The Book Experiment

Recent Acquisitions

2012-01-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George
I'm really hoping EG keeps the appalling female love interests at a minimum on this outing.

Catherine the Great - Robert K. Massie
Maybe I'll even get around to reading that Potemkin biography I bought ten years ago.

Love Her to Death - M. William Phelps
Phelps is my True Crime find of 2011, I'm trying to meter out his books. Knowing there's reliably good true crime available makes the bad books bearable.

Worst Book of 2011

2012-01-09T13:27:00.001-05:00

I may not have posted much last year but I read more books than ever. Even with a larger pool of candidates the worst book of 2011 is easy to name: Ginny Aiken's Design on a Crime. What's staggering is that it is the first in a series, Deadly Decor. Not surprisingly, this book also wins "worst main character of 2011" easily. Haley is one annoying human being. A blurb about the book says the author writes "inspirational fiction." I was inspired to throw my Kindle across the room and plot Haley's gruesome demise. Does that count?

A title that is all too apt

2011-05-28T17:14:00.001-04:00

Robert Goddard, where did it all go wrong? We met in South Africa and you kept me company on the long flight home. Then we’d meet up once a year for whirlwind of historically informed adventure. It was great until without warning my sure bet was Found Wanting. But anyone can have a bad day, or a bad book, so I was back for more with Long Time Coming with nary a reservation. I’m sorry to report that this book is the equivalent of having your date to the opera show up wearing a clown suit. It’s stupid and you can’t quite figure out how it got to be that way.

The familiar elements are present: the man at loose ends with pondering his cloudy future, a simple request that is anything but and a secret hidden in historical event. What’s missing is the narrative drive and basic logic.

The first lapse in logic occurs early. When someone is released from prison after several decades and asked to bunk at your place one of the questions one asks is what the prospective house guest did in order to warrant a room at the Grey Bar Hotel. Except in this book. Twenty-five pages in this book started to read like an episode of Get Smart. Would you believe stolen Picassos? Would you believe artistic terrorists? Would you believe clues hidden in paintings? Literally IN a painting.

Long Time Coming reads like two plots spliced together. In the dark. It’s not just stupid it’s boorishly stupid. Unlike Found Wanting Goddard doesn’t blame it all on a character that appears out of nowhere in the last 50 pages. Instead he just grinds on, and on, telling a story that might be bearable if the characters evoked some emotion in the reader. Compassion would be nice but I’d have settled for loathing after 200 pages. They’re worse than cardboard cutouts. They’re uninteresting.

Skip this one, Goddard fans, and the rest of you stay away, too. It won’t even cure insomnia.

Be a coroner, or just look like one

2010-11-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

Some of us were blessed with parents who told us we could be anything we wanted to be if we just worked hard. At some point most of these parents began to temper this pep talk with a healthy dose of reality reminding their off spring that, for instance, becoming an opera singer required one to be able to carry a tune. I bring this up because as a youngster I once recoiled in horror from a slice of pizza that had developed a coat of fur, inspiring my mother to remark that i was obviously not destined for the medical professions.

Wait until I tell Mom about the surprisingly lax requirements to be the coroner of Lewis County, Washington.

It’s not merely the fact that lack of a medical degree of any kind is not a barrier to this job that involves determining the cause of death that makes one wonder if a page from the job description was lost. There’s the added bonus of not having to waste time going to the scene of the death one is investigating. At least, not according to Coroner Terry Lewis who didn’t feel that going to see where a woman was found shot to death on the floor of her closet was something that needed looking into. Way to save gas, Terry!

Be forewarned: In the Still of the Night is not the typical Ann Rule book. There is no satisfying ending with most questions answered. It isn’t even certain that a crime was committed unless you count possession of “Elvis Presley plates.” This isn’t a traditional true crime book either. It is the story of a parent determined to make law enforcement properly investigate her daughter’s death. The heroine thus is not the victim, it is her mother, Barb Thompson.

For me Ann Rule is at her best when telling stories about strong women. My favorite of her books all feature female murderers and Rule’s ability to understand them has always kept me coming back for more. When the victim is female and the killer male, Rule can go into beatification mode with numerous descriptions of the victim’s beauty and general saintliness. I can usually skim over that but I know it drives others crazy. There’s considerably less of that here and I think that’s because of Rule’s focus on Barb who is one tough, resourceful lady. What emerges is a story that is too common – the difficulty of getting justice without considerable financial resources at your disposal.

It’s also the familiar story of a man with little to recommend him who just about has to beat off the ladies just to make it through his own front door. Never having the experience of having a man announce to me on the first date that he was impotent I can say for certain that it would make me decline a second date but I’m pretty sure I could find something else to do. For Ron Reynolds, it worked as well as a marriage proposal.

While many of the elements of a true crime book are here, the lack of a conclusion is frustrating. Balance that against Anne Rule and Barb Thompson trying their hand as Cagney and Lacey only to find that few will talk to them and those that will won’t tell them the truth. “So much for our ability as investigators – or even likable strangers.” Don’t worry about it, Ann, as long as you’re willing to use your clout to highlight a miscarriage of justice you’ll always have your day job.

So, all in all, a bit of a disappointment for me. I admire Ann Rule’s commitment to this story but it’s not one I’ll be rereading any time soon.

Take that, Virgin Queen

2010-11-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

Poor Mary Tudor. First she goes from being daddy’s little princess to nearly being daddy’s latest executed-loved-one. Then after surviving against all odds and every precedent to become England’s first queen regnant she keeps upstaged in death by her little sister Elizabeth and nicknamed “Bloody Mary” to boot. No doubt about it, sibling rivalry can be a bitch.

Anna Whitelock has written Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen with the stated intention of reclaiming her rightful place in history for this perpetually beleaguered royal. She does this by creating a very accessible biography. The scholarship is evident but the writing style is surprisingly fast-paced. Tudorphiles won’t find much new in the two-thirds of the book. This is well-trodden ground and Whitelock focuses simply on Mary’s point of view without wringing out tenuous interpretations. She also shows Mary’s shift from obedient Catholic girl to a woman for whom faith offered the only constant in her life.

Once Mary becomes queen Whitelock takes great pains to demonstrate how she paved the way (definitely unknowingly) for little sis Elizabeth to become Gloriana. The idea of a woman as ruler was unthinkable prior to Mary. After Mary it was a viable option. Whitelock is less successful in redrawing the portrait of “Bloody Mary” although in fairness to the author that was probably not the intention. Instead of claiming Mary was in thrall to her advisors when she sent hundreds to be burned at the stake, Whitelock points out that Mary was perfectly willing to die for her religious beliefs and thus wasn’t too troubled by others dying for theirs. It’s not a sympathetic portrait but it strikes me as far worthier for this notable survivor.

Recommended for history readers and Tudorphiles.

Who’s Your Bootlegger?

2010-11-25T22:15:00.001-05:00

Last Call: the rise and fall of Prohibition is a sometimes fascinating, usually interesting exploration of what in retrospect seems inexplicable. Daniel Okrent delves deep into the origins of the Prohibition to show its links to the Women’s Suffrage movement and latent xenophobia. He also shows the inner workings of Congress to explain how the necessary Constitutional Amendment was passed.

Okrent is at his best when his vignettes are grounded in a single person or event. For me he was at his worst when he would bring a character on stage, such as Wayne Wheeler, and wait hundreds of pages before telling us anything about the person other than his actions. When explaining a movement driven by deeply-felt and often deeply personal emotions keeping a distance doesn’t work.

What can’t be argued with is the vast amount of research Okrent clearly conducted, most of which seems to have found its way into the book. I had the odd sensation of wishing someone would quiz me on the Prohibition after finishing Last Call. It seemed pity to waste all that detailed knowledge. Which brings me to my major caveat for this book: it is not for the casual reader. If you want to learn about this important chapter in US history then you would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive book. If, however, you are only mildly interested then this book is not likely to whip that mild interest into fascination. The mildly interested would be well-advised to skip judiciously – you don’t need to read all 480 pages to learn from and enjoy this book.

Okrent does have his focal points – Samuel Bronfman is one – and most fit well. His last discursion into whether or not Joseph P. Kennedy was or was not a bootlegger struck me as the oddest. Okrent’s contention that “most people” think JPK was a bootlegger seemed a little, how shall I say, a little 1975. I’m not sure most people even know who JPK WAS let alone what he was doing in the 1920s. If Okrent feels he’s cleared up a major misconception then bully for him but to me it was a missed opportunity to tie up the story.

Recommended for those interested in US history and highly recommended for anyone particularly interested in the topic.

Sympathy for the Devil

2010-10-10T14:56:00.001-04:00

In the genre of women’s fiction, Jodi Picoult, Sue Miller and Anita Shreve exemplify the unwritten ground rules: an event of some trauma or import intrudes on the seemingly ordered life of a woman living in a seeming idyllic suburban or rural town. Lisa Unger certainly plays by the rules but she also manages to add her own stamp to the genre.

The plot description of Fragile may remind some of Rosellen Brown’s excellent Before and After but that’s merely superficial. Brown was focused on the toll taken on one family. Unger chronicles the impact on an entire town. Her cross-section of characters verges on over population at the beginning of the book but once the action kicks in the pattern Unger is weaving becomes clear. Unger is particularly good at showing the reader unpleasant characters without making them cartoonish. Even her most repellant characters retain a humanity.

There were a few things in Fragile that are, well, curious. One is Unger’s choice to saddle a major male character with the name “Jones”. At least it’s not “Storm”, I guess. Then Unger has one character named “Chuck”, another “Charlie” and a third “Charlene”. If she was trying to make the three a triptych of each other it doesn’t come off. Maybe she just likes the name Charles.

An enjoyable book. Recommended for fans of Jodi Picoult, Sue Miller and Rosellen Brown.

Sisterhood of Stupidity

2010-10-01T21:24:00.001-04:00

In the realm of pop culture the female offspring with bad taste in men and a propensity for landing in life threatening-peril has a long history. Audra in The Big Valley, Diana Fairgate in Knots Landing, Kim Bauer in 24, to name but a few, inspired in viewers like me a weekly mixture of disappointment and awe. Disappointment that yet another perfectly good to kill them had been squandered and awe that any writer could think stupidity makes compelling entertainment. Into this rich tradition Peter Robinson’s Bad Boy launches DCI Banks’ daughter Tracey Banks, hitherto not renown for her imbecility.

Tracey, however, is a comer. And she’s surrounded by several idiotic characters and situations that serve to vault her own burgeoning dimwittedness into the stratosphere. In the first few chapters we are confronted with England’s dumbest mother – what do you do if you suspect your child is in trouble? Why you toddle down to the local police station; a “gun removal” procedure that despite several characters noting that it is “by the book” strikes me as being taking from the adventures of Larry, Moe and Curly; a cardboard cutout police villain; and Tracey, who has decided to call herself Francesca to spice up her boring life. Is it any wonder that Banks himself would choose to flee the jurisdiction and vacation in California? Sadly, he’s not in search of higher IQs, he’s off searching his soul after the collapse of his relationship with a younger woman and his encounter with MI5. He’s on a California whine tour.

To make matters even more entertaining, Robinson has decided to delete the mystery portion from this installment of this mystery series. You know who did it. Banks knows who did it. The only person who is momentarily dim on this is, you guessed it, Tracey. Her decision to cleave unto the bad boy of the title is one the goofier aspects of the book – he was her friend’s boyfriend, she just fancied him until the cops got involved. Then it’s shopping, trashing Dad’s place and running from the man all day. Like Gym, Tanning and Laundry, only even dumber.

As if this isn’t enough fun, Robinson then tosses in a super-criminal known as The Farmer (cue the foreboding music) and his two psychotic henchmen. Then he adds a graphic torture tableau. It’s a relief because for the last 20 books I’ve been saying to myself, Excellent characterizations, complex mysteries and genuine moral dilemmas are all fine and good but when is Robinson going to get serious and deliver more gratuitous victimization of women.

I’m not a fan. Robinson can do much, much better than this book that reads more like a plea for a movie deal than an entry into what has been up to know an extremely well-written, well-plotted, thoughtful mystery series. If you’re a fan of Robinson and Banks, you may want to skip this one.

Blood and Innards

2010-09-28T15:07:00.000-04:00

A mystery series set in Amish country and featuring a female lapsed-Amish police chief has a lot going for it. A crime taking place in and around this closed community is automatically charged an air of the forbidden. A woman, in this case Kate Burkholder, who leaves a male-dominated culture only to re-enter it in a position of power presents a fascinating set up too. Add to this a writer, Castillo, who can actually write and you have a recipe for success.

Why only 3 stars?

There are a few significant drawbacks for me. The first is that this is not a mystery; it's a thriller. It's not that it's so terribly obvious, it's that Burkholder has a suspect early on and she's right. Then there is the grotesque nature of the crime. Want to read about the murder of an entire Amish family and the sexual torture of their two daughters? Me neither. Castillo doesn't exploit the material she's just too painstakingly detailed for my taste. Finally there's the incredibly weighty back stories of Burkholder and her love interest - more stomach-churning violence - and the fact that the first book of this series had the two investigating a serial murderer. People have moved for far less provocation but these two are hanging around at the scene of multiple crimes.

Of course, that's challenge of any mystery series. (Who in their right mind would invite Miss Marple over for tea?) But it's an awful lot for book two.

Castillo makes a few bold choices - Burkholder's sections are all told in the present tense, all other characters in the past tense - that would fall apart in the hands of a less talented writer. They aren't all successful but Castillo sets a fast pace for the book so that even missteps aren't very noticeable.

For thriller fans who don't mind or enjoy a gory murder, Pray for Silence is worth checking out.

Anatomy of a Scandal

2010-09-06T15:17:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, the Chandra Levy case was the most important news story in the United States. Ok, not exactly important more highly covered. Why? Well, she was white, missing and middle class, and she was having an affair with a congressman. Naturally this made things like war, famine and pandemics fell by the wayside in the land of cable news. Something very much like hysteria was building around the Levy-Condit case and then 9/11 happened. Now reporters Shari Horwitz and Scott Higham have gone back, nine years later, to sort out the fact from the tabloid fiction. What they have written is less true crime and more social commentary. They examine the case itself but they also examine the media coverage of it, and how the media coverage impacted the investigation.

The result is excellent reporting and good writing. Higham and Horwitz know how to bring individuals to life without resorting to extensive inventories of closets. They also don't fall into the "this story was SO hard to report" cliches. They even manage to humanize Gary Condit. He's no more likable at the end of the book than he was before but his actions seems much less sinister though still remarkably bone-headed. The most fascinating aspect is how quickly law enforcement fell under the sway of the media coverage. If Rita Cosby reported something, the police had to follow up.

There remains the issue of whether the Chandra Levy case received disproportionate media coverage and even police attention because she was white and middle class. Well, of course it received more media coverage. Her family was able to work the system and was able to afford advice to help them better work the system. Bully for them. If my child was missing I'd do everything I could to get whatever help I could. Was the media wrong for following up on a story that was dropped into their laps? Not in my opinion.
It is wrong that so many missing non-middle class and/or non-whites don't receive similar attention from the media. But then who really believes that CNN/MSNBC/FOX etc cover these stories as news and not entertainment? Coverage goes to those who have the time, money and connections to scream loudest.
I also found it entertaining that the Washington Post's own readers ombudsman was disgruntled that the series was too long. I guess she was hoping they'd just send a few Tweets and be done with it. Shouldn't the ombudsman at least support the idea of in depth reporting? The concept of the press as a public trust has evaporated before our eyes.

Highly recommended for true crime readers.

This is Your Life – Southern-style

2010-07-18T21:27:00.001-04:00

First off, this is not a thriller. The subtitle to The Last Talk with Lola Faye is “a novel” and that is the correct description in my opinion. Thomas H. Cook delivers a few twists and turns in the book but while motivations may be shrouded there is no big psychological mystery nor are there chase scenes and other assorted perils. Instead Cook tells the story of a mediocre professor who one night unexpectedly meets the woman he holds responsible for his father’s murder. The conversation that follows, the talk of the title, takes the narrator back to his life in an Alabama town of reduced expectations.

Cook chooses to tell the bulk of the story in a series of flashbacks – a risky choice but it is mostly successful here. It helps that the writing is engaging and never fussy, and that the book is short (around 250 pages) so that it can be read in one gulp on a deckchair near the body of water of your choice. In fact this book is probably best read in one or two sessions. Broken up over days the story of Luke and Lola Faye might start to creak a bit. Can Luke really be so totally lacking in self-awareness? Taken at the right speed the story is revealing and entertaining, reminiscent of Barbara Vine. My only quarrel with the book, aside from the publisher’s choice of calling it a “thriller,” is the last chapter. It feels like a cop out, a tacked on happy ending that was already implied without hitting the reader over the head. Maybe that’s the publisher’s fault, too.

Recommended for fans of literary mysteries of the Barbara Vine variety.

Recent Acquisitions from the Vine

2010-07-03T21:47:00.000-04:00

Complaining about the poor selection of free items strikes me as a tad ungrateful yet I have to admit that Amazon’s Vine offerings haven’t been tempting the last few months. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean I have to choose a book that does not interest me – especially when I have to write a review in exchange. But enough whining, in this month’s second batch were too review-worthy books.

The Last Talk with Lola Faye by Thomas H. Cook

This is billed as “a novel” despite a plot that involves a man finally meeting the woman he holds responsible for his father’s murder. Less than 300 pages, Lola looks like something best read in one gulp. Perfect for my long awaited vacation this week.

If I like this I’m in luck, it appears that Mr. Cook has written twenty other books.

Finding Chandra by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz

The summer of 2001 was the summer of the Chandra Levy case. Then 9/11 happened and pundits were falling all over themselves to say that THIS was real news and didn’t we all feel silly about obsessing over the Levy case. The case was sensationalized by cable news mongrels and it was a typical Missing White Female media frenzy. Fortunately Washington Post reports Higham and Horwitz treated the case as more than the scandal de jour and didn’t settle for sensationalism. Their series of articles, which form the basis of this book, helped to identify the killer.

Jamesian Inquiry Part 2: Unnatural Causes

2010-07-02T21:42:00.001-04:00

After spending two books giving the reader glimpses of the soul of her detective, in Unnatural Causes P.D. James pulled him out of his natural environment by sending him on holiday. This means that both James and Dalgliesh can ponder murder and murder investigations from the outside for a change, but ponder it still. James also tackles head on Dalgliesh’s willful solitariness and his peculiar emotional inertia – is he willing to change his life enough to share it permanently with Deborah Riscoe – placing him in a community of self-absorbed writers.

James dissects what it means to be a semi-successful writer from several angles. There’s the romance writer who peddles convention to make a living and the mystery writer who is past his prime. Both must grapple with the knowledge that their work will not outlast them, that it is not respected and that they are not even successful by their own standards. Publically they guard their own claim to be "artists” while snipping away at one another.

This community of writers is most interested in Dalgliesh because he is a police detective. They don’t seem at all impressed or intrigued that he is also a published poet. It’s such an obvious flip of responses, usually someone has to point out the incongruity of a detective writing poetry, that I had to wonder if James was making a joke.

Dalgliesh is downright cranky on occasion in Unnatural Causes. James showed up glimpses of his pride and self-regard before but this time she lets him be, well, human. At least on the inside. He’s put out that there’s a murder to contend with during his vacation. He’s annoyed that everyone seems to think he has a part to play in solving the crime. Not that he voices much of this. The hardest thing to like about Adam Dalgliesh is his self-control.

The source of that self-control appears as disinterest to others. The most revered of the writers in Monks Head asserts that Dalgliesh chose his line of work because it gives him permission to be “uninvolved”. This is James striking at the heart of her own character: Dalgliesh wants to investigate murder, he wants to understand the crime and the criminal but he does not want to be involved in it in any meaningful way. He wants to observe, to intellectualize, but not to feel. Placed in proximity to murder but not an official capacity to investigate it he has to feel his reactions to the suspects and the victim, to resent the official intrusion into his life. What makes James a great writer is that she does this without resorting to making Dalgliesh a suspect. When faced with his aunt’s own calm acceptance that so twisted an evil in the form of the murderer had been part of her daily life Dalgliesh is staggered by what he considers her “uninvolvement.”

James is having fun in Unnatural Causes starting with the obvious homage to Dorothy L Sayers. From the title’s nod to Unnatural Death to comments about “in the teeth of the evidence” to the body on the beach the book is filled with touches that place the book and the series in the Golden Age of Mystery tradition.

What a difference a narrator makes

2010-06-28T21:15:00.001-04:00

I’m listening to another audio book version of P.D. James’ Unnatural Causes as part of my revisit of the Adam Dalgliesh series. This one is narrated by Michael Jayston and it’s nearly a completely different book compared to the version narrated by Penelope Dellaporta. Jayston’s version captures the contradictions that make Adam Dalgliesh a fascinating character. It seems possible that Dalgliesh really is a policeman and a poet – always the toughest part of the character to make believable. He handles Dalgliesh’s frustration at being hounded by murder even on holiday without it coming across as selfish whining. Dellaporta, a skilled reader, makes the same material too prim. Her Dalgliesh isn’t exactly whiney but he is fretful. Too often is sounds like she’s offering knitting advice. Dellaporta strikes me as being perfect for coziness of a Miss Marple story. For P.D. James’ cool yet remorseless assessments of murder and human nature Michael Jayston is THE quintessential reader.

Recent Acquisitions

2010-06-26T09:46:00.001-04:00

Party Animals by Robert Hofler

(Kindle)

A biography of agent/producer/party maven Allan Carr. Trashy, flashy fun. I can’t believe that I didn’t know about this book sooner. Amazon should have called my house as soon as this was published. My only regret is that because this is a Kindle book the publishers have probably held back on the photos. And I need to see some of what is described here.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind

I got tired of waiting for a Kindle edition of this. I read a few pages in Barnes & Noble a few months ago. The combination of bad behavior and intelligent discussion of movies was too tempting for me to resist for long. Mark Harris’s Pictures at a Revolution reignited my love of film analysis mixed with behind the scenes details.

