009. The Way Through The Wood (1992).

The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter (1992).

My first shot at world famous INSPECTOR MORSE (1975-1999).

It has everything to justify GOLD DAGGERS (The best crime novel of the year 1996 in England).

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layers. – E. MORSE. A senior CID (Criminal Investigation Department) officer with the Thames Valley Police in England.

Sherlock Holmes of the 20^th century (1976) with huge appetite for art,  Poetry, music, crossword and anything containing alcohol and even bigger appreciation for beautiful women. 

He drinks everyday with every possible occasion, and probably memorizes every location of every pub in Oxford, even possibly entire London.

Even if he is portrayed as a gentleman detective, he is actually quite a pervert, not like Holmes who is stoic to the level of absurdness.

I don’t think he is fit nor a good looking guy, but it seems that he always get the attention of the beautiful women and quite often, very successfully get intimidate with them.

Not like other super detectives, Morse actually makes mistakes quite often and he knows it. So he is much more careful when he makes a final decision.

Like Holmes, he could be much more important person in the police force, but his lack of ambition and cynicism toward the bureaucrats in the force creates enemy and probably prevent his promotion. 

In his spare time, he sometime reads pornographic novels too but keeps it secret except for his sidekick and an only friend Lewis. His other friend Dr. Maximilian Bryn(Max) passed away in 1992.

Contrary to all those images, Morse actually has a brilliant mind (intuition) and most sophisticated brain (memory) in entire police force. Not to mention, wild imagination, too.

 

And this contradiction in his character apparently appear to women, too.

By the way, E stands for Endeavour which is finally revealed at the end of the book called “Death Is Now My Neighbour (1996).” Second from the last inspector Morse novel. Morse passed away at the end of his last book called “Remorseful Day (1999)” with heart failure.

LEWIS. Very typical sidekick guy. Faithful, supportive, dedicated and honorable just like good old Watson. 

Lewis himself is not a bad investigator. Probably the only person Morse is actually caring. 

Married. No children.

STRANGE.  Chief Superintendent in Kidlington Police HQ. Boss.

A big chubby guy who is not nearly as smart as Morse or even Lewis, but smart enough to leave everything to Morse when things going tough.

He is only one year order than Morse, but talks like an old man when he is talking about something other than case itself like life or anything else for that matter.

Like all the good bosses, he knows how/when to push the button to motivate his detectives.

He is a good friend of Morse, too.

He is fully aware of that his job is totally depends on Morse’s performance.

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lace. – Morse is Chief Inspector of Thames Valley CID, Oxford (one and half hour bus ride from London). Therefore his main action takes place around this area. However,  because of reputation, whenever complex case emerges from other area, he is somehow get involved with the scene regardless of the location.

For this book, he is in Lyme Regis, Dorset (about 3 hour drive from Oxford), one of the most beautiful town in the South with a harbour, a forest, an old  church and the beautiful hotel called The Bay Hotel.

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lot. – In this book, Morse is after A Swedish Maiden who disappeared out of thin air about a year ago. Due to the lack of any kinds evidence, the case is totally stalled since then.

The case comes back to life when some anonymous person sends the letter (poem) to the Times, daily newspaper, to provoke the case and kind of make fun of the police. Inevitably, Morse has to cut short of his rare vacation and start the case with help of Lewis and his colleague/rival (?) Johnson.

From here on, Morse has to deal with all the regular things that all the great detectives have to go through.

1.      lying suspects/witnesses

2.      incompetent colleague

3.      motives hidden so well, it takes endless speculation/imagination to peel off all the covers

While taking care of his personal needs,=Drinking and dating.

Collin Dexter knows how to carry the story with proper pace and how to put on the twist and when to pull out golden rabbits from his brilliant hat.

You don’ win Gold Daggers for just being great. You have to be awesomely GREAT!!

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erdict. –A Very solid detective book.

Nothing too flashy or exciting but NEVER boring. More like Agatha Christie kind of novel with its plot, pace and characters.

Believe or not, TV show adapted from Inspector Morse book is actually as good as his  books or even better.

What’s even more amazing is when the main actor, John Thaw, who played  Morse passed away in 2002, instead of finding other actor for Inspector Morse, show’s producers promote Lewis (sidekick) to Chief Inspector and make him divorced, so that he will be in the similar situation like good old Morse, and broadcast a few show under the name of LEWIS!!  (Like, who needs BATMAN when ROBIN is young and kicking!!).

