Epitaph For A Spy, Ambler - B

                                          I read this because it was one of the three classics mentioned in the NY Times review of 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'.  It was penned in 1937.  The story is about a stateless language teacher, who lives in Paris and is hoping to become a French citizen.  While on vacation near Toulon, he is ensnared in a devilish plot, wherein he is accused of spying and photographing French shore defenses.  He is innocent, but somehow the real spy and he wound up inadvertently with each other's camera.  The French police require him to help and most of the story is about the various guests from around Europe at the small hotel on the beach.  As it precedes the horror of WWII, the complexities of the Cold War and the significant advances in technology that we are so accustomed to, Epitaph seems almost like a young adult version of a spy thriller.

Natasha's Dance, Figes - B

                                         Thanks to Greg Weiss for this recommendation of a fine book subtitled  'A Cultural History Of Russia'. The dance in the title is from a scene in 'War and Peace' when the aristocratic Natasha joins in a folk dance even though she has never seen the dance or heard  the music.  As a Russian, it came to her instinctively because of all Russians' inherent connection to their folklore and people.. The author points out that because there has been no free press or unobserved political discussion, it is in the area of the arts that Russians held up a mirror to their political, philosophical and religious discussions.
                                         There lies within the Russian cultural framework a conflict that, as an occasional student of Russian (particularly 20th century) history, I was unaware of.  It is the clash between the western-oriented residents of St. Petersburg and the less cosmopolitan people of Moscow.  Peter the Great disliked Moscow, a city that after centuries of Mongol occupation had turned inward-looking.  The construction of 'Peter' and its establishment as the nation's capital created a great schism in Russia. Doestoevsky said "We Russians have two fatherlands: Russia and Europe".  This dichotomy continues to this day.
                                         Most of the book deals with the nineteenth century, for it was the French invasion of 1812 that was the watershed event.  The aristocrats spoke and wrote in French, but the war led to a rejection and, in turn, a liberation from French intellectual leadership. After slogging through that war with their soldiers, many of the aristocrats were disillusioned with Alexander I's reversion to reactionary politics, leading to the Decembrist revolt in 1825.  Tolstoy's favorite uncle was one of those banished to Siberia for participating in the uprising.
                                        In the 20th century, we have the blight upon the land that was Bolshevism. Three million people fled in the decade after 1917 to all the corners of the earth, but primarily to Berlin, Paris and New York. Among those who took their extraordinary talents elsewhere were Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Nabakov, Gorky, Chagall, Diaghilev and Balanchine.  For those who stayed the literary prizes went to 'Cement" and 'How The Steel Was Tempered', while Pasternak, Grossman and Solzhinetsyn had to have their works published overseas.

Suspect, Crais - B-

                                         Robert Crais is a great mystery/police procedural writer and a fabulous storyteller.  His novels, which often involve a private detective named Elvis Cole, paint a vivid picture of the criminal world of Los Angeles that is frightening.   This book is a bit off his beaten path and involves a cop who was badly shot up teaming with a German shepherd that was equally battered in Afghanistan.  They become a "pack" and solve the mystery behind the attack on the policeman a year earlier.

The Looking Glass War, LeCarre - B

                                         In the early nineties, almost thirty years after this book was published, the author penned an introduction to a new edition.  In it, he explains the role of this book as the follow up to Spy.  Spy was "a fan letter" to the British security establishment and as a veteran of that Service, he knew it had over embellished the skills of both the British and the Germans.  This book "would be a deliberate reversal, if not an actual parody, of  The Spy".  He totally succeeds.
                                        Here, a security agency (never clearly identified, but certainly not the Circus) attempts to uncover information about Soviet missiles in the north of E. Germany.  Their first agent is killed.  Their second effort is absolutely, depressingly, appallingly third rate. Lacking funds, personnel, transport and the support of their unhappy wives, the men behind this operation scrounge up government backing and delude themselves into thinking they know what they are doing.  They are so incompetent that they recruit a naturalized Pole who botched his only WWII mission as their agent.   In borrowed training facilities, they prep him to go behind the Iron Curtain.  He unnecessarily kills a border guard, asks inappropriate questions all over town and has the slowest imaginable 'hand' on the telegraph equipment he carries with him.  Every one in E. Germany is looking for him within days of his infiltration. Smiley shows up and pulls his handlers from their hideout on the western side of the border and leaves the poor Pole to his own devices. LeCarre observed in the aforementioned introduction that the British public hated the book.
                                       

