The Crime of Julian Wells [Hardcover]

Thomas H. Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2012

With THE CRIME OF JULIAN WELLS, Thomas H. Cook, one of America's most acclaimed suspense writers, has written a novel in the grand tradition of the twisty, cerebral thriller. Like Eric Ambler's A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS and Graham Greene's THE THIRD MAN, it is a mystery of identity, or assumed identity, a journey into the maze of a mysterious life.

When famed true-crime writer Julian Wells' body if found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question is not how he died, but why?

The death is obviously a suicide. But why would Julian Wells have taken his own life? And was this his only crime? These are the questions that first intrigue and then obsess Philip Anders, Wells' best friend and the chief defender of both his moral and his literary legacies.

Anders' increasingly passionate and dangerous quest to answer these questions becomes a journey into a haunted life, one marked by travel, learning, achievement and adventure, a life that should have been celebrated, but whose lonely end points to terrors still unknown.

Spanning four decades and traversing three continents, THE CRIME OF JULIAN WELLS is a journey into one man's heart of darkness than ends in a blaze of light.

Praise for The Quest for Anna Klein

"A knight errant, a labyrinth of deceit, a sure bestseller." --Kirkus Reviews

"Thomas Cook's work is elegant, philosophical, and literary. This book is to be treasured, and is bound to earn him new readers. Grade A" --Cleveland Plain Dealer

Praise for Master of the Delta

"Thomas Cook never disappoints. With Master of the Delta he elevates the game once again. Beautifully written and heavily muscled with character and intrigue, this novel is a tour de force. Nobody tells a story better than Cook."—Michael Connelly

"Enthralling . . . a thrilling, if dangerous, subject for a master storyteller like Cook." –New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A striking example of a suspense writer working at the top of his form' Chicago Tribune. 'Thomas H. Cook has long been one of my favourite writers' Harlan Coben. 'Thomas H. Cook writes like a wounded angel' Peter Straub. 'Thomas H Cook [...] writes with uncommon elegance, intelligence and emotional insight, scattering literary and historical references along the way' The Times. 'beautifully written, interesting, instructive and ingenious' Literary Review. 'a contemplative, reflective and sinister novel ... Readers cannot help but become embroiled in this dark journey into the world of a mysterious and troubled individual' We Love This Book. 'Guilt and deception in all its forms haunt this lyrically mournful tale ... Cook plays deftly with the form' Metro. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

THOMAS H. COOK was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1947. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award seven times in five different categories. He received the best novel Edgar for The Chatham School Affair, the Martin Beck Award, the Herodotus Prize for best historical short story, and the Barry for best novel for Red Leaves, and has been nominated for numerous other awards.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; Book Club edition (August 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802126030
• ISBN-13: 978-0802126030
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

THOMAS H. COOK was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1947. He has been nominated for the Edgar Award seven times in five different categories. He received the best novel Edgar for The Chatham School Affair, the Martin Beck Award, the Herodotus Prize for best historical short story, and the Barry for best novel for Red Leaves, and has been nominated for numerous other awards.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thinking Man's Novel July 28, 2012

By T.B. Grant TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

"The Crime of Julian Wells"
Hardcover Edition: 292 pages
Published by Mysterious Press, August 2012
Genre: Thriller

Books draw you out of reality. Authors make you see life from a different perspective.

When a quality novel by Thomas H. Cook comes along, it is rewarding, for few authors can tell a wicked story like Cook. And for readers who like their stories written with believable prose and dialogue, Cook rarely disappoints his loyal followers.

Though Cook's latest literally endeavor is not as gripping as his past works: "The Last Talk with Lola Faye", "Breakheart Hill", or "Places in the Dark", his powerful storytelling, meticulous dialogue and characterization of people and far-flung locales drive his newest tale of dark intrigue. The underlining question asked throughout the novel, What propelled Julian Wells to suicide?, takes the story's protagonist, Philip Anders, through a twisty, dark and sometimes violent journey to the shocking discoveries of his best friend's final days. Traveling the world to South America and Europe for clues, Anders' journey reveals many dark things, brutal, malevolent things.

One of the books' highlights: the heartfelt interaction between Philip and his father, who, with wonderfully drawn imagery, is declining with age. Those small, rare moments between father and son, with the aid of Cook's insightful prose, helps us glimpse, quite jarringly, the future of our own final moments. And Loretta, Julian's sister, is another memorable character, sharing quiet talks with Philip, discussing Julian's shady, unlit past and his obsession with everything dark.

Striking, lyrical, intelligent and sometimes difficult to read, The Crime of Julian Wells is Cook's latest literally jewel. A quick read, but a story that will stay with you and challenge you, maybe even alter your outlook on the morality of man, long after the final page. Highly recommended.

T.B. Grant
7.28.12

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Betrayal is "like a landslide in your soul" July 28, 2012

By TChris TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Thomas Cook's books are always filled with penetrating insights, sharp observations of human nature. Deception and betrayal, common themes in Cook's novels, percolate from the center of The Crime of Julian Wells. Although the story is driven by a secret -- what is the crime to which the title refers? -- it is the reaction to betrayal, its poisonous impact ("like a landslide in your soul"), that gives the story its heart.

