Military Bookshelf: Mid-Winter Chills & Thrills

Tom Miller

This is the SAD season.  That's SAD as in seasonal affective disorder.  Brought on apparently from too little sunlight.  Melatonin. 

I can't help with the melatonin, but I do have a suggestion for the plain-old blahs.  Lose yourself in a good book.   But, be sure to avoid the clunkers.  The idea is to cheer you up.  

Daniel Suarez's thriller Daemon is the big gun here.  Once you're hooked--and you will be--you'll forget the season.  Michael McGarrity's Dead or Alive is more subtle but it'll keep you warm on cold nights.  Stuart Woods' Mounting Fears, alas, promises escape but it's an empty promise.  Take two of these and call us in the morning.
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Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. 
Dutton, $25.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-525-95111-7

Daemon, systems consultant Suarez's debut novel, is provocative, addictive, and downright chilling. 

For those who don't know (and I didn't before reading this), a daemon is a computer program that runs continuously in the background, waiting for instructions to launch. 

The daemon here is created by Matthew Sobol, a genius and cofounder of on-line gaming company Cyberstorm Entertainment.  Shortly after Sobol dies of brain cancer at thirty-four, two of his programmers also die mysteriously--one apparently "murdered through the internet."

Within days, Det. Sgt. Peter Sebeck of the Ventura, Calif., Sheriff's Department, one of the early investigators on the case, receives a video from the late Matthew Sobol who admits to killing the two men and warns Sebeck that "you can't stop me."

When the cops--now led by the FBI--storm Sobol's California estate, they find it infested with computer-controlled booby traps that kill six cops.  Fearing the fallout if the truth becomes public, the government blames the deaths on Sebeck and claims that it's all a hoax.  It's not, of course, and a high-level, super-secret task force--led by National Security Administration official Natalie Philips and a mysterious independent computer consultant who goes by Jon Ross--is set up to try to stop Sobol's daemon. 

Meanwhile, the daemon has sent out messages to thousands of IP addresses across the globe.  It recruits agents through Cyberstorm's on-line games and hijacks hundreds of corporate networks. 

Sobol's vision of replacing the nation state system with a distributed civilization run by  computer programs seems unstoppable.  But, a handful of heroes including Philips, Ross, and Sebeck are determined to stop him . . . or die trying. 

This is the doomsday scenario of the 21st century, and what makes Suarez's tale so compelling and chilling is its apparent plausibility.  For better or worse, Daemon will grab you and not let go. 

[Spoiler alert: Daemon ends with Sobol's daemon still up and running and our trio of pursuers--bruised, battered, and chastened--still on the case.  Expect a sequel.]

Quotable

"Sexual reproduction exists solely as a means to defeat parasites."

"In essence, computer systems only needed to do one of two things: make money or save money.  Everything else was just details."

"This is a large corporation with global responsibilities.  Emptying out your office wasn't a vengeful act.  It was a work order."

"Doctorate in mathematics from Stanford, and she's a graduate of the Cryptologic School at Ft. Meade.  I think I'm in love."

"The Republic of Nauru . . . in the South Pacific . . . was basically a phosphate mine that convinced the U.N. it was a country."

"Games are Nature's way of preparing us to face difficult realities."

"Sobol is using the GPS system to convert the Earth into one big game map.  We're all in his game now."
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Mounting Fears, by Stuart Woods. 
Putnam's, $25.95, (304p), ISBN 978-0-399-15547-5

The prolific Woods (Hot Mahogany) must have lots of fans, but I'm not one of them.  Mounting Fears did nothing to convert me. 

This latest political thriller in the Will Lee series finds President William Jefferson Lee, IV, campaigning for reelection, dodging bimbos seeking pardons, and thwarting nuclear terrorists.  All in a day's work for our idealized hero.   

On the eve of receiving his party's nomination for another term, Pres. Lee is confronted with a foreign crisis: a Taliban group has stolen a nuclear warhead in Pakistan.  Good thing that Lee's wife Kate is head of the CIA and on top of the situation.  That leaves the President more time to deal with other pressing matters such as . . .

His Vice President George Kiel's surprise prostate surgery.  It seems that the surgery is scheduled for the next day--the third day of the convention--and it's the first that Pres. Lee has heard about it.  Moreover, Kiel informs his boss that he won't be on the ticket.  Okay, stuff happens, but this takes improbable to a new level. 

