Cotterill admits he wasn’t writing “mysteries” or crime fiction or suspense or when he started out. He thought he was just writing “ripping yarns,” as he told Publisher’s Weekly.

A few pages into “Slash and Burn” or any of the Cotterill stories (“Slash and Burn” is only my second) and you’ll realize you’re into a whole new realm with all new rules.

Our “hero” is Dr. Siri Paiboun, a Loatian coroner who is pushing 80 years old. Not just a coroner, the country’s coroner. And he doesn’t exactly relish the role. He’s feisty and irascible about just about everything, however, and that gives him the everyman quality that’s easy to latch onto. (The stories are set in the late 1970’s.)

Cotterill on how he developed the character: “I needed a character who was Lao, yet tainted by the West. As many Lao have done, Siri spent a great chunk of his life studying in Paris. He returned to his country with a pretty Lao nurse, a lot of Western ideas, and membership in the Communist Party. From then on, most of his life was spent fighting the French, the Americans, and the Lao royalists. By the time the wars were over, he was in his 70’s and expecting to retire. But the old generals had something else lined up for him. He retains his Lao sense of humor, his staunch defense of Lao tradition, and his conviction that communism, in the hands of human beings, cannot possibly work. And as an elder statesman, he gets away with voicing such opinions.” (Again, from the Publisher’s Weekly interview.)

Dr. Siri is free to think or say anything—and he does. There is something loose and breezy in “Slash and Burn,” a dollop of carefree, free-form fantasy with every page, thought, turn. Aiding and abetting this mood is the thousand-year-old Hmong shaman spirit who shares space with Dr. Siri. “I’m afraid we come as a set,” he says.

Dr. Siri is pure attitude—still questioning authority with a youthful, feisty edge. He’d just as soon not play a Laotian version of charades as an ice-breaker. “For charades to be fun—if it ever truly was—you had to be three sheets to the wind, not hungover and stone cold sober at breakfast,” he thinks.  A few minutes later, he observes an American sergeant who leans into his walk “like a meatless Nebraska Man in a hurry to catch up with evolution.”

Cotterill doesn’t adhere anywhere close to the standard mystery arc. Wikipedia defines his stories as crime fiction stories and reviews refer to them as “whodunits,” but the plot doesn’t begin with clue-finding; it’s more situational.

The writing is energetic and carefree. Cotterill says he writes each book, after he’s done all his homework and research, in three or four weeks. (Yes, weeks.) The result is a rushing, breezy quality.

In “Slash and Burn,” it takes quite awhile, however, for the gears of the plot to start grinding together. It’s summer in Vientiane, Laos. Dr. Siri is chosen to go on a trip with a delegation from the United States in search of a downed American pilot. The “mystery” mounts as it’s clear that something other than an unfortunate landing spot killed the downed pilot but even as events start to mean increased jeopardy for Dr. Siri, there are detours to make tea and deliver observations on marijuana as additive for food.

Don’t be deceived by the “Slash and Burn” title. Yes, bullets fly at the end but the “slash and burn” here refers to villagers who burn off the top growth to prepare fields for planting, to allow the ash to fertilize the soil.

There are secrets, there are “mysteries,” there is truth to be discovered. Just in a unique fashion with a unique, somewhat reluctant sleuth in an unusual setting.  Call it a mystery or just call it a light, fun read. It’s no wonder Dr. Siri has lasted so long.

You feel every step in the long, cold, brutal climb up the “white fang” of Mt. Everest.

In fact, you feel every step as a nation sets its sights on a goal laden with “mystic patriotism.”

“Into the Silence” is about the process of how Mt. Everest became a “distraction from the reality of the times” and how a nation embraced “a climbing expedition that would become the ultimate gesture of imperial redemption.”

This is a terrific—and terrifically detailed—book about the first three attempts to climb Everest and the indefatigable and odd assortment of people behind them. But be forewarned that the mountain doesn’t make an actual appearance in the telling of this conquest until page 236 of this 580-page epic.

Wade Davis spends many pages establishing the political and mental climate in the seven or eight years leading up to 1921. The first sections dive deep into the battlefield trenches in Europe as individuals emerge who will play a role in the Everest assaults. A nation’s ability to embrace a challenge and steel itself to loss is a key theme.

So is the ability of the mountain climbers to evaluate risk and pursue goals.  The “because it’s there” comment from George Mallory, years after the war, almost makes sense when viewed through the weight and gravity and massive loss suffered.

