The Troubled Man, by Henning Mankel

Troubled, and troubling. This is apparently the last Kurt Wallander novel. No, he doesn't get killed.

Wallander's daughter decides to have a child with a man named Hans. Wallander meets Hans's parents, and observes that his father is worried about something.

Soon, the father disappears, and the mystery begins.

This is not only a tale of police work in Sweden, but  one of international intrigue, and a query into what any of us can really know about any other, even those very close to us.

Tatiana, by Martin Cruz Smith

A novel in the Arkady Renko series. This is set in post-Soviet Russia. Renko begins an unauthorized investigation into the death of Tatiana Petrovna, an investigative reporter not loved by those in power, who died falling from a window. Her death is generally considered a suicide, but Renko has doubts.

At the beginning of the book, we witness the murder of a translator who has been working for a group of wealthy businessmen. The translator keeps a coded notebook, which was in the possession of Tatiana Petrovna before her death.

Set against a backdrop of cynical corruption, Renko's investigation requires a persistence that borders on insanity. Indeed, one of the characters describes him as "Sisyphean."

A New York Times review says "In “Tatiana,” his eighth crime novel dominated by the lawless landmass once known as the Soviet Union, Martin Cruz Smith sets his Slavic sleuth, Arkady Renko, on the case."

A History of Future Cities, by Daniel Brook

Dubai, Mumbai, Shangai, and St. Petersburg: all Eastern, yet all Western in conception.

This was not an easy read, it took me a while to get through, and enhanced my library fines a bit, but I am glad I read it. These four cities share an unusual quality: they were all built in the East, but built to be as Western as possible.

I am no student of architecture, and a fair amount of architectural information is imparted here, but it didn't hurt me to read it. The history, on the other hand, was nothing less than fascinating. When Peter the Great desired to build St. Petersburg, he wanted Western architecture, art, and city planning -- but he did not want Western freedom of thought, speech, ideas, and religion. This theme exists to some extent in the other three cities of this book.

Daniel Brook's website

Washington Post review

Interview with Daniel Brook in the New Orleans Review

Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson

I listened to the audio book version of this, on 9 CDs, read by Shelly Frasier.

Set in the present, even recent past. Cayce Pollard lost her father Win when he disappeared near the World Trade Center on 11 September, 2001. Win was loosely connected to the CIA.

Why did I like this book so much. I was drawn into its world and did not want to leave.

Mirror World (England). What an attractive idea, it describes the feeling of being in a foreign land so well. Those little things I used to notice about Canada when I went there as a child.

Contemporary Russia. Oligarchs.

Pilates. Starbucks

Cayce has a sort of allergic reaction, to certain brand names / logos. One that is mentioned, and used against her in the plot is The Michelin Man, Bibendum.

"The footage" is a film that's being revealed one little segment at a time via anonymous Internet postings. YouTube is not mentioned, and indeed may not have existed at the time this was written, or if it did it was such a minor whistle stop on the Info Railroad that no one would have known what it was.  I was attracted by the retro-Internet world of people on a forum, Hotmail, Ethernet connections in hotels. Saying "hello" when answering a cell phone, being surprised at discovering who is calling -- pre caller ID?

I really loved this book, was sorry when I played the last CD. I'm thinking about getting the print version to read and see if it makes a similar impression.

 http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/pattern_recognition.html

http://www.sfreviews.net/patternrec.html