Monday’s drizzle didn’t deter the tulip-lovers at Holland Ridge Farm, whose motto is “Don’t fly to Holland. Drive to Holland.” While I’ve studied the Facebook pix from friends who went to Keukenhof Gardens this spring with great envy, I realized, you know, we have tulips in New Jersey! This IS the Garden State.
On more than 150 acres in the community of Cream Ridge,
Holland Ridge Farm devotes 50 acres to its colorful stripes of tulips, the
largest tulip farm on the East Coast. The owners have brought their fields to
the point that the farm now has an annual Tulip Festival, in full bloom this
month. There must have been hundreds of people there, strolling the grounds,
smiling, but the areas is so large, it never felt crowded (Easter Sunday was
another story, I’ll bet).
Gift shop, café, U-pick opportunities, hayrides around the
fields, and lots more, with more tulips every year! While a leisurely walk around
the tulip beds may seem an old-fashioned, almost quaint pursuit, the farm’s FAQs
offer a sign of the times: No, you cannot fly your drone over the tulip fields.
Only an hour from Philadelphia and New York, getting there
entails a lovely drive through farmland and past horse farms. Buy tickets
online.
Metropolitan Museum
Last weekend in Manhattan we saw the Met’s “The World Between Empires” exhibit, “art and identity in the Ancient Middle East,” on view through June 23. Some of those empires I’d never even heard of before, so I definitely learned something. The exhibit focuses on the Middle East conflict between the Roman and Parthian empires.
The art and objects of the period (c. 100 BCE – AD 250) came from the civilizations along the great trade routes and show the influences of Arabea, Nabataea, Judaea, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Says The Wall Street Journal, “Nothing short of spectacular.”
When they’re good, thrillers set in interesting foreign
places are like a trip without the airport hassles. Both of these seemed like promising
journeys, and both had good points. If the premise intrigues you, go for it.
***Secrets of the
Dead
By Murray Bailey – This is the second of Murray Bailey’s crime thrillers to follow the adventures of Egypt archaeologist Alex MacLure, and it’s clear the author knows his subject.
Secrets of the Dead
begins, not in Egypt, but in Atlanta, Georgia, where a cache of bodies has been
found, eight in all. The victims were buried in a crawl space under The Church
of the Risen Christ. FBI agent Charlie Rebb and her annoying partner Peter
Zhang are immediately brought into the investigation because she’d worked a
previous serial killer case in which the eight victims were murdered in the
same manner as those under the church. They bear a mysterious mark loosely
linked to a local tattoo artist who appears to have fled the country.
Alex MacLure’s research is under way in the town established
by Pharoah Akhenaten and his beautiful wife, Nefertiti. Ancient secrets hide in
the artifacts of the period, and MacLure hopes to reveal them. A stranger claiming
special knowledge asks MacLure to meet him in Cairo, and MacLure follows a
rather obscure trail of breadcrumbs to find the mysterious man. When he enters
the apartment, he finds not an informant, but a dead body. Hard on his heels
are the police, and an uncomfortable time in an Egyptian jail ensues. Bailey’s
vivid description of jail conditions are enough to make you not risk even a
jaywalking ticket in Cairo.
Charlie Rebb is sent to Egypt to work with Cairo police, as
a body has been found there with similar markings as those under the church. Clearly
the two stories are becoming intertwined. Occasional sections are from the
point of view of the killer and his Master, unnecessary in my opinion, and not
very realistic.
Bailey intersperses Rebb’s and MacLure’s narratives with the
story of Yanhamu, an official from 1315 BCE who became the Pharoah’s Keeper of
Secrets. He was given the charge of finding one particular secret, that of
everlasting life.
Bailey’s writing moves the action along smoothly. His
authentic passion for the country’s long and complicated ancient history shines
through. It’s a strong contender for your summer beach bag, the kind of book
you don’t want to have to think about too much. That’s partly because Bailey
doesn’t give you much help. The map and schematic of the Great Pyramid are a
step in the right direction. A glossary, perhaps a timeline, would be equally
welcome.
