Review of Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon (2015, Simon & Schuster)

Prior to the war and his flight to the United States, Alex Meier was friends of the von Bernuth and Engel families. 1948, a victim of the McCarthy witch-hunts, he’s now heading to Berlin to try and earn his way back to his adopted home and son as an American spy. The plan is to return as a socialist intellectual and persuade his old flame, Irene von Bernuth, to collect pillow talk from her present lover, a senior figure in the Russian administration. The only way in and out of the blockaded city is by airlift and once there it’s a game of survival inside a moral maze. He’s welcomed as a returning hero, but is quickly drawn into a deadly game amongst old and new friends. It’s clear that the socialist paradise promised by the Russians and their German puppets is a mirage and that he cannot trust anyone. Leaving Berlin alive, with his deal complete, will be a challenge, especially since his mission careens off plan the moment he arrives.

Joseph Kanon tale explores the moral quandaries of a world with little trust amongst friends and allies, permeated by constant state of fear, betrayals, and little battles to gain an upper hand; where friends conspire to keep the past and present hidden, and inform on each other; where an indiscretion such as an ill-placed joke can lead to hard labour. Meier is placed back amongst pre-war friends, each of whom has survived in different ways, and into a society which has unfamiliar rules. However, he’s a natural at intricate plots and spy craft, and he’s quick to adapt. Despite the wider themes of post-war politics and the developing cold war, Kanon keeps the tale at the intimate scale and the tangle of conflicted relationships between old friends and family members. And there’s a nice sense of place and time. The result is a thriller with a small t, where there’s a stream of small twists and turns, and the tension simmers rather than boils over.

May reviews

Black Betty was my read of May. Walter Mosley in top form.

Zen Attitude by Sujata Massey ***
Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn ****
Rock, Paper, Tiger by Lisa Brackman ***
Black Cross by Greg Iles ***
Black Betty by Walter Mosley *****
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman *****
Arabesk by Barbara Nadel ****

Protect and serve

‘We risk out lives every day.’

‘That doesn’t give you the right to brutalize people, Tom.’

‘We’re doing our jobs.’

‘By targeting and attacking black people?’

‘Sara.’

‘Your job is killing unarmed people? Kneeling on necks until they die? Shooting them in their home?
You’re meant to protect and serve.’

‘We honor the badge!’

‘People are meant to trust you.’

‘They can.’

‘And the marches? Police violence at peaceful protests of police violence!’

‘We only responded in kind.’

‘I was there, Tom. I witnessed what you did.’

‘You were there?’

‘And I’ll keep going. The problem here is not me.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Fires of London by Janice Law (2012, Mysterious Press)

The artist Francis Bacon works as an ARP warden in the blitz in London and lives with his half-blind and light fingered childhood nanny. He takes advantage of the blackout to cruise for illicit liaisons, party in various bars where other gay men meet, and run his own roulette gambling den. When a young man he knows is found dead he gets drawn into the search for the killer, with two more deaths placing him in the frame as a suspect. Edging round the fringes of a club that provides violent trysts he searches for a way to clear his name and bring the real killer to light.

Fires of London is the first of six books featuring Francis Bacon as an amateur sleuth. The tale is rooted in some biographical context, set before Bacon received any recognition for his work, and it does a nice job of capturing the blitz and the underground gay scene in the city. Written in the first person, Bacon is cast as a complex, clever man who enjoys risk, adventure, infidelity, and a degree of hedonism, and is somewhat of a loner despite the presence of his nanny companion, a steady relationship, a circle of acquaintance and friends. The mystery is nicely plotted leading to a tense denouement.

Review of The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1971, Harper)

Sweden in the early 1970s. A senior police office is killed with a bayonet in his hospital room. The case is dealt with by Martin Beck, the head of the national murder squad, and his team. Nyland was a disagreeable character and there are plenty of people likely to hold grudges, but they quickly hone in on one. But as well as being deadly dangerous, he seems to have little to lose.

The seventh book in the series, the tale is one of police brutality, lack of accountability, and revenge, providing as usual a social commentary on an aspect of Swedish life. The plot is fairly linear with little mystery, more focused on the reason for the attack and the chase to apprehend. And the ending is very abrupt with no wrapping up or examination of the fallout. In my view, while still a good read, it’s the weakest in the series so far.

