crime & thrillers

THE FINAL HOUR by Tom Wood ( Sphere, $ 35) English writer Tom Wood and his killer- forhire hero Victor consistently deliver some of the best assassin fiction around. This is the seventh in the series; Victor’s been doing black- bag jobs for the CIA but there’s a changing of the guard in Washington and suddenly Victor’s more liability than asset. Is his only option hooking up with former enemy Raven, who makes a return from 2015’ s The Darkest Day, to out- manoeuvre them? The Final Hour spends almost as much time with Raven as it does with Victor, which is fine, but the book lifts when Victor’s on the page. He’ll switch sides in a heartbeat if the money is good and trust isn’t in his vocab. As usual, the combat set- pieces are superb particularly when Victor outwits an entire team of night- vision wearing hit men with a wet dust sheet. Recommended. CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham ( Hodder & Stoughton, $ 35) Grisham has two books out this year. This, the first, is a detour from his usual legal thrillers. It’s a clever and often compelling caper novel set in the world of antiquarian bookselling, told in Grisham’s unmistakable measured and patrician prose. A rag- tag group of thieves break into the Princeton University library and steal five handwritten F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts — and yes — Gatsby is among them. Slowly the plot and the tension builds; one senses Grisham is having fun here as he wryly details members of the local beach town literary communityand the assorted cripes and jealousies of the wannabe and has- been authors. Gossipy, colourful and full of energy — this is the best part of the book. Less successful is the winding up of the plot, which seems rather perfunctory after such protracted introductions while the bad guys never really come to life at all. It will, however, make a fun movie. SINCE WEFELL by Dennis Lehane ( Hachette, $ 35) After the excellent Joe Coughlin trilogy, Lehane returns to modern times in this somewhat confused psychological thriller. It begins with our heroine Rachel shooting her husband and then proceeds to backtrack focusing on her search for her father. It meanders for 80 or so pages before Rachel, now a TV reporter, is sent to Haiti. There she suffers an on- camera breakdown and an old acquaintance nurses her back to health. Soon she’s even able drive across town without having a panic attack and it’s while out on one of these rare excursions that she sees her husband in the street. Only problem is he’s supposed to be in London on business. To give away more would be unfair but the twists are clever and surprising if not always believable. Since We Fell is full of wonderful minor characters and is deftly written as all Lehane’s books are but this one — despite its brilliant touches — never quite coheres. THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY by Hannah Tinti ( Tinder Press, $ 35) Tinti’s second novel is a determinedly literary thriller about a father trying to shake off his criminal past and his daughter’s need for answers about her mother’s death. Twelve scars on Hawley’s body provide a structure and Tinti fashions compelling Herculean tales of them that read like self- sufficient stories in themselves ( one was published as such). The action ramps up in the second half as Hawley’s ragged past catches up with him. “The world is a rotten place,” Hawley says, “and you’ve got to find a way to be rotten if you’re going to live in it.” This has a bit of everything — myth, crime, Americana, violence, cosmology — but it isn’t quite as clever as it thinks it is.