In some ways, Davis is saying, the desire to climb Everest was part of a PR battle to restore the nation’s confidence. It was spin from Propaganda Bureau. One information officer suggested that climbing Everest would help prevent the world from “slipping back into a dull materialism” and would serve as “vindication of the essential idealism of the human spirit.”

Davis doesn’t scrimp on detail anywhere on this journey.

The Great War. Thinking about Everest. Working through the politics and the culture clash of making the first treks into the Himalayas as the British quite literally brought their empire–and their champagne–with them.

It takes an army of porters and massive organizational effort to position the climbers and support them with provisions and, again, Davis treats these sections with as much care as he does the others. Every phase of the effort led to the next and every challenge came with risks.

You’ll either relish in the fine-grain view or find it tedious. For me, I can’t imagine the second half of “Into the Silence” without the first. The climbers come into view—like the mountain itself—with that much more relief.  Davis invests considerable time in their background and personalities and the reward is a tremendous payoff when we’re on the mountain making our way up.

Of course we know there is failure ahead but the early planners were supremely confident.

“In retrospect,” writes Davis, “these were wildly ambitious, quixotic goals, revealing how little the climbers actually knew about the mountain, the scale of the endeavor, the danger of the undertaking, the power of Everest’s wrath. They were like knights who had endured impossible hardships to reach the mouth of the dragon’s cave, still to discover what it really means to enter and confront the creature.”

The end is the most gripping as the climbers struggle with finding a route, learning what gear works or doesn’t, and confronting issues over oxygen, weather patterns, wind and punishing, brutal conditions. It’s in the last sections where George Mallory takes center stage and we follow him up and down the mountain through all three treks and, finally, his final climb followed by a thoughtful analysis of whether he reached the summit before perishing.

About the only thing that puzzled me was the odd title, “Into the Silence.” It seemed a strange choice, an attempt to echo Jonathan Krakauer’s masterpiece, “Into Thin Air.”  What silence? Certainly not the winds howling over the ridges of Everest.

Aside from those three words, there are several hundred thousand others here that are fascinating and bring a faint story from history (at least to me) to life.  I highly recommend the read and the ride.

“For what reason?”

“It just repeats, sir. It burps.”

And a moment later, a student states:

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”

Yes, well, that history thing will certainly return on one Anthony “Tony” Webster.

That certainty.

“The Sense of an Ending” is about putting together a story about your life, one that explains everything about the way things are today in your world. All the events and details and highlights and drama must fit that story, all other tidbits and non-conforming incidents jettisoned to the wayside, filed under “N” for non-conforming and, therefore, irrelevant.

But as far as the “inadequacies of documentation,” there isn’t much inadequate about what awaits Tony, a file from the aforementioned scrapheap and how it shatters his, well, narrative. The satisfying one.

What you need to know about Tony Webster is that he has a “certain instinct for self-preservation.” Nonetheless, there are some issues to sort out.

“So when time delivered me all too quickly into middle age, and I began looking back over how my life had unfolded, and considering the paths untaken, those lulling, undermining what-ifs, I never found myself imagining—not even for worse, let alone for better—how things would have been with Veronica.”

Ah, Veronica. Future source of “dim fantasies” and the spark in this story, the one whom Tony can’t really forget.  There’s an early suicide and, later, an odd bequest that triggers events here. There is love, regret, jealousy, divorce, trust and time. There is also water—lots of water in the background here. Roman Polanski should make the movie.

This is a chiseled-in-granite, terse story that reminded me of Ian McEwan’s last few – Saturday, Atonement and On Chesil Beach. Like those, The Sense of an Ending packs a wallop in novella fashion. The “voice” is serene and rock steady. The impact of events, unquestionable. The writing is beautiful. (And the ending is just a bit vague; Barnes does not switch to spoon-feeding here.)

And the mystery is delicious. Something is drawing Tony toward this information that will blow up in his face. We know it. Tony Webster may know it. There’s an undertow, something tugging him back to check, back to Veronica, back to revisit key moments in the narrative and make sure all the threads are tightly woven, that the story works.

Yeah, I think you know. Not quite so fast, Tony, not quite so fast.

