Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy, Macintyre - B

       Ursula Kuczynski, born in 1907 to a wealthy Berlin Jewish family, became a communist as a teenager. She was naturally rebellious, active, passionate and altruistic. As the Depression rolled over Germany, her husband was offered a job in Shanghai and she went east in 1930. She was recruited by Moscow; her job was to befriend the German ex-pat community and report any and all information. She was sent to Moscow for training and then, back east, this time to Mukden in Manchuria. Now known as Sonya, she supported CCP partisans attacking the Japanese. When someone in her network was blown, she was recalled and sent to Warsaw. She was awarded the Order of The Red Banner for her success and courage. Before the war broke out, she moved to Switzerland, where she married for a second time to a fellow Soviet agent, and together they moved to England near the UK Atomic Research Centre. There, she met another German communist, Klaus Fuchs and became his handler. He never understood why the US and Britain didn't share their secret with their Soviet ally. He passed on an atomic treasure trove that allowed the USSR to eventually build its bomb. While Sonya raised children and passed as a completely domestic homemaker, she also ran a network in the UK and soon, MI-5 was interested. When Fuchs was sent to America, she passed him off to a new handler. She co-opted an OSS effort to such an extent that all of their German agents returned home to Germany late in the war were actually communists reporting to her. When Klaus Fuchs confessed after the war, she knew her time was up, and notwithstanding innumerable and obvious connections to him and the deep suspicion of some in MI-5, she left for East Germany in 1950. She lived in Berlin until her death in 2000. As she aged, she was rewarded with honors, a second Red Banner, and published her memoirs. She even toured Britain. She lost her faith in the USSR, but not the core principles of communism.

All The Devils Are Here, Penney - B

            Setting the most recent Gamache novel in Paris seems like a great idea. After all, just how much can be written about Three Pines, close to the Vermont border in Quebec.  All of the Gamache family is in Paris when Armand's godfather is run down in an attempted murder. Stephen is very old, very wealthy and a hero of the Resistance. When Armand begins to dig, he winds up finding a vast international plot that quite frankly, strains credulity. There are  just too many evildoers and plot twists to believe. 

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, Wilkerson - A*

                Our country is built upon a centuries old caste system that is "the infrastructure of our divisions." It is "a fixed and embedded ranking of human value..." It's based on ancestry, and rigidly assigns boundaries and groupings. India has had one for over a millennium, Nazi Germany had one for just over a decade and America itself has a "shape shifting, unspoken, race-based caste pyramid." In America, race is "the frontman for caste." It is a system we are born into without choice, but with a lifetime of consequences. "Caste is the operating system for economic, political, and social interaction in the United States..." For the average white person, it keeps blacks in their place.

              Slavery was in place for a quarter of a millennium in the South, where Africans were the prime building block of the region's economy. It was legal and made lords of those in the dominant caste. It was also the first time an enslaved subgroup was enslaved in perpetuity. African-Americans will not be free as long as they were enslaved in this country until 2111. And the first hundred years of that freedom under Jim Crow was far from free. For the vast majority of white Americans, they didn't become 'white' until their ancestors arrived here. "Hostility toward the lowest caste became part of the initiation rite into citizenship in America." We have inherited these "distorted rules of engagement." The New World made people white, black, brown, yellow and red.  The distinction between caste and race is a difficult one to articulate. Perhaps race attaches an inferiority based on color and caste is denigration based on a categorization. Caste is inheritable, endogamous (restricting marriage to within the same caste), and requires a quarantining and separation. Separation has been diligently enforced in the public water, beaches and pools in the US. Lower caste members, blacks in America, Dalits in India, were and are assigned the lowest most menial tasks in the work force. Dehumanization and stigmatization are two more foundations of caste and are enforced by terror and cruelty; lower caste members are permanently inferior.

     Disruptions to the caste system have consequences to both the lower and higher class members. When blacks achieved power during Reconstruction, the white response was vicious re-suppression through the Jim Crow laws. The Civil Rights movement led to mass incarceration of blacks. As blacks successfully began to rise up to become wealthy athletes, members of Congress, Secretary of State and even President, the cognitive dissonance for lower caste whites led to alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide to such a degree that white life expectancy declined.

     To be in a lower caste is to be perpetually repressed. "The subordinate castes are trained to admire, worship, fear, love, covet and want to be like those at the center of society...""Caste is more than rank, it is a state of mind that holds everyone captive, the dominant imprisoned in an illusion of their own entitlement, the subordinate trapped in the purgatory of someone else's definition of who they are and who they should be." 

      The stress of being in a lower caste has meaningful negative health consequences. Being lower caste is a significant factor in heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes among blacks. Sub-SaharanAfricans generally do not have any of these diseases. When Africans immigrate to America, they develop them at levels similar to native blacks. Black women have been proven to build up more visceral fat because of discrimination. When whites are mistreated in clinical trials, veins constrict and their bodies react poorly. Being on the bottom of the pyramid is bad for your health. "The caste system takes years off the lives of subordinate-caste people..." 

     The most significant disruption to the American caste system was  the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. He was not as threatening because of his upbringing in Hawaii and the fact that his father was Kenyan, not part of enslaved America's history. That said, only 40% of whites voted for him. The caste system sprung into action when McConnell spoke of limiting him to one term. Voter suppression of blacks became a Republican strategy. Shutting down the government became the norm. Obama was handcuffed. The 2016 election saw lower caste whites voting against their interests in order to elect a white bigot appealing to their baser nature. In fact, they were voting to preserve their caste.

     The price we pay for  caste is a safety net with holes, leading to below average education, health care, life expectancy, and infant mortality. Whether the system continues or diminishes  is up to us all, but it is primarily the decision of those in the dominant caste. This issue will be seriously challenged as the dominant caste loses its majority status in the future. "A world without caste would set everyone free."                                                                                                               This book has been acclaimed as the most important of the century. And, it is extraordinary. Yet it is far from perfect. Wilkerson eloquently makes her case and is unnervingly accurate and on point throughout. She is capable of going a bit afield at times. Comparisons to India's millennium long caste structure are enlightening;  Germany's 12-year genocide less so. Nonetheless, this is a magnificent must read for any thoughtful American. We have a caste system, even if most of us would not be willing to acknowledge that. Read this book and I suspect you will agree with the author.

     

The Sentinel, Child & Grant - B+

      Jack no middle initial Reacher is still at it, this time in small-town Tennessee in the middle of an international ransomware attack on Pleasantville. He comes to the aid of the town's IT manager, blamed for the mess, fired and shunned. It's more complex than it appears because the FBI gets in touch and asks for his help. The Russians are hacking for higher game. Interestingly, this is the 25th in the series and the first of three he'll be co-writing with his brother. Thereafter,  Child will be done. Apparently, there's a tv show in the making,  or he could just enjoy what the Times estimated is a billion dollar fortune. I scrutinized every page to find some slippage from what we all expect. There's one plot twist that seemed a bit more complex than I'd generally expect. Certainly forgivable and forgettable, i.e. the plot point, not the series. Looking forward to next year's new addition.

The Tatooist Of Auschwitz, Morris - B+

                    This extraordinary novel is actually based on the true story of Lale Eisenberg of Bratislava who arrived at Auschwitz in March 1942 and survived the war inking thousands of numbers on the poor souls who were transported Auschwitz and Birkenau. One of the first he met was Gita Furman, also a Slovakian. He was a master of surviving by trading and working the black-market that existed between the prisoners, guards and Polish day laborers. He and Gita started a love affair that amazingly lasted through almost three years in the camp. When the SS fled in January, 1945, Gita escaped to Cracow with some Polish girls. She hitched a ride to Bratislava with a long-haul trucker. Lale was transported to Austria, where he escaped in the chaos of the war's end. They found each other in Bratislava. They married and escaped communism in 1948. The established a  post-war life in Australia, where they raised a son born in 1961. The book was a massive best-seller a few years ago, although it has been modestly criticized for some embellishments along the way.  It is, regardless, a great love story. I suspect that for those who know nothing about the camps, this book serves a slightly educational purpose. It fails though to present the enormity of evil at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Reagan, Perlstein - B+/Incomplete

       This is the third volume of the author's majestic, incisive decade-and- a-half, 2600 + page analysis of the rise of the right from the mid-1950's until Reagan's presidency.  The previous book ended with Nixon's landslide reelection. This one is about the ensuing presidential term when America lost faith in itself. In this era, Reagan emphasized the language of American exceptionalism at all times, often flying in the face of very unpleasant facts. "This is a book about how such rhetoric came into being ..." 

     Nixon declared that he had achieved peace with honor and attempted to celebrate the return of the POW's as a triumph. He and his administration had spent four years politicizing their imprisonment. The New Yorker magazine suggested it was as if "the North Vietnamese kidnapped 400 Americans and the US had gone to war to retrieve them." Many, many Americans were disconcerted by the sanctification of men who had bombed civilians in an undeclared war while our ally imprisoned 10,000 political prisoners in much harsher conditions. One man traveling the country dismissing Watergate and "choking up" over the POWs was the governor of California. "He was an athlete of the imagination, a master of turning complexity and confusion and doubt into simplicity and stout-hearted certainty." He was an ebullient optimist. That imagination and his inherent optimism had brought him through his chaotic childhood.

