The
reason for these "quarterly" reports is that I
just can’t keep up with the speed most of you read.
It is not unlikely that I’ll only get one book done
in a month and now that my "day" job has me
doing less traveling, I don’t go through Books on
Tape as often.
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was a fascinating read. The story, set in current times, is about an ancient secret society (the Priory of Sion) that has been headed by such historic notables as Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci (according to the introduction). This secret organization has many members at any one time but only four know the details of the secret they keep. A rival faction has discovered these four individuals and, after extracting what they believe is the secret, kill them. The last man is gut shot at the Louvre, where he works, and has about 15 minutes before he dies, to pass on the secret without "passing on the secret". After all, it is supposed to be a secret, but not lost forever. The story involves his estranged granddaughter (Sophie Neveu), a cryptology specialist and Robert Langdon, a scholar in the field of historic symbology. These two are thrust together and held by the threat of the French police who believe they worked in concert to kill all four men. They spend their time on run trying to solve the clues left behind by the woman's grandfather.
This is a very Crichton-esque blend of fact and fiction, which for me was a double edged sword. Some of the information provided in the book is true, or at the very least, a common knowledge myth. For instance, I knew of Leonardo's habit of writing some of his notes backwards. I also knew that Sir Isaac Newton dabbled in "the occult", but never knew any details. The story line fit in with this and other information I knew. I found that fascinating! However, I'm not nearly as familiar with the historic details of this subject matter as I have been with Crichton's work (most typically the Jurassic Park novels), so not knowing what was true and what was just "part of the story" was kind of frustrating. It certainly made a great suspense story, but reading all that fact based subtext made me constantly ask myself, "Really? Is that true?"
There is also a game within the story in that clues are provided and they are supposed to be used to help move Sophie and Robert closer to their quest (as well as what to do with it once it is found). Twice (and only twice), I saw a clue jump out and I knew exactly what the significance was before our heroes did, which I thought was a bit strange since they are supposed to be "authorities" in that field. But most of the clues were designed to be suspense elements rather than clues in a mystery. Many times you aren't given the information about the clue until sometime later when the heroes recognize it. So, unless you, too, are a scholar (and assuming the information was, in fact, historically accurate), you don't have a chance to use the clue to solve the puzzle of, for that matter, even know that it is a clue. I thought that was a bit of a tease.
But then again, this is neither a history lesson nor a mystery; it's a suspense novel. So I find it difficult to justify holding Brown's feet to the fire on that account. Nevertheless, now I need to go find out how much of that stuff IS true (or not).
First time "author" P.J. Tracy has produced a surprisingly polished
mystery novel in P.J.
Tracy is a pseudonym for Traci Lambrecht and her mother, P.J. I
thought this was refreshingly sophisticated for a first novel;
surprisingly polished. The story idea is quite novel. The suspense and
tension is by no means "forced." But I think the characters were the
most striking and the most polished. They seemed very real and natural; I
couldn't help be drawn to them.
Full House is a republication (and maybe a rework) of a book
Janet had published in 1989 under the name Steffie Hall. It is now
billed as Janet Evanovich with Charlotte Hughes. It is a light weight
romantic novel with a mystery thrown in, what appears to be, at the
last minute. It was cute. Nowhere near as funny as the Stephanie Plum
novels, but then, I don't expect that was their purpose. Nicholas Kaharcheck is very well off and meets Bobbie Pearce who wants to take
Polo lessons from him. But she is a total klutz and can't really afford
all the lessons it will take to get her up to scratch. But they make a
deal. She houses his "ditzy" sister for the next couple weeks (before
she is married off to a wrestler, Frankie Fontaine, aka "The Assassin")
and he'll give her riding lessons and polo lessons at no charge. He is
also immediately taken by her and wants to get involved with her.
However, she isn't interested and figures he just wants to avoid a
lawsuit after his horse stepped on her foot. The focus of the story is
on how Bobbie comes to realize she is also taken by this whirlwind named
Nick. The humor does mount as the story goes on and it is a worthwhile
read, but it isn't top drawer stuff.
