4.29.2025
What We Buried, Rotenberg - B+
Daniel Kennicott, Toronto PD detective, avoids an attempt to run him down outside his home. He is shaken and ponders his family's tragedies. A dozen years before, his parents had been killed in what was officially an accident, but which he and his brother believe was intentional. Ten years before, his brother was murdered the night before he was to depart for Gubbio, Italy, a small town that had some connection to his grandmother. Daniel takes a leave and heads there. He learns of the Quaranta, the day in 1944 when the Germans murdered 40 locals in cold blood. Later that same night, the villagers tell him that his mother's father, Grandpa Smith, was in Gubbio, in the SS, but was in the hospital that day. Daniel's mother was a research historian who had uncovered her father's past and the Italians believe that she and her oldest son were murdered by those still trying to protect two SS men's families in Canada. Although I'd have preferred a bit more clarity in the epilogue, the final third of the book and the conclusion are absolutely first rate in tying together events during the war and in today's Toronto. Excellent police novel with some great detective work and historically enlightening. Excellent.
Blood Ties, Nesbo - B
Roy Opgard is a fundamentally decent human being, notwithstanding the many murders he's committed over the years. Never mind the bribery, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud at the center of this story. His primary problem is his younger brother Carl, about whom he has an abiding sense of guilt and responsibility because he had never stopped his father's sexual abuse of Carl—until he emphatically did. He spends his life cleaning up the multiple nasty messes Carl leaves along the way, until Carl crosses the line. This time Carl betrays him. He, in turn, hatches his own plan, and the brothers engage in a three-dimensional game of chess with millions of dollars and jail time on the line. The author seldom strays from his highly successful series about an alcoholic Oslo detective and does so admirably here. Very good.
The Oligarch's Daughter, Finder - B
The author specializes in preposterous page-turners and this is yet another. Paul Brightman, a thirtysomething Manhattan hedge fund analyst, meets and falls in love with a struggling Greenwich Village artist. Tatyana is Russian and speaks with a very slight accent. Six months later, they are living together and she suggests that he meet her family. Her dad, Arkady Galkin, is not a taxi driver from Brighton Beach, but rather a multi-billionaire who lives on the upper East Side. Soon, Paul takes a job with his now father-in-law's 5th Avenue family office. When he realizes that the operation is illegal and funded by the Kremlin, he approaches the FBI. The firm's security manager, a recent FSB agent, becomes suspicious, but Arkady backs Paul. When Arkady's security people arrive at his apartment, Paul excuses himself, escapes and heads to the FBI undercover office nearby. Everyone there is dead, and Paul takes a cab to the Port Authority.
Five years later, he is working as a boat builder and an occasional fishing guide in a small town in New Hampshire. He gets the drop on the first Russian who shows up, but winds up in the woods running from the next two killers. As good as he is, he can't make it on his own and is helped by hard-core survivalists. The story completely 'jumps the shark' as he survives, exposes a CIA-KGB joint conspiracy and lives happily after. As incredulous as anything, it's still a one-day read.
4.17.2025
Golden Fleece: The Story of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth of Austria, Harding - B +
In the summer of 1853, a Bavarian princess traveled to Austria where her sister, Sophie, the Empress Dowager, was her host. The two sisters intended for Helene of Bavaria to become affianced to Emperor Franz Joseph. When the young emperor set his eyes on Elizabeth, Helene's younger sister, he concluded otherwise. He fell for Sisi, an impetuous, stunningly beautiful, and rambunctious free spirit, and decided that she would be his bride. Before half of Europe's royalty, they wed on April 24, 1854. Sisi and her imperious mother-in-law were immediately at loggerheads. The sixteen-year-old empress was soon pregnant, but the birth of a girl, Sophie, was not enough to satisfy her mother-in-law. Another daughter, Gisela, followed a year later. The Empress Dowager took complete charge of both girls, and when the emperor realized that Sophie barely knew him or her mother, he insisted that the Empress Dowager relinquish control of his children.
