Two more entries: Michael Robotham’s Life and Death, and Lionel Davidson’s A Long Way to Shiloh, the winners in 2015 and 1966, respectively. I didn’t realize this was the case, as the edition of Shiloh I bought was a reissue by Faber & Faber with a very modern cover – I thought it was written in the 21st century until, a few pages in, the book clued me in to its era. Already I’m giving my assertion from the last review – that I would be unlikely to review two books with publishing years so far apart again – a run for the money, as this is only four years smaller a gap! However, unlike the previous review, these books share essentially nothing, and while Davidson’s style if not his subject matter make the five decade gap feel much smaller than it really is, they remain distant cousins in the greater crime novel family.
Life and Death is effective. It was clear to me only part way through the novel, and even more so by the end. Robotham has written a page-turner in the most literal sense, as I was unable to keep leafing through the book even when, with twenty percent still to go, the outcome was clear. His background as a journalist is clear in the book’s wonderfully clear, almost spare prose. Robotham is Australian; the book takes place (mostly) in Texas, with Texans as the primary characters; Robotham made it clear in an initial dedication that he owes much to Texan writers who came before him, and his attempts to get the flavor and speech patterns of Texas were a decent antipodean effort. However, Lonesome Dove this is not, and perhaps with the exception of scenes in which characters try to speak or understand Spanish – not so different from an Australian learning to speak Texan! – the setting feels fairly washed out. Robotham seems to have wanted Texas to be a background character, as the setting can be in so many great novels, but it never quite gets there. Rather, Robotham’s strength is his characters. He is particularly good with the small details and illustrations that create depth in even tertiary characters. His throw-away lines, suggestions, idle thoughts are excellent, and the actual dialogue almost as good (with the exception of his “Black convict” character, who feels much more two-dimensional than any other member of the supporting cast).
The problem, then, is the plot – which I have neglected to describe so far. And perhaps that’s because it’s the most dissatisfying part of the book, and what makes Life or Death merely good and not great. The pitch is high concept, indeed. Audie Palmer has been imprisoned for a decade, serving a sentence for an armored car robbery in which the millions of stolen dollars were never recovered. The day before he is due to be released, he escapes. Why? Well, the “why” is eventually revealed to us, but it is almost a MacGuffin, something that keeps all our characters in enjoyable motion even if their motives – in the retrospective light of full knowledge – do not quite hold up to scrutiny. A good jailbreak or heist novel is always appreciated, but that isn’t the point of Life or Death. We do have the traditional, dogged, “new to this case, let’s start from the beginning and put all the pieces together” lawman (in this case an FBI agent), the sidekick (the aforementioned Black convict), as well as the usual swirl of antagonists and fleeting acquaintances (oily businessman, corrupt lawman, estranged family, Good Samaritan stranger), but Life or Death is essentially a giant plot device. We start with Audie, having just escaped prison, on a kinetic journey forward physically – with all those characters in his wake – but on a backwards journey mentally. Every time Audie pauses for breath, or sleep, we get a flashback. As Audie nears his physical finish line, the mental journey catches him up nearly to when his time in prison began. The climax is of course Audie himself bridging the gap between the two, made to feel all the more extraordinary because of his flat refusal to discuss anything about the crime up to that point of the novel. It works! Robotham has cunningly embedded a love story to get the reader wholeheartedly on Audie’s side, and while it’s equally transparent as the other ridiculous happenstances that made Audie a Good Guy (135 IQ, hard worker, booted from college because of his criminal brother’s antics), the pace of the plot doesn’t give us much time to roll our eyes at the whole situation. Robotham subverts our expectations by turning what we thought was an escape novel or heist novel into a love story, and while it pulls this off successfully it makes for a rather less satisfying crime novel. If Life or Death is made into a movie, it will be more “The Notebook” and less “Ocean’s 11”. Given I was looking for the latter, there is only so far this book can climb in the rankings before it loses out to more conventional titles. I congratulate Mr. Robotham on his excellent craftmanship, however.
I have to throw in one other point of contention here, however. If I was the governor of a state, and a convict escaped from prison twelve hours before they were due to be released, would I really call in all the law enforcement capabilities at my disposal? How many millions of dollars would I waste on man hours searching for one person who escaped without harming anyone? Am I crazy for thinking I’d put a warrant out for him, shrug, and go about my business?
