It's hard not to feel bitter on behalf of Leonard Levitt. He scooped the competition and ripped the lid off the story, as the cliches go; and his own newspaper refused to print the story. Reading a book by someone as embittered as Levitt has the right to be would not, however, be a pleasant task. Luckily Levitt has maintained a clear view of the stakes and his own involvement: "I did not solve Martha's murder. What I did was prevent the Skakel family from getting away with it."

Conviction is the story of uncovering the truth about the Moxley case, not just who did it but who did what along the way. I normally have little patience for the "how I wrote this book" or "how I investigated this story" sub-set of true crime. This is a well-deserved exception not simply because Levitt is a good writer but because the story of how he and Frank Garr tried to solve this case is not only part of the Moxley story it illuminates the story. The prejudices and power that hamstrung the investigation in 1975 kept it from being solved for the next 27 years.

Levitt writes the book from two points of view, his own and that of Frank Garr, the police detective who doggedly pursued the case and arguably solved it long before Dominick Dunne or Mark Fuhrman happened on the scene. Both POVs are enjoyable but Garr is allowed to react to Skakel family shenanigans with remarks like "What a bunch of lunatics" which makes his sections a bit more fun to read. It was hard to read any two sentences about life at Casa Skakel without the words "are you kidding me" forming in my mind. Imagine if the boys from Delta Thau Chi co-wrote a book on child-rearing along with NKVD mastermind Lavrenty Beria: alcohol sodden slapstick combined with staggering abuse and neglect.

The Martha Moxley case has inspired at least four books, countless magazine and newspaper articles, and multiple TV show episodes. Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder is the best of the pack, deservedly winning an Edgar Award in 2005. A must for any serious true crime fan and highly recommended for any non-fiction reader.

Greentown by Timothy Dumas is also quite good though more of an "inside peak" at Greenwich. It's more informative than gossipy but highly enjoyable. (I haven't read the newly released second edition.) Dumas provides the best sense of what it was like to live in Greenwich in the 1970s, the combination of privilege, hormones and relative innocence propelled Martha and her peers. Like Levitt, Dumas is none too impressed with Mark Fuhrman. If you have time for a second book on the Moxley case, this is the one to pick.

Lord of the Flies on Long Island

At the heart of Against Her Will is an appalling, gruesome crime - the murder and mutilation of a 13-year-old Kelly Tinyes. This sort of crime brings out the exploitation writers of the true crime genre. Fortunately, Ronald J. Watkins devotes these pages to the investigation and impact on the community, not on salacious details of the crime.

This book was written outside in. It does not appear that Watkins interviewed either family involved. That leaves readers observing the Tinyes and Golubs (family of the accused) from a distance. We see them in pain, we hear their anguished cries, angry outbursts and words crafted for public consumption. Watkins gets us closer to the investigating officers but only in the context of their work. There are no fashion tips from the men and women in blue.

In some ways the distance is appropriate to this case. The Tinyes and Golub families turned on each other in a manner reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. The ghastly murder of Kelly became quickly subsumed in the outrageous, petty, hateful, hate-filled, frightening acts they perpetrated against each other. While some of the neighbors join in, others watch in disbelief as their quiet little street turns into first a scene of horror and then a scene of daily emotional savagery. The war between these two families ends up being just as shocking as the crime that inspired it.

This book surprised me. I was expecting run-of-the-mill decent true crime. Watkins keeps the pace going without shorting on the emotional impact of the crime. He doesn't indulge in homilies to the victim's utter perfection, he shows us an average 13-year-old girl through the eyes of her friends.  Watkins has an eye for the perversely amusing detail, the phrase "former nun turned police officer" will stay with me. Even the chapters devoted to the trial aren't the usual slog although I'd guess that the author wasn't in attendance. Watkins manages to paraphrase testimony in a way that illuminates and moves the narrative along.

All together this earns Against Her Will four stars. Solid, readable true crime the reminds us that crime itself is often the beginning of the story.