One more thing to add. Every chapter starts with quote from other books/poems and this kind of dedication/playfulness to detail make this series quite popular, I think.

Like all the great British writers, P.D. James, Christie, very very solid, satisfying book.

008. INFERNO (1976).

INFERNO by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. (1976)

A complete overhaul of the classic DANTE’s INFERNO.

Seemingly crazy job is perfectly and masterfully pulled out by the two GREAT writers, LARRY NIVEN and JERRY POURNELLE.

If Terry Gilliam(“Brazil”) produces a movie based on Dante’s book, THAT movie would look a lot like this book.

Absolute MASTERPIECE!!

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layers. – Allen Carpentier. Very popular Science Fiction writer who chooses to entertain readers than educate or impress them.(Therefore, big paycheck but no awards what so ever.) 

This is how all starts. 

Allen, trying to win over fans for his first ever HUGO Award (which, apparently, is given to the most popular author by fan votes.), started the stupid drinking game and with his last pull, literally dropped himself to death, 8^th floor hotel balcony to the ground while nobody was  watching.

After going through what appears/feels/sounds like an eternal darkness, Allen wakes up in a desert somewhere (Hell). In there, he is picked up by Benito Mussolini and with Benito’s lead/guide/help, Allen travels down all nine layers of Hell. 

From the moment he opens up his eye in Hell, Allen, with unlimited curiosity of the writer, tries to explain everything he sees in Hell with science, and comes out with several theories. Here are some.

1.      He was killed and frozen to preserve his brain.(“Corpsicle”)

2.      Somehow, someone (“Builders”, he called) re-created him with unbelievably high-tech method (no hunger, no fatigue, no injury), so he must be in thousands of years away from his day on earth.

3.      And now he is in some kind of amusement-park(city) of damned, which he just calls INFERNOLAND!!

4.      Yes. As you can see, he does NOT know he is in Hell, up until three quarters of the book.

Sounds kind of stupid, right? Believe me, it is NOT. It actually is funny as Hell.

Benito Mussolini. A weird looking guy with big square jaw and very wide fore-head. He leads Allen to the bottom of Hell(nine layers) just like Vigil did it for Dante. 

Eventually, he and Allen becomes a good friend and they try to save other damaged souls together. He has been trying to save others for decades, but so far only succeeded six times (six persons so far).

At the end of the book, something unexpected happens to him and he is …well, let’s just say all his hard works are paid off. I think.....

Allen and Benito, they make a great team like the duo in Lethal Weapon or even Rush Hour. Later, they add couple more crazy guys to the team, Corbett the space shuttle pilot and the authentic Billy the Kid, and make the journey even more crazy (hilarious!! Billy is ). 

There are lots of other historically famous/infamous persons in every level of Hell and cause for their eternal damnation are mostly hilarious but make complete sense. 

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lace. –  LARRY NIVEN and JERRY POURNELLE, they  completely overhaul Hell into 20^th century version of Disney-Hell-land. Sounds cheap? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But once you start reading the book….

Lucky for us readers, this new version of HELL is the brainchild of the two upmost imaginative/creative/funny as Hell writers, you can seat back and admire their achievement.

There are Hells for every possible sin. For example, there is an island for people who let go killers by taking bribes, altering the laws or giving the false statement. Naturally the place is filled with lawyers, judges and jury members. Then there is one for the developers who bulldoze the nature spitting out the pollution for money. And all those punishments are in a permanent loop.  Never-ending story. There are factories where on the one side, half the prisoners, under unbearable heat, constantly built the really heavy metal-belt which goes into the other side of the wall. And on the other side of the wall, the other half of the group dismantles the belt and sends the parts back into the other side, also under unbearable heat. So the machinery is screaming and the damned are painfully hard at work, FOREVER!! 

The looping cycle that NEVER ends is the definition of Hell.

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lot. – Same as original INFERNO. Allen dies and goes to Hell and finds the way out (or die trying). Not with angel but Benito who is not your typical text book angel (no wings!!).  I guess if you stay in Hell long enough, anyone trying to help you out of your misery must look like an angel no matter what.

After Benito picks up Allen from eternal darkness, he guides Allen to the bottom of Hell where, according to Dante’s Inferno, there is a door to Heaven. (=knocking on Heaven’s door!!)

