The State Counsellor

by Boris Akunin

translated by Andrew Bromfield

The sixth book in the Erast Fandorin series, the last of which I read 16 years ago. In 1891 Moscow, with tensions between revolutionary factions and the Imperial government running high, a daring and determined assassin kills a high-ranking official aboard a secret train. The official's route was heavily guarded, and the suspiciously well-informed killer was posing as the hero of the series, Erast Fandorin. The real Fandorin must clear his name (a relatively simple matter) and then track down the real killer and the revolutionary group to which he belongs. Hindering his investigation are the internecine struggles between two distinct and opposing government forces: the local police, under Stanislav Sverchinsky, and the more brutal secret police, the Okhrankists, under Pyotr Burlayev. The two forces refuse to cooperate and vie for seniority in the case, forcing Fandorin to play politics as well as solve the murder. One of Fandorin's leads is a confidential informant and femme fatale who insists on never revealing her face.

The narrative alternates between Fandorin's perspective and that of his primary adversary, a stoic, near-automaton revolutionary who calls himself Green. This is an intelligent page-turner; Akunin seems incapable of writing any other kind. As he has done before in the series, he makes his villain, despite Green's alien, taciturn, and cold demeanor, somewhat sympathetic by giving him a fully fleshed-out background and comprehensible motives. The book also works as a clever period piece, offering insight into the psychology of terrorism, state crackdowns, and the moral dilemmas of pre-revolutionary Moscow. I was, at times, overwhelmed by the array of characters, who are alternately identified by first names, patronymics, surnames, and code names. I am not ashamed to say that I wrote out a guide.  

Bel-Ami

by Guy de Maupassant

translated by Margaret Mauldon

Georges Duroy, the "Bel-Ami" of the title, is a former officer stationed in North Africa who arrives in Paris penniless, and without prospects, but handsome, alluring, and ambitious. A chance encounter with Forestier, an old army comrade, earns him a job at the newspaper "La Vie Française," where he learns to be as cynical and jaded as his fellow journalists. His gratitude for this favor is short-lived, as he quickly gives way to his insatiable desire to climb the social ladder and bed women. Before long, Duroy is using his charm, wit, and extraordinary success with wealthy women to climb Parisian society, pursuing money and influence with ruthless determination. He begins an affair with Forestier's wife, moving on (but never quite relinquishing either) when another woman offers a more tantalizing prospect. Each promotion, conquest, or fortune merely fuels his envy and greed. The nickname "Bel-Ami" ("beautiful friend") is deeply ironic. Duroy's beauty is only skin-deep, and he is a friend to no one but himself.

For a novel published in 1885, the book feels remarkably modern. Rather than offering a virtuous hero or an obvious moral lesson, Maupassant presents an utterly amoral opportunist and simply lets him succeed, scandalizing his readers. Duroy seduces, manipulates, blackmails, and betrays his way upward, while the novel implicitly condemns society itself for rewarding exactly these qualities. It's difficult to think of many nineteenth-century, or even modern, protagonists as selfish and narcissistic as Duroy, and Maupassant never softens him to win our sympathy. The novel is equally scathing about the institutions surrounding him. Journalism, politics, finance, and colonial policy are shown to be deeply intertwined, with newspapers shaping public opinion to enrich a privileged few. One wonderfully cynical exchange has an experienced reporter admit that he never bothers interviewing foreign dignitaries at all; he simply recycles old articles and changes the names. It's a biting satire of journalism that feels surprisingly relevant today. Despite that modernity, part of the fun for the reader is entering Maupassant's Belle Époque Paris. Maupassant's keen prose vividly recreates the parties, the fashionable salons, cafés, the Folies Bergère, and the countryside. Contemporary details like the construction of the Métro and France's colonial ambitions in Algeria give the novel a rich sense of place. Maupassant's greatest strength, however, lies in his understanding of human behavior. He precisely observes vanity, envy, desire, and self-deception. Duroy himself is fascinating, but the women around him are every bit as compelling, each navigating shifting power dynamics in different ways. Their relationships with Duroy are often more emotionally complex than his own calculating view of them, another way in which the novel is strikingly modern. More than 140 years after its publication, its portrait of ambition, corrupt journalism, transactional relationships, political manipulation, and the seductive pursuit of wealth is contemporary and compelling. 

