Setting Free the Kites by Alex George

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on February 21, 2017

Robert Carter lives in Maine. His father owns a small amusement park that assures Robert (and most Haverford teens) of a summer job. His brother Liam has a disease that will kill him before he leaves his teens, although Liam is more optimistic about his fate than his parents. His mother’s mental stability is questionable.

Robert is bullied every year by a bigger student named Hollis. During his first beating of the new school year, a new student named Nathan Tilly intervenes. Nathan is smaller than Hollis, but fearless, at least when it comes to bullies. He seems to have inherited that trait from his raucous father, who suffers an unfortunate death while flying a kite soon after Robert meets Nathan.

There are several dramatic moments early in Setting Free the Kites, but the drama is understated, which makes it all the more dramatic. On the other hand, too many middle chapters are devoted to Nathan’s unrequited longing for an older girl who is way out his league, and to Robert’s plan, sparked by a romance novel, to encourage Nathan to express his love. That section of the book includes a synopsis of the melodramatic romance novel that I could have lived without.

Later in the novel, additional dramatic scenes, while continuing to avoid melodrama, seem contrived. The novel builds toward metaphors of flight, but its metaphorical moments lack the power that Alex George must have intended, perhaps because the metaphor — or the final action taken in support of the metaphor — is too obvious.

In the end, as the epilogue reveals, Setting Free the Kites is a coming-of-age novel. The epilogue is an information dump that updates Robert’s knowledge of the characters after his own defining moment, but in such an abbreviated fashion that the impact of the defining moment on Robert’s life is unclear. The lessons he learns — nobody is innocent, everyone shares blame — are good but a bit simplistic. Still, George’s prose is graceful and the characters are fully developed. Setting Free the Kites has some shortcomings, but every serious novelist seems compelled to write a coming-of-age novel, and this one is better than most.

RECOMMENDED

Vicious Circle by C.J. Box

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 21, 2017

Vicious Circle is the latest entry in a series that has grown tired. Readers who want to read what is essentially the same story over and over will enjoy it. Readers who hope to find something fresh in a stale series will probably be disappointed.

Dave Farkus calls Joe Pickett and leaves a message to tell him he overheard a conversation that Dallas Cates was having about Joe’s family. He doesn’t reveal the contents of the conversation and he disappears on a hunting trip before Joe can talk to him. Joe takes a break from hunting for a poaching ring to hunt for Farkus. It turns out that other people are also hunting for Farkus. They find him first.

Joe is worried because Dallas Cates had an unpleasant relationship with his daughter Alice. C.J. Box tells us that Dallas served two-to-four years in a penitentiary for a misdemeanor hunting violation, which isn’t possible, but this isn’t the first time Box has been mistaken about Wyoming law. Later, Joe is pleased that he obtained a “clean” statement from a woman in custody because she “didn’t ask for a lawyer,” but seems to be unaware that her statement can’t be used against her because he didn’t give her a Miranda warning. For a law enforcement officer, Joe knows shockingly little about the law.

Marcus Hand (clearly modeled after Wyoming lawyer Gerry Spence) returns in Vicious Circle, having married Joe’s mother-in-law, who also returns. Nate Romanowski is back, conveniently stumbling across the dead body of a woman who is tied into the Dallas Cates story. Nate ruminates about how he misses killing people who (in Nate’s judgment, as opposed to that of, for instance, a jury) deserve to be killed. He almost kills someone based on a three-second snatch of a conversation he overhears, which suggests that Nate’s judgment is questionable at best. Box occasionally assures the reader that Romanowski isn’t a “cold-blooded killer” but that’s exactly what he is.

Why Joe is so fond of this vigilante, who stands for all the lawlessness that Joe supposedly hates, is beyond me. At one point in the novel, Nate cuts off someone’s ears. Joe, who is such a model law enforcement officer that he once ticketed the governor for fishing without a license (as we are reminded in every novel), doesn’t arrest his friend Nate for this act of mayhem. At the end of the book, he even decides not to enforce one of the hunting laws he’s charged with enforcing. Good for him, but Joe’s situational law enforcement should be troubling to readers who admire his sanctimonious “by the book” attitude. Are readers not troubled by Joe’s hypocrisy?