Kindle note: Human copy editing is apparently a thing of the past so readers are treated to a few typos. Also, there are no photos in the Kindle version.

Iphigenia in Forest Hills is not a true crime book and Janet Malcolm is not an author who seeks to entertain. Nor is she the sort of author who fades into the background of her writing. More often than not, a critique of any of her books becomes a critique of her. Fortunately Malcolm is as ready to rumble as any star of the WWE. To read any of Malcolm's work for a dispassionate recitation of events is to be disappointed and to, well, miss the point. She seeks to understand what the events reveal about us. She does not stand on the sidelines and pretend to be unbiased - she has an opinion and she draws conclusions.

The bare facts are: Mazoltuv Borukhova is accused of hiring an assassin to murder his husband in front of her. Borukhova and the hired killer are put on trial, a highly imperfect trial in Malcolm's estimation. Her idiosyncratic take is on every page: "But rooting is in our blood; we take sides as we take breaths." It takes a bold writer to indulge in this herself: "That's what I think was going on. No one will ever be able to prove it. But that's exactly what happened."

Malcolm wants readers to see that we all impose our own interpretation on the testimony. We construct our own narrative, based on our own experiences and prejudices. We may seek the truth, but our version becomes the truth. "We explain and blame. We are connoisseurs of certainty." She offers her own version and, be warned, she is sympathetic to Borukhova. Malcolm wants to know what drove events and expands her search beyond what is said in court.

If you haven't like Malcolm's earlier books, you won't like this one. I have a soft spot for a writer who can sidle up to a prospective interview and offer the following reporter's come on "I went up to him and asked if Anna Freud's project ... had been an influence on his work." Combine that unashamedly intellectually approach with Malcolm's pointed ruminations on the impossibility of narrowing accountability for a crime into a narrative that will fit into a courtroom and you have a compelling, unsettling book.

Making Friends

Readers will be excused if they mistake Making Friends With Hitler for a self-help book designed to assist us all in dealing with the despots in our lives. This is not a how-to, rather it's more of a "why did anyone bother in the first place." Specifically, this is an exploration of the not uncommon view circa 1935 that Britain should seek some sort of accommodation with Hitler rather than oppose him.

The idea of making friends was born in part of a belief that Germany's Versailles grievances were justified and a view that accession to power had matured Hitler out of his Mein Kampf "excesses." At its root was the assumption that Hitler's appetite for conquest could be sated.

Lord Londonderry is representative of the more benignly deluded adherents of this belief. He wanted to be a statesman of the caliber of his famous ancestor Lord Castlereagh. Castlereagh's legacy is a bit of a mixed bag - revered as a diplomat today but in his time reviled by the likes of as an elitist and a reactionary by the likes of Byron and Shelley. It's difficult to find any evidence that Londonderry understood Castlereagh's accomplishments - he seemed fixated instead on the glory of his legend, glory he very much wanted for himself. Kershaw's character sketch of Londonderry fascinated me nearly as much as Londonderry's gusto for socializing with the likes of Goering and Goebbels repelled me. It is nearly impossible to put aside what we know of their monumental crimes and imagine a time when they might be viewed as moderating influences on the "more extreme" elements of the Nazi party.

A less talented historian would spend time decrying the lunacy of hanging out with Adolf, Hermann and the boys in hopes of avoiding war. Ian Kershaw is a very talented historian with the ability to remind readers that what is in the past and seems inevitable, once lay in the future and was not at all certain. His approach is detailed, likely too detailed for the casual reader, but it is compelling for anyone interested in the topic.

Inexplicable

Let's face it, even by 16th century royalty standards Henry VIII was not a good husband. He was accustomed to getting his own way - absolute monarchs are like that, a bit of a romance junkie, known to sample the ladies in waiting on occasion and fixated on having a son to inherit his crown. Then there is that unfortunate habit of executing former loved ones.

