Review of Billy Boyle by James Benn (Soho Press, 2006)

A young Irish-American Boston cop, Billy Boyle’s family has a unique strategy to see him serve out the Second World War safely state-side – get him assigned to the staff of his Washington-based Uncle Ike.  However, by the time Billy has gone through basic training his uncle, General Eisenhower, is in London in charge of the Allied forces.  Billy arrives in the city to work as a personal detective for his uncle and is immediately put to work to find a spy in the Norwegian government-in-exile before a planned Allied invasion of the country takes place.  Aware of his shortcomings, but determined to make his mark, Billy travels to Beardsley Hall in Norfolk, accompanied by his acerbic, doubtful boss, a beautiful and ambitious British WREN, and an aristocratic Polish officer who has a gift for languages.  All is not well in the Norwegian government, which is strained by in-fighting, and shortly after his arrival an attempt is made on Billy’s life.  Soon he is investigating murder and putting his fledgling detective skills to the test.

Billy Boyle is the first book in a series of Second World War mysteries featuring the Irish-American cop turned war detective.  The premise behind the series is a good one – knowing that he’s likely to be called up to serve, a family uses it network to find a cop an easy, safe ride through the war, not anticipating that their plan is going to back fire when Uncle Ike is transferred from Washington to London.  Billy’s role is to act as the personal detective for General Eisenhower, solving crimes that might harm the war effort.  Benn’s strategy is to tell the tale as a kind of boy’s adventure for adults, with lots of dare-doing and mystery.  It works quite well, especially since Billy is reasonably self-depreciating, knowing his limitations.  The plot is a little fanciful, as one might expect, and sometimes it’s a little stilted.  And certain bits do not make a lot of sense, for example, a Norwegian living with other Norwegians leaving a suicide note in English.  Moreover, the first person perspective can get a little tiring at times, with an over-use of I, we, us, etc.  But otherwise it’s quite good fun, mixing adventure with pathos.  I’ll no doubt try another in the series at some point.

Review of The Murderer in Ruins by Cay Rademacher (Arcadia 2015, German 2011)

Hamburg, 1947.  The destroyed city is overseen by the British and in the grip of a freezing winter.  Shelter, food and fuel are scarce and the black market is thriving.  Chief Inspector Frank Stave, a career policeman who didn't join the Nazi party, is mourning the death of his wife in the fire storm of 1943 and searching for his teenage son, who left for Berlin in the dying days of the war and has not been seen since.  When the body of a naked young woman is found in the rubble, Stave is asked to head up the case and assigned the help of his colleague Maschke from the vice squad, and Lieutenant MacDonald from the British military.  Soon after, the naked body of an old man is discovered.  It seems as if there’s a serial killer at work.  There are no clues as to who the victims are or why they’ve been murdered and Stave struggles to make any headway as the pressure to find the perpetrator grows and the temperature plummets.

The Murderer in Ruins is the first book in a trilogy following the work of Chief Inspector Frank Stave in post-war Hamburg.  The tale does a good job of situating the reader in the apocalyptic and freezing landscape of the city, filled with people struggling to make ends meet, find missing relatives, and to rebuild their lives.  Stave is one of them, haunted by his dead wife, searching for his missing son, and struggling to solve a handful of murders.  Rademacher provides a sympathetic and engaging portrayal of his lead character, and populates the tale with other interesting characters.  Where the book struggles, however, is with respect to its plot.  There are too many elements that do not add up – a major murder spree is being investigated by a team of three and one secretary as opposed a large dedicated team of inspectors, sergeants, constables; the murder book goes missing and Stave does nothing about it; a witness very clearly signals evidence and Stave ignores it – and there are a couple too many plot devices.  Moreover, the ending is well telegraphed.  The result is a tale that has a good sense of place and time and an interesting set of characters, but felt somewhat clunky and staged at times.