About this time, Franz Joseph learned that his Italian possessions were being grossly mismanaged and concluded that he would travel there to rectify matters. He decided to bring his wife and baby Sophie with him. Initially, the trip was a dismal failure, for at every turn he was met by the quiet hostility of the Italian people. In Venice, Elizabeth convinced him to pardon the political prisoners and return confiscated lands to their owners. He did the same in Milan, removed the administration of the reactionary Field Marshal Radetzky, and announced that his brother Maxi would become consul. Although he did not stave off the Italian desire for independence, he had made a very positive impression. He decided it would be best to try hands-on diplomacy in Hungary as well. He, Elizabeth, and the two girls headed to Budapest. The trip was a success from the beginning, as Elizabeth honored the Magyar language and customs, but turned tragic when baby Sophie died of fever.
To the joy of the empire, Sisi delivered a boy in August, 1858. Rudolf was now the heir. A year later, the Italians, with French backing, provoked the grossly unprepared Austrian army into war. Franz Joseph was equally incapable of managing the diplomacy. The Austrians' military equipment was so outdated that Napoleon III said, "It is a wonder they don't wear powdered wigs" into battle. While the Austrian army lost every battle with Franz at the front, Sisi and the Dowager battled over the children in Vienna. Failure was absolute and Franz signed away Lombardy.
He returned home to the never-ending conflict between his mother and wife, and this time, sided with the Dowager. Elizabeth became so upset she left home three times for Madeira, Corfu, and Venice. She exercised and starved herself to wraith-like status and ill-health. Her mother convinced her to come north, and she returned to Vienna to become "a model wife-mother-sovereign." This idyll would be short-lived as two crises for the family were brewing. Maximilian and his wife Carlota sailed to Mexico to become its emperor and empress. And when a pan-Germanic conference was called in Frankfurt to explore further ties, the Prussians, under Bismarck, did not attend.
Otto von Bismarck sought to provoke war to provide Prussia the opportunity to become paramount in Germany. His first victim was Austria, which he forced into a one-week humiliation in April 1866. One consequence was the resurrection of Hungary's demand for a parliament and a constitution. Franz sent Elizabeth to Budapest, and she encouraged Franz to acquiesce. He agreed and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Franz as emperor of the dual monarchy was established. The royal couple's trip to Budapest for their coronation was an absolute triumph. But June 1867 saw the end of Maximilian's ill-fated venture when he was executed by the Mexicans. When Elizabeth delivered her fourth child, Valerie, she did so at her castle in Hungary and worked assiduously to keep her mother-in-law at bay.
In 1870, Napoleon III sealed his fate by declaring war on Prussia over the relatively unimportant matter of the Spanish succession, and in turn, quickly lost a war, his throne and Alsace-Lorraine. Franz wisely declared neutrality. Two years later, the Dowager Empress died with Elizabeth at her side. Franz thought that an exposition would lighten the mood in Austria, and Vienna hosted a successful one in 1873. At the same time, Elizabeth was an ambitious horsewoman who endlessly traveled to ride in England, Ireland, and Hungary. Her extravagances offended the Austrians, who never loved her as the rest of the continent did. As she turned forty, she saw "the first signs of physical decline, which in a woman of her pride amounted to torture." She began to travel Europe seeking the fountain of youth. She began to speak of suicide.
In 1881, the Crown Prince was married to Princess Stephanie of Belgium in an arranged and disastrous union. The slowly-developing bride was barely out of puberty and had no concept of what her marital obligations were. Rudolf returned to the cabarets of Vienna. After a few years, matters improved and Stephanie gave birth to a daughter. At the palace, Elizabeth began to further drift off as so many of her family had𑁋the Wittelsbachs had a history of mental illness. Franz continued to indulge her to no avail. "She remains history's most glaring example of a woman spoiled by a man's sheer kindness. The greater Franz's patience with her, the more insufferable she became."
