The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America, Brands - B+

                      Geronimo was born into the Apache tribe in 1829 around the headwaters of the Gila River. William Tecumseh  Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820. Geronimo's first experiences of battle were against Mexicans. The Apache and the Mexicans lived in a state of constant warfare. Indeed, Mexicans killed Geronimo's mother, wife, and children. He vowed revenge. A year later, in 1859, Geronimo led a raid deep into Mexico. He later recalled, "Still covered with the  blood of my enemies, still holding my conquering weapon, still hot with the joy of battle, victory, and vengeance, I was surrounded by the Apache braves and made war chief of all the Apaches." Sherman attended West Point, was in California during the Mexican-American War, but resigned in 1850. He returned to the army in 1861 and was attached to the command of Ulysses Grant. After Vicksburg, he was made commander in the west, and marched through Tennessee and Georgia.

                    "In 1865 the odds against the Indians were greater than they had ever been." Approximately 400,000 were arrayed against a country with 30 million, and a victorious army. Sherman was put in charge of the trans-Mississippi armed forces. His mission was to protect the soon to be completed trans continental railroad. He decided to patrol the lands north and south of the railway allowing migrants to travel between the Platte and the Arkansas. He would leave the Indians to the north and south alone. Sherman spent an extensive amount of time in 1867 and 1868 working on a commission consisting of senior members of the US government trying to ascertain what the Indians wanted, and trying to reach a peace agreement with the tribes of the plains. An agreement known as the Ft. Laramie Treaty was agreed to and signed by the US and almost all of the Plains Indians in 1868. Indian sovereignty over parts of Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota was assured. Sherman was made general-in-chief when Grant was elected. He despised Washington politics so much that he moved the army HQ's to St. Louis.

                     There was no peace on the southern plains where the Comanche and Kiowas fought in western Texas, Kansas and the New Mexico Territory. Notwithstanding the advice of all knowledgeable plainsmen, Phil Sheridan determined to fight them in the winter when they were batting the weather as well. He succeeded, and by the middle of the 1870's, the southern Indians were on reservations. The peace in the north held until gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse joined with the Cheyenne to protect their world from the white influx. In June of 1876, the Indians destroyed Custer's command at the Greasy Grass River, known to the army as the Little Big Horn. Nelson Miles, an accomplished officer sympathetic to the plight of the Indians, pursued the Sioux into the winter. He skirmished with Sitting Bull who retreated into Canada. He was able to convince Crazy Horse to accept terms. Sitting Bull eventually did as well. The fighting in the north was over. All that remained was convincing Geronimo's warriors to stay on their reservation in the Department of Arizona. Three times between 1878 and 1886, Geronimo led breakouts from the reservation to return to their nomadic and raiding lifestyle. They avoided the army by fleeing to Mexico. The Mexicans were happy for help and allowed the US to pursue the Apaches over the border. Nelson Miles, the man who eventually succeeded Sherman, said that Geronimo was "one of the most remarkable men, red or white, that he had ever met." Nonetheless, the constant pressure led to Geronimo's final surrender in September of 1886. The Indian wars were over.

                     "The invaders from across the eastern ocean had taken four centuries to establish their dominion, but the deed was done. The invaders' diseases, their technology, and their numbers...had been too much for the indigenes to withstand." This is a superb book that covers all of the Indian campaigns, not just the one against the Apaches.       

                     

                     

The Last Lie, Doiron - B+

                     When Mike finds out that his friend and mentor, retired warden Charley Stevens, has left home and disappeared, Mike heads north to find out what's going on. A warden badge memento that a murdered undercover warden had with him when he disappeared 15 years ago pops up in a flea market, sending Charley back to a case that broke his heart up on the Quebec border. Charley is looking for revenge for the murdered warden. Knowing Mike would follow him, Charley uses Mike to reopen the case and together, they obtain justice. A superb addition to a series I obviously enjoy.

