Category: Krimi

The Second Sleep (2019) by Robert Harris.

GoodReads meta-data is 330 pages, rated 3.72 by 486 litizens.

Genre:  Mystery.

Verdict:  All trip and no arrival.  

The opening invokes Chaucer’s Fourteenth Century world of the Canterbury Tales with the young prelate, Fairfax, riding through rain to a distant valley where the local priest has died. The job is to bury the priest in a Christian fashion, reassure the locales, and return within two days.  Ah huh.  The weather is miserable and gets worse. The rain leads to landslides and he has difficulty in finding the valley and getting into it. I felt wet just reading it.  

The language and mōres are archaic. The Christian Church is almighty and Fairfax is one of its lowliest servants. But even so he is set apart from the primitive villagers, none of whom can read or write, and if cleanliness is next to godliness, they are a long way off. Work and prayer are their only pass times. A wheeled wagon is the most advanced technology they have and there are few of those.   

In order to deliver a eulogy for the dead parson, Fairfax tries to learn about him by inquiring of the locals, and examining his belongings. It is in the latter that the plot thickened for he finds strange objects, and many forbidden books on the ancients.  Among these relics are plastic items and a small sheet of metal with that most dreaded of symbols on it, an apple with a bit taken out of it!  [Gasp!] 

In further investigation Fairfax learns that the parson made no secret of his fascination with The Time Before and collected relics while rambling through the valley.  Yet the mere possession of a plastic straw would lead to his excommunication or worse – he could be made to watch Pox News. Did he rely on the isolation of the valley to shield him from the long arm of the Church in ferreting out heretics.  

Yes, an apple minus a bite.  Get it yet? Ask Bill Gates. I had to read the first reference to plastic twice for the light to go on.  

From this point on the text becomes more explicit about the cataclysm God visited on humanity because of too much or too little science centuries ago.  The Church rejects all science and technology, teaching, nay, enforcing quietism and acquiescence in God’s mysterious ways – infant mortality, women dying in child birth, cuts leading the fatal infections, and the like.  All very Fifteenth Century, post apocalypse.  

While Fairfax recoils from the parson’s heretical pursuits, the suspicion grows that the parson was murdered. That seems farfetched until Fairfax finds the local Church registers have disappeared, four massive volumes recording the births, marriages, and deaths in the valley for a millennium.  This mystery and the consequences of the weather lead him to stay in the valley longer than planned.

While some of the locals try to urge him on his way, none too subtlety, others seem to want him to stay.  For the latter is it because they want a priest, or is it because they want something from him. He cannot tell.  

Thereafter it is all trip and no arrival.  There is much rain and mud as Fairfax and company try to dig up the past, though quite why is lost on this reader.  It is Ypres without the context.  

E. M. Forester used this premise in a short story, ‘The Machine Stops’ as did Isaac Asimov in Foundation and Empire without the mud.  In this case The Cloud failed and everything was lost.  There is no substitute for saving to the local drive, and backing up on hard disks galore! Though that is easier said than done.

A Dead Man in Trieste (2004) by Michael Pearce.

GoodReads meta-data is 320 pages, rated 3.17 from 190 litizens.

Genre:  policier.

Verdict:  It grew on me.  

The first entry is the series Seymour of Special Branch set in 1906. Young Seymour has been recruited to Special Branch due to his several languages, because his anglicised name hides Italian and Russian ancestors, and his ambition. His remit is the docklands of London’s East End — long before it became the upmarket enclave it is today — where migrants speak those languages and more.  

Then one fine day he is called to the FO (Foreign Office) from whence he travels to Trieste to find out what has become of the British consul, one Lomax by name, who has gone missing.  Because Seymour is not a gentleman by birth some in the FO do not want to send him, but others suggest that his background and work with foreigners equip him for the job.  Off he goes.

Ah, Trieste. He finds a different world there which he slowly absorbs and the absent Lomax dominates the story.  Seymour poses as a low-level FO messenger charged with reporting on Lomax’s disappearance.  He questions the office staff in the consulate, Lomax’s friends, and the police.  In doing so he learns about the tensions in Trieste between the Austrian masters and the Italian population leavened with Serbs and Croats, along with the Big Enders and Little Enders. That a Great War might be sparked by a small event is presaged with a heavy hand.

Even better is the slow development of a picture of Lomax, who at first blush seemed to be an alcoholic idler, but as Seymour peels away the surface he finds depths in Lomax: ethical, technical, artistic, and political, belied by his al fresco life at a café.  

In a minor register the tug of war between the city police, who are Italian, and the Austrian secret police is well handled.  They cooperate reluctantly but are bitter rivals for status and budget.  Linguistic nationalism is one of the master narratives.