And then we have A Long Way to Shiloh. Reading this so soon after The Far Side of the Dollar has led me to believe that in the 1960s, people simply wrote better. The prose ages beautifully, and Davidson, while less poetic than Macdonald, manages to do so much more while making it feel light and breezy. Shiloh also grabbed my attention because it felt so familiar – any fan of Indiana Jones will wonder if this book was some sort of source material! An English professor of Semitics goes to Israel to investigate a scroll (what we now know as a Dead Sea Scroll) that purports to hint at the location of the Temple Menorah – that is, the original Menorah forged by the Jews in the desert, thought to have been taken by Titus in the sacking of Jerusalem in the first century AD. But what if Titus’ prize was a copy, and the original was buried in the desert for safekeeping? A few “find and replace” searches in that description, and you have Professor Indiana Jones fighting Nazis to recover the Ark of the Covenant! Davidson’s hero, Professor Laing, leans more into the intellectual side of things rather than the action. He also appears to have a drinking problem and is a well-established letch. Nonetheless, as he rolls through the recently established state of Israel (driven, inevitably, by a beautiful Israeli army officer) the intellectual puzzle remains fantastically engaging. Making ancient scrolls and Biblical goings-on a matter of heart-pumping urgency is no small feat, and Dan Brown surely owes something to Davidson’s ability to condense so much obscure information and make it a delectable mental meal for the reader. Throw in the intrigue of Syrian and Jordanian opposition, and you have a neat little novel. Unlike Life and Death, moreover, Davidson does a fantastic job at making Israel and her people a vivid and essential part of the novel. He deftly integrated descriptions of the far-flung masses – Englishmen, Germans, Moroccans, Yemenis – who have come together to make this new state. There are Arabs and Bedouins, rabbis and businessmen, ancient citadels and modern cities, somehow woven together into a new state that feels bursting with energy even as we explore its millennia old desert canyons and holy places. The cross-section we see feels particularly interesting given we know how eventful the next few decades will be for this young state, and that sense of destiny likely accrues to the novel’s benefit (had it been set in Hiroshima in 1943, for example, the atmosphere might feel different).
Professor Laing is not, however, a particularly enjoyable protagonist. His brain produces the necessary realizations at the critical moments, and he works through the action scenes adequately, but he is certainly no hero. This could have worked quite well – Indiana Jones as more of a mortal – but, alas, he is hard to admire beyond his academic knowledge. Whether it is drinking an entire bottle of whiskey when he goes out on patrol with the army, Uzzi in hand, or his unceasing pursuit of the army officer who drives him around the country (despite her being engaged, she of course eventually gives in to his “sophisticated” ways), Laing makes the reader want to shout “Stop, already!” quite a number of times. It feels less like a predecessor to the self-destructive anti-hero so popular today, and more like self-destruction, period. Laing is not a happy man, and although his detached inner voice has a pleasant sense of irony and dry humor, the intellectual puzzle, rather than the puzzle solvers, are the prime mover.
Alas, the puzzle itself runs out of steam in the final section of the novel. Davidson does an excellent job with the slow unraveling of the incomplete scroll’s meaning, the reversals, the coded language, the setbacks and advances as Laing closes in on things. The climatic scene in unlocking the location of the next scroll, witht he location of the Temple Menorah, is very well executed, and then…everything is wrapped up. It is almost as though the author ran out of creative energy, or ran headfirst into a rock solid deadline. The traditional twist regarding the location of the Menorah is satisfying enough, but the heart has gone out of the book at that point. The efforts of the characters feel half-hearted, and the result – while perhaps poetic – is not quite brought off well enough to leave the reader pleased. (I give nothing away when I say that the book morphs into “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” after starting more like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” – this is quite a transformation to undertake decades before either film was written, and not surprising that carrying off such a difficult switch is not entirely successful.) With the plot losing pressure at the last moment, and in the absence of a strong protagonist to carry us the rest of the way, Shiloh‘s end feels like an otherwise wonderful vacation whose final few days were ruined by rain. A good trip, but we can’t help but wonder what might have been.
Even with their flaws, both of these books are very strong. I am unsurprised, and even excited, to learn that both Robotham and Davidson won the Gold Dagger more than once (twice and three times, respectively), and eager to see how their other works will compare. Both are certainly top quality, as reflected in the updated rankings, and without knowing their competition, I still understand why these are Gold Dagger winners.
Updated ranking:
- Dick Francis – Whip Hand
- Ian Rankin – Black & Blue
- Mick Herron – Dead Lions
- Colin Dexter – The Wench is Dead
- Ross Macdonald – The Far Side of the Dollar
- Michael Robotham – Life and Death
- Lionel Davidson – A Long Way to Shiloh
- Patricia Cornwell – Cruel and Unusual
- Ruth Rendell – A Demon in My View
- Bill Beverly – Dodgers
- James McClure – Steam Pig
- Gene Kerrigan – The Rage
- Steve Cavanagh – The Liar
- Paula Gosling – Monkey Puzzle
- Peter Dickinson – Skin Deep (not recommended)
smq.world 