Almost Midnight, Doiron - B+

                     This is an excellent addition to the Mike Bowditch series. His enjoyment  of a week off falls quickly apart when his buddy Billy calls from the state prison he's incarcerated in. Bad things are going on, and Billy asks for Mike's help. As he starts to look into what eventually is a massive correction officer drug ring, Mike hears from a game warden who tells him that Shadow, the mostly wolf wolf-dog Mike helped years earlier has been shot by a bow-hunter and is in serious condition. The two plot lines evolve simultaneously and end very well. Shadow survives and Billy's bravery helping an officer who was violently attacked leads to his receiving a pardon. 

A Man Called Intrepid: The Incredible True Story Of The Master Spy Who Helped Win World War Two, Stevenson - B

                      William Stephenson was born in 1896 in western Canada. In 1914, he went to war with the Royal Canadian Engineers. By the time he was 20, he was a captain and sent home "disabled for life" from mustard gas. He fudged his medical records, went back to the front as a pilot, was shot down behind enemy lines and briefly imprisoned. In postwar Britain, he built a series of multinational businesses, became very rich, and WAS part of Churchill's 'circle.' His extensive travels on the continent convinced him of Germany's intentions. In the months of the phony war, he traveled to Sweden and Norway seeking a method to interdict Sweden's supply of iron ore to Germany, and TO stop the extraction of heavy water from Norway. He was tasked by Churchill, still at the Admiralty, to brief FDR about German progress on an atomic bomb and to share the work at Bletchley Park. The president approved a link between the FBI and British Intelligence with Stephenson and Hoover as the points of contacts. When Churchill went to Downing Street, he sent Stephenson to NYC, TO establish the British Security Coordination (BSC), and prepare for the eventuality of Great Britain fighting on from the New World. Another responsibility of the man called Intrepid was to continuously brief FDR on the intercepted communications Bletchley Park was capturing. He established a satellite BSC office in Bermuda that shared Bletchley intercepts with British ships sailing from America. Another base in Canada was used to train counter intelligence operatives. Stephenson was soon working closely with Bill Donovan, legendary NY lawyer and friend of Roosevelt's. Donovan would head up the OSS when the war began, and was surreptitiously coordinating intelligence gathering with the British. In the summer of 1941, Donovan was officially made Coordinator of Information, which caused discomfort for Hoover,  the ever ambitious and zealous protector of the FBI's prerogatives. Everything Stephenson was doing in the US was illegal, and he began to share more and more with Hoover to keep him at bay.  By the end of the year, the US was at war with the Axis powers.

                         Stephenson began plotting the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, top man in the SS and the architect of the Final Solution. Key participants were trained in Canada, and Heydrich was killed in May, 1942. The OSS was officially established the same year. Inevitably, tensions arose between thee BSC, the FBI, and the OSS. Obtaining funds for British secret ops on the continent became more difficult as the US bureaucracy grew during the war. And Hoover became convinced that communist sympathizers in London were hamstringing the coordinated intelligence activities. It would be decades before the defection of Kim Philby would prove him correct. Stephenson was involved with the extraction of Niels Bohr and his son to the west. He worked on the subterfuges to confuse the Germans about the invasions of North Africa, Italy and France. With the war's end in Europe, the BSC closed up operations in America.

                      He was knighted after the war and he was the first non-American to receive the Presidential Medal of Merit. Much of his work was classified and remained unknown until many years later. This book has been criticized by some for being too adulatory. Nonetheless, I am intrigued by the degree of involvement FDR had on intelligence and operational issues in the UK before our participation in the war. Thanks to Kyle Vann for the suggestion.

The Resemblance, Nossett - B

                      This is an intriguing, fun debut novel involving a hit and run murder on the UGA campus, and the backstory of the young woman police officer who investigates it. The central character is not an individual, but rather the fraternity that all of the students here are a member of. The author who attended the university, achieved her Masters there, and taught there, spends the entire novel trashing, thrashing and criticizing the Greek system at Georgia. She does so to such an extent that it takes away from the book.

