Ripster Revivals #21

 

Ripster Revivals # 21: An Apology

Actually, two apologies. First to frantic regular readers who have been wondering why this column has not appeared since before Christmas. This is due entirely to modern technology and problems with the website about which I neither know nor care. And secondly, to Ayo Onatade, who has graciously allowed me to impose upon the Shots blog which she curates so magnificently. {Note to Editor: We have told her, haven’t we?}

Happy New Reading Year

Readers of regular crime novels will need an entire suspension bridge of disbelief to cope with Vivian Dies Again by C.E. Hulse [Viper], which could have been called Groundhog Death Day. The titular anti-heroine and victim, Vivian, is a self-confessed ‘manic pixie dream slut in going-out underwear’ who has her drug-dealer on speed dial. 

Vivian’s special skill set of gate-crashing family parties, ravaging the cocktail bar and upsetting (or sleeping with) her relatives results in most of them having a good reason to murder her and the inevitable duly happens – eighty-four times as Vivian is caught in a time-loop which makes her re-live (should that be re-die?) the experience. Naturally (well, you would, wouldn’t you) she uses this supernatural reset button to try and solve her own murder with the help of a grumpy wine waiter.

Also out now is Sounds Like Trouble by American writing duo Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith [Faber]. I am not being disingenuous when I say this struck me as a traditional private eye story; there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is set, naturally, in California and features a partnership of endearingly flirty detectives, Jackson Jones and Mackenzie Cunningham, who take it in turns to narrate their latest case which they have taken on with some trepidation as their client are the bosses of Los Angeles’ three main crime families. The tone is light, the pace sprightly and overall, great fun.

Coming next month is debut novel The Artful Anna Harris by Tracy Maton [Viper] which possibly falls into the category of ‘domestic noir’ as the predictably unpredictable protagonist Anna leaks details of her London past combined with her present situation in village life in Somerset. The problem for the reader is whether she is a faithful or a traitor as she adapts her own personality and adopts those of others. It’s not long before there’s a death – by herd of cows – and things begin to get rather creepy as Anna perfects her chameleon-like skills, having lost her moral compass somewhere along the way. The Talented Miss Maton is particularly good at depicting the suffocating effects of village life where an incomer is expected to conform to the ideals of the ruling extended families.

Illustrations in crime novels, other than maps, are rare but not unknown (I recall a Minette Walters’ novel from 2000 using the technique) but I have never before come across a book with such atmospheric, and relevant, commissioned artwork. Totem by Matthew Hall [Eye Books], published in May, is part legal, part environmental thriller set in British Columbia which highlights both the threat of ruthless developers to the natural forest and the treatment of Canada’s First Nation’s natives. The illustrations in Totem are by Jeff ‘Red’ George, an Ojibway artist from the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation.

Remembrances of Readings Past

Readers of this column and many a book dealer will know, I have a weakness for the old A-format paperback (that slides easily into the poacher’s pocket of one’s Barbour waxed jacket), especially Pan or Fontana titles with the price in pre-decimal currency. So I can understand why I was attracted to The Storm Knight (cover price: five shillings) by Frederick E. Smith, whom I knew only as the author of 633 Squadron, the basis of an incredibly popular film in my youth with a theme tune still played to this day by the massed bands of the RAF on royal occasions.

I had honestly no idea that Frederick Escreet Smith (1919-2012) was the author of more than thirty books in various genres in addition to the ten war novels featuring his legendary squadron of WWII Mosquito fighter-bombers.

His 1966 novel The Storm Knight looked like just the sort of thriller I was brought up on, involving a wartime back story, a sunken ferry (containing vital secrets) in a Norwegian fjord and a passing Canadian tourist who just happens to be a skin-diver and underwater salvage expert. Oh, and there’s a girl who has an interest in the wreck and you know what’s going to happen there from the off, despite some cack-handed attempts at seduction by our skin-diving hero.

For a while it reminded me of a tale Hammond Innes might have told, but the geography, sailing and diving scenes are nowhere near what Innes could do. And despite decent baddies, a minefield and the wreck of the ferry lying on a rock shelf, teetering on the brink of an abyss, The Storm Knight does not actually thrill that much. The ‘skin diving’ scenes – an odd expression given the temperature of the water in a Norwegian fjord – are rather laboured and confusing unless you know that a Drager was a German breathing apparatus, as it is not explained, and the cover illustration suggests an aqualung. But I’m being picky. My main complaint was why was it called The Storm Knight? I think I missed that bit.

