The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman

Published by ‎ Amazon Original Stories on December 1, 2024

Love is not for the selfish. Fortunately for Lucas, he is happy to be selfish and doesn’t care about being unloved. Lucas believes that “responsibility” and “commitment” are “two of the easiest ways of ruining any perfectly good day.” Lucas prefers to be free to do what he wants when he wants without considering the competing desires of other people. He also understands the danger of starting conversations. “If you ask people what they think, they start thinking, and that’s how wars start.”

Narrating “The Answer Is No,” Lucas tells the reader that there is something perfect about not having to share a pint of ice cream. He recommends “being really content with your life and not immediately thinking: Wow, now everything is really perfect, maybe we should have a baby?” Because a baby introduces another person in your life, and other people are the source of all unhappiness.

It's not that Lucas dislikes other people. He just has no need to interact with them. He appreciates the people who cook his pad thai and those who deliver it to his door, but he is happier if he doesn’t need to speak with them. To those who maintain that humans are herd animals who need to be together, he counters that “humans have historically proved to be in-need-of-therapy animals,” the need for therapy being triggered by keeping company with other humans.

Lucas likes to be left alone so he can drink wine and play video games. He feels sorry for people who want something to happen in their lives. Lucas “lives in an apartment, which he would consider the perfect form of storage for people, were it not for the great virus of civilization: neighbors.” His default response when a neighbor wants something is to tell them no.

Some of Lucas’ neighbors want him to help solve the mystery of a frying pan that a tenant discarded outside — almost on the sidewalk! — and Lucas has just managed to talk them into going away when his downstairs neighbor appears. She’s upset that he changed his internet password and is affronted when he accuses her of stealing his internet. It isn’t stealing, after all, if she only takes the little bit of the internet that leaks into her apartment.

Craziness ensues, primarily in the form of a large and ever-growing junk pile that originated with the frying pan, a committee of three crazy residents who place Lucas in charge of the pile, and a group of men who worship Lucas because they are convinced he is an angel. Eccentric people are Fredrik Backman’s bread and butter, the kind of people who make random comments like “I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of!” Other characters, like a woman who is hiding from an abusive husband by pretending to be in a coma, are more poignant. Backman also pokes fun at official and unofficial bureaucrats, protestors, middle managers, Facebook groups, and self-help advice.

Lucas might not be a reader’s ideal neighbor, but he sometimes expresses wise thoughts, including his recognition that some people are more interested in blaming and punishing people for the problems they cause (like a discarded frying pan) than in solving the problems (by, for example, picking up the frying pan). When the lone frying pan turns into a pile of trash (it’s easier to break the rules when someone else has paved the way), everyone in the neighborhood tries to guess at the culprits’ identities, “which somehow always seem to be people who don’t look like the people who are doing the guessing.”

Naturally, Lucas will feel himself making connections as the story progresses. He might despise himself for behaving socially, he might feel feverish as he comes down with a case of empathy, but working together with neighbors helps him solve some problems (although yes, other people are always the problem). But that doesn’t mean that Lucas needs to change his entire philosophy of life. His final plan to avoid responsibility and commitment is fitting and funny.

This is a short story, but sufficiently long — and sufficiently entertaining — that readers in need of a laugh might not feel bad about paying a couple of bucks to enjoy it.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

The House of Cross by James Patterson

Published by ‎ Little, Brown and Company on November 25, 2024

I’m not a huge fan of Alex Cross, in part because I can’t take FBI profilers seriously. Fortunately, Cross (who left the FBI but still works for the agency as a contractor) does no profiling in The House of Cross. The novel is essentially an action thriller with little crime detection but lots of gunfire.

Series fans might be pleased to note that recurring supervillain M, who leads a vigilante organization called Maestro, returns in The House of Cross. His identity and origin occupy a good chunk of the story. The mystery begins when Ryan Malcolm’s car crashes on a mountain road as he’s being pursued by killers. Malcolm founded a data-mining company that contracts with American intelligence agencies. Poor cell service prevents him from calling Cross during the car chase, but he leaves a Tor message to explain the “things I want to tell you so that you may bring to justice those responsible for my death.” He should have skipped the preamble and spit out the facts because the message ends when his vehicle goes off a cliff.

Who is M? The story delves into his background. All I’ll say is that thriller writers too often rely on evil twin brothers to explain criminal behavior. The mildly refreshing twist here is that both brothers are evil, even if one is worse than the other.

