Halting State by Charles Stross

Halting State is a technological thriller set in 2018 in Scotland. The starting point is a bank robbery by a gang of orcs in the virtual reality world of Avalon Four. From there it expands into a threat on the world's information infrastructure, and the use of virtual reality worlds and role playing games for governments to conduct clandestine activities.

The technological future Stross imagines is well grounded and not unlikely to be available in ten years. It is a fascinating look at the expansion of cell phone technology and gaming.

I have a longer review of this book up on Revish.

The Judas Heart by Ingrid Black

I was thinking recently that it is not fun trying to browse the big box bookstores. They just are not laid out for discovery. Which leads me to this:

If I didn't have Internet Access
And If I hadn't discovered blogs
And If I hadn't found Crime Always Pays
And If Declan Burke hadn't offered a copy of The Judas Heart to his readers
And If I hadn't scored a copy
Then I might never have discovered Ingrid Black.

Ingrid Black is actually the pseudonym of a wife-and-husband writing team living in Dublin, Ireland. The Judas Heart is the third in a series featuring former FBI agent Saxon and all are set in Dublin. Saxon is a woman whose first name do not know. The first two in the series are The Dead (2003) and The Dark Eye (2004).

Saxon lost her faith in being a Special Agent, that they were actually accomplishing anything, and resigned after five years. Now she is a true-crime writer, living in Dublin and in a relationship with Grace Fitzgerald, Detective Chief Superintendent with the Murder Squad of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Saxon is a bit of a loose cannon,impulsive, tenacious, and not known for her people skills.

As the story begins, Saxon sees a former FBI colleague and mentor, Leon Kaminski (known as J.J.) at a book stall. They make eye contact but before Saxon can get to him, he deliberately gives her the slip and she is left puzzled and annoyed. Over lunch with Fitzgerald we see that Saxon inclined to over analyze Kaminski's actions. Fitzgerald suggests that she is making things complicated and suggests that she find out where he is staying and say hello. Then Fitzgerald gets a call that a murdered woman has been discovered and is off to handle the investigation leaving Saxon to act on Kaminski.

Then things get complicated: Saxon knew the murdered woman slightly; the new Assistant Commissioner asks Saxon to join the investigation as a consultant; Saxon begins to find out what happened to Kaminski after they parted ways but the information raises more questions; Saxon begins to suspect that there is a connection between Kaminski and the murder; and who is Buck Randall III anyway.

I really enjoyed this book and rate it one of my top reads of 2007. I like it for several reasons but let me get the technical reasons out of the way first.

• The Judas Heart is a first person narrative. This approach appeals to me because I often find it more interesting to know only what the narrator knows.
• The evidence is uncovered in the course of normal police investigation (with some dramatic license). Saxon is the one who makes the big break but with a few initial clues I think you can argue for inevitable discovery.
• The authors do not have Saxon withhold information from the police. I get really annoyed with a character deciding to keep information to him/herself for no logical reason except to complicate the investigation for the reader.

The main reason I like this book is Saxon. She is one of the more intriguing characters I've read lately and I've been looking for a good series character. I don't think I've been as taken with a female character since Carol O'Connell introduced Kathy Mallory in Mallory's Oracle. As you read Saxon's narration you can almost feel her mind at work, brooding at times, at others furiously racing, rearranging what she knows, trying to fit evidence into a framework. All the while there is Grace Fitzgerald trying to keep her focused and rational.

I don't believe that The Judas Heart is available in the U.S. yet but you can find the first two in the series on Amazon. While you are waiting, start with them. That way you will have the back-story when you get your hands on the latest.

An Ice Cold Grave

An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 3)on Amazon.com
Charlaine Harris, 2007

I posted a review of this book over on Revish and I would like to push some business their way. Read the review by clicking here.

Bad Monkeys

Bad Monkeys on Amazon.com
Matt Ruff, 2007

Highly recommended.

As a librarian I'm not sure I should admit this, but I picked up Bad Monkeys entirely because of the cover. Talk about leaping out at you from the shelf, the publishers not only gave it a bright yellow, vinyl cover but made it nine and a half inches high by five inches wide. That's an image of a mandrill monkey you see on the front cover, though at first I took it for a Rorschach ink blot.

Bad Monkeys has one of my favorite thriller themes, the super secret organization. Jane Charlotte is a member of an organization dedicated to fighting evil. It isn't part of any government, has no fixed location, and is only known as "the organization." The departments within the organization have long and convoluted names. Jane works for the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, nicknamed Bad Monkeys. The intelligence gathering group is The Department of Ubiquitous Intermittent Surveillance otherwise known as Panopticon.

What's a secret organization fighting evil without an equally secret adversary? the organization is opposed by Mandrill, a group that believes in evil for the sake of evil.

As the book opens, Jane has been arrested for murder and is undergoing an interview to determine her sanity. She told the detectives that arrested her that she is in a secret crime-fighting organization, something not likely to accepted by law enforcement. The verbal sparing between Jane and Dr. Vale is well written and interesting. The present day interview is interspersed with flashbacks as Jane describes her bad girl youth, recruitment into the organization, and the events that led to her capture. Is she really an operative or is she nuts?

