Natchez Burning, Iles - B

                                               I've read quite a few books by Greg Iles, most set in and around Natchez, Miss. and all very good. The books are legal/criminal thrillers with a tremendous amount of detail about race relations in the deep south. Iles is a southerner and I think I've learned that only a southerner could depict the concurrent closeness and distance between blacks and whites in a place like Mississippi.  Interracial friendship and love go hand in hand with visceral hatred and violence, in a way that can only happen because so much of life is shared in the south, as opposed to the north where segregation is the norm.  In this novel, which I believe is the fifth in the series and the first of a trilogy involving crusading young lawyer, now Mayor, Penn Warren is confronted by his local DA with the fact that his father, local medical legend, may have facilitated the death of his former nurse. Viola Turner had worked for Dr. Tom Cage forty years earlier when they had been lovers and she fled north after the locals killed her civil rights activist brother and gang-raped her. She had come home to die and Tom had been ministering to her.  Swirling around the death of Viola is the investigation of the historic and on-going activities of the local KKK spin off, the Double Eagles, who're suspected in a dozen deaths.  Clearly, Tom did not kill Viola, although he refuses to discuss anything about their relationship based on the doctor-patient privilege. If the Eagles did, it's not apparent.  So, the DA arrests Tom.  His son Penn, Penn's fiancee newspaper editor, a local journalist, the FBI, the local police, and just about everybody is now engaged in the pursuit of how Viola died and much more importantly, what happened forty years ago and how is it still a secret.  As the noose tightens around the necks of the Double Eagles, their supporters in and around two states  and the statewide corrupt police authorities all lash out with all they have.  They come very close to killing Penn, his dad and his fiancee, Caitlin.  They are saved by two very unlikely heroes. Iles is a great storyteller, with an incredible feel for the deep south and a remarkable ability to write about its nuances and subtleties. That said, this book is way too long at 788 pages. My grade kept deteriorating as it kept going on, and on.  Having read a Grisham novel a week ago, I kept thinking about how efficient a writer he is. This author should try to emulate that approach.

Gray Mountain, Grisham - B

                                                It is hard to believe that this is Grisham's 29th book, 25th if you only want to count the legal thrillers.  He has provided some memorable stories over the last twenty-three years.  This one falls a bit shy of the usual high bar.  A fourth-year associate loses her job in Manhattan as a consequence of the collapse of Lehman Bros. and, notwithstanding degrees from Georgetown and Columbia and a childhood in D.C. as the only child of two lawyers, Samantha Kofer takes a non-paying Legal Aid internship in rural southwestern Virginia two days after being furloughed. Grisham can still write, but this is not just the usual highly complex story, although it is the usual good v. evil drama. What it is is a thorough polemic tearing apart the coal industry for its abuse of the land, total disregard for the law, lack of ethics, domination of the political and legal institutions of the five states that mine coal in the region, and indifference to human suffering. He really goes after them. According to this novel, Big Coal never pays on the black lung cases. They just appeal and appeal until they have to pay, five to seven  years after the initial claim, when in all likelihood, the claimant is either at deaths door or has already crossed over. Black lung is completely untreatable and is depicted as an absolutely horrible way to go. Also, the companies never repair the strip-mined landscape because it's less expensive to not do so and instead, to pay some light fines. If the coal industry is half as bad as depicted here, its owners and mangers should  all be condemned to a life in underground mines.  Samantha and others in the legal community make a difference, take on Big Coal and appear to be on the road to living happily ever after.

Alan Turing: The Enigma, Hodges - B -

                                               I decided to read this thirty-year old-book because it is the basis of the new movie 'The Imitation Game', wherein Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing so extraordinarily well that it piqued my curiosity. This is the definitive biography, perhaps because only a mathematician could write about one of the maths greats of the 20th century. After all, Turing dreamed up a machine that was an early computer. So, the good news is, it is a well-written book. The bad news is there's a lot of math in it. There is also a tremendous amount of detail about the intellectual background of the era, as well as on society's perceptions of homosexuality. Turing was brilliant, socially awkward and a homosexual, thus making his education years ones to be endured. He studied at Kings College, Cambridge, stayed on as a don, spent time at Princeton and in 1937 published 'Computable Numbers',  the conceptual foundation of the Turing Machine.  In 1938 he was one of the first mathematicians to join the team that was working on the German Enigma machine challenge. The day after the war began, he became full-time at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park.  Turing worked in Hut 8 and was in charge of the German naval code section.  There was no epiphany moment, but rather slow, increasing skill at deciphering that led to times of  full access to German signals. As they were part of the Secret Service, their information went directly to the PM and not to the various military branches. Churchill visited in the summer of 1941 and was introduced to Turing. "He used to refer to the Bletchley workers as the goose who laid the golden eggs and never cackled." A few months later, Turing wrote to Churchill and requested a significant increase in personnel and funding.   The PM's response was brief and to the point. He told his staff, "make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done."  By the middle of 1942, 50,000 decrypts per month were providing the British with the upper hand, which they and the Americans used to defeat the Afrika Korps and then win the Battle of the Atlantic. They maintained their advantage because, even when the Germans believed their positions had been exposed, they tended to blame it on Allied spying. They never would entertain that their signals had been intercepted. They had too much faith in Enigma. Alan then switched over to Hanslope to work on radio direction finders and voice encipherment. As the war wound down, Turing knew he could go back to Cambridge, but his horizons had expanded, he wanted to build a machine, a 'brain'.  He went to Manchester and here, once again, the author delves deeply, very deeply into the science and maths behind Turing's work. In early 1952, Alan made the mistake that would cost him his reputation and his life. He reported a petty burglary that had been committed by someone that he had sex with and then acknowledged it all in writing to the police. The naive genius was comfortable with his sexuality,  not at all ashamed, certainly aware that it was illegal to have 'indecent relations', but not that all hell would break loose.  Prosecuted and convicted, he opted for a year of chemical castration, rather than prison. When he came off probation in 1953, the Manchester University Council  voted  him a ten-year specially created Readership in the Theory of Computing.  A year later he took his life. "It seemed an isolated act of self-annihilation."  Turing's seminal role in the war came before the public sparingly in the 70's and then in the 90's a play and a tv movie brought him to wider acclaim. In 2009, PM Gordon Brown apologized for his mistreatment and the credits for the above-mentioned movie said that the Queen pardoned him in 2013.  As fine a book as this is, it is only for those with a strong scientific and mathematical curiosity.

Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, Solomon - B

                                               Tevye first appeared in a series of stories in the 1890's and in a 1905 Warsaw production written by Sholem-Aleichem, the pen name of Sholem Rabinowitz, from Kiev. Rabinowitz was a pioneer of the use of Yiddish, the language of the shtetl.  It was the Yiddish theater in NY that brought him to America a year later.  And in 1919,  a few years after his death, the work of Sholem-Aleichem triumphed in America in 'Tevye der milkhiker'.  The play became a worldwide favorite, was actually performed in NY in 1939 by a traveling Soviet company and was made into a movie the same year.  After the war, an English play 'The World of Sholem-Aleichem' brought Tevye to a wider audience and in 1957 'Tevye and his Daughters' was produced in NY. The three men who put Fiddler together were Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein.  Jerome Robbins was brought in as director, Zero Mostel signed on as Tevye.  Jerome Robbins is the hero of the story as he masterminded endless changes and adjustments to make it the Fiddler we know and love. Previewed in Detroit and Washington, the show premiered in NY on Sept. 22, 1964 and has been a worldwide phenom ever since.  The movie came out in 1971 and to this day, Fiddler remains a revered and oft-produced staple of the live theater, here and around the world.
                                             This is a very well-done, thoughtful and serious book that delved into the topic in much greater detail than I did. There is background information on Sholem-Aleeichem and the eastern European world that produced him and Tevye.  The world of NY theater for the fifty years that preceded Fiddler is thoroughly explored, as is the role of Fiddler in Jewish culture.  After-all, these are folktales that morphed into the theater of the new world at a time when America's Jews became completely mainstream, then became part of American culture and by now have re-impacted 21st century Judaism.  Of course, I am listening to the Broadway album (and let's acknowledge that it's as good as it gets) as I type.

The Undertaking, Magee - B

                                               I'm not sure why, but I very seldom come across WW2 novels.  This is a rather interesting plot for the telling of the slow motion horror of being a German soldier on the eastern front and a woman in Berlin.   Peter and Katherina marry in the fall of 1941 through the Marriage Bureau, he to get some time off and she to get a shot at a widow's pension. To their surprise, they like each other and fall in love.  After their very brief honeymoon, he heads back east and their lives head their separate ways. She has a child and lives well in mid-war Berlin, for her father is friends with a man in power and they find themselves in a fabulous apartment, recently vacated by Jews. Her belief in the system doesn't appear to be too sincere; she is just someone going with the flow. He despises the war and winds up caught in the maw of Stalingrad, where he crosses the Volga to surrender.  Peter somehow survives, and eight years after the war ends, returns to Berlin. Katherina was one of the millions raped and is raising her half-Russian son, her own son having died earlier. He cannot accept the prospect of raising the bastard and leaves for anywhere where there aren't Russians.  All in all, this is a first-class effort and one that conveys the brutality of lives torn asunder seventy years ago in central Europe.
                                            I wonder if there are not that many novels of the war or if, as a reasonably well-read student of the war, I am immune to novelizations of the times. After all, no novel can provide greater detail or insight into the incredibly well-documented hell that was the world of this war.

