Following on from a recent post I read in which readers create a chain of six books leading from a monthly title, The Tipping Point (2002) by Malcolm Gladwell — I thought I would join in, but, of course, having never read this month’s title and starting point, nor knowing the author, I hit my first hurdle.
Then I gave it a moment’s thought and wondered about the title, ‘tipping point,’ which brought me of all places to physics. Yes, that kind of tipping point—the point where there is no turning back, where a thing will go from being balanced, to being unbalanced. Which in turn reminded me of a book I read, The Missing Informant by Anders de la Motte. Where David Sarac the main character and, in fact, a number of characters in this fast-paced thriller face their own ‘tipping points,’ and, as the various story threads weave and intertwine, we’re pulled toward the story’s gripping and climactic ending.
Informants and tipping points brought me then to Secrets of State by Matthew Palmer, another thrilling read in which tensions between Pakistan and India are at a critical point. And where one piece of planted intel could lead to all out nuclear war. A thoroughly plausible scenario with the focus on two countries more likely to bring us to the brink of destruction than the Middle East, fractured and fighting amongst themselves.
Thinking about secrets and nuclear tensions reminded me of another recent read, Sarah Paretsky’s Fallout in which V.I. Warshawski finds herself leaving behind her beloved Chicago on route to Kansas in the hunt of a missing film student. But as readers of Paretsky know by now, northing is ever straight forward for Vic, who finds herself mixed up in a mystery from the past and a Cold War-era missile silo. Great fun.
Book five, again written by Parestky, and tied in with nuclear war and buried secrets, is Critical Mass (yes, another physics term—critical mass, like tipping point, being a point of no return). Critical Mass is one of my all-time favourite books and not because of Paretsky’s writing or her long time character V.I. but because of the subject matter she chose to focus on: Physics. Moving seamlessly between past and present, Paretsky ties in several threads that connect Warshawski’s closest friend, Viennese-born Lotty Herschel, to events that took place in Vienna and Germany in WWII. Lies, secrets and silence.
Book six in the chain was a little less obvious, it’s The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny. Which, in it self, is book eleven in the series focused on the fictional village of Three Pines. And features the now retired head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, Armand Gamache. What opens to be a straight forward murder-mystery when 9 year-old Laurent Lapage goes missing turns out to be anything but. And the further Gamache delves, the further down the rabbit hole we all go in the search for answers. The connection here, weapons of mass destruction. While not nuclear, still, nonetheless, are at the centre of this cleverly written mystery. And who writes it better than Louise Penny, no one!
Tipping points and critical mass were key in every one of these well-plotted and thrilling reads that share six-degrees of separation to each other. Whatever your tipping point, I hope you find time to check out one or two of these novels and authors, and give them a try.
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