***Pretense
By John Di Frances
– This is the first book of a trilogy about an international hunt
for a trio of assassins targeting European politicians. As a crime thriller,
the tradecraft of the assassins is detailed and persuasive, and the police
procedural elements also are good. It’s billed as a book that demonstrates
disenchantment with the European Union – the assassination targets are
big EU supporters – but it doesn’t really work as a political thriller, because
there’s very little politics in it. The assassins could just as well be
murdering top chefs or social media gurus.
The assassins are an Irish couple, handsome and strikingly
beautiful, wealthy, elegant, and socially adept (in a too-good-to-be-true way)
and a more rough-around-the-edges German man, who is an expert sniper. The
couple’s first target is Slovakia’s prime minister, killed by a car bomb outside
a Bratislava restaurant. The German accomplishes the second murder, that of the
Polish prime minister. It’s technically difficult, shooting from a distance of
640 meters into a packed stadium of excitable soccer fans.
The three escape to Berlin, several steps ahead of the multiple
security services now on their trail. The cat-and-mouse game is well done and
may carry you through some of the clunky writing. Technical information dumps
show Di Frances did his homework. Yet the weight or length of a rifle is
immaterial, of itself. Such information needs to be brought into the story. Has
the sniper had experience with a rifle of that type, is its length an advantage
or does it make it hard to conceal? Worst was a bullet-point list of 16
variables affecting the soccer stadium shot. Dude, this is fiction!
The plot pulls you forward nevertheless, and Di Frances has a great twist in store. Unfortunately, when you reach the end of Pretense, you’re not at the end of the story. To really understand what’s been going on, you’ll have to read book two and very probably book three. Not sure I’m ready for that.Link to Amazon.
People around the world were stunned and saddened as photographs of the partial destruction of the cathedral of Notre Dame, that icon of Paris, burned. (See how laser point clouds of gothic cathedrals, which may help in reconstruction, are created.) Paris, its landmarks, its street scenes, and its culture have inspired classic literature from the popular works of Dickens and Victor Hugo (for whom Notre Dame plays a starring role) to the American expats in the 1920s to Anthony Doerr.
Crime writers too have found it a congenial home, not
because crime happens there as it does elsewhere, but because to set a crime
novel in Paris is to establish a contrast, a friction between the sordidness of
deeds and the beauty of the setting, even as it may live only in the reader’s
imagination.
The Sûreté was quick to adopt some of the early criminal detection
measures developed in France, too: Alphonse Bertillon’s system of identifying
criminals through body measurements—a forerunner of today’s biometric
identification—and the 1863 discovery by Paul-Jean Coulier of the means to
reveal fingerprints on paper, roots from which sprang stories of very French
detectives, most notably Georges Simenon’s
Jules Maigret.
The attraction continues. Here are four crime novels from
the last year with significant Paris roots.
****The Long Road
from Paris by Kirby Williams – In the late 1930s, a New Orleans octoroon jazz
prodigy is making a success of his nightclub with the help of his Jewish
girlfriend. Then the fascists appear.
****A Long Night
in Paris by Dov Alfon – an Israeli mistakenly murdered at Charles de Gaulle
airport triggers a desperate investigation in Paris and Israel to find the real
target.
*****Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin – A gentlemanly aging cellist plunges well outside his comfort zone to help the people he loves.
****Number 7, Rue Jacob – by Wendy Hornsby – A Parisian couple is pursued around Europe in a deadly game, as shadowy persons ask cell phone users to “find them,” then “stop them.”
Said Peter Goldberg in Slant Magazine, “Single-minded and direct in its execution, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s The Mustang is a hard look at the extremes of masculine guilt and healing” (trailer).
The main character, Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) smiles only once, I think, in the whole film. For the most part, Coleman doesn’t interact with his fellow prisoners in a Nevada medium security prison. His attempts at a relationship with his daughter stall. We find out only deep in what his crime was, and the weight of it.