MJ, Lazenby - B -

                                               When we are young, we admire our sports heroes. We also have a great many of them. For me there were Dodgers, Olympians, and Knicks.  Things change when you are an adult. It becomes more a matter of being in awe of a skill set. I've enjoyed watching and have been enchanted by Dan Marino and Tiger Woods. But as a Bulls season ticket holder,  someone who saw Michael play in person over 200 times and watched him, I guess, over a thousand times on tv, it is almost impossible to describe the feelings one has for a super-star who plays for your home team.  Being a Bulls fan during that era was quite frankly, a lifetime highlight. It sounds trivial - but, it wasn't. How and why people can become so enthralled with their home team, be it baseball, soccer, football or any other sport is a fascinating topic. And how anyone could have his "will" to win, to never lose, to always be so competitive is almost incomprehensible. So, I opened this book with enthusiasm.  Over the course of more than 600 pages, the author tries to find the "why" behind Michael, and points in many directions. Likely, it was his desire to overcome his older brother Larry one-on-one in the backyard and earn his father's respect. Everything else, every player, every teammate, every coach is part of the picture, but certainly not the answer. His ability to manufacture extreme motivation out of long-past slights was part of the process. But, again, why? I'm not sure that is ever answered.
                                              Perhaps it's easier to set forth those things that surprise someone who has a good feel for the story.  I knew that his dad was no saint, but the degree of his depravity is a bit surprising. His oldest  daughter accused him of molesting her, he was fired from GE for theft and only escaped jail because he was Michael's dad. He was a thorn in the side of Nike, ran a business they created for him into the ground and is credited with causing so much trouble that Michael lost the one sanctuary he could rely on - his family.  He was facing a Chicago area paternity suit at the time of his murder.  I don't remember  that Doug Collins was, during his first NBA stint, not a particularly good coach, or that almost all of Michael's teammates didn't like him.  I never realized just how serious the gambling was.  Also, the Sam Smith book 'The Jordan Rules' which shed light on Michael's obsessions and difficulty as a teammate apparently tore the team apart. Everyone was angry and pointed fingers at each other about leaks. It was part of the reason Paxson retired and Grant and Cartwright left. Jackson and Krause fired Johnny Bach for being the 'leaker', when it turned out that Jackson was Smith's primary source. The Bulls team that Michael retired from the first time was a dysfunctional mess.  When he came back, he was meaner, more intimidating;  he, along with Jackson, totally dominated the second championship team.  I never knew what an SOB Reinsdorf was; he had to 'win' every negotiation and told MJ after the 1996 $30m contract that he would regret paying him that.  This, perhaps is the biggest shocker. No matter how good a businessman Reinsdorf is or was, pre-MJ the franchise was a joke. He may have been one of the luckiest people on the planet - Jordan 'made' him.  Yet, sadly,  MJ was no hero, as he proved with his Hall of Fame induction speech.  And that returns us to the most important take-away when reading about athletes. They are unfailingly human.  It is what they do on the court or inside the lines that moves us.  There has never been anyone like Michael Jeffrey Jordan and I'm glad that he and I came to Chicago at the same time.

The Murder Man, Parsons - B

                                               This is the second book in a new series set in the UK. Ironically, the first is not yet available in the US. Our hero and DCI is Max Wolfe. He's on the trail of a serial killer, while everyone else is pursuing the social media fanatic who claims to have done it. The key to the crime is the common experience these victims had together back in boarding school twenty years ago. According to the author, the English class system is alive and well.   There is just enough plot, action, human interest and deduction to make this work.

The Medici Boy, L'Heureux - C

                                               This book has been critically acclaimed and does do a fabulous job of recreating the world of Florence in the first half of the 15th century.  It is the backstory to the creation of Donatello's David, the first bronze statue of a naked human in Europe in over a thousand years.  Donatello has been long suspected of homosexuality because of this statue.  Thus, this is a long treatise about homosexuality in Florence, where it was accepted to a point. If a man could not afford to marry or pay a prostitute - well, you get the picture.  A sodomite younger than 18 was forgiven and it was only after a number of convictions that matters became serious. Upon a 5th conviction, burning at the stake was likely.   There is a tremendous amount of enlightening information about the art of the era, but the background story doesn't work for me.

Command And Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety - Schlosser - B +

                                             This intriguing book was a Pulitzer Prize finalist a year ago. It tells two stories in alternating chapters. The first story is about how close we came to a nuclear accident in Arkansas in 1980.  There were 18 Titan-II silos in a semi-circle about an hour north and west of Little Rock.  On Sept 18, 1980, near the town of Damascus, a technician dropped a socket that somehow smashed a hole in a stage 1 fuel tank and a slow leak began. The propellant leak was followed by a series of cascading failures leading to more leaks, falling and rising pressures in different tanks, and the release of 100,000 gallons of water into the silo.  "Flashing red lights on the control center warned there was a fuel leak, an oxidizer leak, a fire in the silo - three things that couldn't be happening at once." About 7 hours after the initial error, the first stage of the rocket  blew up, scattered the silo and the 180,000 pound blast doors over about half-a-mile and then the rocket rose a thousand feet into the air before the second stage blew up.  Although there was a night-to-day explosion, it was not the nuclear core, which was  defused the next day. One technician died and a few more were injured. Amazingly, the Air Force denied there was a warhead, refused to tell the local authorities anything (even declining to provide medical information to help their own men) and eventually punished most of the people at the site. A year later, the aged Titan II's were decommissioned, a decade after they had become obsolete.
                                             The second story is the more familiar one of the atomic and then nuclear programs from Einstein's letter through the entire Manhattan project and into the post-war era.  Reading about the fifties is always fascinating. We had unlimited resources and unceasingly deployed them. Planes, more planes, bombs and bigger bombs, rockets, early warning radar systems and extensive management commands were nothing the American military budget couldn't handle. I've always admired Ike's loathing of war and his constant rejection of the military's desire to strike first at the Soviets. But, more than anything else, I remain amazed at those who thought nuclear war winnable or survivable.  We should never forget that much of the massive build-up was pure politics and pure fear. We were always ahead of the Soviets. The one time they trumped us was in the late fifties when they deployed Sputnik because they had the rocket delivery system to propel massive weights into outer space. We did not have an early warning system for rockets, so the military came up with a 'Dr. Strangelove' system to advise the President if we had been hit. They placed thousands of radiation and flash  sensors on buildings around the country, wired into some rudimentary computer system and capable of presenting Ike with a visual pattern of the hits. How bloody useless that would be appeared not to have been considered. And, any reading of the era is never complete without total wonder at SAC's Curtis LeMay. He clearly was one heck of an organizational genius, a WW2 hero, but frightfully zealous in his belief in nuclear weapons. With half-lives of 24,000 years and hundreds of millions of years for plutonium and uranium respectively, one can only wonder what a post-apocalyptic world would look like.    Inter-service rivalries, i.e. the Army and Navy seeking to stop the Air Force's near monopoly of weapons, led to two of my favorite lunacies - the atomic land mine and the hand-held atomic rifle.
                                          For me, the Damascus story was the more interesting of the two.  I've read both of Richard Rhode's books and recently read a book called '15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation'.  Thus, the general background material was somewhat repetitive. If someone hasn't read all of those, this is a great and relatively brief primer on the topic.

Land Of Dreams, Sundstol - B -

                                               This is the first book of a Norwegian trilogy set in Minnesota, and my initial thought was, how odd is that?  Considering all the things Americans write about, clearly I was suffering from some sort of literary nationalism.  The story is set in and around the Duluth area, the westernmost point of the Great Lakes and in Superior National Park. The principal character and storyteller is Lance Hansen, a Park Service police man and local historian. The book goes into pleasant details about the Norwegian character and the history of the community.  It's an enjoyable tour of a part of the country I know next to nothing about. A Norwegian canoeist is found bludgeoned in the park and the investigative team is joined by a policeman from Norway.  The question is posed as to whether or not there had ever been a murder in the county before.  Lance, as the local master of the topic, begins to look into the the disappearance of an Indian in 1892.  Although it was never proved he was murdered, Lance slowly concludes he probably was - and by Lance's very own great-grandfather.  The murder is wrapped up with a suspect arrested (although he is innocent) about three-quarters of the way through the book.  Considering all of the mysteries I've read over the years, one might assume that I've developed some detection skills.  Not so. I never figure out "whodunit" - except here where it was clearly telegraphed.  I'm thinking of Groucho Marx's famous line about not wanting to be a member of any club that would take him. I'm not sure about the rest of a series, when it was so easy to figure out.

