The Accomplice by Joseph Kanon

Published by Atria Books on November 5, 2019

The first two-thirds of The Accomplice seems like a well-written story with a mediocre plot. Then the plot takes off, producing the kind of tension and moral quandaries that are the strength of spy fiction.

The novel is set in 1962. Aaron Wiley is an American. His uncle is Max Weill. Max is an Auschwitz survivor. He lives in Hamburg, a location he uses as a base for tracking down Nazi war criminals. Max wants Aaron to take over the cause, but Aaron professes to be content with his work in America as an intelligence analyst.

While Max is pleading his case to Aaron in Hamburg, Max thinks he sees Otto Schramm and promptly has a heart attack. But everyone knows that Schramm died in Argentina. Maybe Max is getting old. And he doesn’t claim to recognize the face. It is the way the man was walking that convinced Max he was looking at Schramm. Max was a young doctor during the war. Schramm let him live, but Max will never forget the things that Schramm made him do at Auschwitz. He is confident that he will never forget Schramm's swagger.

Schramm’s body was identified by a person and by dental records, but all of that might have been faked. Perhaps Schramm felt the need to disappear (again) after Israeli agents kidnapped Eichmann from a street in Buenos Aires. But why would he risk a return to Hamburg? With the help of one of Max’s friends, Aaron discovers a possible answer.

The story takes Aaron to Buenos Aires, where Schramm’s daughter lives. Predictably, Aaron finds himself in a steamy relationship with the daughter, because the protagonist’s inability to keep it in his pants is nearly inevitable in a spy novel. He also meets anti-Semitic priests and diplomats who are well positioned in Argentina, the kind of people who might help Schramm begin his third life.

The plot seems like a mundane Nazi-hunter story until it takes an unexpected twist. At that point, Aaron must confront difficult moral questions. If Schramm is indeed hiding in Argentina, what should be done about it? Israel kidnapped Eichmann so that he could be tried and executed. Is it justifiable to violate international law and national sovereignty to capture a war criminal? If Schramm cannot be kidnapped and spirited out of Argentina  for a trial (a second offense that might not reflect well on Israel), is it morally acceptable to kill him? Is murder justice or vengeance? Does the fact that Schramm is a Nazi war criminal make a difference in how that question is answered? Does it matter that some of the people who directed Schramm's actions are still in Germany and are to powerful ever to answer for their crimes?

One of the characters asks whether a trial would make Israel any safer than a publicized killing. Another suggests that without a trial, the only definition of justice is: “Who has the gun?”  On the other hand, is there a moral distinction between a trial with a preordained outcome and a murder? Perhaps a trial in Germany rather than Israel might be perceived as more just (Schramm, after all, committed no crime in Israel), although the judicial bias in Germany might simply run in a different direction.

Does it matter that any action taken against Schramm will have a profound effect on his innocent daughter? Eichmann was displayed in a glass cage during his trial, a humiliation that Schramm’s daughter would feel deeply if Schramm meets the same fate.

And what if some other use might be made of Schramm? The US has a history of cozying up with notorious killers, including Klaus Barbie, if it serves someone’s concept of national security. Does justice always require death or imprisonment, or might it be better to find a use for a war criminal?

Joseph Kanon gives the reader a good bit to think about while telling a story that, by the end, has enough action and suspense to entertain readers who don’t care about the questions it inspires. Because Aaron struggles to do what he deems morally right, even if it means defying his employer, he is the kind of principled character who is easy to like — whether or not the reader agrees with his moral choices. The winning combination of action, characterization, and close examination of moral issues makes The Accomplice one of the year’s smartest thrillers.

RECOMMENDED

The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith

Published by Simon & Schuster on November 5, 2019

The Siberian Dilemma feels like an interlude in Arkady Renko’s fateful life. He is still involved with Tatiana, a fiercely independent journalist in a dangerous occupation. Tatiana has gone to Siberia to cover the political campaign of an oligarch named Mikhail Kuznetsov. When she does not return to Moscow as expected, Renko worries that something bad might have happened to her. From Renko’s perspective, “something bad” might include a romantic attachment to Kuznetsov.

Renko is therefore pleased, more or less, when Zurin, his boss, sends him to Irkutsk to pick up a Chechen named Aba Makhmud and transport him to a transit prison before prosecuting him and assuring he receives a long sentence. Makhmud has already confessed to attempting to kill Zurin. Renko knows that confessions in Russia are worthless and promptly gets to the bottom of the crime. In the meanwhile, his trip to Irkutsk gives him an opportunity to look for Tatiana.

After dealing with Makhmud, Renko meets Tatiana, Kuznetsov, and Kuznetsov’s friend and business associate, Boris Benz, another oligarch in the oil business. Benz plans to inspect some oil rigs that have been sabotaged. He invites Renko to accompany him so they can hunt bear. As the reader might expect, bear are not the only hunter’s prey on the trip.