Kyra Cornelius Kramer promises to explain this all to us in Blood Will Tell. Which is part of the problem. When the title of a book promises an "explanation" a certain of amount of explaining is required, particularly if the explanation is medical. The average reader does not possess an advanced degree in medicine so antigens and syndromes will need to be explained. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the author of this book chooses to give the most cursory once-over-lightly to both the all important Kell antigen and McLeod Syndrome. Is McLeod common? Rare? Hereditary? Does one inherit it from one parent? Is it recessive? Co-morbid? Fatal? You won't find any of the answers here. You won't even find a reasonably detailed explanation of its symptoms. This "explanation" doesn't get an explanation.

Given the weakness of the medical case, it is somewhat amazing that the weakest links in this thesis are Kramer's interpretation of Henry's behavior and analysis of events. She offers no evidence that Henry was any more tyrannical than his father (Henry VII) or his contemporaries. She lists the number of executions during his reign but does not compare this to what was going on elsewhere. Just to put this in context, at the same time Henry reigned Ivan the Terrible was earning his nickname Tsar in Russia and Francis I was ordering entire villages and cities destroyed on grounds of disloyalty. Kramer never convinced me that, as she contends, Henry's behavior suddenly changed when he turned 40 (she offers no real evidence) nor that he was any more paranoid than his fellow monarchs during this time of extreme religious unrest.

The examination of Henry's wives is something special. Maybe Kramer is reaching for a feminist interpretation of the famous half-dozen but if that's the goal, she fails. Karen Lindsey's Divorced, Beheaded, Survived covers this idiosyncratic ground much more effectively. Kramer doesn't take into account the various factions at court or the accepted policy of putting attractive women in the king's path in hopes that her favors would earn favors for her family. She sees Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn as victims (and, in Kramer's mind, practically girlfriends if only fate hadn't intervened) and Jane Seymour as a petty schemer. Why? Because that's how Kramer - clearly not a historian - sees it. She judges 16th century behaviors by 21st century standards and prejudices.

Kramer presents Henry's domestic arrangements as if history were a soap opera. The influence of Wolsey, More, Cromwell and Cranmer influence never registers. The complex political theories of Eric Ives, Retha Warnicke, and Alison Weir make no impact here. There are no factions, no powerful advisers, no foreign intrigue; just a boy and his hormones, and his Kell antigen. 

What we have here is a serious of suppositions, ifs and sweeping unsupported statements such as:
"Henry would probably have left a very different mark on history if his mind had remained intact." Like, what? On the other hand I did learn some interesting things about how the medical community viewed female reproductive organs - think upside-down-inside-out male organs. Still, Kramer's aside that "It really wasn't a great time for medical wisdom" is a juvenile assessment.

Anyone familiar with Tudor history beyond the least demanding historical fiction is strongly advised to stay away. Even when Kramer is sticking to known ground, her replays of the events of Henry's life reminded me of the famous Heaven's Gate review - "like a forced four-hour walking tour of one's own living room." Despite interesting phrases such as "obstetrical tribulations" this book is not recommended for any reader.

Inquiry Into Me, Me, Me

This is a frustrating book. It is frustrating because of what it is and what it is not. It is not, emphatically not, an entry in the true crime genre. It contains none of the staples of true crime despite the author's admission that she is addicted to the genre. It is part exploration of how someone goes on after an event (or rupture, to use the author's term) severs the past from their future, and part exploration their own role in that event. The event in question is the Billy Gilley's murder of his father, mother and 8-year-old sister, an act committed in part, allegedly, to protect his 16-year-old sister, Jody.

Sounds interesting; so what is the problem, you may ask. The problem is the author.

As an author, Kathryn Harrison comes with a back story, one that she has previously shared with the public in fictional (Thicker Than Water) and memoir (The Kiss) form. I never can decide whether Harrison is exceptionally brave or exceptionally self-exploiting or just looking for salvation in all the wrong places. It certainly takes guts to tell the world you had a sexual relationship with your father when you were an adult. But the question that lingers is why tell the entire world? And why keep telling the world over and over no matter what the topic at hand?

