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This is a good outline of a story. It’s a techno-thriller about a police detective investigating a murder. The murder victim is one of the “chipped”–that is, someone implanted with nano-chip technology.

The supposed perpetrator is one of the “unchipped”, the downtrodden underclass who have few rights. Due to the word “supposed” there, you probably suspect, as the detective does, that there is more to this story.

And indeed, there is. It’s a cyberpunk story, so of course it’s a dark tale of corrupt government officials and greedy corporations. It’s a good plot, but since it’s serving as an intro to a six book series, it has to be short.

And is it ever short. That’s why I say it feels like a good outline of a story, rather than a good story. There’s plenty of interesting material here, but it’s all just handed to us in info-dump style, rather than truly conveyed as part of a narrative.

It’s interesting to compare and contrast this book with Nightside City. Both are books about a cybernetically-enhanced detective trying to untangle a web of corruption, with only their own gut instincts and their lovingly-described sidearm to aid them.

The difference is that Nightside City is a fully-realized, vividly-painted world unto itself. This book was more like an elevator pitch for what could be a good story. Of course, it’s only meant as a teaser for the series as a whole, so what can you expect? But I guess the really unsatisfying thing about it is that it wasted some plot elements that could have been really effective had they been properly set up and fleshed out, rather than dispensed with in summary fashion.

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Ah, submarine warfare! Sure, kids these days have their grand notions about space battles, and romantics may long for the days when Hearts of Oak Really Ruled The Waves, but me? Give me being locked in a cramped metal tube deep under the ocean for months at a time, breathing stale air and never seeing trees, grass, or sunshine.

No, actually, I’m kidding. Being a submariner sounds horrible, and I have nothing but respect for people who serve their country by doing it.

Search and Destroy tells the story of such people, an American submarine crew engaged in a massive war against China, as seen largely through the eyes of Commander Christopher Coe.

Captain Coe is a harsh disciplinarian, and as the book goes on, he sometimes veers close to being a Captain Bligh. His harsh, no-nonsense attitude leads him to clash repeatedly with his executive officer, Richard Wickham.

And that’s about it on the human drama level. Most of the book’s conflict comes from listing the various pieces of awesome high-tech naval weaponry the dueling vessels (it’s more fun if you pronounce it “wessels“) hurl at one another. I admit, these scenes were a bit hard to follow–as I would imagine real-life submarine warfare is.

The book says it’s a techno-thriller on the cover, so I can hardly complain about the many references to technology. I don’t have a problem with that.

I do have a problem with the some of the prose style. For example, people say “very well” astonishingly often aboard this sub. Now, again, I’ve never been in the military, so I don’t know, but I would think the terser “okay” or “yes” would be the preferred form in intense, often radio-transmitted communications.

And then there are other oddities of style, perhaps the most interesting of which is:

“Aye, sir,” Wickham nodded through gritted teeth.

Obviously, what this means to say is “Wickham nodded and said ‘aye, sir’ through gritted teeth.” I’m not sure how you nod “through” gritted teeth. It sounds painful. But even apart from that, just try saying “aye, sir” while gritting your teeth.

But, we’re not here for lyrical prose. It’s true that some of the most interesting books about submarine warfare feature clever writing and complex psychological drama, but this one is more in the vein of Tom Clancy, where the point of the story is to watch our heroes defy the odds over and over and defeat the bad guys with their awesome technology.

And you can’t say it isn’t popular! The book has almost 4,000 reviews on Amazon, most of them positive. And for all I know, it may be a perfectly realistic depiction of how a submarine operates. Which just affirms my desire to never be on one.

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Sentient Secrets is a short story that packs a lot into a few pages. It’s a teaser for the novel Sisters Arcana. The protagonist is Lulu Wren, whose company mandates her to do a journaling project with an AI assistant.

At first, Lulu finds the exercise tedious, stupid, and cringeworthy. But soon, after gathering enough input from her, the AI starts producing new entries in her voice. More than that, it soon seems that entries in the journal have predictive power.

It was a compelling concept, and made me interested in reading Sisters Arcana. I’ll probably pick that one up at some point.

I am, as you may have noticed, extremely interested in non-linear conceptions of time. Try reading about the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment sometime. It doesn’t actually demonstrate that information can be sent backward in time. However, it takes advanced knowledge of quantum mechanics to explain why it doesn’t demonstrate that, which means that it’s close enough to time-travel for government work.

Time-travel is a bit mind-bending to think about, and that is probably why it’s one of those concepts best suited to machine minds, which are entirely comfortable with hallucinations and things that sound cool but make no logical sense to those of us made out of meat.

