London Rules, Herron - B+

            On the day terrorists kill a dozen innocents in a village that dates to medieval times, someone tries to run down Slough Houses's own Roddy Ho. Although all wonder if they'd have preferred his demise, they recognize it as a threat to them all, and they begin to tail him. And lo and behold, a second attempt is made at Ho's house and Lamb saves the day. MI5 determines that whoever attacked Ho was behind the Abbotsford bombing. Lamb realizes that the terrorists are following an old MI-5 template for destabilizing hostile nations, and if Ho is somehow part of a leak, Slough House could be in trouble. As the next step in the secret plan is to assassinate a populist politician, the slow horses divide up to keep an eye on the two likeliest candidates. Tragically, the newest slow horse, JK Coe, inadvertently kills one of the targets. When the slow horses capture the girlfriend to whom Ho leaked the information, they and MI5 headquarters narrow the search. The bad guys are N. Korean and not the usual suspects. While the security services focus on an attack at the memorial service in London, Shirley Dander and JK Coe head to the site of the first attack and stop the terrorists in their tracks. Once again Headquarters would like to shut down Slough House but cannot do so.

The Ghosts of Rome, O'Connor - B-

                  This novel is the second in a series based on a real life hero, Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty, an Irish diplomat assigned to the Vatican. He and the fictional Contessa Landini manage the 'Choir,' a system of escape for downed airmen, escaped prisoners, and anyone running from the Gestapo. In the spring of 1944, Berlin puts a vast amount of pressure on the local SS officer to end the escape line or suffer the consequences, and he in turn escalates the pressure on all in the Eternal City. Thrust and parry by both sides as the Germans close down streets, raid buildings, and sweep up a few, but there are so many in hiding, the process of moving them out of the city continues until the liberation.

                  Unlike its predecessor, this book has a stream of consciousness feel to it that I'm not comfortable with. Historians have estimated that O'Flaherty saved 6500 souls from the Nazi's.

Predator Of The Seas: The History Of The Slaveship That Fought For Emancipation, Taylor - B+

                  In 1807, the UK enacted the Act of Abolition banning the slave trade. Efforts to catch slavers generally failed because the Royal Navy's ships of the line were immeasurably slower than the slavers. 

                  The brig Henriqueta was built near Baltimore around 1820, and like all American ships, she was built for speed. She was purchased by a Brazilian, Jose Lima, who used it to successfully build up his slaver business. The Henriqueta was very fast, and was capable of holding over 500 humans, and transported 504 survivors on her first trip from Africa to Brazil. The brig continued to transport thousands of Africans each year and made Lima one of the richest men in Brazil. However, as the British became more and more frustrated with the continued high level of slaver activity, they decided to impound ships even if there was no contraband aboard. The Henriqueta adopted the ruse of flying under an American flag. She had delivered 3040 slaves to Brazil over six voyages. But, by virtue of a very lucky shot that dismasted her, her seventh was halted and over 500 Africanfreed. The ship was auctioned and purchased by an Englishman and soon was sailing for the Royal Navy as the Black Joke. Evidencing a change in policy, "she would be set free to cruise independently in battling the very atrocities she had enabled." In her first week, she captured a Spanish vessel headed to Cuba with 155 souls aboard. Their next success was a Brazilian with 695 slaves aboard, the largest capture in the history of the West African Squadron. Among the issues facing the squadron were fever, smallpox, and  violent weather.  They also faced the excruciating frustration of capturing slavers more than once. Oft times, the buyer at auction sailed the ships back to Brazil and sold them to the previous owner. They were fighting an uphill battle as slavers delivered far more of the enslaved to Brazil, Cuba and the Indies than ever before. The US did not cooperate in any way and more importantly, France was exempt from interference by virtue of a treaty. Thousands of Africans continued to pour into the New World.  In tropical water, a ship's wood often deteriorated and by 1831, the Black Joke was not what she once was. A heavily armed Spaniard, the Marienereto, vowed to sink her. Although "the scourge of Africa's oppressors" was fading, the Black Joke prevailed. A year later, the Admiralty decommissioned the ship and she was burnt on the shore at Sierra Leone.

            In 1833, Parliament abolished slavery in the colonies effective the following year, and in the Indies in 1838. The Royal Navy was able to end Brazil's trading in 1851. The British patrolled the African coast until 1867 and are believed to have saved 160,000 Africans from slavery. Nonetheless, it should be noted that prior to fighting slavery, the English in the 16th and 17th centuries, enslaved 3.2 million Africans, of whom an estimated 700,000 died in the Middle Passage.

                

War Of The Roses Bloodlines, Iggulden - B+

               After defeating York at Sandal in 1460, Queen Margaret headed south to London where Henry VI was imprisoned. A York army blocked the road. They were outflanked when the queen's forces attacked from behind, carried the day, and recaptured the king. Their success was not rewarded when they were refused entrance to the city of London, and were forced to march away to safer surroundings. When the forces of York came to London, they were admitted and hailed. Edward, Duke of York, decided it was a propitious time, and had himself crowned Edward IV. Two weeks later, he marched north to pursue the forces of the queen. At Towton, the bloodiest battle ever on English soil took place. It was fought on Palm Sunday in a raging snowstorm and the Yorkists sent the Lancasters fleeing. Margaret, the nine year old Prince of Wales, and the enfeebled Henry fled to Scotland. Margaret and her son sailed for France, and left Henry in the care of one of his lords. 

                In 1464, Henry VI stumbled into the hands of a York loyalist, and was returned to the Tower. Edward IV, a young and inexperienced monarch, began to mistreat his most loyal servant and chancellor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, whose own father had died in battle with Edward's. So offended was Warwick that he conspired with the king's opponents, and captured Edward IV. Now, both crowned kings of England were imprisoned, but there was a difference: the people demanded Edward's freedom and could have cared less about Henry. Warwick eventually concluded he needed to free Edward, and he and his family fled to Paris. As a guest of the French king, he was obliged to meet with two guests, Queen Margaret and her son, the Prince of Wales. Another fine book that leaves me looking forward to the fourth in the series, and the climax of the War of the Roses.

          

Masters Of The Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought The Air war Against Nazi Germany, Miller - B

                  "The Eighth Air Force had been sent to England to join the ever accelerating bombing campaign, which would be the longest battle of World War II." Casualties would be shockingly high. The 8th had 26,000 fatalities, more than the entire U.S. Marine Corps. 

                   The U.S. Air Force came to the war as believers of strategic bombing, the destruction of the enemy's means of production, and the breaking of its morale. It was aided by the Norden bombsight, which American pilots bragged allowed them to drop a bomb into a pickle barrel. The Boeing-made B-17 was a majestic machine that was amazingly fast, heavily armed, and believed to be invincible. Consequently, the planners did not foresee the need for fighter escorts. Between February 1942 and the end of 1943, the 8th grew from seven men and no planes, to 185,000 and 4,000. However, their start was inauspicious. Throughout the second half of 1942, the U.S. put planes over the continent, but the inexperienced crews could not compete with the Luftwaffe's veterans, and their bombing was totally inaccurate. That first year, they were "flying and fighting without proper equipment, armor, warmth, or rest." Their losses were so high and unrelenting that there was a near total collapse of morale and well-being in the 8th. By the time the 8th began to receive reinforcements in the late spring of 1943, they had seen only a fourth of their crews live long enough to complete their 25 mission objective.

           Over that first winter, the Yanks began the construction of over 200 airfields in England to hold the eventual thousands of planes and hundreds of thousands of men set to arrive. The objective of the RAF and USAF was to destroy the Luftwaffe, its bases, and manufacturing facilities prior to the cross-channel invasion of 1944. The first major attempt the 8th made was against two plants in Bavaria, one the Reich's leading manufacturer of ball bearings, the other, a large Messerschmitt plant. On August 17, three hundred and seventy-six B-17's took off, sixty-one were lost and another 100 were so badly damaged that they were pulled from the line. The damage inflicted on the Germans was negligible. At this point, it was evident that long range fighter escorts had to be used or the US bombing campaign would fail. In Germany, the air war now became the Reich's primary concern. Albert Speer and the Luftwaffe's leaders begged for more fighter planes. Hitler opted for flak guns and revenge rockets. A second run at the ball bearing plant in Schweinfurt again led to massive U.S. casualties. Late in 1943, the 8th added a new strategic asset to its planes, air to ground radar. The American could now fly and bomb in northern Europe's perpetually cloudy skies.