Lazy Sunday Service

Last week was busy, with Monday to Wednesday spent travelling to and from Paderborn, Germany, where I took part in a reading seminar and presented a talk, and Thursday consisting of back-to-back meetings. Between engagements I managed to draft a paper and also read three novels and make it through a chunk of a fourth. Insomnia is useful for something it seems.  I didn't find time for writing reviews, however, so need to pull my finger out on that this coming week.  Expect reviews shortly of books by Cay Rademacher, James Benn, Cara Black and Chris Ould.


My posts this week:
Review of A House of Knives by William Shaw
Review of Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File by Alan Levy
A hint of death

A hint of death

‘Can you smell that?’

‘What?’ Tom said.

‘Like something’s died,’ Sarah said, her nose twitching.

Tom sniffed.  ‘No.’

‘It’s just a whiff.’  She headed upstairs.

‘That smells of what?’

‘I told you, like a hint of death.’

‘What does a hint of death smell like?’

‘Like this!  Tom!’

He pounded up the stairs.  ‘Where are you?’

‘The back bedroom.’

‘Well?’ he said, entering the room.

‘There.’  She pointed at a dead bird, covered in maggots.

‘It must have come down the chimney.’

‘While we were on the beach, she was starving to death!’

‘But at least the maggots aren’t.’

‘Tom!’

 

A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File by Alan Levy (rev ed, 2002, Robinson & Constable)

Simon Wiesenthal was born in Galicia in Poland on New Year’s Eve 1908.  He lived in Vienna as a child until seven, then returned to Galicia which was ‘liberated’ six times in the First World War as it constantly swapped hands.  In the late 1920s he trained as an architect in Prague and then returned to Galicia to set up practice. In the mid-1930s he spent time working in Odessa before returning to Lvov to marry in 1936.  In 1939, Lvov was annexed and occupied by the Soviets. After the German blitzkrieg in 1941, Wiesenthal and his wife were moved in the Lvov Ghetto, then late 1941 were transferred to Janowska concentration camp, undertaking forced labour. Wiesenthal was then moved to a satellite camp from which he escaped in October 1943, returning to Lvov where he was recaptured in June 1944 and returned to Janowska. Shortly after he was transported to Przemyśl, then in September to Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp.  In October he was moved to Gross-Rosen concentration camp, then in January he was marched to Chemnitz. From there he was moved to Buchenwald and a few days later in mid-February to Mauthausen. The camp was liberated in May 1945, his ninth ‘liberation’.

As he recuperated, Wiesenthal vowed to seek justice – not revenge – for all those murdered by the Nazi regime.  Within three weeks of liberation he’d prepared a list of war criminals and started to work for the US Army in amassing evidence tracking them down and followed the US army to Linz when eastern Austria was placed in the Soviet zone.  He was reunited with his wife in 1946, the only other survivor of the 89 relatives in their respective families.  He set up his own document centre and also took depositions from survivors, passing on relevant evidence to various authorities.  He also aided refugees.  After the initial trials, the allies desire to pursue war criminals dimmed, the focus shifting to rebuilding Europe.  Wiesenthal, however, vowed to continue tracking them down, helping to bring 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice, including Adolf Eichmann and Franz Stangl, and kept in pursuit of Josef Mengele.  He also tangled with Austria’s post-war politicians, notably Bruno Kreisky and Kurt Waldheim.  His single-mindedness and determination to pursue justice often meant he ended up in political dogfights and at different times he fell out with many former collaborators and institutions.  He died in 2005 aged 96.

Alan Levy first met Wiesenthal in 1974.  Over the next 28 years they met frequently to discuss Wiesenthal’s work and that of his document centres.  The first edition of Levy’s biography was published in 1993 and subsequently revised nine years later.  It is a sympathetic account of Wiesenthal’s life and work, but importantly it is fair in its treatment setting out both sides of his various political battles with other Nazi hunters, politicians and institutions and also critiquing his thoughts and actions where merited.  Levy’s account highlights both Wiesenthal’s compassion and humanist stance, but also his contradictions and ego.  Rather than map out in chronological detail Wiesenthal’s life, Levy’s strategy is focus on key events and strands to highlight what made and drove the man.  The portrait created reveals Wiesenthal to be a quite clearly a complex person, one who experienced a varied life that was full of personal tussles and conflict throughout.  While the book provides a fascinating read, the strategy taken does leave plenty of gaps, most notably around his family and his dealings with and feelings about Israel.  Filling them however would have led to a very long narrative.  Overall, an interesting book that details the work of a fascinating man and the crimes for which he sought justice.