This kind of techno-sorcery is what is going on in Sentient Secrets, and if this blend of esoteric mysticism and modern computer technology doesn’t put you in mind of the CCRU, well… congratulations, that means you’re a normal, well-adjusted person. How did you even find this blog? Were you perchance led to it by The Almighty Algorithm?

Well, like Hunter S. Thompson said, “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” The computer age is proving to be a weird one indeed, and Sentient Secrets is a concise distillation of that weirdness.

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Can there be such a thing as a cozy legal thriller? I’ve heard of cozy mysteries, and I’ve heard of legal thrillers, but both at once? Well, I am here to tell you that there is such a thing, care of the great C. Litka.

This is another of his Redinal Hu stories, and in this one Red gets a chance to demonstrate his legal acumen, as well as his less cerebral skills.

Hu is hired to act as the bodyguard of Constance Darma, the new head of House Darma, whose life is under threat from members of her family seeking to acquire her fortune. Mz. Darma, however, is unfazed by the increasing danger she and Red find themselves in; for she has a plan to thwart her would-be killers: she is going to alter her will to cede her inheritance to a member of a rival House.

As ever in Litka’s stories, even in matters of life and death, people are almost unfailingly pleasant and polite. The nice thing about this world is, when you walk into your house to find an enemy agent lying in wait for you, there’s no need to act like Jack Slater in Last Action Hero; you just politely tell them you’re not interested in whatever they have to say, and bid them good evening. You might even have a cup of te with them.

Speaking of that enemy agent, there’s also a bonus story, The Pawns’ Game, that fleshes out a bit more about these agents and how they operate. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I love the idea of a sort of “henchmen guild” that Litka plays with here. I’ve often joked about how villains in movies and TV shows seem to have an endless supply of people willing to do their dirty work for them. Litka offers a sound in-universe explanation for how this might actually be arranged.

All told, these two stories make for a fitting conclusion to the Redinal Hu saga… which is not to say I wouldn’t be pleased should Mr. Litka reconsider and decide to write more of them.

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Do I really need to review this book?

If you’re a long-time reader, you know I’m a Carrie Rubin fan. And there’s a pretty good chance you are too. In fact, you probably already are planning to read this book, no matter what my review says. At most, all I need to say is that it’s everything we expect from one of Dr. Rubin’s books, and that alone should send you running to buy it.

But, I would hardly be upholding my reputation as a writer of long-winded reviews if I didn’t add some corroborative detail. We’ve got the catacombs of Paris, rumors of sinister activities within them, and our heroine, Kelly Burke, a student working as an au pair with the very same family that had previously employed the titular missing woman, Erin Fenton.

Driven by the loss of another friend, Kelly is obsessed with finding Erin, no matter what obstacles stand in her way. She is assisted by her friend and fellow student, a young man named Wayne, who sticks by Kelly even as her obsession with finding the lost woman pushes her to run greater and greater risks.

That’s the plot. But the setting is just as important, 1980s Paris comes to life, drawn from the author’s recollections as one who herself was an au pair there at that time. While I’m not one to insist that a writer must experience something firsthand before writing about it (tricky for an author of science fiction 🙂 ), there can be no doubt that having experienced that time and place lends a feeling of plausibility to the entire story.

All these little touches make the book feel real, and like something that could plausibly happen. Of course, that doesn’t include the darker aspects of the story… I’m sure things like that could never happen. Right? Well, anyway, I certainly hope not. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing, but let’s just say the plot involves some of my favorite fictional tropes, which is yet another point in the book’s favor. I wish I could say more about this, but I just can’t without spoiling the story.

I’m tempted to say this might be Carrie’s best book yet. It’s difficult to choose, of course, and I’ll always have a soft spot for The Seneca Scourge, with its sci-fi twist, as well as for the dark psychological mysteries of Broken Hope and the Liza Larkin series. Everyone has their own preferences, but this one is surely top tier, in no small part due to the extremely likable protagonist, who is easy to root for from the start.

It occurs to me, as I put the finishing touches on this review and WordPress’s deeply unhelpful AI assistant offers to provide suggestions, that an AI could never write a book like this, drawn as it is from the author’s personal memories. What makes a good story are all the little pieces of themselves the author puts into it, and only Carrie had the exact combination of experiences necessary to write this book. That’s what makes it such a pleasure to read.

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There’s an old line which I’ve seen attributed to Pericles: “just because you don’t take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” I am very skeptical as to whether Pericles said this, but the sentiment is fundamentally sound. Politics exists in all nations at all times, and can be defined simply as the endless competition for the power of governing. In democracies, people compete for votes. In oligarchies, for the support of the strongest factions. In monarchies, for the favor of the crown.

