Michael Jecks's Blog, page 4

Russia Research

I was chatting to a friend recently, and the conversation gradually migrated to Russia and the state of the world. His view was that Putin had given back pride to Russia, that he had made the country strong again, and though he deplored Putin’s methods, Putin had succeeded in making Russians feel a sense of self-respect.

Putin, to my mind, has been shown to be possibly the worst leader since Stalin. My reasons? Here are the main ones which have led to my own thoughts. This is the first of a series of books I’ll be recommending.

PUTIN’S RUSSIA by Anna Politkovskaya, published by the Harvill Press, ISBN 978 1 843 43050 6

This is a searing account of Putin’s rise, seen through the eyes of a woman who had already reported on the decline of the Russian state over some years. Politkovskaya was one of those journalists who was a thorn in the side of Putin until she was murdered – almost certainly by the Kremlin.

The book is divided into chapters which work logically as she expounds her theories. She begins with the army. First she points out that there is no system for soldiers to be protected. Their officers are in command, and even if a soldier is killed, the army officer class will close ranks. One little fact here astonished me: in 2002 the Russian army lost a battalion of men, five hundred, to punishment beatings. No officer lost his job over these extra-judicial murders. After the army itself, Politkovskaya moved on to a series of atrocities and the “War Criminals of All the Russias”. She had witnessed some of these during her time reporting on the war in Chechnya, and goes into some detail with the cases against murderers such as Colonel Budanov. 

Leaving the army itself, she goes on to talk about some of her own friends and what has happened to them, before tackling graft and corruption, how thieves and the Mafia steal property and companies “with the connivance of the government”. She talks of the appalling attack on the theatre at Dubrovka, in which hostages and captives were all treated to a nerve-agent attack by Russian special forces, and describes her interviews with the victims who will receive no compensation or assistance. The book ends with a short commentary on the attack on the school at Beslan.

It is not a cheerful read. This is a fiercely vituperative commentary on a system and government which Politkovskaya loathed, and with good reason. She could see the seeds of a new totalitarian regime being created under Putin. A system in which the courts had no authority, but must follow the Stalin-like dictates of the regime. The people have no say, and have no faith in the courts. Politkovskaya was a relentless seeker after the truth and justice, but it is clear in these pages that she had given up on seeing justice. 

Many have called Russia a kleptocracy in which ruling elites steal from public coffers. The thesis in this book is that it is much, much worse. Putin is a “power-hungry product of his own history”. He is “unable to prevent himself from stifling civil liberties at every turn.” She tells of the Mafia dealings, scandals in the provinces, military and judicial corruption, and the conspiracy of the West in supporting Putin under Bush and Brown. It is a savage account, and made all the more essential since Politkovskaya was assassinated for this and her other writings.

A well-written book and indispensible if you want to understand modern Russia.

A Short Interlude

I’ll soon be back to normal. There are two books I really have to review here shortly – both superb pieces of historical research that deserve a much wider audience.

However, unfortunately last week I had a horrible cold. It was quite vile, and knocked me backwards quite dramatically. Then, on Sunday, I discovered that this horrible summer cold might be rather more serious. And yup, it was Covid-19.

I know everyone has already read enough about Covid to make the subject rather tedious. Still, I thought it would be potentially important for some folks, so for what it’s worth, here are two links (to Patreon, but these are free to all, and won’t cost you anything to read) which give my own experiences. The first is the period leading up to my PCR test which confirmed my infection; the second is a couple of pages talking about my experiences with the NHS Track and Trace programme.

If you have had it, if you think you might have it, and if you haven’t had it and wanted to know what the processes are in case you do catch Covid, please take a look at these two pages:

Pre-Covid: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55236633NHS Experiences: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55318912

I hope these are interesting and helpful!

Review: THE SABOTEUR, by Simon Conway. published by Hodder and Stoughton.

As a reviewer and reader, there are rather few authors whose work I look forward to every year. My old stand-bys like John le Carre and John Gardner, are dead. Other favourites aren’t writing any more either, so on my short list of writers to look out for, Simon Conway is at the top.

