Land Of Dreams, Sundstol - B -

                                               This is the first book of a Norwegian trilogy set in Minnesota, and my initial thought was, how odd is that?  Considering all the things Americans write about, clearly I was suffering from some sort of literary nationalism.  The story is set in and around the Duluth area, the westernmost point of the Great Lakes and in Superior National Park. The principal character and storyteller is Lance Hansen, a Park Service police man and local historian. The book goes into pleasant details about the Norwegian character and the history of the community.  It's an enjoyable tour of a part of the country I know next to nothing about. A Norwegian canoeist is found bludgeoned in the park and the investigative team is joined by a policeman from Norway.  The question is posed as to whether or not there had ever been a murder in the county before.  Lance, as the local master of the topic, begins to look into the the disappearance of an Indian in 1892.  Although it was never proved he was murdered, Lance slowly concludes he probably was - and by Lance's very own great-grandfather.  The murder is wrapped up with a suspect arrested (although he is innocent) about three-quarters of the way through the book.  Considering all of the mysteries I've read over the years, one might assume that I've developed some detection skills.  Not so. I never figure out "whodunit" - except here where it was clearly telegraphed.  I'm thinking of Groucho Marx's famous line about not wanting to be a member of any club that would take him. I'm not sure about the rest of a series, when it was so easy to figure out.

Neanderthal Man: In Search Of Lost Genomes, Paabo - B-

                                               I suspect most of us are at least curious, about our connection to our Neanderthal ancestors. As a client of 23andme.com, I am told that 2.9% of my DNA is Neanderthal. This book tells the story of how the science of DNA sequencing has evolved over the last two decades to the point that someone can state to the tenth of a point a person's genetic composition. Heretofore, scientists have been limited to studying fossils and, quite frankly, guessing what the heck has happened over the millennia.  The author, a Swede, trained in many places and settled in Germany, has been part of the process of studying DNA extracted from ancient bones. His curiosity began with mummies from Egypt, and moved on eventually to Neanderthal bones. Although the first bones found and identified as our 'cousins' were in the Neander Valley in Germany, the largest cache of Neanderthal bones are found in Croatia.  The author can write, and write well. However, I do not think that the greatest writers of all time could make pyrosequencing or DNA cloning very interesting to me. So, about half way through and overwhelmed by the science, I started skipping forward.  After processing billions of nucleotides,  the conclusion was drawn that almost all humans today have Neanderthal DNA. How that DNA was shared between two different species remains an item of scientific speculation. That conclusion shattered  many of the archaeological theses about human evolution.  I've always been intrigued by this topic and have read many of the older books about 'Lucy' and the battles between the Leakeys and the 'out of Africa' controversies v. multi-origin theorists. As more and more has been written about what the chemist's are doing, the conclusion I have come to is that the teams in the chemistry labs will be the ones who learn all about our past. That said, I think I'll limit my inquisitiveness to newspapers and magazines.

A Coffin For Dimitrios, Ambler - B -

                                               This book was written in 1939 and was recently cited by Alan Furst in a Times interview as an inspiration for his 'Night Soldier' series.  It's rather fun to start to think that, yes, it's a lot like Furst's books, until you realize, it's the other way around.  An Englishman, a writer, meets a Turk of mysterious official responsibilities in Stambul.  He learns of the death of a Dimitrios,  a shifty character of bad reputation. He decides to find out more, perhaps for a book, perhaps out of curiosity. So he begins to look into the story of  Dimitrios. Unknown to him, he is being shadowed. As he wanders the Balkans, we get a lesson on the Turk ethnic cleansing of the Greeks after the Great War, Bulgarian parliamentary politics, Italian - Yugoslav border conflicts, and then it's on to Paris, where he learns of Dimitrios years as drug dealer.  He also ascertains that the body of Dimitrios, found floating in the Bosporus, might actually be one of Dimitrios partners-in-crime. Plot twists in Paris lead to a shoot-out and an awfully good tale for the Englishman to write about. Or, is he writing about something else? If it inspired Alan Furst, that is high praise. And just like Furst's books, this is one of those where you can see and feel the fog surrounding you while you read.

