Six Degrees of Separation - From Lincoln in the Bardo to 9Tail Fox

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six other books, forming a chain. Every month she provides the title of a book as the starting point.

This is my first month to join in. It is not a requirement that the books be ones I have read, but this month I have read all of the books in my chain, although I have not reviewed them all.

The starting point this month is Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I have not read Lincoln in the Bardo but my understanding is that much of the novel takes place in the "bardo", a Tibetan term for the Buddhist "intermediate state" between death and reincarnation.

That leads me to my first book in the chain, The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. That book shows another version of life after death, and is divided between two settings. One is the City,  a sort of afterlife where those who have died reside as long as they are remembered by one living person. The second is Antarctica, where a woman is trapped alone in a research station, running out of supplies.

My next book is also set in two locations, one of which is Antarctica. This is Christine Poulson's new book, Cold, Cold Heart, in which Katie Flanagan, a medical researcher and doctor, stationed at a remote research base in the Antarctic. The second story line is set in and around Ely in the UK, where a patents lawyer investigates another scientist's research into a cancer cure.

From Cold, Cold Heart, I move to Malicious Intent by Kathryn Fox, whose protagonist, Dr. Anya Crichton, is also a doctor, in this case a pathologist and forensic physician. This book is set in Sydney, Australia, which leads me to...

A book by Katherine Howell, The Darkest Hour, also set in Sydney. In the Ella Marconi series, Ella,  a police detective, is the main protagonist, but each book also features a different paramedic who becomes involved in a crime. The author worked as a paramedic for 15 years, so the scenes with the paramedics feel very authentic. This book is primarily a police procedural, which leads me to...

...the first book in an urban fantasy series, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich. This is a police procedural with a difference. The protagonist, Peter Grant is a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service in London. He ends up working with Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, in a specialist unit that deals with ghosts, spirits, vampires, you name it, when they are disrupting the peace in London. A wonderfully entertaining series.

And finally I link to another novel which is blend of fantasy and police procedural, 9Tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

Bobby Zha, a Sergeant in the San Francisco Police Department in Chinatown, is gunned down while investigating a crime. When he awakens in the body of an accident victim who has been comatose for the last twenty-odd years, in New York City. He returns to San Francisco in his new body to investigate his death, and along the way he discovers a lot about himself.

So, my chain has taken me from Lincoln in the Bardo to 9Tail Fox. It makes sense that the chain has as much fantasy as mystery novels in it, but not what I expected.

I do hope to read Lincoln in the Bardo someday, when I encounter a copy and the time is right.

Favorite Reads of 2016

Goodreads says that I have read 83 books in 2016, which means I will probably end with a total of 85 books read. I tried to cut my list of favorite books for 2016 down to less than ten, but that did not work, and for the third year I ended up with 11 books on the list.

Four of the books fall in the spy fiction sub-genre. Five of the books were published between 1939 and 1986. Six of the books were published between 2001 and 2016 and three of those were published in 2016.

The links go to my reviews / overviews.

Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout (1939)
As usual, the Nero Wolfe mysteries I read this year were among my top reads (and all were rereads). I chose just one book to represent this author.

Nero Wolfe is well known for his extreme distaste for leaving his home. Some Buried Caesar is one of two novels that I can remember where Wolfe and Archie are away from the brownstone from the beginning to the end of the book. Archie drives Wolfe to an exposition where he will display some of his prize orchids, so the story places Archie and Nero into an environment that they know little about. But my favorite thing about this book is that it introduces Lily Rowan.



She Shall Have Murder by Delano Ames (1948)
A Golden Age mystery, set in post-war London, with rationing, feeding the gasmeters, etc. At the beginning of this book, Jane Hamish is writing a mystery story and Dagobert, her lover, is giving her ideas for the plot. Dagobert is unemployed; Jane works in a lawyer's office. Although at first I found Dagobert very annoying, he grew on me as the book moved along and Jane Hamish and Dagobert Brown quickly became my favorite detecting couple in Golden Age fiction.

