BOOK REVIEW: The Republic Of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves is the third book in the Gentleman Bastards series, following the rollicking success of 2007's The Lies of Locke Lamora and 2008's Red Seas Under Red Skies. 

The first two books in the Gentleman Bastards series were widely heralded as the arrival of a truly great voice in fantasy and the third book was widely anticipated, and anticipated and anticipated. Word came out that Lynch was battling depression which hampered his writing and finally the third book in the series came out five years after the second. The fourth book, The Thorn of Emberlain is scheduled for Fall 2015.

I read The Republic of Thieves eagerly when it first came out in 2013 but have delayed my review of the book due to the fact I have been spending more time reading books than reviewing them on my blog recently. The third book really is quite good, definitely not as good as the first one but better than most fantasy books. According to goodreads, the Gentleman Bastards books have ratings of 4.28 (Lies), 4.22 (Skies) and 4.21 (Thieves), respectively. The Amazon ratings are similar to the goodreads: 4.3 (Lies), 4.2 (Skies) and 4.2 (Thieves).

The Republic of Thieves is a large and complicated book. It takes place in multiple time lines and follows the story of Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, two of the principal members of the Gentleman Bastards, a group of talented grifters and thieves we have come to know and love in the first two books in the series. The book tells the past backstory of the love of Locke's life, a former member of the group named Sabetha Belacoros, as well as sets up a current high-stakes clash between the two where the goal is to win a majority of seats in a local city council election by any means necessary.

There is also a meta-plot (which gets short shrift, if I recall correctly) about the near-omnipotent beings who set the current situation into motion and who were maneuvering mostly behind-the-scenes to influence the events that occurred in the first two books.

The Gentleman Bastards books are a lot of fun, primarily because of the characters of Locke and Jean and the rest of the crew (I'm a big fan of the Sanza twins) and the sheer hilarity of the capers that they are forced to pull off to extricate themselves from the situations they find themselves in. In addition to his imagination for intriguing heists, the author distinguishes himself from a large fraction of fantasy by his use of language, especially his incisive deployment of humor, insult and mockery by his characters.

In the end The Republic of Thieves is negatively impacted (in my opinion) by its reliance on making the central tension in the plot be about Locke's infatuation with Sabetha and the question of whether there is a way that the two can ever find romantic happiness together or not. Don't get me wrong, this is not to say that The Republic of Thieves is a Gabaldonian hybrid of romance and science fiction, it's just that this particular sub-plot of "will they or won't they" became uninteresting to me after awhile and lead to part of the middle third of the book tending to drag a bit.

That being said, I am very glad that Lynch has continued the Gentleman Bastards series and it looks like that we will have a new entry in the series by the end of this year. I can't wait!

Title: The Republic of Thieves.
Author: Scott Lynch.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Gollancz.
Date: October 10, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl is well-known (some would say notorious) as one of the best-selling and celebrated books published in 2012. It was optioned by Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon soon after its publication and this led to the upcoming film adaptation directed by David Fincher starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike with a screenplay adapted by Flynn herself.

The main reason why Gone Girl is soon to be a "major motion picture" is the astonishingly high quality of the source material. Gone Girl is ostensibly about the disappearance of beautiful, blonde Amy Dunne on the occasion of her 5th wedding anniversary, it is really a chilling dissection of a relationship between two very different individuals in the economic context of the collapse of the American middle class. Amy Dunne is married to Nick Dunne, a journalist who lost his job at a prestigious magazine in New York City and moved the couple to his hometown of North Carthage, Missouri where he used the bulk of the remnants of Amy's trust fund to open a bar (cleverly called "The Bar") with Nick's twin sister Margo. As the only child of psychologist parents who wrote a series of successful child novels about a character named "Amazing Amy," Amy is raised to expect perfection in all things. And, of course, life is far from perfect.

The structure of the book is fiendishly clever. It is told in dueling first-person voices, starting with Nick Dunne in present tense starting with the day that Amy disappears. Soon we start to hear from Amy Dunne, telling her side of the story through diary entries which begin even before Nick and Amy are married and document the deterioration of the relationship over the last five-plus years.