It is not only the sheer inventiveness of his plots and writing, it is the obvious deep understanding he has of his subject matter. Conway was a British Army officer and more recently an aid worker. He has helped in landmine clearance, and travelled the world helping make munitions safe and disposing of them. Now he works with The HALO Trust, responding to the urbanisation of warfare and the growing use of improvised explosive devices. This is a guy who, when he writes about terrorists and their tools, has a conviction and authenticity you cannot ignore.

And all of this experience is brought to his books.

I have been fortunate enough to read several of his books, starting with RAGE. Up until now, I believe his books have been stand-alone stories, but with THE SABOTEUR, he has created a sequel to last year’s THE STRANGER, which was a book I had to rate as one of the very best thrillers of last year.

THE STRANGER was a superb cross between John le Carre and Frederick Forsythe – or, as the Sunday Mail said, “a bit of Homeland, a touch of Spooks and an undercurrent of The Thick of It”. It brought to life the murky world of modern spying, the difficulties, the betrayals, the deceptions and the violence of the modern counter terrorist operatives.

This sequel follows on with the same theme. It begins with a superb set-piece action sequence. In only seven pages he sets the scene perfectly, bringing arrival in Syria, a helicopter crash and firefight, depicting them all with such an economy of language that you are transported straight to that scene. And then he tightens the screw and the action develops.

From Syria, we return to Jude Lyon’s home ground at the MI6 headquarters in London. The city has been devastated by a terrorist, Fowle, whom we met in THE STRANGER, and who has been arrested. But when taken to court, he is freed in a daring raid by a Russian group, and Jude Lyon must try to find him. Not least because Fowle has access to a doomsday plan that must leave the UK utterly ravaged and will kill tens of thousands – if not more. In a series of escalating attacks, Fowle increases the pressure and Lyon must try to catch up with the terrorist before he can achieve his objective.

Put so baldly, it sounds like many other stories. However this is different. Simon Conway knows this world, and his writing carries real credibility. He is that rare thing, a writer who can thrill even with a complex plot, and set it out so clearly that the reader is sucked in. Conway has created, with Jude Lyon, a very modern hero, and one who will run for many more stories, I hope.

Basically, if you are going to read any thriller this year, make it this one. Very highly recommended.

Review: RED TRAITOR, by Owen Matthews, published by Bantam.

Just recently your reviewer has enjoyed a vast range of different books to read and comment on. The delightful editors of Shots are keeping me busy, thank goodness, because all too often the books sent to me by enthusiastic publicists tend to have got me confused with writers of bodice-rippers and historical romance, rather than distinctly more violent and bloody stories. 

Ah well, they say variety is the spice of life. I’m not sure they’re right, however.

This is the first book I have read by Owen Matthews. Matthews is a Russian expert, the blurb tells me. He wrote Stalin’s Children and An Impeccable Spy before turning his hand (very successfully) to a thriller, Black Sun. Oh, and he was a war correspondent, too, covering Bosnia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chechnya and other places no one sensible would really want to visit. 

In short, he’s a successful writer. 

This book is, I am assuming, a follow-on from Black Sun. It is written with a taut style that really suits the subject matter, rather like an early Frederick Forsythe – I imagine that is in large part due to his training as a war reporter. It has an impact – get to the facts, explain the facts and background, but also show people’s feelings. The main thing here is, Matthews has a truly compelling, gripping narrative. He has plotted this exceptionally well, and he has a master storyteller’s skill for putting the reader right in the thick of the action. 

Which is no easy task with this book.

It is based on the early 1960s, and the battle between Krushchev and Kennedy over the appearance of Soviet missiles on Cuba, aimed at the heart of the USA. There is a brilliant summary of the situation in an author’s note at the end of the book, which I would heartily recommend to anyone who is interested in the period and the causes of what very nearly caused the Third World War and the obliteration of much of the planet.

However, the action in Matthews’ latest book is not set in Cuba. Mostly it is in Moscow, and the hunt for a spy, and then on board a flotilla of Soviet submarines which had been sent to Cuba to break the blockade imposed by the US fleets. All of which could sound a little far-fetched, until you read the author’s note and realise that none of this was invention. Captain First Class Vasily Arkhipov was a real commander, who did command a flotilla sent to Cuba, and on board each of the four submarines there was a secret weapon, something so deadly that if it had been used, we would have been thrown into a world war which would have caused massive destruction. 