     In the late winter of 1973, Sen. Sam Ervin and Judge John Sirica began their separate pursuits of Watergate.  Nixon fired his two closest aides, his White House Counsel and Attorney General in April and announced that he would conduct an investigation of his own. Ervin's televised hearings began in May and the new AG, Elliot Richardson, appointed Archibald Cox as the Watergate prosecutor. The televised hearings captivated the nation and day by day, shocking detail by shocking detail, the Nixon presidency began slipping away. That summer, inflation and a fuel shortage continued to diminish life in America. In late June, the most damning, compelling and memorable witness of the hearings, John Dean, White House Counsel, buried the entire Nixon Administration with a 295-page opening statement and days of precise testimony. The following month, a White House aide testified to the existence of a recording system at the presidential mansion. Nixon continued to stonewall the issues around Watergate and the Ervin Committee finished its revelations.

    The fall saw the Pinochet coup in Chile, the indictment and resignation of the Vice President, the YomKippur War, the nomination of Gerald Ford to replace Agnew, and the Saturday Night Massacre. Calls for impeachment rang out around the land and in the House. The devastating Arab oil embargo followed.  The energy crisis hurt everyone and contributed to Nixon having the lowest approval rating of any president ever by the time he presented his State of the Union. Just about the only Republican still enthusiastically supporting him was Reagan. Soon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson and Mitchell were indicted. In April, Nixon hurt his case further by releasing transcripts of the White House tapes that revealed him to be guilty as charged, and a frequent user of "expletive deleted' language. On July 24th, the Supreme Court approved District Judge Sirica's subpoena of the White House tapes. By the 9th of August, Nixon was flying to California resigned and disgraced.

           I began the Perlstein series three and-a-half years ago knowing it was a highly acclaimed treatise on the rise of the right, in order to better understand the results of the 2016 election.  I am leaving the series a third of the way through this tome as I believe I have accomplished my objective. And I wish to add that the first 281 pages of this book are extremely well done, if not excellent. I simply do not wish to slog through the Ford and Carter years. 

            My readings here confirm many of the conclusions I've  come to believe over the decades about our country. There is nothing new about hate, vitriolic personal attacks and the ability to preach and act in the face of reality and facts. Delusional conduct, speech and belief are inherently human traits. The only difference today is the 24-hour news cycle, the ability of loonies to spread their ideas wide and far through today's internet platforms and, for the last four years, a chief executive willing to light fires and fan flames. The Founders endlessly declaimed against partisanship. This country fought a civil war that killed 620,000 - 750,000 in a population of 31 million. Immigrant anarchists led to widespread unrest, labor wars and fighting in the streets in the late 19th-century. Bryant led a populist pushback on behalf of farmers against the railroad barons and Wall Street. The religious right in the rural west  and south imposed the absurdity of Prohibition on the urban north.  The Depression created further class fissures in our society. A century after the Civil War, the South fought a losing battle against civil rights for people of color. The Vietnam War remains as divisive today as it was in 1965. A woman's right to chose has been the established law for 47 years - but, one would hardly know that. It hasn't been, and I guess it never will be, pretty.

Winter Counts, Weiden - B

     This is a pretty amazing book, written by a Denver lawyer and professor, who happens to be a full-blooded member of the Lakota Nation (they do not use the word Sioux). It is a mystery and features a young man who is a private vigilante. The occupation exists on the reservations because the US has jurisdiction over all felonies on reservations, but it traditionally ignores all personal violence/sex crimes. Virgil's nephew is framed for possession of drugs, and through his story we learn about the lack of heat, starvation, suicide, corruption  and health issues on the rez. 

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking Of America: A Modern History, Andersen - Inc.

      This book "chronicles the quite deliberate reengineering of our economy and society since the 1960's by a highly rational confederacy of the rich, the right, and big business." The fair and democratic America that came about in WWII "slowed, stopped, and reversed" in the 1980's. Reaganism promised a nostalgic return to Bedford Falls and delivered Pottersville. 

     For hundreds of years, everything about our society focused on "making America perpetually new." By 1970, the perpetually growing economy fed by productivity enhancements had struck a reasonable balance between capital and labor. However cultural nostalgia in the 1970's began a pushback against the rapid fire changes of the 1960's, which were highlighted by civil rights, female emancipation, increasing crime, birth control, Medicare, immigration reform and voting rights legislation. America began to not just celebrate the past, but to "restore and reproduce" it. Hollywood led the way and intellectually, Milton Friedman provided business with a rationale. Profits above all else and end to governmental interference, which he labeled statism, became the mantra.  Former ABA president Lewis Powell articulated the necessity of counter-attacking, particularly in the courts, those criticizing and tearing down the capitalist system. The Powell memo was enthusiastically read and embraced by many, including Charles Koch and Richard Scaife Mellon. They began funding the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover and  the Heritage Foundations. They further weaponized capitalism with right-wing legal foundations, PACs, the Business Roundtable and extensive lobbying for business and against government and taxation. Between Watergate, defeat in Vietnam, inflation and skyrocketing oil prices, the government was extremely out of favor and taxes became a bugaboo. The man able to sell this new era to the country was Ronald Reagan, who among other things was a very nice guy, and carried just enough focus on individualism to appeal to baby boomers along with older conservatives. 

     I decided to bail on this book about a third of the way through. I completely agree with the premise that something has gone completely off the rails with the massive degree of today's income inequality. But the author is not thorough enough for my standards. One should not discuss the 1980's without mentioning that the national debt tripled under Reagan. A discussion of tax cuts that mentions only the percentage decline in marginal rates without discussing the overall total taxes collected is inaccurate. And a significant impact on the overall topic has been globalization (see Japan's automotive assault on Detroit). I'm not sure he addresses the impact of technology either, but I did bail early.

     

A Time For Mercy, Grisham - B+

               We are back in Clanton, Mississippi in 1990, and our featured lawyer is Jake Brigance of 'A Time To Kill' fame.  He represents a 16-year-old boy who shoots and kills the mean-spirited s.o.b. who is beating his mother unconscious. The problem is the guy was a very popular cop in town. Grisham is the master of fabulous, tension-filled trials and really rises to the top of his form here. As always, he skillfully delves into racial issues and both black and white poverty in the deep south. And, being a lawyer in small-town America is no financial dream either. Another masterpiece.

The Hapsburgs: To Rule The World. Rady - B

     "The Hapsburgs were the first rulers whose power encompassed the world."  Indeed, at their peak, the sun never set upon their lands. They ruled the Holy Roman Empire intermittently from 1273 and continually from 1438. They sat upon the Spanish throne for two centuries. Upon the HRE's demise at the hands of Napoleon in 1806, they ruled the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.  They had "a vision of a world united under the ethereal sway of a single sovereign, who was dedicated to the service of religion, peace among Christians, and war against the unbeliever." Uniquely, they recognized that the many and varied component parts were not homogenous and they seldom attempted to manage them in a unitary system.

     They can be traced back to the 10th century in what is now the Aargau region of Switzerland. By inheritance, luck and survival, a Hapsburg count became the most powerful man in mid-13th century Swabia. Going forward, the family's ability to produce sons was one of its strongest suits. Rudolf I maneuvered into the crown, but since it was elective, was unable to keep it in the family. Because they were lords over many diverse territories, primogeniture did not work and in the century after Rudolf, their position diminished. In the mid-15th century, Albert, and then Frederick III, were elected HRE in addition to being dukes of Austria and kings of Bohemia and Hungary. Frederick's forty-five year reign established the family's role in central Europe and fortuitously acquired the Low Countries by virtue of his daughter's marriage, and his son-in-law's subsequent death. His marriage of his daughter to the Spanish heir assured that his grandson, Charles V, was both HRE and king of Spain, which had just begnu its conquests in America. The Philippines were soon added.

       He was 'Lord of the World' and 'King of Kings'. Notwithstanding the reach of his empire, Charles' revenue was half of France's king and a quarter of the Ottoman's emperor. Nonetheless, he was an excellent ruler: he conquered Tunis and recovered lands held by the infidel Muslims, he commissioned the first map of Germany, he attempted to reform the church and reduce the attractions of Protestantism, and he married his far- flung family to every royal house from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. He abdicated in 1555 and turned Spain over to his son and the empire to his brother. 

     In the east, Ferdinand I was faced with the twin challenges of the Ottomans and the Reformation. The Turks would occupy portions of Hungary for the next century-and-a-half. Although he was devoted  to the church and considered Luther a heretic, there was nothing Ferdinand could do to stop the spread of Lutheranism throughout Germany, Bohemia, Hungary and even Austria. In Spain, Phillip succeeded to Spain itself, along with the New World, the Low Countries, Burgundy, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia. He was fully committed to maintaining the supremacy of the church. The northern provinces of the Low Countries, the Netherlands, committed to Protestantism and fought a long,  successful campaign for freedom. Phillip's naval adventure, the famous Armada, failed against England, but he sponsored a Christian fleet that defeated the Turks at Lepanto. Although the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 established that people were to follow the religious beliefs of their princes, religious conflict spread throughout the empire, and by the early decades of the next century, Protestantism dominated the empire. Catholicism prevailed in Bavaria, Lorraine, Tyrol and inner Austria only. 

