the last o' the vacation reads -- The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, by Joyce Carol Oates

9780802124883
Mysterious Press, 2016
315 pp

hardcover

My many thanks to Mysterious Press for the copy that showed up at my door.

There are six stories in this rather dark collection, and once again the author has focused on human horrors rather than anything supernatural.  While I admit I wasn't overly in love with each and every story  in this book, I will say that the author's ability to create atmosphere continues here as it does in most of her short-story collections. If you've read her work in the past, you know exactly what I mean.  As usual, she delves deeply into the human psyche to examine an odd collection of disturbed minds, and in some cases goes on to examine the effects on the unsuspecting (or in one case, overly suspicious) people falling within their orbit. Trust me, the results are not at all pretty -- some minds are just freakin' deranged here, and belong to people you'd much rather avoid.

I won't go into any great detail, subject or thematic so as not to wreck things, but the six stories in this book start with the titular tale, "The Doll-Master," a story that whets the reader's appetite for more. While I wasn't chilled to the marrow by this one, it made for a good opener, since here she goes into what exactly it is that might make a serial killer tick, given his past,starting a path for Oates' examination of deranged minds.   The next story, "Soldier," is also very dark, hitting on current and relevant issues as we're asked to try and understand why a racist is turned into a model soldier of his cause. This one really bothered me precisely because of today's racist climate in this country, and the growing and widespread acceptance that racism should become the status quo.  She nailed this one.     Moving along, not a fan of "Gun Accident," which like "Equatorial," the next story, could have actually been more suspenseful had it been shorter and had it actually got to the "terror" more quickly. Instead, I found both too long, killing any horror or chills  I might have otherwise gleaned. By the time I got through "Equatorial," I didn't care what was going to happen at that point. "Gun Accident" looks at the aftermath of a single night in a woman's life, while "Equatorial" follows the story of a woman who is either very paranoid, or who is sure that she's in some kind of danger.  These are followed by "Big Momma," the ending of which I saw coming from a mile away.  There is one excellent story in this book, though, a little gem called "Mystery, Inc.," which follows a conversation between two book lovers who have big surprises for each other. That one I really, really liked -- my favorite story of the six.

To me it's much more of a book where predators tend to play with their prey before pouncing; I think had she not given the subtitle the moniker of "and Other Tales of Terror," I may have approached it differently. I was expecting to have hackles on my neck, but I think that with all of the dark fiction reading I do, it's starting to take more and more to actually terrify.  Another thing -- to me, the best short fiction gets the reader coated in atmosphere immediately, starts the uneasiness rolling as you realize that something's just a wee bit off kilter, and then finally moves in for the big shockaroonie.  Nothing too drawn out, just pure and simple bam!  This process didn't really happen here for me, but people are really enjoying this book, so once again it's probably just a matter of my expectations when I see the word "terror" in a title. So my verdict -- like any other collection of short fiction, it's a bit hit and miss.  But when she hits, she hits big time for sure.

when revenge is needed, call The House of Wolfe -- by James Carlos Blake

9780802122469
Mysterious Press, 2015
248 pp

hardcover, thanks to Mysterious Press

The Wolfes are a "tolerant, liberty-loving bunch," a prosperous family whose interests include shrimp boats, a realty company, and a law firm.  They also believe that "there are certain natural rights that transcend statute law," and the right to self-defense is at the top of their list.  From their point of view, the Wolfes see it this way:

"...any law that denies you the means to defend yourself against others armed with those same means is an unjust law and undeserving of compliance, albeit compliance makes you a criminal by definition."

Viva la frontier justice. To ensure that people have the means to defend themselves, they also have a lucrative gun-running business, a part of their "shade trade" of illegal enterprises.  The family organization is split between Texas and Mexico City; the home of the Mexican side of their family (known as Los Jaguaros),  and the two come together in this book when one of the American cousins is kidnapped as part of a 10-person wedding party in Mexico City.  An ambitious leader of a small Mexico City gang wants to be recognized for his evil talents, so he demands a ransom of five million dollars from the parents of the bride and the groom. He figures this will put him on the map with the Zetas, the infamous cartel -- maybe he can buy his way into their favor with part of the money. Kidnapping the Wolfe girl was, unbeknownst to him,  pretty stupid on his part because both sides of the family are coming to get her back. The gang leader has no clue what he's in for.