Review of A House of Knives by William Shaw (Quercus, 2014)

London, 1968.  Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen of Marylebone CID is having a rough time.  He's haunted by the unsolved case of a dead man who is badly burnt, his father has just died, his colleague – Helen Tozer – who he has recently had a one night stand with has resigned and is serving her last few weeks on the force, and he is receiving anonymous death threats.  Added to his case load is another badly burnt body, one that has been stripped of his skin and drained of blood.  The victim is a popular womanizer who frequents London’s party scene and the son of a government minister and Breen is under pressure to solve the case without attracting any publicity.  Not long after he and Tozer start their investigation the assumed perpetrator of his death threats is murdered and Breen is suspended as a possible suspect.  Nonetheless, he continues to pursue his two active murder cases, while also trying to clear his name.  With the exception of Tozer, however, everyone else would prefer him to let the cases lie.

A House of Knives is the second book in the Breen and Tozer series set in late 1960s London.  Book two picks up shortly after the end of the first and I would recommend reading them in turn, starting with A Song From Dead Lips.  The real joy of both books are the likeable characters of Cathal ‘Paddy’ Breen and Helen Tozer and their interactions and on-going battles with their colleagues.  Both are outsiders – Breen, second generation Irish who mainly plays things by the book (unlike his colleagues) and Tozer, a headstrong, independent woman in a pretty much all male police force – and both are interesting company.  As for the story, it’s a fairly pacy police procedural set in the dying days on the Swinging Sixties in which Shaw intersects three main plot lines, each focusing on a murder – the deaths of an anonymous man, a government minister’s son, and the person suspected of sending Breen death threats.  There’s plenty going on, but the story never loses direction.  However, the denouement of one strand felt somewhat weak and unsatisfying.  Nonetheless, A House of Knives is an entertaining read and I’m looking forward to reading the third book in the series.

Lazy Sunday Service

A busy post-Boston week catching up on other work.  On a trip into Dublin I managed to pick up some new books: A Murderer in Ruins by Cay Rademacher (set in Germany), The Blood Strand by Chris Ould (set in The Faroes) and A Killing Winter by Tom Callaghan (set in Kyrgyzstan).  Looking forward to reading in the coming weeks.

My posts this week:
Review of The Battle of Midway by Craig L Symonds
Review of The Whites by Richard Price
Boston fieldwork
Monsters

Monsters

He found her in the conservatory staring at a table covered in photographs.

‘They came to tell me about my grandfather,’ she said.  ‘He was a Nazi.’

‘Your grandfather?’
‘He was an engineer at Treblinka.  He was a monster.  He killed hundreds of thousands of people.’

‘They must be wrong.’

‘No,’ she pointed at the photographs, ‘it’s him.  I’m the granddaughter of a monster.  Our children could be monsters.’

‘By that reasoning everybody could be a monster.’

‘No!  The millions who were murdered, they weren’t monsters.  They were innocent victims!  How can we atone for that?  Our bloodline and deeds?’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Whites by Richard Price (Picador, 2015)

In the 1990s Billy Graves was an up-and-coming detective working the South Bronx as part of a team self-titled the ‘Wild Geese’ who were determined to create law and order in the crime-ridden area.  Then one evening he accidentally shot a ten year old boy while dealing with an angel-dusted berserker on a crowded street.  In the aftermath his wife left him and his career downshifted.  Now in his early forties Graves works the Night Watch shift dealing with serious crime from Wall Street to Harlem post-midnight.  Most of his fellow Wild Geese have retired but they are still haunted by their ‘Whites’ – murderers who managed to avoid prosecution.  Called to a fatal stabbing at Penn Station in the early hours he discovers the victim is one such White.  The investigation stalls, however, and soon Graves has his own problems to deal with as someone starts to victimize his family.