I am saying this again. It is the design of the Hell that makes this book much much more than updated version of original.

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erdict. –First of all, for a book written more than 36 yrs ago (1976), this book is surprisingly fresh and modern. This tells you these two writers are not just wildly imaginative, but also know how to tell the story, too. Those two combination are not easily come by.

Second, despite of all the religious implication, you know Dante and all his naïve Roman Catholicism, two writers very wisely chose NOT to use the same kind of theory/philosophy for their version of Inferno. What that means is that this book is NOT a religious book. Yes, it deals with Heaven and Hell and all kinds of punishment for all the sins, but not from any kind of specific religious point of view.

Finally, Dante’s Inferno, first one out of Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), is perhaps the first ever written Science Fiction novel in mankind’s history, I think. I am sure there are others explored the similar theme, but the scale of it (- Hell is a huge pit inside the Earth with the bottom opens up to the other side of Earth and HEAVEN is some kind of floating island in the sky=spaceship!! –) just make it the one and only. 

These two guys- Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – took up the almost impossible task of re-newing one of the most influential classic and came out on top of everyone’s expectation. Well, at least they completely blew away my mind.

It is a great reading experience top to bottom.

After the turn of the last page, huge satisfaction is guaranteed

to follow.

You will be proud of yourself for finding and finishing this book.

007. The Fencing Master (1988).

The Fencing Master by Arturo Perez-Reverte (1988).

What a strange book. It was started out as an old-fashion mystery book or perhaps adventure? Then turned into the history lecture of Italy in 1868, year in Revolution.  With the last quarter of the book, it went back to the original mystery mode. 

But for the last 30 pages, LAST THIRTY PAGES!! It was totally worth waiting for. Not that the rest of the book are bad or something, but the final chapter has such a different color/feel than others, it was quite shocking.

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layers. – JAIME ASTARLOA=Don Jaime. The classic example of old fashioned gentleman and this come from the entire persons in this book who lives in 1868. So even people from 19^th century think he was born at least 100 years too late. He has all the virtue of the good old gentleman and the vice of the grumpy old man. (He is over 60 yrs old, and in 19^th century, that is very old.)

Very proud.  He is considered as the last great old-school fencing master and even at his age, he still is capable of taking down men bigger and faster than himself.

Contrary to his image, he actually did have quite a colorful life. Army (war), Fencing Academy and Love affair (duel) made him a very experienced fighter, too. I think, if author touched more of Don Jaime’s past in the middle part of the book, it might help me turn the pages little faster.

After coming back to Madrid from Paris, Don Jaime detached himself completely from outside world and dedicated his entire life fro either teaching a few rich patron’s kids for making a living or working on his ULTIMATE FENCING MANUSCRIPT which upon completion, may well change the fencing world for good.

LUIS de AYALA. A playboy and a serious gambler. One of Don Jamie’s rich students but also a friend and a good fencer, too. He was just one of the characters on the background in the beginning, but series of the events turned him into the key person once story is moving forward with more speed. Just wait and see.

ADELA de OTERO. A gorgeous beauty with large eyes with violet color. Slender but voluptuous, intelligent but fierce. Beautiful/mysterious enough to drive men to do crazy stuff without thinking. On the other word, a perfect femme fatale. 

Her inquiry of fencing lesson from Don Jaime, woman learning fencing was considered as not just outrageous but also “insult” to the fencing masters at these days, is what starts this novel rolling. She also wanted to learn not just the regular fencing lesson, mind you, but the lethal and ultimate thrust called “ Two-Hundred-Escudo thrust” secretly invented by Don Jaime. Don Jaime after lengthy inner-debate, finally decided to teach her the secret method and that is the one of the BIG turning point of this book.

The ragtag band in the café PROGRESO. 

·        Fausto, old manager.

·        Agapito Carceles, the defrocked priest, also journalist.

·        Don Lucas Rioseco, once rich widower with no family.

·        Marcelino Romero, a pianist teacher madly in love a wrong woman.

·        Antonio Carreno, civil servant pretended to be a both conspirator and mason, but neither.

It is through their conversation, mostly argument and conspiracy, we learned all about the status of Madrid and Italy in 1868. All of them meet in the same café, sit in the same spots, drink coffees, eat toasts and talk about politics from past to future everyday. Bunch of lovely comedians, really.