     A devoted, if not fanatical, Catholic, Ferdinand II became emperor in 1618. He faced opposition in Bohemia, where the Diet deposed him. The Spanish Hapsburgs rallied to the Catholic cause and the Thirty-Years War had begun. It proved to be the most destruction Europe would see for three hundred years. It encompassed the entire continent and drew in Africa, America and Asia as well. Five million people, 20% of the empire's population died. Germany, in particular, was devastated. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia settled the war and allowed (within reason) people to practice the faith of their choice. Leopold I was HRE, from 1658-1705, consolidated power and presided over the defense of Europe from one of the greatest outside threats it ever faced. In the spring of 1683, the Ottomans headed north. A hundred thousand men marched into Hungary and Austria and encircled Vienna. King John Sobieski of Poland and Charles of Lorraine lifted the siege and sent the Ottomans in retreat. Three years later, they liberated Hungary and threatened Ottoman rule in the Balkans. "By perseverance and the work of his generals, Leopold had renewed the connection between the Hapsburgs and the imperial office that sustained the dynasty's claim to greatness." However in Spain, the death in 1700 of Charles II without heirs ended the Hapsburg line there and led to the War of the Spanish Succession. 

     The 18th century saw the Hapsburgs complete the re-conquest of Hungary and extend their control as far south as Belgrade. Under Maria Theresa (1740-80) and her son Joseph II (1765 as co-emperor and sole until 1790) the Hapsburgs achieved breathtaking accomplishments in military and fiscal reform, systematizing the government, controlling the nobles, educating the populace and even converting serfs into yeoman farmers. They greatly expanded Vienna's role as a cultural capital as the Enlightenment unfolded in Europe. Joseph reformed the church, authorized limited freedom of worship, and is believed to have met with a million of his subjects. He closed hundreds of monasteries and religious houses that served no public purpose. Francis II (1792-1835)was emperor when the wars of the French Revolution threw Europe into two decades of ceaseless violence. At the Congress of Vienna, 1814-15, Austria retained its central European core, acquired Trieste, the provinces around the northern Adriatic and the presidency of a new German Confederation. The focus of Metternich, the Prussians and the Russians was the maintenance of the status quo and it would be for decades. Indeed, the world they re-established lasted, more or less intact for a century.

     The year 1848 saw revolution spread throughout Europe. It appeared as if the empire would be dissolved, with the German provinces joining a new country, Bohemia, as the basis of a Slav state, with Lombardy-Venetia and Hungary independent. The forces of reaction militarily held the empire together. The twenty-one year old Franz Joseph became emperor. Hungary had declared its independence and it was violently returned to the fold. Franz Joseph ruled as an absolute monarch in a changing world. He lost all say in Germany after the Prussians won the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. By the Settlement of 1867, Franz Joseph acceded to Hungary's partial independence, allowing it local rule and representation, and provided a constitution for both halves of the empire, now known as the Austro-Hungarian. The dual monarchy was "inseparable and indivisible." The empire adopted a policy of 'muddling through', as the process of governing a state spread over vast distances, with varying economies, dozens of languages, many religions, multiple political parties and raging nationalism was beyond the skill set of Franz Joseph and the institutions surrounding him. Yet, his religious faith, steadfastness, commitment to his people,  strength in the face of his son's and his wife's tragic deaths and sheer longevity held the far-flung empire together. The final chapter, of course,  began with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Indicative of the empire's many challenges, the posters announcing the mobilization were printed in 15 languages. With the help of the Germans, the much-depleted army held on, but the home front collapsed. As the new emperor, Karl (1916-18), quickly gave up his desire for a separate peace and aligned with Germany, the Allies adopted the dissolution of the empire as a goal. The tottering dynasty could not hold together the disparate nations together and the empire disappeared at war's end. Ironically, Karl's son, Otto, lived 99 years and was an important European-wide visionary who might have been a very good emperor. Central Europe may have been better off.                                                                      I became intrigued by the Hapsburgs while on my first trip to Europe, specifically to Austria, in 1987. I was reading a book in which an English author made the case that, notwithstanding the importance of nationalism and the many failures of the old man of Europe, as the tottering 19th-century empire was known,  central Europe was much better off then than it was in the 20th century. From a multi-cultural tolerant society, the nations were soaked in blood under the Nazis and imprisoned by the communists.

Pleasantville, Locke - B +

             Many years after we met him in 'Black Water Rising', Jay Porter is approaching 50, mourning his late wife, putting in just enough effort to keep his law office open and struggling with his two kids, particularly his 15-year-old daughter. He's about to lose the case he's been pursuing against a polluting chemical company to another lawyer when he gets roped into defending a young black man framed for a murder because he's running his uncles campaign for mayor of Houston. The DA is the opponent. It's a  very good read and in my opinion, the best of the four books by this author that I've read this year. Pleasantville is a section of Houston built in the post-war era to provide suburban-like housing for Houston's black middle class.

The Salzburg Connection, MacInnes - C

     This thriller is from the late '60's and includes some of the great standbys of  the era. A box, sunk in an Austrian lake by the Nazis, is pursued by Americans, Brits, Austrians and most importantly, Russians. The Nazis are still in business in and around Salzburg, where most of the action takes place. Unfortunately, the book is way too long, packed with many characters and not terribly interesting. I had been hoping for some old school comfort food. 

Death In Mudlick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opiod Epidemic, Eyre - B

      This story is set in West Virginia, where some of America's major drug distributors pumped millions of Vicodin and OxyContin pills through small-town pharmacies with the help and support of local businessmen and without any government oversight. The state led the nation in deaths from opioids as a result. The author is the reporter who exposed the misdeeds of  AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, Cardinal Health and Sav-Rite. He won a Pulitzer for his reporting.

     The 2005 death by oxycodone intoxication of a forty-five-year- old former miner, Bull Preece, revealed that over 45 days, he had 630 pain pills in his possession. Bull's death was the beginning of the end for the secrecy under which the distributors operated. That year, the DEA and the WV Attorney-General had pursued and obtained awards against Purdue Pharma, the aggressive maker and seller of Oxy. McKesson had flagged the activities of a Sav-Rite pharmacist in Kermit, who managed the pharmacy that had supplied Preece. Preece's sister filed a wrongful death action against both the Ohio physician who prescribed drugs for her brother and the local Sav-Rite. The lawyer learned that people from all over the east coast daily filled prescriptions in Kermit, WV, that suppliers delivered massive amounts of meds and that in essence, the Sav-Rite was a 'pill mill'. The owner, Jim Wooley, had even opened a pain clinic where doctors could come and write scripts all day for compensation. The DEA also began to investigate and learned that Wooley's Sav-Rite was delivering 54,000 pills per day in a town with 209 people. In 2009, the government closed the Sav-Rite. Preece's sister, Debbie, settled the case and began assisting  others who worked with her attorney, Jim Cagle. Soon, Cagle had 29 lawsuits in Mingo County Court.  He eventually decided to up the ante and go after the pharmaceutical distributors. The WV Attorney General deputized Cagle, and an associate, to help on a case the state was oursuing. The election of a new republican AG with ties to the industry led to a stalling of the process and years of lies and subterfuge. The distributors took the position that they were not responsible if doctors prescribed drugs and pharmacists filled the orders. They eventually settled the state's suit for $36M. Then, the towns and villages pursued them and Congress aroused itself from its lethargy and began to investigate. The five CEO's of the largest distributors faced Congress in a hearing in May, 2018. The committee report eviscerated the conduct of the companies and the DEA. The litigation against the distributors became a national trend, with 1500 cases consolidated in a federal court in Cleveland. That court released information showing that between 2006 and 2012, 76 billion pain pills had been sold in America and that the states leading the way were West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee. The story is ongoing, sad and shocking.

The Children Of Ash And Elm: A History Of The Vikings, Price - B

     In the Scandinavian creation myth, the first man and woman were Ash and Elm. In the middle of the first millennium, two events transpired that disrupted the routine of life in Scandinavia. The first was the long collapse of the Roman Empire, which disrupted established trade routes, and the second was a massive volcanic eruption that shrouded the skies with a 'dust veil' that reduced temperatures for decades. This 'Mighty Winter' may have reduced the population by half. The new societies that arose from this chaos were more centralized and militaristic. 

     "There was no single convenient event or factor that set the 'Viking Age' in motion." The urge to seek overseas wealth, along with a desire to expand trade, were linked to the social challenges of providing opportunities for younger men disenfranchised by inheritance laws and minimal marriage prospects in a polygamous society. "Raiding and commerce were two components, almost two varying expressions, of the same phenomenon: the pursuit and consolidation of power, expressed through the acquisition and redistribution of portable wealth." The generally accepted starting point for the raids that terrified the British Isles for centuries is the 793 attack on Lindisfarne. "The Vikings were back the following year, and they knew what they liked: isolated, undefended, but very rich monastic houses." Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and France were all attacked. The raids became larger and larger; one in Ireland referred to a 'flotilla'. Starting in 834, they came with hundreds of ships and thousands of men. Seasonal raids evolved into a continuing Viking presence. Coastal attacks led to deeper intrusions, including raids up the Seine to Paris, the Rhine to Aachen and the Thames to London. The Vikings eventually occupied northeastern England, the area known as the Danelaw.

     The Vikings travelled east, as well as west, throughout the Baltic region and down the Volga as far as Constantinople, and even the Silk Road. They went north, founding the Faroe Islands and Iceland. This diaspora brought wealth and a degree of stability and prosperity to Scandinavia. It took a vast number of people at home in Scandinavia to build and supply the warships that travelled far and wide. The vast majority were enslaved and the capture of slaves was a primary objective of the raiders. The overseas Viking presence led to the colonization of the aforementioned Danelaw, the urban centers on Ireland's east coast and Normandy.