The main plot, in keeping with the modern thriller custom, is outlandish. A newly elected but not yet inaugurated president is making a list of potential Supreme Court appointments so she will be prepared if a position becomes vacant. Before the inauguration can occur, one of the candidates near the top of the list is shot between the eyes, another is stabbed in the kidneys, and a third (because the assassin apparently ran out of ideas despite testing a new superweapon) is shot to death. The killings are orchestrated by Maestro with the intention of changing the balance on the Supreme Court. That plan will require multiple vacancies on the Court, so the final chapters follow Cross, his buddy John Samson, and his wife Bree Stone as they try to thwart assassinations.

Now, the idea that an appointment to the Supreme Court can be influenced by killing all the potential nominees who don’t satisfy M, in anticipation that the president will appoint the three he doesn’t kill, is just nonsensical. The list of potential justices is always fluid. Hell, George Bush wanted to nominate his personal lawyer before senators quietly told him she wasn’t remotely qualified for the job. When candidates are scrubbed from the list, more candidates are added. Will Maestro just keep killing them until he approves of all the survivors? And since all the potential nominees are likely to share roughly the same ideology, it's unclear why Maestro views some as better than others (apart from some silliness about one candidate being insufficiently supportive of Indian treaties, as if treaty law issues are a burning issue in the Supreme Court).

The assassin keeps the aforementioned weapon (something about sonic waves) in reserve until the novel’s end, but by that point everyone (including the new president) understands what’s happening, so you’d think the Supreme Court Police, the US Marshals, and the FBI would manage to protect Supreme Court justices until the assassin is caught. Of course they don’t. Naturally, it all comes down to Cross in the end, because that’s how thrillers work.

So the plot makes no sense, but how often do plots in modern thrillers make sense? For the sake of enjoying the story, it’s best to ignore the plot’s foundation and view the book as an action novel. From that perspective, James Patterson succeeds in delivering some exciting chase scenes and gunfights. The snowmobile chases made me feel cold (not necessarily a plus since I hate being cold, but my point is that Patterson creates a vivid albeit chilly atmosphere). Naturally, being a supervillain, M finds a need to gloat before giving Cross and company a chance to escape. That’s a standard Bond movie formula and is routinely mocked, but readers don’t want the supervillain to win, so the formula is one way to assure the heroes’ victory. If there is a better way, Patterson didn’t find it. Still, readers expect a thriller to deliver thrills and this one does, ridiculous plot notwithstanding.

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The Collaborators by Michael Idov

Published by ‎ Scribner on November 19, 2024

Ari Falk is a CIA operative. His job as a media investor is a cover for his covert assignment — “helping Russian opposition journalists find and run stories damaging to the Kremlin.” Ari’s biggest success is funding a popular and openly gay Russian blogger named Anton Besmanny. Anton exposes corruption but “the unspoken compact between the Russian people and their masters has always been that each looked away while the other stole whatever wasn’t bolted down.”

When Anton humiliates a deputy minister of defense, Falk knows he needs to keep Anton safe. He gets Anton a ticket for a flight to Riga, but the flight is diverted to Minsk by Russian military jets. Anton is convinced that the plane is being grounded because of him and gives a speech that apologizes to the other passengers for the trouble that he’s caused.

At the airport, Anton is placed in a room with a man and woman. Shortly after they are removed from the room, Anton hears two gunshots. To save himself from a similar fate, Anton makes a video in which he apologizes for “glorifying descriptions of a degenerate lifestyle.” The plane returns to the air, bound for Riga, but Anton is swept off to Istanbul.

Falk knows the plane made an unscheduled stop but he expects to see Anton at the airport in Riga. Instead, he sees a Russian bagman. Falk forces the bagman to reveal that Anton is now in Turkey. Falk promptly flies to Istanbul, where he nearly meets his death.

Having established its setup, the story shifts to Maya Olbrecht, who at 22 has tried to kill herself twice and completed two stints in rehab. Maya’s father has just committed suicide by jumping over the side of a yacht at night near Portugal. Paul Olbrecht is a billionaire whose wife is disturbed to learn that much of the money he had been managing for wealthy investors is missing from the investment fund. Paul leaves behind a makeshift will that gives Maya a house in Portugal, where she goes to get away from her mother.

The two storylines converge after Russian shooters kill Falk’s co-workers at the media company he established as a cover. Falk investigates the shooting while Maya investigates her father’s death. When the two investigations link, Falk becomes sexually (albeit casually) involved with Maya because he expects to never see her again. Fate, of course, has other ideas. Saving Maya will eventually become Falk’s mission, although he takes on a bigger mission when he learns why the money that Paul Olbrecht was managing disappeared.

