An Inside Job, Silva - B+

       Gabriel Allon is enjoying retirement, living in Venice with Chiara and the children, and working on a Titian restoration. He notices something in the lagoon one afternoon, asks the police to investigate and sure enough, it's a floater. The deceased appears to be a young woman. An inquiry indicates that she was working in the Vatican's art department, and she believed she had found a DaVinci behind the relatively mundane piece she was restoring.  Someone else thinks the painting is a DaVinci because not only is the young woman dead, her apartment has been ransacked, and the painting stolen from the Vatican storage rooms. The Camorra, a Neopolitan gang, is behind the theft and murder. Gabriel tracks the painting to a vault in a sketchy Geneva bank. Knowing that there will be a private sale, Gabriel hatches a plan that involves him painting an exact copy that he will substitute for the original, and having a hacker friend reroute the money paid for the painting. With the assistance of French authorities, the substitution of Gabriel's copy for the original takes place, and with the help of the UK authorities, the ill-gotten monies are sent to Kyiv to help against the Russians.  Gabriel goes on to help the Vatican understand how their bankers were cheating them and how a cardinal had stolen the painting, He helps the Italian Police  arrest a vast proportion of the Camorra, send the disgraced cardinal off to an abbey, and place a Swiss Bank under government supervision. And to top it all off, he dominates the negotiation about the terms of the restoration of the DaVinci.  A few months later, the art world and the entire world cheer Gabriel's work on the newly found DaVinci.

    Another great one by a very talented man. As Daniel Silva is in his mid-sixties, one would conclude there'll be a few more Allon's.  Thus, I need to stop trying to figure out just how old Gabriel is.

Blue Horse, Borgos - B+

             Sheriff Porter Beck is preparing to move on to the State Police when a murder is committed in Lincoln County. The victim is a helicopter pilot under contract to the BLM, which uses copters as a means to conduct 'gatherings' of wild horses.  The next morning, Beck is faced with two more equally dramatic murders of folks involved in the gatherings. The immediate assumption is that those opposed to rounding up wild horses are behind the murders. But Beck feels otherwise. He concludes that the two people who the FBI have their sights on are not guilty, and begins to look elsewhere. He suspects it's the folks behind a very secretive lithium mine in the county. In another excellent tale, he is proven right and manages to take down the bad guys. For me, part of the attraction here is the exploraation of a place I know nothing about.  The wilds of Nevada, not unlike Duluth in the Jonathan Stride series and Maine in the Mike Bowditch series, intrigue.

Head Cases, McMahon - B

                      Gardner Camden is likely somewhere on the spectrum and is head of the Jacksonville based Patterns and Recognition unit of the FBI. There are only four agents in the unit and seldom are they ever in the field. The director calls them in as three serial killers have been killed by a new serial killer. As they investigate, Gardner concludes that the killer is a policeman, possibly FBI, and maybe even the new Quantico graduate just placed in his unit. The killer, whom they label Mad Dog, is not in the FBI, but has been able to hack into the FBI's systems. Through a tremendous effort, remarkable insight, and the resources of the agency, Gardner solves the case. This is the first of two novels and I will read the next one, but there were some slow, predictable moments in this one.

Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York And Shaped America, Shorto - B

              "The episode of our early history that gave New York its name helped set not only the city's but the country's destiny."  This is story of how New Amsterdam became New York. The English and the Dutch were rivals, but at peace, in 1664 when Richard Nicolls led a fleet to New Amsterdam. The English had realized that the harbor, and its access to the interior, was the key to the continent and they did not wish to leave it in Dutch hands. The city was a global trading outpost of 1,500 diverse souls under Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant. On August 28, four English ships anchored in Gravesend Bay at the tip of what is now Brooklyn. Nicolls was joined by John Winthrop, Jr. the governor of Connecticut. 

            A committee was sent by Stuyvesant to Nicolls to ask his intentions, and the English response was that the king wished their surrender. Neither side desired violence. The Dutch had neither the men nor the arms to resist. The English did not wish to damage the valuable trading businesses of the city. Stuyvesant pointed out that the English had no more claim than the Dutch, and that the Dutch had purchased the land from the native inhabitants. Nicolls told the Dutch he would attack in 24 hours. Although the Dutch soldiers would fight, the business community informed the English of the public's desire for a peaceful solution. Nicolls sent Winthrop to Manhattan under a white flag, as Winthrop and Stuyvesant had been working together as neighbors for fifteen years. The two friends sat down in a tavern. 