Undoubtedly, the low point of their lives, and likely Franz's sixty-eight-year reign, came in January, 1889. The year before, Rudi gave up on his loveless marriage to his barren wife and took up with the teenaged Baroness Vetsera. When the Pope denied his request for an annulment, Rudi asked his father if he could renounce the throne. Franz was one of the most duty-conscious monarchs of all time, and he told his son that he had to give up the Baroness and fulfill his duty to the dynasty. The following night, Rudi and Marie committed a dual suicide. Rudolf left letters of explanation for his loved ones. None were addressed to Franz. His letter to his mother said, "I ask my father's forgiveness, knowing full well I was not worthy of being his son." Elizabeth never recovered. She again began her endless travels, once again leaving Franz at home. "Always a truant she had failed as an empress and mother. She now failed as a wife." Her mental and physical health continued to deteriorate for the next decade. On Sept. 10, 1898, she was waiting for the ferry in Geneva when an Italian anarchist assassinated her.
For Franz, the final agony came in 1914 when the Archduke, against his orders, traveled to Sarajevo and was assassinated. Franz thought the resulting Astro-Hungarian ultimatum was too much but, at eighty-four, allowed his ministers to decide. No one envisioned the conflagration that followed. Franz Joseph passed away quietly in November, 1916.
This book is excellent, even though so much time is spent on the squabbles between Elizabeth and Sophie, and it was written in the somewhat florid and flowery language in 1937. Elizabeth has universally been described as one of the most beautiful woman in Europe in the 19th century. With that beauty came the curse of mental instability. Franz Joseph adored her and comes off as a well-meaning, very decent man who was likely in over his head. I have been fascinated by the Hapsburgs since reading a history of the era on my first trip to Europe, to Austria in 1987. The author posed the idea that in the decades since the end of the dynasty, things have not gone very well for Central Europe. Under Franz Joseph, the multi-lingual and cultural lands had been relatively free and prosperous. The ensuing seventy years saw revolution, poverty, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and occupation by the Soviets.
Goldstein, Kutscher - B +
In the third novel in this series, Brooklyn gangster Abe Goldstein arrives in Berlin in the summer of 1931. Rath is told to keep an eye on him. A parallel story involves two teenage street kids caught by the Prussian Police in Berlin's finest department store after midnight. Alex escapes, but from the street she watches as an officer sends Benny six stories to his death. She reports that Benny was murdered, and since the policeman has a record of violent outbursts, the matter is taken seriously. Alex disappears into the streets again, but the relentless Charly Ritter finds her.
Although Goldstein is in Berlin for family reasons, all assume he is in the middle of an outbreak of gang violence. He is not, but he does help an old Jew being harassed by the SA. One of the Nazis, who is likely gay, winds up dead later in the night. And since Goldstein has been seen in their vicinity, he has a problem. Once the police connect him to the Nazis, they begin looking for him, and they later suspect him of helping his dying grandfather off to the afterlife. Rath, however, is certain that Goldstein did not kill the Nazi.
While the police are following the cop who killed Benny, he is murdered, and they learn that he was another homosexual in the SA. It also appears as if his killer was in a police uniform. When finally uncovered, the police find that these murders, and quite a few others in the gang world, were committed by the White Hand, a conspiracy of right-wing police and judiciary personnel trying to save Germany from the liberalism of the Weimar Republic. Of course, the ultimate irony is that Goldstein helps the police and is free to return to the US. A totally brilliant police novel, once again with limited exposition of the politics of the era and very little in common with the Netflix series.
The Empress, Griffis - B+
In 1853, two sisters, Helene and Elizabeth, both Duchesses of Bavaria, travel to Austria to meet the young Franz Joseph. The emperor's imperious mother, Sophie, has invited her nieces to meet the emperor with the expectation that he will select the elder to be his bride, empress, and mother of the future sovereign. However, Franz is overburdened by the pressures and strictures of his life and the expectation that he will always do what the family wants. He is immediately smitten by the impetuous and adventurous younger sister, Elizabeth. His marriage proposal to her annoys his mother, shocks his aunt and destroys Helene. Marrying into the oldest dynasty in Europe is complicated and filled with roadblocks set out by Sophie, Helene, and Maxi, Franz's troubled younger brother. Nonetheless, Franz and Elizabeth joyfully wed in a marriage of love in what will be the final Hapsburg marriage of a sitting emperor. This novel is the basis of season one of the eponymous Netflix series.