The problem of course, is that, Flynn is deploying one of the trickiest devices in the author's toolbox: the unreliable narrator. Both Nick and Amy are consummate liars, they lie to each other, they put on false appearances for public consumption and, we quickly discover, they lie to the reader as well.

As any aficionado of murder mysteries will tell you, the mantra the police have when a wife disappears is "the husband did it, the husband did it, the husband did it." But Flynn is too clever to go along with that common trope as we find out more and more damaging information about Nick's behavior prior to his wife disappearance (he was having an affair with another woman, he increased the value of her life insurance policy, they were barely speaking to each other). These spoilers are nothing compared to what twists and turns the actual plot of the book puts you through. It literally took my breath away. Yes, it's that good. Let's hope it becomes a heckuva movie!

Title: Gone Girl.
Author: Gillian Flynn.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Crown.
Date: June 5, 2012.
Read: December 31, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

This book was recommended by one of my friends whom I would classify as a hopeless romantic. It is a YA book, i.e. written for "young adults" or teens. It is also a heartwarming story about a beautiful friendship between two teenage boys, one gay and one straight. The book has won numerous awards and is a quick, enjoyable read, even if you don't usually read "that kind of stuff."

Here's the blurb from the book cover:

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone who would be interested in reading a well-written, realistic story about the lives of two Latino teenaged boys. I don't want to say anything more about the story or the characters' fates because one main pleasure of this book is the sense of wonder as the story unfolds.

Read this book!

Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.
Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Paperback: 359 pages.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster.
Published: February 21, 2012.
Read: September 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A-.

2014 NEBULA AWARDS: Ancillary Justice Wins Best Novel!

The 2013 Nebula awards were announced by the Science Fiction Writers of America yesterday and the winner for Best Novel is Ann Leckie's debut novel, Ancillary Justice, which was also nominated for a Hugo award and has already won the Arthur C. Clarke award for Best Novel and is nominated for the Locus award for best first novel. Ancillary Justice also co-won the British SF award this year as well.

Congratulations to Ms. Leckie, I am growing ever more curious about this book, although I have so far seen one negative review of the book, Hey, no one can please everyone! There are many, many more positive and glowing reviews of it, however.

I haven't read  Ancillary Justice, yet, but with my birthday coming up this week either someone will get it for me (I hope!) or I'll get it for myself!

2014 HUGO AWARDS: The Nominations Are Announced

The nominations for the Hugo awards are out, and just like at the Nebula awards, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice has been nominated for Best Novel.

• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
• Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
• Parasite by Mira Grant (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
• Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (Baen Books)
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books)

I would be shocked if anything other than The Wheel of Time wins the Hugo award, since because of a quirk of the rules, if any member of a series is nominated, it is the series under consideration, not the book. The final (and 14th) Wheel of Time book A Memory of Light was published last year, with Brandon Sanderson taking over for Robert Jordan with the results an unqualified success. Sanderson has published his own highly acclaimed fantasy series, called the Mistborn series as well another called the Stormlight Archive series.

However, Ancillary Justice's appearance here makes it more likely I will buy the book and read it. It is already on my Amazon wishlist but I am trying to decide between the paperback and the Kindle version. Just because a book is nominated for a Hugo and a Nebula does not mean that I will like it.

After all, Jo Walton's Among Others won the Hugo and the Nebula and I still have not been able to get myself to read it, even for free from the library!

BOOK REVIEW: Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton is one of my favorite expositors of modern "hard" science fiction, and he is widely regarded as one of the best (and best-selling) authors in this particular genre. Other names which you may be familiar with are Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks and Richard K. Morgan. Bizarrely, all these authors are British!

The only American speculative fiction author I have read recently is John Scalzi, who is also well-known for his popular blog Whatever and for being the president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the people who put on the Hugo awards.

Hamilton is known for his dense intricate plots, often with a central mystery and a character who neither the audience or the other characters realizes is someone (or something) very different from what they appear to be. He also is known for his intense action scenes and extremely long and satisfying novels.