Neanderthal Man: In Search Of Lost Genomes, Paabo - B-

                                               I suspect most of us are at least curious, about our connection to our Neanderthal ancestors. As a client of 23andme.com, I am told that 2.9% of my DNA is Neanderthal. This book tells the story of how the science of DNA sequencing has evolved over the last two decades to the point that someone can state to the tenth of a point a person's genetic composition. Heretofore, scientists have been limited to studying fossils and, quite frankly, guessing what the heck has happened over the millennia.  The author, a Swede, trained in many places and settled in Germany, has been part of the process of studying DNA extracted from ancient bones. His curiosity began with mummies from Egypt, and moved on eventually to Neanderthal bones. Although the first bones found and identified as our 'cousins' were in the Neander Valley in Germany, the largest cache of Neanderthal bones are found in Croatia.  The author can write, and write well. However, I do not think that the greatest writers of all time could make pyrosequencing or DNA cloning very interesting to me. So, about half way through and overwhelmed by the science, I started skipping forward.  After processing billions of nucleotides,  the conclusion was drawn that almost all humans today have Neanderthal DNA. How that DNA was shared between two different species remains an item of scientific speculation. That conclusion shattered  many of the archaeological theses about human evolution.  I've always been intrigued by this topic and have read many of the older books about 'Lucy' and the battles between the Leakeys and the 'out of Africa' controversies v. multi-origin theorists. As more and more has been written about what the chemist's are doing, the conclusion I have come to is that the teams in the chemistry labs will be the ones who learn all about our past. That said, I think I'll limit my inquisitiveness to newspapers and magazines.

A Coffin For Dimitrios, Ambler - B -

                                               This book was written in 1939 and was recently cited by Alan Furst in a Times interview as an inspiration for his 'Night Soldier' series.  It's rather fun to start to think that, yes, it's a lot like Furst's books, until you realize, it's the other way around.  An Englishman, a writer, meets a Turk of mysterious official responsibilities in Stambul.  He learns of the death of a Dimitrios,  a shifty character of bad reputation. He decides to find out more, perhaps for a book, perhaps out of curiosity. So he begins to look into the story of  Dimitrios. Unknown to him, he is being shadowed. As he wanders the Balkans, we get a lesson on the Turk ethnic cleansing of the Greeks after the Great War, Bulgarian parliamentary politics, Italian - Yugoslav border conflicts, and then it's on to Paris, where he learns of Dimitrios years as drug dealer.  He also ascertains that the body of Dimitrios, found floating in the Bosporus, might actually be one of Dimitrios partners-in-crime. Plot twists in Paris lead to a shoot-out and an awfully good tale for the Englishman to write about. Or, is he writing about something else? If it inspired Alan Furst, that is high praise. And just like Furst's books, this is one of those where you can see and feel the fog surrounding you while you read.

Five Came Back: A Story Of Hollywood And The Second World War, Harris - B -

                                               This is the story of the relationship between Hollywood and the American military as told through the war-time service of Frank Capra, John Ford, George Stevens, William Wyler and John Huston. "They honored their country, risked their lives and created a new visual vocabulary for fictional and factual war movies."   Because the men who ran Hollywood were first and second generation Jewish immigrants, fearful of Washington and anti-semitism, they avoided the oncoming catastrophe until 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy' in April 1941.  Warner Bros. very happily presented America with a rousing 'Sgt. York' in July, but generally speaking, Hollywood was only dipping its toes in the water until Dec.7, 1941.  "Any trepidation the studios felt about making war movies vanished within weeks."  Wyler was making 'Mrs. Miniver' before Pearl Harbor and made it even more of a patriotic piece, leading to Churchill's praise and the best picture Oscar.  By the spring of 1942, Capra, Ford, Huston and Wyler were in uniform.  Stevens  followed in early 1943.  Capra began making 'Why We Fight', which the author contends was the most important filmed propaganda of the war.  I agree. The series of films are over-the-top, but nonetheless brilliant. Ford was the first to shoot actual combat scenes, which he shamelessly embellished in his 18 minute 'Battle of Midway'.  When FDR saw it, he turned to his Naval aide and said, " I want every mother in America to see this film". A year later, Wyler flew five combat missions over Germany and filmed the documentary 'Memphis Belle'.  For every success, though, there were an equal amount of failed efforts, occasioned by endless bureaucratic infighting, confused strategy, inter-service rivalries and politics. Ford and Stevens were on Omaha Beach on D-Day as part of a major effort to document the momentous landing. Some of what they filmed was so brutal that it wasn't released for fifty years.  The work got better and better as the last year of the war played out. Ford actually returned to Hollywood to film 'They Were Expendable' while still on active duty.   After Wyler was wounded, Stevens was the last of the major directors in Europe and was the man who filmed the harrowing death camp scenes, particularly the American arrival in Dachau. Long after the war, Stevens turned to his reels of everything he had filmed while preparing to direct 'The Diary of Anne Frank'.  After a minute of his 'Eyewitness To Dachau', he returned the film to its box. The directors received medals, commendations and Oscars before they returned to Hollywood. Steven's work was used as evidence at Nuremberg. Wyler had the privilege of making what is generally considered the best post-war movie, 'The Best Years Of Our Lives". The book only tangentially and infrequently mentions the hundreds of movies made in Hollywood about the war and thus for me was a bit of a disappointment .








                                             

Personal, Child - B

                                              This is the 19th Reacher book in the series.  He is tracked down by the Army and asked to come back to assist (unofficially) in the search for one of the world's best snipers. It seems there is an attack planned on a G-8 meeting in London and the leading candidate to do the shooting is someone Reacher put in jail fifteen years before. I believe Reacher has been out for twenty years, but this is fiction.  Applying his awesome deductive reasoning, as well as his physical skills, to a mosaic of international and criminal challenges, Jack saves the day.

Dead Water, Cleeves - C +

                                                This book is the latest in a series set in the Shetland Islands.  Thus, it passes an important test for me; ie. it takes me somewhere I've never been before.  The Shetlands are 110 miles north of the Scottish mainland, rather far from civilization.  They have been changed by the North Sea oil that has reordered Scotland in the last forty years.  A local man is back from London where he works for a national newspaper, hoping to land a scoop. Instead, he's found dead in a boat in the harbor. The hunt begins.  The team gathers, sorts out their responsibilities and, along the way, we learn about the Shelands, crofting, ferries, weather and most importantly, the decline of oil and the possible rise of green energy. Of course, a second corpse is soon on the otherwise peaceful scene.  The case is resolved, but quite frankly, the details about the Shetlands are a lot more interesting than the plot and the solution. I doubt I'll check out the earlier books.

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio To Win The Presidency, Tobin - B +

                                              The author posits that FDR may have become President, but would not be the President he became, were it not for his polio.  He acquired the disease in 1921 at the age of 39.  Just about everyone was exposed to the polio virus in that era, and it was a very long shot to have the misfortune to be crippled by it. (The author prefers to use 'crippled' as it was the usage of the time.) Roosevelt was very, very ill. Hospitalized for months, he could not even sit up, his physician was afraid he was losing arm and shoulder strength, that matters were continuing to deteriorate, and that he could spend the rest of his life on his back in bed.  FDR was famous for never letting anyone know what he was thinking about anything and he never shared his feelings about his illness.   While everyone worried, he maintained his steadfast optimism and good cheer, and it is assumed, he determined to not let polio define him.  He would continue to pursue the Presidency. I've never given any thought to the rehabilitative effort that he, his family, his doctor and his nurses put into getting him on his feet and capable of his herky-jerky assisted "walking".  To say it was a massive undertaking would be an understatement.  The rehabilitation changed his relationship with his wife, mother and children.  He removed himself from their company for great periods of time, particularly to the south in the winter, as he concluded that it was only in warm weather or in warm water that he was making progress.  His progress was limited, and by the two-year mark it had stabilized. It was clear that the progress he had made because of his enhanced upper body strength that allowed him to use crutches while his legs were in braces was about as good as  it would get.
                                              FDR's comeback began at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1924.  Al Smith's people wanted an establishment Protestant to nominate  him and no one was better suited for the job than the party's most recent VP candidate.  He used his crutches to cross the stage, hung onto the podium with all his might and brought down the house with his famous 'Happy Warrior' speech.  While FDR worked on his rehabilitation, his aide Louis Howe kept his name and tales of his improving health in the public eye.  FDR made some progress in his general mobility while at Warm Springs, GA and had hoped to continue there when the politics of 1928 intervened. In order to help carry NY, Smith felt he needed Roosevelt as the nominee for Governor. FDR refused all summer, but when push came to shove in late September, he accepted.  He had retained his ambitions, but Smith had accelerated the timing of his advance. When Smith lost, FDR became the leading Democrat in the US. With Hoover ensconced in the White House and the nation prosperous, 1936 was the objective.  Overwhelmingly re-elected in 1930 while  Hoover stumbled, FDR and his team moved their date forward.  Overcoming smears that he was syphilitic, FDR triumphed at the Chicago convention and at the polls in November, 1932,  His wife and  his closest aides thought his illness provided new character traits. The author agrees with oldest son, James Roosevelt,  that the experience strengthened  an already very durable and strong man.  The author also posits that his illness kept him away from the intramural wars in the party in the mid-20's, and gave him a story of courage and overcoming adversity that he was able to tell.   Once, an aide told him he couldn't do something, and he responded, "I've done a lot of things I can't do."
                                             Needless to say, this is a superb book and one that offers fabulous insight into one of our great Presidents.  His courage and willpower are obvious.  I am also struck by the fact that his family's wealth was just as important  to his political success.  Although he held titular jobs between 1921 and 1929,  almost all of his time and effort went into his rehabilitation.  His father's wealth supported him and his family the entire time.  The parallel with Jack Kennedy's career twenty years later is eerie.