Die Around Sundown, Pryor - C

                     This novel features Inspector Henri Leport of the Parisian police department in the summer of 1940. Unfortunately for Leport, the Germans demand that he investigate the murder of a German officer at the Louvre. There's an interesting plot twist involving a twin brother, an American GI from the first war, but truth be told, this is weak tea, with a very humdrum plot.  

Blackwater Falls, Khan - B+

               This contemporary novel is set in fictional Blackwater Falls, just south of Denver. A heinous murder of a young Muslim girl from a family of Syrian refugees forces the Denver PD to send in its Community Response Unit. The higher ups do not trust the local police force to handle the case. The local sheriff is closely allied with the evangelical church where the pastor preaches hatred of all who were not born in the US and are not believers in Jesus. Allied with these two powerful men are a local unit of the Disciples, bike riding toughs, and the two largest businesses in town. The CRU is headed up by a Syrian and two women, one Pakistani-American and the other, Mexican-American, all three of whom drive the locals crazy. Arrayed against the sheriff is a Muslim community, whose men work in the local meat plant, where their union organizing efforts have attracted the attention of the Disciples. In the end, justice prevails. The author, born in England and raised in Canada, has a PhD. in International Relations, and is a lawyer with an LLM. She resides in Colorado.  She has written one of the best police mystery books I have ever come across. She perfectly handles the crime, the investigation, and the interplay of of racial, ethnic, and religious bias in today's America. Highly recommended. 

Twilight of the Hapsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph, Palmer - B+

                       The longest serving Hapsburg was born in 1830. His father, Francis Charles, was a "kindly non-entity" and his mother Sophie of Bavaria was bright and ambitious. His grandfather, the emperor, died when Franz was five and the title passed to his uncle, "an amiable simpleton and epileptic." Sophie saw that Franz received a traditional education. He loved everything about the military, and excelled at languages learning to speak French, Magyar, Czech, and Italian. He had an excellent memory, but lacked "intellectual curiosity" and was "not disposed to analyze ideas to question acknowledged truths. " Unrest and revolution spread throughout Europe in 1848. In Vienna, Count Metternich's long career came to an end and throughout the vast reaches of the empire, people agitated for freedom. Foremost were the Italians, and seventeen year old Franz was sent to Verona to serve under Field Marshal Radetzky. Hungary was insisting on an enhanced role in the empire and radicals had taken to the streets of Vienna. The extensive turmoil led to the army insisting on the emperor's abdication in December, and the ascension of his nephew Franz Joseph to the crown. He would be the monarch for almost sixty-eight years. The Hungarians declared independence and battled the Austrians into the following year, before the government prevailed. Franz was determined to rule absolutely and ended all talk of a constitutional monarchy.

                         In 1854, he married his sixteen year old cousin, Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, who was known as Sisi. He rejected the recommendations of his ministers and avoided involvement in the Crimean War. He ordered the removal of Vienna's defensive walls leading to the construction of the famous Ringstrasse, making the city one of the most beautiful in Europe. In the first two years of their marriage, Sisi and Franz welcomed two daughters into the family. A son and heir, Rudolph, was born in 1858. The following year saw Austria at war with the French in northern Italy. At Solferino, the empire was defeated, but Franz and Napoleon III sat down to work out an armistice. In the ensuing peace, the empire gave up a modest amount of its Italian territories. The tensions between the free-spirited Sisi and her demanding mother-in-law led  Sisi to despise life in Vienna, leaving for months at a time. She spent weeks in Madeira, Corfu and a five month winter in Venice. Franz continued to resist any modernization of the monarchy, but in 1863 a radiant Elizabeth was at Franz's side, and in the ensuing three years "would possess the vision and skill to coax Franz Joseph into accepting the greatest of all changes in the structure of his Empire."

