Hunter, Bidinotto - B

         This is an interesting novel published about fifteen years ago. There are two sequels. Dylan Hunter is a journalist busy exposing the troubling truth behind some prison early-release programs that ignore crimes committed before someone turned 18, as well as the fact that many cases are pleaded down. He takes matters into his own hands and exacts fatal vengeance in the middle of the night.

         Along the way, he meets and falls in love with Annie Woods, who tells him she's an insurance investigator. She actually works for the CIA. When the authorities begin closing in on him, he rescues Annie and another CIA operative from a dangerous man holding them captive in Annie's house. The CIA secures him a pass from the local authorities, and he and Annie leave Washington, D.C., and head to his family's cabin in Pennsylvania.

Ransom, Silva - B

        Gabriel and Chiara are summering at their home in Cornwall when the local billionaire, Edward Knight, asks for his help. His much younger wife, Alice, is missing in Spain. Gabriel begins working with the local police, who believe she was murdered. Gabriel suspects she was kidnapped and soon is handling the negotiations. It all falls apart when a desperate Knight wires the money, and Alice is not returned. A few weeks later, Scotland Yard gets in touch and tells Gabriel they believe Edward is behind it all. Gabriel disagrees, concludes it was Alice, and finds her in an alpine cottage. She tells him that Edward was getting his financing from Moscow and that she needed a way out, so she designed the entire scheme. Allon brings her to MI6 and sets in motion a classic operation to catch the Russians.

         The two sections of this book lead to different conclusions. The half devoted to the ransom makes you ask, "Why bother?" On the other hand, the chase through Europe and the political/terrorism phase of the book are a blast. Still, you come back to the fact that, over the course of this series, Silva has aged Gabriel. He was a young man when he avenged Munich. Now he's an old man. It's inescapable in reality, and it should be in fiction as well.

Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered A Quarter of Humanity, Dikotter

       The Communist Party of China did not dominate the revolution or the war with Japan but instead played a de minimis role in society and the fighting in order to survive until 1945.

        Lenin believed that revolution could only be accomplished by professional cadres advancing the dictatorship of the proletariat to replace capitalism with communism. "Revolution was war, violence its very foundation." Moscow encouraged its followers in Beijing to foster Bolshevism. The CCP was founded in July 1921. The decade saw a contest develop between the Communists and the Nationalists for control of the revolution. It was a time of violent factionalism and chaos. Stalin ordered the creation of a Red Army, which began murdering its opponents. As the Nationalists prevailed in the field, the CCP turned to raiding, looting, and terror. Their actions were analogous to the banditry of the warlords. Their main source of revenue was "plunder and ransom."

        By the end of 1931, the CCP was on the verge of collapse. Its soviets were troubled, chaotic, and violent. Mao controlled the largest, Jiangxi, the capital of communist China. The Jiangxi Soviet ultimately failed after it was defeated by Chiang's Nationalists. The Long March ensued in October 1934.

         The Communists headed west, away from the coastal regions and into the mountains. Within a month, the Red Army had lost half of its effective strength as Chiang's troops hounded their every step. A year later, Mao led his 8,000 survivors to Yan'an after traveling 6,200 miles. The CCP was reduced to a total national membership of 40,000. "Their message of proletarian uprising against capitalism, despite fifteen years of relentless agitation funded by Moscow, had failed to find much of a reception among the workers in any of the country's many towns and cities." Nonetheless, Moscow continued to fund the CCP and provide advisors to help communism survive.

        During the second half of the 1930s, Mao avoided large-scale battles with the Japanese and left most of the fighting to the Nationalists. The Communists instead consolidated power and increased their support in rural regions. They emerged stronger by conserving their military forces while expanding their political control. They also focused on propaganda, convincing many foreigners that they were China's patriotic defenders. This approach continued after the Republic of China declared war on the Axis powers on December 8, 1941. Mao left most of the fighting to Chiang, who was engaged alongside the Allies and receiving their support. Mao believed his forces were far enough removed from the battlefields that they would not become Japan's primary target and that the Japanese would continue to wear down Chiang and his armies. Meanwhile, the CCP worked assiduously across the countryside to build the political infrastructure that would serve it after the war. To this day, the CCP promulgates the story of its heroic battles against Japanese imperialism.