Thinking of Smith’s best-known work, plus the fact that the 1964 film was on television (again) this month, reminded me that 633 Squadron had been published in Air Ace Picture Library, one of several series of one-shilling comic books (would we call them graphic novels today?) which told stories of derring-do, mostly from WWII. 

Among these 64-page ‘pocket libraries’ produced by competing publishers, were Battle, Combat, Action and Commando, but the first, and my personal addiction, was War Picture Library which began in 1958 and ran through more than 2000 titles up to 1984. The artwork was noted for its precision when it came to uniforms and equipment and the stories for their historical accuracy. While individual authors were never specifically identified, it is safe to assume that many of the stable of writers had first-hand experience of the war and the stories they created were never simply of the gung-ho crash-bash-boom-kapow(!) variety. The storytelling was of the highest quality, and I do not think that is me looking back on a mis-spent youth through a soft-focus lens.

I still remember some of those stories more than fifty years on and one in particular has always stuck in my mind – I even remembered that it was War Picture Library #80 – from 1961, the dramatically titled Banzai! about a small group of Australian soldiers fighting a last-ditch action during the Japanese invasion of New Guinea.

A quick search on Ebay informs me that a reprint was issued in the Battle Picture Library in 1984 and can be bought for about ten quid. Makes me almost wish I’d kept my first edition, but that went – along with my collection of about 200 others – when I started secondary school and discovered my first James Bond book: Dr No in, you’ve guessed it, an A-format Pan paperback (which I still possess).

From the To-Be-Read Pile

I really cannot think why it has taken me so long to get around to reading Eric Ambler’s Send No More Roses as I picked up a 1977 first edition at a very reasonable price about five years ago.

It is a ‘late’ Ambler (1909-1998) whose personal golden age is usually regarded as the 1930s and early ’40s, though all Amblers are well worth reading even when, as in this case, the elements of suspense, jeopardy and violent action are deliberately toned down. This is a cerebral thriller covering familiar Ambler themes; primarily, the nature of crime – in this case, when does legal tax avoidance become illegal tax evasion – and, as always, who can you trust among your fellow criminals? (Some may be faithfuls but there are always traitors.) There is also the Ambler trademark of having an international cast of characters, several of them deliberately stateless, or at least of convoluted origins, all gathered in a rented villa on the French Riviera, an old Ambler stomping-ground. (As an aside: did Ambler ever set a novel completely in England?)

Published in the US as The Siege of the Villa Lipp, though in my UK edition it is the Villa Esmerelda, the location is seemingly perfect for a bizarre meeting between a shady but successful international money-launderer and a trio of criminologists determined to label him a super-villain and the archetype of a new breed of ‘Able Criminals’. The small main cast of six become embroiled in lengthy debates, with one side blustering and indignant, the other accused and seemingly defensive but definitely not telling all the truth. Interlaced with reports of this distrustful summit, the main protagonist provides flashbacks (honest ones?) to his early career in the British army in Italy during the war and the beginning of what today would be called money-laundering and white-collar crime.

An external but very real threat to the villa and its guests emerges resulting in a rapid and dramatic escape, the threads of the story then being tied up far away from the Riviera, in the Caribbean and on an obscure South Pacific island near Fiji. And once again Ambler demonstrates his long-held theory that the innocent can easily find themselves involved in crime (or espionage) and that there is no such thing as a super-villain, merely greedy and distrustful men.

The central subject matter – tax evasion/avoidance – may not seem to be the usual Ambler fare. Could it be that Ambler had some personal score to settle with the tax authorities? Who knows? The important thing is that in Send No More Roses, Ambler is as damnably readable as he ever was.

Bespoke Problems

The problem with having a bespoke book dealer is that they tantalise me with books which I simply have to have and thus my To-Be-Read continues to increase. Despite my best efforts, its growth seems unstoppable; so much so that I have nick-named my dealer The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

My latest acquisition was Time Right Deadly the 1956 debut novel of ‘Sarah Gainham’ (Rachel Ames, 1915-1999), the edition being a 1957 Dragon paperback, an imprint I was unfamiliar with, but which was an imprint of publisher Arthur Barker which became Weidenfeld & Nicholson and subsequently Orion – publishers I have heard of.

