Upcoming: THE DEAD LANDS by Benjamin Percy (Grand Central)

I thoroughly enjoyed Benjamin Percy’s previous novel, Red Moon, and have been eagerly awaiting his next book ever since. Now (via SF Signal), here are the details of that novel, a re-imagining of the Lewis & Clark saga in a post-apocalyptic setting:

A super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary – the remains of St. Louis – a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders.

Then a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls. She reports on the outside world: west of the Cascades, rain falls, crops grow, civilization thrives. But there is danger too: the rising power of an army that pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon.

Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.

Benjamin Percy’s The Dead Lands is due to be published in the US by Grand Central Publishing, in April 2015. Red Moon was published in the UK by Hodder, and they will be publishing The Deadlands as well, in May 2015.

Also on CR: Interview with Benjamin Percy

New Books (September #1)

Featuring: Kelley Armstrong, Greg Bear, Sandra Brown, Steven Erikson, Liu Cixin, Sergei Lukyanenko, Alexander Maskill, Amy McCulloch, David Mitchell, Joseph O’Neill, Alice Peterson, Cherie Priest, Mike Resnick, Jamie Schultz, Adam Sternbergh, Jeff VanderMeer

“The Target” by David Baldacci (Macmillan)

The third Will Robie thriller sets him and Jessica Reel on a collision courts with the Hermit Kingdom…

The President knows it’s a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats against the nation would multiply. So the president turns to the one team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel.

Together, Robie and Reel’s talents as assassins are unmatched. But there are some in power who don’t trust the pair. They doubt their willingness to follow orders. And they will do anything to see that the two assassins succeed, but that they do not survive.

As they prepare for their mission, Reel faces a personal crisis that could well lead old enemies right to her doorstep, resurrecting the ghosts of her earlier life and bringing stark danger to all those close to her. And all the while, Robie and Reel are stalked by a new adversary: an unknown and unlikely assassin, a woman who has trained her entire life to kill, and who has her own list of targets – a list that includes Will Robie and Jessica Reel.

The Target is another great addition to this relatively-new series from Baldacci. Taking the popular central character of government assassin, the author has managed to forge a somewhat original path. The novel is gripping, excellently-paced, and well-researched. As has become the norm with Baldacci’s novels, I really enjoyed reading this.

Books Received (Easter Week & a Bit)

Featuring: Mark Alder, Charles Cumming, Stella Gemmell, Terry Hayes, Sarah Pinborough, Justin Richards, Marcus Sakey, Tom Rob Smith

Interview with BENJAMIN PERCY

Benjamin Percy is the author of the excellent Red Moon – which I consider one of the best novels of the year (and certainly within the top ten in the past few years). I thoroughly enjoyed what he did with the werewolf mythology, and also how he wove into his narrative many of today’s social issues and prejudices. I had the pleasure of very briefly meeting him at the Arthur C. Clarke Awards (he sat behind me). Last week, he was kind enough to take a few minutes to answer some questions for Civilian Reader…

“Red Moon” by Benjamin Percy (Hodder/Grand Central)

A superb literary horror novel

Every teenage girl thinks she’s different. When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realises just how different she is.

Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and, hours later, stepped off it, the only passenger left alive. A hero.

President Chase Williams has sworn to eradicate the menace. Unknown to the electorate, however, he is becoming the very thing he has sworn to destroy.

Each of them is caught up in a war that so far has been controlled with laws and violence and drugs. But an uprising is about to leave them damaged, lost, and tied to one another for ever.

The night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge, and the battle for humanity will begin.

Red Moon is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It’s long, but never felt like it dragged. I savoured every chapter. A near-perfect literary horror novel.

There’s so much to this novel, too: it’s part coming-of-age, part tale of prejudice and segregation (mirroring some of the Civil Rights movement, more recent prejudice against Muslims, and then creates another violent thread of anti-lycan prejudice). It’s also partly a love story (new love and old), and a story of redemption. All of this is overlaid with politics, secrets, and certain characters’ pasts catching up with them. The third part of the book feels more dystopian, too (won’t spoil why or how…). It’s a story about family, too, and how even those of us who might grow up with none of our own, or lose our loved ones, can create a new family.