     The Vikings were exposed to Christianity even before their raiding began. Christianity eventually took root and did so contemporaneously with the slow consolidation of political entities into states and kingdoms. In the 10th century, Denmark and later Norway began to adopt the new religion. Sweden came much later.  

     In the 10th century, Icelanders accidentally discovered Greenland and sent out colonists. From Greenland, intrepid explorers went to North America, wintered there and fought off unwelcoming locals. Recent discoveries have shown that the Vikings landed in northern Newfoundland. Some believe the Newfoundland site may have been used as a landing place for further exploration for as long as a century.

     "As might be expected, the social, political, economic, and ideological motors that drove the Scandinavian transformation of the eighth to eleventh centuries wound down in different ways, at different times, and paces in different regions." England was unified under William the Conqueror, victor at Hastings, just after the defeat of Harald at Stamford Bridge. Vinland was too far and not sustainable. Greenland was abandoned when the tusks it traded with the continent were replaced by ones from Africa and Asia in the early 15th century. In the end though, the interchange of peoples and ideas, the willingness to accept change and the new religion led to the establishment of a more stable order,  one where raiding was no longer necessary or desirable.

     

The Fortress: The Siege Of Przemsyl And The Making Of Europe's Bloodlands, Watson - C

     "This book tells the story of one fortress-city that was pitched into the calamity and on which, for a few months early in the First World War, the fate of all Eastern and Central Europe rested. The city was called Przemysl." The city, in central Galicia, was a crossroads between east and west, a place where Jews, Polish Roman Catholics, and Greek and Russian Orthodox believers lived. The people of Przemysl who enjoyed the freedoms and prosperity of the Empire were to see their lives and world destroyed by war.

     The chaotic collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's eastern front in August, 1914 sent thousands of soldiers, stragglers, deserters and refugees into the city. The army's better troops marched past the city and the general staff issued an order: "The Fortress Przemysl will, for the moment, stand on its own and is to hold at all costs." The 35 outdated forts spread in an arc on the city's eastern side were manned by second-tier, older troops. Orthodox churchgoers and Ukrainians were evicted, and many were summarily executed over concerns about their loyalty. On September 23rd, the Russians surrounded the 131,000 soldiers in the city. As ancient as the forts were, the Russian artillery was equally outmoded thus necessitating an infantry attack. The Russians made an all-out effort on October 7th that failed to crack a single fort and the following day a Hapsburg relief army was on its way to Przemsyl. The fortress was holding back the Russian advance.

     Although stalled at Pryzemsyl, the Russians occupied eastern Galicia and began a program of returning it to its "primordial Russian roots." They required use of the Russian language, banned Greek Orthodox services and foisted Russian Orthodox practices on the population. They did all they could to erase the Polish and Ukrainian cultures. They turned a particularly vicious eye on the Jews. Cossack cavalrymen began pogroms that sent half of the 40,000 Jews fleeing to Austria. Soon, the Tsar's army authorized a mass deportation of Jews to the east.

     By November, the fortress was once again surrounded and isolated. This time, the Russians would not attack. A long siege and starvation was now the strategy. As the noose tightened, a running joke was that the difference between Troy and Przemsyl was that at Troy, the heroes were in the belly of the horse and at Pryzemsyl, the horses were in the bellies of the heroes. Three ill-conceived, poorly-led and badly-fought relief attempts over the winter caused the Hapsburg armies over half-a-million casualties. By March, 1915, the defenders were sick from lack of food and barely hanging on. On the 22nd, they surrendered and the Russians marched in. 

     The Russian occupation was short-lived as the Germans recaptured the city on June 1. At war's end, the city became part of the new country of Poland. Two decades later, in 1939, the USSR brutally occupied the city. They in turn were followed by the Nazis in 1941. The Soviets returned in 1945 and when the boundaries between Poland and Ukraine were redrawn, the city wound up again in Poland.

     

     

Under Pressure, Pobi - B

     This is the second novel in a series featuring Dr. Lucas Page, a NYC-based astrophysicist occasionally called in by the FBI. A series of bombings throughout the metropolitan area lead the FBI to ask him  for help. He and a few youngsters he teaches at Columbia sort out of the mass of facts a pattern that solves the crimes. As is almost always the case, the sequel here is not quite up to its predecessor.

Out Of Time, Klass - B

    This is a fascinating novel featuring an eco-terrorist and a computer-engineer FBI agent on his trail. The Green Man has committed five major acts of destruction, each accompanied by a manifesto pointing out the damage being done to the environment and the fact that the planet is on its last legs. He is highly skilled and principled, but has killed innocents and that is why he is the most-wanted man in America. No one has a clue who he is or where he is from until Tom Smith begins to apply his unique investigative skills to the pursuit. This is an intriguing and enjoyable read.

When Time Stopped: A Memoir Of My Father's War And What Remains, Neumann - B+

     In 2001, Ariana, a Venezuelan woman in her early 30's and living in London, returned to Caracas when her 80 year-old father died.  She had grown up in the aristocratic world of Venezuela's elite. Her mother's family had come from Europe centuries ago, and her father immigrated after WWII. Her father had never disclosed much about his past, but left for her a trove of archival material. Her relentless research led to her discovery of the struggles her grandparents and father went through as Czechoslovakian Jews during the Nazi terrors.

      Her father, Hans was the second son of Otto and Ella, a happily-married couple and owners of a successful paint factory in Prague. The Neumann's applied for US visas, and even converted to Catholicism, but all in vain, as the Germans occupied Prague in March, 1939. That year, the family moved to their country home in Libcice; they lost their business the following year. In May, 1942, Ella was sent to Terezin. Otto was exempted because he was on the Jewish Council and Hans because he had an exempt job. Otto was deported to Terezin in November. When Hans received a third notice, it was understood that there would be no more exemptions and he would be headed to Terezin or Poland. The manager of the paint factory hid Hans in an improvised space in the factory. A friend proposed a bold move. Come to Berlin and work with him as a chemist in a sophisticated paint/enamels factory. Armed with a fake identity, Hans, now Jan, moved to Berlin in 1943. He went to work and made himself an indispensable part of the company, a defense contractor. The firm appointed  him and his friend as firefighters for night work during the bombings of the city. Late that year, word reached Prague that Otto and Ella had been sent to Auschwitz. Hans' luck continued when he obtained permission to return to Prague in early April 1945. He survived the war, as did his brother, Lotar. After the communists took over in 1948, the two brothers moved to a welcoming Venezuela. They opened a paint factory with the same name as the one their parents' had in Prague.                                             The fascination of this book is the story of the author.  Sadly, her family's experiences in Europe have been told many, many times. At freshman orientation for international students at Tufts, someone suggested that with a name like Neumann, she must be Jewish. She was so shocked, she called her father, who hung up on her. When the Wall came down, Hans was invited to Prague and he and Ariana visited for a brief time, during which he broke down in tears at the station from which the Jews were deported, but still did not elaborate on his family's past. He did however write an extensive memoir about his time in Berlin that Ariana eventually unearthed. Her commitment, dedication and determination to research her families history is truly inspiring. This is a beautiful story of love and devotion.

And In The End: The Last Days Of The Beatles, McNab - B+

        New Year's 1969 saw the world's most famous band on the cusp of dissolution and bankruptcy. Paul organized a 'Get Back' project, whereby they would create straight-forward music without all the production sophistication of Sergeant Pepper and the White Album, while being filmed for a tv documentary. John was taking heroin, bereft of ideas and annoying everyone by insisting Yoko be ever-present. George was tired of his songs and ideas being ignored by Paul and came very close to quitting in January. John introduced Allen Klein, a famous NY manager, to the group and insisted that Klein be given free rein to fix Apple Corps' financial problems. The contretemps between Klein and Paul would prove to be the final rift on the road to the break-up. Somehow, they managed to pull off the 42 minutes of perfectly performed  music on the roof of 3 Savile Row on January 30, for their first live performance since September 1966. 

     The month of March saw Paul and Linda and John and Yoko marry. John and Yoko spent a week in bed in Amsterdam to promote world peace. Back in London, the band actually began working on the songs that would eventually comprise Abbey Road. Concurrently, John and Paul almost came to blows at a meeting involving an attempt to recover their copyrights from London investors. In May, they lost the copyrights to their classic creations. They all took off for different overseas vacations, with John and Yoko in Canada, where they recorded Give Peace A Chance. Back at Abbey Road, the Get Back tapes sat without any resolution toward completing the album. When everyone returned to London, Paul suggested they defer Get Back and make an album like they used to. With George Martin on board, they were going back to Abbey Road.

     Away from their business problems and in the studio, with John delayed because of a minor auto accident, Paul, George and Ringo began finishing the 9 almost complete songs. George introduced Something and Here Comes The Sun, solidifying himself as a writer on par with his two famous bandmates. John showed up with Yoko and two beds, but managed to contribute Come Together. The Fab Four found the old magic that July in the studio. In the early hours of August 21st, the four men left Abbey Road for the final time. The iconic album cover is considered the end piece of the decade and the group. 

    The following month, all but George were at a meeting to sign the new paperwork for a deal with EMI/Capital. Klein had deftly renegotiated the Beatles' royalties to everyone's satisfaction. Paul pitched John about going back on the road when John told him "I'm leaving." Abbey Road was released a week later to mixed reviews, but blockbuster sales and Beatlemania-like enthusiasm from the public. The Beatles were no more, but the news was kept under wraps for months. It wasn't announced until May of the following year. The fighting over Klein and the structure of their work continued for decades. 

