Topaz, Uris B +

                                         Leon Uris was one of the wonderful novelists to emerge from the WW2 generation.   He was a poor Jewish boy from Baltimore, who joined the Marines at 17 and went on to write many successful books and screenplays. He is most famous for 'Exodus'.  'Topaz' was a 1967 thriller set against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis.  As always, his characters are well drawn, his plotting is intriguing and his historical background information is well researched and accurate.  Here, he provides a very insightful exposition of Franco/American tensions that began during the war and lived on deep into the Cold War.

The Guns at Last Light, Atkinson - A*

                                         This is the third volume of 'The Liberation Trilogy', the author's homage to the U.S. Army and its men in their three theater battle with Germany in World War II.  'An Army at Dawn' told of their start in Africa and won a Pulitzer. 'The Day of Battle' detailed the gruesome, brutal, and under-appreciated campaign in Italy. This is the story of their triumph from D-Day to VE day, at D+335.  As a nation, we remember the perfidy of Pearl Harbor and know the outline of our almost four year battle against Japan, but it is this eleven month tale that we treasure, honor and remember just a bit more. This is the war whose leaders are part of our folklore: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Smith, Ridgeway, Roosevelt,Taylor, Gavin, Abrams, and McAuliffe. Very few of us know as many names from the Pacific.
                                       From June 6, 1944 right up to the end, the Army was hindered by supply shortages. Men and material were perpetually unavailable. The French port of Cherbourg was destroyed by the Germans and only one of the two Mulberries survived a gale that hit the Channel soon after the landings.  It would not be until Nov. 28, when the Belgian port of Antwerp was liberated by the Canadians, that the Allies had reliable and sufficient dockage on the continent.  Fortunately for us, Hitler kept a twenty-division reserve in the Pas-de-Calais, because that is where they figured the invasion would come. The depth of the Normandy beachhead was only six miles on July 1. Casualties on both sides were at the same ratio as 1917. The breakthrough did not come until July 26. By August 21, the Germans were essentially out of France and headed to the Westwall.                                                            
                                      The U.S. Army actually entered Germany on Sept. 11, but it would take them another six months to breach the Rhine, barely seventy-five miles away. Allied planners had assumed they would not reach the Fatherland until May,1945. They were not prepared for their early success. Again, they simply did not have the supplies to project their strength into Germany. Ammo, food, and winter clothing were lacking. The rainfall along the front in November was triple the annual averages. A brutal winter followed. The fall saw the failure of Market Garden, the slog in the Huertgen Forest, and the repulse that was the Battle of the Bulge. When the Germans initiated their Ardennes offensive on Dec.16, they had a 5:1 advantage in artillery  and a 3:1 in armor.
                                        On Jan. 20th, the Soviets were on the Oder, fifty miles from Berlin, and we were still two months from crossing the Rhine. In addition to supply challenges, there still was not an agreed upon strategy for finishing off the Germans. Monty and Ike battled incessantly (as an American, it certainly appears as if Monty was insufferable).  Monty wanted a British thrust into northern Germany; Ike wanted a massive front with Monty on the north and Bradley in the south. It got so bad that Marshall told the Combined Chiefs that Monty "was an impudent and disloyal subordinate, who treated all American officers with open contempt. "                                                        
                                       Two weeks after the March 7 breach at Remagen, seven Allied Armies crossed the Rhine and entered Germany.  It was pretty much over then as there were few organized forces between the Rhine and the Elbe. We met the Soviets on April 25th, the day they surrounded Berlin.  The Battle of Berlin cost the Soviets three hundred thousand casualties, thus confirming for Ike, his decision to not try for the Reich capital.
                                       "Twelve years after it had began, the Thousand-Year Reich had ended. Humanity would require decades, perhaps centuries, to parse the regime's inhumanity, and to comprehend how a narcissistic beer hall demagogue had wrecked a nation, a continent and nearly a world."
                                        In 1947, the US Army forwarded Quartermaster General Form 345 to the next of kin of 270,000 Americans asking if they wished to have their soldier brought home for interment. Over sixty percent came home on ghost ships carrying over five thousand caskets apiece, which then traveled by rail across the republic.
                                        16,112,566 Americans were in uniform during the war. Demographers forecast that the number will dip below a million in late 2014 and 100,000 in 2024. Shockingly, they expect there will be four hundred veterans alive to see the 90th anniversary of D-Day. Certainly those soon to be centenarians never became devotees of the Luckies, Camels and Chesterfields that were staples in their K-rations.

The English Monster, Shepherd - B-

                                          This is a very well done entertaining novel that links together two disparate stories: England's two-and-a-half century leadership of the slave trade and some frightful murders in the East End in 1811.  However, it's not that black and white, as the monster is (I think) an allegory for the slave trade.  Slavery has been an integral part of man's history.  The trans-Atlantic trade was massive in scale and coincided with Europe's conquest of the Americas.  The English heroes John Hawkyns and Francis Drake partook in it in a ship owned by good Queen Bess.  The author contends that it was the source of profits that grew the empire from a 17th century wannabe to the 19th century master of the universe.  The most descriptive sections of the book, however, are those that deal with the expansion of London, its docks and its trade east of the city and further into the Thames estuary.  He almost has Dickens' touch as he describes the blending of earth and sea east of London.

Looking Good Dead, James - B-

                                         There are currently eight novels in the Roy Grace series and this is my third.  They are police procedural/detective stories set in Brighton, on the English coast. The author is a skilled storyteller, a native of Brighton who adds tons of color, and a devious plotter, but a bit on the dark side. These novels have a violent tinge, not unlike some of the Scottish ones I've come across. In this one, Grace uncovers an internet business specializing in snuff films. Similar to almost every European novel I've read in the last decade, this one goes behind the old Iron Curtain to find some vicious bad guys.

The Night Ranger, Berenson - B

                                         This is the author's ( a former NYTimes reporter) seventh novel about John Wells: Montana boy, Dartmouth grad, Muslim convert, good guy and all around butt-kicker.  To Bernson's credit,  Wells has not remained in the the same time or place. He has evolved from undercover agent in Afghanistan, to national hero, advisor to Presidents, and now, retired from the CIA. Here he is called upon to rescue kidnapped aid workers near the Kenyan-Somalia border. These books are always a great one-day read - what thrillers are all about.

Russia Leaves The War, Kennan - B

                                         "Peace, Land and Bread" was what the Bolsheviks offered the Russian people, but unilateral peace was anathema to the allies of the Entente.  While I was reading the Hardy Boys in 1958, apparently adult America had a taste for nuanced and extremely detailed diplomatic history, as this extraordinary book won the Pulitzer, Francis Parkman, Bancroft and National Book Awards.  It is actually Vol. I of a work called 'Soviet -American Relations 1917-1920'.

                                           Kennan was a superb writer, and here he tells the tale of the US response to the November Revolution, and specifically to the decision to withdraw from the capitalists war.  What is striking is each side's complete lack of understanding of the others' history and culture.  Lenin and Trotsky honestly believed that the workers of the world would throw off their shackles and their governments because they offered the world a chance to end the war.  The Wilson administration (and all the Allies) found it incomprehensible that Russia would not honor its treaty obligations, and kept thinking they could appeal to the Russian people's sense of honor and love of democracy.  The legendary 'Fourteen Points' were a partial response to the Russian Revolution and an attempt to go over the head of the Soviets and speak directly to the Russian people. Kennan summed it up succinctly and critically:"Both Wilson and Lenin had made the mistake of attempting to project their respective ideological images onto the world at large and to seek an international validity for principles that were a product of their own specific environmental and educational backgrounds."          