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (1957)

This is the fifth novel in the James Bond series, the fourth that I read this year, and it is by far my favorite so far. I have always loved the movie, and luckily in this case the movie and the book are very close.

The three previous Bond books I read were more like adventure stories. From Russia with Love sticks closer to the conventional type of spy story I prefer. Early chapters focus on SMERSH agents setting up a plot to assassinate James Bond and our hero doesn't show up until later in the story. The plot is complicated, there is a train trip on the Orient Express with a beautiful enemy agent, and plenty of exotic settings.

The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price (1970)
David Audley works for England's Ministry of Defence, but as a researcher, doing behind the scenes work. For his latest assignment he goes out in the field and he is not thrilled with this change. A WWII-era British cargo plane has been discovered at the bottom of a drained lake, complete with the dead pilot and not much else. His job is to figure out why the Soviets are so interested in the empty plane. The beginning of a spy series with eighteen more books, this is just the type of spy fiction I like: a quiet book, a lot of talking and thinking and not a lot of action.

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré (1986)
This is one of seven books I read this year by John le Carré and they were all excellent books. I picked just one of them to represent this author.

Magnus Pym, a British spy assigned to an important post in Vienna, has disappeared. After he gets a call that his father has died, he leaves for the funeral in London, but he doesn't return when expected. British intelligence agents mount a search for him. Being the gifted spy that he is, Pym easily eludes them for the majority of the book. A Perfect Spy revolves around Magnus Pym's relationship with his father, Rick, a con man who uses everyone in his life to achieve his own goals. The story is mostly autobiographical.

Pashazade by John Courtenay Grimwood (2001)
The first book in the Arabesk Trilogy. The story starts with the investigation of a murder, but the chapters skip back and forth in time, sometimes a few days, sometimes going back years in flashbacks. The setting in the present time is El Iskandryia, a North African metropolis in a world where "the United States brokered a deal that ended World War I and the Ottoman Empire never collapsed," as described on the back of the book. So this is an alternate history, sci-fi, coming of age thriller, and just my cup of tea. Pashazade has elements of a police procedural; the crime is investigated by Chief of Detectives Felix Abrinsky, formerly a policeman in Los Angeles, California, and high tech forensics are used .

Sleeping Dogs by Ed Gorman (2008)
The first in a series of five novels about Dev Conrad, a political consultant. In this novel he is working for an Illinois Senator who is running for reelection. The attitude towards politics in this novel is very cynical. Conrad truly wants his candidate to win because he believes he is the better choice of those available, but he does not see one side as bad and the other as good. No political party or ideology is demonized.

Dev Conrad is a great character. Human, not perfect, he cares about people and about his work. The people working on the campaign appear to be a close-knit group but not everyone is what they seem. The story's ending worked very well. It was logical and made sense but was a surprise to me.

An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer (2012)
Steinhauer is close to the top of my list of favorite spy fiction authors. An American Spy was the third book in his Tourist trilogy,  featuring Milo Weaver, CIA agent in the Department of Tourism. "Tourists" are undercover agents with no identity and no home. Milo is not the James Bond type, although there are plenty of thrilling escapades and violence. But we see the other side of this spy's life, the family he wishes he could spend more time with. I enjoyed picking up on Milo Weaver's adventures again. I like the depth of the characters and the exploration of the conflicts in their lives within this framework. The first book in the trilogy is The Tourist, the second is The Nearest Exit.

A Deadly Thaw by Sarah Ward (2016)
This is Sarah Ward's second novel featuring Detective Inspector Francis Sadler and his team. It is a good police procedural, focusing as much on some of the people related to the crime as on the investigative team.

The dead body of a man is found in an abandoned mortuary, located in an overgrown area outside of Bampton, Derbyshire. The deceased was supposedly murdered twelve years before. His wife, Lena, confessed to the crime and served a ten year prison sentence. Thus begins an unusual case which combines an investigation into who was killed years ago with an inquiry into whether the proper procedures were followed at that time. The plot is very complex but not at the expense of the reader's enjoyment.

