V2 by Robert Harris a Superb Wartime Thriller

Set in 1944 in the later days of World War Two, V2  by Robert Harris chronicles the destructive attacks on London by the V2 rocket program of Nazi Germany. Launched from secret bases in occupied Holland, the V2 rockets flew over the English Channel carrying heavy explosive warheads that would wreck havoc daily on the British capital city. 

The novel follows the stories of two main characters. Rudi Graf is a top German engineer involved in the V2 launches, even as he has to hide his growing disgust with the the brutal Nazi political regime. Kay Caton-Walsh is an intelligence officer with an elite RAF unit, whose job is to locate the V2 launch bases so Allied planes can bomb them.

V2 is an outstanding wartime thriller, written and researched in superb fashion. The opening chapters describing the launch and flight of a V2 rocket until its impact in London are quite thrilling. 

This novel is most highly recommended. For those who haven't read this author before, Robert Harris has written a number of gripping political and historic thrillers including The Ghostwriter, Munich, Fatherland, and Enigma. 

Ruth Ware is Back With THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is a new psychological mystery by Ruth Ware, author of previous best sellers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin Ten.

The main character of the new novel is Harriet Westaway, nicknamed Hal, a young woman who ekes out a living as a Tarot reader on the Brighton Pier. Hal gets a surprising letter naming her as an heir of a deceased grandmother. But Hal immediately realizes it's a mistake, the dead woman was not her grandmother. Yet Hal is in debt and desperate, so she makes a risky decision to try to claim whatever the inheritance is.

She travels to Cornwall to the Westaway family estate of Trepassen. There she meets the brothers Harding, Able, and Ezra, along with the aged and hostile housekeeper Mrs. Warren. Hal must pass herself off as the daughter of a sister, Maud Westaway, who went missing years earlier. Hal's appearance as an unknown heir is a shock to the suspicious family members.

As Hal continues her deception, she learns more and more about Westaway family secrets long buried. But someone doesn't want those secrets exposed and Hal finds she has stepped into a dangerous trap.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is not Ruth Ware's best work. The novel is a slow-tempo read, with far too much of Hal's swirling interior thoughts clogging the plot. The frenzied climax stains credulity with its questionable motivations of a key character.

Best Mystery and Crime Novels of 2017

The last year saw the release of a variety of great Mystery and Crime reads, including double entries by some popular authors. These are the best novels of the year that were reviewed by this blog:

Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin - The irascible John Rebus returns, when the retired former Edinburg, Scotland police inspector is called in as a civilian consultant on a new assault case. But Rebus soon finds himself digging into an old serial murder case he could never solve earlier.

Vicious Circle by C.J. Box - Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is back to renew his violent feud with the roughneck Cates clan, who terrorized Joe and his family once before and aren't finished yet.

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins - Suspense puzzle of memory and deceit set in a rural English village, where a local pool has claimed the lives of a series of women over the years.

Golden Prey by John Sandford - A new Lucas Davenport crime thriller. Lucas has recently joined the U.S. Marshals and he's on the track of a cold blooded robbery crew in a wild chase across Texas.

Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves - Latest book in the mystery series set in the Shetland Islands off the east coast of Scotland. Heavy rains and a landslide expose a woman's dead body inside a wrecked house.

The Late Show by Michael Connelly - Gripping police procedural that introduces a new main character, LAPD detective Renee Ballard, who works the overnight shift, dubbed the "late show."
Ballard works two violent cases she was supposed to let go of, one of which leads her toward her own imminent death.

Deep Freeze by John Sandford - Quirky crime escapade featuring Minnesota State Police detective Virgil Flowers. It's the middle of a Minnesota winter and there's a murder in a small town, where the victim had just left a high school reunion meeting before she was clubbed to death by someone.

Paradise Valley by C.J. Box - In this Western-set crime thriller, sheriff's detective Cassie Dewell renews her hunt for an elusive serial killer called the Lizard King, a long haul trucker who abducts and murders his female victims across the country. He got away from Cassie once before and she's been obsessed with getting him ever since.

Cold War Betrayal in A LEGACY OF SPIES

A Legacy of Spies by John LeCarre revisits the uneasy days of the Cold War when British Intelligence mounted an operation in East Germany that went cruelly wrong.

In LeCarre's fictional world, the British spy agency is called the Circus. The novel follows a newly opened investigation by present day authorities into an early 1960s Circus operation with the code name Windfall. The events of Windfall were famously portrayed in the author's early novel The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

In this retrospective look back at what really happened in Windfall, old buried secrets are exposed. The novel is narrated by retired former spy Peter Guillam, who is called back to London to answer tough questions. Files about Windfall are missing. Things have been covered up. Lives were lost during the execution of Windfall. How much does Guillam know?

The novel moves between flashback events of the past spy operation and the current interrogation of Guillam. What is revealed are the cold blooded decisions that were made to sacrifice lesser British agents in order to protect a more highly placed undercover spy within East German intelligence. This is the author's sour commentary on the amoral compromises and personal betrayals that are always at the heart of any intelligence work.

A Legacy of Spies is a slow, thoughtful read, not a spy thriller. The novel will be appreciated most by long time John LeCarre readers, especially for the reappearance of familiar characters like spymaster George Smiley and Peter Guillam.

INTO THE WATER a Tangled Psychological Maze

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins is the author's new suspense novel after her previous best seller  Girl on the Train. The new title is a similar puzzle of memory and deceit told through a series of alternating character points of view.

The novel takes place in the insular English village of Beckford, where a sinister pool in the local river has claimed the lives of a succession of women going back centuries. The place is known as the Drowning Pool, where women have died -- some by suicide, some by violence in the era of witchcraft hysteria, some more recently by murder perhaps.

The latest to die is Nel Abbott. Shortly before that was teenager Katie Whitaker. Both deaths at first appear to be suicides. Investigating the case are two detectives, the locally born Inspector Sean Townsend, and Sergeant Erin Morgan.

The mystery winds through the changing internal viewpoints of a half dozen characters. But all of them may be unreliable narrators holding back their own secrets, including one of the detectives. The story is convoluted, jumping into flashbacks at times, requiring close attention by the reader to follow the narrative.

Into the Water is a tangled psychological suspense tale that builds slowly toward a resolution that is itself enigmatic, where we can still not be certain we really have the final truth.