Wednesday, December 30, 2009

"Her Fearful Symmetry," by Audrey Niffenegger


I usually experience a vague feeling of foreboding when twins are introduced into the story line of a book I'm reading; something in the back of my head whispers, "This can't end well." I guess I've seen too many popular movies featuring the good twin/evil twin trope or -- worse yet -- two evil twins who use their interchangeability to commit murderous deceptions (Jeremy Irons' dual role in Dead Ringers still has me shaking in my boots).

That being said, Niffenegger's initial introduction of Julia and Valentina, the twins in her newest novel, set me at ease. The girls live contentedly with their parents in a normal Chicago suburb. They've graduated from high school, but they're taking their time leaving the nest; it's too easy to sleep in, browse a fashion magazine or two, and slap together a PB&J sandwich for lunch to become overly zealous about college or a career. Their social life is somewhat stunted due to their close relationship, but they don't much care; there's plenty of time to work out the interpersonal logistics of dating in the future, and they're never lonely because they have each other.

The cozy predictability of daily suburban life is abruptly turned on its head when a letter arrives from England, addressed to "Julia and Valentina Poole." The girls' mother, Edie, was also a twin, and her estranged twin sister, Elspeth Noblin, has died a tragically premature death from cancer. Surprisingly, Elspeth has bequeathed her apartment, located in a historical home bordering the stone fence of Highgate Cemetery in London, to her two nieces, conditioned upon a peculiar prerequisite: The twins must live in the house for a full year, during which time their parents cannot visit or enter the house.

An important wrinkle to the story must be added here: Elspeth is dead, but not quite. She has slowly begun to materialize, ectoplasm-like, in her former apartment. Some of the most engaging passages of the book involve her gradual familiarization with her evolving "body," her attempts at mobility (she can't leave her apartment), and her desperate efforts to communicate with her former lover, Robert, who lives one floor down and makes frequent "grieving visits" to her bedroom. She contracts into a misty ball and sleeps in a cozy drawer of her writing desk when she's exhausted herself with attempts to push doors closed and puff pieces of paper across table tops. Unable to communicate with Robert, she must content herself with watching him interact with her nieces as they enjoy their new life.

So far, this may sound like a light-hearted romp of a novel (think "Blythe Spirit"), but things turn dark from here on out. The twins seem basically normal, but Niffenegger informs the reader that despite their age, Julia and Valentina still enjoy dressing identically alike, and they sleep in the same bed (spoon-style, no less). It's also clear that Julia is the increasingly stronger twin of the two, both mentally and physically. Elspeth slowly becomes more adept at making her presence known, and she's not ready to relinquish Robert. Add a budding romance, kittens that die and skitter back to life, eccentric neighbors, and the ever-present spell of Highgate Cemetery and its not-so-sleeping occupants, and you have the makings of a great contemporary ghost tale.

You may think you've figured out the plot, but you haven't. Niffenegger fills the last third of the book with unexpected twists and turns that will keep you guessing. There is one strained plot device that is patently implausible -- you'll know it when when you encounter it -- but the book is a must-read for lovers of gothic mysteries and readers who would enjoy learning the fascinating history of Highgate Cemetery (you'll feel like you've taken a personal tour of its mossy paths and ivy-covered crypts by the time you finish the book).

Richard Russo's "That Old Cape Magic"



Be forewarned: When you gaze into the eyes of your future mate and proclaim "I do," odds are that you're tying the knot with three people, not one. Richard Russo's recent novel explores the inconvenient fact that most marriages involve two players on the field and four players on the bench; each partner's parents are shadow participants in the enterprise, despite their physical distance or animate state.

Jack Griffin and his wife, Joy, have weathered a 30-year union with relative success. The marriage has had its ups and downs, but each of them has come to accept the other's perceived idiosyncrasies with equanimity and the occasional rolled eyeball. Griffin can't relate to Joy's effusively close relationship with her parents and siblings; he perceives it as unnatural and mildly obnoxious. Nonetheless, he endures her daily phone chats with her sisters and attends backslapping holiday reunions with only an occasional complaint ("I guess what I can't understand is why we can't have one holiday with just us."). Joy, on the other hand, can't understand Griffin's desire to avoid contact with his own parents altogether. She concedes that his childhood memories of constant marital bickering were less than ideal, but family is family, and their only child Laura deserves to know both sets of grandparents. Nonetheless, Joy sighs and goes along with Griffin's strategy of avoidance, even after his father dies and his mother seeks to mend old ties.

