8 minute read
TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON by Chris Pavone
two nights in lisbon
Liechtenstein and Wales, a group of Icelandic researchers have deployed the narrator, Magnus, to Wales to observe culture and society there. The novel is ostensibly a report of his findings, formatted as an abecedary, riffing on towns alphabetically. As a guide to Wales, it’s useless: Magnus writes that Sennybridge is home to the “World Interspecies Kissing Championships” and that the residents of Pen-y-clawdd “want more sheep.” But most entries emphasize Magnus’ own emotional territory anyway: His badly acne-afflicted face, which he discusses in putrescent detail, his contemptuous mother, and his strained relationship with Katrin, a fellow “repulsive freak.” In between are scatalogical jokes, riffs on 1990s alt-rock acts (including a funny, furious rant about PJ Harvey) and multiple interlocutors with Pynchon-ian names (Isadora Pledge, Greg Impasse, Aaron Swanlopp). It doesn’t add up to much of a story, but then “story” isn’t really the point; indeed, another extended rant about the cozy comforts of Ian Rankin mysteries implies that “story” is a kind of antagonist. (As Magnus writes, “Neatness and pith have no place in fiction.”) So Nicholls uses the abecedary format and repeated tropes to create a sustained mood of angry/funny dissatisfaction with the world, romance, and literature as we know it. The novel’s conceit is in league with works by the likes of Gilbert Sorrentino or David Markson, but Nicholls’ brand of absurdism emphasizes comedy, which generally works. Sometimes Wales is the butt of the joke: Of Elan Village, he writes, “If this village was lacking a particular concept, that particular concept would be élan.” But Magnus’ target is usually himself, and the self-deprecating approach somehow makes the project go down easier.
Free-wheeling, unconventional fun.
TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON
Pavone, Chris MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (448 pp.) $28.00 | May 24, 2022 978-0-3746-0476-9
Secrets, lies, and revenge permeate this taut international thriller. The recently married Ariel Pryce wakes up one morning in a Lisbon hotel room, expecting her husband, John Wright, to be in bed beside her. He isn’t. She looks for a note, tries calling him, queries hotel staff, all to no avail. She calls Portuguese police and then the American Embassy, who wonder at first if Ms. Pryce isn’t some crazy lady wasting everyone’s time. But a lot happens muito rápido: Ariel receives a ransom demand for 3 million euros to be delivered within 48 hours for John’s safe release by unknown captors. The CIA knows that John is not who he claims to be and thinks that Ariel “must be more important than she’s letting on.” For one thing, she changed her name from Laurel Turner in her adulthood. A nosy American reporter starts poking around. Moving between past and present and among the viewpoints of Ariel and her several observers, Pavone uses short scenes to build fast-paced tension. Who is behind the kidnapping, and why? Ariel isn’t rich, and there’s only one way—blackmail—to come up with the dough. She and her extortee can inflict great harm on each other, and in fact one of them had a head start years earlier. So will she get the cash and rescue John? Then suspicious polícia stop Ariel from boarding a flight to the U.S., the CIA monitors her calls, at least one CIA observer ponders the value of having her whacked, and a relentless, coke-sniffing reporter is convinced he smells a blockbuster scoop. Surprise builds on surprise, and although the reader may sense where the complicated plot is headed, the twists keep coming. Two nights in Lisbon sound like a fun vacation as long as someone isn’t trying to uncover a horrible secret from your past.
This high-stakes drama grabs your attention and doesn’t let go.