"Studying the Gilleys required making inquiries into myself" - and how. Harrison can't go two pages without dragging the action back to herself.  Written in the "here's how I wrote this book" style that lets the reader in on the intricacies of note taking, personal filing systems and motel choices, I expected Harrison to be part of the narrative. I didn't expect the umpteenth recitation of her big, rupturing event.* Having dear, old, formerly absentee dad slip you the tongue during an airport goodbye is indeed a bad thing to have happen. But how about sticking with the main narrative?

The parts of the book that are genuinely focused on the Gilley family and Jody in particular aren't half bad. In the great nature vs. nurture debate Harrison is firmly Team Nurture so she's more interested in bad parenting than mental illness. She sees Jody almost as a character in a fairy tale rescued from her appalling circumstances not by her brother but by her intellect. The fact that Jody read books is treated like a magical gift - something along the lines of Rapunzel's long hair. I kept hoping Harrison would delve into this tendency to see Jody as a heroine instead of as an ordinary teenager, to explore the pressures this might have created for her. No dice.

At its best, Harrison strives to "construct a narrative" that will help her to understand Jody's story, and her own. At its worst, Harrison is prone to eye-roll worthy statements like "Eager to discover some of what informs the sixteen-year-old Jody's vision of the world, I buy myself a box of fifteen Harlequin romances" - the implication being that she certainly never read a single one herself. Or my personal favorite "Might not Jody, as young as six or seven ... have already begun ... to mourn ... all the Jodys she might have been were it not for the destructive environment into which she was born?" Might not Kathryn be full of it?

Occasionally insightful but more often banal and annoying, this book's every other paragraph belies Harrison's early assertion that she knows "my history and Jody's are not comparable." Kathryn Harrison is a good writer. If she could stop writing about herself she'd be worth reading.

*(At one point Harrison tells us that she's never confronted her own father and that stopped me dead in my tracks. Let me get this straight, she's told the entire freaking world about this to the tune of THREE BOOKS but she hasn't had a talk with the owner of the famous tongue?)

Fighting over last place

The life of a Romanov grand duke had its highs and lows. Among the highs were inconceivably large allowances, ornate living quarters, a selection of stylish uniforms, access to the entire company of the Bolshoi Ballet and trips to Monte Carlo on the family expense account. In the column marked “low” are arranged marriages, nosey relatives, pushy relatives, judgmental immediate family, and being murdered by the Bolsheviks in rustic settings. In the case of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, add in that the Bolsheviks hid his murder and claimed Michael escaped, and that history has all but forgotten him.

Donald Crawford is most upset about that last bit and The Last Tsar is his latest attempt to set the record straight. This is his second book about Michael, the first being Michael and Nastasha, co-authored with his wife Rosemary Crawford. If you’ve already read that book be warned that there is very little new material here and, oddly, some relevant material from that book is left out. For instance, Michael’s romance with cousin Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg isn’t mention here. What does get more attention is Michael’s war record. Overall, there’s no reason for the casual reader to bother with both books.

Michael’s story is interesting but Crawford doesn’t provide us with more than the bare bones of it. He references recent secondary sources, which is fine, but only to support his premise. Crawford has his opinions and his fondness for them makes this book tedious at times. Tsarina Alexandra is the villainess of the story – she’s described as “nagging,” “vindictive,” “jealous,” “hysterical” and “neurotic.” And that’s just in the first half of the book. It got on my nerves after awhile.

Crawford stubbornly presents Michael’s marriage to the twice-divorced commoner Natasha as a love story without ever giving the benefit of a hearing to Michael’s less than impressed family. It’s not a huge stretch to see that learning one’s son/brother/cousin has eloped with a woman who’s had three husbands in ten years wouldn’t inspire suggestions that “Our Love is Here to Stay” be played at the wedding reception. At a time when his nephew known to be in frail health, an uncle had recently been blown to smithereens, and it was too dangerous for his brother the Tsar to live in the capitol, I can’t blame the family for being unmoved by the power of love. Nor does Natasha come across as anything other than a beautiful woman who enjoys luxury and flattery.