Griffin's obsessive attempt to avoid his mother's manipulative intrusions and his father's influence beyond the grave seems doomed to failure: he finds himself involved in heated mental arguments with them that take place in his head as he drives down the highway; he catches himself repeating his father's physical mannerisms and adopting his mother's cynical view of human nature; he realizes that his weathered Connecticut farmhouse and teaching post at a toney East Coast school is a realization of everything his parents wished for, but never attained ( snobby academics who graduated from the Ivy League, his parents felt permanently cheated when relegated to the "Mid-f***ing West" for their entire teaching careers). Griffin can't even bring himself to disperse his father's ashes, which have been residing in an urn in the wheel well of his car for over a year.

Griffin's parents are major characters in the novel and provide most of its laugh-out-loud humor. The best chapters in the book involve the contentious history of their marriage and the quirky love/hate nature of their relationship. The elder Griffins share an amazingly similar view of life: they've been screwed over and there's nothing to be done for it. Their yearly summer pilgrimages to Cape Cod, where they torture themselves by imagining how life might have been had their professional fortunes been otherwise, is punctuated by wistful searches through the local real estate guide, where every house they study is either far beyond their means or something so dilapidated that "they wouldn't have it, even as a gift." Unfortunately, the elder Griffins also share a fierce sense of competition. When Griffin's father begins to indulge in philandering, Griffin's mother responds in kind. When Mr. Griffin falls in love with an intellectually challenged graduate student young enough to be his granddaughter, Mrs. Griffin is torn between outrage and secret satisfaction at the girl's bovine dullness. Griffin's mother puts up with her husband's infidelities for a preternaturally long time because she's afraid that once divorced, he could move away from the dreaded Midwest and find a better teaching position than she enjoys, a fact that would drive her crazy. They cling to each other in a marital death spiral until they can't take it any more, but even after the divorce each ex-spouse follows the trajectory of the other's life with intense and spiteful interest.

Will Griffin ever be able to escape his obsession with his parents' shortcomings? Will Joy finally snap and refuse to put up with Griffin's growing tendency to look at everything in life as something beyond his means or "something that he wouldn't have, even as a gift?" Can any of us ever escape eventually becoming our parents? Do yourself a favor and read this amusing, intelligently written book to find out. (Note: the storyline, which is book-ended by two colorful weddings, begs to be made into a movie, which makes sense; Richard Russo is also a successful screenwriter.)

And the Ship Sailed On: Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh


Sea of Poppies is a lush, tropical whirlwind of a novel that will sweep you away from the winter snow and onto the broad, weathered deck of the seafaring Ibis, a former slave ship plying the warm waters of the Indian Ocean circa the 1830's, refitted as a merchant clipper and now en route to China to take part in the Opium Wars. The life stories of your fellow passengers, and the myriad paths of fate that have drawn them into the hold of the Ibis, will keep you turning pages to the end and eagerly awaiting the second book in Ghosh's planned "Ibis Trilogy."

The back stories of the characters in Sea of Poppies are so numerous and varied that they would become trapped in a hopeless tangle if left to the hands of a lesser writer. Ghosh makes each story so uniquely compelling, however, that the reader moves easily between tales, eagerly resuming the thread of one story while hoping for the addition of yet another character to the novel's narrative tapestry. Each character in Sea of Poppies is a star, and it's a bang-up ensemble cast: Deeti, a young village girl with the pale grey eyes of a ghost, who is forced to marry an opium addict against her will; Kahlua, a common laborer with limited intellect whose menacing size belies a wise and tender heart; Paulette, a young orphaned French girl who discovers her guardian's desire to provide her with private catechism lessons isn't guided by Christian charity; Zachary, a light-skinned mulatto freeman from Boston whose ethnic heritage is unknowable but for his listing as "black" in the ship's manifest; Neel, a wealthy East Indian who loses his family's fortune in the opium bubble; the comical Baboo Nob Kassin, a bulgy-eyed devotee of Krishna, who eagerly believes that his body is miraculously morphing into the female incarnation of his deceased beloved -- these are just a few tantalizing samples of the myriad characters you'll meet in Ghosh's teeming saga.


Every element of narrative intrigue is encountered during the course of the book: forbidden young love, premature widowhood, the forced separation of a mother and daughter, vast turns of fortune, the mighty brought low, the low elevated to power, an unexpected courtship and marriage, justice denied and justice regained, clever disguises, narrow escapes, a bastard son's search for his rightful heritage, a dastardly ship's mate with murder on his mind, lashings, typhoons -- the list goes on and on.


