The Spy, by Ajay Chowdhury.

 

            Here’s #4 in Ajay Chowdhury’s enormously entertaining series starring Kamil Rahman, disgraced Kolkota Detective, London waiter/cook/London Detective, and in this story, MI5 Spy as he tries to dismantle and foil a heinous plot engineered by rebellious Muslims to cause death and destruction during a visit to London by the corrupt Hindu Prime Minister.

            Kamil is Muslim but not fanatically so until Imam Maroor, the imam of his local Mosque is kidnapped with another of his congregation, someone who is having second thoughts about helping the rebels manufacture an explosive device.  The imam is Kamil’s friend and mentor and has helped him immeasurably since his arrival in London;  Kamil cannot let the London Police proceed at snail speed in their investigations, even though one of their own, Tahir, is doing his best to keep the kidnapping in the forefront of their investigation – but everything  ramps up when a burnt body is found with the imam’s phone not far away. 

            Kamil’s sorrow and and anger are boundless:  to ruthlessly kill such a good and saintly man is a crime that he will avenge - by fair means or foul.  His initial refusal to be recruited to MI5 is overturned:  he will find the imam’s killers by every means at his disposal.  There will be no escape for any of them.

            Mr Chowdhury makes some very salient points about fanaticism, Muslim, Hindu and otherwise:  no-one gets off lightly or without a weighing-up of blame or responsibility, and his assessment of Kashmir, fought over like a bone by China, Pakistan and India is masterly.  Which is when there is a much-needed change in plot direction:  Tandoori Knights, the restaurant that has saved Kamil’s sanity on many an occasion is still flourishing, even more so because Anjoli, Kamil’s heart’s desire, has hired a new chef – baldheaded, tattooed and musclebound, whose new menu is too atmospheric and grandiose to be true – but people are flocking in.  And Anjoli seems to be attracted to him as well.  He calls himself Chanson but Kamil reckons he’s a Chancer.  And when has he ever been wrong?

            Mr Chowdhury has done it again – produced yet another feverishly fast-paced thriller, efficiently plotted and with the usual dazzling array of minor characters:  bring on #5!  FIVE STARS.       

 

Table for Two, by Amor Towles.

 

            I don’t usually read many volumes of short stories – not because they’re not an accepted form of literary endeavour, but because I prefer concentrating on one big story, with one particular set of characters.  There are very few authors who alter my mindset in that regard, Amor Towles being one of them.  After reading his previous novels, particularly ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ and ‘The Lincoln Highway’ I bit the bullet at the appearance of ‘Table for Two’:  he is such a sublime writer that I had to  give his latest book the attention his reputation merited.  And I’m so glad I did.

            As I said (I’m at an age where I repeat myself) I don’t enjoy chopping and changing characters and themes – until in The Ballad of Timothy Touchett I met the beautifully drawn and irresistible inhabitants of the antiquarian bookshop in New York, where aspiring (but not passionately enough) young author Timothy is employed by Mr Pennybrook, not only to sell first editions, but to practice signatures, at which Timothy excels, of famous, long-dead authors.  After he realises (it takes a little while; he’s not exactly dim but …) that Mr Pennybrook is making big money from Timothy’s ‘artistry’ a new rate is negotiated and all would have been well had not a contemporary author, still very much alive, realised that he didn’t sign that particular book in that particular place. Do heads roll, or not?

            In ‘I will Survive’, a young woman is asked by her mother to follow her stepfather to Central Park:  Nell’s mum is sure her husband is having an affair – then changes her mind and begs Nell to forget she ever asked.  But Nell is curious, and we all know where that leads – nowhere good, especially when his Central Park sojourn has nothing to do with romance.

            There are seven short stories altogether, the last one a novella which continues with a character from his first novel ‘Terms of Civility’:  Evelyn Ross is on her way home to Chicago from New York, but changes her mind at the last moment much to her parents’ consternation and heads to Hollywood instead.  It is the beginning of the 40’s;  she’ll try her luck in California before heading eventually overseas – and what luck!  Her decision to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel leads to fortuitous meetings with an overweight and ageing has-been Movie actor, and Olivia de Havilland, future star of ‘Gone with the Wind’ – if only Olivia can pay off a blackmailer!  Oh, it’s all gripping stuff, especially the blackmail outcome, and so superbly written that I didn’t want to leave behind any of characters in the seven stories:  What have you planned for us next, Mr Towles? I know it will be dazzling.  SIX STARS

           

           

 

The Mountain King, by Anders de la Motte.

 

            Scandy-Noir:  since Stieg Larsson conquered the world with ‘Girl With a Dragon Tattoo’, Swedish thrillers have gained a huge part of the crime novel market – and rightly so;  there aren’t many that fall flat, including ‘The Mountain King’ who does just the opposite, shocking the reader to the very last page – literally!  I’m still thinking (and reeling from it) and wondering if de la Motte has already written a sequel to release us from this tension or must we have to wait AAAAGES for the next one.  We are being forced to Watch This Space.

            A young couple have gone missing;  because the female of the couple is beautiful and her parents very wealthy, there is suspicion that her boyfriend has kidnapped her and a ransom will soon be demanded – he’s an impoverished student , not of good standing.  It’s an open-and-shut case if they can only find them.

            Enter the Long Arm of the Law, consisting of Leonore (known as Leo) Asker, a crack Detective Inspector with a very damaged past;  her reluctantly-learned survival skills drilled in by her mentally Ill father are actually advantages in her job and she expects to be the lead officer on the couple’s disappearance – until she isn’t, usurped by a Big Wheel from Stockholm:  she takes too many risks and breaks too many rules.  She is shifted sideways with a move downstairs into the nether regions of the police building;  she can preside over all the other failures and would-be rebels.  Whether she wants to or not.

            But her forced exile reveals that another detective was working on cases which seem to have an uncanny similarity to the current ‘kidnapping’, until he fell down his stairs with a heart-attack;  he is now in hospital in a coma, but he has left a huge repository of notes and theories.  Maybe being consigned to the basement isn’t going to be as onerous as Leo thinks, but the chilling conclusion she comes to after tracing at least four other people to their eventual disappearance is that a serial-killer is at work.  And he takes a ‘souvenir’ from his victims – and leaves one behind in the shape of a tiny plastic figure, just so that he can laugh at the police and their stupidity, for the police, especially the hot-shot from Stockholm have no idea of the significance of the figures – or that he’s a monster, invincible, and truly the Mountain King.

            Scandy-Noir has never been better, especially in the hands of Anders de la Motte:  hurry up with Book Two!  FIVE STARS