     In the end, this is a sad read for any fan. But the music remains fresh and awe-inspiring even after half-a-century has passed. 

The Night Of The Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot To Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, Blum - B-

      This book is a very well-written story all about a coincidence. The Big Three decided on a first meeting, and Stalin convinced FDR and Churchill to come to Tehran. Unbeknownst to them, a German SS General was busy hatching a plan to  sabotage the oil wells that fueled the British war machine.  When the Germans learned of the summit, they hatched  a plan to assassinate the Allied leaders. As the Big Three were on their way to Tehran, the Soviets easily captured almost all of the Germans who had been flown in for the attack. The KGB learned that there were, however, six men still in Tehran, and that led the Soviets to request that FDR stay at their embassy in order to reduce his travel time from the American embassy. The Germans intended to access the British Embassy through the water tunnels that supplied the city on the night of Churchill's 69th birthday party, November 30, 1943. After the Soviets put a bounty on the six Germans,  they were led to the house they were hiding in. When the saboteurs realized they had no chance, they blew themselves and the house up. The events in Tehran remained a closely-held secret until early in the 21st century. 

Twilight Of The Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945, Toll - A *

     This is the third, and final, volume of the author's majestic narrative of the war in the Pacific. We pick up with FDR in Honolulu to meet with the theater commanders in July of 1944. The strategic issue was the direction of the American attack on Japan. One school of thought was to approach through Taiwan and China, and of course MacArthur insisted on going through the Philippines. Spruance suggested taking a direct line through Iwo Jima and Okinowa. The eventual strategic conclusion was to pursue both the Philippines and the Iwo Jima - Okinowa axis.

     The Task Force that comprised the Fifth/Third Fleet (the number changed as the commanders, Halsey and Spruance, alternated) sailed west from Guam in September and launched air attacks on the Philippines. However, the first order of business was the taking Peleliu by the 1st Marine Division. A well-armed veteran garrison of 11,000 men awaited them. A network of 500 tunnels protected the Japanese, while the Marines suffered in the 100+ degree heat on the surface. It took weeks and 6738 Marine casualties including 1300 dead to clear the island. Peleliu was proportionately the costliest battle of the war in the Pacific. There were but a handful of Japanese survivors. With Halsey approaching from the east and MacArthur from the south, the Philippines would soon see the Americans return, and Japanese headquarters prepared for its final all-out naval effort. Indeed, the plans for the Imperial Navy's defense of the archipelago wasn't much more than for the fleet "to die a glorious death." MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte on Oct. 20th, the same day that Japanese authorities approved the use of kamikaze pilots. The Combined Fleet approached the Leyte Gulf, where the Americans were landing, on three different lines. On the 23rd, two US submarines sank five ships approaching Palawan Island. The next day, American pilots sighted the main fleet, which featured the two largest battleships ever made, the Yamato and the Mushasi. It is believed that it took 40 torpedoes and twenty bombs to sink the 72,000 ton Mushasi on the 24th. The stage was set for the Japanese fleet to sail into Leyte Gulf on the morning of the 25th. Unknown to those supporting MacArthur's landings, Halsey had sailed north to engage what he believed to be the last of Japan's carriers and had left the northern approach undefended. The main Japanese fleet pursued and inflicted damage on the American CVE's (junior carriers) before surprisingly  retreating back to the west. Halsey returned south and American planes pursued the retreating Japanese. Over the course of the four-day battle, almost 300 ships manned by 200,000 men had fought in four separate engagements. The Imperial Navy had lost four carriers, a dozen surface ships and most importantly, over 500 planes. It would never again play a meaningful role in the war. Halsey's sally to the north and the Japanese disengagement on the 25th, when added to the fact of Leyte Gulf being the largest naval battle in history has led to endless analysis and conjecture about what is now considered the 'last' naval battle.

    In addition to the sequential island hopping and attacking that MacArthur and Nimitz undertook, there were two other equally important and devastating attacks made upon the Empire. The first was submarine warfare that eventually strangled Japan's economy. The home islands imported all strategic materials, primarily coal and oil, without which an industrial society cannot function. Almost all of their oil came from Indonesia, thousands of miles away and fully susceptible to US subs. By 1944, the country was running on fumes as tanker after tanker was sent to the bottom. In October, 1944, US subs sank 328,000 tons of merchantmen and 104,000 tons of oil tankers. The same year saw the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress to the mid-Pacific and the beginning of the strategic bombing of the Japanese home islands. The Marianas (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) would base the superforts at approximately 1500 miles fromTokyo. On Nov. 24th, 110 planes took off for the first 15-hour round trip flight to Tokyo. 

     The Japanese vigorously fought back against MacArthur's forces on Leyte. Japan poured in reinforcements, stymying MacArthur's advance. The island was not cleared until mid-December after 60,000 Japanese had died. The US then invaded Mindoro, and used its two airbases to begin bombing Luzon, home of Manila and Corregidor. Luzon was invaded on Jan. 9, 1945. The US landed over 68,000 men before noon. The US entered the capital a month later. Some of the war's most intense urban fighting ensued, along with extensive Japanese murder of civilians, and atrocities on the scale of Nanking eight years earlier. In the weeks it took to eliminate the occupiers, the city was destroyed. MacArthur declared the Philippines campaign over in June, the Japanese held out in the mountains until August and war's end. They lost over 200,000 on Luzon and almost 400,000 in the Philippines in total.

     Iwo Jima lay equidistant between the Marianas and Tokyo. It contained an airfield capable of supporting US bombers. Its commanding general had been ordered to fight to the last man. The island was all rock and the Japanese dug in, tunneled and prepared to fight an almost underground battle. "Fifteen hundred subterranean bunkers were connected by 16 miles of corridors." Someone said "The Japanese weren't on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima." US naval and air forces pummeled the island daily for months. Twenty-two thousand Japanese awaited the 75,000 Marines who began landing on February 19th. Every inch was contested and by nightfall of the first day, 40,000 Marines held about 10% of the island. Suribachi fell on the 4th day. The flag-raising image captured by an AP photographer is arguably the most famous picture in American history. The battle and the carnage continued unabated for a month. One company lost eight commanders; another landed with 133 men and left with 9. The Marines suffered 24,053 casualties, including 6140 dead. A few hundred Japanese were captured. The cost of capturing Iwo was steep, but its airfields proved invaluable in the closing months of the war.

     Building the support systems for up to 1,000 B-29's on the Marianas was a colossal undertaking. Once in the air, the superforts struggled with the distance to Japan, the weather and the opposition, leading to a 5% loss-rate per mission. When it became apparent that high-altitude daytime precision bombing was not working, LeMay switched the USAAF mission to night- time low-altitude incendiary bombing of Japan's cities. The first mission was on March 9th and 334 superforts were on their way to Tokyo. The firebombing of Tokyo was the most devastating day in the history of war, killing over 100,000 and rendering a million homeless. Raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe followed.

    The Battle of Okinowa from April 1 to July 2  was the largest amphibious action in history. Fifty-thousand Yanks landed on the first day without any enemy opposition. On the 6th, Japan sent  700 planes south from the home islands in a series of traditional and kamikaze attacks. Over the course of the campaign, the Empire launched 10 massive kamikaze attacks and almost daily smaller ones hitting 200 ships and killing 4,900 Americans.  After the first week, as the Americans advanced, the fighting intensified as the 86,000 defenders were as deeply dug in as at Iwo. "In the end, the soldiers and marines had to dig their enemies out of the ground and kill them." The three months of combat led to the highest American casualties of the war, 49,151, with 12,250 killed or missing. As each portion of the island was occupied, it became part of a massive construction project. Okinowa was to be the primary base for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan.

    Beginning in July, the navy sailed unopposed into Japan's home waters and began daily carrier-based airplane attacks and naval bombardment of Kyushu Island. Conventional bombing continued with 843 B-29's in the air on August 1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the 6th and Nagasaki on the 9th, combined with the Soviet entry into the war led Japan to sue for peace. The US Navy anchored in Sagami Bay on Aug. 27th to begin the occupation. MacArthur, now Supreme Commander in the Pacific, arrived three days later. The official signing took place on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor on Sept. 2nd. The Greatest Generation had completed its most important mission.

Squeeze Me, Hiaasen - B+

     The author specializes in overly satirical send-ups of life in Florida. His books are very funny and this one is hysterical. He layers onto the usual crew of wacky locals a cast of characters at the winter White House in Palm Beach. It's called Casa Bellicosa and the Secret Service call name for the Trump-like prez is 'Mastadon'. One of the prez's admirers, a member of the wealthy widows gang known as the Potussies, is consumed by a python at a PB fundraiser and off we go. If you have never thought the current administration could make you laugh, read this book. One of the better lines is a reference to the Potussie-sponsored 'Very Unimpeachable You' gala where Mastodon  plans to sing 'Leather and Lace' with Roseanne Barr. Funny as hell.

You Can Go Home Now, Elias - B+

     This is an extraordinary novel, all the more interesting because it is set in contemporary Queens, NY. It is a police procedural, as well as an exposition on abusive husbands, their victims and life in a battered women's shelter. Our homicide detective discovers that the husbands of women in the shelter keep winding up dead and decides to go undercover. She is also the daughter of a Planned Parenthood physician murdered by a religious fanatic and is someone with revenge as a high priority. The finale jumps the shark, but on the whole, this is a page- turning very good read.