Mellon: An American Life by David Cannadine

Another book I’ve been waiting to see in Kindle version. After the Lords of Finance and Last Call I’ve had enough glimpses of Andrew W. Mellon. I need the full picture now.

Where there’s a serial killer, there’s a way

2010-06-19T22:27:00.001-04:00

This is a transportation book, the kind you read on a long airplane trip or your daily commute to work. A successful transportation book must take into account that the reader will rarely give the text undivided attention and that it will be read in pieces. To compensate the author has to make the chapters and paragraphs short, key facts must be repeated, the characters’ names must be repeated, first and last names, at the beginning of every chapter and the characters themselves must be, well, broadly sketched. Most importantly the plot must speed along so that the reader doesn’t have time to notice any of the previous issues nor time to notice the general silliness of the proceedings. Phillip Margolin’s Executive Privilege manages all of the above.

I’m not a major consumer of transportation books but I have read enough to recognize the requirements and to know that some are pretty awful. Executive Privilege is not awful. It chugs along the rails of the genre’s convention making the necessary stops. Because it’s a legal thriller we get snatches of legal jargon and technicalities. We also have the usual allotment of serial killers and evil politicians. I got the impression that Margolin’s heart wasn’t into it when it came to the serial killers – that was in his favor in my opinion. He kept the victimization of women to a minimum except when it came to the background of one of the leads, another mark in his favor. The plot itself – is the President of the United States a serial killer? – won’t keep you up nights but it’s not intended to. The big twist isn’t all that surprising (I clocked it by chapter 5) and the ending is textbook pat. (All the major players declare their love to the person they’ve been keeping at a distance.)

Margolin does slip in a few unexpected touches. The conservative politician isn’t the villain for a change. The male lead, a young lawyer, is a complete doofus instead of a heroic genius with abs of steel. He was whiney and lovesick; it made for a nice change. It also made it a tad easier to put up with the antics of female lead Dana Cutler who is such a talent PI that she never once enters a room normally. She sneaks up on EVERYONE. I kept hoping we’d see her sneaking into a McDonald’s to get a Big Mac in the epilogue just to show us she hadn’t lost her street skills or whatever.

Take it for what it is and this book is enjoyable enough. It’s not a beach read – taken in large doses you’d probably want to bury it under a sand castle. Read it for 20 minutes at a time on the train and you be at risk for missing your stop by the miles will speed by.

Jamesian Inquiry Part 1: A Mind to Murder

2010-06-13T21:42:00.001-04:00

You have to admire someone who creates a workable formula and then sticks to it. P. D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh books are set in a cloistered (in one case truly!) often claustrophobic community. Work is usually the source of the community as well as the source of the tensions and rivalries. Office politics create the initial tensions: who wants whose job, who’s obsession with the rules is making everyone’s life miserable, who is a nasty git, who is a mess, etc.The rules of the profession are up for examination with the definition of success, and what it takes to be successful, playing a major part.

Psychiatry is the profession under examination in A Mind to Murder (AMTM), P. D. James’ second Adam Dalgliesh book published in 1963. The treatments are were up-to-the-minute back in ‘63 but dated today – LSD, deep analysis and out-patient ECT – still it is interesting to see how these treatments are discussed. Compared to her later books, the Steen Clinic is a back drop rather than a vortex. Aside from the hints of “psychiatrist shrink your own head” James doesn’t say all that much about the profession itself. She does use the conceits of the profession, however, with the doctors feeling themselves perfectly qualified to state a theory of the crime along with conclusions about the identity of the killer.

The crime, the murder of the Miss Bolam, strikes most characters as an annoyance rather than a tragedy. That in itself sets this book apart. While several of the characters harbor a dislike for Miss Bolam none demonstrates a true hatred of her. Sustaining a mystery when the crime itself is so cold blooded isn’t easy, you can’t have a whodunit if it’s a case of who cares. James handles this by making it less about “who would kill Miss Bolam?” and more “who among this bunch could so totally lose their cool?” The who isn’t all that difficult to figure out. James drops several Christie-style hints along the way. There is one deductive leap that Dalgliesh makes that was a bit too wide for my taste. How he went from one phone call to blackmail could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Compared to her later books, AMTM is a lesser effort. The characters are less well-drawn and less compelling but it’s only to be expected that a good writer would strive to get better. There are a few interesting hints of what is to come. A minor scene draws in religion, a subject which features prominently in later books. Two scenes set up Dalgliesh’s relationship with Deborah Riscoe and its eventual demise.

One of the pleasures of a James’ mystery is the attention she pays to the impact of the murder on the other characters. How perfectly reasonable that proximity to a murder and the subsequent investigation would cause an examination of one’s own life. AMTM features an epilogue of sorts with the office busybody filling Adam in all the changes that have taken place since the case wrapped up. It’s a nice touch and although it’s a bit obvious, it reminds me how other Dalgliesh books have left me wondering what became of the characters once the police left.

Snap Judgments

2010-06-12T22:18:00.003-04:00

Of the many great things about the Kindle, the access to free sample chapters is in the top five. On the whole this feature encourages me to try new authors; if I’m not sure if I’ll like a book, I try a sample chapter. Occasionally the sample chapters demonstrates that the book being sampled is not for me. It’s not judging a book by it’s cover, it’s judging it by the first chapter.

Run at Destruction by Lynda Drews is an example of a book that sample chapters proved was not for me. A few pages of this book proved this book isn’t for anyone without access to serious drugs. The story is about a love triangle that ends in murder as told by the “best friend” of the murder victim. I’ve read hundreds of true crime books and many of them have been bad. This one is so bad I actually made friends read parts of it. Why? Because I thought I must be hallucinating, that’s how bad it was.

I lack the skills to fully convey the sheer awfulness of the writing. Most of the time its merely groan-worthy (“I sipped my addiction”) and sometimes it is gut-bustingly, unintentionally hilarious. “We wickedly admitted to groin sensations when we’d watch them run.” Desire or the need to urinate? Who knows?

For some reason Amazon feels the need to keep “suggesting” this book to me. Now that I’ve tried reading it I think I should feel insulted.

Seriously Bad Judgment

2010-06-09T21:06:00.001-04:00

When reading an Elizabeth George novel one expects a bit of gore. George is one of those mystery novelists who is especially keen to prove she is not in the least cozy. The gore suits George better than it does Martha Grimes, the mystery writer who seems to inhabit much of the territory as she. (I would disagree with that assessment.) I’ve always seen Elizabeth George as striving to have more in common with P. D. James and often succeeding. I give George credit for stopping the endless merry-go-round of romance of the four leads and for taking a major risk is killing off one of the four. Full marks for effort. But George’s previous two books showed a few disturbing fixations (namely, children who kill and deeply unappealing female characters) that come to fruition in This Body of Death and the results left me actually writing the word “ew” in my notes.

(Anyone happening upon this who hasn’t read This Body of Death should stop now because spoilers will abound.)

I thought it would be tough to top Daidre Trahair as least appealing non-murderer in any Elizabeth George book and then along came Isabelle Ardery. So the latest candidate for superintendent is an ambitious woman. A little Prime Suspect but I’ll play along. Isabelle has a drinking problem? More Prime Suspect. Inspector Thomas Lynley coming back to the force to help said alcoholic win the coveted job? Okay. Isabelle turns out to be in over her head and Lynley helps her? A little less ok. Lynley finding Isabelle dead drunk after she effs up the case, tossing her into the shower and then having sex with her? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WTH? Or as I wrote in my Kindle notes: EWWWWWWW.

I don’t care how much the shower sobered her up, who the hell wants to read about the hero of a series having sex with a woman who’s capacity to consent is even slightly questionable? And why would he be so desperate that he’d have sex with someone he just revived from an alcoholic stupor? She didn’t even brush her teeth. Not to mention, she’s his boss. Are we to believe Lynley’s grief, all of five months old, is so severe he’s forgotten it’s never a good idea to fish off the company pier?

It only got worse when Lynley then covers up for Isabelle so she can keep trying to be superintendent. Because people who drink at work never make bad decisions. Maybe George is trying to go somewhere with this but I have zero interest in signing up for the next installment if she’s going to try to sell a “romance” between this two. Ew.

I’ll write a proper review later. After I’ve had a chance to get over the squick factor.

Teenage Wasteland

2010-05-30T22:59:00.001-04:00

New titles are published in the True Crime every year but new voices are rare. Anyone who cares about the genre has to wonder when the next Ted Olsen or Darcy O’Brien or Shana Alexander is going to arrive. Or wonder is they’ll ever arrive at all. A new voice has arrived with Bluegrass.

The lives of three young people, all barely out of their teens, intersect as a typical college frat party. The girl gets her heart broken, gets drunk, acts out and then gets tossed out. One of the boys has spent the party passed out in a pickup truck after an all too successful pre-party. The second boy is unimpressed by his first frat party. By morning the girl is in ICU suffering horrific injuries. The investigation and murder trial that follow leave many questions unanswered.

William Van Meter tells this story with nary a trace of hysteria and what’s even more impressive is that he also does it without an ounce of condescension. Life in semi-rural Kentucky would be filled with only alcohol and Ten Commandments road signage in the hands of other writers but Van Meter avoids the clichés. He shows us the aimless lives of the two boys and the semi-aimless life of the girl, their stunningly bad choices and their almost innocent kindnesses. His occasional commentary on their lives is devastating in its brevity. Case in point is his assessment of Stephen Soules: “a sluggish existence wholly in the present – a life structured around ‘chillin’.”

This is the rare true crime book that is successful despite a genuine ambiguity about what actually transpired. Van Meter never hands the reader an easy out of “this is what I think happened”, leaving us to sort it all out for ourselves. It’s not a perfect book, the writing could stand a bit more polish in places but this is Van Meter’s first book I’m willing to overlook a few rough edges when the overall content is this good. At 240 pages this is a short book well worth the time of any True Crime fan. Highly recommended.

Tackling a Series

2010-05-29T21:59:00.002-04:00

For some reason it’s been years, decades even, since I tackled a mystery series in order from start to finish. Come to think of it, I even went out of order on one of the Harry Potter books. It’s not that I can’t wait to find out how it ends since I rarely ever peek at an ending.

I think it has more to do with not wearing out the characters' and author’s welcome. Taken all at once the mechanics of a series can become obvious, creakingly obvious in some cases. The set pieces become too familiar and the recurring motifs get downright annoying. Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury series is a prime example. Read a year or so apart one doesn’t notice the fact that the last dozen or so books all feature a preternaturally intelligent dog and at least one child, both of which thoroughly befuddle Melrose Plant. You’d think he’d have picked up some pointers by now.

Still I want to tackle P. D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh series in one continuous, if not chronological effort. I’ve already started out of order – Unnatural Death is the third in the series – and I’ll be rereading some of the books. And I’ll be listening to them instead of reading them. Despite all these caveats I’m looking forward to reading the books closely enough together to see the evolution over nearly 50 years. I guess this is my tribute of sorts to P. D. James and her durable series. I’m willing to risk a little over familiarity.

Recent Acquisitions

2010-05-14T21:04:00.001-04:00

The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham (Kindle) This history of the Middle Ages is all about proving that the Dark Ages weren’t dark and that the march of history is more of a meander. Not a fast read but better than rereading my old college text book, which I’ve often thought I should do. Not that I have a good reason for it. Must be the burgundy cover.

Reading Along

2010-05-13T21:18:00.001-04:00

I’m in a funk book-wise. After finishing Gregg Olsen’s latest, the amazing A Twisted Faith, it’s as though nothing is quite living up to expectations. Not a fair reaction but not unexpected either. When I finish a particularly good book I want to read something just as good; I want that same reading high. When the book is genuinely great, well, great is rare and two in a row is rarer still.

The Go-Between disappointed, The Inheritance of Rome is a tad denser than anticipated and Blind Justice is good but I only listen to 30 minutes of it a day so I’m never fully immersed in it. And that’s what a great book does for me – it takes me outside my day-to-day life. Which is why I usually save the latest books from reliably great authors for times when I really need an escape.

That and the fact that there’s no literary bonbon in my reading rotation at the moment is making every page seem slower than usual. Good thing I didn’t tackle Elizabeth George’s latest just now. I’d probably end up heaving it across the room.

All Yesterday’s Parties

2010-05-12T21:13:00.002-04:00

The story of a party girl who finds herself hanging out with the Rat Pack, the Kennedy Clan and La Costa Nostra simultaneously only to spend the rest of her life paying the consequences sounds like a great idea for a great novel. As The Go-Between proves, there is more to great novel than a great idea.

Frederick Turner starts out by creating a distinct barrier between the subject, Judith Campbell Exner, and the reader. Instead of telling her own story, JCE’s story is told by a old reporter who had access to her diaries but rarely quotes from them. Instead the reporter treats readers to his interpretation of her story. This might have worked had Turner not chosen to make the reporter the classic unreliable narrator, had the reporter fall in love with his own idea of JCE and then, for some truly unfathomable reason, make this the one reporter who can never seem to find the right words or the right analogy. Paragraphs of the narrator telling us that he can’t find the right word but it’s sort of like this, etc, might work once in the novel but more than once stops the novel dead in its track every single time. And that’s not counting the time he’s struggles for an analogy that he sort of remembers but doesn’t quite. Look it up on the internet already, buddy.

There is a tie for nadir of this failed experiment. Candidate One is the entire chapter entitled “Killing MistahCastro” (JFK, you’ll be shocked to learn, had an accent). Candidate Two is the narrator’s ruminations on the subject of “virginality”. What’s that, you say. You do not want to know and you certainly don’t want to know several pages of it.

That’s just the writing. The plot is not much better. Whether you’re a JFK fan, a JFK hater, a left-winger, a right-winger, a centrist, or a political agnostic there’s something in here to make you roll your eyes in disgust. Pick a cliché about these characters and chances are it’s here. So let me summarize for you: JFK and his father used the mafia to buy the nomination and then the election. (I was fascinated that the price of the Illinois and West Virginia primaries were both a briefcase full of money. One would think that on a per capita basis Illinois would be worth a suitcase full, but I digress.) But wait, there’s more! Sinatra and JFK liked threesomes! RFK was a saint! Peter Lawford was a tool! And … does anybody really still care about this foolishness? And if they do, why not read a trashy bio on any of the above and skip the faux handwringing about the corruption of it all.

I don’t claim to know what the truth is about any of the above allegations. This is fiction and Turner can do what he pleases as long as he makes it all matter. He fails to do that. From the minute he introduces her to when his narrator claims to be trying to rescue JCE from being “Jack Kennedy’s lay” he does her a disservice. Turner never makes Judith Campbell Exner a believable character and he very rarely shows her outside of her interactions with the cast of famous men. Jacqueline Susann could have written a better life story of JCE – at least she would have given her some humanity.

Would You Believe: Swedish Nazis?

2010-05-08T22:04:00.001-04:00

Somehow all that free love, sleekly designed furniture and middle-class socialism has blinded me to the fact that Sweden had a Nazi-past of its own. A few passages in Tony Judt’s Post War clued me in to Sweden’s flirtation (if that’s quite the word) with eugenics. Now The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo comes along and tells me about the Swedish Nazi party, unrepentant Nazis and neo-Nazis.

Despite this book being everywhere I didn’t know that much about it before it was picked for my office book club and after that my policy is not to read anything about the book, even a review before forming my own opinion. All I knew was that it was Swedish, featured a female hacker and was all the rage. So the serial killer thing came as a surprise. An unpleasant surprise. I don’t like serial killer books. I don’t find serial killers, real or fictional, to be all that fascinating.

Larsson wrote a satisfyingly twisty mystery. Maybe I’m the only one who enjoyed the scenes of Blomkvist adjusting to life in the frozen north more than the descriptions of the serial killings. To be fair, Larsson doesn’t fetishize the serial killer material and that’s a relief. My only real quarrel with the book, aside from the serial killer part (and that’s a pretty big aside considering it features two of them) is that hero Michael Blomkvist can’t open his front door without women wanting a go with his man parts. Ok, maybe in the aforementioned frozen north where one’s pickings are slim this might happen but I’m guessing that in Stockholm a girl has more options. Whatever, it’s a minor quibble.

Derivatives Watching

2010-05-04T21:07:00.001-04:00

Thirty pages into Frederick Turner’s The Go-Between I feel like I’m playing spot the influence. There’s the unreliable narrator – nod to Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier. There’s the investigator who is entranced by the subject of his investigation – nod to Preminger’s Laura. The self-consciously hard-boiled narrator has too many examples to pin down just one but this one feels vaguely Norman Mailer-like. It’s all a little distracting which doesn’t help when the style is to show you the main character (Judith Campbell Exner) by never actually showing her directly.

I hope its just a creaky start.

Peers Gone Wild

2010-05-03T21:20:00.003-04:00

The inhabitants of the British Isles have bequeathed many fabled gifts to civilization – the works of Shakespeare and the Magna Carta come to mind – but no gift keeps giving quite like the antics of aristocrats behaving badly. I speak not of Earls whose addiction to gambling leads them to invent the Sandwich or Dukes who set up a second life as a baker. No, I mean badly; really, epically, occasionally criminally badly. If you want to read about members of the peerage behaving badly on a nuclear scale then in Splendour and Squalor Marcus Scriven has written the book for you.

Alternately hilarious and sad (and sometimes both), the stories of four awesomely awful individuals show exactly what too much money plus zero parental oversight can do to a person. The consequences range from multiple bankruptcies, multiple wives, prison sentences, a "lifelong shriek for attention" and being declared (by a judge) “absurdly stupid.” Alcohol, drugs, excessive spending, adultery, more alcohol, more drugs, sexual experimentation and, above all, consistently bad judgment: it’s like a century long frat party. With family crests on the silver.

Scriven provides a smorgasbord of witticisms about the lunacies he details but some of the best lines are delivered seriously by the participants. Consider the ex-wife (one of many) of the Duke of Manchester who describes her home as an “upholstered sewer outside Melbourne”. (The things they’re doing with waterproof fabric these days!) Or the Marquess of Bristol who declares that he didn’t go to his father’s wedding to his secretary because “I don’t go to office parties.” Or, my favorite, the friend who describes the relative merits of the Marquess’s favorite driver thusly, “being illiterate he couldn’t read the road signs, so not the greatest chauffeur.”

At one point in the festivities the utterly insane Marquess of Bristol joins forces with the equally batty Clint Murchinson Jr (of The Big Rich fame) to invest in oil fields. When John Murchinson suggests that they “saddle up the jet” it’s really anyone’s guess which activity any of them had in mind. One feels a certain kinship with the observer who states, “What I’m wondering is, where are the white sheep in this family?” No where in this book, thankfully.

A fun, fast blissfully witty book. Marcus Scriven writes like the world’s most erudite gossip columnist and for that I love him. Essential reading for anyone who enjoys fabulousness and wit.

Kindle note: there are, tragically, no photographs in the Kindle version despite the index of photos being tauntingly included up front. When one reads of a Duchess who routinely begins notes to friends with the words “Well Kid how is your sex life?” one wants to see what the letter writer looked like.

The Only Child’s Tale

2010-05-02T21:36:00.001-04:00

The most important thing you need to know about this book is that Sharon Davies is a great storyteller. The tale of a Methodist minister who shoots and kills a Catholic priest for marrying the minister’s daughter to a Catholic in 1920’s Birmingham Alabama might sound dry as dust but in Davies’ capable hands is it almost Tolstoyan.

Rising Road takes us back to a time when the Klu Klux Klan traipsed around openly. Blacks were their most common target but second on their list were Catholics. They were joined in this hatred by a surprising number of political figures who built their careers on “warning” Americans about the “menace” of the Catholic Church. Not only did publications exist solely to carry this message it was also carried on in the editorial pages of major newspapers in Birmingham. In this atmosphere the trial of the minister takes place.

Writing as much as a novelist as a historian, Davies gives us several compelling characters: the Irish priest who defends his faith publically despite the risks, the minister who turns into “the marrying parson” after his career as a barber doesn’t work out, the daughter who converts to the faith her parents abhor and marries to escape them and the future Supreme Court justice who defends the minister. Even the chapters dealing with the trial, clearly taken from the transcript, come alive.

Oxford University Press deserves special praise for upping the game when it comes to academics writing for a popular audience. First The Day Wall Street and now Rising Road demonstrate that serious nonfiction need not be a chore to read.

Rising Road will satisfy history fans and discriminating true crimes fans as well. Highly recommended.

Off the Vine

2010-05-01T22:04:00.001-04:00

The Go-Between: A Novel of the Kennedy Years by Frederick Turner (Amazon Vine)

The sales pitch says this is “faux-journalistic reconstruction” of the life of Judith Campbell Exner. My first thought was that JCE deserves her own novelization after the twenty or so fellow JFK mistress Marilyn Monroe has under her belt. My second thought was that “faux-journalistic” describes most of what is contained in any issue of Vanity Fair.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent (Amazon Vine)

The chance to add to my tragically slim knowledge of early 20th century American History was too good to pass up. Maybe this book will explain how anyone ever thought Prohibition would actually work. We Americans are so good at restraint after all.

Carrie Nation, here I come.

Pray for Silence: A Thriller by Linda Castillo (Amazon Vine)

A mystery series set in an Amish community. Vine offers surprisingly few mysteries. Of course, this on is a “thriller” a word that is becoming as meaningful as “suspense” in the mystery genre. But I won’t hold the silly subtitle against the book.

How did we all survive back in the days when a book could be titled without resorting to colons?

