imaged here, she is a principled and fearless woman who chooses to live her life in full, unshackled by any man or government.

Elli comments that anger is fleeting; she has trouble holding onto it. Koba disagrees; anger fuels him. May imagines young Koba to be a complicated and contradictory man, dangerous but not heartless. Koba tells a story of murdering an entirely family to send a message because the patriarch was insufficiently deferential to socialist leaders. He tells a story of murdering his own father. It is easy to imagine Koba as threatening, given the leader Stalin will become. Yet the story balances Koba’s ruthless nature with his shy approach to Elli and his compassionate response to a helpful child whose abusive father reminds Koba of his own. I admire writers who portray the complexity of human nature instead of focusing on the obvious. My admiration is particularly strong when they do so with graceful prose that makes the novel easy to read.

Koba has a growing premonition of being haunted by the ghosts of those whose deaths he will cause, just as he is haunted by his father. He expects to die from an assassin’s bullet or a rope around his neck, and he does not seem to regard that death as unwelcome. This is the fate he no doubt deserves, but he will die in bed from a stroke at 73. The story ends with a comment upon the unfairness of statues erected to Stalin while Elli enters history with an unmarked grave. Sell Us the Rope invites the reader to remember the forgotten. Strong characterization and the drama of history make it easy to accept that invitation.

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The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Published in the UK in 2021; published by Atria Books on January 25, 2022

A character in The Appeal knows a secret. That character is murdered to keep the secret from coming out. What is the secret? Which character will die? Who is the murderer? Those questions propel this delightfully unconventional epistolary novel.

A barrister gives a collection of documents — primarily texts, WhatsApp messages, and emails, although police interview transcripts, memos, and a few other documents are later added to the pile — to two law students. He asks them to read the documents without context and to answer some questions: Who committed the murder? Who knew it was going to happen? What three things did the victim tell people before the murder?  Who knew about the murder before the body was discovered? Who has been wrongly imprisoned for the crime? Who of the named people are not who they say they are?

The action surrounds an amateur theater group called The Fairway Players. Martin Hayward, a respected local businessman, chooses and directs the plays. His talented wife Helen plays the female lead. His daughter Paige usually plays a role. His son James is his assistant director. James’ wife Olivia is pregnant with twins so James’ time is limited. When the document dump begins, they are casting for All My Sons.

This production differs from others because Martin must devote his time to raising funds for his granddaughter Poppy, who is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Dr. Tish Bhatoa is sourcing experimental drugs from the US, but Martin will need a large sum of money (the total changes from time to time) to acquire them. He eventually does a fundraising appeal with other members of The Fairway Players. The appeal is managed by Sarah-Jane MacDonald, who has fundraising experience.

Samantha Greenwood and her husband Kel are newcomers to the group. They just returned to England from Africa, where they were relief workers. Samantha has some history in Africa with Dr. Bhatoa, who warns Martin that she is not to be trusted. Samantha meets Isabel (Issy) Beck at the hospital where they are both employed as nurses. Issy latches onto Samantha and recruits her (and Kel) to The Fairway Players. Issy desperately wants attention and is slavishly devoted to anyone who gives it to her, but most members of the group have a low opinion of her. Issy lives in a fantasy world and soon imagines that Samantha is her new best friend.

The fundraising takes unexpected turns as a potential donor disappears after asking questions about the miracle drugs that Dr. Bhatoa refuses to answer. An investment manager who promises to multiply the donations apparently disappears with the money. Sarah-Jane and others tell fibs (“Poppy is going blind!”) to encourage others to help with the appeal. Suspicions are formed, accusations are made, and eventually someone dies. The reader soon begins to question every fact related to the fundraiser and later to the murder.

Janice Hallett brings out the personalities of characters through their texts — Dr. Bhatoa is brusque, Issy is clingy, Martin is evasive, Samantha is principled. Each question that the barrister poses might have various plausible answers. The law students change their view of the evidence as they review the documents and acquire more information. The reader will do the same.

The novel is a true mystery, a whodunit mixed with uncertainty about what actually happened that led to the death. The novel’s construction, inviting the reader to tease the truth out of primary source documents, engages the reader’s attention and challenges the reader’s detective skills. Simply because of its structure, The Appeal is among the most innovative and entertaining crime novels I’ve read in recent years.

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Mr Cadmus by Peter Ackroyd

First published in the UK in 2020; published by ‎ Canongate Books on September 21, 2021

Most of the story that unfolds in Mr Cadmus follows a British tradition of making murder the undercurrent of a whimsical story. Yet a growing darkness makes the story, by the end, more disturbing than whimsical.

Millicent Swallow and Maud Finch have an aunt in common, but they did not know each other until their teenage years, when the aunt introduced them. They also have murder in common. During their young lives, each killed for reasons they never came to regret. It is likely that neither woman is entirely right in the head, although they seem very proper and well suited to a quiet life in a gossipy village. As the years passed, they became as close as sisters, and by the early 1980s they occupy similar houses on the same street in Little Camborne, “the tiniest dot in a map of the county of Devonshire,” separated only by the house that stands between theirs.

When Theodore Cadmus moves into the middle house, the cousins are concerned. “I hope he doesn’t have any habits,” one cousin says. “Such as what?” the other asks. “Oh you know, food and so forth.” The cousins are quickly charmed by the new arrival, a single man in his 40s from Italy who lavishes the two women with attention and compliments. When reports of crime begin to crop up in the sleepy community and nearby villages, the reader will suspect they might relate to Mr Cadmus. The cousins do not suspect Cadmus of any crime. Surely he cannot be held accountable for the vicar who seems to have purloined the local parish’s property, although Cadmus and the vicar were together in a bank to which Cadmus paid a sudden visit. The cousins believe Cadmus is much too polite to be a criminal, even if his account of his past seems to change from conversation to conversation.

Theodore’s true past begins with a childhood on a small, misty island between Sardinia and Sicily. As a child, he kept his eye open for German soldiers and English spies. He was mistreated by both but had a particularly ugly encounter with a group of Englishmen. That episode gave him a dual purpose: revenge and finding hidden treasure at a location described on a map that a German soldier liberated from one of the Englishmen.

The story is odd and quirky, the kind of story in which the appearance of a parrot with a vulgar vocabulary is not unexpected, although the parrot’s fate might come as a shock. Mr Cadmus begins as an amusing story about eccentric characters who are not what they appear to be. The story eventually takes a darker turn, complete with brutal murders, voices from a grave, and a corpse whose “mouth and nostrils were stuffed with green amethysts so that he could no longer breathe.” The change in tone, complete with legends of a purple seagull, gives the novel a hint of the supernatural. While the change is a bit jarring, the ending is consistent with karma, given that none of the characters deserve to go unpunished.

Readers who want likeable characters and happy endings should avoid Mr Cadmus. Readers who want to be surprised — even if the story makes them cringe a bit — might be nourished by a plot that, if not entirely satisfying, is filled with unexpected events.

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