                                          In early February, at Brest-Litovsk, while delaying so the workers of the world could unite, Trotsky played his famous "no war, no peace" negotiating ploy on the Germans.  It totally backfired as the Germans advanced toward Petrograd, which led to the permanent removal of the government to Moscow and the Allie's embassies decamping to Vologda.  Preposterously, the Allies seriously considered intervening in Vladivostok, nearly 6000 miles away. Their stated concern was the fear that the supplies they had sent to Russia, which were on the piers and in the warehouses of Vladivostok because Czarist and Revolutionary Russia were incapable of moving them west, might fall into the hands of the Germans.   The British and French wanted the Japanese to intervene, to deny the enemy "the vast agricultural resources east of Lake Baikal".  You have to wonder if the decision makers had access to maps or were just delusional about transport capabilities. The US prevailed upon the Japanese to defer.  As the sequel is called 'The Decision To Intervene', I suspect we will read more about the attraction of boots on the ground in Siberia.  Back in the west, the Germans  prevailed and the Treaty was signed in  March.  While the Treaty was being considered by a Soviet assembly, Wilson again tried to speak directly to the Russian people.  Kennan acerbically closes the book with, "Once again, as is is so often the course of these rapidly moving events, Washington - troubled, hesitant, and ill-informed  - had spoken, reluctantly, into the past". Kudos to Greg Weiss for finding this challenging book and recommending it.

The Legend of Broken, Carr - C

                                         Undoubtedly, I saw the author's name and downloaded the book without reading the  Times review. That is a habit I need to break.  This book is a science fiction/fantasy presented in the cloak of a history of a portion of northern Germany late in the first millennium. There is even correspondence from Edward Gibbon introducing it to Edmund Burke as a recent (1790's) find of a manuscript.  If you think you might wish to try it, the Wall St. Journal review recommends that you not only read all 651 pages, but the 80 pages of notes.

Savage Continent, Lowe - B+

                                         At long last we have a thorough, continent-wide treatment of the chaos that was Europe in the aftermath of WW2.  The Germans may have surrendered in the first week of May 1945, but the violence and inhumanity of people and nations lasted for months and, in some locales, years.  It is hard to envision, but there were no governments, police, schools, universities, banks, currencies, telephones, post offices, private property, trains, cars, buses, gas, electricity, food or water.  There was utter devastation and then,  starvation, vengeance on a massive scale, ethnic cleansing, on-going anti-semitism, pogroms, massacres and civil war. A writer for the New York Times called it "the new Dark Continent".
                                        The descent into anarchy began with personal vengeance.  Those freed in their camps killed their guards, those held in slave labor murdered local Germans, and the Poles and Czechs took particularly violent actions against the Germans still in their midst. The author states that the peoples of eastern Europe did to the Germans what the Germans had done to them.  In all countries, collaborators were sought out and summarily executed.  The Resistance and the Partisans who led the revenge against the the traitors were actually exempted from any responsibility by laws passed ex post facto allowing their actions.  Frustrated by twenty years of fascism and years of German occupation, northern Italy saw 15,000-20,000 revenge killings in 1945-46.  Centuries of anti-semitism led to either indifference to the Jews who tried to go home or actual massacres in Poland and Hungary.
                                       Allied-approved ethnic cleansing led to the massive dislocation of millions, which the author analogized to the disruptions occasioned by the collapse of the Roman Empire. The decision had been made by the Big Three to move Poland west. Thus, Poland took over land from Germany and the USSR, specifically the Ukraine, took over eastern Poland.  Although most had fled prior to the arrival of the Red Army, there had been eleven million Germans in what became Poland. The Poles sent millions of German packing and the Ukrainians did the same to the Poles.  There was little oversight and non-stop violence.  Throughout Europe, nations pursued racial policies to make Poland all Polish, Czechoslovakia all Czech, Hungary all Hungarian etc. Millions of Germans were returned to the Reich; in many instances they were descendants of immigrants from earlier centuries.  There were over four million deportees in the British and Russian Sectors and three and a half million in the American.  Eastern Europe became ethnically cleansed with homogenous populations.
                                        The final source of conflict was between the communists and their opponents.  In southwest France, where the Resistance liberated a large section of the country, many were murdered, not because they were collaborators, but because they were opposed to the Reds. The Croats fled to Austria to escape the Serbs, were returned to Yugoslavia, and 70,000 were summarily executed.  The incredibly vicious Greek Civil War soon followed, leaving the country free, but devastated.  The problems in Greece led to the creation of the Truman Doctrine, followed soon thereafter by the Marshall Plan.  The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe finally get back on its feet, but confirmed the split with Stalin.
                                       Communism did not come peaceably or easily in the east.  As many as 400,000 Ukrainian partisans were still fighting the Soviets in 1950.  In the Baltic states, the ongoing resistance formed the legends that maintained the will of ethnic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians throughout the Soviet era.
                                       History is never past and lives on in the national myths of every country in Europe today.  The occupied nations view their now almost universal resistance and courage through rose-colored glasses. The Russians are wistful for 'The Great Patriotic War', the British have made the war a national industry and in America, we honor 'The Greatest Generation'.
                                       During a Baltic trip in 2005, I saw firsthand the passion and anger still felt by many.  In Tallin, Estonia, a twenty-something tour guide spoke vehemently about what the Russians had done to the city and it's people when they fought the retreating Germans.  He didn't mention what the Germans did during their occupation and retreat. The next day at a Romanov Palace, a young Russian woman was brought to tears describing  the Germans' depredations and destruction of the famed Amber Room. Hopefully the passage of time will move theses emotions further into the past and not resurrect them.

A Man and His Ship, Ujifusa - B+

                                         For a decade after its 1952 launch, the SS United States was the grandest, most luxurious, fastest, indeed greatest ship that had ever sailed the seas.  The ship captured the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing by crushing the record held for twenty years by the Queen Mary.  No US ship had held the record in over a hundred years.  Yet, the age of the jet airliner terminated the era of first class Atlantic crossings and the United States career was over by the late 60's.   This very enjoyable book tells the story of Atlantic crossings in the 20th century and the obsession of William Francis Gibbs to build this ship.  The tale  is filled with the legendary names of the times: Titanic of course, but also, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Andrea Doria, Leviathan, Il de France, Normandie, Morro Castle, Lusitania and many more. Gibbs first dreamed up his plans as a schoolboy and spent forty years working toward the day he could build his vision.  Interestingly, the prime financial backer was Vincent Astor, whose father died on the Titanic.  Speed was the name of the game and the United States could go 45 mph.  If you like stories about boats and the sea, as I always have, this is a great read.

A Man Without Breath, Kerr- B-

                                         This is the twelfth book in a series about Bernie Gunther, a Kripo (Kriminalpolizei) detective in Berlin.  Gunther is a standard modern detective - very skilled, a bit cynical and very witty.  Kerr is quite good at historical background and depicting a real sense of time and place.  The magic here is that the setting  is Weimar Germany.  Gunther quits the police in 1933 and acts as a private detective in the Nazi era, but finds himself in uniform when the war starts.  In all of the previous books that I've  read, the big picture is part of the background.  Unfortunately, here Gunther is an actor in a historical event, and I'm afraid this book is just not as good as its predecessors.  Gunther works for the Wehrmacht as an inspector in the War Crimes Bureau.   Yes, the Germans had a group inspecting other nations' war crimes. He winds up in the middle of the two month unearthing of Russian depredations at Katyn.  There are a few interesting plot points involving an NKVD spy in their midst, and a lot of solid information about what was going on in the spring of 1943. But, the story falls apart when Gunther engages in a personal tete-a-tete with, among all possible people, Field Marshall von Kluge and needs to be saved by, unbelievably, Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr.