I will say that Vicious Circle takes a more balanced view of the criminal justice system than some other books in the series (perhaps Box has been influenced by Gerry Spence?). The book acknowledges that too many police officers view criminal defense attorneys as the enemy and that too many cops plant evidence or engage in other misconduct to improve the state’s odds of convicting the people they perceive as bad guys. I’m glad Box made that point, but that's not enough to make the novel worth a reader's time.

The contrived plot is familiar and predictable. Joe’s family is threatened, again. Joe and Nate face peril, again. The story flows smoothly and makes for the unchallenging reading experience that Box fans seem to appreciate, but it never generates the kind of tension that a thriller should create. It’s actually kind of dull, as is Joe. It’s a shame Box hasn't done anything to breathe some life into this series.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Eveningland by Michael Knight

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on March 7, 2017

Eveningland is an excellent collection of related stories, loosely linked by location (Mobile County, Alabama) and time frame. They are also linked by Michael Knight’s gentle humor, his keen power of observation, and his ability to encapsulate lives over the course of just a few pages. And nearly every story has a dog, cementing my belief that dogs always makes a story better.

“Water and Oil” tells the story of a teenage boy who spends his summer on his boat as a volunteer, looking for the remains of an oil spill. The boy takes an interest in an older teenage girl who treats him with the unthinking callousness that is common to attractive young females who reject younger boys. The story draws a nice parallel between life’s disappointments and oil spills, which eventually dissipate and leave the impression that all has returned to normal, when only time will reveal the hidden changes they cause.

“Smash and Grab” is an amusing story about a teenage girl who overpowers a burglar and spends the evening telling him about her teenage woes.

“Our Lady of the Roses” is about an art teacher at a Catholic school who has a crisis after she is told that her art lessons should have a more religious theme. The young woman may need a miracle to pull together the threads of her disordered life.

“Jubilee” is the snapshot of a marriage that has endured without fuss or drama. It’s kind of sweet to imagine that such marriages exist, even if the spouses are settled in their ways and don’t really listen to each other.

In “Grand Old Party,” a man with a shotgun confronts his cheating wife and her lover. The story has an absurdist appeal. Does love make people crazy, or is it crazy to fall in love?

“The King of Dauphin Island” tells of a wealthy man who buys every property on an island that is eroding away to nothingness. The man’s wife has died and the island might be a symbol of how he sees the rest of his life. But the daughters he loves think he’s gone off the deep end, and the man must decide how to remake himself. This is a touching story of grief and dignity and the importance of allowing the people we love to be themselves. The ending is beautifully ironic. This story is a gem.

“Landfall” is another story of a family in crisis as disasters come in bunches. A hurricane that receives a mention in “The King of Dauphin Island” takes center stage in “Landfall.” The story follows siblings who need to deal with the hurricane as well as their mother’s fall and her resulting brain injury. Flashbacks put the family in perspective, while sharp characterization is the story’s strength. The story captures: “The impossibility of living up to the past. The burden of trying. A last chance to measure up.”

RECOMMENDED

The Blue-Eyed Shan by Stephen Becker

First published in 1982; published digitally by Open Road Media on January 12, 2016

The Blue-Eyed Shan is the last and most pessimistic novel in Stephen Becker's Far East Trilogy, and for that reason it is probably the most realistic. It embodies the “anything that can go wrong, will” philosophy, telling a story in which neither good intentions nor bad intentions have any bearing on the outcome, which seems fated and beyond the control of all earthy intentions.

Greenwood is a Harvard-educated American who has yellow hair and blue eyes, but he speaks Shan and has a daughter in Pawlu. Greenwood was trained as an anthropologist, chasing old bones in Burma, where he happily lived as a Shan before the war. Learning that the Japanese had invaded Burma and attacked America, Greenwood decided to join the American army and fight for his homeland. And that he did, sort of, without leaving Burma.