Five Came Back: A Story Of Hollywood And The Second World War, Harris - B -

                                               This is the story of the relationship between Hollywood and the American military as told through the war-time service of Frank Capra, John Ford, George Stevens, William Wyler and John Huston. "They honored their country, risked their lives and created a new visual vocabulary for fictional and factual war movies."   Because the men who ran Hollywood were first and second generation Jewish immigrants, fearful of Washington and anti-semitism, they avoided the oncoming catastrophe until 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy' in April 1941.  Warner Bros. very happily presented America with a rousing 'Sgt. York' in July, but generally speaking, Hollywood was only dipping its toes in the water until Dec.7, 1941.  "Any trepidation the studios felt about making war movies vanished within weeks."  Wyler was making 'Mrs. Miniver' before Pearl Harbor and made it even more of a patriotic piece, leading to Churchill's praise and the best picture Oscar.  By the spring of 1942, Capra, Ford, Huston and Wyler were in uniform.  Stevens  followed in early 1943.  Capra began making 'Why We Fight', which the author contends was the most important filmed propaganda of the war.  I agree. The series of films are over-the-top, but nonetheless brilliant. Ford was the first to shoot actual combat scenes, which he shamelessly embellished in his 18 minute 'Battle of Midway'.  When FDR saw it, he turned to his Naval aide and said, " I want every mother in America to see this film". A year later, Wyler flew five combat missions over Germany and filmed the documentary 'Memphis Belle'.  For every success, though, there were an equal amount of failed efforts, occasioned by endless bureaucratic infighting, confused strategy, inter-service rivalries and politics. Ford and Stevens were on Omaha Beach on D-Day as part of a major effort to document the momentous landing. Some of what they filmed was so brutal that it wasn't released for fifty years.  The work got better and better as the last year of the war played out. Ford actually returned to Hollywood to film 'They Were Expendable' while still on active duty.   After Wyler was wounded, Stevens was the last of the major directors in Europe and was the man who filmed the harrowing death camp scenes, particularly the American arrival in Dachau. Long after the war, Stevens turned to his reels of everything he had filmed while preparing to direct 'The Diary of Anne Frank'.  After a minute of his 'Eyewitness To Dachau', he returned the film to its box. The directors received medals, commendations and Oscars before they returned to Hollywood. Steven's work was used as evidence at Nuremberg. Wyler had the privilege of making what is generally considered the best post-war movie, 'The Best Years Of Our Lives". The book only tangentially and infrequently mentions the hundreds of movies made in Hollywood about the war and thus for me was a bit of a disappointment .








                                             

Personal, Child - B

                                              This is the 19th Reacher book in the series.  He is tracked down by the Army and asked to come back to assist (unofficially) in the search for one of the world's best snipers. It seems there is an attack planned on a G-8 meeting in London and the leading candidate to do the shooting is someone Reacher put in jail fifteen years before. I believe Reacher has been out for twenty years, but this is fiction.  Applying his awesome deductive reasoning, as well as his physical skills, to a mosaic of international and criminal challenges, Jack saves the day.

Dead Water, Cleeves - C +

                                                This book is the latest in a series set in the Shetland Islands.  Thus, it passes an important test for me; ie. it takes me somewhere I've never been before.  The Shetlands are 110 miles north of the Scottish mainland, rather far from civilization.  They have been changed by the North Sea oil that has reordered Scotland in the last forty years.  A local man is back from London where he works for a national newspaper, hoping to land a scoop. Instead, he's found dead in a boat in the harbor. The hunt begins.  The team gathers, sorts out their responsibilities and, along the way, we learn about the Shelands, crofting, ferries, weather and most importantly, the decline of oil and the possible rise of green energy. Of course, a second corpse is soon on the otherwise peaceful scene.  The case is resolved, but quite frankly, the details about the Shetlands are a lot more interesting than the plot and the solution. I doubt I'll check out the earlier books.