CRIME + THRILLERS
ALLEGRA IN THREE PARTS by Suzanne Daniel
(Macmillan, $35)
YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY by Steph Cha (Faber Fiction, $33)
Steph Cha calls her fourth novel a “social crime novel”. It’s a departure from her first three books, which were all genre-centred P.I. novels. This is a fictionalised account of the 1991 shooting of black teenager Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper. The tragic incident is a slow ticking racial time bomb that gives the novel its narrative tension as Cha moves expertly from past to present. She zeroes in on two members — Grace, a pharmacist and dutiful Korean daughter; and Shawn Matthews, the brother of the young victim, a one-time gang-banger who is attempting to go straight. As the Shakespearean-like title (actually taken from an old 80s hip-hop track, Batterram) suggests, the legacy of crime echoes through generations. It’s an issue-based book reminiscent of George Pelecanos at his best. Cha has chiselled a mesmerising story out of LA’S shameful past and present and she sticks the ending. I read this with the slow dawning realisation that here was an already fine young writer breaking through to another level. Superb — and sure to be among 2020‘s best.
THE GUARDIANS by John Grisham (Hachette, $38)
This sees John Grisham circling back to the law thrillers that have made him one of the world’s most popular writers and the subject matter — the freeing of innocent men and women from jail — is one close to his heart. Last year’s The Reckoning was an ambitious historical novel that alienated some long-time fans; its predecessor Camino Island a “beach read” that, while entertaining, didn’t entirely convince. This does. Cullen Post is a lawyer/minister who left his law job after a nervous breakdown. He now works for Guardian Ministries, driving the highways of the South and trying to convince witnesses to come clean and tell the truth. His aim is to ensure those wrongly convicted never get served their last meal. Grisham based Post on real-life innocence crusader James Mccloskey and the case at the centre of the novel — a black man who murders his lawyer — is also based on fact. An engrossing read that impresses less with its thriller element (although who can forget that crocodile episode?) than as a character study of a man unwavering in his earthly mission. The result is the best Grisham for many years.
BLUE MOON by Lee Child (Bantam Press, $38)
Doing a good turn for a fellow traveller gets Jack Reacher into a world of trouble. He notices an old man has a big wad of cash in an envelope hanging outside his pocket. Another man in the bus has too, which doesn’t escape Reacher’s attention. Of course, Reacher saves the man from a mugging and is soon helping him with his money troubles, which involves playing off two Eastern European gangs against each other. Reacher also meets a waitress, Abby, who gives him much more than shelter for the night, allowing Lee Child a chance to show Reacher’s more romantic side, describing their night together as, “Experimental all around. Twenty whole minutes, soup to nuts.” The body count gets a little ridiculous as the plot progresses but this is Reacher, America’s moral avenger, dishing out old school justice and then hopping a Greyhound to another town. Fans won’t be disappointed but they will have to steel themselves to the news that this will be the last Reacher book written solely by Child. He announced last month he’ll be phasing out of Reacher writings and passing the baton to his younger brother, Andrew Grant.
A MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT by David Baldacci (Pan Macmillan, $30) Thirty years ago Atlee Pine was brutally assaulted and left for dead and her twin sister Mercy was abducted. A Minute to Midnight (the second in the Atlee Pine series) opens with Pine visiting in prison the man she suspects of the crime; he toys with her much like Hannibal toys with Clarice in Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs. Pine is an FBI agent in Arizona who is struggling not to let her past trauma define her. The assault claimed her sister and soon after her father shot himself and she has no idea where her mother is. If David Baldacci lays it on a bit strong, Pine’s a likeable, feisty character but this reads like it was dashed off. Writing up to four books a year (which is what Baldacci has been doing recently) may be taking its toll.