Review: The Brodsky Affair by Ken Fry

Art and Action!

It took a little while for this book to get me firmly in its corner. I'm not a huge fan of exposition, and there's a moderate amount of that in the first few chapters, setting up the situation and the characters. It was all interesting information; I was just impatient for the story to get going. The old-school grammarian in me also spotted a few dangling modifiers, but I don't think most people pay the least mind to that these days.

As the plot started rolling, though, I quickly became absorbed, and then found myself really gripped by the page-turning intensity that author Ken Fry conjured from his multi-character setup and a series of deftly inserted historical flashbacks that gave weight and meaning to the modern-day heist/caper/thriller storyline. Fry may dangle the occasional modifier, but he knows how to gut-punch when the story calls for it, and this book has plenty of visceral passages to raise the reader's pulse and keep the adrenaline flowing.

The Brodsky Affair centers on Jack Manton, an English art expert down on his luck because the art publication he worked for went under, leaving him exceptionally qualified in a field with few opportunities. Manton isn't a quitter, though -- in fact, his ability to pursue loose ends of research borders on obsessive, and when he gets wind of a couple of potentially undervalued paintings about to be auctioned in Perth, Australia, he begins a globe-hopping quest in pursuit of the art of Mikhail Brodsky, an obscure Russian painter who died in the Holocaust. Unfortunately for Manton, a Russian mobster also has his sights set on Brodsky's work, as the painter's reputation is on the rise thanks to one of those art-world trends that can make fortunes for those with proper insight and timing.

What Manton expects to be a money-making venture to salvage his ailing finances quickly embroils him in a web of crime and murder, as the agents of oligarch Josef Berezin are following some of the same leads as Jack -- but intend on nabbing the paintings through means other than a few harmless auction bids. By the time Jack and his girlfriend, Tamsin Greene, realize how far over their heads they've gotten, bad timing and the brutal methods of Berezin's chief operative have made them suspects in multiple murders, with Interpol on their heels on top of the assassin.

Elevating The Brodsky Affair above its high-octane set of mysteries, chases, and murders is Fry's ability to bring the world of high art and especially the paintings of Mikhail Brodsky to life. Brodsky appears as a character by way of occasional flashbacks, but the deeper we get into the novel, the more his presence is felt in the central action, as Manton and Greene trace his few surviving relatives across Russia and Europe, encountering more of his personal history and suffering, as well as more of his paintings, which Fry imbues with a vivid, bright-hued reality that makes one wish they were real and on display in some museum for viewing. Through quick and keen descriptions Fry convinces us of Brodsky's genius, his eye for color, his choice of theme, his role as a witness to history. He makes us understand why some might find these paintings worth a fortune -- and others might find them worth killing for.

The novel goes a bit over the top at times, straining credulity the way a Hollywood action movie might. And I didn't much care for the epilogue. But the unique quirks and foibles of its characters, the adeptness with which Fry builds and maintains a breakneck pace, and the sense of art transcending time and history all serve to keep the book fresh and compelling.

Review: Fair Trade by Jolie Mason

Fast-paced interstellar love and peril, bright and full of verve

I've always had a soft spot for merchant-trader science fiction. Maybe it goes back to a childhood of reading Andre Norton or teenage years playing the old Traveller s.f. RPG. My point is, the summary blurb for this novella had me on its side from pretty much the first sentence, and the story itself did the same.

Fair Trade tells the story of a lonely guild trader by the name of Jexa Maru. Capable, independent, and hardened by a harsh life among the stars, Jexa owns her own ship, a sidearm to face down anyone who might try to take it from her, and not much else. Her weeks, months, and years are spent alone aboard the Misha Anton, earning just enough on the trade routes to keep herself fed and the ship in decent repair. The seedy ports of the Pisces Nebula hold little allure for her beyond their opportunities for cargo, and she never stays planetside for long.

Nor should she, given the lawlessness of the Pisces worlds, where the Calypso slaving syndicate plies its trade with impunity.

Try as she might to keep her head down and avoid the Calypso, however, Jexa instead finds herself yanked straight into the pirates' cross-hairs when an escaped slave stows away in her cargo hold -- a slave who for some reason is more valuable to the syndicate than the fragile treaties that maintain balance within the Pisces Nebula. Along with Calypso's enmity, Joss Bandalau brings aboard the Misha Anton a presence and companionship that Jexa has never known -- and a dark mystery of what befell him at the slavers' hands before he made his escape.

Author Jolie Mason populates her universe with compelling, strongly drawn characters and moves them through a corner of the galaxy rife with brutal color and stark with the emptiness of space. It's a given that Jexa and Joss will fall for each other, but it's less certain how their individual lives of isolation and suffering will fit together -- or how they can escape the hell-bent pursuit of Joss's former owners.