The White Fortress, Morrison & Morrison - B
This the third in the 14th-century series featuring Sir Gerard Fox and his wife Willa. This one is set in Croatia and revolves around the vast wealth created by the salt resources in the city of Ston. The ruler of Dubrovnik wishes to make Ston part of the Serbian Empire. Fox and Willa find themselves assisting a couple they meet in Rhodes and wind up in the middle of a Balkan conflict. They defend Ston against a Serbian attack, and plan a return to France. Not as compelling as the first two, and I'm not sure if the authors are finished or are planning more. Fun historical fiction.
4.12.2025
Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945, Overy - B, Inc.
This book presents a less conventional approach than we are used to. The war began in 1931, and did not end in Asia, the Middle East, and Central Europe until a decade after 1945. In many ways, the war and its predecessor were a second Thirty Years War accomplishing "the reordering of the world system in a final stage of imperial crisis."
The last quarter of the 19th century saw the new countries of Germany, Italy, and Japan join the imperial scramble. "Over the half century that followed, these were the three major states whose wish to create major empires would result in world war in the 1940's." Germany's empire was lost in the Great War, and the British and French expanded theirs. Both Italy and Japan felt ill treated by the Big Three at Paris, and were desirous of more spoils. All three countries' animosities and resentments were further exacerbated by the Depression.
Japan invaded Manchuria on Sept. 18, 1931. Once the military dominated national politics "a widespread campaign to raise national awareness and enthusiasm for territorial expansion was inaugurated." Over the summer of 1936, the Japanese moved south, and China declared war. By the end of 1940, Japan occupied most of China but had suffered 180,000 dead, 324,000 wounded, and had dozens of divisions tied up in a stalemate neither side could win. Italy's expansion ambitions were less grand. Late in 1935, Italy attacked Ethiopia from its colonies in east Africa. The ensuing victory did not come quickly but was long and draining. April 1939 saw Italy invade and occupy Albania.
Hitler rearmed Germany, but had no real strategy for gaining living space. Hitler expected Poland to be a limited engagement at best, and was surprised when the Allies declared war. "The war against Poland can better be understood as the final stage in a largely uncoordinated movement to found new territorial empires in the 1930's rather than... the opening conflict of the Second World War."
Germany attacked to the west in the spring. Their success was total and overwhelming. They "gambled everything on a rapid breakthrough and encirclement that eluded them in 1914." France had prepared to defend against a German advance on the Flanders plains. When the Germans came through the Ardennes, they were surprised, out of position, and grossly incapable of reacting. The French were soundly defeated. As the year ended, Britain was hopelessly out matched, alone, and stubbornly holding on to its empire.
Hitler concluded that defeating the USSR was a pre-requisite to defeating Great Britain by eliminating its "last prospect of a European Alliance." Hitler's ongoing desire for Lebensraum and Stalin's aggression in the Baltics and Romania confirmed his conclusion. Meanwhile, Mussolini, without coordinating with Germany, invaded Greece and Egypt. A vastly outnumbered UK army handily defeated the Italians in the desert, and a British colonial army captured Ethiopia. Mussolini's abysmal showing in Greece led to a request for German help leading Hitler to invade Greece and send Rommel to Africa.
"By June 1941, the largest invasion force in history was in place." At 3:30 AM on the 22nd, Barbarossa kicked off. Army Groups North and Centre exceeded the army's wildest expectations. Only in the South did the Soviets mount an effective defense. By the end of the summer, the Soviets lost 2,000,000 men. Eventually, time, distance, weather, and Soviet bravery stopped the Germans in the 3rd week of November. Fritz
The war was fundamentally "transformed" on December 7th. In addition to bombing Pearl Harbor, Japan occupied the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the Dutch East Indies. "The collapse of the British Empire in Asia and the Pacific was complete." Clearly, attacking the US was a major strategic error for Japan. Germany then declared war on the US.