See Also Deception by Larry D. Sweazy (2016)
This is the second book in a series featuring Marjorie Trumaine, set on a farm in rural North Dakota in 1964. Marjorie is an indexer, creating indexes for non-fiction books. She does this work freelance to make money that she and her husband, Hank, badly need. The area is affected by a drought, with a severe impact on the crops and livestock on the farm. Hank is an invalid due to an accident on the farm and Marjorie shoulders the responsibility for running the farm.

In this book, Marjorie's best friend in the area, a librarian, commits suicide. She begins to suspect that the suicide was faked but the police will not discuss the case with her. In addition to providing an intriguing mystery, the story gives us a vivid picture of what it was like to be a woman at this time, and how difficult it was to be heard in a man's world.

Shot in Detroit by Patricia Abbott (2016)
A novel of psychological suspense, set in 2007 Detroit. It does not paint a pretty picture of that area or the struggle to survive financially in that environment. The story centers on a female photographer who is working on a project to photograph black men who have died much too young. The subject matter is sometimes unsettling and the story is dark.

Violet Hart is the center of this story. She has family issues; her father deserted her family and her sister died when she was young. She has trouble making ends meet and wants very much to succeed in artistic photography. She is not a very likable person, willing to use people to get what she wants, always pushing her agenda first.

Pashazade: John Courtenay Grimwood

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of Pashazade, was born in Malta in 1953, and grew up in Malta, Britain, Southeast Asia and Norway. He and his wife, novelist Sam Baker, divide their time between Winchester and Paris. Grimwood has written mostly novels in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and many of them also have mystery elements. This is the second book I have read by this author, and I hope to read many more.

Pashazade is the first book in the Arabesk Trilogy. The story starts with the investigation of a murder, but the chapters skip back and forth in time, sometimes a few days, sometimes going back years in flashbacks. The setting in the present time is El Iskandryia, a North African metropolis in a world where "the United States brokered a deal that ended World War I and the Ottoman Empire never collapsed," as described on the back of the book. So this is an alternate history, sci-fi, coming of age thriller, and just my cup of tea.

The central character in the trilogy is Ashraf al-Mansur, also known as 'Raf' and 'ZeeZee' (which gets confusing). He is a young man who has been released from a Seattle prison and brought to El Iskandryia to marry the daughter of the wealthy Hamzah Effendi. Supposedly he is the son of the Emir of Tunis, thus the title of the book. Pashazade is an Ottoman form of address or epithet, meaning "son of a Pasha". Raf is not sure about this; he has never known who his father was. Shortly after arriving and having met his new family, Raf is accused of a murder and thus gets involved in the investigation in order to clear himself.

I love the way Grimwood writes. The story was very complex and was often hard to follow. I wavered between confused and delighted and sometimes had no idea where the story was going, but I loved the journey.

He has created characters I care about and takes time to develop them. In addition to Raf, there is Zara, Hamzah Effendi's daughter, who is no more interested in the arranged marriage than he is. There is Hani, his nine-year-old cousin, a wonderful character. And Chief of Detectives Felix Abrinsky, formerly a policeman in Los Angeles, California, who is investigating the murder that Raf is accused of.

The author combines a murder investigation, although a very offbeat one, and alternate history, and throws in just a bit of sci fi. Many crime fiction readers won't go for that combination, but I do highly recommend this author and his writing. It is my impression that much of his work follows this same pattern. The first book I read by Grimwood was 9tail Fox, which is a standalone.

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Publisher:   Bantam, 2005. Orig. pub. 2001.
Length:       356 pages

Series:        Arabesk Trilogy #1
Format:       Trade paperback
Setting:       North African, alternate history version
Genre:        Sci fi / Mystery

Reading in January 2016

This has been another wonderful month of reading. It was a good mix, with some older books and a couple of newer books, some sci-fi, and some espionage fiction.

