After a delay that has tried my patience, this reviewer congratulates Britain's Stephen Leather for coming through for us. For half-a-decade authors have given IS (Islamic State) a wide berth, aware of their practice of murdering those disparaging their faith. Unlike suicide bombers, they have every intention of fleeing the scenes of their atrocities.
They train children in the ways of terrorism. Keeping alive the excesses of a millennium ago, they are currently engaged in counter-crusade vengeance. Wary of them, writers keep focusing on World War II and the Cold War in their thrillers. Leather deserves praise for leading his literary colleagues into the world of now.
He has penned dozens of detective novels over the years, series featuring Dan "Spider" Shepherd and Jack Nightingale. Spider, formerly SAS, moved to MI5 where he works undercover. Dark Forces reminds his fans that his wife was killed 10 years previously and his son Liam is 17.
When not infiltrating a gang in East London, Spider is thwarting the assassination of a Syrian army officer (Assad is a good guy). Al-Hussain is the villain, 20ish, the top IS sniper, over 100 successful kills to date. Leather rather irritably doesn't employ chapters, just spaces.
Our hero is all too aware that he's living dangerously and is unwilling to put another woman through the stress of marriage. Little does he know that his Slovenian housekeeper has set her cap for him. Liam is giving him concern, determined not to go to university, bent on becoming an army helicopter pilot.
The arrival of al-Hussain rings alarm bells throughout the UK. He invariably leaves bodies in his wake. A Muslim suspected of being an informer was just beheaded, his wife and daughter raped. IS is described as a cult of crazies, the refugees as invaders.
Clues are dropped, the readers more quickly picking them up than the authorities. They involve bombing a crowded stadium. Can Spider prevent this?
Now that the author has brought the identity of the foe into the open, will the scriveners have the guts to carry the ball I wonder? Not that World War II and the Cold War are old hat, but let's go on from there. Whether or not they do, alas, things look to get worse before they get better.
Dark Corners By Ruth Rendell Arrow 279pp Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops 325 baht
A reason to weep
The passing away of British author Ruth Rendell last year brought her millions of fans face-to-face with their mortality. Her 65 books in 50 years made her a living legend. Though they were filled with death, hers was unexpected. Her Maker took her from us. Crime fiction lost its mistress.
Rendell wrote in the first person, getting into the heads of her three-dimensional characters. She knew what they were thinking, what we were thinking. She knew that the best of us have temptations and dark feelings difficult to resist, at times irresistible.
When we succumb to them, we have our guilty consciences to contend with. Motivation see-saws from "the deserved killing" to "give him a break". Detective Inspector Reginald Wexford, her literary creation, solved cases but wasn't always called on.
More often miscreants fell apart or were felled by an act of nature. In Dark Corners, Rendell's swansong, young Carl Martin finds himself a London landlord. His inheritance is a sizeable house, a money-earner once he rents its rooms out as flats.
Furnished and well-located, many people are interested. It is quickly filled. Dad had a hobby collecting every form of health pill, tablet, powder, medicine. Carl means to get rid of them, but keeps procrastinating. One of his friends complains of gaining weight.
He gives her diet pills from the collection. Stacey dies from their side effects. Was he responsible? The upstairs tenant says he was, blackmailing him by not paying his rent. Driven to distraction by his threats, Carl kills him. But he's seen and is told to confess to the police.
Filled with guilt, stressed out (Rendell territory), Carl takes to drink. The finish is plausible. She says in under 300 pages what other writers can't say anywhere near so well in over 500 pages.
Ruth Rendell is sorely missed.