The War Council, Preston - B+

                                         This book, which is subtitled 'McGeorge Bundy, the NSC and Vietnam', is cited in 'The Sleepwalkers' as an example of intergovernmental power struggles and intrigues. The book is referred to as "a brilliant study of the US entry in to the Vietnam War...showing that while LBJ and JFK were reluctant to wage war.....the NSC narrowed options....until war was inevitable."
                                          I believe the story told in this book is more nuanced than its citation above.  Mac Bundy believed in the US role as maintainer of worldwide institutional structures such as the UN and NATO that would preserve peace and stability. He accepted America's role as the indispensable state that had responsibilities around the world. He was a believer in containment. He was staunchly opposed to the NLF and believed that the US was required to establish and preserve a noncommunist South Vietnam.  He came to Washington in 1961 and worked for a President who wanted to be his own Sec. of State.  JFK picked Dean Rusk, whom the author says would have been a much better Undersecretary, because Kennedy did not want  interference with his ideas, and he knew he could manage Rusk.  JFK believed in  our commitment to South Vietnam, even though State, Walter Lippman, Sen. Mike Mansfield and the editorial board of the New York Times were some of the many voices recommending a policy of neutrality in  southeast Asia.  Standing up to the North, while building up the South was a broadly accepted policy in the Kennedy administration.
                                         War as the only option seems to be what the "Harvards" presented to LBJ.  By the time the fateful decisions on  the road to war were made in 1964 and 1965 the Administration was already operating in a narrow feedback loop consistent with the characterization above.  However, it wasn't just the NSC, as Defense was gung ho from the very beginning.  I'm looking forward to Caro's final book on Johnson, for what I hope is the definitive analysis

Standing In Another Man's Grave, Rankin - B

                                         This is the twentieth novel in the police procedural series about Edinburgh Detective John Rebus.  Rankin has always done a good job filling in with color and background on the city, it's neighborhoods and southern Scotland.  Rebus is a lot like Alan Banks, mentioned earlier this month, only more so.    Banks drinks; Rebus is close to being a drunk.  Banks quit smoking; not Rebus.  Both act on hunches, but Rebus operates way outside of the normal lines of inquiry.  In this book, Rebus is retired, but working as a civilian on cold case files.  He gets an idea about one of the cases that leads him down a road that everyone considers a long shot.  In total defiance of just about every conceivable boss, he gets his man with a bit of extra-legal coaxing. Left open is his application to rejoin the force.

The Hangman's Daughter, Potzsch - C+

                                         This first novel of a series about the Kuisl family of Bavaria proves you can write mysteries about just about anything.  The time is the years immediately after the end of the Thirty Years War (1618-48). The author's ancestors were the designated executioners in their town.  Apparently, the chores included torture and a mastery of the the many means of ending someone else's life.  The Hangman in this instance is a good guy who saves a woman accused of witchcraft and sorcery.  This book  seldom strays from the storyline and provides very little background or information about the era.  The Thirty Years War was fought over religion and the Peace of Westphalia established that a communities form of worship was up to its ruler.  We know Bavaria remained Catholic, but there is no mention of it in this book.

Spillover, Quammen - B

                                         This is the third book I've read in the last two years written by a National Geographic writer.   The first two were actually histories about T.R. and Garfield.  This one is about science and one conclusion I've come to is that NatGeo folks can write. The topic here is zoonosis - the transference of viruses from animals to humans.
                                         It's a scary topic because this transference has led to the Black Death, the 1919 flu pandemic, Hendra, bird flu, Ebola, SARS, Marburg, West Nile fever, Lyme disease and the big one - AIDS.  Science strives to find out who was the reservoir host and when and how the transference was made.  As most of these viruses are in the tropics, the challenge becomes bringing modern medical research to primitive societies, often in the midst of political turmoil.  Unfortunately for the physicians and researchers, their reward is often a grisly painful end.
                                         HIV-1 is the modern catastrophe that has garnered the most attention, as it has killed 30 million and there are another 34 million infected.  The scientists believe it has been around for a very long time and that there have been twelve spillovers.  The modern spillover took place about the year 1908 in southwest Cameroon, almost certainly through blood to blood contact, when a local harvested bushmeat from a chimp.  For the next fifty years, it remained contained in a small population, but started to spread through sexual contact in the late fifties.  It is believed to have left Africa in the sixties when Haitians took over for the expelled Belgian medical community in the Congo.  It came to the US in the seventies through the import of blood plasma from Haiti. The rest is, as they say, history.
                                         The concern in the scientific community is "the next big one".  Scenarios like the movie 'Contagion' is what is feared.  And the consensus expectation is that it will be some sort of avian flu from the Asian continent, thus affirming one of my life conclusions- no Africa or Asia on my bucket list.

The Right Hand Shore, Tilghmam - B+

                                         This superb novel, set on the Eastern shore of Maryland, was a NYTimes Notable Book of 2012.  The author's surname is the name an island in the Chesapeake Bay.  His ancestors were some of the earliest settlers. Thus, he is well equipped to write about a place that is neither black nor white, land nor sea, north nor south.
                                         The story covers three generations of Masons, owners of The Retreat, a plantation with a mansion and thousands of acres of farmland on the Chester River, and the blacks who were once their slaves and later their servants and employees. Before the Civil War, 'Duke' Mason sells most of his slaves south, as he fears having his lands confiscated should there be a war and a punitive peace.  This act haunts his son-in-law and granddaughter, the next two managers of The Retreat. Most of the the black families stay on, as Wyatt Bayly, husband of Duke's  daughter, is a fair man, perceptive businessman and without racial prejudice.  The tension throughout is based on his generosity to his foreman's son, his son's only companion and best friend.  So, when it's time for tutors for Thomas, Randall is included in the two-boy school.  Randall is so talented that Wyatt pays for him to go to college, albeit a Negro school, Howard, in D.C. Randall's sister is beautiful and her relationship with Thomas is the second major plot line.   There is some fabulous background information on the ill-fated quarter century of peach farming on the Shore, as well as the growth of the dairy industry.  The issues between the blacks and whites are not as predictable as you would expect. This is well worth the read.

The Right Hand, Haas - B

                                         Derek Haas co-wrote '3:10 to Yuma' and the tv show Chicago Fire.  He is the creator of a website, popcornfiction.com, which promotes genre short fiction.  I've read his 'Assassins Trilogy.' His books are short thrillers about men with extraordinary interpersonal combat skills.  In this story, his protagonist is an "off the books" CIA operative who takes on the Russian FSB, saves the gorgeous Marika from the FSB bad guys ( four or five times), prevents the assassination of the CIA head of EuroOps  and exposes a 20-year deep cover traitor at Langley. Phew! It's the type of book you enjoy when you need a brief break.

Sweet Tooth, McEwan - I

                                         I generally love McEwan, and I just checked to see and the NYTimes reviewer really liked this.  I wound up scanning the last 2/3rds, as I thought it rather flat.