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lace. – A beautiful city of  Madrid, Italy in 1868. Out of all the exotic novels I happened to put my hands on, this one came out as a little surprise. You see, normally, when writers decide to write so-called period or exotic novels, they make sure to put a lot of emphasis on PERIOD/EXOTIC part, you know, rich details of cities and the streets, etc… But this book is not really one of them. 

There are, of course, descriptions of cities and streets from police station to Don Jaime’s modest house, but not like  the large scale you find in other exotic novels where city itself is almost main characters( check out Bangkok 8 ).

Never the less, you will find more than enough portrayal of the city to enjoy the novel.      

 

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lot. – It has slow but quite solid storyline going on all through out the book. And later on, you will find out that author very masterfully lays down all the plot line based on THE FENCING MOVES!! 

Therefore, TITLE=The fencing master, I guess.

As I mentioned at the beginning, it is started out as, I don’t know, a mystery? The tension is very slowly building for the first couple of chapters, but you can kind of sense something is not right and as soon as Odele knocked the door of the fencing master. You just know dice is already in the air and Don Jaime can not go back to his normal peaceful life anymore. Something is going to happen or already happened.

Then like all the good mysteries, corpses start piling up and BAMB!! FINAL CONFRONTATION!!  Although it takes quite a while to get that stage....

And the ending? Honestly, it is quite SHOCKING. Being totally different from the rest of the chapters, it is …hum....something else? Like you are watching shopping channel and suddenly they are showing zombie movie? It is  awkward but astonishing. Can’t tell you more than this. Sorry.

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erdict. – I say this a lot, lately, but I don’t think this book is for everyone.

Like some of the classical musics, it enters with the slow, calm numbers and retires with the full swing, BANG!!

If you somehow read through the middle part, you will be rewarded at the end. I was frozen for a couple of minutes at the end.( What? You gotta be kidding me?? kind of ending.)

Come to think of it, this book is, very unlikely but, a love story, too. 

Interesting reading if you don't mind a bit of a history lecture. 

Thank you.

006. BOMB HUNTERS (2011).

 BOMB HUNTERS by Sean Rayment (2011).

There are two kinds of solders who fight the war. One who fight it in their desks in air-conditioned war room thousand miles away from the actual warfare, talking about national security and all the good stuff. And the other who fight the dirty, dangerous and scarily as hell war in the bullet-ridden front line.

Not like the first who fight for ideology, TV spot light and kickback, the latter fight for each other and for the ultimate goal of every foot soldiers- SURVIVAL!! (honestly, nothing else matter to them.)

This book is all about this.  SURVIVAL.   At it’s best/worst.

This book can actually depress you profoundly. Trust me. It happened to me, too…  Sigh

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layers. – First of all, none of the soldiers, except very few crazy guys, wanted to be in Afghanistan-the most dangerous country in the world right now. They are all there because they just don’t have any choices. For poor young guys who come from poor neighbors and nothing to lose, the only and fast way to get an education and get their life back into the track is enlist to the army. This is the only job available and coming home alive is the only way to win the war for them. Nothing else matter.

Crazy journalist SEAN RAYMENT, crazy because he went to war with his own will, leaving behind  a young boy and wife in spite of  sudden EXPLOSIVE death of his two friends just few weeks before his departure to Afghan, returned to the war and captured the exact sense of what actually is going on inside the real, desperate war, and again, as a reader I MIGHTLY thank him for his courage and work!! What a marvelous writer he is!!

Let me just quote some facts for your  better understanding, ok?

Normally, there were about 200 IED incidents in every week in 2010. (IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device – land mine, SILENT KILLER - what soldiers called). If you do the math, that’s about  9000 explosion a year, 28 per a day. Make matter worse, recently some geniuses in Taliban came up with the  new kind of IED with low or no metal content making them really hard to be detected with metal detector or even with bare eyes.

This is a job where one simple mistake means death or amputation.

As a professionally trained soldiers, whose routine deportation period is 6 months for the British army, they have to survive half a year with this fantastically dangerous job.

It seems like a lot of young soldiers opened up their hearts to the writer/journalist and talked about almost everything. What this war meant to them, how much they missed their family and why the fellow soldier’s death affected them so much, etc. I’ve got the impression that talking to someone neutral who never directly involved in warfare might calm their mind down.