The Second Life Of Tiger Woods, Bamberger - B+

    All stories about Tiger cover a lot of ground, but the primary focus here is on the twenty-two months between his DUI in Florida and his fifth Masters in 2019. Memorial Day weekend in 2017, Tiger was questioned by the Jupiter police and failed a roadside sobriety test. Tiger had no alcohol or illegal drugs in his system, but rather an overload of prescription drugs. As he had had back fusion surgery a few months earlier, it makes some sense that he was taking the pain killers. Of course, this book ranges far and wide, covering his unbelievably complex childhood, his amazing career, and his totally spectacular fall from grace after his 'car crash' Thanksgiving weekend in 2009. For background, the biography by Benedict and Keteyian that was posted on this blog in May, 2018 reviews all of those matters in exquisite and superb detail. The endless surgeries had led Tiger to tell Gary Player at the 2017 Masters Champions dinner that he believed he was finished with golf. He hoped to be able to play with his kids again. Fortunately for Tiger and golf, the fusion surgery was successful. By the end of 2017, he was playing again; by the the summer of 2018, he had come in second at the PGA and won the year-end Tour Championship at East Lake. At the Wednesday night Golf Writers Association of America dinner before the 2019 Masters, Tiger stunned the crowd with his gracious, humble and modest speech. The book beautifully describes his win that week, his first Masters in 14 years and major in 11. For any sports fan, that Sunday was so special that it brought tears to many eyes and can be favorably compared to the greatest moments in sports history.

Fire In Paradise: An American Tragedy, Gee and Anguiano - B

     The Paradise wildfire of 2018 was the deadliest in America in over a century. The California town was totally destroyed. Paradise lies 150 miles northeast of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills. About 42,000 people lived in and around the town. Pre-contact native Americans used fire to pare, cleanse and rejuvenate the forests. Once the US Fire Service began suppressing fires in the west, the landscape changed. Where once there might have been dozens of tress per acre, there now were hundreds. Climate change has raised temperatures in a region suffering from extended drought. California has entered an epoch of 'megafires'.

     That November, the winds came blowing in from the deserts to the east of the Sierra's. On the morning of the 8th, a PG&E wire fell to the ground. A fire started in heavy brush in a steep,  inaccessible ravine. Within an hour, it was moving fast and wreaking havoc. As ash and smoke soon covered the town, evacuations began. Some elected to stay behind and just about everybody else jammed the two roads leading out of town. Houses were burned, roads buckled, all utilities including water failed, cars were burned out hulks, the sky was black, and embers were flying everywhere. Paradise was doomed. By the end of the day, the fire was 31 square miles. It was emitting heat at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.

     The next day, the body count began. People were learning that their loved ones were found in cars, in their houses and in one instance, in a wheelchair waiting outside for help. The fire had been so intense that it was not possible to identify human remains. People had been cremated.

     Seventeen days after the fire began, extensive rain officially contained the fire. In early December, people were allowed to return to Paradise where 18,804 homes, businesses and other structures were no more. Eighty-six people were dead. FEMA announced it would take a year to clear the fire debris in town.  Many chose to move on. For PG&E, the likely cause of the fire, 2019 would see a wave of litigation that led to it filing bankruptcy. Between insurance and PG&E settlements, enough money flowed into Paradise that rebuilding soon began. The senior officers at CalFire thought the area was too susceptible to fire and acknowledged that they personally would not live in the area. California remains stymied by drought, climate change and an ever expanding forest fire season.

The Good Shepherd, Forester - B+

     This fabulous book is the 1955 novel that is the source of the the film 'Greyhound', screenplay by Tom Hanks, who also stars.  It is the totally gripping story of 3 days in the life of Capt. Krause, commander of the USS Keeling, a destroyer escorting a convoy in early 1942. Krause supervises the Polish, British and Canadian ships that are also part of the escort. Every moment, and every action are seen through his eyes. In the early days of American involvement, the Germans had the upper hand and Krause's convoy faced almost constant attack in the middle of the Atlantic. It was the portion of the ocean that neither British nor North American based air support could reach. The pace is relentless, the weather is freezing, the merchantmen are difficult to control and the wolf pack attacks and attacks. The pressure on each and every combatant is almost unbearable. Days on end without sleep, and on the third day, air support and a naval escort. Seven of the 37 ships in the convoy were lost, as was the Polish destroyer. Two, possibly three, subs were sunk. The novel is so thrilling and accurate that it was used as a teaching tool at Annapolis.

The Shooting At Chateau Rock, Walker - B+

     This is the 15th in the Bruno Correges series set in fictional St. Denis in the heart of the Perigord. As the author has done in the past, he introduces a wider European topic into the world of the small market town. Here a fraud perpetrated against an aging farmer leads to corruption on a European scale perpetrated by Russian oligarch. The author is a retired historian writing crime novels in his beloved south of France.

K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Kepner - B

      The pitches are: the slider, fastball, curveball, knuckleball, splitter, screwball, sinker, changeup, spitball and cutter. 

      The slider is midway between a curveball and a fastball, breaking toward the pitcher's glove side and perceived by hitters to be a fastball. Steve Carlton, a lefty, was the best at it. The goal is to have the batter commit to a fastball and swing over the pitch. It's been around since Christy Mathewson and breaks about four-six inches. Bob Gibson, who posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, was also a  master.

     "The best pitch in baseball is a well-located fastball." The fastest ever thrown was 105 mph by Reds rookie reliever Aroldis Chapman in 2010. Velocity has increased significantly in the last decade leading to more strike outs, homers and longer games with more pitching changes.

       The Hall of Fame says that the first curveball was thrown in 1867 by Candy Cummings. It is thought that the best curveball throwers ever were Sandy Koufax and Mordecai 'Three Fingers' Brown, who pitched for the 1907-08 Cubs. Great curveball pitchers like Koufax or Nolan Ryan also have had powerful fastballs, as the pitches complement each other perfectly.

    Knuckleballers all confess that it was a pitch they found in an act of desperation. Niekro was the exception, as he learned it from his dad. The pitch is actually thrown with the fingertips and seeks to have zero spin. It happens to be very, very hard to throw. "Knuckleball pitchers are painstakingly self-made." The two best, and only Hall of Famers who threw the pitch, were Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro, Jr.

     The splitter or split-finger fastball evolved from the forkball. Thrown with pressure from the index finger it breaks away from a lefty. The best ever was Bruce Sutter, who relieved for the Cubs and Cards on his way to Cooperstown with 300 saves. The key is a big hand with long fingers. Roger Craig championed the pitch as a coach and manager. The pitch thrived in the 70's, 80's and 90's and has fallen out of favor because it is believed to cause elbow injuries. The screwball is another pitch that has fallen out of favor because of its impact on pitcher's elbows. The greats were all Giants: Mathewson, Hubbell and Marichal. It's the opposite of a curve, breaking toward the right handed batter.

     The sinker is a fastball thrown with a narrower grip parallel to the seams and not on them. The best were Lemon, Drysdale and Maddux. Obviously, the ball drops when it gets to the plate.

      The changeup is very hard to learn. It is the only pitch where the pitcher does not place his index finger on the ball. It uses the same arm motion as the fastball and is a cousin to the screwball, sinker and splitter at 10 mph slower than the fastball. Johnny Podres closed out the Yankees in game 7 in 1955 with a changeup and spent decades as a coach teaching the pitch. Another great was Pedro Martinez, whose H of F plaque mentions the pitch.

      The last great spitballer was Preacher Roe who played over seventy-years ago for the Dodgers. The pitch was banned in 1920. In that era,  games were often played with one ball. A baseball covered with tobacco juice became unacceptable for a sport trying to improve its image after the Black Sox scandal. Notwithstanding the ban, many pitchers used variations of it including Whitey Ford, Lew Burdette, Gaylord Perry, and Don Sutton.

     Mariano Rivera, legendary Yankee closer with the lowest career ERA, 2.12, of anyone born after 1889, was the master of the cutter. It is a cut fastball, thrown off center with a drop at the plate. Old-timers say the pitch has been around forever. Indeed, it's what Mazeroski hit off Ralph Terry in the 1960 game 7.

     Thanks to Jack Blair for the recommendation. If you enjoy the game and its history, you'll enjoy this book.

     

      

Black Water Rising, Locke - B-

                 This was the author's first novel published over a decade ago. The plot involves Jay Porter, a young black lawyer who inadvertently witnesses a crime and because he had had a serious run in with the police when a student a decade ago, decides to just ignore it. Of course, he gets sucked in and has to try and get to the bottom of it. While doing so,  he uncovers some serious environmental misdeeds, and we leave him as he initiates a major lawsuit against the powerful oil establishment of Houston.

American Dirt, Cummins - B +

     This very good novel is set in Mexico. Lydia owns a bookstore, is married to a journalist and raising eight year-old Luca in Acapulco when her world falls apart. One of the customers at her store, Javier,  is the leader of a cartel who literally goes ballistic when Lydia's husband writes an article about him. The cartel kills sixteen members of Lydia's family. Only she and Luca survive and they are soon on the run.  Their flight to 'el norte' is filled with danger every step of the way. Like many others, they ride 'el bestia', the cargo trains that head north. Javier's men are all looking for her and she uses every conceivable survival skill to get to the border and hopes the coyote they use is honest. 

    The tale is a harrowing and frightful one. Thanks to my friend Wendell for the recommendation.

