Spring Preview 2015: Part 10

There's a little bit of Irish in all of us on March 17, and if you can't march along the Hudson, dance a jig or sing all the Irish songs you know, reading a good story is the next best very Irish thing to do. While you are at, it take a small Irish libation to your favorite reading spot.

Samantha Hayes made a reputation for herself as a master of the twisted psychological creepy tale in her debut novel Until You're Mine (Crown, 2014). In it, she introduced Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher, who returns in What You Left Behind (Crown, April 14). Lorraine was having marital troubles during her first case, and she finally left her husband. She decided to go visit her sister, Jo, in the upscale village of Radcote, Warwickshire. Instead of peace and quiet, she finds that despite the affluence of the area, there is an underlying sadness. In the recent weeks, there has been a cluster of teenage suicides. Jo is afraid that her 18-year-old son, who is sullen and distant, may be at risk as well.

Lorraine digs into the deeply disturbing and emotional issues of what may be driving these deaths. The themes of teenage suicide and bullying should make for a disturbing read, but unveiling secrets is what mysteries are about. With a tale like this, a tot of Irish whiskey may warm the cockles of your heart.

It is always fun to read mysteries set in far-flung locations, and I was immediately intrigued by S. J. Bolton's Little Black Lies (Minotaur, May 19). This novel takes the reader to the Falkland Islands. It sounds like a British village mystery with an exotic flavor.

The suspenseful tale begins with a missing child. Then another goes missing, then another. This is a very small community, relatively cut off from strangers and passersby, and so the microscope turns on the community itself. Naturally, no one feels safe and the hysteria rises by the hour. Even those without any secrets at all are afraid to trust even their best friends.

I'll read this one with my door locked and a baseball bat at hand because my nerves were screaming before I finished the first review. A hot cup of hearty Irish Breakfast tea may help you remember to forget the things that made you sad and never forget to remember the things that made you glad.

Secrets seem to be a common theme in mysteries and thrillers, and there are plenty in M. P. Cooley's Flame Out (William Morrow, May 19). When I read the words "spinning out of control" in the description of a story, I wonder whether I want to get on the merry-go-round again. On the other hand, I do have a fondness for the "cop leaves the big city for the small town" scenario. Not that we can all agree just what constitutes a small town––my own definition includes less than a dozen traffic lights and no Starbucks.

June Lyons is an ex-FBI agent who has become a police officer in Hopewell Falls––a misnomer for this small town if there ever was one. There are plenty of towns in what is called the Rust Belt of upstate New York. Part of June's job is to keep an eye on played-out factories and other businesses along the Mohawk River. June is following in her father's footsteps. He patrolled these same areas a generation ago. He once arrested a factory owner who was accused of killing his wife and child––whose bodies were never found. When June discovers the body of a badly burned woman in an old apparel factory and, later, another corpse, is it too coincidental to think that the deaths of the past may be connected to the present murders? In this case, some steaming Irish coffee will hit the spot as you ponder that––for what cannot be cured, patience is best.

I look forward to Walt Longmire's latest adventure with as much anticipation as I do the long-awaited harbingers of spring. In Craig Johnson's Dry Bones (Viking, May 12), Walt takes on the coldest case of his career.

You would think that if an old bone is found on the plains of Wyoming, it would be passed over as just a bit of another longhorn carcass. But no, a sharp-eyed Cheyenne rancher recognized these dry bones as a segment of Tyrannosaurus rex, attached to the most nearly complete dinosaur T. rex fossil ever found. Eagle eyes don't help the rancher in other ways, because he is found murdered not long after his discovery.

Who owns these old bones, anyway? Is it the rancher, Donny Lone Elk's family, the Cheyenne tribe, the state of Wyoming or Absaroka County? One thing Walt is good at is a balancing act that will measure a 66-million-year-old cold case against the skills of Longmire, Standing Bear, Moretti and company. I use that pre-order button on books like these. Ancient Irish moonshine called Poitín is just the tipple to accompany any saga of old bones.

It is human bones that interest forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway, and in Elly Griffiths' The Ghost Fields (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 19), she gets another chance to use her expertise. Ruth and her young daughter live in the marshy Norfolk area, which is suffering from summer heat. It makes my bones warm just to think about this.

