Crimefile: Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes strives to rise above the genre of crime fiction by terming itself a novel. And I must say it is literate, has well-defined characters and possesses a well-thought out storyline.
It is narrated by ex-courtroom journalist Stewart Dubin, who is overweight, separated from his wife and trying to write a book. Luckily, he comes across a journal of his late father's, which recounts an episode in his life set during the last days of the second World War. The father, a young, idealistic lawyer, is sent to the European front to bring charges against an American hero named Robert Martin, who has suddenly, it seems, gone off his head. Of course, all is not what it seems; dark forces are at work, and Martin's commanding general, Rollie Tweedle, has an agenda of his own. A murder and a court-martial are involved, and in the end Dubin turns his father's journal into the book he is trying to write. A fine piece of writing that does transcend the thriller category.
Fred Vargas's novel also nudges itself into the literary fiction canon - Fred, by the way, is a woman. The Three Evangelists of the title, historians Marc, Mathias and Lucien, along with Marc's uncle, the retired policeman Vandoosler, are living in a run-down Paris house, and are seeking to renovate it. Their next-door neighbour is Sophia Simeonidis, a Greek opera singer. One morning Sophia wakes up to find an extra tree in her garden. For some reason she finds this frightening. Her husband pays no attention to her fears, so she turns to her neighbours for help. They agree to dig below the tree, but in doing so find nothing but soil. Some weeks later Sophia disappears and her ashes are found in a burned-out car. The police investigation seems to be getting nowhere, so the intrepid three, along with their elderly police advisor, decide to find out the truth. There's no shortage of suspects - Sophia's husband, an ex-lover, her best friend, a niece - so the amateur sleuths have plenty to go on. If, dear reader, you are looking for something unusual in the crime fiction line, then this is the one for you.
The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming is in the Le Carré mode, the superficially polite mandarins of MI5 and MI6 going about their various businesses, cross and double-cross the order of the day, and violence mostly kept off-stage. The hero - anti-hero? - is one Alec Milius, who has been on the move for six years in an effort to escape his past when he was abandoned by MI5 after an operation against the CIA that went disastrously wrong. He has ended up in Madrid, where he has made a new life for himself, ostensibly as a trouble-shooter for a bank. But when a prominent politician goes missing in mysterious circumstances, he cannot resist getting involved. The plot revolves around the Basque Separatist Movement and spies being infiltrated into the Spanish government. Of its kind, The Spanish Game is of a high standard.
In contrast to the anal retentiveness of the le Carré school, Stephen Leather's characters are out there kicking, shooting and knifing like the true blue heroes and villains they are. Cold Kill's plot opens with a terrorist attack being foiled by the arrival of the Asian tsunami, continues on with a people-smuggling operation that goes wrong, and then develops into a counterfeit currency scam and an attempted murder. In the course of his investigations, undercover policeman Dan "Spider" Shepherd stumbles onto another, more deadly terrorist gang, masterminded by the one known simply as The Saudi. Finding that the Eastern Europeans are involved, he infiltrates the Albanian Mafia, is sent to Paris, returns to London, spots a suspected terrorist, follows him onto the underground and ends up on the Eurostar, hurtling towards the Channel Tunnel. In a nail-biting climax he has to find a way to save thousands of lives. This is a rip-roaring blast of a book that pulls no punches.
Nowadays most crime fiction is concerned with international conspiracies and terrorist operations. The conventional murder seems old hat. And, of course, the good guys always win out. Now and then one would possibly prefer to see the baddies escaping, as happens quite a lot in real life. Whatever, David Baldacci's latest, Camel Club, is up to standard as he postulates a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of Washington's corridors of power. The eponymous Camel Club is a bunch of misfits led by the man known as Oliver Stone - not his real name. They spend their time camped outside the White House, watching and waiting, and it is they who trigger off the investigation that in the end reveals the conspiracy. The main man, however, is Secret Service agent Alex Ford, a man past his prime who is hoping to slide quietly into retirement. In spite of himself he becomes involved, and, in a violent climax, has to make all the right moves to survive.
Finally, we've got David Wolstencroft's Contact Zero, written by the man who created the television series Spooks. As anyone who watched these programmes will anticipate, the book sets out a very complicated plotline. The premise here is that in the British Secret Intelligence Service there is a strategy known as Contact Zero, which is there to help agents who are in dire difficulty. The locations here circle the globe, as four inexperienced agents are cut adrift when an operation goes disastrously wrong. Their only hope is Contact Zero, but the problem is how to find it. Wolstencroft weaves the various strands of his plot together in expert fashion, and the result is a fast-paced espionage thriller that holds the attention right to the end.
Vincent Banville's last crime novel was Canon Law (New Island)Crimefile
Ordinary Heroes By Scott Turow. Picador, £16.99
The Three Evangelists By Fred Vargas. Translated by Sian Reynolds Harvill Secker, £11.99
The Spanish Game By Charles Cumming. Michael Joseph, £12.99
Cold Kill By Stephen Leather Hodder & Stoughton, £10.99
The Camel Club By David Baldacci. Macmillan, £12.99
Contact-Zero By David Wolstencroft Hodder & Stoughton, £10