It begins with Arkhipov having a nightmare, a recurring one, in which he was on board the K19 nuclear submarine. He often had this nightmare, because on 4th of July, 1961, he was on board the ship when the cooling systems in the nuclear reactor failed. The sailors operated the safety control rods, but even with them removed, the reactor’s temperature continued to climb because of the residual heat. At the rate it was going, it must melt through the hull.

This is the start point of the book because Arkhipov is a crucial element in this factual story. He was involved in a submarine disaster, which saw many of his sailors terribly burned and injured trying to rescue the ship from disaster, and he formed his own opinions about nuclear war and the risks involved. He had seen what could happen, and was determined to prevent any such repeat. 

But meanwhile Sasha Vasin is working for his boss Orlov in the KGB, and has been ordered to find a spy. He is good at finding spies, and has already discovered one – although his conscience pricks him at the memory. Perhaps he is not cut out to be a spy-catcher. His wife certainly thinks so. Learning of his position in the KGB, she has become mute in his presence. She ignores him, refuses to let him into her bed, and he must doss down on the sitting room’s sofa. His success at work makes him a eunuch at home. 

But not he has been pointed towards a spy who must be working with the Americans. A man who is leaking secrets. Vasin thinks he might have a means to capture him, and sets a team to watch the man: Colonel Oleg Morozov.

From these two apparently unconnected stories Matthews has created a superb thriller. It’s a real cold-war tale, much in the vein of a Tom Clancy, but with a degree of detail and conviction that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go. And it is this that demonstrates Matthews’ skill as a researcher and novelist, because he has gathered together all the elements of the submarine flotilla, the spying of Oleg Penkovsky, and the “hot-headed” and irrational captain Valentin Savitsky, the loose cannon that could have set off a hot war, and bound them all together in this gripping, fabulous, spell-binding story.

Is this highly recommended? You bet.

Am I off now to get a copy of Black Sun? You bet.

If you like your thrillers realistic, accurate and impossible to put down, buy a copy today. You won’t regret it.

Review: A CURSED PLACE, by Peter Hanington, published by Two Roads, an imprint of John Murray.

My first reaction? Not good. When I see that someone who has been a BBC journalist for twenty-five years has been published, and that he has wonderful shout lines from Kirsty Wark, Michael Palin, Melvyn Bragg, Allan Little, and a raft of other BBC members of staff or those who are often interviewed by the BBC, I start to get a reaction – probably of jealousy. However, seriously, what do Kirsty Wark, Michael Palin or Melvyn Bragg know about thrillers? This feels like a lot of friends of the author doing their best for him and giving him a shout out. Which is really kind of them, and I’m sure that Hanington is a lovely guy, but it rankles to see such puffery. 

Still, I am a reviewer, and I won’t be swayed by the great and the good making their own pitch. 

I picked this up immediately after reading Simon Conway’s excellent THE SABOTEUR, which is my highest rated book of the year so far. And I really enjoyed a lot of this book. 

What is it about? Well, it is basically a look at high tech, and how algorithms may start to impact all our lives. There is a massive super-company called Public Square ( think Facebook on steroids ) in Cupertino, which has its messy little fingers in all kinds of pies. It’s run and owned by husband and wife team, Elizabeth and Fred Curepipe. She is film-goddess-beautiful ( blonde, naturally ) as well as incredibly clever ( some people have all the luck ) while Fred is just brilliant. 

One of their pies happens to be a Chilean mine in Brochu, and the story starts here. First we meet Jags, a thoughtful, haiku-obsessive, who happens to be a deeply unlikeable fellow who tops his companion in the first pages. Public Square has ideas for the area. I’m not sure we ever learn what these plans might be – I might have missed that – but they involve bringing the whole community on board. 

From there we move to more action in Hong Kong, where Patrick Reid, a BBC radio man, is shacked up in a posh hotel, interviewing students who are protesting. And this is where the story really takes off. Hanington writes with conviction and quite a lot of charm about the life of a reporter abroad, the politics, the cameraderie and the work involved. We move to England and Patrick’s mentor, Carver, a long-in-the-tooth journalist who’s spent time on the TODAY programme, who is now on a sabbatical teaching journalism to a group of not-terribly-competent students, apart from “Naz”, who is very eager and enthusiastic. But his own enthusiasm is clearly questionable, since we learn that he has still not unpacked or put away his “grab bag”, and is ready to fly across the world at a moment’s notice.