The empires newly acquired by the Japanese and Germans were subjected to brutal occupations. In Asia, the false equality of an Asian led co-prosperity sphere was in reality regimes of torture, execution, and starvation. It is estimated that three million Indonesians starved in a country once a self-sufficient exporter of foodstuffs. For western European states, Germany's victories meant the expropriation of assets and the conversion of their economies to the support of the war effort. In the east, Hitler's goal was "to dominate, administer, and exploit." Exploitation proved unattainable as the retreating Soviets had dismantled and destroyed almost all of the industrial capacity of the conquered areas. For the civilian population, rations were just enough to keep people alive. Over half of Europe's Jews lived in the east and "Germany's most bitter anti-Semites were concentrated in the security apparatus that occupied those very same areas. However poorly co-ordinated and prone to friction the killing process in the East was, the end result for the Jews was the same - to die swiftly or slowly, but to die." In April of 1945 Hitler reveled in "having eliminated the Jew from Germany and Cental Europe."
"Stalingrad, Guadalcanal, and El Alamein were the furthest points of advance" for the Axis powers. At Guadalcanal, Japan faced its first disastrous failure. Hirohito ordered it be abandoned at year end. In the desert, the British 8th Army defeated Rommel in the fall. Although both Stalin and Roosevelt were unhappy about Britain's focus on Africa, the fighting there was a serious drain on German resources. Both battles were important, but were dwarfed by Stalingrad. Two million men engaged in the carnage on the Volga before Germany surrendered the 6th Army in late January, 1943. After the Allies invaded Sicily (again Churchill's desire and opposed by Eisenhower and Marshall) Mussolini was deposed. The new government sought peace, and Germany occupied most of the country. A strategic stalemate ensued. In Russia, once again 2 million men engaged in midsummer in the largest tank battle ever at Kursk. The German retreat continued. As 1943 ended, it was clear that Japan and Germany were both headed to defeat. Throughout the Pacific, the US slowly advanced closer to the home islands. The Soviets pounded the Wehrmacht and pushed for a 2nd front. Late in 1943, the 8th Air Force introduced long-range fighters that were able to clear the Luftwaffe from the sky by the time of the Normandy landing. On June 6, the Allies landed 132,450 troops. However, it took until early August before they broke through the German defenses. With defeat on the horizon, the soldiers of the Empire and the Reich chose to fight to the bitter end. Indeed the Japanese were so committed that almost none allowed themselves to be captured. Both the Red and Allied Army advances in late 1944 stalled for logistical reasons and resurgent German efforts. "The battles of the last months of conflict to subdue the crumbling enemy empires were among the bloodiest and costliest of the war." It took the Soviets three months to conquer the last 65 kilometers on the road to Berlin. The US and British did not cross the Rhine until March. The defenses of Iwo Jima and Okinowa were fanatical. Overwhelmed, the Third Reich collapsed in early May. The Japanese surrender came in late August after fire bombings and two atomic bombs. "For millions on both sides, the surrenders meant relief from the all-embracing demands of total war, but the many many arguments between the Allies...anticipated the coming Cold War, while the unresolved crises generated by imperialism...meant years of violence and political conflict still lay ahead."
"The most significant geopolitical consequence of the war was the collapse within less than two decades of the entire European imperial project and the establishment of a world of nation states."
This almost 900 page book has been acclaimed as a magnificent one volume history of the war. I do not agree. I submit that No Simple Victory by Davies, Inferno by Hastings, and A World Of Arms by Weinberg are all superior. The most fascinating and compelling concept offered here is the war as an extension of imperial ambition and decline is fascinating and food for thought. I have never come across the idea and find it compelling. I am a bit surprised by the British author's disdain for Churchill and his constant attempts to take steps to preserve the empire. Clearly, the US senior warriors did not agree with Winston. That said, my observations are tempered by the fact that I skipped over 500 pages and six chapters that drilled down on specific aspects of the war that would probably have taken a month to read.
A Death In Berlin, Scarrow - B
When the owner of a seedy nightclub is gunned down in May 1940, Kripo Inspector Horst Schenke is assigned the case. Apparently, the decedent was dealing in forged ration coupons that use ink obtained from official sources. The possibility of high level corruption haunts the investigation. Horst's next problem is much bigger. Berlin's leading gangster, the man behind the forgeries, has uncovered Schenke's relationship with a Jewish woman and threatens to expose him. When Guttman kidnaps Ruth, Schenke makes a deal with an opposing gang leader. Together, they attack Guttman's villa, Horst rescues Ruth, and Berlin now has a new crime boss.
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