Their job is similar to those of forensic scientist. As a bomb hunter you always have to try to disarm the bomb without triggering the explosion, because operators want to the device intact so that later they can analyze them and extract all the vital info out of it which help identify the device/enemy. Therefore, saving tons of lives later.

By the way, do you know how easy it is to make a IED?

 Most of them are nothing more than simple, hand-made wooden shoebox with little bit of rusty metal part for the trigger. For a deadly device which blew away so many human lives/parts, it is just ridiculously simple to make one. Anyone can make it in their kitchen in maybe 25 mins? And since the most area of Afghan have been in the war almost forever, they can find pretty much any material for the explosive-part of the bomb in side street. They are just lying there waiting. I am telling you, it is stunning!!

Also, killing bomb-disposal team is regarded as highest honor for Taliban, it become the deadly chess matching games in which both sides always tried to come up with new tactics to out-match each  others.

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lace. – What makes their job even harder is the surrounding nature. The temp is over 40 degree, almost 50 for at least  9 months a year. With their equipment weight around 40 kg, and armor which somehow raise the temp for 10 more degree, the bomb hunters essentially are forced to work only with their equipment( no armor) and finish the job quickly before the heat knock them down.

Also, because virtually it is impossible to find any good local police or arm force to assist the British army, they have to protect themselves and the locals from Talibans who attack both with guns and IEDs.

V

erdict. – A lot of first-hand details of war, army bases and lives within them. Most of stories are quite festinating because they are so different from that of ours- civilians.

Politicians all talk about sacrifice/duty but sacrifice is easy to talk about when you are not the one doing it. This book is full of professional soldiers who choose the jobs which require the sacrifice for various reasons.

So-called, authentic voices of the soldiers are so realistic and convincing this book is actually fantastic reading experience but the same time quite depressing too.

My heart goes to all the soldiers and their families.

*make sure you check all the photo-inserts in the middle section of the book before you start reading. They all looked happy and beautiful.

005. BANGKOK 8 (2003).

BANGKOK 8 by John Burdett. (2003)

Do you want something bizarre/outrageous/crazy/extreme and over-sexed? Then dig into the world of John Burdett’s BANGKOK trilogy. Disappointment is not even an option for this series!!

Even better, the series consisting of BANGKOK 8, BANGKOK HAUNTS & BANGKOK TATTOO gets more and more wild and insane with each proceeding series, the last one, TATTOO, even I had a little hard time finishing it.

Never cease to amuse, this is bizarre/crazy and funny (yes it is hilarious at times), at it’s best.

And here is BANGKOK 8 which started everything.

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layers. – Sonchai Jitpleecheep. Main guy-after reading all three volumes, I still don't know how to pronounce his name. The only cop in this city who is not bent or twisted. That ,by the way, is not an easy task when your mother is ex-prostitutes who operates big brothel and your boss, colonel, not just runs the huge police department but also controls everything else in his district-drugs, sex, alcohol, gamble, arms dealer, etc….The fact that he is a devoted Buddhist always helps, but still….

In order to revenge his ex-partner who gets killed and also was one of the only two cops in the city not on the take, our hero, Sonchai, literally goes through top to bottom, swiping Bangkok from every possible angle trying to track down the murderer.

The city is full of festinating/crazy people and whoever Sonchai encounter throughout his crusade, they all will be leaving very strong impression to you. You will have hard time keeping track of all the strange/crazy characters in this book. And did I mention they are all funny as hell?

By the way, his father is one of those unknown G.I.'s from US army base who just passed through one steamy night in Bangkok and disappeared, but must be the handsome one, cause Sonchai is , according to the book, handsome as devil himself!!.

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lace. – Like all other EXOTIC thriller, BANGKOK the city plays huge part in this book. I mean, if this happens in any other place in earth, it could be a just really good detective novel. But because Sonchai and other characters are in BANGKOK, it is in totally different league!! 

Since, Sonchai goes everywhere in the city, whore house to the city hall, police station to the night club, we readers are in a HOLLY-S##T kind of ride here.

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lot. – I don’t want to give away anything here. But if you just get used to the sexual stuff in here, this book delivers quite good/complex storyline with full of black humor making it hilarious and exhilarating at the same time.

Plot also is as crazy as the city itself. 

This book is like “’ BANGKOK TRAVELER’S GUIDE” written by someone with too much drinks/sex and high intelligent and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

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erdict. – For the reader who is looking for something TOTALLY different. Sex is everywhere (Sex industry’s annual turnover is twice that of Thai government’s, can you imagine?) and Author make sure we understand that by doing a lot of detailed work on sex trade.