The novels of Sarah Gainham, set mainly in the post-war Austria she knew well, have recently been reappraised as significant contributions to spy fiction. Her debut novel however, although there are hints of possible espionage, is primarily a detective story and the story of two detectives. When charming and rather randy journalist Julian Dryden is shot dead in a dodgy part of the Russian sector of occupied Vienna in 1947, suspicion falls on one of his lovers, Ellen Perrott, who is married to an unbelievably tolerant British diplomat. Ellen is not a sympathetic character, bitchily dismissing one of her rivals for Dryden’s affections as ‘A common little thing ...(with)…her provincial worries about her reputation in the intervals of concupiscence.’

In the first half of the book, the dim and lazy Colonel Thompson leads the British investigation, despite not speaking a word of German, or Russian. He is convinced of Ellen Perrot’s guilt but too worried about upsetting the status quo to take action. Then (for no clear reason I can see), the investigation is taken over by a retired Austrian policeman, Mollner, who chain smokes cigars, re-questions witnesses and uncovers Dryden’s involvement in a people smuggling ring which, for a price, helps people escape from behind the descending Iron Curtain.

It is the grizzled veteran Mollner, who knows the ways of Central Europe, rather than the stiff, humourless Thompson who doesn’t care about them, who brings the case to a conclusion.

True Crime 

I met Patricia Cornwell once. It would have been back in 1990 at a party to mark the UK publication of her ground-breaking debut thriller Postmortem and I was there as the crime fiction critic of the Sunday Telegraph (“an excellent chiller with pace and tension”), very much in the shadow of those far more experienced reviewers Harry Keating and Julian Symons.

Now, thirty-six years and thirty-six(?) best-selling novels on, Ms Cornwell gives us an autobiographical memoir, True Crime, to be published in May by Sphere, which has already been described as ‘achingly honest’ and, according to fellow bestseller James Patterson, ‘could be the best book she’s ever written’.

The Other Cornwell

Nicholas Cornwell, better known by his pen-name Nick Harkaway, has done sterling work continuing the legend of his father’s famous creation George Smiley, but I had no idea he himself must have had an adventurous past, as chronicled by novelist John Harris…

Until normal service is resumed,

The Ripster.

Books to Look Forward to From HarperCollins

 July 2021

The Mother Fault is by Kate Mildenhall. To keep her children safe, she must put their lives at risk … In suburban Australia, Mim and her two children live as quietly as they can. Around them, a near-future world is descending into chaos: government officials have taken absolute control, but not everybody wants to obey the rules. When Mim's husband Ben mysteriously disappears, Mim realises that she and her children are in great danger. Together, they must set off on the journey of a lifetime to find Ben. The government are trying to track them down, but Mim will do anything to keep her family safe - even if it means risking all their lives. Can the world ever return to normality, and their family to what it was?

Two women are found dead. Both had a secret. Both had a choice.. Artemis leaves the remote Greek island she grew up on to start a shiny new life in 1990s London with her British husband, a successful entrepreneur. Finally, she has escaped the ghosts of her past. Until she is found hanging from the stairs of her beautiful family home. Two decades later, the apparent suicide of an heiress uncannily mirrors Artemis' mysterious death. And when the ensuing investigation uncovers links to a criminal cartel, National Crime Agency officer Madeleine Farrow begins to pull apart the web of deceit surrounding the two women. The Second Woman is by Charlotte Philby and is a deeply unsettling, brilliantly gripping story of a family legacy built upon lies. Secrets can be suffocating... especially in the wrong hands.