Final Sacrament, Forrester - C

                                                I was obliged to start the 2nd book in the series (see 7/1 post) earlier than planned. Two years have passed, Clarenceaux appears to be safe, Elizabeth is somewhat disconcerted by the birth in Scotland of the boy who would succeed her decades later, and Lady Percy is desperate to find the proof of Elizabeth's bastardy and reinstate the Catholic church.   Clarenceaux has hidden the document, refuses to offer it to the Catholics, for they will revolt, and refuses to give it to the Protestants, for they will kill him, because he knows the truth. And herein lies the failure (as is so often the case with the middle book of a trilogy) of this story, because his decision confuses me. I'm not sure why he would have to die if he surrendered it. In any event, he stages a conflagration in a castle, kills his bitterest enemy, destroys the document and presumably survives. After all, there is a third book.

After The Music Stopped, Blinder - B +

                                               This is another book about the financial crisis. It is by Alan Blinder, Princeton Prof and former Vice-Chair of the Fed, a heck of a writer, and it is very good. His goal is to paint the big picture "whys" and not go into detail about the steps along the way.  He does that well, but there's no way to discuss the events without going through the narrative, a pretty familiar tale of woe. His charts are helpful and  they highlight just how out- sized the real estate bubble was.  When the bubble was combined with substantial leverage, crazy pay schemes, excessive liquidity, reduced regulation and complacency, the Great Recession was the result. He discusses the problems of late 2007 and Bear Stearns, as the preliminaries, leading up to Fannie, Freddie and what he calls Lehman Day - Sept. 15, 2008- the day the world came very close to stopping.  Two days later, the Fed extended an $85B loan facility to AIG, and TARP soon followed. The world's central banks all cut interest rates on Oct. 8 - the wagons were circled.  He feels strongly that what Paulson and Bernanke, followed by Obama and Geithner, did had to be done.  He cites evidence that without the bailouts and the stimulus, matters would have been materially worse. He faults Paulson for switching from buying 'troubled assets' to injecting capital into banks, and faults everyone for not selling the plan to America. The political failure to sell what was done to save the system is part and parcel of today's dysfunction. Also in for some sharp words are President Bush for cutting taxes while waging war,  President Obama for not successfully pursuing mortgage relief, and the Republican Congress for not even considering any reform measures.  He offers ideas for reform and points out that Medicare can not be sustained for the long term.  He is a skilled writer and a fine teacher. I won't say this is a must, but it's pretty good.

A Foreign Country, Cumming - B +

                                                As I read the second novel first, this is the previous one. Tom Kell is only eight months into exile when he gets the call.  The Service really needs some help  - Amelia Levene, his old friend and boss and the next  Chief, with an appointment on the books with the PM at 10 Downing Street,  has gone missing.  Someone needs to find her and Tom does in Tunis.  She's there with a man twenty years younger, who just happens to be the son she gave up for a French adoption as a twenty-year-old au pair three decades ago. But Kell is good, really good, and figures out that this Francois is a fraud. Her real son is being held by the DGSE, as the French try to pull one over on the next C of MI-6.  If she's dismissed for scandal,  it's business as usual on Her Majesty's Secret Service and the old school chums will let the French have their way in the Levant.  I'll leave the plot at this point for those who will read this and say I believe both books are worth the effort. This, and the newer one I read first, are excellent examples of spy craft  and go into significant depth two or three times per book on different ops.  For what ever reason, I thoroughly enjoy those sections (although I concede some may find it boring) and for me, they enhance the already superb plot.

A Colder War, Cumming - B +

                                             Tom Kell has been benched by MI-6 for passively participating in a joint venture with the Cousins that involved someone being rendered to Guantanamo.  Its has been in the process of being "looked into" for a year-and-a-half when the Chief asks him to do a personal favor - try and sort out why one of their mutual friends, Paul Wallinger, an  agent in Turkey, flew his Cessna into the side of a mountain.  A few weeks into the process, the Chief also tells him of her suspicions of a mole and offers him a chance to come back in from the cold. So he's off, but everywhere he turns bodies keep piling up. First, the Greek flight engineer who worked on Paul's plane commits suicide. Then Paul's mistress in Croatia, whom Tom believes is working for the Hungarian intelligence service is found dead.  After six weeks of intensive spying on the likely candidate, the mole is found in Istanbul, a disaffected Yank working for the Russkis.  The Brits proceed to try to take him in without an assist from the CIA.  I won't divulge the finale, but suffice it to say, it's a pretty good tale. I have enjoyed this so much that I've already downloaded the earlier book by the author about Tom Kell.

Countrymen, Lidegaard - B, Inc.

                                                This is an important book and one from which I learned a great deal.  I couldn't finish it, I believe because of the translation and  the extensive quoting from diaries.  As it is my third incomplete this summer,  I hope it just means a run of less than stellar picks and not a decline in patience.  The only Jewish community in occupied Europe (excepting to my surprise, Bulgaria) to survive the Holocaust virtually unscathed was in Denmark.  This is a history of how that transpired. It is based primarily on the diaries of two Jewish families. Long before the Germans occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940,  the Danes had made a conscious effort to resist Nazism's philosophical poisons, particularly anti-semitism.  When invaded, they did not fight or attempt to resist the Wehrmacht, leading to an almost consensual occupation.  The Danes were left in charge of day-to-day administration and the Germans used a very small occupying force.  Because they retained their sovereignty, they were the only occupied country ruled by the Foreign Office. During the so-called 'peaceful occupation', the Danes were able to take the position that there was no 'Jewish problem' in Denmark.   At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the liquidation of the Scandinavian Jews was deferred, which meant the issue did not come to a head  until the summer of 1943.  By then the Germans were losing and wanted to impose a stricter regime on the Danes. Peaceful occupation came to an end with the imposition of martial law on August 29, 1943.  Denmark's 6,000 or so Jews were targeted for 'final solution'.  However, because they were so integrated into society, exactly how they could be extracted without substantial unrest was uncertain.
                                                Just to the north, neutral Sweden had maintained a sensible center-oriented government and society that eschewed the extremes of communism and national socialism.  They were shocked in 1942 when the Germans rounded up Norway's Jews.  In late September 1943,  Berlin ordered Copenhagen  to initiate a round-up of the Jews.  Word spread quickly after the Germans leaked the news and the Jews began to head toward the Baltic. There was a vast outpouring of civil and political opposition to the German's plans. "Germany went from being  a neighboring country that for strategic reasons had occupied Denmark under favorable terms to being an assailant perpetrating violence on the Danish people." Only a few hundred elderly Jews were picked up on the first night of the 'aktion' - the rest were in hiding or on the run. The Swedes, knowing that their trading with Germany put them in poor  standing  with the Allies, opened their coast and country to the Danish Jews.  Thus, the Jews of Denmark had a viable escape route. The most befuddling aspect of their escape is that the Germans more or less let them go.  It appears as if differences between the Gestapo, the Army and the Foreign Office, along with a high volume of agricultural goods flowing to the Reich, and a general reluctance to upset the proverbial applecart led to the Germans looking the other way. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that a free press in Sweden was reporting on events in Denmark.  In any event, over the course of a week,  almost all of Denmark's Jews (some were sent to  Theresienstadt, where they survived) escaped across the Baltic  to Sweden, where they were welcome.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The most impressive aspect of this story is the lack of anti-Semitism on the part of most of the Danes.  Starting with the King, who felt a responsibility to protect his people, everyone considered their neighbors and colleagues as not distinct because they, or their ancestors, worshipped differently.  It's a totally  refreshing  and pleasant  contrast to the rest of Europe and the Americas.  The second most fascinating aspect of the tale is the aggressive steps the Jews took to escape. They were not frozen in situ out of fear.  Amazingly (again in contrast to just about everywhere else - the author mentions Italy and Bulgaria as exceptions), their apartments, valuables and assets were there when they returned in 1945. All in all this is a very interesting story that is in total contrast to the usual anti-Semitism, violence, subjugation and destruction that played out almost everywhere else in Europe.

