Arctic Passages: Ice, Exploration, and the Battle of Power at the Top of the World, Mulvaney - B-

          This book is a hybrid, examining both the current competition over Arctic shipping lanes, the consequences of a shrinking ice pack, and the brutal history of Arctic exploration. Much of Europe’s exploration of the Americas was driven by a desire to find a route to Asia. From the late fifteenth century through the nineteenth, the English searched for a Northwest Passage and unceremoniously failed, losing hundreds of lives in the process. Today, sailing from Amsterdam to Yokohama via the Northwest Passage would be 4,500 miles shorter than the route through the Panama Canal; the same is true of the Northeast Passage compared with the Suez Canal. That said, we are still at a point where these routes are open only a few months each year. Arctic sea ice retreats more with each passing year and is now roughly half of what it was fifty years ago.

         The first person to successfully sail the Northwest Passage was Roald Amundsen, and others followed in the early decades of the twentieth century. Throughout the first half of the century, both Canada and Denmark began asserting control over their northern regions, and Canada proclaimed sovereignty over every island stretching north to the Pole. At the dawn of the Cold War, the United States and Canada jointly constructed a line of radar listening stations in the far north. Canada has sought to impose controls over what it considers its territorial waters, while the United States argues that the Passage should be treated as international waters.

          The Northeast Passage extends for 3,000 miles across the top of Russia, from Siberia to Murmansk, which is ice-free year-round and is known as the headquarters of the Northeast Passage. The first person to travel the full length of the passage was a Finn who sailed west to east in 1878. Russia began focusing on expanding the Northern Sea Route in the final decades of the old regime. Much later, Gorbachev invited the world to sail the route. Putin’s Russia has sought both to expand use of the NSR and to control and manage it, charging fees for icebreaker escorts.

         Many are intrigued by a possible route much farther north than the coasts of Canada and Russia, one that “would traverse the very top of the world.” A route over the Pole long seemed hopeless, until sea ice began to melt faster than anyone anticipated. In all likelihood, however, it will not become consistently reliable until the end of the century. The decades that must pass before this becomes a reality lie beyond our collective ability to foresee.

The Secret Life Of A Cemetery: The Wild Nature And Enchanting Lore Of Pere-Lacahaise, Gallot - B

         This is a delightful homage to the world’s most famous—and most visited—cemetery. The author is the son and grandson of men who created funeral monuments. He went to law school in Paris and is now the Curator, living at the cemetery with his family. Père-Lachaise was built in 1804, the first cemetery constructed pursuant to new rules promulgated by Napoleon. It was landscaped and designed with individual burial plots arranged in rows like city streets. It was expanded in the mid–19th century to 110 acres. A 2011 law proscribed pesticides, and it has been re-wilding for more than a decade. During Covid, foxes were sighted there for the first time in memory and now live in a small community in one of its quietest corners. It has also become a major bird-sighting venue, featuring dozens of species that nest there. The three million visitors who come annually visit the gravesites of Frédéric Chopin, Édith Piaf, Molière, Oscar Wilde, Modigliani, Seurat, Marcel Proust, and, of course, the most visited of them all—Jim Morrison. Today, there are 1,000 interments, 1,300 ash scatterings, and 550 sets of ashes placed in columbariums. The theme of this book is that it is a special place shared by the dead and the living.

Killing Ants, O'Quin - B+

        Esteemed Baton Rouge banker Ted, now a stockbroker, sits down with a walk-in client. She tells him she wants to move custody of the securities her late husband left her into a brokerage account. Ted processes and deposits most of the holdings but sets aside the “speculative file,” planning to deal with it after the weekend. Mrs. Lewis dies before he ever does. When Ted finally opens the file, he realizes he is sitting on $21 million in stocks that no one else knows about—fully endorsed by a woman with no family, no heirs, and no trail. The temptation is immediate, and permanent. Not long after, Ted meets a younger, aggressive, stunning blonde and falls hard. They plunge into a wild, reckless affair that ends abruptly when her father catches them together and sues Ted for ignoring his account at the firm. Ted’s wife throws him out. His children shut him down completely. Though the lawsuit is fueled more by vengeance than substance, Ted settles. The U.S. Attorney agrees to accept the plea, but the judge still sends him to prison for a year.