           The air war over Germany finally turned conclusively in America's favor on January 11, 1944. On a mission deep into Germany, the B-17's were escorted by a new fighter, the P-51 Mustang. A single plane protected an entire group from the Luftwaffe only a few minutes west of Berlin. The Mustang changed everything. It could fly as far east as Poland, was faster and lighter than the Me-109, and was produced in massive quantities. Additionally, the Americans were told to not fly with the B-17's, but rather to push forward and aggressively attack the German fighters. On February 20, the 8th unleashed a massive bombing operation in which they lost a handful of planes and the escorts knocked out a third of their attackers. It was a clear cut victory, and the beginning of the end for the Luftwaffe. They carried their massive raids to Berlin next and dealt the capital  blow after blow. Finally in May, American casualties dropped precipitously, and morale skyrocketed. Gen. Eisenhower diverted both the RAF and USAF to ground support throughout the summer of 1944. When the 8th was released, it attacked the synthetic oil industry and finally hit a strategic target that substantially impeded the German war effort. In the fall, a resupplied Luftwaffe made their final effort, but were overwhelmed as the US was flying missions with 500-1000 bombers constantly. Over the winter, the 8th slowed down its strategic ambitions and began to aggressively bomb German population centers.  After the war, the Allies learned that their bombing of the cities throughout the Fatherland severely depressed front line Wehrmacht troops. When there wasn't much left to bomb, they provided ground support to advancing troops. And by the first week in May, it was at last over.

             History has not been kind to 'Bomber' Harris and the RAF's indiscriminate slaughter of German citizens for the entire length of the campaign. The record of the USAF is held in higher regard, but is still considered somewhat mixed. The only truly successful 'strategic'  bombing was of the synthetic fuel infrastructure in 1944. Almost everything else was area bombing. Their greatest and most important contribution was the defeat of the Luftwaffe. By clearing the skies, they made the Normandy landings and the ensuing successes possible. In many ways, this has been a frustrating read. It tells a story of magnificent bravery, steadfastness, and strength by very young Americans called to war. But at no point does it flow smoothly, and it is very long, almost wearying at times. That said, God bless the Greatest Generation.

                 

                     

                   

Hadrian And The Triumph Of Rome, Everitt- B

                   Hadrian's place in history has been secured by two accomplishments. He realized that further expansion was unsustainable and set about securing and strengthening the existing borders. And he refreshed and rebuilt Athens, leading it to be the cultural capital of the empire.

                  Born the son of a senator in 76 A.D., he lost his father when he was ten. A relative, Trajan, was appointed his guardian. During his education, he fell in love with the Greek language and its literature. The decade preceding his birth saw the empire face two momentous challenges. A series of revolts and the suicide of Nero meant the "elimination of the imperial system's founding family," and the declaration of an independent Jewish state led to a lengthy war. The Flavian dynasty of Vespasian and his two sons followed Nero, and ruled for three decades.  When Hadrian was 20, Trajan appointed him a tribune in his army, and he was with Trajan when Trajan became emperor in 98 A.D. The new emperor's first action was to attack the Dacians on the north side of the Danube. In a multi-year effort, Trajan triumphed, and created the province of Dacia, the first addition to the empire in fifty years. Hadrian was promoted and placed in defense of the province, and was made a consul in 108 A.D. Four yers later, Trajan attacked Parthia with Hadrian as his chief of staff. They added Armenia and Mesopotamia to the empire, but both were soon in rebellion. Trajan died, and his adopted son Hadrian ascended in 117 A.D. He immediately withdrew from the east to the empire's traditional borders, and permanently suspended the policy of seeking to expand the empire.

               Hadrian's goal was to bring peace and prosperity, and he sought to emulate Augustus' reign after he had prevailed at Actium. He was interested in the legal system and was the first to codify Rome's laws. He initiated massive public improvements in Rome, and traveled to all the reaches of the empire.  In 122 A.D., he went to Britain where he took great interest in a wall to separate the colony from the Picts. He extended Latin rights and Roman citizenship throughout the empire, and in particular to his legionnaires. Judaea, once again, rebelled and the rebellion was emphatically quashed in 135 A.D. with hundreds of thousands of Jews killed, enslaved, and exiled. He passed away in 138 A.D., and was succeeded by Antonius, who governed for two decades. He was a great emperor, a successful soldier and builder, but was never  popular with the people or the Senate. Edward Gibbon admired "his vast and active genius," and his "equity and moderation."  The noted Briton considered Hadrian's rule part "of the happiest era of human history."

Clear, Davies - B

                 In 1843 Scotland, an impoverished Presbyterian minister is hired to go to a remote Shetland island and evict the sole occupant. John Ferguson is shipwrecked on the shore of his destination and saved by Ivar, the island's last occupant who speaks an obsolete Norn language. As John recovers thanks to Ivar's ministrations, they slowly become friends. It takes a while, but Ivar eventually realizes that John could only be here on a mission from the laird, who Ivar hasn't seen in years. The men become close and closer, and John dreads what he has to do, but his wife, Mary, arrives, sees how close they are and offers to take Ivar in with them. An interesting and very different story.

Strategy For Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945, Murray - B+

                "As with all military thought, a wide variety of political, historical, and economic factors guided the development of air doctrines in the period between the First and Second World Wars." Paramount though in the rush to build air forces was a desire to avoid a repetition of the horror of the first war's trench warfare. That said, what followed was not unlike what had preceded, a battle of attrition. Throughout the 1930's, the materials necessary to build an air force - rubber, aluminum, and petroleum were in short supply in Germany. And because the country was a continental power, the Wehrmacht's needs took priority. Thus, the development of the Luftwaffe was "subject to definite economic constraints," and the requirement to support the other armed forces. Goring was an incapable manager, and the only person attending to "strategic planning, force structure, or industrial production." His inadequacies, combined with the economic limitations above, led to the collapse of the air arm late in the war. 

             The rapid victory over Poland was due to overwhelming power, and the close coordination of air power supporting ground forces. In Norway, the Luftwaffe was critical to Germany's submission of the country. In France, "the use of dive bombers to support the Meuse crossings played a major role in one of the most decisive strategic victories in the military history of the 20th century." However as the Luftwaffe was at the outer limits of the range of its planes, it suffered serious losses over Dunkirk. Although the Battle of Britain was a close run thing, to some extent the result was preordained, as the Germans had no aircraft that could compete with the Spitfire and Hurricane. For Barbarossa, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy the Soviet air force. On the first few days, the Soviets lost 3800 planes. However as the year wore on, maintenance and supply systems reached the breaking point in Germany. By December, the Germans had stalled, indeed they were facing defeat. They had not prepared for the losses they suffered, and production could not keep up with the loss of men and material. For all intents and purposes, defeat was now inevitable. Throughout 1942, the Luftwaffe remained focused in the east, supporting the army as it dealt with the burgeoning Soviet response to the invasion. Only in the Crimea region did the Wehrmacht and its air support achieve offensive success. However by the end of the year, the imbalance of men and material was overwhelmingly in the favor of the Allies, who outproduced Germany's airplane production by a ratio of 2.5 to 1. 

            The air war over Germany began in 1942 when the British initiated their bombing campaign, which escalated significantly the following year. They pounded the Ruhr in March at a "terrible cost" and "flirted" with defeat. Success soon followed with the use of chaff to confound local radar. They destroyed Hamburg that summer. The British nighttime area bombing was supplemented by American daytime strategic precision bombing. When the Americans flew into German airspace and beyond the range of their fighter escorts, the Luftwaffe inflicted immense casualties on the 8th Air Force. Because Hitler was so focused on revenge, he encouraged continued construction of bombers and missiles to attack Britain instead of building more fighters to defend the Reich. That said, when Bomber Command began the arduous task of attacking Berlin, Germany was able to hold them off by coordinating a defense based upon ground radar coordination with searchlights, night fighters with radar, and flak to inflict heavy damage on the British to the point that they called off the attacks. Indeed, in the first quarter of 1944, Bomber Command lost 796 planes and crew. The US introduced the long range American fighter escort, the P-51 Mustang, and changed the dynamics of the air war. Reinforced with a massive infusion of men, fighters and bombers, the objective of the 8th Air Force now became the elimination of the Luftwaffe. During "Big Week" in February 1944, the US began flying 1,000 bombers with as many escorts against the overmatched Germans. Luftwaffe losses became "unmanageable."

             The Allies then turned to preparations for Overlord by bombing French rail and marshalling yards, the rail bridges over the Seine, and German fuel and refinery capabilities. When the invasion came, it was only "the skill and tenacity" of Germany's soldiers that prevented a rout. From D-Day to the end of the month, Allied pilots flew 130,000 sorties, ten times the Luftwaffe's. By the end of the summer, Germany and the Luftwaffe were spent. But the Allies in the west failed to capitalize on the situation and conclude the final victory, assuring eight more months of casualties for both sides and the ongoing destruction of Germany.

             This is a magnificent military history, and one those who have an interest and patience will enjoy.

            

Silent Death, Kutscher - B

                  This is the second novel in the Babylon Berlin series and is set in 1930. Gereon is called out to an accidental death of a famous actress after a spotlight falls from the rafters in a movie studio and kills her. He concludes that the spotlight was manipulated to fail, and that it is a case of premeditated murder. The technician who is likely behind it is missing, as is a second famous actress. Soon thereafter, the technician plummets to his death from a very tall building. All conclude that it was suicide but Gereon is convinced he was pushed off. Then Homicide finds the second famous actress dead in an abandoned movie theater with her vocal cords removed. A third actress's body is found in another closed theater, also with her vocal cords gone. Gereon tries to convince all that the three are related, but no one at the Alex agrees with him. He's suspended for ongoing insubordination, but heads off to follow one more clue at Wannsee. There, he confronts the killer. This novel too is quite good, but unlike its predecessor, it is a straightforward police novel lacking just about any meaningful insights into the last years of Weimar.