The Beautiful Mystery, Penny - B

                                         This is the eighth book in the very good Inspector Armand Gamache series.  He is Chief Inspector, Homicide, Surete du Quebec Province.  Gamache is a likable, complex, thoughtful man, devoted to his family and his team  and revered throughout the department, the city of Montreal and indeed the entire province.  The biggest problem in his life is his boss, with whom he shares a total mutual dislike.
                                        His writ runs far and wide and, so far, none of the novels have been placed in Montreal.  They are all out in the country and the settings often provide some interesting and fabulous learning experiences.  Here the scene of the crime is a four hundred year old monastery far out in the Canadian woods.  There are but twenty-four apparently devout men at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, but one is now dead and one a killer.  The fascinating background story is that the monks have recently become world-famous because of a release of a cd showcasing their extraordinary skills performing Gregorian chants.  A reader of this novel will learn all they need to know about chants and the neumes that guide the singers. And to top things off, there is even a visitor from Rome - from the modern day Office of the Inquisition.

Afrika Reich, Saville - C

                                         As I read this klunker , I kept wondering how it wound up on my to-do list.   The setting for this "thriller" is Africa in 1952.  As the British were not able to evacuate Dunkirk,  Lord Halifax as Prime Minister made peace with Germany.  The Germans took over most of western Africa and this story is about an attempt on the life of the SS ruler of the Kongo.  Sadly, it's apparently round one of a trilogy.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, LeCarre - A*

                                         A little over a year ago, when the movie 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' was released, I decided to revisit the Smiley books and the two brilliant BBC miniseries. I rated both 'Tinker, Tailor' and 'Smiley's People' as A's and then thoroughly enjoyed Alec Guinness as George Smiley.  The productions are over thirty years old, show a very dated UK and for my money are two of the best shows ever on tv.  I also took a peak  at Kindle and pre-ordered two early Smiley books. They were not available last summer and just downloaded this week.  When I was about to start, I noticed that they referred to 'Spy' as a Smiley novel. Shame on Penguin and Kindle because George plays a very small role in 'Spy'. That said, I'm glad I read it again.
                                       The original 1964 NY Times review is fulsome in its praise and quotes Graham Greene, who referred to it as "the best spy story I have ever read".  I am not sure of the state of the spy novel genre fifty years ago.  Even then, I knew the Bond novels were a spoof.  I've since read Greene's 'Our Man In Havana', which is a bit of a satire. (Incidentally, the 'Our Man' movie stars Guiness). The review mentions a few others that were the benchmark at the time and refers to 'Spy' as being "a light year removed" from its competition.
                                      It was the first book awarded both the British Gold Dagger Award and the American Edgar Award.  The Brits like it so much that they gave it the Dagger of Daggers Award in 2005, a one-time award given to the Golden Dagger winner regarded as the standout among all fifty winners over the history of the Crime Writers Association. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the movie received many BAFTA awards and that Richard Burton's performance as Alec Leamas was nominated for an Oscar.
                                    Like so many of LeCarre's cold war masterpieces, this novel involves multi-dimensional chess on both sides of the Iron Curtain.  Leamas is out of the Service, on the road to personal and financial ruin, because the E. German spymaster, Karl Mundt, has rolled up his Berlin network.  It's all a contrivance to tempt the E. Germans to 'turn' him, so that he can fill their minds with doubt about Mundt. At Mundt's trial, Leamas realizes that he's been played, because the real intent of the operation is to get Mundt's subordinate because Karl Mundt is really London's man.  I suspect that it was such a success fifty years ago because it opened a window on the brutal complexity of cold war spying.  It's still great because of the author's narrative skill, and I love the fact that back then it could all be done in 250 pages.  It's a reminder of why so many people wondered what LeCarre and others would write about when the Wall came down in 1989.

