The River by Peter Heller – Book

From a Google Image Search – Criminal Element

The River by Peter Heller took me back to my teen years when my brother and his best friend, if they had more money, could have easily been Jack and Wynn, the young men in this story. This is a tale that runs by as fast as a river current. Jack and Wynn love nothing better than being outdoors, adventuring in a canoe, fishing and hunting and smoking their pipes on a riverbank in front of a fire. They are both very experienced. Jack grew up on a ranch and lived on horseback from a very young age. He learned to accept both hardships and pleasures as normal occurrences. His judgment did not get clouded by adrenaline. Wynn grew up in the more tamed nature of New England in a loving family. He knew how to stay safe when away from civilization, but he did not have to develop the toughness that Jack’s life required.

These two friends, brought together by their interests, have planned to go on a canoe trip up to Hudson Bay. They have carefully collected their supplies and figured out how to stow them in the canoe to keep their craft balanced and to keep their supplies dry. But there are forces afoot on the river that leads to Hudson Bay over which they have no control. There are two other parties on the river. That should not have been a problem, but people are unpredictable, even adventurers do not all have trustworthy characters. Nature becomes a potent adversary in this river equation as these folks all try to outrun a forest fire to make it to Hudson Bay to get a plane out. The one thing Jack and Wynn decided not to bring with them, a sat phone, would have been the most essential tool to have on this expedition. What ensues is one nail-biting situation after another. You may be able to trust your boon companion, but you cannot trust other people and you cannot predict what nature will throw at you. (And, perhaps, you don’t want to be a woman on the river.)

The voice of the narrator, with its Hemingwayesque short ‘illegal’ sentences suits the backwoods adventure and these young men who approach life, if not grammar, with planning and almost reverence for form and well-practiced routines. Frequent literary references show that these boys are more than just hicks. This is a voice I have heard before, but my brain won’t remind me of exactly what author it resembles, perhaps Mark Twain. Poetic descriptions are drawn without effort, never overdone.

“The canoe moved this morning as if greased. North again toward the top of the lake where it became a true river. They let their eyes rove the shore looking for the colors of a tent or tents, the shape of a boat on a beach, but saw only more patches of yellow in the trees and a swath of orange black-eyed Susans on the shore. They watched a skein of geese fly over that end of the lake, just one side of the V, an uneven phalanx that curved and straightened as they flew in constant correction. The distant barks drifted down.” (Pg. 36)

“They got hot. They paddled hard. Almost thirty miles on a flat-water current was a long way even for them. Because the river slowed and expended itself in unexpected wide coves. From which loons called as they passed—the rising wail that cracked the afternoon with irrepressible longing and seemed to darken the sky. The ululant laughter that followed. Mirthless and sad. And from across the slough or from far downstream the cry that answered.” (Pg. 1160

There is a new book The Guide by Peter Heller which features Jack once again. Can’t wait.

The Cellist by Daniel Silva-Book

From a Google Image Search – Houstonian Magazine

The Cellist by Daniel Silva-Book

The Cellist by Daniel Silva begins with a painting, as Gabriel Allon spy stories often do. It begins at Isherwood Galleries with Sarah Bancroft, the beautiful agent Gabriel recruited in The New Girl. Sarah likes to believe Gabriel managed to ruin her for any other life. Right now, Sarah is running the gallery. She decides to sell a somewhat damaged painting called The Lute Player, attributed all these years to the wrong artist. She sees it as a challenge to do this during the COVID-19 pandemic and the gallery could certainly use a spectacular sale. Sarah thinks Viktor Orlov might buy the painting if Gabriel will restore it. Viktor is a Russian oligarch, out of favor with the leader of Russia, hiding in plain sight in England. However, when Sarah gets to Viktor’s house the door is unlocked, but no one answers the bell. She discovers Viktor dead in front of a packet of papers he has just opened. Fortunately, she knows better than to touch anything. The papers are covered with a fine layer of powdered Novichok, a nerve agent.

And there begins a tale of Russia, one of Gabriel’s favorite places to try to fight for human rights and get rid of the bad guys. This is a story of the moment, and I liked it far more than Silva’s other modern story of terrorism, The Black Widow. Perhaps I was simply used to time-mellowed alleys in old world Vienna, scuffles with corrupt Swiss bankers who paid Nazis big bucks for stolen Jewish possessions, his vendetta with the Catholic priests who sided with Nazis, and his special relationship with the Vatican. Something as modern as dealing with ISIS in modern-day France seemed outside Silva’s usual oeuvre.

But Isabel Brenner, the talented cellist who can hold entire symphonies in her memory, is a fine addition to the lovely women Gabriel recruits. He did not recruit her at random. She works for the Russian Laundromat, a secret arm of RhineBank (fictional substitute for DeutscheBank). She is the one who has been passing on RhineBank data sheets to a female Russian journalist Gabriel knows well. Isabel identified herself as Mr. Nobody. Gabriel must decide if Isabel is the one who dusted the documents handed to Viktor with Novichok, or if her spying had been discovered and she was now being used.