four stars 

The Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

Twenty years ago, Saga, the greatest of all the "bands" (groups of mercenary adventurers in the Dungeons and Dragons style) fought and rose to great heights, then faded away. Now, twenty years later, they are just five aging, past-their-prime men scattered over the land, having lost touch. Clay "Slowhand" Cooper, who uses a formidable mystical shield, is retired with a family in Coverdale. Their frontman, Gabriel, a.k.a. "Golden Gabe," arrives unexpectedly to beg Clay for help: his daughter, Rose, is trapped in a distant city besieged by an innumerable army of various monsters. Reluctantly, Clay joins him and they gather the others: Moog, a klutzy wizard; the dagger-wielding, drunk, overweight, henpecked Matrick, who has become a cuckolded king; and Ganelon, the deadly swordsman whom they all left behind, to their shame. They embark on a quest across a monster-filled forest known as the Heartwyld. If the army of monsters wasn't enough to fear, they also encounter an old enemy, Lastleaf, an immortal Druin (think: Dark Elf) who bears quite a grudge against them.

As is obvious from the nicknames, the story treats mercenary groups like rock stars who draw massive crowds and inspire epic ballads. It's an amusing premise, and the book has flashes of genuine humor and excitement. Unfortunately, it didn't click for me. The "rock star" metaphor is tired and never really quite fits in a fantasy setting, but that's a minor quibble. The real problem is the laziness of the world-building. Time and again, the novel resolves obstacles through convenient contrivances rather than believable storytelling. The band has supposedly been out of contact for decades, yet Moog suddenly remembers a magical portal directly to Matrick's castle, a portal that also deposits them at precisely the moment an assassin strikes. Other ideas are introduced only to fizzle out. The entire country is plagued by a deadly and incurable disease called "rot" that is meant to be an emotionally-resonant plot arc, but it proves to be of no consequence. Matrick is depicted as terribly out of shape, but when the fighting starts, he is a veritable superhuman, as are they all; their age and rustiness, though often referred to, barely affect them. None of the wounds or sacrifices the band makes ever stick; there are therefore no stakes, and no suspense. Even the comedy often misses its mark. Moog's insistence that owlbears are real is treated with derision, as if he's insane, but they live in a world populated by literally any kind or combination of monster imaginable; the joke just has no place to land. Or the conceit that Saga's bards always die on quests, so they've had dozens over the years!  Spinal Tap got there first. Eames is trying to have it both ways here, a fantasy-setting Hitchhiker's Guide and the high fantasy of a Joe Abercrombie. The result is certainly entertaining in places, but I found its clever premise resting on a foundation too flimsy to support the adventure it wanted to tell. 

two stars 

The Extinction Of Irena Rey

by Jennifer Croft

A beloved and bestselling author, the titular Irena Rey, has the habit of gathering and sequestering all her translators at her house in Poland, where they all work on the translations of her current works together. This time, they gather to translate the work Grey Eminence, a novel warning about the dangers of human intelligence putting the world on the road to extinction. Specifically, Rey is known for fighting against the culling of her beloved Bialowieza, a primeval forest that has been the site of logging by the government. However, something is awry — Our Author (as the besotted narrator of the book styles her, in deistic caps) is missing, and the translators, who initially only know each other by their target languages rather than names, are left to their own devices. Should they go ahead with their work without her? Rifle through her belongings for a clue to her whereabouts and identity? Go get a drink at the local bar? Hunt down her family? As her absence continues, things get stranger with each new development, and the various translators form alliances and enmities, until the atmosphere is something along the lines of a surreal bacchanal.