Macho and manly are the words that ran through my head while I was reading this briskly-paced revenge-thriller told from multiple points of view -- yes, that's a bit sexist, but it's the truth. One of ours has been taken -- screw the cops, we'll go get her ourselves. The Wolfes certainly have the resources to do it, and the family takes care of its own. In fact, House of the Wolfe is part of an entire family saga (which I haven't read) that goes back in time while exploring the family history.  There are two women who feature prominently in this novel -- both are kickass Lisbeth Salander types, likely there to draw female readership -- but the people with the biggest roles are definitely the men, and overall it's a book that I think will draw way more male readers than female.

As far as thrillers go, anyone who loves them will find House of Wolfe irresistible. It's filled with action:  kidnapping, daring escape attempts, chases, explosions,  lots of gunplay, death in fiery pits, feral dogs, even torture -- everything a diehard thriller reader could possibly want.  It speaks to the need to be self-sufficient and to have enough money to buy your way into positions of power and control -- in that sense, both bad guys and "good" guys have the same goal, the "good" ones having achieved it long ago.  And to his credit, the author had one major storyline and didn't go off the rails (unlike so many authors do) trying to incorporate everything under the sun in this book.

Here's another case for me where book does not match reader -- I'm just not a thriller person.   I thought by the description of the novel that it was going to focus on Mexican cartels along the border (a topic that interests me), since its subtitle is "A Border Noir." The cartels that work along the border are sort of sidelined except in terms of one man's ambition to get a foot in the Zeta door, and with the exception of the first chapter, the action takes place in Mexico City, which is nowhere near the border. Nor is this book what I'd call noir.  When all is said and done, it comes down to a story of family justice -- and it's  a showcase for mega amounts of violence.

Sandrine's Case, by Thomas H. Cook

9780802126085
Mysterious Press, 2013
341 pp

hardcover

"...scar tissue does not feel." 

Perhaps I shouldn't just automatically go lumping Sandrine's Case into the category of crime fiction. I suppose it could be labeled as "courtroom drama," as noted on a back-cover blurb, but in my head that brings to mind something à la John Grisham, which this book is most definitely not. No, this one is tough to pigeonhole, so I won't even try.  In this novel,  by one of my favorite writers, the reader doesn't even know if there has even been a crime, although the majority of the action takes place in a courtroom where the central character is on trial for his wife's murder.  It's a bit of a teaser -- throughout the story, it's impossible to come to any sort of conclusion about whether or not the main character is guilty; if you think, "yes, he did it," then there's something to lead you in the other direction; the same is true if you make up your mind that he's not guilty.  While this is a very clever strategy to keep the reader turning pages, it's really all about what the defendant in this case learns about himself along the way that is the big payoff -- and it's not pretty.  Not at all. 

Samuel Madison is a professor at Coburn, a small college in a town by the same name. He is a most odious person, filled with contempt for his job, the town, the "eternally mediocre students," and the people who live there.  He feels like he's in a vise, "tightening every day."  He's been writing the same book for years.  When he is arrested for the murder of his wife Sandrine, it becomes pretty obvious to him that the people of Coburn don't much like him either. While sitting in court surveying his jury, it also seems that these twelve people had a sense of hostility toward him, and that they despised him, because after all, wasn't it

"... windy professors as myself who'd poisoned their children with atheism or socialism or worse, who'd infused their previously unsullied minds with dreamy fantasies of changing the world or writing a great novel, while at the same time teaching them not one skill by which they might later find employment and thus avoid returning to their parents' homes to sit sullenly in front of the television, boiling with unrealizable hopes?"