The story that Martin Cruz Smith tells in The Siberian Dilemma is a bit more sparse than is typical of his Renko novels. Smith keeps the story in motion and creates tension with vivid scenes in the frigid environs of Siberia, but after setting up a dramatic moment near the novel’s end, Smith resolves it with a fortuitous coincidence that departs from his customary realism. This might be the most contrived ending in the series. For that reason, it is less powerful than most of the other Renko novels.

My complaint about the ending doesn’t stop me from recommending the novel. As he has been developed over the course of nine novels, Arkady Renko is one of the most complex and sympathetic characters in crime fiction. Mild disappointment with the plot didn’t prevent me from enjoying Arkady’s most recent battle with Russian corruption or from cheering his reunion with Tatiana. I’m not sure that any crime fiction character is a more endearing representation of the struggle to overcome adversity than Arkady Renko. Smith always writes from the heart, making even a lesser Renko book a better choice than most crime fiction.

RECOMMENDED

Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton

Published by Del Rey on September 4, 2018

There are so many moving parts in Salvation it is difficult to hold them all in memory, and this is only the first book in a trilogy. Part of the story takes place on Juloss in the distant future, a planet that humans have inhabited and mostly abandoned. Dellian and Yirella are training for combat against an enemy that destroys all life in its path. They are members of the first generation of binary humans to be born on the planet. Most humans have fled the galaxy on generation ships, making Juloss the last known planetary home to free humans. The plan is to biomodify the humans who stay behind so they can be sent off on a battleship to fight the enemy.

Juloss has benefitted from technology supplied by a Neána insertion ship, including pet-like biologics called muncs that help them fight. The humans on Juloss believe themselves to be protected by five saints. The five names will eventually become familiar to the reader from parts of the story that are set in the past (although still in the future from the reader’s perspective).

And who are the Neána? They help emerging sentients resist the aforementioned alien threat. As the book begins, they insert four artificially created humans on Earth.

Most of the story takes place about 200 years in the future. Humans have figured out how to take advantage of quantum entanglement, allowing instant travel to any place that has a portal, including other planets. The quantumly entangled portals are built, maintained, and controlled by a ridiculously wealthy company called Connexion, which provides a handy app to help people map a walking route from portal to portal until they reach their eventual destination. Cars, airplanes, and hotels are largely obsolete, at least on developed planets. Walking is the new flying.

Aliens called the Olyix are visiting Earth, having made a refueling stop on their journey to the end of the universe, where they expect to find a reborn God. The Olyix travel on an arkship called Salvation of Life. They trade technology in exchange for electricity that helps them make antimatter. The technology they supply the Earth includes Kcells, which are something like a cheap version of stem cells, enabling longer lifespans and possibly more (the “more” includes rumors of brain transplant technology).

Most of the novel is taken up in the creation of those future histories, particularly the one that takes place in the nearer future. The one that takes place on Juloss in the distant future is likely to be the focus of later novels.

The novel is episodic, reading as if a bunch of short stories set in the same universe were stitched together to make a novel. Some of the stories deal with renditions, which have replaced trials, at least for serious crimes and political dissidents. Renditions are rather arbitrarily imposed by Yuri Alster, the Connexion officer who runs security. Yuri gives an impassioned speech about the need for rendition that could have been penned by Dick Cheney.

Other episodes investigate a nonhuman starship that appears to have crashed on a planet that Connexion might want to terraform. Inside the starship are hibernation chambers holding humans who might have been kidnapping victims. Leading an ultra-secret team of the Earth’s wealthiest interests to investigate the starship is Feriton Kayne, deputy director of the security division of Connexion. Alster and Callum Hepburn are also part of the team.

There’s a lot going on here. Maybe too much is going on for the story to cohere. Some of the episodes, including a series that features a mercenary known as Cancer, might have worked better as short stories set in the same universe. The episodes come across as filler in a novel that has more than ample content without adding subplots that do little to advance the plot. Still, Peter Hamilton can’t be faulted for a lack of ambition.

Salvation is driven more by action and ideas than by characters, none of whom are developed in great depth. While the novel reads like a group of stories that are intended to set up future volumes in the trilogy, the detailed future that Hamilton imagines is intriguing. Readers will need to commit to reading all the books, as Salvation is not a self-contained story. Given the imaginative background that Hamilton created, that’s a commitment I will gladly make. The second book was recently released and I plan to review it soon.