Fiction:

• The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Last Werewolf – Glen Duncan
• Hell Is Empty – Craig Johnson
• Tunneling to the Center of the Earth – Kevin Wilson
• Guards – Ken Bruen
• Matterhorn – Karl Marlantis

Non-Fiction:

• Into the Silence – Wade Davis (review coming soon)
• Extremophilia – Fred Haefele
• Wichita Divide – Stephen Singulaar
• The Death of Josseline – Margaret Regan
• Finding Everett Reuss – David Roberts
• Unbroken - Lauren Hillenbrand
• The Third Miracle – Bill Briggs
• Zeitoun – Dave Eggers
• The Last Season – Eric Blehm

Rather, it respects them, cherishes them.

This is power-packed with plot, hard work and clue finding. Detective Elvis Cole is at the wheel and partner Joe Pike is riding the figurative shotgun seat.

The story gets a jump start with the discovery of a body in a house that’s part of a neighborhood being evacuated due to wildfires. The body is that of one Lionel Byrd, who Elvis Cole helped exonerate, three years earlier, from charges he had murdered a young prostitute. Byrd’s body is found with a photo album in his lap—a photo album full of grizzly photographs—that make it look as if Cole helped clear a man who should have been convicted.

The strength of “Chasing Darkness” is in the intricate—but easy to follow—plot.  That’s always a delicate balance, in my mind: putting enough players on the stage to make it interesting but not getting overly complicated, either. This allows Crais to pop a nice surprise on readers at the end and it’s a beauty.

Cole works hard and nothing comes easy (always a good combination) as Cole pursues matters deep into the heart of politics and power. “Chasing Darkness” is missing some of Cole’s earlier snappy attitude and the story is told with a dry, straightforward style.

To me, it’s as if Crais just wanted to step out of the way and let Elvis and Joe take over.  And they do.

(For the top list of songs and an explanation of this list, go here. Suffice it to say these are songs 21-40 out of 1,700 sampled from the annual SXSW juke box.)

1. Elephant Stone – Strangers

http://www.myspace.com/elephantstoneonline

Gorgeous pop with a psychedelic touch.

2.  April Smith and the Great Picture Show – Colors

http://www.aprilsmithmusic.com/

@aprilsmithmusic

This one jumped out at my daughter. “I need that,” she said. I think we all do. Love the way this one builds. And what a voice.

3. Matthew and the Atlas: Come out of the Woods

http://matthewandtheatlas.com/

I’m not opposed to this whole Mumford & Sons trend, but it better be good.

Nice version here, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K42pMUP7fuE

3. Who Made Who: Keep Me in My Plane

In that whole Daft Punk – LCD Soundsystem vein but from the Scandanivian underground, whatever that is.  Great groove.  Make me feel sane, keep me in my plane.  Snappy video too.

http://www.whomadewho.dk/

4. Tecla: Good Hair

http://iamtecla.com/

@RebelTec

“Like the asian with the perm, foreheads curled and then they’re burned…

Just like everybody always wants what they don’t have..”

Attitude to spare, she of the three-tiered wedding cake of keyboards.

5. Broncho: Try Me Out Sometime

http://bronchoband.com/

@BRONCHOBAND

Clash Light with a ringing guitar come-on.

6. Lindi Ortega: Little Lie

http://www.myspace.com/lindimusic

http://lindiortega.ca/

From Toronto with Mexican-Irish roots. Channeling Austin, TX.

7. Wonfu: Do Re Mi

http://www.myspace.com/wonfu

@wonfutour

From Taiwan, channeling Shonen Knife or something more poppy?  Don’t give up on this track until you hear the shimmering guitar lead toward the end.  Not the lick, the lead.

8.  Lucy and the Popsonics: Fred Astaire

http://www.myspace.com/lucyandthepopsonics

It’s their description: Fuzz-Pop-rock-indie-electronic sound.  And they cite as influences: Kraftwerk, the Monks, the Knife, REM, Radiohead, Talking Heads, Devo, the XX.

9. Capsula: Under the Woods

@capsula_band

http://www.capsula.org/band.html

They said it: “They love guitars, fuzz, distortion. Their name comes from David Bowie’s song Space Oddity, in spanish means capsule. They sound like mars, dreaming hawaii, a karate fight, flower crowns, vulcano, caramel, gigant waves, turtles in chile, kitten ears. They want to touch your lives and kiss your bones.” From Argentina.

