I Miss Dick Francis

I just re-read Dick Francis’ “Straight”, published in 1989.  I’m pretty sure I’ve read all his books, but unlike most mysteries by other writers, I don’t mind reading them a second time.  For one thing, his hero is generally  kind, brave, intelligent, and an all-round sympathetic character.  His plots are stark conflicts between good and evil, with dastardly villains getting their comeuppance in the end and a supporting cast of good guys whose affairs are (mostly) eventually arranged for the best with all lose ends neatly tied up.

Francis seems to be a bit touchy on the subject of his hero’s intelligence in those books in which the hero is a jockey, like Francis himself in his first career.  That’s understandable, since he no doubt had to put up with a lot of misplaced condescension from people who assumed that intelligence and riding horses for a living were mutually exclusive.  It’s like assuming that all girls with blond hair are stupid, and must have been very annoying.  It would have been especially mistaken in the case of  Francis, who was successful not only as a jockey but also as the pilot/owner of an air charter business and as a writer.

I also enjoyed the later books written together with his son Felix, and also the ones written by Felix Francis on his own.  Felix Francis apparently studied physics and electronics before making a career of writing crime fiction.  A multi-talented family.

Dick Francis died in 2010.

 

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Agent in Place

You have to like Courtland Gentry, the hero of Mark Greaney’s 2018 publication, Agent in Place.  Gentry is a fighter with abilities close to those of a super-hero, and also a nice guy.  Greaney does the fighting parts very well, including details about various kinds of weapons and martial arts moves, but there’s a bit of a problem with the niceness.  Gentry doesn’t mind killing bad guys, but has principles against killing innocent people.  What to do about the grey area, where someone who may not deserve death is helping the bad guys and standing in Gentry’s way?  Such people often get killed too, in the interest of advancing the plot.

In “Agent in Place” Gentry has the satisfying mission of assassinating a genocidal Syrian dictator who is obviously Bashar Assad, even though Greaney gives him a different name.  This plot illustrates the ways in which writing thrillers can be fun.  Not only can your protagonist accomplish feats of derring- do that are beyond the capabilities of the writer, he can also provide some wish fulfillment by removing bad actors from the world stage.

 

The Tower of Babel

Is  “lo samaht”  a possible transliteration of a phrase meaning “please” in Arabic?  I would really like to know.

I assume that “kes emmak” and Kis em ick” are meant to be transliterations of the same vulgar remark in Arabic, so why the different forms?

Andrew Kaplan’s “Scorpion Betrayal”, published in 2012, is written in English but peppered with so many words and phrases in other languages, many of them transliterated from other alphabets, that it’s a veritable tower of Babel.  At first glance it seems to be aiming for realism, with a plot about a planned series of terrorist attacks.  On the other hand, it can’t be very realistic with a hero who is a free-lance secret agent known as Scorpion and who quickly acquires a beautiful female sidekick.  Kaplan seems to be trying to make up for those basic unrealistic elements by the supposedly authentic foreign languages, but there are two problems.

Problem number one is the awkwardness caused by all the interruptions in the English text.  Years ago I read a thriller by a best-selling author who inserted a short conversation in Spanish.  I don’t remember what the story was about, but I do remember losing my concentration on the plot to think, “Oh, the writer wants me to know that he actually knows Spanish.”  I concluded that it would have been better to just give the English version of the conversation.  Who cares whether the writer knows Spanish?  He just has to make it plausible that his character knows it.

The second problem is that the bits of supposed authentic speech are more distracting than convincing.  The transliterations act as roadblocks in the text and as far as I can tell, the French isn’t correct.

And the beautiful female sidekick?  She’s Lebanese, working as a reporter in Berlin, and Scorpion suspects that she may be a foreign agent.  Why would he speak French in front of her and assume that she doesn’t understand a word?  I wouldn’t trust this guy to pick up a loaf of bread at the supermarket, let alone foil a terrorist plot.

Jericho’s War

I should start with the disclosure that I didn’t read all of Gerald Seymour’s 2017 publication, “Jericho’s War”.  About half way through I started to skim.  It takes 470 pages, shuttling at head-spinning speed between the stories of several groups of characters.  Why does it take 470 pages to tell a story ( British agents in Yemen assassinate a couple of jihadis who are plotting to blow up a passenger plane) that could have been told in detail in less than half that number?  One reason is that each time we return to one of the characters, we get a recap of their personality and they recall their back story.  This may be entirely true to life, reflecting the way people actually think, but my vote is for less gritty realism in the interest of moving the story along.