          Three days after Hiroshima, nearly one million Soviet troops stormed into Manchuria. "The unconditional surrender of Japan was met with jubilation across China, but took both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong by surprise." The Communists infiltrated the south and undermined everything the government undertook. Faced with an enemy armed by the Soviets while ruling a country devastated by years of war, Chiang accepted a cease-fire arranged by the United States. By October 1946, both sides were fighting again. The conflict dragged on as each side inflicted unspeakable horrors on the civilian populations caught in the middle and merely trying to survive.

         By the end of 1948, the prize of Manchuria belonged to the Communists, and in January 1949, the People's Liberation Army marched into Beijing. The ensuing Huaihai Campaign saw hundreds of thousands "clash in the greatest battle in Chinese history." Chiang withdrew to the south as the Communists overran the country, and the Nationalists ultimately fled to Taiwan.

         This book has been lauded for the depth of its research and its dismantling of the widely accepted view that the CCP heroically fought the Japanese oppressors. For Western readers, however, the cultural disconnect and the difficulty of keeping track of unfamiliar people and place names can make this period of Asian history especially challenging.

Slow Horses, Herron - B+

         After reading Books 2–9, I returned to the first, which provides the background on how the horses ended up at the house. As terrorists threaten to behead a young Englishman of Pakistani descent on social media, Lamb calls a meeting with Taverner. Lamb quickly susses out that the kidnapping was orchestrated by MI5 with the intention of staging a rescue and humiliating England's rising right wing. When the agent planted among the terrorists is found dead, Taverner announces that Lamb and the Slow Horses have gone rogue. If Lamb can be outfoxed, it certainly isn't by Lady Di Taverner. The horses run circles around her and make sure she ends up owing Lamb a favor.

Midnight Taxi, Gunasekera - B

         Siriwathi Perera is a 28-year-old NYC taxi driver who discovers that her fare to JFK is dead, with a knife in his chest. She is immediately arrested and calls the Sri Lankan Legal Aid lawyer she recently met. Siri and Amaya embark on a vigorous investigation to find the real killer. The charm of this book lies not in its insights into the legal system or the murder investigation, but rather in its exploration of the challenges of being the American daughter of Asian immigrants. The author is Sri Lankan, previously worked at Legal Aid, and now works with the Innocence Project.

Prague: The Heart of Europe, Paces - B -

         Prague is beloved for its beauty and, providentially, is situated in the center of Europe. It is highly regarded by poets, musicians, and intellectuals, and, after the fall of communism, became one of the most visited cities in Europe. It was also home to the murder of its Jewish population during World War II and was subjected to a brutal communist dictatorship for four decades. "This book presents the political, cultural, and social history of Prague from the ninth to the early twenty-first centuries."

         The city overlooks a bend in the Vltava River. It was first fortified in the 10th century and became a crossroads of trade and culture. Prague and the surrounding region of Bohemia became part of the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. In 1346, Charles IV, King of Bohemia, was elected Holy Roman Emperor and chose Prague as his capital. "Charles's city grew larger and more beautiful during his reign. The Caroline era marked the pinnacle of medieval Prague." His son Wenceslas's reign was troubled by conflicts between Avignon and Rome and, locally, by German and Czech burghers seeking supremacy in Bohemia. A Czech priest, Jan Hus, began a reform movement focused on morality and the promotion of the Czech language. It attracted the animosity of the regime and became so popular that decades of civil war followed Hus's execution. A dynastic crisis followed, leading to the Habsburg succession in 1526. They would rule Prague, Bohemia, and the Empire for four centuries but would eventually return the imperial capital to Vienna.

         Prague experienced a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in 1618 that led to the devastating Thirty Years' War. The war spread from Bohemia to the rest of Central Europe and even drew in the French and the Swedes before it was settled by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The treaty did not extend its terms of religious toleration to Bohemia or the Austrian hereditary lands. The ensuing Protestant exile reduced Prague's population below that of Europe's great cities. Catholics and Jews slowly repopulated the city. The Enlightenment was ushered into Bohemia by Empress Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II. Their reforms "would transform Prague into a modern imperial city with free public education, a centralized state bureaucracy, and streamlined economic, religious, and legal institutions." Joseph believed religion to be a personal matter, allowed complete religious toleration, and granted peasants civil liberties. The 19th century saw the city begin to industrialize and draw people from the surrounding regions. Czech speakers began to outnumber Germans and pushed for greater Slavic rights within the empire. As Vienna weakened from repeated military defeats, Czech language and culture flourished. Yet everyone "understood that only a large empire could protect their small nation from outside threats."