10. Brooke Fraser: Something in the Water

http://www.brookefraser.com/

@brookefraser

A light ditty? Maybe. From New Zealand.

11. The Moondoggies: It’s a Shame, It’s a Pity

http://moondoggiesmusic.com/

@TheMoondoggies

I get a CSNY vibe. The early stuff.

12. Suzanna Choffel: Animal

@SuzannaChofel

http://www.suzannachoffel.com/

Jazzy poppy stuff.  Almost mainstream.  Almost. Is Austin just thick with talent? I suppose.

13. Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside; Danger

@salliefordmusic

http://www.sallieford.com/lyrics.html

From their website: ”Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside vigorously mines a sweet spot between modern and vintage. Sallie’s voice has elicited comparisons to classic jazz and blues icons, yet it is stoked with the fire of youth and rebellion, too, an instrument capable of conveying raw emotion and nuanced artistry in the same breath.”  Yeah, pretty raw emotion.

14. Bell Gardens: Through the Rain

https://www.facebook.com/BellGardens

Beach Boys meets chamber pop and joins forces with Phil Spector. Gorgeous, seductive, surreal pop.  Why is this not on the radio? I don’t know, either.

15. J-Live: The Way That I Rhyme

http://j-livemusic.com/

@J_Live3TP

“Baby all I got sayin’
I’ll walk up in a show and my song starts playin’
I’m like dude…..hell is gonna do that tonight
DJ is looking like: Yeah, my bad, screw that
But all the .. the way that I rhyme
Someone asking: could you play some J-live?
I told them .. skip on that stress
Tell them real DJ don’t take request…”

And so on.  Fantastic.

16. Leatherbag: Lines

Refugees from Houston now live in….wait for it….Austin.  A power trio.  From, yes, Austin. Again, Austin.  I do not pre-screen “from” information when I listen to these 1,700 songs but Austin shows up over and over again, even on some of the so-called “International” flavor stuff.  Not here.  This is American rock and roll.  From Austin.

17. Sinamantes: The Frog

http://www.reverbnation.com/sinamantes

@sinamantes

From their site: “Created in the middle of the hot and rainy brazilian summer of 2010 by two brazilians and one argentinian, SINAMANTES comes to shorten and enhance connections between different aspects of latin-american pop music.”

Mission accomplished.  And, please, don’t swallow the frog.

18. Cobirds Unite: Crown of Thorns

Good live clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw_pg5u15N4

http://www.reverbnation.com/rustywilloughby

I guess this is really “Rusty Willoughby” and he looks to be one talented individual. From his site: “Largely known for his work with the rock/pop bands Pure Joy, Flop and Llama, Willoughby’s mostly lo-key, often lo-fi and decidedly lo-electricity records have flown well under the radar for the last decade or so. Influenced by everything from Woody Guthrie to Jacques Brel…”

Note: not the Pearl Jam Song…

This statement comes from Leonard, one of three in this wonderfully odd and oddly wonderful novel about a love triangle (of sorts).

Leonard’s concern about “developmental fates” comes about half-way through the tale. Leonard goes on to chat about pheromones, haploid cells and asymmetry. It turns out there are two types of haploid cells, Leonard explains. Some are mother cells that can bud and create new cells and others are daughter cells that can’t.

There are a “million possible reasons for this asymmetry,” Leonard explains.  And he is determined to identify what it is.

Just as Leonard Bankhead is studying yeast cells (and watching haploid cells elongate prior to mating—yes, elongate) so is Jeffrey Eugenides pouring through the fine-grain, microscopic detail of the great love novels and turning them inside out, probing for the precise reason why they work.

The Marriage Plot, in fact, works. (Yes, I liked his other two books better, Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides, but here also Eugenides’ effortless imagination is on full display.)

The Marriage Plot plays with literature, toys with story arcs (and almost tells you it’s doing so) and teases with heaps of literary references. There’s not quite the author-voice intrusion of, say, John Fowles in French Lieutenant’s Woman but you can almost sense Euginedes turning to the camera and saying, “now, watch this.”

These are three full-blown people: Madeline Hanna, Leonard Bankhead and Mitchell Grammaticus. They interact, overlap, influence each other’s lives. They push and pull, repel and attract, elongate and shrink back. The bulk of the action here takes place in 1982—such an in-between year, a transition point. The list of topics touched in The Marriage Plot would be a long one but start with depression, motherhood, traditions, religion, rites, love, lust, desire, marriage (duh), Big Medicine and fiction and its role in our lives.

