Real Deal Fiction

Over the course of the past few years there have been some interesting trends in fiction writing. I have encountered a number of books that seemed to take forever to get rolling; I found some VERY big bestsellers a little bit of a slog at the start, but hung with them because of the raves that seemed attached to them. In some cases it was worth the work…others, not so much.

I am a fan of those great books that waste no time, but grab you by the throat and take you off to the races. These are what I call real deal fiction, with authors who waste no time getting down to business. Here are three recent reads that fall firmly into that category.

Exit Strategy (A Nick Mason Novel) Steve Hamilton (G. P. Putnam)

I had known of Steve Hamilton’s books, but had never gotten around to reading one until the first book in the Nick Mason series dropped on my desk. Hamilton pulls together a story of desperation and of the desperate acts that go along with it. Nick Mason is freed from one box, in this case a prison cell and then locked into another; servitude to a vicious gangster with who holds sway over Mason and his family.

With Exit Strategy, Hamilton picks up the story of Chicago gangster Darius Cole as he executes his plot to free himself from prison by any means necessary, using the pawns that are within his grasp. Mason has become Cole’s Angel of Death, charged with taking out the witnesses who testified against Cole in his original trail, this time around it’s folks in the care and protection of the U.S. Marshall Service, witness protection program.

Mason isn’t always afforded the luxury of time to plan, so he flies by the seat of his pants. Mason is the ultimate anti-hero; a bad guy who you can’t help but root for as he sits firmly lodged between a rock and a hard place. While Mason goes about his unhealthy business, he is planning and plotting his long play, to find a way out from under Cole’s thumb.

Hamilton delivers the action at such a fast and furious pace that you will find yourself gulping for air just to keep up. His writing style is so cinematic that it’s easy to see way Nick Mason has been optioned for a stint on the big screen. Here’s hoping that Hollywood doesn’t screw things up like they did with the Jack Reacher series.

Since We Fell: A Novel – Dennis Lehane (ECCO)-

If you asked me for a list of my favorite authors, Dennis Lehane probably would not be among them. But in all honesty, I don’t know why. Lehane has made a nice career out of crafting not only great stories, but of creating some great character types. I can’t say that I could recall them by name, but he just has a knack for creating fictional people who you can recognize from your life or have crossed paths with along the way. Call them…relatable for lack a better term.

While some may be disappointed that Lehane’s latest, Since We Fell isn’t another entry in the Kenzie/Gennaro series, I think that Lehane is at his best when he’s off crafting stories about ordinary folks who get caught up in circumstances that are anything but ordinary. And that may be the magic of Dennis Lehane at his best; if you think about it, it is ordinary folks who end up in extraordinary situations, because that is what makes them extraordinary!

Lehane manages to weave you into the story of Rachel Childs, a former journalist who melts down on the air and then finds herself battling her personal demons, but living a relatively quiet life. That life begins to fray and unravel, leaving Childs to summon up the strength and courage to tackle her greatest fears.

This is Lehane at his best as he populates his stories with average, ordinary folks challenged with seemingly insurmountable challenges.

G-Man – A Bob Lee Swagger Novel – Stephen Hunter (Blue Rider Press)

It seems hard to believe that it’s been nearly 25 years since Stephen Hunter first introduced us to sniper Bob Lee Swagger with the book Point of Impact, a book chock full of double dealing, nefarious, government insiders and dirty dealers that it could be ripped from today’s headlines, or at the very least fake news. In the intervening time, Hunter has put Swagger into precarious situations and even introduced us to his small town Sheriff grandfather, Charles Swagger along the way.

Now in G-Man, Hunter deals out an almost Forrest Gumpian hand by dropping Charles into the mix of squaring off with infamous outlaws the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. Now decades after the fact, Bob Lee is the recipient of a mysterious box unearthed on his family homestead. The contents of the box include a well preserved .45, a rusty badge, a stray gun part, a puzzling diagram and a healthy dose of mystery that fans of Bob Lee Swagger know he won’t be able to resist solving.

Hunter masterfully draws out the master snipers struggles with age and ghosts from his families past. Hunter has to carefully walk the tight rope between historical events and the present as he plays out the two storylines that intertwine to create G-Man. There is a level of precision to the way Hunter doles out the facts with a level of accuracy that we’ve come to expect in his stories.

Masters Voices

At any given period in our history there is generally a small handful of writers who bring a level of skill at stringing together words in such a unique and entertaining fashion that they deliver stories the stand out from the rest and earn them the appellation, master. It is the ability to capture a setting, develop characters and deliver a voice that captures the readers imagination.

Three such writers are out with new entries and all have delivered yet another masterful installment to their shelf full of great reads; all of which are set in a similar time frame in and around World War II.