His most recent book is Great North Road, which is a stand-alone murder mystery cum alien hunt ç. The official synopsis of the book is:

When attending a Newcastle murder scene, Detective Sidney Hurst finds a dead North family clone. Yet none have been reported missing. And in 2122, twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire was horrifically murdered in the same manner on the tropical planet of St Libra. So, if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? She never wavered under interrogation, claiming she alone survived an alien attack. 

Investigating this potential alien threat now becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. St Libran bio-fuel is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. A vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and experts are dispatched to the planet – with Angela Tramelo, grudgingly released from prison. But the expedition is cut off deep within St Libra’s rainforests, and the murders begin. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t sure. Did she see an alien, or does she have other reasons for being on St Libra?

I still count science fiction as my favorite genre, with mystery a close second so I was very happy to hear that Hamilton was combining the two genres in Great North Road.

The results are pretty great, although as a mystery set in 2143, the best parts of the book for me were the science fiction aspects. One feature of Hamilton's writing is that he includes many of the "little" details in how regular people live in a technologically advanced future that we can barely imagine. This allows one to really get a sense of what life could be like in the far future and allows one to identify with the characters whose daily routines we learn the details of.

In Great North Road Hamilton focuses his attention on the familiar police procedures involved in solving a murder mystery when a dead body is found. It would seem this would be an easy task in an era where electronic surveillance is ubiquitous but what we discover is that some of the sensors have "malfunctioned" and the problem becomes one of data analysis. Hamilton is also a master at depicting the internecine politics of human organizations and he does so again here to great effect. Our character Sidney Hurst is a mid-level member of the police department and he is hoping to use his success in investigating this high profile murder case to get ahead professionally.

The other main character is Angela Tramelo, and her story plays out on the planet of St. Libra like something from Predator or Aliens. However, as the expedition proceeds dead bodies start appearing with increasing regularity and the suspense slowly starts to ratchet it up to intense levels, especially after an extensive flashback reveals a lot more about Angela's backstory.

The combination of the two stories (the thrilling alien adventure story and the futuristic police procedural) makes Great North Road a compelling read that will appeal to readers who love various genres.

Title: Great North Road.
Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Paperback: 976 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: January 1, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

2014 NEBULA Awards: Nominations Announced!

The nominations for the 2014 Nebula Awards have been announced. The Nebula award and the Hugo award are the highest awards given in recognition of excellent in writing science fiction and fantasy. The Nebula awards are given by the writers and the Hugo awards are given by the fans.

This year's nominees for the Nebula award for best novel are:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood) 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review) 

Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen) 

Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK) 

The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island) 

A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)

The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

The only nominees I had heard of on this list are by Leckie and Gaiman. Gaiman, because he has won before and Leckie because Ancillary Justice is in the military sci-fi genre that I greatly enjoy and thus Amazon.com keeps on suggesting her books when I am browsing for the latest book by James S.A. Corey, Peter Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds.

It seems like the more and more mysteries I read (I'm currently working my way through the Inspector Alan Banks books by Peter Robinson, the Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo and the Chief Inspector Henri Gamache books by Louise Penny) the weaker my connection to science fiction becomes. Apart from the books by James S.A. Corey (Abaddon's Gate, Caliban's War and Leviathan's Wake) I have not founda new author recently who makes me eager to read their books. (I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in Corey's The Expanse series, Cibola Burn.) For example, I had to go and look up that last year's winner was 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Gaiman has been hit or miss for me (mostly miss lately although I did like American Gods) so I'm not going to rush out to read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but reviews seem to indicate that it's not really science fiction anyway, but some kind of horror-fantasy hybrid. However, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice sounds cool enough I will put it on my Amazon wishlist:

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren--a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of corpse soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. And only one purpose--to revenge herself on Anaander Mianaai, many-bodied, near-immortal Lord of the Radch.

From debut author Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice is a stunning space opera that asks what it means to be human in a universe guided by artificial intelligence.

Any thoughts?

BOOK REVIEW: Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

The third book in the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey is Abaddon's Gate. Happily, it maintains the quality of the first two entries Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War, which were both excellent examples of sci-fi space opera at its finest.