He'd noticed "hostility" toward him by the people of Coburn  before Sandrine's death, but after the media frenzy surrounding the case and most especially Sandrine herself, he felt even more resented, to the point where he saw in the jurors' faces that along with the murder charge, the real reason he was on trial was for being "me."  He'd had an affair.  He'd picked up Sandrine's prescriptions for the Demerol that had caused her death. He'd been callous to the neighbors.  He'd argued with his wife.  His attitude doesn't help -- his attorney has to remind him to keep his snide comments to himself ("that's just the kind of smart-ass remark that can put a rope around your neck..." ) and to try to work on his cold-fish demeanor in front of the jury.  On their last night together, Sandrine had called him a sociopath; even his daughter has her doubts and is often surprised at the things he says over the course of the trial.  Slowly the testimony begins to reveal more about Sam than anyone knew -- except for Sandrine.

Sandrine's Case is very well written; even the title was well chosen.  The continuous "he's guilty"/"he's not guilty" dialogue running through my head kept the reading lively; when Mr. Cook throws in a new angle that causes Sam to be paranoid, it's so plausible that it adds another level to the ongoing question of his guilt or innocence, and another level of reader interest.  The novel is very much character driven, and the author has created a believable main character in Sam, a very unlikeable and "hollow" man who sneers at everyone and everything he feels worthy of his contempt. Structurally, the story is revealed day-by-day in court, through witness testimony and Sam's own thoughts while he is in his own head. The most viable person, however, is actually the deceased Sandrine -- the author reveals her personality most clearly throughout the novel, and the reader can't help but to be drawn to her.   There's very little not to like about this book, with the exception of the sort of sappy-toned page of an ending that I never expected.  I can see why Mr. Cook put this in, but my personal feeling is that it didn't belong and that the book might have been better without it. 

I loved the author's The Crime of Julian Wells, and while Sandrine's Case didn't have the same level of edginess as that one, Sandrine's Case is also a very good, intense read -- maybe  a bit light for fans of noir, a bit slow for readers who like a lot of action, and a bit on the heavy side for cozy readers. However, if you are at all into the literary side of crime writing, or if you're a reader who cares more for good writing than plot,  Sandrine's Case will most definitely not let you down. 

The Crime of Julian Wells, by Thomas H. Cook

97808021626030

Mysterious Press, 2012
292 pp

"He was like Mephistopheles...He took hell with him wherever he went."
A week or so ago I was flipping through the books that Amazon has so kindly recommended for me, and as if there was a checklist in my head beside each title, the invisible pencil in my brain was ticking the no boxes on down the line until I saw this book by Thomas H. Cook.  Some time back I had bought his The Chatham School Affair, which I loved, one I really must dig out and reread sometime soon.    Anyway, evidently some algorithm linked me to Mr. Cook's newest novel,  The Crime of Julian Wells, based on my earlier purchase, and since I was looking for something different to read, I thought I'd take a chance on it.  It paid off -- in spades.  Although there are some very solid mysteries at its core, technically it's not a "crime" fiction, so to speak, but I'm discussing it here because Mr. Cook is a well-known author of crime fiction, largely psychological in nature.  He has twenty-five other novels to his credit, his first published in 1988. He's also written three nonfiction, true-crime books, and has shared editorship with Otto Penzler in two series: Best American Crime Writing and Best American Crime Reporting.  Now he's delivered a story that gradually unfolds within a world of darkness while examining the people who dwell there -- a world in which  

“The road to moral horror is never direct. There are always ramps and stairs, corridors, and tunnels, the secret chamber forever concealed from those who would be appalled by what they found there.”