There’s a special prison program (in
place in Nevada and a number of Western prisons IRL) to train convicts to
work with wild mustangs, and tame them to the point they can be auctioned to
the border patrol, to ranchers, or for other uses. Putting a man like Coleman
in a corral with 1500 pounds of frantic horse seems more than a bit risky and
is. If only Coleman can learn relate to this one living thing—and vice-versa—perhaps
they both can be saved. As another prisoner/horse trainer says, “If you want to
control your horse, first you gotta control yourself.”
The parallels between the confinement and anger of this
mustang and this prisoner are obvious. Bruce Dern plays the elderly cowboy in
charge of the project, and he and the other prisoners are strong characters.
But it is Schoenaerts movie and, although the camera is on him throughout most
of it, he grows to fill the screen. Beautiful scenery too. (For one of the most
beautiful and moving films ever about men and horses, get ahold of last year’s The Rider.)Rotten
Tomatoes critics rating: 94%; audiences 74% .
Woman at War (2019)
This movie from Iceland director Benedikt Erlingsson has absurdist elements, real tension, and a lot of heart (trailer). Choral director Halla (played by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, who also plays Halla’s twin sister Ása) is outraged at the prospect of booming unenvironmental heavy industry invading Iceland. She sets out to disrupt the development plans by sabotaging the electrical system, a bit at a time.
The authorities consider her protests eco-terrorism, and are determined to find whoever is carrying them out, with some nail-biting pursuits by helicopter and drone. To keep the story from becoming too anxiety-provoking, an absurd trio of musicians—piano, tuba, and drums—appears wherever she is, whether it’s on the heath or in her apartment. It’s the incongruous presence of the tuba that lets you know she’s ok.
She’s single and childless, until a four-year-old adoption
request is unexpectedly filled. A child is waiting for her in the Ukraine. From
this point, carrying out one last adventure before flying to retrieve her new daughter, Halla is
also accompanied by three Ukrainian women singers in full costume, as well. I
laughed out loud at this and some of the other antics. You will too.Rotten
Tomatoes critics rating: 97%; audiences 90%.
Beirut (2018)
Netflix provided this 2018 movie from director Brad
Anderson, written by Tony Gilroy, a controversial
political thriller set in Beirut, once the Paris of the Mideast, which has disintegrated
into civil war (trailer).
In 1972, John Hamm is an American diplomat and expert negotiator stationed in
Beirut who, after one tragic night returns to the States. He never wants to go
back. About a decade later, he does, when a friend is kidnapped, and he’s asked
by some highly untrustworthy U.S. agents to help in the rescue. Only Rosamund
Pike seems to have her head on straight. He finds a city in shambles, divided into fiercely
protected zones by competing militias. Finding his friend, much less saving
him, seems impossible. A solid B.Rotten
Tomatoes critics rating: 82%; audiences 55%.
Rembrandt (in
theaters 2019)
This documentary should be appended to last week’s review of
recent films on Caravaggio and Van
Gogh, a rare alignment of the planets that took me to three art films in a
week. This one describes the creation of an exhibition of Rembrandt’s late
works, jointly sponsored by Britain’s National Museum and the Rijksmuseum (trailer). Like those
other big-screen delights, the chance to look up close and unhurried at these
masterworks is the best part. There’s biographical information and commentary
from curators and others. The details of how the exhibition was physically put
together were fascinating too. One of my favorites among the works featured was
“An Old Woman Reading,” from 1655 (pictured). From Exhibition on Screen, you
can find a screening
near you.Rotten
Tomatoes critics rating: not rated yet.
If you write, you may receive invitations to read from your
work to a book group, at a public reading, or for a bookstore event. It’s a chance
to connect with an audience, to find places in your work that still need work, and to build fans. But
writing doesn’t prepare you for reading.