Gabriel's Moon, Boyd - B-

              Gabriel Dax is a travel writer uninterested in politics who happens to be in the Congo when Patrice Lumumba asks for an Englishman to interview him and record the conversation. He jumps at the task but never has the chance to even write the article as Lumumba is out of office before Gabriel returns to London. Lumumba had told him the US and the UN wanted him dead "because of the uranium." Soon, he is dead and Gabriel's life begins to go sideways. He's followed, his apartment is broken into, and is of interest to MI-6 and the CIA all because of the tapes he's buried in the yard. He soldiers on trying to write his next book, but is repeatedly asked to do small favors for MI-6, and all along the way, his life is now at risk. Pretty weak tea from an accomplished novelist.

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Higginbotham - A*

                As the Apollo program was winding down, NASA turned its thoughts to a vehicle that could leave the earth and return in- tact. "This would require a true spacefaring vessel, and such a vehicle remained the stuff of science fiction." A plane that could withstand the forces of liftoff, survive the "cold soak" of space,  reenter the atmosphere at 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and have  engines that could work both in the atmosphere and in outer space was seemingly impossible. Nonetheless, a plane was designed by NASA and began production at four different contractors.  NASA selected thirty-five new astronauts for the program and dropped the prior requirement that each candidate have extensive flying experience. TFNG's (the thirty-five new guys) included men of color and women for the first time. Columbia took its maiden flight on April 12, 1981 with two NASA veterans, John Young and Bob Crippen, at the controls. It exceeded all expectations and an exultant nation reveled in its success. 

              When the solid fuel rockets were recovered from the Atlantic, engineers were surprised to see that the O rings were charred after a two minute ignition. The massive 150 foot rockets weighed over a million tons and had to be manufactured in four parts before final assembly at Cape Canaveral. The O rings were part of the mechanism that sealed the parts together. NASA and the contractors' engineers believed they had solved the issue after the maiden flight, and there were no problems on ensuing shuttle liftoffs.  However in early 1984, Morton Thiokol engineers discovered another O ring erosion in two different places. The professional conclusion a month later was that future erosion was not a threat to the viability of the engine.  In January, 1985 after a once in a century freezing cold in Florida, the O rings failed to compress quickly enough and suffered significant charring. Senior executives at Huntsville and at Thiokol began to believe that sooner or later, there would be a catastrophic failure. 

             Flight STS 51-L scheduled for January, 1986 included two passengers, Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher from New Hampshire who would give lessons from space, and Greg Jarvis, an engineer from Hughes Aircraft selected to launch a Hughes satellite. The rest of the crew were NASA veterans; Ron McNair, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, and Dick Scobee had all flown previously. Only astronaut Mike Smith was a first timer. The crew and thousands of family, friends, and spectators descended on the Cape.  Cold weather scrubbed the launch for Sunday, the 25th, and the 26th. When Thiokol's engineers learned how cold it was, they alerted the Cape to the risks and offered a 14 man unanimous recommendation to not launch. The temperature at launch was forecasted to be 24 degrees colder than any previous launch and the O rings would lose all flexibility, be rigid, and would not hold their seal. NASA vigorously pushed back and the Thiokol men relented. Challenger would launch at 9:38 A.M. on the 28th.

           The early arrivers at the launchpad on Tuesday were shocked by the amount of ice everywhere. Florida was experiencing its second January in a row of a once in a century freeze. The crew entered the shuttle and the door was closed at 9:07.  When the Rockwell exec in California saw the ice, he told Florida that the manufacturer of the spacecraft could not assure the safety of the orbiter. NASA moved forward as another hold would disrupt the launch schedule for the year. As the countdown proceeded, the man at Thiokol in Utah who had pushed the hardest to stop the launch refused to watch on tv. At 11:39, the Challenger lifted off. Seventy-two seconds into the flight, the Challenger exploded.

           Within days, those who studied the film knew it was the O rings, and in Washington, it was decided that there would be a Presidential Commission to investigate the tragedy. Within a week, a Thiokol executive pointed out that the people from NASA were prevaricating about what happened. The commission, chaired by former AG Bill Rogers, concluded that many NASA people were lying and that their decision making process was "clearly flawed." The insistence to fly when the Thiokol people were opposed was the linchpin of their negligence. The final report was "damning." Those at NASA who lied and misled were quietly retired or shunted aside. The whistleblowers who told the truth at Thiokol became personae non gratae. In a famous appendix to the Rogers Report, a noted Caltech scientist said, "For a successful technology, science must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." Four families accepted the governments compensation, and three received awards after lengthy litigation. When Columbia failed in 2003, the report concluded that "many lessons of the Challenger disaster had gone unheeded." This very sad story is an indictment of any entity that insists on persevering through dissonant information because of the overriding expectations of accomplishing the mission. A truly great book.

            

The Big Empty, Crais - B+

                   Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are back at it for the twentieth time in this LA series. Cole is retained by a young influencer, Traci, the Baker Next Door, who is achieving nationwide fame. She asks Cole to find her dad who disappeared without a trace a decade ago when she was thirteen. The matter was thoroughly investigated twice and the job appears to be hopeless. Cole unravels a complex story one lead at a time. And as he pursues the matter, he is followed, trapped and beaten badly. It turns out dear old dad and his brother were not what they seemed. Almost all of these novels are excellent, and depict the nitty gritty details of life on the underside of the City of Angels.

Precipice, Harris - B

             This novel is set in the second half of 1914. It is based on the love letters written by British PM Herbert Asquith to his much younger mistress, Venetia Stanley. While Asquith focuses on the Irish problem and pines for Venetia, war on the continent comes out of nowhere and becomes unstoppable overnight. Asquith's second wife had been told to foreswear intimacy after a miscarriage, so the PM happily pursues younger women, and falls particularly hard for Venetia. As matters spiral out of control on the continent and a year later in the Dardanelles, the PM becomes embarrassingly dependent on her and writes to her three times a day. Feeling overwhelmed, Venetia pulls away, volunteers to become a nurse, goes to France, and accepts an engagement proposal from an unsuitable (and homosexual) admirer, at which point Asquith wishes her well. The absolutely astounding thing about this novel is that a man in his sixties and prime minister of a vast empire acted like a love struck teenager and shared innumerable matters of state and strategy in violation of common sense and the law. The descriptions of those in the cabinet, particularly Winston, Kitchener, and Lloyd George are fun to read.

The Rivals, Pek - B

            In the second novel about Claudia Lin and her colleagues at Veracity, we once again explore the, for me, incomprehensible world of the technology behind NYC's preeminent matchmaking sites. We also again face the possibility of a murder of someone in the business who believes the big three are using AI to manipulate their subscribers. The things I like about this book are the references to the city's geography and the insight into the Chinese immigrant community in Queens. Claudia's hiding her sexual orientation from her domineering mother is also a hoot.

From Russia With Love, Fleming - B

                        The Soviet secret services decide that an attack must be made on the West and the decision is made to strike at Britain's most effective agent, 007 James Bond. SMERSH is assigned the task and Rosa Klebb's strategy is to embarrass Bond in a honey trap before killing him in Istanbul. She recruits the beautiful Tatiana Romanova and an Northern Irish defector, Red Grant, now a SMERSH assassin. Tatiana contacts the British head of station in Istanbul and offers her defection with the Soviet's latest encryption machine. As she has studied the files of the men in MI 6, she wants to meet Bond. They meet at his hotel and she asks to take the Orient Express. They head west, but there are KGB on the train. Grant disarms Bond outside of Venice, but of course falls to James.

May The Wolf Die, Heider - B-

               Nikki Serafino is an Italian woman working as a liaison  between the local police and the US Navy in Naples. She is tasked with helping find the murderers of two American officers, one shot in his car and the other strangled and dumped in the ocean. There are indications that they may have been trafficking drugs, and a local mafioso confesses. Nikki does not believe it's that simple. She takes a look at some records of people who had been on ships with the two men and susses out the identity of the killer. Quite frankly, not that interesting, and Naples sounds just horrid.

Memoirs Of Hadrian, Yourcenar - B

              Hadrian (76-138 A.D.) was emperor for 21 years, and is generally applauded for focusing on consolidating, not expanding, his domains. He promoted Athens as the cultural capital of Rome. This novel is an imagining of a letter to his successor, Marcus Aurelius. 

             After bemoaning the state of his health, he turned to his story and praised his education in Rome and Athens. His cousin Trajan placed him in the army on the Danube frontier, where he s enjoyed fighting for a man who was more soldier than emperor. He fought well and garnered the approval of the emperor, who married him to Sabina, his grand niece. While back on the northeast frontier, Hadrian began to develop a philosophy of government inconsistent with Trajan's and most Romans. He began to view endless war as a folly, one that drained resources and men, and began to believe a military focused exclusively on defense was optimal. While governor of Syria, Hadrian saw Trajan embark on an ambitious, but in Hadrian's mind, foolish advance east to fight the Parthians, conquer Arabia, and reach farther into Asia. Trajan's plans for conquest faltered, as did his health. He died far from Rome, and designated Hadrian his heir. 