         Prague entered the 20th century as a booming metropolis with 442,000 residents, more than 90 percent of whom spoke Czech. It was predominantly Catholic, with few Protestants and about 25,000 Jews. "Innovation in the arts, urban renewal, and increased political activism marked the fin de siècle." The city's limited enthusiasm for the Great War faded as battlefield defeats mounted, food shortages and rationing took hold, and refugees poured into the city. Czech independence movements arose as the empire went into free fall and declared independence in October 1918. As the capital of the First Republic, Prague vigorously "de-Austrianized," removing all things Habsburg and German, while relations among Czechs, Slovaks, and Germans throughout the country remained uneasy. The Great Depression devastated one of the world's most industrialized countries. A year before Neville Chamberlain declared "peace for our time," the founder and first president of the republic, Tomáš Masaryk, died. Three-quarters of a million Czechs queued at his bier in Prague Castle.

        The 1938 Munich Agreement allowed Hitler to occupy the German-speaking Sudetenland, bringing the First Republic to an end. Prague's Jews were able to send 669 children* to London under the Kindertransport program. In early 1939, the Germans established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Jewish property was forfeited, and the Nuremberg Laws were imposed. Although its Jewish population was decimated, the city itself remained in excellent physical condition in 1945. President Beneš returned from London and expelled nearly all of the country's Germans. Beneš died in 1948, and the communists took over the government, establishing a Stalinist dictatorship throughout the country. Led by Dubček in the 1960s, the Communist Party relinquished some of its iron-handed controls and introduced far-reaching reforms. In August 1968, Soviet tanks arrived and ended the Prague Spring. The last decades of communism were less severe, as the planned economy provided consumer goods. The city was improved, new buildings were constructed, and a metro system was built in the 1970s. As the 1980s saw the entire Warsaw Pact gradually abandon communism's dominance, it all came apart in November 1989. Havel was inaugurated President the week after Christmas.

         He denounced not only the years of communism but also the country's complicity in the Holocaust, its persecution of the Roma, and the expulsion of the Germans. The city's recovery was aided by UN funding after its designation as a World Heritage Site. In 1992, Slovakia and the Czech Republic peacefully separated. Czechia joined the European Union in 2004. The city and the nation have diligently pursued their mission of "returning to Europe" while continuing to wrestle with how to remember their controversial history. "Throughout Prague, sites of memory may blend into their surroundings, but they hold stories about the past. Plaques on buildings mark where famous artists lived. Stumbling blocks bear witness to the lives of Prague's murdered Jews. Statues of saints, German writers, and Czech musicians instruct us on who our heroes should be. They can expose fractures in collective memory, promote healing, or save historical figures from relative obscurity. The meanings of these places expand beyond their original intentions and come to represent multiple, even conflicting, moments in history."

*The children never saw their parents again, and half a century later they, their children, and grandchildren numbered 6,000.

Wolvers, Brown - B+

         Trace's family lost their grazing rights after shooting a Mexican wolf, a lobo, that was preying on their cattle, and then they lost the ranch. He was hired to kill wolves by wealthy men opposed to wolf reintroduction, hoping to create a free state in the wilds of West Texas and New Mexico. While hunting the famous wolf #111, he has the misfortune of running afoul of a somewhat philosophical wild wolf man and winds up with his leg in a bear trap. He survives but quits. He's replaced by Murdoch, who matches wits with #111 and kills her gray wolf partner. Without him, she has to protect and feed the pack on her own.  Trace meets the wolf man again, learns his name is Horn, and is told that Murdoch is likely looking for him as well as #111. Horn and Trace team up to take care of Murdoch. Horn puts an arrow in Murdoch's leg and, a few hours later, another in his chest. Horn and Trace have to outrun a forest fire to survive, and in the end, the good guys are safe, as are the good wolves. This is a blast that I've thoroughly enjoyed. It's probably not for everybody, but I am fascinated by the author's ability to see the world through the eyes of wolf #111.

Tojo: The Rise And Fall Of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General, Mauch - B+, Inc.