The Cellist is by Daniel Silva. Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia's richest man, he now resides in splendid exile in London, where he has waged a tireless crusade against the authoritarian kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion in Chelsea's exclusive Cheyne Walk is one of the most heavily protected private dwellings in London. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia's vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov's name off his kill list. Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents.... The documents are contaminated with a deadly nerve agent. The Metropolitan Police determine that they were delivered to Orlov's home by one of his employees, a prominent investigative reporter from the anti-Kremlin Moskovskaya Gazeta. And when the reporter slips from London hours after the killing, MI6 concludes she is a Moscow Center assassin who has cunningly penetrated Orlov's formidable defenses. But Gabriel Allon, who owes his very life to Viktor Orlov, believes his friends in British intelligence are dangerously mistaken. His desperate search for the truth will take him from London to Amsterdam and eventually to Geneva, where a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president is using KGB-style "active measures" to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group, the unit is plotting an unspeakable act of violence that will plunge an already divided America into chaos and leave Russia unchallenged. Only Gabriel Allon, with the help of a brilliant young woman employed by the world's dirtiest bank, can stop it.

She is safe... Faye Adelheim deserves the life she has. After fleeing from a violent marriage, she has built her business into a global brand and is living in a beautiful villa in Italy with her daughter. Or so she thought... But Faye's life is turned upside down when her murderous ex-husband escapes from prison. Faye has no choice but to return home to confront him. This will be the fight of her life... Faye will do anything to keep her family safe. But when the dark secrets of her childhood come back to haunt her, she will have to battle like never before to stop her deepest fears from coming true...Silver Tears is by Camilla Lackberg.

What if your mother had been writing to a serial killer? A convicted murderer with a story to tell. Serial killer Michael Reave - known as The Red Wolf - has been locked in Belmarsh Prison for over 20 years for the brutal and ritualistic murders of countless women. A grieving daughter with a secret to unearth. Ex-journalist Heather Evans returns to her childhood home after her mother's inexplicable suicide and discovers something chilling - hundreds of letters between her mother and Reave, dating back decades. A hunt for a killer ready to strike againWhen the body of a woman is found decorated with flowers, just like his victims, Reave is the only person alive who could help. After years of silence, he will speak to Heather, and only Heather. If she wants to unearth the truth and stop further bloodshed, she'll have to confront a monster.  Dog Rose Dirt is by Jen Williams.

Agatha Christie's Midsummer Mysteries. An all-new collection of summer-themed mysteries from the master of the genre, just in time for the holiday season. Summertime - as the temperature rises, so does the potential for evil. From Cornwall to the French Riviera, whether against a background of Delphic temples or English country houses, Agatha Christie's most famous characters solve even the most devilish of conundrums as the summer sun beats down. Pull up a deckchair and enjoy plot twists and red herrings galore from the bestselling fiction writer of all time. INCLUDES THE STORIES: -The Blood-Stained Pavement, The Double Clue, A Death on the Nile, Harlequin's Lane, The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, Jane in Search of a Job, The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim, The Idol House of Astarte, The Rajah's Emerald, The Oracle at Delphi, The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger, The Incredible Theft. 

I have killed several people (some brutally, others calmly) and yet I currently languish in jail for a murder I did not commit. When I think about what I actually did, I feel somewhat sad that nobody will ever know about the complex operation that I undertook. Getting away with it is highly preferable, of course, but perhaps when I'm long gone, someone will open an old safe and find this confession. The public would reel. After all, almost nobody else in the world can possibly understand how someone, by the tender age of 28, can have calmly killed six members of her family. And then happily got on with the rest of her life, never to regret a thing. A wickedly dark romp about class, family, love... and murder. How to Kill Your Family is by Bella Mackie. 

August 2021

Nick Miller is Central Division’s maverick Detective Sergeant. Disliked and distrusted by friends and foes, he works alone. He crosses the line. And he gets results. The Graveyard Shift… Nick Miller is new to the graveyard shift – the midnight hours when the driven and the desperate come out to play. Tonight Ben Garvald is out of prison. After nine years inside, he’s back in the old neighbourhood. Back to his remarried ex-wife. Back for revenge. Brought in Dead… Then after a fatal night out, a girl’s body is pulled from an isolated stretch of river. The last person to see her alive had enemies on both sides of the fence. Miller wants justice. But so does her father – with or without the law on his side. Hell Is Always Today… And the Rainlover. Whose victims are always women. Always at night when the streets are wet. He could be any one of a thousand men. Hounded by the public and the press, Miller needs to find him before he strikes again. It’s time to throw out the rule book in the line of duty. GRAVEYARD TO HELL. Jack Higgins’ gritty police saga set in the 1960s, first released as three short volumes and long out of print, is now reimagined as one gripping novel, packing a punch as only ‘The Legend’ of thriller fiction knows how.