            The agreement reached was less a surrender and more of a merger. The Dutch were encouraged to continue their lives as freemen conducting sophisticated trade and financial businesses. "The Articles of Transfer were in essence a bill of rights for the people of the former New Netherland." The city was now able to trade with both the Dutch and English empires, and "was set on a course of global power." 

            The Dutch influence on New York has been profound and recognized by historians for decades. New York is incredibly diverse and tolerant, as were the 1500 people from around the world in the triangle of New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was the home of aggressive traders, businessmen, and most importantly, creative financiers. New York has always been about pursuing profits, accepting and incorporating newcomers, growing, creating, building and paying as little attention as possible to the central government and the rest of the country. New York is different because it is a blend of the two creating cultures. It is the glue of "pluralism and capitalism" that holds the city together.

Hotel Ukraine, Smith - B

               Four and a half decades after his introduction, Arkady Renko works his final case. He is usually handed unimportant ones these days because his rebellious nature doesn't fit in Putin's Russia. On the day that Russia invades Ukraine, he is sent to the t Hotel Ukraine to investigate the death of a senior defense minister. He teams up with the FSB, but when they realize Arkady is suffering from Parkinson's, he is placed on sick leave. Of course, he continues to investigate and discerns that the minister was likely killed by someone in the 1812 Group, Russia's private army. When he is poisoned, he knows he is right. Arkady manages to stop an FSB operative on his trail and achieve a measure of satisfaction, but winds up in a Mexican standoff with the 1812 leader. 

             This series ran out of steam awhile back, but has usually delivered a story with thoughtful insights on the Russia of the past decades. The end is occasioned by a Parkinson's progression that has lead to Martin Cruz Smith's death a week after the publication of this novel.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, LeCarre - A*

           Just over fifty years old, Tinker is one of Le Carre's finest, and likely his most famous. There is a fabulous film with Gary Oldman as Smiley, but more importantly, there is Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley in one of the greatest mini-series ever. The author is the man behind significant additions to the language of spying to wit: mole, lamplighter, honey trap, watcher, juju man and baby sitter. The Oxford English Dictionary approached him to ask if he originated the word mole to describe an embedded traitor. 

          Retired unceremoniously after an operation blows up in Czechoslovakia, George Smiley is aimlessly drifting when a higher-up at Whitehall gets in touch. The Foreign Office believes there is a mole at the top of the Circus and asks George to come back, and find the traitor. In addition to the mess in Czecho, an agent in the field provided very compelling material to the Circus that could lead to the mole, but someone in London told Moscow Centre. 

         George, with Peter Guillam as his primary aide, goes to work. As Peter is still at the Circus, he checks the logbook for the night of the Czech operation that led to the capture of Jim Prideaux, and sees that it was excised with a razor blade. Clearly, someone pretty high up fiddled with the logs. As George digs in, he focuses on Operation Witchcraft, an agent run by Percy Alleline, the new C, whose secret agent has everyone in Whitehall salivating about his product. George spots some inconsistencies  in the material, leading him to believe it might be right out of Karla's playbook.  He contacts another agent fired after he and C were sacked, and sits down with him.  The other fella had heard from a Czech that the Soviets were preparing the day before Prideaux was wounded and captured by clearing the area in the woods where Jim was going to meet the escaping Brigadier General. Percy Alleline fired the agent who had heard the story for overreacting to a rumor.  At this point, the only question is who is the traitor.

       When George finally meets with Prideaux, Jim tells him that Control said it was either Tinker - Percy Alleline, Tailor - Bill Haydon,  Soldier - Roy Bland, Poorman - Toby Esterhase, or Beggarman - George Smiley. Prideaux details in depth his capture, months of interrogation, brief chat with Karla, and return to the UK. The Service pensions him off without an explanation and not much of a good-bye. 

        Peter lures Toby to a meet at a safehouse, where to Toby's surprise, George sets out his theory about how Operation Witchcraft has been handled. It is an unparalleled lecture on spycraft - utterly brilliant. Toby provides George with the address of the safehouse where the Russian providing the Witchcraft material, Alexi Polykov, meets his handler, and George has the signal sent to Polykov for a meet. As George sits in the basement, he listens to Polykov and the mole, Bill Haydon, his oldest friend, who is extremely close to Jim Prideaux and Peter Guillam, and occasionally Ann Smiley's lover, chatting upstairs having drinks. Guillam is outside with Oliver Lacon, top Foreign Officer executive. It is over. Haydon is taken away by the Inquisitors. Polykov is detained for a while, notwithstanding his diplomatic passport, Alleline is put on leave and George is put at the top. George is called to Sarratt to chat with Bill. One night, someone evades security and Bill is found with his neck broken. George does not venture to guess.