Abaddon's Gate continues the story by following the series of events that are happening to Jim Holden and the rest of the crew of the spaceship Rocinante that began in Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War.

The structure of these books is that the story is told from the point of view of various characters, which in this book are Holden, Anna Volovodov (a lesbian pastor from Europa who is part of a humanitarian contingent sent to investigate the anomaly called "The Ring" that has formed at the edge of the Solar System in the end of Caliban's War), Clarissa Mao (the sister of Julie Mao who was one of the key characters who died in Leviathan Wakes; Clarissa is masquerading as Melba and is determined to kill Holden as revenge for the part he played in her sister Julie's death) and Bull (security officer on Behemoth, the largest ship in the fleet of the Outer Planets Alliance, which is also on its way to The Ring).

Sadly, key characters from the previous books do not return in the latest book, most notably Undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala (the profane grandmother who while appearing to be a mid-level functionary in the United Nations is probably the most important on Earth) and Sergeant Bobbie Draper (a Martian Marine who was the sole survivor in the alien attack on Ganymede that catalyzed events in Caliban's War).

The only character who has had POV chapters named after him in all three books is Holden. What Corey seems to be doing is introducing new characters in each book while simultaneously ramping up the action  and expanding the scale of the plot.

The Expanse series (as it is now called) is most well-known for incredibly detailed action sequences, wry humor, political intrigue and thoughtful and nuanced characterization. All of these features are apparent again in Abaddon's Gate, in addition to another aspect of the books: pulse-pounding suspense!

Although the series was initially conceived as a trilogy the great news is that the series has been expanded to six books, and the fourth book in the series, Cibola Burn, will be released on June 17, 2014. I can't wait!

Title: Abaddon's Gate.
Author: James S.A. Corey.
Paperback: 576 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: June 4, 2013.
Date Read: July 23, 2013

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

Book 3 in author Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle, The Daylight War, was one of my most anticipated books of 2013. His first two books in the series, The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, were both excellent examples of suspenseful, well-written fantasy novels.

I learned about Peter Brett's work from the Walker of World's blog several years ago and I am very appreciative of that fact. I loved The Warded Man (gave it an A/A+ review) and The Desert Spear (gave it an A/A+ review).

The Daylight War is another excellent addition to the series. The books are set in a world called Thesa where every night "corelings" (also called demons) rise from the core of the planet and solidify into deadly creatures to attack and slaughter humans. The only thing that protects humans is the use of wards (intricate symbols) on surfaces that repel corelings. Thesa was once a technologically advanced society but since the emergence of the corelings hundreds of years before the time the books are set in humanity has reverted to a feudal level of civilization.

 In the first book  The Warded Man, the main character Arlen Bales discovers that he can tattoo wards on his body and gained unique power and strength as a result, at a terrible personal cost. The other central characters introduced are Leesha Paper and Rojer Halfgrip who both live in the greenlands near to Arlen. Leesha is apprenticed to her village's healer (called a Herb Gatherer) and Rojer is an orphan who was raised by an itinerant entertainer called a Jongleur. The central tension in the first book is the complicated relationships between Arlen, Leesha and Rojer.

In the second book The Desert Spear, we are introduced to a new central character Ahmann Jardir who lives far away in the desert in a place called Krasia. Krasia is clearly influenced by Arabic/Muslim culture in a manner that I at first felt was not as done as deftly as Frank Herbert did in the classic Dune series. However, in the third book we learn more about Krasian culture from the female perspective through the author's focus on Inevera, Jardir's wife. I believe that Brett has successfully created his own faux Arabic culture that is as well-developed and compelling as Herbert's and that is saying something because Herbert's Dune is one of the masterworks of the science fiction genre. The second book also introduces us to Renna Tanner, who through a complicated set of events becomes Arlen's "promised" (i.e. fiancee). One of the features of the series I have always found the most interesting has been the nuanced ways in which the author has dealt with gender and the different expectations of the roles and responsibilities of men and women, told from the perspective(s) of both men and women, and depicting different levels of gender-based restrictions and beliefs in different cultures.