Before I give you Nguyen’s tips, here’s an important one
from Walter Moseley. He told an audience at Princeton last year that “the
longer I read, the fewer books I sell.” Author venues like Noir at the Bar,
Mystery Writers of America, and my own Princeton-based writers group limit
authors to 10 to 12 minutes. A taste and a tease. Nguyen’s tips and a couple of
my own:
1. A reading is a performance. Writing is storytelling and
good storytellers put some pizzazz into their reading. Your audience wants to
be moved by your words and how you
share them. He recommends listening to skilled readers, like author T.C.Boyle
(here reading from his The Harder They Come,
starting 7:50 in).
2. Create a script, rather than simply reading from your
book. With a script, you can enlarge the type (I use really big type—18 to 20
points), so you don’t have to bury your head in the pages, and you can see the
words easily even if the lectern is poorly lit, a lesson learned the hard way. Mark
your script with underlinings and squiggly lines where you want to speed up, slow
down, get louder, pause. Number the pages. Circle words you trip over in rehearsing.
You may trip over them again. Authors with younger eyes tend to read from their
tablet or cell phone, but paper never has a low battery.
3. “Practice, practice, practice,” Nguyen says. And time
yourself. Cut out a paragraph here or there if, at the twelve-minute mark, you
want to reach a particular point. A description that seems slow to you as a
reader, probably is.
4. Make eye contact with your audience. Repeatedly. Those rehearsals
you did will let you take your eyes off the page for longer too.
5. Be aware of how close to the mike you need to be and cement
yourself there. A little movement is fine, especially with the arms, but avoid
weaving back and forth, shifting your weight from one foot to the other in a
seasickness-inducing way. Plant your feet and keep them planted.
6. How you look is important. “Dress up, whatever that means
to you,” he says. It shows you are rising to the occasion. If certain colors or
outfits perk you up and you feel good wearing them, choose one of those.
7. Bring energy into the room. “Your energy level will be the room’s energy level, which comedians understand,” Nguyen says.Here’s the bottom line: Once you’re on stage, you’re a performer. “You are putting on a show, whether it is for five people or fifty or five hundred. That’s what people have come for. If they just want to read your words, they can do it at home. Respect their time.” Don’t be boring. And if you’re really prepared, you won’t be.
By Ben Pastor – This book is one of Ben Pastor’s six detective novels featuring German intelligence officer Martin Bora and a prequel to novels covering Bora’s activities during the Second World War.
As the book opens, it’s summer 1937, in the midst of the
Spanish Civil War. Two tiny encampments located high in the rocky sierras of
Aragon overlook a valley, a cane-lined brook, and the small town of Teruel. Bora
heads one of these camps, comprising about seven Nationalists; the other, near
enough for occasional sniper-fire, is similarly sized and led by American
volunteer Philip Walton. Walton is a World War I veteran, a couple of decades older
than Bora, and has joined the Republican side less because of conviction and
more because he can’t think of anything better to do.
The men in both camps are a ragtag bunch and more prone to
follow their own inclinations than any official orders. Neither unit is interested
in attacking the other, preferring to save their energies for a big battle
rumored to be coming soon. The proximity of these two encampments is
illustrated by the fact that both Bora and Walton both visit the same
prostitute high on the mountaintop. For Bora, the encounters with this young
woman are life-changing; for Walton, they’re a painful reminder he’s aging. Yet
they inspire destructive sexual jealousy.
Bora finds the body of a stranger shot in the head on the road below his encampment and wonders how this stranger ended up there. Walton also knows about the corpse, plus he knows who the man is: his friend Federico García Lorca (pictured), the revered poet and playwright, homosexual, and staunch Republican. Walton and his men bury García Lorca’s partway up the mountain; Bora’s scouts find the grave, remove the body, and bury it elsewhere. The official story—in the novel as well as in real life—is that García Lorca was murdered in 1936 outside Granada. The authorities on both sides would prefer that Bora and Walton let the official story stand unquestioned.
Separately, they conduct a somewhat clandestine investigation
of the events of the fatal night and the motives of various people who might have
been involved. It’s slow going, because Walton and Bora are mostly otherwise engaged.