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, Yang - B

     In 1924, the US proscribed immigration in, and limited almost all immigrants to the northern European countries that had been the first to populate America. Those from eastern and southern Europe, as well as those from Asia, were not wanted and were not allowed. Over the next forty years, immigration came to a near halt and only a few gave consideration to reinstating America as a 'melting pot'. The 1965 changes in the system unintentionally set America on a path that will someday lead to a non-white majority. 

     The 1924 law was a direct reaction to the decade from 1905-14, when millions came from Italy, Poland, and Russia; amongst them were innumerable Jews. The establishment said they would not assimilate. Future immigration would be based on the ethnic percentages that reflected America in 1890, before all the undesirables came. The law was supported by the American Federation of Labor, which feared that wages would be suppressed, and by the Immigration Reform League which simply did not want non-Nordics in the country. A fear of communism was also rampant after the Russian Revolution. For those from the western states, the undesirables were Asians. The country had passed The Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th century. The new 1924 law also excluded Japanese. Italians and Jews, according to one eugenicist, would make America "darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more mercurial, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder and rape."

     As Europe came to grips with the rise of Nazism, the national origins quota system might have allowed some to enter. However, a directive by Pres. Hoover stymied almost all immigration by providing that visas would only be available to those who would not become a financial burden to America.  America's refusal to consider helping the Jews of Europe in the 1930's and 40's kept the door closed to many, many in need. After the war, Pres. Truman ended the financial burden obstruction in an attempt to aid the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Europe.  He asked Congress to allow displaced persons to exceed the annual national origins quota. A 1948 bill allowed in only 100,000 people; two years later, and with the help of a Democratic Congress, the number was raised to 400,000.  

    Throughout the 1950's, there were small modifications made to the national origins system, but the conservatives and anti-communists held their ground. JFK came to office fully supporting a whole scale adjustment to the immigration system. But, like his civil rights legislation, reform of immigration was blocked by the unholy alliance of southern Democrats and western Republicans. A bill was introduced that established two criteria for immigration: one was people of ability who could add to the national welfare and the second was reuniting families. Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's landslide election led to a torrent of legislation, including The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. It capped immigration at 170,000 per year from the Eastern hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western. LBJ signed the bill in front of the Statue of Liberty. No one realized in 1965 just how transformative the law was. A quarter century later, the top ten countries sending immigrants were all from the third world. Since immediate family members did not count toward the annual caps, actual immigration was materially larger than anticipated. Today, there are as many foreign born American as there were a century ago.

      

The Mistress of the Ritz, Benjamin - B

             This rather interesting novel is inspired by a true story.  It is primarily about the marriage of Claude and Blanche Auzello, he a Frenchman and she an American. They were married in 1923 just before Claude became manager of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The hotel became his life and he served successfully for decades, including the four years of occupation from 1940-44. The occupation was a challenge as the German high command lived at the hotel and Claude served them throughout the four years. Unbeknownst to each other, both Blanche and Claude undertook dangerous missions for the Resistance. Blanche was imprisoned for months just before the city's liberation. Probably the most important take away here is the role of the famous hotel in Paris' always enduring mythology.

The Order, Silva - B+

     This addition to the Gabriel Allon series is both atypical and brilliant. Allon is not tracking down enemies of the state of Israel, but is assisting a Vatican archbishop in the midst of a Papal Conclave. The late pope and Allon were friends because of the assistance the Mossad had once provided  to the Vatican dealing with Islamic terrorists. The fictional pope, Paul VII, was about to hand over to Allon the Gospel of Pontius Pilate when he was murdered in his study. There is of course no such gospel, but the author uses its concept as a vehicle to discuss two thousand years of anti-semitism. In the gospel of Matthew after Pilate washes his hands of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, the Jews of Jerusalem cry out, "Let his blood be on us, and our children". These nine words are the basis of the condemnation of the Jews by the church as Christ killers, when in reality Jesus was executed by the Romans, and the decision to blame the Jews came when Christianity was struggling to survive a few centuries later. In addition to the discussion of this issue, the novel also has  its standard fare of conspiracies, action and intrigue.

     The author also addresses the issue that haunts long-running series set in the present. Gabriel has been working for the Mossad for almost 50 years and has to be about 70. He and Chiara buy an apartment in Venice and he promises to retire in two years. We'll see.

The Split, Bolton - B-

      The title refers to the principal character, Felicity Lloyd, who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Dr. Lloyd is a glaciologist for the British Antarctic Survey. When under extreme duress, the terrors of her childhood cause personality disruptions that she neither understands nor remembers. She is assigned to the station on South Georgia Island and knows that someone from her past is on the way there. 

The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick - A

     This novel was published in 1958. The cover of the book refers to it as 'The Classic Bestseller Whose Title Became A Synonym For America's Failed Foreign Policy'. Most of the events depicted occurred earlier, during the French war in Vietnam. It takes place in fictional Sarkhan in Southeast Asia.

    It is less a novel telling a story than it is a brilliant political document set out in a series of vignettes. To read this expose of our incompetence is to marvel at the book's insight and vision. It is hard to believe it was written almost a decade before President Johnson  escalated the war.

     Our ambassadors in Asia come off poorly, in particular,  the first sent to Sarkhan. Lucky Sears lost his senate seat, would have preferred a federal judgeship and took the job as consolation. He didn't know where the country was on the map, certainly couldn't speak the language and didn't particularly care about Sarkhan, and didn't understand he was being mocked in the local press. And, no one told him.

     Whether in Sarkhan, Vietnam, Burma or Cambodia, the one thing American leadership was not interested in was the work and input of Americans on the ground and in the know. A Jesuit in Burma was labeled a dissident for living in the country and successfully organizing a Burmese peasant response to communist influence. His crime was to do it from the ground up, not the top down.  American and French field officers soundly defeated a Vietminh battalion after adopting tactics espoused by Mao. They were rejected by generals who said that the officer corps of a nation that created Napoleon did not need to read Mao. An Iowa 'egg man' who tried to improve and enhance the health and productive capacity of chickens was forced to resign his position for not toeing the line on enhanced roads and military equipment. The American who rejected roads and more roads in lieu of aiding farmers pump more water to their fields was ugly and his chapter was 'The Ugly American'.  Ironically, either frm usage or the intent of the authors,  the general acceptance of our arrogant policies is what became known as "ugly".  The one senior American who understood Sarkhan, had studied its language and culture was a career foreign service officer. When he took the advice of the Americans and Sarkhanese who knew the needs of the people and asked Washington for embassy staff  who read the language, wouldn't bring their families and personal autos, commit to a two year terms, forego the luxuries of the PX and study the communist texts, he was recalled.

     The authors end with a chapter called 'A Factual Epilogue', in which they point out that this is fiction but fiction based on true stories. They close with, "We have been offering the Asian nations the wrong kind of help. We have so lost sight of our own past that we are trying to sell guns and money alone, instead of remembering that it was the quest of the dignity of freedom  that was responsible for our own way of life. All over Asia, we have found that the basic American ethic is revered and honored and imitated when possible. We must, while helping Asia toward self-sufficiency, show by example that America is still the America of freedom and hope and knowledge and law. If we succeed, we can not lose the struggle."

     

    

Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Mens Epic Duel To Rule the World, Rose - B+

     Inspired by a balloon ride in America, Count Graf von Zeppelin began to study and think about how to build, control and fly a lighter than air ship. When he turned his full-time attention to the issue in 1890, it was generally accepted that balloons should be cigar shaped, with many smaller cells comprising the total. Hydrogen was the best inflator and steering required a powerful propellant. The count befriended a local manufacturer of internal combustion engines, Gottlieb Daimler. Four hundred and twenty feet long and powered by a 14.5hp Daimler engine, the LZ-1 flew 3.5 miles in July, 1900. LZ-2 required a stiffer airframe, a better engine and better controls. The state provided financial assistance. But, the LZ-2 crashed in early 1906. Later that year, it flew for two hours and once again piqued the interest of the army. A twelve hour flight in the LZ-4 in 1908 cemented Zeppelin's relationship with the government and made him a worldwide phenomena. Meanwhile, the powered flights of the Wright brothers were drawing the approval of the American military. The count was committed to his airship as a weapon, while others encouraged its commercial use as a passenger carrier. Starting in 1911, the Zeppelins began commercial passenger service in Germany. Prior to the outbreak of war, the airships flew over 34,000 passengers on 1588 flights covering 107,205 miles.

     The initial army and navy efforts with converted airships were unmitigated failures. After a few years, the Reich built bigger and better airships which were able to fly to, and bomb, London. Anti-aircraft weapons and airplanes soon put an end to the Zeppelin's effectiveness. "The great majority of Zeppelin raids were a complete waste of time, money and life." The acceleration of construction of airships, the use of new materials and the breadth of missions flown positioned Zeppelins for success in the post-war era. 

     During the war, a Zeppelin had made a non-stop 4000+ mile trip and the successors to the Count, who had died during the war, believed in the future of long distance passenger travel. And they and most students of flight agreed that airplanes were not equipped to compete with the airships from Germany.  Hugo Eckener, the executive now in charge of Zeppelins, was prohibited by the Versailles Treaty from building a ship larger than one million cubic feet. In essence, he was limited to building small ships for local travel. His goal was to cross the Atlantic. In 1922, he made a deal to build the US Navy a 2.5 million cf ship. In October, 1924, he sailed it across the Atlantic and safely delivered it to the Navy in NJ. As Eckener dreamed of building a trans-oceanic business, aggressive American businessmen were also thinking about visionary air passenger options featuring gas-powered airplanes. Freed by the Treaty of Locarno in 1926, Eckener built the Graf Zeppelin and in 1928, the luxury airship crossed the Atlantic in 111 hours to worldwide acclaim. The return was a much quicker 71 hours. But, safety and practicality remained concerns in the eyes of many. To prove its durability and air worthiness, Eckener embarked on a round the world flight in the fall of 1929. He headed east over the USSR and landed in Japan in four days. Over the Pacific and on to the East Coast, where he was honored with only the 11th Gold Medal given by the National Geographic Society. He partnered with an American business and the following year, flew from Germany to Brazil to the US and back across the ocean. An international success was looming.