Euginedes stitches these three characters’ lives together and then watches the threads strain, fray and snap. The structure of the book is a treat—seeing the same scene from multiple perspectives, gaining insights with each new telling. The ending is near magic, down to the final few words. It’s a final confirmation, in case there was any question, that we readers are happily manipulated creatures.

We follow these three in various combinations from Rhode Island to Cape Cod, Paris, Calcutta and back. (For me, the Calcutta seems started to drag and Euginedes pushed the envelope of believability.) The story simultaneously circles the globe and caves in on itself and we see three individuals crash back toward each other, electrons orbiting the same atom and unable to pull themselves away. There’s a whole world out there, a “million possible reasons” for why these people are the way they are. You can look all you want, Euginedes seems to be saying, and sometimes people are just the way they are—willing to go to another party and hope for a chance encounter with love.

At the end, I had the feeling that college graduation day is almost a permanent state of being for these three—its own bizarre form of peculiar and permanent purgatory. Euginedes lets us watch these three try on new skins, test out new wings and try to find new ways to fly.

Key word: try.

Bowditch doesn’t de-gloom in “Trespasser.”

He’s still a brooder. There’s a “gnawing uncertainty” to his world. He hasn’t quite settled into his place in town, his place in the community, in his relationship, his workplace. With himself. He’s prone to impulsive decisions and knocking back a few whiskeys to drown his sorrows. He’s going through counseling and he’s visited with a psychologist. He ignores good advice, goes his own way. He adores his school teacher girlfriend but doesn’t treat her well.

Throughout “Trespasser,” I wanted to slip him some happy pills and give him a lesson in how to lighten up.  But he understands his job: “Ultimately, my job wasn’t about animals at all. It was about people—and the cruelties they will commit when no one is watching.”

Anytime you have a non-cop protagonist around a murder investigation, the trick is how do you keep the non-ahead of the cops? How can he outwit the work of the official investigators and figure things out before they do?  And keep the plot credible?

Not only does Bowditch discover several bodies in the course of “Trespasser,” he’s right there at key moments to debrief the right people and glean key bits of information. A bit too convenient? Maybe.

Much of “Trespasser” revolves around a years-old murder investigation and this allows Bowditch to dive back through an old case—with few looking over his shoulder—and look for similarities and conflicts with the central crime that propels the story along.  Bowditch plunges through 1,334 pages of the trial transcript of the old case and picks up a trail of inconsistencies and then goes back to the scene where the earlier “culprit” was apprehended only to find….okay, no need to put in a spoiler alert alarm.

It turns out the years-old crime has a passionate cult of followers who believe the wrong guy is in prison.  This troupe includes some surprising characters who play a critical role in keeping Bowditch on track and fired-up, making for some good twists at the end.

I assume the “Trespasser” is Bowditch, working in the cop’s world and showing them a thing or two. Doiron does a good job of giving Bowditch an edge and a reason to be a few steps ahead of the official investigation.  I just wish I felt more compelled to get in his corner and root for his cause. Bowditch is chased by demons and I stopped caring, after awhile, because he didn’t seem like he wanted to help himself.

Next time out, I wouldn’t mind if Bowditch found a way to dump the dark clouds and just bear down on human cruelties, no brooding involved.

I enjoyed Craig Johnson’s “Hell Is Empty” so much I had to back up a step to “Junkyard Dogs.” I was not disappointed.

“Junkyard Dogs” is a smile waiting to happen.

Walt Longmire is a quintessential combo pack of love and cynicism, toughness and tenderness. Walt is bewildered yet doesn’t judge. He views his crew with head-scratching pleasure and mild amusement. He’s a sheriff with a real-world understanding of the endless variety of human beings that could run through his life and run through Absaroka County and, well, ruin his day. He doesn’t really want to change anything or anybody, just keep order.

The world Johnson has created seems only marginally impacted by civilization’s alleged progress. The cars are old, the town is, um, well-preserved.  What’s on the menu at the Busy Bee Café won’t cause sleeplessness for Tom Colicchio. The crime-solving methods don’t need CSI. Walt Longmire is as cool as Clint Eastwood in an old spaghetti western but more prone to apply brainpower than yank out his .45.