His quiet life is about to change, as his old friend Jemima McCluskey from the BBC’s Caversham listening post gets in touch about some interesting research she has been conducting. It involves messages in various languages, and mentions a “repairman”. 

And that is where the thrilling bit starts to kick in. Wherever there is upset and protests, there appears to be coordination in response. When suspicious deaths occur, social media gets flooded with speculation and obvious disinformation that obscures what really happened – and it is that which sets off the conspiracy theory, and the investigation into Public Square. 

This is a book full of fascinating characters. Carver, McCluskey and Patrick Reid ( I had to look up his surname, because Hanington refers to him as Patrick throughout the book, and his girlfriend as Rebecca. All the characters are first name only through the book, apart from McCluskey and Carver – which seemed a little odd ). The book really gets into its stride after about page forty, when we get to meet McCluskey, and the story develops with the four main strands: England and the investigation, Chile and the mine, Hong Kong and the student protests, and America with the Public Square offices. 

And when it takes off, it works well. Hanington knows how to weave a plot, and he has created some memorable people in this tale of skulduggery, murder and conspiracy. I thought the scene in which Rebecca realises she’s being followed was brilliant. The scenes with Carver and McCluskey were … I think the best term would be “affectionate”. Hanington clearly has a lot of sympathy for people in their roles, as he has with Patrick. 

The pace increases noticeably from the middle onwards. That’s not to say it’s slow, but it is a story in which the scenes are set out very clearly for the reader. As I read on, the book began to really grip, and I was unable to put the book down. I consumed the last half of the book in an evening. I was forced to – how on earth could Hanington bring together all the loose ends and give a satisfactory conclusion to this story?

And … I’m afraid he didn’t. Not really, not for me. This is a book rather like an early John Grisham, in which the set-up is great, the character development excellent, the plot superb, but which suddenly finishes, leaving the reader feeling a bit short-changed. I always used to think it might be because Grisham was a lawyer. He had been given a contract for 120,000 words, and when he hit that target, he shut off the story. He had fulfilled his contract.

In this case, I didn’t get the feeling that the story had reached a natural end point. In fact, it reads more like the first in a series. Perhaps it is? I don’t know. 

However, I did have other problems. There are, at a rough count, five psychopaths in this book. Now, I am a crime writer, and I have written plenty of murder stories, but I find it hard to believe that it would be possible to hire that many psychopaths without someone noticing certain behaviour traits. And there, really, was the biggest issue for me. I had to read this book – it was immensely diverting and entertaining, right through to the last pages – but I never had the conviction that the bad characters depicted were believable. All the BBC and the British reporters, yes, they were. But the American characters were all shallow or damaged, and that just didn’t work for me. 

So, two problems for me. However, I would still recommend this book. The weaknesses are not so dire that the story was ruined, and this was a truly compulsive read. I wanted to know what would happen, especially to the English reporters and McCluskey. However, that ending was deeply unsatisfying – for me. 

I was left hanging.

Review: THE BLACK DRESS by Deborah Moggach, published by Tinder Press

Hardback ISBN: 9781472260529

This is a rather strange one for me. Occasionally I am lucky enough to have a new book sent to me to review, and I’m always grateful. After all, with my income any opportunity to read another writer’s work is to be appreciated. And because I’m an author it’s not always easy to justify reading for please (especially when, like now, I am rather far behind on deadlines), and being sent books and asked to review them is usually a great pleasure. Not always – although I am an historical novelist, I don’t necessarily enjoy bodice-rippers, and when certain publishers send me romantic stories involving heaving breasts at the sight of the latest Heathcliffe look-alike, I do tend to get a little grumpy. 

See what I mean?

As an example, today I received an invitation to review a book by an actress who has written a “Raw and compelling new memoir”. It includes transfers of butterflies which look as though they are simulations of tattoos, a postcard of a butterfly, and a set of nail art stickers. 

Why me?

Still, this book is not one of that kind. 

Deborah Moggach is a highly acclaimed author. Her books, such as THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL have been enjoyed by millions – and seen by still more millions in the excellent film starring Judi Dench, Billy Nighy, Maggie Smith and others. I loved that film, although to my shame I confess I haven’t read the book. Nor, indeed, any other books by Deborah Moggach, so I picked this up with a great deal of anticipation.