  ****

Philip Anders, "stay-at-home" literary critic and the narrator of this story,  was the best friend of  Julian Wells since childhood until the day Julian rowed himself out into the middle of a pond bordering his Montauk family home, opened his veins and bled to death in the boat.  His death was a surprise to both Philip and Julian's sister Loretta.   His decades-long writing career  led to  articles "about plague and famine and holocaust," and five books  which focused on some of history's  most horrific crimes and the monsters who committed them.  As Philip, Loretta and later Philip's father, a former bureaucrat at the State Department,  begin to ponder the whys, Philip wonders if Julian's long immersion into human darkness might have taken its toll on his friend; Loretta believed he was "like a man in a locked room, trying to get out," and Philip's father thinks that "Julian had a lot of feeling...too much of it morbid," and that darkness was all Julian knew.   As Loretta and Philip talk, Loretta informs him that she believed Julian was already on track for another book -- she had seen him looking at a map the day he'd died, the first step in Julian's writing process, after which he'd read all he could then travel to the site. The map, she says to Philip, was of Argentina, and  a part of it had been circled.  Julian and Philip had visited the area together some thirty years earlier, where they had met a lovely young woman who served as their guide.    When Loretta wonders if their trip may have been on Julian's mind, Philip discards the idea because it was so long ago that they'd been there.  But soon he begins to wonder -- was it possible that  Julian's state of mind that day had something to do with that old trip? And what about the dedication in Julian's book where he acknowledged Philip as the "sole witness to my crime." What crime? What was the crime of Julian Wells?  Philip decides he must act as Julian's friend and try to uncover the mystery behind Julian's death.

Very cleverly constructed, the novel takes the reader not only through Europe and Argentina as Philip follows Julian's footsteps, but also into a journey where the author explores such thematic issues as the nature of guilt, deception and betrayal, the various forms of cruelty and the hearts and minds of the people who employ them, as well as  the meaning of  friendship. Each chapter brings Philip closer to the truth, not only about the answers he seeks but about his friend Julian as well.  Philip's travels also reveal the darkness and malevolence that take root and sometimes come to maturity in the souls of human beings.  At the same time, his search will reveal that  life has a "cruel randomness"; that it is a  "lottery upon whose uncontrollable outcome everything depended." 

The author throws in several references to classic crime writers like Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, and conjures up old spy and noir novels in a smoky cafe in Paris with 

"a dim, oddly undulating light that throws this mysterious figure into half shadow, that one into silhouette, by turns revealing or concealing a forehead, a jaw, an eye with a patch, each face broken into puzzle pieces...you would put two men in linen suits, one with a very thin moustache, the other clean shaven, wearing a panama hat...where a man in a red fez drinks tea from a white china cup..."

Philip at one point describes Julian as being "like Orpheus," bringing his "music into hell, and like him, he had died in a world that no longer wished to hear it."   Julian's  approach to his writing was to view each of these horrible criminal acts  "part of a larger disorder, one fiber sprung from a hideous cloth."  He's even witnessed some of these horrific "fibers" firsthand:  a king who bought several luxury cars while the people in his country starved, with very little water, maybe living to age 31.  He's seen battery cables hooked up to cars outside  leading inside into a basement where torture is underway, fully justified in one man's mind as being good for the country's future.  But for others, guilt eats away at the soul, not easily if at all assuaged. Ironically, copywriter Loretta finds that the big trend in the publishing biz is "happy talk. Tips on how to avoid thinking about the only things Julian ever thought about"   In this world where Gatsby is condensed down to 17 pages, Julian's work and the truth behind it is destined to be forgotten, as will all of the victims caught up in this "cruel randomness."


The people in this book are terrifically and at times frighteningly well drawn, some of them have enough personality to send the occasional shiver down your spine.  The Crime of Julian Wells is an incredible novel, one I absolutely recommend.  People who are interested in Argentina's Dirty War would be great readers for this novel; historical crime buffs and anyone interested in the darker events in European history would also like it.  It's not a cozy-type thing at all; some scenes are graphic although not terribly overdone -- considering the subject matter, it could have been much, much worse.  The novel also ventures into the philosophical at times, something that  might turn some readers off, but for others it might be that something different you've been looking for.  Super, super book -- some of the best and most original writing I've seen in contemporary American crime fiction.