I enjoyed Fair Trade start-to-finish. I'm a sucker for a good romance, an underdog story, and a tale of far wandering among perilous stars. This book delivers on all those points. That's not to say that it's perfect -- it doesn't maintain the plucky ingenuity of its protagonists uniformly throughout, slipping occasionally into conveniences of plot that I'd rather have seen tightened up. There are also some typical self-publishing lapses of editing. But the book's spirit of adventure and central heart of human connection never flag. It's a breezy, fun, quick read with flashes of brilliance, thoughtful undercurrents in its depths, and a setting that's larger than any single story -- a place I wouldn't mind coming back to for future reading.

Review! An Amazon's Equal by Fionna Guillaume

A beautiful story told with passion and finesse

Everything that we call Myth, people once believed as truth. They had to – because the world around them so outstripped their ability to comprehend it, only gods and magic could explain. In An Amazon’s Equal, Fionna Guillaume returns to the mythic storytelling tradition and uses her own kind of magic to get at truths we all sometimes sense, but often fail to believe in or live to their deserved extent.

The book tells the story of Pyrena, a young Amazon making her journey into womanhood along a path tradition has laid out for her – and then traveling further still. Though she fully accepts the ways and wisdom of the society that’s raised her, Pyrena just ever-so-slightly does not fit. The Euphemindra, as the Amazons call themselves, live in isolation from the world of men, defended by their own strength at arms and the blessing of the goddess they worship. In their deeply forested land, they have built a civilization that borders on utopia, its idyllic peace disturbed only when men of the outer world make the mistake of attempting invasion and conquest, forcing them to do battle – from which they never shy nor falter. But the ways of war come a hint less naturally to Pyrena than to her sister warriors, and she lives and matures with the most tenuous sense of something missing.

When a foolhardy Greek campaign against the Euphemindra ends in a thorough rout, new captives arrive at the Men’s Tent in the great Amazonian city. Pyrena captures one of these herself: Astrastos, a young man who embodies much of the fallacy and foolishness of his patriarchal homeland – but who, like Pyrena, has always walked just a hint out of step with his people and their expectations.

Like both Pyrena and Astrastos, this novel begins with an unassuming conformity to expectations: a coming-of-age story, a love story, a pitting of the feminine soul against masculine ambition. But also like its heroine and hero, from the very start it carries a hint of something more – something that grows and blooms under the skillful touch of its author page by page until it goes far beyond romantic tropes and retold legends. Almost without the reader noticing, a rich and magnetic cast of supporting characters ease their way into the story, painted with a few quick strokes as they first appear, then brushed with contour and texture and perspective in each subsequent return. The social order of the Euphemindra reveals itself with ever-deepening complexity and inventiveness. Themes of love and family and fidelity and honor coalesce, swell, and break loose in moments of emotional thunder. The expected happens – and then the unexpected follows straight upon its heels.

Fionna Guillaume renders all of this in a clean and forthright style that is lyrical when it needs to be and visceral when it must. The eroticism of her love scenes can simmer or flare, washing the reader in whatever level of heat is called for, but never obscuring the emotional crux of the storytelling.

By the end, she convinces us that the epic and the mythic are in truth matters of human spirit, there to be tapped and made use of if we can recognize them and choose a path that is right.

Review! Sea of Temptation by Suzie Jay

I've been reviewing books for an indie author group lately, and I realized I should be sharing them here, too. So without further ado, here's my review of Suzie Jay's Sea of Temptation!

Boatloads of Fun!

I found this book to be silly, and if you automatically assume that to be a criticism, then you may not like it as much as I did. It's silly in a joyous way -- with a whimsical and carefree spirit that says, "I don't care if you find this unbelievable. We're here to have fun, aren't we? Let's not pretend that believable and fun go hand-in-hand."

Sea of Temptation follows Reid Lancaster onto a cruise he would rather avoid, where he bumps into Scarlet Barrett, the ship's doctor, whom he would also like to avoid, and who would just as soon avoid him. Reid and Scarlet share a history together, and it's a history that did not end well. Although the reader will likely find them both to be sympathetic and attractive people, they loathe one another. Why? That mystery serves as one of the novel's most immediate hooks, and its answer is parceled out in careful hints and revelations as the plot advances.

Joining Reid on the cruise is his irrepressible sister, Pip, whose mission is to get Reid over an entrenched depression caused by the death of their mother. Where Reid is sympathetic but morose, Pip is a sheer delight -- full of verve and good humor, yet also dead serious about helping her brother. Meanwhile, Team Scarlet includes Dr. Barrett's friend Jane, the ship's nurse and an amicable busybody intent on finding out what's up between Scarlet and Reid once the tension between them bursts into the open.

I read Sea of Temptation in one sitting, staying up late despite being on a business trip that already had me short on sleep. It's a quick read, wonderfully good-hearted and sweet, and I'm giving it five stars because the main incentive I would have for docking it a star would be embarrassment at the notion of giving such a silly book five stars. Honestly, the way the world looks around us right now, I can't consider that a good enough reason.