This week: James Lee Burke's latest, and how Japan saved American style.
House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke (S&S) - In Edgar-winner Burke’s stunning follow-up to 2014’s Wayfaring Stranger, former Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland sets off to look for his estranged son, Ishmael, a U.S. Army captain, in a journey spanning over two years. In 1916, after a botched Ranger operation in Mexico, Hackberry has in his possession an artifact rumored to be the Holy Grail, incurring the wrath of Arnold Beckman, a vicious arms dealer who wants the artifact for himself. Bloodshed and treachery follow as Hackberry searches for his son while staying ahead of Beckman. As usual, Burke packs this epic novel with stellar characters, the best of whom are women: union activist Ruby Dansen, who’s Ishmael’s mother, and Beatrice DeMolay, a brothel owner who comes to Hackberry’s aid in Mexico. It’s easy to picture Hackberry as an avenging angel, albeit one with tattered wings, and his struggle to reconcile his innate sense of goodness with his violent sense of justice is only one of the story’s many facets. Crisp dialogue highlights this tale of redemption and the bonds of family, and the breathtaking conclusion is one that readers won’t soon forget.
MemoRandom by Anders de la Motte, trans. from the Swedish by Neil Smith (Atria/Bestler) - In this turbocharged thriller from the author of the Game trilogy (Bubble, etc.), half of Stockholm is desperate to find out exactly what David Sarac knows—including David Sarac himself. That’s because the stroke that Sarac, an Intelligence Unit officer, suffers after a suspicious car crash leaves him, at least temporarily, barely able to remember much about his own identity, let alone his 24-kt. confidential informant, Janus. Or the myriad enemies who would like nothing better than to see both of them dead. Meanwhile, Atif, an Iraqi military policeman, returns to Sweden and his old criminal gang to find out who murdered his younger brother; Natalie, a health care worker, turns to fraud to cobble together a living; and newly appointed Minister of Justice Jesper Stenberg prepares to do just about anything to preserve his power. With the breakneck pace of the trilogy but a more mature narrative command, de la Motte deftly spins out these divergent strands, until the intricate outlines of a deadly spider’s web finally becomes visible—and inescapable.
Like Family by Paolo Giordano, trans. from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel (Viking/Dorman) - Combining the edginess of modern life with the touching theme of losing someone who has become just like family, this short novel recounts how an ordinary woman, Mrs. A.—nicknamed Babette after she insists on preparing a perfect dinner for the family that employs her (a reference to Babette’s Feast)—succumbs to cancer, leaving behind an unexpectedly rich legacy of love. Babette first comes to work for the unnamed scientist narrator and his wife, Nora, to help out during Nora’s difficult pregnancy, then stays on to become housekeeper/nanny/nurse/substitute mother/grandmother, the nucleus of this nuclear family. Babette witnesses the baby’s first steps and attends his first day of school, but her importance to each family member is appreciated only when she retires, claiming fatigue before discovering she has terminal cancer. For the family, losing this woman (who dislikes change) changes everything. Layer by layer, Giordano (The Solitude of Prime Numbers) peels back personal connections to ask: What is family? For that matter, what is love?
The Chessman: A Jack Haldean Mystery by Dolores Gordon-Smith (Severn) - The Sussex village of Croxton Ferriers, the setting for Gordon-Smith’s stellar ninth mystery set in post-WWI England (after 2014’s After the Exhibition), is rocked to its core when a badly mutilated body turns up in the local church. One of the two women who discovered the remains in a cupboard is Isabelle Stanton, a cousin of amateur sleuth Jack Haldean, a fighter pilot during the war who soon gets on the case. The other is Isabelle’s friend, strikingly beautiful Sue Castradon, whose husband, Ned, was badly disfigured in the war and who bears grudges against everyone in general but one person in particular: Sir Matthew Vardon, a greedy, scurrilous old rascal, whose son, Simon, is smitten with Sue. A chess piece left in the church cupboard may be a vital clue. Plausible red herrings abound as Jack and the village residents ponder the case and all its incongruities over tea in the drawing rooms of Croxton Ferriers. Some readers will stay up all night to finish this fine traditional mystery.
The Only Child by Guojing (Random/Schwartz & Wade) - In an author’s note, newcomer Guojing explains that this wordless graphic novel grew out of memories of “isolation and loneliness,” growing up under China’s one-child policy. The Only Child of her story is an adorable dumpling in overalls who discovers herself alone on a bus after falling asleep. She sets off to find her grandmother’s house and is approached in a wintry forest by a stag, who flies with her into a realm beyond the clouds. There they discover an irresistible creature—part baby seal, part polar bear cub—and the three share a marvelous adventure until the animal’s parent comes to fetch it and the child is left alone again. She is never deserted by the loyal stag, though, who returns her safely to her own world. The low-key, all-gray charcoal palette carries whiffs of winter chill and poverty, but the physical sensations Guojing suggests visually—the fluffy softness of the clouds, the warmth of the stag’s closeness—provide the comfort of a soft quilt. Fine draftsmanship, deft pacing, and striking imaginative power distinguish this debut.