Ruth works at a local university and is frequently called to assist police investigations. Naturally, she is called when a construction crew uncovers the crash site of an old World War II plane, complete with dead pilot in the cockpit. This is an area of Britain that is scattered with deserted air force bases,now referred to as the ghost fields, and they have an aura about them. The field in question in this story also has an odor about it, since it has been converted to a pig farm. It doesn't take long for Ruth to realize that the body in the plane is not of WWII vintage. He is a local aristocrat who had been reported lost at sea, and he belonged to the family who runs the pig farm. Not only that, but it seems that the pigs are covering up more than old bones.

Griffiths' books are always edifying, and Ruth's pas de deux with DI Harry Nelson gives the books a little spice. Guinness would be just the beverage to accompany a story that reminds us that when the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

D-L Nelson is a Swiss-American writer who has found a niche writing stories about third-culture kids (TCKs). She came to the field naturally, because she is one herself. TCKs or 3CKs are children raised in a culture outside of their parents' culture for a big part of their youth. An example would be a child born of French parents who live in Venezuela. The third culture is the amalgamation of the first two cultures.

Murder in Ely (Five Star, May 6) is the sixth of D-L Nelson's series on TCKs. The stories revolve around Annie Young-Perret, who has spent much of her life in Europe, making her living as a translator. In Murder in Ely, she is newly married to a French police detective, and she is spending some time in the English cathedral town of Ely with some friends who get caught up in a murder investigation. Her original purpose for the visit was to attend some book signings for her newly-published historical biography.

Historians make good sleuths, so Annie gets involved in the murder case while trying to keep a bunch of twirling plates acrobatically aloft. Authors writing about writing are penning what they know, and it usually makes for an entertaining read.

Bailey's Irish Cream is a beautiful blend of flavors to remind us that there are no strangers here, only friends you haven't met.

I am always looking for a humorous read at the end of a day's work and Man at the Helm (Little, Brown, March 10) by Nina Stibbe is billed to be just that.

The narrator is the nine-year-old Lizzie Vogel, who is the middle child in a family falling apart. It’s the 1970s and divorce is more and more common, but not exactly accepted in the village where the Vogels have relocated. The real cause of the children's isolation is that their mother is a mess. She's depressed, downtrodden, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and has apparently left her better self far behind.

If the children are not to be snatched up by social services, they have to take their future into their own hands. To this end, they plan to get their mother a new boyfriend, someone who will do more than spend time in the mother's bedroom. The girls set up a series of encounters with a variety of candidates, which the reviewers describe as hilarious, ranging from the ridiculous to the absurd.

It will take a deft hand to change a story such as this from a tragedy into a comedy, and I look forward to reading Stibbe's book. Ireland's number one fruit cordial called Miwadi. It comes in plenty of flavors, is loved by children and apparently is a hangover cure as well––suiting all the members of this household, as they count their blessings.

Golf, Anyone?

Coming from a family of golfers could have made me an eager player, but I decided years ago that I did not have the aptitude for recollecting where every shot ended up or the desire to share each moment either exhilarating or exasperating with folks after my ordeal. But I do enjoy watching Tiger Woods and reading about the game. You would think that a sport that commends and commands exemplary behavior wouldn't lend itself to murder and mayhem. But sometimes, what are you going to do with the perfect blunt object in your hand?

Real golfers, no matter what the provocation, never strike a caddie with the driver. The sand wedge is far more effective. (Huxtable Pippey)

Swing hard in case you hit it. (Dan Marino)

Of course, sometimes this weapon is used far away from the course, as in Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson.

As it finally warms up here, and heat waves wrap their humid tentacles around the denizens of the middle latitudes, winter is thankfully a dim memory. Walt Longmire, the sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming is immersed in snow. Walt is tired, and as cold as the winter, for several reasons. His daughter Cady had returned to the East to plan her wedding––for some reason leaving him out of the loop––one of his best officers is having second thoughts about his career, Walt himself has worries about his health that he is trying to suppress and, lastly, he won't let go and have the relationship he wants and needs in his love life. As always, he suppresses all his concerns in the job, and the job always comes through.

As in any town, there are people whose actions defy belief but that make perfect sense to them, and the story begins with Walt trying to figure out why a grandfather in his seventies has ended up in a ditch, after having been towed a few miles by a car. I know people like this, you know people like this, and so you settle in for this winter's tale.

