Book ~ "Remember Tokyo" (2018) Nick Wilkshire

From Goodreads ~ In Tokyo, Charlie Hillier discovers you can’t always bank on the truth.

Fresh off a harrowing experience in Russia, Charlie is keen to lay low and his latest posting to Tokyo offers him the chance to immerse himself in a truly foreign culture.

Charlie is soon drawn into his first consular case when a successful young investment banker winds up in a coma following a car accident. After a man claiming to be a friend of the banker’s turns up dead, Charlie and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police inspector assigned to investigate the murder, Chikako Kobayashi, discover that trusting the banker - who emerges from his coma with amnesia - may be a dangerous decision. As Charlie tries to sift truth from deceit, he’s unsure if he’s dealing with a man whose accident has brought about a profound change for the better or a devious criminal lurking behind a convenient facade.

Charlie is in his 40s, divorced and working with Foreign Affairs, reporting to headquarters in Ottawa.  He recently transferred from a posting in Moscow to Tokyo, with a brief stop in Ottawa.  He suffering from jet lag and a bit of culture shock. 

His first case is a Canadian named Rob who was hurt in a car accident and in a coma.  Charlie does all he can to find family and/or friends back home in Canada but comes up empty.  When Rob comes out of his coma, he has amnesia and doesn't remember Aiko, his girlfriend, or Steve, his good friend who is visiting him from Canada.  When Steve turns up dead of an apparent mugging, Inspector Kobayashi becomes involved and together she and Charlie try to figure out what's going on.

This is the third and latest in the A Foreign Affairs Mystery series (I read the first two) and I liked it.  I find Charlie to be a likable guy.  All poor Charlie wants is a little bit of calmness and he's always being pulled into something.  It is written in third person perspective, mostly from Charlie's point of view.  The author makes Tokyo come alive in his descriptions.  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

I look forward to reading more by this author.

Book ~ "The Moscow Code" (2017) Nick Wilkshire

From Goodreads ~ Ottawa bureaucrat–turned-diplomat Charlie Hillier is back. Having barely survived his first posting in Havana, Charlie is eager to put what he learned there to good use. And it isn’t long before he's thrust into a fresh case - a technical writer from Toronto in a Moscow jail on dubious drug charges. Charlie has barely put a dent in the brick wall that is the Russian legal system when the jailed man turns up dead, the official explanation: suicide. And just when evidence to the contrary is discovered, the body is “accidentally” cremated by the authorities.

Undeterred by bureaucratic stonewalling and determined to help the victim’s sister get to the bottom of her brother’s death, Charlie follows the sparse clues available. But what he uncovers brings them both far too close to powers more dangerous than they could have imagined. Suddenly, getting at the truth is less important than getting out of Russia in one piece. 

Charlie is middle-aged, divorced and working with Foreign Affairs, reporting to headquarters in Ottawa.  He recently transferred from a posting in Havana to Moscow.  He meets Steve, a fellow Canadian who is a technical writer working in Moscow.  Steve has been in jail after being picked up at a party ... he was apparently the only foreigner there without a passport.

As Charlie works to help him, Steve is found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide.  Charlie breaks the news to Sophie, Steve's sister, who travels from Toronto to Moscow take her brother's body home.  The body, though, ends up being accidentally cremated after Sophie identifies it.  Sophie is a doctor and sees some signs to make her suspect that Steve's death wasn't a suicide after all.  She looks to Charlie for help to find out what really happened.

This is the second and latest in the A Foreign Affairs Mystery series (I read the first one last year) and the second book I've read by this author.  It is written in third person perspective, from Charlie's point of view.  For the most part, I liked the story and characters,  I found it confusing at times, though, and had a hard time keeping the Russian characters straight (who they were, what they did and how it pertained to the story).  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

I look forward to reading more in this series.

Book ~ "Escape to Havana" (2016) Nick Wilkshire

From Goodreads ~  With his career stalled and the office abuzz about his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s indiscretions, Ottawa bureaucrat Charlie Hillier is desperate for a change. So when the chance at a posting to the Canadian embassy in Havana comes up, he jumps at it, grateful to get as far away as he can from his ex and his dead-end job at Foreign Affairs headquarters. 

At first, exotic Havana seems just the place to bury his past and start anew but he didn’t count on finding a couple of kilos of cocaine under his bedroom floor, the kidnapping of a fellow diplomat or the unsettling connection he uncovers between the former occupant of his house and a Colombian drug-runner. Before long, Charlie’s only concern is whether he’ll survive his posting at all. 

Charlie is middle-aged, married and has a boring job with Foreign Affairs headquarters in Ottawa.  When he discovers his wife has been cheating on him, they get divorced and Charlie quickly gets transferred to Havana looking for a fresh start.

He is happy with a lavish home to live in (with a pool).  What he thought would be a quiet job ends up keeping him busier than he'd thought but he doesn't mind.  His new boss asks him to dogsit his rambunctious dog, Teddy, and how could he say "no"?  When he starts getting strange visitors looking for the former resident and finds cocaine hidden under his bed, he's not sure what to do so he keeps this information to himself.  He's concerned the Cuban officials wouldn't believe him.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I liked it.  I found the writing style funny at times and it moved at a good pace.  You really get a sense of what Havana in 2014 was like.  It is written in third person perspective, from Charlie's point of view.  I found it odd, though, that everyone but Charlie is referred to by their last names.  As a head's up, there is swearing and adult activity.

It is the first in the A Foreign Affairs Mystery series and I look forward to reading the others.