The futurist artists with whom Lomax mixed are also brought to life that made me appreciate Italian Futurism’s effort to break with the past through art.  

The parallel to the murder the Archduke at Sarajevo is evoked quite explicitly with unerring hindsight.  Likewise Seymour’s dalliance with the only young woman in the novel is strictly routine.  On the plus side, Seymour does grow up a little in the story, and thinks twice about some premature conclusions, particularly about Lomax.  

I read it while we were in (the once Free Territory of) Trieste: having seen Miramar, Casa Revoltella, the grand canal, piazza central, and so on.

GoodReads meta-data is 254 pages, rated 3.69 by 397 litizens.  

Genre: krimi

Verdict: I wanted to like it but didn’t.  

Setup:  In November 1941 Edgar Rice Burroughs, yep père Tarzan himself, has taken a vacation in Waikiki to finish a book free from distractions of home and hearth.  One of his sons has tagged along to carry the luggage.  Burroughs is a man’s man and mixes with the uniforms that populate Hawaii, and distrusts 40% of the local population who are Japanese. In addition there is German in the next door cottage, who can only be up to no good.

A ’man’s man’ to be sure but at this time in his life Ed B was a teetotaller who did not smoke.  Real men did both to prove their manhood.  However Ed paid his manly dues by killing defenceless creatures for sport, and making sexist and racist remarks. 

ERB was prone to bad dreams (caused by indigestion) and these he dutifully recorded in his adventure stories. Hmmm. We can be glad he did not have diarrhoea.   

There is nice hook at the start that describes the 3000 deaths in the attack on 7 December as murders, and then adds to that total the murder at the start of this story.  Clever, but insubstantial.  Too much hindsight after that as everyone assumes a war with Japan is coming.  More likely many thought that little yellow Nips would not dare take on those manly men.  

Enjoyed the description of our home-away-from-home Waikiki as it was in late 1941.  While much has since changed some things have not, like Fort DeRussy.  

Read it before but doing so again on the Kindle.

Does it really matter what colour trousers each character wears, tan or white, linen or cotton? Max seems to think so, padding out every scene with such useless detail.  

GoodReads meta-data is 385 pages, rated 3.84 by 83 litizens.

Genre: krimi

Verdict:  Too much shoot ‘em up, not enough think ‘em up.  

Time: 1970s.  Place:  South Korea.  

The US Eighth Army had about 60,000 personnel in South Korea at the time.  So many people, so many of them bored, all of them with access to American goods at wholesale prices while across the street from each camp was a thriving blackmarket.  Result, a lot of low level crime.  Buy the whiskey, cigarettes, radios, washing machines cheap on the base; cross the street and sell them for a profit. Illegal but profitable.  

Then again put 60,000 people together in small spaces leading regimented lives, and friction results. Crimes against persons follow.  Then add the money in blackmarket transactions and the felony fires flicker.  

By the terms of the alliance with South Korea, the Eighth Army polices itself with a Criminal Investigation Division, of which Sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are two investigators.  They are both lifers and have been doing it a long time.*  (This is the thirteen title in the series.)  Their names and ways are known.  

Both North Korea and South Korea are armed and dangerous.  The piracy of the USS Pueblo in 1968 with the subsequent murder of one crewman in captivity, the crippling of two others, and the beating the rest into putty, is fresh in everyone’s mind.  Ergo there are a lot of angry GIs who want revenge or at least who will make sure they are not next for the cement mixer.

The air along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) sizzles with tension. Talk about a misnomer, there was then no place on earth so militarised with a million armed men on each side of the line, many of them straining at the bit.  It got worse when new North Korea artillery brought Seoul within range.  

Bad as all that is, it is worse still in the Joint Security Area, that bubble inside the DMZ where those Blue Huts are with a Military Demarcation Line (MDL) dividing them in half. 

JSA is an assignment no grunt wants because it is THE tripwire that (and all who dwell there) would be the first to go. Poof! In principle both sides have free movement within this small area, in practice everyone moves slowly and every move is watched with angry eyes. 

Late one night Sueño and Bascom are roused from their cots in Seoul and ordered north to the JSA where they find the Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the night shift standing guard over a dead body, that of a ROK soldier assigned to the JSA. Ten feet away stand a squad of NKs with AK-47s in ready.  The corpse is sprawled over the MDL within the DMZ at JSA in the ROK. OK? The Chicken Colonel orders Sueño and Bascom to pull the body back to his side, while the NKs get twitchy.  Sueño and Bascom do as ordered and begin their investigation into the murder of No-Go, as his friends called him, a ROK grunt who did warehouse duty in JSA.