This story is not a romantic love story. It has a fabulous cast of characters. Pru, the narrator, has been left by her husband, and not only that, he has taken up with her best friend, Azra. The two have departed the area (Muswell Hill) and Pru is devastated. A long marriage, two adult children, both living abroad, and Pru is left to try to pick up the shattered remains of her life. Not that it’s easy, living in a house that holds all the memories of their lives. 

One day she impulse-buys a black dress. And it’s going to change her life. At least, that is what she hopes.

And then the story gets a little … strange. Pru is lonely, she is desperate, and she really wants to meet people, and when a friend dies she goes to the funeral in her new black dress – except she attends the wrong funeral. This is the beginning of her story. Meeting the widower, she becomes interested in him and accepts an invitation to the wake. OK, harmless, and potentially humiliatingly embarrassing when asked, “So, how did you meet my wife?”, but at least she’s getting out and meeting new people. And she rather likes this new fellow. It could be possible that she and he might get together, she thinks. But lie after lie is exhausting. It’s almost a relief when the attempted affair fizzles out. But she had discovered a way of finding men who were unattached, who were loyal to their wives, and who were available. It set her off looking in the papers for local funerals, stalking the dead through their social media pages, and visiting the widowers to try to pick them up. 

Okay, this is a novel. We have to suspend disbelief, and yet …

The characterisation of Pru didn’t quite work for me. The idea of a woman who’s just been devastated by her husband of many years ditching her to run away with her best friend, then going to a funeral and lying to a widower – that showed a level of sociopathic behaviour that felt wrong. In fact it’s where the whole story first began to slip for me. It read very disjointedly. I remember reading PG Wodehouse used to keep the narrative flow going by writing scenes with links saying “Get them to the conservatory” or “Moves on to the swimming pool”. They were elements which were needed to pull the story together, and he would return them later to tighten the connections. While writing the first draft, he wouldn’t bother with them. They were the finessing, they were the little tweaks that would bring a series of scenes with interlocking plot lines together. The trouble with THE BLACK DRESS is that it feels rather like one of Wodehouse’s novels, but without that interconnectedness. 

For me, that was curious in the extreme. Deborah Moggach is a thoroughly successful novelist. Her stories have earned her praise across the world, and I loved the result of her work with the EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, but this didn’t work for me. 

Was the writing good? Yes, it was a very high standard. Was the story interesting? Yes, without doubt. But the characters did not engage me. I never really identified with any of them. And then, well I won’t go into detail because that would be a bit of a giveaway, but there is a sudden reveal which was really … well, clunky, really.

I should say, I did wonder whether it might just be that I am a male and that this kind of story was aimed much more at women. It’s possible, so I asked my wife to read it, and before I had read it all myself (I had two other books to finish at the time), she went through it herself, and had exactly the same comments: that she never felt involved with the characters, that the story did not flow, and especially that the last-minute reveal was very blunt. I should also say that the author’s views came through quite firmly, too, which was off-putting for a less-left-leaning reader like me. I don’t read to be preached at – yes, I want to see other points of view, but there is a current fad for writers to assume a left of centre perspective and deride those who don’t agree. I’d prefer to see a more well-rounded series of perspectives. And the last few chapters (no, I won’t give away the story) talk about a relationship which is now so hackneyed as a concept it’s almost a cliché.

Ach, so what can I say about this book?

Yes, it is interesting. Yes, it’s a good initial concept. Yes, it held my attention. I didn’t feel the need to cast it aside. Can I give it “Highly Recommended”? In all honesty, no. It’s the sort of book you may enjoy. It does have a perspective on middle class life that is quite entertaining. But is it a serious character study? No. And it doesn’t work for me in terms of plot. In short, when I put the book down, I was mostly irritated at how unconnected the various elements felt.

So, quite an interesting book, but not one that would tempt me to read any of her other works. Which is a huge shame – but I will get a copy of BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. 

Review: EMPIRES OF CRIME by Tim Newark, published by Pen And Sword History

ISBN:  1526713047

I have to admit, I picked this up with a degree of trepidation.

There are so many books published which blame the British Empire for everything from famine, slavery, warfare and xenophobia, that I am forced to select my reading with care, just to avoid damage to my blood pressure. I need not have worried with this.