The Sleepwalkers, Clark - A*

                                         In the introduction to this extraordinary book, which is sub-titled 'How Europe Went To War In 1914', the author cites a historian who said, "it was the first calamity of the twentieth century, the calamity from which all other calamities sprang". Indeed, the seventy-five  years after 1914 saw the calamities of unspeakable war, an absurd peace, revolution and Depression, another war - even more horrid, totalitarianism and Cold War.  As the  war itself was an appalling slaughter of a generation and four years bereft of civilian or military competence, the run-up to it has garnered the attention of generations of historians.  Barbara Tuchman's 'Guns of August', which won a Pulitzer and which I read as a high school freshman fifty years ago, was my introduction to both grown-up history and this topic.  Somewhere along the way, either through the standard teaching of American history or after reading a biography of the oddly flamboyant, irksome Kaiser, I came to the popular conclusion that it really was the fault of the Germans.  Although Clark says there is no smoking gun and  "the outbreak of the war was a tragedy, not a crime", he tells a tale where there are quite a few culprits queuing up in front of the Germans.
                                       The book is detailed and complex.  There is much more here than Sarajevo, the dual alliance, the triple entente, mobilization and war. There are many moving parts and the author keeps coming back to the imperial rivalry between Russia and England.  The Russians had been expanding for centuries; they were pushing in the Far East, where England had allied with Japan, as a counter-balance.  The Great Game threatened English hegemony on the Indian sub-continent; Russia threatened English interests in the Mid-East by pushing into Persia. Most importantly, the Russians wanted Constantinople, an assured passage through the Bosporus and access to the Mediterranean, a threat to the English imperial lifeline, the Suez Canal.                                                    
                                       The decay of the Ottoman Empire is the source of immeasurable tension.  Its slow-motion collapse, which led to the creation of  Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia in the 19th century,  is the reason for the first two Balkan Wars, wherein the above four countries fight the Turks and then everyone turns on Bulgaria, because they won too much territory.  Toss in the Italians invading Libya, the creation of Albania, Serb ambitions for all of Serbdom and Montenegrin nationalism and you have an incendiary mess in and around the Balkans.  Why anyone would fight for these craggy mountainous hellholes is beyond me. As Bismarck said "they weren't worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier".
                                       Serbia comes off as a backward, impoverished, ignorant, violent country of thugs with a chip on its shoulder and ambitions well above its skill level.  There is a great deal of material on how and why the Russians back their "little brothers", as they were wont to tab their fellow Slav coreligionists. It is a policy rather than a strategy and one that makes no sense to the author. The Serbian government knew about the plans of the Black Hand and the Russians had actually contributed funding.  The assassinations on  June 28th created righteous indignation in Vienna.  The Serbs were happy about what happened and did nothing to appease Austrian concerns or help investigate the murders. The Russians took the position that the Serbs had nothing to do with it and viewed it as an internal Austrian matter.  The Austrians wished for a punitive war, but were incapable of quickly launching one and were waiting for some sort of approval from Berlin.
                                      The Treaty system was not as black and white as it is perhaps often presented. Indeed the so called Triple-Entente was scheduled to lapse the following year. Britain had a tremendous amount of flexibility in its accord to aid France and had no direct obligation to Russia. The Brits had actually been exploring options with the Germans. Germany and Austria did not have a coordinated policy either before the assassinations  or in July. No one expected that the events at Sarajevo would trigger a continental war. A month later, Serbia rejected the Austrian ultimatum because the Tsar and his ministers told them to. The French President, an ardent Germanophobe, who happened to be in St. Petersburg, signaled his assent to war. Russia wanted a go at Austria, felt confident and started a partial mobilization on July 25. On the 28th, Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia mobilized on the 30th, a day late, because Nicky got cold feet after a telegram from Willy. Germany declared war on the 1st, but Wilhelm held his troops at the border, while he tried to get in touch with George V. The British Cabinet only had a minority ready to vote to fight, but somehow the desire to tether themselves to the Russians, contain Germany and defer the implementation of recently approved Irish Home Rule led to an August 4th declaration.  What a mess!

Watching the Dark, Robinson - B+

                                         This is the latest in the series about DCI Alan Banks, set in the fictional town of Eastvale in Yorkshire, in the English midlands.  I suspect I've read most, if not all, of the books and must confess that he is my favorite English detective.  Banks is 62 at this stage and, as Robinson has aged him as the books have progressed since 1987, one must assume that retirement cannot be too far off. I believe that what I like most about him is that he is a decent guy, is very, very good at what he does, generates loyalty amongst his troops by simply being forthright and honest with them, and usually doesn't get along with his immediate superior, who always seems to be more interested in statistics than good policing.
                                         This story involves three homicides and opens with a cop being shot with an iron bolt from a crossbow.  Banks is very good with popular culture, particularly music, but this time shows his facility with  film. Someone asks about a crossbow death in one of the Bond movies and he immediately supplies the answer - 'For Your eyes Only'.  An Estonian journalist is next and Banks concludes the tie-in is a missing persons case that he worked on six years ago and travelled to Tallinn to investigate.  Banks is correct and while he in in Tallinn wrapping up most of the issues, his deputy at home, Annie Cabbot, solves the rest of the case.
                                         The main thing that makes a series like this work is the lead character; his idiosyncrasies, methods, inadequacies, but mostly his charm.  The other part is the author's ability to paint a  picture of what's going on in a particular place and time.  This one is filled with all sorts of information about cross-border migration in the EU.

The Idea Factory, Gertner - B--

                                         Perhaps the fault lies somewhere between my indifference to science and the author's presentation. But somehow, this story of Bell Labs, the most formidable commingling of science and business in the 20th century, is flat-out boring. That is not easy to do considering that the men of Bell Labs invented the vacuum tube, the transistor (from early germanium to silicon wafers), Unix computer language, Telstar (the first US communications satellite), binary digitization of information, as well as wireless and cellular telephony.  They were co-pioneers in the development of radar, sonar and lasers; huge contributors to national defense and along the way designed and built a national, smoothly functioning phone system that itself was filled with technological marvels. However, like all good things, Bell Labs pretty much fell apart when it lost its mission, upon the break-up of the phone company.

Epitaph For A Spy, Ambler - B

                                          I read this because it was one of the three classics mentioned in the NY Times review of 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'.  It was penned in 1937.  The story is about a stateless language teacher, who lives in Paris and is hoping to become a French citizen.  While on vacation near Toulon, he is ensnared in a devilish plot, wherein he is accused of spying and photographing French shore defenses.  He is innocent, but somehow the real spy and he wound up inadvertently with each other's camera.  The French police require him to help and most of the story is about the various guests from around Europe at the small hotel on the beach.  As it precedes the horror of WWII, the complexities of the Cold War and the significant advances in technology that we are so accustomed to, Epitaph seems almost like a young adult version of a spy thriller.

Natasha's Dance, Figes - B

                                         Thanks to Greg Weiss for this recommendation of a fine book subtitled  'A Cultural History Of Russia'. The dance in the title is from a scene in 'War and Peace' when the aristocratic Natasha joins in a folk dance even though she has never seen the dance or heard  the music.  As a Russian, it came to her instinctively because of all Russians' inherent connection to their folklore and people.. The author points out that because there has been no free press or unobserved political discussion, it is in the area of the arts that Russians held up a mirror to their political, philosophical and religious discussions.
                                         There lies within the Russian cultural framework a conflict that, as an occasional student of Russian (particularly 20th century) history, I was unaware of.  It is the clash between the western-oriented residents of St. Petersburg and the less cosmopolitan people of Moscow.  Peter the Great disliked Moscow, a city that after centuries of Mongol occupation had turned inward-looking.  The construction of 'Peter' and its establishment as the nation's capital created a great schism in Russia. Doestoevsky said "We Russians have two fatherlands: Russia and Europe".  This dichotomy continues to this day.
                                         Most of the book deals with the nineteenth century, for it was the French invasion of 1812 that was the watershed event.  The aristocrats spoke and wrote in French, but the war led to a rejection and, in turn, a liberation from French intellectual leadership. After slogging through that war with their soldiers, many of the aristocrats were disillusioned with Alexander I's reversion to reactionary politics, leading to the Decembrist revolt in 1825.  Tolstoy's favorite uncle was one of those banished to Siberia for participating in the uprising.
                                        In the 20th century, we have the blight upon the land that was Bolshevism. Three million people fled in the decade after 1917 to all the corners of the earth, but primarily to Berlin, Paris and New York. Among those who took their extraordinary talents elsewhere were Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Nabakov, Gorky, Chagall, Diaghilev and Balanchine.  For those who stayed the literary prizes went to 'Cement" and 'How The Steel Was Tempered', while Pasternak, Grossman and Solzhinetsyn had to have their works published overseas.

Suspect, Crais - B-

                                         Robert Crais is a great mystery/police procedural writer and a fabulous storyteller.  His novels, which often involve a private detective named Elvis Cole, paint a vivid picture of the criminal world of Los Angeles that is frightening.   This book is a bit off his beaten path and involves a cop who was badly shot up teaming with a German shepherd that was equally battered in Afghanistan.  They become a "pack" and solve the mystery behind the attack on the policeman a year earlier.