The Crime of Julian Wells begins with Julian's suicide. The suicide baffles Julian's best friend, Philip Anders, from whose perspective the story is told. Philip is a literary critic, while Julian was an expatriate writer mired in darkness who traveled the world to chronicle stories of crime and cruelty. "It was evil he was after," Philip recalls, "some core twist in the scheme of things." Also confounded by Julian's decision to end his life is Julian's sister Loretta. While Philip and Loretta both knew Julian to be restless but exuberant in his youth, they also recognized that Julian's state of mind changed after he traveled with Philip to Argentina.

The dedication in Julian's first book -- "For Philip, sole witness to my crime" -- had always seemed to Philip a joke. Julian's death causes Philip to reconsider its meaning. Obsessed with the notion that he had, in fact, witnessed a crime he failed to recognize, Philip scours his memory while embarking on his own investigation, a quest that makes him ponder the fate of two people he met in Argentina toward the end of the Dirty War, friends who subsequently disappeared: Father Rodrigo, who appeared to be a poor parish priest, and Marisol Menendez, a tour guide who assisted Julian and Philip. Following the trail from a seedy bar in Paris to a hotel bar in London favored by spies and zigzagging across the globe from there, Philip endeavors to uncover the secrets that his friends had concealed.

How does one destroy a monster, one of the characters asks Philip, without becoming a monster? Julian spent his adult life trying to identify with the victims of monsters in the hope that he could tell their stories. Through much of the novel Cook invites the reader to ask whether Julian's crime, whatever it was, made him a monster or a victim -- or both. Using a particularly clever device, Cook develops Julian's personality through the books Julian wrote. Philip rereads them after Julian's death, and the passages he quotes furnish insight into Julian's life while providing clues to his fate. His search for the truth about Julian leads Philip to some unpleasant truths about his own life.

Philip frequently alludes to (or quotes from) novelists and poets and travel writers. He often references Eric Ambler, an author with whom Cook has much in common. Like Ambler, Cook is as much a philosopher as a writer of suspense novels. He illuminates the shadows that darken the human heart. With the clarity of truth that the best fiction supplies, Cook reveals not just the pain that drove Julian to his death, but the pain that is common to all who have been broken by deception and betrayal.

Cook's plot is constructed with precision. His characters come alive with the virtues and flaws that define a life. His radiant prose is forceful and direct; this is not a novelist who wastes words. Few authors of literary suspense novels can match Cook. The Crime of Julian Wells is not Cook's best book, but it is a strong addition to his impressive body of work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thomas H. Cook's The Crime of Julian Wells, one of his best yet. November 10, 2012

By WarEagle1502

Format:Hardcover

In 1980 I was in a bookstore in Springfield, Illinois and saw a book entitled Blood Innocents. It looked like it would be a good "police procedural," so I bought it. It was Thomas H. Cook's first published work. I had stumbled upon the first novel of a writer who would soon become widely recognized as a master of the genre.

Even though it was his first effort, I was deeply impressed by the quality of his plotting and his finely crafted ability to set up the moods and tensions that would become what I would routinely expect from every one of his books.

Mr. Cook has a very special and very deep gift. I often find myself rereading whole paragraphs, while thinking of Edgar Allen Poe, just to once again experience the flow of the sentence structure. I have grown old while excitingly waiting for the reviews of his latest release.

Cook's latest is The Crime of Julian Wells and it is also one of his best.

The opening scene has Julian Wells, a famed true crime writer, quietly committing suicide in a boat that is floating in a pond on his family's estate. But why? Julian loved life, had lived all over the world, and was only in his early fifties.

The rest of the book is about Julian's sister, Loretta, and his best friend, Philip Andrews, trying to find out what could have caused him so much guilt that he no longer thought he could live with it. Their search spans over forty years and takes them across three continents.

Philip thinks that it all probably started in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the time of the Dirty War where thousands were "disappeared," never to be seen again. He also feels that the crime Julian felt so guilty about had something to do with a young woman named Marisol, who had been his and Julian's travel guide during their time in Argentina back in the early eighties. Their search takes them to Paris, where Julian had been living before returning that last time to the Montauk family home. As he talks to people who knew Julian, Philip finds other people he needs to question in London and Budapest, where Loretta joins him, and then to Russia and on down to Argentina to meet with a psychopath living in the jungle near the border with Paraguay.

At every stop, they find more connections to the pure evil of the time of the junta in Argentina. They find that the simple peasant girl, who had been Julian and Philip's guide, could have been very connected to the disappearances. As they listen to the people who knew Julian during his time in Buenos Aires, the mystery of Julian's suicide becomes ever darker and more complicated. Their quest becomes a dissent into the heart of darkness and the horrible tragedy caused by a seemingly innocent game. [Does this last clause give away too much of the plot?]

As usual, Cook gives the reader a deep look into the darkness residing in every human soul. As his protagonists travel to the various places their search takes them to, he enlightens the reader with psychological and intellectual references (to authors, to passages in their works, events in world history, and geography) that are those of a true intellectual.

I think the main reason that I have looked forward to Thomas H. Cook's books for over thirty years is the power of his prose. As I have stated, his writing and use of the language reminds me of Poe. But the depth of his writing reminds me of William Faulkner (without the long compound/complex sentence structure) and Flannery O'Conner. He is very much in the southern writing tradition. In fact, I have read that the French consider him the best living southern writer. I consider him as a master of the genre he works in and, possibly, the best American novelist writing today.

I honestly think that any reader who enjoys a densely plotted mystery penned by one of the best authors presently writing fiction will thoroughly enjoy Thomas H. Cook's latest novel, The Crime of Julian Wells.

Tom Stringer
Fredericksburg VA

November 10, 2012