Longmire keeps his world view to himself, treats his staff as equals and marvels at their peculiarities. Enjoys their peculiarities. They are human beings and he’s one, too. I could quote a few lines here or a few lines there, but the Walt Longmire experience emerges over time in the welcoming space that exists between Walt and his town—the doctors, the dimwits, the bartenders, the lowlifes and animals too.  We learn Longmire’s view of the world through the slow accumulation of brisk, punchy observations and the way he engages the world. Johnson is right there with Tony Hillerman. Like Hillerman, there is mystery but the suspense-fear-factor needle is well below the speed limit.  In my mind, this makes for readability.

(OK, I’ll quote a couple of lines.)

A chapter starter:

“It was a two-gallon Styrofoam cooler—one of the cheap ones that you can pick up at any service station in the summer season and then listen to it squeak to the point of homicidal dementia.”

“The sarcasm in his reply was wader deep.”

“There was a five-inch layer of snow on the swings that silently shifted in the slight wind, and I tried to think of something more depressing than empty playgrounds in the middle of winter but couldn’t come up with anything.”

“Junkyard Dogs” involves developers, “a little 4-H project” and mutts of all kinds, human and canine. Some are “wagging companions,” some snarl. Running undercurrents involve Sheriff Longmire’s physical ailments (especially of the ocular variety) and a low-simmering dispute with the foul-mouthed Vic, Longmire’s deputy and source of “smoldering attraction that had bloomed into a stoked furnace,” over buying real estate. Johnson weaves in sub-plots with subtlety and effortlessness.

Take a spin in Absaroka County.  You’re going to want to hunker down and hang out.

“A thriller of the highest caliber.” -  Colin Harrison

“Utterly smashing debut.” – Tess Gerritsen

“Could have used a rewrite.” – me.

The hype. The hype. I’m sure I read “The Informationist” with the hype rattling around in the back of my head. And several times while reading it I thought about starting a new pledge form. A simple on-line seal-of-approval pledge form that would guarantee to the innocent reading public that the reviewer or blurb writer had read every word of the book. Every word.

Publisher’s Weekly went onto to call “The Informationist” a “high-octane page turner.”

Maybe you’re turning the pages so fast you don’t read the details?

I don’t mean to be so negative—and certainly the set-up of “The Informationist” holds plenty of appeal.  An unusual setting, an international search for a missing teenager, intrigue about those who are bankrolling the hunt. “The Informationist” features Vanessa “Michael” Munroe and she is one-note angry.

“The Informationist” is strong on action—with many slower parts interspersed. I may not know what constitutes a “high-octane” restaurant scene. “The conversation had already been interrupted several times by the attentive waitstaff, and it took a longer pause with the arrival of the main course. The discussion strayed from small talk to the similar aspects of their work to small talk again…”

I never felt grounded in the world of Vanessa “Michael” Munroe. I was told lots of “information” about Munroe, never understood her talents. I was told lots of information about what motivates her, never felt connected to her seething anger.

And when she Munroe gets angry, the men in her way better get out of the way. It’s in the action scenes where I wished—hoped—for plausibility.

“She struck like a mamba. Deadly. Silent. Fast. Without a sound the keys tore through the man’s neck, replacing his trachea with a gaping hole.”  Without a sound?

“She gritted her teeth, yanked her right thumb out of its socket, squeezed the hand free of the restraint, and then relocated the thumb with a silent, painful snap.” Isn’t a “snap” (by definition?) a sound? How can it be silent?

A few moments later, she is thrown overboard with a boat anchor wrapped around her legs. (This not a small boat.) “The plunge stopped ten yards below the boat, and still the anchor held tight around her left ankle. Her lungs ached for air, and in panic she clawed at the chain. No time. Think. She forced her fingers between her foot and the chain, bought an inch, and then was free. She kicked off the ocean floor….”

I have such a hard time picturing the action.  She “bought an inch?” She was ten yards below the boat but suddenly on the ocean floor?  (These kinds of passages wouldn’t fly at the fiction-writing critique groups I’ve attended.)

The head-scratching moments add up.  And the bigger plot wends and weaves and meanders and you have to go along with Munroe’s ability to cross international borders, speak a zillion languages and anticipate every violent moment that’s just around corner.

“The Informationist” is fluffy and light, not built for thinking or word-by-word reading.

Questions:

Who wants to take the pledge?

Any suggestions for “high-octane” thrillers where the action-sequence details are perfect?