In addition to the immense entertainment value of the book, it provides a painless education about the economics of the poppy trade, the class systems of India in the 19th century, the history of the Opium Wars, British colonial life in the Near and Far East, the medicinal and addictive features of opium, details of life aboard a 19th century sailing ship, and more salty shipboard lingo than you can shake a stick at (you'll either blush or try to memorize it, depending on your personal standards). I, for one, can't wait for the next installment in this multi-ethnic swashbuckler.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Far Bright Star: Robert Olmstead Writes Another Masterpiece of Americana


Far Bright Star, a loosely linked sequel to Olmstead's Civil War/coming of age classic, Coal Black Horse, is every bit as engaging and beautifully written as its predecessor. At the conclusion of Coal Black Horse, the book's young protagonist, Robey Childs, marries and fathers two strapping sons: Napoleon and Xenophon. Far Bright Star reacquaints the reader with these two brothers, now aging adults, as they engage in a new military venture: they're members of a cavalry unit that has been sent into the wilds of Mexico to capture Pancho Villa. Xenophon is a consummate horseman, but Napolean is the leader of the two, and as such he is ordered to muster a ragtag scouting party into the desert to assess Villa's whereabouts.

Never the naive optimist, Napolean has an unusually keen sense of foreboding about the mission. His thinly staffed posse can boast of only one other seasoned cavalryman; the rest of the party consists of drunkards, untried boys, misfits, and a spoiled dandy from the East whose character flaws pose a serious danger to the entire group. Even Napolean's horse, a devilish black behemoth named Rattler, seems apprehensive. Pancho Villa is nowhere to be found, but the group stumbles upon evil nonetheless, and a series of tragic mistakes in judgment culminate in a survival story that will have you gripping the book with white-knuckled hands.

Far Bright Star, like Coal Black Horse, has a mythic, larger than life quality that is enhanced by Olmstead's glorious use of language. Every other page of the book contains a passage that glows like a polished jewel. Olmstead's powerful prose, his consummate skill in portraying the varieties of human character that emerge when men are subjected to extreme circumstances, his ability to transport a reader's five senses into the physical landscape of the story, his willingness to confront the "big questions" -- all of these are compelling reasons to make Olmstead's recent novels part of your personal library.

I listened to this book on compact disc, and I think that Ed Sala's reading performance enhances the impact of the novel. His dry, "man's man" delivery may initially strike the listener as a bit too Cowboy Poetry-esque, but his succinct, no-nonsense tone (think Tommy Lee Jones or Robert Duvall) conveys the flavor of the book perfectly. I fell in love with Sala's true west cadence by the end of the novel.

One cautionary note: some of the events in this book are gruesome. If your stomach churned one too many times at the psychopathic atrocities committed by Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, this novel may not be for you. One suggestion: read the book, don't listen to it. That way, you can "skim" when the going gets graphic.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Humbling, by Philip Roth


Advanced age, doomed sex, and impending death: just the kind of topics you enjoy exploring on a cozy winter night, right? Roth's frequent laments about the dark underbelly of the golden years may alienate some readers, but his literary skill keeps me coming back for more. The Dying Animal, Exit Ghost, Everyman -- I just can't stop, as evidenced by my recent one-night immersion his thirtieth book, The Humbling.

Roth's aging characters share one outstanding characteristic: they can't bear the thought of giving up on sex. Their stubborn refusal to go quietly into that celibate night is linked to deeper psychological moorings than mere carnal desire. In their minds, sex is the polar opposite of decay and death; as long as it can be maintained, the grim reaper is forced to pause at the door. The protagonist of The Humbling, Simon Axler, is no exception to the rule.

Unlike some of Roth's previous characters, Axler's late-life crisis doesn't commence with a physical ailment. Axler, a famous A-level theater actor -- wakes up one day and finds himself utterly unable to act. Each stage performance becomes a tortuous farce in which he floats out of his body and views himself puppeting the lines like an automaton. His shock at this new ineptitude is surpassed only by his shock at the impersonal, random way in which such a key element of his personality has been erased overnight. Nothing can be relied upon forever, apparently.

Axler begins a downward spiral. His agent is infuriated that he won't suck it up and attempt a comeback, his wife leaves him (she was never that wild about him in the first place), and he spends a brief stint in a mental hospital after thoughts of suicide threaten to overwhelm him. He eventually finds himself living a hermit's existence in one of those isolated East-coast "farmhouses" inhabited by artists and literati (like Roth). This is where the story gets interesting: from here on out, Roth's story line is so unbelievable as to border on the ludicrous, but Roth's piercing exposition of an aging man's psychosexual innards springs from the page with such raw authenticity it saves the day.