This is a superb, balanced book, which takes a number of examples of conspiracy, incompetence, and venality to show how the modern drug trade really kicked off. Was the Empire responsible? At the outset, you betcha. It was, after all, the Opium Wars which kicked off mass demand for drugs, and it was merchants and adventurers who profited from the misery of their Chinese victims. But that was then. This book is about the attempts by many Imperialists to stop the flow of drugs and save people from becoming addicts. And yes, the people they were trying to help were Chinese, Indians and others.

The book begins with Gladstone, who early on in his career railed against the vile trade in drugs, only later to argue against prohibition because, by its very nature, prohibition must increase the profits  and therefore the incentive for criminals prepared to take risks. In this, he was proved right. The bootleggers in the US demonstrated it nicely. From there the book moves on to consider the men who did their best to find and punish the criminal gangs making huge profits: men such as Lt.Col. Roos-Keppel, W.E. Fairbairn of the Shanghai Municipal Police, Governor Sir Cecil Clementi of Hong Kong – who sought to take over the market in drugs in order to destroy the Triad smugglers – Thomas Wentworth Russell of the Egyptian police, Arthur Young of the Malayan Police during the Malayan Emergency, all the way through to the discovery of drugs being smuggled aboard the H.M.S. Belfast in 1962!

But this is not dry, tedious history. Tim Newark has pulled together a fascinating story of Empires (plural), and their attempts to stop the smuggling of illicit items, whether weapons or drugs, and how they tried to curb the violence involved with such smuggling. The British Empire looms large because it was the largest empire. But he also looks at the French Empire and its failures, as well as the US’s attempts. 

Newark begins his narrative in the late 1890s, and connects each link in a chain of events that brings us to almost the present day. And there are many – to a modern eye – shocking aspects. Such as the medicinal drug companies in Europe, who were happily refining drugs and then selling them for profit to smugglers, knowing the criminals would take them to their markets in China and the Far East. It shows how, whenever a ban or prohibition is imposed on a market, that market will respond by increasing the value of the product and the profits of those willing to risk all. No matter whether it is booze in America boosting the Mafia’s coffers, or opium and heroin supporting Triad gangs in China and the Far East, it is the profit, not the product, which matters.

I have sadly been forced to read a lot of books of true crime over the years. I say sadly, because they are so often written very poorly, either because the author is attempting to achieve an academic style to make it more profound, or because they see their story as being as thrilling as any newspaper story and they want to emulate that approach. Of course that is difficult, and often counter-productive. A breathless approach in a 400 word article is bearable. Attempt the same in a 90,000 word book and any reader must fade with exhaustion after the first couple of chapters.

Then again there are some professional writers who have made a good income from the tittillation of violence. Stories of thugs, murderers and psychopaths will always have a ready readership. All too often the quality of the writing is enough to dissuade all but the most enthusiastic of crime addicts.

They won’t like this. This is a strong non-fiction story written superbly well, and which thrills like a modern mystery story. It’s brilliant history, and utterly compelling.

Not only highly recommended, I urge you to get a copy! It’s brilliant!

Review: THE KILLER ACROSS THE TABLE by John E Douglas and Michael Olshaker published by William Collins

Many years ago I came to the conclusion that I should only review books I’ve really enjoyed. There was a logic to that decision. Basically, since I have a real problem with diverse authors, such as Philip K Dick, Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson, my judgements about books are not, clearly, mainstream! However, my attitude is different now. Some time ago I made a firm decision to be honest when given books to review, because otherwise I am just an unpaid marketeer. I might as well not read the book. But in recent months I’ve come to the conclusion that I really ought to have the courage of my own analysis of books. People will probably not be affected in their decision to buy or not buy a book as a result of my reviews, after all, and there is some merit in putting my own views down. 

In any case, this was not a book given to me – I bought it. And I felt I had to review this honestly.

First, let me say that I do not know either of these authors except by reputation and from reading their books. Years ago – probably twenty or so – I read their first book written collaboratively (I think), which was MINDHUNTER. It gave some very interesting case studies: Ed Gein and Ted Bundy among others. It  was a very useful first view of murderers and how their minds worked.