Review of The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (2017, Harper)

Anthony Horowitz has reluctantly agreed to write a book about Hawthorne, a murder detective expelled from the London Met but who’s retained as a consultant on cases. The case he’s going to shadow is the death of Diana Cowper, strangled six hours after organizing her own funeral. Hawthorne is convinced that the case is more than a robbery gone wrong and sets out to discover the truth, digging into Cowper’s past and the life of her son, a famous actor. Horowitz tags along, trying to make constructive contributions and put up with Hawthorne’s abrasive personality, but is always one step behind the detective.

The first book in the Hawthorne series, The Word is Murder, uses the first person, with the author being the central character, playing Watson the chronicler to Hawthorne’s Sherlock. Horowitz peppers the story with life as a successful author and screenwriter, dropping in snippets about work practices, various real-life book and television series, meetings with producers and directors, and relationship with agents and family. Hawthorne acts as a lofty, somewhat disagreeable foil. The mystery is well plotted, with a couple of nice twists and turns. And while the biographical approach was interesting I just couldn’t really connect with the voice which I found a bit too ingratiating.

The best fires are well set

Mrs Jordan blocked the front door.

‘Back to your rooms.’

‘We’re going out,’ the girl said.

‘Not like that you’re not, not tonight.’

‘They killed a man, Momma,’ the boy said.

‘I know they did and they ain’t killing you as well.’

‘It’s a peaceful protest.’

‘That why you’re dressed like you’re gonna rob a bank?’

‘Momma!’

‘Don’t Momma me. I’ve been fighting this fight a long time. We need justice not revenge. We need systemic change. We need daylight not night manoeuvres.’

‘We need to …’

‘Plot, plan, strategize, organize, mobilize. The best fires are well set. Rooms, now.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.
'Plot, plan, strategize, organize, mobilize' is taken from a speech in Atlanta by the rapper and activist Killer Mike, https://www.wsbtv.com/video/?id=4914290

Review of Zen Attitude by Sujata Massey (1998, Harper)

Rei Shimura is a Japanese-American living in Tokyo where she has started her own antiques business, hunting down pieces to order for her clients. She’s been given a commission to find a tansu – an ornate chest of drawers – from a specific period, and has a hot tip where to find the item. However, at the store she’s panicked into a bidding war and when the piece is delivered to the apartment she shares with her Scottish boyfriend she discovers not only has she overpaid, but the piece is a fake. When she returns to the store it’s shut up shop. Shortly after the shop owner is found murdered and Rei is convinced the death is linked to tansu. She starts to nose around, her amateur investigation annoying her boyfriend and his freeloading brother, the police, her original client, and those she questions. But despite various attacks on her property and herself she keeps prodding away.

Zen Attitude is the second book in the Rei Shimura series about an antiques dealer who plays amateur detective, without necessarily meaning to. Rei drifts into the investigation more to clean up a mess and save face than to solve any crime and her style of detection is the blundering outsider-insider (a mixed race Japanese-American) amateur who pokes and prods and has misadventures while hoping some useful clues will emerge and the case gets solved. All while trying to deal with a relationship in crisis as her boyfriend’s chaotic brother moves in with them. Massey tells the tale in the first person, giving some warmth and humour to the main character. The story is reasonably engaging and it trips along in a bumbling manner from one event to the next. But as it proceeds it becomes increasingly farcical, held together by a series of plot devices – forgetfulness, coincidence, fortunate blundering – many lacking credibility (the bit with the cigarette paper was particular hollow and the lack of recrimination baffling). The result was a light-hearted, whimsical tale that had a few too many holes in it.

Review of Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn (2018, Vintage)

London, 1941. The city is being blitzed nightly, Germany is still in the ascendancy, and some in Britain would like to see them win, or sue for peace. Working for British intelligence, Jack Hoste poses as a Gestapo agent, pulling German sympathizers into his web. Marita Pardoe, wife of an interned fascist politician, and considered the most dangerous agent in Britain remains hidden, however. He turns to Amy Strallen, a friend of Marita’s from before the war to try and make contact. Strallen is co-owner of a Mayfair marriage bureau. Her business is thriving, but she’s yet to find love herself. Hoste intrigues her, but a relationship founded on deception is always going to be a brittle affair, especially when the stakes are so high. Quinn’s tale is as much a character study of Jack and Amy and their tentative and strained relationship as it is about clandestine activity in Britain. Marita acts as the lynch-pin of their dalliance, but remains somewhat of an enigma throughout. Building up the backstory of both, Quinn charts their brief, doomed intersections as Jack pursues Marita at all costs. The telling is understated, painting espionage as fairly mundane with occasional flash points, and there are a couple of twists along the way. The result is an engaging, thoughtful, low-key tale of deception, trust, loyalty and love. 