The capabilities of the organization are more in the realm of science fiction and I imagine Homeland security would like to have some of their gadgets. Panopticon (see above) not only knows what you read but how often reread certain passages and if you laughed inappropriately (like the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah). They literally see and hear everything. That Marlene Dietrich poster above your bed, yep the eyes see what you do. Jane relates a time when she was questioned by Dixon from Malfeasance, the Panopticon subdivision that investigates operatives. They are discussing The Delta of Venus, a copy of which Jane stole when she was twelve.

"It's curious sort of literature, though, isn't it?" Dixon said."for example, the third story in the book - the one entitled `The Boarding School' - concerns a young student at a monastery who is ogled by priests and sexually violated by his classmates ... This is what you consider wholesome erotic entertainment?"
"I don't remember that story."
"Don't you? I'd have thought it was a favorite. According to my records, you read it nineteen times while the book was in your possession."
"According to your records?"
"Library Binding."

Bad Monkeys is a good read if you are partial to this genre as I am. It is well paced and I had a difficult time not finishing it in one sitting. The concepts are intriguing and the action sequences well done. Ruff successfully keeps the reader wondering about Jane through to the end.

Portugese Irregular Verbs

Portuguese Irregular Verbs on Amazon.com
Alexander McCall Smith, 128 pages, 2003

Recommended as a nice, light read.

A friend issued a challenge regarding this book. In Blogging for a Good Book she wrote

I am going to recommend a book that I have never, ever, ever been able to get anyone to read.

J_ can now say that one person (besides her mother) has read this book on her recommendation. It is, as she promised, a humorous spoof of pompous academics and I quite enjoyed it.

Alexander McCall Smith is a professor of medical law in Scotland so he is entitled to make fun of academics. He arrived on the popular literary scene with The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency set in Botswana, Africa where he was once a law professor.

I also rather like the hedgehog on the cover. It relates to the name of the main character of the book, Professor Dr. Moritz-Marie von Igelfeld. Igel is German for hedgehog and a hedgehog is on his family coat of arms. I personally tend to relate hedgehogs to Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. If you haven't read any of these books then looking up the hedgehog reference will make you either recoil in horror or send you to the library to find them.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs is the first in the Professor von Ingelfeld series and consists of eight loosely related stories featuring von Igelfeld and occasionally his colleagues, professors Prinzel, and Unterholzer .

von Igelfeld is a professor at the Institute of Romance Philology and author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs

a work of such majesty that it dwarfed all other books in the field ... It had been well received - not that there had ever been the slightest doubt about that - and indeed one reviewer had simply written, `There is nothing more to be said on this subject.

von Igelfeld longs for the recognition that he believes is his due but finds honors and rewards (professional and personal) going to colleagues of lesser stature (in his eyes).

Here are descriptions of three of the stories that I hope will interest you in this series.

In the lead story, The Principles of Tennis, professors von Igelfeld, Prinzel, and Unterholzer, decide to learn tennis. Being academics, they believe that reading the book of rules is sufficient to begin play, much to the amusement of the other guests of the hotel in which they are staying. They eventually give it up as a flawed game. probably due to the book having been written by someone from Cambridge.

Duels, and How to Fight Them, is one of my favorites. von Igelfeld, decides, entirely on outward appearance, that an acquaintance must be a skilled swordsman because he looks like a swordsman, and accepts a duel on his behalf. It does not go well.

Early Irish Pornography is my favorite story. No actual pornography is involved in case someone of a delicate nature is inclined to pick up this book. von Igelfeld is in Ireland assisting Professor Vogelsang who "knows more about past anterior verbs in Early Irish than anyone else in the world." This includes the Irish about whom, von Igelfeld says

Nobody in Ireland knows anything about early Irish. This is a well-established fact.

Part of the amusement in this chapter are the attempts of the ever proper von Igelfeld to come to terms with the casualness of the Irish, particularly in how they address each other.

Vogelsang and von Igelfeld find old Sean who still speaks a version of Early Irish. They knock on his cabin door and are greeted by furious shouting. After several days they have a volume of phonetically recorded Sean's tirades. Later, von Igelfeld notes

'There is some very rare material here,' he said, poring over von Igelfeld's phonetic notations. `Look, that verb over there, which is used only when addressing a pig, which was thought to have disappeared centuries ago.' ...`Everything he says to us is, in fact, obscene. Everything you have recorded here is a swear word of the most vulgar nature. But very old. Very, very old!'

Upon their return to Germany von Igelfeld sets to transcribing his notes. Unfortunately, his landlady happens upon the notes leading to an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Like most of Smith's other works, the von Igelfeld books are a quick read. I didn't time myself, but at 125 pages in length, I don't think it took me much more than an hour to an hour and a half to finish Portuguese Irregular Verbs.