WITH PREJUDICE
Peguero, Robin Grand Central Publishing (320 pp.) $28.00 | May 17, 2022 978-1-5387-0628-2
A murder trial in Miami reveals ugly secrets in the criminal justice system. Told mostly through courtroom dialogue and flashbacks, this debut legal thriller follows the trial of Gabriel Soto, who has been charged with killing a woman he met in a Miami bar. But this book has higher ambitions, too. A former homicide prosecutor and current congressional investigative counsel, author Peguero wants to shine a light on the inequities and prejudices that influence the outcome of every trial. The story unfolds from the points of view of myriad characters: the attorneys using every trick they can to secure a courtroom victory; the jurors who must decide Soto’s fate; and the witnesses and experts called to testify, who come to the stand with their own secrets and biases. From the start, Peguero reveals how each individual’s past shapes the eventual verdict. An example: The foreman had an unpleasant encounter with a racist police officer that will influence his vote—though not in the way his fellow jurors suspect. This is a creative idea, but it comes at the expense of a compelling narrative focus. Some characters are little more than sketches, while others are cartoonishly drawn, such as the prosecutor, who orders a detective to pretend to assault her because she needs to feel what the victim felt. Meanwhile, she’s sleeping with the reporter covering the trial, who offers to hold a big story for her (Peguero at least switches the usual genders of this cliché). The dialogue too often lapses into pronouncements during casual conversation. At one point a reporter actually says, “I am in the business of seeking out truth.” Peguero eventually wrestles the story back to the question of Soto’s guilt or innocence, but by then the damage is done. Addressing racism and injustice in the U.S. legal system is admirable, but the author too often forgets what makes a legal thriller work.
An ambitious legal thriller about racism and injustice that loses its focus.
BENEFIT
Phillips, Siobhan Bellevue Literary Press (320 pp.) $17.99 paper | April 19, 2022 978-1-942658-99-3
A struggling American academic reluctantly reunites with members of her Oxford graduate-fellowship cohort. Laura Graham’s life is not going well in the fall of 2011: She wasn’t rehired for her adjunct teaching position at a women’s college near Boston, hasn’t found a permanent tenuretrack position, and is stalled on an essay she’s writing about Henry James. Strapped for money, she moves back home with her mother and takes a contract job writing the history of the Weatherfield Foundation, which sponsored the Oxford fellowship for “students of promise and ambition” she’d won 10 years earlier. Working on this essay, which will be used as part of a celebration of the foundation, takes Laura on two different journeys: First, she embarks on a historical excavation of the sugar business that created the fortune behind the prestigious fellowships, including its involvement in slavery, war, and exploitation; and second, she takes a number of trips around New England to meet up with the former members of her fellowship cohort, all much more successful than her, if also intolerably shallow. Author Phillips was a Rhodes scholar; her depictions of Laura’s research, social life, and failed job search highlight the toxicity and ethical gaps that underlie much of modern academia and philanthropy. The novel plays with structure and style, which slows the momentum of the narrative considerably at first. The second half of the novel, in which Laura begins to confront the expectations and falsity of the foundation’s work and her friends, is more absorbing in its forcefulness.
An uneven debut novel with striking social commentary.
WHEN SHE DREAMS
Quick, Amanda Berkley (320 pp.) $28.00 | May 3, 2022 978-0-593-33778-3
The assistant to a newspaper agony aunt hires a gumshoe to track down a blackmailer only to find they’ve waded into the thick of murder in 1930s California. In the latest in the Burning Cove series, set in a seaside resort town, nascent novelist and lucid dreamer Maggie Lodge seeks out PI Sam Sage so he can locate the person who’s threatening her employer. A former cop who lost his job for arresting someone from a wealthy family, Sam is hoping to build his fledgling business and takes on Maggie’s case despite his sense that the dame is hiding something. Soon after, he’s pretending to be her research assistant as they follow a lead to a conference that claims to help people build their psychic powers. Are the conveners the ones who sent the blackmail note, or are they also being blackmailed while running a long con? When an attendee is found dead the first evening, just as Maggie encounters an unpleasant figure from her own past, Maggie and Sam must figure out if the case has gone from petty crime to murder or if it started with another homicide a few years ago. Complicating the situation is the presence of the dream researcher who is obsessed with Maggie’s potential for lucid dreaming. Bodies pile up even as she and Sam embark on an intimate relationship in addition to their professional one. Quick calls on her favorite character types in her latest novel: There’s the intrepid heroine and the cynical hero who thaws after the unpredictable partnership with her penetrates his personal barriers. The author’s long-standing interest in paranormal phenomenon like ESP propels the plot toward the eventual discovery of the murderer. There aren’t a lot of surprises for the regular Quick reader, but the metanarrative commentary about storytelling and genre plus the prewar West Coast glamour and noirlike incidents make for an updated gothic with some appeal.