Croft is herself a Booker Prize-winning translator of the Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, as well as of Argentinian authors, so her reflections on, and parodies of, the art of translation are incisive and shrewd. One of the conceits of the book is that is is written by Rey's Spanish translator Emi, but what we are reading is the English translation of that book by Alexis, who was also there, and gives a few insights or corrections of her own in footnotes. (I wonder what they do in the Spanish translation of this novel?) Emi speaks for all the translators as a collective, but at some point it seems clear that Emi's slavish adoration is not the norm among her peers. The novel has several motifs and recurring themes. It touches on stewardship, veneration, fungi, parasites, love, amadou, and more. It's not a novel for everyone, having more in common with the French absurdists, and Tokarczuk's flights of mixed-genre imagination, than any straightforward narrative. It plays with language, throwing out ideas and innuendo and genuine anxieties about political concerns with abandon. Some stick, and some don't. Some scenes lag or fall flat. But this is such a vivacious and original novel that I generally forgive its misfires. If it's taken as an absurdist play, full of inane, bumbling characters caught in a situation they don't understand, rather than some sort of real-world mystery, it works. 

three stars 

The Racketeer

by John Grisham

2012 

Malcolm Bannister was a small-town lawyer until a bad real estate deal connected him to a criminal conspiracy and landed him in federal prison for a crime he didn't (knowingly) commit. When a federal judge is murdered and the FBI has no leads, Malcolm reveals that he knows who killed him, but only if the government agrees to release him and give him full immunity and a new identity. What follows is an intricate game of leverage, deception, and revenge as Malcolm manipulates the FBI, federal prosecutors, and the real killers, all while concealing an even larger scheme of his own. Each revelation upends what seemed certain, and Malcolm proves himself several steps ahead of everyone trying to use him.

Grisham here moves from his typical milieu, the courtroom, to try his hand at the caper and confidence game, with mixed results. The novel is less concerned with legal arguments than with strategy, hidden motives, and carefully timed revelations. Malcolm is an intriguing narrator: intelligent, patient, and morally flexible. However, Grisham also occasionally switches to a third-person omniscient narrator, so he can keep various revelations hidden until it suits him, repeatedly forcing the reader to reassess what they thought they understood. The excitement in the novel comes from watching Malcolm outmaneuver institutions that believe they hold all the power. I wasn't overmuch impressed with this book, however. The secondary characters beyond Malcolm are more functional than memorable. Most FBI agents, prosecutors, and secondary figures exist primarily to move the machinery of the plot, and the emotional stakes never run especially deep. But the main reason for my lukewarm reception is that narly everything in the book strains credulity. The plot relies heavily on coincidence, unlikely events, and highly questionable reactions on the part of law enforcement. As Grisham writes in his author's note, "almost nothing in the previous 340 odd pages is based on reality." This is an understatement. It's a two-star plot, bumped to three stars due to Grisham's easy, readable style that keeps the pages turning.  

three stars 

IQ

by Joe Ide

In South Central Los Angeles lives Isaiah Quintabe, a 26-year-old African American man, whose brilliant mind justifies his initial-nickname of IQ. After his beloved older brother was killed in a hit and run, the young IQ drifted into illegal activities until he realized he could use his computer-like mind to solve the problems of people in his neighborhood, taking on cases the police won't or can't. IQ has known, as his spiritual godfather Sherlock did, the temptation of recreational drugs, and his understanding of the criminal mentality is based on experience. (His involvement in crime was typically idiosyncratic, stealing items like feline epilepsy strips with low security but high resale value.) But all this comes in flashbacks. Satisfyingly to us Sherlockians, the main plot line of this novel adapts some elements of The Hound of the Baskervilles: a superstar rapper, Calvin Wright, faces an attempted assassination by a 130-pound monster of a pit bull, who seems to have been bred by an enemy for murderous purpose. IQ uses street-smarts, near-perfect recall, and inductive reasoning to find answers to who is behind the threat. IQ's sidekick Dodson fills a Watson-like role, in that he does his part and is capable of providing backup in the form of a gun.