Proof of Guilt, Todd - C

                                         This is the fifteenth book in the superb Inspector Ian Rutledge series that is now seventeen years old.   Rutledge is a veteran of four years of trench warfare, a very scarred and troubled survivor who has struggled since returning to Scotland Yard.  He solves his cases, but endlessly deals with the consequences of the Great War. He can identify veterans a mile away. Thunderstorms unnerve him. His claustrophobia keeps him off trains, making him one of the early regular drivers of an automobile. Most of all, he is tortured by the memory of his Scot sergeant, Hamish, who refused his order to go over the top.  Rutledge knew his order was absurd, but had Hamish executed for his refusal. The authors (it is actually a mother/son team) know their history, as the British executed seven times as many of their front-line line soldiers as the Boche did. Hamish is his conscience/troubled soul/second guesser, with whom he carries on endless silent conversations and the most fascinating literary contrivance I have ever experienced.
                                       The books usually excel on three levels: a sense of time and place, Hamish's conversations and the mystery Rutledge solves.  Here, there is little feel for London and its environs in the fall of 1920 and Hamish has been significantly played down. The plot, which involves a missing wine importer and his partner, meanders from one confusing place to another.  I sincerely hope the authors had a bad day and that they haven't run out of creative steam.

Six Months In 1945, Dobbs - A*

                                         WWI was easily followed by WWII, but in no way was it certain or inevitable.  Magnanimous policies by the victors, fewer reparations, a different Weimar constitution, a less devastating depression or any number of wiser decisions could have avoided the "Austrian corporal" and his march to war.  But according to this author, in a book sub-titled 'FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - From World War To Cold War', the falling out between the Allies was as inevitable as night following day.  The Anglo-Americans and the Soviets might as well have been a different species, for all they had in common.  They did not understand each other's history, perspective, goals, political systems - all they had in common was Nazi Germany and by early May, the Reich was gone. Hitler himself predicted the alliance would not last, and that each side would covet the Germans.
                                         At Yalta, a dying FDR thought he could charm a man who viewed Ivan the Terrible as his role model.  FDR wanted the Soviets to agree to the UN and declare war against Japan.  It was thought that the Soviets were needed to help conquer the home islands. Stalin wanted peace and a chance to rebuild his country, and never contemplated that anyone would argue with the centuries-old European tradition that the ruler (or occupier) of a country determined its policies. If the self-determination provisions of the Atlantic Charter had exceptions carved out for the Empire and the Monroe Doctrine, why were  they questioning his plans for eastern Europe? At Tehran, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to move the Soviet's borders into what was Poland and to move Poland into Germany.  In exchange, they were promised "democratic institutions" and "free elections".  To the Soviets, a democratic institution was one free of fascists. A fascist was anyone opposed to communism and elections were always "fixable".
                                        By VE day, those few who understood the Soviets knew trouble was brewing. Kennan said, "They [Washington] think the war is ending, but it is beginning" and Harriman told Truman, "we are faced with a Barbarian invasion of Europe."  A month after VE Day, the Soviets let the US and Britain into their respective sectors of Berlin. The Westerners were shocked by the looting and shipment of everything movable to the east and were told by Zhukov that there was no food or coal.  By the time Churchill and Truman arrived, the lines were being drawn; some were already using the phrase "iron curtain" and the Americans and Brits were seeing what went on behind it in Berlin. Knowing he was about to have an atomic bomb, Truman rejected any claims for reparations from the Western sectors and told Stalin we would not recognize his governments in Finland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
                                      By the time of Hiroshima, the Allies had fallen out. Stalin had to preserve his territorial gains in order to protect the Homeland from a future invasion.  Truman had to fight for free speech, markets, and peoples as the US had now intervened in two wars in order to make the world safe for democracy. No one particularly wanted to head into a series of confrontations.  But there simply was no way to compromise such disparate strategies. Although the British were reduced to observers by Potsdam, Churchill had not lost any of his verbal skills. Atlee was there as an observer, in case Labor carried the election.  One day Sir Winston looked at him and muttered, "a sheep in sheep's clothing." Somehow, Churchill always carries the day.