The Kingdom, by Jo Nesbo.

 

           Jo Nesbo has long been acknowledged among his myriad fans as the master of Scandy Noir, and with logical reason:  there is simply no-one better or more consistent at producing quality thrillers of the genre.  Every time we pick up a new title it is as satisfying – or even better – than the last.

            ‘The Kingdom’ belongs to two brothers.  It’s what their late father called their remote farm above the village of Os in the Norwegian mountains, and Roy Obsgard lives there alone after his younger brother Carl went to the USA to study for an advanced  business degree.  Roy has made an adequate life for himself running the local service station, but in the way of all small communities, Os is riven with gossip (what else is there to do but trash whoever is next in line?), and plenty is said about his determinedly single state now he is in his mid-thirties – he’s queer/gay/weird;  something’s fishy about the death of his parents, whose Cadillac (Dad liked all things American) slid over a precipice fifteen years before, leaving the boys orphaned. 

            But Roy presents a face of complete indifference to the rumour-mongers:  only he knows the truth of what used to happen after the lights went out at night in the Kingdom;  only he knows the real reason his brother fled to America.  And he will never tell:  he will always protect his little brother.

            And he does, as always, when Carl returns unexpectedly from America with his architect wife Shannon, and a get-rich scheme that the whole village can invest in: a luxury hotel and spa built on the brothers’ land, which will rake in tourist kroner for all.  Like everyone else, Roy is dazzled by the scope of Carl’s vision and his plans for putting Os on the map – until cracks start appearing in Carl’s charismatic veneer:  the contractors have been less than reliable;  a road has had to be constructed to the site, taking up a lot of the funds;  there have been weather delays.  And Architect Shannon has objected to her concrete creation having timbers and trolls added.

            Roy will always do his best for his little brother, from comforting him at night to stop the tears, to putting a fatal stop to the reason for them, but history has a way of repeating itself, and he is once again asked to come to his little brother’s rescue, even if it involves murder – this time fuelled by the enormous guilt he also feels for falling in love – with Shannon.

            Jo Nesbo has given us huge, Shakespearian characters in a Nordic setting, and at the novel’s end it’s impossible to know if Carl has really profited from the tragedy he has caused, or if Roy will finally become a man, and stop him.  FIVE STARS

 

Blacktop Wasteland, by S. A. Cosby.

 

 

           This is a story-and-a-half!  I haven’t read anything as raw, explosive and hugely exciting since last year’s collection of stories by the great Don Winslow.  Well, Don now has a worthy rival for the king of Crime Noir, assuming that ‘Blacktop Wasteland’s’ debut is eventually followed by a successor of the same dazzling quality.  Fingers crossed.

            In Virginia, black former Wheelman for various crims Beauregard Montage is feeling overwhelmed:  overwhelmed by debt as he tries to stay away from his former associates where the big, easy money is so that he can look after his beloved wife and children legitimately.  He and his cousin Kelvin have started a repair shop because Beauregard’s talent for car mechanics is legendary (not to mention his driving skills – he has saved so many colleague’s black asses in his disappeared Daddy’s old getaway car that he’s the Go-To man for those considering any kind of heist) but he can’t compete with a new garage that has opened in town and is undercutting him on everything.  Add to that his poisonous old Mama’s bills for her nursing home and Beauregard feels like he’s drowning.  His wife Kia wants him to sell his father’s car which is still worth a lot of money, but it’s all that Beauregard has left of his Daddy – nope, can’t do it. 

            Instead he takes up an offer from white-trash piece-of-shit (No exaggeration!) Ronnie Sessions to be the Wheelman and strategist for a jewellery heist in a mall not too far away, despite the fact that he did another job with Ronnie and it all turned bad, with everyone lucky to escape from the law – and he never got paid.  Ronnie owes him bigtime, and Beauregard is desperate enough to give him another chance.  With the proviso that Ronnie and his mouth-breather brother Reggie will be doomed if they fail him.

            And they do.  In the robbery an innocent man is killed, and it soon becomes abundantly clear that the jewellery store was a front for other, bigger criminal activities – and those bigger crims are now coming for the little ones.  Beauregard has hurled himself straight out of the frying pan and into a huge fire, a fire which threatens not only him, but all his loved ones.

            There are no happy endings in this stunning book, and beneath the bloodshed and violence is Beauregard’s own halting explanation of his divided nature: ‘ ‘It’s a curse, is what it is.  Money can’t fix it and love can’t tame it.  Push it down deep and it rots you from the inside out.  Give in to it and you end up doing five years in some hellhole.  Violence is a Montage family tradition.’ ‘  Well said, Beauregard.  SIX  STARS! 

 

Trio, by William Boyd.

 

 

           It is 1968, and a film crew assembles in the English seaside city of Brighton to start work on a film tentatively entitled ‘Emily Bracegirdle’s Ladder to the Moon’.  Producer Talbot Kydd has assembled an eclectic cast:  luminous, breathtaking new American star Anny Viklund in the title role, with latest pop sensation Troy Blaze as her love interest;  Rodrigo Tipton (‘Please stop calling me Reggie, Talbot,  I have changed my name, birth certificate, passport, everything:  Rodrigo is my NAME.’) will direct, and a host of former celebs will flesh out the minor roles.  All should be well.

            In a perfect world.

            Rodrigo/Reggie comes with baggage in the shape of his wife Elfrida Wing, a once-famous author who has suffered from writer’s block for ten years, and has turned to alcohol for inspiration and comfort:  whilst searching for her lost muse, she takes Brighton’s pubs by storm.

            Beautiful new star Anny has problems, too:  her politically radical ex-husband Cornell Weekes has escaped from an American prison where he was incarcerated for trying to blow up an army base.  He is rumoured by the police and FBI to be attempting to come to England to contact her.  The movie does not need this kind of publicity, and as Producer, Talbot has a lot of troubleshooting to do.

            And Talbot finds that in the new heady, permissive days of 1968, his closeted homosexuality could perhaps have an airing, however timid, for it is no longer an imprisonable offence to love another man.  The fact that he has a wife and two adult children is testament to his Trojan efforts to lead an upright, conventional, admirably British life.  Now, in Brighton, anything could happen.  And does, from film stock going missing (stolen by one of the camera crew to make porno movies on the side) to the potential betrayal by a business partner.

Talbot Kydd is not a happy man, and his attempts to find solutions to insurmountable problems are chronicled with empathetic skill and the usual artistry we expect from William Boyd.  As always, he makes one sentence do the work of ten and, as always, leaves us wishing we could meet his characters again.  FIVE STARS.