Thus, there will always be politics. In the latest Brad and Karen thriller, the pair are both caught up in developments stemming directly from government policy changes. Brad in that much of his research funding has been terminated and Karen in that she is having to work with a much more aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Both are affected when one of Brad’s colleagues is taken into ICE custody and then mysteriously murdered. As usual, the duo works to solve the murder, though this time getting information through Karen’s usual channels is more difficult, as the federal authorities are very secretive about their operations.

If you’re a fan of Brad and Karen thrillers, I probably don’t have to tell you to read this. Unless, perhaps, you are also so horrified by current events that you don’t want anything that reminds you of them. There were a few, I think, who declined to read Mark Paxson’s wonderful novella The Jump for that very reason. And that’s a pity, because it really was a phenomenal book that explains current events far better than most mainstream news outlets.

So, my advice to prospective readers of this book is to be undeterred by the political themes. Even if you don’t agree with them! As you might guess, the distribution of ratings for this book is bimodal, with some long-time readers of the series being alienated due to the beliefs held by the main characters.

This may be a controversial opinion in itself, but this review just makes me sad. When did people lose the ability to read a story even if they disagree with some of its ideas? Are some people unable to read Kidnapped just because they are not Jacobites? Political disputes, up to and including wars, get forgotten with time. (“Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor…”) What doesn’t get forgotten are good stories.

Well, anyway, back to the book itself: in the end it practically turns into a spy-thriller tale, complete with secret agents leading double lives and a dramatic cycle of betrayal and revenge. And I love a good spy story.

Pick up The ICE Murders. Yes, it might force you to think about things outside of your normal perspective. But isn’t that what books are for?

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Do you like cozy mysteries? You’ll be hard-pressed to find a cozier mystery than this one. Indeed, I believe it is an example of what the young people call cozy-maxxing.

Of course, this is no surprise for fans of Litka’s work. All his stories take place in a warm, gentle world where even the crimes have a certain pleasant kind of charm. It’s like the world of Wodehouse, albeit with sci-fi technology. But this story is even closer to a Wodehousian never-never land than Litka usually gets. It has a quaint country fair, complete with games and sports. Shades of “The Purity of the Turf.” As if that weren’t enough, there’s a scene where a lady is painting in a field when she is surprised by a sudden rainstorm. Reading this, I instantly was reminded of this intro to a Beatrix Potter video I watched as a child, which is possibly the coziest thing ever.

You’ll notice I haven’t said much about the plot yet. Well, once more, the lawyer-turned-detective Redinal Hu, AKA “Red Wine”, is hired to investigate an intrigue among the Great Houses. A mysterious character called “Agent Nine” has been leaving ominous notes in the dead of night at a wealthy businessman’s estate. No one knows how this Agent Nine gets in or out. Some believe that he or she is no living creature at all, but a ghost haunting the old manse.

A good plot, but if we’re being honest, the plot is not really why we’re here. It’s just an excuse; much as Red’s frequent walks with his dog Ellington are an excuse to see the attractive lady painter holidaying in the nearby village. So if you want an escape into a far more pleasant world than our own, I encourage you to pick up this short story. My only complaint is that it goes by so fast—but then, Litka has given us no shortage of other delightful tales of near equal-coziness to enjoy as well.

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The great philosopher-humorist Zachary Shatzer recently told me I might read “too many books about gritty, unshaven antiheroes who say things like ‘Sometimes a man has to do what must be done.'” And he may well be right. I’m descended from Irish policemen, many of whom probably played by their own rules and refused to do things by the book. So I’m a sucker for stories about tough cops who can’t stand being hamstrung by red tape. My epithet might well be the line Gallus says to Sejanus in an episode of I, Claudius:

A song sung by every small-town corrupt policeman, which is what you are and what you should have stayed!

Well, come to that, I think Sejanus got a bad rap.  He was just trying to get stuff done in the notoriously corrupt Roman Empire. But I digress.

This book is about just one such gritty cop: David Forbes Carter, a brilliant, daring and extremely anti-bureaucracy Interplanetary Police Force agent. Since the mysterious death of his sister, Carter has become an increasingly loose cannon, and so the IPF assigns profiler Veronique de Tournay to try and get a sense of his unstable psychology and determine if he is still fit to serve.

It’s the classic set-up: two cops forced to work together, neither of whom likes the other. It’s been done a thousand times. But, as George Lucas once said, “they’re clichés because they work!” He ought to know. Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark are nothing but clichés, and they became some of the most beloved films in history.

