Under Occupation, Furst - B

                                  This book is the fifteenth 'Night Soldiers' novel, and is fully three decades older than the first from 1988.  The novels are masterpieces of historical fiction, modeled on Arthur Koestler and Eric Ambler, and, in my opinion, exceeding both. If I can feel the fog rolling in from the North Sea or the Seine, I know I love what I'm reading. Many, if not most, of the earlier books focused on characters of elusive backgrounds and identities, who slipped through central Europe in the 1930's. This is not a series in the traditional sense of the word, but there are recurring themes and about a dozen characters who appear in two or three books. There were a great many communists in hardcore opposition to the growing fascist excesses. Only in this book and the last book one has the actual war been  the background. It is 1942 in Paris and life-long Parisian Paul Ricard, novelist, becomes a resistant. His adventures take him to Kiel in Germany, the Spanish border, Sainte-Nazaire on the French Coast, and throughout the various arrondissements of Paris.  The novel excels when in Paris, where he ultimately avoids the Gestapo as they close in around his circle. If you haven't read these, it's time to start.

The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease and the End of an Empire, Harper- B+

  How could Rome, seat of state for over a millennium and the wealthiest city ever, come to be sacked by the Goths in the year 410? History tells us of the acts of emperors, generals, consuls, and invaders, but the fate of Rome "was equally decided by bacteria and viruses, volcanoes and solar cycles." The empire, which had spread from Syria to Britain, created pathways for infectious diseases that significantly contributed to the decline and fall of Rome. Gibbon ordained that the 2nd century saw mankind at its most prosperous and happiest. The empire comprised 75 million people. The city itself exceeded a population of a million, a number not to be seen in the west again until 1800. The fall of Rome was "a monumental episode of state failure", characterized as "the single greatest regression in human history." Science now allows us to recognize changes in the climate in the past and affords us the opportunity to apply that knowledge to our understanding of history. 

Rome prospered at an extraordinarily positive time, known as the RCO, the Roman Climate Optimum. During the last two centuries BC and in the first century CE, the environment was perfect for economic and population growth. Temperatures were moderate and the amount of rainfall matched the needs of the times. However, Rome's luck turned early in the Christian Era and by the Dark Ages, the Mediterranean world faced the Little Ice Age. In 165, the world's first pandemic, known to history as the Antonine Plague,  attacked Rome from the east through the Red Sea and the Nile River Valley. All indications are that it was a smallpox virus. Estimates of population loss are difficult to calculate, but somewhere between 10-20% of the people in the empire, from the Red Sea to Hadrian's Wall, died. The city itself lost as many as 300,000 souls. The impact was catastrophic. Fiscal distress and the devastation of the legions put the empire in a defensive posture at its borders, from which it never recovered. A century later, the second half of the 3rd century saw a series of governance and security crises, with emperors ceaselessly usurping their predecessors and invasions on all fronts. Concurrently, a withering drought and another pandemic slashed the empire. An African drought reduced the Egyptian wheat harvest. The Plague of Cyprian struck the length and breadth of the empire, for possibly fifteen years. Some sort of viral hemorrhagic fever is the likely cause. The frontiers buckled in the 250's as Asia Minor and the Danube basin were lost. The Rhine followed. The empire was saved when the moneyed Mediterranean aristocracy was replaced by a long series of Danubian military officers known as the Theodosian Dynasty. The empire recovered and flourished for well over another century. The long 4th century saw the empire shift its focus to the east with the establishment of Constantinople. We have known for centuries that the Hun left the Asian steppes and forced the Goths out of the area north of the Black Sea and into the empire. What we now know is that there was a mega-drought in the steppes in 350-370. The Huns crossed the Volga and headed into Europe. Their ability to shoot arrows from fast-moving warhorses swept the Goths away. The Goths didn't so much invade the empire as they migrated into it. In the fifth century, the western half of the empire of Rome faded away. The empire prospered in the east, particularly in the 6th century reign of Justinian. He reorganized the bureaucracy, codified the empire's laws, recovered portions of Italy, made peace with the Persians and built Constantinople up to a population of 500,000. However, in 541, the bubonic plague made its entry into the empire. The ensuing two decades saw the empire barely able to collect taxes, feed the people or field an army. In the capital city, half of the population died in the summer of 542. The plague devastated Asia Minor and is believed to have spread as far west as Ireland. Plague endured into the next century and even made a singular appearance in Constantinople in 747. The persistenc of Y. pestis"strangled hopes of recovery." The final sequence of Rome's demise came in the 7th century when climate change, political disintegration and the rise of Islam swept west. Two volcanic eruptions in the 530's-540's led to the coldest decade in the last 2,000 years, adding incalculable stress to the Mediterranean world. The reduction in solar radiance led to a century and a half of the Late Antique Little Ice Age. There were droughts in the south and floods in the north. Environmental degradation slowly "sapped the vitality of the empire." The interconnectedness slipped away, and slowly a globalized prosperous, trading world became a localized simpler place. Most of the west's cities entered terminal decline. Rome's population was counted in the tens of thousands. Italy was reduced to a subsistence economy. In the east, the damage was not as significant, but even there, Constantinople could not field the armies it needed and more importantly, could not pay them. The coup de grace came from the Levant. Beginning in 636, and continuing for a century, the armies of Mohammad cleaved and forever severed the southern portion of the empire. From Arabia, through the Holy Land, Egypt and all of North Africa into Spain, the Muslims conquered. Not only was no semblance of the empire's structure left, but its religion was replaced. The dynamism and great zone of energy was lost. Byzantium was a rump state centered on its capital. The Latin west became Eurasia's backwater. 