The Looking Glass War, LeCarre - B

                                         In the early nineties, almost thirty years after this book was published, the author penned an introduction to a new edition.  In it, he explains the role of this book as the follow up to Spy.  Spy was "a fan letter" to the British security establishment and as a veteran of that Service, he knew it had over embellished the skills of both the British and the Germans.  This book "would be a deliberate reversal, if not an actual parody, of  The Spy".  He totally succeeds.
                                        Here, a security agency (never clearly identified, but certainly not the Circus) attempts to uncover information about Soviet missiles in the north of E. Germany.  Their first agent is killed.  Their second effort is absolutely, depressingly, appallingly third rate. Lacking funds, personnel, transport and the support of their unhappy wives, the men behind this operation scrounge up government backing and delude themselves into thinking they know what they are doing.  They are so incompetent that they recruit a naturalized Pole who botched his only WWII mission as their agent.   In borrowed training facilities, they prep him to go behind the Iron Curtain.  He unnecessarily kills a border guard, asks inappropriate questions all over town and has the slowest imaginable 'hand' on the telegraph equipment he carries with him.  Every one in E. Germany is looking for him within days of his infiltration. Smiley shows up and pulls his handlers from their hideout on the western side of the border and leaves the poor Pole to his own devices. LeCarre observed in the aforementioned introduction that the British public hated the book.
                                       

The Beautiful Mystery, Penny - B

                                         This is the eighth book in the very good Inspector Armand Gamache series.  He is Chief Inspector, Homicide, Surete du Quebec Province.  Gamache is a likable, complex, thoughtful man, devoted to his family and his team  and revered throughout the department, the city of Montreal and indeed the entire province.  The biggest problem in his life is his boss, with whom he shares a total mutual dislike.
                                        His writ runs far and wide and, so far, none of the novels have been placed in Montreal.  They are all out in the country and the settings often provide some interesting and fabulous learning experiences.  Here the scene of the crime is a four hundred year old monastery far out in the Canadian woods.  There are but twenty-four apparently devout men at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, but one is now dead and one a killer.  The fascinating background story is that the monks have recently become world-famous because of a release of a cd showcasing their extraordinary skills performing Gregorian chants.  A reader of this novel will learn all they need to know about chants and the neumes that guide the singers. And to top things off, there is even a visitor from Rome - from the modern day Office of the Inquisition.

Afrika Reich, Saville - C

                                         As I read this klunker , I kept wondering how it wound up on my to-do list.   The setting for this "thriller" is Africa in 1952.  As the British were not able to evacuate Dunkirk,  Lord Halifax as Prime Minister made peace with Germany.  The Germans took over most of western Africa and this story is about an attempt on the life of the SS ruler of the Kongo.  Sadly, it's apparently round one of a trilogy.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, LeCarre - A*

                                         A little over a year ago, when the movie 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' was released, I decided to revisit the Smiley books and the two brilliant BBC miniseries. I rated both 'Tinker, Tailor' and 'Smiley's People' as A's and then thoroughly enjoyed Alec Guinness as George Smiley.  The productions are over thirty years old, show a very dated UK and for my money are two of the best shows ever on tv.  I also took a peak  at Kindle and pre-ordered two early Smiley books. They were not available last summer and just downloaded this week.  When I was about to start, I noticed that they referred to 'Spy' as a Smiley novel. Shame on Penguin and Kindle because George plays a very small role in 'Spy'. That said, I'm glad I read it again.
                                       The original 1964 NY Times review is fulsome in its praise and quotes Graham Greene, who referred to it as "the best spy story I have ever read".  I am not sure of the state of the spy novel genre fifty years ago.  Even then, I knew the Bond novels were a spoof.  I've since read Greene's 'Our Man In Havana', which is a bit of a satire. (Incidentally, the 'Our Man' movie stars Guiness). The review mentions a few others that were the benchmark at the time and refers to 'Spy' as being "a light year removed" from its competition.
                                      It was the first book awarded both the British Gold Dagger Award and the American Edgar Award.  The Brits like it so much that they gave it the Dagger of Daggers Award in 2005, a one-time award given to the Golden Dagger winner regarded as the standout among all fifty winners over the history of the Crime Writers Association. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the movie received many BAFTA awards and that Richard Burton's performance as Alec Leamas was nominated for an Oscar.
                                    Like so many of LeCarre's cold war masterpieces, this novel involves multi-dimensional chess on both sides of the Iron Curtain.  Leamas is out of the Service, on the road to personal and financial ruin, because the E. German spymaster, Karl Mundt, has rolled up his Berlin network.  It's all a contrivance to tempt the E. Germans to 'turn' him, so that he can fill their minds with doubt about Mundt. At Mundt's trial, Leamas realizes that he's been played, because the real intent of the operation is to get Mundt's subordinate because Karl Mundt is really London's man.  I suspect that it was such a success fifty years ago because it opened a window on the brutal complexity of cold war spying.  It's still great because of the author's narrative skill, and I love the fact that back then it could all be done in 250 pages.  It's a reminder of why so many people wondered what LeCarre and others would write about when the Wall came down in 1989.

Proof of Guilt, Todd - C

                                         This is the fifteenth book in the superb Inspector Ian Rutledge series that is now seventeen years old.   Rutledge is a veteran of four years of trench warfare, a very scarred and troubled survivor who has struggled since returning to Scotland Yard.  He solves his cases, but endlessly deals with the consequences of the Great War. He can identify veterans a mile away. Thunderstorms unnerve him. His claustrophobia keeps him off trains, making him one of the early regular drivers of an automobile. Most of all, he is tortured by the memory of his Scot sergeant, Hamish, who refused his order to go over the top.  Rutledge knew his order was absurd, but had Hamish executed for his refusal. The authors (it is actually a mother/son team) know their history, as the British executed seven times as many of their front-line line soldiers as the Boche did. Hamish is his conscience/troubled soul/second guesser, with whom he carries on endless silent conversations and the most fascinating literary contrivance I have ever experienced.
                                       The books usually excel on three levels: a sense of time and place, Hamish's conversations and the mystery Rutledge solves.  Here, there is little feel for London and its environs in the fall of 1920 and Hamish has been significantly played down. The plot, which involves a missing wine importer and his partner, meanders from one confusing place to another.  I sincerely hope the authors had a bad day and that they haven't run out of creative steam.

Six Months In 1945, Dobbs - A*

                                         WWI was easily followed by WWII, but in no way was it certain or inevitable.  Magnanimous policies by the victors, fewer reparations, a different Weimar constitution, a less devastating depression or any number of wiser decisions could have avoided the "Austrian corporal" and his march to war.  But according to this author, in a book sub-titled 'FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - From World War To Cold War', the falling out between the Allies was as inevitable as night following day.  The Anglo-Americans and the Soviets might as well have been a different species, for all they had in common.  They did not understand each other's history, perspective, goals, political systems - all they had in common was Nazi Germany and by early May, the Reich was gone. Hitler himself predicted the alliance would not last, and that each side would covet the Germans.
                                         At Yalta, a dying FDR thought he could charm a man who viewed Ivan the Terrible as his role model.  FDR wanted the Soviets to agree to the UN and declare war against Japan.  It was thought that the Soviets were needed to help conquer the home islands. Stalin wanted peace and a chance to rebuild his country, and never contemplated that anyone would argue with the centuries-old European tradition that the ruler (or occupier) of a country determined its policies. If the self-determination provisions of the Atlantic Charter had exceptions carved out for the Empire and the Monroe Doctrine, why were  they questioning his plans for eastern Europe? At Tehran, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to move the Soviet's borders into what was Poland and to move Poland into Germany.  In exchange, they were promised "democratic institutions" and "free elections".  To the Soviets, a democratic institution was one free of fascists. A fascist was anyone opposed to communism and elections were always "fixable".
                                        By VE day, those few who understood the Soviets knew trouble was brewing. Kennan said, "They [Washington] think the war is ending, but it is beginning" and Harriman told Truman, "we are faced with a Barbarian invasion of Europe."  A month after VE Day, the Soviets let the US and Britain into their respective sectors of Berlin. The Westerners were shocked by the looting and shipment of everything movable to the east and were told by Zhukov that there was no food or coal.  By the time Churchill and Truman arrived, the lines were being drawn; some were already using the phrase "iron curtain" and the Americans and Brits were seeing what went on behind it in Berlin. Knowing he was about to have an atomic bomb, Truman rejected any claims for reparations from the Western sectors and told Stalin we would not recognize his governments in Finland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
                                      By the time of Hiroshima, the Allies had fallen out. Stalin had to preserve his territorial gains in order to protect the Homeland from a future invasion.  Truman had to fight for free speech, markets, and peoples as the US had now intervened in two wars in order to make the world safe for democracy. No one particularly wanted to head into a series of confrontations.  But there simply was no way to compromise such disparate strategies. Although the British were reduced to observers by Potsdam, Churchill had not lost any of his verbal skills. Atlee was there as an observer, in case Labor carried the election.  One day Sir Winston looked at him and muttered, "a sheep in sheep's clothing." Somehow, Churchill always carries the day.