Him, not me

‘What are you doing?’

‘Packing.’

‘Seriously? Why?’

‘Because I was in a relationship with you, not your brother.’

‘Was?’

‘Whatever we had is broken, Steve. It’s certainly weaker than family bonds.’

‘But we’re family.’

‘No. We were lovers. Your brother is family. And he comes first.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Really? He’s a fucking nightmare yet you side with him every time.’

‘He needs time. And I can’t just throw him out! He’s my brother.’

‘So I’m throwing myself out instead.’

‘But neither of us wants you to leave.’

‘Us! Him, not me. Well, now you have him all to yourself.’


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Rock, Paper, Tiger by Lisa Brackman (2010, Soho Press)

After recovering from a mortar blast that wrecked her leg, Iraq vet and medic Ellie Cooper followed her husband to China where he’s working for a black ops company after leaving the army. While living in Beijing they separate after Trey starts an affair with a Chinese woman. Ellie works in a bar and falls in with some artists, one of which is an occasional lover whose art is on the cusp of becoming highly bankable. Turning up at his apartment one evening she’s introduced to a Hashim, a dissident Uighur. Soon after the artist and the Uighur have disappeared and some shadowy associates of Trey, and possibly the Chinese security services, want to find them. They believe Ellie is the key to tracking them down and soon she too is on the run, guided by characters in an online game, unsure who to trust offline but aware of the potential consequences after what she witnessed of interrogations in Iraq. In Ellie, Brackman has created a character that is both world weary and a little naïve, out-of-place in China but with sufficient language proficiency and social understanding to survive. The tale tells of her time in Iraq where she drifted onto the fringes of torture interrogations of prisoners, to helping Chinese dissidents evade capture and the same fate. The story provides interesting detail and insight into both worlds, leading to a lengthy chase across China. It’s a pretty engaging story for most of the book, then it runs out of steam and fizzles out without any real resolution, as if Brackman wasn’t sure how to wrap up the intrigue. Which was a shame as it all seemed to be leading to a big denouement that never came.

Review of Black Cross by Greg Iles (1995, Harper)

January 1944. The Allies are preparing for to cross the Channel but there are rumours that the Nazis have a deadly surprise for them – Sarin and Soman gases, both much more deadly than anything the Allies have in their armoury. It is being developed and tested in Totenhausen, a Nazi camp that conducts medical experiments to test and develop the toxic gases. Churchill and the head of SOE, Duff Smith, hatch a plan to halt the use of the gases by bluffing the Germans into thinking that the Allies have the capability to exact revenge at scale. It involves smuggling their own experimental, unstable supply of Sarin into Germany and releasing it at Totenhausen. It will, however, kill both the concentration camp inmates as well as their captors. Churchill reasons that the inmates will die anyway and their sacrifice will save tens of thousands of lives. Eisenhower is set against the mission, but Churchill is convinced it is necessary. One of the men picked for the secret job, Jonas Stern, a Zionist guerilla fighter from Palestine, is prepared to sacrifice his own people for the greater good; the other Mark McConnell, an American pacifist and poisonous gas expert, is much more reluctant to participate in mass murder. They are flown into Northern Germany, where from the start their mission runs into trouble, leaving the two men to improvise, their moral dilemmas multiplying as they seek a way to destroy the camp, save as many inmates as possible, and steal secrets, knowing that the chances of success and escape are diminishing with each hour they are there.