Michael emerges as a someone content to “do the right thing” on a personal scale but until the war, not one to make sacrifices. Like his brother Nicholas, he is remarkable in his ordinariness. You get the impression that Michael would have made a swell house-guest but not much of a Supreme Autocrat.

In 2009 the Russian government “rehabilitated” Michael saying, in effect, that killing him was unwarranted. Whether Michael truly was the last Tsar (for a day) or not is probably best left to the experts. In my own un-expert opinion, having the Romanov dynasty begin and end with Michaels is reason enough to grant him the title it appears that he never wanted.

The Reader Cries Uncle

Like any other hazardous object, The Wind Cries Mary should have a warning label. Something along the lines of “reader is advised to wear neck brace to prevent injuries cause by abrupt changes of topic” or perhaps a more catchall “abandon all hope ye who enter.” This, gentle reader, is one rough ride.

The description provided on Amazon might lead the unsuspecting to believe this book is about the murder of Mary Mount. That’s just one of the many, many murders given the once over here. The narrative careens from Mary’s disappearance to the nearby disappearances of other girls, to the murders of three teenagers to half a dozen serial killers and on and on. It’s a grueling trip down Connecticut Murder Memory Lane.

But that drive-by style is preferable to the treatment given to the case of John Rice, Jr., who murdered most of his family in the throes of a psychotic break. Grey is convinced that Rice also killed Mary Mount. Why? Well, he lived in the same town. That’s pretty much the whole case. Rice was found guilty by reason of insanity of his family’s deaths and released a few years later. He moved to Massachusetts to raise llamas and here Grey tracked him down, and by all appearances, stalked him. Oddly enough, Rice didn’t open the door to the nice lady who lurked in his driveway or answer her emails. Grey proudly suggests that Rice moved halfway across the country just to get away from her.

The most disturbing thing about this book isn’t the murder of Mary Mount, it’s the casual way Grey implies that Rice killed everyone from Mary to Molly Bish. If anyone within a 50 mile radius of Rice dies, he did it. Why? Well, he was there and he did have that nasty case of acne when he was a teen. Rice’s crimes were horrific but more in line with a family annihilator killing than a serial killer. There’s not one shred of convincing evidence – physical, eyewitness or circumstantial – to establish Rice as a credible suspect in the Mount murder.

The writing is somewhere between a 5th grade book report and Nigerian 419 scam email. Sometimes everything looks fine, if plodding, other times something isn’t quite right as in “Greenwich, the first town one enters after leaving New York.” Sure, it’s the first town if you’re entering Connecticut or I-95 but there are other ways to get from New York to the Nutmeg State without going anywhere near Greenwich.Then there are lines that stop the action, such as it is, cold: “Joseph Mount died eventually.” Apropos of nothing, this line appears after a rundown of the professions chosen by Mary’s brothers. Unfortunately, the writing is memorably bad, which means I’ll be trying to dislodge this howler for years:  “an older man with criminal tendencies happened to walk in.”

This book wasn’t a total loss. I read it for free from Amazon Prime and I did learn that “Police salaries are paid by the tax dollars of their town or city.” Up until now I’d just assume it was bake sales and car washes that kept the cruisers rolling.

A Whale of a Time

The English excel at the nurturing and cultivation of eccentrics. From ferret legging to innkeepers who charge extra to those "whose faces he didn't care for" there's an eccentric for every taste from the land of Shakespeare. I think Will S. would have enjoyed the subject of Kate Summerscale's ode to eccentricity - Marion Barbara "Joe" Carstairs - what with the tropical islands, cross-dressing, vague paternity and feats of derring-do, how could he not?

Joe, The Queen of Whale Cay, demonstrated that with enough money and limited interest in the opinions of others one could pretty much live as one wished back in the 1920s and 1930s, including living openly as a lesbian, obsessing over a stuff doll and owning your own kingdom. Refreshingly, our boy-girl Joe is happy eccentric; generous and loyal to friends and lovers, interested in the welfare of her subjects, and generally enjoying life. Despite being inexplicably nicknamed "Betty" by the press, she also earns her title of "the fastest woman on water" by racing powerboats in the early days of the sport.