Speaking of gritty realism, there’s plenty of graphic violence as people are beaten, shot, and in one instance crucified, and at least one of  the “good guys” is a truly nasty character.

After all my efforts to find out what happens in the end, it was left up in the air.  The MI6 agent who is more or less the main protagonist may have died in Yemen, or just possibly he survived and is living there to this day.  Living out one’s life in a subsistence level village in Yemen might suit some people very well, but since this fellow didn’t seem to be the type, it wouldn’t really be a happy ending.

The Daily Telegraph called Seymour “The best thriller writer in the world.”  I’m not convinced

 

A Gentleman in Moscow

The many admiring reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow, published by Amor Towles in 2016, say that it’s amusing, interesting, and elegantly written.  That’s all true, but the underlying idea also deserves mention.  The book describes Stalinist Russia from the point of view of a gentleman confined to house arrest in a Moscow hotel, so all the horrors are filtered through the revolving doors of the Metropol.  Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, the eponymous gentleman, has downsized from the family estate to a suite in the hotel to finally being consigned to a small attic room with the warning that he’ll be shot if he sets foot outdoors.  It occurs to the count, I think this was after the German army failed to reach Moscow during World War II, that given what others have suffered, he may be the luckiest man in Russia.

The once-removed point of view certainly makes it easier to find humor in the situation of Russia of those years, and the venue of a grand hotel allows for a variety of characters among the staff and guests.  I couldn’t help wondering what gave Towles the idea for this book.  Does he have some actual connection to Russia, or is it a psychological affinity for the country or the character of Count Rostov?

 

Hidden Powers of the Human Mind

I’ve just read Runner, published by Patrick Lee in 2014, and enjoyed it a lot.  Protagonist San Dryden, ex-Special Forces and a nice guy, finds himself in the position of protecting a little girl who is being chased by sinister armed men.   It’s a great set up, and gets all the more interesting when the girl turns out to have the ability to read people’s thoughts.

It doesn’t detract much from the suspense of the plot to say that this girl was a subject of an experiment involving genetic mutations induced by administering drugs and designed to create a new type of soldier – one who can take over the mind of his adversary and make him do anything, including committing suicide.  Lee doesn’t go into the scientific details and it doesn’t matter.  It’s not really possible, but it makes a good story.

On the other hand, there are people who already have some of these powers to a greater or lesser extent.  One such person was Russian psychic Wolf Messing, whose story was published in English in 1989 by Tatiana Lungin (Wolf Messing.  The True Story of Russia’s Greatest Psychic).

One of the most impressive episodes in Messing’s startling career was his first encounter with his unusual powers when he ran away from home as a boy of about nine.  He got on a train and soon realized that the conductor was approaching and inspecting everyone’s ticket.   Without thinking, he pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it out, willing with all his might for the conductor to accept it.  The conductor did.

The Wish to Kill , the first Alex Kertész mystery, is about the possibility that thoughts can kill.

 

The Amazing Imagination of Douglas Preston

The Codex, published by Douglas Preston in 2004, is described in a cover blurb as “Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Amazing Race”.  That about sums it up.  An eccentric billionaire who is dying of cancer sets one last challenge for his three sons – he has packed up his fabulous collection of art and ancient artifacts and is taking it all with him to an undisclosed burial site.  If his sons want their inheritance, they will first have to find it.

The brothers are less than thrilled by the idea of going along with their overbearing dad’s last demand, but take up the challenge, each for his own reason and independently of each other.  The oldest brother, an art lover, doesn’t want to give up his favorite painting and is short of money.  The youngest brother confides in his sham guru, expecting to be told that he is right not to want to chase money, and is surprised to find that the guru wants them to set off on the quest immediately.  The middle son has decided to do nothing, until a beautiful young woman with an interest in an item in his father’s collection, a Mayan codex of medicinal plants, seeks him out for help in acquiring the treasure for the good of humanity.  Then he realizes that his brothers, who have already left, are probably in great danger and don’t know it.

The plot has more twists than an anaconda (who is one of the many and varied characters to appear), and left me in awe of the imagination of Douglas Preston.