World Gone By – Dennis Lehane – (William Morrow)

It is 1943; the world is at war and on the home front in the U.S. the mob is expanding its business interests beyond the traditional northern strongholds into hot spots like Tampa and pre-revolution Cuba. Crime family consigliere Joe Couglin makes it look easy, managing his far flung interests and expanding business empire; but all is not what it appears and there is trouble in paradise. Word is out that someone wants Joe dead.

The final book of a trilogy that began with The Given Day (2008), followed by Live By Night (2012) World Gone By is chock full of the colorful characters readers have come to expect from Dennis Lehane. A grifter and ruthless lady killer has sent word from behind bars that Coughlin has had a target hung on him and he’s taking the news seriously.

Lehane delivers from beginning to end; capturing the setting of a bygone era, the patios of the hoodlums and ratchets up the intensity of the violence with such great detail that it practically jumps of the page. This a fitting close to a wonderfully entertaining series.

Leaving Berlin: A Novel – Joseph Kanon (Atria Books)

Joseph Kanon takes us back to post-war Berlin a place he first visited with the classic The Good German. Kanon once again serves up the sights, sounds and even the smells of Berlin as it digs out, rebuilds and divides it allegiances.

Kanon delivers an unexpected plot hook — his main character Alex Meier, a German-Jewish writer who fled the Nazis, finds himself in the cross hairs of the U.S. government and in 1949 at the height the Berlin Airlift, he returns to live in his home city. If he can deliver useful information to American spymasters he will be allowed to return to Los Angeles and his young son. It quickly becomes apparent as he’s out of his depth and in over his head.

Kanon has mastered the ability to transport the reader back in time and capture the detailed setting of the era and infuse it with just the right amount of desperation, despair and deception. The story accelerates to full velocity and the reader must grip tight and hang on for the twists and turns to come.

Mike Hammer: Kill Me, Darling – Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins (Titan Books)

Mickey Spillane is the creator of not only legendary tough guy private investigator Mike Hammer but really continued the wave of hardboiled genre that spawned so many great characters. Max Allan Collins, a master in his own right, was befriended by Spillane and entrusted to carry on his legacy and breathe life into a pile of manuscripts that the old master had developed and collected, but never completed.

Collins describes what Spillane dubbed a “treasure hunt” that took place upon Mickey’s passing; with Collins, Spillane’s wife Jane and others searching through a number of locations to gather unfinished manuscripts, bits and pieces of outlines, plots and story starters that Collins has undertaken the task of completing or developing into full fledged collaborations.

Originally intended as a follow up to Spillane’s classic Kiss Me, Deadly, the latest installment of these collaborations, Kill Me, Darling finds Hammer in the throes of a full blown bender, after his true love and partner Velda Sterling walked out on him without explanation.

With the death of Detective Wade “Big Man” Manley, Hammer paddles hard to get back to the surface of reality and learns that Velda has also resurfaced on the arm of a Miami gangster, Nolly Quinn. Looking for a reason for Velda’s departure, a connection to Manley’s murder and seeking revenge, Hammer sets his sights on points south.

Collins does a tremendous job of not only completing the unfinished story, but capturing Spillane’s unique tone and the tenor of the era and setting. In other words the men are men and the women are dames and the sparks fly hard and fast right from the start. If you’re new to Spillane, Collins does a tremendous job of baiting the hook and opening the door to a new generation of fans.

I’m So Confused….

The Drop – A Novel – Dennis Lehane (William Morrow)

Let me start by saying; Dennis Lehane is a master at crafting great stories and even better characters.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me admit how confused I was about this project! I know that so much has been written and said about the Movie version of The Drop being the last movie featuring actor James Gandolfini and that it was based on a Lehane story; I didn’t know that Lehane actually wrote the movie script based on a short story (Animal Rescue) that he later fleshed out to become this movie companion book.

Having jumped into the book without reading the hype about Gandolfini’s final role, I was convinced that Lehane must have had Gandolfini in mind when he developed what I thought was the rumpled, lumpy, bartending, character Bob Saginowski. In my mind’s eye I could see him in the role. Turns out, Galdolfini is actually cast as the down on his luck, “made” guy Cousin Marv.

Be that has it may, The Drop has everything that you’ve come to expect from Dennis Lehane; great characters, dropped headlong into an intriguing story, all set in a slice of the low life setting. Lehane can take you to the underbelly of society better than just about anyone.

It is the guides to that underbelly, the troubled and troubling characters that really make The Drop standout; they breather real life into the “is this all there is” story back drop. Not sure if the movie will stand up, but the book makes for a nice bridge until Lehane drops his next masterpiece.