     Eyeing the Germans but convinced airplanes were the future, Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American Airways worked continually to establish a passenger airline on the back of his airmail business.  He initiated passenger service in the Caribbean on a seaplane, Sikorsky's S-40, the American Clipper piloted by Charles Lindbergh. Eckener was struggling to keep the Zeppelin company going under the new Nazi regime, which considered both Eckener and the airship relics of a bygone era. He was successfully managing regular Europe to Brazil runs, but still desired to conquer the Atlantic with a regular passenger service. With the support of the regime, Eckener began construction of the behemoth Hindenburg. In early 1936, the luxurious Zeppelin was ready. The Nazis the airship, took over control of the company and sidelined Eckener. Meanwhile, Trippe had pivoted to the Pacific and was building stops for his clippers on Midway and Wake islands. His China Clipper flew from San Francisco to Manilla late in 1935. Trans-Pacific passenger service was now a reality.

      On May 6, 1936, with fifty-one passengers aboard, the Hindenburg left for NY. The three day flight and its shorter return were a resounding success. It then undertook regular flights to Brazil, one of which carried a curious Juan Trippe and his wife. The following year, the Hindenburg was scheduled to land in Lakehurst, NJ on May 6th. The airship was late, the weather was not perfect and the ship came in a bit fast, causing a wire brace to snap. At 7:25 P.M., the ship burst into flames. "In roughly half a minute, a succession of wildly remote possibilities, none inherently dangerous in and of itself, turned into lethal certainty." Thirty-five of the ninety-seven travelers died. Although there was another airship built in Germany, it was only used domestically, mostly for propaganda purposes. As for Pan Am, the Pacific service was unprofitable and the Atlantic service began in May, 1939 and was suspended when war broke out.  Eckener survived the war and lived long enough to see the advent of the jet airplane. Trippe eventually conquered the airways making Pan Am the pride and joy of the US, the master of international flight. He built the skyscraper Pan Am building over Grand Central, retired in 1964 and died in 1981.

     This is a magnificent and wonderful book, a bit long at almost 500 pages, but well worth the effort.

     

     

      

The Marching Season, Silva- B+

                   In the follow up, Osbourne is working for his father-in-law, the new Ambassador to the Court of St. James. The Good Friday Accords have just been signed, but there is a protestant splinter group set on breaking the peace. The Society thinks that's a pretty good idea, as discord and violence keeps its members busy and wealthy. They recruit the former KGB man to assist and once again it is Osbourne v. Delaroche. Great stuff.

The Mark of the Assassin, Silva - B +

                This fabulous thriller is over twenty-years old and was written by the author prior to his beginning his successful Gabriel Allon series. It features a CIA agent, Michael Osbourne, on the tail of a KGB trained hit man, Jean Delaroche,  now working for the highest bidder. At the moment, that is The Society, a conspiracy interested in profit, not committed to any set of principles and made up of very senior people from around the world. The mission of The Society is to create and foster havoc, thus assuring their ongoing financial well being. There's a second in the series that will follow. 

The Quiet American, Greene - B+

                   This classic was written in Saigon in the mid-50's and that is the time and place of this novel. The narrator is British, and a somewhat world-weary reporter on the wars in Indochina. The French had been defeated the year before and the Americans were beginning their involvement. The quiet man of the title is Pyle, young, enthusiastic and an economic attache. His optimism and naievete costs him his life. As for our narrator, Thomas Fowler, he exhibits a cynicism and despair at the efforts of the west to try and understand Vietnam and to save them from communism. His statement, "it's their war, not ours" anticipates the foolishness that America would embrace in the following decade.

The Guest List, Foley -B

         This is another from the NYT summer reading list. It's a whodunit with a unique twist. In the prologue, someone is done in, but we don't find out who it is until almost the end of the book. The setting is an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland that a couple has transformed from a deserted locale to a wedding destination. We meet the few dozen folks who are in the wedding party and their significant others,  the bride, editor of a popular online magazine, and the groom, star of a survival type reality tv show. As the bride, groom, best man, maid of honor,  a great friend of the bride and his wife tell their side of the story, more and more background,  some of it flat out awful, raises its ugly head. We learn that one person in our wedding party is a real SOB and that person winds up dead. The ending is a bit too contrived for me.

The Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt, Johnson - B+

    The pirate principal of this story, Henry Every, was born near Devon in the middle of the 17th century, and likely joined the Royal Navy as a teenager. He came of age in an era when there were conflicting examples of piracy. The Barbary pirates were universally condemned as enslavers and tyrants, while men like Drake were knighted and enriched for their roles as privateers. Every first appears in the historical record in the 1690's as a slave trader working for the Governor of Bermuda. In 1693, he shipped out as first mate on a ship that was part of a small squadron seeking to salvage sunken treasure in the Caribbean.  The following May, after the ship was stranded in Spain for over half-a-year, Every led a mutiny, re-named the ship the 'Fancy' and sailed south around the Cape of Good Hope and headed to the pirates' den of Madagascar. 

     Across the Indian Ocean, the Grand Mughal Aurangzeb, the Moslem ruler of India and easily the richest person in the world, was preparing his ship, the 'Ganj-I-Sawai' for sea. It was 1500 tons, one of, if not the largest ship in the world. It was carrying 800 dignitaries and 400 hands to Mecca for the hajj. It was also loaded with jewels, gold, spices and cotton.

     Every headed to the Gulf of Aden that summer and was met there by half-a-dozen other ships in his line of business. The pirates agreed on a concerted effort and selected Every as their leader. The 'Fancy' was so fast that a report was sent to the East India Company saying she sails "so hard now, that she fears not who follows her." On Sept. 7th, the 'Fancy' captured the 'Fath Mahmamadi' and  £60,000  of gold. The next day, they approached the much larger and better armed 'Ganj-I-Sawai' and were met with propitious fortune. The Indian treasure ship experienced an explosion on her gun deck and the 'Fancy's' first broadside dismasted her. The fortune the 'Fancy' absconded with was estimated as somewhere between 200-600,000. To  locate all of the treasure, they tortured the Muslim crew. They were surprised to find dozens of women including princesses, maids, and concubines aboard and proceeded in an orgy of rapine. Some of the  women threw themselves overboard. The  addition of  sexual violence to a heist that may have been the largest ever meant that soon, the 'Fancy', Every,  and the crew achieved international ignominy. 

     The sacrilege of the British pirates cast doubt upon the members of the East India Company leading to the incarceration of the entire garrison in Bombay. All realized that Every's actions put the company at risk and a writ was issued from London calling all Englishmen to pursue and capture the pirates. Every sailed for Reunion, purchased slaves, and then sailed to the Bahamas. The crew dispersed and Every and about twenty men sailed for Ireland in a small schooner. Soon thereafter, eight of his men were captured. Two turned state's evidence and the rest were hung at Execution Dock in London after a trial. As for Henry Every, he disappeared from the historical record. "He snuck back into the shadows." The lasting historical consequence of these events was an alliance between the Grand Mughal and the East India Company, tasking the English with the responsibility to protect ocean- going traffic in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

     

The Last Flight, Clark - B+

                         This novel is on the NYT summer list and it's a doozy. A successful woman married to the scion of a wealthy and famous family knows it's time. He's been abusing her for a decade, and with him about to announce for a senate seat from New York, it's now or never for her to leave. Her plan is upended when he sends her somewhere she wasn't intending to go, and in an act of desperation, she swaps identities and boarding passes with an equally desperate woman at JFK. The plane she was supposed to be on crashes and she's watching her funeral on CNN. Things are never that simple. This is truly fun.

Clean Hands, Hoffman - B

                        This fun novel was on the NYT summer reading list. It is set in today's NYC and opens with a law firm associate having his cellphone picked during a bump in Grand Central Station. When the firm's security people review the CCTV coverage, it appears as if the associate and pickpocket are working in tandem. Recovering the phone is the first priority and making certain the documents that were on it are not leaked is the next step. Off we go in a plot involving Russian thieves in Brooklyn, former CIA operatives in Manhattan, a DOD off the books operation and a story that pulls you in. 

Serenade For Nadia, Livaneli - B+

      This extraordinary novel is written by Turkey's most popular novelist. He tells the story through a narration by a 36-year-old woman in a clerical position at the University of Istanbul. Maya is assigned to accompany a visiting Harvard professor, Max, a German emigre who had spent a few years at the university from 1939-1942. We learn that dozens of Jewish intellectuals were brought  to Istanbul by Attaturk in 1933 when they lost their jobs in Germany to build the university and the entire education system in Turkey. Integral to the novel is the history of Max's wife, a Jew who made it to Romania and almost escaped to Palestine. She was one of 769 Jews who died when the overloaded ship, the 'Struma', was expelled by Turkish authorities from Istanbul, and torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea. The novel and the translation are spot on and recommended.