I have found this a compelling read. I have long known that our species has moved from point A to point B because of the impact of the environment where it  lived. Our country's success is a function of the bounty of our continent. So to see a historian use the  recent tools of science to delve deeper into the world's history is extraordinarily enlightening. My only caution  to prospective readers is that this is as much science as it is history.

Old Man River: The Mississippi River In North American History, Schneider - B

"It is impossible to imagine America without the Mississippi. The river's history is our history." Any moving water below the Great Lakes and between the the Appalachians and the Rockies, fully 41% of the water in the country, is part of the Mississippi watershed. It is the busiest waterway in the world,  moving half a billion metric tons per year. The first European to interact with native Americans was de Soto in 1542. The French settled Quebec in 1608. Fur traders and Jesuits headed west into the Great Lakes. The Indians told them of a great river to  the south and west. The hope was that it flowed to the Pacific. An expedition under Joliet entered the Mississippi watershed in Wisconsin in the spring of 1673. He and Marquette went as far south as the Arkansas, realized the river drained to the Gulf of Mexico and headed north. A decade later, La Salle descended the river to its mouth. For the next century and a half, French voyageurs explored every river, creek and by-water in the basin, going as far west as the sources of the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers. The claim to the west for New France was based upon their fur traders, and a hundred years later, the French era in America would come to an end. The British evicted France from Canada and Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans. In the 19th century, the river became the highway to the west, and in the later half of the century, became a central part of American lore, under the pen of Samuel Clemens. However, its largest role was as a battlefield  in the Civil War. Both New Orleans and Vicksburg were immensely important, cutting the Confederacy in two and assuring eventual Union victory. Lincoln's comment upon receiving Grant's telegram about the capture of Vicksburg is one of my favorites. "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." In the last chapters of the book, the author refers to the river as a 'lake of engineers'. The act of taming the river and its floods has dramatically altered forever the channel of the Mississippi. Distributary streams, starting 100 miles north of New Orleans, once made the delta. Today, it is one long canal running strait to the Gulf, and at this stage, diverted from a western flow in order to keep the port of New Orleans open.  Someday, it will once again flow on the course it has for hundreds of thousands of years.

The Scholar, McTiernan-B+

                                  This is one of those rare occasions when the second book in a series is better than the first. Reilly catches a case, but the problem is his girlfriend is the witness who called it in. Emma also works at the lab at the center of it all. This is an excellent tale involving a pharma research lab at a university and the wealthy granddaughter of the founder of the largest pharmacy company in Ireland. There are certain similarities to the first book, including the political and pretty much useless supervisor, but then again seldom does  a detective have a good boss. The sniveling DC who tries to sabotage Reilly is equally hard to swallow. This is a series with a future.

The Daughter's Tale, Correa - C +

                                            At best, I would characterize this novel as serviceable. It felt predictable. The author has put together a plot focusing on loss, and indeed Lina/Elise lost a great deal throughout the war. Viera and Lina Sternberg were born to Jewish parents in Berlin in the mid-30's. Before Dr. Sternberg died in Saschausen,  he had arranged passage to Cuba for his daughters. Only Viera made it. Lina and her mother found refuge in the French countryside. Amanda, her mother, wrote to Viera, care of her brother in Cuba, but the letters were always returned. Under her French name, Elise, Lina survived the war with Danielle Duval, her 'sister' according to Father Marcel, and later, the baker's wife,  who protected them. She was adopted by a New York relative. Seventy years later, Viera's granddaughter appears at her front door with the letters written by Amanda. 