Axler opens the rustic door of his rural hideaway one snowy day and greets Pegeen Stapleford, daughter of two of Axler's best friends from the past, Carol and Asa Stapleford. Pegeen's visit is a total surprise; he hasn't seen her for over twenty years. Indeed, his most vivid memory of Pegeen is a mental picture of her nursing Carol's breast shortly after her birth. Pegeen, a self-professed lesbian since the age of twenty three, is still smarting from a long term love affair gone sour in Montana. She has moved to the East coast for a fresh start (she's procured a teaching job at the local college by seducing the female dean), and she's popped in on Axler, out of the blue, to say hello (?).

One thing leads to another, and before the end of the afternoon, Pegeen has hopped into the sack with Axler, despite the fact that 1) Pegeen knows virtually nothing about Axler beyond his reputation as a former star of the theater; 2) Axler, aged 65, is Pegeen's senior by 25 years, 3) Pegeen has been steadfast in her sexual preference for women during the past seventeen years, 4) Axler's relationship with Pegeen in the past was purely avuncular, and 5) Pegeen's parents would be (and, as it turns out, are) outraged at the relationship. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think any one of the circumstances I've listed above would be prohibitive if standing alone, but in the aggregate?? Give me a break.

A whirlwind romance follows in which Pegeen dumps her college dean (hell hath no fury . . . ) and settles into a cozy domestic arrangement with Axler, Their isolated country life is invigorated by enthusiastic sex and occasional trips into NYC, where Axler showers Pegeen with feminine clothes and provides her with a transformational haircut (Who knew sexual re-orientation could be so easy? Someone alert Evergreen!). Axler is living a classic male dream come true ("He felt the strength in her well-muscled arms . . . he cupped her hard behind in his hands and drew her toward him so that they kissed again. . . . she . . . was with a man for the first time since college"). At this point, the reader begins to wonder if Axler is taking his cues from Woody Allen and/or Pretty Woman. Storm clouds are approaching, however. The scorned college dean pays an uninvited visit to Axler and proceeds to give him an earful concerning Pegeen's less attractive qualities, while Pegeen gets a similar earful about Axler from her distraught parents. Axler proceeds to subconsciously shoot himself in the foot with an escapade that is as foolish as it is factually improbable (I'll let you discover this one on your own), and then . . . .

Roth's doubtful narrative is redeemed by the raw honesty and skill with which he reveals the inner workings of Axler's mind as he wades through his existential crisis. Axler views Pegeen as his chance at a "second birth;" she's the feminine muse he needs to reinvigorate his acting ability and his manhood. Despite her horrified parents, despite her previous sexual history, despite long odds at every turn, he's determined to have her and the reincarnation she offers. And yet, in the midst of Axler's wildest fantasies (he plans to have a child with Pegeen), some part of him knows that his obsessive drive towards renewal may ultimately accelerate his own self destruction. He can see the train wreck coming, but he doesn't know whether he welcomes it or abhors it. Roth's portrayal of Axler's psychological moth-to-the-flame dance is utterly convincing, even if the book's story line is not.

I've exposed quite a bit of plot line here, but the real value of the Roth's book lies in the spare prose, powerful metaphors (obvious and not so obvious), and psychological insights imbedded throughout the novel. His understated delivery belies an underlying reservoir of emotional combustibility. The Humbling is a compelling treat for readers who prefer truth over happy talk.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Louis Auchincloss: Still Dishing the Inner Lives of the Upper Crust at Age 92


If you're the kind of reader who enjoys delving in the private affairs of the moneyed elite, you're probably already a fan of the works of Evelyn Waugh, Edith Wharton and Henry James. For me, the central charm of Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" lay in my opportunity to join Charles Ryder as he burrowed into the mysteries and complexities of the rarefied lifestyle enjoyed (and suffered) by his fellow Oxford student, Sebastian Flyte. I shared Ryder's ambivalent fascination as he explored the Flyte family's grand halls, refined mannerisms, and indiscretions. The works of Edith Wharton (The House of Mirth, The Buccaneers), Henry James (The Bostonians, Portrait of a Lady), and, in a more contemporary vein, Dominick Dunne (People Like Us, Fatal Charms) provide similar fly-on-the-gilded-wall experiences for their readers.