The Crime Fiction Pick of the Month meme is hosted at Mysteries in Paradise. Bloggers link to summary posts for the month, and identify a crime fiction best read of the month. 

These are the crime fiction books I read this month:

Blood Will Tell by George Bagby 

Black Orchids by Rex Stout
The Mountain Cat Murders by Rex Stout
Pashazade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout
A Red Death by Walter Mosley
A Murder of Quality by John le Carré
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré

Half of my reading this month was vintage mysteries, written in 1950 or before.

• Blood Will Tell (1950) is an Inspector Schmidt novel and George Bagby is the narrator of the novel and the author. George Bagby is a pseudonym used by Aaron Marc Stein, who also wrote mystery series under his own name and Hampton Stone. He wrote over 100 mysteries from the 1930s through the 1980s. I read many of the Inspector Schmidt novels in my younger years and it was fun to revisit this one.
• The rest were by Rex Stout and were all rereads.  The Mountain Cat Murders (1939) is one of Stout's non-Wolfe mysteries, has a female protagonist, and is set in Wyoming. Very different from the Nero Wolfe series and I enjoyed it very much. (Most Rex Stout fans are not as kind as I am to this novel.)
• Black Orchids (1942) collects two novellas, "Black Orchids" and "Cordially Invited to Meet Death." Both appeared in The American Magazine before being published in book format. These two stories are longer than most of Stout's novellas.
• Three Doors to Death (1950) contains three novellas: "Man Alive" (1947, 70 pages); "Omit Flowers" (1948, 70 pages); and "Door to Death" (1949, 55 pages). I remember all of them fondly, but in all cases I did not remember who did it, so they were especially fun reads.

I finally read the 2nd book in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, A Red Death. Easy Rawlins, first met in Devil in a Blue Dress, is now a landlord, but masquerades as a handyman and lets his associate Mofass manage the apartment buildings for him. He also does "favors" for people, finding missing persons or solving minor crimes in his neighborhood. Easy is targeted by an IRS agent because he has not reported the income that led to purchase of the buildings. That leads to him becoming a spy for the FBI and from there things get very complicated.

I read two books by John le Carré, the second and third books he wrote. Both featured George Smiley, but in A Murder of Quality he functions as a detective in a setting unrelated to espionage.

In The Spy Who Came In from the Cold he is in the background and the spy of the title is Alec Leamas. We recently picked up the Criterion Blu-Ray edition of the film adaptation of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold with Richard Burton. I haven't ever seen the film and I want to watch it as soon as possible. Thus, I rushed to read the book before watching the movie. I loved the book but I found it depressing.

Last but not least is Pashazade. The story starts with the investigation of a murder, but the chapters skip back and forth in time, sometimes a few days, sometimes going back years in flashbacks. The setting in the present time is El Iskandryia, a North African metropolis in an alternative future where "the United States brokered a deal the ended World War I and the Ottoman Empire never collapsed," as described on the back of the book. So this is an alternative history, sci-fi, coming of age thriller, and just my cup of tea. This is the second book I have read by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, and it confirms what I discovered with the first one: I love the way he writes. I was alternately confused and delighted and sometimes had no idea where the story was going, but I loved the journey.



In truth, almost all of the books I read this month would be in contention for top read, but I will narrow it down to two. I ended the month with one of my favorites, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. It is a shame I waited this long to read it, but on the other hand, it was well worth the wait and not a disappointment. The other favorite is Pashazade, and I was glad that it also lived up to my expectations.

Favorite Reads of 2014

I read lots of books this year, mainly mystery novels as usual. I wish I could read twice as many books in a year. I neglected Agatha Christie and Ed McBain totally this year, and I had wanted to start reading Elmore Leonard and read much more of Len Deighton's books than I did.

I did read many great books by wonderful authors this year. I enjoyed almost all of them and it is hard to narrow it down to the ones that really resonated with me. But here is my stab at a list. I did go over 10 books but not by much.