              Hadrian immediately settled the war in the east, and returned to Rome.  He refused the honors and titles the Senate wished to bestow as he designed a less imperial household and continued to treat all with dignity. He was "thankful to the gods" that he had the  opportunity to reorganize the state, not have to save it from some crisis. He traveled the empire, building new cities and endeavoring to negotiate issues with foreign powers to avoid armed hostilities. He spent little time in Rome and preferred Athens. His efforts to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem faltered when a massive anti-Roman uprising by the Jews broke out. It was a four year battle in which the Jews crushed the occupiers before they themselves were put down in a massive loss of life, and the end of Jewish political independence. From there, he returned to Rome to prepare for the end. "Let us try if we can to enter unto death with open eyes." This book is less a telling of the history of his era and more a lengthy and interesting philosophical musing. 

The Things They Carried, O'Brien - B+

      "The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, cigarettes, salt tablets, Kool -Aid, lighter, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C Rations and two or three canteens of water." 

     They carried thousands of things into what "was not battle, it was just an endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost." No one in the author's platoon, the lieutenant who led them, or of his buddies, thought there was any reason for them to be there. The did not fight for a cause. They fought to survive.

       O'Brien was drafted in the summer of 1968 after graduating from college summa cum laude. He was so distraught that he drove north from St. Paul and spent six days on the Minnesota-Canada border just thinking about crossing. But he could not leave his hometown, his country, or his life. He concluded "he would kill or maybe die-because he was embarrassed not to." His depiction of being young, uninformed, and petrified while contemplating going to Canada is brilliant.

      As this is a novel with related short stories but no straight line narrative, it is difficult to write about. It is about many things, things that I, and most of us, have not experienced. He weaves tales of comradeship, fellowship, the brotherhood of those who have fought together. Death is pervasive, and the deaths of those left behind are ever present and in the front of the consciousness of the survivors. This is a haunting brilliant book. Thanks to my daughter Lauren for the recommendation.

The True Story Of The Christmas Truce, Richards - B

                     The war was expected to be over by Christmas. By the holiday, it was clear it would not be. Throughout Flanders, British and German soldiers engaged in a spontaneous truce. They fraternized in No Man's Land, swapped food and cigarettes, exchanged jokes and played football. In some sections, the ceasefire lasted a week.  This book tells the story.

                     By mid-October, the front had stabilized and the massive entrenchment had begun. A month later, the rains assured that the trenches became permanently flooded, and everyone was miserable. There was some fraternization throughout the fall by men sharing the same dismal world. As the holiday approached, civilians in both countries sent a significant number of packages. Every German front unit received a Christmas tree, which they decorated at the front while singing carols. On Christmas eve, men from both sides entered No Man's Land and began to exchange Christmas greetings. They serenaded each other with Christmas songs. "The peace that had begun would become even more pronounced on Christmas Day." Fully two-thirds of the British-German front did not fight on December 25th. The fraternization did include some football playing, but no real games. Soldiers from both sides wished they were home, and far away from war. "As the daylight slowly faded, both sides made their way back to their respective trenches." In many sectors, the peace continued on Boxing Day, but it turned into a ceasefire when it began to rain again and everyone had to work to maintain the trenches. As the war became more violent, there would not be a repetition of 1914. "Each nation's senior commanders ensured that there were unequivocal orders to avoid any rerun of the Christmas Truce."

              "The idea of open, friendly fraternization between enemies has remained in the minds of many as a uniquely First World War concept, forever linked to the Christmas Truce  of 1914.'

Dr. No, Fleming - B

         Bond is slowly recovering from injuries suffered during a recent assignment when M calls him in. M sends him off to Jamaica on a job that he believes will be a short vacay in the Caribbean. When two attempts are made on his life in the first twenty-four hours, Bond concludes that is not the case. His predecessor was likely killed by a gang under the thumb of Dr. Julius No, a recluse who owns and lives on a private island about twenty miles from Jamaica. Bond  heads there under cover of darkness. He runs into a beautiful girl of twenty, Honeychile Rider, who collects and sells rare seashells. When No's men seek them out, they head inland. They are captured and dine with Dr. No, who informs them that there is much going on at Crab Key, including interfering, with Moscow's assistance, with US missile launches. Both Bond and Honeychile are set up to die, when Bond endures torture, survives, kills No and some of his men. They escape back to Kingston and set the authorities onto Crab key. I do not think I've read a Bond book in over sixty years, and am totally shocked at how good it is. 

The Stars Turned Inside Out, Jacobs - B+

                  One morning at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research the home of the massive underground Large Hadron Collider, a scientist is found inside, irradiated, and dead. Dr. Howard Anderby had only worked there for a few months before his death. Inquiries by a former member of the Swiss police and now a private investigator, Sabine Leroux, yield  only that he recently spent a year in China working on their collider project. Also, Dr. Eve Marsh, who had fallen in love with Anderby, failed to disclose it. At Anderby's memorial service, all the scientists receive an app message with a live feed of a body floating in the LHC's xenon tank 1500 feet below ground. Niels Thorne was a scientist turned PR hack, who just about everyone at the LHC despised. However, Thorne left a video with one of the post-docs who brings it to Leroux. It clarifies that both deaths were murders, not accidents. It turns out a little bit of old fashioned espionage was in play.

                This is one heck of a novel, albeit one focused intently on physics. That said, I still haven't the slightest clue what a sub-atomic crash is or a Higgs boson for that matter.

i have no idea what a sub atomic crash is

The Devil Raises His Own, Phillips - B

              This novel is a sprawling, big story set in Hollywood in 1916-18. It is more or less about the beginnings of the movie business, and in particular, 'blue movies.' Everyone is hustling and trying to make a few bucks. The central character is an aged photographer who beds the middle aged women whose pictures he takes, and who shoots his granddaughter's fiance in the leg to stop him from joining the army. Other folks include two women who become fond of a lesbian lifestyle after satiating each other on film, a delusional drunk comedian, a claw hammer wielding escapee from prison, a crooked postal inspector, various drunks, floozies, con-men, and generally people of low character. The books setting forth the vast canvas of the city a long time ago has been broadly acclaimed.

The Hunter, French - B+

                    Cal Hooper, a former Chicago PD detective, has nicely settled into life in rural Ireland with a nearby lady friend, and a modest woodworking business with his apprentice, Trey Reddy.  Trey is the town's impoverished, wild, 15 year old teenage daughter who is growing up with help from Lena and Cal. Trey's con man of a dad makes a rare visit, and soon has roped a bunch of the farmers into a plan to swindle an Englishman he met in London. Cal believes there's more going on here than meets the eye, and Trey warily tries to sort out how to stop her dad from hurting her siblings and her mother. She learns that her dad and the Englishman are really in town to con the locals because her dad is seriously indebted to the Englishman. That requires her to weigh her desire to get back at the townspeople who killed her brother a few years ago against her disdain for her dad and his illegal plans. Cal sorts it out and tells Johnny Reddy to leave town. When Trey finds the Englishman dead one morning, both she and Cal are pretty tight lipped with the local detective, as is the entire town. Trey eventually blows her dad's cover and the locals convince him to leave town. Although the murderer is never uncovered, life returns to normal and everyone settles back into their way of life.

                    This is a truly excellent novel with moments of brilliance. The author excels at rural Irish dialogue and paints a picture of a small town's anxieties, and the communal groupthink that brings them all to a boilng point simultaneously. Really good.

                

Babylon Berlin, Kutscher - B+

           Newly arrived in 1929 from Koln, Inspector Gereon Rath is assigned to the Vice Squad. The capital is a city of decadence and violence, as the communists battle various right wing groups. As he was previously in Homicide and has little interst in porn raids, he decides to check out a murder in his free time. And he can't quite get his mind off the cute brunette stenographer in Homicide, Charlotte Ritter. While looking into the death of a Russian, he learns that there is allegedly a trove of Tsarist gold in the city. Rath makes enough of an impression in Vice that he is assigned to the short-handed Homicide division. Homicide is busy, hounded daily by the press, and a web of intrigue and internicene politics, all compounded by the murder of a young detective who likely was murdered by a colleague who is attempting to frame Gereon. Rath methodically works his way through clues and lies to confront and bring to justice those behind the murder of the Russian and his young colleague. Along the way though, all of the feuding at work appears to cost him a woman the he has fallen head over heels for, Charlotte Ritter. This is an excellent crime thriller, and an extraordinary historical novel. It brings to life the maddening complexities of Weimar Berlin.

Augustus, Williams - B+

           This National Book Award winner is half-a-century old, and is considered one of the greatest historical novels ever written. It tells the story of Gaius Octavius Thurinas, later Gaius Caesar Octavius and ultimately, Augustus. It consists of letters and notations of his contemporaries, and finishes with a composition by Augustus. 