Full Tilt by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes takes place about 20 years later (after Full House) and features one of the second string characters from the previous book. Maximilian Holt is extremely intelligent, and rich; the proverbial playboy, who comes to Beaumont, South Carolina to look into a newspaper in which he's considering investing. He is immediately taken by the owner, Jamie Swift. Max claims he's also there to visit his brother in-law, Frankie Fontana (who we also met in Full House). As it happens, Fontana is running for Mayor on a reform ticket, but it seems some people don't want to be reformed. Both Max and Jamie get involved in the investigation of the attempts on Frankie, Max's and Jamie's life. I enjoyed this better than the first book. It seems more like it was intended as a mystery. The romance part was similar to the last one in that a guy knows right away how he feels and who he wants, and the woman has to take the whole book of sexual tension to come to the same conclusion. But if you take that as a given, it is a light romp that will keep you smiling.
Rain Fall.
No women or children as targets; no "secondary" targets; and no one else
on the same job. John was raised by his American mother after his
Japanese father died. He grew up as an outsider in both Japan and the
United States. During Vietnam, he enlisted and went through Special
Forces training and spent 3 years in "Special Operations Group" for the
CIA in Loas, Cambodia and Vietnam. The demons he fights from that era
are only tolerable if, as he feels, he stays "at war." Hence, his chosen
profession. He has also vowed not to work with the CIA again. And so
far, most of his "assignments" have been in the political arena of
underbelly of the Japanese political machinery. His specialty is making
his marks look like "death by natural causes."
As John carries out his latest contract, he finds that his mark,
Kawamura, was followed and rather than showing concern, the man searches
the body for something and, failing to find it, leaves Kawamura in the
street where he died of an apparent heart attack. Concerned that one of
his "rules" were broken, he puts a tail on this man and soon discovers
that he is an investigative reporter. Apparently, the target was nose
deep in the political corruption of the ruling party, the yakuza
(the Japanese mob), and the construction industry. Kawamura was diagnosed
with cancer and only had a few weeks to live. So he wanted to set things
right and to expose the corruption. This, apparently, is why the
contract was made in the first place. Now Rain's assignment is to hit
the man's daughter -- with an extra bonus, of course, because it goes
against his principles. He has 48 hours to accept the job. The
assumption is that the daughter must have the CD that will expose the
whole corruption scheme and taking her out of the picture will make the
search easier and keep her silent. By this time, however, John as
learned that the reporter searched body for this disk and didn't find
it. So he has just a few hours to find the disk, get it published so the
threat to the daughter's life becomes neutralized. This
is more of a suspense thriller than a mystery. There is a mystery, of
sorts, but the suspense is the calling card of this first in a series
from Barry Eisler.
SpaceShots: The Beauty of Nature Beyond Earth by Timothy Ferris is a large
format, coffee-table picture book with a lengthy introduction. As he
says in the preface, this is a book that "…presents scientific
photographs in an art format.…" The book is composed of three parts; the
text introduction; the photos; and lengthy captions at the end
describing, in some detail, the significance and origin of each of these
"Space Shots". The introduction asks the question "Why is nature
beautiful?" But before getting too far, he asks two more questions: Can
we agree that nature IS beautiful? And what is beauty? Keeping in form,
Ferris expounds on these topics, beautifully. His prose approaches that
of poetry. In all of his books, you are treated to a beauty of language
that is truly rare in scientific writing (many try; Ferris succeeds) and
this book is no exception The photographs, most which were taken without
the aid of a "photographer" and quite literally many millions of miles
from the nearest human (automatic shots taken from unmanned probes), are
presented in large format without much text, such as "9. Ganymede.
Voyager, NASA." Often, he says, photographs are used to
illustrate what we know about astronomy or cosmology. But in doing so,
there is a loss. "Lost is a sense of the profound sovereignty of the
things in themselves." So, he says, "…I've tried to keep the words out
of the way of the pictures." He does just that, but then, at the end, he
has thumbnail images of each full formatted shot with a lengthy
description allowing you the freedom to take in the picture initially
and let it, in itself, wash over you. Only then do you, if you choose,
get the details of from where it came and its more clinical
significance.