The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert. 
Published in 1952, it is an exceptional story of men incarcerated in a prison camp in Italy toward the end of World War II. The book also includes a mystery, featuring an amateur detective, a prisoner in the camp who is asked to look into the circumstances of the death of a fellow prisoner.

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott 
This is a historical novel set in the years preceding and during World War I (and the only non-mystery fiction on this list). It is the story of three sisters, teenagers as the story begins, who travel with their mother to support the family as a vaudeville act. I am very interested in vaudeville, and I don't know as much as I would like about the history of vaudeville. I found this book very readable, entertaining, with interesting characters.

Touchstone by Laurie R. King
This historical novel is set in the UK in 1926 and the story centers around the weeks leading up to the general strike. Harris Stuyvesant is an agent of the United States Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, and he has arrived in England to track down the man responsible for terrorist bombings in the US.

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer
A spy thriller, which takes place during the activities of the Arab Spring, in February 2011. Sophie Kohl's husband Emmett is currently working at the American embassy in Hungary, but his previous assignment was in Cairo. Both of them have friends still in Cairo, and when Emmett is killed, Sophie seeks the reasons for his death there. 

Time's Witness by Michael Malone
This is the second book in a police procedural series. Cuddy Mangum is the narrator and the Chief of Police in Hillston, North Carolina. Cuddy is educated, but he is not refined, and to the powerful and rich inner circle of Hillston residents, he is a redneck. The book was published in 1989 and set around the same time period. The story in this book centers on George Hall, a black man arrested seven years earlier for killing a white cop. He is now on death row and supporters are seeking a reprieve or pardon. 

Eleven Days by Donald Harstad
Carl Houseman is a deputy sheriff working the night shift in the small town of Maitland, Iowa. He is sent to the scene of a crime after a 911 call comes in. At the scene, he finds a dead man but the woman who made the call is not found. By the next morning, a second crime scene has been found with three more bodies, and the two crimes seem to be related. The small department, with the help of state investigative agencies, works for the next eleven days to solve the crime.

9tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood 
This novel is fantasy blended with mystery, and the mystery elements were stronger in this novel than in many cross-genre novels. In addition to the noir thriller elements, this is the story of a journey of a man to understanding himself and his isolation from others. I enjoyed the book as much for the personal story of Bobby Zha as for the mystery.

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
I am very fond of espionage fiction, so it is no surprise that I liked this. The central character, the spy who has run an elite espionage unit in the past, has had many identities and many code names. Of those who even know of him, he is a legend. But he has reached a point in his life when he has left spying behind and is in a new untraceable identity.  Then several events come together to force him back into the spy game.

World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters 
Book III in the The Last Policeman trilogy, following the activities of policeman Hank Palace in a pre-apocalyptic world. An asteroid is headed for earth, and from the beginning of the series we know that it will be devastating. I also read Countdown City, Book II in the series, this year, and I rated it as highly as this one. In this final book, Hank goes on an odyssey to try to locate his sister before the asteroid hits.

Enigma by Robert Harris
Set in 1943, this book uses Bletchley Park and the code breaking efforts there as a background for a mystery. Tom Jericho had left Bletchley to recuperate in Cambridge after a nervous breakdown resulting from the stress of his work. Now he is asked to return to help in a new effort to break Enigma codes.

Garnethill by Denise Mina
Set in the city of Glasgow, this novel deals with tough topics: incest, patient abuse, drugs, unemployment, dysfunctional families. It is a very dark story. There is an optimistic resolution, but many of the characters in the book are not very pleasant people. Nor is there the possibility for a truly happy ending.

Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise is collecting lists of  top crime fiction reads for 2014. Check them out HERE.

Once Upon a Time VIII: Wrap Up

Summer is upon us and the Once Upon a Time Challenge is over. That challenge is hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings, and encourages reading or viewing from four broad categories: Fairy Tale, Folklore, Fantasy and Mythology.

My goal was to read five books, but I read and reviewed only four books. My choices were all in the fantasy genre, although several were cross-overs with the mystery genre. I did watch the first two Hobbit movies in April and write a post on that topic.