Greenwood’s army tale is told as a backstory. As a reader would expect of Stephen Becker, it is an amusing backstory that establishes Greenwood’s character, warts and all. In the present, as the novel starts, Greenwood is back in Burma at the request of Yang, the Chinese general he befriended during the war.

Meanwhile, about a hundred soldiers in the Chinese army, the remnants of a much larger force, are on their way to Pawlu, under the command of General Yang. One of the soldiers, Colonel Olevskoy, is Russian. He would prefer to be going to Hanoi, where people speak French and drink decent wine, but Yang has a plan and a couple of mysterious chests. What sort of treasure might they contain?

The Shan in Pawlu are guided by the Sawbwa, who is disappointed that they must kill so many bandits to protect their village.On the other hand, he doesn’t so much mind killing the Wild Wa, because they would gladly kill the Shan if they had the numbers to do it. The Sawbwa would like the Shan to follow the teachings of Buddha, but he has an obligation to keep his people safe. He delegates that task to Naung, the First Rifle, who sees killing bandits as a way to maintain Pawlu’s supply of ammunition — while adding whatever weapons the bandits might be carrying to their stockpile.

The plot eventually brings together Greenwood, General Yang, Colonel Olevskoy, the Shan of Pawlu, and the Wild Wu. It is something of a nightmare for everyone. The ending is a true surprise, but not one that will appeal to fans of the happily ever after.

The anthropologist in Greenwood can’t resist discussing the cultural differences of various tribes. He searches for wisdom and imparts some of it to the reader, to the extent that differing values tell us what is common about the human condition. There are other bits of wisdom laced throughout the novel, and the characters are finely drawn, but the story isn’t as substantial (or as fun) as the first two novels in the trilogy. It’s certainly worth reading for the sense it creates of postwar Burma and for Becker’s remarkable prose, but it doesn’t quite stand up to The Chinese Bandit or The Last Mandarin.

RECOMMENDED

The Far East Trilogy by Stephen Becker

Published by Open Road Media on October 25, 2016

The literary adventure novel is something of a rarity. Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and The Three Musketeers are still popular, although more commonly found in dumbed-down children’s versions. Modern writers with literary aspirations seem to prefer thrillers or horror novels or war stories to get the blood racing, although Carol Birch’s Jamrach's Menagerie proves that writers in the current century can still turn out an adventure masterpiece.

A master of the literary adventure novel in the second half of the last century was Stephen Becker. The three novels in the Far East Trilogy do not share common characters, but they are each set in roughly the same post-World War II time frame, and they all feature an adventurous American making his way in an ancient culture that he respects and admires — even when, as is inevitably the case, someone is trying to kill him.

The Chinese Bandit (1975) features Jake Dodd, who distinguished himself fighting the Japanese but ends his military career in 1947 after punching a general. He begins a dangerous journey from Peking to Turkestan, often accompanied by roving Chinese bandits. Like the other novels in the trilogy, unusual friendships play a strong role, illustrating the point that friendship does not depend on similar cultures or ideologies. It also illustrates the point (made repeatedly in the trilogy), that it is better to forgive your enemies than to hate them forever.

The Last Mandarin (1979) is the best of the trilogy and one of the finest adventure novels I’ve read. The protagonist is an American named Burnham who retires from the military and undertakes a secret mission to find a Japanese war criminal who was a central figure in the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese warrior is believed to be hiding in Peking, a place that Burnham cherishes. The novel is a perfect blend of humor and drama and humanity as Burnham confronts a moral dilemma while deciding upon the kind of life he wants to live.

The Blue-Eyed Shan (1982) is more pessimistic than the other two. Its protagonist is an anthropologist named Greenwood who lived in Burma among the Shan until he joined the war effort to defeat the Japanese. He returns to the daughter he left behind on an archeological mission at the request of a Chinese general he befriended during the war. The novel’s ending is bleak despite the humor that seasons the story, but as is true of all Becker’s work, the novel is beautifully written. The wonderfully detailed atmosphere and the mix of characters, including a Russian, the Chinese general, and a mixture of Burmese tribal members, are perfectly constructed.

RECOMMENDED