The setting, the voice, and the characters are all high points of the novel. Ide has a gift for sharp observations and memorable details (the rapper's belongings include "a bundle of rolled-up antique Persian prayer rugs from his two weeks as a practicing Muslim"), and the novel is packed with lines that are funny without feeling as though they are trying too hard to be funny. IQ feels grounded as a character, fleshed-out with his own foibles and weak spots. The flashbacks showing how he became who he is are often more compelling than the central mystery. The mystery itself is solid. Ide lays out the clues fairly, and the solution emerges logically rather than through arbitrary twists. Watching IQ think is consistently entertaining. At times, however, the novel stretches credibility. Some of Isaiah's movements through particularly hostile environments feel easier and safer than they ought to. As a non-black author, Joe Ide seems fairly oblivious to how carefully a young black man must perforce maneuver through certain white-dominated situations. I don't mean that IQ shouldn't be confident, but these scenes in particular don't ring true. I also thought that a few of the character interactions seem shaped more by the needs of the plot, or even slapstick, than by reality. I enjoyed the novel's portrait of a community, its exploration of grief and responsibility, and the chemistry between IQ and the exasperating, scheming Dodson. This isn't a brilliant book, but it's a novel take on an old trope, with an engaging protagonist and an ending that promises more.  

three stars 

Pledging My Time: Conversations With Bob Dylan Band Members

by Ray Padgett

Rather than focusing on Dylan himself, Ray Padgett interviews forty musicians, collaborators, and fellow travelers who spent time onstage, in the studio, or on the road with him. The result is not a standard profile of the man; it's a portrait assembled from the edges inward. The book spans virtually Dylan's entire career, from the folk scene of the early 1960s through Rough and Rowdy Ways and the Never Ending Tour. Padgett's interview subjects range from major figures such as Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Richard Thompson, Larry Campbell, and Benmont Tench to one-off collaborators who found themselves unexpectedly swept into Dylan's orbit.

There are a lot of terrific anecdotes, from gushing, grateful unknown musicians given a chance to play on stage by Dylan himself, to baffled sidemen wondering why they got hired (or let go). There are terrific asides from talented musicians about how great a guitar player or piano player Dylan is. Others marvel at his breadth of musical knowledge (one guitarist recalls having to ask various friends about all the obscure folk and blues artists Bob talks about are in order to keep up: "if I knew half of what he's forgotten, I would be one of the most well-educated musicians on the planet"). There is very little communication from the man himself. Players are called up unexpectedly to jam, go home, and then find the jam session was an audition, and they're going on the road, or a late-night talk show, tomorrow. If there's a central idea to the book, it's to serve as an answer to this question: Why do so many accomplished musicians speak of playing with him as a career highlight? Dylan's reputation among casual listeners is built on his songwriting and distinctive voice, not on instrumental virtuosity. Yet interview after interview describes the experience as exhilarating. Musicians recount being thrown onstage with little preparation, confronted with shifting arrangements, unexpected keys, and performances that seem perpetually on the verge of collapse. Yet the disorder is rarely random. As you read the various experiences, it becomes clear that Dylan creates conditions that force musicians to listen, react, and create in the moment, producing performances that feel spontaneous yet require the most intense focus. The interviews also reveal Dylan as a director-like figure, choosing musicians not simply for technical ability but for the musical worlds they carry inside them. Dylan's encyclopedic knowledge of blues, country, folk and more becomes both a shared language and an audition process. As an interviewer and editor, Padgett is exceptionally well prepared, asks the right questions, and keeps the focus on music rather than gossip. As a result, the book sheds light not just on Dylan's career but on his creative process, which is fascinating to the Dylan devotee.  

five stars