The Seine: The River That Made Paris, Sciolino - B

Paris, city of light and love, is at the midpoint of the river's 483 mile traverse from Burgundy to the sea. It is France's only river referred to in the feminine, la Seine; all the others are le. Flowing west from its source and through the vineyards of Burgundy, the river reaches Troyes, where it is wide and deep enough for small boats. Past Fontainbleau, and the Marne,  it reaches the Il de France, the province that includes Paris and its suburbs. The first to build stone structures on the Il de Cite and Left Bank were the Romans. The first stone bridge, the Pont Neuf, connecting the Il de Cite to both banks, was built by Henri IV in 1598. Today, there are thirty-five bridges crossing the Seine. It is not the river's physicality, but its beauty that has inspired Parisians for centuries. It languidly curves through the metropolis, and is its beating heart. It has been and still is romanticized as the soul of the city of love. Love locks hang from its bridges. Lovers stroll throughout the day and night. They kiss on its bridges. It is also the focus of the city's nighttime lighting program and draws people in with its visual seductiveness. It is the subject of countless paintings and photographs. Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party' was set on its banks, as was Seuratt's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte'. To the west, the Impressionists, particularly Monet, spent a significant amount of their time in Normandy, where they were the first to paint water moving. In 'Charade', Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn fall in love on a bateau-mouche.  All of the thousands of movies set in Paris feature the river. The Pont Notre Dame is where Javert ended it all. It is a working river as well with twenty million tons of freight per year and that is most evident west of the city on the way to the sea. At Rouen, the Seine is deep and wide enough to handle ocean-going ships. The estuary is miles wide, a full ten at its mouth, filled with sandbars, islands in flux and  navigational challenges. At the Channel, Le Havre is the large port on the left bank and Honfleur is on the right. Honfleur is a beautiful city, untouched by the passage of time or war. Le Havre is an industrial city considered to be without a soul. Earlier this year, in April, water from the river saved Notre Dame Cathedral. I like river biographies. They tell a slightly different story and touch upon geography, history, sociology, culture and are almost always instructive.

Pure, Miller - B +

This is a truly excellent historical novel, winner of the 2011 Costas Prize, and set in Paris just before the Revolution. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an ambitious engineer from Normandy, is summoned to Versailles by a Minister of the Crown and offered a job in Paris.  He  is tasked with demolishing the Church of les Innocents and excavating and disposing of the remains in its cemetery. Even though the centuries old burial place has not been used in years, its odor permeates the les Halles neighborhood. Progress  requires its demolition. Jean finds an organist, a sexton, his granddaughter and a blind priest on the premises. He enlists the help of all except the priest. He travels to a mine in Normandy where he used to work, recruits 30 men, and a foreman, and soon the digging begins. It's not as hard as mining coal, but it brings its own challenges. There is stench and the unique experience of digging up layers and layers of bones as far as 30  meters deep. In order to take care of the men, Jean authorizes extra pay, tobacco pipes and whores on Saturday night. On and on they dig, and the idea of excavating a cemetery wears on the bodies and souls of all involved. The foreman tries to kill the sexton's granddaughter. After his landlord's daughter tries to bash in Jean's skull, he falls in love with a local harlot and asks her to move in with him.  Months into the project, the city has prepared the quarry* to receive the bones. After they excavate the cemetery, they turn to demolishing the church, succeed, and at the one year mark, the job is done. The miners scatter. Jean is older, wiser and happier, when he returns to Versailles to hand in his report. The Minister's office, indeed the whole palace, is empty.                                                                                                                             The author has written across a wide range of topics and has received many awards and has been nominated for the Booker. He's very good. This book immerses one fully in its time and place.  I cannot recommend this enough.

*The quarry was filled with the remains excavated from many cemeteries and is now the Catacombs of Paris.

The Devil In Paradise, Haley - B +

                                  This is the third book in this series and I can't say enough about it. Historical novels, and in this instance penned by an accomplished historian, can and do convey lessons to be learned. Here, Putnam sails the Caribbean in 1817, saves a handful of Africans from being sold into slavery as part the naval prize laws by the U.S. Treasury, and returns to Boston. His new orders send him to the Pacific, specifically the Straits of Malacca and the Sandwich Islands. He is to go to Hawaii, pay his respects and eliminate any pirates he comes across in the Straits, while not offending the Dutch or British. After a Hawaii stop, Putnam sails to Singapore, takes on supplies and heads out. He also paints the ship so that it would appear to be a merchantman. Although his subterfuge does not fool the local pirates, he still sinks their vessel. They are off to Canton, back to Hawaii where they act against a rogue American pirate and then, head back home.

Last Bus To Woodstock, Dexter - B-

                                 This is the first book in the Inspector Morse series. It was published in 1975. There was a British production of the series that appeared on Masterpiece Theatre for fourteen years beginning in 1987. I picked this book up because of a fabulous modern prequel called Endeavour, featuring 22 shows spread out over the past six years. The Morse of Endeavour is brilliant, amazingly well-read and uses his skills and Oxford education to solve crimes . He's extremely prickly and not easy to like. This book, which features the murder of a woman who missed the eponymous bus, completely lacks the charm of the tv prequel. Morse is smart but pretty much a jerk. He drinks way too much and is flat-out inappropriate with women. He closes with a flourish of deductive analysis, but I've been spoiled by the tv prequel.