          He was born in 63 BC and adopted by his great uncle, Julius Caesar. When he learned of Caesar's assassination, he told his three comrades: "I swear to you all now, and to the gods, that if it is my destiny to live, I shall have vengeance upon the murderers of my uncle, whoever they may be." Caesar named him his son and heir, and Caesar's enemies dismissed him as a mere boy. Marc Antony told him to leave Rome for the safety of the countryside, while Cicero denigrated him as an inconsequential youth. Octavius soon challenged Antonius for primacy in Rome, and the Senate supported him. He defeated Antonius and was made Consul. Octavius then pivoted, came to terms with Antonius and they allied against Brutus, Cassius and Pompey. In a battle at Phillipi in Greece, both Brutus and Cassius lost their lives. Pompey died soon thereafter. Octavius and Marc Antony settled into an uneasy peace.  By 37 BC, they were at loggerheads, and a year later, Antonius married Cleopatra after divorcing Octavius' sister. The substantial forces of the two men clashed at Actium, a naval battle off the Grecian coast, in 31 BC. Octavius' forces prevailed and Marc Antony and Cleopatra fled to Alexandria and committed suicide. A decade and a half of civil war was over. Octavius was now Caesar Augustus, first Emperor of Rome.

       Augustus was married to Scribonia whom he divorced the day she gave birth to his only child, Julia. He immediately married Livia, pregnant with her second child by Claudius Nero.  Marriage in his court was purely a political matter. Fearing for his health, he married Julia off when she was fourteen to her cousin Marcellus who died a few years later. He then married her to his friend and colleague, Marcus Agrippa, thus distressing Livia who had hoped Julia would marry one of her sons.  Julia gave Agrippa sons who Augustus immediately adopted. When Agrippa died, Augustus arranged for Livia's son, Tiberius, to divorce and marry Julia. Tiberius left after a year as both parties to the marriage despised each other. Eventually, Augustus banished Julia from Rome for her many lovers and her proximity to a treasonous group. Augustus was alone, separated from his wife, his only child exiled, and all of his friends dead.

       In his 76th year, he composed a long letter the week before he died to an old friend reminiscing about the previous six decades. He foreswore friendship and true love in order to seek his destiny as Rome's ruler, and to commit himself to the country. Those efforts led to 40 years of peace during which no Roman fought another and no barbarians entered Italy. Prosperity and justice has been a gift to all the peoples of the empire. "Throughout this world the Roman order endures. Te world looks in awe upon the Rome I found built of crumbling clay and that is now built of marble." He died on 19 August 14 AD.

         

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond, Macintyre - B-

        "It is the character of Bond - established in the first novel and hardly altered thereafter - that explains the enduring appeal of the world Fleming forged: tough, resourceful, quintessentially British." He wrote 14 books in adozen years, and sold 40 million copies during his life. 

         Ian was the second of four sons born in 1902 to a wealthy Edwardian family, whose patriarch died in the trenches in 1917. He was not much of a student, loved sports and the ladies, was an excellent skier and spoke German fluently. He landed a position with Reuters and learned to write, but didn't stick with it. His most notable activity before the outbreak of WWII was the pursuit of women. "From 1939 on, he was a man with a mission: specifically, naval intelligence and espionage." He went to work for the Director of Naval Intelligence. He traveled the world and was involved in every action of espionage and counter-espionage undertaken by the Royal Navy. 

        After the war, he went to work for the Sunday Times. He wrote his first Bond book in 1952. There are theories about the derivation of the name James Bond, but no conclusive answer. The same is true of who the spy was modeled on.  M, on the other hand, was likely based on Fleming's boss during the war, Admiral John Godfrery.  The plots were driven by the war and the Cold War, as Fleming constantly has Bond looking back to WWII experiences as he battles the Soviet's SMERSH. Bond's luxurious lifestyle appealed to a nation that was, until the mid-fifties, rationing food and beginning to dismantle its empire.

      Fleming had never had robust health and never took care of himself. He had high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack in 1961. The following year, the film 'Dr. No' changed everything as "the first installment of what would become the most valuable cinematic franchise in history." His deal with Broccoli and Saltzman paid him $100,000 per movie and 5% of the producer's profit. The films propelled book sales, and in the last full year of his life, 1963, Fleming's income increased tenfold. He died in 1964 at the age of 56 of a massive heart attack. 

     Interestingly, a Wall Street Journal article last week discussed the standoff between Cubby Broccoli's daughter and Amazon, the  studio holding rights to the franchise. Amazon cannot produce without a script and a star from Barbara Broccoli, and she and the algorithm driven studio cannot find common ground. I believe we all should root for Cubby's daughter so that we can relish Bond, James Bond.

The Vietnam War: A Military History, Wawro - A*

             "What motivated the United States to go to war and stay there was a fear of appearing weak." Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon did not want to lose a war, or be castigated as Truman was for losing China.

              Both Eisenhower and Kennedy provided South Vietnam with a minimal amount of support. LBJ inherited Kennedy's hawkish advisors, and declared he wouldn't lose Vietnam. "The State Department report of February 1964 spelled out the reality that would dog the war effort in Vietnam: it was unwinnable under all conceivable scenarios." Lyndon Johnson wanted to focus on domestic issues, and had no desire to expand the war.  He felt he could not invade North Vietnam without drawing in China and the USSR. So, variations of a limited war were the only options on the table. The reserves would not be called up, taxes would not be raised, and costs would be contained. There was no plan to win, just the hope to bring Hanoi to the negotiating table. Less than a year after his election as the peace candidate, LBJ had committed almost 200,000 men to Vietnam. The US built a hundred airbases, a dozen ports, and enough infrastructure to support a million man army.  The approach was  'search and destroy,' and to travel by airmobile helicopters. The more effort and men the US put into Vietnam, the greater the number the north sent south. In 1965 alone, the north quadrupled their men in the south. The US escalated and had almost 500,000 men there in late 1966. The year 1967 saw costs rise to $22B and 300,000 men drafted. Westmoreland requested an increase to 700,000 men so he could invade N. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and told Washington he couldn't win the war until 1972. After a year or so of accomplishing virtually nothing in the Central Highlands, Westmoreland moved the war south to the Mekong Delta, a swampy, wet agricultural region where American "mobility and firepower" would never be the game changers MACV hoped for.  Nonetheless, the Politburo in the north began to worry about America's perseverance, wealth and obstinacy and concluded a dramatic move was necessary. They decided on an all or nothing/go for broke effort in Vietnam's major population centers. In late 1967, they lured American forces away from the cities into sparsely populated areas. The NY Times surmised the war might be a stalemate, and Life magazine declared it "no longer worth winning." The goal of the Tet Offensive was not to beat the Americans, but to break the spirit of the American public. The first attacks were at Pleiku in the Central Highlands, and the US effectively and immediately countered afflicting a high volume of casualties on the enemy. In DaNang and in the Mekong, where there were fewer Americans, the ARVN refused to fight and ran from the NVA and VC. In the area around Saigon, the VC breached the wall at the US Embassy and almost overran MACV headquarters, sending Westmoreland into a bunker for a possible last stand. The US counterattacks in the Saigon area killed 8,500 attackers, thwarting the communist hope for a spontaneous uprising. To the north, the battle in Hue went on for three weeks when 6,000 NVA regulars overran the city. They killed thousands of local civilian supporters of  Saigon.  The Marines and ARVN, who fought well in Hue, eventually recovered the city. The north had suffered serious losses and Westmoreland wanted more men to expand the war. However, the sight of the Embassy in Saigon being breached convinced Americans that the North had prevailed in Tet. The physical and psychological devastation in the south shook the regime.  On February 27th, Walter Cronkite said there was no reason "to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds." He concluded that the best we could hope for was stalemate, and LBJ said: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the  country." He was correct. The year 1968 saw the nation conclude the war was a mistake. One of the Wise Men, Dean Acheson who LBJ occasionally gathered for advice, told him: "We can no longer accomplish what we set out to do in the time we have left and the time has come to disengage." In March, LBJ sacked Westmoreland and announced he would not run for re-election. May saw the north initiate a mini-Tet that rocked Saigon, and killed more Americans than any other month of the war. The American aerial response left another 155,000 homeless in the capital. Johnson's attention turned to negotiations and by the fall, the US and North Vietnam were close to a deal. However, a backdoor approach to the south by Nixon and Kissinger scuttled the opportunity to end the war in 1968. Twenty-eight thousand more Americans would die before 1973.