I enjoyed all the books I read. 

The books I read for this event were... 

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
9tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Among Others by Jo Walton

You can check out the Review Site where participants posted links to any book or screen posts related to this event. Also, bloggers will link their summary posts HERE.

Mysteries in May and Pick of the Month

In April I read six mysteries, one book in the fantasy genre, and finished three non-fiction books.

When I read non-fiction, I usually spread it over several months. The non-fiction books I read were The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, Infographic Guide to the Movies, and Wartime: Britain 1939-1945.

The fantasy novel that I read was Among Others by Jo Walton, and I have not reviewed it yet. Jo Walton is primarily an author of fantasy fiction, but she also wrote a trilogy of mystery novels set within an alternate England where Germany and England reached a peace agreement in 1941. I loved books 1 and 3 of that series, book 2 was one of those mid-trilogy novels which fell short of the other two. The books in the trilogy are Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half a Crown. Among Others is the first fantasy book by her that I have read, and I liked it too.

These are the mysteries I read this month. Two of them are cross-genre, fantasy blended with mystery. I am still behind on reviews, maybe I will catch up by next month.

The Malcontenta by Barry Maitland
In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany
Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
Skeleton in Search of a Cupboard by Elizabeth Farrars
9tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Sleep While I Sing by L. R. Wright

I liked all of the mystery novels I read. My favorite for the month is an easy pick, although it did edge out one of the others by a slim margin. 9tail Fox is my Pick of the Month for May. That novel is fantasy blended with mystery, and the mystery elements were stronger in this novel than in many cross-genre novels (at least I see it that way). The other book that came close was Whispers Under Ground, which is also cross-genre, but the fantasy elements in that books are much stronger. This is the third book in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and all of the books in that series are a lot of fun.

The Crime Fiction Pick of the Month meme is hosted at Mysteries in Paradise. Bloggers link to a summary post for the month, and identify a crime fiction best read of the month

9tail Fox: Jon Courtenay Grimwood

These excerpts from a brief review by Eric Brown at the Guardian describe this novel very well:

In Jon Courtenay Grimwood's previous eight novels, he has examined how the lives of everyday people are warped by the corrupting influences of power. 9Tail Fox explores the same theme while successfully tackling the contemporary thriller, and in Bobby Zha, Grimwood has created his most complex, fully rounded character. The novel opens with Sergeant Zha of the San Francisco Police Department investigating the shooting of an intruder at an exclusive Russian Hill mansion...

Zha is not the nicest of men, but the story of his redemption is expertly handled, as is the seedy, cynical world of police politics. 9Tail Fox begins as detective procedural, hints at becoming occult horror, and finishes triumphantly as a novel of character. 

Going into this novel, I knew that it was a blend of fantasy and police procedural and that the "dead cop must solve his own murder," which is stated clearly on the cover of the edition I read. The subtitle also says "A novel of science fiction" but my son and husband, who had both read the book, felt that it fit in the fantasy genre, and I agree. This is the third book I have read for Once Upon a Time  VIII.

Beyond the facts above, I don't want to describe more of the plot of this book. It is a mystery with paranormal elements. I know that there are readers who don't like their mystery mixed with the supernatural. I do recommend this book to those who are interested in trying a different but still very fulfilling mystery.

This is a noir thriller with brutal elements, and a story of a journey of a man to understanding himself and his isolation from others. I enjoyed the book as much for the personal story of Bobby Zha as for the mystery. The story has great pacing. The plot does get very convoluted, with flashbacks to earlier events (Stalingrad in 1942, a flight from New York to San Francisco). The writing was compelling. I did not get the happy ending I wanted but the kind of happy ending I was looking for would not have been consistent or as effective.

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Publisher:  Night Shade Books, 2007. Orig. pub. 2005.
Length:  259 pages
Format:  Trade paperback
Setting:  Near future San Francisco, Chinatown.
Genre:  Sci fi / Fantasy / Mystery