Summerscale strikes just the right note for this slim biography - light without being lightweight. She doesn't over think what motivated Joe and certainly doesn't ask the read to feel sorry for her. If Joe was a bit more comfortable proclaiming her love for inanimate objects rather than people or if she was surprisingly vague about her mother's first name, none of it seems to have resulted in regrets.

Joe was who she was, and everybody just had to accept it. She appears to have earned no enemies but many friends. And she lived well and gave generously but still managed to die with sizable estate. We should all be so lucky.  A fun, quick read.

Super Clan? Super Fly!

There are those who believe in conspiracy theories and those, like me, who do not. As a non-believer I see something enviable in the ability to believe that events can be so easily controlled, in the sunny optimism of those who think the world would be going their way were in not for those darn conspirators mucking things up for everyone. More often I just long to tell the believer to please, shut up. At last, we non-believers have a book that is one long “Shut Up!”

David Aaronovitch’s Voodoo Histories tackles everything from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Who Killed Diana to 9/11 “truth” seekers. He is thorough, rationale and witty in examining, explaining and demolishing conspiracy theories past and present.

Many is the time, usually trapped in a limo to the airport, when I have wondered how anyone (namely the driver of said limo) could believe, for example, that the legendary island of Atlantis is submerged in the Hudson River and that this is why New York City is the capital of the world. Aaronovitch’s theory is that belief in conspiracy theories offers two benefits: 1) the believer knows something the rest of the world does not and is therefore superior; and 2) the theories offer a comforting explanation for the occurrence of something they wish hadn’t happened. Not unlike a three year old claiming their imaginary friend knocked over the glass of milk. So whether it’s one side claiming an election was stolen (how else to explain people voting for a candidate you don’t like?) or another side claiming the elected candidate isn’t actually a citizen (he’s not a candidate, he’s a conspiracy!), these theories offer a weird comfort against unpleasant reality.

The chapters on the Protocols and the Moscow Trials are solid but perhaps a bit slow if you aren’t a history buff. Stay the course, because Aaronovitch really hits his stride in his chapter-long take-down of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Truly laugh out loud funny and informative. Learning that the Priory of Sion, like NY gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan, were motivated by a conviction that the “rent is too damn high” has made my year.

The book covers the all four basic categories of conspiracies: 1) Things that were planned in advance for profit (Both World Wars, most terrorist attacks); 2) Groups that are planning to take over the world but can’t keep a secret (the Da Vinci code, the Elders of Zion, the Super Clan); 3) People who were killed because they interfered with or knew about 1 or 2 (JFK, Hilda Murrell, Diana); 4) Aliens are responsible.

Aaronovitch’s book reveals the lie of the claims that by belief in conspiracies takes courage. It doesn’t take courage to believe the worst about people/groups you don’t like. An entertaining, informative book. Highly recommended.

You'll have a gay old time

Club Kids. Meet the Club Kids. 

They're the post discotheque family.
From the heart of downtown,
They're a homage to the Factory. 

Let’s hear about the drug dealer they killed
Unsolved, through NYPD’s lassitude.

When you're with the Club Kids
you'll have a skrink-la-da time.
A slogger do time.
You'll have a gay old time. 

Never before have I felt the need to quote the Flintstones in order to properly review a book but then I've never read a book quite like Disco Bloodbath before. Which is a shame because this is a great book. Not just fabulous. Great.

James St. James tells the story of his life in the magical world of club kids and the murder of drug entrepreneur Angel Melendez by party maven and drug addict extraordinaire Michael Alig. The case was on every magazine and newspaper in New York in the mid 1990s because it was about murder (and we do love our murders in New York) and it "said something" about the wacky subculture of downtown. Brace yourself for some shocking news: some people who go to clubs take drugs. It gets worse: some people sell drugs at the very same clubs. Yes, this was supposedly a big revelation.