                          The accession of Bismarck to the Prussian chancellorship led to an increase in Prussian aggression and ambition. In 1866, the Austrians were defeated at Sadowa, and forswore any future ambitions in Germany. He turned his attention to Hungary and the following year signed the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. Unlike other Hapsburg lands, Hungary had been a free standing kingdom in the past and hoped for a recognition of its unique status. Sisi particularly encouraged Franz toward some sort of accommodation. A dual monarchy, The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was created, and substantial powers of self-government were bestowed on Hungary. Later that year, Franz agreed to a constitution devolving limited domestic powers to a Reichstat with an upper and lower house. When the Franco-Prusssian War broke out in 1870, Franz emphatically insisted that the empire would not join the fray. 

                        Although embarrassed by the diminishment of its roles in Germany and Italy, a peaceful empire saw prosperity, foreign investment, and growth in manufactures, all at a time of bountiful harvests in central Europe. Vienna was entering a golden era capped by the vast 1873 World Exhibition. At home, Sisi continued to travel while Franz worked assiduously from early in the morning until late at night. When his uncle, the former emperor died he inherited a fortune, but personal wealth had little impact on the ascetic emperor. The Crown Prince Rudolf married and soon added a granddaughter to the family. The 1880's saw a burst of financial growth throughout the empire, and a rising middle class in Vienna, Budapest and Prague. Vienna remained the music capital with Strauss, Bruckner, Mahler, and Brahms all creating new works. Throughout the country, particularly on the Ringstrasse, there were architectural accomplishments on a grand scale. In early 1888, Vienna turned out for a massive Hapsburg procession and the unveiling of a monument to Maria-Theresa.

                      The life of the liberal, anti-German Crown prince took a turn for the worse in the late 1880's. He and his wife lived separately, and it is believed that in the course of his dissolute life, Rudolf contracted gonnorhea. He proposed a suicide pact to one of his mistresses. After a spat with his father, Rudolph removed himself and a lover to his lodge at Mayerling. On the morning of Jan. 30, 1889, Rudolf's and Mary Vesta's bodies were found in a locked room there. Nine years later, in the midst of the celebrations of his 50th year on the throne, Franz received the news that Sisi was assassinated in Geneva. As Franz turned 70, he remained mentally and physically fit, still working long hours at his desk, but becoming increasingly isolated. 

                    Franz had successfully kept the empire out of war since 1866, and the prosperity occasioned by peace was evident. To the south though, the Balkans were becoming increasingly volatile. The backbone of Franz's foreign policy had always been a peaceful relationship with Russia. The troublesome Serbs constantly agitated for change and were often supported by their Slavic Orthodox brethren. Franz annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 and visited Sarajevo later in the year. Soon the eighty-year old was attending fewer and fewer meetings and relying on his ministers to manage the empire. When the Balkans exploded in 1912 and finally threw out the Ottomans, Franz resisted those who were hungering to enter the war. However, one of the cataclysmic events of the 20th century took place when the Empire's heir was assassinated on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb.

                       Franz wanted Serbia punished, but did not want war. He approved the Foreign Office's ultimatum because he believed a war would be localized in the Balkans. He was surprised when it broke out and told a family member that it would end in defeat and revolution. The war went satisfactorily in 1915, but deteriorated the following year. He did not live to see the end, succumbing to pneumonia on Oct. 21, 1916. Eventually, Franz Joseph was fondly remembered as the "old gentleman of Schonbrunn." He once said that the monarchy"is a place of refuge, an asylum for all those fragmented nations scattered over central Europe, who if left to their own resources would lead a pitiful existence, becoming the playthings of more powerful neighbors." For the Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Transylvanians, Croats, and Bosnians who suffered the depredations of Nazi Germany, and later, forty-five years of communist tyranny, he was clearly correct.

The Butcher and the Wren, Urquart - B+

                        This is a fast-paced brief thriller set in today's New Orleans. The Butcher is a serial killer who is out of control and killing regularly. Wren is the name of the city's Medical Examiner who is on the team pursuing him. They have a past connection which he slowly discloses with tidbits of clues left with his victims. A quick, thrilling read.