Hunting Shadows, Todd - B

                                               This is the sixteenth book in a series that I thoroughly enjoy.  Last year, I praised the series, but was disappointed with the fifteenth novel.  I was critical of the lack of the usual sense of place, the downplaying of Hamish's role and the plot in general.  The authors have made a fine comeback. In the opening chapters, I felt as if I were lost on the Fens and thankfully, Hamish  haunts Rutledge every step of the way.  Once again, one is almost overwhelmed by the pain in post-war WW1 England.  Loneliness, despair and a wonder about all the horror that had happened pervade every chapter. Northwest of London, two men have been shot by a hidden rifleman. Only a vet would have a rifle, the skill to use it and presumably a grudge against a former captain in the army. Why he also shot the local Tory MP candidate confounds Rutledge. There is no apparent connection between the two. As the investigation progresses, Rutledge becomes convinced that the murderer is a sharpshooter, trained as a sniper, and someone whom the trenches deeply affected. He pounds away relentlessly and eventually finds his man. A sharpshooter he was - but not in the Great War.

The Prince of Risk, Reich - Inc.

                                               The author has written quite a few thrillers set in the financial world. I think this is my first (and last).  The two principals are a divorced couple: he runs a big-time hedge fund and she is the FBI supervisory special agent in charge of anti-terrorism in the NY area.  She's so sure of herself and committed to her work that she divorced him and didn't ask for a penny - of his billions. He is estranged from his dad, who happens to be the President of the NYSE. In the opening moments of the book, his dad, the Federal Reserve Chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury are killed on their way to the White House. They've uncovered a very sinister Chinese plot to eavesdrop on every decision maker in the world and undermine the West's finance.  The same night, the FBI agent (who keeps a picture of Hoover on her dresser and calls him Father) is involved in a massive shoot-em-up near JFK at which three of her colleagues die. They uncover a huge arsenal and deduce that there are plans for 24 terrorists to attack Manhattan. Told to take two days off, she refuses - too much at stake. Meanwhile, her ex travels to Connecticut to talk his dad's right hand gal. He hopes to find an explanation for the text his dad sent to him right before he died. He finds her body - still warm. No mas, no mas.
                                              I'm sure I read a positive review somewhere or it wouldn't be on my list.  Maybe I didn't. In any event, this is so contrived, cliched, and predictable that I don't need to read the last 2/3rd's to know that Bobby and Alex save the world- I mean Manhattan. Maybe they even get back together.

A Crack In The Edge Of The World, Winchester - B

                                            My thanks to Jane Carp for letting me have this volume from my dear friend Bob's library.  This is the story of the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906.  In the preface, the author tries to imagine the event as seen Neil Armstrong-like from the moon with a powerful telescope.  He suggests "the planet very briefly shrugged".  Perhaps, it could be characterized as a "shudder".  In any event, from 5:12 to 5:14 a.m.,  the world of northern California was shaken to its core.   Policemen in the streets described it as waves coming in from the Pacific.  Scientists  have since concluded that the wave was moving at 2 miles per second.  Buildings shook and many fell as people, including the many members of the Metropolitan Opera staying at the Palace Hotel, rushed into the streets. Enrico Caruso told stories about his morning for years. The quake was felt 390 miles north, 370 south and 340 east of the city it is named for. "The earthquake shook the ground, it broke the buildings, it killed and maimed, and it spawned the fire."  The quake itself did 3-10% of the damage, fire did the rest.  With all the water mains ruptured, the fire raged for three days.   Over half of the city's 400,000 people were homeless, 3,000 were dead and 28,188 buildings were destroyed. Private, state and federal help poured into the devastated city.
                                            The consequences of the quake were many and diverse.   San Francisco lost its status as the preeminent city of California to Los Angeles.  The quake itself was downplayed and the civic boosters blamed the loss on the fire.  In a reconstituted city, they could work to fireproof buildings and enhance firefighting skills. Thus there was no need to worry about a repeat.  For those that choose to believe it was the will of God, there was a rise in evangelism. One of the most interesting and long lasting consequences was the result of all of America's records on Chinese immigrants being burned. Under the Exclusionary Acts, immigrants were allowed into this country if they had relatives. So right up to WW2, Chinese claiming to be related to Americans arrived at Angel Island to seek entry.
                                           In the actual reconstruction of san Francisco the slapdash temporary junk buildings that had covered the city were banned. There was a new code to govern new construction.  Over a hundred years later, the city is well-prepared for the 'big one'.  Every local, state and federal agency has directives and plans, as do many businesses.  And those plans are necessary. The US Geologic Survey has asserted that there is a 62% chance of a repeat by the year 2032. The North American and Pacific plates that have been moving in opposite directions at a rate of 1.5 inches per year along the San Andreas fault have not had any release in northern California in 108 years.  "The two plates are nearly 200 inches, about 17 feet, out of kilter. This means that an unimaginably enormous  amount of kinetic energy is currently stored in the rocks of the Bay area."

The Heist, Silva - B

                                               This book is the fourteenth in the Gabriel Allon series, and although last year's slotted him for the top job at the 'Office', that job is still a year away and he remains in the field.  The circumstances strain credulity more than usual, but the extensive background  on art history and Silva's storytelling skills overcome the weaker plot points.  While working on a restoration in Venice, Allon is asked by the Italians to investigate the murder of a man who sells stolen art.  The painting that may have led to the murder is a Carvaaggio that has been missing for four decades. Gabriel confirms that the missing 'Nativity' is indeed in play and sets up a trap.  His first attempt to recapture the painting fails but he ascertains that the man behind it all, the man trying to accumulate a string of stolen masterpieces, is none other than the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. The action then shifts from Europe to King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv,  home of Israel's intelligence service.  Gabriel's team plots to strip Assad of his financial assets and undertakes one of their legendary operations.  And so, off they go back to Europe to spin their web and entrap the Syrians.  In consideration of those who will read this, I will simply state the ending is one of those LeCarre-ish partially resolved and subtle conclusions.  Presumably, Allon will be Chief when we see him next summer.  One of the attractions of any series is the familiarity of not just the main, but also the secondary characters. His team of Israelis is the same one he's used for years and that is comforting in series like this.  Additionally, Silva uses a familiar cast of associates in London, Geneva, Corsica and Paris. I'm certain this series will be with us for quite some time.

A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln And The 1846 Invasion of Mexico, Greenberg - B