The case this time involves an unusual death at a junkyard guarded by two vicious animals of great reputation. The corpse is old George Stewart himself, who was recently smacked in the head by a golf club swung by an irate neighbor. But this isn't what killed the old man. Before many days follow, the bodies are dropping like dominoes and the thread that ties them together is hard to find. Walt has to look within families to try and find connections, and he unearths secrets that are deeply hidden.

There are always many kinds of people who live in any community. Those who have been there for ages and those who saw the potential of the area and come to change it. This does not always make for peace.

As in any community, there is that ubiquitous junkyard surrounded by that chicken-wire fence that is an eyesore, but it provides an essential service. No one wants it in his or her neighborhood and everyone is afraid of the guard dogs. It is a symbol of the other side of the tracks. This sounds more like a big city or town concept, at least a place with tracks, not the wide-open-spaces-of-Wyoming kind of separation. But people are the same everywhere––with a Craig Johnson kind of twist.

There is a moral to this story. It is that problems are best faced straight on, whether they be people with criminal tendencies, family difficulties, physical problems, medical issues or junkyard dogs––or you may get bitten in the a$$.

You can always count on Craig Johnson to tell a great tale and take you into his Wyoming world for several hours. This was a great trip. I would score it an eagle (two stokes under par).

Golf is a game of coordination, rhythm and grace; women have these to a high degree. (Babe Didrikson Zaharias)

Following in the great Babe's footsteps by taking up golf is Lee Ofsted, a very interesting character who is a pro golfer in the LPGA. Lee is featured in the Charlotte and Aaron Elkins mystery series about her adventures as a sleuth as well as a competitor trying to break into the upper echelons of women's pro golf.

In Rotten Lies, the second of the series, Lee is 23 and she is playing the tour on a shoestring. Lee, for the first time in her life, is leading the boards at the High Desert Classic in Los Alamos, New Mexico, when the tourney is halted for a thunder storm. When play resumes, Ted Guthrie, the man most disliked at this club, is found dead on the course. In a cruel twist of fate, Lee injures her arm trying to revive Ted and she loses her first chance at winning on the women's pro circuit. The coroner suspects the lightning strike was no accident.

Lee has talent, courage, and an intuitive sense for seeing the way things lie––whether they're golf balls or nasty plots for murder. She senses that something is amiss at the Cotton Creek Country Club, so she and her lover, California cop Graham Sheldon, help snoop out a murderer. She believes someone closely involved with the game is the culprit, and all of the country club's colorful characters are suspect, from the old geezer holding a golf umbrella near the body, to her own cranky old caddy, Lou.

I was more disappointed in Lee's misfortune than she was. Lee takes life as it comes and, of course, is a good detective. This series is strong throughout and is great for a summer read. Score: Birdie (one under par)

Golf is a lot of walking, broken up by disappointment and bad arithmetic. (Attributed to Mark Twain)

One golf series that weaves the game of golf into the plots is Keith Miles's Alan Saxon string of golf adventures. Saxon is a pro who has passed his glory days. In Bermuda Grass, he has taken on the job of designing a new course for an exclusive resort hotel in Bermuda. He hasn't even had time to change into his bermuda shorts before he learns that there have been several attempts to sabotage the work.

For one thing, a new hybrid Bermuda grass has been stolen and equipment has gone astray. It seems also that there are hazards among the hazards when Saxon finds a disgruntled employee dead in the trees. Adding to the mayhem, Saxon's daughter and her girlfriend, who accompanied him to the Island, have been kidnapped. Saxon falls into a few traps before all ends well. Learning about Bermuda grass was the best part of the story for me. I felt like I was watching it grow. Score: Double Bogie (two over par)

Isn't it fun to go out on the course and lie in the sun? (Bob Hope)


Murder at the Nineteenth, by J. M. Gregson, is the first in the Superintendent John Lambert, Detective Sergeant Bert Hook compendium, both of whom are golfing enthusiasts in Gloucestershire, England. This is an extensive series, which include many crimes with golf themes.

In Murder at the Nineteenth, there is a violent murder at a historic country club, which included among its members Superintendent Lambert. The man was killed at the end of a business meeting, and all those attending are among the suspects. The detectives have to weave around all the lies in order to solve the crime. Readers who enjoy British police procedurals will enjoy these. Score: Bogie (one over par) (As the series progresses, the characterizations improve.)