For those who don’t know, Douglas was one of the first guys to start profiling criminals in order to try to assess who could be guilty of certain crimes. He set up the FBI unit that started investigating via profiling. He’s supposed to be the man who invented the term “Serial Killer”. And MINDHUNTER was really a fascinating book. Yes, it seemed a bit repetitive in places, and yes, Olshaker is a writer who is looking for the piece that will sell, but the two together did a good job. When I saw THE KILLER ACROSS THE TABLE, I was immediately hooked. I bought a copy.

I was not impressed.

It is repetitive, it is disjointed, blundering from one case with one criminal, and then rambling back to “Killers I have known” like an elderly veteran losing the thread of his war stories and returning to similar themes and similar situations before being dragged back to the main plot.

There are, I suppose, reasons for bringing up similar situations, but the thing that really got to me was, that it felt as though the authors were name-dropping. It goes from McGowan, for example, to Berkowitz, to Charles Manson, to the assassins James Earl Ray and Arthur Bremer in the space of four pages or so. It makes the reading really difficult. I kept having to reread paragraphs to remind myself who I was reading about this time. It did not feel coherent as a narrative.

And that is a problem.

The writing is racy in places, but for the most part reads more like a training manual for FBI staff. MINDHUNTER did too, but it was written as a more direct piece of prose. It read rather like a series of lectures (as, I suspect, they were originally). This book does not have that narrative logic, not for me in any case.

In short, I think this latest book is a means of capitalising on past successes. It is the latest in the Douglas/Olshaker collaboration. It is a brand that both authors have profited from, and obviously they want to continue what has been a very fruitful writing experience for both of them. And there is a market for “true crime” books of this nature. Many people are very keen to read the views of those with experience in this field. Lots of authors, like me, want to add the veneer of authority when writing about crime. 

I have no doubt that there is much here to grip readers new to this kind of material. However, I could not lose the feeling that this was picking gross, unpleasant murder stories to titillate and entertain new readers.

It’ll remain on my shelves, but this is not a book which justified reading more than the first 90 pages, and that was an effort.

Nope. Not recommended. If you are interested in true crime and want to get a real feel for things, I’d recommend MINDHUNTER rather than THE KILLER ACROSS THE TABLE.

Review: MIDNIGHT IN PEKING by Paul French, published by Penguin

I’ve spent quite some times reviewing crime books recently, and here’s another – except this one isn’t fiction. 

In the early morning in January 1937 the body of a late-teenaged British girl, Pamela, daughter of the city’s former consul, ETC Werner. She had been appallingly mutilated, and even her breast had been opened and her heart cut out. 

This was in those terrible days for China. She suffered civil wars, rebellions, Japanese invasion, and one murder in a period of such horror and slaughter was hardly a pressing matter. But some police wanted to find justice for the girl. DCI Dennis and his Chinese counterpart, Colonel Han, began to investigate, but Dennis was hamstrung by a British desire to hurry and not rock any boats. 

One of the first on the scene was the tall, slim widower ETC Werner himself. He was a keen sinophile, a man who had learned Chinese and was known to be an expert in all things to do with the huge territory. He loved the country. But he was a curious man, ascetic, intelligent, but very private. At first it seemed clear that he was the primary suspect. Pamela was not his natural child, but adopted. And it is true that usually the police will expect the perpetrator to be close to home – but soon Dennis and Han learned that his involvement was unlikely.

There was little blood at the scene. She must have been killed elsewhere and her body brought to he desolate spot where she had been discovered. Soon a blood-soaked rickshaw was discovered; then there was the discovery of a lascivious school headmaster at her grammar-school; rumours of Triads involvement; a boyfriend; and a group of Peking residents who knew more than they had let on initially. 

It was soon obvious that Werner himself was entirely innocent, but Dennis’ superiors wanted the matter dropped. There was too much else going on. He was advised that he had no authority, that he was there solely to observe, and that he must leave all the work to Han. But he didn’t. He was a policeman, apparently, who believed in justice, and he was convinced that the matter could be put to bed. 

But war and the Japanese intervened. Soon the police were pulled from the case and returned to Tientsin, and Werner was left with the conviction that the Chinese police were themselves involved in a cover-up. But although Pamela was an adopted daughter, he was determined to do all he could for her. She was his daughter. 

What could a man like him, an academic, do to find the murderer of his daughter?