The Angel, the SOB and the drunken cocktail waitress

2010-04-30T21:46:00.001-04:00

The story of a man who’s declared Father of the Year and then ends up on trial for the murder of his wife is all sorts of ironic until one pauses to consider that it was Father and not Husband of the Year. Undoubtedly that twist of irony is what drew Glenn Puit to the story of all around rotten human being Bill Rundle. Once again true crime fans are presented with evidence that being an SOB doesn’t automatically make one’s story interesting.

Rundle specializes in small scale crime, lies and romantic destruction until working his way up to the murders of his mother and wife. Along the way he has a son, Richie, that he genuinely seems to have loved. Then in a twist straight out of South Park, Richie is run over by a drunken cocktail waitress as he pushes his friend out of harm’s way. Vegas being Vegas, they name a school after the child.

This is a curiously pedestrian book. Puit is strongest when he’s detailing Rundle’s background. The chapters dealing with the investigation are, I kid you not, taken from a Dateline NBC episode which left me wondering why I was reading this when I could just catch a rerun on Discovery ID. The last 50 pages are pure filler. Most of the time Puit is dispassionate to the point of bland, except when he’s writing about Richie Rundle (“an angel”, “a gift from God”, “a miracle”) and then I wanted to turn a fire hose on him.

All in all, middle grade true crime. Recommended only for those very interest in the case or the commuting patterns of cocktail waitresses.

Recent Acquisitions

2010-04-27T21:39:00.003-04:00

Rising Road by Sharon Davies (Amazon Vine)

An account of a notorious 1921 murder trial of a minister accused of murdering a priest for marrying his daughter to a Catholic.

Twenty-five pages in it’s already obvious that Davies is a natural storyteller.

]
This Body of Death by Elizabeth George (Kindle)

Lynley and Havers are back. Solving a vile child murder. I guess I should be happy it’s not a firebombing of a school bus full of saintly nuns, each with an adorable kitten-clutching tot on their lap. But if that whack job Daidre Trahair is back I swear this is my last of this series.

Twisted Faith: A Minister's Obsession and the Murder That Destroyed a Church by Gregg Olsen (Kindle)

New true crime from Gregg Olsen = me wondering if I’m really to old to call out sick and stay in bed all day reading. A new book by Olsen should automatically result in a national holiday but someone in charge fails to see this obvious wisdom.

Splendour and Squalor by Marcus Scriven (KIndle)

The subtitle says this is the story of the “Disgrace and disintegration of three aristocratic dynasties.” Well, that’s one way to put it. “Peers Gone Wild” would be the shorter version. Insanely entertaining.

The dead may travel fast but this book does not

2010-04-26T21:15:00.002-04:00

I selected The Dead Travel Fast on the strength author Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Gray mystery series. While Silent in the Grave is not perfect, it a decent first-in-a-series that showed real promise. I assumed that this book would be another mystery. The Dead, however, is not a mystery. It is a quasi Gothic Romance, more Victoria Holt than Ann Radcliffe, with strange goings on at a remote castle. It is also a romance. That last part leaves me under qualified as a reviewer for this book.
Set in 1858 Scotland and Transylvania, this is the story of an independent woman, Theodora, who visits an old friend (at that remote castle I mentioned earlier) and the friend’s very odd indeed relatives. Handsome brooding Count Andrei Dragulescu is on scene to make cryptic remarks, gesture haughtily, wash the heroine’s hands and, well, brood. He’s part of the set piece and either the reader is willing to play along or not. I kept thinking that he was a bit of a jerk but some may find him fascinating. Theodora sure does. Even when the locals start to suspect Andrei is a vampire she isn’t all that put off. Is Andrei half-man, half-bat? Is his whole family batty? How does Theodora manage to climb “The Devil’s Stairs” and a narrow turret staircase during the heyday of the hoopskirt?
If you can hang on for all 300 pages you’ll find the answers to most of the above. Portions of this book annoyed me – the random Romanian words, for one – and the repeated references to basil put me in the mood for a caprese salad. For those who like historical romances this is probably decent fare.For mystery fans it will be a disappointment. (Vampire fans will likely be disappointed too.)

This Template Oppresses Me

2010-04-16T21:53:00.000-04:00

That's right, I'm blaming the template for my lack of recent posts. I switched templates roughly 10 times in the past five days and I'm back to another Blogger freebie and still it's a blah. I think this is the one I started with two years ago. Maybe it just needs a better font.

Wide-angled with Spaces

2010-03-19T21:41:00.002-04:00

Piers Brendon deserves praise for writing a mostly readable history of the 1930s that covers the major players in World War Two. The focus is decidedly on Europe with Italy, Germany, France and the UK getting detailed coverage, the United States, Japan, the USSR and Spain fill out the rest.

The book is written in an episodic format with each chapter covering a period of time in one country. On occasion this means that one event is covered multiple times in separate chapters – not necessarily a bad thing when it allows a different perspective on the event. It also means that the narrative weaves back and forth through time: the chapter on France might end in 1936 but the next step in Italy starts in 1931. The effect of both is to make each chapter stand on its own but keeps the whole from quite fitting seamlessly together. Though Brendon does try to knit the chapters together by introducing the country covered in the next chapter in the last pages of the previous this tactic feels clunky more often than not. This is not a showstopper, just something to keep in mind.

The chapters on Japan and Italy are especially strong, possibly because so few writers of popular history have given much attention to either country’s experience during the 1930s lately. The chapters on Spain and France are quite good also. Oddly, considering that Brendon is English, the chapters on the UK are surprisingly patchy. The chapters on the United States are, on occasion, a bit odd. Brendon’s take on the Supreme Court was surprisingly ill-informed and his sudden segue into Hollywood was downright bizarre. After paying little attention to culture in general Brendon spends pages essentially complaining about the output of the movie factories. I’m still wondering what the line “Even monsters like Boris Karloff and Shirley Temple did not seem credible” is supposed to mean. Does he mean the characters they played? Boris and Shirley as individuals? Is this a bon mot gone flat? Even more strangely, Brendon keeps referencing Citizen Kane, a great movie but one made in 1940 and released in 1941. Pop culture critiques are not Brendon’s strength.

The subtitle, A Panorama of the 1930s, is apt. This is not a comprehensive history. What Brendon covers and ignores verges on idiosyncratic at times. He’s not trying for completeness but rather to give the reader the feeling of the 1930s: a slow, exorable descent into chaos and ultimately the dark valley of war. The sheer breadth of what the book attempts to cover deserves the attention of any reader interested in the times.

Recent Acquisitions

2010-03-14T21:11:00.004-04:00

Let the Great World Spin by Colum Mccann (Kindle / book club)

The Bronx Kill by Peter Milligan (Amazon Vine)

When Money Was in Fashion by June Breton Fisher (Amazon Vine)

Zero in the Brain

2010-03-13T21:14:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, the kidnapping of young Bobby Greenlease was second only to the Lindbergh case in terms of publicity and general outrage. The boy was murdered, as planned, before the first ransom demand was sent. The kidnappers, unlike Leopold and Loeb, got their ransom and left town, seemingly on their way to escaping without a trace. Instead epic inebriates Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady go off the deep end, lose the ransom and end up in an electric chair built for two.

This is dark material. John Heidenry does a good job of depicting the crime and the abysmal human beings who committed it. For my taste, he over does the details on the stealing of the ransom money. Certainly it takes a rare specimen to steal the proceeds from a child murder but other than being a proof point for utter corruption of the St Louis police I couldn’t bring myself to care who had the money. It’s return wouldn’t bring the Greenleases’ any comfort nor would it make Hall and Heady any less guilty.

There’s something vaguely Coen Brothers about this case. From the French-speaking nuns in the Midwest to the motel with a national reputation for shady business to the moronic drunks to the “Who’s Got the Ransom?” antics, the whole thing plays like a grimmer, entirely laugh-free version of Fargo at times. Hall and Heady are not criminal masterminds. They are not sympathetic. They aren’t even interesting.

That may be the biggest obstacle for this book – other than telling the story, there isn’t a whole lot to be gained from this exercise. Unlike the Lindbergh case the Greenlease case is not a microcosm of the times. It’s the venal, depraved act of a couple of drunks. The end. Society’s reaction to the crime and the criminals isn’t especially illuminating either. Even as a tale of the dangers of demon alcohol it isn’t much. If you’re interested in the case then you likely won’t be disappointed by this book. Otherwise this isn’t a must-read.

Modern American Gothic

2010-02-26T21:52:00.002-05:00

If I could praise Carol Goodman for one thing alone it would be for updating the modern gothic. With so much bad writing and worse plotting being inflicted upon readers of popular fiction these days it is a joy to find a capable writer who wants to entertain. Goodman chooses to entertain in a genre I’ve loved since I was eight years old and my older sister started reading me her gothic paperbacks.

As any fan of Doris Miles Disney, Mary Stewart or Phyllis A Whitney knows, Gothics have their requirements. There must be dark secrets from the past, a seemingly all-powerful woman, a large house and a landscape that acts almost as another character in the story. Goodman ticks all the boxes in Arcadia Falls while updating them for the 21st century. The large house is a private school, the powerful woman is the dean and the dark secrets are investigated as part of the heroine’s PhD dissertation. Goodman does all this and for most of the book maintains a narrative drive equal to de Maurier’s Rebecca.

This is an accomplished and entertaining book. When it comes to creating atmosphere Carol Goodman is one of the best popular writers today. Her depiction of the the competing claustrophobia and security of a closed community (both the private school and the artists colony it once was) is as effortless as it is effective. I read Goodman’s first book, The Lake of Dead Languages, a few years ago and its obvious that her skills has only increased in the interim.

Unfortunately, as with her first book Goodman’s biggest challenge remains her endings. The ending is not as satisfying or engrossing as the first three-quarters of the book. I’m sure I won’t be the only reader to spot the twists a mile a way. It’s not awful, just not as good. The romance element feels a bit forced and definitely rushed – I half-wished Goodman would forgo the romance this time. But these minor disappointments compared to the overall strengths of the book.

A highly enjoyable Gothic/Mystery that will satisfy discerning fans of either genre.

Get Yer Ya-Yas Out

2010-02-25T21:28:00.002-05:00

The 70s are an unloved decade. Even while they were on there weren’t many who proclaimed them a golden age. Looking back the most common reaction of survivors seems to be “Dear God, I actually wore that?” There’s so much more to the 70s than gas shortages and discos. Surely no other decade had so many deeply disturbed individuals playing prominent roles in public life.

Francis Wheen's Strange Days Indeed tells the stories of several of these off-kilter individuals and tells them as they deserve to be told: deadpan and in detail. He offers us a veritable smorgasbord of loony tunes behavior and lets us savior every silly detail. Wheen starts off with a few stories familiar to American readers, such as Nixon’s famous late night trip to the Lincoln Memorial to chat with the protestors. Nixon may be one of the more famous examples of paranoia but for sheer insanity nothing beats the inhabitants of Number 10 Downing Street and their wacky band of cohorts. From the chief civil servant who circumvents imaginary listening devices by conducting meetings in the nude to Prime Minister Wilson, his political secretary Marcia and her all powerful handbag there’s plenty of side-splitting entertainment. The Wilson and Marcia saga may be the most horrifically funny political saga ever, what with Marcia’s fears of being lured unawares into orgies, Wilson’s bizarre acceptance of whatever abuse she threw his way and some staff members wondering if offing Marcia might not be the best for England. There’s are still more crazies – mentalists, Bobby Fischer, the Weather Underground and Red Army Faction, Madame Mao, Idi Amin and on and on.

Wheen has plenty of material and he uses it brilliantly. This isn’t history, however. This is Wheen’s impression of the 70s, his take on events. It is neither comprehensive nor unbiased. Wheen has tangled with the all powerful Marcia before and lost, for instance, so it would be silly to pretend that Wheen is dispassionately reporting events. He makes some assertions that I would prefer to see sourced (like his repeated references to Nixon being a drunk; I’m not disputing this, I’ve simply never read about it before). He also has a habit of referencing fictional works as if they offer unassailable authority. It’s easy for me to forgive these shortcomings because the book is so entertaining and because Wheen admits to knowing by heart all the words to two epically stupid songs. Anyone who can sing Gimme Dat Ding and quote Balzac is entitled to a few foibles.

This is a fun, fast read recommended for anyone who possesses a love of the absurd.

Vineyard Chillin’

2010-02-20T21:38:00.002-05:00

Philip R. Craig’s reliable murder mystery series is essentially a cozy with a Stateside setting. Small town? Check. Cast of characters featuring a few eccentrics? Check. Non-professional regularly embroiled in murders which he/she solves because of his/her insight into the human condition? Check. At the heart of each installment, however, is a story about the haves versus the have-nots.

This time (A Vineyard Killing) the haves are a group of rapacious land developers from Savannah who also happen to be world-class fencers. Before you can say, “what are the chances”, there’s an attempted murder and J. W. Jackson is right in the middle of it. The mystery itself is satisfying and the main subplot is interesting if a bit predictable toward the end. The pace is as slow as life in a resort area but that’s as it should be. My only quibble is that I would be entirely happy without any more scenes with Jackson’s children. Having them refer to their parents as “Ma” and “Pa” as if the action were taking place in that fabled small abode on the prairie doesn’t fit and the whole “Diana, the Huntress” routine is old. Just how charming is it that a father is constantly remarking on his daughter’s intake of food? But these are minor quibbles.

All in a all a solid installment in a solid series. Recommended for mystery series fans.

“Brains Don’t Have Picture Windows”

2010-02-12T21:08:00.002-05:00

Among true crime fans there are those who love Ann Rule and those who don’t. I’m proud to let my Ann-Rule-fan-flag fly. She’s written some truly great books (Small Sacrifices and Bitter Harvest, to name two) and some that are merely better than most in the genre. Rule does have a tendency to over praise the dead – the “beautiful wife and mother”, etc – but I’m willing to overlook that. I see it as part of Rule’s determination to keep the victim front and center, to avoid lavishing undeserved attention on the killer. Ann Rule wants to understand the forces that make a killer and how we as a society deal with those who commit the worst crimes.

Her “Crimes Files” series doesn’t allow for much space to deal with either question at any length nor to demonstrate her flair for original reporting. This is only my second book from the series and while I’m getting used to the limitations, I’m also beginning to appreciate these books for what they are. By telling a series of stories, Rule can paint a broader picture. Rule is as fascinated as ever with how normal, how plausible killers can be every other area of their lives. But I Trusted You is packed with failures of the criminal justice system. Case after case show sociopaths freed from prisoner to commit more heinous crimes. Most of the cases are from the 1970s – the land before DNA – and several are either unsolved or unresolved. Time moves on, Rule shows us, but the questions are never answered. Two (The Voyage of the Spellbound and Dark Forest) are truly haunting in their lack of answers.

If you’re an Ann Rule fan, this book will tide you over until her new book is released this fall. If you’re new to Rule, start with one of her classics (I’m partial to Small Sacrifices as a starting point) to see what a true crime master can do.

Recent Acquistions

2010-02-07T21:36:00.009-05:00

Courtesy of Amazon Vine:

Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman

For my hardworking Kindle:

But I Trusted You by Ann Rule

The Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

The “someone you thank for the party”

2010-02-06T21:21:00.002-05:00

One of the pitfalls of reviewing a biography is that of finding oneself reviewing the life and not the work of the biographer. In the case of Cheever this danger looms especially large because John Cheever was a wreck of a human being from beginning to end. His voluminous journals were filled with what his own daughter described as “the gloomy, relentless sexual stuff” topped with a thick icing of self pity. It’s material that is so depressing it makes Sylvia Plath’s journals a comparative lark.

Yet Blake Bailey turns the life story of a drunken, depressive, self-loathing, verbally abusive and deeply closeted man into a compellingly readable, life-affirming book. Bailey not only makes the creative process interesting, he keeps Cheever from turning into so vile a being that the reader can’t bear another page of him.
He also gives us the story of Cheever’s times, evoking the lifestyles of Westchester suburbanites so vividly that I found myself looking around my home county looking for the places and people Bailey (& Cheever) described. I’m glad I didn’t meet any of them behind the wheel, however, since this was one hard drinking crew, drinking themselves into oblivion at least once a week like a bunch of frat boys. The fact that any of them is a) alive and b) in possession of their factory issued liver is nothing short of a miracle.

On the other hand, reading about Cheever’s personal relationships made me want to drink. When he’s not being heinous to his wife and children he’s writing in his journal about his genitals. Which is impressive since he’s impotent for large swathes of the book. The short version is that Cheever was gay (or bi) and didn’t want to be. It’s not as simple as that, of course, but after a few decades I got the feeling that even Anita Bryant would have beseeched him to just be gay already. Sympathy for Cheever is hard to come by when he’s so homophobic himself.

The final years of Cheever’s life saw him accepting (to a degree) his own nature. Not that his relationships with his lovers were any more humane than those with girlfriends, wife and children. His relationship with Max Zimmer actually made me nauseous on occasion. Oblivious to Zimmer’s own feelings or desires, Cheever wrecks his life with nary a twinge of regret.

So where’s the life affirming part, you ask. In the day to day details with which Bailey builds his narrative. It’s most apparent in the final chapters when Cheever’s long suffering family rallies around him in death. Their loves and forgiveness along with Bailey’s clear-eyed and compassionate view of his subject elevate this tale far beyond any individual sordid detail.

Vulgarians at the Gate

2010-01-31T22:16:00.002-05:00

When money and crime collide on a colossal scale one can be sure that the literary equivalent of ambulance-chasing lawyers will be on the scene documenting the excessive for us all to enjoy. The 100 car-pile-up known as Bernie Madoff is the subject of several insta-books. The title of this one indicates the overall tone of the book – half moral-indictment, half National Enquirer exposé. All in all, that’s exactly what Madoff deserves at this point.

Jerry Oppenheimer starts out the book by spending the first chapter telling us how this book isn’t like all the other insta-books out there. He’s exploring the big issues, “weaving” an “in-depth profile” etc. Which roughly translates into “blah blah blah” as far as I’m concerned. Just get on with the book. Once Oppenheimer gets done telling us of his high-minded aspirations for the book off come the gloves. It starts with a description of Bernie’s parents overseeing an “ethically and morally bankrupt household” and just keeps rolling. I’ve seen serial killers treated more warmly that uber-conman Madoff. Oppenheimer rarely lets a paragraph go by without letting readers know he thinks Bernie is pond scum.

Oppenheimer ladles on the Yiddish expressions every so often in a particularly artless way and does make a few genuinely bonkers connections, such as likening Bernie’s secretary, Eleanor Squillari to Richard Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods. They were both secretaries but beyond that? Oppenheimer is at his best when he’s delivering insights from Madoff’s friends, victims and acquaintances. Like the old friend who’s smart enough to notice that Bernie is too thick to figure out the time difference between New York and London without the aid of two Rolex watches. Or the many nasty stories told about Bernie’s niece Shana who appears to have endeared herself to so many who have repaid the favor by all but suggesting she roamed the streets of New York with a mattress strapped to her back. Nothing sums up this book better that this choice line:

“Besides being a crook, Bernie was a bit of a perv.”

Yes, gentle reader, he certainly was. This book will neither expand your intellectual horizons nor answer any of the deeper questions about how such a massive fraud could go undetected for so long. It will, however, introduce you to some of the most tasteless, vulgar foul-mouthed people on the planet. Someday a James B. Stewart or Kurt Eichenwald may tackle this sordid tale and bring us those deeper insights. Until then, we’ll always have satisfyingly trashy outings like Madoff With the Money to remind us that behind every sleazy crime is an even bigger sleazeball.

Take it for what it is, a long, gossipy reasonably but not exhaustively research magazine article.

Unfortunately Well Titled

2010-01-30T21:57:00.002-05:00

With 20 books to his name it’s no surprise that Robert Goddard’s fans each have their favorites and their least favorites. I’ve read them all, pre-ordered half of them from Amazon UK to get my hands on them as soon as they’re published and I’ve always been able to say that while some are better than others none have truly disappointed. Until this one.

Goddard’s territory is the unquiet past. Real historic events and people are often part of the mix, often as a MacGuffin, but prior knowledge of the events is not required for enjoyment. It is no insult to say he has a formula. Beyond the double-crosses and intricate plot twists, Goddard always chooses to keep the stakes high for his lead characters. They’re usually men who’ve either nothing left to lose or who find themselves stripped of all they value in the course of the story.

This time out Goddard sticks with historic events but makes a very odd choice in his lead character. Instead of the usual down on his luck male lead we have Richard Eusden, a man who stands to lose a few days of PTO if things don’t work out. He’s helping out an old friend, Marty, who has all the characteristics of the usual Goddard lead. This isn’t a bold choice, however, it’s mystifying because it never provides anything new just less of what brings readers to Goddard in the first place. The pacing doesn’t make up for the lack of high stakes. The characters can’t take airplanes so the action is frequently broken up for long train rides (locals!) and car trips. The MacGuffin is particularly strained for my taste and the end is, well, found wanting. Goddard throws in a character in the last 50 pages that we’ve heard nothing about before who is the key to it all including the title. This is truly disappointing coming from a master of intricate plotting.

At one point I started to wonder if Goddard wasn’t writing a deliberate parody of his own books. The overwhelming impression left is that Goddard didn’t connect with his chosen material this time out and tried to muddle through anyway. Despite the two stars I’ve given this book I’ll still pre-order Goddard’s next book because when he’s on his game there is no one better at delivering the unexpected jolt. If you are new to Robert Goddard, please don’t start with this book. Try Into the Blue or Painting the Darkness instead.

Overlapping Voices

2010-01-29T21:10:00.002-05:00

If you’ve seen even one Robert Altman movie you know that this is a man who would want his story told as an oral history. Altman’s use of overlapping dialogue forced the audience to choose which voice to listen to in a cacophony of sound. Mitchell Zuckoff invited a multitude of voices telling about the Robert Altman they knew allowing readers to sift through the stories to find the man himself.