             The man who ran on his secret plan to end the war acceded to the presidency on Jan. 20, 1969. There was no plan. Nixon and Kissinger decided to hit the north harder, turn the tide and end America's discontent with failure. He began the bombing of Cambodia, increased the use of napalm in South Vietnam, and resumed B-52 raids. He also began to withdraw American forces, and replaced them with Vietnamese. The negotiations in Paris were going nowhere, escalation had no impact on the north's determination to pursue independence, protests in America were erupting, and in late 1969, the cover up of My Lai was exposed. Chinese and Soviet support now assured that the communists were well supplied with modern weapons. At year's end, the troops met Bob Hope's Christmas show with Black power salutes, middle fingers, and a cascade of boos. MP's had to hustle Hope away. In the new year 1970, the administration set its sights on Cambodia the source of supplies for the southern half of South Vietnam's communist troops. Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia a week after reporting the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 men. The announcement led to widespread and virulent opposition at home all for an event that Nixon was advised would fail. It did. It led to the failure of the Cambodian government. Congress withdrew the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and attempted to suspend funding. By the end of 1970, the combat readiness and morale of the grunts was "rotting" away as drugs, alcohol, and a complete disregard for their being in country mounted. At home, the Calley trial was the only consequence of an investigation that found that dozens of officers, including West Point graduates, had either participated in atrocities or covered them up.  Before the Senate, Lt. John Kerry stated: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam...To die for a mistake." The last major effort in the war was that spring and was an ARVN attack into Laos intended to halt incursions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It failed because of the inability of the southerners to fight, and led to 2,000 American deaths as 726 of the 750 helicopters used were either shot down or shot up. Nixon announced that "Vietnamization was a success." Seventy percent of Americans believed he was lying. Over the winter of 1971-72, the North sent thousands more men south and even moved MIG airbases close to the DMZ in the hope of taking Saigon by May 19, Ho's birthday. The NVA launched its spring offensive in March. Once again, the ARVN were humiliated. Nixon retaliated by bombing the north for the first time in four years. American airpower ended the spring offensive. Under pressure from the Chinese and the Soviets, the North indicated a willingness to come to terms in Paris with Nixon. The agreement was signed in January, 1973, allowing the remaining 25,000 Americans and the 591 POW's to leave. It was essentially the same deal Nixon had undercut four years earlier. The North was resupplied and slowly recovered from the heavy bombing of 1972. The end for the South came when Saigon fell in April, 1975. 

              The war "was a luxury that only a phenomenally rich great power like the United States could afford." Three presidents escalated because they could and they did not want to appear soft. Jack Kennedy had toured Indochina as a senator and said that no war could be won against an enemy that "was nowhere and everywhere." War games early in the Johnson administration indicated a chance of victory if we bombed the ports and cities of the north and caused a vast amount of casualties. LBJ opted instead to slowly escalate in the hope the north would negotiate. Militarily, the US was unprepared and incapable of taking on the pure guerrilla war tactics of the VC, and the quasi-guerilla war tactics of the NVA. There were no set piece conflicts where we could prevail.  The ethos of why we fought continued even afterwards. When Saigon fell, Ronald Reagan compared Nixon, Kissinger, and Ford to Neville Chamberlain.

              This book is extraordinary because it does not focus on what every book I have read focused on, the politics and the lies. Just about everything in the last half a century emphasized the deceits about the domino theory, the deception about Tonkin, the delusional light at the end of the tunnel speeches, and the unknown and illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia that came cascading into full view with the publication of the Pentagon Papers. This story is about the endless deceptions bordering on, if not actually treason by Westmoreland throughout his tour at MACV. He and his staff constantly manipulated the numbers and lied about their meaning. Search and destroy never really succeeded, so they made up the numbers. They covered up My Lai and reveled in bombing campaigns that ended in innumerable homeless refugees. The ARVN could do nothing right, but they were a 'success.' It was a decade of deceit, delusion and contempt for the truth, the South Vietnamese, and our young men. The author highlights over and over again Nixon's actually treasonous interference in 1968.  Often mentioned here was LBJ's fear of Chinese intervention. As all of the participants lived through the Chinese crossing the Yalu River in Korea, that is somewhat understandable. I wish the author had addressed whether this was a real threat. After all, China was going through famine and the Cultural Revolution, and was almost 500 miles from the DMZ. Critics have suggested that this will be 'the' book on this war.

            

              

Postscript: I've included the three most iconic photographs that appeared in color in US magazines during the war because the author emphasizes the import of the middle one in swaying American opinion during Tet.

                               

                                                     

The Seventh Floor, McCloskey - B+

                 After losing her friend and colleague, Sam, on a busted op in Singapore, Artemis Proctor is unceremoniously ushered out the door at the Agency. A few months later, after languishing in a Moscow jail, Sam shows up at her door. He tells her something he did not tell his captors or his debriefers - there is a high level mole at Langley. He and Artemis begin to plan an op to find out who it is. Their search comes to the attention of the mole, who in turn asks Moscow for help. Moscow assigns two relatively inexperienced sleeper agents to dispose of Artemis and Sam. After a miss at Artemis, Deb Sweet, number 2 in the CIA, shows up looking for answers and hustles Artemis to the Farm. Since Artemis considers her one of the possible moles, she takes flight and heads back to DC. She and Sam fly to France, run a surveillance of a safe house, and conclude that a very high up former friend and lover of Artemis', Mac mason, is the mole. They present their information to the 7th Floor. Soon, Mac retires, as does his Russian handler. After the Russian sleeper agent kills Sam, Artemis heads to Paris. She confronts Mac, obtains his confession and the location of his loot, and sends him into the next world. Six months later after a meeting with Deb Sweet, Artemis is back on the payroll. This is the third book by a former CIA agent who tells great stories.

Black Wolf, Gomez-Jurardo - B+

             Antonia Scott, a brilliant Madrid based criminologist, is called to the north of the country.  A Russian mafia financier is brutally murdered, and his wife, Lola,  is on the run. As it turns out, he was informing because the police were ready to put him in jail. Both the Russians and the police want Lola, but Antonia's boss, who is in charge of the Europe wide Red Queen project, won't divulge why. The Russians want her so badly that they send the Black Wolf for her. The Wolf is a woman dressed all in black, , and a killing machine on a motorcycle The tension mounts and ends with a shoot out at a property deep in the woods. This is the second in a very good trilogy.

Worst Case, Newman - B

              An airline pilot has a coronary while the 2nd officer is out of the cockpit. The plane crashes about 30 miles from Minneapolis,  hits a nuclear facility, and sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events. The only question is how bad it will be. It appears to be a level 7 event, on par with Fukushima and Chernobyl. The risk is that  the entire Mississippi River basin will be poisoned for a thousand years. People around the country panic trying to escape, markets crash and the whole world watches. Two people, the local fire chief and a woman who works for the US government, make the ultimate sacrifice and save the day. The author is a master at page turners and this one surely qualifies. 

The Wrong Stuff: How The Soviet Space Program Crashed And Burned, Strausbaugh - B+

           "The race for space between the US and the USSR was a severely uneven match." The US had the best of the German rocket engineers, and all of their plans. Add in the US's industrial might with the destruction in the Soviet Union, and the US had a substantial lead. Nonetheless, the Soviets achieved the first satellite, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first spacewalk, and the first object on the moon. The Soviet program was run by Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer. They built their space city at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. "Between the loneliness, the hideous conditions, and the pressure to get the Cosmodrome built fast, mental and physical breakdowns were regular occurrences." From this hellhole that everyone who ever worked there despised, the Soviets launched Sputnik on October. 4, 1957. Although it was a pivotal moment of the Cold War, Sputnik was the size of a beachball and carryied a short wave radio. The American press coined the phrase "space race." In September 1959, a Soviet probe crashed on the moon, and Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April, 1961. Gagarin was an international hero, the "space Elvis," everywhere but in the US.

         By the mid-sixties, the Soviets were in trouble. They did not have the wherewithal to build larger rockets and bigger capsules to take the next step and lift man beyond the earth. The military was clamoring for more missiles, and Brezhnev was more inclined to focus on national defense. In the two years the US flew ten Gemini missions, the Soviets did not fly once, and Korolev died. In early 1967, Soyuz I burned up on reentry killing its cosmonaut. Gagarin died in a plane crash. They were able to send capsules to the moon, but not control their return. It was all over in July, 1969. This book is an eye opening delight. I never knew how slapdash and dangerous the Soviet program was. Thanks to Dave Gutowski for the recommendation.

The Last True Templar, Morrisson & Morrisson - B

            Willa and Sir Gerard Fox are in 14th century northern Italy planning on a pilgrimage. By happenstance, they rescue Lady Luciana Corosi from a band of robbers. Luciana is the spouse of a corrupt and lying banker, but more importantly, the only child of the last Templar. Luciana has half of her father's letter explaining where the Templar treasures are hidden. Her husband is attempting to kill her to obtain the information for himself. With Willa and Fox's help, Luciana  obtains the second letter and begins the quest to understand the riddles, find the valuables, and beat her husband to the prize. They travel from Siena to Florence to Venice to Rhodes. In a fight with Corosi, Fox and Luciana's allies prevail, but lose most of the treasure when two ships sink off the coast of Rhodes. However, the two chests of gold are recovered. In a fitting finale, Fox and Willa finally marry.  We will see them again in the third installment next year.

Karla's Choice, Harkaway - B+

              The subtitle of this novel is 'A John LeCarre Novel,' and it is written by the late author's son. It picks up George Smiley in early 1963 just after his agent, Alex Leamas, was shot while escaping East Berlin. George's remorse leads to his retirement, but Control soon asks him to return. The Circus ascertains that a long term Hungarian sleeper agent of the KGB has done a runner and left London in a hurry. It turns out that Moscow Centre sent an assassin to kill him, and now both The Soviets and the British want to get hold of Ferencz Roka. The chase leads to Berlin,  Vienna, Budapest, and Lisbon and includes some of the old hands we know: Toby Esterhase, Bill Hayden, Jim Prideux, and Peter Guillam. It's a blast to get back to the good old days of scalp hunter, lamplighters and the Cold War.