In the third book the conflict between Ahmann Jardir and Arlen Bales as the two most powerful men in the world becomes more and more inevitable. Both of them are thought by the people who know them best as likely to be a messianic figure called the Deliverer who is supposed to save humanity from the scourge of the corelings. Arlen, despite the amazing things he can do thanks to the special wards he has on his skin, rejects the mantle of Deliverer. Ahmann, actively seeks to foster and maintain a belief by his followers that he is the Deliverer. Ahmann uses this belief to finally united his tribal peoples under one common leader, himself.

While in the first book the demons appeared to be mindless creatures who almost seemed like a natural affliction of humanity, in the later books we start to get a more well-rounded impression of the most advanced demons, called Core Princelings. These princelings have awesome mental (telepathic) abilities and are called "Mind Demons" by Arlen.

I don't want to discuss details of the particular plot points in The Desert Spear except to say that the action is non-stop and we learn a lot more about our (five central characters) by the time we're dine.

It is clear that Brett's Demon Cycle has the potential to be as significant to the dark fantasy-action genre as Dune is to science fiction. I am anxiously awaiting the fourth book in the series!

Title: The Daylight War (Book 3 of the Demon Cycle).
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Paperback: 656 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: February 12, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

BY SENTIENT MEAT

You know that feeling when you read a work written by someone you really like? How you also want to like their work? That's how I felt when I picked up The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. I met Ms. Lord personally 6 days before writing this, and before reading the book. Our 5-hour conversation (in the company of the Mad Professah himself while on vacation in Barbados) had braced me  like a tall glass of ice-cold water with drops of cool condensation on the sides—I was utterly charmed. So I am more than happy to report that I enjoyed the book (TBOAPW) purely on its own terms. 

This is speculative fiction and Ms. Lord is a West Indies author. Moreover, she doesn't shrink from the notion that TBOAPW is Caribbean speculative fiction. My experience is short in this area, so first I'll remark that the dialogue and prose all sounded natural to my North America–tuned ear. The differences between this and, say, Ray Bradbury are more subtle than written-out dialect, which this book does not use. Regardless of any regional differences, the book propelled this reader effortlessly from page to page and chapter to chapter. I found myself re-reading certain sections only to be sure I didn't miss a thing.

In fact, the language differences between the characters are as notable as the distance between usage in TBOAPW and, say, Ursula K. LeGuin or Octavia Butler. Chapters written from the point of view of Dllenahkh, the male protagonist, are written in the third person in an elevated, learned style close to the character of Dllenahkh himself. Chapters from the point of view of Grace Delarua, the female protagonist and primary focus, are in first person and a much more casual style, sometimes even pleading with readers for patience or indulgence and addressing us as "you" (as though the novel is the very memoir we see Delarua writing in the last scene).

The book reveals its West Indies bloodline just as brightly in its physical descriptions and themes, with undercurrents of race and colonialism running very near the surface. The Sadiri, putative superior race (at least they seem to think so), fit the book's galactic human norm with "eyes, hair, and skin all somewhere on the spectrum of brown," but they also boast iridescent hair and mental abilities which set them apart. Before we reach the end the book exposes, pricks, and ultimately deflates the "superiority" of the Sadiri in spite of their position of privilege. Even the Caretakers, a shadowy race with near-godlike powers, reveal themselves near the end to be advanced humans from the future rather than angels or demons. (I think.)

In broadest outline the book is a tour of cultures (think Gulliver's Travels in a universe by Frank Herbert) powered by two big plot engines: Pushing us forward from the front of the book is a planetwide tragedy which may turn out to be genocide—or at least grossly negligent slaughter. Pulling us onward toward the back of the book is the unfolding of a cross-culture, May-September romance. Our energetic, first-person heroine Delarua eventually finds love with the more mature (previously married) third-person hero Dllenahkh. In spite of the baggage that comes from emotional abuse (Delarua's) or infidelity and loss (Dllenahkh's), the wheels of love turn slowly but still sure.