Reading Disco Bloodbath the shock isn't that drugs were a constant at clubs, or even that so much drugs were consumed. The shock is that more people didn't die. It's not just the landfill size portions of everything from heroin to special K to cocaine, it's that even a drug-induced grand mal seizure wasn't enough to persuade one's fellow party goers to call you an ambulance.

St. James has just the right bitchy, campy tone for this insane world. His wit isn't at odds with the material - a gruesome murder followed by dismemberment - it's a direct counterpoint to the sheer absurdity of it. He doesn't spare himself, he details his own drug addiction, his exploitation of other club denizens and his failure to go to the police after Alig confessed the murder to him. He doesn't go in for idealizing the victim either. St. James doesn't have many nice things to say about Melendez and its refreshing in the True Crime genre to have an author say that even non-saints don't deserve to die. He's particularly strong at pointing out how little the NYPD cared about solving this far from secret murder. Hispanic, gay, wing-wearing drug dealers didn't inspire any over time.

So, the wit, the tips on how to cook up some special K in your very own kitchen, the tips on make up, self-insight and a surprisingly clear-eyed view of a nasty world, Disco Bloodbath is a must read for any fan of True Crime.

Less of a Jerk but Still a Perjurer

A new book on the Alger Hiss case inevitably raises the question of  “why” among those familiar with the case, and there are valid reasons for that response. For one thing, all the protagonists are residents of various cemeteries or urns and have been so for quite some time; for another, settled opinions on the matter are unlikely to be changed at this point. Even for those who use the case as a litmus test of sorts have to be bored by the whole thing.

What drew me to Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason was not a rehash of the question of Alger Hiss’s guilt but the more intriguing and still open question of why Hiss so vigorously maintained his innocence. Post self-professed liberal Susan Jacoby’s book “Alger Hiss and the Battle for History” declaring that today almost no one on the left believes Hiss was innocent it was probably inevitable that someone of a more conservative persuasion would weigh in on the topic. Christina Shelton has stepped into the fray and her book is surprising on many fronts.

Shelton, a former Soviet analyst, has a distinctly anti-communist nearly neo-con point of view. (She doesn’t claim to be unbiased and that works for me just as it did for Jacoby’s book.) The first surprise is that Shelton actually met Hiss and found him to be pleasant company. The second is that Shelton goes to greater lengths that even the most pro-Hiss books to present a him as a caring, three dimensional human being. For the first time in reading nearly two dozen books on the case I got a sense of a man who could inspire such devotion and loyalty. I also encountered someone whose concern for his fellow man could make the hope presented by socialism/communism appealing.

A less pleasing surprise are Shelton’s blanket statements about the “failure” of socialism and the refusal of American universities to admit that communism wasn’t such a great idea in practice. I studied political science at a liberal arts college in New England in the 1980s and my well-known professors never pretended that the Soviet Union was anything other than a repressive mess. I wouldn’t argue that communism was thriving but there’s a world of difference between a Social Democrat in Sweden and Leonid Breshnev. Shelton is on firmer ground laying out the similarities between Stalinism and Fascism, but while demolishing a retrospective claim that Hiss was doing good by supporting Stalin against Hitler this isn’t hugely additive.

Shelton does an admirable job of assembling all the evidence against Hiss. It isn’t thrilling reading but it is comprehensive. In it’s totality it is compelling. Also compelling is Shelton’s thesis that Hiss maintained his claim to innocence because it was more useful to the cause of communism than an open embrace of his beliefs. Shelton’s version of Hiss is much more appealing (and human) than the dissembler (he’s a master spy!) of Allen Weinstein’s Perjury or the serial-deceiver (he just plain likes to lie!) of Edward White’s Looking Glass Wars or the cold-fish (he’s a jerk!) – all worthy, readable books that have their place.

Taken as a whole Shelton’s book makes a contribution but it’s not for everyone. I got the feeling that she’d like those who supported Hiss for decades to admit they were had but that’s not likely to happen and, for me, it’s beside the point. Recommended for anyone very interested in the Hiss case but not as the first book on the subject.