RECOMMENDED

Galway Girl by Ken Bruen

Published by Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press on November 5, 2019

Ken Bruen always packs a lot of story into his novels, while using a bare minimum of well-chosen and artfully arranged words surrounded by quite a bit of white space. Some of those words nod at current political realities or popular culture, including music and crime novels, while others illuminate the complexity of Galway, where snooty fern bars compete with grimy pubs that leave hardcore drinkers like Jack Taylor largely undisturbed. (Speaking of pop culture, two songs called “Galway Girl,” one by Ed Sheeran and one by Steve Earle, have been hits in Ireland. Bruen tips his hat to both songs during the course of the novel.)

Jack is mourning his latest tragedy (no spoiler here, but read In the Galway Silence to find the most recent explanation for Taylor’s heavy drinking) while a fellow named Scott, son of a recently deceased Guard (an Irish cop), is commencing a killing spree that targets Guards. Jack, a former Guard turned private investigator, witnesses one of the killings.

The same killing is filmed by a person who calls herself Jericho. Recent novels featured a woman named Emerald who tormented Jack; Jericho is her replacement. Jack, as he laments, seems to be a magnet for “crazies, lunatics, dispossessed, neurotics.” Most of them are homicidal.

A subplot involves a woman who wants to hire Jack because the mayor’s eleven-year-old son drowned her ten-year-old daughter. The woman thinks Jack might make Jimmy confess. What she means is, Jack might get revenge on her behalf, but even Jack won’t murder a child. The woman turns out to be more Machiavellian than Jack suspects.

Another subplot involves the sudden appearance of the son of Jack’s former best friend — a bestie until Jack killed him. With good reason, Jack is running low on friends. His dead friend’s son wants to even the score, but he’ll need to stand in line. That storyline is likely to stretch into future novels, as will Jack’s relationship with a falconer — a relationship that will only last until Bruen decides to kill him off.

One of Jack’s friends (but only when he wants something from Jack) is a priest. The priest wants Jack to get rid of his sister’s lesbian lover because a relative’s lesbian relationship isn’t good for the priest’s image. That storyline ties into another. In fact, the storylines generally weave together, suggesting that each bit of evil in Galway is part of a larger whole. Another of his friends is a nun, perhaps the only character in the series who sees something besides darkness in Jack’s heart. She features prominently in the plot before the novel ends.

I always enjoy and recommend Bruen’s novels, and this one is no exception. The story has less power, however, than some other Taylor novels, if only because of its familiarity. Crazy female killers is a theme that should have been put to rest with Emerald. Reprising it with Jericho has a “same old” feeling while making me wonder just how many crazy female killers Galway can support. Still, for Ken Bruen fans, even a lesser Jack Taylor novel is better than living through another year with no new Jack Taylor novel at all.

RECOMMENDED

The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer

Published by Minotaur Books on October 15, 2019

In 1905, just after Sherlock Holmes’ 50th birthday, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft gives him several pages copied from a document. The document is the notorious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which purported to discuss a Jewish plot to subvert Christendom. Russian scholars revealed the document’s fraudulent nature in the 1920s, well after the British government, via Mycroft, asked Sherlock to take a look at it.

The sister-in-law of Watson’s wife is fluent in French and Russian. She translates the document from French, observing its similarity to a document produced 30 years earlier. With the help of Sherlock’s deductive reasoning, they conclude that key differences in the two documents can be attributed to the original’s translation from French to Russian and back to French.

That should be enough to discredit the document, but Sherlock nonetheless sets off for Russia, Watson in tow, on a mission of ill-defined purpose. Sherlock apparently wants to find the document’s creator and induce a confession that the document is fraudulent.

Nicholas Meyer introduces actual people from history into his Sherlock novels (Freud most memorably in The Seven Percent Solution), and he does so here by making NAACP co-founder Anna Strunsky Walling a character. With Walling’s help, Sherlock finds the publisher of the Protocols, then gets himself into hot water that endangers Walling’s life. Such action as the novel offers unfolds near the end as Sherlock and Watson share a perilous moment with Anna on a funicular in Hungary.

Compared to The Seven Percent Solution, The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocol is disappointing. The novel is constrained by history, so there is little that Sherlock can do to change the public perception that the Protocols were genuine. The novel’s greater disappointment lies in the absence of significant detection. Sherlock’s deductive skills, apart from an occasional “elementary” followed by an obvious observation, play almost no role in the story. The novel has the advantage of brevity; any longer and I would have condemned it as boring.

Perhaps Meyer wrote the novel to make a point about the dusty Protocols, a document that is occasionally resurrected by anti-Semites of the far right despite being discredited for nearly a century. If so, an essay would have done the job. As a Sherlock Holmes story, the novel falls flat. It is always good to see Sherlock and Watson and Meyer’s prose is lucid, but the lackluster story is unworthy of Conon Doyle’s iconic creation.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS