Somehow Sam Wyndham survived the Great War and was recruited to continue his career as a detective in Calcutta. Captain Wyndham proves to be a pretty interesting fellow. He's trying to forget his late wife, who died of the flu, his friends, almost all of whom are buried in France and Belgium, and facilitates his forgetting with an opium habit. In his day job, the nabobs of the Raj seem to want to impede his every move investigating the death of one of the Lieutenant-Governor's aides, who was apparently done in by locals bent on evicting the British. Wyndham and his Bengali sergeant stay one step ahead of military intelligence. Of course, matters are not what they appear. They unearth depravity and cynical evil in the highest reaches of the government.
I have said many, many times that the attraction of historical novels is their ability to provide insight to different times and places. I have not read about India in this time period and this first time novelist, the Scottish-born son of natives of Calcutta, does a fabulous job elaborating on the nascent freedom movement that was burgeoning after a century-and-a-half of British rule. The relationship between Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee will apparently be the basis of a new series. Often, modern writers handle the sexism and racism of earlier times with a heavy, uncomfortable hand. This young man has shown a deft touch.
5.25.2017
Dodgers, Beverly - B
This intriguing novel is about a handful of LA gangbangers sent on a cross-country mission to kill a witness in Wisconsin. The boss tells them to buy some Dodger kit because white people like the Dodgers, and it'll help them fit in better. The primary character is East, short for Easton, a very serene and careful about-to-be 16 year old. He's engaging, charming and has never left the LA ghetto. The book is fun and insightful, although I wish the author had spent more time in the ghetto, instead of the Midwest.
5.20.2017
Count Belisarius, Graves - B +
The eminent English classicist, Robert Graves, published this novel in 1938. Like his 'Claudius' novels, this one is also based on the writings of a contemporary historian, Procopius, whose
History of Justinian's* War' is the factual basis of the story. Belisarius is portrayed as a man of incorruptible virtue, a soldier extraordinaire and completely above the politics of the Byzantine Court. He was born in the Balkans in 500 A. D. He attended school in Adrianople, and later a military academy in Constantinople. He excelled and at the age of 20 was in charge of training troops to fight and defend the northern boundaries of the Empire in the Balkans. Before he was thirty, he had caught the eye of Emperor Justinian and was put in charge of the armies fighting in the east, where he famously defeated the Persians at Dara in 530 A.D. He received many awards, including the hand of Antonia, dear friend of the Empress Theodora.
By the sixth century, the western empire was no more and was occupied by Germanic tribes that purported to be allied with the Eastern Emperor. Offended by the Vandals in North Africa, Justinian sent Belisarius and a small invasion force to capture Carthage. He succeeded and returned to Constantinople with vast riches and 15,000 prisoners. He then turned his attention to Sicily, which he promptly occupied before sailing to Italy. He captured Naples after a brief siege and took Rome without any opposition. However, the Goths launched a major counterattack and besieged the city for over a year. Once again though, Belisarius prevailed and again returned triumphantly to Constantinople. Although very successful, his many enemies plotted against him and he was stripped of rank and wealth. Antonia and Theodora were able to convince Justinian to reinstate him and back to campaigning in Italy he went. He returned after five years of continual fighting to live quietly with Antonia. In 558, the ungrateful Justinian once more requested his help and he stopped an invasion of Bulgarian Huns at the gates of the city. Honored and then dishonored by his Emperor, Belisarius died in March, 565
This novel may be appreciated by those who are familiar with and fascinated by the Romans. I became intrigued while studying Latin in high school. That said, this story suffers from some of Rome's ongoing themes. The usual back-biting, politicking and betrayals are perhaps universal, but certainly endemic in Roman history.
*Justinian the Great codified Roman law, built St. Sophia and won back N. Africa from the Vandals, Italy from the Ostrogoths and Spain from the Visigoths.
History of Justinian's* War' is the factual basis of the story. Belisarius is portrayed as a man of incorruptible virtue, a soldier extraordinaire and completely above the politics of the Byzantine Court. He was born in the Balkans in 500 A. D. He attended school in Adrianople, and later a military academy in Constantinople. He excelled and at the age of 20 was in charge of training troops to fight and defend the northern boundaries of the Empire in the Balkans. Before he was thirty, he had caught the eye of Emperor Justinian and was put in charge of the armies fighting in the east, where he famously defeated the Persians at Dara in 530 A.D. He received many awards, including the hand of Antonia, dear friend of the Empress Theodora.
By the sixth century, the western empire was no more and was occupied by Germanic tribes that purported to be allied with the Eastern Emperor. Offended by the Vandals in North Africa, Justinian sent Belisarius and a small invasion force to capture Carthage. He succeeded and returned to Constantinople with vast riches and 15,000 prisoners. He then turned his attention to Sicily, which he promptly occupied before sailing to Italy. He captured Naples after a brief siege and took Rome without any opposition. However, the Goths launched a major counterattack and besieged the city for over a year. Once again though, Belisarius prevailed and again returned triumphantly to Constantinople. Although very successful, his many enemies plotted against him and he was stripped of rank and wealth. Antonia and Theodora were able to convince Justinian to reinstate him and back to campaigning in Italy he went. He returned after five years of continual fighting to live quietly with Antonia. In 558, the ungrateful Justinian once more requested his help and he stopped an invasion of Bulgarian Huns at the gates of the city. Honored and then dishonored by his Emperor, Belisarius died in March, 565
This novel may be appreciated by those who are familiar with and fascinated by the Romans. I became intrigued while studying Latin in high school. That said, this story suffers from some of Rome's ongoing themes. The usual back-biting, politicking and betrayals are perhaps universal, but certainly endemic in Roman history.
*Justinian the Great codified Roman law, built St. Sophia and won back N. Africa from the Vandals, Italy from the Ostrogoths and Spain from the Visigoths.
The Thirst, Nesbo - B +
This is the latest, and an absolutely fabulous, Harry Hole novel. He is not drinking, happily married to Rakel and a successful lecturer at the Police College. He is approaching 50 with his life in pretty good shape. However, a case that involves"Iron dentures and no DNA and half a liter of blood missing" requires him to return to the field. He quickly concludes it is a serial rapist he had once put away, and who had escaped from prison. Taking risks and going against the book, he gets his man. But, there's still a lot of the book left and Nesbo adds, I believe unnecessarily, a late-in-the-story twist. Harry wraps thing up in quite an unexpected and dramatic conclusion. Nesbo is a master at creating tension and does so from the first chapter to the last page. I believe this is the best Harry novel in quite some time.
5.12.2017
Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater And The Unmaking Of The American Consensus, Perlstein - B +
This decade-and-a-half-old book is the first of a tetralogy that sets out the history of America's transition from a consensus liberal democracy to a right-leaning country with very little, if any, consensus. After the 1964 election, the national conclusion was that conservatism in the country was as dead as Barry Goldwater's electoral standing. Boy, were they wrong.
The first stirrings of Goldwater for President had came in 1959 and were led by the retired Dean of Notre Dame Law School, Pat Manion. He was a staunch anti-communist reared on the America First rhetoric of Robert Wood of Sears and Col. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. Goldwater was the grandson of a Polish Jew who built a dry goods empire in the Arizona desert. He believed in the rugged individualism of the west, was opposed to the New Deal and was elected to the Senate in 1952. He became known for his virulent anti-labor beliefs, opposition to deficit spending and willingness to raise money for Republican candidates. Manion was hoping to find a way to combine Taft Republicans and Dixiecrats, and concluded that with Goldwater, he could appeal to both constituencies. He published Goldwater's precis 'Conscience Of A Conservative', in which Goldwater took the ideas of the old-guard and somewhat updated it. Instead of railing that every raise for workers would lead to inflation or calling for the repeal of the income tax, he stated that the enemy was liberalism, which was weakening the core of American strength. The only way to beat the Reds was to stand up to them. He scared the hell out of a lot of establishment folks, though, with his concept of winnable atomic war. Going into the 1960 convention, there was a flurry of interest in Goldwater, but it passed and he easily fell in line to support Nixon.
In the early-60's two organizations that were integral to the rise of Goldwater came to the fore. The John Birch Society was founded by Robert Welch, a successful Boston businessman. Welsh was one of many obsessed with communism and he matched his anxieties to his promotional skills and fundraising abilities. Joining the right-wing activists was the YAF (Young Americans For Freedom), a college student-based group inspired by Goldwater's 'Conscience Of A Conservative', as well as Bill Buckley's 'National Review'. The author points out that extremism in the face of communism came easily to many, as the government had been beating a drum roll of red fear and anxiety since the end of WW2. As for Goldwater, he had a great line about the establishment Republicans. He said the party of Ike, Nixon and Rockefeller was a bunch of "dime store copies of the opposition". He was able to deliver it in 1961 in over 225 speeches. He was on the road and running. And the man he was running against had some issues. Jack Kennedy's first year in office saw the Bay of Pigs, a rebuff by Khruschev at Vienna and the construction of the Berlin Wall. However, he handled the Cuban Missile crisis the following year with aplomb, skill, restraint and strength.
At the beginning of 1963, an underground group of young Republicans, political ideologues, and operatives led by Clif White had a strategy to nominate a conservative, and people lined up around the country to take over the nominating process. After Kennedy was assassinated, the early polls showed that without an eastern establishment opponent and with a southerner to run against, Goldwater's numbers and appeal dropped precipitously. But the truth be known, the base wanted him and only Rocky stood in his way. The campaign began in New Hampshire, a conservative state where Goldwater's ideas were well received. However, he made mistake after mistake. His broken foot was in a cast, and the wags concluded that was the only way he could keep his foot out of his mouth. Rocky, with his new and pregnant wife in tow, fared no better, as both contenders fell to Henry Cabot Lodge. In an era long preceding super and endless Tuesdays, the May Oregon primary was next on the schedule. Rocky crushed Lodge and Goldwater. Goldwater was losing primaries, but in state after state, the team assembled by Clif White, with little if any help from the candidate, was locking up delegate after delegate. In the Golden State's winner-take-all primary, he won in a photo finish. A conservative, a man opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a hard-core anti-communist who believed in using tactical atomic weapons, a law-and-order believer in old-fashioned values for whom social security was an uncomfortable fit, and a true despiser of the east coast establishment, was on the threshold of becoming the GOP's nominee. And once he secured the nomination, he flaunted his distaste for business as usual with his well-remembered acceptance speech in which he declared "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice - moderation in the pursuit of liberty is no virtue". A man who didn't particularly care to campaign, who held the media in disdain, whose supporters were fanatics set out on a course toward self-immolation.
The campaign opened with the 'Daisy' commercial Labor Day weekend and the warmonger tag was applied to Goldwater, whose Arizona Mafia demoted Clif White, fired half of the RNC staff in Washington in September and began their iteration of amateur hour. Goldwater thanked Boeing's workers for the performance of their planes in combat and assured them the planes "will be doing so again" . The man he put in charge of his campaign, Dean Burch, accepted the endorsement of the KKK in Georgia and Alabama. Goldwater was simply a poor candidate and his organization was in shambles. Republicans were running for cover, traditional Republican newspapers endorsed LBJ as the debacle headed toward November 3rd.
In October, William F. Buckley made a speech to a YAF convention that didn't generate a single round of applause. He stated that defeat was imminent and the challenge was to take their fiery devotion and find recruits for future Novembers. In late October, Goldwater cancelled a $1000-a-plate engagement and the organizers substituted former actor and GE spokesman Ronald Reagan. He was so good that they put him on TV. On Oct.27 Regan's speech was televised nationally. It was called "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with the Cross of Gold speech."
In the end, Johnson crushed Goldwater and Scotty Reston in the NYTimes stated that the conservative cause was lost. The LATimes said the Republicans would be a minority party indefinitely. However, Johnson had predicted the end of a Democratic south and he was correct, as five Confederate states voted for Goldwater. Throughout the land, a kind of polarization was beginning. As is so often the case in America, the divide was racial and cultural. The Democrats were embracing Negroes at a time when there were riots in the cities, crime rates rising, morals collapsing, and respect for authority and tradition fading. These were themes that Nixon would bludgeon onto the national agenda and Reagan would play like a harp.
This is a fabulous book written by a very skillful man. It is a reminder that the right/left, urban/rural, coastal/heartland divide has always been with us. Over five decades ago, the right was very hardcore, considered Ike a commie tool, social-security a commie plot and the progressive income tax a bulwark of government centralization. I think the author could have delved deeper into the issue of how this era led to the total governmental discord that started in the 90's. I'd prefer not to have to read three more lengthy books to look for hints on that issue. In any event many thanks to my erudite brother for recommending this author.
The first stirrings of Goldwater for President had came in 1959 and were led by the retired Dean of Notre Dame Law School, Pat Manion. He was a staunch anti-communist reared on the America First rhetoric of Robert Wood of Sears and Col. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. Goldwater was the grandson of a Polish Jew who built a dry goods empire in the Arizona desert. He believed in the rugged individualism of the west, was opposed to the New Deal and was elected to the Senate in 1952. He became known for his virulent anti-labor beliefs, opposition to deficit spending and willingness to raise money for Republican candidates. Manion was hoping to find a way to combine Taft Republicans and Dixiecrats, and concluded that with Goldwater, he could appeal to both constituencies. He published Goldwater's precis 'Conscience Of A Conservative', in which Goldwater took the ideas of the old-guard and somewhat updated it. Instead of railing that every raise for workers would lead to inflation or calling for the repeal of the income tax, he stated that the enemy was liberalism, which was weakening the core of American strength. The only way to beat the Reds was to stand up to them. He scared the hell out of a lot of establishment folks, though, with his concept of winnable atomic war. Going into the 1960 convention, there was a flurry of interest in Goldwater, but it passed and he easily fell in line to support Nixon.
In the early-60's two organizations that were integral to the rise of Goldwater came to the fore. The John Birch Society was founded by Robert Welch, a successful Boston businessman. Welsh was one of many obsessed with communism and he matched his anxieties to his promotional skills and fundraising abilities. Joining the right-wing activists was the YAF (Young Americans For Freedom), a college student-based group inspired by Goldwater's 'Conscience Of A Conservative', as well as Bill Buckley's 'National Review'. The author points out that extremism in the face of communism came easily to many, as the government had been beating a drum roll of red fear and anxiety since the end of WW2. As for Goldwater, he had a great line about the establishment Republicans. He said the party of Ike, Nixon and Rockefeller was a bunch of "dime store copies of the opposition". He was able to deliver it in 1961 in over 225 speeches. He was on the road and running. And the man he was running against had some issues. Jack Kennedy's first year in office saw the Bay of Pigs, a rebuff by Khruschev at Vienna and the construction of the Berlin Wall. However, he handled the Cuban Missile crisis the following year with aplomb, skill, restraint and strength.
At the beginning of 1963, an underground group of young Republicans, political ideologues, and operatives led by Clif White had a strategy to nominate a conservative, and people lined up around the country to take over the nominating process. After Kennedy was assassinated, the early polls showed that without an eastern establishment opponent and with a southerner to run against, Goldwater's numbers and appeal dropped precipitously. But the truth be known, the base wanted him and only Rocky stood in his way. The campaign began in New Hampshire, a conservative state where Goldwater's ideas were well received. However, he made mistake after mistake. His broken foot was in a cast, and the wags concluded that was the only way he could keep his foot out of his mouth. Rocky, with his new and pregnant wife in tow, fared no better, as both contenders fell to Henry Cabot Lodge. In an era long preceding super and endless Tuesdays, the May Oregon primary was next on the schedule. Rocky crushed Lodge and Goldwater. Goldwater was losing primaries, but in state after state, the team assembled by Clif White, with little if any help from the candidate, was locking up delegate after delegate. In the Golden State's winner-take-all primary, he won in a photo finish. A conservative, a man opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a hard-core anti-communist who believed in using tactical atomic weapons, a law-and-order believer in old-fashioned values for whom social security was an uncomfortable fit, and a true despiser of the east coast establishment, was on the threshold of becoming the GOP's nominee. And once he secured the nomination, he flaunted his distaste for business as usual with his well-remembered acceptance speech in which he declared "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice - moderation in the pursuit of liberty is no virtue". A man who didn't particularly care to campaign, who held the media in disdain, whose supporters were fanatics set out on a course toward self-immolation.
The campaign opened with the 'Daisy' commercial Labor Day weekend and the warmonger tag was applied to Goldwater, whose Arizona Mafia demoted Clif White, fired half of the RNC staff in Washington in September and began their iteration of amateur hour. Goldwater thanked Boeing's workers for the performance of their planes in combat and assured them the planes "will be doing so again" . The man he put in charge of his campaign, Dean Burch, accepted the endorsement of the KKK in Georgia and Alabama. Goldwater was simply a poor candidate and his organization was in shambles. Republicans were running for cover, traditional Republican newspapers endorsed LBJ as the debacle headed toward November 3rd.
In October, William F. Buckley made a speech to a YAF convention that didn't generate a single round of applause. He stated that defeat was imminent and the challenge was to take their fiery devotion and find recruits for future Novembers. In late October, Goldwater cancelled a $1000-a-plate engagement and the organizers substituted former actor and GE spokesman Ronald Reagan. He was so good that they put him on TV. On Oct.27 Regan's speech was televised nationally. It was called "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with the Cross of Gold speech."
In the end, Johnson crushed Goldwater and Scotty Reston in the NYTimes stated that the conservative cause was lost. The LATimes said the Republicans would be a minority party indefinitely. However, Johnson had predicted the end of a Democratic south and he was correct, as five Confederate states voted for Goldwater. Throughout the land, a kind of polarization was beginning. As is so often the case in America, the divide was racial and cultural. The Democrats were embracing Negroes at a time when there were riots in the cities, crime rates rising, morals collapsing, and respect for authority and tradition fading. These were themes that Nixon would bludgeon onto the national agenda and Reagan would play like a harp.
This is a fabulous book written by a very skillful man. It is a reminder that the right/left, urban/rural, coastal/heartland divide has always been with us. Over five decades ago, the right was very hardcore, considered Ike a commie tool, social-security a commie plot and the progressive income tax a bulwark of government centralization. I think the author could have delved deeper into the issue of how this era led to the total governmental discord that started in the 90's. I'd prefer not to have to read three more lengthy books to look for hints on that issue. In any event many thanks to my erudite brother for recommending this author.
5.11.2017
Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, Allen and Barnes - B -
This book is a detailed analysis of the abject failure of the Clinton run for the presidency in 2016. The focus is not on what Sanders and Trump accomplished, but on what Hillary didn't. Before the inevitable campaign was announced, a NY Times report unveiled what would be its ongoing Achilles heel -the investigation of the personal email server from her State Dept. tenure. Her staff was an agglomeration of people and interests, and the email question threw them for a loop. "No one was in charge, and no one had figured out how to make the campaign something bigger than Hillary. Hillary didn't have a vision to articulate. And no one else could give one to her. She had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn't really have a rationale."
In the summer of 2015, the populism on the left of Bernie Sanders and on the right of Donald Trump pounded on Washington's insiders, and the ultimate insider was buried in inconsistencies, the blaming of others and her inability to admit she had made a mistake about her email server. Her attempt to explain the problem in a one-on-one CNN interview flopped. Finally, after five months of plummeting numbers and a consensus that she was a liar, HRC apologized for her initial server decision. She rallied in October after a superb performance on SNL and followed up by crushing Sanders in the first debate and embarrassing the Republican Benghazi Committee. When the caucuses and primaries started, Sanders was surprisingly strong. The African-American votes in March put her way ahead of Sanders but there was a surprising loss elaborated on in a chapter called 'The Canary In The Auto Plant'. She lost Michigan's white blue- collar voters. The March 15 mini-Tuesday primaries put her ahead with an insurmountable lead.
The campaign was haunted by its structure. John Podesta, who had been Bill's last Chief of Staff and was the Clinton's age was the Chairman. Robby Mook was thirty years younger, the analytic guru and the Campaign Manager. Robby was in charge, but there were consultants, media teams, strategic planners, policy analysts, Bill and his people and all of the outside influences of what the author calls 'Clintonworld'. Infighting, crossed lines of authority and influence damaged the campaign from beginning to end.
Planning for the 'general', the Dems had absolute confidence in their electoral wall, the 242 votes they had captured in the last six elections. For the Republicans, they knew they had a golden opportunity because of Hillary's unpopularity throughout the country. Their plan was to hammer away on her negatives. In July, FBI Director Comey announced that there would be no charges because of the email server but that Hillary and her staff had been "reckless" in its use, thus adding his name to the year's controversies. His condemnation was unusual, as tradition says you only announce the conclusion, not your opinion. The Dems had a successful convention, but so did the opponents, and both sides moved into September with Trump much closer to HRC than expected. September also saw Hillary's pneumonia diagnosis kept from the press and her characterization of half of Trump's supporters as "deplorables". After HRC won the first debate, the nation learned that Russia was behind email hacks of the DNC, the Access Hollywood tape about Trump was released and the text of Hillary's Goldman Sachs speech was made public. Prominent Republicans called for Trump to step aside. One of the WikLeaks email exposures was of John Podesta's gmail account. Since he had been at the center of the campaign since the beginning, there were endless internal, critical emails to and from many, many people. Their exposure further divided the Democratic team. Staying on focus, HRC won the 2nd debate. On Oct. 27, Comey re-opened the email controversy because it came up in the latest Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner juvenile imbroglio. Matters were slipping in the heartland and "while Hillary was measuring drapes for the oval Office, her team was mismeasuring the electorate".
In the end, the electoral count was 306-232. This soon after the election, the authors chose not to pin her loss on any one thing. The Clintons felt it was the FBI, KGB and KKK. Throughout the book, the data driven campaign of Robby Mook, who ignored the advice and instinct of Bill Clinton, comes under heavy fire. In the end, HRC could not overcome her unpopularity.
In the summer of 2015, the populism on the left of Bernie Sanders and on the right of Donald Trump pounded on Washington's insiders, and the ultimate insider was buried in inconsistencies, the blaming of others and her inability to admit she had made a mistake about her email server. Her attempt to explain the problem in a one-on-one CNN interview flopped. Finally, after five months of plummeting numbers and a consensus that she was a liar, HRC apologized for her initial server decision. She rallied in October after a superb performance on SNL and followed up by crushing Sanders in the first debate and embarrassing the Republican Benghazi Committee. When the caucuses and primaries started, Sanders was surprisingly strong. The African-American votes in March put her way ahead of Sanders but there was a surprising loss elaborated on in a chapter called 'The Canary In The Auto Plant'. She lost Michigan's white blue- collar voters. The March 15 mini-Tuesday primaries put her ahead with an insurmountable lead.
The campaign was haunted by its structure. John Podesta, who had been Bill's last Chief of Staff and was the Clinton's age was the Chairman. Robby Mook was thirty years younger, the analytic guru and the Campaign Manager. Robby was in charge, but there were consultants, media teams, strategic planners, policy analysts, Bill and his people and all of the outside influences of what the author calls 'Clintonworld'. Infighting, crossed lines of authority and influence damaged the campaign from beginning to end.
Planning for the 'general', the Dems had absolute confidence in their electoral wall, the 242 votes they had captured in the last six elections. For the Republicans, they knew they had a golden opportunity because of Hillary's unpopularity throughout the country. Their plan was to hammer away on her negatives. In July, FBI Director Comey announced that there would be no charges because of the email server but that Hillary and her staff had been "reckless" in its use, thus adding his name to the year's controversies. His condemnation was unusual, as tradition says you only announce the conclusion, not your opinion. The Dems had a successful convention, but so did the opponents, and both sides moved into September with Trump much closer to HRC than expected. September also saw Hillary's pneumonia diagnosis kept from the press and her characterization of half of Trump's supporters as "deplorables". After HRC won the first debate, the nation learned that Russia was behind email hacks of the DNC, the Access Hollywood tape about Trump was released and the text of Hillary's Goldman Sachs speech was made public. Prominent Republicans called for Trump to step aside. One of the WikLeaks email exposures was of John Podesta's gmail account. Since he had been at the center of the campaign since the beginning, there were endless internal, critical emails to and from many, many people. Their exposure further divided the Democratic team. Staying on focus, HRC won the 2nd debate. On Oct. 27, Comey re-opened the email controversy because it came up in the latest Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner juvenile imbroglio. Matters were slipping in the heartland and "while Hillary was measuring drapes for the oval Office, her team was mismeasuring the electorate".
In the end, the electoral count was 306-232. This soon after the election, the authors chose not to pin her loss on any one thing. The Clintons felt it was the FBI, KGB and KKK. Throughout the book, the data driven campaign of Robby Mook, who ignored the advice and instinct of Bill Clinton, comes under heavy fire. In the end, HRC could not overcome her unpopularity.
News Of The World, Jiles - B +
This superb novel is set in Texas in 1870. Captain Kidd is a-71-year old veteran of three wars, and a former printer who makes his living traveling around the state reading somewhat dated newspapers to crowds charging 10 cents per head. He takes up the task of delivering 10-year-old Joanna, who had been captured by the Kiowa, to her family 400 miles south. On their way from Wichita Falls to San Antonio, they overcome Indian raiders, white slavers, and ordinary outlaws as they bond as much as an old man and a young girl, without a common language, can. This is a fabulous tale of two people coming together, helping and supported each other, that deftly shares with the reader a fascinating and far-away time. This could have been written by Larry McMurtry - it's that good. To my favorite Texan - Wendell, I recommend this wholeheartedly.
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