The times themselves dampen progress further. If Bora wants to send a message
to Teruel, someone has to get on a donkey and take it. A response won’t arrive
for hours. If Walton wants to investigate an event in the village of Castellar,
he must climb the mountain to do so. The overall impression is of a hostile
environment that’s dusty and hot, hot, hot. Author Pastor does an admirable job
evoking the landscape, the conditions, and the way things got done (or not)
eight decades ago.
With their murder investigations limping along, there is
ample opportunity for exploring the characters of both Walton and Bora, as well
as several of their underlings. Pastor’s writing style is dense and full of
psychological insight. Her short scenes feel almost like an hour-by-hour
bulletin on camp activities. And, of course, writing about García Lorca gives
the opportunity for pithy epigrams from his wonderful poems.
Ben Pastor is the pseudonym for Maria Verbena Volpi. Born in
Rome, she holds dual citizenship in Italy and the United States. Though Martin
Bora is fictional, he was inspired by Claus von Stauffenberg, best known for
his leading role in the July 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Cormac James tells the story of the dangerous 1850 voyage of
the Impetus, which sailed north of
Greenland to find and rescue men who’d been lost while searching for the
Northwest Passage. The story is told from the viewpoint of Impetus’s second in command, Mr. Morgan, and his doubts about the
judgment of their captain are growing. Captain Myer has a monomaniacal desire
to push on, even though it’s late in the season, and his ship risks being
trapped in the ice.
It’s ice and snow and wind and water and more ice
everywhere. Such conditions might seem likely to become rather tedious, but
James surprises with his inventiveness and acute perception, expressed in
beautiful prose.
Despite conditions, there’s good humor among the crew,
especially between Morgan and his friend, the ship’s doctor. The woman with
whom Morgan had a dalliance in their last port-of-call has been smuggled on
board, pregnant, and he must contend not just with an incompetent captain and
implacable weather, but with the unexpected pull of fatherhood.
The conditions so far north put everyone to the test. As the darkness of another winter descends, they must each face their fate in their own way. Order from Amazon here.
****No Happy Endings –
comic thriller
I won Angel Luis Colón’s novella at an event where he did a reading, and I have mixed feelings about recommending it. Readers may have trouble with a couple of disturbing scenes in a crazy sperm bank. Those aside, protagonist Fantine Park is funny and engaging. She’s a thief, a safecracker, and a good daughter. To protect her father living in a nursing home, she agrees to steal some of the sperm bank’s “product.” So much easier said than done. As Joe Clifford wrote for the book jacket, Colón “takes the time-tested trope of retired robber on a final heist, and delivers one of the most weirdly original, satisfying, and unexpected capers of the year.” Order from Amazon here.
****The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial – non-fiction
Fifty years ago, the murders of seven young women rocked Ann
Arbor. Maggie Nelson’s book tells the real-life story of one of those deaths. Her
aunt, Jane Mixer, a law student at the University of Michigan, put up a
bulletin board request for a ride home. She found one. Though at first believed
the third of the “Michigan murders,” her death did not fit the pattern of the others.
In November 2004, 35 years after Jane’s death, Nelson’s mother received a call from a Michigan State Police detective who said, “We have every reason to believe this case is moving swiftly toward a successful conclusion.” DNA evidence had at last identified Jane’s killer. This is the story of the family’s reaction to reopening these old wounds, of attending the trial of a now-62 year old man, of seeing the crime scene photographs, of dealing with the media. It traverses the landscapes of grief, of murder, of justice, and the importance, even after so many years, of bearing witness. Order from Amazon here.
What with Caravaggio’s frequent legal troubles and rejection of some of his best works and Van Gogh’s failure to sell no more than a few paintings during his lifetime, both artists would undoubtedly be shocked to learn they’re such hot topics for films (film, what’s that?).
Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood
An Italian art film, in every sense, directed by Jesus
Garces Lambert (trailer).
Its most impressive aspect is the up-close examination of some 40 of
Caravaggio’s works, many of which are huge and hung high in various churches.