Black Cross is a thriller set at the start of 1944 involving a secret Allied mission into Germany to destroy a camp that is producing and testing deadly poisonous gases. The action adventure of infiltrating Nazi Germany to perform a mission is given a twist through a series of moral dilemmas and Sophie’s choices and the selection of the two men selected to undertake the task. Mark McConnell is a pacifist and conscientious objector who is asked to perform mass murder for the greater good. Jonas Stern is a German Zionist who has no qualms using violence for political ends, but is formerly local to the area and may know people in the camp they are to destroy. Their inside agent is a nurse dedicated to saving lives, not taking them. The three of them are persuaded that since all the inmates are to die in medical experiments anyway, hastening their demise for liberation of the continent is the right thing to do. But executing the plan in practice, especially when you’re in situ and things are not going as hoped, is fraught. Iles spends the first part of the book patiently setting the scene, lining up the characters, building their relationships, and creating empathy for the camp inmates. Once McConnell and Stern are in Germany the pace shifts gears and he quickly ratchets up the tension. It all seems a little far-fetched but the story hook, dilemmas, characters, and twist and turns keep the pages turning with no let up. The result is a thought provoking action thriller, though the moral aspect seemed to get a little lost towards the end, with none of the characters reflecting in any depth on whether they’d pursued the right course of action and its consequences.

Tough love

‘You need to toughen up, Kyle. This is tough love.’

Lonny held out a hand.

Kyle ignored it. ‘What it is, is bullying. You’re a fucked-up prima donna.’

‘I’m a winner. I do what I need to. If that means battering you into shape, that’s what I’ll do.’

‘You’re a tyrant. If you weren’t who you were, someone would have capped your ass long ago.’

‘Exactly. Because of who I am. What I do. Carrying your lazy asses every game. If you don’t want to win get off the team.’

‘We all want to win.’

‘Then goddamn act like it.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Black Betty by Walter Mosley (1994, Pan)

Black Betty is the fifth book in the Easy Rawlins series and it’s a doozey. It’s now 1961. Easy has fallen on hard times; his property business has been hustled out from under him and he’s living in rented accommodation with his mute son and young daughter. To add to his woes his murderous friend, Mouse, has just been released from prison and wants revenge on the man who put him there, and he’s been asked by a white PI to find Black Betty, famed for twisting men’s necks and wrapping them around her fingers. Easy was in awe of Betty back in Houston when he was a kid, now she’s disappeared from a Beverley Hills mansion shortly after the owner died. Easy agrees to find the aging siren, but it quickly leads him into deadly trouble. Between trying to unravel mystery and stay alive, he also works to stop Mouse from murdering innocent men, and turn the tables on the woman who hustled him. It’s inevitable that some folk are going to die, but he’s determined it’s not going to be him. As well as a compelling mystery, with a couple of nice sub-plots, Mosley does an excellent job at charting the social relations and geography of being black in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Kennedy might have been elected, but racism and the race divide is as deep as ever. Easy is smart and canny, he’s managed to build a property business, but he’s still struggling to get by and is often the victim of institutionalised abuse. Mosley nicely portrays these tensions and injustices through a hardboiled style with a tender underbelly, populating the book with a nice mix of conflicted characters. The subplots were perhaps wrapped up a little too quickly, but Black Betty is a wonderful, noir read.

Review of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990, Corgi)

Since the Garden of Eden, Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon, have been living amongst Earth’s mortals, along with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They have an uneasy alliance doing Heaven and Hell’s work as they wait for the coming battle between good and evil. Now the anti-Christ is coming and by his eleventh year Judgement Day will arrive and the apocalypse will sweep the Earth. Only there’s a mix-up at the birth and the Young’s have been given the wrong baby. Moreover, Aziraphale and Crowley have grown quite fond of the way thing are. Adam Young grows up in an idyllic village with its own microclimate in a loving family with close friends. During his eleventh summer he finds that his imaginative musings are starting to come true; powers that would do enormous harm in the hands of an evil mind. Aziraphale and Crowley call on the witchfinder army to locate their missing anti-Christ before the legions of heaven and hell do battle; but there’s only two of them and they’re not up to much. And a witch is also searching, guided by The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter.

It’s nearly 30 years since I first read Good Omens. It’s as much fun as I remember it. Pratchett and Gaiman spin an amusing tale that plots the potential end of the world, centred on an angel and demon who have messed up big time, a gang of four kids who are always up to mischief led by a boy with mysterious powers, a pair of witchfinders and a witch who are descendants of duel that has lasted over four hundred years, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The story is very nicely spun, with plenty of action, and engaging dialogue, but what gives it an extra lift is its musings on religion and its role in society. The result is a playful, thoughtful page turner. A wonderful read.