                                               This a superb treatise about the politics of an era lost in vague memories of Manifest Destiny and the Halls of Montezuma. After independence, the US prospered, but not so Mexico. Its population declined, there was significant racial conflict between the Europeans and the Indians, and it became what today is known as a 'failed state'.  There was virtually no centralized government and "between 1821 and 1857, the presidency of Mexico changed hands at least fifty times, almost always by coup d'etat".  The 'Texians' had achieved independence in 1836, and were clamoring for annexation. That the US would expand from coast-to-coast was a generally accepted principle. The only real questions were how far north and south on the way west, and who might we have to fight to get there.
                                              As the 1844 election approached,  all acknowledged that the Great Compromiser, the founder of the Whig Party, the master of the House and later, the Senate, Kentucky's Henry Clay would at long last achieve the prize he had been twice denied. The Democrats were in disarray. They nominated Polk, the 'Young Hickory' after Jackson recommended him for the highest office.  He was such a long shot that one Whig paper punned "the Democrats must be Polking fun at us".  Clay was opposed to  annexation because he knew it would lead to war. Polk made it the central theme of his campaign and he pulled off the upset. America was on the threshold of fulfilling its destiny - Texas, Oregon and California awaited. Annexation was approved by Congress and the President, and Texas joined the union on July 4, 1845.  A treaty with England led to Oregon becoming a US territory.  Polk provoked a border dispute, and in the summer of 1846 had his war with Mexico. The letter he sent to Congress stating that the US and Mexico were already at war was generally conceded to be a pack of outlandish lies, but the bloodlust for territory was overwhelming.  Fourteen votes in the House (including former President Adams) and two in the Senate ( John C. Calhoun abstained) were all that mustered the strength to resist.  And from day one Polk made it clear - Texas was a given - he wanted New Mexico and California too.  Within a year though, popular enthusiasm began to fade as American atrocities against the perceived racially inferior Mexicans began to see the light of day. A vigorous anti-war movement surfaced in the northeast and Whigs nationally remained opposed. The Wilmot Proviso ( excluding slavery from any territory taken in the war) passed the House, but not the Senate, thus further dividing opinion around the country  between pro- and anti-slavery supporters. The war, however,  went very well as Gen. Winfield Scott captured and occupied Mexico City on Sept. 14.  Polk waited for a surrender and an honorable peace - but it was not forthcoming.  The Mexicans opposed the occupation and initiated a low-grade guerrilla resistance.  Clay, who had lost his son in battle, protested the war, as did a young Abe Lincoln in his first Congressional speech. The war became so unpopular that many called for the US troops to come home and for Polk to forego his demands for territory.  There then arrived from Mexico, six weeks after it had been signed, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  It had been negotiated on Polk's terms by his diplomatic agent, Nicholas Biddle. This notwithstanding that Polk recalled Biddle after he realized the diplomat had come to oppose the war and the occupation. Biddle, with the support of Gen. Scott, ignored the recall. The Treaty accepted the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary and awarded New Mexico and Upper California to the US, thus achieving all of Polk's initial war aims.
                                              Polk had won the war, magnificently expanded the country, but lost the day.  The Whig General, Zachary Taylor, who had reluctantly participated in the opening invasion of northern Mexico succeeded him in the White House. Polk himself died a few months after he returned home to Tennessee.  Taylor supported the Compromise of 1850 allowing California to enter the union as a free state.  The war and its aftermath led to the inadequate presidencies of Taylor and Pierce and further exacerbated tension between the north and the south.  In his memoirs, one of the successful young West Point officers  said that the war "was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker one and that the Civil War was our punishment for that transgression". Ulysses Grant's opinion represented the late 19th century view of the war.  The author closes with, " It is one of the few American wars not commemorated in Washington D.C. There is no monument to the 1847 conflict in the nation's capital , not even a statue."
                                              Clearly, the Mexican-American War was inconsistent with our republican principles. We trumped up a phony war against a harmless neighbor. But, I can't help but conclude that the western half of the US prospered in our system in ways that it never could have in Mexico's.  And as a part-time resident of southern California and western Colorado, whose ancestors came to the US a decade after the war, I'm pleased with the consequences of Manifest Destiny.

Fragile By Design, Haber and Calomoris - A*

                                               In the fall of last year, the authors previewed this book in a 'Foreign Affairs' article that piqued my interest. Indeed, I was astounded, and still am, by one simple statement. Since the late 1830's, the US has suffered through 12 major banking crisis - Canada, none! My historic desire to read books about the 'dismal science' has been pretty low, perhaps exceeded only by my total lack of interest in books about banking systems.  But, how could our unbelievably successful nation have faltered so many times and still have wound up number one? I felt this was a must read.
                                               Banking systems are a function of national political will and design. In essence, you get the banking system your nation's politicians summon up. Without credit, a nation cannot grow and it is critically  important  that a system provide stable credit. The US has had ample credit, but in an inherently unstable system.  In this book, the US system is contrasted to that of a number of countries, but particularly those of England and Canada in what the authors call "The Game of Bank Bargains."  The starting point is that those in charge of the government partner up with aspiring bankers and create a set of rules.  The government charters the banks and passes laws that establish the rights of depositors, borrowers, creditors, investors and insiders. As the arbiter, the government has to juggle inherent conflicts of interest.  For example, how do you establish the rules of debt enforcement, when the people against whom debt may be enforced are the same people who elect the government?  The list of conflicts in a sophisticated modern democratic society are endless.
                                               The first important national financial institution was the Bank of England, established in 1694 to finance Parliament's wars with France and the expansion of the Empire.  It was the only joint stock company ( limited liability) with a banking charter allowed in England until 1825. "The Bank of England deployed its resources to serve government needs throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries."  Interestingly, it did very little to help finance the Industrial Revolution.  The tide turned against the B of E in the 1820's when other joint stock companies were allowed to charter banks, and the B of E began to establish branches around the country.  A central premise of this book is that strong national institutions with multiple branches are the key to economic growth and financial stability, whereas small dispersed single branch banks are incapable of spreading risk. The reforms of the early nineteenth century led to a burgeoning economy and a bank system that was essentially crisis free until 2007.
                                                The authors are American - one teaches at Stanford and the other Columbia - and it is our system that is the primary focus of this book.  The  Constitution is silent on banking and it was only by citing 'implied powers' that Hamilton was able to charter a national bank. The agrarian populists were opposed and in 1832 were able to revoke the banks charter. "From this point until roughly 1980, the coalition of small bankers and agrarian populists would dominate the politics of bank chartering and bank regulation." Thus, the US was poorly served by thousands of small state-chartered unit (one branch) banks that were non-competitive supporters of the local gentry. This inherently unstable system would pay low interest on deposits, make risky loans to its supporters and not have the wherewithal to survive liquidity crises. " By 1914, there were 27,349 banks in the US, 95% of which had no branches!" This system had spawned bank crises in 1837, 1857, 1861, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1896 and most famously, 1907.  After the banking system was saved by J.P. Morgan, Congress authorized the Federal Reserve.  The Fed, however, did not change the underlying fundamental, it merely provided a national liquidity vehicle.  "As late as the early 1970's, only 12 states allowed unrestricted intrastate branching and no states allowed interstate branching." Disintermediation, money-market funds, the computer revolution, globalization, urbanization and the 1986 Tax Act all added up to the end of the 19th century agrarian system in the 1980's. Banks operating national branching networks accounted for only 10 percent of the US banking system in the early 1980's. By the mid-90's, they accounted for more than 70%.  As the US system finally achieved the ability to spread risk, politics intervened. Merging banks were scored by the regulators on many fronts, and one was compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.  In order to assure support on the CRA issue, the banks dropped their credit requirements for poorer  urban borrowers. Banks committed  billions  in CRA lending to underserved  or low -income communities between 1992 and 2007. In turn, the government supported entities (GSE's) of Fannie and Freddie adjusted their rules to accept loans that had smaller down payments, riskier profiles, etc. If this new type of inherently aggressive loan was ok for the urban poor, it was clearly appropriate for the middle class. Three percent down payments became the norm and no-doc loans categorized as Alt-A and sub-prime became the rule not the exception. "The result was the rapid growth of mortgages with high probabilities of default for all classes of Americans." Both the Clinton and Bush administrations pushed the housing envelope because it not only brought the American dream to a much higher percentage of the population, but because real estate fueled the boom that was the '90's and '00's.  The merry-go-round brought in mortgage bankers who churned out loans, leveraged investment banks that packaged and sold the sub-prime stuff around the world and the rating agencies that approved it all.  Capital requirements were lightened by the regulators because it seemed like the boom would go on forever. "By June of 2008 there were approximately 28 million sub-prime and Alt-A loans outstanding with a total value of approximately $4.8 trillion.... roughly half of all mortgages outstanding were high risk."After it was over, a deposed bank CEO said that you had to keep dancing while the music played. The music stopped and the government was required to bail out the banks in order to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression.  The damage to the US will reverberate for decades.  The authors believe, and I believe they make their case, that a strong centralized system with branch banks is the key to financial stability and growth. They laud the Canadians. For almost two centuries, the Canadian branch banking system has spread the risk around the country. It has been so effective that they didn't even need a central bank until the Depression and brought on deposit insurance later than the US.  There were no liar loans, no no-down-payment loans and no negative amortization tables. Excess did not seep into their system and they suffered no Great Recession.
                                               Although it appears throughout this book that the authors discredit perceived truisms of American history (dismissing deposit insurance as inherently risky), and that at times, they carry some right wing libertarian message, I found this to be one of the most insightful books I have ever read. I feel as if blinders have been lifted from my eyes. Branch banking seems so terribly logical and efficient.  When I combine that fact with my personal conclusion that Congress is, and has been,  structurally incapable of governing in the best interests of the nation, I view this book as an economic epiphany.  It was reviewed for the Times by the man who wrote the Pulitzer-winning treatise on the Great Depression called 'Lords of Finance'. The article by Liquat Ahamed on April 11 this year is a superbly composed  must read. He does think that our recent travails are more complex than the authors concede while making their case here and focusing on the CRA. But, he does refer to the book as "brilliant" and that "it deserves to become a classic."




                                           

Mr. Mercedes, King - C +

                                               Apparently, this is Stephen King's first attempt at a detective novel and I, for one, am not moved. That's rather presumptuous of me, as the 'about the author' section of the book mentions that he has written over 50 books, all of which are worldwide bestsellers.  Wow - all - worldwide.  A rather creepy guy uses a Mercedes (thus, the title) to kill a bunch of people at a jobs fair waiting area.  A just-retired detective goes after him and, of course, with help from a very eclectic crew, stops him on the threshold of another sensational act of violence.  Any mass murderer is going to be weird, creepy or just plain crazy. But, the fact that this guy is creepy (I can't avoid the characterization ) pushes this very close to the horror genre. And since I think I've only read one of the above referenced fifty, it's just not for me.