        "Tojo Hideki. His bristling, mustached countenance was, from the moment he led Japan into hostilities in the Pacific, the face of the nation's participation in World War II." In the postwar era, he was remembered as the man who brought war and ruin to Japan. When the Yasukuni Shrine enshrined him in the late 1970s, Hirohito never visited it again. This book is "a military biography of General Tojo," and because his career encompassed all of Japan's 20th-century rise and fall, it tells the story of the country's military and government as well.

          He was born in Tokyo in 1884. Hideki entered the Military Preparatory School in 1899. One of the school's core principles was an absolute commitment to the emperor. He entered the Imperial War College in 1912 and graduated at the end of 1915. A deficiency in the curriculum was its focus on the army alone, particularly the infantry. The role of naval and air forces was not considered important, nor was the necessity of coordinating societal support with the government. After a brief staff assignment, Tojo spent three and a half years in Europe as part of a contingent attempting to study and understand Germany's war experience. Their key takeaways were the importance of coordinating with the artillery branch, providing better weapons for smaller infantry units, and working closely with the civilian structures supporting the army—they adopted Germany's concept of total war. Back in Tokyo, he and other like-minded staff members worked toward modernization and implementing a structure capable of managing a nation at war. They believed it was necessary to take Manchuria and Mongolia because the war machine would need their natural resources, and they came to believe that the army should lead the nation once war began.

          He was appointed commander of a regiment in Tokyo during a period of army rebelliousness and opposition to the government. He twice opposed army coups and saw his colleagues rise to the top of the army's hierarchy. Although promoted to general, Tojo wound up politically ostracized and fearful of an early retirement. While in limbo, he applauded the empire's aggressive actions in Manchukuo and supported the country's withdrawal from the League of Nations. He believed the U.S. and the U.K. were vehemently anti-Japanese because of the London and Washington Naval Conferences that imposed limits on Japan. Furthermore, Hideki believed the U.S. and the USSR were coordinating an encirclement of the country. He was transferred to the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo. He opposed the latest coup attempt in Tokyo and worked on industrializing Manchukuo. He wanted to take aggressive action against China and the USSR, and in 1937 led the prosecution of the undeclared war against China, often ignoring advice and orders from Tokyo. His success in China led to a promotion to vice army minister in 1938.

          Although I seem to be quitting more books than usual lately, I've decided I cannot go another 300 pages without finding out whether the author ever addresses the incomprehensible thinking of Japan's military elite. They had virtually no perspective outside of samurai warrior traditions. Tunnel vision would be a broader perspective than the way they looked at the world. They fought and argued among themselves like third-grade boys. There was virtually no consideration of diplomacy, and they often simply ignored orders. The author's treatment of the Rape of Nanking in only a paragraph or two was more than I could handle. Tojo was eventually tried, convicted, and hanged as a war criminal.

Stormy Weather, Hiaasen - B+

        A major hurricane hits southern Florida in this book from the '90s. Scam artists abound and begin to ply their nefarious trades.    A tourist named Max pisses off Skink by reveling in recording the destruction for his friends back in New York. Skink hauls Max off deep into the swamp. Outside the Everglades, the craziness continues. Edie, having given up on finding a Kennedy to fuck, has gone into the insurance fraud business. Augustine, who freed all the animals from his exotic zoo, is now helping (in more ways than one) Max's wife, Bonnie. Everybody, including Skink, gets together to track down the guy who beat up the girlfriend of Skink's best friend, state trooper Jim Tile. In the end, the evil-doer suffers horribly, justice is served, love blooms, and all I can do is laugh and laugh.

Storm Tide, Doiron - B-

        Mike Bowditch is on suspension and awaiting the birth of his first child. But, he senses someone very smart is ghosting him and setting him up. He can't prove a thing, and no one is interested in the imaginings of a game warden who could soon be out of a job. He investigates on his own and soon is on the track of a diabolical young man who holds a grudge - Mike had chased down his stepfather, and young Ben had wound up in the foster care system. Mike takes extraordinary risks in the pursuit and catches his man. He misses the birth of his and Stacey's son, but all is forgiven.

        All series with a singular lead character can be repetitive, and I believe this one more so than most. Part of the problem is that the books are scattered over sixteen years, but I've read them all in the last four-and-a-half. Mike takes way too many predictable risks. I hope I don't feel the same way in a year or so.