If you like this sort of thing and haven't discovered Louis Auchincloss, you have a treasure trove awaiting you. Auchincloss, a Manhattan native of the Upper East Side set, is well situated to tell tales about the moneyed and Mayflowered. He was born in 1917 to a wealthy family ("We were not as rich as the Rockefellers or Mellons, but we were rich enough to know how rich they were"). A Groton and Yale alumnus who retired from the white-shoe law firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood in 1986, he currently occupies a three-bedroom top-floor apartment on Park Avenue. His literary output is astonishing -- over sixty books and counting, most of which were written during his 30-odd year career as a fully employed attorney.

His most recent novel, Last of the Old Guard, follows only one year after his previous book, "The Headmaster's Dilemma," a favorite of mine which I briefly reviewed in my 4/7/08 blog. Last of the Old Guard is a penetrating character study of two founding partners of a New York law firm formed during the turn of the century. The story is narrated by the surviving partner, Adrian Suydam, upon the death of his best friend and law firm co-founder, Ernest Saunders. Suydam's painstaking exposition of Saunders' strengths and foibles reveals as much about Suydam and it does about Saunders. In his attempt to accurately express the core of Saunder's personality and define Saunder's ultimate legacy to his family, profession, and community, Suydam (and Auchincloss?) projects his own values and beliefs with understated skill.

The Last of the Old Guard is a quiet little book. If you're looking for a flashy page-turner, look elsewhere. If you're seeking an honest exposition of the inner thoughts and motivations of a rare and dying breed, however, it's invaluable. It's all there: personal tragedy, children that disappoint, cool-headed marital bargains, law firm maneuvering, conflicting loyalties, a sense of duty, defense of honor, the triumph of pragmatism over passion (and sometimes not!), man-to-man chats over brandy and cigars, and an overarching conviction that one's life can actually make a difference to an entire country. Sound interesting? Settle down into a leather club chair, put your feet up on a tufted ottoman, and read this book (if you're an avid fan of this kind of novel, I'm betting you already have these items of furniture in your home).

If you're going to read only one Auchincloss book, many readers suggest The Rector of Justin, a "school book" in the lighter vein of The Headmaster's Dilemma. It is considered by some to be Auchincloss's greatest (and most entertaining) book.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town



Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to worry incessantly about the dangers that would surround me in the big city. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before some drug-crazed maniac would break into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning demanding money and worse.

As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?

I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)

Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.

The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.

The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.

To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.

Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.

Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.

I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America.

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith


A jam-packed schedule during the past two months forced me to choose between reading books and writing about books. Reading is easy. Writing is hard. Guess which option I chose?

In an effort to catch up on the writing end of the equation, I've decided to produce some reviews. Here goes the first one:

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith

This follow-up to Smith's first book, Child 44 (an award winning best seller), is well worth your time, particularly if you like high suspense in cold climates. It's 1956 in the Soviet Union, Stalin is dead, and Leo Demidov has escaped his former job as a state security officer to pursue a non-political career as a murder investigator for the state. Leo cannot escape the moral consequences of his former job, however. His adopted daughters, Zoya and Elena, cannot forget his complicity in the death of their parents years ago, and his wife, Raisa, still harbors deep emotional reservations about Leo due to the ruthless nature of his former occupation. Indeed, Leo's marriage is on such thin ice that he feels he must conceal a recent discovery: Zoya has been creeping into her adoptive parents' bedroom at night and holding a kitchen knife above Leo's throat while he sleeps, then returning to her bed, filled with ambivalence and rage.

To make matters worse for Leo, Khrushchev has distributed a "secret speech" throughout the Soviet Union denouncing Stalin as a tyrant and openly condemning the atrocities of Stalin's regime. Former secret service officers can no longer rely on unwavering support from the state, and some officers have begun to turn up dead at the hands of their past victims' friends and relatives. Khrushchev's attempt at a new spirit of openness has unleashed a wave of pent up resentment and blood vengeance.

A lot of the sinister charm of Child 44 was the mind-boggling mystery behind a series of child murders and the twisted psychological nature of the killer. The identity of the villain in Smith's second book is never a mystery, and her psychological state isn't overly complex: she's all about revenge with a capital R. The page-turning aspect of The Secret Speech is derived from action, not puzzle solving. An uprising on a convict ship, chases in subterranean sewer systems, gang justice in a Siberian gulag, and riots in the streets of Budapest keep the reader hurtling toward an ending filled with several unexpected twists and turns. Smith has succeeded in writing a straightforward suspense novel that also manages to incorporate a nuanced exploration of the nature of revenge, forgiveness, and personal redemption. I give it a thumbs up.