South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Grippando switches it up in ‘Code 6’; a trial for Rebus in Rankin’s superb novel ‘A Heart Full of Headstones’
James Grippando puts aside his usual legal thrillers — and his series about Miami lawyer Jack Swyteck — for a solid mystery at the intersection of high tech and the arts with a plot that occasionally strays but largely maintains its tension.
American University law student Kate Gamble would rather be a playwright and is working on her first project. But her dreams may be put on hold when she arrives at her parents’ penthouse in Tysons Corner, Va., just moments before her mother, Elizabeth, jumps to her death. Elizabeth leaves an odd note apologizing with a cryptic message: “I did it for Kate.”
Needing some structure, Kate accepts an entry-level internship at Buck Technologies International, the private data-integration firm where her uberwealthy father, Christian, is CEO. The firm’s murky ethics appall Kate. She also is mining the morality of Buck’s approach for her play about how IBM enabled the Nazis to use data from punch cards to track down Jews during WWII.
Big tech’s intrusion into ordinary people’s lives takes another turn when it veers into government interests, which prompts the Justice Department to order an audit of Buck that will be conducted by Kate’s former boyfriend. Then an employee with a connection to Kate disappears.
Plots that revolve around high tech often can be so dense the eyes glaze over but Grippando keeps the thriller realistic and suspenseful. Kate’s appealing personality and believable actions keep “Code 6” on track. Grippando effectively shows how social media and technology can seep too quickly into anyone’s life and affect, even ruin, a future.
Grippando illustrates how how technology is not a 21st century phenomenon. Kate’s play is based on historical fact that Grippando himself used for his own play, “Watson,” that premiered at GableStage in Coral Gables in 2019.
In “Watson,” Grippando detailed how early IBM technology was chillingly exploited by Nazis to identify Jewish residents during the Holocaust.
“Code 6” shows that truth is always stranger than fiction.
Meet the author
James Grippando will discuss “Code 6” at 7 p.m. Jan. 3 at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, 305-442-4408. Visit booksandbooks.com to register for the free event.
Rebus returns
Retirement has never been easy for former Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, making his 24th appearance in the superb “A Heart Full of Headstones.” While Ian Rankin retired his popular character from the police force in 2007’s “Exit Music,” the author has brought his Scottish hero back myriad times.
Rebus had to retire from the police, but he has never retired from being a detective as an official police consultant or, most of the time, as a private citizen who can’t help but inject himself in investigations.
“A Heart Full of Headstones” again shows Rebus as an old man, struggling with health problems brought on by too many years of smoking and bad diet, now living in a firstfloor apartment because climbing stairs is too much. But Rebus has reconnected with his daughter and granddaughter, and he has a dog, Brillo, who forces him to get out of his rooms.
“A Heart Full of Headstones” finds Rebus in court — but this time he’s the one on trial though
Ian Rankin’s news John Rebus novel is“A Heart Full of Headstones.”
Rankin doesn’t reveal the charges, or the verdict, until the end. The added mystery in this outstanding crime fiction adds to the tension, and forces Rebus to examine his life’s work
and choices. Rebus always has been a good cop, out for justice, but he also has cut corners, deceived people and skewed evidence to find the guilty. He believes his life was “spent in a city perpetually dark, feeling increasingly weighed down, his heart full of headstones.”
Rebus’ ongoing nemesis continues to be organized crime kingpin Morris “Big Ger” Cafferty, now in a wheelchair after being shot by an unnamed rival. Ger wants Rebus’ help in tracking down a former employee who disappeared after being threatened by the crime mogul. Ger swears he wants to make it up to the man.
Rebus doesn’t believe him but wants to find out Ger’s motive. At the same time, Det. Insp. Siobhan Clarke, who Rebus mentored, investigates charges of domestic abuse against an officer who threatens to expose police corruption if his case goes to trial.
The crux of “A Heart Full of Headstones” is the aging and limitations of Rebus and Ger, who says “Mortality, chapping at the door.” Without a badge, Rebus doesn’t have the access or authority to investigate.
But he also plays on his age, knowing that to many he’s “invisible,” just another old man whom “no one looks twice at.” Ger is confined to his high-rise condo, watching the world from his windows, bemoaning that “the streets have changed” and that he’s “not got the eyes and ears I once had” when he ran a criminal enterprise.
In each of his novels, Rankin has explored a different aspect of Rebus. His detective is aging but he is still sharp and knows his way around an investigation as he proves in the superlative “A Heart Full of Headstones.”