The Whites is a gritty police procedural set in New York tracking detective Billy Graves of the Night Shift as he deals with the city’s violent post-midnight world, a threat against his family, and his complex relationship with his former team members.  It’s fair to say that there’s a lot going on in its 333 pages with multiple characters performing different roles (detectives, criminals, victims, family, friends, etc.), two major plotlines and numerous sub-plots.  Indeed, my sense was there a bit too much going on and the story would have benefitted from dropping the plot focusing on the threat to Graves’ family as it was too much of a coincidence that it was occurring at the same time as the other main plot which was a substantial enough on its own and could have been explored further.  That said, the characterization and dialogue is very nicely done, the scenes are astutely written, and there’s a strong sense of the underbelly of the city and what it’s like to police it.  The result is an interesting, multi-layered and tense read that poses questions of duty, family and justice.

Review of The Battle of Midway by Craig L Symonds (OUP, 2011)

After the attack on Pearl Harbour the Japanese navy and army won a succession of battles as it extended its conquests into South East Asia and the Pacific.  Rather than use its aircraft carriers as lone leaders of separate task forces, as usually deployed by the US, Japan combined them together in a group of four to six to produce a large task force known as the Kidō Butai.  This provided superior air cover that overwhelmed the enemy.  After the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942 in which the US aircraft carriers Lexington was sunk and Yorktown badly damaged, the Japanese strategy at Midway was to try and lure the remaining US aircraft carriers in the Pacific into their clutches by sending a separate task force to invade the small atoll in early June 1942. The Japanese aim was to destroy the US carriers, to create an extended line of defense, and to demonstrate the potential cost of a war of attrition before new US ships rolled off the production line. Unknown to them, however, the US had broken their codes and knew their general plan.  The Japanese had sent four aircraft carriers to Midway, accompanied by 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser and 12 destroyers.  Waiting for them was 3 US carriers, including the quickly repaired Yorktown, 7 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, and 15 destroyers.  In addition, the US had stationed 127 planes on the Midway atoll, in effect creating a fourth static aircraft carrier.  At the end of the battle the Japanese had lost their four carriers and a heavy cruiser, the US one carrier and one destroyer.  It proved to be a decisive battle, the Japanese subsequently losing every battle until the end of the war.

The Battle of Midway provides a very readable and highly informative account of the battle at Midway in June 1942, including some contextual framing with respect to Pearl Harbour, the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the first US air raid on Tokyo.  Unlike previous accounts that suggest that the US were lucky to win the encounter, Symonds argues that the US won due to good intelligence, strong leadership, and the element of surprise.  Nonetheless, the largely uncoordinated US air attacks on the Japanese fleet proved mostly ineffective until a five minute window when three of the four carriers were hit turning the battle in the US’s favour.  Given the number of different threads and personalities involved the narrative could have easily become quite jumbled or bogged down in detail, but Symonds manages to blend the various strands into a coherent, gripping and page-turning story told with an engaging voice.  The result is a book which is full of historical detail and biographical sketches of the main actors that clearly explains the battle and its context.

April reads

April provided an interesting and enjoyable set of books.  Blessed are the Dead by Malla Nunn and The Whisperers by John Connolly were the standout reads, with the latter shading it for my read of the month.

Japan 1941 by Eri Hotta ****
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane ***.5
The Game Must Go On by John Klima ***
The Whisperers by John Connolly *****
Worst Enemies by Dana King ****.5
Blessed are the Dead by Malla Nunn *****
Night Passage by Robert Parker ***
A Little More Free by John McFetridge ****

Lazy Sunday Service

After a month in Boston doing fieldwork I arrived back in Ireland yesterday.  In the thirty hours I've been home, I've been asleep for twenty five! Hopefully that'll cure any jetlag for the coming week.  I enjoyed the trip.  Boston is a great city (well, many co-joined cities).  It was also very productive and I met loads of interesting people.  By the month's end I'd undertaken 21 interviews, given 6 talks, had 21 other meetings, and attended 5 workshops/conferences.  I only managed to read three novels set in the area though.  The picture right is of Brookline and Boston taken from the tower in Mount Auburn Cemetery.