The Absent One, Adler-Olson - C

                                         This is a disappointing follow-up to last month's debut novel.  It's flat, lacking in wit, and not much fun.  The plot is about a boarding school coven of vicious youths, who wreaked mayhem and murder around Copenhagen.  Twenty years later, Dept. Q unearths their deeds and brings them to justice.

Ghostman, Hobbs - B

This is a debut novel by a young writer, and one getting a lot of attention.   The novel is simultaneously being published in fourteen languages.  I guess the genre might be modern mayhem.  A Ghostman is someone who disappears, lives off the grid, can help others disappear, and, in this instance, is a tech wizard very good with his hands and a gun.  The Ghost owes a favor to a man who sets up crimes, a jugmarker.  He cleans up a bad heist in Atlantic City, frames the jugmarker's arch-antagonist, befriends a female FBI agent and motors away in a boat he bought with his pay for the deal.  I suspect we'll see him again.

Citizens of London, Olson - B

                                         Thanks to Wendell Erwin for recommending this fine book.  The sub-title is 'The Americans Who Stood With Britain In Its Darkest, Finest Hour'.   It's focus is the Alliance, with special attention to three men who stood by Britain in 1941: Averill Harriman, Edward R. Murrow and John Gilbert Winant.  These very different men were ardent Anglophiles who were in London in 1941 and did all they could to help the British carry on in the extremely trying times between Dunkirk and Pearl Harbor.   While the British suffered through the Blitz, they called for the US to come to the aid of the UK.
                                         Murrow is probably the most famous of the trio.  I believe the only phrase in broadcast journalism  more famous than "This is London" would be Cronkite's sign off a generation later in a much larger medium.   Murrow led the CBS team that "rounded up" the news on radio broadcasts back to the States.  He used BBC facilities in London to tell America about the Nazi slow-motion take over of Europe and to paint a picture of London and Londoners besieged by the Blitz. He was the most famous American in Britain, and as such, was romanced by Churchill, who invited him to Chequers regularly.  He agreed with the British who were appalled by America's failure to join them in the fight against the Nazis. He was back in the States on a speaking tour on behalf of the UK when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
                                        Harriman was in England for about half a year and was with Churchill the night they found out about the Japanese attack.  Churchill knew that once America was in,  victory was inevitable.   Harriman had been sent to London by FDR with an open-ended brief to initiate and supervise Lend-Lease.  He spent most of his time interfering with the activities of the US Embassy and starting his affair with Pamela Churchill, the PM's daughter-in-law.
                                       The hero of this book is Gil Winant, the man who succeeded the despised Joe Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James.  The former Republican governor of New Hampshire was so important to the British that he did not have to present his credentials to the King. George VI actually came to the train station to meet Winant.  The quiet hard-working Winant was completely beloved by the British.  In addition to handling all the duties of his office, he wandered the streets of London talking to the men and women surviving the Blitz.  They regarded him so highly that in 1943 when the coal miners started an illegal strike, he intervened on behalf of His Majesty's government and convinced the men to go back to work.  He and Eisenhower worked hand in hand keeping the peace among the Allies, whose endless personality conflicts threatened their efforts to win the war.  When FDR died, he was planning to appoint him as the UN's first Secretary General.  In 1946, with the war over and his five year affair with Churchill's oldest daughter Sarah falling apart, he returned to the US.  He was so esteemed that he was the only speaker at the Joint Session of Congress honoring FDR.  Nonetheless, he soon committed suicide and has been pretty much forgotten.
                                       Murrow too came back to the States and fame on CBS in the '50's.  He never was comfortable in all of New York's post-war splendor and excess. He had a falling out with Bill Paley and worked for the  U. S. Information Agency in the Kennedy administration.  Harriman, who had hoped to shed his playboy businessman reputation, was the most successful of the three.  Ambassador to the USSR and Great Britain, Governor of New York and one of the 'Wise Men' during a very long career and life, he married Pamela when he was 80.

The Wizard of Lies, Henriques - B

                                          Thanks to Marcella for recommending this fascinating book.   It tells the story of Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, how he pulled it off, the devastating consequences for him, his family and investors and tries to come to some conclusions about it.
                                          Madoff was very bright and, almost to the end, ran a concurrent successful brokerage business from the same set of offices he ran the Ponzi scheme.  He was a pioneer of consolidating and computerizing the NASDAQ. He was respected on Wall Street and should have been able to be content with his success. He got sloppy with the money he "ran" and lapsed into deceit and fraud  to cover the losses.  The attractiveness of his fabricated returns appealed to  investors, large and small, American and foreign, sophisticated and un.  No one ever checked very hard or due-diligenced anything.  They simply trusted Bernie.  The SEC failed  when it followed up on a number of tips and didn't uncover the scheme when they clearly could have by asking a few simple questions.  Then again, this was the era when the markets were suppose to be self-regulating, when the SEC's budget was being cut, it's staff run off, and it's Commissioner who didn't believe in government.  Things finally fell apart for Madoff in the 2008 market turmoil.
                                        The one hero of this story is Irving Picard, the lawyer and bankruptcy trustee, who tried to unearth what had been done and collect back as much money as he could.  He took the position (a logical one upheld by the Courts) that in a Ponzi scheme, where no stocks or investments were actually purchased, that the measure is cash in/cash out, not the fabricated profits on phony account statements. It's amazing how many argued the other way, litigated it, and begged for relief from the government.  Although the matters are in litigation and will be for years, it appears as if Picard will get people a lot more of their money back than anyone expected.
                                        I do not agree with the author's conclusion that the government should protect people from their inability to make investment decisions. She says people are too gullible and put their money in places based on trust.  Even if you regulate hedge funds, crack down on derivatives and properly fund the regulatory bodies, you can't eliminate greed, naivete or change human nature.

The Twelve, Cronin - C

As I struggled through this book, I kept wondering if it was just another middle book of a trilogy that didn't advance the story, or if I had been badly mistaken last month.  As the book came to what I hoped was a long- delayed but hopefully gangbuster finale, I checked the Times review of last fall. The well-respected Janet Maslin referred to it as "strictly a gap filler" before she said that the author "loves, blurry indecisive states of confusion".  "The Twelve is pure Soggy Middle, the Book that never Gets Anywhere with the Story of the Girl From Nowhere,  a Half-Dead Tale of the Undead".  Wow.  Thus, the finale, which apparently turned Amy into a full blown viral, yet apparently killed off all the "bad" virals and left me wondering who was going to be fighting whom in the third book, shouldn't have surprised me at all. The story clearly wasn't advanced. Indeed, I have no idea where we are. I'm just happy it will likely be a year or two before I feel compelled to tackle the finale.

1356, Cornwell - B

                                          I have probably read thirty of Bernard Cornwell's historical adventure novels.  I believe much can be learned (while having a light, enjoyable time) about Wellington's campaign in Spain by reading the  Richard Sharpe books.  This novel is the fourth in the Grail Quest series featuring Sir Thomas Hookton.    