His Right Hand by Mette Ivie Harrison (Soho Crime) - Harrison’s outstanding sequel to 2014’s The Bishop’s Wife focuses on a timely social issue. At the annual bishopric dinner, Linda Wallheim and her husband, Kurt, the LDS bishop of their ward in Draper, Utah, are dismayed by the critical, controlling way that Carl Ashby, Kurt’s second counselor, treats his wife, Emma. One night soon afterward, a distraught Emma phones Linda and Kurt to report that Carl is late coming home from a church meeting. Kurt and Linda drive over to the church, where they find Carl strangled with a woman’s scarf. The subsequent autopsy reveals that Carl was transgender. This revelation comes as a surprise to nearly everyone in the couple’s community, including Emma and their two high school–age children, both adopted. Higher-ups in the Mormon Church want to play down Carl’s secret past. Linda, as the ever-helpful bishop’s wife, tries not only to comfort Emma and her children but also to assist the police in the hunt for Carl’s killer.
Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by W. David Marx (Basic) - In this wholly intriguing study of the American influence on menswear in Japan, cultural critic Marx carves out a lucid example of the cyclical interplay between cultural identity and globalization by mapping Japan’s rise to prominence in the fashion the world, beginning with the appropriation of American trends after WWII. Japan’s first obsession with American style was called, simply, Ivy (aibii). The term referred to the Ivy League, specifically the style of students walking across the Princeton University campus in 1959, when intrepid Japanese fashion entrepreneur Kensuke Ishizu decided to visit the campus for inspiration. Ishizu was the first of many magazine editors, designers, store owners, and trend setters who would define Japanese style over the next few decades by appropriating—and redefining—iconic American style (as well as archiving it). The book’s tales of scrappy entrepreneurs combine to make an important contribution to readers’ understanding of cultural authenticity, the use of branding in media to sell consumer goods, and how representations of masculinity and rebellion evolve in the consumer marketplace.
Ezra Pound: Poet--Vol. III; The Tragic Years, 1939-1972 by A. David Moody (Oxford Univ.) - As the subtitle suggests, the third volume in Moody’s biography of Ezra Pound depicts some of the most difficult experiences of the poet’s life, from being arrested by U.S. forces in Italy in 1945 on charges of treason, to confinement in a Washington, D.C., mental hospital from 1946 to 1958. Investigating Pound’s fascist sympathies, Moody does not justify Pound’s beliefs or behavior, but does seek to understand them in a more nuanced way than usual. He argues that it is nearer to the truth to label Pound a “Confucian” instead of a fascist, describing an incident in which Pound begged President Truman to let him negotiate a peace treaty with Japan since he (Pound) would be able to appeal “to the ancient culture of Japan.” Through all these travails, Pound worked on the Cantos and translations of Confucius, texts for which Moody ably provides close readings. He paints Pound as a triumphant, not tragic, figure—one who eventually had his indictment for treason dismissed and died not in a psychiatric hospital but in his beloved Italy.
The Age of Reinvention by Karine Tuil, trans. from the French by Sam Taylor (Atria) - French author Tuil makes her U.S. debut with this suspenseful, if at times daunting, Gatsby-esque odyssey (a finalist for France’s Prix Goncourt) laced with provocative observations of prejudice, politics, and sexism. Sam Tahar, a $1,000-an-hour Manhattan DA, media darling, and sex addict, enjoys the kind of life he could barely have imagined back when he was growing up in Paris as Samir, the poor son of Tunisian immigrants. But the lofty social position as the son-in-law of Rahm Berg, “one of the richest men in the U.S.,” comes with a high price: Sam’s pretense that he is a North African Jew, not a Muslim. Deep down Sam knows that the question is not if his past will catch up to him but when. Sam’s secret lights the fuse on the twisty plot, but where it eventually explodes comes as a complete shock. Sadly, Tuil’s theme of anti-Muslim prejudice and its consequences seems even timelier today than when the novel was first published in France in 2013.
The Rosemary Spell by Virginia Zimmerman (Clarion) - Debut author Zimmerman blends Shakespeare and magic in the enthralling story of three friends confronted with a mysterious book and a curious spell. Thirteen-year-old Rosemary “Rosie” Bennett, named after a line from Hamlet (“There’s Rosemary, that’s for remembrance”), and her friend Adam feel abandoned by Adam’s older sister, Shelby, whose attentions have turned to her boyfriend and play practice. Then the two find an old book hidden in a locked cupboard in Rosie’s house, which was once owned by legendary poet Constance Brooke. What they believe is Shakespeare’s false codex holds a powerful spell, one that creates “void and nothing.” Endangering Shelby, the two must figure out a way to reverse the spell before their memories of Shelby disappear forever. Their only hope is Constance, facing Alzheimer’s disease in a nursing home. Zimmerman peppers the novel with engaging teachers, cozy reading nooks, and soft-lit bookshelves, a welcoming reprieve against the distressing portrayal of Constance’s Alzheimer’s and Rosie’s abandonment by her father.