It helps that those speaking are an articulate, amusing bunch unafraid to tell embarrassing stories in which they feature or to call Kevin Spacey the “Norman Bates of Show Business”, for instance. No amount of wit would made the first half dozen chapters fly by, however. It’s admirable that Zuckoff wants to document the whole of Altman’s life but I would have been satisfied with fewer stories of Bob’s adventures at summer camp. Once Altman starts making movies Zuckoff’s pacing spot on, mixing details about the financing of MASH with choice gossip like Altman’s affair with Faye Dunaway. I’m still in awe of that revelation – wouldn’t have pegged those two in a million years.

The picture that emerges is of a well-loved if not entirely likable man. Zuckoff shows why so many actors were devoted to Altman but he also shows that Altman was just another nasty, loud-mouthed drunk on occasion. One minute you find yourself fascinated by the loyalty Altman engendered, the next you’re appalled at the loyalty he insisted upon. Like so many artists Altman put his work above any human relationship and that can be hard to take in large doses.

This isn’t a critical assessment of Altman’s work or an interpretation of his films. It’s Altman’s life story and critical to that is the story is his work so there are plenty of details about how nearly all of his films were made. Whether you’re a fan or not (I’m merely a sometime fan of his work), this is a very enjoyable book, not unlike spending a three-day long bender with the man himself, but without the hangover.

Recommended for film and biography fans. Note that this is a true oral biography with very little connective narrative.

Let's Settle This Thing

2010-01-26T20:57:00.003-05:00

There is the air of settling things for once and for all in The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir’s third to extensively cover some aspect of Anne Boleyn’s life. The subject for this biographical smack down is Anne's fall and the method is an exhaustive (and, yes, occasionally exhausting) comparison of the contemporary and near contemporary accounts of her arrest, trial and execution.

This goes well beyond "was she guilty" and extends to why was she accused, who stood to gain from her fall and even "what was she wearing at her execution". Of course, what Anne wore is not the point, Weir uses the conflicting accounts of the simple matter of whether Anne's hair was loose or in a net to show us how little these accounts agree upon.

Weir deserves praise for her willingness to draw conclusions and eliminate possibilities. Where another historian might hedge with “perhaps” and “probably” she’s not afraid to weigh in with an “almost certainly. Nor is Weir afraid of a fight, calling out such fellow Tudor experts such as Eric Ives and Retha Warnicke when she disagrees. It’s refreshing, frankly as is Weir’s lack of fear in pronouncing the work of Joanna Denny wrong-headed at best. If at this point you’re reading this wondering who on earth these people are then think twice about embarking on this book.

I've read nearly all of Weir's books so I feel safe in saying that this is the least accessible of her works. It is well written but because it starts shortly before Anne is arrested, the book provides little to no background on her. If you want an account of how Henry met Anne you'll need to look elsewhere. I'm a Tudorphile so I enjoyed this book. I've read most of the secondary sources discussed in the book which made Weir's assessment of say Retha Warnicke's theories all the more interesting.

This is not a book for someone new to the story of Anne Boleyn nor even for someone who simply knows the story of the second of Henry VIII's six wives. If you are very interested in Tudor history and Anne Boleyn in particular, however, you'll find this book interesting. Recommended for Tudorphiles but not novices.

Slogging Through

2010-01-19T21:34:00.001-05:00

After two less than satisfying books (Goddard and Lamb) I’m reading three books which require a time commitment. Alison Weir’s The Lady in the Tower is a monument to detail. At times it’s literally an hour by hour telling of Anne Boleyn’s fall. I like to imagine fans of The Other Boleyn Girl scooping up this book in hopes of more juicy Tudor goodness only to be confronted by a lengthy discussion about the preamble to the 1536 Act of Succession. Not for the casual reader.

Thomas Costain’s The Conquering Family, which I’m listening to on audio book, zooms all the way to the opposite end of the popular history scale. A history book with extensive dialogue. Twelfth Century history, that is. After two weeks how can I only be on Chapter 11 of 16?

Then there’s Blake Bailey’s highly entertaining biography of John Cheever. Ten chapters in and Cheever still hasn’t written a novel. His alcohol consumption on the other hand is truly epic. If it’s possible to get a contact buzz from reading about drinking I will fail a breathalyzer test.

Recent Acquistions

2010-01-11T22:00:00.004-05:00

Cheever, A Life by Blake Bailey

Nemesis by Peter Evans

Brain cell-wise, it'll be a net zero.

The Calculated Fluck and the Tortured Soul

2010-01-08T21:31:00.002-05:00

Despite the subtitle of “the untold story of a homicide investigator’s crusade for truth and justice” potential readers might assume, as I did, that this book would provide an understanding of the crime, the victim (Eric Miller) and the murderer (Ann Miller). I am sorry to report this is not the case. Maybe a detailed police procedural showing the ins and outs of the investigation, you hope? Not so fast my friend. How about a reasonably chronological telling of the investigation itself, you ask. Au contraire. What will you get?

Would you believe repeated hints about the weight of the cop in question along with regular updates on his sartorial tastes accompanied by detours into other investigations that have nothing to do with the Miller case? I’ve read some bad true crime in my years but this is truly one of the lamest. This is not the story of the Eric Miller case in any way, shape or form. It is, at best, several years in the life of policeman Chris Morgan who happens to be in charge of the Miller case for some of those years. Which would be lame enough but the way Amanda Lamb tells this story makes it a thousand times worse.

First, Amanda Lamb seems to be under the impression that Chris Morgan is a piece of rare Americana. An investigative Rousseau, helping humankind to see life in a completely new way. Also, she’s obsessed with his physique. Think I’m exaggerating? In the first 10 pages Lamb alludes to Morgan’s size 5 times. His “ample frame”, “formidable frame”, fears that his favorite chair will collapse under his weight, etc. For the rest of the book few pages go by without another reminder that Morgan is a big guy. So many reminders that I began to wonder if perhaps we were dealing with a badge-wearing Jabba the Hutt. This was distracting to say the least. When the action (and I use that word with caution) includes Morgan hiding in the bushes to watch arch criminal Ann Miller not leave her house for hours my thoughts immediately turned to “my God, how large IS that oleander bush?”

Other aspects of Morgan’s anatomy make frequent appearances. There’s his “gut” for example. Morgan’s gut is pretty special. Whereas the average gut gives hints about feelings and the odd bit of intuition, Morgan’s gut provides detailed facts. “His gut told him it was not his shift, not his squad”. His gut can tell time AND read the duty roster. Amazing! Then there’s his head, which is really only mentioned so that we can read more about Morgan’s endlessly fascinating white fedora. Police fashion – does true crime get any better?

Here’s a tip for all true crime writers: There is very little reason for ongoing detailed descriptions of police attire for the simple fact that it comes in only two flavors: uniform and plainclothes. Yes, there is a subset of plainclothes specific to “undercover” but that is dictated by the situation and is not indicative of the character of the wearer. The specifics of the plainclothes may be described one for the sake of completeness or to provide “insight” into the personality of the police officer in question but regular updates on the apparel choice of the day are not necessary. Years of reading true crime have given me ample opportunities to ponder this and I can confidently say that the only scenario in which ongoing sartorial info is required would be if the police officer liked to dress as a different circus performer on a rotating basis. A tutu on Monday, the lion tamer outfit on Tuesday, the clown suit on Wednesday. Other than that, leave the clothes out of the narrative.

This book is awful. I don’t know what Chris Morgan is like but he can’t possibly be the self-enchanted oaf Lamb depicts. In her telling, Morgan spends the first half of the book criticizing Sgt Fluck’s handling of the Miller case (Morgan’s not even on in), jumping to the conclusion that Ann Miller is guilty because … well, because he knows it, and spouting wisdom like “the truth is simple, if it’s not simple, it’s not the truth.” The hilarity is just getting rolling though, since once Morgan is actually assigned to the case he doesn’t get around to reading the case files until two years after the murder. Who would expect to find probative, investigative information in the case files! He actually says he doesn’t want to understand Ann Miller or any other criminal. He knowledge of the victim appears limited to his regional prejudices of the Midwest.

It is a dark, dark day when a true crime book leaves the reader wondering if the plus-size flat foot in charge didn’t create a case against a woman just because he decided she was a “psychopath”, a “criminal mastermind,” and a “master manipulator” without a single fact to back up any of his pronouncements. I do think Ann Miller is guilty but since Lamb doesn’t see fit to tell us what the investigators actually learned and never provides insights from people who knew Eric or Ann I can only imagine what facts were. Why show us anything when we can just bask in Chris Morgan’s profundities, such as “it’s no mystery crime makes people stupid”? Apparently it’s especially brutal on the IQs of certain crime writers.

I’m hard pressed to pick the worst thing in this book. The phrase “prior murderess events” is convoluted and meaningless but the winner has to be Lamb spending pages on the fact that a friend of Ann Miller is playing The Dixie Chicks “Earl’s Gotta Die” when the police question her. I hate country music in all forms and even I know the song is called “Goodbye Earl” and that it sounds nothing like a “funeral dirge” nor is it likely to “waft” anywhere. Oh, and William of Ockham was a monk and a philosopher, not a mathematician.

Even the ending, thankful as I was for it, was lousy. More time is spent on the question of Chris Morgan’s retirement – will the showboating arm of the law start drawing his pension before he final star turn at the trial? – then on any aspect of the trial. It ends with Morgan being “finished with it”, just SO over it, “alone with his tortured soul.”

When in the acknowledgements section Lamb thanks her “collaborators” it actually took me a second to realize that she did not use that word in the sense of “those who assist the enemy.” Some stories really are better left untold if they’re going to be told with staggering ineptitude.

A Windblown Classic

2010-01-06T21:07:00.002-05:00

When someone who doesn’t read true crime asks me why I’m devoted to a genre made up of quickie exploitation tales about serial killers I point them in the direction of one of the classics. Like any genre true crime has bad books, good books and some that are truly great which not only transcend the genre, they ennoble it. The Darkest Night has become one of those books that I recommend to anyone who thinks true crime is a wasteland.

The story itself is haunting. Two young sisters are kidnapped and thrown off the Fremont Canyon Bridge. One is killed instantly but the other survives to bring her attackers to justice. The survivor never entirely escapes that horrible night though. It must be counted among whatever small good fortune Amy Burridge and Becky Thomson could claim that Ron Franscell is the writer who told their story.

Franscell is simply an excellent writer. His four page description of what it was like to grow up in Caspar Wyoming is reason enough to buy this book. The empathy and compassion with which he tells Amy and Becky’s story balances perfectly with his clear, reportorial style. Somehow Franscell manages to extend his compassion to the lowlifes, Ronald Kennedy and Jerry Jenkins, responsible for the crime. He tells their story as completely and honestly as he tells of their victims. The contrast between the bleak lives that created such pathetic monsters as Kennedy and Jenkins with the ordinary and seemingly safe lives of their victims is all the more breathtaking for taking place in the same town.

Easily one best true crime books of the last decade. Highly recommended to all and essential reading for true crime fans. A big thanks to Dan Bogaty for pointing me to this great book.

Note: Also published as Fall.

Why Must This Book Be So Awful?

2010-01-05T12:25:00.003-05:00

It's my first Kindle purchase of 2010 and my first true crime read so it's particularly unfair that Deadly Dose by Amanda Lamb sucks so very much. A more perfect combination of all the things I hate would be hard to find. It tells the story from the point of view of the police, includes plenty of details about the fashion choices of the police, and frequently has multiple cliches in a single sentence.

I really need to stop getting book recommendations off Snapped.

Resolutions

2010-01-02T22:56:00.003-05:00

I did not read 75 books last year. I wanted to, I even joined a group on LibraryThing to do so. But I didn't. I read a not insubstantial 63 books last year. Well, some of the books were very insubstantial but the amount was not. It's just less than 75. So, reading resolution #1: read 75 books in 2010.

#2: read more of the books I already own before buying more

#3: except Kindle, which is always exempt from any reading rule I make for myself

#4: request fewer ARCs; nothing is worse than having to write a review for a book that wasn't even bad enough to enjoy hating

#5: read more fiction; between True Crime and History I can go for weeks without reading fiction and even then it's usual a mystery that I read rather than "straight" fiction.

I should also pick the Daunting Classic to Tackle for 2010. Trollope, perhaps?

“Vast in Perversity”

2009-12-30T21:21:00.002-05:00

This was one of the first books I purchased for my Kindle in 2008 and I've finally gotten around to finishing it. No one can accuse Mr. Burleigh of being light on details in Earthly Powers although I'm sure that he's accused of many things. (He probably wouldn't have it any other way.) Burleigh sets out to explore the "clash" between religion and politics from the French Revolution to World War I. The clashing often takes the form of strange mash-ups in which religions take on distinctly political forms or issues or when the politics takes on the manifestations of religion.

It's fascinating to see the Jacobins of the French Revolution create their own cleric-free religion handily called "The Cult of the Supreme Being" or a Roman Catholic priest get kicked out of the church for creating a political role for the Holy See. Some of the collisions between religion and politics Burleigh unearths are amusing - like the utopian socialist writer who imagines a world in which "fairies" cure the jilted of their broken-hearts. Others are just plain disturbing. Humans can't live without some sort of religion, Burleigh seems to be saying, even if we have to make up something truly bizarre to fill the gap.

Burleigh has done his research and has his views, some of which had me nodding my head such as "there is surely something mad about all-consuming political passions" and some that had me wondering what planet he inhabits. I don't care what it's "set beside', the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre is not a "modest affaire". I don't know why Burleigh felt the need to do the written equivalent of a drive-by in referring to Beatrice Webb as "ghastly" but I admit to being as amused by that as by the phrase "harpy pawnbroker consort". I get the feeling that if someone declared this book “vast in perversity” (to quote the Vatican’s description of a work cited here) Michael Burleigh would be pleased indeed.

Burleigh isn’t shy about sharing his opinions but his quirky erudition made this worth the ride for me. I disagreed with many of Burleigh's "conclusions" but for me that's part of the enjoyment of reading a book like this - it's like having a debate with a very opinionate acquaintance. This is not an easy read and it is not for everyone. Burleigh loves obscure verbs and occasionally presents a quote in the original language without providing translation. (Why he does this sometimes and not others in the same language is a mystery.) This is an interesting book that does not transcend its topic. Recommended for those interested in the topic.

Pretty Fly for a White Guy

2009-12-29T21:44:00.003-05:00

It’s a familiar story: over-privileged white boy gone gangsta. The unfamiliar part finds him murdering and dismembering his platonic girlfriend egged on by his equally white, equally annoying gangsta moll eggs him on. In A Descent into Hell True Crime Divinity Kathryn Casey shows us that Colton Pitonyak and Laura Hall, the two white kids in question, are poster children for Just Say No to Drugs.

Few true crime authors are as reliable as Kathryn Casey and only her name on the cover could convince me to read a book in which the disposal of the corpse involves the liberal use of cutlery. Where a lesser writer would focus on the heinous crime, Casey shows the descent of victim Jennifer Cave and killer Colton Pitonyak into hell courtesy of drugs. In a way the amount of hard drugs these two seemingly normal kids were doing by their freshman year is more shocking that the murder. Casey does an especially good job of showing how a “nice girl” like Jennifer Cave drifted into self-destruction.

Nice is not a word anyone will ever apply to Pitonyak or Hall. Having transformed himself into the drug king of the University of Texas via his own consumption and drug dealing, Colton looked for more ways to model himself on Scarface. Because that movie ended so well for Tony Montana and his little friend. Naturally this amounts to Colton going around telling other economically insulated white boys about his time in county jail, his gangsta ways, and his favorite rap song of the moment. Just when Colton couldn’t seem to be any more of an idiot he hooks up with the true monster of the book, Laura Hall. Pitonyak was a drug addled mess living a fantasy, Laura Hall is a beast who thought that helping her boyfriend dispose of a body was romantic. It’s one thing to do it, it’s something else to brag about it. On Facebook.

There is one thing wrong with this book. The obligatory salacious subtitle is lamer than usual. Colton Pitonyak and Jennifer Cave stopped being altar boy and cheerleader, respectively, by middle school so describing them thus makes as much sense as “the girl who wanted to be a teacher and the boy who wanted to be a fireman when they grew up”. Could Harper Collins just switch to decaf before they publish their next true crime?

Other than the subtitle, however, this book is pure ambrosia for true crime fans. Kathryn Casey’s books just keep getting better. Highly recommended.

Recent Acquisitions

2009-12-29T15:56:00.005-05:00

AKA = therapy shopping at Amazon.co.uk

Found Wanting by Robert Goddard

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery by Eric Ives

A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Them and Us: The American Invasion of British High Society by Charles Jennings

Lifestyles of the Super Trashy

2009-12-29T14:10:00.003-05:00

Before there was “mega” there was “super”. In the 1970s anything that was more with a capital m earned the prefix “super”. Stars whose mere existence caused fans to swoon were superstars. Billionaires were super rich. The top trailer park antics of Stella Maudine Stephenson etc Nichols and her daughter Cindy are of a similar magnitude – they are more than trashy, they are super trashy. In the hands of true crime great Gregg Olsen their story, Bitter Almonds, is art.

Do It Yourself gal Stella Nichols, who lived a tough life by any standards, is one of the most staggeringly promiscuous people ever. How promiscuous? She drove to bars in her trusty pickup truck “”TP 4” with a mattress in the back. That’s how promiscuous. Being a bar fly with her own rolling motel wasn’t enough to keep Stella amused. She was a winner at Tri-Chem design, which seems to have been the tasteful way to tart up one’s clothes before the invention of the Bedazzler. She designed her own pottery. She even managed to fit a few fish tanks into her single-wide trailer. Oh, and she picked up a few facts about how to kill with natural herbs and cyanide. One of the challenges of Stella’s story is that while her crime is awful, you can’t help admiring her ability to fit so much into a day.

Stella isn’t the only epic barfly in this story. Her whole family is man-crazy. I tried adding up the number of marriages the Stephenson “girls” and Grandma Cora Lee managed to rack up and I stopped at 30. That’s thirty marriages for 5 women. Just the marriages. When Stella’s even trashier daughter Cindy complains about Stella’s boozing and bed-hopping a few weeks after her husband’s death saying “I have a reputation myself to uphold in the town” one wonders if Cindy was merely vexed at having competition for the title of town tramp. This example of family love pales in comparison to warm welcome Stella’s sister Georgia extends to her daughter Wilma’s baby: “I hope that bitch you’re holding …” Wilma responds to this heartwarming expression of maternal love with a right hook and some hair pulling. The female bonding in this clan is something else.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be simply depressing. Fortunately we have Gregg Olsen on the case and no one is better at depicting the underclass of America. He’s neither preachy nor faux-sympathetic. The more of his work I read the more convinced I am that Gregg Olsen is a brilliant combination of Darcy O’Brien (another true crime great) and filmmaker John Waters in his ability to show us what we’d prefer to avoid while showing us a little of ourselves in the process. Gregg Olsen gives Stella Maudine and the rest of the Stephenson girls what they would probably most want: their dignity. He shows them at their trashy worst but always shows their strength. Of course, that strength can take the form of dumping your kids, turning your mom into the FBI or poisoning your husband but then life’s not for wimps.

Starting a Series Out Right

2009-12-27T21:26:00.002-05:00

With several active series of detective fiction set in post-World War I Britain it’s impressive that any author would want to launch a new one, especially when the author in question already has one successful series ongoing. The writing team that comprises Charles Todd has gone as far afield from guilt-ridden Inspector Rutledge as imaginable while still staying in familiar territory. I admit my first reaction to the news of this new series was something along the lines of “why bother?” so I’m happy to report that it’s a very good thing that Todd did bother.

A Duty to the Dead handles the business of launching a series with minimal fuss. The introduction of heroine (and military nurse) Bess Crawford - a smart, resourceful heroine without being a screaming anachronism – involves a minimum of exposition and background. Todd’s choice of making Bess being the only child of a Colonel who was raised in colonial India presents many opportunities for the character to comment on a society that she both participates in and observes. It's easy to see that this will serve the series well.

The central plot sees Bess going to visit the family of a man who died under her care to deliver his last message to them. There’s plenty of English cozy-genre trappings complete with addled vicar, misunderstood town doctor and family secrets. Bess can’t so much as take a walk without someone in the town needing immediate nursing assistance or wanting to confide in her. And yet the clichés and the creaks didn’t bother me because Todd kept the story going at a good pace. The mystery itself is satisfying without being too convoluted.

This isn’t a perfect book but it is enjoyable. Some will compare it to Todd’s Inspector Rutledge books – for me this stacks up well against the first entry in that series A Test of Wills. Others may compare it to Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs – I’ll take Bess Crawford over Maisie any day. Where Maisie is a humorless paragon of perfection, Bess is no nonsense and human. To each there own. If you’re a fan of either series or Rennie Airth’s fine DI Madden series, A Duty to the Dead is a sure bet.

Sibling Rivalry Played for Keeps

2009-12-26T21:23:00.002-05:00

At times this book feels like one of the better seasons of Dynasty set in Renaissance Italy. There are fights for family power, adultery, borderline idiot husbands, unloved brides, over-indulgent fathers, trampy cousins; the only thing missing is the occasional catfight. With material like the Medici family of Florence, one expects a bit of entertainment and Caroline Murphy delivers. Murphy also acquits herself well as a serious historian.

The story of daddy’s-favorite Isabella de Medici Orsini has the drama and intrigue to sustain a book. Isabella is that rarity of Renaissance times – a woman who is not a ruling queen with a well-documented life. Caroline Murphy brings Isabella to live but more importantly, she brings the reader into Isabella’s life. We get a feeling for the rhythms, excitements and boredoms of life as a Medici princess. Isabella is not exactly a sympathetic character nor is she remarkable for anything beyond her birth but that in itself makes this book fascinating reading. It’s rare to know so much about a woman of those times who was neither a paragon of virtue nor a creature of great infamy.