My posts this week:
Review of Japan 1941 by Eri Hotta
Review of A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
Alive and kicking

Alive and kicking

Hanney tried to roll-over, but his shoulder clunked into something solid after a couple of inches.

‘What the …’

His head thumped off of rough wood.

‘Fuck!’

He tried to move a hand to the pain, but couldn’t shift it from his hip over his belly.

Hanney opened his eyes.  It was still pitch black.

‘What the …’

Panic blossomed in his chest and he thrashed about in the coffin.

‘Hey!  Let me out!  Pete?  This isn’t funny.’

Hanney kicked the lid a few times, the board barely rising, then it collapsed, soil seeping over his legs.

‘Pete?  Oh, god.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Japan 1941 by Eri Hotta (Vintage, 2013)

Most people are familiar with Japan’s declaration of war against the United States – its infamous attack on Pearl Harbour.  What is not so well known is the pathway to war.  Eri Hotta’s book provides a detailed account of how the leaders of a nation placed themselves on a course towards war that then became a self-fulfilling destiny through delusion, divisive internal politics, poor diplomacy, and vanity.  With the exception of a handful of hotheads, the majority of the cabinet, the prime minister and emperor knew that they stood little chance of defeating the United States in the long term.  Rather than lose face and try to interrupt the unfolding path they allowed the vocal minority to dictate policy and set the timetable for when diplomacy gave way to fighting.  As her analysis of key Japanese sources reveals, there were plenty of opportunities to re-direct and correct poor decisions that were consistently foregone.  To provide wider context, Hotta sets out Japan’s development as a nation from the mid-nineteenth century up to 1941, including her relations with the West.  Most of her analysis though focuses on the years immediately prior to 1941, including the on-going war with China, Japan’s relationship to Germany and the Soviet Union, and its ambitions for a strong Asia under its leadership, and the fateful year itself.  She does this by detailing the key political events and meetings and the views and roles of the main actors.  At times the narrative is a little jumbled, especially in the first third, as the account swaps back and forth across time periods.  Nonetheless, Japan 1941 is a fascinating account of fatal politics in action. 

Review of A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane (HarperTorch, 1994)

Patrick Kenzie and his partner Angela Gennaro are hired by powerful Boston politicians to find a missing black cleaner who they claim has stolen some important documents from the State House.  It should be a relatively straightforward task to find Jenna Angeline, a resident of down-at-heal Dorchester.  However, Kenzie and Gennaro are not the only ones looking for her and soon they find themselves in the middle of a deadly gang war and of interest to the police.  Kenzie and Gennaro are determined to solve the case, but to do so they need all of their wits to stay alive.

A Drink Before the War was Dennis Lehane’s debut novel and the first of six in the Kenzie and Gennaro series.  The tale is essentially a PI thriller, with Kenzie and Gennaro running the gauntlet of high-powered politicians, two rival gangs, and cynical, hard-nose police while trying to locate a missing cleaner accused of stealing documents.  Kenzie and Gennaro are both damaged goods – Kenzie living in the shadow of his abusive father and Gennaro is trapped in a violent marriage – and there is a strong sexual chemistry between the two that forms a main sub-plot.  Lehane maintains a steady pace and keeps the tension high as they cannonball from one difficult situation to another and the body count rises.  While the essential ingredients of the plot – a missing person, child abuse, extortion, revenge – are nicely blended, Lehane occasionally pushes the action into a little-over-top territory and there are a couple of plot devices that feel a little forced.  The real star of the tale, however, is Boston, with Lehane’s descriptions of the city providing a strong sense of place.  An entertaining read that nicely sets up the series.