Black Widow, Brookmyre - C

                                               This well received thriller/mystery takes an unusual and relatively slow path on its way to explaining the death of Peter Elphinstone. We view his life and short marriage from the perspective of his wife, from the washed-up journalist tasked by the deceased's sister to try and find out what really happened and from the police officer, who was called in after his car went over a cliff. The ponderous pace was enough to dampen my interest, but the insurance scam, incestuous twist and shaky plot-lines turned this into a total waste of time.

Order To Kill, Mills - B

                                               This is the second post-Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp novel. Mills is good and almost up to the standards Flynn established. Mitch is mano a mano with his Russian counterpart, Grisha Azarov, in the wild and wooly Middle East.  There's a Russian plot to dirty bomb the Saudi Arabian oilfields, thus shutting down the 'swing producer' and affording the Russians the opportunity to prosper when oil prices skyrocket. Of course, the Russians are no match for Mitch.

Livia Lone, Eisler - B +

                                               There's something about revenge novels that I completely enjoy. This is an extraordinary one - a real page-turner. Livia is a thirty-year-old cop in Seattle. She excels as a member of the Sex Crimes Unit for a special and unique reason. She was trafficked out of Thailand as a thirteen-year-old and has years of personal pain to  remember. Since I recommend this to all, I will only say that she exacts a high price from those who have done her wrong. And interestingly, it appears as if a sequel is forthcoming.                                        

We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife Of Hollywood's Most Beloved Movie, Isenberg - B +

                                            "We'll Always Have Casablanca is an attempt to capture the story of not just how this remarkable movie was made - and the indispensable role that refuges from Hitler's Europe had in making it - but to explore how and why Casablanca continues to live in our collective consciousness, as affecting to our hears and minds now as it was from the start."
                                             'Everyone Comes To Rick's', a play penned by a young New Yorker who visited Nazi Vienna and Marseilles in 1938, introduces the characters, most of the plot and, Sam singing 'As Time Goes By', as well as Rick remembering his love affair in Paris. Hal Wallis at Warner Brothers paid a record $20,000 for the play in December, 1941.  Julius and Phillip Epstein, with some help from Howard Koch, adapted the screenplay. Wallis negotiated Ingrid Bergman away from MGM and convinced Paul Henreid to play second fiddle to Bogey, who Wallis had earmarked as Rick from the beginning. Claude Rains was the only one considered for Renault. Lorre and Veidt were stars in the German cinema and Greenstreet was a recent emigre from England. Almost all of the seventy-five actors were refugees. Only three of the fourteen credited performers were born in America.
                                             The film was released on Thanksgiving, 1942, a few weeks after the Allied invasion of North Africa. Indeed, the American capture of Casablanca was in the headlines and in January, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca. The film was an immediate success and won Oscars for best adapted screen play, director and picture. Over a decade later, Casablanca revivals began with the first showing at a Harvard art house theater. In the 60's and 70's, it garnered cult status among college students. The author travels far and wide over decades and oceans to try and explain how and why this film has resonated through the generations. One observer, who the author says reflected the thoughts of Ingrid Bergman and Phillip Epstein's son, Leslie, said, "There are better movies than Casablanca, but no other movie demonstrates America's mythological vision of itself - tough on the outside and moral within, capable of sacrifice and romance without sacrificing the individualism that conquered a continent, sticking its neck out for everybody when circumstances demand heroism. No other movie has so reflected both the moment when it was made and the psychological needs of audiences decades later." Roger Ebert once said that the best movie ever made was Citizen Kane, but his favorite movie was Casablanca. A common theme among many commentators is that it can be watched again and again and it never loses its freshness and ability to move the viewer.
                                          As the 75th anniversary of the release of the film approaches, the author traces the film's popularity up to, and including today.  I hope it continues to hold its place in the pantheon of great American films. In one of her reminiscences, Bergman stated that part of the appeal was that it was about "our war". As that war fades from consciousness, I fear the cultural reflections of it will also fade. I hope not. Marcella and I watched it today. It moves me, perhaps more as I get older and wiser than ever before. It will always be my favorite film.






























































                                         

The Secrets of Wishtide, Saunders - B

                                               This is the first novel in a presumed new series about Letty Rodd, widow of a vicar and investigator for her barrister brother in Victorian England. The reviewer's comparisons to Dickens and Christie are a bit too enthusiastic, but it is a good detective story. Letty is tasked with looking into the background of another vicar's widow who is the object of affection of a scion of a wealthy family. To say that nothing is as it seems at first blush would be an understatement. Just about everyone in the first half of the book has secrets to hide, and Letty is off and running, eventually defending the young scion. It does a solid job of bringing mid-nineteenth century sensibilities to the reader's attention.

