Oracle Lake by Paul Adam, $24.95 | The author of last year’s quietly brilliant “The Rainaldi Quartet” moves from Italy and the world of priceless violins to the high Himalayas and the struggle of the Tibetan people for independence in this riveting thriller. Tough, ambitious British journalist Maggie Walsh hears a rumor that the Dalai Lama is dying and heads for India, the home of the Tibetan government in exile, for the story that could make her career.
The rumor proves true, and the Dalai Lama’s followers are convinced that his successor and reincarnation has already been born in a remote region of Tibet, a country closed by the Chinese to Western journalists, where Buddhism is heavily regulated and barely tolerated. Maggie manages to smuggle herself into the country along with the three monks charged with finding the infant, persuading them that she can document their quest. She proceeds to become invaluable to them with her pragmatism and greater knowledge of the outside world.
The story quickly evolves into an exciting cat-and-mouse game as the Chinese military ruthlessly pursues the unlikely quartet while various signs and manifestations lead them closer to their goal. It’s top-flight suspense with a breathtaking and endlessly fascinating setting.
Silence by Thomas Perry, $25 | Edgar winner Perry borrows a few tricks from his recent series about Jane Whitfield, a woman who helps people disappear, in this intriguing thriller featuring ex-cop Jack Till and an unnerving pair of married assassins, Paul and Sylvie Turner, who not only specialize in wiping people out but also absolutely adore doing so. And just as Jack excels at what he does, so do they.
Jack is in the process of trying to find Wendy Harper, a woman he helped to disappear some years ago.
Now her former partner and lover has been framed for her murder and the only way to prove him innocent is to prove that Wendy is still alive, but Jack taught her well and has the devil of a time tracking her down. Meanwhile, Paul and Sylvie are looking for her too, hired of course by the same villain who terrified her into disappearing in the first place.
Filled with the same dark humor that has been the author’s trademark since his Edgar-winning debut, “The Butcher’s Boy,” was published 25 years ago, “Silence” is also an absorbing exercise in suspense, with Jack and Wendy always just a few steps ahead of their pursuers and only the reader knowing how narrowly they are eluding death. And as for the scheming, tango-dancing Paul and Sylvie – well, they’re absolutely memorable, top-of-the-line villains.
Zoo Station by David Downing, $23 | Half-English, half-American journalist John Russell is living in a drab, dangerous Berlin in 1939, trying to stay on the good side of the Nazis so he can remain close to his German film-star girlfriend and his son by a German ex-wife. He is appalled by what he sees happening all around him, but afraid of being deported if he reports it, so he scrapes by selling soft news pieces rather than the investigative journalism he longs to do.
But then he is asked by a friend from his days as a communist to turn out a few articles for the Soviet press, which seems harmless enough, except that it attracts the attention of both British and Nazi intelligence, and soon John is being asked by three governments to serve as a spy.
At the same time, he becomes increasingly involved with the struggles of a Jewish family attempting to flee the country before the Gestapo closes in.
Gradually John stops playing it safe and starts playing it smart, working out a daring plan of action even as he tries to keep his son from being seduced by the Nazi youth movement without compromising his safety. The suspense mounts inexorably toward an ingenious and satisfying ending, as memorable as the portrait the author paints with small but telling brushstrokes of a society on the brink of world war and madness.
Tom and Enid Schantz write a regular column on new mysteries.
