THE TRINITY SIX by Charles Cumming

Sam Gaddis is an authority on Russian history and desperately needs a book deal.  His collaboration on a book about a sixth spy in the renowned Cambridge Five ring is cut short when his co-writer is murdered.  As far as he and the family know, she died of natural causes, but as Sam begins investigating the mysterious spy Edward Crane, whose death was faked, his sources are dying for real.  Maybe Brits are more familiar with the Cambridge Five, but I had never heard of them, so that I didn't really have a good frame of reference here.  In this novel, the sixth spy may have been a double agent, but there's an even bigger story, according to one of Sam's sources, and there may be a recording to prove it.  As Sam gets closer to unraveling the whole intrigue, he begins to fear for his own life, as well as that of his young daughter, and he has to evaluate what are the consequences if he continues to pursue the story.  And who is his real enemy—the KGB or perhaps a traitor inside MI6?  Sam Gaddis is sort of any everyman, caught up in a dangerous situation that he is in no way trained for.  He thinks fast on his feet, though, as in the airport security scene, and I had to admire that.  Still, I couldn't really get a handle on what makes him tick.  Sometimes Cold War thrillers can be thrilling and sometimes they can be complicated, like le Carré novels.  I found this book to be neither.  I found it pretty easy to follow, except for the background on the Cambridge Five, which wasn't that critical.  As for the thrills, I just didn't find that there were any.

THE INVISIBLE ONES by Stef Penney

Gypsies add another layer of mystery to private investigator Ray Lovell's search for a missing woman.  Not only that, but Rose vanished about seven years ago.  When she married into the Janko clan, her family refrained from intruding into her new life, as is apparently the custom with gypsies.  As Ray gets to know the Jankos, especially handsome, taciturn Ivo, Rose's husband, he begins to suspect that Ivo murdered her.  Now Ivo is the sole caretaker of his beloved young son, Christo, who has the family disease—whatever that may be.  Several family members died young from this unknown affliction, but Ivo mysteriously and miraculously recovered.  Ray—still hung up on his soon-to-be-ex-wife—is half gypsy himself, although he was not raised as a Traveler.  When the book opens, Ray is in the hospital recovering from an exotic food poisoning that could have been accidental or attempted suicide or the result of foul play.  Ray's hallucinations and gnarled short-term memory make his illness just one more enigma that he needs to unfurl.  The first-person narration seesaws between the voices of Ray and JJ—a teenage member of the Janko family whose mother may be in love with Ivo.  I personally preferred the Ray chapters, where he sorted through and followed up on clues.  JJ's struggles are of a different nature.  He attends public school and, although he loves his family, has to grapple with the shame and ostracism that come with his offbeat lifestyle.  One of my many guesses about what was going on turned out to be right, but I certainly didn't come up with all the particulars.  If this book is not on your radar, it should be.

DEFENDING JACOB by William Landay

Having your 14-year-old son indicted for murdering a classmate would cause any family to unravel.  The narrator is Andy Barber, an assistant DA, whose son Jacob has means (a knife), motive (bullying), and opportunity.  Jacob also has a mean streak, a history of shoplifting, and a nasty temper.  Oh, and his fingerprint is on the victim's sweatshirt.  Why his parents have chosen to ignore obvious signs that their son is a sociopath is anybody's guess, especially since Andy's forbears had a propensity toward violence—a fact that he has failed to share with his wife, Laurie.  Now Andy and Laurie are paying a huge price for turning a blind eye to their son's abominable behavior.  The book shifts back and forth between the year of the murder and the following year, in which Andy is testifying before a grand jury.  The reason for this latter testimony is as much of a puzzle to the reader as the uncertainty of Jacob's involvement in the murder.  Before Andy's replacement as prosecutor on the case, he had wanted to pursue a known pedophile as the most likely culprit.  As the damning evidence continues to mount against Jacob, however, even Andy and Laurie begin to doubt their son's innocence, especially after a particularly disturbing assessment of his mental health.  More importantly, the parents have to question to what degree they are to blame for their son's problems and misdeeds.  To some readers, this book is not just a legal thriller; it's a portrait of a family facing an unfathomable crisis.  For me, it's a story of a child whose parents are victimized for granting him too much privacy.  Either way, it's a crowd pleaser.

THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern

I love this oxymoron—magical realism.  This book falls squarely in that category, and it did not immediately draw me in.  Now that Harry Potter's adventures are finished, I wasn't sure if I was really up for more wizardry.  Celia and Marco are two young magicians who have been bound into a competition against one another, without either knowing who their adversary is.  The venue is a very special circus that seems to be sort of a combination of Cirque du Soleil, Hogwarts, and Alice in Wonderland.  Le Cirque des Reves (Circus of Dreams) runs from dusk to dawn (the time for dreams, of course) and gives both illusionists an opportunity to showcase their extraordinary talents, which far exceed those of mortal man.  The circus also gives the author a chance to showcase her vast imagination for what would make for a truly stunning visitors' experience, if the laws of the universe did not apply.  The storyline occasionally flits forward a few years to Bailey, a young man at a crossroads, uncertain whether he should create his own way by going to Harvard, or bend to paternal pressure to take over the farm.  He becomes entangled with one of the circus performers, who may offer a third option.  The author really cast a spell on me, though, with the love story that develops between Celia and Marco, even as they discover that they are rivals in their inescapable duel.  Their connection is so electric that it leaps off the page, proving once again that love is more magical than any wishing tree, labyrinth, or ice garden.

POLITICAL SUICIDE by Michael Palmer

Dr. Lou Welcome stumbles upon an elite group of soldiers called Mantis, led by the diabolical Wyatt Brody, while trying to help out a friend.  The friend, Gary McHugh, is another physician who, like Lou, has a history of substance abuse.  Now McHugh is a murder suspect in the death of a Congressman whose wife McHugh was having an affair with.  At first, Sarah Cooper, McHugh's attorney, finds Lou's efforts to uncover another suspect intrusive, if not downright counter-productive, but eventually it becomes apparent that Lou can be useful in some situations.  There's also a crooked cop with some incriminating secrets and a journalist who was blinded when she became a threat to Mantis.  OK, it's formulaic, and this isn't the first thriller about a rogue military unit.  What distinguishes a Michael Palmer thriller is that it has a medical angle, and this time we have a drug, akin to methamphetamine, that works as an antidote to fear, developed for military purposes.  I had a few minor issues with this element of the plot.  I know soldiers are trained to follow orders, but wouldn't drinking a cocktail of unknown ingredients at least raise a few soldiers' eyebrows?   I guess dissent would get a man ousted from the unit.  This whole scene reminded me of the Jim Jones Guyana massacre.  Plus, Mantis's mission requires more than fearlessness; it requires suppression of a basic instinct that trumps fear:  self-preservation.  This may not be Michael Palmer's best novel, but sometimes a beach read in January is just the ticket.

SALVAGE THE BONES by Jesmyn Ward

Esch, a pregnant teenager, lives with her 3 brothers and alcoholic father in the Mississippi Gulf area, and a storm's a-brewin'.  One of the brothers, Skeetah, owns a female pitbull, China, that he loves dearly, but he is just as enamored with the money she can bring in as a fighter.  Her first litter of puppies represents an additional source of income, and Skeetah becomes desperate to save all of the dogs when one dies of an unknown cause.  In the meantime, the family's father tries valiantly to lead the whole crew in making preparations for the hurricane that is on its way.  On the one hand, it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse, but their desperate scramble to survive the disaster is one of the most gripping pieces of writing that I've read in a while.  Esch sprinkles her narration of all this with tales from Greek mythology and compares her own situation to Medea's.  I know these passages are supposed to lend a mystical aura to the story, but, really, this family's struggle is dramatic enough.  The more interesting and appropriate parallel, I think, is between Esch and the dog China, both having to adapt to the idea of motherhood.  Furthermore, Esch's mother died bearing the last of Esch's three brothers, and this tragedy haunts them all.  Esch and China both live in a man's world, doing the bidding of the male figures that surround them.  Esch, caught up in her infatuation with her baby's father, who won't even look at her, needs to face her future realistically.  China has even fewer options but seems to be of more concern, at least to Skeetah, than Esch, who withholds the fact of her pregnancy as long as possible.  The real authority, though, lies with a storm named Katrina.

GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn

Nick Dunne seems to be about as despicable as you can get, and now there's a big cloud of suspicion hanging over him, as his wife Amy has gone missing on their fifth anniversary.  Their marriage is on the rocks, especially after having relocated from NYC to Nick's Missouri hometown, and Nick doesn't have an alibi for the morning of Amy's disappearance.  The media are documenting his every smirk as evidence that he must have wanted to get rid of his wife.  He readily admits to the reader that he's lying about his whereabouts on the morning in question and about the argument the neighbors overheard the night before.  He's also not sharing with the cops the solutions to all the riddles Amy has left behind in her annual treasure hunt.  Amy, on the other hand, is the inspiration for her parents' wildly successful children's book series, Amazing Amy.  You'll have to reserve judgment about Amy until the second half of the book, but the manner in which the author presents the facts surrounding Amy's disappearance is just brilliant.  The first half of the book sets the stage, alternating between Nick's story and Amy's diary, but your jaw will drop as the plot unfolds in the second half, completely reshuffling the deck.  There are plenty of other shady characters that could have offed Amy, but their stories get rewound as well.  This is not your typical thriller, and there's no one here to carry the standard for truth, justice and the American way.  It's creepy and twisty, yet easy to follow, but the really mind-blowing way in which the author draws and then redraws the characters is what makes this book such a hit.