September 2021

Meet Kenny Bond. A murderer. A gangster. A good family man. Kenny Bond is finally out of prison after doing a long stretch for killing a copper, and is determined to get back to life on the straight and narrow. He's got a lot of time to make up for, he's missed his beloved wife, Sharon, and his family is growing up fast. His son Donny might lack his father's edge but his twin grandsons, Beau and Brett - well, they are Bonds through and through. Like him, they won't let anyone stand in their way. Family comes before everything else for Kenny. There's nothing he won't do for them. But there are enemies from his past he can't shake off, and a family feud is brewing. Kenny's determined that nothing, and no one, will threaten his family. But can the Bond family stick together when someone's out to take them down? The Family Man is by Kimberley Chambers.

High-flying lawyer Jessica Wells has it all. A successful career, loving husband Tom and a family she adores. But one case - and one client - will put all that at risk. Edward Blake. An ordinary life turned upside down - or a man who quietly watched television while his wife was murdered upstairs? With more questions than answers and a case too knotted to unravel, Jay suspects he's protecting someone... Then she comes home one day and her husband utters the words no-one ever wants to hear. Sit down... because I've got something to tell you.... Now Jay must fight not only for the man she defends, but for the man she thought she trusted with her life - her husband. I Have something to Tell You is by Susan Lewis.

This annual anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a short novel by Christianna Brand. Mystery stories have been around for centuries-there are whodunits, whydunits and howdunits, including locked-room puzzles, detective stories without detectives, and crimes with a limited choice of suspects. Countless volumes of such stories have been published, but some are still impossible to find: stories that appeared in a newspaper, magazine or an anthology that has long been out of print; ephemeral works such as plays not aired, staged or screened for decades; and unpublished stories that were absorbed into an author's archive when they died . . .Here for the first time are three never-before-published mysteries by Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh and Leo Bruce, and two pieces written for radio by Gladys Mitchell and H. C. Bailey-the latter featuring Reggie Fortune. Together with a newly unearthed short story by Ethel Lina White that inspired Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, and a complete short novel by Christianna Brand, this diverse mix of tales by some of the world's most popular classic crime writers contains something for everyone. Complete with indispensable biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, the fourth volume in the series Bodies from the Library once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown. Bodies From the Library 4.

October 2021

Judas 62 is the second book in Charles Cumming's gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 - a covert intelligence organization that operates beneath the radar. A young spy in one of the most dangerous places on Earth... 1993: Student Lachlan Kite is sent to post-Soviet Russia in the guise of a language teacher. In reality, he is there as a spy. Top secret intelligence agency BOX 88 has ordered Kite to extract a chemical weapons scientist before his groundbreaking research falls into the wrong hands. But Kite's mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded in a hostile city with a former KGB officer on his trail. An old enemy looking for revenge... 2020: Now the director of BOX 88 operations in the UK, Kite discovers he has been placed on the 'JUDAS' list - a record of enemies of Russia who have been targeted for assassination. Kite's fight for survival takes him to Dubai, where he must confront the Russian secret state head on... Who will come out on top in this deadly game of cat and mouse?

Over My Dead Body is by Jeffrey Archer. In London, the Metropolitan Police have set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit – a cold case squad – to catch the criminals nobody else can. Four victims. Four cases. All killers poised to strike again. In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner – convicted of forgery and theft – was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client? And who is the mysterious man his widow is planning to marry? On board luxury cruise liner the Alden, a wealthy clientele have signed up for the opulence and glamour of a trans-Atlantic voyage. But the battle for power at the heart of a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder. And at the heart of all three investigations lies Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the Met. Only Warwick's genius for deductive reasoning, his fierce intelligence and his occasionally rash bravery – combined with that of ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan, reluctantly brought in from the cold – can bring the criminals to justice, and put his nemesis behind bars. But can they catch the killers before it's too late?

The Cult is by Abby Davies. Thirty years ago, in the English countryside, a commune was set up. Led by Uncle Saviour, it was supposed to be a place of love, peace and harmony. But what started out as paradise turned into hell. A shocking abduction... Now, two young children have vanished from their home in the middle of the night. Their parents are frantic, the police are at a loss. A twisting case...DI Ottoline is leading the search - her only clue a mask found in the woods. Could the key lie in events that took place decades ago, when a dream of a new way of life became something far more sinister?