The events move pretty fast, but the story is epic in scope, so the characters’ situations are forever changing and developing. It makes it a little tricky to delve too deeply into the plot or story, without ruining any number of twists and turns Percy takes us through. The author has great narrative discipline, never deviating for too long from the main thrust of the novel, unveiling revelations and important information in a steady, natural way. There is a dark humour running through the story, too, which was certainly welcome and prevented the novel from becoming too dour. The allegory and allusion is great, though some people might find it a but blunt and unsubtle at times. Nevertheless, I think Percy’s done a great job of taking real-world issues of persecution and alienation, and blending them with character-focused anxieties and personal struggles.

The novel is character-driven, so we don’t often get the perspective pulling back for a wider, macro-view; but Percy still manages to keep us up-to-date and well-informed on the subtle historical differences, the lycan history, the societal changes and differences, and so forth.

The novel features werewolves, as a substitute for every persecuted group in America (with added teeth and sometimes violent tendencies, of course). In many ways, though, the real horror in the novel comes from what people are willing to do to each other, and especially those who are considered different (in both big and small ways). For example, what the “patriotic” anti-Lycan group “The Americans” do, fulfilling the role of this reality’s white supremacist skinhead-analog. In these situations and environments, as one character states, it’s not just people who die, but also our humanity.

Percy’s prose style is immersive and engrossing, filled with great turns of phrase, sometimes portraying the mundane in almost poetic or lyrical ways. It never felt over-written, which was a nice surprise from such a long novel. From the start, I was hooked and drawn into the narrative, always eager to get back to it when real life would intrude on my reading-time. His characters are realistic, engaging, each reacting and developing in realistic ways to the sometimes brutal, soul-destroying, fantastical situations and people they encounter.

With a superb ending that is neither a disappointment, nor a Bruckheimer/Bay action extravaganza (in fact, it’s almost understated), I found this to be an absolutely satisfying read. Red Moon is an engrossing, nuanced novel, and I highly recommend it.

*

Red Moon is published by Hodder in the UK and Grand Central Publishing in the US.

“Kill Alex Cross”, James Patterson (Grand Central/Century)

A terrorist threat, and the President’s children have been kidnapped

Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school - an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close.

A deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge.

With each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. But even the highest security clearance doesn't get him any closer to the kidnapper – and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes in.

I’ve read all of Patterson’s Alex Cross novels, and I’d been a little disappointed with some of the later instalments of the series. However, much to my pleasant surprise, Kill Alex Cross turned out to be a stand-out novel, and perhaps the best since Four Blind Mice (which is the point after which I think they started to lose quality). If you’re a fan of the series, and like me haven’t loved the more recent instalments, this should help you reacquire your faith in Patterson as a writer. It’s not as good as the first eight novels, but it shows some of the qualities that made his earlier novels so good and addictive.

“The Inner Circle” by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central/Hodder & Stoughton)

A long-held secret of the American Presidency is about to be revealed…

Beecher White, a young archivist for the US government, has always been the keeper of other people’s stories, never a part of the story himself... Until now.

While Beecher is showing Clementine Kaye, his first childhood crush, around the National Archives, they accidentally uncover a priceless artefact – a two-hundred-year-old dictionary once belonging to George Washington. Suddenly Beecher and Clementine are entangled in a web of conspiracy and murder.

Beecher’s race to learn the truth behind this mysterious treasure will lead to a code that conceals a disturbing secret from the nation's founding. A secret that some believe is worth killing for.

I’ve had generally good experiences reading Meltzer’s novels – only one of them has been disappointing, so I came to The Inner Circle with high hopes that the author would once again entertain and thrill. It’s doubly interesting for me, because I’m always fascinated by anything that features the US Presidency. The Inner Circle is well conceived, but the execution was disappointingly flawed.

“Deliver Us From Evil”, by David Baldacci (Grand Central/Pan)

US    |    UK

The latest international thriller from a master of the genre

Evan Waller is a monster. He has built a fortune from his willingness to buy and sell anything… and anyone. In search of new opportunities, Waller has just begun a new business venture: one that could lead to millions of deaths all over the globe.

On Waller’s trail is Shaw, the mysterious operative from The Whole Truth, who must prevent Waller from closing his latest deal. Shaw’s one chance to bring him down will come in the most unlikely of places: a serene, bucolic village in Provence.