          Ted comes out leaner, tougher, and clearer. He sells his baseball card collection, moves into a trailer park, and begins training for a marathon. Quietly, methodically, he figures out how to access the stocks he has been hiding for years. A chance meeting with an old friend—now a minister—gives him the solution he needs. Ted arranges for the securities to be placed in a charitable account he can manage. The plan works almost too well. Ted rebuilds his life and slowly reconnects with his children. The foundation’s assets swell far beyond expectations, enriching both Ted and the church. Anticipating the 2008 crash, Ted shorts the market and hits his personal target of $10 million. Now he faces a new problem: controlling the minister’s increasingly extravagant behavior, fueled by sudden wealth. And while he’s at it, Ted decides it wouldn’t hurt to bring down his accuser and his prosecutor. He succeeds. He arranges for the foundation to be paid out to the remainder beneficiary, leaves the state, and disappears. Living quietly in Colorado, Ted eventually hears from the FBI—and escapes once more, this time for good.

         Kudos to my friend, neighbor, and first-time author who handed me this book last week. Well done, Greg.

A Short History of Poland, Rappaport - B-

        The Poles are a Slavic people once known as “the dwellers of the plains,” as the country has few natural boundaries. Long ago, it was a republic presided over by an elective chief called the king. While Europe was feudal, Poland stood for independence and liberty.

        Poland adopted Christianity in the 9th century. Bolesław the Great is considered the founder of the kingdom of Poland in the 11th century. Nonetheless, it remained a land through which rival armies marched, and the Germans, in particular, expanded their control. It was “the Polish clergy which saved Polish nationality, history, and language, and in the midst of the general chaos and anarchy maintained order, morality, and unity.” Casimir the Great, in the 14th century, took important steps to reform and unify the country, including recognizing the status of the Jews. A royal marriage led to the creation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth a century later. In the 17th century, the Cossacks, committed to the Orthodox religion, rebelled and launched the country into a civil war in which they succeeded in transferring their loyalties to Russia. Wars with Sweden and Russia, combined with the plague, depopulated the country. When the Turks invaded in 1672, Poland sent John Sobieski into battle, and he defeated them, leading to his coronation as king. Sobieski pushed Poland to the apogee of its international fame a decade later when he rode to Vienna at the head of an army, lifted the siege, and defeated the Ottomans. Praise poured in for “the Liberator of Christendom.” When he died in 1696, the Austrian emperor said that “such a great king should never die.”

        He was succeeded by a Saxon line that drove the kingdom into ruinous wars and depopulation. The weakening of the state and the monarchy in the late 18th century aroused the ambitions of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Endless wars allowed them to advance their boundaries deep into Poland, initiating the first partition. Some dissenting nobles asked Catherine II to help them, leading Russia to invade and occupy Warsaw and resulting in the second partition. A rebellion against the Russians, led by Kościuszko, valiantly fought the superior army but eventually succumbed. The Polish nation disappeared.

         The occupiers dismantled the language, institutions, and culture of the country. Prussia and Austria Germanized their lands, while the Russians worked to incorporate their portion into their empire. When Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw, the Poles joined his cause and his invasion of Russia. The Congress of Vienna considered reestablishing Poland but did not. A rebellion against the Russians in 1830 failed. Throughout the 19th century, the seeds of independence rested in people’s hearts as Russia crushed the language and made Poland a portion of its empire. Thus ends this century-old book, without reaching the painful chapters of the 20th century.

The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair, Dicker - B, Inc.

         Marcus is a successful NYC author who is struggling with writer’s block and unable to start his second book. With his agent and publisher pushing him, he heads to a seaside town in New Hampshire, where his college mentor and good friend Harry resides. Harry talks to him about the book that propelled him to fame 33 years ago. The book had been inspired by a teenage girl he had fallen deeply in love with, and who was going to run away with him. Nola disappeared and was never seen again after the day they were to depart. Nola’s remains are found on Harry’s property, and he is arrested for first-degree murder. Believing in Harry’s innocence, Marcus starts to investigate. When I can sort out who done it in a whodunit on page 184 of 636, I figure it’s not worth the effort to finish.