You’d never get this well-lit and detailed view seeing them, as it were, in the
flesh.
Three art historians comment on the significance of
Caravaggio’s work and the ground he broke—for example, in showing emotion and
using common people, even the poor, as models. At one point early on,
Caravaggio’s paintings were criticized for not showing action. He responded
with a vengeance through the rest of his career, as with the snakes surrounding
the head of Medusa, which practically writhe off the background.
All that was interesting, but the filmmaker layered in a contemporary
quasi-narrative involving a tormented actor (playing Caravaggio), three women,
and gallons of black paint. Meanwhile, another actor reads from Caravaggio’s
journal, presumably, against a discordant musical score.
A time-lapse camera recorded the deterioration of a bowl of
fruit, much like one Caravaggio painted, with the creeping mold, the rot, the
flies. The filmmaker ran that footage backward so that the fruit plumps and
colors. It was a nice effect. After that success, he used the run-the-film-backward
device several more times to less benefit.
Still, worth seeing for the art, if you can ignore the frame.
At Eternity’s Gate
Director Julian Schnabel takes a much more conventional approach
in depicting the late life of Vincent Van Gogh (trailer). The film stars
Willem Dafoe as the artist, Mads Mikkelson as his devoted brother Theo, and
Oscar Isaac as his destructive friend, Paul Gauguin. You see Van Gogh settling
into a small town, and if you’re familiar with his paintings, you recognize the
townspeople’s faces and attire as his future subjects. Seeing them is like
greeting old friends.
You could say the same for the stunning scenery, bathed in
the golden light Van Gogh perfected. While the end of the story is well known,
it isn’t entirely clear. Schnabel joins the speculation about Van Gogh’s
mysterious death, throwing in with the idea that local children, in a prank
gone wrong, shot him, rather than that he committed suicide, as has been
commonly believed.
Chris Hewitt in the Minneapolis
Star Tribune says “Dafoe’s elegiac quality hints at why the artist was
ahead of his time: because he saw more than anyone else could. It’s a towering
performance in a movie that casts a magnetic spell.”
Getting reviewers and readers to talk about your new book provides
peer-to-peer validation of your work and is key to promoting sales,. These
days, “no one will buy a book with zero social validation,” says Jordan Ring at
Archangel Ink, who prepared the online guide, “How
to Get Book Reviews: The Ultimate Manifesto.”
Reviews work to your advantage in several additional ways in
the Amazon ecosystem. The more consumer reviews you have, the higher your
conversion rate from Amazon page visits to sales. Having reviews (especially
verified reviews) will boost your book in Amazon’s search algorithms. Yet, Ring
says, “most books on Amazon struggle to get even fifty reviews.” Around the
time of publication, unverified reviews—those coming from people who’ve
obtained your book from somewhere other than Amazon, say, as advance review copies—help
jump-start the process.
The Strategies
Although Ring provides a lot of detail on how to implement
these strategies, and writes in that breezy and grating you-can-do-it style
universal to self-help books, he warns up front that these strategies “aren’t
easy and take a lot of work.” It’s up to each author to decide how far to go.
Providing a request
for reviews in the back of your book is probably the easiest (see “overcoming
reviewers’ barriers” below); I see more of these all the time. You’re a writer,
you love your book, make that request engaging and clever.
Search
for reader-reviewers who have commented on similar books and compile a
list. There’s even an app that will find them for you. Bear in mind that most
people don’t want yet another way to be spammed, and find a balance between
warm and too chummy.
Contact
those reviewers by email. As a reviewer for crimefictionlover.com, I
receive review requests occasionally, and the overly personalized versions
weirded me out at first, the kind that sound almost stalkery. (“I saw your
review of x, and . . .”) But that’s me.
Follow up.
Ring says most authors may be willing to make an initial query, but won’t
follow up, which increases total response rate markedly. He provides lots of
details on how to do and track this.