A Divided Spy, Cumming - B -

                                               There's nothing quite like an old fashioned spy thriller with good guys (Brits) and bad guys ( Russkis) for some time by the fireplace.  That said, this, the third book in a series, is not quite up to the two previous books.  Kell is now out of the service, but bent on a personal mission of revenge. However, his recruit  is so important that he has to inform, and bring in MI-6.  Together they stop a homegrown terrorist and save the recruit from the revenge of his oligarch father-in-law. Good, but hardly great.

His Final Battle: The Last Months Of Franklin Roosevelt, Lelyveld - B +

                                                This excellent book reviews the last year-and-a-half of FDR's life, when he was focused on the Allied invasion of Europe, his own re-election and his romancing of Josef Stalin, the man he called 'Uncle Joe'.  Stalin dominates the story as the President knew the war could not be won without the Russians and that they were also the key to a successful post-war settlement. The President was a man of intuition, hunches and supreme confidence in his own ability. He was convinced he could charm Stalin.
                                               The Big Three met at Tehran in November, 1943. FDR and Stalin were together for approximately thirty hours. They agreed on a May 1944 Operation Overlord, overruling Churchill's stalling tactics, and Stalin agreed to commit to a post-war structure. Roosevelt had seen the failure of Wilson to convince America to join the League of Nations and was bound and determined to succeed where his predecessor had failed.
                                               Early in 1944, FDR got the flu, was bedridden for over a week and lost ten pounds. Thereafter, observers began to regularly characterize him as 'tired'. The inexorable decline in his health had begun. Later in the spring, a cardiologist diagnosed FDR as suffering from acute congestive heart failure, specifically left ventricular failure. His heart was enlarged. The President was told to stop smoking, to work but two hours per day and to take a few months off. Amazingly, he did take two months off. A month long sojourn to Bernard Baruch's South Carolina estate was a state secret. Very few people knew where he was. When he returned to Washington, all cheered his well-being and fitness level, but those close to him knew he wasn't well. He himself knew he couldn't survive a fourth term, should he chose to run.
                                                 FDR had a good summer in 1944. He decided to run, saying that he couldn't ignore the orders of his Commander-in-Chief - the American people. He masterfully managed the Chicago convention from afar, and then sailed to Honolulu, where he massaged Doug MacArthur's ego and contributed to the final plans to defeat Japan.  While in Honolulu, he did something that seems out of character with his opaque approach to his own disability. He wheeled himself through an amputee ward, telling the young men that he had spent twenty-three years without the use of his legs and encouraging them to rise above their handicaps. Aides said it was the closest FDR had ever come to tears.
                                                  He rallied throughout the campaign and buried Dewey in another landslide. Three days after his fourth inauguration, he set sail for Yalta. Most historians believe that although FDR was visibly failing, he accomplished all that he could have reasonably expected to at the eight day tri-lateral conference.  His most important goal was to establish the UN and in this he succeeded. Stalin also agreed to declare war on Japan as soon as practicable after the defeat of Germany.  Of course, the inability of Churchill and Roosevelt to further self-determination for the Poles is the issue for which FDR, in particular, has been castigated for over seventy years. The fact that Poland had been the springboard for Germany's invasion of Russia and was now occupied by the Red Army led by a dictator whose country had suffered tens of millions of casualties, never seems to enter into the criticisms.
                                                On March 1, he sat before Congress and made his final speech. At the end of the month, he headed to Warm Springs. He died at 3 in the afternoon of the 12th of April. Senator Robert Taft, Mr. Republican, said "He dies a hero of the war, for he literally worked himself to death, in the service of the American people." This is a great book about one of our truly great presidents.