Nasty gossip did attach itself to Isabella - stories accused of incest with her father and her brother – yet her murder went without official comment. In the epilogue Murphy makes the case that Isabella was killed for actions that had she been a man would have been tolerated. I have no difficulty believing there was a double-standard in 16th century Florence but Murphy’s stretching things a bit here. Helping your hare-brained cousin plot to murder her husband is going to rile up the family no matter what your gender.

Murphy’s style is clear and she does a remarkable job of weaving together the various sources into an enjoyable narrative. She does pad the story on occasion and several times she jumps around chronologically but the impact on the overall story is minor. She writes for a contemporary audience complete with mentions of Paris Hilton but doesn’t strain for popular references. This is is a well-written biography that I recommend to anyone interested in Renaissance history.

Through the Past Darkly

2009-12-20T09:04:00.003-05:00

What must it be like to have not only a murder in the family but an unsolved murder at that? If the victim in question was your father who died before you were old enough to have meaningful memories of him the mystery would only deepen. It’s more than a whodunit – who was the murder victim anyway?

Zachary Lazar sets out not to find his father’s killers but to understand how a nice accountant living a life of middle-class ease got tangled up with shady land deals, political corruption and organized crime. The narrative device Lazar uses is to depict his father as a character in a novel, writing about his feelings and frustrations that led him to take a walk on the Phoenix wild side that in the early 1970s consisted of selling uninhabitable land to GIs in Japan. For something that skirts the edges of the Mafia and the corruption of a former presidential candidate, the scam at the heart of Evening’s Empire is surprisingly mundane and tawdry without ever being interesting. The scam and the murder are part of a labyrinth-like enterprise that does not lend itself to dramatic storytelling. Nor are the principles, for one reason or another, available to participate via interview. So two-thirds of the way through the author shifts to the first person to continue the search. I’m happy to report that Lazar does not turn this into a true-crime-travelogue aka “what happened to me while I was writing this book.” He sticks to the story only inserting himself fleetingly but meaningfully to remind the reader of the unbearable cost of any murder.

Whether you will enjoy this book depends on whether you like Lazar’s prose style and his narrative technique. This is not a class true crime - there is no tidy ending. Lazar does his best to explain the scam at the heart of the crime without appearing to explain it (no easy task he’s set for himself) but I never felt as if I understood it well enough to explain it to anyone else. What Zachary Lazar does very well is create the atmosphere of Phoenix in the early 70s. With a few sentences Lazar not only sets the scene, he can make you feel the desert heat and the texture of the vinyl poolside chairs.

For me little touches of brilliance like that and the risks Lazar takes were enough to give this book five stars. This is a story that truly deserves the description haunting - it stays with you long after you've read the last page. This book isn’t for everyone but if you don’t mind unresolved mysteries, Evening’s Empire is essential reading.

"The Opposite of Communism is Europe"

2009-10-14T08:32:00.005-04:00

This is a fascinating book that I'm glad that I read but that I'm also glad is over.

Judt sets out to explain how Europe went from being a continent made up of many countries to, well, the European Union. His central thesis is that the utter devastation of the two World Wars left Europe so hobbled and its citizenry so shell-shocked that the only way progress could occur was with strong direction from the government. In the case of Western Europe, that meant the "Welfare State" served up in various forms in different countries, and in Eastern Europe it meant a degree of acceptance of the communist regimes put in place by Stalin. Judt ends with the Soviet Union gone, Eastern Europe clamoring to get into the EU and Western Europe struggling to figure out just what it means to be European.

That probably doesn't sound like a scintillating read. I won't lie. This is isn't a page turner over all but parts of it do have the sweep and drive of great popular history. Other parts read like a text book. Judt loves facts and figures. Given the choice between telling you that coal production in Belgium fell 45% in ten years or telling you exactly what coal production was in 1960 and 1970, he'll always go with the later. Still, I haven't come across any other book which attempts to do what Judt does and while he does have his opinions, he's far from doctrinaire. Judt isn't a fan of Maggie Thatcher, Francoise Mitterand or Boutros Boutros-Ghali - which is quite a gamut.

Judt takes on a few sacred cows as well, for instance he explains the events of Paris 1968 in a way that is less heroic and more about squatters' rights. He doesn't shy away from Europe's less appealing actions either - like enforced sterilization through until the mid-1970s. What emerges is a full picture of a continent trying to assembly itself into a community.

If you want to know how the shambles of postwar Europe became the Europe of today, this is the place to start. It's especially notable for it's insistence on seeing Europe independent of the United States and for giving equal time to the Eastern European experience. Recommended for those interested in 20th Century history.

What the Librarian Saw

2009-10-14T08:08:00.004-04:00

The Fall of Rome is one of those rare event that demonstrates that even when history is written by the losers the truth can be in short supply. For a man whose name can still inspire visions of terror Attila the Hun is poorly understood. When he's depicted as a barbarian (see most histories of the Roman Empire written before 1850) Attila seems more Neanderthal Frat Boy than brilliant military leader. When he's shown as a worthy adversary to the crumbling Empire, Attila seems more like Alexander the Great without the fancy tutors.

Christopher Kelly aims to show us Attila as he was - the leader of a civilization that the Romans dismissed out of arrogance, ready to play power politics with Roman, Constantinople, and Persia. This is genuine popular history that draws on the latest archaeological research to show us a society with laws, elites, fools, geniuses, and above all pride. Kelly places the old stories about the Huns in the context of their times, explaining what all that hyperbolic language really meant. He doesn't glorify the Huns any more or less than the Romans or Byzantines. He shows them all acting with honor, lying, conniving, breaking treaties, and upholding right as they understand it.

Best of all, Kelly has a sense of humor and he knows a good story. The story of the Roman librarian on a diplomatic mission is half farce, half James Bond and wholly entertaining. Where else are you going to find scheming eunuchs, Dudley DoRight-esque Roman soldiers, gossipy librarians, stuttering love-sick con men and day long dinner parties? Attila did not bring about the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire but his story exposes the weaknesses, corruption and rot that did.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in ancient/Roman history.

Kindle note: photographs not included even though they are (annoyingly) referenced in the text.

A Triumph of Atmosphere

2009-09-23T23:29:00.007-04:00

There are a fair number of mystery series with clergy of some persuasion playing the role of detective. It's easy to see why this would appeal to a writer interested in exploring the whys of a whodunit. The latitude to explore on moral and spiritual issues is greater allowing for a more complex narrative. Making the cleric in question both a woman and a former army helicopter pilot increases the opportunities for complexity. Add to this Julia Spencer-Fleming choice of locale - small town upstate New York - and you have a canvas for a broad social commentary in her All Mortal Flesh.

This is my first venture into the Clare Fergusson - Russ Van Alstyne series and in retrospect it probably isn't a good place to start for the simple reason that the relationship between the two leads comes to a crisis point. The difficulty is that not having read any of the previous books I didn't care about whether Russ and Clare would give each other up forever and nothing in the book changed that. Another difficulty is that the situation calls for the two leads to act at their least rationale which can undermine the confidence other characters seem to automatically place in them.

What Spencer-Fleming does especially well is create a believable, palpable locale, her town of Miller's Kill and the people in it feel real. Spencer-Fleming does deliver one genuine plot twist along the way. She does over play things on occasion, like St. Alban's new deacon who might as well stroll into scenes wearing a witches' hat by the end of the book for all the subtlety she's given. The final exposition was a bit of an eye-roller for me - I could see it a mile away, as I good the identity of the murderer. It was a little hard to believe that an intelligent woman like Clare couldn't add it up on her own either but then she was distracted. It might sound like I didn't like this book and the bare bones of the plot in the hands of a lesser writer might have me giving this less than the very respectable 3 stars I did. What made this book stick with me is the community Spencer-Fleming created. By the end of the book I knew what it would feel like to walk down the Main Street of Miller's Kill. That's a genuine accomplishment.

As a stand-alone book, this book leaves more than a little to be desired. As an entry in a series, it is probably quite solid. Julia Spencer-Fleming's undeniable writing talent has me headed back for more - this time starting at the beginning.

A Fine Bromance

2009-09-23T23:01:00.003-04:00

If you live in Boston, as I did for a few years, the name Whitey Bulger is as resonate as Jimmy Hoffa. Both were men feared by some and idolized by others. Both had no qualms about victimizing those who feared and idolized them. Both were seen by some as the guy like them who managed to stand to the Establishment. And both disappeared. But nobody thinks Whitey is buried at Gillette Stadium.

Whitey Bulger was a mythic figure in Boston, especially his old neighborhood of Southie, the gangster who always managed to slip out of the hands of the law.But even Southie little boys and girls grew up dreaming of becoming FBI agents. Chances are their dreams didn't involve having gangster over to the house for dinner. John Connolly, another son of Southie, dared to have this dream and in pursuit of it he pretty much turned the Boston office of the FBI into Whitey Bulger and his Winter Hill gang's own little intelligence squad.

Make no mistake about it, James "Whitey" Bulger and his partner Stevie "The Rifleman" Flemmie were crooks, thugs, murderers, and all around low lifes. One could spend hours cataloging their many crimes. Oddly, they fail to get the credit they deserve for their pioneering work in the field of bromance. Any law enforcement agent can have an informant. Any crook can become a snitch. But it takes real imagination to turn it into quite evenings at home with your snitch/handler at the home of the handler's boss enjoying a home cooked meal the handler's boss has prepared. Candles, wine - champagne on occasion, steaks and the occasional visit from Whitey's powerful politician brother to share the latest family pictures. Just another night at Chez Agent Morris. Special dinners away from the cares of work aren't enough to keep a bromance alive, either. You need to show your bro that you care. Really care. Don't be afraid to give him a give now and then. A bottle of wine, a tasteful silver champagne bucket or a very special belt buckle says "I think you're the best" more than words ever can.

This is one mind-bending story and Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill are perfectly suited to the task. Their journalistic style is spot on in terms of original research and the kind of prose that doesn't get in the way of illuminating facts. Lehr & O'Neill know when to let these looney-tunes speak for themselves as in this line from murderer Stevie Flemmie that actually made me laugh out loud:

"I received a sweatshirt from (Agent) Nick Gianturco."

The next time you're wondering what to get that special multiple murderer in your life, look no farther than your local sporting goods store. I kept hoping it was some sort of demented joke about giving a fleece to a thief but no, ethically challenged FBI Agents John Morris and John Connolly and their pals thought this made sense.

This is an entertaining, well-researched, well-written book. The only flaws are that it drags in the final chapters when they provide perhaps a bit too much detail about the grand jury proceedings that ultimately brought this sordid business to light and that the books begs to be updated to cover Connolly's recent convictions. Aside from that, this is as smart a book about the mob as any True Crime fan could hope for. Highly recommended for any True Crime fan, anyone interested in the Mafia and anyone from Boston.

Romance is Dead

2009-09-21T21:31:00.003-04:00

Dear Abby,

My husband and I decide to go to New Orleans to see the city 18 months after the devastation of Hurricane Katerina to celebrate our fifth anniversary. A sensational murder happened during the trip - a man committed suicide after murdering, dismembering and then cooking (and freezing!) his girlfriend. My husband, a writer, was drawn to the story. So drawn to it that while still on this second honeymoon trip he began interviewing the murderer's friends so he could write an article about it for Penthouse. Would it be too forward of me to suggest we go to Niagara Falls next time?

Signed,
Confused in NOLA

No, I am not kidding. Yes, the above describes how the author came to write Shake the Devil Off. I left out the part where the author declares the prostitution and drug selling rampant in one area of New Orleans as "a tonic" to the safety of New York. Because we don't have anything like that here in the Big Apple.

Logic flaws such as this are plentiful in this book, one I fully expected to enjoy. I love the true crime genre and I'm always happy to see quality true crime printed in hard cover. The topic is interesting enough: did Zach Bowen's army experiences in Kosovo and Iran so damage him that the additional pressure of post-Katrina New Orleans caused him to snap and murder his girlfriend? After reading this book the answer is a resounding "Who knows?"

Zach Bowen and his victim Addie Hall are at arms length throughout this book. Zach seems to have drifted through his life with a fragile sense of self - this is a guy who quit high school when he loses an election - and his marriage to an older "adult entertainer" (aka, a stripper) doesn't do much to stabilize him. Initially he thrives on regimented army life only to begin to buckle under the pressure. Unfortunately, we know all of this second hand. Zach didn't keep a diary so instead of learning what the army was like for him, we hear what it was like for someone in his unit. When Zach purposely fails an army physical, we don't hear from his doctors, superiors or anyone else, we hear from a lawyer who has handled cases "like" this and thinks is should have been handled differently. Addie Hall fares even worse. She comes across as a nutjob, all but "driving" Bowen to murder. Never once do we hear from her family or close friends from before New Orleans.

PTSD while a serious and real issue isn't a convincing answer for the why of this case. Bowen clearly had psychological issues prior to ever enlisting. Bowen's experience in Kosovo and Iraq is too hazy to create a convincing causal link. A more compelling question is WHY was Bowen ever allowed in the army? I have little tolerance for the "War Veteran as Ticking-Time Bomb of Violence" cliche. Hollywood treated us to this foolishness about Vietnam Vets in the 1980s. This is a dangerous stereotype and doesn't do a thing to help war veterans. PSTD should be better treated. The army should do a better job of psychological evaluations priors to enlistment and post discharge. Sadly, this has been the case since the Boer War and things have improved marginally compared to the advancement in weaponry.

Even the author seems to lose interest in the subject three quarters of the way through, straying off to tell us about the high crime rate in New Orleans post-Katrina. Since the crime rate in was high in NOLA before, this isn't too shocking. But Ethan Brown hammers it home by telling the random story of a couple who move back to New Orleans only for the husband to be killed and then, oh the HORROR, the woman's hairdresser. What does it all mean? What does it have to do with the Addie Hall murder? And most importantly why did Mr Brown make his wife move to a city that has ceased to be a tonic in its realness but is simply a place for her to get robbed at gunpoint? The unanswered questions pile up.

A true crime travelogue such as this is hard to do well and probably hasn't been done well since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The author is too present in the narrative making the whole exercise seem self-indulgent at times. I'm not all that interested in what the author has to do to track down sources or where he ate lunch. The author imparts this all in the most humor-free manner - and he has great material, like those rapping tranny prostitutes at the beginning - the subject is a downer but that's no reason to sap the life out of everything. In the end Ethan Brown is too enthralled with the "importance" of his story to ever put it in context or stop taking himself seriously for half a second, all of which makes for a dull read.

A Man Walks Into A Bookstore

2009-09-19T22:21:00.005-04:00

Drive by any flea market and you will see ample evidence that for any object you can think of, there is someone somewhere assembling a collection of it. When it comes to collecting books I can easily sympathizes, up to a point. As much as I love books, as much as I've probably spent on books in my lifetime there is just no way I can see myself collecting first editions. Too expensive, too risky and too much space required. None of this, however, was a barrier to book thief extraordinaire John Charles Gilkey.

Barlett dives into the world of rare books, bibliomania and biblio larceny to tell the story of Gilkey, a genuine oddball who despite having no money, no fixed address and no clue sets out to amass a collection of first editions that will wow the world. The fact that Gilkey thinks the world will care gives a hint of what we are dealing with here. The additional fact that Gilkey steals the books and simultaneously feels aggrieved is impressive but only in the same way that it was impressive to see the driver of a Honda Civic, having cut off another car, spit on said car because the other driver dare to blow their horn. And that's one of the major hurdles of this double-spaced, generously margined book: readers will find themselves wanting to smack some sense into this dimwit.

The other main character, Ken Sanders, is an oddball of another sort but an honest and forthright oddball. He's easily one of the sanest people in the book and based on what's in the book, saner than the author. This book is written in the "Let Me Tell You How I Wrote This" style, with the author front and center telling us what she thought, felt, ate, etc. My tolerance for such ventures is low. Bartlett does a good job with this when she's ruminating on what books have meant to her, she does less well when she's telling us about all the books she read as research for this book. I'm glad her library card got a workout but a little narrative cohesion would be nice. So would a little self-awareness.

When Bartlett begins hanging out with Gilkey she seems weirdly unaware that something isn't right with him. She's trying to figure out the logic of what Gilkey does. From his first words to her it's apparent that logic isn't Gilkey's strong point so I kept wondering when Bartlett would clue in to this. When she goes to one of the bookstores Gilkey stole from with Gilkey so that Gilkey can show her how he shops, or some such silliness, I wanted to remind her that being a journalist doesn't require the removal of one's spine. Just say no, Allison. Thankfully, Ken Sanders sets her straight.

It is a rare thing to read an article in a magazine and wish it were longer. I can think of only two off the top of my head: The Miranda Obsession by Bryan Burrough and Virtual Love by Tad Friend. Not having reading Allison Hoover Bartlett's original article on the subject, I don't know if The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is eagerly awaited by readers. It's a short book and an easy read. It is also the first book I've read in which the author shares her experience of removing her bra via her shirtsleeve in her car outside a California state prison. I won't be too sad if it is the last.

Recommended for anyone interested in the world of rare books.

Work is All Hell

2009-09-17T09:37:00.001-04:00

but at least there's a paycheck involved.

Digging out from under a pile of work and one very long book.

Recent Acquistions

2009-07-22T11:54:00.002-04:00

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Bartlett

The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome by Christopher Kelly

Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the FBI and the Devil's Deal by Dick Lehr

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom

The First Family by Mike Dash

Upstairs, Downstairs and the Summer House

2009-07-21T21:20:00.001-04:00

More Barbara Vine than Elizabeth George with Whatwasdone and Whydoneit being as important as whodunit. This book has a surprising number of passive characters - people who let tradition, circumstance and the will of others determine their fates.

As is often the case, there are several instances of 21st century opinions being voiced by characters from previous centuries. Morton does an admirable job of recreating the "downstairs" world of the servants in a great house although at times it feels slightly cribbed from Upstairs/Downstairs. The narrative is nonlinear, with flashbacks, dictated memories and letters recreating the story of what happened at the house at Riverton one night in 1924.

Grace is a refreshing lead character, starting out in life believing she is fortunate to enter "service" (being a servant in a grand house) only to later grasp the chance to become truly her own woman. Her doppelganger of sorts, Hannah, is more frustrated and frustrating. I couldn't quite make out whether Morton was presenting Hannah as a woman trying to break free of convention or as a woman who never fully matures finding make believe games and secret codes more compelling than real life. Perhaps Morton was trying for both.

Whatever the case this is an entertaining tale, decently written and in Grace, a character whose choices I found myself pondering after I'd finished the book.

Catching Up

2009-07-21T15:16:00.003-04:00

Why do work and my family insist upon taking up time which could be more happily spent reading or at least writing about reading? There are worse things than a relative who wants to let you know that Valerie Bertinelli used to be a drug addict or dealing with Delta Airlines but in the same week?

It doesn't help matters that I'm currently reading Shake the Devil Off by Ethan Brown which is depressing AND preachy, and Postwar by Tony Judt which is panoramically informative but with three straight chapters of Stalinism. And as I type this I'm being subjected to Bob Dylan singing "John Wesley Harding." A man who murders then cooks his girlfriend, the ruthless oppression of millions and Bob Dylan's nasal vocal stylings. Death, where is thy sting?

I need to read something purely and nonviolently entertaining. And bring my headphones to Starbucks.

Barn Flamer

2009-07-02T21:41:00.002-04:00

Having trouble imagining the words "Amish man", "murderous parent", "gay stud muffin" and "whacko" in the same sentence? What about in the same sentence used to describe one man? To quote Dewey Cox: "How's your mind? Blown?" Well, it should be.

Eli Stutzman - Amish farmer, race horse trainer, thief, drug addict, staggeringly promiscuous gay man, horrible husband, lousy date, despicable house guest and the worse father ever - is nothing is not a modern day renaissance man. Name two things that don't belong together and they can probably both be used to describe Eli. This book tells two stories simultaneously. One is about Little Boy Blue, a young boy who's corpse is found in a ditch on Christmas Eve. The other is about the boy's father, Eli, who left the boy in the ditch. On the one hand we have people of conviction and dedication who seek to do right by a boy they never knew in life. On the other hand, we have Eli.

One might expect to feel a bit of sympathy or at least pity for a young man who comes to understand that he is something that his society can never accept or acknowledge. It can't be easy to be gay and Amish. It's not an easy society to understand either. The low Amish don't allow electricity or buttons, but they let the young sow their wild oats during "rumspringa" and forbid kissing but allowing "bundling", aka, sleeping together fully clothed. Girls who allow favors too freely are known to bundle "too hard." Eli consorts with a few hard bundling gals before settling down with a nice Amish girl who, wouldn't you know it?, up and dies during a barn fire. The neighbors help Eli raise a new barn after which Eli promptly gets up to activities in the barn that aren't on the floor plan. You'll never look at a barn the same way after hearing about a few of Eli's drug and sex barn parties. Barn burners, indeed. Eli leaves the Amish community and embarks on a series of relationships made possible by the 1970s equivalent of Craig's List, The Advocate. The best part of Eli's schtick is that he keeps his Amish clothes for costume parties. Apparently broad brims are quite the turn on in certain circles. More than once while reading this book I found myself humming Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" - yes, even Ezekiel would have thought Eli's mind was gone. The law catches up with Eli but he doesn't get what he deserves. Not surprising since what he deserves involves being burned alive in his own barn.