November 2021

A woman living alone in Manhattan wakes up to find that items in her apartment have moved during the night. Someone has broken into her flat and, worse than that, there are signs they have stayed to watch her sleep... Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are asked by City Hall to lead the investigation into this new and dangerous criminal: He calls himself the 'Locksmith', and can break through any lock or security system ever devised. But their hunt is interrupted when a police investigation uncovers a crucial mistake in one of Rhyme's old cases. Fired as a consultant for the NYPD, he risks jail if the police discover he's still investigating the Locksmith. Rhyme and his team must work in secret to untangle the web of forensic evidence that stands between the criminal and justice. The Midnight Lock is by Jeffrey Deaver,

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has returned to Virginia as the chief medical examiner. She and her husband Benton are headquartered five miles from the Pentagon, in a post-pandemic world that's been torn apart by civil and political unrest. Just weeks into the job, Scarpetta is called to investigate a woman's body which has been shockingly displayed on railroad tracks. As Scarpetta follows the trail, it leads unnervingly close to her own neighbourhood... At the same time, two scientists are found dead in a top-secret laboratory in outer space. Scarpetta is summoned to the White House Situation Room and tasked with finding out what happened. But even as she's working the first crime scene in space from the ground, an apparent serial killer strikes again. And this time, Scarpetta could be in greater danger than ever before... Autospy is by Patricia Cornwell.

An Evening With Patricia Cornwell – UK Exclusive Book Launch

 

Join Harrogate Festivals as they host the exclusive UK Launch of Patrica Cornwell's new book. 

International bestselling-author Patricia Cornwell talks to Alex Clark about her pulse-pounding thriller, Spin, featuring her brilliant and unusual new heroine, Captain Calli Chase. More informationn can be found here.

Spin by Patricia Cornwell, published by Thomas & Mercer 12 January 2021

Captain Calli Chase races against time to thwart a plot that leaves the fate of humanity hanging in the balance in Spin the new thriller from international bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. In the aftermath of a NASA rocket launch gone terribly wrong, Captain Calli Chase comes face-to-face with her missing twin sister—as well as the startling truth of who they really are. Now, a top secret program put in motion years ago has spun out of control, and only Calli can redirect its course. Aided by cutting-edge technologies, the NASA investigator and scientist turned Space Force pilot sets out on a frantic search for the missing link between the sabotaged rocket launch and her predetermined destiny…a search that someone else seems very interested in stopping. From NASA to the Chase family farm, to the White House to distant orbits of space, Calli plays a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek with a cunning and ruthless adversary. One wrong move will unleash cataclysmic consequences reaching far beyond the boundaries of Earth.

Quantum by Patricia Cornwell (Extract) Cheltenham Literature Festival 70th Anniversary Blog Tour

1

DECEMBER 3, 2019

NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER HAMPTON, VIRGINIA

I CAN’T SAY for sure when the century-old tunnel was sealed off like a tomb.

Probably around the same time it began popping up in 8-pitch type as a nondescript feature on utility site maps hardly anyone ever sees. Crammed with high-pressure steam pipes and other mechanicals, the section of tunnel designated 1111-A was at some point given the code name Yellow Submarine.

“Never publicly or in print,” I’m explaining to NASA police major Fran Lacey, miserably scuffing behind me on the steep, gloomy stairs. “Mid- to late ’70s is about right for when this might have occurred,” I add, as if she’s listening or cares. “that’s what I get if I factor in the data and do the math.”

Crickets is her response, the same one I’ve been getting, and I turn around, checking on her, fully aware she’s not talking back. May as well enjoy that while it lasts. Except I don’t. I feel bad for her. But that doesn’t mean I’ll cut her any slack. Nope.

“In other words, in the Dark Ages, when you were coming along,” tossing in a dig whenever I can. “And way back then not even NASA had a glimmer about what was ahead. If they’d known, we wouldn’t have the problem I’m trying to make you handle sooner rather than later.”