Sacred Treason, Forrester - B

                                               This book is a fine example of what I like about historical novels.  It is well-written and well-researched.  It conveys some of the passion, emotion and detail that is often missing in the academic and general histories.   The reason it is so well done is that it is written by a professional historian dabbling on the side under a pseudonym, and presumably looking for a few extra pounds.  The setting is London in the 1560's at a time when Elizabeth I is still very vulnerable.  The Catholics are hoping for a restoration; Mary Queen of Scots is their logical hope, and the plot here is about the possibility that Elizabeth is illegitimate.  Anne Boleyn may, or may not, have been married to Percy. If she had been, a case can be made against Elizabeth.  The lead character is  Clarenceaux King of Arms, a Royal Herald and a designer of coats-of-arms.  He is part of the old religion's underground establishment, finds conclusive proof of the marriage of Percy and Anne Boleyn, but opts to play his cards close to the vest and not rock the boat of rebellion. William Harley will be back, as this is the first of an already published trilogy.

Empires Of The Dead, Crain - B +

                                                This superb book is about Great Britain's transformation from a nation with little enthusiasm or interest in its foreign wars and it's victims to a country that reveres the memory of those lost and takes devoted care of over a million overseas graves.  This is the history of Britain's war cemeteries and the man responsible for them.  "The man who made it possible for a country to come to terms with the slaughter and unbearable debt it owed its dead, is scarcely better known than the unidentified thousands whose graves bear the inscription 'Known unto God'. His name was Fabian Ware."  He had served in the Boer War, had established a reputation for administrative efficiency and was appointed as the Major-in-charge of the Graves Registration Commission (GRC), a hybrid Red Cross/Army entity, early in the War. By 1915, he had convinced the French government to grant land in perpetuity to Great Britain, which would assume responsibility to forever maintain the cemeteries. Reconstituted as the Imperial War Graves Commission,  Ware and his colleagues were entrusted with endless decisions: how to layout the cemetery, what kind of foliage and shrubbery (maples for the Canadians), which direction would the graves face (east to face the enemy), crosses or stones (stones), whether to allow repatriation of remains(no), whether to make the usual class distinctions between the officers and the ranks (no), how to segregate and respect the Muslims and Hindus from the colonies, how to denote regimental affiliations, and on and on.
                                              After the war, the battle became one of personalization and the ability of wealthy families to memorialize individually.  In the Commons, the matter reached an end when an MP suggested that men who had died together should not be separated by their fathers. In the end, the IWGC prevailed in its theme of uniformity for the graves.  Another vexing problem was how to memorialize the 'unknown' graves and how to honor by name those who were never found. Rudyard Kipling, member of the commission and poet of the Empire, lost his beloved son Jack and never knew where he lay. He came up with the phrase 'A Soldier of the Great War known unto God' which can be found on 180,000 headstones. The Army identified eighty-five distinct battles and for each one a memorial was constructed and the names of those believed lost were listed. The most famous is the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. "On it are inscribed the names of 72,085 soldiers who were killed on the Somme and Ancre and have no known graves." Beyond the western front, the commission memorialized and buried the dead around the world and, most importantly for New Zealand and Australia, at Gallipoli in Turkey.
                                               For a hundred years, as Americans, our primary insights into the horror of the Great War have been the histories, poems and fiction written by the British. This is not a great book and certainly will not achieve any kind of immortality. But, it is very, very good at conveying the unfathomable hell of mud and death that was WW1.

Jack of Spies, Downing - C, Inc.

                                             Downing is the author of an interesting six-book series, each named after a Berlin train station and set around WW2.  The lead character in those books was an Englishman, John Russell, a journalist and part-time spy. This novel is apparently the beginning of a new series, one about Jack McColl,  international traveling auto salesman and budding British spy.  The time is just before WW1 and the book follows McColl from China to San Francisco and onto NY.  The Germans are wise to him in Shanghai, where he's trying to find out their naval dispositions in the Pacific. In SF,  he looks into supporters of unrest in India and in NY, into Irish republican activities. That said, two-thirds of the way through, I kept hoping I was closer to the end than I was, and I've concluded it's not worth finishing.

The Discovery Of France, Robb - B +

                                                This fascinating book is subtitled 'A Historical Geography From The Revolution To The First World War' and is somewhat hard to characterize.  I suppose it's a wandering sort of social history. The startling ( at least to me) premise is that as recently as the Revolution, the state we know/perceive of as France did not exist. It may have existed on maps and national taxes were exacted, but only the folks in and around Paris considered themselves Frenchmen.  The geographic diversity was substantial, villages were isolated from each other, there were hundreds of dialects, few people knew about the nation and according to the author, the tribal divisions were such and there was so much self-sufficiency that folks seldom ventured more than a few miles from where they were born and they married locally.  France was still a medieval country.  Indeed, the Revolutionaries initiated a report on 'The Necessity and Means of Exterminating Patois and Universalizing the Use of the French Language', as they were fed up with the expense of translating their decrees into Catalan, Picard, Basque, Provencal, Alsatian, Occitan, Flemish and Breton.  The linguistic divide was so substantial that ninety years later, in 1880, only one-fifth of the nation was "comfortable" with French.  Linguistic differences were indicative of social ones, as well as political and legal ones. The author spends a great deal of time discussing the pre-Industrial Revolution countryside that was certainly agrarian and rooted in the distant past. On more than one occasion, he points out that Caesar, who conquered it and Pliny, who wrote about it, could easily wander about 19th century Gaul and think that not much had changed.  However, change did arrive." In the century that followed the Revolution,  the national road network almost doubled in size and the canal network increased fivefold. There were fourteen miles of railways in 1828 and twenty-two thousand in 1888." Mapping the country became something continuously pursued, but without effectiveness or vigor.  Napoleon III was defeated at Sedan in 1870 for number of reasons, not the least of which was that the French had inadequate maps and were not sure where they were going or what was there.  The Third Republic that followed the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War began to build a nation around compulsory education, the eradication of patois as a first language, and revenge and recovery of Alsace and Lorraine.  The author contends that August 1, 1914 was the first time in the history of France that the entire country simultaneously learned of an important event - war.  Essentially, France became a modern nation only to be irrevocably torn asunder.
                                             This has been a thoroughly enjoyable, yet challenging read. I clearly do not know enough about France to fully comprehend this book.  The country he presents is so unlike the American or the immigrant-American world I know.  The colonists came to Virginia and kept going to Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois. The Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, Italians and Jews came to America and again, they kept going west.  Our national story is one of near-constant motion. This is about a country, society and culture  where people stay in their own villages and towns for hundreds and hundreds of years. The land is prosperous enough and safe enough that the need to keep migrating is not present.  That stasis leads to change 'in situ', a sort of  organic evolutionary process.

The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, Shafer & Barrows - B

                                                This is a delightful  novel, set in 1946 London, that looks back on the occupation of the Guernsey Islands.  The story of the Germans five-year presence is told through a series of letters posted to a London author by the members of the society in the title. The author becomes so enthralled with the islanders that she moves to Guernsey. The occupation was light, probably the lightest of the war.  Nonetheless, it was not without death, starvation, betrayal and hardship.  This book is a superb evocation of a place and time. The Channel Islands were bypassed by the Allies when they invaded France. Liberation came after the war was over the following May.  I believe that only Norway, Poland and Czechoslovakia were occupied longer. Thanks, Marce, for the recommendation and your ongoing editorial assistance here.

Red Fortress, Merridale - B

                                                This interesting book ties together the history of Russia with that of the Kremlin, along with the famous fortress's role in the Russian national psyche.  The 47-acre fort atop a hill in Moscow was first enclosed in a stone wall six and-a-half centuries ago.  As the Lords Of All The Rus consolidated power when the Mongols finally drifted away, they also began to construct a sophisticated fortress at the Kremlin.   The reign of terror that was the rule of Ivan The Terrible was succeeded by a Time of Troubles so severe that " in 1611, the state of Muscovy ceased to exist.  The capital was occupied by foreign troops. Smolensk had fallen to the Poles. Novgorod was in Swedish hands."  Stability began to take hold in 1613 with the Romanov ascension and their assertion of a Russian style of absolutism.  In the 17th century, Russia expanded her borders east to the Pacific and west into the heart of Europe as Russia became a European state.  Exposure to modernizing Europe through trade, diplomacy and culture led to a collision with the old ways of the Russians.  The young Tsar Peter would literally smash Russian society in his attempt to modernize the state.   The following century was an interlude for Moscow and the Kremlin ; the hierarchy and influence of the church were diminished as Russia's capital moved to Peter's spectacular new city on the banks of the Neva.  "By mid-century, the Kremlin was decaying into Russia's Fontainbleu, the poor relation to St. Petersburg's Versailles."  After its partial destruction by the French in 1812, the Kremlin received a massive forty-year overhaul and started to become a symbol of the state, and in the second half of the century, Moscow itself came to represent the culture and tradition of Russia, while 'Peter' was it's European face. Moscow and the Kremlin were restored to their primacy when the Bolsheviks moved their capital in Feb. of 1918. The Kremlin became both the house of government and the home of the nation's leaders. Over the centuries, the Kremlin was home to churches, cathedrals, icons, religiously-themed buildings, arches and monuments.  The Soviets stripped the fort of all religious decorations and destroyed or altered most of the offending buildings.  Stalin's death led to archaeological research and even tourism in the Kremlin.   Under his successors, it remained and still remains  the center of the Soviet, then Russian, state, and symbol of the country.