Few writers could tell a story that encompassed the restrictive lives of the "low" Amish, the gay scene of the late 1970s and the police investigation into the death of a child without giving into hyperbole or cliches. Gregg Olsen is that rare writer who can not only avoid those pitfalls he can deliver an entertaining book.Whether he's writing about white trash, Munchhausen by proxy or Amish Boys Gone Wild, Olsen writes about his subjects and their beliefs with genuine compassion and respect. Olsen may pass judgement but he never looks down on his subjects. His talent and his integrity make Olsen's books a must for the library of every series True Crime fan.

The Ghost of Betty Van Patter

2009-06-20T22:29:00.005-04:00

Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier and David Horowitz

Looking back on one's past generally evokes one of two responses. Either a) "Wow, wasn't that a great time!" or b) "Dear God, what was I thinking?" Occasionally one can summon up a bit of both but at the very least we look back with a degree of bemusement. When self-professed "New Left radicals" Peter Collier and David Horowitz look back at the 1960s their reaction is decidedly "what was I thinking" sort. The result is that this book has essentially two speeds: bitchy and cranky.

The bitchy parts comprise some of the most enjoyable reading of the year for me.

Since this is a tale of apostasy the cranky parts are to be expected. The authors went from the New Left to embracing anti-communism in a big way, they're looking back in bitterness. Because they were insiders the perspective Collier and Horowitz aren't giving us the Woodstock and tie-dyed Sixties, they're telling stories that range from ironic ("Post-Vietnam Syndrome") to heartbreaking (Fay Stender) to verging on self-parody (The Weather Underground) to just flat out hilarious (the Berkeley City Council). The little known story of Fay Stender alone makes this book worth reading. How can the story of a nice Jewish girl who embraced every cause of the 1960s, became a major force in a prison rights, joined the feminist movement, found true love only to become the target of an assassination attempt by the very prisoners for whom she once so tireless fought have not been made into a movie yet.

The Weather Underground chapter, on the other hand, could make a fine absurdist comedy. What's more hilarious than upper middle-class white boys declaring themselves "crazy motherf*ers" devoted to "scaring the s* out of honky America"? I'll tell you what, it's an ENFORCED orgy that generates this morning after comment "I'm sure they have to do it this way in Vietnam." No dummy, they didn't. Say what you will about Ho Chi Minh, no one has accused him of directing the sex lives of the Vietnamese people like Benardine Dohrn and company. You'll hear less exhortations to arm yourself at an NRA convention than you will from a few pages of the WU. I guess polishing one's, ahem, gun helped pass the time between those required orgies. We find that, just like the Baader-Meinhof gang, the WU leadership had more in common with the Three Stooges than Marx or Lenin.

Nothing, however, prepares one for the laughs that are generated by the proceedings of the Berkeley city council. No since Eric Hobsbawm called Marie Antoinette "chicken-brained" have I laughed so hard at a serious history. The highlight is undoubtedly when the council, irked at having to tear themselves away from formulating their policy on Nicaragua, must deal with the growing issue of the homeless in the city. Those pesky homeless people just don't get the dialectic. Their rowdiness at a council meeting inspires the "radical" mayor to tell them "if we can't have order here, we'll just end the meeting and go home."

Guess what the homeless people said in response to that.

This isn't a single narrative but a collection of previously published magazine pieces (broadsides?) and essays on the author's journeys (literal and metaphorical), and as this was originally published in the 1980s quite a bit of time is spent on Nicaragua. When Collier and Horowitz are taking the humorless, gullible and inept to task, they're at their best. When they're on one of their anti-communist rants, well, it just feels dated.

What hangs most over this book is not regret, but the ghost of Betty Van Patter. An accountant that Collier and Horowitz persuaded to work with the Black Panthers as a bookkeeper in one of their community projects, Van Patter was apparently murdered by members of the group after she uncovered evidence of embezzlement. Their crushing disillusionment with their own actions and their own illusions stems from this tragedy yet the authors don't oversell this story, they don't excuse or pity themselves. These are two very talent writers who can create a compelling narrative like few others.

Yes, they have their opinions and they couldn't be more up front about them. I enjoy diverse opinions but given a choice I'd rather read a balanced history book than one slanted to any political persuasions. There are exceptions, of course. Paul M. Johnson is an enjoyable writer who isn't afraid of a bit of research and he is a man of fixed opinions but he's quite upfront about his point of view. He doesn't pretend to be unbiased or dispassionate so even though I frequently disagree with his views, I enjoy reading his work. He makes his case and dares you to disagree. He's also frequently laugh out loud funny. The same goes for Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hitchens and Susan Jacoby. The tell it as they see it never forgetting to inform and engage along the way.

On occasion I found myself disagreeing with the authors' too sweeping dismissiveness of the possibility that anything positive came from the Sixties. The New Left represented only a portion of the events of that decade and while Collier and Horowitz effectively dismantle any illusions that might remain about that on occasion they write as if the New Left was the only story from that time. I kept coming back to the comments one interviewee made of Fay Stender "It should count for something that she wanted to be a force for good in this world." He could be speaking of a generation.

If you like smart writing with an eye for the absurd and are willing to read and decide for yourself whether or not you agree with the author, this book is highly recommended.

Mysteries of Barcelona

2009-06-18T13:38:00.002-04:00

This is one of those books that makes me glad I have access to ARC's through Vine. Very likely I wouldn't have gotten around to reading it this year even if someone gave me a copy and insisted I read it. And that would have been a pity because this is a very entertaining book.

It's the story of David Martin, a writer of pulp fiction in 1920s Barcelona. He loves books and loves creating stories, in fact that's all he really wants to do. He's so entranced by stories that he doesn't actively live his own life. A series of events sets everything he values beyond his reach: his best friend, the woman he adores, the work he loves, even his own future. Into this situation comes the mysterious Andreas Corelli with a proposition: write a book for me.

There is a strong whiff of both the Gothic and the supernatural here. Think the Mysteries of Udolfo. This is great story telling, but it's even better scene-writing. The dialogue is witty, sometimes laugh out loud witty. The central ideas - art as the repository of the artists soul, the nature of faith and the essence of friendship - are far from trivial. The most compelling part of the story for me was the friendship between David and the girl he unwillingly takes on as his apprentice, Isabella. The bond between them is so effortlessly drawn and yet so palpable. It's rare to see a male-female friendship portrayed so honestly, so reverently in popular fiction today. The translator deserves special recognition as well, this never feels like a "translated" work yet it retains a distinctive sensibility.

As much as I like this book, I recognize it isn't for everyone. If you don't like old school Gothic this won't be for you. If you want an ending with everything answered, this may leave you dissatisfied. But if want a well-written wild ride with nuggets of genuine insight about fiction and story-telling, this is a book you should read.

Reading Heaven

2009-06-13T21:59:00.003-04:00

There are rings of reading heaven, just as there are rings of hell. I'm in a particulary lofty ring of reading this weekend:

I'm reading two fantastic books at the same time (ok, not simulatenously, but you get the picture)
One is fiction and the other is non-fiction, the perfect balance
One is by an author who is new to me (hello, back catalog!)
I'm also listening to a very good mystery on audiobook
I'm nearly up to date on my Kindle back log - a mere 5 books not completed, only three of which are untouched

It's as if Mary Lovell, Robert Goddard, Ann Rule, Kathryn Casey and Bryan Burrough all published new books on the same day.

Who Wants to Marry a Millionairess?

2009-06-12T21:10:00.005-04:00

In 18th Century England, if you were a second son with few prospects or a noble first-born son whose family fortune had run low you had one option to consider: marry a woman who was the sole heir to a large fortune. Like magic, her fortune would become yours entirely and she would cease to exist in the eyes of the law. It was like the lottery, only with a religious ceremony. Mary Eleanor Bowes was one such heiress who married first the Count of Strathmore and then the inspiration for Thackeray's Barry Lyndon. Mary Eleanor, to put it kindly, had atrocious taste in men.

Wendy Moore's entertaining Wedlock tells the story of Mary Eleanor fight to divorce her rogue of second husband and fans of Stella Tillyard's Aristocrats and Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire will find themselves at home. This is popular history that is as accessible as it is enjoyable. Prior knowledge of the times is not required but those familiar with the era won't find the background provided tedious. Moore sets out to inform and entertain and she accomplishes both. The story does bog down a tad in the middle - given that the topic at hand the abuse Mary Eleanor suffers at the hands of husband #2 Andrew Stoney that's not too surprising. Moore so effectively paints a picture of the villainous Stoney that readers may find themselves, like me, sorely disappointed that hanging wasn't an option for this cretin.

This is a story of female empowerment Georgian-style and sisterhood; it's also the story of conning someone into marriage that is so complex and so amazing it's no wonder Thackeray made a novel of it. Along the way we have bad behavior among the rich and famous (including a year of girl-gone-wild antics from Mary Eleanor that would leave Britney Spears saying, "Wow, that's trashy.") and Georgian phrasing that never fails to entertain. I, for one, plan on using the phrase "my deranged finances" at tax time next year. When the Court responds to one of Stoney's lunatic lawsuits with the words "If it be possible to conceive the Husband, of all others, who ought the least to be permitted to question any such Dispositions made by a Wife, the Appellant is that Husband" you know that this is the 18th Century legal equivalent of "You have got to be kidding."

Highly recommended for fans of history and biographies.

Kindle note: no photographs or linked footnotes.

Give Pears a Chance

2009-06-08T10:30:00.003-04:00

There are few things more exciting for a reader than discovering a new author. Not only do you have the good book you're reading at the moment, you have the promise of reading the author's previous books, you have the anticipation of new books. The only downside is that if the first book you read by the author is not only good but amazingly good, nay, great. It's a downside because you may find yourself comparing every other book by the author against that first, awesome book.

Iain Pears operates in the shadow of this downside thanks to An Instance of the Fingerpost, a historical mystery with multiple narrators, each of them concealing as well as revealing. Stone's Fall is also a historical mystery with multiple narrators, each of them, well, you get the idea. Pears is inviting comparison between these two books so let's just get it out of the way. No, this isn't as good as Instance. So what? Neither are the vast majority of historical mysteries published this year. It is, however, very good.

Stone's Fall is the story of the mysterious death of a mysterious man, John Stone. His power was pervasive yet shadowy, the source of his power is difficult to explain and the goals he sought to advance through the use of that power is far from clear. His wife hires a reporter to locate John Stone's unknown and only recently discovered illegitimate child, a job for which she will pay him extravagantly. This sends the reporter down the proverbial rabbit hole as he tries to find the child, figure out why the missus hire him instead of an investigator and learn the ins and outs of finance so he can understand what it is Stone really owns. Few authors could explain the intricacies of a stock company and make it nearly entertaining; Pears is one of them.

Of course, it doesn't matter how the stock company operates or who owns it. It's a Macguffin, a mere vehicle to transport the story. And what a story it is: sultry Hungarian countesses, shady Levantine salesmen, spies, terrorists, and more lunatics than you can shake a stick out. The first narrator is the most engaging and the most fleshed out. The second narrator is more opaque but still with moments of humor. The final narrator is surprisingly bloodless, surprising because of who it is (I'm not telling) and the story he or she has to tell. There are a few Pears' classic touches along the way: the minor character who is on to the whole thing and tells us but we readers don't believe him, the actual historical characters who have readers wracking their brains to remember what happened to them, and the link between human passions and the things we build that become bigger than us.

If you're a Pears fan, this is a must read. It is a little longer than it needs to be, part two could lose about 100 pages, and as mentioned the last narrator isn't as good as it could be but overall it is very good. If you're new to Iain Pears, I wouldn't recommend starting with this book, for the reasons mentioned above. All in all, it's an entertaining way to spend 700 pages.

Exhaustive research equals exhausting read

2009-06-07T21:21:00.004-04:00

The story of Sam Sheppard murder case is one that has been told obliquely but never completely. Which is odd considering that 50 years later many people have an opinion as to whether "Dr. Sam" murder his wife Marilyn or was the victim of an astonishing miscarriage of justice. James Neff has subtitle his book "The Final Verdict"- a bold move. My guess is that this one will continue to be debated but I doubt we'll have a more comprehensive book on the topic.

Given the topic, my interest in it and my very vague knowledge of the case (informed primarily by movies, TV movies and TV shows), I expected to enjoy this book far more than I did. I can't fault the research which seems to me to be exhaustive. The abundance of facts may be part of the reason why reading the first part of this book felt like a punitive homework assignment. The book starts with the crime and proceeds through the investigation in detail. Neff makes points about the shoddiness of the investigation and the stomach-churning press coverage but he does it in a style better suited to a memo from HR detailing how an employee fell down a flight of stairs at the office. The verbs "to be" and "to have" get a work out in all possible tenses and the passive voice makes many unwelcome appearances. The writing isn't bad, just uninspired. Only when Neff is quoting the words of the participants does any approaching emotion break through. From part two on the writing is more engaging though it never becomes enjoyable. That surprised me. Neff is clearly deeply interested in this case, he has a stake in it, he's devoted years to it, but that passion rarely comes through.

Neff's research yields many interesting facts. I knew nothing of the enmity between D.O.s and M.D.s or why that might have played a role in the coroner's findings. (I also didn't know there was once an "Eclectic Medical School" - although I like to imagine that one day they'd teach the students the finer points of spinal surgery, the next day it was how to make the perfect omelet.) In the question of which party's behavior was most vile in this case there are plenty of contenders: the police, the press, the mayor, the coroner, etc. Take your pick, you'll find plenty of justification for your choice in these pages.

Ultimately, I can only recommend this book for readers who are very interested in the Sam Sheppard case. The combination of details and the writing style does not make for an accessible book for the casual reader. If, however, one is deeply interested in the case, this is essential reading.

Pandemic Pandemonium

2009-06-05T09:47:00.003-04:00

When you arrive at work and there is a pack of surgical gloves and respiratory masks on your desks you know you're in for a fun day. Yes, the Swine Flu has hit my office which means this place is quite the ghost town. It also means I'm totally set should I decide to act on everything I've learned from years of reading true crime and mysteries - I have the knowledge and the equipment! A mask and gloves! I'll never get caught.

Not that one needs to actually commit a crime to do hard time as The Wrong Man by James Neff shows. I have nothing bad to say about this book. So why do I feel like I'm doing a home work assignment when I read it? Maybe it's because Neff's style is reminiscent of a CYA memo. This happened, and he did this and that happened, etc.

Maybe his editor had swine flu that day.

He's a loser and he's not what he appears to be

2009-06-04T21:10:00.004-04:00

John Lennon didn't have James Bergstrom in mind when he wrote "Loser" yet this is as close to a perfect theme song for the serial rapist, wife-beater and all-around-creepy guy on display in Kathryn Casey's The Evil Beside Her. The basic situation couldn't be any more unsettling: rape victim finds herself married to a serial rapist and can't get anyone to believe that he is the deviant the police are seeking. In lesser hands this would be a tale of exploitation and female helplessness ripe for a Lifetime movie adaptation.

Fortunately it is in the hands of True Crime great Kathryn Casey whose abilities as a story teller continue to impress me. She captures just the right rhythm for telling the story of a young woman who drifts into a marriage with a very odd young man, then stays with him as his behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, controlling and violent. Casey gives us such a sense of the ordinary days that it the battered and terrorized woman's ability to tell herself "that will never happen again" becomes comprehensible. Linda Bergstrom, the wife of serial rapist James, is slowly acclimated to the insane world of her husband until it seems if not normal than at least ordinary.

On the nature/nurture debate we have strong evidence for nature in the Bergstrom clan who all demonstrate moral tone-deafness. We also have yet more proof that while all whiny losers may not be serial rapists and/or murderers, all serial offenders are whiny losers. Based on this book and Jack Olsen's I: The Creation of Serial Killer I'm rethinking my stance on incarceration and capital punishment. Forget execution and supermax imprisonment, just put on these yo-yos in a group setting where their endless complaining about their own victimization can torture each other. These guys aren't relentless killing machines, they're non-stop kvetching machines.

Kathryn Casey is one of the bright lights in the True Crime genre, consistently turning out quality books informed by original research and reporting. Any fan of the genre should make it a point to read her books.

24 Hour Party People

2009-06-03T12:04:00.009-04:00

This is the story of a group of privileged young people who captivate London press with their antics (read: bad behavior and total willingness to behave like idiots in public) and occasional brushes with the law. No, it's not the story of Lauren and Heidi or Paris and Lindsey. The subjects are upper class twenty-somethings in the 1920s London.

It starts out slow - Taylor actually spends a chapter pondering why they were called the "Bright Young People." Once it kicks into gear, around chapter 4, it's quite enjoyable as tales of people with pretensions to talent, pretensions in general, out-sized egos and a deep interest in clothes go. Evelyn Waugh (a major chronicler of this ilk), Cyril Connolly, and Cecil Beaton key players but the bulk of the story revolves around once revered but now forgotten bubble-heads like Elizabeth Ponsonby, Brian Howard, Brenda Dean Paul and Steven Tennent. Yes, they may not have been complete idiots but who really wants to defend the intellects of people whose major consuming interests were: parties, stunt parties, drinking, treasure hunts, costume parties, and more drinking.

The best parts are the extracts from the diaries and letters of the parents of one of the BYP. The Ponsonbys were horrified by their daughter's activities, her lack of ambition, and her profligate spending and their observations are both acute and frequently hilarious. When Dorothea Ponsonby writes, apropos of one of her daughter's friends "I can't look at him. He is like an obscure footman" she is forging new ground in put downs. In fact, I'm tempted to make this my go-to insult for the next month. Taylor is upfront about the fact that the majority of People in question aren't terribly impressive upon closer inspection. (Except in their networking and literary log-rolling, which is truly notable.) Yet several of them have already been the subject of biographies, (entitled "Portrait of a Failure" and "Serious Pleasures", no less) Taylor is interested in what made these people newsworthy, what inspired them and what impact they have left on society. The fascination with them seems almost perverse. It's not borne of respect or admiration. It's more like straining one's neck to see the remains of the car crash.

There's plenty of metaphorical and literal car crashes on display from Brenda Dean Paul's pioneering turn as a starlet drug addict, Elizabeth Ponsonby - generally and, best of all, the story of Gavin Henderson's wedding to a nice girl mummy approved of and the wedding night that the bride spent alone and he spent with a sailor he picked up. Somehow the marriage doesn't take. They natter on about becoming actresses, writing books or plays, painting pictures, but few of them ever actually create anything more permanent than a particularly inspired party invitation. It's easy to read these stories and snicker at the disproportion between the BYP's pretensions and their accomplishments. The sadder point that Taylor makes is that this really was the very best life they could imagine.

Once past their glory days a surprising number of the BYP move into fascism or communism. There's a joke to be made here about being addicted to parties but I'm going to skip it. Better jokes are made about this by Taylor himself and Cyril Connolly in "Where Engels Fears to Tread", a satire about a BYP who embraces communism and exhorts his fellow BYPs to join him with the words "Morning's at seven, and you've got a new matron."

Back to Heidi and Lauren etc., you could easily substitute their names (or any tabloid darlings de jour) for several characters here, switch "plays" for movies and "singer" for "writer" and you wouldn't notice the difference for several pages. Seeing how far back our fascination with pointless celebrity extends is interesting and thankfully this story is in the hands of writer who is sympathetic but not indulgent.

This is an enjoyable read for any fan of biography or early 20th century European history.

Bambi vs Stalin

2009-05-30T22:09:00.007-04:00

Susan Jacoby's book on the Alger Hiss case might easily be subtitled: Give It a Rest Already. The "It" in question is the tendency among some to make sweeping assumptions about anyone's beliefs or motivations based on whether or not they believe Alger Hiss was a spy or was guilty of perjury or was framed, etc. I've been fascinated by this case since I first saw the great PBS miniseries "Concealed Enemies" in the early 1980s. That fascination has led me to read many books on the topic, some good (Alger Hiss's Looking Glass Wars), some bad (fratricide) and some genuinely life-changing (Perjury). Jacoby's book is both good and eye-opening; in spots it is genuinely entertaining.

Jacoby is a self-described liberal who has written this book out of frustration at seeing the Hiss case still used as a litmus test of sorts. The liberal point of view has been under represented in this case since Verona so it is good to have another side weigh in. She states up front that she believes Hiss was a spy and she also states that very few liberals have thought Hiss was innocent since Weinstein's book. She also admits to finding Hiss himself to be rather noxious, an impression I share. Jacoby sketches the outlines of the HUAC hearings, the libel trials and Hiss's attempts at rehabilitating his image before addressing how the Hiss case is used today.

Jacoby inadvertently identifies another thing about this case that has got to go. As with so many books on the case, there are more fresh insights offered as to the impact of homosexuality on espionage and the criminal justice system. Long time Hiss aficionados will be familiar with the theory that Whittaker Chambers framed Alger Hiss because Chambers had a homosexual yen for Hiss. The daisy chain gets extended further here when Hiss's stepson publicly regrets that he couldn't' testify for Alger (and thus exonerate him) because he was homosexual and it would have been used against him on the stand. So, to recap, Chambers framed Hiss because he was gay, his stepson Timothy couldn't save Hiss because he was gay, and his son Tony alleges he became gay for a while because he lived for too long with his mother (Hiss's ex-wife Priscilla) who was bitter about the case. What's next? Claims that communism makes you gay? I'm eagerly awaiting the pronouncement that the Soviets weren't so much marching as mincing toward world domination. Can't we please, please dispense with these ridiculous stereotypes, too?

Jacoby does make a few missteps in my mind. I can't agree with her contention that the pursuit of Hiss was grounded in a desire to smear FDR and the New Deal. Maybe that was in the minds of some of the participants but HUAC had been around since World War 1, FDR was dead and the New Deal was old news by 1949. Jacoby also seems to embrace the notion that Hiss engaged in espionage because the Soviet Union was the only country openly opposing Hitler. A "cooler" less impassioned alliance, as she sees it. This theory has been around for a long time and for some reason it seems more palatable to many than the idea that Hiss (or any other American with communist sympathies) might have actually believed in the tenets of communism. Certainly this was the motivation for some but why is that any more plausible than the idea that Hiss thought the misery wrought by the Depression demanded radical change? White makes a convincing case that we can't know why Hiss gave his allegiance to the Soviet Union. Any theory is as plausible as the next.

