LAYOVER IN DUBAI By Dan Fesperman, Knopf, 288 pages, $30
The world of international intrigue lost a lot when Checkpoint Charlie closed. Those grand and glorious face-offs in the floodlights (Karla and Smiley) are history, but readers can take heart. Dubai, that little oil-soaked emirate with its towering condo developments and its sky-high hotels, is still a place where a hit squad carrying Irish passports can rub out a Palestinian politician in full view of the security cameras. That's in real life. Dan Fesperman, author of The Warlord's Son and The Prisoner of Guantanamo, uses it for the setting of a terrific story about corporate espionage and outright greed. Add interesting characters and a complicated, if somewhat shaky, plot, and you have a great summer thriller.
Sam Keller is an accountant for an international pharmaceutical firm. He dreams of a life of adventure, but whenever he might jump the traces, his stolid side pulls him back. He is a nitpicker and a receipt-keeper, and the perfect choice to babysit a wild and reckless sales manager during a layover en route to corporate headquarters. At least, that's how the firm's VP for corporate security puts it to him.
All seems well when the two men hit Dubai. There's the usual drinking, and a trip to the fleshpots, but then Keller's companion disappears. Keller is accused of accosting a woman in her hotel room (seriously illegal in Dubai) and finds himself on the run from forces he can't begin to understand, with aid from a surprising source.
What makes this old chestnut of a plot work so well are the characters. Sam Keller really does think like a bean counter, and his ally, the wily policeman Anwar Sharaf, is wonderful. The bad guys are a bit clichéd, but not enough to cramp the story, and we know how it's going to end anyhow. This is a great getaway book, lots of fun and no surprises.
THINK OF A NUMBER By John Verdon, Crown, 418 pages, $25
Think of a Number is a really good debut novel by John Vernon, a Manhattan advertising executive. There are tiny touches that indicate that he wanted to fit in all the "hot" formulae (serial killer, retired cop, tragic past etc.), but the plot is good enough to withstand them.
Dave Gurney has spent a lifetime with NYPD homicide. Now, he's retired and looking forward to a peaceful life in rural New York with his wife. When a killer starts sending taunting notes, correctly predicting seemingly random events that lead to murder, Gurney is called in to collaborate. Soon it's clear that he's up against someone who seems to have special powers, and that Gurney may not be able to outwit someone who can predict his moves in advance.
Verdon's characters are a bit shallow and his dialogue can occasionally drift, but this is forgivable in a first novel with a good, solid plot. He is a writer to watch.
A BETTER QUALITY OF MURDER By Ann Granger, Headline, 313 pages, $24.99
Fans of Anne Perry's Victorian novels take note: If you haven't already discovered this great series featuring Inspector Ben Ross and his wife, Elizabeth Martin, you're in for a treat. This is the third, and if it's any indication, the other two are worth checking out as well.
The date is October, 1867, and London is lit by gaslight and the fog is an almost human thing, swirling and cloying and blotting out even the closest objects. Inspector Ross is on his way home from Scotland Yard when he runs into a young woman who claims to have been accosted by a ghost, a person she refers to as the River Wraith. The spirit seems to confront women of the streets, but when the fog lifts, it's a woman of means who is dead in a park, just off the fine streets of Pall Mall.
Inspector Ross seeks to reconcile the death of wealthy and beautiful Allegra Benedict with a wraith who victimizes prostitutes, while his intelligent and capable wife, Lizzie, tries to find out just what's going on at the local Temperance Hall meetings, where a charismatic preacher is drawing large crowds of both the rich and poor. Eventually, as in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt stories, the two investigations draw together.
THE NOBODIES ALBUM By Carolyn Parkhurst, Doubleday, 312 pages, $30
What would you do if you woke up one day and found your only child accused of murder? What if that child hadn't spoken to you in years? If you knew him only from tweets and Facebook entries, and his name in People magazine? What if he said he didn't want your help?
That's the fascinating kernel of the plot of this very complex novel. Octavia Frost is a bestselling writers of "women's" novels, but her last book was an experiment that failed to sell. Her publisher wants a new work and Olivia has one ready, a book that rewrites the endings of all her previous novels. On the way to drop off the manuscript, she sees a newscrawl that her son, Milo, a rock star, has been arrested for the murder of his live-in girlfriend. Olivia and Milo haven't spoken for years. All she knows of his life is what she reads in the tabloids, but she grabs the first plane west.
Why Milo cut his mother out of his life is one mystery here. Another is just what tragedy destroyed the Frost family. Then there's the murder. Parkhurst plays the backstories for all they're worth, including those final chapters that Olivia is intent on redoing, just as she'd like to rewrite her life, at least some parts of it. There's a lot of writing school cleverness here, playing footsie with genres like mystery and chicklit, but it all works. Parkhurst doesn't forget that the purpose of storytelling is the story.
PANIC ZONE By Rick Mofina, Mira, 424 pages, $11.99
The advantage of pulp is that it's light, tight and easy to read. Rick Mofina has refined his style in every novel he has written until he has it down pat. Panic Zone is as good as light and tight gets.
There are three different events in three different places: a young mother is in a car crash in Wyoming. She thinks her child was incinerated in the flames until someone calls her and tells her that her son is alive. Where?
A bomb wipes out a café in Rio de Janeiro. Two of the victims are American journalists. Innocent bystanders or reporters too close to a big story? Journalist Jack Gannon is sent to sift the clues.
A passenger on a cruise ship dies horribly. Has everyone on board been exposed to a devastating disease?
These disparate events come together beautifully. This is a great little novel for a weekend and, best of all, it fits in a very small purse.
NIGHTSHADE By Tom Henighan, Dundurn, 304 pages, $11.99
This is a slick little mystery set in Quebec City and Ottawa, with an engaging PI who looks destined to return in a series. Sam Montcalm is a "bedroom snooper" in Ottawa who finds himself embroiled in a murder. The setting is a scientific conference in Quebec City, and the topic is the genetic manipulation of trees. Sam is on the trail of information to save a native activist when he stumbles into death by deadly nightshade, also known as belladonna. Who knew trees were so divisive they'd cause a murder? This one is lots of fun.