The Devil's
Redhead by David Corbett is his first novel. Dan Abatangelo
(Abba-TAN-gelo) meets his soul mate, Shel Beaudry. Dan runs a
distribution ring for premium marijuana. But the trade is changing and
he wants out. One last run and it's over, but he's betrayed by an
underling and the whole crew is busted. In an effort to protect Shel, he
takes a plea of 10 years, to reduce Shel's sentence. When Dan gets out,
he looks up Shel and finds that she's nursing Frank Mass back from
grief; a recovering addict whose son died a merciless death. However,
Frank, succumbing to his own weaknesses, gets mixed up with a crime
syndicate in a scenario that is going to take Shel down with him. Dan is
then drawn into the middle of a drug war that may well get Shel killed. Dan was a drug
smuggler. But, he is also a pacifist. His credo is "No guns, no
gangsters, it's only money". Also, wanted out of the biz because
it's just getting too violent. Third, it's about Marijuana and being set
in northern California, where the attitudes about it are a bit more
relaxed (you can probably get it over the counter at your local GNC
store), the texture of "drug lord" is, therefore, softened a bit. All
this worked for me, but it may be a bit of a stretch for some to
sympathize with a drug smuggler. Though this is a suspense thriller, it's calling card is really as a
love story.
The fifth installment from J.K. Rowling is Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix. A special order, the Order of the Phoenix, is a
group of adult wizards banded together by Professor Dumbledore to set up
for the fight against the dark wizard, Voldemort. It is a secret order
because the Ministry of Magic doesn't believe the dark lord is back and
would view such activities as an attempt to overthrow the ministry and
its officers. Harry is trying to find out what is going on, having heard
nothing all summer long; neither from muggle news nor his wizard
friends. Harry is getting into the testy teens period where nothing
seems to fit and its all someone else's fault (ah, how I remember).
Harry getting tired of his treatment by his aunt and uncle and is tired
of his treatment by Dumbledore and the Order and even his friends. In
this installment, Harry has recurring dreams of traveling down a hallway
in search of something. But he seems to be "seeing" actual occurrences
from the eyes of Voldemort. He is told not to worry about it, but he
should take some "Occlumency" (at technique to close your mind to
intruders) lessons (and from Snape, his worst teacher, no less). Of
course, he's not told why, other than "It's important". Complicating
matters is that the Ministry is peddling more influence at Hogwarts
school with Dolores Umbrage as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts
instructor. She soon takes on the position of "High Inquisitor" and
proceeds to make quality assessments of other instructors with the
threat of being sacked if they aren't up to scratch. She also has taken
a particular interest in Harry giving him week-long stints of detention
for "lying" about the dark wizards return. A major character
dies in this installment, which Rowling admitted in an TV interview
aired early in 2002, and she has taken great care to make you think it
is EVERY major character, though you won't find out who until toward the
end. Great suspense. I wasn't as happy
with this book as I was with the previous ones. The last one, (Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and even more so with this one, the
charm of the earlier novels doesn't seem to be there. Harry is quite
literally tortured throughout the book. He's not happy at home and
though he's glad to back at school, he is persecuted, ridiculed and,
pretty much, left to his own devices. Though things do get back on track
at the end, and it does have an action packed ending, for me, it didn't
make up for the misery Harry had to endure to get there.
Seeing in the Dark by
Timothy Ferris is a non-fiction and is subtitled, "How
Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from
Interplanetary Peril." It isn't a "how-to" book, though there is some of
that in it. It starts of on how Timothy Ferris viewed stargazing from
his childhood in the late fifties and early sixties. He continually
comes back to what he does and where he does it, but takes side trips,
visiting notable stargazers (amateur and professional). He explains how
stargazing has become more sophisticated, with increased technology. So
much so, that amateurs are quite frequently contributing to the body of
science with their own discoveries and observations. As always, his prose
is akin to poetry. I did this on unabridged audio, which Timothy Ferris
reads himself. However, you really need to get the book itself. There
are appendices which are very informative that he doesn't read. Of
course, some of those are star charts…how would one read those aloud?
There is an extended "Further reading" section which not only lists
titles, but explains why you might be interested in them.
Inquest: The Warren Commission and the
Establishment of Truth
Epstein explains that the commission was doomed from the start from performing a proper investigation. He said the problem is with the evaluation, not accumulation, of data. The fact that the government can accumulate a great deal of data very quickly makes the problem worse. "…Each increment of data requires a proportionate increment of man-hours of reasoned judgment for evaluation…." But, he asserts, reasoned judgment is a limited commodity and this is particularly "…true in a government inquiry…" citing the fact that these same men are typically "…occupied by other important responsibilities…." It is a self defeating circle. The more important the inquiry, the more responsible the judges must be and by the nature of "responsible men", the more limited their time.