Russians have always made the best spy novel villains. I'm always happy to encounter a story that forces western spies to match wits with their easten counterparts. While this isn’t a novel of tradecraft and double agents, Falk makes use of his skills and clandestine contacts to get to the bottom of the triple mysteries — why did Russian spies go to so much trouble to capture Anton, who were the man and woman that the Russians removed from the plane, and what did Paul Olbrecht do with the money? The mysteries have credible solutions that most readers will not easily guess (at least I didn’t).

Given her troubled childhood and struggles with addiction, Maya is a sympathetic character. Falk’s personality is developed in sufficient detail to make him an interesting character, if not a memorable one. The pace is steady and Eastern European locations give the novel a credible atmosphere (no doubt assisted by Michael Idov's familiarity with Riga, the city of his birth). Idov’s prose has no rough edges. My recommendation, however, was won by clever plotting and surprising plot twists. The world of spy fiction is hungry for new practitioners. I happily welcome Idov to its ranks.

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Lazarus Man by Richard Price

Published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on November 12, 2024

Richard Price brings a unique and compelling voice to crime fiction. Lazarus Man doesn’t fit neatly into that genre, but crime is always in the background. Price chronicles Harlem life with the keen eye and vivid prose of Colson Whitehead even if he hasn’t yet won a Pulitzer. Lazarus Man is Richard Price in strong form.

The story takes place in Harlem, where residents are inured to violence. Calvin Ray, an ex-con, is now a community activist, having dedicated himself to teaching young men to find a nonviolent path. He organizes teaching events at sites of shootings.

The violence is never graphic but its presence is a constant undercurrent, leaving parents in fear for their children — including Anne Collins, a postal carrier whose son was shot (probably by accident) in the calf. Anne confronts the shooter because she knows that going to the police would invite retribution.

The incident that sparks the plot in Lazarus Man is violent but not a crime. A collapsed building in Harlem is not caused by a terrorist attack but by subway construction gone awry. The building falls on Anthony Carter, a mixed-race unemployed teacher and recovering addict whose wife left him, taking their daughter with her. Anthony is buried for a couple of days before being rescued.

In the days that follow, Anthony is pressed to give inspirational speeches — for Calvin and others — that amount to “whatever doesn’t kill you makes your stronger,” a message that he later refines. Some people who listen to him know better. Sometimes, the things that don’t kill you leave you in a world of pain and poverty. Lazarus Man isn’t a pollyannish novel, but Anthony genuinely believes that something in his message is true.

Anthony is the glue that holds the plot together, but the story has an ensemble cast. Mary Roe is a Harlem police detective who spends much of the novel trying to track down a missing man whose wife died in the building collapse. Her investigation leads to a poignant explanation of the man’s disappearance.

Royal Davis owns a funeral home that isn’t paying its bills. Felix Pearl is a 24-year-old with a video camera who aspires to be a filmmaker but earns money by filming playgrounds for the Parks Department, much to the chagrin of the parents of children he films and of cops who respond to their complaints.

Every character seems embroiled in a domestic drama. Anthony is separated from his wife Clare and his 13-year-old stepdaughter, with whom he is “increasingly reluctant to seriously engage.” He knows the time will come when Clare will ask for a divorce but he hopes to repair the rift with his stepdaughter. In the meantime, after making “sneaky eyes” at Anne Collins during one of Calvin’s events, Anthony dances around the possibility of dating her. They have difficult but honest conversations that middle-aged people should probably have more often before they decide to date. Mary's domestic drama includes a separation (she switches residences with her husband every three days so their children will have a stable residence) and an occasional unfulfilling motel shag with another detective.

Price’s character development is exceptional. Characters recall but do not dwell upon the events that shaped their lives, allowing the reader to understand the origin and development of their personality without bogging down the story. The characters have experienced varying kinds of pain. How people deal with pain is one of the novel’s themes.

Some characters change, as people sometimes do; one character’s transformation is stunning. Another concludes: “All I know for sure is that I have to make a life that I can live with.” One of the novel’s lessons is that “people are so much more” than we understand them to be.

Readers who dislike departures from genre formulas might complain that Lazarus Man doesn’t have much of a plot. How the lives of a half dozen characters in Harlem intersect for a few days is the plot. It isn’t clear that any one storyline is more important than the others — the characters all struggle to do their best — so maybe the point is that every life is important.

Still, the plot gains clarity as the novel nears its end. A fact the reader will assume to be true is proven false by something Felix captured on his camera. The revelation links back to an earlier scene that takes on new meaning, inviting the reader to view a central character in a different light. I imagine readers will have different reactions to the revelation, which might make Lazarus Man a good choice for book clubs.

In any event, the plot twist brings a message about the importance of hope. The ability to give hope to others, or at least to lift spirits, is a gift that merits appreciation. As does Price’s gift for storytelling.

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