                                         The book is centered around the Battle of Poiters in 1356, where an outnumbered English army, led by Edward, the Black Prince, prevailed over a larger French army.  The English captured the French King, Jean, and the Dauphin. ( Compelling your enemy to pay ransom was a key strategy in the 100 Years War.)  Cornwell has already treated Crecy, an English victory that preceded this one, and Agincourt, which came later.

                                         The English success in all three is credited by Cornwell to the ability of the English archers to consistently stop the French. The English longbow was as tall as a man, made of yew and other woods that only the English could build into a bow, and was shot by very strong men.  The countryside supported their men by making arrows with different types of tips and exclusively using goose feathers to insure an accurate flight.  Deadly up to 200 paces ( I assume about 150 yards), they were the breakthrough technology of their day.

The Iron Curtain, Applebaum - B

                                         For as long as I can remember, I've been appalled by the sheer illogic and utter stupidity of communism.  And, the Soviet's barbaric treatment of their own and foreign peoples rivals the worst in the world's history. Thus, a few years ago, I vowed to never read a history book about or a novel set in the bestial, vulgar world of Josef Stalin.  But, it'd hard to read about the 20th century without coming back to the Bolshies.  Anne Applebaum won a Pulitzer for her book on the Gulag, thus making this required reading for me.
                                         The sub-title of this book is "The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1945 - 1954" and it opens with one of the most famous quotes of the century; "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent"- Sir Winston Churchill.  "False Dawn" is the first half of the book and covers the years up to 1948, when Stalin kind of tried to not show his hand.  He mouthed compliance with the Yalta Agreements about "free and unfettered elections".  But the fact remained that the Red Army was on the ground in Poland, E. Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Yugoslavia.  The Soviets took over all police and security powers immediately.  Death, deportation, or imprisonment followed for anyone who showed fascist tendencies,  To be educated,wealthy, intelligent, a nationalist, or opposed to communism was to be "fascist".  All civic organizations eventually fell under a communist umbrella.  Radio stations and the press were compromised. Land was disbursed, trade was prohibited, and industry nationalized.  The  communists believed that after the wartime failure of the capitalist states, they would prevail in elections.  Rudely awakened in elections everywhere, falsification and brutality overtook the democratic process.
                                       Part Two is called "High Stalinism" and it portrays the institutionalization of the Soviet system in "all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe".  Politically, there was no longer any opposition. Opponents were either gone, in jail, or dead. The Czechs went to Paris to sign up for the Marshall Plan. Stalin called and told them to leave immediately.   Knowing the people disliked them, the communists pushed harder, dismantled the churches pretty much everywhere except Poland, conducted show trials modelled on Stalin's in the late '30's and controlled all aspects of life.  Particular emphasis was placed on indoctrinating the young.  The people pushed back and rioted in Berlin and revolted in Budapest.  The Red Army and its tanks crushed these last post-war attempts to throw off the yoke of Soviet communism.
                                     The Czechs failed in 1968 and the Poles in 1981.  But we knew  that with the creation of the Solidarity movement in Poland, something very dramatic had taken place. The workers had had enough of the workers' paradise.  Thankfully, it all ended in Europe in 1989.

Back To Blood, Wolfe - B

                                         Tom Wolfe is a great writer and because he wrote one of the handful of books I've ever reread -'The Right Stuff'- my expectations were probably too high for this book.  It is kind of interesting and ok, but certainly not great. I often wonder what skills can be maintained at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, for someone  in their eighties.  Also, he appears to have become obsessed with sex. I believe his last two outings, 'Hooking Up' and 'I am Charlotte Simmons' are about, well, hooking up. Why else would you have hundreds of phrases like this; "her perfectly formed, perfectly suntanned legs looking a lubricious mile long atop a pair of white crocodile pumps whose to-the max heels lifted her heavenly while Venus moaned and sighed" throughout the   book.
                                        In order to satirize any city, society, culture, it helps to have characters who are out- sized and over-the-top and that is what we have here.  For a pumped-up Cuban cop - Nestor Camacho;  for a Cubana cutie on the make - Magdalena Otero; for a psychotic psychiatrist -  Norman Lewis; for his debauched billionaire pervert patient- Maurice Fleischmann; for a WASP Yalie editor - Edward T. Topping IV; for a spineless politician - Mayor Dionisio Cruz; for a Russian oligarch - Sergei Korolyov, and-my favorite for the hard-ass African-American police chief - Cyrus Booker.
                                       The city is, of course, Miami, presented here as definitely not-part-of-America.  The Cubans are portrayed as a people temporarily and inconveniently here because they can't be in Havana.  The Russians appreciate the freedom, the opulence and good-times, but loathe the country that provides them.  All in all, notwithstanding the criticisms, if you have the time, there are quite a few laughs here.

The Keeper of Lost Causes, Adler-Olsen - B+

                                         This is the first book of a series.  I've downloaded the second and the third is coming in May.  And it's going to be a big winner.  Thanks to Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo and the late Stieg Larrsen, if it's set in Scandanavia, it gets translated and I for one am very thankful.
                                         The Copenhagen PD is so frustrated with Carl Morck that they jump at the opportunity to utilize the wizened detective as a pawn in a political power play.  The national legislature wants to set aside some funding for cold cases of a public nature and the PD is happy to take the money and set up Carl as the Superintendent of Dept. Q.  He's given an office in the basement with a Syrian janitor as his only help and the Homicide Dept. can use the extra money to fund ongoing cases.
                                          With the perfect mix of cynicism and wit, Carl picks a five-year-old case and starts delving.  Merete Lynggaard was a rising politician when she disappeared from a Baltic ferry and the face of the earth.  She had been orphaned when her dad accidentally ran another car off an icy winter road.  A boy in the other car plots his family's revenge and fifteen years after the accident, kidnaps Merete.  She was an assumed suicide and the police inquiry was sloppy.  As Carl and Assad inquire, research, pursue and eventually solve the matter, it is clear that Assad is more than a political refugee janitor. He has some very obvious police and military skills.  I suspect there will be some very interesting inter-play between Carl and Assad as we go forth.
                                          I generally prefer novels that give you a sense of a place. This fails entirely in that regard. The other Scandanavians mentioned above are very good at that:  Mankell - Ystad; Nesbo - Oslo; and Larrsen - Stockholm make it feel as if you are walking down their chilly streets. This book offers zero feel for Copenhagen, but has a helluva story to tell.

The Dead Season, Kent - C+

                                         This book is apparently the fourth in a police procedural series set in Florence.  Sandro Cellini is now retired and working as a private investigator.  A very pregnant young woman looking for her fiance sets up the story, which is focused around the characters in the local branch of a city-wide bank.  As it turns out, her fiance is using the name of the branch manager, who happens to have been killed by one of his colleagues. A policeman, a spouse, a city - it all adds up to a contrast to the Venetian series written by Donna Leon. I kept pining for Guido Brunetti and any of the twenty plus books he's featured in.

The Oath, Toobin - B

                                         This book is Jeffrey Toobin's delightful follow-up to his previous title 'The Nine', about the Supreme Court during the Bush years.  'The Oath' of course refers  to the botched swearing-in of President Obama in 2009.  Toobin is CNN's Legal Correspondent, a fine writer and, like just about everyone else here, a Harvard Law grad.  He's also a bit of a wit, as he calls his chapter on the 2nd Amendment, 'Lawyers, Guns and Money' and at least in the Kindle version makes no reference to the songwriter Warren Zevon.
                                        He provides some very good background on Obama's two nominations, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.  But the gist of the story is the continual Republican attack on stare decisis, the practice in the common law whereby precedents are followed.  The attack is part of the legacy of the Reagan era and has been carried out by Messrs. Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts.  As the Chief Justice, the universally-agreed- to-be-brilliant John Roberts exerts tremendous influence and, by virtue of his age, he is expected to do so for decades more.
                                        For me, the most fascinating part of the book is the section on the rights recently bestowed on gun owners.  For nearly two hundred years, just about everyone understood that the term "well-regulated militia" in the 2nd Amendment limited the private use of weapons.  Indeed, the Republican platform as recently as 1972 had a plank on gun control.   The libertarians in the 80's successfully turned the debate completely around and achieved their high point when Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion striking down the DC gun control law. The high priest of original interpretation and opponent of an activist judiciary pretty much made it up as he went  along.
                                      Although Toobin doesn't address the future, it is somewhat consoling to know that Obama probably will have three more opportunities to nominate new Justices.