The Winter Warriors, Norek - B++

         This is a novel about the 100-day Winter War of 1939–40. A key character is Simo Häyhä, a Finnish country boy who won a nationwide contest as the best marksman in the country and went on to become the greatest sniper of the war. In the fall of 1939, Finland called up all the men in the Civic Guard. Village men were kept in the same unit, and Simo and his neighbors were assigned to the 6th Company near the border. The Russians invaded on November 30 on a broad front along the length of the border. Snow fell that first day as the Finns burned everything and slowly retreated. Simo’s unit acted as a rearguard, and in his first action he shot five officers in five seconds. As his unit marauded around the slow-moving, ill-equipped, and inadequately dressed invaders, he killed daily and became known as the White Death. The 6th Company successfully held off a much larger attacking force. The Russians were so enraged by the success of the White Death that they set a trap for him, with six mortars and five anti-tank weapons zeroing in on him in a single day. Miraculously, he escaped. He was circulated around the front whenever his services were required. At month’s end, his best friend was killed, and revenge became Simo’s only objective. The next day he got the Russian sniper—a 490-meter shot without a scope.

         Indeed, the Red Army had been totally unable, after five weeks of war, to advance against the Finns. They were humiliated, and rumors began to surface at home. Stalin began to negotiate, and put Timoshenko in charge. He reorganized the army and, in mid-February, took a massive gamble. He sent an army across the frozen Gulf of Finland, 120 kilometers to the Finnish side. They fought on the ice for a week, during which 12,000 died, slightly more Russians than Finns. Across the entire front, the Russians kept throwing wave after wave of men into the maw of battle. The negotiations offered Finland the same terms as before the invasion, including Finland giving up land on its eastern border. On March 6, a Russian sniper hit Simo and blew off most of his jaw. His body was tossed on a sled with the dead until hours later someone saw him twitch. He was rushed by sled to the rear. A surgeon miraculously put him back together, but he was disfigured for life. On March 9, Finland signed an armistice, forfeiting ten percent of its land to the invaders. The Red Army had advanced fifteen kilometers. An officer observed, “All we’ve done is take enough territory from them to bury our dead in.” When Simo awoke, he learned that he could not speak, and that his farm was lost to the Russians.

         The Red Army had lost 400,000 men, the Finns 70,000. The Finns, though, had created a nation. As Hitler watched the wretched performance of the Russians, he had no hesitation about attacking the following year. Simo underwent twenty-six operations and recovered his ability to speak. He retired to a farm near the border and was consistently honored throughout the nation. He lived to be ninety-six, and just before he died he released a memoir he had written shortly after the war. Whenever asked about all those he killed, he responded that if they hadn’t done what they did, there would be no Finland.

        This is an absolutely great book. A fascinating aspect is the insight into the thought processes—the slowing of the breath, the focus, the emotional detachment, and the light touch on the trigger—required of a successful sniper. Much of what he did was accomplished while enduring temperatures as low −50°C. The obvious comparison to the Russian failure eight decades later is striking. Their disillusioned, poorly led and trained, often alcohol-fueled, indifferent warriors achieved fifteen kilometers in one hundred days. Today, they have failed to reach many of their objectives in a war fought longer than World War II. As Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

The Darkest Winter, Lucarelli - B

         This novel is set in Bologna over the winter of 1944–45. Because both the Allies and the Germans had declared it an exclusion zone, there were no troops there, and the Allies refrained from bombing it. Consequently, it was filled with 600,000 refugees.

         Commissario DeLuca has been assigned to the Political Division, although for most of his career he has been a homicide investigator. A few days after examining a naked corpse, he is summoned by the SS, told that the deceased was an SS officer, and tasked with finding the killer. He is told that if he can't find the killer, ten hostages will be shot. That same morning, the local prefect asks him to look into a different murder, and a fellow citizen, likely in the Resistance, asks him to take on a third case. Just about everyone in Bologna is freezing cold, half-starved, and all of them consistently lie to DeLuca. The Germans say little and are perennially dismissive of the Italians. The Italians are fed up with the war and don’t trust a soul. The city is the height of despair, hoping only to survive until spring. DeLuca navigates through treachery and slowly strings together the answers. This is a very good procedural, and more importantly, a superb depiction of a community and a people at the end of their rope.