Follow up with people who sign up for any bonuses you offer, although the sample
text he offers would put me off. (People need to know that, in signing up for
bonuses, they will be on an email list for further contact, of course.)
Using other
reader-centric platforms—such as GoodReads or LibraryThing—repeat your
search for reader-reviewers, outreach, and follow-up.
Be sure to use any endorsements or back cover blurbs you’ve acquired to fill out the
“editorial reviews” section of your book’s Amazon page.
And do not
try to boost the number of reviews by relying solely on friends and family,
review swaps with other authors, or paying for reviews. Amazon sees, Amazon
frowns.
Overcoming Reviewers’
Barriers
My friend, book marketing guru Sandra Beckwith, has looked
into why people do not review the books they read. What she learned may help you
craft your approach in the back-of-book copy or any email messages you send
requesting reviews. She says:
Readers are intimidated by the review process. They don’t know how or where to start, or what they should even share in a review.
Haunted by memories of school book reports, readers think reviewing a book will take too much time.
Sandy
has developed a reader-tested template—a fill-in-the-blanks PDF
file—with writing prompts to help readers prepare a review in just a few
minutes. She charges a nominal fee for the form, and authors can make as many
copies as they want. She suggests including the template with every review
copy, handing them out a book signings, emailing them to readers, and giving
them to everyone on your launch team. If they encourage your readers to
overcome “reviewer reluctance,” that’s a big plus!
By Angel Luis Colón – Just when avid crime fiction readers
might be tiring of low-life protagonists, seedy surroundings, and grimy situations
larded with expletives, along comes a novel that upends expectations. Angel
Luis Colón’s new thriller certainly is filled with reprehensible characters and
actions, but he has made it so interesting that it rises far above the type.
Author Dennis Lehane has described noir protagonists
perfectly: “In Greek tragedy, they fall from a great height. In noir, they fall
from the curb.” Colón’s protagonist, Bryan Walsh, has teetered on the curb for
some time. He was raised Irish Catholic in the Bronx, with his grandfather
Mairsial, his mother—“an awful, manipulative monster”—and his younger brother
Liam. Bryan fled these unpromising surroundings at age 18, going straight into
the U.S. Marines. In Iraq, he led a mistimed assault on a house that killed a
child, and he can’t shake the memory.
He deserts the Marines, bolting to Ireland, to the only
family member who may be able to protect him, his uncle Sean. Sean Shea is the
son of one of the original members of the Irish Republican Army, a hard bastard
whom Sean seems determined to outdo. Bryan works his way up in Sean’s loose criminal
organization, learning to make bombs, killing people Sean has fingered.
When Bryan learns some of Sean’s mates doubt his loyalty—a
situation unlikely to promote longevity—again he splits, returning to the U.S.
illegally a year before 9/11. Liam has a diabetic stroke that leaves him in
permanent intensive care—“all vegetable,” as Bryan’s boss, a gangster middleman
named Paulie Gigante, so sensitively puts it. The work Bryan does for Paulie is
mostly as a hitman, killing people Bryan considers losers and nobodies.
But Paulie keeps cutting back on Bryan’s take, and Bryan desperately
needs money to pay Liam’s interminable hospital bills. He mistakenly kills the
son of a big crime boss, who’s determined to get revenge. The hunt for Bryan is
on, and blood in great quantities begins being spilled.
Several aspects of this story make it a stand-out. First is Colón’s wonderful use of language. It’s elegant, evocative, and economical. Most distinctive is the indelible way he describes what’s going on in Bryan’s head. The man is haunted by the ghosts of his victims—dissolving, reassembling, their margins fluid—who follow him in a growing and inescapable train. They repeat the words they uttered just before death, a macabre Greek chorus that oddly enriches the novel’s events. Bryan’s living, breathing companions here in the real world doubt his sanity.
While the question of whom the protagonist can trust is a hallmark of thriller fiction, in this novel, the layers of deception and betrayal expand geometrically. Though just under 200 pages, this book packs a wallop and is one you will have a hard time forgetting.