The President's Lawyer, Robbins - C

              A few months after he's voted out of office, Jack Cutler is accused of murdering a young woman from the White House Counsel's Office. She was pregnant with his child, his DNA is everywhere, but there is only circumstantial evidence. Jack calls on his best friend from their days growing up in Brooklyn. Robbie Jacobsen is somewhat compromised by the fact he had an affair with the decedent before the president did, and the president's wife was Robbie's high school girlfriend. Nonetheless, they face the trial together. Rob puts Jack on the stand. He does well and the end result is a hung jury. The rabbit the author pulls out of his hat to have a peripheral character as the guilty party is complete nonsense.

The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis And The Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked The World, Macintyre - A*

             "The underlying forces that produced the crisis in London more than forty years ago still agonize and destabilize our world. Britain had never before faced an international hostage-taking incident on this scale, and the siege changed forever the way terrorism was perceived, and dealt with."

              At a little after 11 in the morning on April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen entered the Iranian Embassy in Kensington, and quickly gathered up the twenty six people in the building. The police were there in minutes and the gunmen handed them a statement. They were Iranian Arab opponents of the new theocracy, who had been helped, financed and trained by Iraq, and demanded the release of 91 prisoners held by the secret police in Iran. Police, paramilitaries, firemen, medical professionals and special forces, all from different security entities, soon surrounded the building. There was limited contact between Salim, the nom de guerre of the leader, Ibrahim Towfiq, and the police hostage negotiators over the course of the day before the embassy settled in for the night. On the second day, anxieties rose as the deadline of noon for Iran to release the prisoners approached. Salim kept extending the deadline while changing his demands, and eventually asked for twenty five hamburgers and released two hostages. At day's end, little had changed and the SAS was deployed for immediate action if necessary. The third day saw the hostages and the gunmen becoming more friendly and beginning to care for each other's well-being. As the days wore on, Salim was exhausted and frustrated by the British media's failure to publish his demands and political statements. Late on the fourth day, the authorities allowed the BBC to release Salim's demands leading to a joyous celebration among the hostages and the gunmen. The release of two more hostages led to the delivery of a celebratory meal. The fifth day saw no movement or change and the authorities decided that they would enter the embassy on the sixth day.

            At 12:55 pm on May 5th, the gunmen killed an Iranian hostage who was a member of the Revolutionary Guards. Six hours later, the SAS was ordered to take the embassy. At 7:23, with the tv cameras rolling, explosives blew the skylight on the roof and the commandos entered the building. Tear gas grenades smashed through the windows and the gunmen began shooting at the hostages. Salim was the first killed when he pointed a submachine gun at the commandos. Four more terrorists fell in the melee. The youngest hostage taker was the only one captured alive. Only one hostage died. It was over in eleven minutes. 

           The British people were terribly proud and patriotic and the new PM, Margaret Thatcher, was ascendant. John Le Carre proclaimed it a triumph. The SAS was praised around the world, and was used extensively two years later in the Falklands. Saddam Hussein continued his war against Iran in an eight year grind that killed a million men. The young Fowzi Nejad was tried and sentenced to life in prison. He was released in 2008. This is a truly superb book by an excellent writer, and has been totally fascinating - because I had no idea this had happened.

A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention Into The Russian Civil War, Reid - B+

            "The operation was substantial. Some 180,000 Allied  troops from sixteen countries took part, in half a dozen theatres ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. It ended two years later with fewer than two thousand Allied lives lost and one not insignificant gain - independence for the Latvians and Estonians. But as to overthrowing the Bolsheviks, it completely failed." The war was not very bloody as battles were few and far between, but the violence perpetrated against civilians, particularly Jews, was extensive.

           Almost immediately upon assuming power, Lenin asked Germany for an armistice, and signed the Best-Litovsk Treaty in March, 1918. The Allies considered the treaty a "heinous betrayal and the Bolsheviks traitors in German pay." That summer, Wilson  agreed to Britain's and France's request to intervene in Russia. When the British landed in Baku and Archangel and the US and Japanese  in Vladivostok, the Bolsheviks realized the counter-revolution was at hand. Thousands of counter-revolutionaries were executed, and British and French diplomats were expelled. In the closing months of 1917, British and American forces moved south from Archangel and engaged the Russians in light skirmishing before winter set in. The British occupied Baku for six weeks before the Bolsheviks repulsed them. In Vladivostok, the Americans sat tight with no orders from home, the Japanese occupied Manchuria, and the White Russians formed a government under Adm. Kolchak. At war's end, the Royal Navy sailed through the Dardanelles to the Crimea bringing men, supplies and money for the Whites.

         "The 1919 campaigning season was when the Civil War reached its climax." Kolchak was the first to move, with 130,000 men, into western Siberia. He was spectacularly successful and by April was near theVolga. Just to his north in Perm, the Reds pushed back a British-Russian Brigade that retreated north on the Kama River. Both the US and UK concluded that there was no real strategic objective in the Arctic north and began withdrawing their troops from Murmansk and Archangel. General Denikin led the White forces in the south north to Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad, Volgograd), and to Kiev. As the Whites advanced, they sanctioned and participated in a vast number of pogroms labelling the Jews as Bolsheviks. "For the British government, Denikin's massacres and mass rapes were a side issue, only of serious concern in so far as they caused political embarrassment." 

           In the Baltics, the British asked the occupying Germans to stay on after the Armistice. Intervention came in the spring of 1919 as French, English, and Baltic Germans came together to fight the Reds.  They marched on Petrograd and reached to within twelve miles of the former capital. They were pushed back and fled south. Soon, Estonia and Latvia reached accords with the Bolsheviks and achieved their independence.

         At this point in 1919, the Whites still held all of Siberia and much of what had been the Russian Empire in the south. In September, Denikin began his bid for Moscow. His forces quickly ran out out of supplies, and began to fall back. Trotsky now had Kolchak retreating to the east and Denikin to the south. "The Whites were failing, the British could not support them forever." Kolchak's flight to Vladivostok ended in Irkutsk when the Reds captured and executed him. In the Russian heartland, the Whites and the remaining Allied troops fled to the Black Sea ports hoping for British evacuation. By March 1920, the Crimea was in Red hands. 

        The intervention was a colossal failure causing Churchill to lose his seat in Parliament in 1922, and was conceded by many to have contributed to the instability in Germany and Czechoslovakia. For the US, it is believed to have fed the appetite for isolationism and cemented the USSR in its anti-western beliefs.  It appears to me that it was a knee jerk reaction to communism, and that the US had no real sense of why it intervened and no strategy at all. At least we had the sense to not get as deeply committed as Britain. This author lambastes Churchill as borderline delusional in his enthusiasm. Interestingly, decades ago, George F. Kennan took Wilson to task.

      

Our Nazi: An American Suburb's Encounter With Evil, Soffer- B+

         In December 1982, Dr. Jack Swanson, the principal of Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF), read in the Chicago Sun-Times that the US was seeking to deport Reinhold Kulle, his chief custodian, for his membership in the SS and his role in a Silesian slave labor camp.

         A teenager and member of the Hitler Youth, Kulle joined the Death Head's Division in 1940. He was seriously wounded in Russia in early 1942. Unfit for combat duty, he was assigned to Gross-Rosen. He served there for two-and-a-half years. During his time there, he met and married Gertrude, who gave birth to a daughter, Ulricke. They escaped to the American sector at war's end, their son Rainer was born in 1949, and they received a visa for the US in 1957. Thousands of former Nazis made it to America, and Chicago was a favored destination. In 1959, Kulle obtained employment at OPRF even though his marriage certificate referred to his SS rank. A hard worker with many skills, Kulle was promoted as he and his family enjoyed life in suburban America in the 1960's. He became the "staff and faculty members go to," and was known throughout the community as someone who always performed his job well and helped others. His supervision and management of the department,  as well as his work ethic, led to the school being considered one of the best maintained in the area.

         In the 1970's, the US increased its efforts to find and deport former Nazi's and their collaborators. The Supreme Court ruled that the deception in the obtainment of a visa was enough to deport someone, it was not necessary to prove specific wrongdoing. In 1981, a cross-referencing evaluation of German documents and US visa records surfaced Kulle's name. When questioned, he acknowledged lying on his visa application. As his deportation hearing took place in a federal court, it garnered little attention in Oak Park, where the school board decided to say and do nothing until the court ruled. Nonetheless, the issue was beginning to cause a crack in the community's proud belief in its diverse and welcoming philosophy as the supporters of the widely admired custodian lined up against the much smaller Jewish community. The school's faculty weighed in requesting Kulle's dismissal. After colleagues, his Jewish daughter in law, and Hispanic grandson testified about his character, Kulle took the stand. The essence of his defense was that he was a combat soldier who marched on guard duty, did not persecute the prisoners and indeed, didn't even see them from where he was stationed. And there was no question on his visa application asking about the SS. The school board met with Kulle and at the end of the discussion, he stated, "I feel very, very bad. I just wish we had won the war." In January 1984, Kulle was placed on terminal leave, and would no longer work for the district effective the end of the academic year. The majority of people in the community opposed his separation. That May, two hundred and fifty people came to his retirement party to honor and praise him. That summer, the deportation order was issued, and after an appeal, Reinhold Kulle was sent to West Germany in 1987. He died in 2006.