He had money, he had a library, and he had a good brain. And armed with these he began to conduct his own investigations into Pamela’s death. As he learned more and more about the seedier side of Peking’s ex-pat community, he began to bombard Colonel Han and the British authorities with his discoveries, and they were startling. More, he began to form a complete picture of her last hours, found the room where she had been murdered and cut up, and was able to describe a shocking system of grooming young women, drug-taking, gang-raping, and then threatening them against disclosing what had happened. 

This story came about because after the war Werner continued his investigations and harassed the British colonial offices to have the culprits brought to book. But China at the time was sinking into civil war again, and his letters were filed without response. They remained filed and ignored until Paul French discovered them, and gradually began to piece together the whole story.

This is a superb piece of work that reads like a thriller, but which also manages to capture a period and show what life was like in those terrible days just before the Second World War, before the Japanese had overwhelmed the Chinese, and before the Communist revolution. It is a book that deserves to be read, if only to try to give some kind of justice to Pamela, the victim of an appalling crime, and the girls who were assaulted with her. 

You will notice that I don’t often recommend non-fiction books. That is because they tend to be rather dry, and usually difficult to read. However this is very different. I couldn’t put it down. 

Highly recommended.

Review: THREE STATIONS by Martin Cruz Smith, published by Simon & Schuster

I have always had a soft spot for Martin Cruz Smith’s book, ever since I first read GORKY PARK, the book that introduced Arkady Renko, the disillusioned cop of Moscow’s police force. 

There are several books in the series, and I find each of them utterly captivating. Yes, they are page-turners, and they have great concepts flowing through their pages, but they have more than that. There is a great humanity that flows through all the stories. A deep understanding of people and what motivates them. 

I loved this book. Perhaps because I was reading it in Auckland while in two week’s quarantine, waiting to see my brother, who was dying. I needed something that was uplifting, that was well-written, and most of all, diverting. THREE STATIONS was absolutely perfect. Which of course begs the question why it took so long to write up this review. I was in New Zealand seven months ago, after all. And the short answer is, the death of a brother is a traumatic event in anyone’s life. It’s taken me this long to get back to a mostly even keel. But the story still remains with me. It’s that kind of book.

This story starts with a kind of prequel, which involves young Maya and her daughter on a train. She is exhausted and scared. Only fifteen, and seven months free of drugs, she doesn’t know what to do when a soldier joins her and starts to make lewd comments, finally threatening to throw her baby from the train if she doesn’t let him rape her. Although she doesn’t know it, she has a friend – an old babushka enters the compartment and holds a knife to the soldier’s throat, threatening she’ll cut off his balls if she sees him again. She kicks him away, and he scuttles off like a scalded cat. The babushka means security. Maya feels safe with her. She can at last doze off and know that her baby is safe. She accepts some tea, settles and sleeps. 

And only later when she wakes in Moscow does she realise her baby is gone; the babushka has taken her child.

But this is less about Maya, and more about Arkady Renko and the police. He is one of those characters that has developed over the years, and he’s grown into a delightful guy I’d like to meet. He has a companion, Victor Orlov, who is alcoholic and hating himself for it, but still a good policeman. Arkady and Victor are called to a crime scene just as Victor has been rescued from a drunk tank. On their way back, on the way to work, Victor says, “Life would be wonderful without vodka. Vodka is in our DNA. That’s a fact. The thing is, Russians are perfectionists. That’s our curse. It makes for great chess players and ballerinas and turns the rest of us into jealous inebriates. The question is, not why don’t I drink less, it’s why don’t you drink more?” 

There is a woman found in a workers’ trailer, the sort of area where workers could sit in front of a fire, rest a while. Four bunk beds and a stove. She was sprawled on a dirty mattress, eighteen or nineteen, nude from the waist down. Her handbag was at her side, but there was no ID. The railway police captain, Kol, was dismissive: “A lot of fuss for a dead whore.”

It looks like a simple drugs overdose to everyone – but not Arkady. And soon he learns that the death of this girl is linked to Moscow’s rich and famous, and begins to learn of a kidnapping.

This is a great story, told by a master writer. It’s compelling, gripping and plotted superbly. 

I will always remember it because it made those weeks in Auckland just a little less painful. You should remember it because it’s a damn good story.

Highly recommended, of course.