       I do not think I read this fifty years ago, but believe I did about twenty years ago. Most of my fondness for this tale rests on Alec Guiness's remarkable George Smiley. I recently watched the movie a second time and find myself putting faces to names here. I intend to watch the mini-series again in the Fall.  I did not see the point of the endless references to Ann's infidelity, until I did some research.  Karla had told Haydon to pursue Ann and the affair is intended to show George's humanity and one weakness. I read this very slowly in order to appreciate it's detail and complexity. Much of LeCarre's genius lies in the tradecraft. But I just have to quote George coming to grips with retirement. "Out of date these days, but who wasn't? Out of date but loyal to his own time. There is nothing dishonorable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation." Gotta love that line.

       

        

A Place Called Yellowstone, Wilson -B

            "Its legacies are both celebratory and problematic. Yellowstone is the story of America itself." Native Americans occupied the region continuously for the 11,000 years preceding the colonization of America. "Yellowstone's journey from ancestral homeland to the world's first national park was anything but straightforward." Because of its seclusion and altitude, the valley was not a priority during westward expansion. However, the stories told by a few men in 1869 garnered the attention of the Surveyor General of Montana and Gen. Sheridan. The Washburn Expedition explored the plateau, the canyon, the lake, the thermal geysers, and "discovered" Yellowstone. The group's reports attracted attention, including that of Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, head of the Geological and Geographic Surveys of the Territories.  The Hayden Expedition of 1871 had 83 members. The expedition's maps and reports, along with photographs, drawings and watercolors, garnered attention in the capital. There was a movement afoot to create a national park at Yellowstone and Congress acted promptly. The force behind the movement was Jay Cooke, who hoped to bring customers west on his Northern Pacific RR. On April 1, 1874, Yellowstone National Park was created and  2.2 million acres were set aside for conservation and use of the public. "Yellowstone was the first step in the rise of American conservation values, but did not supplant commercial resource use; rather, it embodied objectives in an uneasy tandem."

      The first order of business in the park was the construction of roads. Additionally, the Northern Pacific planned a branch line from Bozeman and a 500 room hotel. The railroad eventually completed its construction work, but with less land allocated to them because of the intervention of Gen. Sheridan, who favored the environment over commerce. Sheridan also suggested to Washington that the park be policed and the commercial interests closely monitored. The army took over policing and warding off poachers in the park. Finally in 1894, a federal law was passed protecting game and establishing enforcement protocols. Also, the new law saved the last bison herd in the country.  In the ensuing decades, the commercial interests rallied to make the park a tourist attraction for the wealthy. The bison herd was facing extinction, and the US made its first sustained effort to save an endangered species. In 1919, the National Park Service was created to manage all aspects of the park, and was followed by a proposed Congressional expansion of the park by 38%. The expansion was eventually achieved with the funding of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who purchased 115,000 acres of land to spearhead the effort. Greater Yellowstone has been effectively established with the park as its anchor, and includes Grand Teton National Park, the National Elk Refuge, seven national forests, and an assortment of conservation areas. Collectively, they are "America's Serenghetti."

               The success of the park led to a reconsideration of the management of the wildlife there. The elk herd was so hardy that no one knew how to contain it. A park-organized killing so offended so many  that Congress authorized hunting in national parks. Slowly, it became apparent that elimination of all predators and fighting fires also led to the invasion of nonnative species. The dry summer of 1988 led to the largest fire in a century and all the firefighters could do was try to protect the park's buildings. By the time it was over, a million acres had burned, and the staff realized that it was not a destruction, but a rebirth. In the 90's, the gray wolf was reintroduced to the park. The population grew from 8 to 1700 and successfully restored the original ecosystem. 

               This is a very well-written book, and an interesting one, but not that interesting.

An Enemy In The Village, Walker - B

                          This is the 18th, and perhaps the most unique in the Bruno Courreges series.  Bruno discovers a suicide that propels most of the story, but the actual crime that led the poor woman to her death is not disclosed until the final chapters. Of course, the novel is filled with a vast amount of food devotion, and  prehistoric nuggets about the Perigord. One of the appeals of this series has been the fact that it is  written by an actual historian who has retired to the south of France and clearly loves it there. However, there is no reference here to the past, but is instead an unusual assessment of so many of Europe's and France's political and social challenges. Unfortunately, many of those problems almost entrap Bruno. Nonetheless, it is always a delight to return to a familiar place.