But, wait.  There's more.  Pres. Lee hastily convenes a meeting of top advisers and strategists to identify a replacement.  After rejecting several names for various reasons--geographical balance, inexperience, "a reputation of a womanizer"--the group settles on Governor Martin Stanton of California. 

Pres. Lee calls Stanton forthwith and offers him the nomination.  Nobody has even made a preliminary call to the FBI.  Nobody has contacted a friendly politician or reporter in California to ask about the governor's potential liabilities.  In a novel where there are plenty of surprises for the characters, there are none for the readers.  Of course, the guv has skeletons in his closet.  Of course, they'll threaten to derail the campaign.  Of course, the President will be surprised.  Please.

But, wait.  Again. We're just getting started.  The Vice President dies on the operating table, and the President appoints his new running mate to the office.  Now, we get that  FBI investigation and confirmation hearings, but neither turns up anything. 

The day after his appointment to succeed the Vice President, Stanton informs the President of his imminent divorce.  What?  He didn't think this was important enough to reveal before he accepted the nomination? 

Pres. Lee is more forgiving than I suspect most of us would have been.  That, or he's on Valium.  Anyway, he gently chides Stanton: "'You're right, Marty.  You should have told me sooner.'"  And, warns him that "I don't want any more surprises."  But, otherwise, it's bygones. 

Alas, there are more surprises.  Not only is Marty sleeping with his chief of staff, but he also promptly begins a second affair with his campaign manager.  This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a monk.

It gets worse.  The National Inquisitor, a tabloid, is on Marty's trail.  Unlike the President, the FBI, and a congressional committee, the Inquisitor's reporters know about "'Stanton's reputation for libido."  And, it's not a new thing.  According to these ink-stained wretches, Stanton "has long had a reputation with the ladies."  They also have proof: an enterprising stringer has intercepted one of Stanton's cell phone calls to his mistress. 

There's also a subplot involving a black minister who mounts a surprise, last-minute third-party campaign and a former CIA assassin who's out to kill him.  The whole episode feels ad hoc.  It does add a little bulk to an otherwise slim volume. 

The yellow press threatens to expose Stanton and wreck the President's reelection chances; the ex-CIA assassin threatens to permanently end the Rev's political career; and the Taliban threaten to end civilization as we know it.   All that, and there's very little suspense.  Which raises the question: shouldn't a thriller have at least a few thrills? 

Okay, so there are no thrills.  There must have been something that said "commercial" to the editors at Putnam's.  Well, maybe not.  The plot is improbable.  The characters are caricatures.  And, accuracy is suspect.  For example, the author claims that "'black voters are a majority or nearly so'" in southern states.  The truth is that black voters are seriously outnumbered everywhere in the south.  A little research would have yielded that. 

The whole enterprise feels slapdash.  Like Woods dashed it off to meet a deadline.  And, where were his editors?   Not doing the author or his readers any favors.  I'm not sure that anyone wins here.  Certainly not the poor reader—now poorer by $25.95.  And in the longer term, not the author or publisher whose contempt for the reader will ultimately catch up to them. 
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Dead or Alive: A Kevin Kerney Novel, by Michael McGarrity. 
Dutton, $25.95 (287p) ISBN 978-0-525-95081-3

Former New Mexico lawman McGarrity returns with his 12th Kevin Kerney novel (following Death Song). 

McGarrity's hero Kerney has now retired from the Santa Fe Police Department, where he was the Chief.  He's now living in London where his wife Army Colonel Sara Brannon is posted to the U.S. Embassy as a military attaché. 

Back home in New Mexico, psychotic killer Craig Larson escapes while being transported to prison and goes on a murderous spree.  The victims include a couple of cops and Kerney's partner in a horse-raising venture. 

Another of Larson's victims is the Lincoln County Sheriff, and that puts Lt. Clayton Istee--Kerney's half-Apache son--on the case.  He's soon joined by dad who flies in from London to help out. 

As the bodies pile up across rural New Mexico and west Texas, father and son relentlessly track the killer.  When a heavily-armed and increasingly desperate Larson flees into the vast wilderness of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, Istee and Kerney mount up and pursue him.

McGarrity obviously loves his native land, and his descriptions bring its natural beauty, vastness, and solitude vividly to life.  Add to that an action-packed tale of good vs. evil, and you have the makings of a page-turner. 

Quotable

"The miracle of modern medicine that had kept Paul Hewitt alive [as a quadriplegic] was a crock of shit."

"I read somewhere that it's important to give retired people a sense of empowerment."

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Copyright 2012 by Tom Miller