But Waller’s depravity and ruthlessness go deeper than Shaw knows. And now, there is someone else pursuing Waller in Provence — Reggie Campion, an agent for a secret vigilante group headquartered in a musty old English estate — and she has an agenda of her own.

Hunting the same man, unaware of each other’s mission, Shaw and Reggie will be caught in a deadly duel of nerve and wits.

This is the second book in Baldacci’s Shaw series, following on from the highly successful, and enjoyable The Whole Truth.

Shaw’s operation to deal with Waller is a cold example of “the lesser of two evils”; cold, hard realism in an ever-more dangerous, interconnected world. His handlers are aware of Waller’s sex-trafficking business, but are more concerned by his recent foray into nuclear arms dealing, and are willing to let the former slide if they can just prevent the latter. They’re reaction to Regina’s operation also adheres strongly to a realpolitik approach to international relations, and is presented in a well-conceived and considered manner (it’s not some conspiracy-loving critique, for example).

Regina’s outfit is an interesting one. A group of vigilantes, loosely connected, executing designated ‘monsters’ as their identities become known. It’s not entirely clear what each of the team’s members’ motivations are. Regina’s past is only revealed very late in the novel, and it was certainly a surprise, even if I didn’t see how it might explain her specific choice in profession.

“there will always be monsters. And we have to hunt down every one of them.”

Waller is looking for a “challenge” and believes moving from his steady, ludicrously profitable primary sex-trafficking business to weapons dealing with Muslim terrorists will provide both the needed challenge and a fresh experience. When the initial deal goes wrong, however, Waller vows to bring those responsible for betraying him to ‘justice’. Waller is a true monster: outwardly he is the calm and reasonable businessman he professes to be, but underneath he’s also a cold psychopath – just wait until Chapter 37 for his monstrous, chilling nature to be presented in rather gruesome detail.

One thing that surprised me about this novel was that, considering it’s meant to be the second in the Shaw series, it felt to me like he only featured in about a quarter of the novel (a third at most), with Regina’s story-line dominating, with Waller receiving roughly the same chapter-space as Shaw. This is one reason that might explain my disappointment with the novel, as it diverged a good deal from what I was expecting.

I always come to Baldacci’s novels with high expectations. With every one I’ve read, he has exceeded my expectations. For the first time, however, I am left a little underwhelmed. There’s just something about Deliver Us From Evil that didn’t quite click for me. The characters are good, and mostly well-rounded. The dialogue and prose are great – I flew through the chapters whenever I picked up the book, so it’s not a problem with Baldacci’s writing (always exceptional). It’s just the pacing of the story itself, and the progression of the plot doesn’t seem to work properly. There seems to be a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, or a stop-start feel to the narrative, and certain events felt anti-climactic, and things slow down too much on one too many instances. There are a couple of chapters which might be intended to be ‘cliffhangers’, but because the reader knows how much more of the book is left to go, they don’t achieve the intended outcome. The author sometimes loses the balance between exposition and storytelling, with – for the first time – his explanations of innovative elements of the story running a little too long, again diminishing the pace and impact of the story. One final thing that bothered me, was Shaw’s confused relationship with Katie James (who featured prominently in The Whole Truth and pops up a couple times here) and Regina – it is almost as if the author is as unsure as his character who Shaw should be with.

It frustrates me to write a review even partially negative for a Baldacci novel, but I’ve got to write the truth. This novel just didn’t have the impact of Baldacci’s other novels (all of which I’ve devoured with great enthusiasm and satisfaction), with a plot that meandered a little too much, and character interactions that failed to ignite. The final quarter of the novel redeemed itself well, and the final confrontation was pretty tense, but it was not enough to make me forget my occasional moments of indifference during the preceding chapters. I still eagerly await Hell’s Corner, the next book in Baldacci’s Camel Club series (published later this year), which has always been his strongest series, with his strongest characters.

Deliver Us From Evil will entertain, will keep you guessing (there are a fair few red herrings and switches), but might not be as fulfilling as previous novels from this brilliant author.

For Fans of: Vince Flynn, Daniel Silva, Christopher Reich, Kyle Mills, John Sandford, Tom Clancy, James Twining, Andrew Britton, Richard North Patterson