This kind of strange/GREAT books don’t come that easily, but John Burdett is right up there with grand master like Hunter C. Thompson(Leaving Las Vegas, anyone?).

This is truly wonderful “Alice in wonder XXX-land” thrillers with mad hatter and crazy queen and everyone in between. So go ahead, take a risk. It’s worth it(I was for a short period of time obsessed with this book.). You will either LOVE it or HATE it and nothing in the middle. Good luck.

004. LE CRIME (2003).

LE CRIME by Peter Steiner. (2003)

Like the cover ad says, this is “A FANTASTIC NOVEL”.

But not in the traditional “thriller” sense.

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layers. – This is the main focus here in this book. Like a lot of European thriller, this one put a lot of weight  on characters.  But in this case, believe it or not, almost all of it in one guy, LOUIS MORGAN-main man here, which, again, in this case works so wonderfully. Therefore-A Fantastic Novel.

Let me give you an idea. Author, Peter Steiner, used up HALF the book to develop/describe/dissect/analyze Louis. We are talking about more than 120 pages here. By the half way through the book, we know almost everything about the rise and fall and kind of rise-again of him. Which is so creatively well-imagined, I am actually quite jealous of his life experience. His encounter with Phillip the gypsy is probably the highlight of his journey.

HUGH BOWES. Another fascinating character. Darker side of Louis. He has everything to become the most powerful man in the world and he actually makes himself the one with brain/ambition/conspiracy/intimidation. No hesitation what so ever to use the power when it suits himself and his need which, he himself firmly believe, is the beneficial to US and therefore, world peace. That is how he projects himself to outside world. Inside, well, it’s a whole different story. He has, to put it mildly, some kind of twisted personal issue. 

Like a lot of so called powerful figures, he believes that his service to his country is vital to maintain the stability of his country. Therefore, anything threatening his existence/power, in this case his personal life, must be dealt with a swift power with vengeance even if it has absolutely nothing to do with national security.

In this book, the thriller was created NOT by some kind of complicated twist/plots, BUT by the personal history of the two main men, Louis and Hugh. Their friendship and relationship is the base of the thriller and Peter Steiner very masterfully uncovered their history little by little. I can’t say more then this, cause revealing any of their  relationship will ruin your reading pleasure.

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lace. – Paris to Washington. Louis exiled to Paris some 20 yeas ago after his trouble with Washington Politics and his personal life. How he settled down to the small town, Saint Leon Sur Deme, in Paris is another story. Very beautiful one.         

 Why he left Washington is the opposite. After he decided to stay in this small town, it seems like he actually did some work with the police there, but it was never mentioned in this book. I guess the author left it for his next series, called L’ASSASSIN. One thing I can tell you is that according to Author’s description of the areas around where Louis lives, mainly country side and the cities, France is a truly beautiful country.

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lot. – This novel actually starts really fast. Within first two pages, Louis,, opening the door with his usual breakfast trey in his left hand,  finds the dead man lying in front of his front door. Throat being slitted from ear to ear giving the impression of bloody smile. From here on, like I mentioned above, author used more than half (actually almost two third of the book, I think) to carefully guide readers through Louis’s life. His life turned festinating once he left Washington and arrived at Paris.  Out of his many amazing encounters, the one with Phillipe the gypsy and the NIGHT SWIMMING with full sky surrounding him must be the best parts!! . I won’t say anymore. You should see it with your own eyes.

Is this the political thriller, like it says on the cover? Well, in a sense. Not because the plot involves some kind of vicious/outrageous, Ludlum-like international conspiracy, but because two main characters (Louis and Hugh) were involved in politics before. One retired, the other rose to the top.

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erdict. – This is not your typical plot-oriented-fast paced thriller. The opposite. After first two pages, it takes step back and slowly but firmly built the storyline. Never in a hurry. Just step by step. 

This book might not be for everyone. For one thing, no action sequence ever. FOR THRILLER!!  When’s the last time you read the thriller without some kind of final, violent, life or death confrontation? But, not for this one. Absolutely NOT necessary to built the story. That's why.

But if you like good literature, European-style mystery which always starts slowly but delivers mightily at the end, this one is really really really good choice for you. It only took me three nights to finish this book. Good luck finding it!!!