Where does this book fit in the classic SF tradition? For me, this book has some of the humanist touch of Ray Bradbury, perhaps without the same suspicion of technology. It probes the intersection of personal life and politics or careers in a way which reminded me of Ursula K. LeGuin. It draws vivid pictures of human cultures with features both foreign and familiar—this reminded me of Frank Herbert, albeit sketched more briefly and with fewer brushstrokes. Speaking of few brushstrokes, it hits its marks with the bracing leanness of the best of Arthur C. Clarke, though Lord's characters are fuller and more personable. Finally, the book takes on social structures, gender, and even super races, attracting comparison with another of my favorites, Octavia Butler.

As in all the best SF, the social commentary here takes a back seat to the personalities and the vivid scenes they inhabit. In The Best of All Possible Worlds, readers of Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, and Octavia Butler can expect to be drawn into a fast-moving story: eye-catching scenery, likeable characters, engrossing questions, and satisfying—if open-ended—conclusions.

BOOK REVIEW: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Tana French is one of my favorite mystery writers. I discovered her books after making my way through the entire catalog of Ian Rankin's Detective Inspector John Rebus novels which are set in  and around Edinburgh, Scotland. French sets her novels in and around Dublin, Ireland. So, they are related in that they are both set in the United Kingdom.

French is somewhat notorious for her debut novel, In The Woods (2007) which violated one of the key rules of the murder mystery genre (I won't tell you which one!). Her other books, The Likeness (2008) and Faithful Place (2010), have also distinguished themselves for their horrific crime scenes, detailed and nuanced characters and shifting (although loosely linked) cast of detective protagonists. Her entire oeuvre is now commonly referred to as the Dublin Murder Squad series.

Her latest Dublin Murder Squad book is Broken Harbor and features Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, who was a minor character in Faithful Place. In Broken Harbor we are presented Scorcher as the detective on the squad with the highest solve rate who has some skeletons in his closet and has recently suffered a professional setback when he gets a high-profile horrific case dumped in his lap: a report that an entire family of four (mom,dad,son,daughter) has been found dead in a nouveau riche suburb of Dublin.

Of course all is not what it seems at first blush. The first complicating factor is that the mom (Jenny Spain) is not dead, but instead is badly beaten and clinging to life despite multiple stab wounds. The second complicating factor is that Scorcher is given a new partner to work with, Richie Curran, who also happens to be a rookie detective who has managed to pull himself out of lower class squalor by his bootstraps to a hard-fought position on the Dublin Murder Squad. The third complicating factor is that the area in which the murders took place (which is now called "Broken Harbour" but used to be known by the less lyrical name of Brianstown) is also the place where Scorcher's own mentally imbalanced mother committed suicide by walking into the sea with his now-mentally ill youngest sister Dina.

Broken Harbor is the most procedural of French's novels to date. The details and rhythms of the investigation provide the backbone of the novel, as we follow Scorcher and Richie as they  unearth how the domestic life of Pat and Jenny Spain unravelled in the weeks and months before the murders occurred. French's brilliance is demonstrated clearly in the slow reveal of the secrets buried in the past of Pat and Jenny's life together (they were high school sweethearts who bought their dream home in the suburbs and then were overwhelmed by debt and despair fueled by the economic collapse affecting the global economy and Ireland).

Some reviews have stated that they figured out who the murderer was relatively early in the book and felt that the book was longer than they felt it needed to be, but I would disagree. I was surprised by the revelation of who killed Pat Spain and his two little kids, and I was even more surprised by the other developments that occur in the book as well.

As usual with a French book, by the end of the book the reader is more highly invested in the future of the investigator than the investigation and Broken Harbor  is no different in that regard. Unfortunately, it is unlikely any of her future books will include any more information about Scorcher or Richie.

However, happily we have reporting which indicates that French will actually allow one of the main characters from one of her previous books (Frankie Mackey from Faithful Place) to return in her next book, which is called The Secret Place.

I can't wait!

Title: Broken Harbor.
Author: Tana French.
Paperback: 464 pages.
Publisher: Viking Adult.
Date: July 24, 2012.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.75/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.