I went to play golf and tried to shoot my age, but I shot my weight instead. (Bob Hope)

The Murder on the Links is the second of Christie's Poirot series, and from it comes a better picture of what this Belgian detective is like. The thing that struck me was that he might be a precursor to today's Adrian Monk. Hercule Poirot comes into a room and immediately looks around and, if he can, he will begin to straighten up the pictures on the wall, align edges of things out of place and generally look for what is out of order. This is basically the method to his madness, as the saying goes.

Poirot's second characteristic is that he leaves forensic details to others. He can't waste time on clues like cigarette butts or blades of grass because, frankly, he knows nothing about them and he refuses to make himself look ridiculous moving his nose across the ground like a hound dog. Leave that for the dogs, he says.

Poirot gets a frantic letter from France, where a Mr. Renauld is in fear for his life. Despite leaving immediately with his friend, Captain Hastings, he arrives too late. Renauld has been found in an open grave on a golf course wearing an overcoat, which is too large for him, over his underwear. Aside from the gross infringement of the dress code, the corpse has a look of absolute amazement and terror. Poirot makes the fantastic statement that he could see by the victim's face that he was stabbed in the back.

There are many entangled threads, involving several mysterious characters, that Poirot teases out in a delicate fashion, all the while poor Captain Hasting is totally lost at sea. He is a lot more than a day late and a dollar short. It made me wonder just why Poirot puts up with him. A young French detective named Giraud is on the case. He is apparently the best thing to be had in Paris. He is a young rapidly rising star in fact. His method is that of investigating the little clues of spent cigarettes, footprints and the like. He barely hides his contempt for Poirot when Hercule refuses to jump to conclusions. Naturally, Poirot has the last laugh while the Frenchman rushes back to Paris with a little less luster on his star.

I liked the early Poirot books the best because as yet I wasn't tired of the little grey cells comments. Score: Birdie (one under par)

It's so ridiculous to see a golfer with a one foot putt and everybody is saying "Shhh" and not moving a muscle. Then we allow nineteen year-old kids to face a game-deciding free throw with seventeen thousand people yelling. (Al McGuire)

Keep in mind that golfers putter on into old age and that it may be good sportmanship that keeps them in the game. Old golfers never die and they still have their drive.

What Goes Up Comes Down

Miami in March was my destination for several days of professional continuing education, and I had been following the 80° temperature closely on my weather app. I felt confident I could pack my bathing suit, because our hotel had at least four swimming pools. Hah!

The day after we arrived, the morning temp was 44° F. There was no sunshine, so none of us could be distracted from the primary purpose of our trip.

Aside from the drop in temperature, Miami had a lot to appreciate. The first thing I noted was the ubiquitous Miami hat––not the wide-brim chapeau of the gangster era, or even the Sam Spade topper, but a smaller snappy straw version of the fedora. So many things start one way and end up another. These days it seems the norm that things shrivel.

One of the few Miami sleuths that I am familiar with is Carolina Garcia-Aguilera's Lupe Solano, a Cuban-American princess-turned-investigator whose cases are an interesting look into Cuban America's nostalgia, and people's affection for Cuba, even though they only know it from the memories of their parents. Lupe may wear one of these hats, since they are seen on men and women alike.

Another interesting aspect of travelling is seeing what people are reading these days. Much of the time, along with the shrinking of bookstores in all the airports, e-readers are what trip reading has come down to. For the very serious reader, of course, there is a need to read something when electronic devices have to be shut off.

On the southern leg of my voyage, my seatmate was absolutely glued to Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan. In fact, he did not even take advantage of the three-ounce drink of water or juice that is the new smaller version of airline excursion refreshments. He told me a bit about the story. Private, a well-known investigation firm, has been hired to provide security for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Its agents are some of the best, and 400 of them have been sent to London to protect the competitors who have traveled from the hundreds of participating countries.

The opening ceremony is approaching when Private investigator Peter Knight is called to the scene of the ruthless murder of an important member of the games' organizing committee. It appears to be a deliberate, calculated, execution. Someone claims responsibility for the murder, promising to return the games to a more innocent era, free of corruption.

My seatmate rarely lifted his eyes from the page for the entire flight, wanting to finish the book before landing. It didn't happen, so I may have to read the book to see how it ends

On the return trip, I had a similar experience with a seatmate who was totally engrossed in her book, and who also actually wished the flight was longer. She was reading Before I Go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson.