Nanjing Requiem, Jin - B

                                         Ha Jin was born in China, is a professor of English at Boston University and is the recipient of numerous awards.  This fine book could best be desribed as the novel as narrative history. He pretty much spends three-quarters of the book telling the story of the Rape of Nanjing by the Japanese Army in 1937.
                                         The story is compelling and, as I am one of those who abhor Japan's refusal to acknowledge their war crimes, it is a story that needs to be told over and over again.  The story has been well-told before, particularly by Iris Chang in 1997 in her book 'The Rape of Nanking".  Chang was a journalist and an historian and her book was fabulous. Her call for the Japanese to acknowledge and apologize caused a public stir, led to the US Congress considering a resolution on the topic and got her a meeting with First Lady Hillary Clinton.  Chang was researching a book on the Bataan Death March when her depression overwhelmed her and she committed suicide in her late 30's.
                                          Jin uses the diary of Minnie Vautrin, the President of Ginling College, as his primary source material.  Ginling was an American missionary college and Vautrin was honored by the Chinese government for her heroic efforts that saved thousands of lives.
                                          As we know, the past isn't even past, and Nanking remains a major issue between the China and Japan to this day.  Both countries have stated a willingness to fight over some barren islands midway between them, and the Japanese have recently elected a Prime Minister who wants to withdraw the half-apology for Japanese conduct during WW2 issued by a predecessor and appropriately honor all of their war dead, including the criminals behind Nanking.

East of Eden, Steinbeck- B+

                                         Thank you, Lauren, for this gift of literature on my birthday. I look forward to many more.  For me the distinction between  fiction and literature is the author's ability to wordsmith. The classics' authors that I think highly of, write in such a way that I marvel at their words. And here Steinbeck is in the same league as Dickens and Hemingway. The places are seeable and the characters so well-defined.  Since I much prefer the great storytellers, like Michener, Uris or LeCarre, when I come across classic writing, I slow down to take it in. After all, finding out what happens is not the point.
                                         Now as to what happens, that gets complicated for me because I do not see to the depth of the scholars or even students of the tale.   In the last paragraph of Chapter 34, Steinbeck says:  "We have only one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue is immortal. Vice has a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world."
                                         Although this novel spends a great deal of time on the story of the Hamiltons, all the complexity and the main story is that of the Trasks. Adam and Charles have a tortured relationship with their father,  Cyrus, a mean lying cheat.  Cyrus' stolen fortune, however, allows both, particulary Adam,  to make his life choices.  His most fateful  choice is to love Cathy, a woman so depraved (certainly by mid-century American standards) that she shoots her husband, walks out on her twin sons and turns to running a house of ill-repute as her vocation.  Both sons love Adam, but the tension between Adam and Cal is a constant strain. Whereas, Aron can do no wrong. Cal tells Aron of their mother's circumstance, driving Aron to a move of despertion, enlistment in the Army. His death causes Adam's stroke, leaving Cal devastated by the consequences to his family of his actions. His father forgives him.
                                      So ends what the introduction calls "Steinbeck's other big book."  Grapes of Wrath was rejected by mainstream America because it was an indictment of the system.  This was rejected because of Cathy's brazen sexuality.  Both stand as masterpieces.
                                     

The Passage, Cronin-B

                                         I missed this when it came out in 2010 and I'm sure I know why. I generally don't download 785 page books peopled by night creature "virals" who thirst for blood.  Something I perused about the sequel 'The Twelve' caught my eye, so I downloaded both and now probably have to finish the trilogy.  Justin Cronin is on  Rice University's faculty and is the author of two previous novels categorized as literary.
                                         This complex story starts with an Army science project to create warriors invulnerable to pain, weariness, hunger with super-human fighting skills, by injecting them with a mysterious jungle vaccine. The early iterations of the vaccine do more harm than good. The first twelve subjects are nasty men removed from death row. They are caged in an underground facility near Telluride, Colorado. The perfected vaccine is then successfully used on a six year old girl, upon whom is bestowed great wisdom and extraordinary physical gifts.  The world goes to hell in a hand basket when the virals break out and kill most Americans,  destroying the country and creating a dystopian waste land.  
                                        A hundred years later, Amy, who has physically aged only about fifteen years, walks into a small colony of humans in a fortress in Southern California. She and a handful of the younger humans travel to Colorado to try and learn something about what has happened and perhaps, how to battle the virals.  They meet up with members of the Texas Army and a portion of the group go to Texas, where a thriving human colony has survived.  Also, they manage to kill one of the original twelve virals, and without him, his millions of blood successors cannot live. Amy and the rest of the group return to the colony in Southern California, only to find it destroyed. The power had run out and the virals broke in. They vow to fight on.

The Crowded Grave, Walker-B

All of the books in this delightful series are subtitled "A Mystery of the French Countryside". The police procedurals are set in the mythical town of St. Denis and feature the town's Chief of Police Bruno Courreges.  The pleasure is not the plots, but rather where this series takes you and what it teaches. The Dordogne Valley has been inhabited for 30,000 years because of its mild climate and bountiful countryside. Thus, we learn all about the wine, the truffles, the pate, the cooking and eating habits of the inhabitants.  The back-stories of the locals lead to interesting diversions on the differences among the Resistance fighters, with particular emphasis on the Communists.  In this one, the story involves a Basque attempt to attack a Spanish-French conference set in St. Denis. As usual, the diversely talented Bruno shows off his many political, personal and police skills.

The Eagle Unbowed, Kochanski - B

                          The subtitle of this 591-page book is  "Poland and the Poles in the Second World War".  The author is a British Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the daughter of Polish parents who were granted U.K.  citizenship for fighting with the Allies.  As Polish hopes were collapsing in the spring of 1945, one of Churchill's last acts was to recommend citizenship for the many who had taken up arms.
                          Neither Germany nor Russia accepted the Polish state resurrected, after over a century, by the Versailles decision makers in 1919.  The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression signed in August 1939 secretly set the border for the division of Poland.  What the Poles called the Fourth Partition was implemented within two weeks of the start of war.  You couldn't find two worse occupiers if you tried. The Nazis considered the Poles 'untermenschen' fit only for hard labor and starvation. They immediately began the liquidation of elites and since they considered people who had attended high school elite, they went after everyone who contributed to the fabric of the society.  Stalin's hatred and fear of foreigners led to similar actions highlighted by the atrocity of Katyn. Those Poles who the Reds didn't kill were transported to the East, primarily Kazakhstan.  After Germany invaded Russia, many of the Kazak Poles were allowed to leave in order to take up arms at the request of Churchill.    
                        The Poles fought with the Americans and Brits in Italy, France and Germany. A handful of Polish pilots served heroically in the Battle of Britain. In Poland, the Nazis exterminated 3 million Polish Jews and as many Christians.  Warsaw was destroyed completely during the Ghetto Uprising in 1942 and the Uprising in 1944. Stalin refused to pay heed to the London Poles, recognized his own puppet government  in Lublin, moved the Polish eastern border far to the west and evidenced his intent to viciously dominate the country by the time the war ended in May 1945. It was his intransigence on issues of Polish governance that were the first indications that we were headed to Cold War. The Poles wondered how they became the only Allied country to be occupied at the end of the war. It only got worse as freedom would wait another forty-four years.