She gives much credit to Weinstein's book but, weirdly, questions how Weinstein could have started out thinking Hiss guilty of lying to HUAC but innocent of espionage as one would cancel out the other. That's not so irreconcilable to me, in fact, I'll give you a theory straight from that old Hiss standby: "I was gay at the time." Jacoby even goes so far as to imply that Hiss was so cool, patrician and awesome that Chambers must have been attracted to him. Please. For all we know, Chambers' taste ran to tall, blond Tom of Finland types. The most unfortunate misstep is when she snidely follows up Chambers story of his "conversion" from communism after pondering the perfection of his baby daughter's ear with a note that Chambers was still having gay one night stands. Does she really mean to imply that one cannot love one's child or have spiritual beliefs if one is gay? I hope not.

The core of this book however, is Jacoby's call to stop using the Hiss case as it was in the 1950s when it was a "real indicator of which side you were on." Whether you believe that Hiss case was Bambi vs. Stalin (Chambers was the original translator of the Bambi story from German to English) or Harvard vs. Tricky Dick, the fact remains it is history, not current events. For me, the Hiss case is no more an indicator of broader beliefs than the case of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Historical puzzles, yes; continuing conspiracy? Not so much.

This book is not for everyone. It is definitely not for the beginner. It doesn't offer new information about the case but it does offer a different point of view. For me, that additional point of view makes essential reading for anyone deeply interested in the understanding the Hiss case and it's impact. It isn't likely to settle the debate, just broaden the discussion.

"We baptized the library floor"

2009-05-24T10:48:00.004-04:00

Kay Francis is one of those actresses that you either get or you don't. It isn't that she's so complex, it's that Kay is in on the joke and those who enjoy her performances are in on it too. Yes, she's dressed to the nines while playing someone down on their luck -but you didn't come in off the Depression era streets to see someone in rags, now did you? She wasn't the best actress and she wasn't the worst, she was better than Norma Shearer (and I love Norma!) despite Mrs Thalberg's Oscar.

It always surprised me that no one had written a dishy biography about Kay Francis. She was such a huge star in the 1930s and she did have all those husbands. Unfortunately for potential biographers, but fortunately for her, Kay was discrete. And Kay had a lot to be discrete about. She told much of it to her diary and based on the extracts presented here, Kay is my new dead best friend. Anyone who can sum up a day with "Read my new script - dear God!" is girlfriend material.

The authors cover Kay's career in detail and with the loving assessments of devoted fans. I'm right there with them in enjoying Kay's performances in movies like Mandalay and I Found Stella Parish. As film historian Jeanine Basinger put it in A Women's View, Kay was presence, not talent. That's not as harsh as it sounds, it's a simple assertion that Kay wasn't trying to be the great tragedian. Kay was focused on entertaining, not winning awards.

Kay did have a little time left over for her personal life. You can either look at it as quite depressing - 3 divorces, multiple abortions and a drinking problem - or you can see it as a strong woman living her life on her terms in times when women had few options. I prefer the latter interpretation and with lines from her diary like "Did something and had good time but can't remember" you get the feeling Kay preferred the latter, too.

This is a book for Kay Francis fans and movie buffs who want to know more about an undeservedly forgotten star.

Fresh Off the Vine

2009-05-22T21:21:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only Amazon Vine participant who's only interested in the books. Of course that's not the case but the buzz on the boards seems to be mainly about the electronics items, or lack of them.

This month's harvest (yes, I can overwork a metaphor, too!) is Murder of Medici Princess by Carolyn P. Murphy and Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes, both fiction. I could swear there was a non-fiction book of the same name (Murder of a Medici Princess) a year or so ago. Well, I guess if you were a Medici death by poison was a common fate.

Maisie, Maisie, Maisie

2009-05-18T20:55:00.004-04:00

More than once while reading Among the Mad I felt a bit like Jan Brady bemoaning the ubiquitous perfection of her older sister Marcia. Fortunately, Maisie Dobbs isn't my sister because after less than one chapter of her ubiquitous perfection I was hoping she would be the first victim of the mad bomber. I'm not proud of this unrealistic hope but Maisie does try my nerves.

I read Winspear's first Maisie Dobbs outing and finished it hoping that the author would exercise more restraint in future books. After all if anyone is likely to be a fan of this series about a World War I nurse turned investigator it's a mystery fan and WW1 buff such as me. And Winspear does get many things right in this series. The period details ring true. The role that the war plays in the lives of survivors seems more realistic than what is depicted in the otherwise enjoyable Ian Rutledge series. Maisie is a strong woman who doesn't need a man to save her, another point in her favor in my eyes.

The trouble is that Maisie is a drag. A humorless, know-it-all apparently without fault unless you count her relentless good works. In the first chapter alone she's bought Christmas presents for her assistant's family, given alms to a beggar and attempted to save a man from suicide. And made me feel like trash for wishing this paragon had been turned to bits by a grenade. I blame her document case. Nearly every chapter features some business with Maisie and her document case. She's tucking pages into it, placing it in her car, drawing wax pencils from it or, my personal favorite, taking two sets of surgical gloves and masks from it. (I'm sorry to report that last one actually made me laugh out loud.) Like the world's oldest Girl Scout, Maisie is always prepared.
A few human frailties and a sense of humor would broaden the appeal of this series. As would dialing down Maisie's superiority in comparison to, say, Scotland Yard.

If I've hard on this book it's because I think the series has promise. Winspear has made Maisie less of a psychic than she was in the first book and the narrator for this audiobook, Orlagh Cassidy is excellent. What might easily have been two stars on the page becomes four stars under Cassidy's nuanced reading. She gives Maisie more depth than the mere words do. The central mystery is decent enough though more of a serial killer hunt for the needle in the haystack than a golden era whodunit. The characters beyond Maisie, however, aren't terribly well-drawn. It's all Maisie which makes her lack of faults become tiring.

Still, if you enjoy period mysteries this series is worth checking out. My advice is to take advantage of Amazon's "Look Inside" feature and read a few pages. Some readers might find Winspear's attention to detail (Maisie doesn't rush into a call box to make a call; she goes to the box, opens the door, picks up the receiver, etc) a bit much. Others might find it just the ticket.

Worth Re-reading

2009-05-17T11:25:00.003-04:00

My addiction to LibraryThing is allowing me to revisit old friends. One of the reasons I give for buying books instead of just borrowing them from the library is that I only keep the books I want to reread. But how many books have I actually reread?

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre (best spy story ever)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (because you never forget your first gothic)
Anne Sexton by Diane Middlebrook
Very Much a Lady by Shana Alexander
Skull Session by Daniel Hecht
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
Decent Interval by Frank Snepp
Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart

That's a respectable start, at least.

Random Thoughts

2009-05-16T21:27:00.003-04:00

I'm reading Iain Pear's Stone's Fall and D.J. Taylor's Bright Young People. At nearly the halfway mark I've noticed a few thing, all of them random.

Roughly 20 Kindle lines equal one printed page.
A different "voice" isn't necessary to convey a change in narrator. Pears does it effectively but subtly almost entirely through the opinions and perceptions of the narrator.
Although if asked I would swear that I hate slow paced books once I get into a well-written slower paced book, I like it. Stone's Fall can move glacially at times but is still entertaining.
Those Brits do love creating "clubs".
The press's fascination with reporting the doings of basically moronic people is not a new phenomenon.
I'm becoming obsessed with LibraryThing.
This obsession may not be a bad thing. So to speak.

As Good as Before

2009-05-13T13:28:00.003-04:00

How many times have I read one book by an author, loved the book and then tried the author's other books only to find that the first one was the best. Too many times. that's how many.

That's what I thought I was in for with Iain Pears' Stone's Fall. How could it be as good as An Instance of the Fingerpost? So far (12 chapters) it is as good. All in all, I've been quite lucky with the books I've read this year. It's enough to make me forget all about The Great Upheaval.

Then again, Maisie Dobbs is still haunting me. And her damn document case.

Through a Glass, Darkly

2009-05-12T10:27:00.002-04:00

Imagine you're watching a play. The play is similar to another play that you've seen before, several plays, in fact. This time there is a screen in front of the stage made of fine black gauze. You can see and here what it going on behind the gauze, when the light shines a certain way you could almost forget the gauze is there. Then the scene ends and when the curtain rises again the same scene is played again, this time without the gauze screen. The same words are spoken but in some by different characters than you thought the first time. In other cases you can see the actors' expressions completely now and the words, though the same, have an entirely different sensation.

This is what reading Dave Cullen's amazing book is like. I thought I knew the story of Columbine - after all I'd seen it play out on my TV screen - but I was watching the whole thing through the gauze of misconception and insta-reportage. Cullen rips the gauze away and tells the whole story. It's not enough to say he sets the record straight, that sounds like he fixed the punctuation; This isn't a merely book, it's a revelation.

When people asked me what I was reading and I answered "A book about Columbine"
the usual reaction was a visual and verbal mixture of puzzlement and dismay. "Why are you reading about that" they'd ask, "hasn't that been done to death?" The simple answer is that the truth of Columbine hasn't been told until know. And when I'd puncture a few of the myths that we'd all believed to be truth - it wasn't the Trench Coat Mafia, they weren't Goths, etc - the response was "No way" followed by "I need to read this book, too."

Yes, you do. This is the must-read nonfiction book of the year.

Cullen spent years talking to the everyone involved who would talk to him and the result is a story that is actually more horrifying that anything reported at the time. Far from being bullied teens who fought back - and wasn't that always a bit of wish-fulfillment on the part of reporters and viewers alike? - this is the story of a clinically depressed teenager in the hands of a teen-age psychopath. Eric Harris, the psychopath in question, is exponentially more terrifying than science fiction monster for the simple reason that you wouldn't invite "Alien" into your home but you'd give Eric the keys to your house to watch it while you were on vacation, all the while thinking what a nice, responsible young man he was. Meanwhile he'd be building napalm jet backpacks in your basement. Eric was misunderstood, all right, because he wanted it that way. Cullen presents one of the clearest explanations of psychopathy I've come across and the evidence for Harris being categorized as a psychopath is overwhelming.

Dylan Klebold, as Cullen notes several times, is more concerned with love than hate but the whole that depression leaves in his soul is filled by Eric Harris's hate for all humanity. It's easy to imagine Dylan Klebold taking a different path. By contrast, one can only see Eric Harris committing other more heinous crimes. Was it just bad luck that led Klebold into Harris's path? Who knows? That's the point that Cullen isn't afraid to make - that no one knows what created Eric Harris or what made Dylan Klebold so vulnerable to him. It wasn't being bullied or bad parenting or video games or Twinkies or music with hidden messages or any other stock, easy answer.

Cullen does find heroes and villains and mixtures of both. The families of the murdered react in different ways, from painful to witness hatred to self-destruction. The community reacts with compassion, understanding, exploitation, fatigue and finally ambivalence. I thought Cullen did an especially sensitive job of dealing with the role spirituality and faith played in the healing process. For some their faith allowed them to accept the tragedy with a peace reminiscent of the Amish school shooting. Others are moved by their faith to reach out the parents of Harris and Klebold only to find their actions denounced by others of the same faith. Yes, there are some who wittingly or not exploit the tragedy in the name of their religion and Cullen calls that out, too but this is a balanced portrait.

This is one of the best non-fiction books of the decade. The reporting is excellent and the writing is even better. Anyone who enjoys thoughtful non-fiction and/or wants to better understand the society we live in should make it a point to read this book.

Friends in Low Places

2009-05-07T21:22:00.004-04:00

What we have here is a beach read. That's not a dismissive term, at least not to me. But there are good beach reads, bad beach reads, even great beach reads. This is a good beach read that occasionally skirts the edge of great and bad.

A beach read needs a plot that is interesting without being overly complex, characters which are interesting with at least one full on detestable character and, most importantly, a narrative drive set to turbo. That doesn't mean fast-paced, it means that the story needs to propel the reader along. Scott Thurow's Presumed Innocent is an example of a great beach read that has a touch of literary credibility. Back in the day Judith Krantz delivered good beach reads without any redeeming qualities.

The Devlin Diary is not only a beach read, it is two books in one which makes it hard to avoid being overly complex. Story A is set in Restoration England and involves a female physician who gets caught up in series of murders Story B, and I choose my letters carefully, is set in modern day Cambridge University involves a female fellow caught up in a murder. The woman, Hannah Devlin, in Story A is strong, smart and resourceful. The woman, Claire Donovan, in Story B is a ninny. At least it cuts down on the complexity.

And that is the dilemma in a nutshell. Story A is good. The pacing is right, the anachronisms are very few, and the characters surprisingly well-drawn. The plot doesn't completely hold up but it's really a vehicle for Hannah to find good husband material in the veritable cesspool of morals that was King Charles II's court. Story B just lays there, repeatedly referencing the rollicking adventures in the author's previous book without managing to make me want to read it and leaving it's heroine wondering why the cute guy she has a crush on isn't paying attention to her. Which might be fine if this were a teen novel and the heroine were fourteen. Fortunately Story B takes up only about a third of the book but every time the action ground to a halt with a switch to present day England I wondered why Christi Phillips bothered with it. She does well with historical fiction, she might even have the makings of a Rose Tremain. Claire Donovan doesn't make the historical portion any more accessible and, really, who wants to read about their heroine deploying her awesome translation skills?

Still, this is a beach reach and judge by those standards this is a good read overall. Take it for what it is and you'll have fun.

Dead Boring

2009-05-07T16:42:00.004-04:00

Jack Olsen once said that a true crime book that doesn't seek to answer the question of "what created this monster?" is "pure pornography." It's fitting, then, that his final book was I, The Creation of Serial Killer. There isn't a Jack Olsen book that isn't worth the time of any serious true crime fan. He was a true great and if anyone else had written this book I doubt I'd have read it. You see, I'm basically a wimp and the gore that is inherent in any serial killer story is more than I can take. While the gore factor on this book is low for a serial killer story, this is still one of the most profoundly disturbing books I've ever read. It is the first book that I have deleted from my Kindle - I literally didn't want it around.

Olsen gets into the mind of serial killer Keith Jesperson, literally channeling his voice. This was enlightening. Who knew that the mind of a serial killer was so boring? Vile, horrific, loathsome thoughts and fantasies - these I expected and got. The boring factor was a revelation. Step inside the mind of a serial killer and you're in for the endless self-justifications of a whiny loser. Everybody done him wrong. Whether Jesperson is more self-aware than the average serial killer or, in other words, is less of a whiny loser than most serial killers is a bit like asking if the concentration camp guard was nice. It's all relative, yes, but consider the scale.

There are moments of twisted Is-this-guy-for-real black humor, like when Jesperson refers to "special moments shared with my victims" that elicit a combination gasp-laugh-choke. The Serial Killers Pen Pal Club that Jesperson starts, on the other hand, may just be proof that sometimes illiteracy isn't such a bad thing. Then again, it's hard not to walk away from this book passionately pro death penalty even if you start it passionately on the other side of the debate. This crew is pretty much the filled with poster children for euthanasia with their mercenary insistence on being paid for every word and getting jealous when one of them gets more press.

This is a tough book to critique. Olsen so effectively channels Jesperson for half the book that I missed Olsen's familiar, sane voice. Judged on its own terms, probably the only fair ones, it succeeds in what it sets out to achieve. But would I recommend it? Well, if you think serial killers are fascinating or interesting, then step right up and get yourself disabused of those notions. Ditto if you think they can be rehabilitated - these guys just like killing. If you're wondering if press coverage encourages serial killers to up the ante, Jesperson is an example of someone who wants "credit" for his "kills." But, again, would I recommend it? This isn't an enjoyable book. I didn't enjoy Plato's Republic though I'm glad I read it. The best I can offer is that if you're deeply interested in serial killers, this book is essential reading. But be prepared for loss of appetite and nightmares.

Some Paranoia with Your Suspicions?

2009-05-02T21:44:00.004-04:00

Some authors have to work overtime to disappoint me. Peter Robinson is one of those authors. He is so in command of his craft that he can phone it in and still produce a book twice as entertaining as the competition. He's not phoning it in on All the Colors of Darkness but I'm not surprised that this isn't among his fans' favorites. It's a dark book - what Inspector Banks book is a barrel of laughs, though? - and the themes make it even darker than most.

The central theme is paranoia. All kinds of paranoia: sexual, official, professional, political, existential, psychological, etc. It's nearly "all the colors of paranoia" at times. And what better venue for any dissection of paranoia that the spy trade? One of the things I admire most about Robinson is that he isn't afraid to have his characters be wrong and in this outing Banks anti-establishment tendencies seem to be leading him down the wrong path. Or is it the right path?

Another admirable Robinson trait on display here are his strong female characters. As thrilled as I was in the last book that Annie Cabbot handled her own problems without leaning on a man, I'm thrilled that in this book Annie is still standing on her own two feet and that Banks' female boss isn't given the cliche treatment. Winsome is coming along as a character in her own right. These are three strong, smart woman succeeding in the "man's world" of policing. How rare is that?

I have to agree with others here who feel this isn't Peter Robinson's best book. The main flaw, for me, was the terrorism portion of the story. It felt weirdly tacked on to the main story and Banks' reaction lacked the nuance I've come to expect from Robinson. He won back many of the points lost in that story with the twists and turns of Banks' romance with Sophia. There we had the kind of emotional realism that Robinson knows how to deliver better than most.

All in all, this is an entertaining mystery. Worth the time of any mystery fan and still a must for Robinson/Inspector Banks fans.

Smart Beach Reading

2009-05-02T21:09:00.005-04:00

After reading Robert Sabbag's superbly economical prose, some cutting to the chase seems in order. Down Around Midnight is one of the best books I've read this year and one of the very best memoirs I've ever read. In the avalanche of Woe-Is-Me memoirs that the publishing industry seems determined to foist upon us this book is a rarity - a tale of tragedy and introspection that actually has meaning. Sabbag asks us, simply, to consider what it means to be lucky.

I'm sure that many people like myself whose work requires an amount of airplane travel are fascinated by aviation accidents. Whether that fascination is purely morbid, a twisted hope that one can study up for the big event or just an outlet for fear I don't claim to know. I do know that after a two emergency landings and several unpleasant severe turbulence experiences I've wondered more than once what it would be like to be in a plane crash. What would it feel like? What would I do?

Robert Sabbag delivers the answers for his experience right up front. If he's going to tell a story about a plane crash he's not going to hide the main event for last. And that should give you a good idea of the kind of story teller he is: no nonsense, no tricks, and definitely no BS. This is a "slim volume" as the saying goes so it's difficult to talk about it without giving too much away. Sabbag's story is about talking to other survivors of the crash to sort out what happened from what he remembers happened. Along the way he tells us about NTSB investigations, g-force, life on Cape Cod and the mysteries of memory.

Not only does Sabbag never whine - whether he's talking about learning to walking again after a broken pelvis or grappling with "Survivor's Guilt" - he makes this story enjoyable. He balances the tragedy with a genuine enjoyment of life and the people in his life. He doesn't cut himself any slack either, when he says "I was a bigger jerk than usual", you believe it. Still, you wouldn't mind sitting down at a Cape Cod bar for a cold one with Sabbag, he's good company.

It's one thing to physically survive an airplane crash, it's quite another to be able to make sense of the events and emotions surrounding it all while telling a compelling and accessible story. Sabbag succeeds on all fronts. This is a book I know I'll be recommending as a smart beach read for this year and years to come.

Rambling isn't writing, it's rambling

2009-04-24T17:34:00.006-04:00

Early in The Loveliest Woman in America, "The author requests the reader's patience." As well she should.

The story of Rosamond Pinchot Gaston is one I've caught glimpses of in other books, most recently in Nancy ... "A Very Private Woman" the biography of Rosamond's half-sister Mary Pinchot Meyer, so I was pleased to see a full biography had finally been written. Rosamond was "discovered" at 19. She went on to star in a Broadway hit and appear regularly in the society columns of the 20s and 30s before her seemingly sudden and inexplicable suicide in 1937. This is a story with definite possibilities.

Even after reading that patience was required for this book I wasn't too put off. I have a very limited tolerance for stories about the author's unconventional childhood. Rarely are these stories worth telling to a wide audience and even more rarely are they well told. But who would anyone spend endless pages on, let us say, what it was like to attend elementary school in Princeton, New Jersey in 1963 when material from the life of a woman who hobnobbed with the likes of George Cukor and Claire Boothe Luce was available? No one would be so foolish, right?

In a word: wrong.

My patience was tried mightily by this book. The chapters about Rosamond aren't bad but they do include some very questionable prose and what I can only describe as an addiction to metaphors. Very, very bad metaphors. Elizabeth Arden is described as "a walking empire of ingenuity, a siren of survival, a roving pink tornado." Another woman is described as "dispensing advice like a wheezing lesbian oracle." The champ, however, is the description of Clare Boothe Luce as "one of those women who attacked life with a sledgehammer."

If you can make sense of out that description, please let me know. I can't figure out if Clare is treating life like a tear-down that she plans to remodel or if she wants to reduce it to small pieces she can cart away to her local landfill. Neither of which strikes me as being particularly indicative of ambition. Still, that sentence is a model of clarity compared to "a woman who mucked around in the world of men whose love was about as murky as pond ooze."