I pause again for a response that isn’t coming. Our feet slowly thudding on concrete steps nosed with steel safety plates painted screaming yellow. Going down a few. Stopping every second or two as it gets warmer and stuffier the deeper we descend. More like steamy summer than the dead of winter, both of us clearing our throats and sweating.

“I’m guessing some dorky systems engineer or member of the intelligence community was to blame. A Beatles fan at any rate, and therefore most likely after 1968,” I continue to download information Fran couldn’t be less interested in right now.

Talking nonstop in rhythm to our descent. Feet thud-thudding. Another pause or two. Punctuated by the off-gassing of her loud exasperated sighs and coughs. Prompting me to turn around, finding her the same as last I looked, flipping me off with both middle fingers, messing with me the way she usually does. But not really. Because believe me when I say that nothing about this is funny to a legendary badass cop known for being afraid of nothing.

On permanent loan from Hampton PD, Fran oversees investi- gations for NASA Langley’s protective services. Or what’s essentially our police force of some 70 uniformed officers and a dozen special agents, all armed and federally sworn to ensure security and enforce the law on campus. In addition, she supervises NASA’s and the City of Hampton’s joint Marine, Aviation and Crime Scene Units. Plus our mobile response teams, riot squad and SWAT.

Not to mention providing executive protection for visiting VIPs. And coordinating with the military police on Langley Air Force Base, separated from our center by guard gates and an 8-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire. Suffice it to say, Fran is not someone to dismiss, disrespect or underestimate. that doesn’t mean I’m letting her off easy by offering empathy or the slightest hint about how much it secretly bothers me to put her through this ordeal. Or any. But if I’m really her investigative partner and closest ally and friend, then for me to give in to her problem would be the worst thing I could do. It would be selfish and dangerous. Worst case, it could be catastrophic. “I’ll take your profane sign language as a yes. You’re doing okay,” responding to her latest doubly offensive gesture, and it’s pointless to react personally when she’s distressed to the max.

“Shut up,” she manages to gasp, and thankfully her current unpleasantness is predictable and for the most part inconsistent with who she is the rest of the time.

But extreme anxiety, no matter how buried or quiet, rarely makes anyone more cooperative or nicer. Her mop of dark hair plastered to her scowling brow beneath her cockeyed hard hat, her safety glasses constantly fogging up. Staring at her boots, watching every tentative step as she makes her way down a claustrophobic dusty stairwell that she’s avoided like the plague in the past. And would continue to do so were it up to her. Fortunately, it isn’t. Even if she outranks me. Technically.

“The reason I know, obviously, is their iconic album by that name didn’t come out until then,” I answer what she doesn’t ask. “Yellow Submarine. We’re all living on one, a metaphor for spaceship Earth, right? Which is appropriate considering what’s down here, as you’re about to see,” I carry on as if oblivious to her fear of confined anything. Including caves, orthopedic casts, subways, seat belts, handcuffs, bunkers, submarines and most of all, tunnels, and it’s not that I’m insensitive. But as matters relate to her phobias, I’m her sponsor and never her enabler. Meaning I wasn’t happy about her refusal to shadow me along this very route when I ran a routine network analysis inside the Yellow Submarine tunnel yesterday. A very important test. In fact, critical in light of current circumstances, and Fran would have none of it. She stopped answering my text messages or calls on the subject. She ducked and dodged. I worked without her.

Excerpted from Quantum by Patricia Cornwell with permission of Thomas & Mercer. Copyright © 2019 by Cornwell Entertainment, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Quantum by Patricia Cornwell, published by Thomas & Mercer

On the eve of a top secret space mission, Captain Calli Chase detects a tripped alarm in the tunnels deep below a NASA research center. A NASA pilot, quantum physicist, and cybercrime investigator, Calli knows that a looming blizzard and government shutdown could provide the perfect cover for sabotage, with deadly consequences.  As it turns out, the danger is worse than she thought. A spatter of dried blood, a missing security badge, a suspicious suicide—a series of disturbing clues point to Calli’s twin sister, Carme, who’s been MIA for days.  Desperate to halt the countdown to disaster and to clear her sister’s name, Captain Chase digs deep into her vast cyber security knowledge and her painful past, probing for answers to her twin’s erratic conduct. As time is running out, she realizes that failure means catastrophe—not just for the space program but for the safety of the whole nation.