Recent Acquisitions

Via the magic of Amazon's pre-order service, this morning I received Christina Shelton's new book Alger Hiss, Why He Chose Treason. I was excited to read this book - the first reassessment of the Hiss case post Venona and other materials being made public. I prepped for it by finally reading Sam Tanenhaus's magesterial biography of Whittaker Chambers and now, in flight to Chicago, I'm diving in. 

Shelton appears to be coming at this from the right side of the political aisle so this might be a nice companion piece to Susan Jacoby's recent book on the subject. (I don't mind bias as long as it is openly stated.) 

Another Item for the Things Not To Do List

Kay Thompson is one of those Hollywood characters I'd catch glimpses of when reading the biography of a star of the Forties or Fifties. When slogging through, say, Judy Garland's third "It's going to last forever!" wedding it  was easy to glance over at Kay and think she might be more interesting than the slow-motion train wreck in progress. Now Sam Irvin has put Kay in full focus and the results are generally entertaining even if Miss Thompson loses a bit of interest along with her mystery.

On the plus side we have a strong woman forging her own path in a male-dominated industry without sacrificing her dignity or her individuality. On the negative side we have Sam Irvin's unbridled prose. Irvin's ability to pack multiple cliches into a single sentence frequently put me in mind of air travelers who refuse to believe their extra large suitcase won't fit into the overhead bin. Behold:

"Somehow ... she managed to bury the hatchet, but it was a shallow grave on the edge of a slippery slope."

The book makes up for this by piling on the loony details that I find compelling. Who knew Van Johnson and Keenan Wynn had an affair? Who knew White Plains, NY once had a Bonwit Teller? Who knew you could ask your friends to help you paint tables with nail polish using those tiny little brushes? Irvin is at his best dishing the dirt. He's at his worst trying to convince readers of Kay's brilliance. I am sure my life span was decreased by the reference to Kay as "the Godmutha of Rap."

Ultimately Kay's story adds up to a long list of projects she didn't do. Literally. Plays she didn't star in. Movies she didn't make. Finally Kay takes on a major role as active godmother to Liza, supplying advice and "better gaydar" to her beloved goddaughter before coming a recluse. I guess excessive gaydar deployment will do that do you.

Boredom Comes to the Reader

 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a disappointing book by a beloved author is more depressing than a genuinely bad book by an unknown author.  Death Comes to Pemberley is such a disappointing book. Surprisingly disappointing given my love for P. D. James, especially her Adam Dalgliesh series, and my enjoyment of Jane Austen's books. Jane's suffered more than her share of exploitation of late between mash-ups, story extensions and a series depicting her as busy-body-mystery-solver, and while this latest re-purposing of her characters doesn't involve anything as nutty as sea monsters it is nonetheless a mystifying endeavor

I truly cannot understand why P. D. James felt the need to write this book but my bafflement there is miniscule compared to my total incomprehension of why she felt the need to publish it. I can't understand why, having committed to writing a book based on Pride and Prejudice she felt the need to retell the entire plot of that book in the first 10 pages of this one. Nor can I come up with a reasonable answer as to why an author with a finely honed style like James would want to play ventriloquist with another well-known style.

What really left me staggered in this book is how dull, nay, boring it is. I don't mean slow-moving, I mean actively, aggressively dull. The book focuses on proud, shy and aloof Darcy, which cuts down on the conversational opportunities. The sisters Bennet are barely present and only two of them having anything approaching a conversation. Which made no sense - a murder happens at your sister's house and you don't want to chat it over? The murder isn't interesting and all the opportunities it gives Darcy to plumb the depths of his soul just proves that Darcy isn't all that deep. The absolute nadir, however, involves one character explaining the events of the murder while allowing that another person will probably want to tell their own version. And they do. Except it's pretty much the same version. Just told twice.

To sum up, while this book does not feature zombies, it might as well have been written by one. Avoid this one.

Worst Book of 2011

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

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

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.

Recent Acquisitions

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.

Snap Judgments

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.