Midnight In Europe, Furst - B -

                                                Cristian Ferrrar is a partner in the Paris office of Coudert Brothers in 1937.  As a twelve-year-old, he left Catalonia with his parents and grandmother during civil unrest in 1909.  He remains a Spanish citizen and responds positively to a request from the Spanish Embassy for help during the Civil War. He is asked to purchase arms in Czechoslovakia from Skoda and ship them to Spain.  And so off goes a respectable lawyer into the  role of arms smuggler on a trip to Danzig and a successful  shipment of anti-tank weapons to Spain.      That success is followed by sneaking arms out of Odessa and shipping them too to Spain. 'Midnight In Europe' is the 12th novel in the series, occasionally called the Night Soldier novels, all set in Europe in the thirties.  The novels are extraordinary in their ability to convey  fear and anxiety as the Fascist storm gathers.  The novels have no continuing lead  character nor are they sequential.  They range  from Hungary to Greece to Poland to Yugoslavia to England to Switzerland and often stop in Paris. Furst is so good that you can see the fog and hear the train whistles. This book is probably not as good as some of the others, but was nonetheless, a pleasant respite.

Asia's Cauldron , Kaplan - B

                                             This book is subtitled 'The South China Sea And The End Of A Stable Pacific'.   Kaplan is considered one of America's greatest strategic thinkers, has been an Atlantic Magazine foreign correspondent for decades, a Pentagon advisor and most importantly, a great writer on the topic of the role of the physical world in defining the political one.  The South China Sea is strategically important because of energy, specifically, oil.  Almost all of the oil consumed by Japan, China and S. Korea is shipped through these waters. A total of 60,000 ships and 13 billion barrels of oil pass through the Sea annually. Also, as many as 130 billion barrels may lie beneath its waves.  The Chinese have aggressively taken the position that their maritime rights extend far into the Sea. The British Empire's dominance of the sea lanes passed to the US Navy after WW2 and we have been in complete control since then.  With China's naval ascendancy, or at least equality, on the horizon, the inherent natural rivalries between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia will come into play. The concern is that without Pax Americana all hell may break loose and the Chinese won't be the benign maintainer of peace and order that we have generally been.  The Chinese view their role today as reversing the depredations of the west in the 19th and 20th centuries and restoring the Middle Kingdom.  A state by state review of China's maritime neighbors shows that none of them can really stop the Chinese if they wish to take all of the disputed islands.  What the US will or won't do seems to be the million dollar question.  The author concedes that regardless of our "pivot", we will have to share hegemony in the western Pacific with China.  One would hope that that could be done on the basis of both sides mutually guaranteeing free navigation rights and open sea lanes.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, Faulks - B

                                               I'm not sure if it's a subtitle or a characterization, but this fun, well-done novel  is called 'An Homage To P.G. Wodehouse'.   Wodehouse died forty years ago and the series he wrote about Jeeves and Wooster was set in the '20's.  I suspect they are one of the finest examples of English wit and parody ever and they provide frequent laugh-out-loud moments as Bertie Wooster, along with his buddies Tuffy, Chuffy, Stiffy, Oofy, Barmy and my favorite, Gussie Fink-Nottle, stumbles through endless escapades as a 'gentleman' so reliant on his 'man' that you wonder how he survived to adulthood on his own.  As delightful as the novels are, I believe the BBC Masterpiece Theatre shows with Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Bertie are remarkable television comedy and even better.  In this story, the pair concoct a scheme to advance the romances of two couples in their circle. They decide their best chance of effecting their objectives involves them switching places. As an erudite, brilliant man, Jeeves has no difficulty pulling off his role as a member of the gentry.  Bertie, on the other hand, is not ready for the challenges of life downstairs.   All's well that ends well, as Jeeves arranges matters in such a way that both he and Bertie are betrothed in the last chapter. What-ho!

On The Irish Waterfront, Fisher - C+

                                               The subtitle is 'The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York'.  However, before the author gets to the post-WW2 exposes and 'On The Waterfront', he sets forth some very interesting background.  In the late 19th century, the port's dockworkers and just about anyone who did business in and around the port was Irish.  The west side piers stayed Irish, but Hoboken, Jersey City and Brooklyn saw an influx of new immigrants, particularly Italians. By the time of WW2, the piers were diversified but the power structure - the shippers, the union leadership, the politicians and most importantly, the shipper's most prestigious ally, the Church - were still just about all Irish.  The arrival of millions of Irish in NYC was what had led to the ascendancy to wealth and power of the Roman Catholic church, and the church hierarchy had no qualms about accepting the treasure of the shippers and supporting their anti-labor stance. It's somewhat humorous that half of the thieving felons in this story are referred to as 'daily communicants'. However, the most fascinating bit of history about the Port is that the region's planners were never able to establish a freight tunnel under  the Hudson or a train bridge over it, because neither the two states nor the railroads could agree.  Rather, a system evolved of off-loading goods in NJ, ferrying them across the Hudson, and unloading them in NY. Prior to the rise of the trucking industry and the construction of the George Washington Bridge, there was so much volume crossing the river that it supported massive stevedoring operations in NJ, Manhattan and Brooklyn. Sadly, the cross harbor freight tunnel, an infrastructure idea proposed in 1893, has still not been acted on.  After WW2, the shape-up system which thoughtful outsiders viewed as the root cause of a failed social order - alcoholism, the flourishing loan-shark trade, the kickbacks and broken families came under attack from a series of exposes in the  NY Sun by Malcolm Johnson and a west side Jesuit, Pete Corridan. Johnson would win a Pulitzer and Corridan would be immortalized as Father Pete Barry in 'On The Waterfront'.  It took until late 1952 for the opening of hearings by the New York State Crime Commission (NYSCC), better known as the Waterfront Commission, to pull back the shroud of secrecy that hid all of the waterfront's evil deeds and doers.  The commission's report led to  the strengthening of the bi-state Port Authority and the adoption of meaningful reforms.  But the docks never really changed; there was still violence, theft, mob activity, kickbacks, no-show jobs and a less than admirable International Longshoreman's Association.  It was just not as bad as it used to be. The movie, however, was a huge hit that won 8 Oscars and is taught in every film course in America. "Labor reformers, journalists, Irish Americans one generation or a few miles removed from the waterfront and reviewers from the heartland of America adored this movie. Those most directly affected took a different view..."  Most dockworkers consider it an unrealistic joke. In the end though, it all became academic. The first container ship arrived in NY harbor in 1956 and the goods were trucked off the pier with minimal stevedoring help.  A generation later, the piers were collapsing into the Hudson, and today Chelsea, Brooklyn and Hoboken are the desirable wealthy domain of the modern metropolitan global elite.

The Black Eyed Blonde, Black - C

                                               The author is a successful writer of a mystery series set in Dublin. Here, he attempts to emulate Raymond Chandler and write a Phillip Marlowe mystery.  The homage is well deserved, as apparently some of Chandler's stuff is very noteworthy.  A NYT reviewer, the writer Olen Steinhauer, acknowledged that he did a pretty good job.   However, Steinhauer though it lacked pizzaz, and I guess I've concluded that any book that contains the line: "It wasn't the first time in my life I'd been slipped a Mickey Finn, and it probably won't be the last" can't be taken too seriously.  You can see Bogey spit out the words "Mickey Finn" as he tosses a ciggie on the ground.  But, it is 2014 and I don't think it plays well anymore.  The plot involves a gorgeous blonde coming to Marlowe's office and asking him to find her missing lover, Nico.  Nico is believed dead but the lady, Clare, thinks she recently saw him.  Off Marlowe goes and before we know it, Nico's sister is dispatched, Marlowe is beaten up, the dispatchers of Nico's sister are themselves dispatched, Marlowe is slipped a Mickey Finn, Marlowe's contacts on the police department blame him for all the goings on, and, in the end, Nico wasn't Clare lover after all.  A form of justice is served, although  Marlowe never gets paid.