What was No-Go doing in the middle of the night at the MDL?  He should have been abed many yards away.  Moreover, who split his skull with an entrenching tool?    

The easy answer to the last question is the NKs. But why? They’ll do anything!  Wait! If the NKs wanted him dead, they would have shot him.  Period.  No that answer is too pat, though some in the Eighth see it as another Pueblo incident. Meanwhile, life goes on, that is, crime goes on, and Sueñp and Bascom have other investigations to pursue.  

They get mixed signals about continuing to investigate No-Go’s murder, but as always Sueño never knows when to quit, and Bascom goes along for the ride. Then the Eighth settles on No-Go’s buddy PFC Fusterman as the guilty party and begins to railroad him to clear the air. Convicting Fusterman will defuse tensions is the thinking of some.  Others suppose the opposite, giving in the NKs a pass on this one will encourage other incidents.  Back and forth goes the seesaw that Sueño and Bascom ride.  It is pure McKinsey management pushing responsibility down to the lowest level, so when things go wrong the blame falls on those who have no choice in the matter.  

It gets more complicated (too complicated for this reader) when a criminal gang horns into the plot.  Sueño and Bascom drink a little less alcohol and bed fewer passers-by in this outing than in the earlier titles, but they still get beat up and shot at enough to get re-accredited as cartoon heroes.  All that leaves this reader cold.  As does Sueño’s repeated hormone attacks. Really Sueño zip it up for a while.

What is fascinating is the ways and means of investigating within the interstices of the Eighth Army.  There is always a paper trail if one knows where to look and whom to ask, even when the perpetrator has tried to erase it, there are all those copies in triplicate times triplicate, and these two lifers can follow these snail trails. They know a lot of other lifer sergeants with whom to trade information.  The sergeants’ network holds many an army together.  

Further, Sueño has learned to speak Korean and his interactions with the locals are very well realised.  He may be a ‘big nose’ but he knows and respects the ways of Koreans.  No-Go had a family and Bascom and Sueño find out a lot through them. Fusterman had a family, too, and its members send a lawyer to defend him in the Court Martial.  While feisty, she is an underdeveloped character in this telling, too easily misled while loudly proclaiming her savvy and contributing nothing to the story.  Don’t blame her, she is written that way.  

Inspector Kill and Officer Oh from the Korean National Police put in a welcome appearance.  Kill is a dedicated man but he takes orders, and Oh remains enigmatic but a good friend to have in a tight corner. These two like nothing better than slamming up villains of any kind and sometimes it suits them to work through Sueño and Bascom.     

Then there is the climatic firefight in the JSA which seemed gratuitous in the context of softly-softly, though it was noteworthy that one of the weapon wielders on the Sergeants’ side was a woman MP whose quick wit prevented a further disaster. The madness of Colonel Peel, another officer in the mix, is, well, madness. Though there is an implied complexity in the NK officer Kwon that might have been better brought to the surface when to save his family he refused to defect.    

By the way, the fiction then as now is that the JSA is administered by the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, consisting of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland. Neutral? As if. These representatives are seldom seen and never heard.  

Grant Limón license, because many strange things have happened in the unique place that is the JSA.

There is a superb Korean film, much more low key than this book, called ‘Joint Security Area’ (2000). 

We saw it after we visited the JSA in 2004, and even in 2004 when things were not as tense as in the 1970s, the JSA crackled. At the time I was visiting professor at Korea University.    

*Lifer means someone in for the maximum enlistment of twenty years.  Not quite literally life but it most feel like is sometime.  

Goodreads meta-data is 119 pages, rated 4.51 by 101 litizens 

Genre: krimi, period piece

Verdict:  Ruso and Tilla are at it again.

By some mischance Ruso and Tilla have taken up residence in Gaul on his brother’s farm, while the latter is away.  What Ruso knows about farming is zero.  So he tries to look thoughtful when the foreman seeks his decisions.  Meanwhile, he tries to make peace among his many quarrelling siblings, in-laws, relatives, and visitors.  He means well but seldom succeeds.  Tilla tries to be a good Roman wife and shut up, but she is not good at that either.  

Then Ruso’s younger sister has an illicit boyfriend who seems to have murdered his employer.  After much avuncular tsk, tsk, tsking, he hopes to let the law take its course.  Not so his sister who throws herself into the defence of her beau and Ruso must extricate her, and the best way to do that is to find the real killer.  He means well but seldom succeeds at this either.

Enter Tilla who is much better at getting people to talk to her, partly because she is such a foreign specimen no one takes her seriously – big mistake.  

This title is an entry in Downie’s Medicus series.  Much I sympathise with Ruso and love Tilla, I fear that the author is running out of steam.