Of course, while that is bad prose it isn't as pretentious and downright insufferable as what goes on in the sections when Gaston ruminates on the meaning of life. These sections are helpfully printed in italics so that the reader can fortify his/herself with liquor to face lines like "I suspect most Americans are lost." By the time I got to Gaston's big thesis, delivered to an ex-boyfriend (who she pointlessly lets us know was Canadian), I was wondering if I can soldier on to the end. Then I read the big idea of this book:

"Longing isn't love, it's longing."

I am very sorry to report that the Canadian boyfriend does not appear to have given this line the response it deserved, namely "Bitch, please." And so, unaware apparently that this is not profundity of the deepest sort, Gaston goes on to repeat this line three more times in the book so that we will all understand that when people we love go away we sometimes think we love them more than they would if they hung around and got on our nerves.

There's only one way to read the italics portions of this book. Out loud, with friends. Lines like "I was in a deep sleep when I chose the men in my life" are surprisingly entertaining in a group setting. Less entertaining, is Gaston's utter failure to grasp the complexity of mental illness in general and depression specifically. She never explores what Rosamond meant by "Cinderella feeling" although it was obviously a code for feelings of depression and anxiety. Instead she either implies that Rosamond was used and discarded by the star machine and men in her life - what a radical notion, or she declares Rosamond's suicide was just a middle finger aimed at the world. Because suicide is such a rational act.

Most of Rosamond's life gets this barely skin deep treatment. We never understand why Rosamond disliked her mother, why she was so resentful of her step-mother and her half-sisters well into her thirties, why she loved any of the men she loved or why she declared that she hated her own sons. Nor does Rosamond come across as particularly likable half the time although Gaston doesn't seem to notice. "Big Bill" Gaston, Rosamond's husband, comes across as a complete jerk which makes her attraction to him all the more inexplicable.

Oddly enough, the two women who do come out best are actress Kay Francis, who is smart enough to know when a man is a good date but would make a lousy husband, and Lady Diana Cooper, who's truly gracious and compassionate letter to one of Rosamond's sons is included. I get the feeling they'd know what to say if someone told them "longing isn't love, it's longing."

If you do choose to read this book, consider the Kindle edition. Not only does it have all the photographs included, the very interested formatting of this version makes hilarious lines like "Clare hatched the perfect plan to rent Big Bill's Crotch _________Island" possible.

... Like a reader scorned

2009-04-21T11:05:00.005-04:00

Good true crime books very rarely come in two. The trusting reader may finish an excellent book about a well-known case, see another book on the same case and think, "that was so good, I think I'll have another." Think again, dear reader, because the next book might be as mind-bendingly awful as "Hell Hath No Fury".

One truly great, genre-transcending book has been written about the Betty Broderick case. It's called Until the Twelfth of Never, by Bella Stumbo. This book, by Bryna Taubman is an assault on the genre aided and abetted by St. Martin's Paperbacks. Of all the out of print true crime books they had to pick THIS ONE to reprint as "True Crime Classic"? Perhaps their definition is more elastic than mine. Certainly their definition of "astonishing" is. The back cover promises "8 PAGES OF ASTONISHING PHOTOS. Inside are photos of (sensitive readers may wish to skip to the next line) people testifying at the trial. But that's not all, there are pictures of the house and of the victims, BEFORE THEY DIED.

With content like that you'd think they'd slap a warning label on this book.

Actually, a warning label might be a good idea. I'd have appreciated knowing in advance that I was going to be subjected to two full paragraphs describing the exterior of the house in which the murder were committed. Especially when the description included this:

"The curved driveway passed in front of the four white columns that rose to the overhanging roof."

Gee, you mean the columns didn't just keep on rising until they reached they sky? The driveway didn't go behind the columns and cut through the living room? Those crazy Californians and their ideas on architecture. It gets worse. Betty Broderick, packing heat and having broken into her ex-husband's house at dawn, is "undaunted" by a closed door. We then get details, and I do mean details, about Betty's escape route. The names of the roads she took, the nicknames of the roads she took, what the roads pass, how direct they are, etc. Google Maps should dream of being this comprehensive.

At the time, the Betty Broderick case was widely covered, and thank goodness or how would this book have been written? Surely not through actual first-hand research. Taubman quotes liberally from the People, The San Diego Tribune, Hard Copy, even Ladies Home Journal. She takes the view that Betty was driven to kill and never lets up. When Taubman finally gets around to noting that nothing "can justify" the taking of two lives, it's in the last five pages. Up until then she takes whatever Betty says and presents it as gospel.

Taubman makes some nutty claims, such as "a man accused of killing of killing an unfaithful mate ... is portrayed as defending his honor." Seriously? In San Diego in 1990? Later she excuses Betty as having even "lost her mind for a few seconds." Which seconds would these be? The ones where she dumped her kids off in the middle of the night outside an empty house? When she drove her car through the front door? When she took a gun to her ex-husband's house "to talk"? The Broderick story never gets any thoughtful analysis here, just hyperbole and ranting.

If you want a nuanced, balanced telling that shows the selfish, appalling behavior of both parties, see Bella Stumbo's book. If you want to know more about the author, you'll be left wanting once again. There's no info about Bryna Taubman included; no "About the Author" blurb. Which makes sense. If I'd written this book I'd want to enter the author equivalent of the Witness Protection Program too.

A Cup of Victorianism and a dash of Fascism

2009-04-20T13:09:00.006-04:00

Homages to Victorian Thrillers are plentiful these days. Charles Palliser has reinvented the Dickensian novel. John Harwood has stake out territory that adjoins M. R. James and Wilkie Collins. While Andrew Taylor owes a debt to Wilkie Collins, he seems as influenced by Sheridan Le Fanu.

The back of her husband Marcus's hand jolts Lydia Langstone out of the sleepwalking that has characterized most of her life. Lydia packs up and heads to the dreary flat of the father she barely knows, located in Bleeding Heart Square. He shares the building with a cast of characters that would be as comfortable in Uncle Silas as they are here. A few, Fimberry for one, verge on the grotesque both physically and psychologically. The one beacon of normalcy in this house is Rory Wentwood, a journalist newly returned from India. Both Lydia and Rory are drawn into the mystery of Philippa Penlow. Taylor overlays this Gothic mystery with the arguably Gothic events of 1934 England, namely the Depression and the rise Oswald Moseley's British Union of Fascists.

This isn't a subtle story anymore than The Wyvern Mystery is a study in understatement. Those who appear to be villains are villains; the question isn't "are they guilty" it's "what is the crime?" Learning who has done what and what secrets lie beneath the aristocratic surface of Lydia's family form the core of the mystery. There is a whodunnit here but I'd guess than many a savvy mystery fan will have spotted the culprits and the secrets in advance.

What makes this book worth reading even though you may not be surprised at the twists and outcomes is Taylor's undeniable storytelling talent. He invokes the spirit of the Victorian Sensation novel without adopting all of the conceits. His prose is less luxuriant than Le Fanu's or Harwood's, for example, and Bleeding Heart Square has almost no scenes that don't move the plot along. Taylor is particularly good at describing the horrific in a spare, compact style that heightens the horror.

The grotesque elements may be a problem for some: cows hearts sent through the mail, a child who collects animal bones and skulls, and that old Victorian standby - foul smelling food - all feature prominently. Another drawback is Taylor's heavy-handed irony - how many times do we need to see Lydia Langstone reading "A Room of One's Own" to get the picture? I was also disappointed in Taylor's use of British Fascists as stock villains. I certainly didn't want to see them presented as heroes but a few more details than the well-known tendency of BUF meetings to descend into brawls would have been welcome.

All in all this is a satisfying book that left me wanting to explore more of Andrew Taylor's work. Recommended for historical mystery fans but especially Victorian Thriller/Sensation novel fans.

Lack of proportion is barbarism

2009-04-12T21:23:00.006-04:00

For anyone alive in the 1970s and 80s the phrase "Baader-Meinhof Gang" has a certain ring to it. The particular melody might be terrorism for some, activism for others. At the time I was too young to understand what Baader-Meinhof stood for or purported to stand for and the press, at the time and later, never succeeded in putting their actions in context. Possibly because the press was too busy either demonizing or glamorizing them as the whim struck. Over the years I've read a number of books on the radical groups of the Sixties and Seventies and most aren't much more illuminating.

Stefan Aust's newly update Baader-Meinhof (The Baader-Meinhof Complex), however, is that rare effort that brings the immediacy of journalism and the unbiased examination of academia to the subject. Aust tells the story of the group and its leaders in a step-by-step fashion that focuses on events rather than analysis. Its a tricky technique, especially when a lot of the events involve people hiding out in apartments for weeks on end, but in this case it was the right choice. Aust lets the reader see the events play out in all their claustrophobic inevitability; he also lets the reader judge the events and the actors on their own.

Successful journalist Ulrike Meinhof, minister's daughter Gudrun Ensslin, and all-around-jerk Andreas Baader formed the leadership of the self-christened Red Army Faction . It's noted early in the book that "You either loved or loathed" Andreas Baader. The loathing part I understand but then I've never had a soft spot for misogynist drug-addicted petty thieves. Either Andreas had loads of personal charisma or the rest of the "Gang" had serious masochism issues because it sure wasn't the clarity of Baader's political believes that drew people in. The most one can say for Baader is that he was willing to break the law for his beliefs - that must have seemed impressive to nice middle-class German youths looking for a way to change the world. What Baader wasn't willing to do was do any prison time for breaking the law. Nearly all of the violence and other crimes committed by the RAF revolve around either breaking Baader out of jail, keeping him out of jail, or otherwise getting him out of jail.

And that's the main problem for me. I've long been fascinated by extremist groups - from the ancient to modern times - by what motivates them to step outside of society to achieve their aims. The Baader-Meinhof aims are barely comprehensible. Yes, they wanted to end the war in Vietnam, eliminate poverty and do something for Palestine. I can't tell you much more about their believes because a lot of what they said and wrote was very much like this mind-bending sentence:

"It also means, that is, it is the premise of the decisions - that whatever the Government may decide no longer has the same meaning for us as that from which they proceed."

This is what prolonged isolation in a prison will do, it will make you write sentences that no one can decipher. The German prison system was a revelation to me. Apparently prisoners could self-prescribe any legal pharmaceutical of their choice - uppers, downers, cough medicine. Actual medical care, on the other hand, was a bit more ad hoc. And security can only be described as something special.

During their trial Meinhof, Ensslin and Baader all claim that the prison conditions were driving them crazy. Not likely, since these three were seriously crazy all on their own. When Gudrun wasn't coming up with code names for the group from Moby Dick and Ulrike wasn't penning RAF manifestos they were playing mind games with one another. Sometimes Andreas would join in the fun by declaring the two "grotesque madwomen." All the while Gudrun and Ulrike look up to Andreas as somehow the most politically pure of the group even as he declares hunger strikes that he himself will secretly break while costing the life of another group member. The sanest comment made is by a government agent who asks Baader "Don't you think these ideas of yours are out of touch with reality?"

Gudrun seems to have been hell on wheels but Ulrike Meinhof comes across as a sadder story. The most disturbing aspect of her story was her relationship with her twin daughters. After her plan to have them spirited away to an orphanage in Jordan to be trained as Palestinian freedom fighters is thwarted, Meinhof writes them motherly chatty letters from prison. She seems to take real joy in their visits to her until one day she abruptly ceases all communication with them. Her motives aren't explained and I was left with the image of her 10 year old daughters suffering yet another abandonment. Early in the book there's a vignette of Meinof jumping up and screaming "I won't let them do this to me" after seeing news footage of the war in Vietnam. On the one hand I was impressed by Meinhof's strong feelings for the suffering caused by war, on the other hand, "to me"? No one was dropping napalm on Ulrike's house. But Meinhof clearly felt that she was being put in a position of tacitly or passively supporting a war she was against. That feeling of being party to an atrocity not by action but by inaction had a deeper meaning for a German in 1965 than an American in 2009 can probably ever understand.

But that reaction, so out of proportion as to be downright bizarre, is emblematic of the entire group. As one former RAF member puts it, "The lack of proportion is barbarism. for years, everything revolved around the release of the prisoners." Twenty-eight people in one year (1977) lost their lives not to create a more just world or end poverty (and the Vietnam War was already over) but just trying to get Andreas Baader and his gang out of jail. That's one pathetic dialectic.

This is a very readable book that goes a long way to explaining what Aust calls the Baader-Meinhof complex. As Aust says in the preface, this is neither an indictment nor a plea for the defence. It is a record that requires readers to decide for themselves what the lessons are. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the specific subject or the times.

That's one off the list

2009-04-09T21:39:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I'm embarrassed at how long it takes me to finish a book. I lose interest or get distracted. It took me over a year to finish a mystery set in 19th century New York, for instance, that was all of 300 paperback pages long. The fact that I only seemed to remember I was reading this book was when I was going to get my hair "done" and needed something to read didn't help matters. Once a month for 35 minutes isn't a recipe for reading success.

Great Tales from English History was one of the first books I bought for my Kindle. A year ago the selection of history books on Kindle that I hadn't already read was a bit thin so this seemed like just the ticket. Over a year later, I've finally finished it. It wasn't what I was expecting but it is entertaining on its own terms. This is not a continuous narrative but, as the title suggests, individual tales. Each one is relatively short - most clock it at around 5 pages - making it perfect for bite-size reading. The tales themselves draw heavily on original chronicles and sources and Lacey does an admirable job of providing context for the prejudices of the sources. Most of the stories do involve the great and mighty but Lacey also includes tales of "Cheddar Man", an early English physician and the Venerable Bede. Lacey's tales were the perfect company for the subway portion of my commute, easily digestible in 10 minutes each. They've also proven to be good bedtime stories for my 12 year old niece.

If I had to sum this book up in one word it would be this: charming. That's not faint praise. This is not a substantial work of history but it does provide an entertaining respite for history buff and history novice alike. I particularly enjoyed the way Lacey uses the original source material while still providing a commentary on the likeliness of events happening as written. He also delves into the deeper meaning of the tales whether it's Piers Ploughman and the bell on the cat or Alfred and the Cakes. Doing all of this in five page spurts while still entertaining is an accomplishment.

For the Love of God, READ THIS BOOK

2009-04-08T21:53:00.006-04:00

It's not every day I find myself doing this: buying extra copies of a book and giving them to friends with entreaties to "read this, you'll love it." Lately I've bought four extra copies of C. S. Harris first book, What Angels Fear, and gifted them to fellow mystery fans. It's my version of doing the Lord's Work.

There are many reasons to read this latest entry in the series: excellent evolving characterizations, a smart central mystery and the sort of edge-of-your-seat action dozens of thrillers promise every year yet so few actually deliver. After four books it's clear that C. S. Harris is qualified to teach a master class on a number of topics. Take her ability to start a thriller out with a bang - just the right amount of set up and then right into the action. Where Serpents Sleep starts with Hero Jarvis in the midst of one of her blue stocking studies having a conversation with a prostitute when all hell breaks loose. It's nothing short of brilliant and the tension never lets up without once seeming forced.

Harris packs in a few twists in both the central mystery and the on-going interactions of the recurring characters. I'm a fan of mystery series though I always get antsy when the recurring characters take up too much of the narrative - call me shallow but I'm in it for the mystery. Harris always strikes just the right balance between delivering the mystery goods and involving the reader in the lives of her recurring characters. (Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George, take note!)

If you love mysteries or thrillers or historical fiction, if you're a fan of Kate Ross or Dorothy Dunnett (or even Georgette Heyer), give C. S. Harris a try. Start at the beginning with What Angels Fear, if you can, but you won't lose too much by starting with this excellent entry. If you still aren't convinced and you have a Kindle, take an advantage of the free sample chapter. What have you got to lose, right? And you can look forward to joining me in all but stopping strangers on the street and urging them to read these books. The Sebastian St. Cyr series is that good - read one book and you may find yourself giving copies to your friends.

Random Reading Thoughts

2009-04-08T15:07:00.002-04:00

Ulrike Meinhoff and Andreas Baader look alike in certain pictures, almost like brother and sister.

Why are most radical groups like cults? A charismatic leader who demands that adherents do his/her bidding in order to proof their worthiness - as true of Baader-Meinhoff as of Jonestown.

Marie Curie had a lousy life. Who knew?

A Boy and His Jewelries

2009-04-06T14:10:00.006-04:00

I've learned many things reading The Fabulous Sylvester, among them the importance of looking one's best, of expressing oneself and never, ever to get between a 200 pound drag queen and his jewelries. You can mock his falsetto and diss his music but just try to steal his jewelries and the fabulous Sylvester will mess you up. And that is just one of the many reasons why after reading this book I wish Sylvester were still with us. We can always use more well-put-together dance music, for one thing, and we're perpetually in dire need of entertainers who don't take themselves too seriously. Also I'd like to just hang out with Sylvester for a day - because if this book is any indication, Sylvester WAS the party. I can't remember the last time I read a biography of an entertainer and ended up liking the subject even more.

There's nothing dismissive about calling this story of a boy from South Central who moved to San Francisco and became the First Lady of the Castro a true fairytale. Sylvester dreamed of a world where he could be who he was on his own terms and he sprinkled magic dust on himself and made it happen. Whether hanging out with the drugged out misfits known as the Cockettes or working it on the Merv Griffin Show, Sylvester didn't compromise and he didn't phone it in either.

Author Joshua Gamson uses Sylvester's life story to tell the broader story of gay liberation in the 1970s. If that sounds like a drag consider that Gamson at one point contends that San Francisco was to gays what Israel was to Jews "only with fewer wars and more parties." Gamson nearly always finds just the right balance between telling Sylvester's mostly joyous story and the realities of being gay in America in the 1970s. Even Sylvester's ultimate tragic death from AIDs ends up being a story of staying true to oneself.

This is a fun, smart book. If you read it, as I did, after reading the great punk history "Please Kill Me" you'll find yourself thinking that the Punks may have had all the best lines but the Disco Queens had all the fun.

Clearly John Gavin Shot His Puppy

2009-04-06T11:24:00.001-04:00

Sam Staggs has created a franchise telling the stories of the making of classic motion pictures. Behind the Movie - complete with tragedy, triumph, sex-capades and substance abuse. I greatly enjoyed Stagg's first three offerings (on All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard and A Streetcar Named Desire) in part because he treated these fine movies as classics without becoming too precious or too snobby about the whole thing. He writes as an intelligent movie fan for other intelligent fans who aren't above sharing a juicy bit of gossip.

This latest outing - the story of the 1959 version of Imitation of Life - finds Mr Staggs having misplaced his sense of humor. Early on Staggs makes it clear that Imitation is a movie that changed his life and his analysis proceeds from there. Like his two earlier books Staggs provides plenty of backstage gossip about the stars and fascinating details about the making of the movie itself. When Staggs sticks to the story behind the story and writes like a fan telling another fan about their favorite movie of all time this is an entertaining book. But this outing just isn't as much fun for several reasons.

First, Staggs takes this movie way too seriously. I'm all for reclaiming popular art as art. I'm also not in the least snobby about the emotional impact even the lowest of art can have on the viewer. But making a case for Imitation as one of the best movies ever made? There you're on your own, Sam. Especially when he has to go through such contortions to explain away the "blonde half" of the movie starring Lana Turner and Sandra Dee. This would be the part of the movie so beloved by fans of camp - until you've seen Lana "acting" like someone "acting" you just haven't lived - and it's entertaining in its way. It is, however, melodrama, no matter how much Staggs dislikes the word. Melodrama is all about heightened emotions, and what's wrong with that? But whenever Stagg tries to convince the reader that Douglas Sirk was achieving something brilliant by having a weak actress playing another weak actress he lost me. No, Sirk was doing the best he could with the actress he had. This wasn't all part of some cunning plan.

Second, Staggs can't seem to keep his mind on the topic at hand. If Staggs goes easy on Lana, not that I mind, he's downright vicious to John Gavin. I'm not a big fan of John Gavin, I wouldn't even call him an actor if I could think of another word for someone who appears in movies and recites his lines accurately but he's far from the worst thing ever to hit the cinema. Staggs' enmity for Gavin goes beyond his limited thespian skills and seems to have something to do with the fact that Gavin didn't like to do shirtless scenes. Staggs attributes this reluctance to Gavin's political beliefs. Instead of the more believable idea that Gavin was insecure about his acting and didn't want to be sold as a slab of beefcake. Despite the fact that several interviewees declare John Gavin to be a nice man Staggs isn't having any of it. You'd think Staggs would have a little fun with the man who nearly replaced Sean Connery in Diamonds are Forever (the first American James Bond!) but, no.

The only things that piss Staggs off more than John Gavin are the Catholic Church, Condeleeza Rice and George W. Bush. Again, I have no quarrel with this beyond the fact that these three have nothing to do with the movie in question. I do not know the Catholic Church official opinion on Imitation of Life. Nor do I know whether Condie or George have ever seen this movie, whether they like it or not, or where they stand on who stabbed Johnny Stompanato. And since Staggs doesn't see fit to share any of this with the reader I don't know why any of them make appearances. He also doesn't bother to place the movie in the political context of its own time so these current asides are doubly weird. These venomous drive-by remarks only serve to jar the reader out of the narrative and, ultimately, to date this book.

Third, Staggs is so partisan that he fails to see the virtues of the 1934 film version of the 1959 version. In the earlier film, the main characters are business partners; in the remake, Annie Johnson doesn't help create a business, she's the maid to a self-absorbed actress. In 1934, an African-American actress plays a young woman who "passes for white." In the 1959 version, a white actresses passes for white. Which sounds more ground breaking to you?

Finally, Staggs is so convinced of the greatness of the 1959 version and Douglas Sirk in general that he doesn't bother to make a convincing case for either. They're both great, and if you don't get it Staggs doesn't want to know you. That and the endless, pointless axe grinding (what does he have against poor Celeste Holm and Claudette Colbert?) makes this a disappointment.

Kindle version: no photographs and some glitches in the linked Table of Contents.