Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Sometimes black humour is the only way to cope with the horrors of a possible nuclear war. Ace Atkins delivers laughs aplenty that overlay a terrifying cold war thriller. Readers who grew up in the 1980s will smirk at many of the popular culture references that Atkins peppers in this page-turner.
The novel elegantly traverses the American cities of Atlanta and Washington. The year is 1985 where the Cold-War will reach its icy conclusion in Geneva. America and Russia’s Nuclear Arms Race pivots on a meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The veracity of the so-called American ‘Star Wars’ program [S.D.I.] will be determined at that meeting. The conclusion will be an escalation or a de-escalation of the nuclear stockpile as each side will decide if ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ is likely or does America’s Strategic Defence Initiative give Washington the upper-hand?
A deadly game of cat-and-mouse is in play as the Geneva Meeting looms heavily on both the Russian and American secret services.
Atkins peppers his hefty thriller with an oddball assortment of players.
Centre-stage is 12-year-old Peter Bennett the sole child of Connie Bennett a secretary at Cable TV manufacturer Scientific Atlanta. When Jennifer Buckner a fellow worker is discovered murdered, questions are raised as Scientific Atlanta may also be covertly working with the American Government, deploying the Cable TV work as a ruse. Local Federal Investigators Sylvia Weaver and her partner Irv Ravetch are assigned to investigate the goings-on at Scientific Atlanta.
Atkins’ narrative weaves a ‘coming-of-age’ strand, with Peter Bennett thinking that his mother Connie’s boyfriend [the amusingly named body-builder Gary Powers] is a Russian sleeper-agent.
Other strands include Vitaly Yurchenko [the love-sick Deputy Director of the KGB], who defects in Rome and who is escorted to a Washington safe-house by a cabal of preppy CIA Agents.
Then there’s Dan Rafferty [aka Winfield Legate], an FBI official, though married to Delores [who he shares five children] is actually in love with pole-dancer Trinity Velvet [aka Wanda Tarpley].
Peter Bennett’s suspicions lead the twelve-year-old to former journalist turned pulp writer Dennis X. Hotchner [aka ‘Hotch’] and his muscle-bound side-kick, the cross-dressing drag queen Jackie Demure [aka Jackie Johnson]. Like the plot from one of Hotch’s ‘Bud and Brutus’ detective noirs, Atkins’ novel ducks and weaves as the narrative strands converge. Soviet agents Dimitri Kostov and Anatoly Zub are despatched, but all the while [in the shadows] lies Lisica ‘the White Fox’.
The complexity and darkness of the narrative are balanced by equal doses of gentle humour and farce that striate the novel, making it very moving and at times tragically sad. But it is thought-provoking at all times.
Not unlike the recent Travis Kennedy comedic thriller [The Whyte Python World Tour], Atkin’s latest is equally life affirming.
A wonderful book filled with weird insights into the machinations of an absurd reality that masks the dangers of existence.