So it is with Phoenix. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and that’s exactly what made it so much fun; like seeing an old friend again after a few years. It doesn’t hurt that Janeski and I seem to have more or less the same vision for what a future solar system-spanning civilization would look like. Space stations, corrupt mega-corporations, cultists, conspiracies, etc. I had a very easy time picturing this world.

And of course, those cultists and conspiracies and mega-corporations soon get in the way of Agent de Tournay’s efforts at profiling Agent Carter, and the pair is caught up in trying to solve a massive plot to destroy the entire interplanetary government. As often as not, they resort to Carter’s decidedly non-standard methods of operating, though with time, Agent de Tournay helps him understand that waving a gun in people’s faces isn’t always the best answer to a problem.

Like I said, if you’re expecting something groundbreaking, you won’t find it here. But if you’re expecting a fun adventure story in a great sci-fi setting, this is just the ticket. And it would make a great movie!

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The great comic actor Danny Kaye once said of his Gilbert & Sullivan parodies: “You know, I like Gilbert and Sullivan; I love singing it. I always wanted to make some records of some of them. Then I start in all good faith to sing it properly and then something goes haywire inside me; I go haywire–and the words go haywire.”

Something similar happened to me once: I wanted to write a classic 1940s noir-style detective story. Like Kaye, I started in good faith to do it, but it went haywire. That is to say, it turned into one of my typical action stories, with too many shootouts and too much technology. So I gave up on it.

What’s this got to do with C. Litka’s latest short story? Well, unlike me, when he tries to write a noir story, it doesn’t go haywire. On the contrary, he captures the vibe perfectly, despite the fact that as usual, the setting is not Earth, but his own cleverly constructed sci-fi world.

Nevertheless, he nails the essence of the noir tale. I could practically imagine the main characters as Bogie and Bacall, bantering back and forth as they tail their quarry through snowy streets on a dark evening.

Now, although I say the story is noir, it’s not jet noir. Part of the charm of Litka’s stories is the fact that, unlike so much modern fiction, they aren’t gratuitously violent or debauched. Well, hey, many of the classic noir films had to follow the Hays Code, too, and yet they turned out all right.

Enough of this! You want details, right? Well, sadly, I can’t give too many, because this is a short story, and to say much at all would give away the fun. It’s another Redinal Hu story, set a few months after the first one. Hu is once again drawn into an intrigue among the rival Great Houses. And as in the first story, what I enjoyed most about this is how he uses his wits, rather than violence, to effect a solution.

Admittedly, the same can’t quite be said of his dog, who gets involved in the action quite unexpectedly. Dogs are not known for handling matters with subtlety and discretion, which makes for an entertaining twist in what feels like an espionage caper.

All told, another highly enjoyable entry in Litka’s series-within-a-series that is the life of Redinal Hu.

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Book cover of 'Betrayal of Trust' by Geoffrey M. Cooper, featuring a woman in a lab coat with long hair, holding a bloodied syringe, set in a medical environment.

What’s better than a Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper? A Brad and Karen and Martin Dawson thriller! If you read earlier books in the series, you know him as the soldier-turned-medical-researcher who is a good friend of Brad, and who has helped the duo out in the past. I always enjoy his scenes, and so I was delighted when he teamed up with them again, assuming he would once again heroically help them all work as a team to catch the killer, as he’s done before.

Well, the way it all works out in this book is a little different. But I can’t say how. Sorry, you’ll just have to read it. What I can say is that the book is about a mysterious killer who keeps striking important medical researchers. Brad and Karen’s theories regarding her motives are forced to evolve with each crime, until eventually the pattern emerges in an unsettling way.

But what I think I liked best of all about this book is what the title refers to. The betrayal in question could be multiple things, including one possibility that isn’t even connected directly to the killer. I like ambiguity and mystery, leaving things up to interpretation. For one thing, it’s what helps keep critics like me in business. 🙂

Jokes aside, this is another good book from Geoffrey Cooper. I have only one slight, nit-picky complaint. As always in Brad and Karen books, part of the fun is the good food the protagonists enjoy as they try to crack the case. But I felt like in this one, it was always a lobster dinner.

Now, lobster is no doubt a northeast staple, so I can’t claim its not authentic. But I want variety! One lobster dinner is okay, but can’t we have some other delicacies, too?

I kid, I kid. This isn’t really a complaint, or if it is, it’s only the kind of complaint a long-time fan of a series can make. Like the Star Wars fans who wish there was a movie all about Porkins or somebody; it’s the kind of complaint that comes from a place of love, and I always love reading a Brad and Karen adventure.