He explains that the only way for such a massive amount of data to be analyzed (over 300 cubic feet of paper data was acquired; the FBI alone supplied 25,000 reports "…mostly unindexed, unsummarized and uncollated….") was for the commission to hire a staff to sift through the data, summarize it and present their findings to the commission who would then evaluate it.
This is the seventh book I've read on the assassination (see Reviewlets on the JFK Assassination Readings) for a quick synopsis on those). With each book I read, it seems as though I come away with less than I started. The only thing I'm certain about any more is that Kennedy was shot and, probably, died. That's it. It is quite clear from this book (and Mark Lane's and almost everyone else's') that the Warren Commission had some agenda other than investigating the assassination. Now, whether that means they are "in" on a conspiracy, or a cover up, I don't know. All I know is they did a dismal job and for such "accomplished" and "responsible" men, I can't help be feel they had some other objective. As one case in point, from the timings derived from the Zapruder file, a gunman from the 6th floor of the Book Depository would have 5.6 seconds to do the deed. Since there were three casings found on the floor, there must have been three and only three shots. The first, they say, had to cause JKF's throat injury and the injuries to Texas Governor Connolly (this was the so called "magic bullet"); the second missed, created some shrapnel which injured a bystander in the face; and the third, was the head shot. The Commission's investigation were able to, eventually, get an expert (after about 6 failed attempts by six other "Experts") to actually fire that rifle three times in less than 5.6 seconds. But it was done without aiming and the clock wasn't started until the first shot. The evidence from the film showed that the only time available, INCLUDING AIMING, was 5.6 seconds. Prior to that, a tree was in the way. Further more, these three shots, with this forensic description, fails to account for wound in Kennedy's back. So, there really is no question that the Warren Commission was not "pursing the truth". What is in question is what they were doing and why. It appears that they were trying to fit Oswald as THE and ONLY gunman.
I happened to be in the middle of this book when I attended a book signing by Robert K. Tanenbaum who served as an investigator in the 1976 Senate Select Committee to investigate the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I told him how I was overwhelmed by this stuff. There are theories where the FBI, CIA, Mob, Anti-Castro Cubans, Soviet Union, "Military Industrial Complex", Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson were involved. They can't ALL be involved. There's no way Hoover would cooperate with anyone; hell, he didn't even like his own guys that much! So just because something is suspicious, doesn't mean they're involved in a conspiracy; they may have been trying to keep their own cards close to their chest. Trying to tie a thread though all those factions, and including the Warren Commission, is ludicrous. So I asked Tanenbaum, "Why do you think that the Warren Commission was so blatantly obvious in their attempt to squeeze Oswald into the 'Lone-Assassin' mold?" He said he believed that Johnson convinced Earl Warren that rumors of a foreign conspiracy, would so enrage the public, that we could find ourselves in a hot war. The Cuban Missile crisis was just a year earlier and was still fresh on everyone's mind. It was, therefore, in the "national interest" to make that possibility go away. And the best way to do that was to show that Oswald did it and he did it alone. By having the Chief Justice of the US Supreme court as the head of the commission, there was the added advantage that foreign governments would probably respect their finding as well.
This slant on things works for me, in the sense that it could explain the way the commissioners were acting. Epstein's explanation that there was a terrible time crunch (They only had six months and the first three were used up doing nothing until Jack Ruby's trial was over) is certainly true, but it doesn't explain their direction of the investigation or their conclusions. From what Tanenbaum suggested about Johnson's "National Interest" arm twisting, it appears that the commission members and probably General Counsel for the Commission, J. Lee Rankin were clued into this "Agenda", but the investigative staff was not. There seemed to be some genuine desire to do a proper investigation by staff members within the limits of the time available. In those efforts, when they strayed from the "party line", they were either thwarted or the evidence was ignored by the Commission when they drew their conclusions.
It wasn't until on my way home, I thought, "Wait a minute." If Johnson wanted to throw the public off the scent of foreign involvement, then he must have known it wasn't a foreign instigated plot. If it was, and he knew it, why would he want to direct suspicion away from it? So how could he KNOW who it wasn't unless he knew who it WAS? I don't know. It is hard to image that Johnson was behind the assassination just to become president. After all, he bowed out in '68. It doesn't seem likely that a guy who would arrange for an assassination in order to become President himself wouldn't ride that rail as far as it would go.