         This is a very well done micro-history shared on a broad canvas of the war, the Holocaust, SS practices, US's postwar immigration policies, and the shocking amount of antisemitic, Nazi supporting deplorables in the Chicago area and on a national level. Patrick Buchanan stands out as particularly disgraceful. It should be noted that the author currently teaches at Lake Forest High School.

The Detective Up Late, McKinty - B+

                  Duffy strikes a deal with the RUC. Because a double agent being run by MI-5 is more reliant on Sean than anyone else, he negotiates an understanding whereby he can move to the safety of Scotland and come back to Belfast seven days per month. He'll  be  able to work part time for three years, reach twenty and retire. Beth has a teaching position across the water and Emma is as happy as a toddler can be in their new home. He only has to work one more case, a missing person matter involving a teenage traveler girl. He and Sgt. McCrabban push very hard and find the killer. On his last day, Duffy kills two IRA hitmen going after the double agent, hops the ferry, and leaves Northern Ireland.

A Punishing Breed, Frost - B+

                This debut novel is very good and features LAPD Detective DJ Arias. A murder at a small liberal arts college brings in Arias and his team. The womanizing VP of Development is found stabbed in his office, and a few days later, so is his secretary, who maintained a blue notebook tracking his many conquests. Privilege and the institutional protection of a sexual predator is the theme. How this turns out as a series is not quite obvious, as some of the people working at the college are better drawn and more interesting than the detective. 

Sherlock Holmes The Affair At Mayerling Lodge, Lawrence - B

             In early 1889, Britain's PM calls on Holmes at 221B Baker Street and asks him to go to Vienna to assist the Emperor Franz Joseph. The emperor in turn asks Holmes to ascertain the loyalty of his son, the Crown Prince Rudolph. The next day, Holmes is on his way to Mayerling Lodge to investigate the deaths of Rudolph and the young baroness found in bed with him. Both had died from a gunshot wound from Rudolph's pistol and left suicide notes. After his examination of the Prince's room, Holmes declares it was not suicide. As he interviews people in close proximity to the royal family, he creates a lengthy list of suspects. He further concludes that Rudolph, who has sympathies for the Hungarians and who was beyond bored, was intriguing to assume the Crown of St. Stephen. Upon completion of his investigation, Holmes speaks to the assembled royals to advise them of his conclusions. He asserts that the young Baroness indeed killed herself, but that Rudolph was assassinated by a cabal led by the Archdukes, the emperor's brothers. As they begin to defend their actions, Mycroft Holmes steps up, tells his younger brother to cease and return to London, and admonishes Watson to not write about this investigation. Watson puts pen to paper thirty years later and his story is found a century later.

           I believe I've read everything Conan Doyle wrote, and I'm certain I have read many of the wonderful modern era speculations and additions to the canon. I'd have to grade this a weak addition that is more history than mystery. Speaking of,  history is certain that it was a suicide pact and not the archdukes.

A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue, Jobb - B+

              "Arthur Barry was one of the most brazen and successful jewel thieves in history." He was an impostor, con man, and cat burglar who robbed throughout metropolitan New York, from a  Rockefeller to many, many others. 

              He was born into a large family in Worcester in 1896. By the time he was 13, he was a full time criminal. He went to jail at 17, was paroled to work in a Remington factory, and joined the army. He was a combat medic who served with distinction and bravery in France. He returned to the US in the summer of 1919 and decided to become a jewel thief. His first job netted $2,500, twice the annual wages of a laborer. A string of successful robberies in Yonkers and Ardsley added to his haul. He expanded his pursuits to Long Isand's north shore. The key to Barry's success was preparation. He studied the social pages, went to endless public places where well-dressed ladies flaunted their jewelry, and diligently studied their homes and habits. His preferred time to strike was during dinner. By the middle of the 1920's, he was stealing jewelry worth $500,000 per year and making $100,000. He also became "an expert at crashing Long Island's most exclusive parties." He even had the Prince of Wales join him on a night spent clubbing in Manhattan. Indeed, he stole $130,000 of Edwina Mountbatten's jewelry while she and Louis were in the US with the prince. He once stole a $700,000 necklace at the Plaza. 

           At this stage, Barry was considering retiring, and those on his trail now included a private detective, insurance companies, and the Nassau County police. Someone, never identified, tipped the police to his whereabouts and he was arrested getting off a LIRR train. He confessed in order to protect his wife, who knew noting about his work. A judge in Mineola sentenced him to 25 years at hard labor. He was thirty when he entered Sing Sing. Two years later, he was moved further upstate to Auburn. Soon, he broke out, went to Manhattan, and hid with his wife's assistance. They moved to Newark and he kept out of the public eye. For the next few years, every theft in New York was attributed to him, and in 1933, it was surmised by some that Barry and his wife, Anna, were the Lindbergh baby kidnappers. His luck eventually ran out, the Newark police arrested him, and returned him to Auburn. Seven years more were added to his sentence. For the next four years, he was in solitary confinement. He was sent to Attica, then a new prison and one considered a "prisoner's paradise." His wife died in 1940. He was paroled in 1949, and moved in with a sister in Worcester. He went to work in a diner. His fame attracted writers and he even appeared on television, interviewed by Mike Wallace, and later appeared on the Tonight Show. He spent his remaining years doting on the younger members of his extended family and serving the veterans of Worcester. He died in 1981.

Guide Me Home, Locke - B+

                 Darren Matthew's life has completely unraveled. He hands in his gun and badge and resigns from the Texas Rangers, where he was only the second Black in its history. He's drinking too much, his girlfriend has left him, and he's about to be indicted. On top of this mess, his mother with whom he's had maybe two conversations with in his life, shows up, and encourages him to look into a Black girl missing from a white sorority house. He makes a connection with his mother,  and unearths a great deal of unpleasantness behind the community the missing young girl is from. His indictment falls apart and he's offered a chance to return to the Rangers. And, his girlfriend is now his fiancee. The excellence of these novels is the brilliant exposition of Black life in East Texas. The author does an excellent job of laying before us the steps and pain of poverty, hopelessness, and desperation, along with some biting criticism of right wing hatred.

The Waiting, Connelly - B

                  The Bosch series is moving on with Renee Ballard, and now Maddie Bosch, taking center stage. Maddie begins working for Ballard's Unsolved Cases unit as a paid volunteer one day per week. Thanks to advances in DNA technology, the unit is solving more and more cases. The primary case involves a serial rapist and killer whose DNA surfaces from a son he didn't even know he had. The son has been adopted and it takes a while to find out who his real dad is. The unit does great work, and Maddie unilaterally solves the Black Dahlia murder in her free time. Harry's role is limited to a minimal amount of help to Ballard, who has to jump through some hoops to recover her stolen badge. As always, a delight.

In Too Deep, Child - B

             Reacher is knocked unconscious in a car wreck while hitchhiking, and he winds up with a couple of bad guys who appear to be up to no good. They are a motley crew, that may include an FBI undercover agent, who despise each other. They are trying to figure out how they can knock each other off and get away with the loot, because they have something incredibly valuable about US national security that they can sell. Reacher stays one step ahead of the FBI and the bad guys and saves the day. Unfortunately, this is Reacher-lite as Andrew is not in Lee's league.

Sherlock Holmes And The Telegram From Hell, Meyer - B

             In 1916, Whitehall asks Holmes to go to the US to learn anything he can about the efforts being taken in Washington by the German Embassy to keep America out of the war. He recruits Watson and off they go. Their primary contact is Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who is having an affair with the German ambassador, and it is she who learns that he has forwarded to Mexico a telegram from Berlin - the one from hell. Holmes and Watson make for Mexico and make a copy of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram, and forward it to London. When it is made public in the US, the anger about the proposed German-Mexican alliance helps propel America into the war.

War Of The Roses Maragret of Anjou, Iggulden - B+

              With Henry VI comatose, Richard of York rules as Regent. Everyone in the kingdom, waits for the king to die. Eighteen months into his illness, Henry awakens on Christmas Day 1354, and learns he has an infant son. Barely able to stand, he  mounts his steed, rides to Westminster, demands the return of his seal, and dismisses York. After a brief rest, he decides to initiate a Judicial Progress, a march with many followers, to the north to show himself, dispense the king's justice, and possibly confront York. Their forces clash at St. Albans, where Henry is gravely wounded. York asks for and receives forgiveness, swears fealty to the king, and is made Constable of England. As the next few years pass, Henry, once again, falls into periods of lassitude as the kingdom is managed by Margaret. She has the king sign a Bill of Attainder taking Lancaster's titles and lands forcing him to take up arms again. At the Battle of Ludlow, York is surrounded, escapes and flees to Ireland. Yorkists continue to fight and once again capture Henry, placing him in the Tower of London. When Richard returns to England, Margaret's forces capture him and behead his son, his loyal liege, and York himself. As I said about the first book, superb historical fiction.