This is the story about a woman, Christine, who wakes up every morning not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. She keeps a journal with all she has done, so she can have a reference about the previous days. She does not recall her husband, Ben, who is a stranger to her. This is all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. Without a memory, she has no identity. She doesn't know whom she can trust, and this includes husband Ben. Sadly, my seatmate had not finished the book by the time we landed, so she was unable to tell me who the bad guys were.

I had my head buried in my own mystery, As the Crow Flies by Craig Johnson––one of my favorite authors.

Walt Longmire doesn't really want to dwell on the fact that his daughter, Cady, is soon to be married. But he and his friend, Henry Standing Bear, are in Montana where, for some inexplicable reason, Cady wants the marriage to take place. As is often the case with weddings, plans are beginning to go awry at the eleventh hour, and Walt and Henry are seeking out some beautiful locations when their peace is shattered by a cry, as a young woman holding something falls from a cliff to her death.

The newly-minted chief of the tribal police, Lolo Long, is very short on experience, manners and patience. There are some minor and somewhat humorous brouhahas before she realizes that without Walt's aid, she will lose the case to the FBI––as well as any chance of finding the killer.

Walt is torn between his duties as a father, and those of a seeker of truth, as he tries to help Lolo out and teach her at least a little, so that she will survive her job.

Tres leches pancakes

Caramel flan

There were plenty of high points in my sojourn, but I will end by saying that the biggest comedown is exchanging tres leches pancakes with bananas and rum sauce and coconut custard for sugar-free Jell-O, which is what I get at home. I seem to need a little shrinking as well.

Umm good!

If It's Not One Thing, It's the Weather

I get plenty of opportunities to exchange small talk with people. Usually I start the conversational ball rolling if I can comment on the book I see in a person’s hand. If I were keeping a record these days, Nora Roberts would be way ahead in the category of book I take with me to appointments.

In these cases and in situations where there is no book, what people want to talk about is the weather. There are bunches of TV viewers who rarely move beyond The Weather Channel when they turn on their sets. Are you one of these? Well, lately I have been reading a few books in which the weather plays a major role. You could almost call it one of the characters in the play. Be it a fog or mist, a blizzard, tornado, torrential rain or heat wave, it is Mother Nature who forces the situations and directs the action.

Fog sets a certain mood. The inability to see things clearly and the danger inherent in the poor visibility create a sense of fear, of claustrophobia and a sense of helplessness.

In Red Bones, by Ann Cleeves, the discovery of the body of an elderly woman on a mist-shrouded night began the mystery. Dense fog was not an uncommon event on Whalsay, one of the smaller Shetland Islands. Those mists often covered the terrain, so that only people very familiar with it could get around.

Sandy Wilson, at home for a visit on Whalsay, is dismayed and shocked to find it is his grandmother Mima on the ground, and when he brings her inside he realizes she has been shot. Sandy is a policeman who works for Jimmy Perez of the Shetland police and he has already disturbed the scene of the crime.

In a few days, there is another death. Again, the facts are hazy. The victim is a young girl, Hattie, on the island doing an archaeological dig for her Ph.D. She and her assistant, Sophie, were working on a dig abutting Mima’s croft, and Hattie had become friends with her.

In this mystery, the mist may be a metaphor for haziness surrounding the cause of the two deaths. Murder, manslaughter, or freak accident are considered in the case of Mima, and the facts of murder or suicide in Hattie’s death are tossed back and forth and left unsettled. Sophie says that once the fog rolls in, the outside world doesn’t matter at all. People lose any sense of proportion. Tiny incidents that happened years ago fester and take over their lives.

The truth is that some of the incidents of the past were not so tiny. People on this little island were very active in the Norwegian resistance during WWII, as part of what was known as the Shetland Bus. This involved crafting small boats that could get in and out of the fjords. Shetland, specifically Whalsay, men delivered these boats across the North Sea. There are still some murky secrets about this time.

Jimmy, in his quiet way, teases out small wisps of information that lead him to the realization that, while appearing close-knit to an outsider, these Shetlanders feel enmity from old rivalries and there were motives for murder. As the mists and fogs disperse, Jimmy also finds light being shed on the crimes he is being pushed to solve.