We’re talking Russia here–a Russia run by thugs, killers, and thieves. A Russia still governed by a leader trained by the KGB and his cagey bag man Arkady Akimov. Arkady may be so blinded by wealth that he is willing to steal from a man who is more ruthless than he is, but he also loves classical music and indulges in philanthropy with his stolen money. Gabriel comes up with a plot which he hopes will topple RhineBank and Arkady, and perhaps even Arkady’s old neighborhood pal, the president of Russia.

Gabriel’s wife, Chiara, has wrested from him a promise that he will serve only one term as the head of the Israeli secret service after which they, and the twins, will retire to Vienna to be near Chiara’s aging father. Gabriel is using his old team, perhaps in an audition to see who will run ‘the office’ next. The women Gabriel recruits to help in his operations rarely come away unscathed, and neither does Gabriel. Gabriel ends his story in Washington, DC on the worst possible date, January 6^th where he runs into an extremist Qanon believer with a gun. She shoots him through and through. Chiara has one more reason to extort a retirement from a husband who keeps saying that he wants to retire and then getting sucked in one more time. If he lives, will he finally retire. Not if Daniel has a few more books to write which we hope he does. Readers will demand more Gabriel Allon in some form. Although Silva’s commentary on January 6th and Qanon will not please everyone, this reader felt he expressed himself very well on those subjects.

Gabriel serves as an investigator to allow Silva to expose injustices to his readers. Gabriel also exacts the kinds of vengeance we would all like to reap sometimes. The venality people get up to in this world often makes us despair. Do human beings have any redeeming qualities.? Gabriel not only gets revenge, but he has many redeeming qualities that remind us that life is both yin and yang, cowboys and outlaws, Nazis and resistance fighters. Some complain that this makes Gabriel unbelievable as a character, but not if we see him as a teacher, a symbol and ‘the tip of the spear’.

The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones-Book

From a Google Image Search-Barnes and Noble

Ali is marrying Jack’s brother Will, but everyone thinks that she is showy and inauthentic. She loses her passport just as they are all trying to check in at the airport to fly to a villa in Portugal-a destination wedding. Then everyone else loses their patience.

The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones gives us a tale of misjudgments and suspicions. Rachel, Jack’s wife, tells the story, and we are inside her head. Her head tells her that Ali is having an affair with her husband Jack. Will, Ali’s husband-to-be, is Jack’s brother. Rachel’s best friend Noah and his wife, Paige, are also staying at the villa. After speaking with Noah about their past together, Rachel is obsessed with her own guilt trip, which makes it more difficult to focus on the social interactions around her. She draws several incorrect conclusions.

Fortunately, Jack and Paige are smokers, so they get to disappear periodically to have a smoke, thus giving Rachel plenty of time to indulge her fears and wallow in her guilt. Ironically, she is probably one of the least guilty people at the wedding.

The events that bring the wedding weekend to a dramatic conclusion are certainly unusual, but it’s difficult to ‘suspend our disbelief’. The restaurant chosen for this expensive destination wedding is described as structurally unsound, somewhat ramshackle. Why would the couple pick such a spectacular villa to stay in before the wedding and such a rundown reception venue? Given what happens, far more casualties would have been expected.

What kept me reading is the actual guilt trip at the center of the story. The guilt trip itself was entirely believable, as were the superficial judgments made about Ali’s character. However, the astounding events at the end were a bit too engineered and unlikely. As for Ali, well, I can’t even tell you, but all is revealed in the aftermath of the dramatic denouement.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells-Book

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is a fun series for all fans of space and science fiction. This particular addition to the series is called Fugitive Telemetry. When our Murderbot removed his governor module and became aware of his intended purpose he was aghast. He really was not at all inclined to go around murdering humans, although it was much easier with evil humans. Much of the world at this time is run by corporations who have their headquarters in the corporate rim. GrayCris is one of the worst, willing to commit all kinds of mayhem for profit.

Murderbot met up with a research space lab piloted by a bot named ART. ART and Murderbot did not get along well at first. MB turned ART on to the videos of his favorite soap operas and saved the ship from an attack. Art helped MB use the medical unit aboard ship to change himself into a less obvious Security unit or Sec Unit. But he still has his guns in his arms so, if necessary, he will kill in self-defense or to save his new human cohorts.

Murderbot saved Mensah, the leader of Preservation Station, a semi-utopian independent colony established outside the corporation rim. She had a run-in with GrayCris and MB saved her. She took MB, now a Sec Unit, home to Preservation where he lived as the only augmented human. Sec Unit didn’t like humans much, but he did like Mensah and he knew GrayCris would come after her again.

But that’s not what happens in Fugitive Telemetry. This time Sec Unit solves a murder on Preservation Station, a very rare occurrence. What he uncovers is a crime we find fairly common on earth and his investigation involves a rescue. He also makes some headway in becoming accepted by the Preservation police force. Just a little candy bar of a story in the grand scheme of things; fast, nutty and satisfying.