This is a slow burning story, much like the peat fires that warm the crofts of these desolate but beautiful places. But no matter where you find them, people are not so very different and, while the ending is beautifully suited to the time and place, it would have worked as well in a Greek tragedy.

Water, not fog, can be a problem for people in more southern climes. It is the 1966 flood of the Arno that people still remember all too clearly in Florence, Italy. This disaster killed many people and destroyed a great amount of beautiful art and many precious rare books. Buildings along the street have high water markers, which clearly show the level the water reached that terrible time.

It is a cold, raining November in The Drowning River, by Christobel Kent, and Florentines have been suffering from persistent rain, which is bringing the flood of 1966 up in conversations and memories. Ex-police detective Sandro Cellini paces through his new office, waiting for customers. This office has been found for him by his wife, Luisa. He has set himself up as a private investigator, after two years of depression and aimlessness. Sandro left his job at the police on bad terms and has the mopes about it, to the point that he has taken two years to get some perspective.

One day, two cases come to Cellini, one about a missing art student and one about the death of an old man who seemingly committed suicide. The old man, Claudio Gentileschi, was a well-known artist and architect and his wife, Lucia, can't accept his death without knowing more about it.

Here is where the story gets a little murky, and the reader feels like he or she is walking through the rain. Luisa and Lucia get mixed up a lot as the story changes POV every few pages. The visibility worsens a bit when, at the art school, we run into two characters, Anna and Antonella, who we have to keep separated. They are a bit easier to keep straight, and we are grateful that the author chose not to give Antonella a nickname, like Anni or such.

The river is rising as Sandro, who is still unhappy and quite insecure, tries to find his feet with the waters swirling around them. Iris, the roommate of the missing art student, isn't sure what she should tell the police because, while she did not care for her friend deeply, there is still a certain loyalty. Iris and Sandro spend a lot of time investigating in the unrelenting rain and, when Sandro finally shakes the mud off his feet, the story picks up. I always enjoy books published by Felony and Mayhem, so I hope the next in the series is a little more on firm ground.

The major event in Craig Johnson’s Hell Is Empty is a killer blizzard that shuts down everything in Absaroka County, Wyoming, except for Sheriff Walt Longmire and the bad men he is tracking. One of these is a dangerous, evil sociopath who has taken off into the Bighorn Mountains. Aptly named Raynaud Shade, he has promised to lead the authorities to the grave of a young 10-year-old boy he had killed. The time of year is early May, a time that I think of as colored by azaleas, lilies and late tulips; not a vast expanse of snow, ice and more of the same.

For Dante in his Inferno, the ninth and the last circle of Hell is where Satan is buried waist high in ice, and bitter cold winds scarify the zone. It is in this circle that traitors are tortured and punished. The journey through the Inferno is not only about growing more distant from God, but also getting further away from humanity.

The characters in this book are on this same journey. As Walt trudges, struggles, climbs and crawls through the Wyoming Siberia, all he has is a copy of Dante’s Inferno and a small backpack of minimal survival gear. If he is going to survive and accomplish his mission, he has to rely on help from those with greater power than his.

It took me a while to shake this book off. I prefer his previous outings, where there is less weather and his gang is more in on the action.

If there is one series where heat envelops the reader it is in Robert Wilson’s West Africa series featuring Bruce Medway, a British expatriate who lives in Benin, but travels back and forth across the armpit of Africa, as it is called, because there are several counties nestling closely under the arm of the continent as it juts out into the Atlantic. Medway is a fixer; a facilitator who tries to make a living by helping people out, providing they are not criminals. Unfortunately, he doesn’t exactly have a good nose for scenting out who are the good guys.

The first in the series is Instruments of Darkness, and Bruce starts out simply trying to facilitate the sale of some rice, but ends up looking for another Englishman who was working in the shea butter trade and is missing. Benin, Ghana and Togo are in turmoil, and Medway has to stay on the right side of the law, which fluctuates day by day.

The stories in Wilson’s African quartet are fast-paced, occasionally violent, but there are flashes of humor to temper it. Wilson has a way with descriptions that resonated with me and I recall them from time to time because they are so apt, like the girl with the sputnik hair. Sometimes it is so hot, the people move at  a slow pace, and the vultures look at each other as if to say "Dinner soon." This is really weather worth talking about. Whether you want to experience it is up to you. I will appreciate it vicariously.